Cut a grape in half, throw it in a microwave and let the sparks fly.
Visions of the bite-sized fruit catching fire ignited all over the internet last week thanks to the research work of Pablo Bianucci, associate professor in the Department of Physics, Aaron Slepkov, associate professor at Trent University, and Hamza Khattak, a master’s student at McMaster University.
The small research team published its findings in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and drew international coverage from international media outlets, including Wired, MSN, PBS and CBC.
We now better understand why this happens
How does it feel to have your research go viral?
Pablo Bianucci: It's been quite interesting — and intense! I did not expect such a degree of media interest. Aaron Slepkov was away with very limited internet access, so I’ve had to do many interviews.