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Written by river95
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Thursday, 16 October 2008 |
Viral Hour
Episode # 107
Original Air Date: September 3, 2008
Viral Hour
Fireman’s Lift
The Myth: Can a car be lifted off the ground by water spewing out of fire hoses?
The Expert: Retired Fire Chief and Fire Truck Engineer Bob Calaway helps Jamie and Adam test this one safely.
Memorable/Quotable Moments:
Adam: This one’s gonna work...I hope!
The Action/ Results:
Jamie and Adam spot a video on the Internet that seems really hard to believe – a bunch of firehoses gushing out water with enough force to lift a car off the ground. They decide to test this myth in small scale first, and so Cris Rocha creates a 1/6 scale model of the car on the CNC machine, while Adam makes a miniature pipe rig with nozzles to attach to some garden hoses. They go to the Livermore Pleasanton Fire Department Training Facility to test it out – and it works!
Next, Jamie figures out that each hose is going to have to lift about 400 pounds in order for this myth to work. When he tests this amount of weight on the end of a hose with a regular sized nozzle, all is well. However, when he lowers the nozzle size in order to raise the pressure, the hose goes squirting all over everywhere, and the weights are scattered all over the test area.
Finally, the time has come to go full scale. Adam has built the full size rig to hold all of the hoses in place, but it is too big to fit in the truck, so it has to be cut in half. Once they get to the site, they put the rig back together, hook up hoses to six fire engines, and start pumping. They try various combinations of hoses and amounts of water being pumped through them, but to no avail. Finally, they take the engine out of the car. Jamie gives the signal to turn on the hoses, and the car slowly rises into the air! Finally, after much work and consternation, it actually does work! Myth CONFIRMED!
Fainting Goats
The Myth:
Can goats really faint, as is shown in a popular video?
The Expert: Christina Stohlman, who is a goat fancier, explains that these goats don’t actually lose consciousness, but they do have a medical condition which causes their legs to stiffen up when they are scared, and so they sometimes fall over.
Memorable/Quotable Moments:
Seeing Kari in a cow costume and Tory in a goat costume is certainly memorable!
The Action/Results:
The team tries several different ways to make the goats faint. Kari opens and closes her umbrella threateningly, and Tory hides in a trough, and has Kari put hay all over him, before he jumps out to startle the goats. Neither plan works. Kari flashes the goats, which doesn’t work either, but makes Tory faint, and then they decide to dress up. Kari comes in as a cow, and Tory impersonates a goat, and then they jump up and scream at the goats. This finally works, and they do faint. Myth CONFIRMED!
Invisible Water
The Myth: Is it really possible to float an aluminum foil boat seemingly in mid-air?
The Expert: None
Memorable/Quotable Moments:
Adam talking in a really deep voice after inhaling the gas is truly a memorable moment.
The Action/ Results:
There is a viral video that shows a guy floating a simple boat made out of aluminum foil in a seemingly empty fish tank. So, Adam and Jamie set out to determine how this could be done. Jamie suggests that a heavier-than-air gas was used, and sulfur hexafluoride seems to be the likely culprit. After Adam inhales a bit of it, to see what it will do to his voice, they fill the fish tank with it, and try to float a boat on it. It takes a bit of doing, but it finally does work. As the coup de grace, Jamie takes a beaker full of the gas, and pours it into the boat, sinking it, just like in the video. This myth is CONFIRMED!
The guys also admitted that they used some video trickery in the video that they put on You Tube, showing them solving the Rubik’s Cube with their feet (Adam) and blindfolded (Jamie). As many people suspected, they started with solved cubes, and then mixed them up, and then ran the film backwards.
Sawdust Cannon
The Myth: Can simple sawdust and a spark ignite and make a huge fireball when blown skyward?
The Expert: None
Memorable/Quotable Moments:
Grant: We should destroy this, because it is too dangerous to have in our shop! This technology should not be shared with anyone!
The Action/Results:
The build team watches a video that gets them all excited – a guy explains how he made a sawdust cannon, with an old propane tank, some pipes, and a big, cannon-like barrel. The team follows his instructions, adds some sawdust (hamster bedding) and tries it out – and it works! Then, they decide to ramp it up, and they make a bigger cannon, and use non-dairy coffee creamer in place of the sawdust. When this cannon is fired off, the flame is huge! This myth is CONFIRMED!
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Episode Descriptions 
