1. In the plasma grapes experiment it states that the plasma is caused by electrons zinging off from the atom on their own. In the previous video you stated that electrons can not exist on their own but move in and out of other electron fields, can you please clarify and explain? Thanks.

2. How can you tell if a particle is positively ionized or negatively ionized?

Tip: You can also change the height that the grape is at by placing it on an inverted glass.

Thanks for the fun experiment! We’re looking forward to our next adventure!

Plasma is an ionized gas and acts differently than gases. Think of plasma as a gas that has atoms zipping and jiggling around so fast that they knock electrons off each other – electrons that are free to move around inside the gas. You can visually see this effect when it glows – just like the sun, neon signs, etc. It’s such a tiny flap of skin that gets zapped to produce such a bright puff of plasma…imagine if we had a larger power source?

So why don’t ALL of our foods turn to plasma when we microwave them? And why do we need to keep the two parts together?

Donald Walker’s Son

Try it without the skin and see what happens!

Nathan

This is the BEST science i EVER tried!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dolton Moore 9years old I am a twin Lexi Moore9 years old.

Lexi Moore 9years old

Oops! I missed this question – sorry about that! Here’s the answer to your questions:

1. Yes, when you run the microwave, it does superheat the water vapor molecules in the air, but there just isn’t enough of it to make have that effect. And yes, air does circulate around inside.

2. Plasma is higher energized state than gas, so when it cools off, the substance reverts to a less energized state, like gas or liquid. It is the same molecules gas unless you’ve heated it up enough to cause particle collisions called fusion (like inside the sun).

The substance remains the same as it was before, but the term ‘ion’ means that it has gained or lost an electron (and in our case, it’s lost an electron), so it now has a charge (positive in our case). The number of protons in the nucleus of the atom determine the type of element you’ve got. And to change the number of protons in the center requires a linear accelerator. The gas that is ionized is the water vapor.

3. Yes, the electrons are attracted to the water ions as the plasma cools to gas. When the water vapor molecules cool down (slow down) enough to stop whacking into each other (with so much force that they knock off each others electrons), they start to form the gas. When you cool them down further, their vibrational motion (which is exactly what temperature measures) slow and this enables them to link together loosely into their liquid state. You get ice when the vibrational motion is so slow that the molecules link strongly together and form a crystal structure (which is a hexagon shape with a hole in the center for water, which is why water is one of the only substances that expand when cooled into a solid). When you add energy (like heat) to the ice, the molecules start to jiggle faster again and break free of the stronger bonds in the crystalline structure, and this is what melting is all about.

Does that help?

I am also interested in the answers to the questions ann ceraldi asked above, especially these two:

2. What happens to the plasma when it cools? Does it revert back to the same gas–or is always the same gas, just a different form? Does the molecular structure change when the gas is ionized? What is the gas that is ionized? Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Oxygen–all three?
3. Do the electrons recombine with water molecules now missing electrons when they cool?

Thanks!!