Watch this video, then read on. A 2-liter bottle of soda explodes when you drop a roll of mentos into it. Amazing, isn’t it? There are hundreds of clips like this all over the web right now (like this one). And they're all made by bored kids in the suburbs. Apparently, diet works better than regular. Maybe because of the artificial sweetener, but no one knows.
Why does this work? The debate is raging, but here's the hypothesis:
"Water molecules strongly attract each other, linking together to form a tight mesh around each bubble of carbon dioxide gas in the soda. In order to form a new bubble, or even to expand a bubble that has already formed, water molecules must push away from each other. It takes extra energy to break this "surface tension." When you drop the Mentos into the soda, the gelatin and gum arabic from the dissolving candy break the surface tension. Each Mentos candy has thousands of tiny pits all over the surface. These tiny pits are called nucleation sites - perfect places for carbon dioxide bubbles to form. As soon as the Mentos hit the soda, bubbles form all over the surface of the candy. Couple this with the fact that the Mentos candies are heavy and sink to the bottom of the bottle and you've got a double-whammy. When all this gas is released, it literally pushes all of the liquid up and out of the bottle in an incredible soda blast."
Next time I see my nieces, they are SOOO getting a science lesson!!
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