Slashdot Mirror
Mythbusters Accidentally Bust Windows In Nearby Town
Thelasko writes "In an effort to knock Buster's socks off, the Mythbusters accidentally created an explosion so large it shattered windows in a small town over a mile from the blast site. The Mythbusters had the broken windows replaced the very same day.
The Esparto, California fire chief says that several firefighters were on hand for the blast, but he didn't notify residents because, 'Mythbusters is supposed to be a really popular show. Everybody would have been out there. We would have had to cancel it because it would have been too dangerous.'"
... Jamie got big boom.
Tis women makes us love, Tis Love that makes us sad, Tis sadness makes us drink, And drinking makes us mad.
The Myth Busters truly are gods among geeks.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
...could get the go-ahead on tripping 500 lbs of ammonium nitrate in order to "knock the socks off" of a mannequin.
"Chief Barry Burns, of Esparto Fire Department" :-)
--- Nick, hard at work
And their big 'bleep' was located 'bleep' but don't 'bleep' anywhere near 'bleep' CUE BIG FIREBALL BOOM!
Sorry about that, it is just a pet peeve of mine that Mythbusters is seemingly censoring mundane details about what they are doing. What is the point about censoring the location where you are firing off a minigun? It's obviously restricted, and it isn't as if people are going to wander onto some military base and pick up a minigun.
If the people who watch the show were so stupid as to try and use some of the chemicals that are used in the show (and harm themselves or someone else) I'd wager that they are probably too stupid to even know where to order them.
You never saw Mr. Wizard bleeping out the chemical names on his demonstrations.
I swear that if the lawyers had their way, they would bleep 'gasoline'.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
Ah, I see our viral marketing campaign is working... Jamie, go "accidentally" blow up a gas station or something, we'll issue a press rele^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hletter of apology next week.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Ever since these other "lets blow stuff up on high speed film" shows came out, MythBusters has had to blow more and more stuff up, kind of getting anti-intellectual nowadays. Plus Kari needs a bigger rack.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Experience? They are special effects guys, they have done all of maybe 2 or 3 really large explosions and all of them were oversaw by professionals because most of the stuff they deal with is not generally available. They aren't exactly blasting/munitions experts.
"I don't necessarily agree with everything I say." - Marshall McLuhan
BUSTED!!
"...They were trying to literally 'knock the socks off' a mannequin by igniting 500 pounds of ammonium nitrate."
Uh, I like the show and all, but it's rather ironic that a couple of "celebrities" can get their hands on 500 pounds of this stuff and use it, when Average Joe can't manage to buy 50 pounds of "enriched" manure from Home Depot without tripping the "terrorist" flag at Homeland Security...
Remember the one where they tried to muck out that cement truck? Man, that was unreal! One second there's a truck, and the next second it's completely gone. No Hollywood fireball, just Bang! and no-more-truck.
Cool. That's what it is.
You have the order wrong.
The shows popularity would have made people come too close so it wouldn't be possible to perform the explosion. They judged it safer for everyone if people didn't know about it.
Myth: Plausible
Windows: Busted
Think ya used enough dynamite there, Butch?
The keyword in the summary was "accidentally". This was not an intended result and was not anticipated. Especially not a mile away.
They were igniting 500 pounds of ammonium nitrate. What, did EVERYONE (including Fire Marshall Bill) forget to bring their handy dandy bomb-squad approved $10 calculator with them that day?
Well, I think that stuff like this can take anyone by surprise. Castle Bravo turned out to be 2.5 times bigger than expected, and those guys were Atomic Scientists!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Bravo
Remember, they built the bulletproof shelter for explosions then in a much later episode discovered that the material wasn't bulletproof.
What's the verdict on the myth that the Mythbusters can continue to do huge explosions without any collateral damage?
Definitely busted.
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
At this time, Buster is still unavailable for comments.
What, did EVERYONE (including Fire Marshall Bill) forget to bring their handy dandy bomb-squad approved $10 calculator with them that day?
I'm guessing they underestimated the burn rate of the explosives. This is probably due to the high variability in quality of ammonium nitrate. They may have done the calculations for agricultural grade ammonium nitrate, and used another.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
They usually have a retired FBI agent who is a specialist in explosives handle the big booms for them. I wonder if they had him along this time too?
Now we know why he's retired ;)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Oh, that's only a factor of.... err.. 500? Oops.
Reminds me of a high school chemistry teacher showing us the difference between Na and K. His words:
"Na is very reactive, so we drop only a small amount in water to show the reaction." - poof
"K is a little less reactive, so we can drop a larger amount in water." - BAMMM! (and one erlenmeyer explodes in front of 35 students)
Of course, today that would mean the teacher would be sued by the parents for endangering the lives of all those students. But in my day, this means that 30 years later I remember that K is less reactive than Na, but not by very much.
They were igniting 500 pounds of ammonium nitrate
[humor]
I hereby declare this an act of domestic terrorism. The fact this wasn't in the middle of a public square just means they were bad at planning.
[/humor]
That one was unreal; it really conveyed the power of those explosives more effectively than any other explosion I've seen on the show. It's definitely my favorite.
Then your teacher taught you wrong. K is significantly more reactive than Na. It also reacts hotter and usually ignites the hydrogen gas produced by the reaction.
--
The internet is the greatest source of biased information in the history of mankind.
I can't wait until MythBusters start busting nuclear weapon myths! Oohh boy! :D
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
In high school, I had a physics teacher who, way back when he first started teaching, ordered x picograms of radioactive material for his class. The school secretary thought he misspelled the order and changed it to grams.
He said later on the principal called him over the intercom and sounded really upset. He went to the office, only to find the principal steaming mad over a $50,000.00-plus invoice. He looked at the invoice and, realizing what it was, went and got his giger counter...only to find it going crazy even out in the hall from the principal's office.
As it turned out, they had shipped a large order of radioactive material in a cardboard box!
They had to evacuate the office and call someone to come and get it.
Possibly unrelated, because that had happened many years prior, but he died of cancer.
transporter_ii
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
My chem teacher
a: knew that potassium is *more* reactive than sodium, so used less of it
and
b: put the beaker full of water on the desk that the two cheerleaders in class sat at so when it went phooey they were the ones that ended up soaking wet.
He was a truly superior human being -- and he taught there his entire career, for 15 years after I graduated.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
And here's the oblig XKCD showing you why.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
A new science teacher came to my high school during the 1980s. During the first week of his job, he decided to help clean out the chemical closet. As he was going through things, he came across a large jar of picric acid, which is an ingredient to some explosives. As he took a more detailed look, he noticed that the acid had crystallized.
He called up the local police department to talk to someone who does hazmat / dangerous chemicals work. The moment he said, "crystallized picric acid," the man on the other end of the phone shouted, "Evacuate the building now!"
The full bomb squad arrived and took the beaker carefully up the hill to the 50-yard line of the football stadium and detonated the beaker. The shockwave went clear across the town.
--Chag
Somewhat strongly in fact. I think experiment is the very essence of science. What you're chasing there is something different:
Misconceived ideas can be turned into accepted fact by flawed, or worse, deliberately contrived experimentation methodologies.
Well, of course.
But let's say some charlatan makes a bogus experiment and foists it on the scientific community. How do you refute their claim?
You got it - experimentally.
Remember a good experiment has a reproducible result. See cold fusion for examples in that arena. Cold fusion might be possible. But until you can reproduce it - by independent groups performing your experiment - it won't ever be science. Nature may have permitted it all along, but until you can experimentally verify it, it can never be science.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Wouldn't have been francium - that stuff's got such a short half life
Because it surrenders to the germanium?
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
>>Wouldn't have been francium - that stuff's got such a short half life
>Because it surrenders to the germanium?