I think it could have worked as designed, but the weight slid back towards the rear of the car, pushing it back down before it slid off the roof.
Mythbusters 12/8: Presidential Challenge
- Thread starter Christopher
- Start date
I think it could have worked as designed, but the weight slid back towards the rear of the car, pushing it back down before it slid off the roof.
I wonder if the weight slid towards the back or if the car's forward momentum caused the weight to appear to slide back. 
But, yeah it did look like if it had hit more squarely and forward that the car may of had a better "flip."
But, yeah it did look like if it had hit more squarely and forward that the car may of had a better "flip."
But how do you get 500 schoolkids to be active participants in either of those rather than just spectators?
I wonder if the weight slid towards the back or if the car's forward momentum caused the weight to appear to slide back.
Indeed so. Clearly the physics wouldn't allow the stone to slide backward; there was no force being applied to it in that direction. It stayed in place and the car moved under it.
I don't think it would've made a difference. It did land squarely on the target, but the car continued to move, and since both of them were massive objects with considerable inertia, neither one of them was just going to instantly change its velocity. The car was going to keep moving forward and the stone was going to stay horizontally stationary, at least in the first moment. So there would've been no way to prevent the stone from moving "backward" relative to the car. We expect such a thing to be possible because our expectations are based on our experience with smaller things that have less momentum and can be made to change their vectors more quickly or easily. But it wouldn't work here. Even if the cantilever on front of the car had tilted down even more quickly, the stone would've still slid "back" along it and gotten in the way of the body of the car.
And the same principle would apply if they'd use some kind of swing arm or something to deliver the weight; the car would've kept moving forward into it and would've just crumpled. It's a (literally) straightforward matter of vectors and momentum.
Saw the ep. Although the Hellboy myth was just a movie stunt, and so I shouldnt waste too much breath over it, I still felt they were doing it wrong.
Like others have said, Hellboy's punch came at a near 45 degree angle, which I think should impart equal amounts of opposing and downward force. For this, they only ever exerted downward force which would just crush the car when they needed to stop it and apply the downward force at the same time. Unfortunately I guess this makes it rather hard to test, my idea would be to fire a rocket of significant power at the desired angle right at the grill/bumper/bonnet.
Like others have said, Hellboy's punch came at a near 45 degree angle, which I think should impart equal amounts of opposing and downward force. For this, they only ever exerted downward force which would just crush the car when they needed to stop it and apply the downward force at the same time. Unfortunately I guess this makes it rather hard to test, my idea would be to fire a rocket of significant power at the desired angle right at the grill/bumper/bonnet.
Yeah. His punch was more angular than straight-down. I still doubt it would've effected things because my rough knowledge of physics tells me this, and Christopher and either clarify what I want to say or correct me.
Ok, the higher altitude you're at the more "energy" you have. So in order for the car to be launched up energy has to be added to it. Enough energy to take a 3000lb car and launch it up into the air five or so feet. A 5000lb weight can't do that and the inertia from the back of the car still trying to move certainly can't do that because the car starts losing energy rapidly as soon as it stops moving. The back only lifts up because it's trying to still move toward the front of the car that can't happen so it bounces up a bit, all of this is also effected by the suspension in the car.
So it'd be -from my understanding- impossible to launch the car in and flip it in the air because that'd require adding a lot more energy into the car than can be provided either by the sharply declining momentum of the car and the Hellboy punch.
Well... You can't. But! How about this:
I'm not satisfied they did the "Breakstep Bridge" myth right from way back in the first season.
To recap: The "myth" is that there's some bridges where soldiers are required to break the step of their march -so they're all walking out of step from one another- the idea being that the rhythm of several hundred soldiers all walking in unison in a particular way would match the resonance frequency of the bridge and cause it to collapse.
Jamie and Adam built a scale bridge out of, like, aluminum and plastic or something and tried making various soldiers using these motorized actuators (donated to them by a fan, motors I still see show up on the show to this day) and later by making a single, large, "soldier." In both cases the heavy, out of scale in size and weight soldier(s) simply just shook the bridge into failure. Not by resonance or vibration but just more by shaking and shifting weight on it too much. If Godzilla stood on the Brooklyn Bridge and started bouncing up and down on his knees while swinging his arms the bridge would probably fail too. Not because Godzilla's movements were matching the "resonance frequency" of the bridge but because he was just shaking the hell out of it.
You have a couple hundred kids Obama wants you to use in a myth. Boom. Revisit a myth from the first season you never really tackled very well int he first place (it was one of their first episodes so they're forgiven.) Safety? You say? Bah!
..
Ok, fine.
I'm sure there's plenty of ways they could've tested this and done it in a safe manner.
There. Problem. Solved.
It's an interesting myth that was never solved or tested properly.
It's one of their first myths so maybe in need of a revisit due to their change of operations and their better adoption of the Scientific Method.
It's a myth to test properly they'd need several subjects.
It's a myth that'd satisfy, some, scientific curiosity.
I'm awesome.
You're welcome.
Ok, the higher altitude you're at the more "energy" you have. So in order for the car to be launched up energy has to be added to it. Enough energy to take a 3000lb car and launch it up into the air five or so feet. A 5000lb weight can't do that and the inertia from the back of the car still trying to move certainly can't do that because the car starts losing energy rapidly as soon as it stops moving. The back only lifts up because it's trying to still move toward the front of the car that can't happen so it bounces up a bit, all of this is also effected by the suspension in the car.
So it'd be -from my understanding- impossible to launch the car in and flip it in the air because that'd require adding a lot more energy into the car than can be provided either by the sharply declining momentum of the car and the Hellboy punch.
Well... You can't. But! How about this:
I'm not satisfied they did the "Breakstep Bridge" myth right from way back in the first season.
To recap: The "myth" is that there's some bridges where soldiers are required to break the step of their march -so they're all walking out of step from one another- the idea being that the rhythm of several hundred soldiers all walking in unison in a particular way would match the resonance frequency of the bridge and cause it to collapse.
Jamie and Adam built a scale bridge out of, like, aluminum and plastic or something and tried making various soldiers using these motorized actuators (donated to them by a fan, motors I still see show up on the show to this day) and later by making a single, large, "soldier." In both cases the heavy, out of scale in size and weight soldier(s) simply just shook the bridge into failure. Not by resonance or vibration but just more by shaking and shifting weight on it too much. If Godzilla stood on the Brooklyn Bridge and started bouncing up and down on his knees while swinging his arms the bridge would probably fail too. Not because Godzilla's movements were matching the "resonance frequency" of the bridge but because he was just shaking the hell out of it.
You have a couple hundred kids Obama wants you to use in a myth. Boom. Revisit a myth from the first season you never really tackled very well int he first place (it was one of their first episodes so they're forgiven.) Safety? You say? Bah!
..
Ok, fine.
I'm sure there's plenty of ways they could've tested this and done it in a safe manner.
There. Problem. Solved.
It's an interesting myth that was never solved or tested properly.
It's one of their first myths so maybe in need of a revisit due to their change of operations and their better adoption of the Scientific Method.
It's a myth to test properly they'd need several subjects.
It's a myth that'd satisfy, some, scientific curiosity.
I'm awesome.
You're welcome.
That wouldn't make any difference. Cars are specifically designed not to be rigid bodies. If there had been a force pushing back against the car, it would've just crumpled the front of the SUV even deeper, because the front of a car is designed to crumple rather than transmit a sudden deceleration to the rest of the vehicle. It wouldn't have sent the intact car flipping over Hellboy's head, it would've wrapped the whole front of the vehicle around him.
So this isn't just impossible in terms of physics, but in terms of automotive design. The only way the SUV could've flipped like in the movie is if it had been impossibly rigid and durable, which would mean that all the force was transmitted to the occupants, killing them messily. Cars just aren't designed that way.
I wonder if the weight slid towards the back or if the car's forward momentum caused the weight to appear to slide back.
I am aware that what was actually happening, I was just stating it in relative terms.
Okay, I don't even understand why the Hellboy punch is considered a "myth" that requires "busting".
It's only been seen once in film, and I don't think anyone ever got the idea in their heads that this was something they should try (unlike the poor saps who jumped in front of oncoming subway trains, thinking they could pull an "Agent Smith").
It's only been seen once in film, and I don't think anyone ever got the idea in their heads that this was something they should try (unlike the poor saps who jumped in front of oncoming subway trains, thinking they could pull an "Agent Smith").
Because it lets them use teaching physics as an excuse to smash up cars. Where did you get the idea that this show has ever been bound by any rigid, legalistic definition of a myth? They're looking for stuff that's entertaining to watch, and usually that means either blowing stuff up or destroying motor vehicles, or both.
Besides, they've done plenty of other "myths" based on unique movie or TV scenes, like the Batmobile turn, that one with using water to blow open a safe, and the Indiana Jones motorcycle flip that was rather similar in principle to this one. It's been part of their repertoire for years.
Kinda what I was getting at, I'm getting tired of them testing useless movie or youtube stunts
This isn't Stuntbusters
As Christopher said it's a fun, entertaining and practical way to show viewers how various things in physics work.
I'm fine with it. They need to, maybe, do it less often but it's still often fun and can help someone learn something; hence the popularity, according to Obama, the show has with children.
How many children watched this episode and learned about new aspects about physics they didn't an hour prior?
I'm fine with it. They need to, maybe, do it less often but it's still often fun and can help someone learn something; hence the popularity, according to Obama, the show has with children.
How many children watched this episode and learned about new aspects about physics they didn't an hour prior?
Probably the same amount that watch it ever week, I would say the viewership probably did not change.
Which does not in any way invalidate his point. After all, you yourself keep complaining about how they do myths like this all the time. If you're going to do nothing but kvetch, at least make an effort to keep track of your kvetches.
You don't really watch Mythbusters to learn anything at this point. Even the builds are mostly just covered in brief nowadays, since the result is king.
No, you've lost your focus. First you complain that Myth X is exactly like every other myth they've ever done, and then you turn around and complain that Myth X isn't as good as the myths they used to do. You don't even care that you're directly contradicting yourself, you're just being gratuitously negative.
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