Does flicking or tapping a soda prevent it from exploding?

Does flicking or tapping a soda prevent it from exploding? In this video I test many different drinks, at many different temperatures, with many different techniques, to find out!

00:00 Introduction
00:28 How does temperature affect things?
01:41 How long does it take shaken sodas to calm down?
02:23 Are certain drinks more explosive?
03:51 Testing whether flicking/tapping actually work
06:07 Conclusion

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The flicking at 4:11 is a lot harder when I do it for real, making a solid "thunk" each time.

There's a few scenes with a lot of action on the screen at the same time. Rather than showing these explosions one at a time (boring, hard to compare) or just showing a few of them (makes the experiment less credible) I put them all on the screen at once. You can always pause, rewind, or slow down the video if you want a closer look!

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TKOR Video - Should You Tap Your Soda Before Openi...
Mad Russian Scientist Video - How to Defuse a Shaken Soda Can
Lifehacker Video - Tip Tester: Stop Soda From Fizzing Over
Good Mystical morning Video - Don't Do This To Soda Cans (Experiment)

The videos demonstrating that tapping works are the above Mad Russian Scientist video, as well as these two:
9 News Video - Science Minute: How to keep a soda ca...
Sick Science - Non-Exploding Soda Can - Cool Science...

There's another extremely rigorous and well-controlled experiment on YouTube, by Today I Found Out (Does Tapping a Shaken Can of Soda Act...). Had I known this video existed before filming, I wouldn't have even bothered to make mine! That said, we do arrive at the same conclusions.

• #howto_style
• #experiment
• #soda_can
• #life_hacks