Will a Microwave Detonate An Explosive? A comedy article
by Brad Poynter 7,149 7 01/26/2010 02:07 PM 1816 views
Since the invention of the microwave oven, people have been putting unlikely things in them to see what happens. I can tell you from personal childhood experience that one can turn a Barbie Doll into the Elephant Man in only 45 seconds. Others have put in CD's, light bulbs, lava lamps, and even live insects with interesting results, but I wanted to try something a little bigger, something without an obvious outcome.
When a friend of mine gave me an old microwave, I wanted to try to blow it up.
Plus, I wasn't going to cook in this thing for fear of disease.
You see, I still possessed a leftover explosive from my turkey cooking experiment, and was already wondering how I could set it off without losing a finger.
Like me, it has a short fuse.
The question was: will a microwave set off an explosive? I had the microwave and explosive in hand, now I just needed about a half-mile of extension cords.
That part was easy, but as the day of the experiment arrived, I began to ponder a disturbing question: What if the explosive had a metal component? I was dealing with an unknown explosive substance that could cause a bunch of tiny sparks as soon as I hit "Start," causing an instant explosion. Beep Beep Boom would not be my preferred exit from this existence, so I decided to make a remote trigger.
I had to go old school and MacGyver (hopefully not MacGruber) a solution. In my workshop, I found a rusty door latch, a spring, a well-worn bicycle brake pad, a board, and a roll of fishing line.
Fear must be the father of invention
The weight of the microwave held the board in place, which provided the door latch a firm anchor:
Placing the spring on the latch with the modified brake pad attached would hold it against the start button:
Then using the microwave as a rudimentary pulley, I could tug on the fishing line tied to the latch, and it would press the button:
I needed something large enough to hide behind. My wife refused to let me use her car as a bunker, so I had to make do with a sheet of plywood as my only shelter:
All that was left to do was steel my nerves and pull the trigger. Time was not on my side, as rainclouds were beginning to roll in. I placed the explosive inside, set the timer for three minutes, and walked to my shelter, unspooling fishing line behind me.
I crouched behind the plywood, and with a few good tugs on the line, I heard the hum of the power coming on. After a few seconds, I knew that my concerns over an instant explosion were unfounded as I had not yet been showered by microwave particles.
The minutes passed without any sizzle, pop or ear-shattering boom. When the timer beeped, signaling the end of cooking time, I stayed put, futilely hoping that at any second it would go off. Alas, it was not to be.
Fall down but no go boom
Fizzle, my nizzles
Like a sign from the heavens, it was then that the clouds unleashed the first drops of rain, forcing me to pack up or risk electrocution. I would show you the video of this experiment, but you would get more excitement out of going to your own microwave and throwing in a bag of popcorn.
Not all these crazy ZUG experiments are a success, and the answer to this question sadly turned out to be no. The microwave did not set off the explosive, but here are a few videos of people who blew up microwaves using other methods:
Trust me, this isn't over. If anything, these pioneers of microwave experimentation have inspired me. Next time I meet up with this microwave, it's personal.
You should really see if you can get job with Mythbusters because your explosive articles are dyno-mite! Even though it didn't work, the idea of a 1000 feet of extension cord being strung through the woods makes me giggle.
You should get a second microwave, and see if you put one inside the other and turn them both on, if it will create a tear in the space-time continuum, and let you travel back in time to prevent the JFK assassination.
If you do that Ravos, the water molecules are going to be more excited than Chris Farley on a 2 week coke bender. However, I'm don't think you'd get time travel because as everyone knows, the Flux Capacitor makes time travel possible.
Fear must be the father of invention is fantastic, and making sure the article ends in explosive mayhem whether it's yours or not shows an excellent understanding of the audience. Great job!
Awesome article even if it didn't turn out as you had hoped. Next time you should try to blow up your friend for giving you such a nasty microwave before cleaning it.
WhyMi 839 5 hides the copy of Anarchists cookbook and the recently imploded microwave.
01/27/2010 01:25 PM
powdered explosives need a true heat source to inite (IE: Flame), which is essentially why it didn't work.
What you want to try is something more unstable, nitoglycerine for example. Something that can ignite with just the physical temperature being high enough to create the desired combustion.
Hey, my boogers just got back from Atlantis. They brought this urine sample from one of the wild koala whales known to frolic and impale itself on a rock formation near the entrance to the city.
1 old microwave
1 small explosive device (M-80)
1 square foot of aluminum foil
1 Tablespoon gasoline
100 feet (min) of extension cord attached to a fixed electrical source or a generator with 12 feet of cord.
1 pair tweezers
Take old microwave far, far away from any existing buildings. Plug it into your electrical source.
Take your foil and squish it into a ball. Toss into microwave.
Dip the M-80 wick into the gasoline. Place in microwave. Close door. Allow the fumes to accumulate.(2-3 minutes)
If you haven't rigged a special 'turn on' switch already, get one of your drunk stupid buddies or a door-to-door salesman to press the "plus one minute" button.
Run like hell.
The foil will begin to spark, thus igniting the fumes, which in turn, ignites the wick. KABOOM!
Utilize tweezers to extricate schrapnel in the event you, or the drunken buddy/salesman, were too slow to take cover.
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