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That sounds bad

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grantspain:
just a bit a stupid info(probably everyone knows anyway) if you get some 12volt wedge bulbs sit them on some paper and put them in a microwave you get a pretty light show

shmokes:
Drew, your rolling eyes guy suggests that you actually take offense to my talk about superheating water, which I find comical. 

While the Snopes page does classify superheated water in a microwave as "true, but rare"  and goes on to say that you will probably go your whole life without seeing it, it backs up this assertion with a bunch of quotes from the FDA and scientists that say nothing about it being rare and, in fact, are cautioning people about the existence of the phenomenon and precautions that should be taken to avoid injury.  And while Snopes calls it "true, but rare", hoax-slayer, urbanlegends.about.com and howstuffworks just call it "true".

Superheated water is not rare at all.  I see it on nearly a daily basis.  I heat water up in the microwave which I then drop a bag of frozen breast milk in.  As it happens, I always use a Pyrex measuring cup.  I didn't know until I read the Snopes site that glass was the most likely surface to cause the phenomenon, but there it is.  Anyway, I heat I'd say about 1 1/2 cups of water for three minutes.  About 5% of the time it is boiling when the three minutes is up.  Usually it is not.  It has NEVER started boiling when I picked it up and removed it from the microwave.  The moment I drop the block of breast milk in, though, it starts boiling very rapidly, though only for a few seconds, which is understandable considering the block of ice I just dropped in it reduces the temperature of the water in short order.

Got any Pyrex in the house (if not, you should; best measuring cups on the planet).  If so, I guarantee that you can reproduce the phenomenon yourself with very little trouble.  Like I say, I see this almost every single day.

In short,  ::)

ChadTower:

Should you be dropping the milk into water THAT hot?  I'd be concerned about scorching the milk.  It clearly wasn't designed to come into a 100c degree environment.

Buddabing:
I think the superheating water has to do with not having any sites on the glass that bubbles form on.

Shmokes should try a different vessel to heat his water in.

Also, I'm curious whether his microwave is one that has a rotating tray inside.

shmokes:
It does have a rotating tray.  I don't think I'm scorching the milk, probably because it is so cold.  At any rate, if I am, Maddy must like scorched milk.  I think that I'll just keep doing what I'm doing, though, cos I've got it down to a science as far as heating the water exactly hot enough that it worms a 4 oz. block of milk up to the proper temperature, even if I forget about it for a couple extra minutes.  Sucks to take frozen milk and heat it up too hot, so you just have to put it back in the freezer for a few minutes, all the while the baby is crying for food.  Likewise, it sucks to drop the water in and walk away to keep the baby happy only to come back a few minutes later to find that the water is room temperature and the milk still has a little ice cube in it.  In this case, the microwave's ability to superheat water is actually pretty handy.

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