Talk:Soda geyser/Archive 1

Comment 1

good day,

I genuinely want to contribute to wikipedia. Could you please tell me what is wrong with my article so that I can change it. Is there something that you would like me to take out (or add)?

-> I don't think there's anything wrong with your article as such, just that several members must feel that it doesn't warrant its own article (perhaps the name "Mentos eruption" is not common enough) and could be instead added into the main Mentos article. --86.112.251.74 08:52, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Looks good to me! 83.88.169.167 14:41, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback guys (Toritaiyo 05:10, 12 August 2006 (UTC))

I would vote against merging the articles. I would argue that the phenominon is notable in and of itself, as evidenced by its appearance on numerous radio news shows, newspaper articles, as an internet meme, and even being the dedicated subject of an entire episode of Mythbusters. That sounds like something that deserves its own article to me. Granted, this one DOES need expansion... Fieari 16:12, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

It's been proven that you don't need as many as seven Mentos to achieve a rocket, and duct tape (or any tape at all, for that matter) is not necissarily required. I'm not familiar with Wikipedia standards, but is this something that should be corrected?

Tone and the Trivia Section

I don't think that the trivia section should be included unless there is some notable scientific reference cited. (Toritaiyo 14:38, 3 October 2006 (UTC))

Possible topic

Could it be possible that the Mentos/Soda reaction could be a modern day interpretation of the urban legend about eating pop rocks and drinking soda at the same time, I personally think this thought warrents further investigation, maybe even a re-visit of said myth on the show, Mythbusters? What do you all think? - RVDDP2501 14:48, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

They did poprocks + pop on mythbusters... they took several packages of poprocks, dumped them into the pig stomache, added coke and the thing expanded to more then twice its size! This is a little off topic but I thought I'd Mentiomvhkjyghv,hjyguiygtli7gtyluhukjaby is sa good boyn it :) 130.179.39.164 22:37, 6 November 2006 (UTC) (CanadaAotS)

I know they did that one hovever since the mentos and cola have such a "violent" reaction, they could technically prove the myth. - RVDDP2501 00:13, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Jamie, from the mythbusters, kinda did this. He put a mento in his mouth and drank some diet cola and it shot out of his mouth!70.100.165.76 13:52, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Founder

Does anyone know who founded this? I think it might of been Kari Byron from the mythbusters but I could be wrong. 70.100.165.76 13:55, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism

There's vandalism in the "see also" section, that I can't seem to get rid of. Anyone know of a fix?

I haven't seen that, but I did see someone posting on here that someone else is gay. I removed it. 71.15.148.187 03:19, 10 January 2007 (UTC)Mortari

An explanation to the effect

Hi, the explanation in the article is not accurate since the eruption has nothing to do with coke or with mentos. It will happen in any soft drink that contains CO2, and any soluble stuff that you drop inside the bottle. For example you can try to put sugar or salt into a Fanta bottle. We had a long discussion in the Hebrew wikipedia and decided to omit the arabic gum explanation. The eruption happens only because of nucleation around a soluble solid. We also changed the name of the article to something like: "Eruption that follows nucleation". Melamed katz 01:38, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

So I guess you are saying that the nucleation sites are "amplified" by the soluble material entering solution and effectively "pushing" the CO2 out of solution? It still seems to me that the viscosity of the solution as well as the rate at which the material dissolves will effect the rate of reaction. As such the lack of sugar in the diet coke and the ingredients of the mentos are still of importance. Also, until someone cites a peer reviewed study outlining the rates of reaction for the reaction as compared to other nucleation/soluble solid pairs as well as the effect of each ingredient in various combinations then the importance of the mentos/diet coke combination must stand. jvman 04:38, 8 August 2007 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.12.134.134 (talk)

Mistakes

This is a pathetic article in terms of grammar, sentence structure, coherence, etc. Parts of it were clearly made by a bunch of random people each tacking on one more sentence to the article. I fixed some, but the entire article needs rearranging, and I'm really busy right now. Twilight Realm 03:30, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Additionally, the "science" in this article is complete bunk. Carbon dioxide is a covalently bonded molecule, it stays in solution in water because it's under pressure, not some idiocy about water holding the ions apart. 71.197.123.235 (talk) 10:56, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Have to agree, there certainly aren't C and O ions in solution, more like carbonic acid and carbonate. It should be fixed, but I don't know of many chemists searching for "Diet Coke and Mentos Eruption" on Wikipedia... 159.124.170.15 (talk) 20:24, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Question.

Shouldn't a citation be needed for "backyard science experiment fad first demonstrated by "science guy", Steve Spangler." I looked it up on the Spangler's page but I didn't see anything verifying or even claiming the "honor". —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.229.124.143 (talk) 05:11, 27 February 2007 (UTC).

I found out that the first person to do it was Lee Marek if you go to <TheTartan.org/2007/2/19/scitech/how> -March 2007

some info

about 3 years ago we did something like this at school, but instead we used root beer(not diet but regular) and mint live savers, It seemed to work really well. Maybe something should be added about other ways of doing the soda geyser as this reaction isn't unique to mentos and diet coke.

Use of WintOGreen LifeSavers in this type of experiemnt can generate dangerous levels of electrical discharge through Triboluminescence, so a warning to children NOT to attempt that should certainly be included in the article. The poster above is lucky to have survived to tell the tale. 129.97.79.144 18:23, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Ha ha ha...yeah, right. We can include such a warning when you can provide proof.

34 feet

I just watched the episode of Mythbusters where they set the record of 34 feet. But for that one experiment, they didn't even use Mentos to achieve the 34 feet. If you'll watch it again, they used pure rock salt, and not any actual mentos to set the record. 75.66.181.245 17:43, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

No, they used both.

I watched it too, and they got that height when they expanded the scope to include rock salt. They did not use mentos to get that height. — Andrew Hampe ^Talk 00:45, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Inaccurate References

The explanation of the process as a physical rather than a chemical reaction is not Steve Spangler's (or as he claims, Lee Marek's).

The final link on the page (to General Chemistry Online) is the original explanation. The page was quoted in the 2000 issue of Chemistry magazine. Spangler's page simply plagiarizes this one. 208.103.132.124 21:57, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Origin:Contradiction

This page "The experiment was popularized by Eepybird.com". Mentos page "First popularized by Lee Marek of Naperville North High School on the David Letterman show" JayKeaton 17:29, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Under "Variations"

Is the claim that rock salt produces the same effect as Mentos in Diet Coke "because of the ions" verifiable? Earlier in the article, under the "explanation" heading it is mentioned that rock salt proved the nucleation sites theory.Aquaman590 20:59, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

External Links

It seems that number seven in the "Notes" section is either down for the moment or no longer available. Also, the link under "Further Reading" leads to a subscription-only site. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.99.184.248 (talk) 07:44, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Copied from article

It is hazardous to perform this experiment on the human body. In May 2008, a Chinese university student was hospitalized after eating mentos and drinking cola. Cola was erupting out her mouth and nose. It also caused internal bleeding.[10]

I'm not sure how to question this fact, but the chance of any serious injury, or any injury past shooting cola into your eye, occuring is highly unlikely. The act of drinking the soda releases the carbon dioxide and therefore prevents the violent reaction this fact discusses from happening. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.4.166.12 (talk) 22:02, 20 May 2008 (UTC) its not true at all theres no risk what so ever Luke12345abcd (talk) 02:47, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Gotta love those "too dangerous to try at home" fake articles. It's always a foreigner (no name is given) trying something harmless and ends up seriously injuried or dead. 65.218.200.126 (talk) 11:11, 26 August 2008 (UTC) mkkjo;jiopuouoyhkkyou will have to do stuff.<dc m>dietcoke mentos</dc m>

Ingredients

Hi, I'm looking at a package of Mentos now, and Gelatin isn't on the ingredients list... Contrary to what the article says, it's a package from Canada.

purpleidea (talk) 15:05, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Consumption

Why?? does this hapen??

 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.126.196.225 (talk) 06:13, 9 March 2008 (UTC) 

I actually just tried that. My stomach hurts a bit, and I've been burping a lot, but I doubt that its deadly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.70.249.10 (talk) 18:43, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Keep in mind that you're not creating any new CO2, just rapidly releasing what's in there already.

Not to nitpick, but what's with that bit at the end of the article? They're doing this in schools because it can promote a better understanding of reactions? ... Why? How can doing it provide a better understanding than just watching it? In neither case are you actually -seeing- what's happening.. you have to have it explained. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.73.70.113 (talk) 06:02, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

why diet cola?

Why? Is it because it has more Carbon Dioxide or something?

Josh215 22:37, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

According to the main article, it is a combination of ingredients. Aspartame (Nutrasweet) is only in diet sodas. I wonder if the same reaction would occur using Diet Coke with Splenda? Dmine45 12:30, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Diet cola was used by Eepybird because it doesn't leave the sticky mess that regular cola does. Prometheus^-X303- 06:49, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Would other diet colas work? also this is fun!I am Paranoid 22:37, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually the original video states that diet coke is only used because it's less sticky than regular coke. And I've always used normal coke in my little tests. So could you please correct these huge mistakes in the article. It should be emphasized that it's not the diet coke and mentos that make the effect, it's any soda and mentos.

Please at least omit the word "diet" on the topic because it's the most common misunderstanding concerning this experiment. PLEASE UNDERSTAND the reaction has NOTHING to do with the ingredients of DIET soda. If you don't believe, try it for yourself. Since there are no 100% valid scientifical explanations, use empirical studies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.112.25.227 (talk) 10:52, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

---

It works with various carbonated drinks and candy. There is no reason to advertise these brands, for free on wikipedia. Unless of course some of the editors are working for these companies! --MacRusgail 19:55, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

The diet sodas work better and are more reactive than the normal varieties... Something to do with the artificial sweeteners reducing surface tension-January 18, 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.141.117.49 (talk) 12:11, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Trimming links

I am trimming the links. We don't need so many links to videos.

• One link to search results should do.
• Eepybird's official site is fine, but the other sites that repost their videos are not needed.
• The "First known documented Diet Coke and Mentos rocket" will go. It links directly to a 30Mb .avi It's no different than the YouTube videos except its massive size.
• The "splash off" link is out of date. Event is over.

Prometheus^-X303- 06:49, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Can we link to a video of the MythBusters episode? I found it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMXPOqovSBs. Alexius08 (talk) 05:58, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Old fad

This phenomenon goes back to 1989. Kids would go to the corner store, buy mentos and soda pop in the aluminum can and drop a mentos in it for fun. I'm sure this has been around as long as Mentos has. It has only recently become spread through story telling, through which chain of gossip or accidents I do not know. Johngagon 18:00, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd wager it's probably down to the rise of the internet and video sharing. Before the advent of sites such as YouTube and Google Video, all there was to go on was rumours in magazines and over the then-small internet community so most people would've casually dismissed it as a rumour. However, now around a billion people can directly access many verifiable sources of this reaction thanks to video sharing websites; as they rose to the spotlight, so has this phenomenon, among many others.

One source prior to Spangler is Joey Green's Mad Scientist's Handbook 2. He describes the experiment as performed on Eepybird in great detail, and the book was published in 2002 - the same time as Spangler's first TV appearance. 159.121.28.62 (talk) 22:07, 6 August 2008 (UTC) 6 Aug 2008

This is a rather old experiment that was around in the 1990s. The online vids were just some guy who decided to post the vids. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.50.169.192 (talk) 21:04, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Mountain Dew & Smarties

I'm not sure if it's revelent to this page but, from my own testing, I learned that Mountain dew and Smarties combined resulted in the same sort of reaction but on a smaller scale Pycho237 20:51, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

No doubt many different brands of carbonated drinks and candy work, but that's no reason to advertise them by name. --MacRusgail 19:03, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Kind of a stupid response given the name of the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.50.169.192 (talk) 21:06, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Advertising

Can this article be rewritten so that it isn't free advertising for two products? It's a marketer's dream. --MacRusgail 18:54, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

These are the two brands almost always used for this experiment. Therefore, it is important to include them. --DearPrudence 23:01, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Free advertising is an oxymoron, the word you're looking for is publicity, which is perfectly fine because Diet Coke and Mentos are quite clearly the progenitors of this reaction (and meme). 59.101.27.92 (talk) 06:27, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, no it's not an oxymoron. It's an unusual phrase, but not a self-contradiction.

Again, I'll say, if the Coca Cola Company and whoever makes Mentos wants to advertise, they can PAY FOR IT elsewhere. --MacRusgail (talk) 16:29, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Lolol don't get your panties in a bunch, mentioning a product =/= advertising for it. Oh wait sorry, capitalising shit makes it more sound moar important, so MENTIONING a product =/= ADVERTISING for it. I think the cat is out of the bag in terms of the public being aware of the existence of both m***** and d*** c***, so we can mention both in this article without fear that we have given them advertising for WHICH THEY DIDN'T PAY. Wormwoodpoppies (talk) 02:51, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

If an article displays products prominently, and encourages people to buy them, then yes, that's advertising. This qualifies on both scores. I suppose that people in the west are so jaded these days they don't even recognise an advert when it stares them in the face.--MacRusgail (talk) 16:07, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

I removed the advertising tag. I don't see how this is written like an advertisement. Simply mentioning these two products does not make it an advertisement. By that reasoning, the articles on Coca Cola and Mentos are advertisements. As mentioned by a couple people already, these two product names are strongly linked with this phenomenon and this is in fact how the sources for this article refer to it (and this includes the article in American Journal of Physics). Thus removing the names of these products should be considered a violation of NPOV. --C S (talk) 13:21, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

It's written like an advert because of... let me see. The blatant product placement in the first picture with the product name displayed prominently. The fact that the article is named after two products, even though you can do it with a number of other ones. Therefore it is completely POV for wikipedia to name the article after them. There's other stuff in the article as well. Doesn't belong here. If wikipedia eventually wants real adverts, then I won't be able to stop it, but let it be decided democratically and by paid advertising. --MacRusgail (talk) 16:05, 1 April 2010 (UTC) p.s. Regarding free advertising, there are plenty of ways to do it... the viral method is one of them.

Move to Cola

I think it would be best to move this page to "Diet Cola and Mentos eruption" there is no need to use a trademark name in the title here.--Shniken1 (talk) 04:05, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Support, I have also tagged it as an advertisement. Mentos should not be advertised either. Other candy products work. --MacRusgail (talk) 17:02, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I removed the advert tag, "This article or section is written like an advertisement" did not seem to apply to the article. Perhaps a Requested moves discussion could be started, however I would oppose such a move, as the Wikipedia article is just following what reliable sources have.--Commander Keane (talk) 09:31, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Are you kidding? The very title itself is an advertisement, mentioning two brand names. It is not as if you have to use these two products to produce this effect either. Believe me, it may be a recent craze, but it's certainly nothing new. I used to do this as a child many years before the web came into existence. And not with Coke and Mentos either. --MacRusgail (talk) 16:29, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Proven to work

Tried with Regular Cola, Diet Coke, Zero, Sprite, 7Up with all available variants of Mentos and some other types of mints. A certain amount of gas IS formed around the mint dropped but there is NO eruption. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.96.174.66 (talk) 08:54, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Unless there's an officially published source like a scientific journal, this is original research, and it shouldn't be added to the article. — Insanity Incarnate 18:20, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I tried it myself at a half-full bottle of Diet Coke, and it worked (also with Pepsi Max). Too bad, it barely worked on ordinary variants. Alexius08 (talk) 00:14, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

mentos are very awesome! they explode when you put them in soda. i did it once and it went 30 feet high! there is alot of different tipes. there is a tipe of gum to! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.125.114.114 (talk) 22:20, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay, THAT is something deserving of an advert tag... 216.82.142.13 (talk) 21:07, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

It certainly does work! I just did this as an experiment with my nephew's 4th grade science fair. Using 5 regular mentos, we got nice fountains from diet pepsi, pepsi, orange soda, ginger ale, root beer. Nothing from a non-carbonated control (ggatorade). Ginger ale actually went the highest- 43 inches with the 5 mentos. The diet pepsi was somewhat less, but that may be b/c 2 of the mentos were immediately expelled from the bottle as the eruption occurred! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.174.222.85 (talk) 23:03, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Revisions to History

Changed “Steve Spangler initiated the Internet Phenomenon” to note that the phenomenon was instead apparently the result of an April, 2006 NPR story and the June, 2006 Eepybird video.

The source providing the statement that the phenomenon was initiated by Steve Spangler appears to be dead and there does not appear to be any other third party source supporting it. More importantly, according to the Google timeline histogram of search traffic for the term “Diet Coke and Mentos”, there was little or no Internet activity around the phenomenon until April, 2006 when the NPR story aired, and then a large and sustained increase in searches for the term beginning in June of 2006 coincident with when Eepybird released its video.

Morecoffeeplease (talk) 00:10, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

AFD?

Would anyone second a motion to put this article up for deletion? Saebvn (talk) 19:01, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

NO, keep it! The only arguments for deletion given for this page on a cultural and physical phenomenon are 1. This phenomenon is inexorably linked to the use of two specific brand products, which are necessarily mentioned prominently in any NPOV description. 2. Some authors on the talk page (not the article) mention their own original research to confirm or deny the physical phenomenon, however there are lots of 3rd party sources (research articles, summary articles and educational materials) to quote on the issue and some of those are referenced in the article.

Thus I see no valid reason for deletion. 94.145.87.181 (talk) 15:27, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Agree, it's referenced more than adequately (amazed there's a doi). Also, I notice there's a tag from May 2010 about "style may not be appropriate for WP". Well, it may have been a problem then, but it looks fine to me now, so I'm removing the tag. Revert if you feel it needs to be made more... boring or something.  ;-) (Very amusing stuff.) --Middle 8 (talk) 07:20, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

I think this is an improvement too. --Middle 8 (talk) 08:01, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Name change

I can't find the discussion for changing the article title away from "Diet Coke and Mentos." Where did that take place? The source we have all call it "Diet Coke and Mentos" and that's the way I've always heard it described. Kendall-K1 (talk) 00:59, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Requested move

Soda and candy eruption → ? – Diet Coke and Mentos eruption was the original name as this is what seems most commonly used experiment. It was moved to the current Soda and candy eruption title without discussion due to non-comercialism. I am thinking either back to its original title or Coke and confectionery eruption as a more neutral title. Simply south...... creating lakes for 5 years 20:54, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I just moved it back. It was done as a followup to MacRusgail's campaign above claiming that the product mentions are advertising, which received no support and ample disagreement. It was originally moved contrary to consensus some 8 months after that discussion. If MacRusgail disagrees, no problem for him to try to get consensus for a move to something else. In the unlikely event that that happens I'll be happy to do that move as well.

The article does need more coverage of other ways to produce this reaction, though, since it is true that it is not limited to those two products. Perhaps someone could do the useful work of researching sources for that and adding more content? Jamesday (talk) 05:07, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support the original title, Diet Coke and Mentos eruption. Normally I'm a big proponent of not using commercial names in articles, but in this case it is so clearly the common name that I don't think many people would know what an article on Soda and candy eruption would even be about. Jenks24 (talk) 05:34, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

History?

I came to this article hoping for a history section. How long has this been known about? When was the first reference? It seems like everyone became aware of it about 6 or 7 years ago, but before then it was unheard of. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.207.120.209 (talk) 00:39, 20 February 2013 (UTC)