TIL the screen on the window of your microwave oven keeps your face from melting. The size of the holes in the screen are vastly smaller than a the wavelength of a microwave, effectively blocking them.

Even if microwaves were this dangerous, the standard microwave oven would be able to contain them without issue. While microwaves pass through glass, plastics, and ceramics easily they are reflected by metals.

Between the metal sides of a microwave and the Faraday cage on the door and the metal sides, there's not going to ever be any meaningful leakage of microwave radiation.

Microwaves cook by a process known as dielectric heating. The frequency of microwaves emitted cause polarized molecules (namely water) to realign themselves based on the orientation of the electric field. (similar to a magnet) In liquid water when these molecules try to reorient themselves, they are forced to bump into their neighboring molecules generating heat. While this process could have harmful effects on humans there are two important reasons why even a microwave oven or even an exposed magnetron can't really harm you.

  1. The metal lining in the oven reflects microwaves. Otherwise very little of this radiation would actually contact the food, it would just leak out in every direction and not much would happen to the food even after long exposure.

  2. All electromagnetic radiation is subject to the inverse square law. (Simply stated as Intensity = 1 / distance squared. So as you increase the distance between you and the source the intensity of the microwaves decreases by the square of the distance. If you double the distance the microwaves are 1/4 as intense. If you are 10 times the distance from the source, the intensity is 1/100 of what it was. (In actuality the intensity doesn't change, it's just distributed over a larger area)

Microwave oven magnetrons are designed to be well within safety limits within a few inches of the magnetron. So even if you did feel discomfort when standing right next to one, take a step back and you won't feel anything anymore.

Now. Microwave radiation *could** be dangerous with intense enough emissions. You are primarily made of water after all, but you won't get that from any kind of technology that is commercially available. Service workers have reported getting ill standing right next to microwave cell towers, but even this isn't life threatening. Just discomfort and those are far more intense than anything you'd ever come across.

/r/todayilearned Thread Link - hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu