Slashdot Mirror
Everyday Objects Placed In a Microwave
Tom writes "Everyday objects can produce interesting effects when you stick them in a standard microwave. Grapes spark, matches create superheated plasma fireballs, mini lightning-bolts arc between sheets of aluminum foil, and soap both splits open and puffs up, creating a somewhat vulgar spurt of bubbly excrement that has to be seen to be fully appreciated. However, as cool as microwave experimentation can be, balls of plasma and the like are bad for both your eyes and your microwave, so it's probably best not to try these things at home. update This site apparently is behind a really nasty popup that I missed (yay Firefox) the first time through. You've been warned... here it is but given the overall rottenness of the pop-up, I guess I wouldn't bother. Some folks know no shame. My apologies to the readers.
I remember one time when I was on a weekend drinking session in Belgium, one of my friends proposed that microwaves only heat up objects with water in it. So the digital photocamera should withstand 10 seconds of radiation... I was allready passed out at the moment and learned from the disaster the next day.
A few months later I decided to check whether the flashcard still worked. It did! After viewing the photo's and movies we made before frying the camera, we could remember a lot more about that night:P
I'm tired of all the Microsoft/Novell stuff, NASA going to asteroids, the latest PS3 updates, etc.
FINALLY... information that matters to ME in such a way that the whole Britney/Fed-Ex stuff seems to matter to everyone in the US.
(and in case you think I'm being sarcastic and mod me -1 Troll... no, I'm serious...I am very excited about an article about putting various things in Microwaves...I like the patterns it makes on CDs, and I like the electrical storm that the "split grape" shows)
(and yeah, after Dave Barry mentioned toasters & pop-tarts...I did that TOO...my wife was not happy)
(now if only I could get my hands on some liquid Oxygen for the barbeque)
I once burned a hole in the top of a microwave admiring a big plasma blob that was created with cigar smoke. Fortunately it was a MW at work which I owned. I've also exploded numerous lightbulbs (small explosions) in the MW, zapped many cd's etc. Turning a clear pyrex bowl upside down and slightly propped up on one side on the MW turntable will help contain the plasma blob until the bowl breaks or melts. Very cool, I mean hot.
Kid you not. Green olives will spark in the microwave. Place three in a circle with the orange center (forgot what that's called) close to each other and nuke em. Sparks will fly!
1;
Better yet, take the ball of plutonium and form two hemispheres of beryllium (a neutron reflector) around it to fit closely. Put the ball in one hemisphere. Then, using a screwdriver as a spacer, lower the other hemisphere over the plutonium ball. Make sure not to slip. If you see a blue flash from Cerenkov radiation inside your eyeballs, write your will after you've stopped barfing.
(They actually did similar experiments at Los Alamos in the 40s. And, yes, the screwdriver did eventually slip. Not only once, but two people actually got "bit by the dragon."
-b.