Myth Busted?

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Myth Busted?

Postby Lance » Thu Aug 04, 2005 6:21 am

I just finished watching the MythBusters epsode "Killer Tissue Box". In the episode, they also test an archer splitting an arrow.

MythBusters wrote:In 'Split Arrow' the build team tests whether an archer can split one arrow with another, as the legendary Robin Hood was said to have done.

After much ado and many tests, they declared "Myth Busted". An archer cannot split an arrow.

I have seen it done, nock to tip, three times.
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Postby gillianren » Thu Aug 04, 2005 7:21 pm

it seemed to me that they were saying it's a fluke occurrence and cannot be done on command. the second arrow will follow the grain of the first. then again, I wasn't paying a lot of attention.
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Postby Lance » Fri Aug 05, 2005 2:10 pm

They were pretty much saying to couldn't be done at all.

The three times I saw it done were on command and successive. It was a husband/wife team. The wife shot three wood arrows into a target bull's eye at 12 O'Clock, 4 O'Clock and 8 O'Clock. Then the husband split all three. It was impressive.
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Postby Bill EE » Fri Aug 05, 2005 3:49 pm

Lance you are correct - you have to use wooden arrows without the nock cap (the plastic nock on modern arrows) but I have seen the same demonstation. I stopped watching Mythbusters a while back - the seem to be more into blowing up their crash dummy (sometime seems wrong with that) than actually testing the myth.

Edited due to spelling :oops:
Last edited by Bill EE on Sat Aug 06, 2005 2:23 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby gillianren » Fri Aug 05, 2005 7:33 pm

well, like I said, I wasn't paying much attention, but I did catch that the arrow follows the grain of the wood. at a guess, you have to be very aware of the grain of the wood to make sure that it runs straight through the arrow.

according to Mishabear, they're going to be redoing the Archimedes death ray, and he's going to help with it. looking forward to that, anyway.
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Postby MM_Dandy » Fri Aug 05, 2005 7:35 pm

What's the Archimedes death ray?

Edited to say: oh.
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Postby twinstead » Fri Aug 05, 2005 10:17 pm

I always thought mythbusters was a great concept, but I never got into it once I watched it. They really only give a half-hearted effort to reproduce the conditions that existed but in the end are much more interested in blowing things up or pushing things to their extreme than proving or disproving a myth.
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Postby hippietrekx » Sun Aug 07, 2005 1:04 am

I'm addicted to Mythbusters. The early shows were really about busting myths, but lately, it's been about arguing bad science in movies and whatnot and blowing things up.

But, hey, some of my favorite movies involve things blowing up due with bad science (think Star Wars IV, Death Star destruction scene), so I still watch.

I'd rather have seen the build team try to find arrows with the correct grain needed to try the test again.

Did anyone notice that after the tissue test, the Mythbusters never did go through the "So, is this busted, plausible, or confirmed?" bit?

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Postby Lance » Sun Aug 07, 2005 1:14 am

hippietrekx wrote:I'm addicted to Mythbusters. The early shows were really about busting myths, but lately, it's been about arguing bad science in movies and whatnot and blowing things up.


It may be a combination of running out of myths to bust and people like watching things blow up. I don't read their message board but I'll bet they pay attention to what "stunts" get the biggest reactions from the fans.

I lost a bit of faith in them after the original chicken gun episode because I didn't believe their outcome. I regained some of that faith when the redid chicken gun and it came out differently.

hippietrekx wrote:Did anyone notice that after the tissue test, the Mythbusters never did go through the "So, is this busted, plausible, or confirmed?" bit?


Yes, I caught that too. I thought it was odd.

I bet they redo "Broken Arrow" in another episode. That's one place to get new material. Redo old material that wasn't done completely the first time.
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Postby hippietrekx » Sun Aug 07, 2005 1:38 am

maybe they'll redo both, since Buster didn't get clobbered in the head like he was supposed to... :?

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Postby Bill EE » Mon Aug 08, 2005 5:42 am

This Archimedes Death Ray thing has got my interest - while tending to a sick kid I did some rough calculations. Based on studies from the USFS fire lab they need to achieve an intensity of about 40 kW/m^2. Given the sun provides 1 kW/m^2 that isn't a lot of concentration to achieve. If someone was standing in the beam it couldn't be more than 3 kW/m^2 so they just did it wrong.

Sorry, I am working on a project at 4.3 um and doing a lot of these types of calculation - plus the fact I like looking at all the web sites of people burning things.
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Postby hippietrekx » Tue Aug 09, 2005 4:00 am

Bill EE wrote:...plus the fact I like looking at all the web sites of people burning things.


:lol: You're my kind of person! Can I adpot you as my cousin? You can replace Jeff. He's 13 and bites people when he gets mad... :?

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Postby Lance » Tue Aug 09, 2005 1:14 pm

Bill EE wrote:
This Archimedes Death Ray thing has got my interest - while tending to a sick kid I did some rough calculations. Based on studies from the USFS fire lab they need to achieve an intensity of about 40 kW/m^2. Given the sun provides 1 kW/m^2 that isn't a lot of concentration to achieve. If someone was standing in the beam it couldn't be more than 3 kW/m^2 so they just did it wrong.
Sorry, I am working on a project at 4.3 um and doing a lot of these types of calculation - plus the fact I like looking at all the web sites of people burning things.
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Postby Bill EE » Tue Aug 09, 2005 3:57 pm

Lance - that is really cool!

Hippie - sure, why not I can always use more family :D but I may be a little old for a cousin :cry:
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Postby Frogmarch » Tue Aug 09, 2005 4:11 pm

someone should get them to bust chemtrail.

They could get permission to go to any airport on any day of the year and select any plane and then have it inspected or have the fuel tested.

Or is the chemtrail thing a very minority belief?
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Postby Мастер » Tue Aug 09, 2005 4:13 pm

I didn't view the page long enough to see Lance's flames - all I was was the quoted text in an impossible to read white on yellow background. Wonder what else I might have missed this way...
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Postby Мастер » Tue Aug 09, 2005 4:14 pm

Plagiarizer wrote:someone should get them to bust chemtrail.

They could get permission to go to any airport on any day of the year and select any plane and then have it inspected or have the fuel tested.


One suspects that, in the minds of the chemazoids, all that will do is prove that they are part of the conspiracy...

Or is the chemtrail thing a very minority belief?


Let's hope so!
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Postby hippietrekx » Wed Aug 10, 2005 3:38 am

Bill EE wrote:Lance - that is really cool!

Hippie - sure, why not I can always use more family :D but I may be a little old for a cousin :cry:


You don't understand. I have 56 cousins on my dad's side of the family (he has 7 siblings, they're cathloc) and 27 on mom's (she has 6 siblings, they're not cathloc). My oldest cousin is 50 (born to my mom's oldest brother two years before she was born) and my youngest cousin is on my dad's side and she was born two weeks ago.

You're never too old {or young} to be a cousin in a family of mid-western rednecks! I mean, if we lose a few at a reunion, we wouldn't even notice for a few hours... or days... or weeks...

WHOO! I have a replacement for Jeff! :lol:

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Update!!

Postby MM_Dandy » Tue Nov 01, 2005 7:17 pm

A few weeks ago, I too, saw them 'bust' the Archimedes death ray.

However, it seems that a class at MIT showed otherwise.

It does appear, though, that there are a few caveats:
The idea is very sensitive to even light cloud cover; it was difficult to aim the mirrors; it is hard to get a large, unpracticed group to work together as an efficient team.

Of course, we knew the second two issues from watching Mythbusters.
In the end, this 'myth,' at the very least, is plausible, if not actually confirmed.

BTW: Did anybody watch them blow up the cement truck? 8) Oh, yeah.
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Postby Animal » Fri Nov 04, 2005 6:11 am

Penn & Tellers show Bullshit on Showtime is much better than MythBusters for busting myths and misconceptions.
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Postby Lance » Fri Nov 04, 2005 10:26 pm

Agreed, but Penn & Teller take it quite seriously. MythBusters do too, but it's still better if they can blow shit up.
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Re: Update!!

Postby hippietrekx » Sat Nov 05, 2005 4:33 am

MM_Dandy wrote:BTW: Did anybody watch them blow up the cement truck? 8) Oh, yeah.


Watch? I was like, "Dude! You're doing it wrong!"

Ok... um... Ya see, my dad drives a cement truck. I hang out at his shop soemtimes, and they do use explosives to clean out the barrel of a truck. But, the guys at the shop drill holes in cement that's as deep as it was on the show. (I was watching the guy with one arm do that. He let me get in the barrel to get a good look.) Anywho, then they put a LITTLE explosive material in there (wasn't TNT, dad's not sure what it is either) to crack up the cement where they can chip it out with air-hammers and sledge hammers. Dad tells me it can take up to a week to clean out one truck.

He just told me he had to do it to his one time. Apparently, a hydrolic line burst and the drum stopped rotating with a 6-yard load (that's a half-truck).

Ok, so babbling done with, I wonder why the Mythbusters didn't just go to a redi-mix plant or two and askhow they do it. Dad says it's a pretty common practice... *shrug*

--hippie, kid playing in the barrel of the cement truck No. 56
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Postby Lance » Sat Nov 05, 2005 4:31 pm

That would be too easy and would eliminate the need for the explosion.

What would you rather do? Ask a simple question or have a really big boom?
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Re: Update!!

Postby MM_Dandy » Mon Nov 07, 2005 7:09 pm

hippietrekx wrote:
MM_Dandy wrote:BTW: Did anybody watch them blow up the cement truck? 8) Oh, yeah.


Watch? I was like, "Dude! You're doing it wrong!"

Oh, yeah, I forgot about the whole 'busting a myth' point. I agree with you entirely.

Although I've never driven a cement truck and my dad doesn't either, I think we both would agree that drilling a series of holes and putting some sort of explosive in them (like they do in many mining operations) would be far more effective. Hell, even Armageddon got that right (sort of).

Still, there's nothing quite like using upteen pounds of high explosives to dislodge a few cubic yards of cement.
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Postby hippietrekx » Sun Nov 13, 2005 5:15 am

Lance wrote:That would be too easy and would eliminate the need for the explosion.

What would you rather do? Ask a simple question or have a really big boom?


Ok, you've got a point, but STILL....

Dandy, what do you mean dislodge a few yards of cement? They dislodged anything EVER stuck together on that truck!

Insanity, I tell you. Insanity. I don't know where <--that just came from. Maybe it's the lack of sleep. Whoo. Look at the kitty. I pet a stray cat the other day. My aunt was driving by and saw me and said, "Stop that or you'll get rabies!" Then she drove off... weird.

Yup. Finished rambling now...

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