RE: Microwave oven and battery

["Michael S. Taylor" <mstaylor@ufl.edu>]

Just out of curiosity, were there any other objects in the pocket with the
battery?  Maybe keys or something.  Contact of the ends could get a
temperature rise, wouldn't it?

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu
[mailto:radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu]On Behalf Of D. Kosloff
Sent: Tuesday, May 02, 2000 7:51 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: Microwave oven and battery


I believe our skin has a very complex heat energy transfer sensing
mechanism.  When we touch things we are not sensing temperature alone.  Take
a block of wood and a piece of metal and heat them to the same temperature.
I belive the wood will feel cooler because the wood has a lower heat
capacity and heat transfer capability.  I noticed this effect driving across
the Mohave Desert when it was 113 degrees.  The body of my truck in the
shade could not be hotter than ambient temperature but it felt hotter and
non metallic parts of the truck felt cooler as well.

Don Kolsoff dkosloff@ncweb.com
2910 Main St Perry OH 44081

----- Original Message -----
From: Neon John <johngd@bellsouth.net>
To: Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, May 02, 2000 12:04 PM
Subject: Re: Microwave oven


>
>
> "Krzesniak, Michael F" wrote:
> >
> > Good morning,
> >
> > I was asked a question by a neighbor who is a high school teacher.  A
> > colleague, put a D cell battery in her pocket before school.  It may
have
> > been for the recycling bin.  She turned on the microwave oven and felt
the
> > battery get hot.  Could the microwave oven cause the battery to get hot?
>
> No.
>
> I've been known to do some, er, alternative experimentation with
> microwave ovens, including illuminating a neon gas filled glass
> sculpture by suspending it over an upended microwave oven with the
> door removed and using a couple of ovens with the doors removed to
> set up a short hop data link (yes, an oven ended up mounded on my
> ham radio tower :-)  Standing behind the oven (protect those eyes!)
> one cannot feel the heating in the hand until it gets to within a
> few inches of the doorless oven.  No conceivable amount of leakage
> of a properly functioning oven could cause sensible heat in an
> object in the pocket - particularly if she also didn't report
> feeling a warm sensation in her skin in the near vicinity.  I've
> done quite a few oven leakage surveys (offshoot of my volunteer
> emergency management RSO activities.)  I've never seen an oven with
> an intact door that leaked anywhere near the 5 mw/cm^2 federal
> limit.  It's rare to even see the needle on the survey meter budge
> off zero.
>
> > I suggested that the battery may have leaked or maybe even keys, or
> > something else, in her pocket created a short circuit.
>
> Perhaps a highly suggestive personality expecting the "radiation" to
> heat the battery?  Shorting even a mostly spent battery will cause
> it to self-heat.  If there really was heating, that is the cause.
> I've had coins do that with a 9 volt lithium battery - it gets very
> hot.  Hard to imagine how to do that with a D cell.
>
> John
>
> --
> John De Armond
> johngdSPAMNOT@bellsouth.net
> http://personal.bellsouth.net/~johngd/
> Neon John's Custom Neon
> Cleveland, TN
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