News

How to cook an egg with two mobile phones - maybe!

There's little more to be said about this story beyond what you can learn from the picture, which shows an egg and two mobiles. The phones generate enough microwave radiation (say the testers) to cook the egg.

That's a pity, because all we know is that the testers were two journalists for Komsomolskaya Pravda in Russia, and that it took over an hour to cook the egg.
Let's assume, just for fun, that this isn't a hoax. What we need to know, of course, is what frequency the phones were on. If they're on 3G wavelengths at 2.1 GHz then you'd draw a different set of conclusions from the ones you'd draw if they were, say, at 1.2 GHz, which would be twice the wavelength of a 2.4GHz microwave oven.

As to what it proves, either way, is hard to guess. Probably, that if you heat an egg it will cook; and that microwaves tend to heat things with a high water content. None of that qualifies as a cause for cries of "Eureka!"

Mast debaters will no doubt scream about the terrible damage done to the protein of the egg-white; but of course, you can cook an egg on the pavement when the air temperature gets to around 100.

The Myth Busters programme tried to cook an egg, once, using 100 phones. Perhaps the phones turned themselves off, because the egg didn't cook on that occasion. Or perhaps the PC in the background of the photograph was hot, and the fan was blowing on the egg. Or maybe it was a joke.

Anyway, if you recognise the two phones and can identify what make they are, or what frequencies they operate on, please get in touch!

Tags: mobile phone, microwave, radiation, mast debate