I wish more people in general would be OK with being wrong. Noone ever learned something new without knowing they’d been wrong
I still wanted them to see how much dynamite it would take to remove a dead whale.
How many whales are equivalent to a clogged cement mixer?
The Elephant and Mice episode was so wild, because if I remember correctly, the elephant didn’t act afraid of the mouse, it acted afraid it would step on and harm the mouse; as if the elephant had a basic understanding and concern for the wellbeing of another creature conspicuously lacking in many human beasts
If we would, we would be all vegan.
Yep. Elephants are wonderfully kind creatures. With my very limited understanding of elephant body language, it didn’t look like an ‘oh no, im scared’ it was more ‘oh hey little guy, didn’t see ya there. ill get outta your way.’
Elephants are wonderfully kind creatures
So long as they’re not a bull in musth.
Just smart as hell. This video makes me wonder if elephants legit have a sense of humor:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VOvEFHDOaU
Animal behavior can be difficult to interpret (and even when descriptions come from experts, I often find myself asking “yeah, but how do we really know that?”), but this looks very close to being like someone who’s known for lighthearted pranks.
Oh my goooooood. This is so delightful, you can almost see the smirk. Thank you for sharing. <3
I WANT to believe this but I’ve seen too many elephant videos that turned out to be just elephants trained to do a quirky thing for tourists and there’s someone off camera subtly directing them.
New core memory unlocked, thanks!
It’s amazing how intelligent and emotionally mature elephants are. It’s not wonder why people were willing to believe that “Elephants have a moon religion!” line for so long, it seems believable with how often elephants seem to act like chonky humans with a trunk instead of arms.
I would say escaping from quick sand and escaping from an alligator chasing me were two major concerns in my childhood. LoL, global climate change was maybe not even on the list, for which I will curse the petroleum industry.
It doesn’t matter how you run because ALLIGATORS WON’T CHASE YOU.
I used to live in Florida on the edge of a big lake where my landlord had carved out a lagoon that mama gators used to hatch their broods, so there would often be between 50 and 100 little alligators chilling out in my backyard sunning themselves. For fun I would try to sneak up on one of them and poke it on the head just to watch it and all the others scatter into the lagoon. Everybody I told about this thought I was absolutely batshit crazy, but I knew that at the time there had been something like 5 alligator attacks on humans in Florida since the 1940s, always on little children playing in water (I was obviously a little child mentally but physically I was a 200-pound adult man). So I knew I wasn’t risking life or limb doing this. For the record, my sneaking up technique was to stand stock still and only move a step or two towards the gator whenever the wind blew; it seems that the gators just took me for a swaying branch and ignored me.
What made me stop doing this was one day I happened to look down at what I thought was a big log and realized that it was actually the mama gator, about 12’ long from tip to tail and probably 2’ in diameter at her midsection. I was fairly confident that she wouldn’t attack me on land either - but not that confident.
So, we meet at last, Florida Man!
No way! I left and I still have all my teeth.
but not that confident.
That’s how you bust myths!
I loved their episode where they made a led balloon.
Surprise origami!
Love this show
My fav was if you could shoot someone in water. Turns out that just 3 ft. of water was enough to stop a 50 cal! So as great of a film as Saving Private Ryan was, the opening scene where bullets wiz thru the sea killing soldiers was pure fiction.
Bigger/faster the bullet the easier it was for water to stop. The small rounds from handguns worked best for shooting into water.
It makes sense once they do the maths but it was a great episode
Bigger/faster the bullet the easier it was for water to stop.
For bullets that’s probably true because of their light weight, but heavy shells from the big naval guns of battleships (12" to 18" caliber) actually carried a long way through water and sometimes hit and damaged target ships below the waterline. The Japanese in particular actually designed some of their shells to maximize their underwater performance.
I wonder relatively what speed those shells would have to hit the water yo behave like bullets and shatter… You wanna revive myth busters and we can find out? Maybe in honor of Grant on his birthday or something would be cool.
We just need a lot of money, some military connections and a way to put the team back together for it
Well, typical muzzle velocities for these shells were in the neighborhood of 2500 feet per second, and although they slowed down some out to typical combat ranges they were still going pretty damn fast when they hit. I don’t think the Mythbusters ever had the kind of budget you’d need to test this one out.
It isn’t that the water is stoping the bullet- rather that water’s surface tension creates a shockwave that shatters the bullet, and this distributes the mass over more fragments.
Lower power cartridges are able to survive that shockwave, or it fragments into fewer slugs which keeps its energy concentrated.
Either way, I wouldn’t want to be near the high powered cartridge hitting the water. You’re going to feel that shockwave.
It is the water breaking it. The water doesnt compress so the water doesnt absorb enough of the kinetic energy fast enough so the bullet fractures. As i understand it anyway. The 50cal is travelling a lot faster so a lot more force is applied on the bigger rounds.
Later on they did a dynamite fishing one and we learned being in water when a large enough shockwave hits is VERY bad for internal organs of squishy creatures in it
Dynamite in water is the same basic principle used for sea mines. History has taught us those actually work. With the bullet, it’s more about surface tension which makes sense as falling from a high enough cliff onto water if you don’t land right is nearly the same as falling onto concrete.
Cool stuff regardless and I always found their testing to be quite spot on, scientifically.
It’s the surface tension that causes the shockwave, soapy water wouldn’t have the same effect.
And yes, dynamite explosives are rather more dangerous under water. Which is how torpedos work to break ships without much regard for armor.
Right so its the water that causes it to break because of the surface tension of the water.
Sounds like you are arguing against my phrasing while agreeing with what i understand. Im confused why we seem to be in a disagreement.
Maybe you can school my dumb ass though, can you eli5 what would need to happen for you to say it was the water that does the work on stopping bullets?
It’s the interaction between the air and water that does it.
If, hypothetically, you were to move something through the water at that speed, it wouldn’t shatter or just be stopped. There is significantly more drag, so it would come to rest sooner than in air but it wouldn’t just stop.
For example, many small boats have very high rpm propellers that survive just fine- until they start cavitating.
The reason a .50 cal or .308 shatter is the shock of hitting the surface tension, and it’s the shattering that allows the fragments to be slowed down so quickly.
It’s also the reason they were surprised- they forgot to include surface tension in their initial model.
True, but smaller arms go further so scenes line the early betrayal in Italian Job were life threatening.
All supersonic bullets (up to .50-caliber) disintegrated in less than 3 feet (90 cm) of water, but slower velocity bullets, like pistol rounds, need up to 8 feet (2.4 m) of water to slow to non-lethal speeds. Shotgun slugs require even more depth (the exact depth couldn’t be determined because their one test broke the rig). However, as most water-bound shots are fired from an angle, less actual depth is needed to create the necessary separation.
Being excited about being wrong because either way it’s information
This literally is the basis of science that I think a lot of people misunderstand. Science doesn’t prove anything conclusively. What scientists try to do is disprove the leading theory and when they can’t, it adds to the pile of evidence that increases the likelyhood of the leading theory being correct. Even things that we’re very, very, very sure are correct are still like 99.99999999999…% confirmed.
A good example that’s often used to show how it’s more important to try to disprove a theory rather than trying to prove it is the existence of black swans. It was long thought that all swans were white and every time someone saw a white swan, that idea was reinforced. But when someone actually went out of their way to go looking for a black swan, they found a bunch of them!
I feel it is my pedantic duty to inform you that 99.9… is equal to 100.
Only if you’re rounding. 99.9 is still 1/10 of a digit separated from 100, but it’s not equal to 100 for good reason.
But the “…” matters.
It only signifies that the post-decimal nines are repeating infinitely. It still doesn’t make 99.99999…=100 unless you intentionally round the value for some nondescript reason, and even then, rounding off isn’t changing the value, only the perceived value for mathematical simplicity, not objective accuracy.
“.9…” is repeating, but rational. So it’s actually “1” . Let’s do the math.
.9… / 3 = .3…
.3… = 1/3
1/3 x 3 = 3/3
.9… = 3/3
3/3 = 1
.9… = 1
Still not convinced? We’ll use algebra instead of fractions.
0.9… = x
10x = 9.9…
10x - 0.9… = 9
9x = 9
x = 1
So why is it represented as 99.999… Instead of just 100? It’s because you’re forgetting the fact that fractions and decimals are infinite depending on the magnification. 99.9999… literally goes on forever. That means that no matter how close it gets to 100, it will never be equivalent to 100.
It’s like how you can know infinitely nothing and still think you know everything. 👀🫠
Love how you fight this to the death in a thread where people are discussing how a scientific mindset is so important.
It’s because we can write numbers in many ways. 9900/99 is 100 just as surely as 99.99… is.
“Replicate the circumstances, then replicate the results.”
Being able to separate your ego and desire to be right from the learning process is such an important skill.
Plus being able to figure out a semilegitimate excuse to blow stuff up. “This could be very dangerous so we’re going to do several things to make it safer. That’s teaching safe lab techniques, so it’s educational!”
I remember being stubborn, being proved wrong, continuing to be stubborn, and being proved wrong even harder, in front of others.
It’s such a pathetic and embarrassing feeling to be that wrong.
I don’t want to be wrong a moment longer than I need to be.
There’s no shame in being corrected, but there is in holding on to shit ideas.
This is the right attitude more people should have. But all too often, when people are proven wrong, they genuinely believe that it must be the other person/group, because they cannot accept the emotional consequences of being wrong.
I know that I’ve had a hard time learning this because growing up I was never held to account for my actions on an emotional level. It was the 80s and 90s, and adults at that time would either shrug it off, or go straight to the nuclear punishment of corporal punishment. Never once would they sit down and talk to you about why what you did was wrong and how to do it better next time. I, anecdotally, believe that a lot of genx suffer this same way. They simply haven’t learned that there is a better way.
It’s amazing how social norms have changed.
I’ve got a two year old, who drives me absolutely insane sometimes. I think if I grew up in my parents culture, where it was acceptable to smack kids or shout at them, I probably would.
That’s a horrible thing to say, but I’m glad I’m aware of the fact that it’s counter-productive. I’m almost jealous of my child, to know they’ve got someone like me as a father, as opposed to my father.
Well, talking to kids and explaining things to them takes time, and it’s basically work. How inconvenient.
Also, you have to know what a better way to handle a situation is. If someone’s the type of person who hits a kid for misbehavior, maybe they don’t know how to do better.
My husband and I are in our mid thirties, and are actively holding off on kids until we feel like we’ve gotten better at managing our emotions. Our parents had kids much earlier, and ended up exercising their emotional dysfunction on small children
I could be completely wrong, but my life experience so far suggests that the best way to get better at something is to put yourself into situations where you have to actually practice the skill. I’ve been fostering cats and kittens for a few years, and I think it has really pushed me to learn how to manage my emotions better.
We’re doing all sorts of things to get better at it 😊
Or at least use classical conditioning to associate the I’m wrong feeling with the impending new cool facts feeling.
Curiosity is the best trait nature ever gave us.
For anyone missing the show, there was a wonderful project called Streamlined Mythbusters where fans edited each episode down to remove the filler, pre and post ad recaps, etc. They usually also would reorder things so each individual myth was seld contained.
It’s wonderful, but some episodes legitimately got cut down to be 16 minutes long with no real content loss, which can be kind of jarring.
There is also Smyths, which is the same thing.
Unfortunately Mythbusters edits have a tendency to get pulled from the typical video sharing sites rather quickly. I wish someone would make a torrent of the entire series edited this way, and call it a day.
Thanks for the Rec! I definitely miss the show. Adam’s YouTube channel sometimes scratches the itch, but not always.
Oh god, I forgot, it was during the “REALITY TV!” boom where marketing and hype had more substance than the shows themselves, and if the show had substance… edit it like it is Reality TV…
I do not miss that.
You can find a torrent of all of them. I love putting Plex on shuffle when I’m doing chores around the house.
The quote at the end is perfect. Be excited when you are wrong because it’s information.
Isaac Asimov used to say that the real sound of scientific progress wasn’t “Eureka!”, but rather, “Hmm. That’s funny.”
I miss Mythbusters so much.
It’s amazing to me that Discovery hasn’t tried to bring Mythbusters back. Instead they double down on Ancient Aliens and Pawnstars garbage.
They did try to bring it back, but it was really a show that needed its core cast to be what it was.
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Real Science attracts smart people who want to learn a thing or two about the world, Fake Science attracts the kind of gullible kooks you can sell snake oil and orgonite devices to… and I say this as someone who “wants to believe”
Same reason why scam e-mails and telemarketers intentionally leave big gaping holes in their stories while using dozens of spelling errors. If you’re the kind of person who can notice things like that, you’re too smart to buy what they’re selling.
Yeah its a real monkeys paw situation too. Will they be able to catch that same lightning in a jar again without the same cast?
If they understood what made it great, maybe. They don’t though, and definitely won’t care to try.
I’m pretty sure they did try to bring it back but it wasn’t as popular because it wasn’t Adam and Jamie
IIRC I read that the hosts hated one another and refuse to work with each other ever again.
If you’re talking about Adam and Jamie, this is not true and has been repeatedly debunked by both of them.
I remember during the run of Mythbusters either Discovery or History or one of those tried to launch another show to cash in on Mythbusters’ success, it was called Smash Lab, and it’s clear the creation of this show involved a pie chart titled “Elements of Mythbusters by screen time” and there was one pie wedge labelled “explosions.” It didn’t last long IIRC.
William Osman and Michael Reeves + the other youtubers
That would mean Failed Mythbuster Allen Pan™ could redeem himself
From listening to podcasts done by people involved in those attempts to bring the show back, it seems the show runners/studios in charge didn’t understand what made the show good and tried to steer their recreations in bad directions. It does seem like most every host they brought on had good intentions and skillsets, but were held back in some way.
Adam and Jamie were awesome, but I’m certain there are some passionate makers or something out there who could fill the role. It wouldn’t be the same, but it could be it’s own thing. Whoever the new hosts were must have just been the wrong casting, but also I don’t know how much Discovery cared because I didn’t know about it and I was a huge Mythbusters fan. I guess I just didn’t pay attention because Discovery had already killed everything that was worth paying attention to them for by that point.
It’s been a while since I watched them but I recall feeling like the new hosts weren’t genuine. It felt more like a YouTube reaction video than an episode of Mythbusters.
Mythbusters fundamentally needs to capture the joy of engineering more than the joy of explosions. (Not that those aren’t fun too.)
