Some 2,175 students at Changchun University in northeastern China have set a new world record of the most dubious variety. They have outdone the last world record for the number of fountains created by dropping mint sweets inside bottles of Coca Cola. If you are wondering what this means for the future of mankind, keep wondering.
The spectacular stunt was performed on June 6, 2010. It was a sunny day at the university’s basketball court where students wore blue and yellow plastic coats to keep from getting wet. At the end of a highly dramatic broadcast countdown, the students dropped Mentos mint sweets on skewers into bottles of coke.
There is no exact scientific explanation as to what causes the explosion, but scientists believe that the reaction is physical and not chemical. It is thought that the thousands of tiny pores on each mint candy allow for the formation of carbon dioxide bubbles in the drink.
When the candy sinks to the bottom of the bottle, the carbon dioxide whooshes out of the bottle like a summoned (and very angry) genie out of a lamp and causes a harmless, 25-foot-high geyser.
A great deal of preparation went into the event, which was recognized by record authority, Guinness.
“We tested two ways of putting in the mint candies. One was to drop them through paper pipes and the other was to use skewers. After numerous tests, we chose the latter. We ordered 2,450 packs of sweets from a local supermarket, and the day before the event, we had to unwrap them all, put them on skewers and then wrap them again to stop them from melting in the heat,” said Zhang Bofa, vice dean of the university’s tourism school.
Nineteen hundred and eleven students from the School of Business Administration in Turiba, Latvia, held the previous coke fountain record that was set in 2008.
One question lingers:
Why would anyone want to do this?
Perhaps the Shadow knows the answer.
I certainly don’t.
What do YOU think about this?
Resources:
http://www.weirdasianews.com/2010/06/27/chinese-students-set-world-coke-fountain-recordwha/
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