MythBusters Episode 2: "Cell Phone Destruction, Silicone Breasts, CD-ROM Shattering"
Air Date: October 3, 2003
Using one’s cell phone while pumping gas/petrol can cause an explosion.
busted
A properly-working cell phone poses almost no danger of igniting gasoline, even when surrounded by gasoline vapor with the optimum fuel-air mix for ignition. The actual risk comes from an electrostatic discharge between a charged driver and the car, often a result of continually getting into and out of the vehicle.
(This myth was revisited in episode 14 and it was busted again.)
Silicone breast implants may explode at high altitudes or low air pressure.
busted
The implants are extremely flexible.
(A spin-off of this myth involving an inflatable brassiere was tested in episode 14 with the same result.)
CDs can shatter if placed in a high-speed (i.e. 40X or faster) CD-ROM drive.
partly busted
It was proven that a high rotation (in excess of 8,000 RPMs) could shatter the CDs, but the MythBusters could not achieve this using an average CD-ROM drive. Existing physical damage to the CD made shattering more likely.
Newer: Episode 3: "Barrel of Bricks, Urinating on the Third Rail, Eel Skin Wallet"
Older: Episode 1: "Ice Bullet, Exploding Toilet, Who Gets Wetter?"
Have had a disk “explode” in a drive once, making a loud thwack sound… Drive is not suspected to be at fault for the destruction due to several disks before it surviving… Substandard (cheap, poorly made) disks do have a reputation for coming apart in high speed drives.
June 23, 2007 at 6:55 PMIt’s not true that cell phones cannot iniate fire. Shell has reported three cases, and cell phones are forbidden on gas stations world over. They start to burn.
June 24, 2007 at 3:37 PMThe fact that cell phones are banned in fueling stations around the world does not indicate that they start fires. You need a spark to ignite vapors, and cellphones should not normally create sparks in any way. Heat will also ignite vapors, but the autoignition temperature of gasoline is around 250 degrees celsius… If your phone got that hot it would melt, and quite possibly burn you.
June 24, 2007 at 5:00 PMA friend of mine told me of how his CD violently “exploded”. His mom had been present at the time and confirmed it to me. Normally I’m a sceptic, but I choose to believe these people over the results of the Busters on this.
June 25, 2007 at 6:26 AMConcerning cell phones at gas stations, from the MythBusters website, there have been a few fires that were initially reported as being caused by cell phones, but further investigation always turns up another cause. All gas stations and most cell phone manuals have warnings to turn off the phone at the gas station, but this is mainly for liability, so you can’t even claim that a fire was started by the cell phone and sue them on that grounds.
Concerning CD-ROM drives, I heard (so take with a grain of salt) that the reason CD-ROM drive speeds stop at 52x is because the manufacturers agreed to self-impose that speed limit because a higher speed carries an increased risk of damage to the CD and drive. Theoretically, a cheaply made or already damaged disk could break at 40x.
June 26, 2007 at 7:18 PMi use my cell phone at gas stations all the time, and i see other people using them as well…
July 16, 2007 at 8:12 PMi have recently started a job hauling fuel and the topic of the cell phone came up at our safty training and the instructer said that it is possible under the right mix of air and vapour, if you have to little vapour then obviously its to thin and if you have to much it will not ignite . there is only 7% range between the two , i also have a short video of a girl starting a fire at a gas station because of her sweater.
July 19, 2007 at 8:53 AMWith cell phones and fires. its not the cell phone itself thats going to heat up or make a spark. with any electronic devise, there is a radio wave of some sort, and the frequency of this can screw around with other electronics. if you get the right cell phone, and the right gas station, boom! its just very, very, very unlikely to happen.
July 24, 2007 at 1:31 AMWe had a CD shatter in a CD player at my office. We put the CD in the drive to install Windows. We fired up the computer and heard a loud bang. When we opened up the drive the CD was literally shattered like a mirror. The CD Drive also died in the process.
We suspect that the CD might have had a small fracture or something that would cause it to “catch” on the read head but didn’t notice it when we put it in
July 27, 2007 at 6:00 PMin the myth of the cell phone at the gas station what about the small static shock you get as you climb out your car, is that enough to cause the explosion
August 10, 2007 at 12:40 AMI dunno about cell phones causing fires, but in some countries oil tanker drivers on the road hang steel chains from their front & rear bumpers, according to them its supposed to disperse any static charge built up due to the moving parts into the ground so that it doesnt blow up the whole thing! wonder if its true
August 12, 2007 at 11:48 AMI had a CD that exploded in the drive while i was installing an OS on my PC. The CD got shattered into pieces. I do feel the CD was of low quality and could not stand the heat generated by continuous access.
August 13, 2007 at 9:15 AMI’ve personally witnessed the bursting cd-rom event twice. This ocurred on my fathers PC 3 times total in 3 different drives. None of the drives survived the events. In one instance the entire cd tray was ejected across the room. I’ve noticed micro cracks at the center of some discs that develop from repeatedly flexing the disc from inserting and removing it from its case. These cracks develop since some are made from a more brittle type of plastic than other discs. I also suspect a malfunctioning drive controller since just before the disc shattered the drive sounded like it was running at 10000 RPM or more. After the 3rd drive was destroyed we replaced the mother board and have had no further incidents.
August 27, 2007 at 10:01 AMMYTHBUSTERS RULLES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
August 27, 2007 at 1:37 PMI just had a cd explode in my cd rom. IT DOES HAPPEN.
September 12, 2007 at 5:16 AMScared my daughter who was playing a game……
There was a loud scraping noise, turned the computer off, when I turned it back on, & opened the cd rom drawer, there were about 100 pieces of the cd…..
Great.
My Quicken 2005 disk shattered explosively in my disc drive on my desktop. However, I must note that it had been left in the drive (possibly spinning?) overnight and it shattered shortly after I took it out, realized I needed it, and put it back it. It was a little bit warm. Quite the pop! There was no way to get all of the pieces out of the drive, and we ended up having to replace the whole thing.
September 19, 2007 at 9:45 PMAbout the exploding CD. Me and my friend had a situation wherein the CD was broken to smallpieces inside the drive while it was rotating. However when we did take out the pieces we noticed that the hub of the CD had a small crack. It was this crack that caused the CD to rotate irregularly and eventually “explode”.
September 30, 2007 at 11:46 PMI Rented a DVD from blockbuster; Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, and put it in my new DVD-rom. Before I put it in I noticed that it was quite scratched and such, but it worked. I was about an hour in to the movie, then the DVD-rom was making quite a noise. Ejected DVD, put it back in, and played normally for 5 minutes more. Then it shattered with a loud pop. Couldn’t even open the DVD-rom anymore. Blockbuster were nice enough to not force me to pay for the DVD. I was still shattered.
October 11, 2007 at 6:11 AMHey Anders! Your first sentence contains a double negative and therefore does not make sense.
October 24, 2007 at 6:52 PMCell phones can be dangerous where flammable vapors or gasses are present:
http://www.mms.gov/safetyalerts/5.htm
November 3, 2007 at 1:00 AMI work in the petroleum industry and while static is the biggest danger in causing fires, ANY BATTERY OPERATED item is a danger due to the spark created when a battery is disconnected.
November 5, 2007 at 4:07 AMIt’s not just cell phones that are banned for this very reason.
Do you want to be the one that proves Mythbusters wrong?
1) I always thought the cell phone thing was that it screwed up the electronics and therefore the billing/accounting!
November 15, 2007 at 5:14 PM2) Hey Brandon! Two “not”s in a sentence don’t always make a double negative. In Anders first sentence, they DON’T cancel each other out, so it isn’t a double negative!
As an amusing aside to cell phone story, while working at service stations I see people use the “MYTHBUSTER” defence when caught using their cell phone even though they are standing next to signs showing clearly that it is illegal. Unbelievable!
November 19, 2007 at 1:20 AMCellphones. I think the myth is pretty well busted - there’s no spark and not enough heat. A sweater is far, far more dangerous! Or any electical device with a hard power switch (like the car radio, or a cheap transistor radio - the kind of switch which disconnects power by physically separating two pieces of metal which could spark). Cell phones have soft power switches - you really just send a data signal to the processor, which turns off power with a solid state switch (no spark).
Cell phones being banned at gas stations is basically hysteria and liability, as somebody else stated. Some fires were misdiagnosed, and the rest is urban legend territory (ie: it sounds vaguely plausible so it was believed, without testing). If somebody on a jury might BELIEVE a fire had been caused by a cellphone, then everybody with deep pockets will have a warning that cell phones should be turned off.
Banning sweaters at gas pumps would make at least 1000 times more sense logically. But there isn’t the same fear factor - ooo, there are mysterious invisible radio waves involved, who knows what they might do? Believe it or not, legislation is not always based on sound science, especially when it costs nothing to implement (ie: the state banning cell phones at gas station doesn’t take on any financial burden to induce them to rethink and study the problem first; all the (minor) costs are born by stations).
November 28, 2007 at 2:32 PMThe cell phone myth is busted yet argument over the whole senaro is that Mythbusters is a TV show and in a TV show any thing can happen. Thust the whole myth experment is a staged prank. I my self find this hard to believe that it was a stunt. As why would the Discovery Channel set them selfs up for a fake experiment? I have used my cell phones at the gas station. Not once have I caught fire. I have done this is about three countries Greece, Italy and the United States in various states. Not one time did my self, my car or the gas pump catch fire. I think someone needs to call David Nedorostek and tell him the check his facts before making myths law.
December 5, 2007 at 6:42 AMYeah, heard that one often. But it happend to me the other day. It was an old CD. It only thing I could say is that it died in my cd player lol. All busted up. It’s just simply a fact of science, when the plastic gets old it tends to crack! Duh! Geeze Mythbuster guys, I though you could do better.!
December 10, 2007 at 3:36 AMAbout the cell phone at gas station. I work in a Shell gas station in Quebec city. In Quebec talking to cell phone is noit illégal but it’s not recommended. Not because the risk of explosion, but because it can cause distraction. I saw many person who spills gas on the ground because they was to distracted by their conversation. (scuse my bad english, I’m not verry god :o))
December 18, 2007 at 2:11 PMI can confirm the statement above. I too, work at a gas station. It is the potential distraction moral that put the ban to cell phone use while pumping gas. It is a dumb restriction, really. It does not take cell phone use to cause distraction. You could be talking to a buddy who is also pumping gas, and this could potentially result in the same outcome.
January 11, 2008 at 10:27 AMI have to ask. Do you really think that because you work at a gas station you can explain why talking on a cell phone is a dumb restriction? I teach science and watch the discovery channel and watch a ton of CSI. Television shows are just that, mostly made for your entertainment. There are so many facts on the DSC that are twisted a little bit to make for better drama. Don’t for a second belive that everything you see or hear on those channels is true. Ever heard of Occam’s Razor? In the instance of cell phones igniting gasoline need to realize erring on the side of caution is probably a better idea than being angry at being told not to use you cute little electronic device (that everyone now owns) at that particular time. Hang up and call them back after you pump gas.
I truly believe that there are a particular set of circumstances that need to be met before this will happen. Yes, there are times that I want to talk while I’m at the pump, but I wait to make the call until after I’m done. Maybe we all should. Never hurts to err on the safe side.
January 14, 2008 at 10:15 PMI would like to comment on the cd shattering in the cd rom drive. First of all I am kind of a computer nut, and thought this was a myth. I mean, I use my CD ROM dirve about 6 hours a day for games and music CDs. Then just today my 2 year old daughter wanted to play her jump start preschool game. I took it out of the case by the way this was a newer game she has only been playing it for about two weeks. put it in the drive, started the game. then i heard a high speed humming noise then boom the cd blow up in to about a 100 pieces. I got the drive all cleened out and good as new but as for cds blowing up is not a myth and if anyone wants to see the pics send me an email at shawnjacox@earthlink.net and i will email them to you.
January 16, 2008 at 1:08 AMI didn’t think to take pics, but Shawn, we had the same experience this morning. Our four year old wanted to play Putt Putt Goes to the Zoo, and made a terrific whining sound. We were unable to eject the drive (thank goodness it didn’t fly open) until we took it out of the tower. When it was finally pried open, there were thousands of sparkling pieces. My older daughter remembered seeing something about this on Mythbusters, so I googled and found this page. Our drive, upon being replaced in the tower, is working normally again, so I assume it was the condition of the old and worn Putt Putt disk.
January 19, 2008 at 3:37 PMI had a CD shatter in a CD drive at my home. Scared the bajeezus out of me and my wife while were watching some kind of video. In the middle of the movie the CD was literally shattered like a mirror. Some pieces of the CD were ejected across the room.
January 20, 2008 at 9:22 PMHowever, I must note that drive, after pulling out every piece of CD continued to work like nothing happened!?!
And I must note that I had 56x drive in my PC!!!
We had CD explode in our PC dvd drive this morning. There was a huge bang and when we managed to get the drive open the CD was in lots of little pieces. We got some of it out only to find the drive close again with pieces still stuck in there. Our IT guy is coming in tomorrow to replace the drive. He finds it hard to believe !
January 21, 2008 at 12:53 AMI saw your show with the cell phone and gas fumes, but what if the cell phone in the gas fumes was answered. The ringing of the cell phone did not ignite the gas fumes, but what if the cell phone was answered making a complete phone call.
January 24, 2008 at 9:34 AMRick.
February 7, 2008 at 2:47 AMIt’s not the ‘radio waves’ that are the problem, they are simply not powerful enough to cause a spark.
The only real risk, & it’s a very small risk, is from battery failure or an uncontrolled spark if the phone is dropped.
That’s why ALL battery operated equipment is not allowed.
As others have said, static & distraction are a far greater & very real danger & to top all that off, the set of conditions for a fire to start is very precise, that’s why there’s not all that many.
Having said all that I certainly don’t want to be standing at the next pump when someone is on the phone.
Hey Anders? Do you also see UFO’s? CellPhone Caused Fires are an Urban Legend and not worthy of any further investigation. SOURCE: University of Oklahoma Eletromagnetic Compatibility Research group. GOOGLE: Shell; Cellphones; Fires; and you will get plenty of hits stating it is a myth.
February 8, 2008 at 7:10 PMHowever the silicone breast one on the aeroplane can happen
March 10, 2008 at 4:23 AMIt happened to me last week…
I had a cd explode in my comp tower I remembered that it was in the sun for a little bit earlier but it was cool when I placed it in the comp.
March 18, 2008 at 1:34 PMThen on startup I herd a bag and looked in the drive and the cd was in many pieces.
About the cell phone myth, when i worked in a gas station i got told there are about a thousand different reasons that they give, the one we used was the fumes generally linger low to the ground and if someone dropped the phone it could create a spark either from the metal casing that some phones have or from the battery falling out if it hits the floor hard and if the mixture of air and fumes is just right it could start a fire, but even then the chances of it actually happening are insanely slim and it’s more a case of better safe then sorry.
June 12, 2008 at 6:38 AMRe: Cellphones in Gas stations…
Whether the myth is confirmed or busted.. I certainly don’t want to be proven otherwise. ;)
As an aside… I once saw someone filling their tank with a lit cigarette in the other hand…. I left there rather quickly.
September 2, 2008 at 8:05 AMJust had a CD explode in my new computer at work - I remembered this episode and told my coworkers that Mythbusters had “partially busted” this one - this computer had been reading this disc fine for a few days - and then today - thwunk - little explosion - it was quite something. I gotta say, I think the Mythbusters got this one wrong. It can happen.
September 15, 2008 at 4:49 PMCds even explode in Sydney Australia. Last night, DVD drive, about 15 inches or less from my head. Sure, i heard it. took about 2 hours to get all the little bits out of the drive. Many the size of sand grains. Surprisingly, the drive still works.
September 28, 2008 at 7:10 AMRe the mobile phone myth. It is far more likely to set off a spark via static from clothes than a mobile phone. And just think of this, you are driving an explosive engine with all sorts of huge electrical and mechanical spark-inducers, right next to someone filling their open vapour tank. In the seventies my schoolmate was a driveway attendant at a gas station, and it was quite common to fill tanks whilst smoking (even by him). I never heard of an accident, but admit it seems dangerous.
October 4, 2008 at 2:26 AMI work in large computer rooms now, and mobile phones are also banned there, also I believe due to old computers without even single bit memory error correction. But no-one is bothering to challenge the staus quo of banning mobile phones. At least it gives security guards and fuel station attendants something to do.
The CD shattering is deffinitely true. I just bought a CD yesterday, brand new, and started ripping it to my iTunes library. I left it in my computer overnight. This morning I sat down at my computer and tried taking the disc out, but my drive wouldn’t open but about 1/4 inch. I looked inside the drive and noticed little bits of broken CD laying on the tray. I had to unplug my computer and shake it until most of it came out. There’s still some broken CD in there that I couldn’t manage to get out. I’m using an external CD drive for the time being.
October 29, 2008 at 2:15 PM