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Speaker 1: Brain with today's question. How do pop rocks candies work?
Speaker 1: It's definitely a technology candy. Nothing in nature works like
Speaker 1: pop rocks do, so how do they work? One of
Speaker 1: the funny things about pop rocks is that they're patented.
Speaker 1: That means you can go and read the patent and
Speaker 1: see exactly how they work. Here's the basic idea. Hard
Speaker 1: candy like a lollipop, is made from sugar, corn syrup,
Speaker 1: water and flavoring. You heat the ingredients together and boil
Speaker 1: the mixture to drive off all the water. Then you
Speaker 1: let the temperature rise. What you're left with is a
Speaker 1: pure sugar syrup at about three undred degrees fahrenheit. When
Speaker 1: it cools, you have hard candy. To make pop rocks,
Speaker 1: the hot sugar mixture is allowed to mix with carbon
Speaker 1: dioxide gas at about six hundred pounds per square inch
Speaker 1: inside a pressurized container, the carbon dioxide gas forms tiny
Speaker 1: six P s I bubbles in the candy. Once it cools,
Speaker 1: you release the pressure in the candy shatters, but the
Speaker 1: pieces still contain the high pressure bubbles. Look at a
Speaker 1: piece of pop Rocks candy with a magnifying glass and
Speaker 1: you can see those little bubbles. When you put the
Speaker 1: candy in your mouth, it melts just like any hard
Speaker 1: candy wood, and it releases the bubbles. What you're hearing
Speaker 1: and feeling is the six d p s i carbon
Speaker 1: dioxide gas being released from each bubble. Do you have
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