Warning: the sound in this video is extremely annoying. You may want to turn the sound off before playing it. Although now that you’ve got this warning you have to listen to the sound at least a little, don’t you…  

It seems like Magneto is always using his awesome mutant superpower to pull submarines out of the sea, or rip an entire baseball stadium from the ground, or flip semis in the air, or just straight up torture Wolverine by manipulating his adamantium-plated skeleton. But in so many of these instances, he could be melting and lighting stuff on fire too! With his magnetism, he could generate electrical currents that could melt steel in a display that would probably look a lot like the one in the above video.

In the clip, which came to our attention via Sploid, the team at YouTube channel LET’S MELT THIS used their “metal melter” to melt—and ignite—a steel drill bit by pumping over 800 amps of electricity into it. The LMT team, which likes to “melt things one day at time,” notes that they used copper wires to carry the electrical current into the steel bit, and because of the difference in conductivity (or the ease with which electrons can be removed from atoms based on their proximity to nuclei), the less conductive bit melted, lit on fire, and eventually broke in two.

This flaming and melting occurs because as an electrical current passes through a conductor, the conductor produces heat energy—like the filaments in light bulbs or toasters. But if the amperage—or the flow rate of electricity—is too great in a specific conductor, as it is in that steel bit, then melting, fires, and all manner of literally not-cool stuff happens.

Luckily, to guard against this happening in normal circumstances, we have fuses, which act as especially sensitive trip wires that will melt and break in two if too great a current passes through the circuits they connect, (hopefully) before fires start. Safeguards for Magneto however, well, let’s just take a tip from X2 and keep him away from metal altogether.

What do you think about this melted steel bit? Did it totally electrify your sense of wonder, or are you not really into current events? Let us know your thoughts on the video and these horrific puns in the comments below!

Speaking of melting sh*t, ever wondered how acidic Xenomorph blood really is?

Images: LET’S MELT THIS