• JATth@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    Sure it’s terrifying, but you can start a sparky plasma show in a resilient enough container and keep it going for hours and the microwave won’t break. (except maybe overheat.) The microwave will be fine as long as the arcs don’t reach the waveguide cover. (which would risk burning/shorting the magnetron.)

    I have done the microwave grape plasma trick myself and started an arc in a microwave. The current between the two objects goes through a very narrow point, which is enough vaporize the contact point to plasma. This then can grow as the microwave continues to pump more energy into the spark.

    • Hackworth@sh.itjust.works
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      2 hours ago

      You can also do this by blowing out a match and putting it under an upturned glass shortly before microwaving it. Turns the carbon vapor into plasma, or some such. Though the time I tried it, it escaped the glass and melted the microwave’s lining. Don’t recommend if it’s an appliance ya care about.

      • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        Nah, even weak magnets bunch up really easy, at least to make a solid sheet with noticable crystaline-like deformities being the only exception to a contiguous layout.

        Those balls are sitting way too loosely with way too many random gaps to even possibly be magnetized.

  • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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    21 hours ago

    Comically enough, many spoons put in the microwave would be fine. Not recommending you try it, but the issue comes from arcs. And spoons don’t have areas where arcs can occur naturally, like a fork.

      • potoo22@programming.dev
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        21 hours ago

        To my understanding, the arcing is caused by hard edges. E.g. all the elections could be at the end of a fork’s tines, and EM field forces them to jump to another tine instead of going through the root of the fork.

        Since spoons are rounded, they don’t need to jump. I don’t think the material plays much of a role in arcing other than providing resistance. They would heat up, but they’d melt before they arc. Still, they can arc from one spoon to another spoon when there multiple spoons close enough.

        • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
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          2 hours ago

          EM fields concentrate from the edges, like how magnetic field lines concentrate around a paperclip hanging from a magnet. It’s not about charged particles being able to retreat, but that the EM field will straight up be stronger in those areas.

        • disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world
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          20 hours ago

          Absolutely. It’s far more likely with a fork, but deep enough or well placed scratches/gouges on a spoon could create the condition.

          • onslaught545@lemmy.zip
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            14 hours ago

            It’s unlikely period. Electroboom did a video on it and had one hell of a hard time getting any metal to arc in the microwave, even balled up aluminum foil.

            • emeralddawn45@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              13 hours ago

              Well that just doesnt make sense, theres only been a couple times ive accidentally put metal in a microwave, but i knew it immediately when i did. I wonder if theyve made changes to the way they function.

              • Caveman@lemmy.world
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                11 hours ago

                There has been no change in the way microwaves work aside from circuit board and adding an inverter to control the power of the microwaves. Microwaves function the same as a laser pointer except the emit photons with a frequency of 2.45GHz.

      • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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        21 hours ago

        I’m lazy and don’t use tik tok, but from what I’ve seen when my spouse is on there this would make an interesting tik tok channel (is that what they are called?). Spoon Spark, where someone collects a shit ton of spoons and people take their guess on whether or not they’ll spark or even start a fire. Maybe get different power levels of microwaves to increase to throughout the tournament.

        The E-Waste Arc Spark competition.

      • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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        20 hours ago

        Yeah I know it uses waves towards the center but they are throughout the microwave, yet people don’t questions the holes in the metal siding, which are metal circles. So if arcing was an issue on smooth sutfaces, it should happen there as well.

        • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
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          1 hour ago

          Not really. The case should be grounded, so even if it were causing a charge differential in the metal, it’d just make a current to ground (or back to the neutral magnetron pole if it’s not grounded). Although ‘current back to ground’ is likely misstating it, since it’d be an AC induced current that wouldn’t be moving too far and ultimately just heat up the metal in place without electrons doing much more than wobbling about.

          Metal in the microwave can create arcs because the metal is surrounded by the microwaves with no conductive path anywhere, so charges can just slosh around more and more as power is applied. Get a large enough charge built up in some area that it has the potential to jump through the air to a less charged place, and bam, arc.

          It’s like the difference between pushing someone on a swing that cannot go somewhere else vs pushing someone sitting on a skateboard (or an insanely tall swing on the ungrounded case). Only one of those cases makes it easy to build up more and more swing.

          The door works fine because the holes are too small to even let the waves through, so there isn’t a big fluctuating EM field all around it to produce much of any different charge potentials to cause current to flow, so no sloshing charges and no real heating.

          • kameecoding@lemmy.world
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            12 hours ago

            If you mean like, by the standpoint of coffee purists, then idgaf, it’s shitty tasting make brain go fast water, there is no way to ruin it, how can something that tastes like shit taste more shit? It can’t

      • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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        20 hours ago

        You mean like a spoon on a glass or ceramic plate? That seems unlikely.

        There is even companies that make glass/stainless steel lids for their microwave safe containers. So the lids won’t warp like the plastic ones do and have to be thrown away