12 ms·
What Coke Contains
- meaty 14y agoThis instantly reminded me of: http://www.gburnett.unisonplus.net/Perma/indexp2.htm http://www.gburnett.unisonplus.net/Perma/indexp2.htm (The Industrial Cup Of Tea)
- lostlogin 14y ago>>The top of the can is then added. This is carefully engineered: it is made from aluminum, but it has to be thicker and stronger to withstand the pressure of the carbon dioxide gas.<< Eh? The pressure is greater at the top of the can?
- Zenst 14y agoGood point, though I suspect it is down to the ring pull being the weakest part by design of being able to open it along the indented outline of the tab. Though it could also be so possibly from the aspect of the carbon dioxide want to rise to the top and that extra force would only incure more pressure towards the top (assuming the can is upright). There again thats a bit of a wild guess, but the only plausable explanation I can find as to why that would be so. Or it could be wrong in some way and mixed the ring pull tab area as the weakest link and worded it to impley the whole top. Though I do know with most certainty that if placed in a freezer and left then it will expand at the top and the bottom and mostly rupture a bit around the ring pull tab in the process.
- jacquesm 14y ago> Though it could also be so possibly from the aspect of the carbon dioxide want to rise to the top and that extra force would only incure more pressure towards the top Pressure inside an enclosed volume is equal everywhere.
- recuter 14y agoI would guess this has more to do with the need to stack the cans than pressure internal to the can because of carbon dioxide. But it is just a guess.
- rcamera 14y agoPressure is the same on both ends, and the bottom of the can is already thicker than the sides of it. The top of the can is thicker than the sides, but thinner than the bottom, because you need to be able to open the can easily. So in order to make it thinner than the bottom but at least as strong, you use a different alloy.
- shabble 14y agoIt may also be a result of greater stiffness required for the captive pop-tab opener to work properly. There's an interesting Slate article[1] about the complexity of what appears to be a such a simple feature; in order to achieve the force necessary to rupture the can opening, the tab pivot transitions between a first and second class lever. There's a good video somewhere showing the principles, but I can't seem to find it. Returning to the 'pressure' argument, recall that most drinks cans have a domed bottom which provides comparatively greater strength than the flatter top. [1] http://www.slate.com/articles/life/design/2012/09/can_tabs_how_aluminum_pop_tabs_were_redesigned_to_make_drinking_soda_safer_and_the_world_a_cleaner_place_.single.html http://www.slate.com/articles/life/design/2012/09/can_tabs_h...
- izakage 14y agoHere's a link to the mentioned video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekv0kprA3AY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekv0kprA3AY
- kens 14y agoThe top needs to be thicker because of its geometry. The curved sides and domed base can resist pressure better than the flat top. Another interesting fact is the can is narrower at the top to reduce the size of the lid, saving cost and mass. Lots of details and photos on aluminum cans at http://www.chymist.com/Aluminum%20can.pdf http://www.chymist.com/Aluminum%20can.pdf so check it out.
- DanBC 14y agoThicker and stronger is about the pull-tab. Smaller is about cost. They save a bit (say $3 per 1,000 as per link I posted elsewhere) by making the top 1/4 inch smaller. Over 70 million cans a day that's some cash.
- danem 14y agoA more famous, and perhaps more interesting version of this observation can be found here: http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html
- bdc 14y agoAn interesting derivative of "I, Pencil": http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html
- jscheel 14y agoOk, bit of a bragging moment here: my grandpa, with two other gentlemen, created the process for machining seamless cans that is described here. Before them, cans had a lead seam in them. They discovered that you could draw down the aluminum and stretch it to form cans in one piece. He also invented the process for creating the bottom of soda cans, and his friend invented the modern tab on the top of soda cans.
- bitserf 14y agoThat's pretty damn awesome. Behind everything we take for granted, there's someone who slaved over it and brought it into fruition. Thanks for sharing!
- arscan 14y agoI think about this occasionally. Everything that you see that isn't "nature" was explicitly designed by somebody (and most likely a large team of somebodies). Its truly mind-boggling.
- namank 14y agoAnd how those things not only survive but flourish in the same environment. It's mind boggling that those designs can co-exist without immediate repercussions! The complexity through the times amazes me!
- sopooneo 14y agoSort of. So much is the result of tiny incremental design improvements over decades or centuries. I remember the first time I took apart a small engine it seemed to work so well together that it was almost organic. Like it had evolved, which in a way it had
- LukeShu 14y agoI like to think about that too. Like I notice that there's a groove in the latch for a bathroom stall; an engineer decided to put that there, but for what reason?
- webwielder 14y agoSee also: http://thetoasterproject.org http://thetoasterproject.org
- erickhill 14y agoIt's incredible to me that an essay as detailed as this one had not one single citation. Regardless, it was a fascinating read.
- k33 14y agoeh, I just don't feel like the writer understands or cares to explain how that whole process is actually detrimental to the world despite the fact that it "unites" it. Coke is just addictive sugar water that does nothing for anyone. When has coke given you something other than diabetes? Kevin Ashton fails at pointing out the impact of this collaboration. Couldn't all of these talented people that made such a sophisticated product put their energy towards something.. I dunno, useful?
- prezjordan 14y agoBy that logic, candy is pointless and we should get rid of it?
- gambiting 14y agoLook at yourself - you belong to the elite of our species. You are educated enough to know how to read and write. You are fortunate enough to have a computer,and be connected to the internet. You are fortunate enough to speak one of the most widely used languages in the world. This all implies that you are at the top of our evolutionary ladder. And yet with all this power in your hands, and with the limited time we have in our lives, you decide to go on Hacker News and comment how other people are not doing useful things? Even though for many people the process of making coke is literally the only way they can survive, and yet, they are the ones not doing anything useful? I think you are being naively idealistic at the very best, and just a hypocrite at the worst.
- triplesec 14y agoand you? You castigate a poster for doing exatly what you are doing yourself. Ironically recursive. It's important that the elites of this world understand what harm they and their tribes are doing, intentionally or not, because awareness comes before action!
- gambiting 14y agoOf course I am doing it ironically. That's not the point though. If you think that someone at Coca-Cola Co. is going to wake up one day and say "you know, we are going stop making soda drinks and lay off thousands of people and cause unemployment for hundreds of thousands because after all,we produce a drink that's no good for anyone", then I think you are(just like OP) being naively idealistic.
- largesse 14y agoI read it and then thought "Why Coke?" That's the story of every manufactured product assembled from multi-sourced vendors. It's not news, and it's not unique to Coke. If you think it is you'll probably have an orgasm when you learn how pencils are made.
- rlu 14y agoI'll go ahead and ask how pencils are made.
- largesse 14y agoDO NOT CLICK THIS YOU WILL GET VERY EXCITED!! http://www.pencilpages.com/articles/make.htm http://www.pencilpages.com/articles/make.htm
- derekp7 14y agoI've actually got an educational kit floating around somewhere that looks like that, from when my Mom worked at an office supply business. It was called "How a Ticonderoga Pencil is made kit", and has the raw parts from each step of the pencil making process. I'll see if I can dig it up and post pictures.
- marknutter 14y agoRight, this same story gets re-hashed every few months on the popular news sharing sites as a way to "blow people's minds" and there is never a shortage of people who lap it up. It is amazing how stuff is made, but not mind-blowing.
- ubercow13 14y agoWho said anyone is trying to blow anyone's minds? It's just an article which has been posted which is interesting.
- namank 14y agoThe process is representative of the complexity involved in something so pervasive that it almost replaces water. It is the complexity and the pervasiveness that makes it mind-boggling.
- jechen 14y agoCurious as to why there's no mention of the secret formula, since the author is wrong about kola nut being an ingredient of the syrup: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/pr2001447 http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/pr2001447 (from the Coca-Cola wiki page), which interestingly is a component in many purported recipes. It's also interesting to see a picture of a glass bottle coke when the American product rarely exists in such form. I've sworn off the HFCS version after discovering the Mexican recipe with cane sugar - it tastes so much better and comes in a glass bottle. When I was in Tijuana for a Startup Weekend, that's all they served.
- maxerickson 14y agoThis paper: http://goranlab.com/pdf/Ventura%20Obesity%202010-sugary%20beverages.pdf http://goranlab.com/pdf/Ventura%20Obesity%202010-sugary%20be... (Linked from here: http://healthland.time.com/2010/10/28/study-hey-hipsters-mexican-coke-might-be-a-myth/ http://healthland.time.com/2010/10/28/study-hey-hipsters-mex... ) Explains that the Mexican coke tested had fructose and glucose in it. It could have been bottled with HFCS or perhaps the cane sugar split in the bottle. That doesn't in any way account for all the possible differences with Mexican coke though.
- Wonderdonkey 14y agoThis time of year you can buy "Passover Coke." It's made with cane sugar. It has no corn syrup in it whatsoever, while Mexican Coke actually has a ≈70/30 cane/corn mix. You can tell it apart from regular Coke by its yellow cap printed with a circle U (kosher symbol). It's much cheaper than Mexican Coke (same price as regular 2 liter Coke), although it doesn't come in a glass bottle. And it's delicious! I actually stock up every year since I found out about this.
- lobster_johnson 14y agoYou should consider making your own cola. It's easy, and very rewarding. Recipe mentioned in my other comment [1]. Incidentally, there are some very good "alternative" colas. My favourite is Fentimans' Curiosity Cola [2], which NY Times once described as "the world's best cola", and which is made with a small amount of fermented ginger (fermented juices is their thing). I also really like Boylan's Cane Cola [3]. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5311790 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5311790 [2] http://www.fentimans.com/ http://www.fentimans.com/ [3] http://www.boylanbottling.com/products/cane-sugar-sodas/boylan-cane-sugar-cola/ http://www.boylanbottling.com/products/cane-sugar-sodas/boyl...
- Mamady 14y agoFirst it was an interesting article, but the last paragraph made it an amazing article.
- benmaraschino 14y agoFor those who might be interested, here's a fantastic Scientific American (back when it was still good) article about the aluminum can and how it's made: http://www.chymist.com/Aluminum%20can.pdf http://www.chymist.com/Aluminum%20can.pdf
- frozenport 14y agoI am a lead pencil—the ordinary wooden pencil familiar to all boys and girls and adults who can read and write. http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html
- LaGrange 14y agoI find it unfortunate that an otherwise interesting story is used to convey some silly neo-liberal ideas. Try that getting-stuff-over-the-ocean-cheaply trick without harbors.
- jacques_chester 14y agoOK, I'll bite: which are the silly neoliberal ideas?
- LaGrange 14y ago"Have faith that free men and women will respond to the Invisible Hand." /curtains
- jacques_chester 14y agoAre you saying that people don't act according to their own satisfaction (monetary, emotional, romantic etc)? That human activity is basically Gaussian noise?
- vacri 14y agoThat's a strawman - disagreeing with the concept of the Invisible Hand (or perhaps rather, disagreeing with the scale some attribute it) is not the same as saying humans are RNGs.
- jacques_chester 14y agoYes, it's a leading question. From the other side of the debate I'd attack the concept of subjective value. Why do people value this? We don't know. They just do. How do you know they value it? Because of their actions. Why do they take those actions? Because of their valuations. But it's also difficult to argue the counter-case. Outside of corner cases such as depression, psychotic episodes etc, if people aren't acting to diminish discomfort or increase their perceived happiness, then what is motivating them?
- tubbo 14y agoSo where does all the cocaine go that's extracted from those coca leaves in New Jersey?
- pohl 14y agoAn obvious omission: salt.
- pixl97 14y agoWell, salt being common (now, not historically) is probably sourced close to production to reduce its transportation costs. There is a large salt mine within 35 miles of my house, and they are located all along the gulf coast in salt domes, a by product of oil exploration.
- pohl 14y agoYou make a good point about it not fitting the international narrative, but then water can be sourced anywhere and they mention the word twice.
- RexRollman 14y agoI didn't realize that they were adding caffeine; I was under the impression it was a natural by-product of the ingredients.
- beachstartup 14y agococaine is the natural by-product. caffeine was the replacement after cocaine was deemed illegal.
- mynameishere 14y agoBy contrast, you can make wine from a single ingredient. And it's an awful lot better than coke.
- s0rce 14y agoYou need grapes and yeast, it just happens that the yeasts are found in the air/on the grapes.
- contingencies 14y agoA good spot to learn precisely how and why you are wrong: http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/ http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/
- mynameishere 14y agoNatural grapes make wine on their own. In fact, most creatures produce ethanol through one or another pathway.
- contingencies 14y agoPresence of ethanol does not a wine make. If you happen to have a certain temperature range, suitable wild-yeast strains present, adequate chemical composition and pick at the right time of year, it is theoretically possible to make a drinkable wine with unprocessed fruits and no chemicals. However, in most environments and with most fruits you are far more likely to wind up with something foul-tasting and undrinkable.
- s0rce 14y agoI believe most of the cryolite used now is synthetic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_hexafluoroaluminate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_hexafluoroaluminate).
- gunt69 14y agoa great example of capitalism. think about that the next time you have a knee jerk reaction towards business.
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y agoPrivate enterprise != capitalism. And planned economies have done this kind of thing, too.
- jacques_chester 14y agoThey have, but not as well as a rule. Plus, not every country has every resource. Even the vast internal resources of the USSR needed to be supplemented by goods and services purchased on the open market (and vice-versa, the USSR got most of its hard currency by selling oil).
- gunt69 14y agoa great example of capitalism. think about that the next time you have a knee jerk reaction towards business.
- chimpinee 14y agoAn enormous and sophisticated 'tool chain'. Surely it could never be implemented in a one-day-to-be-invented universal fabricator? One is reminded of those 19th C ppl who thought recorded music was impossible since any player would have to contain miniature versions of all the orchestral instruments (or things that resembled them: "humanity's choir") together with a horrendously large paper roll punched full of holes
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y agoIf you have a large enough supply of electrons, protons and neutrons, and you can combine them at will, you can make anything.
- lifeformed 14y agoAnything except for quarks.
- jacquesm 14y agoIf you bang some of the electrons hard enough into some of the neutrons or protons you'll even get quarks.
- fernly 14y agoI think Mr. Ashton is trying to illustrate Sagan's dictum, "If you wish to make apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe." Except it's coke, and he doesn't go past bauxite.
- Tloewald 14y agoReminds me of a passage from Richard Powers's novel "Gain" where the process by which a disposable camera is manufactured, packaged, distributed, ad sold serves to explain everything that is at once miraculous and broken about our world.
- venus 14y ago> The number of individual nations that could produce a can of Coke is zero While I understand what the author is trying to say, I don't think that is true at all. I'm pretty sure that if they had a good reason, any number of advanced economies could get it together enough to produce the cans themselves. Seems like the main hard part is the aluminium. While I'm nit-picking, I believe natural cryolite has not been used in aluminium processing for decades. Thought-provoking article, though; I typed this with a can of Diet Coke on my desk.
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago>I'm pretty sure that if they had a good reason, any number of advanced economies could get it together enough to produce the cans themselves. It's not just the metal, it's the ingredients of the flavouring. Coca leaves don't grow everywhere (although, sure, you could put the plant in a greenhouse).
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- dyno12345 14y agoA more accurate way to say it might be that no individual nation could produce a can of coke so cheaply.
- nivloc 14y agoIt's the same reason natural cryolite isn't used - it's not economically viable. Lots of countries grow all the agricultural products. Aluminum isn't hard, just potentially more expensive. > While I'm nit-picking... Me too, Pinjarra is where the refinery for the largest producing bauxite mine is. And the refinery operates today because of cheap coal in Australia. As is the case with many industrial minerals, it's often far cheaper to ship raw ore or concentrates to smelters built where electricity is cheap. Aluminum is no exception, and electricity cost is the reason there is a refinery in Iceland, despite being far from any bauxite mines. The story really isn't that no country can't make a can of Coke, but why they don't. It's a fascinating story, unfortunately mostly told through feasibility spreadsheets. I'm in the industry and it's not hard to think of all the steps ranging hundreds of millions of years to put an apple on my desk (there's volcanoes and inland seas! Dinosaurs if you stretch your mind!). This is a good summary. If he got any deeper, it'd be a book.
- likethateh 14y ago> on the Murray River in Western Australia called Pinjarra always jarring to read something you know to be so obviously false so early in a piece. *waves to fellow Sandgropers
- 6ren 14y agoA little knowledge is a dangerous thing http://www.smh.com.au/news/Western-Australia/Pinjarra/2005/02/17/1108500208647.html http://www.smh.com.au/news/Western-Australia/Pinjarra/2005/0... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_River_%28Western_Australia%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_River_%28Western_Austral... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinjarra,_Western_Australia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinjarra,_Western_Australia
- jacques_chester 14y agoIt's jarring because there's a much more famous Murray river "over east".
- 6ren 14y agoI know, it borders my state. But the article specifies the one in Western Australia. Seems OK; but maybe I'm just getting too accustomed to the unhelpfully concise style of mathematics papers. It was surprising to me too, but concluding it to be "so obviously false" seems unwarranted, especially online - where it's so easy to check. Dismissing surprises as incorrect narrows the world into one's model of the world. And to me, the unknown is more interesting than the known.
- primitur 14y agoI grew up in Pinjarra, and swam in the Murray River almost every day. So I don't know what your point is, exactly - that Western Australia doesn't have a Murray River? It does.
- triplesec 14y agoThis sounds something like an astroturf for a brown chemical drink which sure as eggs is eggs will rot your teeth and kill you sooner than if you drink clean water (or moderate amounts of wine for that matter). We can make the globalisation and connectedness point a lot more clearly and ideologically neutrally without promoting useless Lowest Common Denominator products that merely waste our resources and do not add to the total sum of human happiness.
- goostavos 14y ago>This sounds something like an astroturf for a brown chemical drink which sure as eggs is eggs will rot your teeth and kill you sooner than if you drink clean water (or moderate amounts of wine for that matter). ...Did you just make that up on the spot? >We can make the globalisation and connectedness point a lot more clearly and ideologically neutrally without promoting useless Lowest Common Denominator products that merely waste our resources and do not add to the total sum of human happiness. Oh, good grief, I responded to your exact type of comment by another person further down, but I'll repeat the summary here: Your comment makes no sense. I don't know if you're just the type of guy that needs to cut down everything to justify your ego, or maybe this is just a form of the engineer humble brag, but honestly, "Lowest Common Denominator products that merely waste our resources and do not add to the total sum of human happiness." Really? You going to stand by that? Did you even read the article? I'd say the fact that it requires all of the distribution and production means describes in the article to keep up the demand of its product a tick in the "Brings Happiness" column. I myself very much enjoy having a Cherry Coke Zero when anytime I visit the theater. Have I, along with the rest of the world, been deluding myself? I didn't actually enjoy that product, and got no happiness or enjoyment out of its consumption? Who knew! Further human happiness is a strange thing to use as a measuring stick for a product's "worth." What is the 'level' of human happiness that a product must bring before it is of value in your book? Obviously, being that coca-cola product represent 3% of all beverages consumed around the world (I looked it up), we need something that, what, hits that 4% mark before we can acknowledge that it actually does deliver some marginal level of happiness to the population? What is your opinion on restaurants? Those seem to provide the same type of happiness as a coke. Maybe we should tell all those people to go out and do something worthwhile that gives actual happiness. Whatever that fuck that actually means.
- aneth4 14y agoThe most interesting part of the story lies here: "coca-leaf which comes from South America and is processed in a unique US government authorized factory in New Jersey to remove its addictive stimulant cocaine" Consider the implications of one of the largest American companies being singularly authorized to buy and import hundreds of tons of coca leaf, which is banned in nearly every country and produced primarily by illegal drug manufacturers. Does anyone believe there's no funny business going on here? (For the record, I think coca and cocaine should be legal.) http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2004/apr/19/20040419-093635-4754r/ http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2004/apr/19/20040419-093...
- jacquesm 14y agoWhere does pepsi get theirs?
- maxerickson 14y agoThey don't.
- rm999 14y agoHere's an article on that topic and some excerpts I thought were interesting http://www.uic.edu/classes/osci/osci590/9_3%20The%20Legal%20Importation%20of%20Coca%20Leaf.htm http://www.uic.edu/classes/osci/osci590/9_3%20The%20Legal%20... >The Stepan Company (a $400 million American Stock Exchange company) of Maywood, New Jersey imports 175,000 KG of coca leaves into the United States each year. The leaves come from some of the same farms that supply the Columbian drug cartels. >Flavor scientists say that the mysterious essence has no significant taste of its own , but acts as an 'enhancer' PepsiCo Inc. does not use the coca leaf. Flavor scientist Nicholas Feurstein thinks that the average guzzler might well notice the difference if Coke stopped using it. >The leaf is ground up, mixed with sawdust, soaked in bicarbonate of soda, percolated with toluene, steam blasted, mixed with powdered Kola nuts, and then pasteurized. The Coke-Cola company, forever fearful of the DEA and the drug lords, is a stickler on security and quality. Drug lords have a less formal way to extract cocaine: they use kerosene as a solvent; the drug leaches out like tea from a tea bag. Cocaine is then recovered by evaporation.
- rdl 14y agoI'm curious if coca cola contains real vanilla extract vs. synthetic; seems implausible for them to use the real plant product.
- blaze33 14y agoAnd what Coke no longer contains: alcohol, cocaine. Also without sugar and caffeine if you want, sometimes I wonder what's the point of drinking it. I remember reading it would be more interesting to use steel cans because it's easier to catch them using magnets. Are we now able to sort and recycle aluminum cans better ?
- Uncompetative 14y ago"The second ingredient, caramel coloring, gives the drink its distinctive dark brown color. There are four types of caramel coloring — Coca Cola uses type E150d, which is made by heating sugars with sulfite and ammonia to create bitter brown liquid. The syrup’s other principal ingredient is phosphoric acid, which adds acidity and is made by diluting burnt phosphorus (made by heating phosphate rock in an arc-furnace) and processing it to remove arsenic." Hmmm... arsenic I'd rather there were no lethal poisons at any point in the production process. I'm never drinking another glass of Coca-Cola. I'm not touching PEPSI either.
- iso-8859-1 14y agoThere's a lot of stuff you can't ingest, if you'd follow that criterion.
- ars 14y agoOf all things for him to stop drinking.... But if you are worried about arsenic don't eat rice, and be careful of the ground water (depending on where you live).
- Amanda_Panda 14y agoI love these kinds of threads, where software engineers pretend they are experts in economics, etc.
- gnnr 14y agoFurther reminds me that if you love something, even an everyday item, researching it's origin can be rewarding.
- dimitar 14y agoThis reminds a lot of Milton Friedman's pencil story (http://youtu.be/R5Gppi-O3a8?t=15s http://youtu.be/R5Gppi-O3a8?t=15s)
- kolev 14y agoWell, this article gives yet another reason to stay away from sodas.