Trent University physics professor Aaron Slepkov took up the grapes experiment and has now published his examination of the phenomenon’s underlying mechanism
The Canadian PressWithin seconds, the fruits spark like lightning.Now, the Trent University physics professor has published his examination of the phenomenon’s underlying mechanism in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. The study went viral.
“Then we put two grapes on a concave watch glass so they couldn’t roll away, then they spark all the time.” Microwaves accumulate and become trapped inside the grape, he said, and those light microwaves pack themselves in the centre and the grape begins to heat up. When a second grape comes in, or the other half of a cut grape, the microwaves concentrate at the sides near each other creating an intense electrical field.The electric field becomes so high, he said, that it begins stripping electrons off sodium and potassium molecules, creating ions.
One favourite is the opening line of the paper: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a pair of grape hemispheres exposed to intense microwave radiation will spark, igniting a plasma.”Up until a week before publication, the article was titled “Grape Balls of Fire,” but the journal balked at it.
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