The nails: Their are three types of nails being tested, a galvanized nail used for outdoors (i.e. decks), an indoor finish nail (used for the non-visible parts of furniture), and some copper nails. I acquired all these nails from my father, so their exact purchase history is not available.

The coke: The coke was purchased at BJ's wholesale club in Nashau, NH on Tuesday, June 29th,1999. The production number on the bottom of the cans is: 0746 (new line) MAR0600LPF.

The plastic cups were puchased from Stop & Shop in Allston, MA on Sunday, June 27th, 1999.

Three of each nail will be tested. Before each nail is tested they will be wiped off with a regular towel, marked with a permanent marker then photographed with a Kodak digital camera. The first nail will be subjected to a long duration immersion without changing the coke or cleaning of the nail (if there is rot, to see if the coke retains it's rotting affect over the long term). The second nail will be subjected to the same long duration immersion but the coke will be changed daily and the nail will be washed off with water then dried with a regular towel (if there is rot, to see if the fresh coke must be added to retain the rotting affect), the cup will be rinsed out as well. The third nail will be exposed to ordinary cold tap water over the same time period as the other nails (to see if it is an ingredient in the coke or just the water). The following table describes the cups and nails:

The experimenter biases: I drink coke, so I believe I would be more bias towards coke than against it.

Expectations: My father is on record saying "I won't find anything". I wasn't sure, that's why I'm running the experiment (although at this point I have run a preliminary experiment that shows some surface discoloration and flaking, at least for the finish nail).