In a microwave oven the food gets cooked but the utensil doesn't get heated. Why?

Answer 1

It depends on the utensil. The container heats up. Metal and foil are not things to leave in there.

Answer 2

Microwave ovens generate microwaves that have an oscillation which excites water molecules. It's sort of like a sympathetic vibration where one could shatter glass with a sound provided that the acoustic vibration matches the resonance frequency of the glass. The utensils will not get hot because they contain no water or anything that is sympathetic to the microwave frequency (they may get a little warm due to the food heating up). Food will heat up however due to the H20 content in many foods.

Answer 3

microwave ovens dont use thermal waves - they use microwaves. This rapidly excites the molecules of whatever you put inside, so not all things will be heated, especially not heated at the same rate. As basic chemistry tells us, the more movement among molecules, the more energy that is generated - in this case, heat.

Answer 4

Microwave ovens beam out energy at 2.4 giga Hertz, at this frequency this excites water molecules, causing them to heat up.
since the utensils do not have water they do not get hot.

Answer 5

Micro wave energies cause disturbance in the atoms of a substance.Substances respond differently. Foods are most responsive and get heated faster due to the nature of the water contents.
There was a bug in the microvave one time,and I found that the bug did not die when the microvave oven was on. so the same would be the case with microbes ;they are unaffected .

Answer 6

Microwaves make water molecules move quickly, creating friction (and thus heat) as they rub against each other.

The dish doesn't have water molecules in it, so isn't affected by the microwave.

The dish gets warm (or hot) from the food.