The World’s Largest Elephant Toothpaste Experiment Creates a Foam Tsunami

The world’s largest elephant toothpaste experiment takes a classic science demonstration and scales it up to an absolutely ridiculous level. Instead of a little foam spilling from a bottle, Mark Rober and Science Bob set out to create an enormous eruption capable of filling a swimming pool with colorful foam.

Getting there takes plenty of testing, chemistry and preparation — but when the final reaction gets going, the sheer amount of foam pouring into the pool is spectacular.

Taking Elephant Toothpaste to an Absurd New Scale

Elephant toothpaste gets its memorable name from the huge amount of foam produced during the reaction. Hydrogen peroxide breaks down and releases oxygen, while soap traps that oxygen in bubbles and rapidly creates expanding foam.

For this project, simply making the reaction work wasn’t enough. Mark and Science Bob experiment with the setup and work out how to scale everything dramatically beyond the familiar classroom demonstration.

The swimming pool provides the perfect stage. Once the ingredients are released, brightly colored foam begins expanding at an astonishing rate, spreading outward until the experiment looks less like chemistry and more like a giant foam tsunami.

That’s what makes the world’s largest elephant toothpaste experiment so entertaining: the science is understandable, but the scale transforms a familiar reaction into something completely outrageous.

Why We Loved This Video

Mark Rober has a talent for taking a scientific idea and asking the question that makes everything more fun: what happens if we make it enormous?

We love that there’s a real experiment behind the spectacle. You get to see the testing and problem-solving that lead up to the giant reaction, which makes the final eruption even more satisfying.

And when that massive wave of colorful foam finally takes over the pool, the result is exactly what TOP Cool Vids is about — science that’s fascinating, entertaining and extremely difficult to stop watching.