On Sun, 21 Apr 2013 06:15:14 -0400, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:

You didn't know? I put up an outdoor mercury
thermometer. Microwave ovens stopped working
for about a six block radius. It just sucked the
microwaves right up. It was fun, watching all the
repair companies coming to my neighborhood in
panel vans. Aren't you embarassed that I'm not
replying to your posts?
.
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
.
.
wrote in message
.. .

NEVER put a mercury thermometer in a microwave. The mercury attracts
the microwaves and super-heats. Or did you have your "combination"
oven in non-microwave mode???

"Attracts microwaves", now there's a concept! A new physics is
invented every day, on the Usenet.


OK -maybee the description is not totally accurate, but the result is
the same. Mercury behaves differently from most other metals - it is
diamagnetic (or antimagnetic) - and magnets DO attract microwave
energy, while most metals reflect it.

This is an answer to the question "should you use a mercury
thermometer in a microwave oven?"

On the other hand, putting a mercury thermometer in a microwave oven
isn't a good idea. While mercury is a metal and will reflect most of
the microwaves that strike it, the microwaves will push a great many
electric charges up and down the narrow column of mercury. This
current flow will cause heating of the mercury because the column is
too thin to tolerate the substantial current without becoming warm.
The mercury can easily overheat, turn to gas, and explode the
thermometer. (A reader of this web site reported having blown up a
mercury thermometer just this way as a child.) Moreover, as charges
slosh up and down the mercury column, they will periodically
accumulate at the upper end. Since there is only a thin vapor of
mercury gas above this upper surface, the accumulated charges will
probably ionize this vapor and create a luminous mercury discharge.
The thermometer would then turn into a mercury lamp, emitting
ultraviolet light. I used microwave-powered mercury lamps similar to
this in my thesis research fifteen years ago and they work very
nicely.

Louis A. Bloomfield