|
Misspelled words used to find this page 4 of
6
eignstalashun, eignstellachun, iegnstawlaton, eignstallachon, iegnstalasion,
instalachun, iegnstellashon, installachon, iegnstallachun, iegnstawlation,
eignstalatiom, eignstellashun, eignstallashon, iegnstalaton, eignstarlachon,
iegnstellasion, instellachun, iegnstallashun, instarlachon, iegnstarlachun,
iegnstalation, eignstellatiom, eignstallasion, eignstarlashon, iegnstellaton,
eignstawlachon, iegnstallatiom, instelachun, iegnstarlashun, instawlachon,
iegnstawlachun, iegnstellation, eignstallaton, eignstarlasion,
eignstawlashon, eignstalachon, iegnstarlatiom, eignstallation,
iegnstawlashun, instalachon, iegnstalachun, instawlation, iegnstelation,
eignstarlaton, eignstawlasion, eignstalashon, eignstellachon, iegnstawlatiom,
eignstarlation, iegnstalashun, instellachon, iegnstellachun, instawlashon47
CHUPPAH chuppa, chupa, tuppa, tupa, chuppha, chupaph, chuppah, chpupah,
cuhppah, hcuppah, chupah48 DOME done, dome, dun, dume, doem,
dmoe, odme49 CIRCUS circus, cilcus, circis, cilcis, circu, cilcu,
c1rcus, circsu, cirucs, cicrus, cricus, icrcus, circs, cirus, cicus, crcus,
ircus50 KIT kit, keyt, k1t, kti, ikt 51 burning, burnig, burnng,
buring, bearning, bearnint, bulniegnt, burneigng, bearniegng, burneignt,
bearniegnt, bulneigng, beauning, bulneignt, beaunint, bearneigng, beauneigng,
bearneignt, beauneignt, burniegng, beauniegng, burniegnt, beauniegnt,
bulniegng, burnint, bulning, bulnint, bruning, brunig, bruing, brning,
buning, brunng, bruneigng, bluneigng, bruneignt, bluneignt, bruniegng,
bluniegng, bruniegnt, bluniegnt, brunint, bluning, blunint, urning, urnint,
ulning, ulnint, earning, earnint, burnen, bearneign, burnan, burniegn,
bulnin, bulniegn, bulnen, bearniegn, bulnan, beaunin, bearnin, beaunen,
bearnen, beaunan, bearnan, beauneign, burneign, burnin, beauniegn, bulneign,
burn1ng, burming, burnign, burnnig, burinng, bunring, ubrning tongue, tung,
togue, tonge, tomgue, tongeu, tonuge, tognue, tnogue, otngue, tongu, tonue,
tngue, ongue52 diarrhea, dog diarrhea, diarrhea causes, chronic diarrhea,
cat diarrhea, diarrhea in dogs, diarrhea types, bloody diarrhea, infant
diarrhea, green diarrhea, puppy diarrhea, black diarrhea, feline diarrhea,
canine diarrhea 53 constipation, conspitashon, constpation,
conspitasion, constiation, conspitatiom, constiption, constipachon,
constipaion, constipachun, constipatin, conspitachon, consti 2
Party party, partie, paltie, pardy, pardie, palty, patlie, patry,
patly, patrie, paryt, praty, aprty3 Tent tent, tant, teignt, tiegnt,
temt, tetn, tnet, etnt,5 Tarps traps, tlaps, tarps, talps, tarsp,
taprs, atrps6 fire fer, fire, fel, file, frie, frei, flie, flei,
fly, fry, pher, f1er, fier, ifre7 Retardant letaldand,
retarredente, letardiand, letardend, retardant, letartent, retardnt,
leturdand, leterdante, reterdent, retardante, letarredant, retaldant,
letardente, retardiant, letartand, retardat, returdante, returdant,
reterdand, retardiante, letarredand, retaldiant, retarredant, retardent,
retartante, retartant, returdiante, returdiant, reterdiand, retaldante, |
Microwave Magma:
a lava flow of liquid Pyrex
A guy who repairs microwave ovens once told me that an oven burned a
hole through a Pyrex measuring cup. The cup had boiled dry, and apparently
the microwaves attacked the glass. Yet glass is mostly transparent to
microwaves, so it shouldn't heat up. WTF?!!
Then I remembered a little trick that physics teachers perform. First
they connect a glass rod to 120VAC cables. Then they heat the glass rod with
a blow torch until it becomes red hot between the electrical connections.
Glass is full of sodium or boron ions (charged atoms,) and glass becomes a
conductor when softened. The ion charges become unlocked and movable. As
it's heated with the torch, the red hot glass suddenly draws significant
current from the electric outlet, it turns yellow hot, then white, then
incandescent blue-white. It burns in half (if your circuit breaker doesn't
trip first!) For a moment it acts like a light-bulb, but with a glass as the
glowing filament.
Hmmm. So... if something were to heat a tiny spot on the glass to
nearly red hot... the glass would become a good absorber of microwaves? It
then might quickly become white hot, heating the surrounding glass to red
hot, which would also absorb microwaves and begin heating. An "outbreak" of
melting would occur, like a microwave-powered forest fire slowly moving
through the glass. It only needs a trigger. (Also the oven needs to be empty
of every other object, otherwise most of the wattage will end up elsewhere,
rather than in the glass we wish to melt.)
Torch a little hotspot...
|
...pop it in the ol' nuker
|
...sit back and enjoy.
|
It works great! Just use some method to heat a small spot on the rim of a
pyrex custard dish to red hot, slam it instantly into the oven and hit
"start." The tiny red glow will increase wildly. Just remember to shut it
down before the advancing "lava flow" runs to the bottom of your oven and
burns off the paint. Obviously this is somewhat dangerous as a demo. If you
don't already know the hazards (such as trapped internal strains and
high-velocity shrapnel), then messing with this procedure would be extremely
Unwise.
LAVA CHAMBER:
I found a hunk of porus red rock used as "decorative stone" under some
shrubbery. I'm told that it's probably slag from the iron industry. Would
the stuff turn conductive when hot? Lets find out! I put it on a small
overturned flower pot in the oven, then heated a small spot to orange heat,
then slammed the door and started it up. The orange heat died away. It
seemingly went dead. But then my intuition kicked in: wouldn't the surface
radiate away the energy, while deeper within, the material was still
absorbing microwaves like crazy? The hot region... should MIGRATE! It should
move into the center of the rock where plenty of RF is heating it, but where
it's surrounded with nice insulating, non-microwave-absorbing rock. Let's
let it cook and see what happens. Hmmm. Inside the pores in the rock I see
something red. Now it's yellow. Now there's a crevice. The whole side of the
small rock splits open, collapses, revealing the interior of a white hot
miniature magma chamber. An orange river of magma pours forth! I stop the
oven, and the flow halts before it gets to the bottom. Through the open door
I can feel the radiating heat on my face. Hope it doesn't set the painted
metal walls on fire!
REAL MAGMA:
Next I triggered some heating in a small piece of obsidian. I hoped to re-liquify
some actual lava, rather than melting the manmade materials above. But I
didn't remember an important fact: Hawaiian volcanos slurp outwards, but
magma from American volcanos is more like a white hot jet engine filled with
powdered glass... because American lava is full of dissolved gas. Sure
enough, the black obsidian melted in the microwave oven. Sure enough, it
expanded into a large white puff of glass foam, sort of like a popped
popcorn kernel.
BEER BOTTLE:
Find a bottle that's short enough to stand upright in the oven. I recommend
"Red Stripe" Jamaican ale. (Grin.) Yes, with care you can heat a spot on the
glass bottle to dull red heat but without shattering the bottle. And yes,
the microwave output of your oven will then raise it to incandescent white
hot, melting a hole right through which grows larger and larger. And yes,
during cooling the bottle will shatter, launching hot fragments all over the
kitchen. Keep the oven door closed. If the bottle doesn't break, wear gloves
and whack it with a screwdriver while the door is almost shut.
Also see on Usenet:
Molten lava in your microwave
LIGHTNING STORM
NOTICE: this one requires a source of welders' Argon.
Hobbyists discovered the joys of
high voltage Argon a few
years ago. Shoot foot-long lighting bolts from your fingers!
Ah, since a microwave oven is a high voltage environment, what will
happen? I tried nuking some pure argon in a round flask. Nuthin. RATS! But
years later at a hobbyist meeting I
wondered what would happen if the "plasma pool" experiment was performed in
pure argon? I set up a piece of Carbon Veil (carbon fibers) in a shot glass,
inside a trash bag, inside my microwave oven. I inflated it with argon and
ran the oven. A spherical white lightning ball winked into existence at the
carbon, then rose upwards buzzing. Yay! The Argon needs a sharp conductive
"igniter" to get going.
During WEIRD GENIUS REAL
SCIENCE I tried some extremely pure argon in a spherical glass flask
with a tiny piece of aluminum foil as an igniter inside. (The argon used
previously had quite a bit of air mixed in.) Hit the button. WAAAA! THE
WHOLE GLASS FLASK FILLS WITH BLUE WHITE LIGHTNING! Tiny bright lightning
filaments! And afterwards the flask was full of transparent orange gas.
So next, I put a little bit of argon in a white kitchen trash bag,
threw in a piece of carbon fiber, then squeezed out the argon (to flush any
nitrogen totally out.) Then I filled half the bag with argon, tied it off
with a plastic tie, and stuffed it into the oven. Close the door. Hit the
start button. Ten seconds of stunning noise, lights, and patterns, and the
small audience broke into spontaneous applause, because...
- First the ENTIRE OVEN FILLED WITH JITTERING LIGHTING BOLTS
- Next the bag started melting and collapsing, holes appeared
- The lightning spewed right into the air through the holes as the
bag shrunk
- The lightning remaining in the bag turned into bright turquoise
plasma
- As the bag entirely collapsed, brilliant plasma amoebas crawled
frantically around, burning the bag and finding every last bit of
remaining argon.
- Silence. Darkness. The stunned crowd cheers.
The patterns are easily visible with white kitchen trash bags,
although a clear plastic bag might work better. Argon can be had from any
welders' suppply outlet, and a tankful costs about $20... but you need a
constant-flow regulator. These cost about $70 new. And there's a rental
charge if you don't buy your own metal tank. But man, it's worth it.
They're Heeeeere!
Years ago I was living with roommates, and while working in the
kitchen I noticed that the fluorescent light over the sink was about 8
inches long. A light went on in my brain ;) because I'd always wondered what
would happen if a fluorescent tube was placed in a microwave oven. In theory
the standing-wave RF energy should have enough voltage to ignite the mercury
vapor into a plasma, and the lamp should light. But standard ovens put out
at least 500 watts, so the tiny fluorescent tube should light quite
brightly, to say the least. I'd never before encountered a fluorescent tube
which was short enough to fit in an oven. So, I pulled out the tube, stuck
it in the oven, said "THEY'RE HEEEEEERE!" , and punched the ON switch. Sure
enough, the kitchen was lit up by a blue-white blaze of light coming from
the front of the microwave oven. I only let it run for about 1 second, but
this was enough to heat the fluorescent tube so it was too hot to touch.
(Yeah yeah yeah, I know I'm reeeeeally old, and most young
whippersnappers never saw all those ads for the movie "Poltergeist," where
the young daughter looks at the screen of the misbehaving TV set and says
"they're here." )
Candle spews
"Ball Lightnings"
In the late 1990s, someone on the
Cold Fusion research forum
mentioned a rumor: that if you
cook a lit
candle in your microwave oven, it will emit large buzzing gouts of
plasma which will crawl around on the upper surface inside the oven. Yowza!
So a large number of people tried this... without success. Only one person
saw it happen, but nobody else could duplicate it.
Finally someone on another forum discovered the secret: high oven
power, and carbon impurities!
If your microwave oven can put out significantly more than 500 watts, and if
you stick a bunch of charred toothpick fragments in the top of a lit
candle... then sure enough, the candle will intermittently spit out orange
"flames" made of plasma. The plasma rises immediately to the top of the oven
and crawls around. When it winks out, the candle will emit another one.
Over many months, several people discovered easier ways to trigger the
production of these "microwave plasmoids," including using graphite rods
from mechanical pencils, or even using a lit cigarette. Check out the
various links.
Cuppa burning
plasma
Electric arcs can develop inside a microwave. The strength of the
e-field inside the oven chamber can be described as "high voltage." Once a
high-volt electric arc has been triggered, it will absorb energy from the
microwave field. Sometimes it can break loose and fly around the oven like a
"ball lightning." One way to trigger this effect is described above: place a
lit candle inside the oven. Use a wide and stubby "votive candle" and stick
some short pieces of charred toothpick into the top of the candle to supply
some "seeds" of carbon (or ions?) for initial arc attachment.
A wandering electric arc can be captured in an upside-down container,
J.L Naudin has some GIFs of this effect on
his site. I tried
it with a Pyrex measuring cup and it works! The cup became quite hot after
only a few seconds of contact with the "plasma", so perhaps you shouldn't
run it for very long. Or, if you have an old oven that you don't mind
destroying, find out what happens when you run it for many minutes. Maybe
you can melt the cup into incandescent glass-lava. [NEW: after about 30
seconds the cup goes "snap" and falls apart into shards. Apparently the
plasma is as hot as a blow torch, and it shatters the glass.]
I supported the inverted cup-measure on three small paper cups. My
candle was about 1in tall and 1in wide. I stuck several pieces of charred
toothpicks into the top, lit the candle, then placed it below the glass
container and shut the door.
The oven ran for a short time before the candle flame began creating
eruptions of plasma. (If yours doesn't work, move the candle to another spot
in order to locate a "hotspot.") Some of the plasma flickers blew away
because of the oven fan and were lost, but finally one rose into the glass
mug. The "plasma pool" fills half the cup and makes a loud 120Hz buzzing
noise. It initially is dull orange, but then it changes color to pinkish
blue. This color resembles the color of a glassblower's torch when
borosilicate glass is being heated. Berhaps it's boron emission lines, or
perhaps the color is associated with nitrogen/oxygen emission.
NEW
EXPERIMENT:
I used honey to adhere some salt (NaCl) to the inner surface of the pyrex
cup in hopes that I'd see some yellow Sodium light. This works well. At
first the captured plasma blob turned pinkish blue, but then a wave of
brilliant yellow/orange light passed through it. This effect repeated
several times, and I suspect that salt crystals are falling off the glass
surface and passing through the plasma, releasing sodium ions as they go.
Other salts to try: salt replacement (potassium chloride), copper sulfate,
borax, epsom salts, perhaps even strontium chloride for red color. Search
for info about fireworks colorants.
IMPROVEMENT:
See Matt Crowley's paper on
Bigger
Better Balls
LESS
WISE EXPERIMENT:
Years ago there was a news story about a new kind of efficient light source:
a quartz capsule of sulfur which was blasted with microwaves. What will
happen if the above salt crystals are replaced with powdered sulfur? Blasts
of intense white light? I haven't tried it yet. [NOW I DID! No brilliant
light. Instead, the plasma forms, then the sulfur reacts with air to create
a cloud of acrid gas. Sulfuric acid?!! Suddenly I find that I can't breathe
the air in my kitchen. Hold nose, turn on the fans, and leave the house at a
run!]
To try next: put a tiny hole in the upside-down
glass cup (or perhaps use a chemist's funnel.) Will the pool of plasma drain
out upwards through the hole? Or will the oven keep making more plasma as
bits leak out? If I had a ceramic tube, could I guide the plasma through a
hole and outside the oven? Home-built plasma torch!!
Snifter
of Neon
While working on a microwave article for an encyclopedia decades ago,
it crossed my mind that it might be possible to map the pattern of RF energy
in the oven by filling it with low pressure gas. The gas would glow in
proportion to the RF electric field in various parts of the oven's volume.
(There are better ways to do this, some below.) This would be an involved
bit of construction to pull off, so I did the next best thing. I grabbed a
big bag of NE-2 neon pilot lights and stuck them into a wineglass, hoping
that this small volume would show some patterns when the glass was rotated
by the oven's turntable. I filled the glass with water, to give the oven
something to heat so it wouldn't be damaged by the small load presented by
the bulbs. I ran the oven, and the bulbs glowed REALLY BRIGHT. As the
turntable turned, various bulbs extinguished and others lit up. However, I
could see no coherent patterns. When I emptied the glass, I discovered that
several of the bulbs were stuck together. The short metal leads of some
bulbs had melted into the glass of adjacent ones. Also, several of the bulbs
had small holes melted through their glass, and were full of water.
Apparently the plasma temperature was so high that it heated the glass to
melting. Or, possibly some corona discharges developed between the inside
and outside of the bulbs and burned through the glass. Hot glass is
conductive, so the arc would continue once started.
Foil-eating
Plasma
I'd seen electrical flames produced by microwave ovens before. In the
strong RF field, even the tiniest flame will absorb a large percent of the
many-hundred-watts oven output and grow large. Thousand watt candle? So, I
decided to try initiating an electrical flame-discharge intentionally. I
tore aluminum foil into 2" squares, crumpled it lightly so it didn't lay
flat, then placed it on the oven turntable with the two foil pieces adjacent
to each other and in gentle contact. Sure enough, when the oven was turned
on there was a loud buzz and a bright light, and a flame erupted from the
contact point between the two pieces of foil. When I looked in on them, I
found that the brief flame had eaten a bite about the size of a dime out of
both pieces.
Note: on some ovens the air from the fan will blow the foil around.
DON'T SEAL UP THE FAN OUTLET!!! Instead, tape the foil down to the glass
turntable. The air from the fan is hot because that fan is being used to
cool the magnetron tube. If you block up the fan, the microwave generator
will have a meltdown!
Miscellaneous
Light Bulb in the Microwave
My 8" fluorescent tube isn't the only light producer. Another classic
u-oven experiment is to cook a standard incandescent bulb briefly on "high".
A 100W bulb will light up with more than normal brightness.
If you have a newer oven with rating over 800W, include a glass of
water in the oven, otherwise the filament support wires will instantly melt
and spoil your fun. Even with the water, don't run this for very long, since
ALL the lightbulb wires glow white hot, not just the filament. This could
shatter the bulb. For best results, buy a transparent bulb rather than a
frosted bulb, then watch what happens inside. If you include a glass of
water, the bulb makes purple discharges. If you DON'T include water, the
bulb makes many colors as the metal wires melt or turn into incandescing
vapor. I've had the glass of bulbs be melted and burst *outwards.*
Apparently the pressure in the bulb rapidly becomes higher than atmospheric
pressure.
There is an interesting bit of physics here: first the filament and
its supporting wires glow white hot, but then they cool again. Bright blue
beams leap from the tips of the filament supports and extend outwards to the
glass, with bright "stars" of incandescence at the tips of the wires (many
watts of Saint Elmo's Fire, like Nikola Tesla's 'carbon button' lamps!) This
is a plasma discharge in the argon/nitrogen gas that is found inside all
standard light bulbs. It's similar to
Plasma Globe devices
such as "eye of the storm", but 500 watts worth, which heats the glass red
hot, and may melt the tips of the steel filament supports, or soften the
glass so it is crushed by external air pressure! Another one: elgersmad
suggests trying xenon flash tubes.
Note that most of these objects become intensely hot, so don't prop
them up on a plastic object. And as usual, if this damages the microwave
generator in your oven, don't come whining to ME! You know the risks, or you
wouldn't be messing with this stuff. Go buy a huge old microwave oven for $5
at a garage sale, experiment with THAT.) Better check for door-leaks first!
Mapping the
Energy Nodes
Microwave ovens cook unevenly because a pattern of standing waves
forms inside the oven chamber, and the pattern creates an array of hotspots
throughout the oven's volume. An operating frequency of around 2000 MHZ will
produce a wavelength of around 10cm, and the hotspots should be at halfwave
points, or every 5cm, but in a complex 3D pattern. I'd always wondered how
this could be visualized. Perhaps fill the entire oven with raw eggwhites,
then let the oven cook them into an interesting, white, rubbery 3D
sculpture? Or fill the oven with solid wax, and let the RF hotspots melt out
a 3D structure of holes? Finally someone figured it out:
Alistair Steyn-Ross and Alister Riddell, STANDING WAVES IN A
MICROWAVE OVEN, The Physics Teacher, October 1990, Vol. 28 No. 7 pp474-476
Steyn-Ross and Riddell were stimulated to investigate the pattern of
melted cheese on a "mu-oven" cooked pizza. They hit on the use of Cobalt
Chloride soaked paper. When wet, CoCl solution is pink, but turns sky- blue
when dry. (It's sometimes sold as "weather indicator" paper.) They
discovered that this worked beautifully, and a large square of the paper
would give varying patterns of pink and blue when supported at different
heights on a tile of cork within the oven. The pattern is temporary, and
disappears as the paper dries entirely. Also, cobalt chloride is poisonous,
and should not be used around young kids.
More recently, J. E. Slone of Virginia tells me that thermal FAX paper
can be used for the same thing if is is slightly moistened. When placed on
an insulating plate within the microwave oven, the hotspots heat the water
to boiling which creates a permanent image of the standing wave pattern.
Kool! Both of the above experiments will only work if your oven lacks a
"stirrer," a fan which wiggles the hotspots and spreads them out. If your
oven has a rotating turntable, it usually lacks a stirrer. |
|
| |
main page
Danger: Coffee
Explosion
You warm up a mug of water for a few minutes in the microwave oven. You
take it out, then you dump in some powdered coffee, tea, sugar, etc...
DOOSH! The water explodes in roiling foam, spraying boiling water all
over your bare skin, and sending you to the emergency ward. I hate it when
that happens.
Heating up water or coffee in a microwave oven can be dangerous,
especially if you use a ceramic mug or clean glassware. Water sometimes
"explodes" because the oven heats it to a temperature that's far hotter than
the normal boiling point. When this occurs, any tiny disturbance can trigger
some violent boiling. The stored energy of the above-100C water is released
as a steam explosion. This DOESN'T happen when water is boiled in a pot on
the stove. The difference: a stove creates small hotspots on the bottom of
the pot which are far above 100C degrees, and these hotspots continuously
trigger a roiling boil which cools the rest of the water down to 100C.
Whenever there are bubbles of steam zipping up through the water, those
bubbles provide some surfaces which allow the water to make more steam, and
as steam is created, the water cools down to 100C. In fact, water can only
"boil" at places where the water surface touches a gas. If there are no
bubbles already formed, then "boiling" will only happen at the top surface
of the water and not down within it. So, whenever you heat water on the
stove, the extreme temperature at the bottom of the pot causes tiny bubbles
to form. The boiling water fills those bubbles with steam. The roiling
bubbles act to cool the water and keep its temperature at (or below)
100C/212F degrees.
Things are different in a microwave oven. The water gets hot but the
container usually does not. There are no tiny "boiling-bubbles" triggered by
a hot stove burner. Without those bubbles to cool it, the temperature of the
water can rise far higher than 100C. We call this "superheated water."
Superheated water is just waiting for some sort of trigger which will let
bubbles form and allow boiling to commence. If the water becomes hot enough,
a few bubbles will appear near the top, but these quickly rise and burst,
and the water isn't cooled much at all. Even if your mug of water is
bubbling slightly, don't trust it, since its temperature has risen so high
above 100C that bubbles are appearing spontaneously. If some unwitting
victim should pour powder into the superheated water, this will carry
thousands of tiny air bubbles into the water. Each of these micro-bubbles
expands into a large steam bubble, and the result is a huge "explosion" of
hot froth. It's just like dumping ice cream into rootbeer, but the froth can
be so violent that the hot water sprays into the air.
Even more dangerous is to boil water TWICE in a microwave oven. Most
containers have tiny scratches in their surfaces, and these crevices contain
air. When you heat water, these tiny air pockets will provide a constant
stream of "seed bubbles" which allow normal boiling to occur. However, the
air in these tiny bubbles within the cracks quickly gets replaced by steam.
The crevices still produce seed-bubbles, but if you turn off the oven and
let the water cool, the steam in the cracks will collapse and vanish, and
the crevices fill with water. The seed bubbles are gone. If you now turn the
oven on again, the water will superheat. Boiling your coffee twice can erase
the bubble "nucleation centers." If your luck is bad, the water will
superheat to a very high temperature, then explode violently when a single
huge steam bubble spontaneously appears. If that bubble should start out at
the bottom of the container, the explosion can fling the entire volume of
hot water upwards. A few people have reported that sometimes the explosion
is so violent that it makes a sharp noise, and can even crack a glass
container.
MOST DANGEROUS:
- BOILING PLAIN WATER...
- IN A CLEAN SHINY CONTAINER (MUG OR PYREX)...
- BOILING IT MORE THAN ONCE (LET IT COOL BETWEEN BOILINGS)...
- COOKING IT EXTRA LONG (STORES LOTS OF ENERGY IN SUPERHEATING)...
- REMOVING IT IMMEDIATELY (NO CHANCE TO COOL DOWN)
- DUMPING IN SUGAR, CREAMER, A TEABAG, ETC. (SUDDENLY ADDS SEED
BUBBLES)
|
If you avoid the items on this list, you'll probably never see a "coffee
explosion." On the other hand, the above list is a "recipe for disaster."
DON'T BE TEMPTED TO FOLLOW IT. Instead, here's a simple, HAZARDOUS
experiment to try. Wear safety goggles, and don't heat the water for an
excessive amount of time.
Fill a clean mug about 1/3 full of clean water (DON'T FILL IT TO THE
TOP!), then heat it for about five minutes in the microwave oven. Now
carefully take it out and immediately plunk it firmly onto the tabletop
(whack it hard, but not so hard that it breaks.) The boiling water will
burst into froth. DON'T BURN YOURSELF! The superheated water acts almost
like warm carbonated cola: if you strike the container, it will foam up
instantly.
Another trick: heat up the water to boiling again, remove it from the
oven, then immediately insert a dry wooden coffee-stirrer, or a wooden
popcicle stick into the water. Foosh! The water boils violently. The dry
wood contributes a layer of air to the water, and the air fills with steam
and expands into a mass of hot foam.
Another: heat up the water again, then pour a little bit of warm tap
water into the superheated water. The water suddenly boils violently! It
turns out that the tap water is full of tiny bubbles. If you let the tap
water stand around for half an hour before pouring it into the superheated
water, all the tiny bubbles in the tap water will have risen and popped, and
the bubble-free water won't trigger any violent boiling. And if you then
dissolve some salt into your "bubble-free" tap water, again that water WILL
trigger boiling, since the salt contributes invisibly small bubbles.
Hmmmm. I wonder if de-ionized distilled water in a REALLY CLEAN container
will superheat even more than normal? (DANGER, SUPERHEATED WATER CAN BURST
OUT OF THE MUG AND SCALD YOU!) I wonder what would happen if we used
vacuum-degassed water, or if we put some dishwashing soap in the water...
SAFETY WARNING: Treat microwave-boiled water with respect. It can
"explode" without warning. You can "defuse" it by CAREFULLY inserting a dry
wooden stir-stick or toothpick in order to trigger boiling. Don't dump any
sugar in a mug of superheated coffee, or the spewing foam *really* gets
violent. Don't try to boil liquids more than once, since that removes the
tiny bubbles on the container surfaces which act as boiling centers. If
you're going to re-heat a previously heated mug of liquid, cook it with a
wooden stir-stick or wood chopstick which allows it to boil normally. Always
allow bubbling liquids to cool for several minutes before adding anything to
them (or perhaps reach over and carefully drop in a dry toothpick or a
wooden stir-stick to force them into normal boiling mode.)
PS
Certain types of foods have no bubbles inside, and these foods will
superheat and "explode." For example, never cook a whole unbroken egg in a
microwave oven. The explosion isn't just messy, sometimes it's violent
enough to smash up the inside of your oven or tear off the door. Paste-like
canned foods easily superheat since they're too thick to allow streams of
tiny bubbles to form. Canned spaghetti sauce is famous for superheating and
causing those "BOOMF" mini-explosions that spray the sauce all over the
oven. (I wonder if there's any cure for the "Spaghetti-O explosions?" Maybe
whip the stuff with a fork before cooking, so lots of air is added? Mix it
with dry bread crumbs or other material that's full of air?)
CLASSICS
There are many other excellent microwave demos on other
sites. Stand up a CD in your oven and nuke it for about five seconds. Or
convert Marshmallow Peeps into monsterous mutants. Slice a grape almost in
half and watch it emit a six inch blowtorch of flaming plasma. Make showers
of sparks with steel wool. Swell a chunk of Ivory soap into a blob of
crunchy snow. Gamble on racing grapes.
Google microwave oven search on:
Untried
experiments
Generate a glob of soot from burning paint thinner. Replace the air
within the soot ball with pure oxygen, or ozone, or nitrogen, or argon.
Place it within an active microwave oven. Is a Ball Lightning plasmoid
created?
Light a candle and place it in the oven. Does the RF energy make the
candle flame grow huge? If you place various metal salts on the wick, will
the colored candle flame absorb RF energy better? Or, try running a wire up
through the candle so its tip is in the flame. Any effects? There are
reports of "ball lightning"
being generated from candles, burning toothpicks, and burning plastic in
Microwave Ovens.
Partially inflate a balloon with argon. Release the argon to purge the
bit of air that was in the balloon, then fill it with pure argon. Carefully
insert a wire up into the balloon so the wire tip is near the center of the
sphere. Tie off the balloon. Place it on a plate in a microwave oven and
turn it on. This should create a 700 watt "plasma ball" effect. However, it
might also pop the balloon instantly. The tip of the wire will probably be
melted by the intense corona. Anyone for "Kirlian photography" which
vaporizes the object being photographed? If the balloon pops instantly, try
the same thing by using a plexiglas box. (note: glue fumes wreck the effect,
so hold the plexiglas together with tape.)
Try the infamous
Microwave Powered Water-Fueled Lawn Mower. Do huge pulses of EM really
extract energy from a mysterious source within water?
Dr. Graneau says that
high current discharge through liquid water produces numerous anomalies.
Laugh if you wish, but only the real world can supply the real answer. "Let
the experiment be Made!"
More and weirder non-microwave
experiments
|
|
Microwave oven Ball Lightning
Microwave oven chemistry experiments
Misc sites
|
|