Mentos and Diet Coke

By way of debunking a story about the purported deadly effects of eating Mentos and drinking Coke, www.snopes.com helps to explain why dumping Mentos into a bottle of carbonated soda causes the famous fountain...

"Mentos, a candy that has a soft, chewy interior encased in a slightly hard shell, is no longer just for noshing on -- when combined with a carbonated beverage in a closed environment that has a small opening (think "soda bottle"), it serves to produce a frothy geyser that shoots many feet into the air, a secondary use of the product that has served to enthrall countless persons with a penchant for making things explode.

The combination of any carbonated liquid and mint-flavored Mentos will rapidly produce copious amounts of foam because the candy works to disrupt the surface tension of the liquid, thereby releasing all the drink's fizz (carbon dioxide) in one surprisingly speedy whoosh. The resulting effect is quick, high and explosive, yet what takes place is not a chemical reaction but a physical one."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4B88kWyaLg

http://eepybird.com/exp214.html