Series/MythBusters

Considering that more than a few of the "common-sense says of course" or "common sense says of course not" myths have turned out to not be what common sense says , saying "Eh, here's the theory, we don't have to do the experiment" would be foolish.

Exactly. They do the science to make sure it does or doesn't work. Then, if enough people complain, they go back and test it again with slightly different methods. They make sure to hit everything they can, making sure that we know they're smart while still not using terms that confuse the hell out of regular viewers(though granted, if you watch Myth Busters purely and honestly just for the science, you probably know all the technical terms anyway).

Besides, sometimes even in doing an experiment they already know the outcome to, you might learn something. The Oddjob hat did more damage than I would have expected such a lightweight object to do, and I learned something about human bite force on the Jaws myth. And even on those myths, the basic idea that every idea should be tested, and you shouldn't rely on common sense, is always worthwhile.

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And part of the fun of Mythbusters is that when they can't get a myth to work the way it's supposed to using real world science (which is often), they try to recreate the results, so even if it was a "common sense is vindicated" myth, we get to see them blow things up or launch little girls (or crash test dummies made to look like little girls) 14 meters in the air off of a teeter totter. For Science!.

Mythbusters gets Science and Rule of Cool right.

I don't have the channel they're on, so I rarely watch. Must get some DVDs from the library.

Did anyone see them on Craig Ferguson's late-nite show a week or so ago? Pretty good interview. Well, it's Craig Ferguson, so if you like his sense of humor and Mythbusters' sense of humor and you are reading this thread, you'd probably think it's a very excellent interview.

edited 31st Jan '10 1:16:02 AM by newtonthenewt

I've been writing this outline for a cartoon about Ariadne and the Minotaur ('cause let's face it, aside from the sandal thing, a wet dishrag could play Theseus for all the interest he brings to a story), and during the childhood motivation-setup scenes I keep imagining Adam Savage as the voice of Daedalus.

Thoughts?

Adam Savage as the guy who says don't fly too high?

Adam's gone OOC? WAT

Ah, but that's one of the things I've changed in this version to make it more plausible that Ariadne would turn against her own dad.

Basically, Daedalus and Ikarus (who, thanks to King Minos being a tool to rival Bambi's dad, have been like a surrogate family to the little girl for as long as she can remember - all three join in an awesome Experiment/Things That Blow Up Song early in the first act) have to leave just before dawn, because that's when the wind currents will be right (naturally if my research turns up that the winds around Knossos are better for gliding at night, I will substitute dawn breaking with the unfortunate juxtaposition of a full moon on the same evening). They have to stay below a certain height in order to keep the guards from seeing them - to avoid certain death, you see, not the risk of it (shit. This means I'm going to have to find the perfect weather conditions for gliding that will still allow someone to aim an arrow effectively. Fuck. This is why I stick with magic; it works the same every time).

But an unfortunate updraft hits Ikarus the wrong way, and his struggles to get the glider back under control attract the attention of archers, who shoot him down with fire-arrows.

Daedalus of course manages to get away, but ickle!Ariadne is pissed at her father for trying to destroy her real family. Forunately, she still has D-man's notes... including the plans to the labyrinth...

edited 2nd Feb '10 3:13:19 AM by FurikoMaru

You don't need wind for good gliding — you need thermals. There's no reason that excellent gliding weather wouldn't also be excellent archery weather.

Shit. That was a plot point in Assassins Creed II, too; I should have remembered. Thank you for reminding me.

When my Physics teacher played it for us so we could watch two bullets hit the ground at the same time.

2nd best science video to watch.

the first, being Bill Nye, obviously.

I loved the item on polygraph tests for non-human life/telepathy. The way they isolated variables in the final experiment (yoghurt and eggs) should be a part of every university course in methodology.

In the revisit of "Compact Compact", they brought a car to New Mexico Technical Institute and lauched a rocket sled at it, just to show what kind of collision it would take to compress a car as fully as the myth suggested. The sled hits the car with so much force, you can see the paint vaporizing in the high-speed footage.

I also thought the phonebook myth was interesting, just because ramping the experiment up to a ridiculous extreme was the only thing that worked. Trying to pull apart a pair of phonebooks with their pages interlaced using two cars? Won't work. Use a tank and an armored personnel carrier instead? There you go.

I think there's a difference between "subjecting the phone books to such stress that they shatter" and "overcoming the surface tension holding the pages together so they come apart". Big difference.

When I watched the episode, I was under the impression they had done the latter... the phonebooks seemed mostly intact. Was there some other force at work there that they didn't reveal?

IIRC, they didn't get the books apart, they pulled the bit that attached the books to the tanks apart. It takes less joint to rip the joint off from the rest of the book than it does to pull the interlaced pages off of each other.

I saw a bunch of ripped pages, making me believe that they instead ripped the pages instead of overcoming the surface tension

Well this myth actually first came to my attention via a video for a competition done for mythbusters. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sIB2kL-BWc.

Here's the Real Mythbusters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOt-D_ee-JE&feature=related. There it remains intact but I think before they use the metal clamps, the clasps on the books broke before the books came apart.

I love Mythbusters! my favorite TV show.

There are so many great moments! I loved the giant slide. I want one of those.

^ One of the funniest moments of the show was on the giant slide and Adam was busy with a brand new roll of duct. He dropped and watched the roll go down the slide for about 5 seconds until it flew into the water. "I need another roll."

I think what makes the show work is precisely the reason why some others criticize it, the draw of the show is more about how to test the myth and testing it rather than just coming to a conclusion. If it was a straight up documentary it would likely be rather boring.

edited 26th Aug '10 5:40:07 PM by KJMackley

I love it when things go spectacularly wrong. These guys can make epic failure more interesting that when they succeed.

Example when the build team forget to bolt down the grappling hook launcher, or the explosion of the 2nd Jato rocket car.

There are moments of success that are more interesting though. For example: the bedsheet beating the motion detector.

edited 21st Oct '10 9:29:29 PM by TwilightFalchion