I wanted to put some onions on the hotdogs that I cooked for lunch today. My insides become displeased when I eat raw onions, so I diced some onion and stuck them on a plate in the microwave. Just a few seconds after turning the microwave on, I heard loud buzzing. I turned around to see a fireworks show in the microwave :eek: . The onions had little burnt bits where they had arced. Does anyone know what’s going on?
I googled a bit and came up with this. I never really learned anything about this stuff in my undergrad physics classes (easy intro classes that all the pre-med kids took) so this is a bit over my head. Does it make sense? Can anyone dumb it down a bit for me?
I’ve done the ‘grape trick’ described on your link. I think that since the width of the grape/onion is approaching a significant portion of the microwave’s wavelength, different voltages appear on each side of the grape. Different voltages in contact via a conductor don’t get along and fireworks.
I was quite suprised at how bright and loud the grape halve in the microwave were the first time I tried it. Still wows my friends who haven’t seen it.
Hey! I thought it was just my microwave. I sometimes nuke a couple of chopped cloves of garlic in olive oil in a little pyrex bowl when I want to add them to a recipe. They often spark and arc, but no other veggies do this, IIRC. Of course, the only other veg I nuke is sliced carrots in water.
