Mythbusters Round Up.

So recently season 9 of Mythbusters was aired over in the US and various other places.


Here are the outcomes of the last few episodes, in season 8.

I am an avid Mythbusters viewer and try and keep up with the show as much as possible.

• Episode 158 – President's Challenge 

2 Myths were tested in this episode:
- Archimedes Solar Ray 3.0 (Adam and Jamie)

The Mythbusters meeting President Obama

President Obama challenged the team to retest the myth of Archimedes Solar Ray, stating that he did not think they tested it thoroughly enough.

The myth stated that up to 500 people with mirrors focusing the suns light on a single point would set a wooden ship alight. The team used 500 school children from a local high school to reflect the light of bronze and modern mirrors. The team tested it three times using bronze mirrors in the first test, then modern mirrors in the second test and eventually pulling the boat closer to shore. All three attempts failed to ignite the boat, however Jamie (who was on the boat) noted that the light reflecting off the 500 mirrors was blinding and that he himself was temporary blinded by the light.
------ Myth: Re-busted---------

- Car Flip (Tory, Kari and Grant)
This Myth was straight out of the movie Hellboy, it stated that a strong enough punch direct onto the hood of a moving SUV will cause it to somersault into the air.
The team started, by doing various small scale tests to gauge how much force would be needed to an SUV, in the end the found that 5000 lbs (2267.96 kg) would be efficient, to flip the SUV. Tory build the rig which would drop a steel cylinder onto the hood of the SUV, the first few tests revealed an array of problems ranging from timing to the positioning. In the end the team reverted to using the small scale SUVs and it did not work even then, at this point however the myth was already busted. They went on to try and recreate the results and even then did not get the correct outcome.
------ Myth: Busted---------

• Episode 159 – Green Hornet Special

 Seth Rogen who stars in the 2011 movie The Green Hornet, joins Mythbusters in this episode.


- Explosive Escape (Adam and Jamie)

Seth Rogen

This Myth stated that the if a car is buried and a buldozer is parked on top explosives will be able to set it free and the passengers will survive if  they are shielded properly from the Blast.
Firstly they added armour plating and 16 lbs (7.26 kg) of explosives replicating the car in the movie. They then added two dummies, representing Kato and the Green Hornet, then buried the car in sideways, the expolsives went off killing the two dummies (they had pressure plates), and moving enough earth to allow the bulldozer to sink. At this point the myth was busted. In an attempt to recreate the scene from the movie, they used more explosives, two types, TNT and ANFO. The TNT simply blew the first bulldozer to pieces and the ANFO ripped the bulldozer apart at the welds. They then buried some ANFO under the bulldozer to see if it would move the bulldozer and this failed as well, ripping the bulldozer to pieces and making a large crater. The team noted that any amount of explosives that would be able to move the bulldozer would have certainly killed the occupants of the car.
------ Myth: Busted---------

- Elevator Car Cut (Tory, Kari and Grant)

This myth stated that if a bullet riddled car drove into an elevator and it would ascend the car will be cut in half and the front half will be able to drive away.

This myth was tested in two parts, first to see if a car could be cut in half by an ascending elevator and then whether it could drive away with only half of its body. Firstly Kari converted a car into the black beauty, then Tory and Grant pumped the car with over two hundred rounds from sub machine guns. They used a forklift to as the elevator, when the test was run instead of being cut in half, the car was crushed.

The second area was to test if the car could run if half the body was missing, the team had to make some extensive modifications to the black beauty - (as Kato had done before hand in the movie, according to Seth) The team concluded that it was plausible, to run the car if it was cut cleanly in half.
------ Myth: Busted and Plausible ---------

Remember to watch the latest Season, check your local TV listings.