Mythbusters 11/3: "Arrow Machine Gun"

[Christopher]

Eh, that's all it was was pretense. Just a "serving platter" for the basis of the episode. I doubt the gang was sitting around watching movies when they came up with that episode idea either.

But that's different. Actually claiming that the viewer requests were chosen at random, that everyone had an equal chance of being picked, is a misrepresentation of something that bears on the audience. It's not just a matter of presentation in this case.

I thought he HAD not know. If he did that's a bit of a flaw in the "method" here.

Adam didn't ask him, "Which of us do you think was diving?" He asked him, "Does Jamie's suit pass muster?" So it wasn't a blind comparison.

The "Tuxedo Expert" was also a bit of a lint-picking snob for my tastes.

Well, that's kind of the point, isn't it? To see if Jamie's tux could pass muster with the most nitpicky, judgmental observer.

Would've been nice if they showed "how" the article could've happened. (Like they did with the laptop.)

Yeah, they explained the reported results for the laptop and the hair weave, but they didn't address how the fridge thing could've happened as reported. Though maybe it's simply that the shooter couldn't see the target's position through the door and just plain missed.

That was neat and I'm going to need to try it. Their supercooling idea is what I was thinking as it's very similar to how freezing rain works. It super-cooled water that has too much energy falling from the sky to freeze. When it impacts a surface it loses that energy and instantly freezes. I suspect something similar here but with the nucleation sigtes.

But why wouldn't beer have nucleation sites? Perhaps because the water in it is distilled and free of impurities? But what is the composition of beer? It has water, alcohol, flavoring, and what else? Does it have any particulate ingredients, like the stuff that settles out of wine?

Here's what Wikipedia says:

Some brewers add one or more clarifying agents to beer, which typically precipitate (collect as a solid) out of the beer along with protein solids and are found only in trace amounts in the finished product. This process makes the beer appear bright and clean, rather than the cloudy appearance of ethnic and older styles of beer such as wheat beers.

So it seems that there are solids/particulates in beer in its most basic form, but some beers have them mostly removed with clarifying agents. So maybe this is something that would only work with clarified beers. That's something they should've tested.

On why it doesn't break the bottle as it expands? Maybe, like water, it doesn't expand when it freezes but remains the same size or shrinks and there's no gas or other materials to displace in the bottle as it "expands" to break the bottle open.

Water does expand when it freezes. It's practically the only thing that does. That's why ice floats. And beer is mostly water.

Here's a thought: beer is carbonated, so the contents of a beer bottle are already under pressure. The bottle has to be designed to withstand pressure from within. So the ice does expand and increase the internal pressure, but the bottle's designed to handle it.

...but I've never taken the idiom to mean that you could do it quickly, easily, and not have anyone alerted without any work in it.

Well, it does imply a fairly effortless task; presumably the underlying assumption of the idiom is that babies are too weak to resist the theft. So "like taking candy from a baby" means "easy to achieve with minimal obstacles/resistance."

If Jamie and Adam weren't so easily enamored with the baby and cared when it cried they'd just snatch the candy away and run off. That's what "taking candy from a baby" means. Babies offer very little if any resistance. Sure they're going to offer some in the form of gripping it or avoidance but if Jamie and Adam wanted it, they'd get it.

I think the tests showed it's not as simple as that. The older babies were quite good at playing keepaway, so it wouldn't be as simple to get a grip on it in the first place.

The baby crying afterwards is moot. The idiom, as I understand it, doesn't imply that the "baby" wouldn't alert anyone to what you did. Unless the baby is Maggie Simpson.

But consider the consequences if others are alerted. A baby crying doesn't just mean "I'm sad," it means "Everyone help me, come to my rescue." And humans who aren't evil scientists are instinctively primed to respond to a baby's cries. The idiom doesn't refer to an experiment performed in isolation with the cooperation of the baby's parents. It refers to a situation where you're trying to steal from a baby in a public place or when their parents or caregivers are nearby. In that case, if the baby cries, it's far from moot, because those cries will draw the attention of adults who will intervene to prevent our hypothetical cad from absconding with the baby's sweets, and quite possibly give him a walloping for daring to assault a poor helpless baby. So the baby's cries would indeed make it harder to steal the candy, particularly if the thief were slowed by the baby's deft evasions long enough for the cries to bring help.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Next week the mythbusters will prove that it really isn't that easy to bake a pie. Meanwhile, the junior team will go to a football game and attempt to shake a stick at everyone.

 

[Trekker4747]

Water does expand when it freezes. It's practically the only thing that does. That's why ice floats. And beer is mostly water.

Here's a thought: beer is carbonated, so the contents of a beer bottle are already under pressure. The bottle has to be designed to withstand pressure from within. So the ice does expand and increase the internal pressure, but the bottle's designed to handle it.

You're right, water does expand when it freezes. I was thinking backwards (it doesn't expand when it thaws.)

 

[LitmusDragon]

I've enjoyed these past few episodes. I though this last one in particular was really pretty good, I especially liked the tuxedo myth, the bullet proof laptop, the instant freezing beer and the taking candy from a baby bit. I'm not sure there was much science in the taking candy from a baby bit but it was funny to see how resourceful the babies were at trying to hold on to their candy.

I also wondered about how random the myths chosen really were. It could have been totally staged, or maybe there were 20 or so letters handpicked by the producers and there really was some element of chance involved. I guess it doesn't really matter.

Next week the mythbusters will prove that it really isn't that easy to bake a pie. Meanwhile, the junior team will go to a football game and attempt to shake a stick at everyone.

 

[Trekker4747]

And, as always, hot DAMN Kari looked good! I liked her tight black form-fitting shirt she wore during the driving myth.

 

[UssGlenn]

Alcohol acts an an an antifreeze, so that explains why they were able to get the beer below 32. I think they also mentioned that the result was an ice slush. If so, the expansion would move up the neck rather than push out on the sides, so you'd just end up with more air pressure at the top rather than pressure only on the sides of the bottle. I'm at a loss as to why the agitation causes the freezing to start.

 

[Brent]

I think they are running out of ideas

Perhaps the show should be called Idiom Busters now, or something more general, cause they are really stepping outside the myth dome these days

I like the idea of testing user submitted "myths", but don't pull our chain by saying the drawing was random, it wasn't

 

[Christopher]

...or maybe there were 20 or so letters handpicked by the producers and there really was some element of chance involved.

I suppose that's possible, in which case we may see the rest show up later.

Next week the mythbusters will prove that it really isn't that easy to bake a pie.

Hmm, somehow I never considered that "easy as pie" was a reference to the ease of making pie. I don't know what else it could refer to, but I guess I just never really thought about it. That, and I never really would've thought it was easy to make pie.

 

[Rett Mikhal]

I don't understand. I thought the Scorpion automatic crossbow was a confirmed historical fact. It's a unit in Age of Empires, even. Look, I can find working recreations:

Plus there's the Chu-ko-no, which is closer to semi-automatic but could fire arrows far, far, far, far faster. 10 bolts in 15 seconds, with hand held and artillery sized variants.

I was expecting them to mention this but they never did.