Soda Cans

[jsb5048]

Why does tapping the top pf a soda can after it has been shaken up keep it from spraying out everywhere when you open it?

[Earthling]

Read The Master's wisdom.

[HeyHomie]

Originally posted by Earthling
Read The Master's wisdom.

Cecil's research was flawed. You'll read that he shook the cans vigorously for a length of time before tapping them.

Had he merely shook them a little, to replicate the amount of shaking a can would go through after, say, falling from your refrigerator or to the floor, or falling from its slot in the vending machine to the place where you pick it up, he would have found that tapping does, indeed, work.

[DougC]

- - - Uh, no. Penn and Teller have a gag where they use one shaken and one not-shaken soda, but the shaken one doesn't explode and the unshaken one does. The reason they say that it works is that if you leave a shaken beverage can sit for about 30 seconds, it basically doesn't overflow at all when you open it (-how they get the unshaken one to explode I leave to your imagination).
~

[samclem]

Here's a link to a previous thread about Cecil's column. I think that Jinx offered some good insight from a person in a field where fluids are handled. While I'm not well-versed on the subject, the info offered seemed to add to the topic.