Measuring the speed of light with a microwave oven

February 11, 2009 3:19 pm

Year 11 pupils followed the Naked Scientists’ method as featured in their book “Crisp Packet Fireworks” by Chris Smith and Dave Ansell.  We used their technique to work out the speed of light using a microwave oven.

Year 11 pupils videoed the experiment as well, although most of the footage is of buttering the bread, the important bit at the end didn’t video very well but we hope you get the idea.  Click on the link to the Naked Scientist site for the science of how this works (using Speed of light = frequency x wavelength).  (Not bad for special school science!!)


View Comments “Measuring the speed of light with a microwave oven”

  1. I like this idea! I teach maths, so I won’t be using that in lessons, but I’d like to try this with our STEM (Science-Technology-Engineering-Maths) Club. They’d love it!

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