I have seen the same phenomena of water heated in a microwave boiling over
after adding a teabag, instant coffee or such. So a few years ago, I
measured the temperature of such water. It was a few degrees over 100 C.
At that time we discussed this topic on PHYS-L. (Does that date me or at
least my participation in PHYS-L. I was even involved when it was still a
Bitnet discussion group, but I am only 50.)
Anyway, probably the most important difference about heating water in a
microwave is that it heats the water rather uniformily. My understanding
is that the frequency of the emited light is on a shoulder of a water
absorption band rather than on the peak of this band, so that in fact some
of it can penetrate deeply into a sample in the micorwave oven.
Richard
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Dr. Richard L. Bowman
Chair, Dept. of Physics e-mail: rbowman@bridgewater.edu
(and Dir. of Academic Computing) phone: 540-828-5441
Bridgewater College FAX: 540-828-5479
Bridgewater, VA 22812 http://www.bridgewater.edu/~rbowman/
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