… or is it an optical illusion? Richard Zare is a world-renowned chemist at Stanford University, and he has a particular fascination with bubbles. He recently showed why the bubbles actually go down the side of the glass when you first pull a pint of Guinness.
This gentleman might have something to say about the Mentos reaction. Hmmm?
Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz, the Eepybird guys who turned the Mentos and Diet Coke experiment into art are jumping from the Internet to the mainstream media.
They appeared on David Letterman last Thursday night and on the “Today Show” Friday morning. They demonstrated their version of the Bellagio Fountains done with Mentos and Diet Coke on both shows.
Their video went viral after they posted a 3-minute video on their website using more than 500 Mentos and more than 100 two-liter plastic bottles of Diet Coke in June.
I was in Talkeetna, Alaska when I received a call from my television producer. “Have you seen the Mentos video yet?” I asked which one she was referring to and she said, “The one with the two guys and 102 bottles of Diet Coke.” I quietly snuck out of the hotel room with my laptop – I was on a mission to find a wireless connection. Thirty minutes later (after lots of snooping), I was watching the amazing video by Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz. The first time we did the Mentos Diet Coke experiment on 9NEWS in Denver was March of 2002. We featured variations on the Mentos experiment four other times (different ways to drop the candy into the bottle… warm soda vs. cold soda… brand name vs. generic). But the Eepybird.com video was a stroke of genius.
As a tribute to their video, we gathered a few of our instructors and staff from the Hands-on Science Institute and taught viewers how to make their own trigger device. We filled the back of the SUV with 52 bottles, about 300 Mentos, a cordless drill and a pile of pipe clearners. Here’s the Spangler video at
…
Believe it or not, research scientists have actually concluded that Diet Coke produces the best stream of flying soda (much to the joy of the Mentos Experiment enthusiasts). I received an email from Dr. Joe Maglaty, Director of Education Outreach from the Merck Institute for Science Education with this information:
Continue Reading…I recently came across an article that you may, or may not, be aware of. In the April issue of the Journal of Chemical Education, a chemistry professor from Illinois State Univ. took on the analytical process for showing gas solubility in aqueous solution – that is, how much carbon dioxide (CO2) is released from soda (pop) using ultrasonic energy.
In a recent phone interview with a newspaper reporter, I speculated that the makers of Mentos, Perfetti Van Melle, were distancing themselves from the Mentos phenomenon. This was based on our numerous attempts to reach the marketing gurus at Perfetti Van Melle, starting back in January of 2006. Well, based on the article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the folks at Mentos are “tickled pink” by the online buzz.
The popularity of the videos – Mentos says it has found some 800 online – is producing a gusher of free publicity for the candy maker, a unit of Italian confectioner Perfetti Van Melle. “We are tickled pink by it,” says Pete Healy, vice president of marketing for the company’s U.S. division. The company spends less than $20 million on U.S. advertising annually. He estimates the value of online buzz to be “over $10 million.”
Our goal in contacting Healy was to share the “buzz” that started back in 2001 when thousands of teachers started doing the science demo in their classrooms as a way to teach some cool science concepts. Over the past five years we’ve collected hundreds of emails with variations from teachers and students. Hopefully, we’ll get a chance to share some of the history of the Mentos phenomenon with the marketing people at Perfetti Van Melle.
