>>11709268>>11709279>>11709289>>11709292>>11710450Typically /sci/ is smart enough to have answered this, but I guess I'll take the stand today.
Microwaves heat water because they are pretty big (mm to cm) so they have the size to literally flip entire water molecules up and down, heating them up by moving them.
The reason why visible light doesn't work is because the wave itself is far too small to move the entire molecule (nanometers) yet doesn't have enough energy to knock off electrons. And infrared wouldn't work simply because the infrared typically spoken about is smaller than microwaves (micrometers) and is even weaker than visible light, so it certainly won't be ionizing anything.
tl;dr the size of the wavelength matters, and microwaves just have the right properties to move water. If radio waves had those properties, then our "microwaves" would be called "radiowaves"
