MythBuster Developing Light-Weight Vehicle Armor

gearystwatcher writes "MythBusters' Jamie Hyneman has been developing blast-resistant, light-weight armor for use on US military vehicles in Iraq and Afghanistan based on his work with show co-host Adam Savage. 'We had a lot of experience in the show dealing with explosives, obviously in ways and situations that are outside the norm. This is very revealing, because when you see something outside the norm you get to see what the boundaries of the phenomenon are,' Hyneman tells The Reg during an interview for the new MythBusters' season."

Comments

To all "They're not REAL scientists!" posters

[elrous0]

These always seem to pop up on any Mythbusters thread. No, they're not scientists. They're not pretending to be scientists. And nope, they don't have time to spend years with a research team adjusting for every variable in every experiment in some carefully controlled lab somewhere.

What they *are* are very knowledgeable laymen, applying basic scientific methodology to fairly straight-foward questions in an entertaining fashion. They bring the basics of scientific testing to the masses. They teach concepts such as skepticism and empiricism to a population that too often relies on hearsay and superstition in their beliefs about the physical world.

No, they're not scientists. But that doesn't mean they have nothing to teach or that there is no value in their experiments. As the Wright Brothers and Thomas Edison could probably attest, sometimes even a layman has insight to offer.

Re:To all "They're not REAL scientists!" posters

[RsG]

I'd be more inclined to call them engineers. Yes, they do experiments, as that's kinda the point of the show, but if you examine their skill sets and techniques, it's pretty obvious what we'd call them if they applied those skills to another field. They make blueprints, run computer simulations, build small scale prototypes, build large scale tests, etc. In particular the "keep at it til something breaks/blows up" approach is engineer thinking.

So, they're Hollywood SFX guys putting engineering skills to work testing popular science. The fact they're sneaking lessons about control groups and repeatable results into what is ostensibly an entertainment show is an added bonus. The purists who shout "it's not REAL science" are just setting up a "no true Scotsman" argument, since while "science" has a clear meaning "REAL science" does not.

Re:To all "They're not REAL scientists!" posters

[elrous0]

Yes, and they frequently do follow-up shows when people dispute their results (some of which have resulted in them reversing their initial conclusions). They're way more open to criticism than many of the "real" scientists I've known.

Re:To all "They're not REAL scientists!" posters

[corbettw]

They use the scientific method to prove or disprove hypotheses. So yeah, they're real scientists, they're just not academics.

Re:To all "They're not REAL scientists!" posters

[MonsterTrimble]

As an Mechanical Engineer I'd be proud to consider these two my peers.

Re:To all "They're not REAL scientists!" posters

[elrous0]

most of the time their results are wrong

That's a bold proclamation for someone who offers no countervailing experiments of his own. From what I've seen, *most* of the time the questions they answer are pretty straightforward. "Can you build a lead balloon?" Why yes, you can (which they demonstrated by actually doing it--pretty compelling evidence methinks). And, what's more, they have consistently shown themselves to be open to criticism (as I said in another post, way more open than many "real" scientists I've known). Some of their follow-up episodes are legendary (such was when they invited a group of critical MIT students out in an attempt to recreate Archimedes' legendary "death ray"), and many have resulted in reversals of their original conclusions.

So, why don't you enlighten us with some specifics to back up your blanket generalizations? Or were you just reflexively talking out of your ass?

Re:To all "They're not REAL scientists!" posters

[Shadow Wrought]

Perhaps the most important thing they do is accept when their pre-conceived notions do not match the data. They talk about what they're expectations are, and how surprised or shocked they'd be if it was the opposite. Then, when it is the opposite, they delve into why, and how cool it is.

"Failure is always an option," and they learn fromt hem, too.

Re:To all "They're not REAL scientists!" posters

[asher09]

Adam and James may or may not be scientists, but I think there are "scientists" that are on the production team for the show. I'm a PhD chemist in the field of medicinal chemistry, and we've had TV documentary crews come in and film something about our work before. When they do the filming, they just merely ask us to pipet some random liquid into another container for no reason other than to provide some "science" looking video footage. So in effect, even though we are "real" scientists, when we're on TV, we're just actors, but there's science behind the info being disseminated. I tend to think of the mythbusters in a similar way.
I understand that even their methods are not up to the standards of science publication, but even we do try out things in the beginning in a way not too dissimilar to the Mythbuster way (ie not statistically significant, using some mock-up equipment, or whatever) before we fully commit to an experiment or before we purchase the proper equipment that would cost $50,000 or something. So yeah, the Mythbuster show is pretty scientific.

Re:To all "They're not REAL scientists!" posters

[0100010001010011]

Agreed, although funny enough, neither of them are "trained" Engineers.

Jamie has a degree in Russian linguistics and Adam is an acting college dropout. Although they have more lay person building skills than I could ever hope to have. Screw you high school guidance counselor that refused to let me take Welding since I was "college bound"

The rest of the cast:
Grant has a BSEE.
Kari is a sculpting artist.
Tory just started out as a stage manager running errands and just worked his way up the ranks.
------
*There are a few old guys from my company that started out from the bottom. Starting at the loading bay and some how ending up as master engineer despite having no degree what so ever. It's really rare any more, but it does still happen. Not everyone has the chance or opportunity to go to college to be an engineer.

Re:To all "They're not REAL scientists!" posters

[elrous0]

In virtually every experiment I've seen, they're eyeballing where the light is being reflected

Yes, just as the soldiers in ancient Greece would have done. Part of the criteria of that experiment that they made clear from the get-go was that it had to work in the real world, using materials and resources available to Archimedes, and be executed in a realistic fashion. They've had two follow-up episodes now where they've given critics a chance to prove themselves (including the MIT students who so ardently claimed they could do it) and none have been able to replicate this supposed accomplishment in anything resembling real world conditions.

People hold on to the Archimedes myth because they WANT to believe it, not because it really happened. That's exactly the kind of quasi-religious belief that REAL scientists are supposed to question, not accept blindly (as so many Mythbusters critics seem to).

Re:To all "They're not REAL scientists!" posters

[Captain Spam]

Except most of the time their results are wrong.

Science is falsifiable. Science can get something wrong.

What happens when someone comes by later and proves it wrong? Get this: That's also science.

Science is not about getting everything right the first time. Methods can be improved later with more knowledge or experience. Heck, there was a time way back when when "science" understood there were exactly four elements (earth, water, fire, air)*. That was wrong. Then knowledge improved. Some of the most brilliant minds in scientific history have come up with theories and models that were accepted as fact back in the day. There was a time the "plum pudding" model of an atom stood up as THE model of an atom. That was wrong. Then knowledge improved. There was a time the Bohr model of an atom stood up as THE model of an atom. That was wrong. Then knowledge improved.

Science is knowledge. Science is testable knowledge. The Mythbusters run their tests to the best of their abilities, resources, and experience. Sometimes they get things wrong. Science is falsifiable, testable knowledge. The Mythbusters are open to criticism and challenges to their results and testing methods. Challenge them sometime.

The only thing they don't have are science doctorates and journal-published papers. And that's not a part of science.

*: Yes, smart guy, I just mean western science.

No way!

[MrEricSir]

Next I bet you're going to tell me that Scientologists aren't scientists!

"Bulletproof glass" mistake?

[Puzzleer]

Aren't these the same guys who for several years were shielding themselves from explosions with what they thought was bulletproof plexiglass, until they finally tried shooting it with a gun in an episode on bulletproof glass and only then realized that it wasn't bulletproof at all?

Re:"Bulletproof glass" mistake?

[CAIMLAS]

There is no such thing as "bulletproof glass". Usually, what you have is a combination of two things:

* a polymer and glass layered sheet
* of a specific thickness and ply count

For instance, most 'bulletproof glass' is just rated for pistol calibers (as I believe bank teller glass tends to be). Rifle calibers will punch right through. I think you'll need something close to 6" or so to withstand a shot or two from a 30 caliber, high velocity rifle (eg. think mostly anything from WWII, 7.62 NATO, 7.62R, etc.). A .50 Browning is likely to put a nice 'little' pock in such a plate. I wouldn't stand on the other side voluntarily.

And, with all frangible materials, with repeated impacts they will start to be less effective at fulfilling their role.

I believe there's a new polymer/glass/transparent aluminum glass out there, too, but they're all variations on the same theme.

As usual

[Sycraft-fu]

XKCD does a good job summing it up: http://xkcd.com/397/.

While careful controlled tests are important to science and critical to many discoveries, that is not the core of what science is. The core is that ideas are tested by experiment. It is the process of saying "Hmmm, maybe X causes Y, let's try it and find out!"

That's the basis of what they do, and the basis of science. The higher level of rigor are important as well, but they aren't the main thing. Scientific thinking and action in every day life does not mean doing a laboratory based double blind study of every little thing. You'd never make it to work if you did that for everything. It does mean holding your idea up to scrutiny and testing them out. Mythbusters helps promote that.

Also as a side note they are often more rigorous than it appears. If you've watched some outtakes/behind the scenes stuff it turns out that they often do more testing than you see on screen. Again that's not to say they do everything grade-A lab proper, but it can be more than it appears.