We've all seen the Mentos in Coke, now propane…
September 10, 2015 8:02 PM   Subscribe

 
Russia has some of the best rockets!!!
posted by Mag Plug at 8:06 PM on September 10, 2015


Grand pond, or thanks for my hand..
posted by Mblue at 8:17 PM on September 10, 2015


That's not propane.
posted by ryanrs at 8:17 PM on September 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


How these people still have faces never ceases to surprise me.
posted by kandinski at 8:23 PM on September 10, 2015 [3 favorites]


It's supposedly butane. How does this work? Upright nothing. Turn bottle over and liquid spews out propelling bottle. Any clues?
posted by njohnson23 at 8:24 PM on September 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


>Check out their other stunts too e.g. highly unsafe fun with a microwave oven

I don't know what's more disturbing, burning that dandelion or watching the cold dead eyes of the guy as he does it.
posted by AGameOfMoans at 8:24 PM on September 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


Gotta be butane. I'm guessing it stays marginally cold enough to stay liquid and it's (somewhat) soluble in water so it probably dissolves in the Coke. When the carbon dioxide starts to bubble, I imagine it forms nucleation sites for the butane.
posted by sfred at 8:25 PM on September 10, 2015


From Funktapus at Reddit

Coca-Cola is filled with dissolved CO2. The CO2 can escape (creating gas) if the partial pressure of CO2 is too low next the liquid. That's why Coke goes flat if you leave it exposed to air.
Next we have butane, which is a nonpolar liquid at low temperatures, but boils at about 0 Celsius. When you add a bunch of butane to the coke bottle, it probably starts to form a liquid on top of the coke (it won't mix), which causes water ice to form, which acts as an insulator.
Now, you flip the bottle. Not only does the liquid butane come into contact with warm coke, which causes it to boil, creating butane gas... but the newly gaseous butane doesn't contain any CO2. That causes CO2 to rush into the new butane bubbles and expand even more.
The end result: a bunch of new butane gas and CO2 gas, also known as an explosion.
posted by MikeWarot at 8:29 PM on September 10, 2015 [24 favorites]


Was that writing in the upper right hand corner a 'Warning: Do not do this at Home' as written in Cyrillic? Or was it 'Attention: We know you are going to do this at home'?
posted by Nanukthedog at 8:35 PM on September 10, 2015


Jesus Christ that microwave video. Eyepro? Gloves? Shit no, he ain't even wear pants.

Oh God it gets worse in the magnetron video.
posted by Sternmeyer at 8:36 PM on September 10, 2015 [5 favorites]


In the magnetron video it sounds like war in the background. Fighter jet at low altitude and artillery in the distance. Are these guys in Donesk in Ukraine?? Just looked them up. Luhansk in far eastern Ukraine right near Russian border. So maybe it is artillery...
posted by njohnson23 at 8:39 PM on September 10, 2015


Are these guys in Donesk in Ukraine??
Lugansk
posted by unliteral at 8:46 PM on September 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


I don't know what's more disturbing, burning that dandelion or watching the cold dead eyes of the guy as he does it.

You can hear the dandelion screaming!
posted by axiom at 8:57 PM on September 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


Well, I guess that's one positive to living in a conflict area. Apparently no one gives a shit if you wave an energized magnetron around on a stick.

Though he might want to rethink that for more than the obvious reasons why it's not a good idea to wave an energized magnetron around on a stick. I'd be a little worried about attracting anti-radar assets at high velocity.
posted by loquacious at 9:05 PM on September 10, 2015 [3 favorites]


Now that's littering with style!
posted by mmoncur at 9:06 PM on September 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


I found the translation "tourist burner" particularly amusing, given the fact that a bunch of stoves that take this type of butane cannister have been recalled due to safety concerns.
posted by onya at 9:42 PM on September 10, 2015 [3 favorites]


The butane thing is cool, but I need to point out that the above microwave video differs from this microwave video in that they've removed the more blatant fakery.
(Watch the reflection in the TV.)
posted by quinndexter at 10:16 PM on September 10, 2015


People are far too prissy about high energy microwaves. Here are Randall and Boot, the British inventors of the cavity magnetron, demonstrating their original discovery (on much of the original equipment) by mucking about with Lecher lines and lightbulbs. Note that this is from the mid-70s, and they're still going strong at the time.

(From the very good The Secret War BBC series, all of which is now on YouTube and all of which is worth watching for a lesson in how to make programmes about technology that don't involve desperate click-seeking nihilists doing gratuitous bollockry)
posted by Devonian at 2:44 AM on September 11, 2015 [4 favorites]


Holy shit Americans are allowed to buy things like this for their kids!
posted by ardgedee at 4:59 AM on September 11, 2015


but the newly gaseous butane doesn't contain any CO2. That causes CO2 to rush into the new butane bubbles and expand even more.

I doubt that could have anything to do with it since regular air only has very negligible amounts of CO2.
posted by DarkForest at 5:21 AM on September 11, 2015


ardgedee...I had those water rockets when I was a kid, back in the 60's. They're great fun! And, yeah, they were dangerous as all hell.

The roof of our home was littered with errant rockets. Frisbees, too.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:01 AM on September 11, 2015


> The end result: a bunch of new butane gas and CO2 gas, also known as an explosion

Only in the sense that a prolonged fart is an explosion.
posted by IAmBroom at 6:57 AM on September 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


Just imagine the results if he used Mountain Dew.
posted by davebush at 7:02 AM on September 11, 2015


Hey! I've got Coke! I've got butane!

Guess what I won't be doing this weekend?
posted by Keith Talent at 8:14 AM on September 11, 2015


I found the translation "tourist burner" particularly amusing, given the fact that a bunch of stoves that take this type of butane cannister have been recalled due to safety concerns.

Heh. Reminds me of "tourist's delight" in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Given that the game was developed in Ukraine, might be the same translation curiosity at work.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:58 AM on September 11, 2015


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