Episode Name:   Penny Drop

Original Air Date:  October 17, 2003

Myths:   Penny Drop, Deadly Microwave, Radio Tooth Fillings

Penny Drop

Myth: If you throw a penny from a tall building it will get going so fast that it will either imbed itself in the concrete below or hit someone in the head killing them.

Experts: Lydia Ruth-Empire State Building Manager-Said the myth probably originated with the Empire State Building. Also points out weather difficulties associated with the penny drop myth.

Quotable Moments: Adam: (After being hit in the hand from the penny gun for the second time) "You hit me in the same exact place!  It didn’t hurt that much before but now it really does."
Jamie: "Oh you big baby. It looks like its swelling."
Adam: "Ah yeah!"

Jamie: "I always enjoy seeing Adam in pain."

Action/Results: To find out if this is possible, Adam and Jamie need to find out the terminal velocity of a falling penny.  To see the terminal velocity of a penny compared to that of a human’s terminal velocity, 120mph, Adam skydives and releases two fistfuls of pennies while falling at maximum speeds. The pennies shoot right out of his hands, falling at a much slower rate of speed. By using complex equations, Adam and Jamie discover that a penny’s terminal velocity is between 35 and 65mph. To test this, Adam creates a wind tunnel where wind speed escaping at the top is 35mph and at the bottom is 65mph.  Adam believes that if the pennies remain in the tube then he has proven the equations correct.  It worked.  Upon describing the results to Jamie, Adam gets irritated about Jamie’s less than enthusiastic response to Adam’s experiment.

One problem with the myth is the weather conditions associated with tall buildings.  Due to their size, The Empire State Building stands at 1280 feet, there are quite often strong wind gusts pushing up against the sides of the building.  As a result, most objects thrown from the Empire State Building end up only about five stories down on the 81st floor.

Jamie works on modifying a staple gun to shoot pennies and a chart to track the speed in which the penny is traveling. When shot from the gun, the penny traveled 3 feet in 64.4mph, the top speed of a free falling penny.  Adam in the mean time is making a head, with skull, out of ballistics gel. The penny gun is fired at a slab on concrete at top speed. While it does make a mark, the penny is not imbedded in the concrete.  The same results were seen in asphalt. When shot at the ballistic head, the penny did break open a little of the gel but it bounced off the skull. To put the myth to the ultimate test, Adam and Jamie shoot the gun at one another’s hands.  While it did sting a bit, the skin was not broken.  In an attempt to duplicate the results of the myth, Adam modifies a rifle to shoot a penny.  He then shoots the penny at a slab of concrete.  Even with traveling at nearly the speed of a bullet, the penny is still not imbedded into the concrete.  Myth BUSTED!

Microwave Madness

Myth 1: Tanning beds can cook your insides if you use them too often.

Quotable Moments: Adam: "I wouldn’t say Jamie’s an evil genius. I’m not sure he’s evil and I’m not sure he’s a genius."

Experts: Heather Joseph-Withman - Folklorist - Tells the myth of a woman getting ready for a big event and believes that she will look much better if she is tan. Irritated by time limitations at tanning salons, she makes appointments at many back-to-back.  Now nicely tan, her husband smells something funny. When nothing can make the smell go away, the woman goes to her doctor and finds out that she has cook her insides and has only two weeks to live.  Also noted that there have been two Dear Abby columns about this. Plus, tanning magazine, Tanning Trends, had to publish an article stating that this was untrue.

Rick Mattoon-Director National Tanning Training Institute-He says there is a new version every month and the interest grows from local to national.

Action/Results: Two dead chickens were placed in a tanning booth and subjected to 4 straight sessions, about 48 minutes. Upon examining the chickens, they find the outside is burned but the insides are still nice and rare. It is discovered that tanning bed don’t even use microwaves but light waves to tan.  To check another part of the myth, that microwaves cook from the inside out, Jamie puts a roast in a microwave for 20 minutes.  When the roast is cut in half, the inside is still cold proving that microwaves cook from the outside.  Myth BUSTED!

Myth 2: Microwaving metal will make your microwave explode.

Experts: Michael Fried man - Microwave retailer-Sold the guys their microwaves. He explained about the magnetron inside all microwaves.

Action/Results: To test this myth, Adam and Jamie place a variety of utensils in the microwave starting with a spoon and then a fork. There was no explosion and no arching. Next they try tinfoil scrunched into balls and then zigzags. Electric charges jump the gaps creating arcs but there is no explosion. While it is shown that the microwave will not explode, placing metal in there can reduce the life of the magnetron. Myth BUSTED!

Myth 3: If you microwave water, when you take it out it will explode.

Experts: Heather Joseph-Witham - Folklorist - When you overheat water in a microwave, when you take it out, it will explode in your face burning you.

Action/Results: Adam and Jamie discover that the only way for water to explode is if it has become super heated, heated beyond boiling.  Tap water always boils because it has impurities. Distilled water has no impurities so it won’t boil.  Two mugs are placed into the microwave; one filled with tap water the other with distilled. The microwave is then turned on and Adam and Jamie watch to see when the tap water is boiling. When they see this, they know that the distilled water has become super heated.  Dropping a sugar cube into the distilled water, a noticeable reaction occurs. There is an instant boiling, and explosion of water, that actually caused water to spill out of the mug.  Myth TRUE!

Myth 4: Put a poodle in the microwave to dry its fur.
Myth never attempted.  To cruel for the poodle!

Radio Fillings

Myth 1: Lucille Ball said in 1942, she heard music coming out of her teeth.  Arriving at the studio the next day, a coworker said it was the radio station on that road and that Lucy must have picked up the signal in her fillings.

Experts: Jim Brochu-Lucille Ball Expert-Says that Lucy had bad teeth and was always going to the dentist. He states that Lucy was of sound mind that she never claimed to hear voices in her head.  He also expands upon the myth by saying the radio station was a 50,000 watt station and there was clay - quite of bit of clay - in the ground which amplified the stations signal.

Frank Hausman - Computer Network Engineer-Puts AM radio frequencies into the faraday cage and watches the voltage meter.

Quotable Moments:  Frank: "This is about the highest voltage I’m comfortable putting into your head."
Adam: "’Course if you say that, I’m just gonna ask you to bump it up one more."

Actions/Results: A skull, borrowed from Adam’s father, was fitted with two different types of fillings, one gold foiled and one amalgam.  Adam tracks down the radio equipment that was needed at the Foothills Swap Meet.  Back at the shop, Adam creates a faraday cage, a ground to keep outside radio waves away from the teeth and test equipment to test in an experimentally clean space.

Adam and Jamie theorized that fillings of different metals might create a point contact diode, a devise that used two different metals that when combined it was possible to capture radio frequencies. In WWII they were used in fox holes created from a razor blade and a pencil point. Adam makes one in the shop and manages to pick up a buzz.

Inside the faraday cage two probes are placed on the fillings to detect if there is any electrical change in the teeth.  Several frequencies were tried but there was no change in the teeth. To see if a person could even transmit the frequencies to the brain, Adam places probes on his fillings, trying different combinations.  He did not feel, or hear, anything. Myth BUSTED!

Myth 2: Lucy Ball says she was driving down a road, again in 1942, and as she was passing an empty lot she picked up Morse code in her teeth.  Upon examination of the lot, an underground Japanese transmitting radio was found.

Experts: Jim Brochu-Lucy Ball Expert-Said that Lucy was in the dentist office the week she heard the Morse code. And that Lucy had no reason to lie about what she found in the lot.

Prof. Rusty Oapps - Lecture Japanese Espionage-He was with the FBI during WWII.  He gave examples of stories of Japanese escapades during the war, such as, Japan would bomb from high altitude balloons and a Japanese submarine fired rounds into petrol tank farms.

Heather Joseph-Wit ham - Folklorist - She tells that people didn’t know how to reconcile their fear of Japan. But this tale of Lucy finding the Japanese radio was a comforting one, because if Japan couldn’t pull one over one Lucy, then who could they pull one on?

Action/Results: Believing the Lucy was in fact feeling a galvanic reaction, a situation when two dissimilar metals and the solution of saliva allowed small amounts of electric current to build up and then discharge allowing the person to believe they were hearing Morse code, Adam and Jamie set the teeth with the two different fillings in vinegar. The level of acidity should make and excellent conductor and would be about the acid level of saliva after a meal. Probes again were placed on the teeth and read the fillings were generating their own small amounts of current. It is possible to mistake the discharge for Morse code if a nerve was close to the fillings. However, this can only occur in new fillings before corrosion.  When Lucy’s FBI file was released for public viewing, there was no mention of her involvement in finding a Japanese radio transmitter.  Myth BUSTED!

- episode description written by srene