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Janet - All -
Microwave ovens intentionally try to get the beam to move around, they 
will often use a moving deflector (like a fan) which will cause the 
waves to bounce around in order to more evenly cook the food. to get a 
more directional beam, you would want to defeat this feature. But as was 
mentioned by others, Microwave ovens do not have to carry information so 
they are very messy, a lot of sidelobe activity and harmonics.

How about doing the refraction experiment, in which measuring how much 
the light is bent through water shows how much light slows down in water 
(by about 8cm/ns)? Here's a link to a version of this done by the folks 
at Georgetown U., but there are other, perhaps simpler, versions out there.
http://www.georgetown.edu/projects/handsonmath/downloads/pdf/light-s.pdf

Janet Groenert wrote:

> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related 
> institutions.
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> 
> 
> Sandy  & Peter
> Is the wave emitter stationary in all microwaves with turntables. We had 
> a food engineer who said some move and some don't . She worked for 
> Pillsbury and they used to mess with the microwave ovens while trying to 
> perfect food products.
> 
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