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  • [Music]

  • Okay, it's me, Destin. I am here with Mike Simons at the National Electronics Museum,

  • and he's going to show us something that we interact with every day

  • that you probably didn't know.

  • So, what do you got for us, Mike?

  • (Mike) We have a microwave oven.

  • And the microwave is built on technology

  • that was developed during the Second World war for radar equipment.

  • What we have here is just a standard, off the shelf microwave oven

  • that we've modified.

  • You'll notice that you can't open up the door and we've disabled the controls,

  • and it's got a separate switch over here on the side.

  • What this is gonna show

  • is how the microwave beam travels inside the cavity of the oven.

  • We've taken a sheet of plastic and we've embedded Christmas bulbs into it,

  • and when I power this thing up it's gonna spin, because it's on the carousel,

  • and as those bulbs flicker,

  • what that is is the beam of microwave energy

  • that travels through the inside of your oven.

  • [Click] [Microwave hums]

  • Okay, so what you see here is that those...

  • the beam travelling through the bulbs.

  • The reason that you have a carousel inside your microwave oven

  • is because that beam always travels throught the same path.

  • It's just bouncing around inside of there.

  • So if you didn't have that carousel

  • if you put your cup of coffee in the center of the oven it might not heat up correctly,

  • because that carousel allows your cup of coffee

  • to travel through different portions of that beam,

  • to make sure it heats up correctly.

  • This thing also has a heat sink in it,

  • to eliminate some of the heat that's generated by those bulbs.

  • And we've also lowered the power on this,

  • But this is definately a "do not try this at home".

  • But you can come to the National Electronics Museum and check it out.

  • (Destin) Awesome. So what is the best way to heat up my coffee in the morning?

  • - Uhm... probably a tea kettle on your stove. [Destin laughs]

  • (Destin) Excellent.

  • So do you get more nerds, geeks or dorks visiting you here,

  • at the National Electronics Museum?

  • - You know what, we've debated about what's the difference between all three of those,

  • and you know what, I think we get all three but I can't tell the difference.

  • (Destin) [Laughs] Excellent.

  • So if you get a chance, come up to Baltimore

  • and go to the National Electronics Museum. You'll learn something.

  • I now know to put my food on the edge of the carousel

  • when I'm heating something up in the microwave, is that correct?

  • (Mike) Not in the middle. - That's right.

  • So come up and visit these geniuses if you're a dork, geek, nerd,

  • or anybody that just wants to learn more and be smarter every day.

  • Alright, thanks Mike. - Yeah, thanks.

  • [Music]

  • ...and where your relative motion is going so you can compensate for it,

  • but chickens are really good at this so...

  • I'll show you. Watch his head stay totally stationary

  • as I move his body...

  • Captioning in different languages welcome. Please contact Destin if you can help.

[Music]

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