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Tapping The Can & Urban Legends You Thought Were Completely True

Mighty_Emperor

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I know for them to work ULs have to be sort of believed although usually they are too good to be true but there are somethings that we assume which are pure myth and I ran across the one about tapping your can to stop it foaming on Snopes declaring it false:

www.snopes.com/science/sodacan.htm

I remember being taught this one on a school trip and being very impressed that it worked and over the years we have debated why it won't actually work for beer, etc. However, it appears this is just the same kind of break down in causality that underpins a lot of "magical" thinking (I'm sure when the can has foamed over I have thought that is was because I had somehow not tapped ithe can properly or enough).

So did anyone else think this worked or is it just me (or in fact is Snopes worng)? Also is there anything else like this that you thought was just the way things worked which turned out to be little more than superstition?
 
I've tested this urban legend by shaking a can and then tapping for a a minute or two, it seemed to work. We were using beer and it still foamed but it didn't explode in my face as it should have. We had also had a few beers before the experiment began :) so it wasn't the most scientific of studies.
 
Dan The GPI said:
I've tested this urban legend by shaking a can and then tapping for a a minute or two, it seemed to work. We were using beer and it still foamed but it didn't explode in my face as it should have. We had also had a few beers before the experiment began :) so it wasn't the most scientific of studies.

Having conducted a significant number of studies on the effect of beer can tapping (hic!) I can only encourage further scientific enquiry. Tapping a can of FOSTERS has noeffect. It still tastes like S**t!
:D
 
Yeah, this is the first time I'm hearing that it's not true :oops: - although I always heard you tap the top of the can, not the side.

Makes sense that the seeming success can be explained by the time it takes to tap on it.
 
Well I'm sorry but Snopes is wrong!!!! I shook a can of Pepsi tapped the top opened it and no explosion!!!! Case closed :D
 
Elffriend said:
Well I'm sorry but Snopes is wrong!!!! I shook a can of Pepsi tapped the top opened it and no explosion!!!! Case closed :D

What you need to do is shake 2 cans - open one and then tap and open the other. ;)
 
Wah - read this yesterday and then still caught myself tapping my can of fizzy pop today :oops: The shame!
 
Every time I see the thread title I think it means something else. (have never heard the can-tapping UL either, fwiw)
 
Leaferne said:
Every time I see the thread title I think it means something else. (have never heard the can-tapping UL either, fwiw)

What does the euphemism 'tapping the can' mean to you then Leaferne? :shock:
 
I've found it works every time with pop, but not by tapping, you hold a can upright and bring the base down with quite a bit of force onto a hard surface. just soft tapping dose not work, hitting anyware but the base won't work either, it's not so much a case of it not working it's a case of it being done incorrectly and the incorrect way of doing it becoming the most widespread.

The stay-on ringpuls that first appeared in the late 80's and are now on just about every drinks can also cut down on over fizz too as the open inwards rather than outwards.
 
when i used to drink, if i had a fizzy alcopop (something i'd only drink if free, extremely cheap, or the only alcohol available), i would de-fizz it. the way to do it is to cover the top of the bottle with your thumb and bash the base down on a surface. this makes it fizz violently. you then allow the fizz to escape slowly. can be very messy if you're too drunk to do it right. also makes you look a bit weird (but as the sort of drinker who used to add extra vodka to anything i rated as not alcoholic enough, i wasn't too bothered by that).
 
I think this was shown on Brainaic to be blantly not true.
 
This has always worked for me. Also I've found if you have a clear plastic bottle of carbonated soda that's been dropped or shaken and you tap at the neck of the bottle you can see the bubbles popping as you tap. Now I've never taken one and just let it sit to see if it happens anyway, but I've never had a soda explode on me.
 
Wouldn't it be a bit like tapping a syringe to get the air bubbles out of the solution? There would just be a lot of gas at the top of the bottle or can and it wouldn't fizz. Maybe.
 
dunno if its just me but ( and this makes me sound like my grandad)
im sure coca cola isnt as as volatile as it was in my day.
you only had to give it a stearn look and it would fizz away to nothingness when you opened it.
 
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