Nov 21 2006
A Fountain Of Diet Coke
I first saw the Mentos eruption on MythBusters, where they dissected its cause and also broke the world record with a 33 foot high geyser (or something around there).
- Buy a package of Mentos. They’re a mint candy that come in a cylinder wrapper. Get the regular flavor.
- Buy a big bottle of Diet Coke Cola. I haven’t tried other brands because I’ve read that brand works the best, but cheaper brands would probably work, too.
- Place the Coke on the ground away from anything you don’t want splattered. I recommended a radius of 10 feet.
- Take the top off the bottle.
- You want to put as many of the Mentos in the bottle at once as you can. A test-tube works great, else try to hold five or six between your fingers as a cylinder.
- Drop the Mentos in the bottle (the more, the better) and back away from it.
- Watch the fountain-geyser-eruption.
Your kids will have a newfound respect for you after this. They’ll be in awe.
There are a lot of videos available of the Mentos and Coke explosions. The domino one is fun to watch.
I imagine that exploding volcanoes will be a popular school science project this year.
Email This Post
Tags: diet coke, mentos, mentos fountain, mythbusters
Isn’t Mythbusters great? I haven’t seen the Mentos episode, but I watch it all the time — great show. I can only imagine how they went at the Mentos challenge. Did it involve a dead pig somehow?
A dead, EXPLODING pig.
Unfortunately, no.
Shame.
Can you download episodes of Mythbusters? (I don’t have cable.)
Not that I know of, but apparently, there are partial episodes or clips on Google Video. I can’t view videos at work, so I can’t tell you if they are worthwhile watching.