Don't Try This at Home Part 2

  I used to work for a research company who used to muck about with scarily powerful microwave systems for industrial use...

  My eyes were soon opened into the huge potential of microwaves for arsing about and much fun was had blowing stuff up!

  Anyway, here’s something equally spectacular that you can try in your own microwave oven at home – Lightning in your kitchen!!

  Good innit? What you’re seeing is ‘plasma’.  Normally at atmospheric pressure, electrons in the air inside the flask are packed so tightly together that they can’t move about much when smashed with microwaves.  In a partial vacuum however, they are free to move around a lot more. When a microwave hits an electron, it can now knock it clean away from the proton & neutron, ionizing the gas into a plasma.

  It’s exactly the same phenomenon that makes lightning, the Northern Lights, low energy bulbs and plasma tellies etc.

  Putting an upturned CD into the microwave can be pretty cool too, but I didn't tell you that....