Bellagio Fountains Recreated with Mentos and Coke 220
Trip writes "What happens when you combine 200 liters of Diet Coke and over 500 Mentos mints? It's amazing and completely insane. The first part of this video demonstrates a simple geyser, and the second part shows just how extreme it can get. Over one hundred jets of soda fly into the air in less than three minutes. It's a hysterical and spectacular mint-powered version of the Bellagio Fountains in Las Vegas."
Science so Rocks! (Score:3, Funny)
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Music should be free [w33t.com]
Re:Science so Rocks! (Score:2)
*Do not try this at home.
In case of /.'ing (Score:5, Informative)
A number of different groups of people seem to have attempted it [google.com] as the different versions available on Google depict.
Re:In case of /.'ing (Score:5, Interesting)
Its available on google video, but tacos Journal entry is here [slashdot.org]
This fountain on eepy is amazing though, read the rest of the site because they give a decent explaination of how it works and the various other parameters (hole size, capsule construction)
Re:In case of /.'ing (Score:3, Informative)
After watching the video in the story, I have to admit, the effect of the trick performed on the large scale is quite spectacular...much more so than the other videos of a solitary guy with a solitary bottle of Diet Coke in a backyard.
Watch it if you a /.ing so permits.
Re:In case of /.'ing (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.revver.com/video/27335/ [revver.com]
And here are some of their other experiments:
http://www.revver.com/tags/eepybird/ [revver.com]
Re:In case of /.'ing (Score:3, Informative)
(Might have to copy/paste that, I'm not sure)
Re:In case of /.'ing (Score:4, Informative)
Re:In case of /.'ing (Score:2)
Re:In case of /.'ing (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.fhmus.com/articles-1276.asp [fhmus.com]
Re:In case of /.'ing (Score:3, Insightful)
Not that Kari isn't appealing, but that's just sad. Anything for a couple bucks I guess.
Re:In case of /.'ing (Score:2, Insightful)
According to the site, it's a physical thing (Score:5, Informative)
"These chemists are saying that the primary cause is physical, not chemical. Their explanation: nucleation sites. If you have a liquid that is supersaturated with gas (like soda, which is pumped full of carbon dioxide), a nucleation site is a place where the gas is able to form bubbles. Nucleation sites can be scratches on a surface or specks of dust - anywhere that you have a high surface area in a very small volume. That's where bubbles can form.
Mentos seem to be loaded with nucleation sites. In other words, there are so many microscopic nooks and crannies on the surface of a Mento that an incredible number of bubbles will form when you drop it in a bottle of soda. Since the Mentos are also heavy enough to sink, they react with the soda all the way to the bottom. The escaping bubbles quickly turn into a raging foam, and the pressure builds dramatically. Before you know it, you've got a big geyser happening!"
Re:According to the site, it's a physical thing (Score:5, Interesting)
You've given me an idea - I wonder if there is some way to suspend a substance within the fluid and create these nucleation sites simultaneously throughout the supersaturated medium?
Perhaps some kind of ferrofluid? So you could run a magnetic field over it and cause the nucleation sites to appear which would cause the reaction to happen on a much more instant scale: read, explosive.
Now, if only I had the material, and the knowledge, and the friends at MIT.
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Music should be free [w33t.com]
Re:According to the site, it's a physical thing (Score:2)
Ultrasonic cleaner (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:According to the site, it's a physical thing (Score:5, Funny)
Re:According to the site, it's a physical thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Cold water holds more C02 than warm water so you fill a bottle 3/4 full of really really cold water and pressurize it with CO2 to about 35psi, leave the CO2 connected and shake the hell out of the bottle until you notice that no more Co2 is entering the water (you can hear the regulator feeding more gas) crank the pressure up to 40PSI and let it sit for a couple of minutes in a cooler full of ice and water to re chill the bottle from all that heat you put in it during shaking.
Start the shaking once again and then let it sit in the cooler for another 10-20 minutes under pressure.
you should be all done with he most effervesent soad water ever created. carefully remove the cap and quickly replace with a regular cap (or build a cap with a valve for best effect and speed.) so you can let this puppy warm up.
after it warms to near 40 degrees you can remove the cap (or open the valve) and simply thump the side of the 2 liter to create a massive fountian. sometimes just releasing the cap will set it off.
You can also do the reverse just as easily. rapidly cool a 2 liter of pop to 20 degrees F without any shaking or vibrations. then thump the side and watch a wave of ice form from the impact site to solidify most of the bottle.
Note, you must have a sugar/Co2 solution for the supersaturation freeze effect to happen.
A side safety note: putting pressure on a 2 liter pop bottle is dangerous. you can kill yourself, friends, neighbors, take off your head, lose an eye, etc... but I have sucessfully cranked the pressure of a pop bottle to well over 80psi and a 1/2 liter to well over 120psi (made one hell of a rocket) but bottle pressure handling is very random. Be ready for the bottle to explode at all times.
With my valve cap design that has a 3/8" valve opening and tube I can get nearly 100 foot fountians with the super high Co2 injection method I mentioned and they usually tip over and start trying to move after 1/2 the bottle is empty because they get too light and still have lots of power left inside.
and a soda water fountian mess is easier to clean up.
Re:According to the site, it's a physical thing (Score:3, Informative)
Back when I was doing chemistry we were told about a lab that was destroyed by a tank of super-heated ultra-pure water (not quite the same as being super-saturated with a gas but similar). The chemists (physical of course) were heating their ultra-pure water in a specially made container. The container was designed not to contaminate the water and had been mirror finished. Of course this lead to a problem when the water was boiled. The container provided no nucleation points and the water, due to its purity
Exploding water (Score:2)
Re:Exploding water (Score:2)
Re:According to the site, it's a physical thing (Score:2)
Re:According to the site, it's a physical thing (Score:3, Informative)
Re:According to the site, it's a physical thing (Score:2)
Re:According to the site, it's a physical thing (Score:2)
Re:According to the site, it's a physical thing (Score:3, Interesting)
Since the Mentos are also heavy enough to sink, they react with the soda all the way to the bottom.
Leads me to the next thing to try: irregularly-shaped Mentos that would spiral down through the soda, instead of falling straignt down. I assume that the guys in the video used 2-litre bottles in order to give the Mentos the greatest possible falling path? A spiral path would have the effect of using bottles 2 or 3 times larger. Just gotta call up Mentos and ask for their rejected candies!
Re:According to the site, it's a physical thing (Score:2)
Microscope, anyone? (Score:2)
Re:According to the site, it's a physical thing (Score:2)
Re:According to the site, it's a physical thing (Score:2)
This is quite interesting (Score:3, Funny)
1. How much soda did they waste getting it right? and;
2. Are they doing this anywhere near ants?
Re:This is quite interesting (Score:2)
Re:This is quite interesting (Score:2)
Re:This is quite interesting (Score:2)
Could you starve a colony that way?
Re:This is quite interesting (Score:2)
Re:This is quite interesting (Score:5, Funny)
I don't think ants would be very interested in diet coke... it's sugar they like, and diet soda doesn't have any. Perhaps they would go for the Mentos though... nobody likes an ant with bad breath.
Re:This is quite interesting (Score:2)
Re:This is quite interesting (Score:2)
Re:This is quite interesting (Score:2)
Re:This is quite interesting (Score:2)
Thanks!
That... is the coolest thing ever! (Score:5, Informative)
News for Nerds... (Score:4, Funny)
By the way, does the diet coke react more in combination with the mentos, or are they just afraid of gaining weight?
Re:News for Nerds... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:News for Nerds... (Score:2)
Re:News for Nerds... (Score:4, Informative)
Also apparently diet sodas have a slightly lower viscosity due to the lack of sugar syrups, and so more poorly resist gas coming out of solution than regular sodas.
Re:News for Nerds... (Score:2)
Not everyone can be as erudite as you. A geek may have gaps in his or her knowledge, such as in chemistry, or politics, or computer science, such that when someone says 'lower viscosity' they don't automatically think 'retains gas in solution poorly'. I thought for a one line post a little extra explanation for those who took chemistry more than a little while ago wouldn't be so much of a burden for those who happen to know that mostly irrelevant piece of trivia (at least irrelevant unless you work at a DuP
Re:News for Nerds... (Score:2)
Re:News for Nerds... (Score:2)
For the curious... (Score:2)
The sequel will be 'feeding pop rocks to seagulls' (Score:2, Funny)
Name of the song? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Name of the song? (Score:2, Informative)
Pretty cool, but... (Score:5, Informative)
1: put some hydrocloric acid in an empty (plasic!!) soda bottle, add some aluminum foil, close bottle, throw away.
The bottle will start to expand and blow up making a very loud bang.
2: stack a tealight on top of two other tea lights, making a small pyramid. Light them and wait until the top tea light starts to fume and then the entire surface will burst to flames. Then, carefully throw a small amount of water in the top candle. You'll get a huge ball of fire 2 meters high. Nice way to make clear why you should never throw water in burning deep fryer.
Warning: these experiments are quite dangerous, so be careful, don't put your head above the tea candles, make sure you're at least 10 meters distant from the bottle, never use a glass bottle, think it through before you begin. Use common sense.
Any more cool DIY experiments anyone?
Before I forget... (important) (Score:5, Informative)
If you want to repeat the experiment with the hydrochloric acid: don't get near to the bottle, even if it doesn't seem to work. The aluminum and the acid produce an exothermic reaction that goes faster and faster as it heats up. So at first nothing much seems to happen, but once the acid gets warm, the reaction goes a lot faster, adding much more heat, making the reaction go faster etc.... You don't want a bottle with steaming hot hydrochloric acid exploding in your face!!!
Also, the gas after the explosion does open up your sinusses, but I don't think it's healthy
Re:Before I forget... (important) (Score:2)
Re:Before I forget... (important) (Score:2, Interesting)
Enjoy
Re:Pretty cool, but... (Score:3, Informative)
ACK! Hydrochloric acid? That sounds like a Darwin Award waiting to happen. Liquid Nitrogen [google.com] makes a pretty "cool" bang without having to handle any acids.
Re:Pretty cool, but... (Score:2)
Dry ice will work as well, and is probably easier to get/use than either liquid nitrogen or hydrochloric acid.
Re:Pretty cool, but... (Score:2)
Re:Pretty cool, but... (Score:2)
Re:Pretty cool, but... (Score:2)
If you consider LN2 safer than Hydrochloric Acid, may I suggest Plutonium instead?
I mean, dip your bare hand in hydrochloric acid for a second, then wash with water. Dip it in LN2 for a second... then better don't put it in water, it might explode.
Re:Pretty cool, but... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Pretty cool, but... (Score:2)
Re:Pretty cool, but... (Score:2)
Re:Pretty cool, but... (Score:2)
Re:Pretty cool, but... (Score:2)
Our instructor when I learned smoke-diving and firefigthing performed a bit larger scale experiment. About half a gallon of burning fat in a metal-bucket. Then he very carefully, using a 5 meter long pole with a tin-can welded on the end, poured half a liter of cold water directly into the burning fat.
The result was a very convincing imitation of a nuclear blas
Re:Pretty cool, but... (Score:2)
I'm not a trained fireman but I second what the parent said don't ever pour water into hot / burning oil. Our local fire station took over part of the high street to put on a display of what happens when you pour water into burning oil. To make it more realistic they performed the 'experiment' in a mocked up caravan. Just one egg cup of water filled the caravan with flames and smoke. What was most amazing though was how tame the oil fire was before they poured water on it. They even showed us how quite ofte
Even better.... (Score:2)
Before inserting the foil and acid, securely duct-tape a large rock or brick to the bottle. Insert the foil and acid, quickly cap the bottle, and toss into the middle of the nearest small lake/retention pond.. From what I can find online, standard 2L soda bottles can withstand >200 psi, so it's quite a pop!
Wait for it, wait for it.....*deep thud* *ground shakes*, BOOM!
*Disclaimer - Horrible for lake ecosystem, I'm
What about Carbon Aerogel? (Score:5, Insightful)
" If you have a liquid that is supersaturated with gas (like soda, which is pumped full of carbon dioxide), a nucleation site is a place where the gas is able to form bubbles. Nucleation sites can be scratches on a surface or specks of dust - anywhere that you have a high surface area in a very small volume. That's where bubbles can form."
Call me crazy, but what about using small bits of carbon aerogel? I know its expensive, but with 600 m^2/g [wikipedia.org] of surface area, it would be a perfect canadate!
Re:What about Carbon Aerogel? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What about Carbon Aerogel? (Score:2)
This isn't conjecture, I have plenty of aerogel to experiment with at the office (like this piece [flickr.com], for example). If I can grab a digital camera, I'll see if I can get a shot of some aerogel bits just sitting on some Diet Coke.
Re:What about Carbon Aerogel? (Score:2)
I don't think zeolite would necessarly make that great a nucleator. Most of it's surface area is inside pores where there would be poor fluid exchange (although this might be improved by bubbles forcing their way out). Personally I would go for ground glass (ranging in sizes from 0.05mm to 1mm). Good surface area, nice and spikey to make bubbles and heavy enough to sink. The range of sizes should also help activate bubbles through the whole hight of the flask.
Re:What about Carbon Aerogel? (Score:2)
See what happens when you try this in your mouth (Score:3, Funny)
None of which explains... (Score:2)
Slowed the video down to sync it up? (Score:3, Insightful)
I was wondering, the jet from the bottle actually doesn't last very long. And the jets seemed in sync with the music. And the jets lasted quite awhile (except for the big burst at the end of the video).
It makes me wonder if they did this at normal speed to a sped up version of this song... and then slowed the whole thing down to sync it with normal speed music... so the jets seemed to last longer?
Pretty clever and skillful stunt.
Good for Teaching Kids (Score:3, Insightful)
Osama squirts (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
welcome to the new MPAA business model (Score:3, Interesting)
It really is more an example of the kind of new business models for video: low cost productions, free distribution, and web supported advertising. And the content is of a form where nobody really would want to bother redistributing it without advertising.
It's actually not all that different from the original business model of network television, although it is arguably a more "creative" and "innovative" than a lot of what we get on television today.
Sale of Mentoes & Diet Pepsi (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What.... what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, god forbid people have fun whilst experimenting. Perhaps you are not familiar with the links between creativity and scientific breakthroughs?
I forgot this is stone cold /. news for the serious.
Re:What.... what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What.... what? (Score:4, Interesting)
I used to do this some 30+ years ago, while in primary school. Every day after school few of us would go to the corner shop, buy coke and pepermints and organise competition - everybody drops a mint into the bottle and whoever spils the least amount of coke, gets the next bottle purchased by the others. It's possible not to spil coke at all but terribly hard. We used
Re:What.... what? (Score:2)
Totally irrelevant to being a kid.
Re:What.... what? (Score:2, Funny)
For people who dont want the plugin (Score:2, Informative)
Best coke and mentos experiment [blogspot.com]
Re:Working link (Score:2, Troll)
Re:I thought this is about (Score:2)
I thought this rating and Troll were supposed to be used when I'm trying to start a flame war.
I'm just being dissapointed that putting mentos in coke is what Slashdot editor consider stuff that matters.
PS: Don't mod me down further, you don't... ya know... wanna find mentos when you open your next coke. It'll be a shame.
Re:I thought this is about (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:unsafe? (Score:2)
Re:awesome soundtrack (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Firefox + Mplayer = Not so good with this video (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Firefox + Mplayer = Not so good with this video (Score:2)
Re:Firefox + Mplayer = Not so good with this video (Score:2)
Re:Summary (Score:2)
Nope (Score:5, Informative)
Approximately 10% of aspartame (by mass) is broken down into methanol in the small intestine. Most of the methanol is absorbed and quickly converted into formaldehyde. Some scientists believe that the methanol cannot be a problem because: (a) there is not enough methanol absorbed to cause toxicity, (b) methanol and formaldehyde are already a by-product of human metabolism, and (c) there is more methanol in some alcoholic beverages and fruit juices than is derived from aspartame ingestion. (Wikipedia)
See also: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd
Phenylalanine is an amino acid commonly found in foods. Approximately 50% of aspartame (by mass) is broken down into phenylalanine. I can't see why this would be a bad thing. Phenylalanine is used in living organisms, including the human body, where it is an essential amino acid. Phenylalanine can also be converted into L-tyrosine, another one of the twenty protein-forming amino acids. L-tyrosine is converted into L-DOPA, which is further converted into the neurotransmitters dopamine, norepinephrine, and epinephrine. Research indicates that Phenylalanine can be an effective part of an overall program to fight chronic pain and depression in some cases, including the mood swings of premenstrual syndrome (PMS). Some sources contend that it can increase energy and mental alertness. So it's a natural amino acid that can function as a CNS stimulant. It can't hurt you any more then the caffene already in the pop, as long as you don't abuse it. (Even stronger CNS stimulants like amphetamines are fairly safe as long as you use a small enough quantity of them and maintain a normal sleep cycle).
Aspartic acid is an amino acid commonly found in foods. Approximately 40% of aspartame (by mass) is broken down into aspartic acid. A lot of FUD has been drummed up about aspartic acid being an "excitotoxin". I really is just one of the 20 natural proteinogenic amino acids which are the building blocks of proteins.
"...since aspartame is broken down into these components before it is absorbed into the blood stream, aspartame in its initial form does not have the opportunity to travel to target organs, including the brain, to cause cancer." (American Cancer Society)
Animal studies HAVE found aspartame to be cancer causing, but no major human study has. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/265559_sod
Re:Nope (Score:2)
It is likely you were experiencing a reaction to the caffeine ins the soda. Most Diet sodas contain more caffeine than regular soda. Additionally, most American's headaches are caused by caffeine withdrawal.
Re:Nice... (Score:2)
Re:Dont try it!!! (Score:2)