Eli5: Why does beer do that thing when hit with another beer on its cap
In: Chemistry
Okay so.
Beer and coke are both liquids with some CO2 gas mixed within. When you put abrupt but temporary pressure at the top of these liquids, it gets distributed inside. While doing so, at some places in the liquid, there are too many particles and hence a high-pressure zone, while at other places there’s a low pressure zone ( this is how pressure travels inside a fluid).
So now at certain points within the fluid, we got low pressure zones, where the pressure might be so low that CO2 trapped in its surroundings will usher into it, making a bubble which grows bigger and bigger, and becomes lighter and lighter, eventually moving to the top of the container (like how things lighter than water float in it).
P.S.: a fluid doesn’t have to be carbonated for this to happen. It can be 100% pure and still this can happen. In that case, instead of the CO2, the liquid itself converts into its gaseous state forming the bubbles we talked about ( this happens when pressure at a point in a liquid drops below it’s ‘vapor pressure’). This process is apparently called Cavitation.
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