Air Date: October 12, 2005
REVISITED: A body struck by a bullet will be propelled violently backwards. (From episode 25)
re-busted
Even a .50 Caliber bullet does not have the momentum to knock a person backwards. If it were possible, the shooter would be knocked backwards as well - as per Newton’s Third Law.
REVISITED: Explosive decompression can occur when a bullet is fired through the fuselage of a pressurized airplane (From episode 10)
re-busted
The Build Team tested the effect of air rushing past an open bullet hole, and surmised that the extra internal pressure caused by this would still not be enough to cause an explosive decompression.
REVISITED: You end up drier running in the rain than walking. (From episode 1)
confirmed
When retrying the test in actual rain it was conclusively proven that the running test subject got less wet than the walking test subject. The use of artificial rain in the original test led to a false negative.
REVISITED: Holding a large sheet of plywood will slow a fall from a building enough to make it survivable. (From episode 18)
re-busted
After testing the speed of updrafts with a special rig on Tory’s truck it was proven that you could not hold on to the piece of plywood if you were in free fall. A mere 45mph gust knocked it out of Tory’s hands; updrafts from skyscrapers reach upwards of 90mph.
SPINOFF: A black car heats up faster than an identical white car. (From pilot 2)
confirmed
A fan wrote in and asked a follow up question: "Does the color of a car affect the way it heats up?". The MythBusters used two identical cars, one black the other white and left them both out in the summer heat with thermometers in both. By mid-afternoon the black car had heated up to a temperature of 135 °F while the white car topped off at 126 °F, almost 10 degrees cooler.
REVISITED: Running a car with air conditioning on is more fuel efficient than running with the windows down. (From episode 22)
partly confirmed
The fundamental flaw in the MythBusters’ test was that the point where the drag becomes powerful enough to inhibit a car’s performance with windows down was inside their 45 - 55mph margin at 50mph. Going less than 50mph it is more efficient to leave your windows down, but going greater than 50mph it is more efficient to use your A/C.
REVISITED: A gas tank will explode when shot by a bullet. (From episode 15)
busted
It has already been proven that when shot by a normal bullet a gasoline tank will not explode. However, if a gasoline tank is shot by a tracer round from a great enough distance so that the round can ignite with air friction, it will cause the gasoline to catch fire. By the time this happened the tank was so riddled with bullets (from previous tracers that were fired too close to ignite) that there was no contained pressure, but the MythBusters surmised that had the tank been properly enclosed, it may have exploded; but overall it remains extremely improbable.
[...] *Because the original tests were inconclusive, this "urban puzzle" was revisited in episode 38: It is more fuel efficient to use air conditioning when the car is traveling approximately 50mph or [...]
May 25, 2008 at 11:01 AM[...] Wish I had a link to the actual clip. They found that around 50 mph and faster, AC is more fuel efficient. Slower than 50, open windows would save you more gas. MythBusters Episode 38: "MythBusters Revisited" [...]
July 5, 2008 at 6:26 PM
If you ever revisit the bullet propelled body try a high energy low speed wide types of bullet. The idea is capacity to transfer energy to the body fast. I doubt they would propel a body back, but there is a difference. For example frecuently a 9mm bullet drills a hole thru tempered glass while a 380mm one can blow the glass away. There you have another myth to confirm. :). Try 380mm, .45 and different shotgun projectiles. Although I doubt they will propell backwards…..combine with body armor, or a big wide beltbuckle as means of getting energy transfer.
June 23, 2007 at 5:52 PMThe only difference the speed with which you tranfser the energy would make is how much time the target has to regain his balance or push back against something. As a best case, it’s easy to calculate how fast the target would go backward even if all energy were transferred instantly. I get something like half a foot per second at best.
And unless you can transfer the energy faster than you transferred it to the bullet in the first place, the shooter would be thrown back as violently as the target.
June 23, 2007 at 6:58 PMOne thing to consider with the argument that the shooter would be thrown back violently; with some weapons, the shooter would indeed be thrown back if not properly braced. However, I think this amounts to little more than losing their balance, not being pushed off of the ground.
For any bullet that would have enough momentum to do this, getting it all to impart on the victim would be difficult, especially without obliterating them.
June 24, 2007 at 3:35 AMI believe the test was flawed. The test targets were dead pigs. Some of the reaction that a living target would show would be an involuntary muscle reaction to the impact of the bullet, which could cause the body to fly backwards. The dead targets lacked this response.
June 26, 2007 at 10:19 AMThe running/walking in rain myth perplexed me in both the original myth and when revisited.
In a drenching downpour that totally soaks either individual before they reach their destination, the point is moot. However, In a constant lesser rain, it would seem logical that a person who spent less time in that rain would be drier than a person who spent a lot more time in that rain. Conclusion: Over a fixed length course the runner should be drier than the walker, who should be drier than the crawler, who would be drier than the person sitting in a lawn chair at the starting line. etc.
The test should have been over a fixed time period, rather than a fixed length. Seems like the results would be close to equal.
Either way, the old phrase”not enough sense to get out of the rain” is brought to mind!
June 27, 2007 at 3:55 PMI’m curious if CyberGuy has anyone in mind to use as a test subject? Perhaps the study can be carried to a country that still utilizes firing squads?
July 17, 2007 at 6:19 PMWhat about that famous photo of the man that was shot in the head, maybe in Vietnam, back in the day? I don’t think he flew backwards at all, and that was point-blank energy transference. I’m pretty sure that people don’t fly backwards when hit with bullets.
July 29, 2007 at 3:40 AMNo, a person might not fly back when hit by a bullet…depending on what kind of bullet is used. In the case of the guy in Vietnam, he was shot point blank with a full metal jacketed bullet. Thats why he didn’tmove, because it just went straight through him. Mythbusters need to try different kinds of bullets such as hollowpoints, or softpoints.
August 15, 2007 at 2:40 PMWith the exploding gas tank, does the amount of fuel in the tank matter? For instance, a tank with mostly fumes are more likely to explode than a full tank. This is the basis for welding a metal gas tank that is full.
August 21, 2007 at 6:48 PMWhile a single projectile(bullet) may not knock a person off their feet. I do believe a shotgun would, especially at close range with a heavy load, such as buckshot
September 23, 2007 at 3:36 PMRunning in the rain: no, the fixed length course is appropriate, since the context is whether you’d get more or less wet by, say, running home from a local store if caught in a sudden rain. The gain from spending less time in the rain outweighed the loss from presenting a larger cross-section (if the rain were coming straight down).
Gun throwing body back: the type of bullet doesn’t matter as much as you think. So long as the bullet stops within the body (doesn’t exit), all of its momentum and energy is transferred. The energy (1/2 mv^2) and momentum (mv) at the target is always LESS that that at the sending end because some is lost to air friction between, so yes the shooter will experience more jerk than the receiver (albeit with less damage!). A softer bullet might stop more rapidly, but the difference is milliseconds and on the human timescale not significant.
Hypothetical muscle reactions to being shot is a completely different matter, tho. Not likely to be tested by MB tho, even with live animals.
November 28, 2007 at 2:14 PMHas anyone ever heard of a _muzzle brake_?
December 21, 2007 at 10:51 PMshooting a hole in the side of an airplane that has been pressurized to 8 lbs. per square inch in itself is not even close to an accurate rendition of what would happen in a real situation. I think you’re forgetting about the 500 mph wind blasting over the hole creating a huge low pressure area. It would suck the contents from the imediate area out at the very least. And probably do more damage than that. certainly more than the unfruitfull excuse for a proper experiment you guys claim to prove it busted. Not that you guys can properly simulate those kind of circumstnces on the ground effectively.Maybe you can. Other than that one, I mean two episodes where you incorrectly carried out your experiment all the other shows I have seen were satisfying.THAT I HAVE SEEN. Please email me back your thoughts sincerely a fan
February 24, 2008 at 7:26 PMEvangelos Dimas
Try using a sawed off (18″+) double barreled shotgun and see how a body flies back when hit with both barrels at close range with two 3″ magnum 00 buckshot. The force on the shooter is focused on a smaller area and they are braced for it, absorbing the kick in their arms, shoulders back and legs. Beside the fact that the weapon has a butt/kick pad. They will experience one hell of a jolt but will be able to withstand it. A person on the receiving end will be hit over a large area and would not be able to take it. While the amount of force would be measurably less than the “kick” due to it being spread out, the poor soul who just got shot would be knocked off their feet and thrown backwards several feet. I’ve seen it.
March 26, 2008 at 10:46 PMhi i think that the preasure inside of the plane needs to be matched as the crusing altitude of a plane.
May 12, 2008 at 2:52 AM