On the Interference of Popcorn and Providence
Dear Tom,
I hope this finds you well. I have a simple question and I'm sorry if it's a dumb one. Every time I make popcorn in the microwave, my WiFi cuts out in the kitchen — the video call I'm on freezes, the smart speaker goes quiet, everything just stops until the popcorn's done. Then it comes right back. My son said something about "the same waves" but that didn't make a lot of sense to me. Is my microwave broken? Should I be worried? I just want to understand what's happening while I wait for my popcorn like a reasonable person.
Thank you so much, — Gary, Tulsa, Oklahoma
Gary,
What a lovely question. It reminds me — as questions of this precise shape always do — of the moment humanity first grasped that the universe is, at bottom, one continuous fabric of oscillation, and that the difference between a kernel of corn becoming a snack and a video call becoming a frozen rectangle of your cousin's face is, of course, a matter of degree rather than kind. I want to answer this fully, Gary, because a partial answer here would be worse than no answer at all.
Let's begin, as we must, with the electromagnetic spectrum — not as a metaphor, but as the actual terrain we're standing on. Your microwave oven and your WiFi router are, in the most meaningful sense, the same appliance wearing two different hats. Both operate, by international convention and the mercy of the ISM band allocation (Industrial, Scientific, and Medical — assigned, of course, under the standard 1947 Atlantic City radio protocols, later revised, see Appendix C), at a frequency in the neighborhood of 2.4 gigahertz. This is not a coincidence. This is a load-bearing fact of your kitchen. The 2.4 GHz frequency was not chosen because it is good at cooking food or good at carrying data — it happens to be extremely good at exciting water molecules, which is why your popcorn cooks and, incidentally, why your own body would cook rather efficiently at close range, a fact the shielding in your appliance is, I assure you, aggressively preventing, assuming standard gasket tolerances (Figure 4).
Now — your router is whispering. Genuinely, Gary, think of it as a whisper. It is broadcasting perhaps one watt, spread thin across a room, trying to have a polite, structured conversation with your laptop using a modulation scheme called OFDM, which — and this is the part I find most beautiful — breaks its signal into dozens of narrow subcarriers so that even if part of the spectrum is fouled, the rest of the conversation can often continue, rather like a string quartet that keeps playing even if the cellist briefly steps out for a sandwich. Your microwave, meanwhile, is not whispering. Your microwave is a magnetron — a device with a lineage running directly back to British radar research in 1940, developed under wartime urgency to detect incoming aircraft, and repurposed after the war, almost as an afterthought, by an engineer named Percy Spencer who noticed a candy bar melting in his pocket — and it is shouting, at roughly a thousand watts, directly into the same slice of spectrum your router is trying to use for its quiet, orderly business. It is not a fair fight. It was never going to be a fair fight. The magnetron does not know your WiFi exists. The magnetron does not know anything exists. It simply oscillates, with the calm indifference of a natural law, and everything nearby that was relying on that frequency being polite has to wait its turn.
This is, incidentally, why naval engineers of the mid-century were so preoccupied with what they called "spectral congestion" — the same problem, scaled up to a battleship, where sonar, radar, and ship-to-ship communication all competed for a crowded electromagnetic commons, a problem that was eventually resolved not by making any one system quieter but by the international community agreeing, gradually and with enormous friction, on where each activity was allowed to shout. Your kitchen, Gary, is a battleship in miniature. Your popcorn is, in this analogy, the incoming aircraft. I don't say this to alarm you. I say this because I think you'll find it clarifying.
Assuming — and this is the piece your son's explanation was almost certainly missing — standard leakage tolerances under IEC 60705 (the governing document for microwave oven electromagnetic emissions, see Appendix B for the full derivation), a properly manufactured oven does not actually leak enough energy to damage your data packets directly through some dramatic collision. What happens instead is a phenomenon called the noise floor rising — your router's whisper hasn't been drowned out so much as the room around it has gotten loud enough that the whisper can no longer be distinguished from the general hum, in exactly the way you might lose a friend's voice at a party the moment someone turns on a blender, not because the blender is talking to you, but because your ear can no longer do the work of separating one signal from all the others. Your video call doesn't crash, Gary. It waits. It waits the way a ship waits out a storm, resuming its heading the instant the weather clears, which in your case is the instant the popcorn achieves what I would call molecular saturation — full, uniform expansion of the kernels — and the magnetron, its work complete, falls silent.
I should say, too, that this is deeply connected to a broader question in thermodynamics that I find myself returning to again and again: the popcorn kernel is, structurally, a tiny pressure vessel — a hard hull of pericarp holding in steam generated from the moisture at its core, and it is only when the internal pressure exceeds the tensile strength of that hull, at somewhere around 180 degrees Celsius, that the kernel fails catastrophically and turns itself inside out. It is, in miniature, exactly the failure mode engineers spent the better part of the 19th century learning to prevent in steam boilers, and exactly the failure mode they were trying to prevent again, decades later, in the design of the pressurized shipping container — itself a lovely detour I won't take here, except to say that Malcolm McLean's 1956 container standardization is, in its own quiet way, the reason your popcorn bag exists in its current form at all.
So no, Gary — your microwave is not broken, your router is not broken, and nothing in your kitchen requires your intervention. What you are witnessing, every single time, is two honest machines briefly failing to share a resource neither of them was ever designed to share gracefully, resolving itself the moment the louder one finishes its work. It is not a malfunction. It is physics, behaving exactly as physics behaves.
Glad I could clear that up!
— Tom
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60 Comments
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off topic but does anyone else have an HOA thats fine with a 12ft inflatable skeleton on the neighbors lawn but sent ME a violation notice for a mailbox flag that was TWO INCHES too tall, real talk this country has its priorities backwards. also is this where I renew my car tags or do I gotta go downtown
Off topic from Gary's popcorn but my grandson showed me how to unplug the router and plug it back in when it acts up and honestly that seems to fix near about everything in this house, the wifi, the smart doorbell, one time even the garage door, so Gary maybe just try unplugging the microwave for a minute, cant hurt. God bless.
totally off topic from all this wifi business but I just want to say I havent eaten a single bite of food since Tuesday, doing the sunlight only cleanse, you basically just stand outside for twenty minutes a day and let your body absorb what it needs, energy levels have never been higher, skin is glowing, my sister thinks its dangerous but she also microwaves everything so what does she know. anyway good luck with the popcorn Gary.
Im not political but somebody needs to say it, the reason Garys wifi cuts out is the SAME reason my cordless phone used to do it back in the 90s and nobody remembers cause they were all still in diapers. Its channel interference, its been sitting in the Federal Register since about 1968, my late husband worked adjacent to telecom and explained it to me a hundred times over the years. Screenshotting this comment right now so I can find it again next time my grandkids dont believe me. Anyway good luck Gary, microwave that popcorn in peace, dont let this thread ruin it for you.
Off topic from Gary but my daughter-in-law got me started selling essential oils this spring and I gotta tell you the lavender one cleared up something in my sinuses three different doctors couldnt figure out in twenty years. Ask me about the starter kit if anybody's curious, no pressure at all, God bless. Hope Gary gets his popcorn sorted out soon, that boy deserves an answer.
UNRELATED TO GARY but they discontinued the spicy waffle poppers at my gas station diner back in 2019 and I have not been the same since, my late husband and I used to get a dozen every single Sunday, BRING THEM BACK, this matters more than any wifi
off topic from Gary but does ANYONE else have a neighbor who put up a twelve foot inflatable skeleton in AUGUST, its not even close to fall, and when I mentioned it nice at the HOA meeting she called ME the problem. some of us have mailboxes to think about.
Honestly Im the only one on this whole page being fair about it. Half of yall say its the WiFi companys fault and half say its Garys old microwave and BOTH of you are wrong AND kinda right which is why nobody trusts anybody anymore. My uncle works adjacent to the FCC, cant say which contractor, and he told me straight up its neither, its the RESONANCE, but he also said dont repeat that so consider this off the record.
totally off topic but I just moved into wholesale leggings and my buttery-soft inventory is already half gone, ask me about the starter kit if anyone's interested, doors close Friday.
none of this popcorn stuff matters in the long run. my old high school coach used to say "you dont trip over what's behind you" and I think about that every single day of my life, including today reading this.
off topic completely but selling my above ground pool, 24ft, barely used, YOU HAUL. first come first served, message me here I guess since I dont know how else.
off topic completely but I switched to only eating gas station taquitos three times a day and I have never felt more clear headed in my life, down considerable amount, doctor says stop but what does he know
Everybody in this thread is ignoring the actual ANSWER which is the 5th amendment protects your right to a working wifi signal, look it up yourself. my cousin does something with satelites and he says microwaves and routers fight over the SAME channel, channel 9, thats just fact not an opinion.
Soverignty_Rebuttal12 theres no such thing as channel 9 and the 5th amendment is about not talking to police, EVERYBODY knows that much. your cousin with the satelites is making things up to sound smart at partys. its 2.4 GEEGAHERTZ, its physics not a conspiracy, do ONE minute of research.
Reading this makes me think about how nobody explains ANYTHING properly to folks anymore, they just want you to feel dumb for asking a simple question like Gary did. Back when I was raising my kids if you had a question you asked a neighbor or you looked it up in the encyclopedia set, you didnt need four paragraphs about oscilation just to understand your popcorn.
Speaking of which my grandson got a trophy last week just for SHOWING UP to soccer practice, not even playing in a real game mind you, just showing up, and I dont know that thats teaching him a thing about how the world works. Everybody gets a ribbon these days, it wasnt like that when I was coming up.
Anyway my knee has been something awful since my surgery back in March, doctor keeps saying its healing right on schedule but some mornings I can barely get down the porch steps to get the paper, and I was going to say how that connects to all this but I believe I've lost where I was headed with it. God bless anyway, hope Gary gets his popcorn sorted out
didnt even read the whole artical if im honest but Nana_Verna is right, nobody explains ANYTHING right anymore. reminds me of that episode of the show where the familys power goes out every single week and the dad just yells at the box on the wall, thats basically Gary right there. anyway skip to the end next time Tom, some of us have popcorn too.
Exactly Verna. Exactly.
Verna is right but Tom could of just said that in one sentence instead of four paragraphs about "oscilation." Do your own research Tom, thats all any of us are asking.
Anyway.
off topic from Gary but self checkout machines are the real reason this country is falling apart, stood there for ten minutes yesterday because it kept screaming unexpected item in bagging area, my cousin who works in government says its all connected somehow but he wont say how
Nana_Verna youre so right and Im gonna screenshot this whole thread just so I remember it later, not sure why but I feel like Ill need it someday. Back when I was raising my nine kids we didnt have microwaves OR wifi and everybody turned out just fine except my youngest who still cant parallel park to this day. The Founders wrote about interference in Article 4 I believe, or maybe it was the amendment right after that one, my memory isnt what it used to be but I know its in there SOMEWHERE. God bless whoever figures this out for Gary.
gonna be honest I did not read one single word of this article, skimmed the headline, saw "Providence" and assumed it was about the city, but I still think Tom is dead wrong here and Nana_Verna is even MORE wrong, popcorn has nothing to do with anything, its the ROUTER thats the problem, always has been, my cousin who does IT for a dentist office told me routers are basically little ovens themselves and thats why they overheat and cut out, its not the microwave doing anything its the router giving up. Ive said my piece.
SIGNAL. NEGLIGENCE. OVERSIGHT. Thats the whole report Verna, didnt need four paragraphs to say it.
THIS IS EXACTLY WHY I CANCELLED MY SUBSCRIPTION. Tom spends four paragraphs on 'oscilation' and never once tells Gary if hes gonna die. also snakecase_terry its spelled CONSITUTION not consitution, get it write before you correct people.
totally unrelated to Gary and his popcorn but my gospel bluegrass cover band Sovereign Twang is playing the church parking lot Saturday at 6, free will offering, bring a chair, we do a banjo version of Amazing Grace that has made grown men weep
totally off topic but has anyone else noticed the contrails are thicker lately, like noticeably thicker than even last spring. my sister says its just planes but she also thinks the tornado siren on Tuesdays isnt doing something to peoples thoughts so. anyway not related but if anyone wants a good crockpot meal, brown 2 lbs of stew meat, dump in a jar of pepperoncinis with the juice, 4 hrs on high, shred it, put it on a roll. life changing. thats all, carry on
the contrails thing is real, my brother in law flies and he WONT confirm or deny which tells you everything. if anybody else has noticed this join the facebook group its called People Who Dont Trust Tuesdays, we talk about stuff like this all the time, very respectful group.
off topic from Gary and his popcorn but speaking of things nobody asked about, my neighbor put up the ugliest glowing inflatable right next to his mailbox and the HOA has sent him THREE letters and he still hasnt took it down. some folks just dont care who they inconvenience. anyway happy to report my knee is healing up nice after the surgery, doc says another six weeks and I'll be back to normal
Off topic but Gerald (my starter, named after my late husband, he would have loved this website) doubled overnight for the first time since March. Little proud of him. Anyway back to your regularly scheduled popcorn arguing.
THIS IS EXACTLY WHY I CANCELLED MY SUBSCRIPTION. Tom just repeats what some website says and calls it wisdom. WAKE UP PEOPLE, ITS JUST A MICROWAVE.
unrelated to all this but if you like a couple guys just talking about stuff nobody asked about, check out my podcast Two Guys One Shed, new episode drops every other Thursday probly, cant say for sure.
Off topic sorry but the Vortex Max 4000 leaf blower is the best purchase Ive made all year. 5 stars would recommend to anyone with a yard. Not everything has to be about wifi people.
This is what happens when everyone forgot how radios work back in the 90s. My uncle was a HAM operator and he says the government reused the same frequency to save money after Clinton signed some bill. Wake up.
Source? Also its Reagan not Clinton, do SOME research yourself.
ACTUALLY it was NIXON who deregulated the microwaves back in 87, not Reagan, everybody in this thread needs to check there facts before critisizing other peoples grammer.
FREQUENCY. INTERFERENCE. DEREGULATION. I said what I said. Nobody in this thread has addressed a single one of these three words and honestly that says it all.
my neighbor Carl had this exact thing happen except it was his garage door opener not his wifi, so this isnt just a Gary thing, this is happening in EVERY driveway in this country right now and nobody wants to talk about it
cite your source ALLCAPS_MIKE, cause Ive never once seen a peer reviewed anything about this. and ANYWAY its not even Nixon or Reagan, my cousin works in goverment and he told me it was actually a Tuesday in the fall, nobody remembers which one
i DID cite a source, its called common sense, which is more than you can say. also 'a tuesday in the fall' is not a source thats a vibe
Do your own research Tom.
hi Brenda my nephew set up this acount for me so bare with me if I mess up, anyway happy birthday and hope Frank is doing better after the hip!
BRENDA IS NOT EVEN IN THIS THREAD. This is about GARY and his POPCORN, Tom needs to stay focused and so does everybody replying to a birthday message under a science question.
BACK IN 1979 A MICROWAVE COST TWELVE DOLLARS AND WE WERE ALL JUST FINE, nobody was worried about wifi cutting out cause NOBODY HAD WIFI, we had a phone bolted to the wall and we LIKED IT. also happy birthday Brenda hope Franks knee is doing better
ALLCAPS_DONNA A MICROWAVE IN 1979 DID NOT COST TWELVE DOLLARS, MY GRANDAD PAID ALMOST TWO HUNDRED AND HE STILL TALKS ABOUT IT AT THANKSGIVING. ALSO ITS RIGHT THERE IN THE THIRD AMENDMENT, QUARTERING OF APPLIANCES, LOOK IT UP.
ALLCAPS DONNA my late husband Earl bought our first microwave in 1974 for right around eleven dollars and we never once had a lick of trouble out of it, ran that thing clean through til 1998. nobody complained about no wifi cutting out neither, cause nobody HAD wifi, we had a rotary phone on the wall and we were just fine thank you very much. God bless
happy birthday again to Brenda from me too even tho I never met her, and this whole thread reminds me to say if everybody just replies Amen for good fortune it cant hurt, cant explain why but it never once has let me down. also unplug the microwave when your not using it, saves you a nickel a month easy. God bless.
FREQUENCY. INTERFERENCE. NEGLIGENCE.
my neighbor Gary (different Gary, dont get confused) had the EXACT same thing happen last Tuesday during a burrito not even popcorn, so this is clearly happening nationwide and nobody wants to admit it
ALLCAPS_DONNA THE PRICE ISNT EVEN THE POINT. EVERYBODY KNOWS THIS WHOLE MICROWAVE-WIFI MESS TRACES BACK TO THE 1980S WHEN THEY STARTED PUTTING CHIPS IN EVERYTHING. MY DECADE THEORY HAS NEVER BEEN WRONG ONCE.
SGT (RET), 40 years telecom adjacent. Im not political but nobody in this thread has mentioned the actual channel spacing and that tells me everything about the state of this country. Screenshotting this whole thread, you'll see why later.
EVERYBODY ARGUING ABOUT MICROWAVES WHEN THE REAL ISSUE IS NOBODY CHECKS THEIR SMOKE DETECTOR BATTERIES ANYMORE. GARY COULD LOOSE HIS WHOLE KITCHEN AND YALL ARE TALKING ABOUT CHANNEL 9.
ALLCAPS_DONNA twelve dollars is a flat out lie and I dont care whos grandad said what, my mom kept every receipt from 1979 in a shoebox and a microwave back then was closer to ninety, so either youre misremembering or your family was buying stolen ones off a truck.
PATRIOTT_WATTAGE A SHOEBOX IS NOT A RECEIPT ITS A SHOEBOX. MY GRANDAD KEPT THE ACTUAL RECEIPT LAMINATED ON THE FRIDGE AND I HAVE SEEN IT WITH MY OWN EYES, TWELVE DOLLARS AND FORTY CENTS TAX INCLUDED, DONT COME AT ME WITH A SHOEBOX.
EVERYBODY ARGUING PRICES WHEN THE REAL ISSUE IS ARTICLE 12 OF THE FOUNDERS MEMO WHICH CLEARLY STATES A CITIZEN HAS THE RIGHT TO UNINTERUPTED POPCORN, THE SUPREME COURT RULED ON THIS IN THE KETTLE CASE OF 1961, LOOK IT UP PEOPLE.
my old highschool coach always said 'if it aint on fire it aint broke' and honestly that answers Gary's whole question better than four paragraphs about 'oscilation' ever could. anyway happy birthday again Brenda, hope Frank is doing good too
ALLCAPS_DONNA and everybody arguing over prices, my Harold bought our very first microwave for nineteen dollars in 1981 and I still have the original BOX in the attic, not the receipt, the actual box, and anybody's welcome to come verify it in person but Im not shipping it cross country for strangers on the internet. Also Im not political but this whole wifi-popcorn business feels like something the phone company wants us confused about on purpose, my late sister worked for one and she said the same thing for thirty years.
ALLCAPS_DONNA and everybody else are missing the actual point which is this is LITERALLY the plot of that one episode where the family's toaster keeps messing with the TV antenna and it turns out to be the power company's fault the whole time, they had to pay a fine and everything, look it up. Same exact thing here except its Gary's router instead of a toaster. The 2.4 Gigahurtz band was ORIGINALLY reserved for military use back in like 1962 before they opened it up to consumers, thats a fact, my brother in law was Navy adjacent and confirmed this. Nobody wants to admit Gary's popcorn is basically operating on a frequency that used to belong to submarines.
Confirmed.
SGT (RET) here, my neighbor Doug had this EXACT popcorn/wifi thing happen last month and if its happening to Doug its happening nationwide, thats just how it works. Also happy birthday Brenda, semper fi.
Consitutionalist88 honey can you post where exactly you got that from, I do like to read the real research myself before I go believing a thing somebody typed on the internet. ... well anyway not that it matters much but I did want to mention my grandson (he's my of_7 you know, the youngest) started kindergarten this morning, growing up so fast it just takes your breath away. God bless him and God bless Gary and his popcorn too