MYTHBUSTERS 10th Anniversary Season

[Trekker4747]

I'm kind of on the side of Adam that the "water" in the dung doesn't count. So, "in theory" they got the requisite 10-pounds in the 5-pound sack. But then there's both in the "spirit of the myth" and then there's the idea of "all things being equal." The spirit of the myth is that you can't make a lot of something fit into something designed for much less. Which, well, you just can't no matter how much you try. In the "all things being equal" aspect the "wrung out" dung is different than the water-logged dung. Which is sort of what Jamie was getting at, the stuff with the less water in it is different than the stuff that was water logged.

And between this myth and the one from a couple of weeks ago I find it sort of odd and bizarre you apparently can just buy a big bucket full of both lion feces and horse feces. I mean with the latter I get that the animals are raised somewhere and they do this a LOT so it's obviously being collected and disposed of. Just very odd that apparently you can get a hold of a 5-lb barrel of it. With lions they're not raised nearly as much as horses are so the only place you get a hold of it would be zoos which I still imagine would have a good "supply" of it but also it's just odd that apparently they can collect it and ship you a five-gallon barrel of it.

With the lion dung it was integral part of the myth (no matter how silly the idea was. Between the "cure being worse than the disease" and that it's sort of odd to prevent animals from leaving waste where you don't want it by... surrounding that area with waste?

For the horse-dung myth I suspect a comparable analogue could have been come up with, something with the same density as the dung and possibly not as water logged. In which case you couldn't compress it short of may squeezing a lot of air out of it.

 

[Christopher]

I'm kind of on the side of Adam that the "water" in the dung doesn't count. So, "in theory" they got the requisite 10-pounds in the 5-pound sack. But then there's both in the "spirit of the myth" and then there's the idea of "all things being equal." The spirit of the myth is that you can't make a lot of something fit into something designed for much less. Which, well, you just can't no matter how much you try. In the "all things being equal" aspect the "wrung out" dung is different than the water-logged dung. Which is sort of what Jamie was getting at, the stuff with the less water in it is different than the stuff that was water logged.

Let's face it, the only reason the saying references that particular substance is for the sake of profanity. The core idea is that you can't fit 10 pounds of a given material into a bag designed to hold 5 pounds of same. So regardless of the material or its composition, if it's not 10 pounds actually in the bag, then it doesn't count.

 

[Forbin]

We use the expression in the graphics department all the time. We used to have a GM who loved to take a 30 page powerpoint presentation and combine slides 4-to-a-slide so he could claim a smaller page count. And his single-page diagrams were usually so information-dense that they were already hard to read! So we'd be trying to make four complex full-page diagrams maintain their readability at 1/4-page size. I think he even once asked us to take four of those quad-chart pages and fit THEM on one page!!

 

[Christopher]

All gun/bullet myths this week. Really neat animation in the intro!

Bent barrel: Sword forge. Interesting.

I'm a bit surprised the bullets worked with all the bent barrels, but I guess we've seen similar effects before, like the one where they shot through a curved pipe. Still, I have doubts about their methodology. All the shots were at point-blank range. Jamie said the bullets were tumbling, so what effect would that have had at a distance?

Also, if we vary the premise from a cartoon setup to a comic-book or sci-fi one, where someone like Superman or Steve Austin bends the gun barrel, we can assume there'd be some crushing or pinching involved and the bend wouldn't be as smooth as these. I'd like to see them test that variant, though they'd need to construct some kind of superstrong robot arm that could bend an unheated barrel. Which, let's face it, would be pretty cool in itself.


What is bulletproof: A familiar routine here. The shooting gallery gimmick was silly. Interesting that the tape measure was effective at blocking the small-caliber rounds. I guess it's because they were hitting the reel of metal tape from the side, so there's a lot of deformation there to absorb force and sort of snag the bullet between layers.


Shotgun spear: That was interesting. I never saw that movie. I wasn't surprised that the myth didn't work -- although I was a bit surprised that the one with the nail did fire. I'd been thinking that the "wolf"'s body would cushion the impact enough to prevent that.


Firing in vacuum: That was an interesting test. My understanding is that a bullet has built-in oxidizer, so the vacuum wouldn't have prevented firing. So the result per se wasn't too surprising. But the sound it made was kind of surprising. I was expecting it to be fairly silent, but I guess the expanding gases hit the walls of the chamber and made that sort of hollow thoom sound. The larger fireball was interesting too, but again that's the built-in oxidizer, I guess.

I don't agree with Jamie's conclusion about explosions in space, though. A small enclosed chamber is one thing, but in space, the gases would be far less contained and would dissipate extremely quickly, snuffing out the fireball. The thing here is that the vacuum inside that small chamber ceased being a vacuum as soon as the gases from the exploding shell expanded into it. At that point it had a tenuous atmosphere of (apparently) nitrogen, water vapor, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide. You could see in the high-speed how the fireball was oscillating back and forth as the shock wave reverberated through the chamber. So the chamber wasn't a good model for space.


Neon signs: No surprise here. There's nothing that would spark -- it's just glass and excited gas. Break the glass and the gas escapes, end of story. The most interesting part was Kari learning how to make neon signs. I bet that, as an artist, she appreciated the experience.


Deep fryer gun: I love the timing on this one. "Are you sure there's a bullet in there?" "I'm sure--" BANG! "Oh, I guess we'd better start paying atten--" BANG! Couldn't have been more perfect.

I suppose the reason it took less time to heat up than they thought is because the oil conducts heat better than the air of an oven.


I tell ya, I'm getting more and more sick of these ads for the bizarre shows that have taken over Discovery. Amish Mafia???? No doubt that's every bit as fake and scripted as that Moonshiners thing. And yup, Snopes confirms it's a fraud. Honestly, it's shameful for Mythbusters, a show that's all about exposing myths and frauds, to be associated with a channel that's degenerated into blatantly lying to its audience by passing pure fiction off as documentaries. This cesspool of a channel doesn't deserve to be called Discovery anymore, and it doesn't deserve to air Mythbusters anymore.

 

[Trekker4747]

I hear you on the "Amish Mafia" thing, Christopher. First time I heard about it I swore it was a traditional scripted drama on AMC or something.

Overall a good, fun, episode here. Not too surprising results the "bent gun barrel" myth seemed very similar to one they did a couple years ago with a bullet riding inside a pipe (granted wit the pipe not being the "barrel" of a gun so it got very different results." I am surprised the bullet remained lethal through 180-degrees. Really I think they should have continued until the barrel was a complete 360-degree spin. (Granted bent up or down for a spiral-effect.)

I don't understand the carnival game rig they went for with the "What is Bulletproof?" myth. Other than just being "fun", I guess. It didn't add anything to the "myths."

Gun in vacuum was no surprise on the results nor was the fried-gun myth.

I am surprised next week's episode was billed as the "season finale." There's been a couple of clips seen in the Mythbusters promos not seen yet -and I doubt they'll all be in next week's episode. So they must have other myths or episodes somewhat completed. As has been the case in the past I guess they'll be back sometime in the mid-summer. Just seems very odd to come back from hiatus for only a few episodes before going away again. The scheduling of this show is just bizarre. But, hey, I guess we need more time to show "Moonshiners" and "Amish Mafia."

 

[Forbin]

I don't know why they even bothered - people tested the gun-in-a-vacuum routine as well as the gun underwater routine decades ago. Pretty sure I've read about both tests in one or another of the gun magazines I've been buying for 30 years. A cartridge is basically factory sealed and everything it needs to explode is contained inside the shell, whether the shell is in a vacuum, underwater or being deep fried.

Firefly got that wrong, btw, when Jayne declared he had to fire his gun from inside a spare, pressurized space suit.

Besides if you can't shoot a gun in space it ruins some really cool scenes in Cowboy Bebop!

 

[Retu]

About guns in space: funnily enough, Russians busted this myth when they installed a 23mm aircraft cannon in one of their space stations 40 years ago and test fired it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salyut_3

 

[Trekker4747]

I don't know why they even bothered - people tested the gun-in-a-vacuum routine as well as the gun underwater routine decades ago. Pretty sure I've read about both tests in one or another of the gun magazines I've been buying for 30 years. A cartridge is basically factory sealed and everything it needs to explode is contained inside the shell, whether the shell is in a vacuum, underwater or being deep fried.

I'm sure a lot of things the Mythbusters tackle have been tested before. Doesn't mean it's not worth testing on their own and showing it to their audience on film.

Firefly got that wrong, btw, when Jayne declared he had to fire his gun from inside a spare, pressurized space suit.

I don't know how Firefly got the facts wrong about a fictional gun that exists centuries from now. Maybe there was something about "Vera" that DID require at atmosphere around it?

 

[Christopher]

^And Jayne wasn't very bright, after all. I wouldn't consider him a reliable source.

 

[Forbin]

I don't know why they even bothered - people tested the gun-in-a-vacuum routine as well as the gun underwater routine decades ago. Pretty sure I've read about both tests in one or another of the gun magazines I've been buying for 30 years. A cartridge is basically factory sealed and everything it needs to explode is contained inside the shell, whether the shell is in a vacuum, underwater or being deep fried.

I'm sure a lot of things the Mythbusters tackle have been tested before. Doesn't mean it's not worth testing on their own and showing it to their audience on film.

Firefly got that wrong, btw, when Jayne declared he had to fire his gun from inside a spare, pressurized space suit.

I don't know how Firefly got the facts wrong about a fictional gun that exists centuries from now. Maybe there was something about "Vera" that DID require at atmosphere around it?

Nope. Vera was just a gun. We saw she took normal-looking cartridges. It was just writers who don't know much about science (and they admitted it).
Not to mention that Jayne kept firing Vera at full auto for quite a while after the spacesuit visor shattered and the air would have evacuated.
It was juts dumb writing trying to sound clever.

Why would a spacefaring culture make a firearm that couldn't be fired in space?

 

[Mister Fandango]

Why would a spacefaring culture make a firearm that couldn't be fired in space?

To be fair, why would you normally need a gun that can fire in space?

It's like saying that for a species living on a planet who's surface is 70+% water, all of our technology should work underwater.

 

[Trekker4747]

Nope. Vera was just a gun. We saw she took normal-looking cartridges.

Again, how do you know what future technology looks like or should look like? Vera may *look* like a normal gun and may *look* like it takes normal cartridges but that really speaks more to the limitations/cheapness of the props than it does the fictional futuristic gun.

It's a case of we have to take the characters for their word, Jayne -more or less their weapons/gun expert- says she needs air around her to work then she needs air around her to work. There's "something" about this futuristic weapon that requires oxygen around it.

It was just writers who don't know much about science (and they admitted it).

I think it's more a case of "playing to the lowest common denominator" and by doing so over-compensating for it to the point of it not being real. I think the Mythbusters have shown this a time or two where Hollywood over-explains or does something that wasn't necessary. Most viewers probably would have seen Vera fire in a vacuum and call "Foul!" under the misguided belief air is needed for the gun to work. Firefly compensates for this by having Vera fire from inside a space-suit and as a result do something that isn't needed.

Not to mention that Jayne kept firing Vera at full auto for quite a while after the spacesuit visor shattered and the air would have evacuated.

Air was probably still being pumped into the suit from its life-support system, Vera wasn't firing from a suit that only had the air inside of it.

Why would a spacefaring culture make a firearm that couldn't be fired in space?

As addressed above, this is hardly a fair question. Just because they're a space-fairing culture doesn't mean all of their technology has to operate in space. Maybe there's some advantages Vera had that would be nullified by being able to fire in a vacuum?

 

[Christopher]

Again, how do you know what future technology looks like or should look like? Vera may *look* like a normal gun and may *look* like it takes normal cartridges but that really speaks more to the limitations/cheapness of the props than it does the fictional futuristic gun.

Well, I don't know about that. It seems to be speculating beyond the evidence, and form follows function, after all. But on the other hand, I do seem to recall that the FF guns made an unusual sound when they fired, not a conventional "bang," suggesting that there are some differences in their operation.

It's a case of we have to take the characters for their word, Jayne -more or less their weapons/gun expert- says she needs air around her to work then she needs air around her to work. There's "something" about this futuristic weapon that requires oxygen around it.

On the other hand... it's Jayne. I wouldn't trust him as an expert on anything. Heck, even experts can be wrong about the specifics of the things they're expert in. Remember the Mythbusters episode about the plane on a conveyor belt? To anyone who understands aerodynamics, it's obvious that the conveyor belt will have no impact on the plane's ability to take off, because the wheels contribute nothing to its thrust. And yet the pilot they hired to test the myth believed that the conveyor would prevent him from taking off. Understanding the praxis doesn't necessarily mean understanding the theory. Jayne is an "expert" at shooting guns, but that doesn't mean he knows a damn thing about how they work.

Not to mention that Jayne kept firing Vera at full auto for quite a while after the spacesuit visor shattered and the air would have evacuated.

Air was probably still being pumped into the suit from its life-support system, Vera wasn't firing from a suit that only had the air inside of it.

Doesn't work. In the vacuum of space, any air pumped into the helmet would dissipate so quickly that the conditions inside the helmet would remain essentially vacuum throughout. Heck, the air would probably just jet straight out of the hose into vacuum without spreading out to fill the space inside the helmet first, since there's nothing containing it inside the helmet.

The simplest explanation is that Jayne is an idiot. And since we know Jayne is an idiot, that's a pretty plausible explanation.

 

[Trekker4747]

I still land on the "exposition exists for a reason" square. Jayne tells us Vera needs air around her to work then that's the way it is until proven otherwise. Which I guess you could argue the decompression of the suit does but, then, we have to fall on the "air in the suit" remaining the same regardless of the reality of what would happen.

The FF guns did make a whirring or odd sound when used which does suggest something to them that means they work differently than the guns we have today. That and it's the future, so.... I still land on just because it looks like a present-day gun doesn't mean it IS and works like one.

The movie "Santa Claus vs. The Martians" features a Martian weapon that in actuality was a toy that "shot" a blast of compressed air. Yet in the movie the weapon was a standard Martian stun-gun. The logic some seem to be taking seems to be that "that gun shouldn't stun people because it only shoots compressed air!"

What it looks like is different than what it IS.

 

[Christopher]

The reason is that the writers got their science wrong, of course. Everything else is just trying to rationalize the mistake in-universe.


Speaking of getting science wrong... I complained about what a joke Discovery has become, and I've been thinking "Maybe the show should move to The Science Channel," which shows reruns of it a lot. But I've just been watching one of those reruns on TSC, and they're showing promos for a series about UFOs. On The "Science" Channel. (Insert facepalm meme of your choice here.)

This is why we need public television. You can't get good science programming on a network that needs advertising dollars and ratings, because programming there is always going to be a popularity contest, and fashionable pseudoscience tends to trump legitimate science. So the only reliable science programming is usually on public TV.

 

[Forbin]

Man, we've overthought Vera to freakin' death there didn't we? Too bad the writers didn't.
Last point: In Serenity the movie, Mal mounted a nice antique 20mm anti-aircraft gun (or reasonable facsimile) that was used at a groundside base, to the outside of Serenity's hull, and proceeded to fire it repeatedly at a Reaver ship while in interplanetary space.

 

[Marc]

About guns in space: funnily enough, Russians busted this myth when they installed a 23mm aircraft cannon in one of their space stations 40 years ago and test fired it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salyut_3

But how many people have heard of Salyut 3? or the firing of the gun onboard?

Plus the wiki entry doesn't give much detailing on the firing (there's not even a definitive answer on the number of firings) and the outcome.

 

[Forbin]

What did they fire it AT!?

 

[publiusr]

Here are specs on that gun
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudelman-Rikhter_NR-23
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almaz#Defense_measures

"This station's Shchit-1 23 mm defense cannon was also to be replaced with an advanced Shchit-2 space-to-space cannon. The Shchit-2 was reported to be a two projectile system, although no photographs of it have ever been published and it does not appear that this system was ever installed on the station. OPS-4 was grounded when the Almaz manned program was cancelled."

Polyus of course was much larger--rather like IKON from the movie SPACE COWBOYS.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyus_(spacecraft)
http://www.airspacemag.com/space/soviet-star-wars-8758185/?no-ist
Almaz http://russianspaceweb.com/almaz.html

 

[Reverend]

What did they fire it AT!?

Capitalist vacuum?