Comment by cwillu
6 days ago
The feature size of the matte vs shiny sides are much smaller than the wavelength of the bulk of the radiated light in either a microwave or conventional oven.
6 days ago
The feature size of the matte vs shiny sides are much smaller than the wavelength of the bulk of the radiated light in either a microwave or conventional oven.
Is it? I can see the broiler glowing, so at least a decent chunk is close to visible light.
An alternate intuition pump, at least if you're old enough to remember incandescent bulbs: consider how bright a 1000-watt bulb is, compared to how bright (in the visible spectrum) the 2-3000 watt oven element gets.
Look up the emission spectrum for a body at the temperature of a typical oven element: yes, it starts emitting some light that is visible, but the bulk of the energy is still in the IR band.
> microwave or conventional oven
I worry for you if you're microwaving aluminum foil.