How to measure the Speed of Light with a bar of chocolate and your microwave

Sometimes science is super simple—and super tasty. A classic science experiment demonstrating how to use your microwave and a bar of chocolate to measure the speed of light is making the rounds, with easy-to-follow instructions for replicating the test at home.

Chocolate at the speed of light sounds like a pandemic claustrophobia dream, but it’s the mechanism that propels this simple experiment. If you don’t like chocolate, you can also do the experiment with a slice of American cheese. (Also, the chocolate or cheese is still fine to eat after you zap and measure it).

You can measure the speed of light at home using just a microwave and a bar of chocolate! pic.twitter.com/9kyZM45uNY

— David Berardoooooo 👻 (@CentrlPotential) September 20, 2020

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Here’s how the experiment works, courtesy of David Berardo, an astrophysics Ph.D. student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. First, you remove the turntable from the microwave so you can put in a plate that will stand still while the microwave runs. Then you put in a bar of chocolate or slice of cheese for about 20 seconds, enough to see the effects begin to take shape.

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