Someone explain what's happening here?

This video shows a toothpick that is stood up in a microwave and lit on fire. Why are the flames doing that? Is it the microwaves themselves pushing the flames *cringes dont hit me for lack of knowledge*?

Could you use anything or is it toothpick specific?

Hehe. Found a cool site in replys: MICROWAVE OVEN EXPERIMENTS

As soon as I have access to a microwave oven that's not mine, and is preferably not located in my house . . .

I,ve got an old one you can have.. $30

wish i could see the link you supplied but it,s blocked here

Its explained in the video what happening ... the carbon vapour is being energised by the microwaves.

It did? I didn't hear anything. So the gas from the flame is 'lit' by the microwaves, which are going in all sorts of directions? Weird. And the pulses are so slow.

Quote from video:
"Scientifically speaking no is exactly sure what happens, but there are theories. The flame you see is thought to be plasma ... as the toothpick burns down the carbon vapour produced is excited by the microwaves and becomes ionised."

Was it just me that heard that?

IIRC a flame is plasma so if the carbon vapour is energised to the point of becoming plasma it may resemble a flame leading to this ball of fire effect.

I have a crappy microwave that I use to destroy CDROMS with if there was data on it. Now thats a light show! I don't suggest more then 5-10 seconds and it smells. The lightning going thru the disk is remarkable though. Its also a thorough way of destroying data that you don't want prying eyes to get hold of when thrown out.

The plasma theory makes good sense. I couldn't hear the tape because currently I'm not at a computer with audio, but the plasma explanation makes excellent sense.

Essentially, the flame of the tooth-pick is ALREADY a quasi-plasma. It's not "air" and it's not "plasma"... it's kinda a state inbetween. This does mean, however, that it can be affected by somethings that affect plasmas, and some things that affect air. Microwaves could interact with the charged ions of this quasi-plasma and cause it to, momentarily, become a REAL plasma.

As it does this is likely "eats" all the oxygen directly around it, which causes the sudden explosiveness of the flame, followed by the sudden dwindling. The reason why it keeps going (but gets less and less recurrent) is because the amount of oxygen in the microwave is going down. The plasma also expands quickly, which is another reason why it seems explosive.


Yes, that appears to be a very good explanation.

Pretty cool - I didn't know that a lit substance in a microwave could/would do that!

Originally posted by Yarium
Pretty cool - I didn't know that a lit substance in a microwave could/would do that!

Actually from doing some reading up on this not just any lit sustance works. For example a candle doesnt, but a candle with some burn toothpicks placed above it does.

This just supports the theory of ionised carbon vapour.

I got my mate over the phone to do this, since i didnt dare. I got him to burn a match, put all the carbon remains on a candle, light the candle and then put in the microwave. He screamed and i wondered what i had got him to do, i have a video of his 2nd trial on my old pc. It scared his mates too. He had a 1200 W microwave so i think thats why he got a big flame ball in his microwave.