346: Diet Coke+Mentos
| Diet Coke+Mentos |
 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
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).
The title text shows that Randall considers (or at least then considered) this trick to be one of the two coolest tricks you can perform with normal kitchen supplies. The other is using corn starch and water to make a non-Newtonian fluid that reacts wildly with vibrations and impact.
Transcript
- [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.]
- POOF
- Friend: D-Dad?
- Dad: I'm back, son. We can be a family again.
Trivia
- The "corn starch+water" trick from the title text is illustrated here at what-if.
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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)
Is the dad in the comic Hairy? If so, should the explanation and transcript be changed? 42.book.addict (talk) 19:31, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
