Microwave the grapes?!

Factual Questions
1

I was at a kitchen science/Gags webpage and I saw an interesting one. You take a grape and cut it in half, not all the way but just enough that you leave the skin on one side intact, you then open it (like a book) and lay the flat side on a microwave safe plate and nuke it for a couple of seconds. Now everyone go and try this before I tell you what happens…
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Well so why the hell does that happen? It really make no sense (esp since the grapes are connected (any electricity should just run between them, unless maybe the skin is an insulator or something like that) any ideas?

In case you didn’t actaully go and try this, after you put them in the microwave and turn it on sparks start jumping from the grapes, it’s pretty cool.

Formerly known as Nec3f on the AOL SDMB

2

I"m going to the store to stock up on grapes! Why did you wait until fter the 4th of July to tell us?

Zymurgist

3

I just tried it. That’s pretty cool. It may be true that the skin is not as good of a conductor as the flesh of the grape, but why is electricity produced in the first place? The grape is just water, cellulose, sugar, and some salts… right? Hmmmm… interesting.

4

Well I went to go try it again (I was going to try it with grapes that weren’t connected (this would bring some insight into the previous ideas) and I don’
t have any grapes (would someone else please try it) anyways I saw an orange hmmm… So I tried that and while hal;f expecting to see a HUGE spark that would destroy my parents microwave (don’t know why I tried it if I though that would happen though) nothing happened at all.

BTW just as my own personal disclaimer, I have no idea as to if this will do any damage to your microwave (hasn’t hurt any of mine or my friends yet). Remember you are trying this at your own risk, so don’t come to me when someone blows off a limb becuse it turns into a homemade land mine.

Formerly known as Nec3f on the AOL SDMB

5

Ok…

With the grapes completely severed, and the grapes separated by about 1 centimeter… nothing.

With the grapes completely severed, and the grapes touching… 4th of July.

With one whole grape… nothing.

With two whole grapes separated by about 1 centimeter… nothing.

With two whole grapes touching each other… Kablooie! You’ll be hearing from my lawyer. JK Only sparks.

6

Ok…

With two cats separated by 1 cm, nothing.

With two cats, tails just touching…

Gary

“Eh, honey…where’s the 409?”

7

Well, being a curious sort I just needed to run this through www.ask.com and the complete experiment with photos, instructions, etc on doing this is: http://www.sci.tamucc.edu/~pmichaud/grape/
In case you all want to check the experiment out first.
There was another page with some guy who put light bulbs in his microwave and they umm light up real bright safely [although only a few seconds].

When in doubt, run the question thru ask.com.

8

ALso the theory on it:

http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Temple/3717/Geeks/eegrape.htm

thanks to ask.com