Remember San Francisco startup guy Sam Cossman, who walked nearly to the brink of an active volcano in Vanatu? Well, this isn't that, but it's still a fun look at someone getting up close and personal with a mass of hot lava.

Alex Rivest has a PhD in Neuroscience from MIT, but apparently all that book learnin' didn't instill in him any sort of fear of molten rock. While visiting the Hawaiian volcano Kilauea — the lava flow of which is expected to destroy a supermarket and gas station this weekend — Rivest decided to taunt the angry volcanic gods by tapping his foot on the lava.

Here's what went down:

That's it? Not the scene depicted at the 50-second mark in this compilation of clips from the motion picture Volcano?

Here's why, Rivest says:

When the lava emerges from one of the vents at Kilauea, it comes out at 700 to 1,200 °C (1,292 to 2,192 °F), and begins to make its way to the path of least resistance.

This video shows how pressure applied to this dense material only causes a slight indentation. While this may not be surprising (it is liquid rock), I think that many people think of lava as more of a hot-watery-like substance. You would never fall into a lava lake the way you would a swimming pool, the molten rock is much more dense, so you would simply land on it, sink a little, and be burned.

In other words, don't get your science info from a movie starring Tommy Lee Jones and Anne Heche.

Related: The Guy Who Walked Into That Volcano Works For S.F. Startup