This video demonstrates how scientific testing can verify or debunk movie myths through systematic experimentation. The Mythbusters team tests several iconic movie scenarios: Indiana Jones' whip disarming ability (confirmed plausible), the temple run escape (confirmed with 1-second delay but not instantaneous firing), lightsaber combat advantages (higher ground provides minimal advantage), and The A Team's sewer explosion technique (confirmed as a survivable method). The key principle is that real-world physics often differs from cinematic portrayals, and controlled experiments with proper variables can reveal the actual feasibility of fictional scenarios.
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Cinematic Science | MythBustersAdded:
[Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] You don't look anything like him. I know. Let's get to work. Okay.
[Music] Why are you dressed like my old archaeology professor? No, no, no. I'm dressed as Indiana Jones. That's him, Dr. Jones from Indiana. Anyway, what's the story? Okay, the story is there's also a movie called Raiders the Lost Arring a guy named Indiana Jones. And we're going to tackle some myths from that movie. First and foremost, his famous sidearm, the whip.
We're going to look at some of the science of Indy's whip and some of the remarkable things he does with it. But the opening sequence of radars is where we're beginning. India is escaping from a South American temple that is attempting to kill him with all manner of booby traps, including our first test, a floor filled with pressure pads that shoots poison darts at Indie. Well, sounds like fun. Let's get into it.
Okay. In the exhilarating opening scene from the iconic8s adventure story, there's a question to be answered.
By simply running for it, would Indie really have escaped unharmed? And as a massive fan of the franchise, Adam's in his element. We're going to do this temple run and really figure out if we truly can outrun the darts. We're going to need to know how long that run is going to be.
So, I'm going to look at some video, do some measurements, and actually work it up in a little diarama for a little indie Adam [Music] here. You can't tell, but he's totally psyched about it. This kind of work is something I used to do all the time in the film industry. It's all coming together. In the film industry, it's often used as a previsualization technique.
Now I'm just having fun. Like I will mock up a set in foam core just so I understand all of its dimensions before building it in the actual materials it'll be built in. Got hot glue threads on my face. Seeing something in that white space for some reason to me it's deeply deeply satisfying. I put my head down and I can see what it looks like from different angles. It's like I'm building a playground for my brain. I have actually also learned a few things. I've carefully checked screenshots of Harrison Ford against many parts of the set. Knowing how tall he is, I have determined the dart pads are about 40 in long. Uh, and that that room is about 30 feet long. If it's 30 ft long and the dart pads are the size they are, Harrison Ford Indie will encounter at least 16 of those pads, likely setting off 16 darts. That's how many he's got to outrun. That's how many we're going to set up. Did you notice that I I managed to keep the label of the pipe facing the thing so you really see 450 PSI? It's really shattering the [Music] illusion. In the temple run, Indie gets shot at by Mayan poison darts. But because these are potentially lethal, I'm going to do the same thing using paintballs. 14. You know, I buy this craft salvaged, but who knew that 14 wasn't enough? I need 16. And so, it's my job to figure out how to put together Nope. A 16 gun pressure pad operated paintball gun array. I think those will work. This item right here is a solenoid switch. The wire gives power to an electromagnet, which opens the flow of air. These kinds of things are how we can fire pneumatic projectiles on Q. It works. I love it when I've got all the parts I need to put together something like this. The sequence is going to go like a barrel connected to a pipe nipple, a solenoid, and that will screw into one big long tube, and that'll be our air feed. And so it's just going to be like a little assembly line of, you know, barrel, barrel, barrel, barrel, and uh out comes the paintball and shoots us with the first of the 16 air powered guns attached to its solenoid trigger. Sounds kind of like a a seal.
Adam arrives to up the pressure. Dude, they arrived. Oh, cool. That is our pressure pad switch activation. Well, let's uh let's check it out.
Point it that way. Pointing. Yeah. 3 2 1.
[Laughter] That couldn't have worked any better.
Inside this pad is an electrical switch such that when you step on it, it completes a circuit like so. Now that opens the flow of air and out comes the paintball and we get shot when we step on the pad.
That is beautiful. There we go. Awesome.
That's how each gun will be triggered.
The next step is to combine them into a single coordinated air powered system.
[Music] This white tube is the air supply for our paintball gauntlet, which we'll be installing in the temple. Now, each one of these guns will be wired to its own pressure pad. Three, two, beautiful. which as we run along will be setting off these guns one after the other while we possibly are screaming in pain. That is going to hurt. Well, let's uh pack it up, put it on the truck, and take it out to the location.
Okay, before they pack up their temple run gun while the team gets busy prefabricating a fake man temple, Adam and Jamie get cracking.
on another iconic Indie Inquiry. Well, good luck there, buddy.
So, whips. Exactly. Indy's whip is like almost mythological. He does all sorts of incredible stuff, including one I think we should test when he disarms an opponent with a gun using only the whip.
So, would the whip be accurate enough and would it hit the hand hard enough to knock the gun out of it or something?
Exactly. And I think the other thing we should look at is the opening sequence when he loops the whip around a log and swings across a chasm. Is that really possible? Yeah. I wonder whether the whip would actually have enough grip.
And then if it did, how are you going to get it off? I think we need to deeply look into the science of [Music] whips. If we're going to put whips through their paces in this episode, we're going to need Wait a minute.
Whips. Whip making is something I taught myself about 17 years ago. I built the whip I'd always wanted from Raiders of the Lost Arc. And to start this episode, I'm going to build the first whip. This is kangaroo high. Don't let anyone tell you any different. This is the strongest leather in the world. Whip making is an art. An art for which Adam clearly has a passion. Now, astonishingly, this right here is everything required to make a 8ft leather bullet.
M animal fat. But before I start, I actually need to prep the laces. I need to treat them with a leather dressing that softens them and allows me to stretch them to bring them out to their natural state. Then, I'm going to braid them. I'm going to do a four plate braid. That is using four laces. And this will comprise the inner and smallest core of the whip. This will be the center. Now you're starting to see where this is going. That is called the belly, the first belly, the interior belly of the whip. I'm going to cover this belly with a bolster, which is effectively a long triangle of leather. That bolster will then get another belly laid over it because the Indiana Jones whips are what are called two belly whips.
The braided core and leather bolster is doubled up to form the second belly. And in the middle of this meticulous process, Adam couldn't be happier. In case you haven't guessed already, I loves me the bull whips. I started out inspired by Raiders. I'm done with the second belly and I quickly learned that I love two distinct things about the practice. These will be the 12 laces that make the actual outer coating of the whip. One was that I love the practice itself. The craft of whip making, the meticulous, repetitive stretching, checking, cutting, lacing.
It is deeply meditative. Hold on. I got to drink my own urine. I'm kidding. I wasn't drinking my own urine. I was drinking someone else's. The second thing I love about it is the form and function coming together magnificently. I mean, you've got this beautiful form of a smooth leather object that is tapered from one end to the other. Dude, it's looking so good.
And then that tapering turns out not just to be lovely and compelling, but in fact crucial for delivering the energy from your hand out to the tip of the whip with the maximum amount of strength. That is really cool. I am really pleased with how this is looking.
For the finishing touches, Adam decorates the handle and then to make the whip actually crack, attaches two thin strips called the fall and the cracker.
But will all that work pay off with a working whip? All right. Woo! This is very exciting. Oh, it sounds good. Yeah.
[Music] Oh, it's pretty loud. Can you hit anything with it? You know, I've never actually tried. Why don't I set something up? Let's do it.
Indiana Jones nonchalantly and surgically disarmed his armed foe. Come on. Adam, however, can't seem to take out a few cans.
Not exactly precision shooting until he gets real close and the laws of probability weigh in.
Yeah.
Yes, he hit it. As long as I've got 10, 12, 15 tries, you are in trouble, man.
Yep. To find out if you can indeed disarm armed adversaries, Adam and Jamie clearly need some expert help and a spectacular change of scene to set up for some Temple Run fun.
Totally going to get shot.
[Music] Indy's whip is a character in its own right in the Raiders films, and it does some unbelievable things in the film.
First and foremost, he's able to disarm someone who pulls a gun on him just pulling this off his belt and giving it a crack. And that's what we're going to do. We're going to give that a crack.
But there's a problem. Now, I'm pretty good at making these, but we've already established that I am not that good at operating them.
Let's just say you're a work in progress, aren't we all?
Yep. To test Indy's mythical ability to disarm guncoating foes, Adam and Jamie need a whole heap of whip wielding tips from the very best in the business. The science of the whip is the acceleration of kinetic energy. All energy added to the whip is multiplied.
A small amount of focused energy literally produces explosive results.
Wherever I point the handle, this is where the whip is going to go. So, I'm literally aiming with my whole body instead of this kind of I sure hope this works. That That's pretty much the school I'm at. Weight on the back foot, weight on the front foot. We've brought a lot of experts onto this show over the years, but Anthony might be my all-time favorite right now. And then yes, now it's just timing. I have rarely ever had someone teach me something so quickly.
[Music] And I got results I really didn't think were going to happen within such a short period of time. Open your hand.
Straighten your arm. Close your hand.
Hey, perfect. That totally worked. This is awesome. This This is a a far more precise tool than I thought it was.
Bend.
We've gotten a lot of the basics of whip handling from Anthony. Excellent. But now it's time to see if we can't use the whip to grab a gun out of somebody's hand. But it's important to note that we never actually see how Indie disarms the bad guy. So to cover all our bases, we're going to run a couple of tests. So stretch it out and send it out. Better.
Okay. First, we're going to see if that whip tip could wrap around the wrist and/or the gun and yank it in such a way as to spoil the shot. We're going to see if a direct hit to the wrist with the whip tip is enough to make somebody drop the gun. This is the scariest thing I've done all day. Is it Go ahead.
That was perfect. That was a nice crack.
You got It was right on the tip of your thumb. That would have hurt a lot.
Jaime's making contact, but there's no mythical grab at any spoiling pull. Go for the wrist. Go for the wrist, Heinman.
That's it.
Not quite the first time accuracy of Indie, but novice Jamie is dialing in on the technique surprisingly quickly.
Yes. Oh, there we go. Good job.
All right, my turn.
[Music] Did I get you? Yeah. Adam missed his target a couple of times and connected with me instead, but he was actually able to wrap the tip of the whip around my hand to where he would be interfering with my aiming of that gun. Yeah. And that was actually pretty effective. The grab and tug is clearly plausible, but what about the second option?
The hit to the hand. Would that force you to drop the gun? Well, Jamie with a short straw drawn adds extra protection and prepares to face the whip cracking might of the whipmaster.
[Music] Ow. I'm positive I wouldn't have been able to hold on to that gun if I didn't have this glove on. It would be equivalent to somebody slicing at your hand with a sharp knife.
You'd drop the gun. Yep. Without padding. Jaime's dropping the gun every single time. Yeah. I I don't think there's any way I would have been able to hold on to this if I hadn't had this protection. So Anthony, it strikes me that we have enough experimental evidence gathered thus far to conclude that the first appearance of a whip in Raiders of the Lost Arc is actually pretty reasonable that it is feasible to disarm someone with a gun if you're only holding a whip. Would you agree? I do agree. I think a targeted strike to bear flesh is going to make it pretty much impossible to hang on to the gun, let alone operate it accurately.
So this is plausible. Is that what you would do if you were in the same situation?
Absolutely not. No. Okay. What would you do? I would go straight for the face.
Oh.
[Applause] With the gun whip myth all tied up, it's time to set the scene for the temple run. Not many people realize, but the Mayans built their temples just like this. Yeah. And Adam's having a whole heap of fun. Look, I know that some of the lakes we're going to seem a little bit over the top. Now, I'm thinking right about this level. Yeah. Upper torso. Yeah. We could have just set up 16 paintball guns on like a wooden rack in about an hour and a half.
But honestly, we couldn't. We're special effects guys. This is what we did for a living for decades. Looks pretty good. I know it looks like crap, but it's fun. It would offend our sensibilities not to make it look period and timely to the actual film we're replicating.
Of course, any decent temple's got its share of deities and gods, so we've got ours. He'll defend my sensibilities.
Frankly, I think Jamie thinks this whole experiment is an excuse for me to dress up, which it might be. While Adam completes the scene setting, [Music] Jaime's connected the pressure pad and gun one for a test run.
3 2 [Applause] 1. That works perfectly. Perfectly except for a timing tweak. A that was fantastic. Our Mayan temple dart room is operational except with paintballs instead of darts. The only thing is that hit was instantaneous. Pad touch dart hit. And in the movie there's actually a delay when Indie tests the rig. My question is how much of a time delay is there between the time that torch pushes the pad and the time the dart hits the torch? That's 1 second. That's going to be our delay. Over to Jamie. It's tricky, but by inserting a timer between the pressure pad trigger and the air powered paintball gun, he can delay the firing by the required 1 second. And with the guns not loaded, he steps up to test the [Music] timing. Hooer, we have a problem. That's uh not quite what we had in mind.
[Music] If you wondered exactly how Adam and Jamie got the ball rolling on this Indiana Jones junket, wonder no more.
Believe it or not, this is actually going to be our spherical temple run stone. Jamie's going to love this.
Rise.
Rise. This is just as much fun as I was hoping it would be. This inflatable sphere will form the basis of their boulder.
I don't think I'm getting ahead of it. I got to pass out. And so far it rocks.
Yeah. Oh. Hey man, check it out. It's our temple run ball. Whoa, dude.
Are you all right? I could seriously mess with you in this.
Are you sure about that, dude? Does this make a perfect temple run spear or what? Yeah, this is great.
All right, now how do I get out?
This is perfect. It's our Temple Run ball, but it doesn't look like anything anyone in a movie would be frightened of. So, we're going to have to scenic this puppy up. That's sort of mimicking my birth.
And luckily enough, Jamie and I did that for decades before we had this job. So, we've got our big clear plastic ball. But to make it look like a boulder, we had the idea that we'll take this two-part foam and mix it together and slather it all over the surface. If we do it kind of sloppy but in the right way, it might just look like a big stone thing, which is what we want. So, here we [Music] go. I've done hundreds and hundreds of little projects like this over a couple of decades of doing special effects. I think it's going to work great. And uh it's actually kind of a joy to just get back into that world for a little bit while doing this pretty soon. This is going to be solid. When I first started doing this work, it was in New York City at a model shop there. And guy that ran the shop would see us doing our work and he'd say, "I up. You got to it up so it looks natural." See these little stripes here?
That's the kind of stuff that I'm looking for. And that just means, you know, I haven't thoroughly mixed it.
I've kind of it up. By cutting corners on mixing the foam, Jaime's artwork has become more authentic. And 3 hours of satisfaction later, this rolling stone is ready to rumble. This looks fantastic.
Thank you. Wow.
That looks like a good piece of stone. Inflatable stone. No problem. It's called safety stone. If this was real stone, I think it weighs somewhere's around give or take 20,000 lb depending on what kind of stone it was. In this case, it's probably around 300 lb.
Looks like a big rock to me.
As soon as this episode got rolling, that's good. It was clear the Mythbusters one idolize all things indie. And with one myth already cracked, the fun is set to continue. Or is it? As it turns out, this timing setup that we put together is really screwing us up. Because while they're delaying the firing of our valves like we want them to, they're also holding the valves open way too long. Which means that by the time we get to the end of the array, our tank is empty. Our solution is to actually give them more air or more of a tank. I'm about to build that tank out of a bunch of PVC plumbing pipe. You stay while Jamie plays around with the timers. And with the larger air supply hooked up, it's time for the Temple Run test run.
Take two.
That was good. Yeah, that's exactly what we wanted. Yep. With the rig successfully firing on the big cylinder, the set dressing is complete. The guns armed for action. 16 barrels, 16 paintballs. There we go.
And Adam's geared up, ready to run the paintball gauntlet. Any second now, I'm going to grab that idol and hightail it across this chamber. Now, if the myth is true, if the movies version of events are correct, I should make it to the other side alive. That's what we're going to find out. Remember, their run has the same number of booby traps as the movie, and they'll shoot with the same 1 second delay.
You ready?
Yep. See you down the other end. Okay.
The question is, will Adam, who will run with the same hunched, protective shuffle as Indie, make it out unscathed?
Okay, in 3 2 1, go.
Something's not turned on. That was anticlimactic.
Anticlimactic and a mystery. Three, two, one, go.
It's still not working. Maybe even a Mayan mystery. Well, I think it's clear what's going on here. It's this guy Mythbusters is clearly suffering the idol's curse.
The circuit's not collapsing the way it should.
The curse may not be real, but ours are.
This rig is kicking our butts.
Hold on. I got to take all my off and if we're going to really solve this. Some rolled sleeves and brainstorming later.
We're only going to pressurize it to like what 70. Yeah, we could try that.
And they think they may have it sorted.
We have figured out the problem. It's a simple little dumb problem. We just got a couple of leads misplaced and we should be up and running. Literally running in a minute.
A minute and a test fire later.
Oh yeah, with vigor. The uh curse of the crossed wires is lifted. All right, and the temple run is ready to rock. Three, two, one, go.
I didn't feel a thing. I don't think I got hit.
You were a mile ahead of them. Really?
With a 1second delay, you were halfway across the thing before they started the fire.
Fantastic. So Indie really could have made it out easily.
We had all the parameters we needed from the setup of the temple in the film and we applied them to our set and discovered that Indie would indeed have made it out alive with his idol, wouldn't he? But now let's assume the Mayans could make darts that shot almost instantaneously as Indie ran. We'll see whether he gets shot or not now.
Here we go. And frankly, I pretty much expect to get shot at this point.
Totally going to get shot. Instantaneous firing in three, two, one, go.
[Music] [Music] I totally got hit. I got one in my back.
That's the only one I see on you.
Really? Yeah.
As I expected when we set the darts to instantaneous, I got shot and I'm dead.
It's a poison dart after all. What I didn't expect is that I only got shot once. So, as far as I'm concerned, if you ever find yourself looting a piece of precious Mayan gold from a temple, while you're probably going to die, I say run for your [Music] life. So, why do you think the Mayans set such a long delay on their dart mechanism? Well, it is an ancient temple. Maybe the machinery was getting kind of rusty. That's a good idea. So, how do you want to call it? confirmed. I guess I'm there with you, but it is a fictional universe, so I'm inclined to give them plausible. Suits me.
[Music] Okay, at this point, I think it's worth pausing to discuss a little bit about how whips work and why their structure is intrinsic to how they work. Now, I'm sure everybody has had the experience of being at one end of a rope and giving it a flick and watching a bump travel down the length of the rope. That bump is a wave. When you flick the rope, you are actually propagating a wave. And a whip works in exactly the same way. Give the handle a flick and a wave travels down the length of the whip. But a rope is uniform in its thickness all the way down. And a whip is tapered, thick at the handle, thin at the end. And that turns out to be key to how a whip actually does its job. When you give the handle a flick, the wave starts to travel at a certain speed. But as the whip gets thinner and thinner and thinner, that wave starts traveling faster and faster and faster because of how energy balances itself until it gets all the way out to the end of the cracker where, rumor has it, it breaks the speed of sound. I think it's worth pausing right now to take you on a little tour of the wonder that is Indiana Jones outfit.
Pants are wool. There's a leather gun belt which only holds up the gun holster. That's a cavalry style gun holster. The gun is a sixshot 45 caliber pre-war revolver. The whip, as we've already learned in this episode, is a twobelly, two bolster, 12 plate overlay kangarooh high whip between 8 and 10 ft long. Moving on up, Indie wears a satchel. That satchel is in fact a World War II gas mask bag. Fun little fact, this bag did not exist at the very moment in time. the movie Raiders of the Lost Arc was supposed to have happened film. And then on top of all that goes the leather jacket. Finally, the hat made of fine beaver felt. The maker of this hat actually makes them for the Indiana Jones films. You cannot get any more accurate than this. This is one of my regular daily wearound hats. There you go. Happy Halloween.
So, all episode we've been learning the mechanics and the operation of whips, and we've actually gotten pretty good at it.
Yeah.
But before we continue, we think that we'd be remiss if we didn't address the idea that a whip is supposed to break the speed of sound. Is this really true?
Is there enough of the kinetic energy transfer from the handle out to the end?
That's what we are about to test. All right. Using our high-speed camera and all of the stage craft we've learned in 10 years of doing this show, we're going to try and prove that the end of the whip breaks the speed of sound. Three, two, one. Because the tip of the whip is moving so fast and over such a large area, it makes it really difficult to see where and when it's making the crack. Yeah, the tip's starting to swing around at about 4D. So, with that in mind, we've created this background with a grid on it. Yeah.
Right about there. A little bit below it. So, we can hopefully zoom in on it with the high-speed camera.
[Music] Oh, spank right on the same mark. But with the camera recording at the 6,000 frames per second required to measure the speed of sound, zooming in and capturing the exact moment of the crack is a very tricky task. Okay, are you ready? Yeah. Okay, here we go.
[Music] Too low. Try that.
[Music] In terms of time, this is like looking for a needle in a haystack. There's a lot of increments when you're looking at 6,000 frames per second to find the exact instant that that passes through the frame. Yep. Not only does Adam have to get a clean crack that was too low and pull off the unlikely feat of hitting the exact same mark, the guys then have to find those four or five frames of action. So, the signal you're watching me on right now is transmitting 29.9 something frames per second.
Hello.
I'm aiming at the same spot every single time. Our high-speed camera is catching almost 2 seconds of footage at 6,000 frames per second. That's going to be too high. It is uh it's a little bit of a hunt and peck.
[Music] [Music] I want to go for the loudest possible crack because I think it's traveling the fastest possible speed, but it's hard for me to do that on a one-off. Ah, but up here I've been getting into a rhythm of four cracks in a row where by the fourth one I've got the loudest and I'm able to aim it exactly where I want. So that's the technique I'm going to take back downstairs to try and get this on camera breaking the speed of sound.
Let's try that.
[Music] There it is.
Finally in glorious 6,000 frames per second high speed. Now, how fast is it going? Right here.
That's five frames to travel 12 in.
[Music] 1,200 ft per second. That beats the speed of sound. That is awesome. We caught the speed of sound being broken by these little fuzzies. That is so cool.
[Music] It took hours of atom whipping for us to finally capture that tiny piece of string traveling over the speed of sound in front of this grid. But we finally cracked it, so to speak. With the science whipped into shape, Adam and Jamie head back to the warehouse to test the whip's mythical ability to swing Indie to safety.
This story has Indie swinging across a chasm on his whip.
Yeah. Food.
Cool. And since we don't happen to have a chasm ready to go, we decided to build our own. This thing weighs 5,000 lbs empty.
You got room. You can keep coming in.
Kill someone in a heartbeat. Pull. Pull.
Pull. Yeah. We're using these containers, which we love. That's it.
Perfect. over here. Miles, pull. Because they're kind of like big bricks. Yeah, we can build whatever we want instantly.
Thread the needle, but like a 5,000 lb needle. Now, the containers here stacked up represent exactly one half of our chasm. All right, here we go. We're going to bring in the other pair of containers and make the other half of the chasm. They're going to be a certain distance apart, but how far apart is the real question? An answer found with a little high-speed camera magic. That was good. So, we've got my jump on high speed. But how are we going to use that to determine how wide our chasm is, especially since I'm jumping on flat ground and Indie was jumping across a chasm which he hit the edge of with his chest? Editors, can you help me out, please, and load up the high-speed footage of my jump? Excellent. Okay, now fast forward until my foot leaves the starting line. Right there. And put a dot on my chest. Great. Now continue to put dots on my chest through the full arc of my jump until my left foot touches the ground. Excellent. Now draw a line that intersects all those dots until you've got a curve and continue that curve until it hits the ground where my number stripes are. Perfect.
Okay, can you count up how many number stripes those are? 12. Beautiful. That is the distance of our chasm, 12 ft.
With the exact distance marked off, the far side of the chasm is dropped into position.
Nice. Some protective padding put in place.
That's a long way to fall. The key structural component brought up. This is our branch.
Some more safety measures manhandled.
Indie never fought a beast like this.
This is like a Doctor Who villain. Yeah, that's it.
Before the movie accurate scene is set.
Good luck there, buddy. I'm going to stand back here for Adam's date with whip swinging destiny.
[Music] This test is all about the relationship between the whip and the tree branch.
And so we've looked very closely at the film and tried to replicate the diameter of that tree branch with this log and its placement above the chasm. Now, the next thing that we've got to do is take our whip and throw it across the tree branch and see whether it creates a knot that's strong enough to hold a person.
Here we go. Because if it ain't, [Laughter] I've waited my whole life for this moment. They're falling to their death.
But before Adam tests the strength of the swing. Oh, hey. Wasn't bad. That was not bad. He has to actually secure the whip on the log.
This test goes down in history as one of my all-time favorites. But it did not start out looking that rosy. First, just trying to wrap the whip around the log. I was not getting enough surface area, not getting enough friction. I want to feel that solid bite, the leather on the log.
What I really needed was a kind of a knot. Actually, the technical term is a half hitch. Oh, that looks so promising.
You had a crossover. I did. I need a second crossover.
But that tested my whip wielding skills to the absolute limit.
Dude, that's not bad. I think I got a hitch. Oh, man.
Well, good luck there, buddy. I'm going to stand back here. With the whip grip seemingly secure, this is it.
This is terri. Actually, I'm genuinely scared. Was Indy's mythical swing to freedom feasible or a fictional fancy?
[Music] I'm good. I'm good. I'm okay.
So, I got the loop around the log. It felt really, really secure. I think I got a hitch. And then just before my feet reach the other side, the whip unwinds from the log and I go tumbling.
All right, we got to try this again.
That was too much fun.
Even though Adam fell, I have to say I'm surprised he did as well as he did because from this distance, you're only going to get around three wraps out of it. There you go. So, a single half inch holding a close to 200lb guy. Pretty low odds if you ask me.
Oh, yeah. You're moving the whole log, dude. Am I? Yeah. I think you're going to do it, buddy. Here we go.
[Music] [Laughter] I thought that was going to be mine.
Once again, the whip and potentially the myth unravels at the last second. But as Edison almost said, mythbustering is 1% inspiration and 99% repeatedly throwing yourself into a chasm for science.
Oh, dude. Well, no guts, no glory. No guts, no glory. Three, two, one.
You're going to make it. Oh, brat.
[Music] Oh.
Three times so far, I have attempted to lasso our log with my whip and swing across this chasm. three times just as glory seemed within my grasp. The whip slipped and I fell to my death. But for due diligence, we are going to cover our log with some bark-like friction material and give it another go. This sandpaper or our pseudo bark may not seem like that much, but it may not actually take that much to allow the whip to bite. Without this, it can just slide. It's almost like it's lubricated.
With this, it'll just give it a little bit of tooth so that those coils can actually cinch onto the log. All right, one more time. Go for it. Okay, here we go. So, what difference will this realworld detail make?
Oh, a first time grip and it's looking good. But Adam's been burned before.
As many times as I've done this, it's still scary. All right, it's now or never. Here we go.
[Applause] Yeah, give me some.
[Music] [Applause] You could say Adam's happy with the result.
Yes.
Not quite an indie reaction, but dude, we totally did it. Yeah. All right, throw me the idol. Come on.
Well, the question now is, can you get it off there? Oh, right. Okay, here we go. Come on. Come on. So once we added a little bit of friction, some bark to our log, the whip grabbed easily and I swung across handily. It was beautiful.
Come on, baby. Come on. This is the final thing. Indy's whip. Grabs when you want and let's go when you want. Come on. Come on. Now, I still don't think the whip has the kind of magical properties that Indie uses it as an extension of his hands. How does this work? There we go. Almost.
Awesome. But we've pretty much proved it can do everything we've seen in the movie. With that, this archaeological adventure rubs to a conclusion and Indy's iconic status is quoted. Dr. Jones was not doomed in the temple. Indie really could have made it out easily. And when it comes to a tight spot, you're going to make it. His trusty weapon I think you're going to do it, buddy. Is all it's cracked up to be.
[Music] Yeah.
[Music] [Music] Heat. Heat.
[Music] You know, Adam, I was thinking we should do another Star Wars episode. Seriously, I mean, it's a fictional universe. I'm just not sure how much material there is to test. I find your lack of faith upsetting. Um, I mean, disturbing. Okay.
Well, are you going to be in here all day? Cuz we could get started doing some other stuff. Nah, you go ahead. I like it in here. It's private.
[Music] Nice bucket. Thank you, dude. We've got an entirely new episode of Myths just from Star Wars again. That's that movie where they have those sword things that light up or something, right?
Lightsabers. They're called lightsabers.
And yes, that is the movie. And we have a whole myth about lightsabers in this episode. Do we get to make one? No, we're not. We're going to test whether being on higher ground gives you a tactical advantage with a lightsaber.
It's over, Anakin. I have the high ground. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
First, we are testing a myth about these laser blasters. And those are, well, these are the weapons of the stormtroopers in the films. Stop that ship. Blast them. And no matter how often they shoot at the good guys, the good guys always seem to be able to dodge out of the way of them.
So, it sounds to me like I'm going to have to use the force. Well, yes, but please, this time only for good. If I must.
It's a well-known Star Wars trope.
Somehow, the heroes always manage to dodge the bullet.
But is it actually possible to dive out of the way in time? To find out, Adam and Jaime are going to simulate their own blaster battle and try it out for themselves. And while Jaime begins building the gun, Adam investigates the velocity of the ammunition in question.
Let's talk laser blasters. Oh, wait.
It's Star Wars. Let's talk laser blasters.
blast them. See, everyone in the Star Wars universe shoots at each other with things we collectively refer to as laser blasters, even though the characters only call them blasters, but we think of them as lasers. The question is, are they? Well, let's find out. I've got here a handheld laser pointer. Shoots a green laser. Let's figure out how fast this thing goes. 3 2 1. There we go. All right. Yep. 186,000 m. I'm kidding. I'm not measuring light with this. It's actually a force gauge. Get it? Force gauge. The fact is, we all know how fast light moves. So, I'm going to venture to say that the bolts from the blasters on Star Wars move a lot slower than the speed of light. How much slower? I'm going to find out by watching Star Wars, measuring them with calipers, and using some math to figure out how fast they might move in the real world. That hallway is 88 in wide. Once I get enough measurements, I'm going to average them out. That should give me a consistent laser blast speed by extrapolating from a visual reference. Harrison is 6 ft tall and timing how long it takes the blaster bolt to cover a known distance, Adam can calculate its velocity. And before you can say laborious arithmetic, seven frames, Adam has calculated an average from across all six movies. I've got a speed of between 130 and 135 mph at a distance of about 40 ft. So that's what Jaime's gun will replicate. 130 mph at 40 ft. We're going to be replicating the performance of the blasters we see in the movie. And to do that, we're going to be using this pneumatic launcher by plumbing compressed air into the back of it.
Every time you pull on the trigger down here, it fires a round and then these pistons push forward and advance another round into position, ready to fire.
Ow. That's what I'm talking about. Now, we can put anything that we want inside these tubes.
So, I'm going to be experimenting to find out what we can fit in there that accurately replicates the performance of what we see in the movie and hopefully doesn't hurt us at the same time. In theory, by altering the air pressure powering his gun, it looks like that's about 350 PSI. Jamie will be able to match the movie specs with his non-lethal ammo. Firing in three, two, one. But in practice, there's a speed problem. This only said it was 26 mph, right? Measuring problem. Uh, didn't quite get a reading. One and accuracy problem.
And they're going off to the side.
We have all the problems. Our first laser blasts don't fly straight, and we can't get a reading on how fast they're going. So, there's still some problem solving to do. We may end up going with a totally different solution. We don't know at this point. So, while the team locates the drawing board, Darth Heinaman and Jedi Savage go head-to-head in a lightsaber duel to tackle the myth of higher ground.
So, tell me about this higher ground thing. Well, it takes place at the end of the third Star Wars movie. Obi-Wan and Anakin are having an epic battle with lightsabers. And at the battle's climax, Obi-Wan is standing on a hill slightly above Anakin, and he says to him, "It's over, Anakin. I have the high ground." Well, from military perspective, it makes sense. But as far as one-on-one, I'm not so sure. What happens in the movie? Right after he says that, Obi-Wan proceeds to chop off a bunch of Anakin's limbs. So, the myth is that if you have higher ground, it's guaranteed you'll win. Exactly. Ready to do some sword fighting?
Sure.
Anakin versus Obi-Wan, a pivotal moment in the Star Wars cannon. An epic battle that results in the birth of Darth Vader. But is topography really the deciding factor? Now, Jamie and I are going to be battling with swords. But it begs the question, how do you determine who wins? Well, we think with lightsabers, it's pretty straightforward. First touch wins, really, because anything you touch with a lightsaber, you're pretty much taken home as a keepsake. And I believe I have an idea for determining definitively who wins each of our sword battles. To test the dueling advantage of higher ground.
Fascinating. Adam's connecting the dots on a complicated conductive plan.
Mindbender. Once revealed, it will clearly show who wins each battle. Ding.
Thanks to bright lights lit up by a lightsaber. Blueing yellow it is.
and clever clothing that can carry a current. This, believe it or not, is actually metal. It moves like fabric. It is an incredibly fine copper mesh. It's super conductive, and that's why I'm using it. I'm going to make some clothing out of this stuff. Nice. One size fits all conductive [Music] pants. These are looking cool. It's amazing how supple this stuff is. It's just beautiful. We're gonna have to see if it's a Faraday cage. Well, I figure my cell phone's gonna stop working the moment I put it on, right? With the copper conductive clothing complete. Oh, yeah.
It's time for the [Music] lightsabers. What about them? Well, there's probably some people wondering about now whether we're going to spend part of this episode making our own real lightsabers. Well, I've got news for them. We're not. No. For a whole host of reasons. Yes. Not least of which photons. Light is made up of photons.
But photons move in a single direction.
You can't program one to stop 3 ft from its source. And even if you gather a bunch in a small place like we do with lasers, the beams of a lightsaber would likely pass right through each other.
Well, and then there's the power required because while there are lasers that cut through stone and metal, they require a massive power input. You'd have to have something like a small nuclear reactor attached to it.
Meaning, but what if you could harness a non- laser technology like this cutting torch to make a lightsaber? Well, you've still got your portability problems.
You've got an awful lot of heat to deal with, and you still don't have something that behaves exactly like a lightsaber.
You're right. Oddly enough, you'd be better off trying to build your own Death Star than a lightsaber. We should try that. To test this age-old military adage, I'm making a lightsaber. Adam's faking them.
So, a lightsaber is massless, right? The blade has no mass. It's just light.
Yeah. Look at that.
A muy tentacle. So, we need our blade to be incredibly light, which is good cuz we want to be able to smack on each other without hurting each other. And the blade in this case will be played by a beautiful super light, crazy light carbon fiber tube. Oh, that's cool. It feels like there's almost nothing there. The final stage is a layer of foam pipe insulation.
over which goes a sheath of conductive copper mesh. This is reminding me of something. Time to put the padding on the saber. Oh, good, good, good. That's exactly what I wanted.
Adam's finally ready to reveal his plan.
There's your Jedi weapon. What I've got here is some conductive suits with conductive swords so that as Jamie and I sword fight. It's not bad. Give me a whack. Okay, not on the face. We can determine precisely who gets hit first.
And that is when my sword touches Jamie, his belt lights up. Hey, look at that.
It totally worked. When he touches me, my belt lights up. Hey, there we go.
And we should be able to view exactly who wins. Time for Jamie Knight a sword fight.
[Music] And the fighting is going to start here.
But I think maybe it ought to be a little more sci-fi.
Jamie and I are going to begin with a control that is fighting each other on flat ground. Looks good to me. We're going to put a pair of X's on this platform where we start and when a bell sounds Can you give me a bell sounds editors? No.
No. That's it. When we hear the bell, we start fighting. Whoever touches first wins and you know because the other guy's lit up. Reset. Go back to zero and try again. Oh, it's like putting on a straight jacket. There we go.
Dude, this is hot. In a best of 25 bouts on an even surface, our copper clad Jedi will establish a comparative control.
You look great. Then they'll repeat the test on higher ground and compare the difference in scores.
We're battling with lightsabers. We've ended up working with quite a variety of weapons on this show, and with things like guns and knives, we've even become somewhat proficient.
But when it comes to things like swords, not so much. Adam and I are pretty much a blank slate. With the rig ready, when I touch you, you light up.
Nice. Our tabular razas are ready to roll.
Excellent. I think we're ready to do some sword fighting. Yeah. Okay. Count us into a ding.
[Music] It's over, Anakin. I have the high ground. To test the combat cliche that height equals might. Dang. Adams concocted a set of copper suits and non-lethal lightsabers to do battle with.
They're not on the face. And first up, a flat ground best of 25 control.
That's one. After they establish their relative abilities on the scoreboard, [Laughter] I think you got me on that one. This is This is kind of fun. Just repairing my lightsaber blade.
Great. It's a little known thing Jedi sometimes have to do. Your blade can get bruised. That's what it's called, a light bruise. Not a light bruise, but a light bruise. They'll adjust the height of the playing field.
Ha, got to knee. And find out if higher ground really is the ultimate advantage in a deadly duel. Ah, this is genuinely entertaining. Adam, did I ever tell you I was on the the fencing club in college?
What, 30, 40 years ago? And it was only because there was a hot chick that I was dating and she wanted to do it, so I was doing it with her. That's a that's that's a reason I learned a lot of things in my life.
It's true. On guard. All right.
Yep. With no prospective mates to impress.
Technique, strategy, and composure are conspicuous by their absence.
[Laughter] Right in the heart. Our Neoight fighters are simply frantically flailing their way through each bout.
Actually, trying to come up with a strategy for blocking a hit and then going in and making a hit is incredibly difficult.
Gotcha. There's a lot going on, including a guy with a blade trying to kill you while you're trying to think.
If there's one thing we've learned from our experience with working with weapons on this show, it's that it's not like it is in the movies where you can hack away with a sword or unload a machine gun and nobody gets hurt. The reality is that people get hurt instantly. All we have to do is a few spars and then we've got a hit. And in the case of something like a lightsaber, just a light touch can mean that you've been cut completely in half. So, it's a serious thing. As the match comes to its increasingly desperate I've gone right for the direct approach and competitive conclusion.
[Applause] Oh, really? Really? That's how it is.
The score indicates that with no topographical advantage, this was the perfect baseline.
Jamie and I have completed 25 trials on even ground.
That's a good shin hit right there. And experimentally, the results are kind of awesome. We are totally evenly matched.
I had 13 wins to Jaime's 12. That means it's time now to go to higher ground. We're going to do another 25 trials.
It's heads. I'm higher ground. Okay.
Now that one of us is going to be fighting from higher ground. Here we go.
I would note that in the movie Obi-Wan tells Anakin that it's over, Anakin. I have the high ground. Now, that means that when Adam and I start to fight, we're not talking about like one winning by a few points or the other. That seems great. If this idea is true, the person on higher ground has to totally dominate that [Music] battle. I got you. This is very interesting. When we were on level ground, Jamie and I were very toeto toe in terms of attack and defense. It's over, Jamie. I've got the higher ground. But now that I'm on the higher ground, I'm definitely noticing Jamie is much more on the defensive and I am able to take the lead in attack. I got I'm not sure if this is shifting the balance in my favor cuz it's still early, but it definitely feels like I am much more on the offensive without him on higher ground. At first, it was a little intimidating because he's over top of you. It sort of seems like he's dominant, like he has a higher reach and more power swinging down. He got me in the face. Does that count? I was aiming for your chest.
Sorry about that. But the longer I played with him, I found that seeming disadvantage was actually an opportunity.
You got me in the foot. I don't know how to counter that. Namely, that if I cleared his blade with a powerful sideways swipe and then swung in towards his ankles, which are now exposed, I see your strategy.
You can't win. I've got the lower ground.
They call me ankle biter.
And that worked almost every time I was able to get the timing right.
Oh, I hit myself in the groin. Oh no.
Sorry, I'm going to need a minute.
I think I did it with the butt of my lightsaber.
Let's take a minute for Mr. Heinman to uh walk it off. I know. You guys are loving this. Is this great TV?
You know, when I was a teenager practicing juggling, one of the juggling things was to take a pair of juggling pins and practice this this spinning technique, which actually used to be an Olympic event. And I was about 16 when I was getting really good at and I try to move, smack myself right in the drunk with a juggling pin. I was all alone in the house. Spent like half an hour on the bathroom floor just weeping. You want a drink? You want a scotch or bourbon? No. No. I'm uh good to go.
Okay.
[Music] I really thought being above Jamie would just give me this towering plank and I was just going to win everyone. But he has access to my ankles which he used incredibly effectively. Once I get close, my legs are just done for. From my perspective, I don't think I can call the high ground an ultimate advantage at this point.
Yep. Despite finishing with a scoreboard advantage, Adam feels the numbers don't tell the whole story. There's two things wrong with the data we've thus far gathered. One is we're looking for a definitive advantage, not a soft advantage. Two, and most importantly, we're not sword fighters. We don't know the first thing about fighting with swords like this. We need the assistance and perhaps even some training from an expert. Yeah, that's what we need, an expert.
And while the guys wait on a Jedi delivery, it's back to the workshop where the Heinaman has dumped his foam failure. And they're going off to the side. Blast them. To test the myth that the Star Wars laser blaster dodge is feasible physics or a filmic fiction, Jaime has to match the movie's velocity with more accurate aerodynamic ammo.
straight ping pong ball. Not very accurate. It's going about 60 mph, which isn't good. But we have ping pong balls made out of foam. And when I put a skewer on them, 150 mph and dead straight. That's cool.
One bullseye. After converting his arrow inspired prototype into a more polished version. Let's see what that does. And adjusting the air pressure powering the gun. Okay, 80 PSI in three, two, one.
Jamie nails the blaster benchmark he's after. We've done a number of runs now and we're getting very consistent speeds of 130 mph out of our gun. So, we're right where we need to be. Yep. But without a comparison to say a bow and arrow, it's difficult to gauge what 130 mph really means. I thought a visual chart showing the relative speeds of things might be helpful at this moment. For instance, here is a piece of tape representing the speed of the arrow, and it's a little bit shorter than the piece of tape representing our blaster because it was slower. This is the relative speed of a bullet compared to the blaster. Many times faster. But we call it all the time we call it a laser blaster. Laser is light. So how does the speed of light compare to all this? Well, it's a lot faster significantly. The line goes out the door. It goes for a [Music] while. It's just a little faster than our blaster bolts. But before the guys hit the location for the Dodge Denal, are you sure about this? Adam's going to shoot first. Okay, Adam, go for it. to find out how much a failed test is going to hurt. Three, two, one.
How was that? Well, I tell you what, you definitely want to be wearing a cup.
So, it's a it's a good ouch.
It's a incentive not to want to get hit.
Perfect.
[Music] Welcome to the Mythbusters version of the Star Wars universe. We're investigating the myth that the good guys always seem to be able to just dive out of the way of the blasters used throughout the Star Wars universe. Now, we have built ourselves our own little version of a rebel ship with a 40ft hallway. We're going to set up our blaster at the other end that shoots air bullets at the correct speed. And Jamie and I are each going to take turns standing here and attempting to get out of the way of those blaster bolts with their rebel ship ship shape. All right, first up, they're making sure they stay on target. We're going to shoot him first to make sure that the uh darts are hit in the right spot. You know, we're asking our target stormtrooper to do precisely what stormtroopers do in all the movies, which is get shot.
Three, two, one. Okay, firing now. Well, that's weird. Two, one. Oops, that one went off to the side. Yeah. One. Off to both sides. High and low. The gun is firing at the correct speed. Pressure. Check the pressure. Yep. Pressure's good. Yep.
Firing. Now, that's just crazy. But at some point in the mass production of the ammunition, they've become unpredictable.
They're kind of like like this. The arrowike fletching has somehow lost the aerodynamic qualities of Jaime's handmade prototypes.
That means I'm headed back to the shop to come up with something else.
Back at base, Jamie decides to start over. And this time he's borrowing a design element from Bullet Ballistics. Three, two, [Music] one. I think that's going to work. And it's diabolically simple. A couple of ice cream spoons that are put in the crisscross that I've cut into the balls.
And because I've scissored them, this is going to be like rifling. Uh, it's going to spin it and hopefully make it more true. And with that, Jaime whips up a bucketload before heading back aboard where Adam gets an eye watering demo.
Three, two, one. Ow.
We are back in business. These darts are working beautifully. The only concern I have is that they keep hitting our Stormtrooper where it counts. You first.
Okay. Here's how this test is going to work. Jaime's going to be standing over there. I'm going to be standing over here and I'm going to be shooting Jamie. Oh, there's more. Right, there is more. I'm going to be shooting these darts at him and he's going to try and get out of the way. This is it. The Hinaman steps up to the plate to put his body in the firing line for science. All right, Mr. Henman, are you ready? I'm ready. I'm not going to count it down, right? Yeah. Okay. So, at some point in the next 10 seconds, we're going to fire. As far as reaction time goes, we know that a sprinter on the blocks ready to do a race can react within 160 milliseconds of the starting pistol firing. Jaime's got 220 to get out of the way of this bullet. Personally, I don't think he's going to be able to do it.
A hit. A palpable hit. Jamie barely moved, but it's the best of three. And maybe now he's got his eye in. Mr. Heinman, you feeling fast? I'm set.
[Music] Got me. Got you.
As far as I can tell, I'm just starting to move about the time I get hit. And that means that the flight time of the projectile and my reaction time are pretty close to the same. All right. At some point in the next right in the center of your solar plexus there. Yeah, that's a three. Moving at the average speed from all six movies, the blaster seems unavoidable.
Jaime's unable to react and take evasive action in time. All right, sir. Which means it's Adam's turn right in the shoulder. The adrenaline dump is intense.
And once he gets an identical and conclusive result, that was no contest.
Three for three.
This myth is on the ropes.
Well, there's just no getting out of the way of those things. But I'm thinking there might be a wrinkle we want to add to this that makes it more realistic.
But before they test a more realistic quick draw, our junior Jedi will test the Marshall myth of a higher ground advantage by learning from a lightsaber master.
[Music] the training is what we are going to get today. And not just general sword fighting training. Oh, no, no, no.
Lightsaber training. See, the stunt coordinator for the Star Wars films, Nick Gillard, has invented a true martial form for dueling with lightsabers. And what we've got here is one of his proteges, Colobby Boothman, a world-class level fencer, an expert in Jedi sword style. I can come at you a million different ways. He's going to show us some of the ropes of dueling with lightsabers. Okay, ready. Colby begins at the beginning. He covers the basics of balance and stance. So that's like a very uh strong kendo pose, handling and footwork.
There you go. If Adam and Jaime are to genuinely test the combat advantage of higher ground, hold on, let me analyze that. They need to know a lot more about how to handle their weapons.
Just like that. That's close. Yeah, it's very, very personal. The original trilogies were at a more traditional distance. In the prequels, Nick had brought everything in very tight. And that's part of what makes the fights so interesting in the prequels is because they're very intense. At the same time, they're so close that you can see the reactions right from the actors. And that's why they trained so long for the prequels.
Hayden and Euan trained every single day for about eight weeks.
Oh, that feels very Jedi. It feels like a very Jedi move. I recognize that move.
That's cool. In episode 3, the fight is originally about 15 minutes long. Crazy.
That fight, they had to open up three studios. It's the length of three football fields just in one fight. Wow.
Well, we haven't been training very long, but what is already crystal clear is that up till now, Jamie and I have basically been like a couple of gorillas with baseball bats just kind of whailing away at each other.
[Music] I don't know if I make the hooting sounds. Is that very Jedi?
Hopefully, by the time we're done with this. Oh, I almost got him in the head.
You did get me in the head. Our sword fighting will do a little more justice to the beauty of the lightsaber as an actual weapon.
In a testament to the teacher's ability rather than the students, several hours later, our journeyman Jedi begin to make real progress. This is very cool getting the lightsaber 101 from Colby. And we're learning that it is sort of like a dance.
There we go. But if there's a word that typifies dancing, it's cooperation.
[Laughter] Oops. Sorry. And in fact, a sword fight is sort of the opposite of that.
You're looking for the opening and you're trying to close down those openings. So, we're just starting to learn how to win the battle against the other.
There's a lot to learn in a very short period of time. With the basics down, it's time to translate those techniques to an uneven playing field. There we go.
A lot of times it's not so much putting as much power as you can. It's trying to hit the openings that you see where after an hour of intense one-on-one sparring.
From both vantage points, our fledgling fencers are exhausted. Hold on a second. Shing. But prepared for the ultimate fiery finale on the soontobe volcanic planet of Mustafar. Now, the scene we're going to be creating here is the hellish interior of a volcano with molten magma, smoke, and fire. This may look like a giant tie-dyed t-shirt, but actually, this is our volcanic sky.
That's looking pretty good. Yep. to match conditions of the iconic silver screen scene. The team is going to recreate not just the topography, but the volcanic atmosphere.
Nice. This thing is our lava flow. It's made out of clear plastic so that we can get lights underneath it to make it glow like lava does. One edge is higher than the other. So when we pour the lava in, it'll flow this way. And our lava itself is going to be guar gum. It's a powder like this stuff. And when you add it to water along with a little food colorant, voila, you've got this goopy lava stuff.
It's perfect.
With the suitably dramatic backdrop ready to rock, Jamie gets to work accurately faking the footing. And there we go. One instant volcanic rock slope.
This ramp is what we're going to be fighting on. I actually took footage of the movie in the fight scene and I held a protractor on the screen and measured it. That's what this angle right here is. And we've also put an uneven black terrain which pretty faithfully replicates that scene. And while the finishing touches are applied to their fake inferno, there's an unresolved reaction time test to tackle. Thus far, Jamie and I have been completely unsuccessful in dodging the bullets from our blaster.
And we've constructed, I think, a pretty nice experiment. We've removed a lot of variables. I'm not going to count it down, right? Yeah.
But now I'm thinking we might have removed one too many. What? I know science is all about removing variables to look at the essence of a thing, but what we've got here is almost like a sniper arrangement, but at 40 ft, I can see the stormtrooper holding the blaster. I can see him see me and he goes blaster.
That action of the lifting of the gun.
That might make all the difference. So to replicate that scenario, these stands are holding this weapon in a standard carry position so that when I identify a potential target, all I have to do is raise the gun and fire.
Let's do it. All right, Heinman, I'm feeling good about this one. Hold on just a sec. There we go. Properly properly covered. All right, sir. I'm ready when you are. Okay.
[Laughter] Ow. Right in the knee.
The gun race takes an additional 400 milliseconds. Despite that, Adam's first attempt would have left him limping.
There was no getting out of the way of that one.
Set. Yep.
That was a good one.
Unlike the first series of tests, Adam is able to move before the bolt reaches him, but he still can't avoid the hit.
All right, sir. I'm ready when you are.
Uh-oh.
I just had to curse cuz that hurt really, really badly.
I'm done testing. I failed three times.
That really hurt.
I'm going to walk it off. Well, never let it be said that Jamie and I don't put our bodies on the line to test the stuff that we're doing. I started out the story thinking that the blaster bolts look darned slow, almost comically slow. Uh, turns out even when I can see our trooper lifting his rifle into position, it's fast enough to get me every single time.
There is no dodging these blaster bolts.
Or is there? Now, as it happens, in a prior episode, we clocked our reaction times, and mine was somewhat faster than Adam's. So, before we call this one, I'm going to have a go and see whether we get any different results. You ready, Henman? I'm ready.
Can the hooer do what no normal human can one for one? Jaime's fast, but there's simply not enough time to sight the incoming projectile. React. That's two for two. And then move all of your body parts out of the way.
I felt it on my Well, I think that's pretty definitive.
You just can't dodge out of the way of these blaster bolts. And that's why in any gunfight, I recommend you shoot first. So, what have we learned today about humans ability to dodge blaster bolts? Not going to happen. I was totally surprised by that. Let's get out of here, dude. It's a set. Oh, right.
[Music] [Applause] Before we come out swinging, let's talk about this higher ground thing because from a military point of view, it's supposed to be really important. Well, it does provide several distinct advantages. It is easier to defend and being on higher ground affords you a wider field of vision than your opponent. As long as 2500 years ago, Chinese General Suns Su advised that if your enemy was on higher ground, do not ascend to attack him. Yeah, but while higher ground may be really important if you're talking armies having to charge up or down a hill, we're just talking about two guys that are only a few feet away from each other. And that may be an entirely different thing, right? Well, and then there's the moralistic argument. See, when Obi-Wan says to Anakin, "It's over. I have the higher ground." He might be talking from a moral perspective as a Jedi who has rejected the dark side and he's on the right side morally. Yeah, but we've got no way of testing that one. No, no, we don't.
Wait, what are we doing back here on the rebel base? I thought we had put this myth to bed.
Uh-oh. And we had except Well, we realized that we'd left one thing hanging. And that is when we look at all the ways the good guys get out of the way of the blaster bolts from the stormtroopers. They don't just dive out of the way. No, no, no. In fact, Jedi have their own technique.
They pull out their lightsaber. I would have one, but I'm hand solo and he doesn't carry one. And they actually deflect the blaster bolts coming towards them with the lightsaber. Is that possible? That's what we want to test.
All we need is a Jedi. Well, as luck would have it. Are you ready, Colby?
Let's do it.
As we know, Colby Boothman, master swordsman, is about as qualified as anybody to attempt to fend off blaster bolts with a sword. Colobby, are you ready? Ready. The rules of this game are pretty straightforward. Colobby, here we go. Without warning, I'm going to fire a shot. Col is going to make his best effort to knock it out of the air.
Whoa.
Holy crap. He actually blocked it.
Yep. Our Earthbound Jedi made contact.
But with the next three sailing past his defenses, maybe it was a one-off lucky hit. No, it hit me.
[Music] Did he get that one? Yeah. Nice.
Well, it doesn't get any neater than that. Our Jedi was actually able to deflect some of our laser blasts. Now, I know we're talking about a fictional character in a fictional universe with fictional physics. I recognize all of that. But after the difficulty Jamie and I had dodging those things, I think Colby demonstrated some pretty amazing skills being able to actually stop them with his lightsaber, i.e. Baboo thing. Welcome to the planet Mustafar.
Jamie and I wanted to know if higher ground is in fact a crushing advantage when it comes to battling with lightsabers. So, we brought in one of the actual fight coordinators from the Star Wars films to give us a little lightsaber 101. And now, we've replicated the exact pitch of terrain that Obi-Wan and Anakin have their final battle on. Also, for your viewing pleasure, we've replicated some of the aesthetics of the planet itself. We couldn't resist.
Am I allowed to make my own sound effects? Okay, go ahead and turn the power on. So, how's this going to work?
Well, we're going to do 25 rounds with Adam on the high ground and then 25 rounds with me on the high ground. There you go, sir. To protect the lower person's head, we're using this Kendo helmet, and it's wired along with the rest of the suit. So, we'll be able to see if we actually get a score on that.
I'm going to do a systems check on your helmet. Yeah. Hey, reset. The rules are simple. When you get hit by a sword stroke and your lights light up, that's a point for your opponent. Totally feels more realistic with this terrain, doesn't it? Yeah, it's uh it came out quite nice. At the end, we'll tally up the score and see what we got. You ready, Heidi? You betcha.
Are you a Sith or or a Jedi? I would be a Sith. That's what I would have said, but I didn't want to insult you. All right, let's go, Sith.
[Music] Ah, gotcha. Our recently graduated Jedi once again do battle for science.
Nice. Gotcha. This is intense. Reset.
It's pretty clear that just one day of training won't make us sword experts, but it gave us some insight into ways to move the lightsaber. And it also does what all training does. It slows the process down a little bit. Reset. I feel like it's much less of a free-for-all in this test than it was when we started. Oh, gotcha. They are certainly more skilled.
Reset. More clinical in their execution.
Oh, dead. Reset.
But as the contest continues, it's clear Jamie, supposedly at a deadly disadvantage.
Dead, is holding his own. You and I are quite evenly matched, sir.
At this point, I feel like I'm making quite a number of scores. And to me, that says that this is not a definitive thing that higher ground always wins. Yep. And with Jamie exacting the revenge of the Sith, you didn't quite nail me in the ghoulies, but uh that was a good shot.
Careful with that, will you? Part one of the competition reaches its exhausting conclusion.
So that's it for the 25 rounds of Jamie from the lower ground position. Now it's my turn. We're not going to look at the score just yet cuz it's not about which one of us does better. It's about whether higher ground does significantly better than lower ground. Yep. All right, Mr. Heinman. You ready? I'm ready. Okay. But my intuition right now says higher ground is not a crushing advantage.
However, when Jamie takes the high ground, he immediately racks up several quickfire wins and Adam's obviously off balance.
Reset.
Okay. But as Adam adjusts.
[Music] Oh, I got your foot there. And finds his footing.
You got me.
It once again appears to be a relatively even contest. Despite the uneven playing field, each position seemingly offers as many scoring possibilities, equal pros and cons.
[Laughter] And with all 50 fights done and dusted, the conclusion is clear. Yeah, they both have their different sort of approaches.
In the higher ground, you feel a slight bit of superiority because you're high up, but that's quickly dispelled by dying repeatedly.
So, what are the numbers say? Well, the numbers tell an interesting story, though it's not the story that the movie tells. Out of 50 trials, low ground won 26 times and high ground won 24 times. Well, that's about as close to dead even as you can get without being dead even. Indeed. And that tells me that this myth is dead busted. Let's go back to our home planet. Okay.
Where is Jaime's home planet?
[Music] [Music] I find the defendants guilty.
[Music] In 2002, a crack science duo was sent to prison for a crime they didn't commit.
These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the San Francisco underground. Today, masked with their new identities, they survive as soldiers of science. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the Mythbusters.
You're ready for the A Team Special? I was born ready, fool. Outstanding.
[Music] Jamie, did you ever watch that show? The A Team. Sure. All right. Which character from the A team do you think I most closely resemble? Which one was that guy that keeps ending up in the mental institution? Murdoch. That's Murdoch.
That's the one. All right. Well, we have an entire episode devoted to the 80s cult classic, The A Team. What's on the docket? Well, later we will be trying to disable a car with a manhole courtesy of a sewer explosion.
But first up, we have what is really a classic A team trope. See, in almost every episode, the guys are stranded somewhere and they have to build a weapon with only the materials they have at their disposal. Right. Right. Okay.
So, in this one, the A team is stranded in a lumber yard. The bad guys are on their way back, and the A team builds a cannon out of a log that shoots 2x4s with a controlled propane explosion to defeat the bad guys. Sounds dubious.
Well, I think we should test it out. If it doesn't work, maybe you and I could do better. Maybe.
So, don't touch me. Okay. Uh, so shall we gather all the materials we saw in the clip? Are you going to keep that thing in your mouth the whole time? Long as I can stand it.
All right.
So, solenoids, it looks almost exactly the same.
In the show, the A team guys built their wood cannon in a general purpose shop that was attached to a lumber yard. Now, they had a log and they drilled a hole down the middle of it to make a cannon barrel. Beautiful. They're using half 2x4s as ammo. And we did see a tank of propane. So, that appears to be the propellant. That's what we've got to work with. So, we're going to use that equipment to build our wood cannon.
Awesome. Having cross referenced the clip, the guys collect all of the A team's cannon components. Ammo for bad guys. Before Adam rolls out the barrel, literally there I am. Now, in the clip, they drill the hole in the log using a drill bit like this called an augur bit. It's going to take a while, but frankly, we could not find one in the size that we needed. We're using a different kind of drill bit called a Forster bit. One of my single favorite drill bits of all time. Adam uses the Forsner.
Feel like the villain in some kind of movie. But even so, it's a tough task.
I know it seems strange to me, too, to keep having to sharpen this bit when all I'm doing is drilling into wood. But the fact is that the molecules that make up wood are incredibly dulling to metal blades. You got to sharpen it all the time.
In fact, it takes 40 minutes of hard labor before Adam's barrel is fully bored.
There we go. Now, that's a hole. So, next it's over to Jamie, who inserts a hose to fill the barrel with propane. Look at that. perfect fit before prepping the cannon's ignition system. So, how are we going to ignite the propane in our cannon? Well, the easiest way is with a spark. And the easiest way for us to get one of those is just to plug a couple of wires into the wall socket. But that's only going to make a small spark. And we need a big one for reliable ignition of the propane. And for that, we're going to use our favorite device for generating large sparks, and that's the neon transformer. And there it is. And once wired in, their cannon is the perfect copycat. It's got a 40-in long log barrel, propane as fuel, a sparking ignition system, and planks as projectiles. Plus, the whole thing's mounted on a forklift, just like the AT.
But the question is, will it work? All right, loading the device. There we go. Okay, device is loaded for test one. 1 100 2 100 3 100 They're giving it some gas. 5 seconds worth of propane. Ignition in 3 2 1 go.
Nothing. Nothing. Give it another 5 seconds. Put a cigar in just makes everything you say sound a little more authoritative. Get those trucks out of there. Move those people over there.
I'll put those oranges in my summer house. Stuff like that. Three, two, one.
[Music] Nothing. Nothing. Well, that's weird. I would expect at least something.
Figuring the sparker may have failed, Adam goes in for a closer look. Okay, sparking now.
Oh, that actually blew my hand. So, there was enough residual gas. That tells me we need very, very, very little gas.
Okay. All right. We started out by adding way, way, way too much propane to this. Now, you might think, oh, the more propane the better. But it's not that way. Propane isn't flammable in and of itself. It's flammable when it's mixed with air or oxygen. And you have to get the correct mix or stoeometry in order to get that ignition or that pop that's actually going to send this out towards the bad guys. So for test two, the guys used just 1 second of gas and 3 2 1 fire. Hey, that was a pop.
It was ammo did not move even the tiniest bit. Not even remotely. Well, there was fire in the hole, but so far a viable weapon this ain't. I got to say it's not looking so good. I mean, we've replicated everything that we saw in the clip, and we are getting ignition. It's just not as energetic as it showed in the clip. We're going to have to do something else.
The guy's stumped.
This A team is going to need a plan B.
[Music] So, Forklift Fire is all about improvised weaponry, taking out the bad guys. But the A team were also very adept at making their escape. And that is the next thing we're going to tackle.
Go on. Well, in one of my favorite escapes, they take a bundle of dynamite and put it in a sewer just under a manhole cover. Then they wait until the bad guys driving over that manhole cover. They detonate the dynamite. Boom.
The manhole cover takes the car completely out. So, the car is a write up, but the dudes inside are okay.
Exactly. No one ever gets hurt by the A team. Well, explosive escapes. I like it.
The myth is that by placing the dynamite just inside the drain, the A team could evade the villains without injuring them. But is that really possible?
This is perfect. So, there's a plan, right? Of course, there's a plan.
For some reason, urban areas don't like it when you use explosives in their sewers. So, in lie of that, we've come to our favorite place in California where we can blow large things up and even dig holes in the ground, I own, California. Thanks to its remote location, Ion is the perfect place for some manhole mayhem. But the digging will come later. Now, obviously, since the A team placed their sticks of dynamite inside a sewer, we are going to do the exact same thing.
Perfect. Nice ride. But it raises the question, why would they go do the trouble? I mean, what's the difference between it on the ground and in the sewer? And this leads to the A team's MMO, which is they don't ever want to kill the bad guys. They just want to neutralize them as a threat. So, in order to test whether or not their method is truly non-lethal, we're going to need a control. That is 96 of dynamite. Just like the clip placed on the ground with this car placed right on top of it. Find out what happens to the driver of the car when we blow that up.
My prediction, it's not going to be pretty.
[Music] So, with the car from the clip, the guys are green lighting a control test.
What's next? Thust. Will a dynamite detonation outside a sewer cause casualties where an internal one would not? We want to find out whether our driver would have survived this blast and if so, whether he was injured or not and how badly. To do that, we're going to be putting sensors on his head. There we go. On his waist and near his feet. And these sensors can record events down to the microscond, which will tell us exactly what went on.
Buster may be wired in the hot seat.
Just remember, little buddy, this is going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me. But he's not the only data device. Now, another reason the A team might have placed their explosives inside the manhole cover is to protect any innocent bystanders standing around, and that is a reasonable assumption that we would like to test, and that's what these figures are for. We've placed these two/2-in plywood cutouts at 15 ft and 10 ft from the blast to see how much damage they sustain in the control versus the actual experiment. And of course, on Mythbusters, innocent bystander is just another term for shrapnel catcher. With the plan coming together, it's okay, little buddy. Next up is the explosive. For accuracy, we're using nine sticks of nitroglycerin based dynamite because that's what they used on the 18. Now, this is the first time we've used it because it's relatively unstable. It's shock sensitive and that's bad. So, we're going to take every precaution and we're going to be safe. And speaking of being safe, that cigar, it's fake. Yes. Made of chocolate.
The guys are going that extra mile. Say one to make sure that everything matches the clip. Stop. With two exceptions.
First, the control test has no sewer.
And second, also in the clip, the car is moving. And we are not doing that for two very good reasons. Number one, it doesn't make any difference to the physics. But two, and most importantly, we want to be able to compare our control blast against the blast when we dig the sewer and put the dynamite in there. And in order to compare those two exactly, we need the dynamite in the same spot on both blasts. And in order to guarantee that, well, we're just not moving the car. That is our plan. Nine sticks of dynamite is a pretty serious blast. Now, to put that in perspective, a hand grenade might have a fifth of one stick of dynamite inside it. Now, granted, it's encased in metal, which is what causes most of the damage, but in our case, our dynamite is also actually sitting right next to a bunch of metal.
in the engine block. And that engine block may absorb some of the shock, but it may also turn into frag, which means that Buster might be sitting right next to the equivalent of a whole pile of grenades.
All right, sir. You ready? I'm ready.
Okay. You mind if I take the first plunge? Knock yourself out.
All right, here we go. This is 18 dynite test the [Music] control. I've always wanted to do this in three two one.
In the Mythbusters 18 special. These things taste terrible. The guys were wired up to a countdown in three, two, one.
that just got cut. What happened to our countdown? We'll get right back to it. I promise. I just wanted to remind everybody that what we are testing is how lethal nine sticks of dynamite detonated on the ground under a car are to both the driver of that car and innocent bystanders on the street. That is our control test. Now back to our regularly scheduled countdown. This is 18 dynamite test the control in three, two, one.
[Laughter] I'm no munitions expert, but I don't think that car is going to be there when the smoke clears.
When the dust eventually settles, the car hasn't disappeared, but it's not exactly in one piece. How you doing there, little buddy? Oh, man. He actually looks almost completely intact.
Oh, wait a second. Hey, Adam, check this out. Oh, that's a hole clean through to the underside of the car. I am now going to go out on a limb and predict that Buster didn't survive that, but only the numbers will tell us for sure. It didn't look good for Buster. But what does the data say? It looks pretty bad in here, huh? Like hell on earth. But get this.
Buster actually survived that blast. I know, don't get me wrong. He is not walking away from this blast. No, no, no. He's legless below the knees. He has permanent hearing damage, if not almost total hearing loss and permanent lung damage. He's not walking away, but he's not dead either. Although Buster may live to see another day, his injuries are way too awful for the A team. And he's not alone. Upon careful looking again and again at this high speed, I'm noticing that the blast pressure wave, which normally would be coming upward and outward in a symmetrical bubble, is not doing that. Instead, it's starting out as two bubbles that are coming out underneath and to the side of the car, spreading out the energy coming off of this blast to the side. That energy to the side spells bad news for the bystanders.
At this point, you might be wondering how our bystanders have been holding up.
And I can tell you, our bystanders withstood a pressure wave of 90 PSI. 90.
That's lethal. They were dead.
With death and destruction from shock wave and shrapnel, the control blast was catastrophic.
But will going underground as per the A team's technique really make a difference.
Back at the shop, Adam and Jamie's A Team Cannon. 3 2 1 has so far flunked.
But Adam knows why. What makes something leave something? Like ammo leaving a barrel is pressure behind the ammo. What we've got is ammo where pressure can't build up because there's almost as much space around the ammo as there is ammo.
That means the gas can get right by it.
This is the correct size hole from the clip and the correct size ammo for the clip. But I don't think we're going to get anything out of this. I think we need to build a little bit of a barrier behind this to create some cked pressure in there. So, Adam's altering the A team's design. There we go. To up the pressure. Now, see that? Much less space. But will this now tight fitting torpedo go ballistic?
[Music] firing in three, two, one.
Yeah.
Boy, I'm glad I wasn't standing in front of that thing.
[Music] It's another flatout failure that bears no resemblance to the clip. So, to give the myth another lifeline, here's Jamie. Along with propane, they had a tank of oxygen just like this one here. Now, oxygen is an aggressive oxidizer that I'm betting would make a far more energetic sort of a burn. So, while we didn't see them use it, just for due diligence, we're going to try it. Like Adam before him, Jaime's going off script. Smells like oxygen. No, it doesn't. It doesn't smell like anything.
As this time, he adds pure oxygen to his propane party. No.
And back goes the fuel line.
3 2 1 Oops. Wow. Well, that wasn't exactly what I had in mind. I mean, I knew the introduction of pure oxygen in there would make a more energetic reaction, but uh I didn't think it was going to blow up the whole barrel. I mean, it was kind of scary, but it does make me think that if I dial back the oxygen to just the right amount, I should be able to find a sweet spot that shoots that wooden ammo out as pretty as you please.
After watching the dismal results we were getting trying to use propane to shoot projectiles out of our cannon, you might be wondering why the addition of oxygen made the reaction so much more vigorous. I mean, oxygen's in the air I'm breathing right now, isn't it? Well, yes, but less than you think. Breathable air is actually 78% nitrogen and only 21% oxygen. What Jamie filled the barrel with before the addition of propane was 100% pure oxygen. Now, what do you need for the burn to happen? Propane and oxygen. And what he put in there was five times more pure than what is in the air. Thus, the reaction we got was much more powerful. So, with some running repairs on their log, better than new and some better late than never safety shields.
There we go. That makes me feel safer. It's all systems go to find out if there is a propane and oxygen mixture that will fire their projectile but won't destroy their cannon. Okay, I'm fueling. 3 2 1 Hey, it moved about a foot for each test. So, going to 4 seconds. The guys are altering the relative amounts of the two gases.
Firing in three, two, one.
We got it out. Woohoo. Give me a high five.
But after some early encouragement, three, two, one. It's not long before a familiar pattern emerges. This one's for the money. Firing in three, two, one.
[Music] That was by far the most vigorous bang yet. And our projectile didn't move at all. Indeed, after two dozen concentration combinations, including a repeat of Jaime's Big Bang, three, two, one, it's clear that no gas mixture has the pushing power to weaponize their wood.
Our plan was good, great, even. We methodically experimented with different air fuel mixtures of propane and air.
And then we added pure oxygen. We added a barrel block to the back of our projectiles. We got breached cannons. We got loud cracks, we got bangs, we got fire. Still, one thing we did not get was any projectiles leaving the barrel and traveling towards their opponents. We have scientifically busted this device completely. But here's the thing. I have to imagine that if you put Jamie and I in an abandoned lumber yard that we would be able to come up with something that was effective. Let's call it. Yeah.
Let's figure out another way to hurl wood at our opponents. Welcome back. Here's the scene. The aid team is stranded in a lumberyard. The bad guys have gone away, but they'll be back in an hour. Now, instead of wanting to escape or run away, the A team built an elaborate device to punish the bad guys when they return. Now, Jamie and I have already tested the method that they used in the show. Three, two, one. And it totally didn't work.
But we've stranded ourselves in a lumber yard and we are going to attempt to build our own device to punish the bad guys when they return. Should be a pretty good show.
The goal is simple. With one hour on the clock, can Adam and Jamie using only the stuff they find? Build a weapon that can take out the bad guys by firing planks as projectiles. Well, first up, they need a plan. So, shooting these as ammo. Yeah, I had some thoughts about an easier and more reliable way of doing this. I'm thinking something like a pitching machine where we get wheels spinning and we just feed our ammo into the wheel and it kicks it out. We got one on the There's a trailer over there. The trailer is beautiful. And so somehow we spin that up, right? That's going to That's going to be terrifying if we get that up to a nice speed. What do you think? Should we use a motor off of like the compressor? Well, I I saw this wrench over here, dude.
I think these suckers go like uh 5,000 RPM or something scary, which you know, I mean, when you smile, it makes me nervous. All right, so I guess the first thing is to make sure that that thing can actually power that wheel at a speed we like. Then we'll figure out a way to make that structure aimable and shootable. Yeah. All right. I love this plan. Let's do it.
It's a promising plan that gets better when the torque wrench does fit the wheel hub. But will it spin it up to speed? Okay, you ready? I'm ready. Go for it.
[Applause] [Music] And that's just the start they were hoping for.
I don't know how fast that was going, but that seems I'm going to call that fast enough. Being able to spin their wheel of misfortune fast is vital to launching their [Music] lumber. But will the rest of the plan come together so smoothly? In theory, this is like a pitching machine. But remember, we're doing this with lumber.
We're using various tools that were not made for this kind of thing. And there are a lot of moving parts here. That's a lot of stuff that we have to integrate if it's going to actually work smoothly, which is the whole point of this. While Jamie gets on with integrating the flywheel. All right, do it. Adam's taking aim at the ammo where he's trying to outgun the A team by going semi-auto. This is going to be awesome.
I absolutely love and adore working like this. Seat of the pants on the fly.
figuring stuff out with what's in front of you. The solutions you come up with are weirdly elegant when those conditions arise. Yeah, baby. Want to know how this works? The wheel sits right about here, spinning very crazy fast in that direction. This ammo box sits right about here. When Jamie pulls the trigger, that's this lever. It feeds a piece of wood out until that piece of wood contacts the spinning wheel. The moment it does, the wheel grabs that piece of wood and hurls it at one of our bad guys. Then Jamie pulls this back. You see all the ammo drops down and he's ready for another one.
Bang. I think we could fire like 15 shots in maybe five or six seconds with this thing. Tat tat tat.
Like Adam Hannibal Savage, howling Mad Hinaman is also making progress. There we go. He's aligned the wheel with the torque wrench and added some safety shielding.
Angular momentum is enough at certain speeds to actually make this tire explode. That's why I built this structure this way. So, as I'm behind it firing it, I'll be protected by stuff in the event this actually uh takes off.
This is going to work killer. I hope so.
With the bad guys less than 20 minutes away, there's no rest for the wicked.
After building the firing mechanism, the next task for me is to build the aiming mechanism. And this is non-trivial because it's quite easy just to take a spinning disc and feed a piece of wood into it. It's another thing entirely to be able to aim that both side to side and up and down. That's great. I kind of have to build essentially a wooden swing with a pivot in the middle of it to hold this entire like 60 70 lb device that we're building. This should work beautifully. As a side note, I'd like to point out that we're putting all this together with some really quite basic tools. I love making stuff like this.
you know, wood saws, some drills and screws and glue. Basically, we're using far less than what they showed in the actual 18 episode.
With time running out, that's it. Okay. The Mythbusters attach the wheel to the aimer. Looking pretty good.
Then the magazine to the wheel. Dude, it's almost perfectly balanced.
Almost like we knew what we were doing.
Almost like we knew what we were doing.
And before the bad guys arrive, they could fire off one quick test.
That's terrifying to stand here. Firing.
3 2 1. That's what I'm talking about.
[Music] Hey, I hit the camera. That is awesome. Our machine is working beautifully. It's a wonder to behold. It is terrifying to be behind.
When it starts out, the wheel is slightly unbalanced. It's [Music] kind and it settles in. And then you pull the lever and bang, the piece of wood shoots out like 60 feet. I hit a camera. It was beautiful. Three, two, one. Shooting at over 50 m an hour. That is awesome. Their forklift fireer is the real deal. But next, the ultimate test. Will it take down the bad guys before it's too late?
Adam and Jamie escaped from a maximum security stade to an abandoned quarry.
This is perfect where their above ground control caused carnage. He's legless below the knees and if he didn't get help soon, he could even drown in his own blood. All that's left for us to do now is to dig a sewer and try it again.
Yep. To put the A team's MMO to the test. Next, the guys need a city sewer.
Nothing like digging a good trench. To see if the same blast, but just barely underground, will be injuryfree for all.
Next, we put trench plates across here.
Yeah, you're uh spot on. And we'll completely cover this except for where our manhole is going to be. And boom, you got a sewer. Believe it or not, this is actually the first time that we've ever used a trench plate for a [Music] trench. This kind of operation, it looks like fun, and it is. It is also incredibly dangerous. Any one of these plates could shift just a half inch and take off one of Jaime's fingers without even noticing. Built up. That's it. And it is this kind of operation that the two of us excel at in working with each other because in order to do it safely, you not only have to move carefully, but you really it's best if the two people doing it thoughts are identical like a welloiled machine. And frankly, when Jamie and I are doing something like this, our brains are running on totally parallel tracks. And it's a sheer pleasure to do it.
Oh, it looks beautiful.
Yeah, fabulous.
I love it when a plan comes together.
Oh, shut up.
With the trench plates in place, the guys next man up their manhole.
Hello. And after a quick sewer survey. A Yeah.
It looks great down here, man. Like a real sewer. And it's nice and cool. We should have lunch down there. That's a fabulous idea. The great back fill can begin. And that right there, that's a man in his element. As Jaime buries most, but not all, of their sewer system. At this point in the episode, you've probably entertained a few thoughts. Among them, things like, "Wow, Jaime's pretty good with the excavator.
I wonder if he had help." But among your comments might be, "Why are you guys leaving one whole end of your sewer system open?" And it involves replicating the circumstances of the myth. See, we're testing an explosion of dynamite in a sewer system.
Keyword system. Sewers are part of a long set of catacombs running underneath the city. There's a lot of places for the expanding gases of the explosion to go. And that is why we're leaving ours open with one end open, one end closed, and the top soon to be sealed shut.
That do it. Their drain in a day is done. That just leaves the rest of the experiment. Starting with driver and car. Who drives with their legs crossed?
Only Buster.
Next come the allimportant PCB sensors.
We're using these sensors to determine whether or not Buster lives or dies in these explosive tests. But it's worth talking a little bit about how they work because it's pretty cool. Inside this sensor is a type of crystal called PZO.
When you flex it or press on it, it generates a tiny amount of electricity that is very consistent. You can expose it to a blast pressure wave. It will generate a little amount of electricity that we can equate to the amount of pressure it receives. That directly tells us whether or not Buster could live or die. Excuse me, Buster. Pardon me. Excuse me. Thank you. Pardon me.
Pardon me. Thank you, sir. Oh, thanks for the ride. I'll call you when it's time to pick me up. After that comes the dynamite positioned millimeters below the manhole at the very uppermost point of their drain.
So, this is exactly what we see them do in the clip. Nine sticks of dynamite off to the side a bit with the manhole cover on top of it. All right, here we go. 3 2 1.
The final piece of the puzzle is to position the car exactly as it was in the control test. Keep coming. And a little more. Perfect. All that leaves is a prediction. Now, my impression is that the sewer is going to allow some of the blast pressure to escape down into that cavity. But then on the other hand, we have that manhole cover which is most likely going to turn into fragments because it's cast iron and that's brittle and that may well hold on to the energy somewhat and direct it upward into the car. Where that puts Buster, it's anybody's guess. That's what we're going to find out. Everything is pretty much in place. I'm standing on top of a sewer we built this afternoon.
Underneath this manhole cover are nine sticks of dynamite. Inside this 3750lb classic American car, we've got one crash test dummy who, if he had a brain, would be nervous. Luckily, all he's got for brains are some sensors that'll tell us whether he lives or dies. Over here, we have some innocent bystanders ready to catch some shrapnel and yield some data of their own. 600 ft over that way, a bunch of Mythbusters about to have a very fine afternoon. All of this is geared to set up precisely the circumstances we see in the episode of the 18 that we're replicating. All geared to find out whether or not that dude lives through this explosion. Now, excuse me. I got some stuff to blow up.
Are you ready? Yeah. All right. I'm going to hook it up. There's one.
There's two.
Count it down. All right. Explosives in the manhole cover in three, two, one.
Uh-oh. I didn't even push it hard enough. Try it again. Really hard.
Three, two, one.
What the?
Houston, we have a problem.
So, you might not know that a explosive plunger works. It's basically a generator. When you push it, you push a rack against a pinion which sets a flywheel in motion and generates electricity which it sends down this wire to the blasting cap where the explosives are. Now, we pushed that plunger and the explosives didn't go off, which means that there's a continuity break somewhere in the wire.
We're going to run another wire down there and go again. The guys are literally going down to the wire, but a quick replacement later and they're ready to rumble. All right, be my guest, sir. Count it in.
Okay, 18 explosive in the manhole. Cover in three, two, [Music] one. That did it. Wow, that was awesome.
[Music] When the dust settles this time, it's clear that the car hasn't been torn apart. We have yet to crunch the data.
We have yet to look at highspeed. But on the face of what I witnessed and what I can see here, held together better than I thought it would. That's for sure. I feel like that was a fantastic comparative set of explosions.
The second explosion, the dynamite in the sewer, just as we saw in the 18 dented the oil pan of this car, but did not break through. It looks like it didn't actually penetrate, though. Wow.
My prediction post explosion pre-data crunch is that our dude is totally fine.
But we got to check all that stuff out first.
Yep. While initial impressions are good, it's all down to the data. I've analyzed the data from the sewer-based explosion, and it's pretty interesting because the prior blast exposed Buster to 26 PSI. This time with the sewer, he only experienced 9 PSI. That's less than half. And that means that as opposed to ending up in the hospital with some serious injuries, this time he would have walked away. A little unhappy and with some bruises, but he would have walked away.
So, busters only bruised. How about the bystanders? Last time, a lethal 90 PSI.
This time, 11 PSI. That's right. Isn't that cool? Not only is the blast survivable for the guy inside the car, it's also for the bystanders by the side of the road. I'm no doctor, but you might want to have that shoulder looked at. Kind of weird. It's an astounding result. Simply by placing the dynamite millimeters below their manhole, the shock wave takes out the car and the car alone. This is really cool. 95% of the time, what you see in movies and television has no bearing on actual physics. So, it is very funny to me to delve into a cheesy 1980s action show that I totally grew up on and find that their physics are sound. That is putting dynamite inside a manhole is a fine way of making a non-lethal explosion that will take out a card. So, how do you want to call this one? Well, I think the A team's plan was an excellent plan. The difference between the above ground blast and the sewer blast is patently obvious. That is a survivable explosion.
This one less so. I'd say it's plausible.
Isn't that thing kind of getting disgusting by now? It's totally disgusting. It's like chewing on a little tobacco soaked sock. It's gross. All right, let's get out of here.
Where too, Colonel? Back to the lumber yard.
[Music] Yeah. In an abandoned lumber yard, it's time to play ball because the Mythbusters air powered pitching machine 3 2 1 is firing on all cylinders.
That is awesome, isn't it?
[Music] Well, our cannon is ready. And by our best estimates, this thing ought to fire these chunks of wood at something between 50 and 75 mph. That is significant and dangerous. And I want to point out that this is a purely improvised build by B and Jamie. So all of this design was here on site. A sheer pleasure. This is a classic Mythbusters build.
Like the A team, the guys improvise their weapon in just one hour. But will it be able to hurt the henchmen?
Last one.
Locked and loaded. Time to find out.
What exactly are we testing? Well, in the clip, the guys spend about 1 minute and 10 seconds firing their wood weapon at the bad guys to drive them off. Hit it. Yep, let's do it.
For us, given that we've busted the tree cannon approach entirely, we intend to test out our own firing mechanism, both in terms of accuracy, quickness to fire, and the time it takes to take out the bad guys. Outside the double doors, there are seven bad guys, each ready to pop up just where they did in the A team scene.
It's showtime.
But can Jaime take them down in just 70 seconds?
It's a perfect [Music] start as Janie takes out pop-ups one and two with shots straight to the head.
Yeah.
And from there, well, let's roll an A montage. Yeah.
Oh, close. Yes. One more. It looks like I got one last [Music] one.
Yeah.
Woohoo. 1 minute 5 seconds. That was awesome. I love it when a plan comes together.
We had our targets rigged so that when I hit one, another one would pop up in its place. I was able to get them one after the other until I had to get the farthest guy out. The thing is, the further the range, the more that these sticks start to tumble and do unpredictable things. But even though I took every stick of ammo I had.
Yeah, in the end I got every single guy.
The rig worked like a charm.
Yeah. Our task was pretty straightforward. Replicate a clip from the A team Mythbuster style. Same ammo, completely new construction. We used a spinning wheel this time and an air wrench. Yeah. And guess what? It worked magnificently.
It worked exactly like you saw in the clip. It was awesome.
[Music] Firing at 60 m an hour with nearperfect pitch, their rig was the real deal. And having scratch built it in under an hour using junk lying around the lumber yard, might say that the Mythbusters have out 18amed the 18. Hey, if you need our help again, you know where to find us.
[Music] Right now, the guys could be found in Ion 3, two, one, where their sewer salvo was a blast. A blast that vindicated the A team's MMO.
He would have walked away. Nice. That is awesome. You want to see the high speed?
Yeah.
But while the guys have called their conclusion based solely on survivability, the clip also had the car flipping up and over. And with no flip in tests one or two, they're now upping the ante. And here's how. The first thing we've got to do to get that car to flip is to bring a little more pressure into the game. So to do that, we're sealing off the sewer. The second thing we're going to do to try and guarantee a flip is move the position of the car relative to the explosion. Now, in the first two explosions, we copied exactly what we saw on the show, and that is explosion happening pretty much dead center of the car underneath the engine.
This time, we're going to move it over here to the left, try and get it to flip that way. That's a theory, anyway.
That's the theory. And here's the test subject. You know, every time Adam and I go someplace, people ask us, "Where's Buster?" But if you get to know him, he's kind of a jerk. Plus, he's heavy.
That's why we don't mind blowing him up.
Oh, he's so heavy.
Sorry about that. Come on, Buster. Watch your head. There we go.
With Buster not quite strapped in. No seat belt. No, I think he'll he'll be all right without it. Okay, the car is moved into prime position. Keep coming.
That's it right there. If anything will flip this car that well, then it's go time. Fire in the hole.
Love doing that.
All right, here we go.
A so cool. A team sewer explosion final attempt to flip this car in three, two, one.
Ain't no flip. A I know a Jamie's not happy. We have an unhappy hangman on our hands.
It's the barrel roll that never came.
While the car did leap higher than ever, it didn't flip as per the clip. But as the A team would never say, failure is always an option. Three setups, three blasts, three cars destroyed, one very tired crash test, Tummy, and the results are pretty darn definitive. The A team's plan of putting nine sticks of dynamite inside a manhole cover in order to disable a car without killing its occupant is totally plausible, completely sound. In fact, the only thing that they got wrong in the episode, and this is shocking, is that 9 sticks of dynamite will not flip this car. But everything else is possible.
It's like validating the media of my childhood. How awesome is that?
[Music] I pity this [Music] fool.
Heat. Heat.
[Music]
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