Are microwave rays dectectable in the air?

No. Not without some sort of proper detecting machine.

you can detect them with popcorn, it pops. Obviously it doesn’t pop when its outside the microwave, that means that either the waves are not strong enough from the microwave to reach outside and pop the popcorn, or that the waves are completely blocked by the glass thingie. Is your question about the glass door? Because then I have no clue.

Microwave…dish?

Here’s one of many such devices.

@asmonet microwave dish

Silly me, I totally overlooked that in favor of being retarded and assuming oven.
I need a break from Fluther, after the troll influx of 2009 I’m assuming everyone is deficient and picking the silliest ways to interpret things.

Yes. There are devices not unlike thermal imagers that work by detecting the backscatter of microwaves off dust particles in the air. I saw a satellite photo once that indicated the path of microwave radiation. Very cool.
Generally, ground based communication radiation intensity is very low. Way less than 1mw /cm2.

Cheers Lupin :) I’m doing a personal priject of a futuristic weapon that fires a concentrated microwave ray at a target, like an undetectable sniper rifle. Clearly this falls neatly into the realm of ‘supernatural physics’ as I doubt the generator needed to power such a device could be hand-held. Other problems like range, interference and power loss over distances also come into play. I only asked this to see if people could detect this microwave emission laser (I call it the Mel gun) while it fires.

The beam divergence is a function of the wavelength you’re beaming divided by the sending dish diameter. The more narrow the beam you want, the bigger the dish required.
I don’t know if you are actually trying to make something or not but one of the easiest sources is the Gunn diode in a microwave oven. There are plenty of amateur radio enthusiast projects you can investigate. Good luck.

No no, it’s more of a science-fiction novel idea. They allow you to bypass the annoying bits of the Laws of Physics and common sense which is what I like about it :P

Ok, I got it. Even if you are writing science fiction you should try to get it close. The energy you need will be dependent upon the object you are trying to damage. If you want to weaponize it you want something with at least a couple of megawatts. The pulse will need to be short so there is less time for heat loss due to heat transfer to the air. Go with a pulse shorter than 10 ms.

Here’s thought starter for you. Made by Sandia National Lab

Of course. The fact that this is set 500 years in the future gives me some artistic licence. Examples of projects before this are mebranes that convert thermal energy into raw electrical power and collars that block conscious instructions to the muscles, effectively making the bearer a temporary quadroplegic.

And cheers fot the link. Sounds painful :P

Something like your membrane exists already. It’s called a Peltier device, or Thermoelectric generator. The Dept of Energy is funding several projects with this principle. So far they are only 8–12 % efficient but they convert heat directly to electricity. Put one on your wood burning stove and you can charge flashlights, phones, and run small appliances.
The collar idea is really scary. I can envision a toroid with a 5–10 MHz electrical signal emitting an EMI disruptor into the spinal cord. It would be radio controlled by the parole and probation officers. Not as violent/ permanent as the Snowcrash devices.
I’d love to see your vision of what the future will hold. A big part of my job is make sure there is one.

military?
My sci-fi character is an R&D specialist at a military base with an unlimited budget :P

If I was, I wouldn’t/couldn’t tell you. No, I own an engineering consulting firm that has some contracts with state and federal governments. That’s as far as I’ll go on a (very) public site. You can PM me if you have specific questions
I’ll expect a signed copy of the book when it comes out.

This isn’t public :P No one watching is going to tell anyone…right guys? guys?

And it’s not actually a book per say. It’s hard to explain to someone who’se never heard of a forum RP, but basically it is a massive neverending story written live online. You create a character, then post things like

Sam cooks himself breakfast before sitting down across from Pete
“Hey Pete”

That sort of thing. It sounds pretty lame when you explain it, but it’s quite fun if you’re into narrative writing. As I said, my character is in charge of designing all the futuristic technology in this game/story and I like to have a strong scientific founding in my inventions.

I also start an engineering degree and a science degree at university next year before moving into something cutting edge in the engineering industry, like space exploration, weapon design or nanotechnology :)

Engineering is a great field to be in. Look around everything you see has been designed by an eneginner or was made by machines designed by engineers. People think all engineers are like Dilbert. Wrong. And women who are married to them really like it. The pay is great and everything in the house gets fixed better than original. Shhh. Don’t tell anyone.

Air or not, it doesn’t really matter for electromagnetic waves. For sound it’s different. You can detect microwave rays like any other electromagnetic waves either directly (appropriate sensor) or more indirectly (observing accumulating energy transfer). Of course some energy transfer is also involved with sensors.