That microwave oven in your home: heat your leftovers, boil water for coffee, or pop your popcorn. It is a highly efficient appliance for cooking. But place a fork or aluminum foil in the oven and sparks fly. Doesn’t metal reflect microwaves? But microwaves are the higher frequency cousin of radio waves. An induction furnace is well know for the heat treatment/melting of metals. Lasers and infrared also melt metals, so why not microwaves? Actually, you do heat metals with your microwave. That fork or aluminum foil can get very hot. Recent developments in the processing of ceramics have provided a new paradigm in the processing of metals. Microwaves have demonstrated high efficiency in the heating of water in the microwave oven. But microwaves also heat some ceramics much more easily than others. This is due to the molecular structure of various materials. Microwaves heat via: 1) dipole rotation and collisions, 2) ionic current and resistance, 3) electronic current and resistance and 4) other nonlinear processes. By controlling the form of microwave heating, very high temperatures can be achieved with relatively low microwave power. The melting of aluminum, various steels, copper, and numerous other metals has been demonstrated. One aspect of the new paradigm for microwave melting of metals is the heating efficiency. Comparisons with inductive, resistive, and combustion furnaces will illustrate the differences with microwave furnaces.