4 ms·
How Does Microwaving Grapes Create Plumes of Plasma? (2019)
- havaloc 11mo agoI'd like to think that some day in the near to mid future microwaving grapes or other spheres will be a way to start a fusion reactor or similar.
- meatmanek 11mo agoMaybe that's what the fuel pellets in The Expanse really are. https://expanse.fandom.com/wiki/Fuel_pellets https://expanse.fandom.com/wiki/Fuel_pellets
- mattbettinson 11mo agoThe what drive
- phendrenad2 11mo agoWhat is this diddy blud doing
- Dusseldorf 11mo agoPredates that awful guy being so well known. Unfortunate but doesn't seem worth retconning.
- georgefrowny 11mo agoGotta feel bad for all the Epsteins, Savilles, Adolfs and Isises. Ian Watkins the Steps guy really takes the cake for a name suddenly becoming rather unfortunate one day.
- bombcar 11mo agoDon’t worry about Adolf, he’s doing pretty well. https://www.euronews.com/2025/11/27/adolf-hitlers-namesake-triumphs-in-namibia-local-elections-fifth-time-in-a-row https://www.euronews.com/2025/11/27/adolf-hitlers-namesake-t...
- chasil 11mo agoThis is the fragment from the show on the origin of the Epstein fusion drive, leading to the immediate death of the inventor: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1lS_WxQ3zeU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1lS_WxQ3zeU The actor played the werewolf from the Canadian remake of Being Human.
- arjie 11mo agoThe PNAS article has more photos and videos https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1818350116 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1818350116 Looking online apparently this damages the magnetron, but no one has found out why precisely. There are some pop-culture explanations that the reflected energy overloads the magnetron and so on, but I don't think anyone has done the parallel what this team has done to actually say what happens to the magnetron. The PI has a website https://www.aaronslepkov.com/research https://www.aaronslepkov.com/research but nothing new about this stuff there. I'm curious. We know now why the plasma forms. I hope they're able to explain why the magnetron breaks.
- gsf_emergency_6 11mo agoArcing? How would one point camera at the magnetron and still keep it safe https://old.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3ittew/what_is_the_science_principle_which_prohibits_us/ https://old.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3ittew/what_is_... (The plasma acts as a sort of antenna-- we maybe don't want 2 magnetrons pointing at each other :)
- dzohrob 11mo agopro tip: do not try this on a microwave you want to keep. if you are successful you will likely cause a fire in your microwave. (it is fun, though).
- teeray 11mo agoNot to worry. In high school, my friend and I used the cafeteria microwave for this particular experiment. It was only a modest, baby fire… and some yelling from a teacher. Miraculously no detention. But science was done on that day.
- lostlogin 11mo agoI thought that this sort of science was usually beer fuelled, late in the party at someone else’s house.
- ASalazarMX 11mo ago"Remember kids, the only difference between screwing around and science is writing it down." If you did a report, it counts as science.
- Nicsal 11mo agoAs a friend of mine likes to say, ‘If nobody died while we were having fun, it wasn’t real fun. (i just put it here... https://pixelporto.com/ https://pixelporto.com/)
- jameslk 11mo ago> The key, it seems, is cramming the energy present in microwaves into a very tiny space—the point of contact between the objects in question. In your garden-variety microwave oven, microwaves have a wavelength of about 12.5 cm. But adjoining grapes (which are full of water that can absorb said microwaves) can concentrate the energy within into a region where the two spheres touch, which is no more than a couple millimeters wide. This creates a very strong, very condensed electric field at their interface—a pocket of ammo powerful enough to liberate negatively-charged electrons from, say, the salts naturally present in grapes and other fruits. This is the answer from the article. Not much else is said about the “how” piece This is the paper cited: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1818350116 https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1818350116
- asdfasvea 11mo agoEveryone do yourselves a favor--go to a thrift store and buy a few microwaves. Find a field, string a hundred feet of extension cords from an outlet and start microwaving all the things your not suppose to. My favorites: Ivory soap--bubbles outward; Grapes--see article; Incandescent lightbulb --lights up; Wine bottle--explodes, do this last Also lots of things you think would be bad do nothing: spray paint can, soup can, silverware, cup of gas with aluminum foil in it.
- tejtm 11mo agoHit the [empty] wine bottle with a propane torch till a spot is glowing red before you start nuking it ... room temp glass is an insulator, hot glass conducts!
- x______________ 11mo agoThose AOL CD's or any useless DVD are good candidates to nuke with scintillating results!
- jfim 11mo agoThe smell from those though is quite something
- londons_explore 11mo agoIf you still have AOL cd's, you might be a hoarder.
- tim333 11mo agoIt's an intersting question if this has also been tried with US embassies https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/03/10/russians-americans-microwaves-00086482 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/03/10/russians-a...
- lostlogin 11mo agoCD - nice crackling effect Draw on paper with a lead pencil - it burns out the pencil lines. Perfect for making pirate maps.
- ValiantFalstaff 11mo agoVeritasium has a great video on this: https://youtu.be/wCrtk-pyP0I https://youtu.be/wCrtk-pyP0I
- k_sze 11mo agoAnd this is when we realize that the title deserves a [2019] tag.
- thomas-shelby 11mo ago[dead]
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]