Moving food. Spreading heat.: sources & model

See through a closed microwave, follow a bite around the turntable, and compare where energy arrives with where heat spreads afterward.

What supports the explanation?

What this model assumes

1. Generic closed-cavity teaching view. No real appliance dimensions, service steps, microwave leakage or door-interlock simulation.
2. The assumed exposure map is not a measured field, Maxwell solution or exact wavelength visualization. Equal absorbed power is imposed across comparisons; real total absorption can change with load and placement.
3. Homogeneous 0.20 kg sample, constant properties, insulated boundaries and in-plane conduction. Container exchange, evaporation, convection, temperature-dependent dielectric properties and through-thickness gradients are omitted.
4. Playback maps 18 seconds onto the selected heating and standing interval. Temperature calculations use a fixed numerical timestep, not the animation frame rate.
5. Colors use a fixed 20–60 °C scale, saturated above 60 °C. Numeric probes and extrema remain available. The 80 °C stopping boundary limits the model; it does not judge doneness.
6. Original procedural appliance and original editorial cover illustration. Independent subject, learner and browser/device review remain pending.
7. Two models, clearly separated: The recognizable oven is a generic viewing model. Its quantitative temperature map solves a heat equation using an author-chosen, nonnegative spatial absorption pattern. We do not solve Maxwell’s equations for this cavity or predict the field in a real meal. Actual food changes the electromagnetic problem as well as absorbing energy.
8. An energy budget you can audit: Our homogeneous sample is 10 × 10 × 2 cm, with chosen density 1,000 kg/m³ and specific heat 4,000 J/(kg·K). Its mass is 0.20 kg and heat capacity is 800 J/K. Absorbing 160 W for 45 s adds 7,200 J, so the insulated sample’s mean rises by 9 K. The spatial pattern can differ even when this mean is the same.
9. A conservative heat calculation: The material-fixed grid applies ρc ∂T/∂t = k∇²T + q, with k = 0.50 W/(m·K) when conduction is enabled. Each neighbor exchange adds and removes the same energy. The explicit 0.1 s steps are independent of playback frames. Boundaries are insulated, and absorbed power is normalized to the chosen total every step.
10. Why a colorful patch is not a safety check: The simulation does not know your meal’s composition, shape, initial temperature or oven loading. Its constant-property calculation stops when a cell reaches the 80 °C model boundary. That is not a food-safety threshold. Use the real appliance’s instructions and current food-safety guidance for actual cooking.

What has been checked

Analytical reference cases, conservation or transition invariants, finite drawing commands, bounded setup parsing, discovery and route integrity are checked automatically. These checks do not establish anatomical fidelity, learner outcomes or browser/device compatibility. Independent subject review, learner trials, comprehensive accessibility review and browser video encoding checks remain pending.

Each source supports the associated claim. Sources do not certify this implementation or its visuals.

About the cover illustration

The topic card uses an AI-generated editorial illustration. It introduces the subject; it is not a validated anatomical reference or a measured landscape. The experiment’s diagrams, readouts and assumptions explain the model separately.