MythBusters (2003 season)

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The cast of the television series MythBusters perform experiments to verify or debunk urban legends, old wives' tales, and the like. This is a list of the various myths tested on the show as well as the results of the experiments (the myth is Busted, Plausible, or Confirmed).

Note: The show's first season used "True" instead of "Confirmed"; for the sake of consistency, "Confirmed" will be used on this page.

For a complete list of episodes, see List of MythBusters episodes.

The myths the show tested for accuracy in Season 1 include:

1 Episode 1 – "Magic Bullet, Exploding Toilet, Who Gets Wetter?"
2 Episode 2 – "Cell Phone Destruction, Silicone Breasts, CD-ROM Shattering"
3 Episode 3 – "Barrel of Bricks, Peeing on the Third Rail, Eel Skin Wallet"
4 Episode 4 – "Penny Drop, Microwave Madness, Radio Tooth Fillings"
5 Episode 5 – "Hammer Bridge Drop, Buried Alive, Cola"
6 Episode 6 – "Lightning Strikes Tongue Piercing, Tree Cannon, Beat the Breath Test"
7 Episode 7 – "Stinky Car, Raccoon Rocket"
- 7.1 Stinky Car
- 7.2 Raccoon Rocket
8 Episode 8 – "Escape From Alcatraz, Duck Quack, Stud Finder"
9 References
10 External links

[edit] Episode 1 – "Magic Bullet, Exploding Toilet, Who Gets Wetter?"

Original airdate: September 23, 2003

[edit] Magic Bullet

This myth tested the feasibility of magic bullets, used as a plot device or otherwise mentioned in many movies, such as Most Wanted or Three Days of the Condor.

This myth was retested in Myths Revisited.

Myth statement	Status	Notes
An assassin can fire an ice bullet to kill someone without leaving a trace.	Busted	The ice bullet evaporated before it could leave the barrel.
An assassin can use a meat bullet to kill someone without leaving a trace.	Busted	The meat bullet fragmented on contact with the skin, causing only superficial damage.
An assassin can use a gelatin bullet to kill someone without leaving a trace.	Busted	The bullet did not cause fatal injury.
An assassin can use a poison capsule fired from an umbrella to kill someone without leaving a trace.	Confirmed	It was found to have been the cause of death for a notable Bulgarian dignitary, Georgi Markov. The catch is that the umbrella must be fired from point-blank range for it to work (see Bulgarian umbrella).

[edit] Exploding Toilet

This experiment formally introduced Buster the crash test dummy.

Myth statement	Status	Notes
Pouring gasoline down a toilet and lighting it will cause the toilet to explode.	Busted	The gasoline simply burned without exploding. Not even a tin of gunpowder in the toilet bowl was able to eject Buster from the seat.

[edit] Who Gets Wetter?

The result of this myth was overturned in MythBusters Revisited.

Myth statement	Status	Notes
A person will end up drier running in the rain rather than walking.	Busted	The original test showed that running faster results in getting wetter.

[edit] Episode 2 – "Cell Phone Destruction, Silicone Breasts, CD-ROM Shattering"

Original airdate: October 3, 2003

[edit] Cell Phone Destruction

Myth statement	Status	Notes
Using one's cell phone while pumping gas/petrol can cause an explosion.	Busted	A properly-working cell phone poses almost no danger of igniting gasoline, even when surrounded by gasoline vapor with the optimum fuel-air mix for ignition. The actual risk comes from an electrostatic discharge between a charged driver and the car, often a result of continually getting into and out of the vehicle.

[edit] Silicone Breasts

A spinoff of this myth was tested in Myths Revisited. Interestingly, the DVD version includes another version of the spinoff.

Myth statement	Status	Notes
Silicone breast implants may explode at high altitudes or low air pressure.	Busted	The implants expanded, but at too high an altitude for the person to live and not enough to explode.

[edit] CD-ROM Shattering

Myth statement	Status	Notes
CDs can shatter if placed in a high-speed (i.e. 40X or faster) CD-ROM drive.	Busted/ Plausible	It was proven that a high rotation (in excess of 23,000 RPM) could shatter the CDs, but the MythBusters could not achieve this using an average CD-ROM drive (though it was possible that the computer used, a budget model, simply could not keep up with the drive). Physical damage to the CD made shattering more likely. In addition, there was testimony by at least one person (the salesperson who sold the computer) that seemed to verify the myth. The MythBusters concluded that while this event was possible, it was very unlikely to happen. (The myth was called "Busted" in a future episode, but was not "Busted" in the episode where it actually appeared.)

[edit] Episode 3 – "Barrel of Bricks, Peeing on the Third Rail, Eel Skin Wallet"

Original airdate: October 10, 2003

[edit] Barrel of Bricks

This marks the first time Buster was broken in the course of an experiment.

Myth statement	Status	Notes
A bricklayer could be injured repeatedly while hoisting a barrel full of bricks from the top of a three-story building.	Plausible	Only by deliberately weakening the barrel and dropping it on a sharp edge were they able to get the barrel to drop its bricks. But there was no evidence of the myth happening; the source of the myth appears to be a joke book.

[edit] Peeing on the Third Rail

In order to avoid appearing insensitive to viewers, no one refers to or shows the male genitalia at any time during the experiment - instead talking solely about the urination process.

A spinoff of this myth was tested in Myths Revisited.

Myth statement	Status	Notes
Urinating on the electric third rail of a train track can cause electrocution.	Busted	Although it is possible to electrocute yourself by urinating on a third rail, you would have to stand unrealistically close to the rail to do it. In most instances, a urine stream would break into droplets before making contact with the rail.

The MythBusters also tested the myth that a penny on a rail could derail a train (see "MythBusters Outtakes"). Instead, the train completely flattened the coins, myth Busted. This test can also be seen in the DVD version of this episode.

[edit] Eelskin Wallet

Myth statement	Status	Notes
Using an electric eel-skin wallet will cause a static charge that will cause the magnetic strips on credit cards to fail.	Busted	Most eel-skin wallets are not made from electric eels, but rather from a fish called a hagfish which does not produce an electric charge. Data written to a set of test cards were not affected in any way. In addition, further tests were conducted to see how much magnetism would it take to 'wipe' a card, and was found to be far above what the average person may encounter.

[edit] Episode 4 – "Penny Drop, Microwave Madness, Radio Tooth Fillings"

Original airdate: October 17, 2003

[edit] Penny Drop

Adam and Jamie explore a popular claim, likely to have originated from the Empire State Building.

Myth statement	Status	Notes
A penny dropped from a skyscraper lands with enough force to either kill a pedestrian on the sidewalk below or embed itself into the sidewalk.	Busted	A penny's terminal velocity is too low and its mass too small for it to penetrate human skin - let alone penetrate concrete or asphalt. Even when fired from a rifle, the penny was unable to penetrate concrete or a ballistic gel dummy's skull. By comparison, a real bullet fired from the rifle caused severe damage to the dummy.

[edit] Radio Tooth Fillings

Adam and Jamie test whether radio signals can be picked up from tooth fillings, as claimed by Lucille Ball in an interview on The Dick Cavett Show.

Myth statement	Status	Notes
It is possible to pick up radio signals through a tooth filling.	Busted	The tooth filling did not act as an antenna. Explanations for the supposed Morse code pickup included a galvanic reaction between two teeth fillings and saliva.

[edit] Microwave Madness

Myth statement	Status	Notes
It is possible to cook one's insides by using a tanning booth too often; in a manner similar to how a microwave works.	Busted	Tanning booths work on UV radiation, which penetrates the body from the outside in, meaning that all one would get is a sunburn. They also demonstrated that microwave ovens also do not cook food from the inside out.
It is possible to blow up a microwave oven by microwaving metal.	Busted (with caveats)	Neither a spoon nor a fork had any effect. Tinfoil scrunched into balls caused a light-show with electric charges, but the microwave did not explode. Microwaving metal can possibly ruin a microwave by arcing against the inner wall, sending electricity back to the magnetron, and either destroying it or shortening its lifespan.
If a glass of water is microwaved, removed, and an additive placed in it, it will explode due to superheating.	Confirmed	If the water had no impurities in it at the time of superheating (for instance, distilled water), then any sort of additive placed within will make the water explode. A full explanation of the process can be found here.
It is possible to build a super-microwave by aligning four magnetrons around a metal box.	Busted (unofficially)	If there is a proper method to build one, the method used in the show is not it. After a glass of water was exposed to the "super microwave"'s magnetrons for thirty seconds, a thermometer found that the temperature of the water had actually dropped by two degrees Fahrenheit.

[edit] Episode 5 – "Hammer Bridge Drop, Buried Alive, Cola"

Original airdate: October 24, 2003

[edit] Hammer Bridge Drop

Myth statement	Status	Notes
A high fall over water can be survived by throwing a hammer ahead of oneself and breaking the surface tension.	Busted	Dropping a hammer in front of oneself cannot break the surface tension of the water enough to save one's life if one falls from high up.

[edit] 101 Uses For Cola

Cola is able to...

Myth statement	Status	Notes
...remove bloodstains.	Confirmed	The cola was able to emulsify bloodstains.
...clean rust.	Busted	The cola was unable to break down rust deposits.
...act as a toilet cleaner.	Busted	This chapter of the myth was shown in MythBusters Outtakes. Adam rubbed engine grease over surfaces in the M5 bathroom and Jamie was given the task of cleaning with cola. The cola was not an effective cleaner.
...clean chrome.	Confirmed	It surprisingly cleaned the chrome better than the commercial chrome polish used for comparison.
...dissolve a tooth overnight.	Busted	The tooth did start to dissolve, indicating that with enough time it could be completely dissolved. However, the acidic solution used for comparison was much more effective in dissolving the tooth.
...dissolve a steak.	Busted	The cola just gave the steak a soft, pasty consistency.
...clean a penny.	Confirmed	Results were good. The only part of the coin that was not cleaned was an area where a bubble had formed.
...clean battery terminals.	Plausible	The cola worked, but it was hard to tell if plain water did not perform just as well. The cola did not do anything spectacular. As Adam noted, it probably only worked because it is a liquid.
...remove greasy stains in laundry.	Busted	No effect at all to the grease, but turned the material brown.
...degrease engines.	Busted	The cola did not remove any of the grease.
...kill sperm.	Busted	The MythBusters added cola to some slides and saline solution to others. They counted the number of live sperm they could see through a microscope camera in one minute, and found that the number of live sperm in both saline and cola was relatively the same. With the help of Dr. Turek, they determined that cola does not do much more than dilute the sperm.

[edit] Buried Alive

Myth statement	Status	Notes
It is possible to stay alive over 1 day when one is buried alive in a coffin.	Busted	Jamie risked his own life for this myth. Without the dirt, Jamie stayed in the coffin for 50 minutes; he maintained just 30 minutes when the dirt was factored in. Suffocation from the lack of outside air or lethal poisoning from increasing levels of carbon dioxide would have claimed the life of anyone buried alive. There is also the possibility of the coffin (and occupant) being crushed by the weight of the dirt pressing down on it. The risk of sudden collapse was the main reason the test was aborted after only 30 minutes. After the coffin was uncovered, it was found to have buckled significantly.

[edit] Episode 6 – "Lightning Strikes Tongue Piercing, Tree Cannon, Beat the Breath Test"

Original airdate: November 7, 2003

[edit] Lightning Strikes Tongue Piercing

Myth statement	Status	Notes
Metal body piercings increase one's chances of being hit by lightning.	Busted	The lightning did seem to strike a pierced body more, but not the piercings directly, which was the actual myth (see stock footage). It would take a piercing the size of a doorknob to attract lightning. So, technically, it was busted. Adam was also shown having his tongue pierced, but he did not keep the piercing for any significant length of time.

[edit] Tree Cannon

Myth statement	Status	Notes
Under siege from a neighboring clan, a Medieval Hungarian town (Paks) built a cannon out of a tree overnight, but wiped out a great deal of itself when the cannon exploded during a test-fire.	Plausible	It is impossible to bore a barrel out of a log in a single night using the technology available at that time. The cannon made of a log, loaded with 6 ounces (170 g) of gunpowder, successfully fired a 1-pound (450 g) Jamie-made granite cannonball a significant distance (exact measurement unavailable since the cannonball was not found). It also managed to fire a tennis ball. Jamie jammed a soda can in the barrel, but it leaked and contaminated the gunpowder. Loaded with 5 pounds (2.3 kg) of gunpowder, and with its barrel plugged, the tree cannon exploded violently enough to feasibly destroy part of a small medieval town like Paks. During the test, several blast shields and a tractor were placed between the cannon and the MythBusters crew for protection - large pieces of the log were sent far behind them.

[edit] Beat the Breath Test

Myth statement	Status	Notes
Using various substances and tricks when intoxicated can beat the breathalyzer test (for instance, eating an onion, eating breath mints, drinking mouthwash, placing a penny in the mouth,and ice etc.).	Busted	None of the tested methods worked. In addition, mouthwash actually made the breathalyzer give a higher reading than usual because of the inherent alcohol content.

[edit] Episode 7 – "Stinky Car, Raccoon Rocket"

Original airdate: December 5, 2003

[edit] Stinky Car

A Corvette which has been fouled by a decomposing body...

Myth statement	Status	Notes
...can destroy the inside of the car.	Confirmed	Pig corpses were placed in the car. The car was sealed with tape and placed in a container. Two months later the car was full of condensation, and the seats, door panels, and carpets were dirty and disintegrating.
...cannot be cleaned up enough to remove the smell completely.	Plausible	With the aid of a professional cleaning company, the car was cleaned, but it is impractical to disassemble the car, clean every small piece, and then re-assemble it. Some parts, like the seats, proved to be uncleanable.
...cannot be cleaned up enough to be sold.	Busted	The MythBusters did find a buyer who was willing to purchase the car for spare parts.

[edit] Raccoon Rocket

Myth statement	Status	Notes
A hillbilly was blasted 200 feet (60 meters) out of a culvert when he tried to light gasoline in an attempt to chase down a raccoon which had wandered down the pipe.	Busted	The hillbilly (Buster, the crash test dummy) was simply lit on fire when the gasoline was ignited. The only way the alleged result of the myth was duplicated was by encasing Buster in a foam sabot and propelling him out of the culvert using gunpowder. Even then, Buster only managed about 100 feet, half the distance of their goal.

[edit] Episode 8 – "Escape From Alcatraz, Duck Quack, Stud Finder"

Original airdate: December 12, 2003

[edit] Escape From Alcatraz

Jamie said that this was one myth they just had to test, since it is probably the most famous myth of San Francisco, where the show is based.

Myth statement	Status	Notes
Prisoners successfully escaped Alcatraz prison using an inflatable raft made from rain ponchos.	Plausible	The makeshift raft crafted by the MythBusters team did indeed reach the shore. Listed as "Plausible" because no evidence has ever been found suggesting the prisoners survived the actual incident, and personal effects washed up later on shore, indicating that the men probably failed to navigate correctly and drowned in San Francisco Bay. However, a portion of the scale tests (cut for time but later shown in "MythBusters Outtakes") did show that these belongings could have been released by the successfully escaped prisoners and washed up where they were found through strategic use of the Bay's tides to throw the authorities off their trail, and a paddle like the one described in the myth washed up later, on Angel Island.

[edit] Does a Duck's Quack Echo?

This myth originated in lists of "Random Facts" distributed over the Internet.

Myth statement	Status	Notes
A duck's quack does not echo.	Busted	When examined by an audio-expert, it was found that the echo was "swallowed" by the original quack, due to the very similar acoustic structure between the quack and the echo. Because of this, it may be difficult to tell where the quack ends and the echo begins. Normally, a sound and its own echo have very different waveforms on an oscilloscope. As it turns out, a duck's quack and its echo have a very similar waveform. Oscilloscope analysis of a duck's quack/echo could lead someone to mistake the echo waveform for part of the source waveform, due to the way in which they blend together. In the same way, human hearing may not perceive the difference between a duck's quack and its echo.

[edit] Stud Finders & Mind Control Chips

Myth statement	Status	Notes
When you go to get blood drawn at the Red Cross, you are actually secretly having mind controlling microchips implanted into your bloodstream that can be detected with a stud finder.	Busted	While a stud finder can find microchips (like those used to track pets) embedded in flesh, none were found after a trip to the Red Cross.

[edit] References

[edit] External links