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Mythbusters - "Dive to Survive" - Discussion/Spoilers

Trekker4747

Boldly going...
Premium Member
Among the myths being tested:

Adam and Jamie test whether or not diving under water can help someone survive an above-water explosion. (Another Hollywood myth.)

The "Jr. Mythbusters" test whether or not phonebooks can be a cheap way to make a car bullet-proof.

Kari is back in this episode and Jessie seems to be gone.

Kari? Oh... my... God. Somehow she's gotten hotter.
 
I didn't mind Jessie but she seemed a little forced with the "Hey, gang, who-hoo!" banter of the Junior Mythbusters which Kari does very well.
 
I didn't mind Jessie but she seemed a little forced with the "Hey, gang, who-hoo!" banter of the Junior Mythbusters which Kari does very well.

Yeah, she seemed like she was trying too hard. Like the weird kid on the playground who tries to hang out with the "cool crowd" and does so by "overacting" cool.



Trekker, that kid.
 
Yayy, Kari's back! And without ceremony -- no acknowledgment of her return, no farewell to Jessi. That part's disappointing, though I'm just glad she's back. And yes, motherhood agrees with her aesthetically, to put it tactfully.

"Dive to Survive": What movie or movies did this myth come from? I guess it's pretty common, and I'm sure I've seen it here and there, but often they cite a specific film even if they don't manage to license the actual footage.

I'm not surprised that the water surface proved effective at blocking the shock wave. After all, a shock wave is basically a really powerful sound wave, and we know that sound has trouble penetrating the boundary between air and water.

And once again, we see that the more powerful an explosion is, the less visually spectacular and fireball-y it is. Something I doubt Hollywood is ever going to acknowledge.


Phone-book bulletproofing: Again, I'm surprised that they didn't specify what show this myth came from. They said it was from a TV spy show, but didn't give any specifics about which one. I'm wondering what it could be.

I don't get why they called the myth busted when it was actually confirmed for handguns. I guess they were defining the myth as that a single layer of phone books could make the door completely bulletproof, but that's a little too absolutist. That's one reason I'd like to know the source of this myth -- in the spy show, what kind of guns were used?

Interesting discovery, that it matters whether you put the phone books in front of the glass or behind it. Nice little physics tidbit there. The soft stuff in front doesn't matter much, since the bullet doesn't really lose energy until it hits the rigid glass.

I liked it how Kari's hypothetical situation was basically the plot of the fourth act of every single episode of The A-Team. I'm surprised they didn't do this one on that show.
 
Again, wow Kari is looking good! :drool:

Anyway:

Dive to Survive:

Not many surprising results here either. Similar myths they've tested before involving explosives and underwater survivablilty has shown that shockwaves are pretty deadly.

Bullet-Proof Phonebooks:

And interesting myth to test and some surprising results. Most of all it was surprising to me their calculations figured it'd take two-tons of phonebooks to make their selected car bullet-proof. :eek:

Not too surprised the lower-powered guns were stopped by the books but not the higher-powered rounds. Their bullet-proof car was well made (I liked their original idea of having a "sliver" of a view through the windshield over the small portal they end up going with. Overall an interesting thing to test and not very surprising results, that it was impractical. But I think calling it "busted" is over-stating things. Short of tanks and maybe Limo 1 how many "bulletproof" cars would survive those ultra-high powered rounds? I'd call this myth "Plausible" and not "Busted."

Yayy, Kari's back! And without ceremony -- no acknowledgment of her return, no farewell to Jessi. That part's disappointing, though I'm just glad she's back. And yes, motherhood agrees with her aesthetically, to put it tactfully.

It's "possible" that the episodes are being aired out of sequence and that Jessi's send off and Kari's return got more ceremony in an episode filmed earlier but is set to be aired later.

Oh, and mad-props to Kari taking out the engine with her high-powered rifle.
 
the phone book one is from burn notice and if i remember right they used what seemed to be very thick yellow pages in the tv show.

the dive underwater was also on burn notice but i might have first seen ages ago in a tarzen movie.
 
Yeah, my first thought was Burn Notice too. Michael Weston didn't go to the ridiculous lengths the Mythbusters did though, he just stuffed the phonebooks into the panels I think.
 
I wouldn't call the phone book one busted, I mean, it worked for the hand guns. Yes, its not completely bullet proof to every known gun out there, but it is to the smaller hand guns, and honestly what is a spy/bad guy/whatever likely to carry, something they can conceal like a hand gun. In that regard, I'd call it Plausible, cause it DID work on the hand guns. Obviously it isn't going to stop higher powered machinery. Like someone above said, they are being a bit absolutist about it, which I find they do often on myths.
 
I guess the question is, what kind of guns were used in the Burn Notice episode? If the shooters only used handguns, then the myth is confirmed. But if they used shotguns or rifles, then the myth -- the scenario as depicted in the original account -- is indeed busted.
 
I believe it was just handguns, as he was anticipating a street fight, if memory serves me. I think it was the episode about a gang of car thieves threatening a teenager.
 
^yeah, thought it was mostly just a handgun fight they went into. For that, it worked fine, even with decent-caliber guns. Seemed odd that they used slugs from a shotgun, as I'd think most often someone carrying a shotgun in a fight would likely have buckshot loaded up, which the phone books would have stopped.

Sure, it's not perfect, but it stopped most small arms, so it should have been at least plausible...
 
It's better than nothing for sure, and I was even wondering whether something like that isn't sometimes superior to steel plates etc; should be a lot cheaper and lighter at least.
 
They really mishandled the phonebook armor myth. They basically kept going until they found a round that would go through. Of course a .50cal round is going to go right through up armored humvees aren't rated to stop them, you basically have to go right up to a Stryker.

What they should have done is base things on the IAC levels of protection. Honestly, when it comes down to it, the phonebooks offer quite a bit of bullet resistance.

http://www.armormax.com/Ballistic Levels.htm
 
I really dislike how they judge a myth's possibility. They set really strange conditions and, quite often, adhere to them in bizarre ways in their final verdict. I mean just saying "non-armor piercing weapons" could apply to dropping a piano on it from 1,000 feet up. "Using handguns that a bunch of surprised street thugs would likely use when not anticipating going up against an armored vehicle" would be a much better and far more accurate conditional.
 
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