When they first tested the knock your socks off myth wasn't there one that actually showed quite a bit of promise? It was like a fluke or something but generated some movement in the socks. I wonder what was up with that.
Mythbusters - "Mythmission Control"
- Thread starter Trekker4747
- Start date
Maybe it's my engineering training that leads me to different conclusions, but what about the bottle myth seemed like it might make sense to you? If you had to be hit in the head with something, would you pick the lead pipe or the wiffleball bat?
Force = Mass * Acceleration. If the acceleration is the same, and the mass increases, gonna hit with a lot more force. Empty glass might break easier, but that the bottle didn't break right away isn't much consolation if the full bottle has bashed your skull in...
Don't get me wrong, they've done plenty of really interesting things over the years, and shown things that completely contradict "common wisdom". Just feels like they're really stretching lately to find things that are worth trying. Which often leads them to have to distort the myth to stupid lengths to even make a show of it, and then you end up Busting something that got way out of hand.
Things like the Plane on a Treadmill are interesting for other reasons, where the math shows that it's blatantly not worth testing, but your gut tells you something so different that you still have to see it spelled out to wrap your head around it sometimes. Being hit in the head with a heavy object vs a lighter, more fragile object of the exact same size and shape doesn't really fit the bill, IMO.
Yeah, I'll totally agree with that. A lot of the myths are basic physics problems that aren't as interesting to test.
But I guess when you've done 8 seasons, you're sort of stuck for content. It's why they went from myths about movies (that James Bond girl dying after being covered in gold paint, or that actress who could receive radio signals because of her tooth fillings) to just replicating movie action scenes which are almost always busted (gee, you can't shoot an MP5 into the ground and cut a whole to fall in? Who knew!).
But I guess when you've done 8 seasons, you're sort of stuck for content. It's why they went from myths about movies (that James Bond girl dying after being covered in gold paint, or that actress who could receive radio signals because of her tooth fillings) to just replicating movie action scenes which are almost always busted (gee, you can't shoot an MP5 into the ground and cut a whole to fall in? Who knew!).
As we've stated time and time again with many of the myths they've done over the years the fact that physics and math can tell us the answer without having to do a physical, real, tangible experiment isn't the point of the show.
Simple physics could've told us that the ball shot out of the back at the truck (each going the same speed in their opposite directions) that the ball would "hang in the air" and fall down. That doesn't mean that it wasn't still worth testing to see it occur and that it still wasn't pretty damn cool to see it occur.
Knowledge of how a plane works and physics could tell you the obvious solution to the "plane on treadmil" thought-puzzle, still doesn't mean that wasn't worth testing, demonstrating, and doing.
So, yeah, that a heavier bottle would do more damage because some formulas and calculations could give us the answers doesn't mean it wasn't worth testing to show the results and to even take into account things the numbers don't tell us like skull fractures, lacerations and how much the brain would "jiggle" inside the skull.
The entire point of this show is to take myths and "put them to the test." There's been several myths they've done over the seasons where the answer was obvious to anyone who knows how the world works. It's still cool, interesting and all part of the scientific process and part learning to put it into practice. You can't just learn by doing numbers, you have to go out into the world and experience.
I mean, in one of the earliest episodes they tested whether there's any truth to the "myth" that a penny dropped from the Empire State Building could kill a person on the sidewalk just from the force of it's impact due to its fall (despite that the wind-forces around the building would cuase the penny to land on the roof of one of the lower level outcroppings.) Physics and number crunching would tell you the penny's terminal velocity and whether at that velocity it's tiny mass would've been enough to kill someone. That's not what the show is about. It was way cooler to see Jamie build his "penny/terminal velocity gun" and to then fire pennys at ballistics skulls and concrete.
This show is about testing myths, not about spitting out numbers and data to say "see, Newton proved this to be the case 200 years ago. There's the numbers and diagrams, accepte it." Far more interesting to see it practiced in a physical and practical setting.
Simple physics could've told us that the ball shot out of the back at the truck (each going the same speed in their opposite directions) that the ball would "hang in the air" and fall down. That doesn't mean that it wasn't still worth testing to see it occur and that it still wasn't pretty damn cool to see it occur.
Knowledge of how a plane works and physics could tell you the obvious solution to the "plane on treadmil" thought-puzzle, still doesn't mean that wasn't worth testing, demonstrating, and doing.
So, yeah, that a heavier bottle would do more damage because some formulas and calculations could give us the answers doesn't mean it wasn't worth testing to show the results and to even take into account things the numbers don't tell us like skull fractures, lacerations and how much the brain would "jiggle" inside the skull.
The entire point of this show is to take myths and "put them to the test." There's been several myths they've done over the seasons where the answer was obvious to anyone who knows how the world works. It's still cool, interesting and all part of the scientific process and part learning to put it into practice. You can't just learn by doing numbers, you have to go out into the world and experience.
I mean, in one of the earliest episodes they tested whether there's any truth to the "myth" that a penny dropped from the Empire State Building could kill a person on the sidewalk just from the force of it's impact due to its fall (despite that the wind-forces around the building would cuase the penny to land on the roof of one of the lower level outcroppings.) Physics and number crunching would tell you the penny's terminal velocity and whether at that velocity it's tiny mass would've been enough to kill someone. That's not what the show is about. It was way cooler to see Jamie build his "penny/terminal velocity gun" and to then fire pennys at ballistics skulls and concrete.
This show is about testing myths, not about spitting out numbers and data to say "see, Newton proved this to be the case 200 years ago. There's the numbers and diagrams, accepte it." Far more interesting to see it practiced in a physical and practical setting.
If mass were the only factor involved, the answer would be simple. But sometimes there can be other factors that surprise you and give unexpected results. For instance, in the thread for that episode, I recall speculating that maybe an empty, lighter bottle could be swung faster. Since kinetic energy is mass times the square of the velocity, a change in velocity would have more effect than a change in mass, so it could've conceivably cancelled.
Also, it was conceivable that an empty, non-airtight bottle might be more easily shattered and thus pose more danger of laceration, say. Though now that I think about it, that's probably not the case.
Anyway, science isn't about assuming you know the answers in advance. That's not science, it's just arrogance. Science is about trying stuff and seeing what happens. It's about having the good sense to doubt your own assumptions and check them against hard data rather than just assuming you're right. As Twain said, supposing is good, but finding out is better.
I'm automatically suspicious of any observation that something isn't as good lately as it used to be. That perception is an illusion created by the way memory works. In the long run, we remember the high points more vividly than the low points, so when we look back on the past, that selective memory creates the false perception that its ratio of high to low points was better than it is today. Nostalgia is itself a myth, a pervasive cognitive illusion that we must always be wary of.
Personally, I think Mythbusters has been stretching for years. But they've still managed to come up with lots of good stuff. And they had their share of lame myths early on too. Not every episode's going to be a classic.
And they've always done that. From the very beginning, the format was that the myths had two parts: test the parameters of the myth, then replicate the results. If the myth says something blows up under certain conditions and it fails to do so, the next step is to demonstrate what it would take to get an explosion. True, these days they do tend to be a little more gratuitous about it, but in its way it's part of the explanation of why the myth doesn't make sense, why the stated parameters are nowhere near sufficient to get the stated result.
Exactly. In your opinion, based on your knowledge. Not everybody out there has detailed science and engineering knowledge. That's why these myths exist in the first place -- because a lot of people don't know science and thus end up believing all sorts of nonsense. That's why it's good to have a show that tackles these silly ideas and demonstrates why they're silly.
Exactly. Tons of people out there don't know how the world works, and showing them the equations and theories won't convince them of anything because they haven't been trained to think scientifically. That's why it's valuable to take it beyond theory and equation and actually show them why such-and-such a thing wouldn't happen.
I think the bottle-breaking myth was valuable because it demonstrated that, regardless of the contents of a bottle, breaking it over someone's head can cause serious, possibly life-threatening injury. Movies and TV give a false impression that it's relatively harmless, but the Mythbusters demonstrated in detail just how much damage it causes, full or empty. Hopefully that will dissuade some people in the future from attempting that maneuver in bar fights, and thus prevent some other people from getting seriously hurt.
The Mythbusters - "We save fucking lives!"
As far as my comments about it going to ridiculous lengths: yes, that's always been part of it, as they go past the myth and figure out the degree it can stand up to, I just have a problem with how they decide the result at the end, as that seems to be sliding a lot more towards "busted" as time goes on.
As an example, in the Burn Notice episode, they tested the phonebooks as bulletproof armor for a car. It held up to small arms, and some of the low/medium powered rifles. As far as the myth went (or episode, in this case), that should have been a pass, or at least a plausible. Held up to what was shown in the show. They then went past that, and started using everything short of tank busters. Not shockingly, it didn't hold up. Then called the myth busted, as the phone books didn't make it bulletproof.
They should have definitely played with it at the end, to see what it can take, but that was past what was claimed, so shouldn't have been used to bust it. It was being talked about as usable in going up against small arms, or an unstable situation. More likely they have hand guns than tank busters, no? Held up to small arms that would be used in the situation described, so should be plausible at least. But they distorted it to stupid lengths, and then said it was busted. Doesn't really make sense.
As an example, in the Burn Notice episode, they tested the phonebooks as bulletproof armor for a car. It held up to small arms, and some of the low/medium powered rifles. As far as the myth went (or episode, in this case), that should have been a pass, or at least a plausible. Held up to what was shown in the show. They then went past that, and started using everything short of tank busters. Not shockingly, it didn't hold up. Then called the myth busted, as the phone books didn't make it bulletproof.
They should have definitely played with it at the end, to see what it can take, but that was past what was claimed, so shouldn't have been used to bust it. It was being talked about as usable in going up against small arms, or an unstable situation. More likely they have hand guns than tank busters, no? Held up to small arms that would be used in the situation described, so should be plausible at least. But they distorted it to stupid lengths, and then said it was busted. Doesn't really make sense.
I don't necessarily disagree with that, they do go to extremes which is all fine and good but then their extremes end up deciding the myth's status. Which doesn't make sense.
The bulletproof phonebooks one is a good example of this. For what it is worth to me the myth was confirmed or at the very least plausible. Enough phone books could make a car "bulletproof" to anything but the heaviest of artillery. If you shot tank-busters at Limo 1, which is bulletproof, you'd get through it. But for the type of arms you're mostly likely to encounter? It seems that the phonebooks did the trick.
The counter-example of this is in the "Frog Giggin'" Myth.
In this myth a redneck blows a fuse in his truck, doesn't have a spare, so he uses a bullet to serve as the fuse. It works for a bit but then the circuit heats up the bullet, fires it, and it ends up shooting the driver in the junk.
To get this myth to work they had to, first of all, repalce the fuse-box in a truck from one that uses those plastic fuses to one that uses those older glass-encased fuses, they had to place the fuse box in a position to best facilitate the type of shot they wanted, then they had to rewire the truck to cause a short that'd even make the fuse blow in the first place. And still the bullet didn't fire in a straight line like it would in a gun it'd do in a random direction. But they did get a result, and one of the stray bullets did hit Buster in the junk.
They called the myth "plausible" because they didn't have to go too far outside of the bounds of the myth and that they considered that with the state of some people's cars this "could" happen. Under the bounds of how Kari, etc. treated the bulletproof myth they would've called it busted because of the extremes they had to go to get it to work.
So I agree with you, and I said the same things in that episode's thread, that the bulletproof myth was "plausible" because they had to go to extremes to get the bulletproof vechile to even fail! "Bulletproof" doesn't mean it'll stand up to any bullet, anywhere, anytime. (Despite what the name suggests) But the car in the episode was very "bullet resistant" except to the heaviest of gun-fire which, honestly, nothing is bulletproof from outside of the most extreme of cases and even then likely in military applications.
I'm pressed to think of a good example of something similar, I know there is one, but there was a myth where Jamie and Adam had to go to similar extremes to get their device/myth to fail. And they concluded that there extreme was unrealistic or outside the spirit of the myth and deemed the myth to at least be plausible. I think this is all a case of either inconsistancy or, perhaps, how the "Junior Mythbusters" rate their myths compared to Jamie and Adam. I don't think it has all that much to do with the degrading (precieved) quality of the show.
I'll admit the last couple of episodes have been fairly ho-hum but there's been low periods plenty of times in this series and then they have an episode that, well, knocks my socks off because of the level of the "myth" or how well they did it. I'm sure we'll get one of those episodes sooner or later, maybe for May Sweeps?
The bulletproof phonebooks one is a good example of this. For what it is worth to me the myth was confirmed or at the very least plausible. Enough phone books could make a car "bulletproof" to anything but the heaviest of artillery. If you shot tank-busters at Limo 1, which is bulletproof, you'd get through it. But for the type of arms you're mostly likely to encounter? It seems that the phonebooks did the trick.
The counter-example of this is in the "Frog Giggin'" Myth.
In this myth a redneck blows a fuse in his truck, doesn't have a spare, so he uses a bullet to serve as the fuse. It works for a bit but then the circuit heats up the bullet, fires it, and it ends up shooting the driver in the junk.
To get this myth to work they had to, first of all, repalce the fuse-box in a truck from one that uses those plastic fuses to one that uses those older glass-encased fuses, they had to place the fuse box in a position to best facilitate the type of shot they wanted, then they had to rewire the truck to cause a short that'd even make the fuse blow in the first place. And still the bullet didn't fire in a straight line like it would in a gun it'd do in a random direction. But they did get a result, and one of the stray bullets did hit Buster in the junk.
They called the myth "plausible" because they didn't have to go too far outside of the bounds of the myth and that they considered that with the state of some people's cars this "could" happen. Under the bounds of how Kari, etc. treated the bulletproof myth they would've called it busted because of the extremes they had to go to get it to work.
So I agree with you, and I said the same things in that episode's thread, that the bulletproof myth was "plausible" because they had to go to extremes to get the bulletproof vechile to even fail! "Bulletproof" doesn't mean it'll stand up to any bullet, anywhere, anytime. (Despite what the name suggests) But the car in the episode was very "bullet resistant" except to the heaviest of gun-fire which, honestly, nothing is bulletproof from outside of the most extreme of cases and even then likely in military applications.
I'm pressed to think of a good example of something similar, I know there is one, but there was a myth where Jamie and Adam had to go to similar extremes to get their device/myth to fail. And they concluded that there extreme was unrealistic or outside the spirit of the myth and deemed the myth to at least be plausible. I think this is all a case of either inconsistancy or, perhaps, how the "Junior Mythbusters" rate their myths compared to Jamie and Adam. I don't think it has all that much to do with the degrading (precieved) quality of the show.
I'll admit the last couple of episodes have been fairly ho-hum but there's been low periods plenty of times in this series and then they have an episode that, well, knocks my socks off because of the level of the "myth" or how well they did it. I'm sure we'll get one of those episodes sooner or later, maybe for May Sweeps?
I really enjoyed this episode. The physics myth did not have the result that I would have expected!
Something surprising occurs to me about the "knock your socks off" revisit: This is one of those rare cases where the original myth had explosions and the revisit doesn't. They're slipping! 
I don't remember the original episode, but did they try this with the shoes on and adding friction into the equation?
Well, if it's any comfort, he was only half-wrong. He was right that the forces would be equivalent, he just forgot to consider that they'd be distributed differently depending on whether there was one car involved or two.
While not strictly mythbusting I think it would be interesting if they did a special and messed with different ways to handle an oil leak.
Grant would build a robot to deal with it, Kari will roll her eyes at him for being so obvious, Adam would devise some complex, ingenious plan that will have some sort of basic design flaw that he hadn't thought of, Tory will injure himself trying to fix it manually and then Jamie will come up with a simple, elegant solution that actually works.
Then they'll get Frank and J.D. to blow something up to end the show.
You forgot to add some bad oil related puns delivered by the narrator.
Pretty much exactly it.
Only I was thinking Jamie would just sop up the spill with his mustache.
^And somehow he would avoid getting a single drop of oil on his white shirt.