Phone Book Friction/Black Powder Shark

Original Air Date: September 10, 2008
Episode # 107

Phone Book Friction/Black Powder Shark

The Myth: If you interleave the pages of two phonebooks, it is impossible to get them apart.

The Experts: Jacques Littlefield – president of the Military Vehicle Technology Foundation – loans the guys some tanks to use in this myth.

Memorable/Quotable Moments:
Adam (as they are interleaving the phonebook pages): Does this remind you of when you used to count money for the mob?
Jamie: I was a hit man – I wasn’t a money counter.

The Action/ Results:

Two Dutch fans of the show (Tim and Steve) sent in this myth, complete with a video of them trying to bust it.  So, Adam and Jamie sat down, put some phonebooks together, page by page, put some wooden handles on them, and then tried to pull them apart.  First it was just a simple tug-of-war – Adam against Jamie.  Although Adam managed to drag Jamie across the line, the phonebooks did not separate.  They measured the amount of force that Adam was exerting on the phonebooks as he pulled on them, and it was a respectable 325 pounds of force.  They went out and got everyone who was working at M5 that day, and they had a five-on-five tug-of-war, but it still did not separate the phonebooks.  The force was now up to 2100 pounds, but the phonebooks stayed together.  Then they tried all ten people pulling, with the phone book hooked to something on the other side.  This time the force reading was 4000 pounds, but still the phonebooks did not separate!  Adam and Jamie rented two cars, put the phonebooks between the cars, and hooked one end to the back of each car.  The wheels were spinning, but the phone books were still together, even after 4800 pounds of force being applied.  Finally, in desperation, they went to the Military Vehicle Technology Foundation, where Jacques Littlefield let them use two tanks – the M5 51 Sheridan, and the M1 13 A1 Fire Support Vehicle.  They hooked the phonebooks to two metal handles, chained one handle to each tank, and started pulling.  Eventually after exerting 8000 pounds of force on the phonebooks, they came apart!  Adam explained that this is more than hanging both of the rental cars off the phonebooks together!  The myth is ruled BUSTED, and Jamie explained, “All I wanted to do was make a phone call!”

Mini Myth:  Can you rip a phonebook in half with your bare hands?

Adam tested this in between parts of the Phone Book Friction myth.  He proved that you can do it, if you fold the book into a V shape, and separate the pages a bit.  That way, you are ripping only one page at a time.

CONFIRMED

Black Powder Shark (Deep Blue Sea Myths)

The Myth:  In the final scenes of the movie Deep Blue Sea, several things happen that seem to be less than feasible.  Is any of this possible?
Can you ignite black powder at a distance, underwater, with a car battery and a wire?
Can you make an improvised harpoon gun that fires accurately at 100 feet?
Do flares contain black powder, and if so, is it enough to make up two and a half sticks of dynamite?
Can that amount of black powder make the huge explosion that we see in the movie?
Can the hero survive such a blast?

The Experts: Frank Doyle Jr., the retired FBI agent, came along to make sure that everything was safe.

Memorable/Quotable Moments:

The Action/Results:
The build team broke this myth down into its component parts, so that it was easier to tackle.  While Tory made a foam shark named Hugo, Kari and Grant tested the first part of the myth.  They put a sealed can with black powder inside it into a fish tank filled with salt water.  They put a wire between the can and the positive terminal of the boat battery, and they put a jumper cable between the other battery terminal and the water in the tank. There was not enough current flowing through the system to make a spark, so the black powder didn’t ignite, and the first part of the myth is BUSTED.

For the second part of the myth, Tory and Grant went out to the Bomb Range.  They had the actual prop from the movie, but it had been modified, so they couldn’t use it.  Instead, they used a real harpoon gun.  They fired it at Hugo, who had Buster draped over his back, and they hit the target easily.  This part of the myth is CONFIRMED.

Then the team went out to the bomb range, where Grant very carefully opened one of the flares to see how much black powder was inside.  There was only 1.5 grams of black powder inside one of the flares, so the third part of this myth is BUSTED as well.

Next, it was off to the quarry, to finish this myth off.  Frank Doyle made a cylinder for the team to use that was the same size as the one used in the movie.  Amazingly, it looked like the handle of a lightsaber, and so Grant and Tory had to use it that way, at least once.  Then it was down to business, as Frank loaded the cylinder with 28 grams of black powder, which was all it could hold.  They set it off, and it hardly did anything – there were hardly any ripples in the water, and the shark had a little hole in him.  So, they decided to go for what the person said in the movie – that they were dealing with the equivalent of two and a half sticks of dynamite.  Frank set up that much explosive, and then detonated it.  This time there was a bigger boom, but not anything like the “tower of water” that they saw in the movie.  This part is ruled BUSTED.

The last question the build team had was if the hero could survive such a blast.  So, they set up some rigs made for them by New Mexico Tech.  These rigs would show if a person could survive 50 feet away from the blast, which is the distance the hero is in the movie.  They also tested survivability at 100 feet, 150 feet, and 200 feet.  Then Frank and his crew put 400 pounds of TNT in the water.  They detonated it, and the build team finally saw the huge explosion that they had been waiting for.  When they checked the rigs, they found that anyone who was within 50 or 100 feet of the explosion would have died, so this part of the myth is BUSTED, and the scene is ruled BUSTED as a whole.