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Combine a microwave, a grape and some science, shake well and have fun! Hacked Gadget reader Bladel sent in a few links to some videos they made of a similar experiment. They placed a candle under a glass in the microwave for some similar action.
“Take a seedless grape and slice it lengthwise, making sure (this part is important) not to cut all the way through, so you leave a little bit of skin connecting the two halves. Put it face-up in a microwave, and blam: fireworks!
So what the heck is going on in there? Grapes are chock-full of electrolyte, an ion-rich liquid (a.k.a. “grape juiceâ€) that conducts electricity. Each grape-half serves as a reservoir of electrolyte, connected together by a thin, weakly conducting path (the skin). Microwaves cause the stray ions in the grape to travel back and forth very quickly between the two halves. As they do this, the current dumps excess energy into the skin bridge, which heats up to a high temperature and eventually bursts into flame. At this point, the traveling electrons arc through the flame and across the gap, ionizing the air to a plasma (which itself can conduct electricity) and creating the bright flashes you see.”
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holly hell
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Nice…..
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chinkish
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How exactly is this dangerous?
He puts in there that this could “@*%* my shit up”
But I’m a physics major and unless you put a bunch of those grapes in there at the same time and you end up melting your microwave, you shouldn’t have any problem.
What could go wrong?
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for reals! you’re a physics major? OMFG can I have your autograph?
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a freak accident will @*%* your shit up allright. stuff happens. maybe the glass is weak or brittle, bursts viontley, cracks window and all of a sudden hot plasma and bits of glass hit you in the face. not pretty no?
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Actually the grape apparently (heard this on youtube videos about grape plasma) releases toxic fumes, thats why some people put a cup/glass over top of the grape. They take the glass out, put their hand underneath, and release it outside. One grape’s fumes arn’t toxic enough to hurt you, but a bunch of those suckers will, or will harm young children (with just a few).
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its only toxic if you use a match to make plasma in the micro wave…grape gases are not toxic