Loading Time - Microwaves

[Graham]

Featuring Cam Lauder, the Science Guy!

[Tapir12]

Very nice explanation Cam! I love how the sucrose molecule just appeared.

Just FYI, I had about a minute and a half of black screen at the end of the video.

[master m99]

cam's little mini lecture was actually really interesting, does he actually do any "real teaching"? hes better then my mass spectra and Energy and Matter lecturers combined though maybe i just go to a crappy uni =P

[Kapol]

Cam gets +5 awesome. Otherwise an interesting video. Though it's rare when Cam manages to overshadow the rest of the video with straight-up science over goofy things.

[SilPho]

Just FYI, I had about a minute and a half of black screen at the end of the video.

Had that too.

Didn't know about the dangers of microwaving nothing until I read another comment on this forum. So this video was indeed educational and enjoyable

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

I will now go to the houses of my arch nemesai and start microwaving nothing. Muhahahahaha.

[Lord Chrusher]

Cam is far to well dressed to be a real scientist.

There were a few things that were a bit off such as his mentions of plasma but cam got things mostly right.

[nicholasmc1]

For SCIENCE!

[Geoff_B]

Aww, we didn't get to see the egg exploding in Paul's hand

[Mysticman89]

Does Cam have an actual university based background in science, or was that largely wiki and similar born learnings?

I have a number of not so fond memories of doing the appropriate vector calculus involved in actually showing why the molecule goes all "wibbly wobbly", and curious if he's had occasion to share in that experiance.

[Graham]

He's a senior chemistry student and does science all day.

[ecks]

Chemistry? [s]If[/s] When you get your hands on a high speed camera again you'd better make him whip up some interesting (read: volatile [read: explosive and/or pyrophoric]) chemicals for you. Nitrogen triiodide + floozy garnish would make a nice shot I would think.

[Invariel]

That was really educational, and I enjoyed it very much. Thank you, Cam! (And everyone else.)

[Lord Hosk]

Cam it was very good, you just seemed REALLY REALLY nervous. You can relax only like 50 people watch LRR and we all love anything any of you do. We watch you play MTGO for pete sake.

[Lumar]

He's a senior chemistry student and does science all day.

So does this make Cam the official science guy (totally forgot the proper credit name) for all the "science" videos?

[Metcarfre]

Nitrogen triiodide

I know at least one graduate student was ejected from UVic for manufacturing nitrogen triiodide.

Great prank material, though.

[Kapol]

Cam it was very good, you just seemed REALLY REALLY nervous. You can relax only like 50 people watch LRR and we all love anything any of you do. We watch you play MTGO for pete sake.

You know, it often does seem like Cam is nervous. There are relatively few videos where I can remember thinking he didn't look very nervous. That said, he always seems to put a lot of work into the parts he does and I like him a lot in the videos.

That said, I think this is one time Cam should have been nervous. This is the internet after all... one tiny mistake and we would have a lynch mob on our hands. :p

[Dominic Appleguard]

You can relax only like 50 people watch LRR and we all love anything any of you do.

50 people is pretty much exactly the number of non-crew forum members who have more posts than Kathleen.

[Gltepel]

Finally! A scientific discussion that awknoledges the existance and whereabouts of monsters. Science time with cam was awesome.
Someone should edit together a little video of the three vacuum tubes flashing in time to the turret tune from portal 2. Kinda' made me think of that when they were flashing together.

Awesome video and all together a good time.

[Lord Hosk]

You can relax only like 50 people watch LRR and we all love anything any of you do.

50 people is pretty much exactly the number of non-crew forum members who have more posts than Kathleen.

You made me check my forum status, now if you will excuse me, I have to spam the hell out of the forums to get into the top 100.

[AlexanderDitto]

I love explaining science to people.
I also love watching other people explaining science to people, even if I already know that science.

I was expecting a lot of hand-waving, but Cam was surprisingly accurate (though the explanation for what exciting electrons in the metal actually entails was somewhat short, what with no mention of electron orbitals or even a simple Bohr model of the atom) and the explanation very robust. I give it an A!

[Lord Chrusher]

A lot of microwave related phenomena can be described using classical electrodynamics perfectly fine. Maxwell's equations plainly show that a changing electromagnetic field (microwaves) induces a current in a conductor. No need to bring in any quantum phenomena.

One place where I felt Cam explanation was a little off was when he was explaining light bulbs. Although a gas will become ionised when heated, ionisation is not required for electrons to be excited into higher energy states and then decay, emitting light. Here some very basic quantum ideas are required such as electrons only being able to be at certain energies. Although the Bohr model is important to the history of quantum theory it almost produces more confusion than it removes. Atoms are not little solar systems.

[ewhac]

At around 2:15, when you're experimenting with your de-screened microwave oven, there's this horrible buzzing noise. Assuming you didn't add it in post, that noise is the microwaves interacting with the electronics in your camera... And with the people standing in front of you.

Inverse squared law means it's unlikely anyone suffered lasting damage. But I think you should count yourselves tremendously fortunate that your cameras emerged unscathed. (While you were discussing removing the screen, I was thinking to myself, "Okay, so, he's going to set up a non-metallic mirror in front of the chamber, place the camera well off to the side, and shoot through the mirror, right?")

Next time you feel inclined to spray microwaves across your back lot, at least point the thing at those metal garage doors at the back, which will absorb most of the energy.

[Graham]

Inverse squared law means it's unlikely anyone suffered lasting damage. But I think you should count yourselves tremendously fortunate that your cameras emerged unscathed. (While you were discussing removing the screen, I was thinking to myself, "Okay, so, he's going to set up a non-metallic mirror in front of the chamber, place the camera well off to the side, and shoot through the mirror, right?")

Next time you feel inclined to spray microwaves across your back lot, at least point the thing at those metal garage doors at the back, which will absorb most of the energy.

As mentioned above, microwaves are non-ionizing radiation and the most they're going to do to a person is cook them, and that's only if we stood there and let it happen.
Even then, there's not enough focussed energy coming out of that window to do any real damage to a person.

Microphones are incredibly sensitive to waves, as you heard, but the camera equipment shouldn't have been hurt at all, certainly not at that distance.

Also, metal doesn't absorb microwaves at all, it reflects it. That's how they work.

[TomBrend]

I'd like to make a safety announcement. Non-ionizing radiation is dangerous. It is dangerous in a different way than ionizing radiation, and a microwave oven is safe with the shields intact, or if you are relatively far (5+ feet should be fine) from the front, but you can get very serious RF burns from microwave radiation quite easily if you are unsafe.

OSHA has a lot of regulations and guides on the topic, I highly recommend their "standard interpretations", as they're written a bit more accessibly.
http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/radiofrequencyradiation/