Myth Busters Busted on not knowing anything?

Question

I'm talking about the Discovery channel show where they test theories to see if their myths or not.

My college physics teacher makes fun of the show ALL THE TIME. He knows a lot and doesn't need "theories" to waste for an hour to find an answer. Simple things like "Can I person in a free falling elevator surive if they jumped before they impact the floor?". That can be solved in seconds. No, they cannot, just jumping won't make a difference to the velocity/speed your going down.

From this, I have questions:
Do the myth busters not know anything?
Do they do it for the tv viewers to learn?
Do you really need to blow stuff up to get results?
Can't they teach the viewers Newtons Laws?

Answer 1

> He knows a lot and doesn't need "theories" to waste for an hour to find an answer.

Yeah, damn those theories. If only we could get rid of them somehow, science would be much better off. :P

The show is called "Mythbusters," not "Physics 101." The idea is to *demonstrate* experimentally that various myths and urban legends are possible/impossible. A calculation is not as convincing to most people as an experiment.

They talk about Newton's Laws all the time. Have you ever actually watched the show?

And why the heck would you *not* want to blow things up again? What the hell kind of a physics student are you??

Answer 2

Well, first of all, you didn't mention what education your teacher has. Maybe your teacher doesn't really know much. Or maybe he knows, but he is jealous of them for having a cool job. Whatever the reason is, you shouldn't believe EVERYTHING your professors say. You have to form your own opinion about things. Yes, you go to school to learn from your teachers, but you learn what has been proven to work, not the professor's personal opinion.

Every time they tell a myth, they say it as it is popularly known and usually the answers are obvious, however if you have some knowledge of physics you can extrapolate the myth, and in your head consider all the issues at hand and the answer isn't necessarily straight forward.

Think of the elevator myth. If you use Newton's laws to solve the problem and you assume FREE FALL, then the answer is no, you cannot survive. However, in a real situation the fall is not entirely free, there is friction between the elevator and the surroundings all along the fall making the acceleration lower than 9.81m/s^2, if the friction (or the force that is preventing free fall) is high enough, you might survive whether you jump or not just because the force is not that big, but that you don't know until you do the experiment. It turns out, that yes, you will die, at least in the elevator they used, but not in all the elevators.

On the other hand, in not all the myths it is easy to "guess" the answers. And if you are really a scientist, you enjoy ALL kinds of experiments, whether they are obvious or not, the reason? Well, they will allow you to confirm your knowledge is right.

And ultimately, not all the viewers are science-educated, so the answer might not be obvious to them either.

I am a Physics graduate student, and I can tell you that I wouldn't mind doing the experiments they do!!!! They are fun plus they make a lot of money!!!

Answer 3

1- the Mythbusters know enough already. They already have a pretty good idea of the outcomes of their tests, but just saying them would not convince anyone. So they try it and demonstrate it so that no one can claim it is "unknown". It is the general viewer who may not know enough. Who made those myth that they investigate? Not them; so there are people out there who believe some crazy stuff; so their approach is "we show you and then you cannot say it is still true".
2- Yes, they do it to teach. Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage said in an interview published about 1 years ago that enrollment in science class was up and was attributed to their influence, and this is perhaps their greatest satisfaction.
3- Blowing stuff makes the show more attractive for the general viewer. It looks cool, and nudges people in trying to learn more. Hollywood blows up stuff all the time in their movies, do you think blockbusters movies would get as much attention if they didn't?
4- They do teach Newton's law. They won't repeat them in all shows, it has to be pertinent for the myth being exposed. But the equations are there, always underlying, as they figure out how fast something would travel, how far it would go and so on.

The Mythbusters is perhaps one of the best thing ever to occur on TV, they are really doing a public service.

Answer 4

Some of the myths do indeed seem pretty easy to answer (e.g. jumping in a falling elevator) without an experiment.

Lots of times they'll give the results of simple physics calculations (if they're involved). Even so, some apparently obvious things turn out differently than a simplified model would predict.

Moreover, there are other things that it's not easy to solve using simple calculations. Even in the most respectable, concise and abstract parts of science, experiment is considered the ultimate arbiter of truth. Of course, if they wanted to do serious experiments they'd be doing some statistical analyses rather than one-shot tries at making something work, but they aren't, to my knowledge, engaged in lots of experiments that would be considered "serious". More like testing modern folklore.

1. Many of the people involved in the show clearly know basic physics, but know that the best theoretical calculations don't always match reality.

2. The idea is to attract viewers who are interested in seeing the experiments performed along with others who are just interested in seeing crazy explosions and stunts.

3. Sometimes you need to blow things up to test certain claims, but it's pretty clear that they perform lots of extraneous explosions on the show for the sake of a certain demographic.

4. Teaching Newton's laws would certainly be good, but unfortunately, if that's all they did they'd lose a whole lot of audience members. Further, there's a step between telling someone the laws and then teaching them how to apply them to solve a problem. If they decided to turn the series into an introductory physics class, then they'd have little time left to do a wide variety of experiments that basic physics *doesn't* trivially answer.

Answer 5

I have a lot of issues with the show myself, but I do keep watching it anyway. It boils down to one simple thing- it is entertainment, not science. These guys are special effects people, and they are very good at what they do. They are not trained scientifically nor do they really even seem to really think analytically all too well on a regular basis.

They aren't an educational show, and thus they really aren't trying to teach their viewers much of anything. If anything, becuase of how they do things, they do a bit of damage because people can turn around later on and say "Well, the Mythbuster proved that..." when they really didn't. They do not seem to understand the concept of a control experiment well and right there that does invalidate a number of their results.

I could go on about this for a while, but in the end you just have to remind yourself that they're entertainment, not education.

Answer 6

The Myth Busters is a TV show.Television is about entertainment. No they are not stupid, they are just checking various myths to get to the truth for sure. Yeah, they do a lot of stuff that you only need to have common sense to figure out.
What make it interesting is all of the manicans and things to prove it one way or the other. Remember it's only about entertainment! Just enjoy the show. If you can't do that just turn the T V off

Answer 7

Myth Busters is indeed entertaining. It addresses the stuff of bar room bets amongst all the folks that don't understand your teacher's esoteric theories, but are unwilling to blindly accept some "expert" opinion. They're the rednecks that say "I'll believe it when I see it", and "What the hell does Al Gore know about global warming anyway?"

One experiment is worth a thousand theories. Your teacher is just a smart-ash who'd prefer to sit in his cushy chair and scribble equations instead of get his hands dirty in the lab. He's the one who's all about theories. If a flying horse landed outside his office window he'd scribble a proof that it couldn't exist, and declare the proof so eloquent that it's not even necessary to look out the window.

Answer 8

The Myth Busters guys are not stupid, but they are also not scientists. Their methods are often inconsistent, or out of scale for the results they're looking for.

The important thing to consider also is they are testing MYTHS. Myths are generally not proven, and often far fetched. Some of them are down right outlandish. But testing some of those makes for entertaining television. Especially if they get to blow something up along the way.

Answer 9

Obviously this show isnt geared toward true scientist, it is geared toward guess who...

...people who believe in myths.

I cant hate on the show really. Its a little entertaining but as a scientists, i would prefer a more serious approach to the blow it up hollywood movie approach.

but obviously people are watching it so it must be a good show to some people.

the best thing about the show is that they introduce the scientific method to a lot of people that probably werent paying attention in science class.

Answer 10

Mythbusters is a totally stupid show written and performed by idiots for idiots. It isn't even funny. I pity the fools who believe anything put out by Mythbusters.

Mythbusters SUX!!!


Typical Mythbusters question:

If while running a stop sign at 100 mph you are shot at, will you die?
Mythbusters would "prove" you won't die by conducting 3 runs in the middle of the night in rural Oklahoma with a .22 caliber pistol.