Last updated:14/05/2008
Mentos/Coke fountain world-record

This is the kind of science experiment that everyone can get excited about.

Belgian students have set a new world record for the most Mentos fountains by firing 1,360 simultaneous Coke geysers.
After they each dropped a tube of the mints into a bottle of Diet Coke, Ladeuzeplein square in Leuven was washed with soda, with some carbonated streams shooting up to 29 feet high.

Internet footage of the attempt has attracted over 10 million viewers.

The previous record was set in the US, when 973 Cola bottles were launched simultaneously.

This craze has been a dream come true for the makers of Mentos with them recording a 20% increase in sales of Mentos Mints last year.

Although there is no exact scientific explanation for the phenomenon, scientists agree that the reaction is physical, not chemical.

The most popular cause is believed to be the thousands of tiny pores on each Mentos Mint, which act like nucleation sites allowing carbon dioxide bubbles to form in the drink.
The bubbles form all over the sweets and when it sinks to the bottom it causes the carbon dioxide to whoosh out of the bottle.

An urban myth claims that eating Mentos directly after drinking Coke can result in death, although to date no fatalities have been reported.