What is the fizzy stuff in carbonated water?
Our ancestors drank fizzy water made from nature’s own recipes. They found it in mineral springs and some varieties were said to cure various ailments. Nature’s fizzy recipes were copied and improved and nowadays we drink up oceans of bubbly, man made soda pop every year. The fizzy bubbles in a bottle of carbonated water are imprisoned balls of gas. As a rule, the gas is carbon dioxide the waste gas we breathe out from our lungs. You can create fizzy bubbles by adding a pinch of powdery white bicarbonate of soda to a glass of water. This soda water lends its name to our carbonated soda water but the two liquids are not the same. Actually there is no soda in our soda pops. They are carbonated with gassy bubbles of carbon dioxide. This waste gas is harmful only when it replaces all the oxygen in the lungs. At everyday temperatures it is a gas, one and a half times heavier than ordinary air. When chilled to minus 78 degrees Centigrade, carbon dioxide becomes a watery liquid. With still mo
