new episode on Discovery Channel tonight.

revisiting an old myth about momentum because their fans don't understand 1-D physics
"the fans say that when two cars going 50mph toward each other collide, the impact is equivalent to one car hitting a wall at 50mph"

i mean I know it's been 4 years since I took physics but shouldn't that last part be "at 100mph???"

yes, i know there was another thread but it was 4 years old

5/5/2010 9:07:45 PM

the cars will take off

5/5/2010 9:13:20 PM

The fact that the other car has more give than a wall means that it's probably less than the equivalent of 100mph

5/5/2010 9:18:29 PM

^

5/5/2010 9:20:23 PM

50mph x 50mph = 2500mph

5/5/2010 9:21:24 PM

i guess i was thinking in terms of relative velocity...

car A going 50 mph this way ---> <--- car B going 50 mph that way
velocity of A relative to B is 100 mph

i suppose momentum is a different story, as it deals with velocity relative to a third frame of reference (the ground)

5/5/2010 9:24:30 PM

ernie making me lol over here

5/5/2010 9:29:46 PM

holy shit, compressed all the way to the b-pillar

5/5/2010 9:41:46 PM

and flipped over

mehhhhhh

5/5/2010 9:51:51 PM

jtw208 CALLED OUT


Fans were right

[Edited on May 5, 2010 at 9:58 PM. Reason : ]

5/5/2010 9:58:48 PM

consider myself officially called out, etc

5/5/2010 10:12:01 PM

Quote :

"SOCKS KNOCKED OFF"

5/6/2010 6:15:58 AM

Quote :

"the fans say that when two cars going 50mph toward each other collide, the impact is equivalent to one car hitting a wall at 50mph"

This is technically correct, though modifying it to say "the impact to an individual car" would make it more clear what they're talking about.

The actual impact force is 2x as much. But there are 2 cars absorbing it. If it the second car was a solid wall traveling at 50mph the first car would be fucked up (moreso).

Also:

Quote :

"the cars will take off"

ROFL

5/6/2010 12:14:57 PM

Honestly, it was one of the most surprising myths I saw busted. I have always been told that two cars traveling at 50+ miles an hour head on would double the force...

5/6/2010 12:41:24 PM

Honestly, it was one of the most surprising myths I saw busted. I have always been told that two cars traveling at 50+ miles an hour head on would double the force...

5/6/2010 12:41:24 PM

i understand their point but thought it was poorly presented.

5/6/2010 6:03:39 PM

they showed the equations that proved (or disproved.... i forgot which one was the myth) the myth at the end for about 1 second. Just like with the "will a plane take off on a treadmill" myth, a simple equation is all thats needed for proof. Of course, the whole point of the show is to demonstrate what is or isn't true, and regardless of what the results were, Newton's 3rd Law wouldn't have been disproven. I thought they did a fine job with the actual demonstration, but they could have spent some more time on the actual physics

5/10/2010 9:17:01 PM

Quote :

"Honestly, it was one of the most surprising myths I saw busted. I have always been told that two cars traveling at 50+ miles an hour head on would double the force... "

It is double the force, it's just double the force split between 2 cars.

If it was a car and a wall heading towards each other at 50mph, then the result would be more like what you would intuit from the car hitting a wall at 100mph.

But, i too was surprised, but you don't realize how much harder a wall is than a car, until you seem some collisions.

5/10/2010 9:59:42 PM

None of those collisions are survivable. Any collision over 45mph is a pretty good chance of death.

[Edited on May 10, 2010 at 10:46 PM. Reason : Or you'll wish you were dead.]

5/10/2010 10:46:24 PM

That's why I always ride a motorcyle

5/11/2010 1:02:36 AM

This weeks episode looks pretty epic. Another duct tape episode. Looks like they try to make a bridge to walk across and a wall to stop a car all out of duct tape.

Do you think they will ever run out of ideas?

5/11/2010 3:56:44 PM

the show has really evolved over the years. i've been a fan pretty much since the beginning, when they actually tested "myths". now they just test random ideas that seem cool to do, esp physics type things ie. this 2 cars one and airplane on a treadmill. so no, i dont think they will run out of ideas. more likely it'll be they get tired of doing the stuff or just wanna move onto a new show idea.. that or discovery gets tired of the show.

[Edited on May 11, 2010 at 4:19 PM. Reason : .]

5/11/2010 4:18:59 PM

Quote :

"Do you think they will ever run out of ideas?"

Thanks to the internet, the production and spread of dumbass ideas, theories, myths, bullshit doctored videos, and "published facts" is at an all time high and growing exponentially (<--baseless conclusion example). So, I seriously doubt they'll run out of ideas any time soon. Hell, they could probably make an entire season just on youtube myths alone.

5/11/2010 4:41:36 PM

I want to see a pool of jello

5/11/2010 9:18:38 PM

the myth about all right turns is interesting.

i was more interested in the giant ass waterslide they made

5/19/2010 10:05:34 PM

The giant slide was pretty cool. Do you think they took it down? I would pay a couple of bucks to take a ride on that thing. God knows the legal bullshit would be high but you know people would come out.

5/20/2010 12:26:41 AM

That was one of the worst episodes I think. I wonder why they ditched the rest of the crew.

1/25/2015 1:57:36 AM

?

http://insidetv.ew.com/2014/12/19/mythbusters-interview/

i had no idea they were still making new episodes of this series.

[Edited on January 25, 2015 at 4:58 AM. Reason : ]

1/25/2015 4:52:46 AM

I really like the new season. Seems a lot more educational.... And I've liked the a team and Indiana jones episodes so far....

I loved kari, grant, and Tory, but it seems their myths were getting sillier and sillier.

1/25/2015 8:23:23 PM

wasn't it just the two of them during the first season too?

1/25/2015 8:35:19 PM

for the first few seasons. maybe now that they've eliminated all the superfluous bullshit i'll start watching again

1/26/2015 8:10:29 AM

i enjoyed the A Team episode, but I also miss the personalities of the secondary cast. jamie is just so goddamn dry. it's like watching buzz killington sometimes

1/26/2015 8:17:37 AM

i'm really digging the new "old" concept. this is what mythbusters started as, just the 2 of them. over time they drifted away from the educational aspect and how they actually fabricated a lot of their experiments due to time constraints of having multiple teams doing multiple experiments. as much as i liked the other 3, the show was getting too hokey.

[Edited on January 26, 2015 at 8:27 AM. Reason : .]

1/26/2015 8:26:11 AM

I always hated the additional 3. They didn't have that same special FX feel to them, and sometimes they flat out botched the experiment. The worst one I remembered was when they tested out various light bulbs (LED, CFL, Incandescent, etc), turning them on and off every 5 seconds to see which had the longest reliability. They created the setup and revisited it 6 months later (or maybe 3?). When they came back, I think all the bulbs were burnt out, so they concluded all types of bulbs have the same reliability. The incandescent could have burned out after 2 days and the CFL could have burned out after 5+ months, but nope, same reliability.

IIRC, they also were the ones that did the experiment resulting in a cannonball hitting a real, inhabited house. That was a while ago, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was a factor in them getting dropped.

[Edited on January 26, 2015 at 9:51 AM. Reason : ]

1/26/2015 9:49:37 AM

Grant made my favorite TV co-host Geoff Peterson, so I'll always respect him for that.

1/26/2015 10:23:48 AM

I like the new format. I like that they now have time to go into detail on the fabrication element of the myths. I think I'm just as interested in how they make the stuff as the result of the experiment.

1/26/2015 11:44:43 AM