Enough science in this show for at least a thread (or few).
Enjoyed tonight's Explosions from A to Z.
Recently found out there will be a Mythbusters exhibit at The TECH museum in San Jose (about 25 minutes away). Sounds like fun. Runs until January. Will have to see about visiting.
Gonna sound like a big douchey hipster, but I used to like mythbusters. The first four seasons or so. But then their lack of scientific understanding started to annoy me as well as the format of their show (sans grant, he's actually very scientifically able).
Ultimately the show is okay I guess, it's better than a lot of the the crap they put on discovery or tlc. If they went into a little bit more detail of the underlying principles at play and cut a lot of the filler out of their episodes I'd probably start watching again.
Both Jamie and Adam did AMA's on reddit recently, both of them mentioned how they were disappointed in the amount of time they were able to dedicated to the science behind the things they do, which I respect.
This is probably my favorite video from mythbusters:
Start watching at 1:27, the speed of the second stage rocket is so awesome.
Gonna sound like a big douchey hipster, but I used to like mythbusters. The first four seasons or so. But then their lack of scientific understanding started to annoy me as well as the format of their show (sans grant, he's actually very scientifically able).
Ultimately the show is okay I guess, it's better than a lot of the the crap they put on discovery or tlc. If they went into a little bit more detail of the underlying principles at play and cut a lot of the filler out of their episodes I'd probably start watching again.
Both Jamie and Adam did AMA's on reddit recently, both of them mentioned how they were disappointed in the amount of time they were able to dedicated to the science behind the things they do, which I respect.
This is probably my favorite video from mythbusters:
Start watching at 1:27, the speed of the second stage rocket is so awesome.
Similar video, different myth
Yeah, there's only so much stuff they could fit into an hour. They often put more stuff up online on their website to go more in depth.
My favorite mythbuster episode was the shooting into water show. You're safe a mere 14" under water from a .50 cal rifle? Chewbacca defense.
Shooting various rifles of varying power, the more powerful the round, the more useless it was going through water. It's like Dune where you have to move very slowly to get through the shield.
They have been spending time on the science. And as mentioned above, have been adding a lot in the "after show".
In the A-Z Explosion episode, "E is for explosion" and they talked about how the chemical reactions/sequence of events for most of their explosions (and how C4 works). But they also had "P is for pressure explosion" and talked about that type of explosion (blowing something up they'd never tried before).
Honestly, I only watch for Kari anymore - when I was watching some of the seasons on Netflix, I knew they're running out of steam, when doing the crossover episodes.
I liked some of the myths they've done, but it's some psuedo science + eye candy + entertainment.
Gonna sound like a big douchey hipster, but I used to like mythbusters. The first four seasons or so. But then their lack of scientific understanding started to annoy me as well as the format of their show (sans grant, he's actually very scientifically able).
I wonder what your reasoning is for that, since I disagree. They have a great understanding of science, more than most (if not all) of us. Don't confuse not explaining things with not knowing. They can only get so technical in a 40-minute entertainment show.
Also, even when they have an awfully good idea of what the results of an experiment will be, since they understand the science, they can't voice that (or, at least, it'll be edited out) so that the mystery is maintained for the viewer. A lot of times, you can tell that they know that something isn't going to work, but they have to go along with it for the sake of the viewers. That often involves demonstrations that have predictable results for many of us, but many other viewers probably didn't understand and needed the demonstration to illustrate it to them.
Along the same lines, a good scientist will run tests even when he thinks that he knows what the results will be. It's not the mark of a good scientist to make assumptions. You may be 95-99% sure that a test will have a certain result, but you need to run it to rule out that little bit of doubt. Even when 100% sure of the result, scientists can be wrong. Running tests that you have a good idea of the results of is just being thorough, not demonstrating a lack of understanding.
Anyways, it's amazing how wide of a knowledge base those guys have. Obviously, they don't have an expert, degree-level of understanding of most things, but they have a grasp of so many different areas of science that is quite impressive.
MythBusters is great. Yeah, it'd be nice if they went more in depth into the science behind everything but it's still entertaining and informative at the same time. As an EE myself, I'd love to have Grant's job.
I went to the Mythbusters show in Vegas and they were talking about how they weren't really that good at science in high school and stuff and they are basically learning a lot of this stuff as they go.
