Diet Coke and Mentos

You don’t have to be a fan of the old Mr. Wizard series to appreciate the pure effervescent joy found in combining random household objects and watching them explode. The science behind the Diet Coke and Mentos phenomenon is simple: When mint Mentos are dropped into Diet Coke, the carbon dioxide in the soda reacts with the unglazed surface of the candy, triggering a process called nucleation. But the ultimate conclusion of this experiment: a major staple of the online video world, one that at times approximates art.

The man currently credited as the originator of the experiment, science teacher and TV correspondent Steve Spangler, first demonstrated it on local Denver NBC affiliate 9News in 2005. But the meme has become most closely associated with the videos produced by Stephen Voltz and Fritz Grobe, better known as Eepybird, whose series of experiments have lead to a major online following, a series of live shows, and over $50,000 in ad revenue from Revver.

Although Eepybird is the most recognized of Mentos/Coca-Cola combiners, no one has made a real attempt to assert ownership over this phenomenon, perhaps because everyone recognizes that it’s hard to trademark dropping candy into soda. And the only ones with a serious copyright claim — namely, Mentos and Coca-Cola — recognized early on that being jerks about the use of their brands for a fun and harmless experiment would lead to bad karma or worse, bad publicity. Fearing that Lifesavers or Diet Pepsi might gain traction in this market, both companies have become major sponsors/suppliers for Eepybird and other “scientists.” Pete Healy, VP of marketing at Mentos, credits a 20 percent increase in sales in part to the “geyser craze.”

But Eepybird aren’t the only ones hard at work experimenting with this basic chemical reaction. A YouTube search for “diet coke mentos” pulls up over 7,000 videos, some of which are more extreme than others. It’s also a popular experiment for those interested in world records. As of this writing, the students of Louisville Male High School are on top for setting off 1,800 Mentos/Diet Coke geysers simultaneously.

And it’s not hard to pinpoint why this is so fascinating to people of all ages, from all nations. You take the candy, you drop it in the soda, you watch it go WHOOOSH. And you remember being a kid, when all science seemed this fun.