system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
How are microwaves considered safe as soon as you open the door? Does the radiation "disappear"?

This is just a question that popped in my brain so excuse my science virginity.  Hell, I dont even know if I can word this right.

You microwave some food.  Does the radiation transfer directly to the food to heat up?  When you open the microwave door, there obviously isn't enough radiation in the chamber of the microwave to be considered unsafe, nor is the microwave even any shade of warmer than the air outside of it, so is it a direct transfer of energy where there's no radiation lingering around that wasn't used for heating your food when you opened the door, or do they sort of "disappear" really quickly due to their size?
gpt
The answers above/below aren't entirely correct. Electromagnetic waves ARE radiation, just not in the sense that most of the public thinks of radiation.

They do NOT just disappear when you open the door. They're moving at the speed of light, and the switch the turn the magnetron off activates WELL before you've even moved the door 1 cm. Therefore the remaining waves that ARE bouncing around inside bounce around a ton more before you've opened the door and after the magnetron has shut off, therefore they get absorbed LONG before you'd be exposed to them

With that said, microwaves aren't powerful enough to hurt you in small doses, and it is not ionizing radiation (meaning it won't give you cancer) therefore it wouldn't even matter if you got hit with a few microwave photons. In fact, there are even crowd control weapons that use microwaves (makes people feel like they are burning.)