Popping corn with cell phones?, page 1

Hi all,
This is weird but I believe it. it just goes to show you whay we are doing to ourselves.

I came across this:
fr.youtube.com...

Said, no way!

then this:
fr.youtube.com...

Ok, well maybe

Finally:
fr.youtube.com...

WOW!
Glad I don't feel the need for a cell phone.


(MOD EDIT: to correct spelling error in thread title)

[edit on 6/7/2008 by benevolent tyrant]

reply to post by DenverMan

---

My family does not use cell phones. They don't fit into our life style (we don't talk to enough people to justify owning one).

Boy am I glad..no proof as to link between cell phones and brain tumors. (yet!!)

What makes popcorn pop. By Nasa

Well, I was going to try this with my phone, but no popcorn (guess I threw it out... it was about 15 years old, after all, lol)

My phone is Kyocera Strobe. The plastic loop at the top is the antenna. I was going to set a couple kernels in the loop and have the girlfriend call it. Maybe my friend will have some that I can use. If it works, I'll make a vid to show you all... if I can find someone with raw popcorn, lol... everyone I know uses microwave popcorn. I prefer the air popper, personally.

I can't really say I am suprised, but I am kinda shocked. I knew there was a reason I prefered to text, lol. I have the same fears about Wi-Fi and home wireless networks, honestly.

reply to post by Earthscum

---

I wouldn't say texting is any better; just briefer.

Anyway, it's clearly a hoax. Just do the math, people. Popcorn pops because it's partly made of water, which you boil to make pop. It's about 13 percent water. Now assuming about 2 grams of popcorn, that's about .26 grams of water. It takes 4.18 joules to raise 1 gram of water 1 degree Celsius. Room temperature being about 18-20 Celsius, means it will take about 87 joules to pop the corn (assuming it does so as soon as it reaches 100 Celsius, and no heat is lost to the atmosphere). In the videos, it takes about seven seconds to start popping corn. that works out to a modest bit more than 3 watts per phone (which, I might add, is still slightly more power than any modern cellphone antenna emits. They peak at about 2W. But it's not ludicrously out of the capability of a phone).

However, phones aren't exactly lasers. They radiate omnidirectionally. the corn kernels are receiving less than 5% of the flux. Being generous, the phones would have to be putting out at least 62 watts, which would drain a typical cell phone 1000mWh battery in 58 seconds. (using all the battery's power for transmitting microwaves at 100% efficiency, leaving none to run the actual phone) I assume that your phones have longer than a 1 minute talk time?

This is, of course, all assuming perfect resonance and 100% absorption, which is ludicrous in the real world. It also assumes that only the water in the corn is being heated, and nothing else.

It reminds me of a similar confirmed hoax from england a few years back involving two cellphones cooking an egg. I am curious as to how they did it though, it would make for an awesome parlor trick.

reply to post by DenverMan

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They're ARGUABLY from different countries. They ARE all from the same youtube user...which is suspicious. Try it yourself. If if works, let us know.

Originally posted by mdiinican
reply to post by Earthscum

---

I wouldn't say texting is any better; just briefer.

Anyway, it's clearly a hoax. Just do the math, people. Popcorn pops because it's partly made of water, which you boil to make pop. It's about 13 percent water. Now assuming about 2 grams of popcorn, that's about .26 grams of water. It takes 4.18 joules to raise 1 gram of water 1 degree Celsius. Room temperature being about 18-20 Celsius, means it will take about 87 joules to pop the corn (assuming it does so as soon as it reaches 100 Celsius, and no heat is lost to the atmosphere). In the videos, it takes about seven seconds to start popping corn. that works out to a modest bit more than 3 watts per phone (which, I might add, is still slightly more power than any modern cellphone antenna emits. They peak at about 2W. But it's not ludicrously out of the capability of a phone).

Ok, You are an idiot. I just tried this, and it worked!

Hoax eh? I can't believe you would do that without checking for yourself!

It takes more than one cell phone, I did it with only two iPhones!

reply to post by Quazga

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...wouldn't you know it, I don't have any corn to pop!!! This is going to drive me crazy

But I'll take your word for it Quazga, it's something I'm really going to have to try.

Okay, after doing a bit of research (my little engineering brain at work!) I came up with this explanation, which makes sense to me:

Cellphones operate roughly in the frequency range 0.8 to 1.9 GHz. What I learned, however, that I didn't know before, is that industrial microwave ovens often operate at 0.915 GHz, which is in that range!

en.wikipedia.org...

Moreover, large industrial/commercial microwave ovens operating at the common large industrial-oven microwave heating frequency of 915 MHz (0.915 GHz), also heat water and food perfectly well.

Therefore, assuming you hit the popcorn with enough power long enough, this should work just as shown, no trickery involved. Basically, you're hitting the popcorn with the same kind of waves that a microwave uses, which is actually really scary. Now, while a microwave oven is using way more power than a cellphone, also remember that the microwave is cooking (normally) a lot more than 3 or 4 kernels, and that the kernels are closer to the source of the power in the case of the cellphones than in the microwave, and wave power drops off sharply with distance.

/end geeky explanation

Originally posted by DragonsDemesne
Okay, after doing a bit of research (my little engineering brain at work!) I came up with this explanation, which makes sense to me:

Cellphones operate roughly in the frequency range 0.8 to 1.9 GHz. What I learned, however, that I didn't know before, is that industrial microwave ovens often operate at 0.915 GHz, which is in that range!

en.wikipedia.org...

Moreover, large industrial/commercial microwave ovens operating at the common large industrial-oven microwave heating frequency of 915 MHz (0.915 GHz), also heat water and food perfectly well.

Therefore, assuming you hit the popcorn with enough power long enough, this should work just as shown, no trickery involved. Basically, you're hitting the popcorn with the same kind of waves that a microwave uses, which is actually really scary. Now, while a microwave oven is using way more power than a cellphone, also remember that the microwave is cooking (normally) a lot more than 3 or 4 kernels, and that the kernels are closer to the source of the power in the case of the cellphones than in the microwave, and wave power drops off sharply with distance.

/end geeky explanation

Microwaves are faraday cages made of metal which reflects microwaves. Better than 90% of the roughly 1000 watts emitted from the microwaves magnetron end up hitting the food. In sharp contrast, less than 5 percent of the rays from your (~2watt) cellphones would be hitting the corn given the setup in the youtube videos.

You'll also note that the frequencies chosen for microwave ovens and for microwave communications devices are specifically chosen to not be within the optimum absorbance band of water. In communications, this is because they don't want your cellphone to cease working entirely when it's raining outside. When it comes to food microwaves, they choose it because they don't just want to burn the outside and leave the inside cold, and because they can afford to have the microwaves pass through thin food, because it's in a metal box, and will just bounce back around until it hits the food anyway.

popcorn kernels are so small that they probably won't absorb all the microwaves incident on 'em.

I can tell you that it certainly doesn't work with samsung SCH-u540s and RAZRs, and I suspect Quazga of being a disinformant or troll.

[edit on 7-6-2008 by mdiinican]

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