{"id":244793,"date":"2026-10-02T05:39:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T10:39:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/10\/why-do-pickles-glow-researcher-investigates-explosive-answer"},"modified":"2026-10-02T05:39:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T10:39:15","slug":"why-do-pickles-glow-researcher-investigates-explosive-answer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/10\/why-do-pickles-glow-researcher-investigates-explosive-answer","title":{"rendered":"Why do pickles glow? Researcher investigates explosive answer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/why-do-pickles-glow-researcher-investigates-explosive-answer2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>If you mount a pickle on two metal forks and plug it into a socket, one end will light up in a brilliant orange glow. It\u2019s a classic K\u201312 science demonstration, but the exact physics behind the illumination has long remained a mystery.<\/p>\n<p>Josh M\u00e9ndez, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at Portland State University, was surprised to learn that the glowing pickle was still an unsolved electrostatics problem. As a scientist with an interest in obscure electrostatic problems, M\u00e9ndez felt called to delve into the pickle jar. More than 100 burned pickles later, he is finally approaching an answer.<\/p>\n<p>Because pickles are soaked in salty brine, they readily conduct electricity. When a current passes through, two competing theories usually explain the resulting glow: a spark discharge or the ignition of hydrogen gas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you mount a pickle on two metal forks and plug it into a socket, one end will light up in a brilliant orange glow. It\u2019s a classic K\u201312 science demonstration, but the exact physics behind the illumination has long remained a mystery. Josh M\u00e9ndez, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at Portland State University, [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[219],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244793\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}