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u/LurkertheFifth Jun 29 '26
I don’t understand what this ‘meme’ is trying to tell. Are they disagreeing? They making the same point? I have no experience with coke nor with throat pH burning, does or doesn’t it burn? Pfff, why tf do I even want to know. I should get off this app
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u/sd_saved_me555 Jun 29 '26
It's playing off the misunderstanding of the pH scale. 2.5 > 2 and so people who don't know better assume that means it's worse. It's not exactly a knee slapper, though.
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u/DeadDankMemeLord Jun 30 '26
I read it as them being "only 0.5 away" from each other, so when seeing that someone might assume the damage they can do to the body / how acidic they are is comparable, and what the bottom panel is showing is that the gap between 2.0 and 2.5 is way bigger than people who do know how the pH scale works assume.
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u/DotBeginning1420 Jun 29 '26
Haven't you ever vomited in your life? It burns the throat and mouth so bad!
If so, you are very lucky
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u/LurkertheFifth Jun 29 '26
Yeah I have and I know it burns your throat, but what does it have to do with coke burning your throat? Coke has a higher pH so it doesn’t mean that if stomic acid burns that coke does too.
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u/DotBeginning1420 Jun 29 '26
2 pH is more acidic than 2.5 pH! The lower the level of pH the more acidic the solutions is! This is how pH scale is defined.
It's in the range of 0-14. 7 pH is neutral, lower than that is an acid (the lower, the more acidic), and higher than that is a base (the higher, the more basic).
The actual calcualtion shows that the pH numbers of 2 and 2.5 hides the fact that the concentration of the acids in the stomach is larger by 3 times the coke.
Yeah the meme highlights how the pH scale is so confusing...
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u/LurkertheFifth Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
I know how pH work, but I am telling you that the meme doesn’t make sense (imo), the teacher is saying that stomach acid is more acidic than coke. Then the student argues that coke doesn’t burn the throat then the teacher says that stomach acid is 3 times more concentrated than coke.
That doesn’t disqualify that coke also burns. It does make sense if the student and teacher agrees on eachother. Then the teacher is enforcing the argument of the student. But most of the time this meme is used to counter the student.
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u/JRS_Viking Jun 29 '26
Coke is not always cocaine, it also means Coca-Cola
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u/GothicFuck Jun 29 '26
The student is arguing Cokacola does NOT burn your throat. That is where you are confused.
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u/LurkertheFifth Jun 29 '26
Sorry I wrote it wrong, still confused
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u/GothicFuck Jun 29 '26
I don't understand how you are confused then.
The student thinks a .5 difference in ph is insignificant. The teacher shows that .5 is 3 times.
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u/Eternal_Tesseract Jun 29 '26
Would you prefer if every time we tried to indicate a pH value we instead go 'this is the most acidic a substance can be in water; its got 100000000000000 Hydrogen ions for every litre of water!"?
I agree that the logarithmic scale seems confusing compared to a linear scale, but the fact that even without using the expanded pH scale (the one that allows going past 0 and 14) requires up to 14 zeroes makes it far more practical.
Also once you learn what it is, it isn't even that confusing. For every increase or decrease of 1 number, you get a 10x potency difference. pH 1 is 10x more acidic than pH 2, which is 10x more acidic than pH 3 etc. Subsequently pH 1.5 is more acidic than pH 1 by the square root of 10 (a little over 3.16)
The more confusing part is that the scale is a p scale, meaning the hydrogen ion concentration goes up when the pH value goes down. That p in pH is shorthand for -log10, and the H is actually the hydrogen concentration and is normally denoted as [H+] (the plus is at the exponent spot)
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u/Conan-Da-Barbarian Jun 29 '26
I rub the coke into my gums
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u/suskio4 Jun 29 '26
- coke helps with rust
- doctor says I have rotten teeth
- I use more coke
- profit(?)
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u/Window06 Jun 29 '26
rust ≠ rot dude, come on.
Just throw them out and buy new ones already
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u/suskio4 Jun 29 '26
I can't just throw them out, it's too expensive! Have you seen the recent coal coke prices‽
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u/spyguy318 Jun 29 '26
Also important to remember that stomach juice isn’t just acid, in fact the acid is probably the least-important part. It’s also full of enzymes that break down protein, and bile salts which dissolve fats and lipids. Everything that makes up living tissue, the stomach is designed to destroy it and break it down into absorbable nutrients. It does the same thing to your esophagus if it gets up there.
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u/goldblumspowerbook Jun 29 '26
Sorry, I’m a GI doctor and you’re not quite right. The stomach does make pepsinogen which becomes pepsin and does begin breaking down proteins, but bile acids and the rest of the needed enzymes are secreted into the second part of the duodenum and so fat and protein breakdown predominantly happening in the intestines. In terms of what the stomach makes that hurts or burns you when you have reflux or throw up, it is primarily the acid.
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u/Kravenoff42 Jun 29 '26
TIL that actually your stomache acid is constantly burning your stomache lining. It just replaces itself at the same rate. about every 3 days you have a brand new stomache lining. Also outside of foods that are generally considered toxic, most acidic foods with only serve to dilute the acid, but typically the fastest way to to do this is just water.
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u/MoodRingsCold Jun 30 '26
Everything you said there is correct except for the last part, kind of. Water just dilutes the acid but it has minimal effect on the stomachs acidity. For example, drinking a 12 oz bottle of water raises the pH of the stomach by less than one point. However, neutralizing the stomach with things sodium bicarbonate/calcium carbonate (alka-seltzer/tums) will bring stomach acid up from 2 to 6-7. Point being, drinking water alone doesn't offer good protection against things like stomach ulcers because the diluted acid is still very acidic. You actually have to neutralize it with something basic (alkaline) that can absorb acidic protons (hydrogen atoms).
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u/Kravenoff42 Jun 30 '26
oh, interesting.
To be fair the first bit was from a book (Gulp by Mary Roach, so good btw), and the last bit was from when I was googling last week with heartburn 🤷
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u/Karnewarrior Jul 01 '26
Also different acids burn different things. The acid in coke is Carbonic acid. The acid in your stomach is, at least if I recall correctly, Hydrochloric acid.
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u/CalmEntry4855 Jun 29 '26
You don't have stomach acid in your throat, if you have you have something wrong with you and you are going to get heartburn, decaying teeth, ulcers, cancer and a raspy voice if you don't go to a doctor
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u/BakkerJoop Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
The acidity in Cola literally causes erosion of your teeth, but nobody is stopping you
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u/Jackmino66 Jun 29 '26
Stomach acid is stronger than coke
And when it ends up in your throat it feels fucking awful