I want to start by saying that I understand some of the stuff and I guess this should be more of an explanation like I’m 10 or 15. I know polar molecules and heat result from kinetic energy among molecules in rotation, vibration, and translation so I kind of get that dielectric heating works by moving the molecules around. I also understand light waves and frequency and some basic circuitry. The thing that I struggle to understand is the choice in frequency for microwaves. What makes other nonionizing frequencies not as good as microwaves and how is it able to release so much energy/food absorbs so much energy with low-frequency waves.
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Resonance. (I hope you know resonance, if not, check that first)
You shoot a wave that resonate with water molecules frequency, hence they move, hence become hot. And it’s a specific frequency, it won’t heat other molecules. Completely dry food won’t heat up.
Each electromagnetic frequency tend to interact with specific matter, and ignore or bounce on other. Like concrete is transparent to radio but reflects light, both are electromagnetic waves, but have different length.
The magic of the microwave is that the wave can go through things but not water, so it gets into the food, deep, and heats it inside.
You can heat food with light but it will interact with all the food particles, heating only the surface, will fail to penetrate.
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