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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from how stuff works dot com

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Speaker 1: where smart happens. Hi. I'm Marshall Brain with today's question,

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Speaker 1: why does Alka Seltzer fizz when you drop the tablet

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Speaker 1: in the water. The fizzing you see when you drop

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Speaker 1: the tablet in is the same sort of fizzing that

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Speaker 1: you see from baking powder. The baking powder reaction is

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Speaker 1: caused by an acid reacting with baking soda. In school,

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Speaker 1: you probably tried an experiment where you mix baking soda

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Speaker 1: with vinegar to see at foam. That's what's happening in

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Speaker 1: baking powder. If you look at the ingredients for Alka Seltzer,

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Speaker 1: you'll find that it contains citric acid and sodium bicarbonate,

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Speaker 1: which is baking soda. When you drop the tablet in water,

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Speaker 1: the acid and the baking soda react. This produces the fizz.

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Speaker 1: You can think of an Alka Seltzer tablet as compressed

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Speaker 1: baking powder with a little aspirin mixed in. Do you

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Speaker 1: have any ideas or suggestions for this podcast? If so,

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Speaker 1: please send me an email at podcast at how stuff

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Speaker 1: works dot For more on this and thousands of other topics,

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Speaker 1: go to how stuff works dot com, m