How to Break a Beer Bottle With Your Bare Hands

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posted on 17 years ago — updated on 1 second ago

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So picture this. You're in a bar fight, and you need a broken bottle to intimidate the bad guy. But the furniture is much to nice to smash a bottle on it, so what do you do? You break the bottle with your bare hands, of course! At the very least, Joe Bad Guy is going to be intimidated. Pull this off, and you might even get the girl! Or, just amaze your bar buddies that you can do this! Either way, it's a great party trick. It takes a bit of practice to get it right, but it really will amaze the others watching. Read on!

Steps

Fill a beer bottle with cold water. The colder, the better. Bring the water level up to about two inches (5cm) from the top of the bottle. This also works with beer which makes it a little more dramatic.

Hold on tight. Wrap the top two fingers of your non-dominant hand (for most of you, that will be your left hand) around the neck of the bottle. This will prevent shards of glass from stabbing you in the palm in case the entire bottle shatters.

Ready, steady, whack! Hit the opening of the bottle hard with your dominant hand.

Did it break? Check the bottom of the bottle, which should have broken right off.

Learn how it works. The bottom of the bottle breaks off due to "cavitation." The bottle briefly and suddenly moves downward when you strike the top. The water inside of it doesn't move as quickly, creating an extremely brief void (vacuum) at the bottom. The water does catch up with the glass, and comes crashing down into the bottom. If the force is great enough, the bottle can no longer support the water crashing down, and cracks or breaks at the bottom. Even if the crack is minor, the inertia and weight of the water will break the bottom out of the bottle.