346: Diet Coke+Mentos

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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Diet Coke+Mentos
The cola+Mentos trick is up there with corn starch+water (vibrating platter optional) in scientific coolness out of common kitchen supplies.
Title text: The cola+Mentos trick is up there with corn starch+water (vibrating platter optional) in scientific coolness out of common kitchen supplies.

Explanation[edit]

This comic's premise is a reference to the phenomenon of dropping Mentos into a bottle of a carbonate beverage to create a geyser of said beverage. During 2007, a large number of videos depicting this phenomenon floated around the Internet.

Cueball wants to show this phenomenon to his friend, because it's "the coolest thing". However, instead of achieving the standard result, a geyser of Diet Coke, the friend's father magically appears (presumably from the dead or from abandonment).

An alternative interpretation is that the friend's father is resurrected/returned in an event unrelated to the geyser, undermining the geyser's coolness.

The title text shows that Randall considers (or at least then considered) this trick to be as cool as mixing corn starch and water to make a non-Newtonian fluid that reacts wildly with vibrations and impact.

Transcript[edit]

[Cueball and his friend are sitting on the ground, with a bottle of Diet Coke between them, and Cueball appears to be putting mentos into the bottle.]
Cueball: This is the coolest thing. You just drop the Mentos in the Diet Coke...
Friend: Uh huh.
[Diet Coke starts to fizzle.]
Cueball: Give it a moment...
[Someone teleports into frame in a magic puff. Cueball's arms are raised, with a package of Mentos in one hand.]
POOF
Friend: D-Dad?
Dad: I'm back, son. We can be a family again.

Trivia[edit]

  • The "corn starch+water" trick from the title text is illustrated here at what-if.


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Discussion

The title-text reads badly, for me, but indicates that the (traditional) trick as depicted is cool, to the author, along with the non-Newtonian Liquid demonstration. (Although that latter may also have been done to death by virtually every science-for-kids-or-fun TV show that go in for that kind of thing...) 178.98.31.27 03:46, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

I don't think the "Ta-daa" pose meant that Cueball was expecting his friend's dad to appear out of nowhere instead of the Diet Coke + Mentos eruption. 108.162.216.45 22:49, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I think it should be noted that this comic can probably be read as an anwer the criticism of xkcd found here: http://webcomicssobad.blogspot.com/2007/11/xkcd.html 108.162.216.89 18:00, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

I am pretty sure that is a satirical blog post. The reviewer is talking about his terrible relationship with his dad half the time and trying to claim that it is xkcd's fault. I am sure there are real reviews that criticize xkcd, but this is just a joke blog. -- Flewk (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

This is just 1337: Part 6. 172.69.70.107 15:57, 5 September 2019 (UTC)