What you need:
A can of normal flavoured soda
A can of diet soda (both cans should be of the same size)
A large container
Water
What to do:
1. Fill the container with water.
2. Drop the can of normal soda into the water.
3. Now, drop the can of diet soda in.
What happens:
The can of normal soda sinks whereas the can of diet soda floats!
Why?
What is the difference between normal soda and diet soda? Both are made out of similar ingredients. But normal soda is sweetened using sugar, whereas diet soda uses artificial sweeteners such as aspartame.
And these artificial sweeteners are really sweet so they are needed in small quantities. On the other hand, a lot of sugar needs to be added to achieve the same amount of sweetness in normal sodas. So, this dissolved sugar increases the weight and the density (density is nothing but the number of molecules packed into a small space) of the soda.
As a rule, in order to float on a liquid, the density of the object needs to be lesser than the density of the liquid. Diet soda achieves this low density thanks to the low quantity of the artificial sweetener dissolved in it. So the diet soda can floats. The sugar-laden normal soda is denser and it sinks.
Picture Credit : Google
