Why does mentos and diet coke react in such an explosive way?!

Question:

Why does mentos and diet coke react in such an explosive way?

Answers:

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Here's some websites that might help:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/mentos_erup...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story...

The tv show, Mythbusters, also did a whole special on it:

http://www.zap2it.com/tv/news/zap-mythbu...

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It's partly a chemical reaction, but mostly has to do with nucleation - the carbonated bubbles of the soda get caught on the rough edges of the mentos, then when the mentos hit the bottom it releases everything at once. Check out this mythbusters piece on it, it has all your answers (or if you prefer, this wikipedia entry which is basically a text version of the episode)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewsv3iq7h...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/mentos_erup...

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well, from what i read, the reaction is no where near chemical. It is 100% physical. There are many "pores" on the shell of the mento. Just picture a golfball. The gas in the coke goes into these pores and multiply rapidly because of the many pores. Thus, there is too much gas and it "explodes"

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