MythBusters Episode 28: “Is Yawning Contagious?”
Air Date: March 9, 2005
Over a ¼ mile long down-hill course a toy car can beat a full size Dodge Viper powered only by gravity.
busted
The toy car was able to beat the Viper over 100 feet (30 metres) but over the full length of the course the Viper won by an extremely wide margin.
A person can be subconsciously influenced into yawning if another person near them yawns.
plausible
In a test pool of 50 people those who were influenced into yawning by the MythBusters yawned 29% of the time. However, those who were not influenced yawned only 25% of the time. Despite this supportive evidence, the 4% difference between the experimental and control groups was not large enough to constitute a statistically significant difference (at alpha = 0.05), and therefore no definitive conclusion could be reached based on these results.
Toast is more likely to land buttered side-down when dropped.
busted
In an extensive and highly objective test the toast showed no statistical preference for landing buttered side-down or up when dropped. It was an even 50-50 split when the final results were compared. However, when pushed off the side of a table, toast showed preference to flip once and land buttered side down.
whether toast lands buttered side-down is to do with the height of the table it’s being pushed off…
June 23, 2007 at 4:58 PM“A person can be subconsciously influenced into yawning if another person near them yawns. – Plausible.”
You say that the results were not statistically significant. In that case, you can’t draw any conclusions (pro or con) about the myth. You certainly can’t conclude (from those results) that it is “plausible” – that would be a positive finding.
For example, say I said that a person can be subconsciously influenced into yawning if another person near them “thinks of a cauliflower”. You do some tests, and find that the results are not statistically significant. You would not conclude (from those results) that what I said was “plausible”.
Yes? No?
June 24, 2007 at 6:48 AMI agree with your logic, but ‘Plausible’ is what the MythBusters reported, so I will leave it. Here is an article discussing the MythBusters’ flawed statistics in this myth: http://www.omninerd.com/2007/04/19/articles/75
June 24, 2007 at 10:22 AMPlausible is plausible. It means that it ‘could’ happen. This is true. It could happen. Goodness me, maybe there should be a ‘grammar-busters’ article, but then again, that would be for solicitors, lawyers and politicians. I hope I said this in the correct grammatical context, if that makes sense. Sometimes I yawn when I have to listen to some people with cauliflower ears. Only joking mate.
June 26, 2007 at 9:40 AMWhere did the cauliflowr idea come out of? the fact that you used cauliflower as an example makes me laugh!
=D
October 9, 2007 at 3:02 AMfalling toast:
I didn’t see this episode; how high were you guys willing to go? Did you do toast from an aeroplane?
October 27, 2007 at 5:45 PMI saw the butter portions being used to butter the toast and I know from experience there isn’t enough butter in those portions for this butter lover. I was laying on my butter, cashew spread and jam this morning and I reckon if I dropped it it would definitely have landed on the buttered side because it was so heavy. I could test this theory but I don’t want to waste all that yummy toast. So maybe the issue is not just buttered toast but toast with butter and spreads.
November 6, 2007 at 6:06 PMButtered Toast
You demonstrated in the first five minutes that buttered toast when SLID of a table
would land buttered side down.
That was the myth and you proved it.
Dropping butterd toast on edge falls randomly, OK but that wasn’t the MYTH.
With regard to the Science of the phenomenon some Engineering type produced
November 7, 2007 at 4:25 AMthe maths to show that the incrementally
increasing rotational moment caused by the self weight of the toast as it slid over the edge of the table, being resisted by the toast’s torsional moment of inertia,was
only sufficient to rotate the toast through
an angle >180degrees but
OOPS
through an angle >90 degrees
November 7, 2007 at 10:38 PMThis i think is a very plausible topic. I did it an more than 80 percent of the people were influenced to yawn!
November 20, 2007 at 1:09 PMi just yawned and now my dog wont stop!
December 9, 2007 at 1:59 PMi am doing a report on this i need all the help i can get
December 30, 2007 at 10:51 AMYawning is a way for the brain to cool it self down.Seeing someone yawn might trigger what you brain is going to do sooner or later anyways
January 2, 2008 at 7:31 AMHow do I get a copy of this episode? I am doing my science fair project on the buttered toast problem. Thanks.
January 7, 2008 at 4:45 PMin the toy car vs the viper race down a 1/4 mile track i think you have a big problem. the size of the bumps on the road and in effect on the track that the toy car is on will have a much bigger impact on the 1/64th scale car than the full size viper. the road that was used was not smooth. a 1 inch change or bump in the road would be like the full size car hitting a 64 inch speed bump. even a 1/4 inch change for the toy would be like hitting and 16 inch speed bump. this is probably why Adam’s car kept jumping the track. you can even hear them say in the episode that it jumps the track at the same spot. you need to build an equally scaled smooth track for the toy car.
January 30, 2008 at 12:23 AMIt is common knowledge that the chances of toast landing butterside down is inversley perportional to the value of the carpet.
February 20, 2008 at 12:41 AMI never saw the buttered toast one but i tried 20 times and the results were 11 butter side down and 9 butter side up.
March 7, 2008 at 9:29 PMI would try a different approach to testing this myth. If I remember correctly, Tory would yawn (or not) before showing the subjects to a small room which had nothing to do in it. I think that would make most people yawn period.
My idea is this: Record an episode of MB (one with and one without yawning) and see how many yawn while watching the show.
July 8, 2008 at 2:28 PMi yawned just reading that.
August 28, 2008 at 12:30 AMI suspect you might be wrong on
Why Toast Falls Butter Side Down.
Please Read…
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN
Table of Contents: December 1995 Volume 273 Number 6
Mathematical Recreations
August 29, 2008 at 5:23 PMMurphy’s Law demystified: why toast falls butter-side down.
i think yawning is contagious, i yawn and then maybe look across the room and someone else has already been yawning and i didnt know about it.
October 26, 2008 at 2:04 AMSo if toast with a heap load of butter will be more likely to fall buttered side down I cant help but wonder that if a cat is supposed to always lands on it’s feet, what if you slid a cat off the edge of a building with a slice of toast strapped to it’s back buttered side up ????
February 11, 2009 at 7:20 AM