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Everyday Objects Placed In a Microwave

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the works-for-mythbusters dept.

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.

3 of 205 comments (clear)

  1. Photocamera by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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

  2. plasma by cool_arrow · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  3. Re:Fun Mr Wizard experiment by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Place a six inch ball of pultonium wrapped in one inch of plactic expolsives in microwave. Heat on high until plutonium atoms fuse.

    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.