MythBusters (ep 163)

28 Apr

What I loved about the swimming through bubbles myth was not that the myth was plausible, but for different reasons than they expected, but that the different reasons were so much simpler than the original hypothesis. Adam and Jamie thought that maybe you couldn’t swim through bubbles because they changed the water density- no, its because they cause the water to move. Simple.

As for splitting the tree, they may have put the smallest amount of explosive that would detonate in each bag, but 25lbs of explosive, really? Try 10lbs before you tell me you used as little as possible.

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2 Responses

  1. hassell painter says:

    I guarantee, a 5lb block of C4 will not only split the tree, it will remove it. When I taught this stuff (many years and types of explosives ago), I could fall a medium size tree across a trail with about 2 to 3 lbs of C4 properly placed. Black powder also works, but it takes more because it's harder to get compressed into the right position so you can get more collateral damage than with C4 (or simtec or any other plastic) even though it is much more powerful.

  2. 100wordson says:

    They were testing the myth that you could attach a stick of dynamite to an arrow and split a tree in half. It didn't work, so they decided to try and replicate the myth – with a 100ft tall pine tree and 25lbs of anthracite in 1lb baggies placed in 25 holes drilled up the side of the tree. The tree went kablooey.

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