Talk:Microwave oven

Efficiency

I note that many manufacturers seem to claim very high (approaching 90%) for some of their inverter microwaves.

The cited article in the article does not list any of the more recent ones - is anyone aware of a nice source for other than manufacturer data on testing of modern inverter microwave efficiencies? --Speedevil (talk) 22:07, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

HIST406 Critique

The Wikipedia article about the microwave oven is effective in describing the history and functions of the microwave oven in reasonable detail. The article is very readable, as it is adequately written with no major grammatical or spelling errors. It is moderately thorough, compared to other Wikipedia articles covering similar type’s inventions and technologies. The article is complete with pictures, next to certain sections, that show the development of the microwave oven over the years as well as the internal parts that make the ovens work. Dan Smells...Pass it on. Aside from explaining historical background and functionality, the article also happens to be practical. It goes through safety features of microwave ovens and their effects on food and hazards. However, some of the smaller sections, like “Uses” and “Efficiency” are redundant and state either previously mentioned or assumed facts about the microwave oven. These sections could be replaced by more information about how the microwave oven actually works, which is an area that the article is currently insufficient in. There are 39 references for the article, which given the length of the article, seems like too many. However, the references at the top of the list are useful and found throughout the article. These include reliable sources like the actual J.G. Chafee microwave patent and a microwave oven regression model. The validity of the majority of references is in my opinion above average for a standard Wikipedia article. Overall, I thought this article was well written and did a good job of explaining the microwave oven. I feel like it could be shortened by eliminating some unnecessary sections, but the length of the article is a non-issue. After reading the Wikipedia article on the microwave oven, I have a more comprehensive understanding of the history of the microwave oven. — Preceding unsigned comment added by HIST406-11skenn (talk • contribs) 03:17, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the detailed critique. In reponse to your main point, I've removed the "uses" section since some of it was covered in the lede, and what new material remained, could be used to improve the lede (which now contains almost all the material one what microwave ovens are used for). The "efficiency" section was short and actually contained unique and important material, and was not original research (these facts are well-known and accurate) although it needs a reference. I've moved it up nearer the principles section, and added a "cite needed" tag. Personally, I don't agree this article has too many citations. It's a magnet for people to add cite tags when they run across material which contradicts common misconceptions, and stuff they thought they knew. It should be heavily referenced if it is to remain most-useful.

One reason the article has so many cites for its size is that people have been adding them for the last 2 to 4 years, but not removing the "not enough references" headers on sections. I just took 3 of those off (at least one needs to stay). SBHarris 18:09, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Sensors used in "Smart Cook" mode?

There should be a section on what the commonly used sensor types are when it comes to the microwave's computer and what data is collects to approximate the time needed to cook/reheat a piece of food. I'm not talking about the microwaves where say you want to cook a 3 pound boneless chicken. So you hit "Chicken", then tell it whether it is boneless or not, frozen or not and the weight. That is a simple time calculation. The high end models I think do not need this info, they use sensors (moisture, heat,?) instead. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.76.47.120 (talk) 08:25, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

The sensors in most contemporary automatic microwave ovens are MgCr₂O₄–TiO₂ ceramic moisture sensors developed in the late 1970s/early 1980s by Tsuneharu Nitta et al. at the Materials Research Laboratory, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. in Osaka, Japan. You can view the first page of a paper by Nitta, published by the American Chemical Society in 1981, at http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/i300004a015. The ovens that require the user to input the type and quantity of food and whether it is frozen or not, may not use such sensors at all; they're just using an algorithm or heuristic to estimate the cooking time in an "open loop" fashion. — Quicksilver^{T @} 09:26, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Section is Extremely Biased

It seems that this section is extremely biased. The idea that some people somewhere believe that microwaving food has negative effects is lightly mentioned. The rest of the section is basically saying that microwaving food is extremely healthy and much better for you than cooking your food. Tons and tons of extremely specific examples. Why brush off the other side? In fact, most resources I found - even in a casual search - give plenty of reasons to think that microwaving is far worse than normal cooking. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TruthSeekerMN (talk • contribs) 18:41, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Name some. What criteria did they use? It's pure temperature that kills vitamins and microwaving generally cooks at lower temperatures. The idea that some specific interaction of microwave radiation with food molecules (rather than infrared radiation that comes from a broiling element or grill) seems physically very unlikely, considering what we know of the interaction of electromagnetic radiation and molecules. But if you have evidence, let's see it. Not evidence that microwaves damage food, but that they damage it more than the equivalent amount of other types of cooking (if you're actually arguing for raw-foodism, this is not the place for it). SBHarris 19:14, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Metals section needs correction

This section is not entirely correct and somewhat misleading. Arcing will not occur simply because a metal object has a point or sharp edge. Further, objects without points or sharp edges (a spoon is given as an example) CAN indeed cause arcing very easily. It is the presence of ANY two metal objects or surfaces in close proximity within the microwave field that causes arcing. A needle or nail by itself will not generate an arc, while a spoon will easily generate an arc if close enough to any other metal (e.g. the oven cavity wall). Of course, a single metal object can also cause arcing if it is irregularly shaped with surfaces near enough to each other (e.g. crumpled aluminum foil or the tines of a fork). I suggest that the entire section be rewritten to reflect these facts. Jfgerling (talk) 14:33, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Microwave oven with smoke ventilation

There's no mention of microwave ovens (above the stove) with built-in extractor hoods. Gas stove, electric stove, kitchen stove, and stove doesn't even mention the modern cooking stove with the smoke vents or microwaves above the stove with the extractor hood. - M0rphzone (talk) 21:35, 16 June 2012 (UTC)