Why do ants not die in a microwave?

The Microwave has become a part of our daily life, from a simple task of boiling water to making a beautiful looking meal (I still don’t prefer microwave meals). 

For most of us the microwave is a kitchen appliance unlike any other, one that heats without any visible fire or heating coils.

To make things clear but stay very brief, a microwave works by passing radio waves at a frequency of 2.45 gigahertz through any food. Now radio waves at this frequency have an interesting property, they are absorbed by water and fats. When absorbed, the water or fat molecules start rotating due to the alternating nature of the electric fields of the microwave. This atomic motion is directly converted into energy which is given out as heat.

The fun part is that metals reflect microwaves, whereas plastics, ceramics, glass do not absorb them, making it perfect to heat any kind of food that contains water or fats (sugars).

Now coming to the question of the blog itself, ‘Why do ants not die in a microwave?’ This question has been raised a number of times before, simply because people have noticed a number of ants in microwaves, and they just don’t seem to die when the Microwave is switched on.

Surely the ants do contain water molecules that would steam their insides out when faced with these unique radio waves.  So a number of theories were placed, noting some of them below.

1. Ants are too small to be affected by microwaves as the wave lengths of these waves are quite large.

2. Ants contain too little water for them to be affected by the microwave

3. Chitin (Ants exoskeleton material) will resist microwaves.

When I came across this question, it really fascinated me that ants might be one of those creatures that are resistant to high energy beams, makings of a fascinating science fiction story, but alas the real answer turned out to be far more logical.

You see the microwave beams are standing waves. Such waves always remain in a constant position.

So within a microwave there will be places where the energy density will be very high, whereas in others it will be very low. That is why we always have a turntable within microwave ovens in order to make sure that all parts of a meal are heated. 

Now ants being relatively very small take advantage of these standing waves and can easily be positioned in-between these waves, in the process remain entirely unharmed.

Ants also have another mechanism to their advantage of microwave survival; ants have one of the largest body surface areas to volume ratios. This helps it to cool down really fast, so if an ant were caught in a high energy zone within the microwave, its body surface area advantage helps to cool down quickly while moving to a low energy zone.

So there we have it, the mighty ant survives intense environments. As I said earlier it’s the question that helps us with the answers. So thank you for the question, and you are most welcome for this answer.