Story:
Did you know?
A smart phone microwaved for just one minute will fully charge the battery.
In 2005 Apple started a smear campaign to discourage customers from using this method to charge phones as it would affect charger sales.
Scientific studies shows that charging a phone this way is safe and is actually better for the phone’s battery life as electrical current found in mains can fluctuate and damage the battery cell.
Analysis:
These messages circulating mostly through social networking websites claim that a Smartphone battery can be fully charged by simply Microwaving it for one minute. It is also said that Apple company has hidden and discouraged this effective method of charging cellphone batteries. It is not a fact, the claims are hoax.
Videos
Apart from these text messages, there are also many such videos claiming to show a cellphone battery can be charged by Microwaving it, but people did not notice most of these hoax videos were listed in comedy section. The Lithium ion batteries that most cellphones are made of cannot take short circuit or heat. A Microwave oven can not charge the battery of a smartphone or any other mobile phone. Instead, the electromagnetic radiation that the Microwave oven emits can in fact destroy the Smartphone and the battery, and can possibly damage your Microwave oven as well. The phones inside microwave can even catch fire and cause more serious hazards. So people are warned NOT to try anything like this. The video below shows a man testing the authenticity of the claim, only to end up burning his iPhone 5. Note that the person in the video is being sarcastic and humorous about this experiment.
Microwaving
Microwaves are a form of light energy with electromagnetic fields that produce heat when absorbed, and this is what cooks the food products kept inside. But a microwave oven does not produce any current as such that can charge the battery of a smartphone kept inside it. Microwaves are not absorbed by most plastics, glass or ceramics, and metal reflects microwaves, which is why they do not work well in a microwave oven. When electric fields concentrate at sharp points of metal, they become strong and thereby produce a spark, as it happened in the above experiment.
So these claims are hoax, and a very bad prank! Do not test your smartphone or any other phone for charging inside a microwave oven. You can only end up damaging it.
Hoax or Fact:
Hoax.
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