Narrator: On this episode of "MythBusters"...
we lock and load... [ Gun cocks ]
...get lost...
Behold the Hyneman in his natural habitat.
Narrator: ...and let loose.
Whoa!
First up, Adam and Jamie
look into the age-old anomaly
that while blindfolded...
I feel like I'm doing pretty good.
Narrator: ...it's supposedly impossible
to travel in a straight line.
You drove us into the middle of a field.
- Then... - Somebody order a car?
Kari, Grant, and Tory find out if a fender bender...
- Whoo! - Whoa!
Narrator: ...could detonate a trunk full
of special-effects explosives.
This is our target car.
Narrator: Stand by for a rocket-propelled car crash.
Oh, my God. What just happened?
I don't know!
Narrator: Who are the MythBusters?
Adam Savage...
[ Tires screech ]
I am the master of this stunt!
- ...and Jamie Hyneman. - Bye-bye!
Between them, more than 30 years of special-effects experience.
Together with Grant Imahara...
Whoo!
...Kari Byron...
Hi, Grant!
- ...and Tory Belleci. - Hit it!
Narrator: They don't just tell the myths.
They put them to the test.
MythBusters 9x15 - Walk a Straight Line Original air date October 12, 2011
Sync and corrected by atrn97g www.addic7ed.com
Watch out, because Adam and Jamie
are about to walk, swim, and drive blindfolded.
What's with the blindfold?
Ah, well, you ever work on something,
and it's not going the way you want it to,
and you feel like you're just going around in circles?
I know exactly what you mean.
Excellent, because that is what this story is all about.
The myth is that a human when blindfolded
- cannot travel in a straight line. - Really?
It turns out that not only can't we walk in a straight line
but that left to our own devices,
we will actually walk in circles
and that this might be one of the reasons
we might get lost in the woods.
I thought with all your survival training,
you'd love this story.
Hello? Jamie?
Oh, he's gone.
Narrator: It's a deceptively simple concept
that has puzzled serious scientists for 100 years.
Supposedly, when blindfolded,
it's impossible for humans to travel,
whether on foot, in water, or by road,
in a straight line.
It's a challenge
Adam and Jamie just can't resist.
Come on. Come on back in here.
Did you even hear a word that I said?
Yeah. Humans can't move in a straight line while blindfolded.
That's the story.
How do you want to test it?
Well, when I think about moving in a straight line,
I think about walking.
I think you might be right.
- Is that where you want to begin? - Yeah.
All we need is a couple blindfolds
and a big wide-open field.
Let's do it.
A big field you say?
How about this one?
Adam: Our testing here is pretty straightforward.
We've got a field in which we can walk 3,000 feet
in any direction that we chose.
We've got a blindfold...
this one here is from my personal collection...
and headphones to remove any other stimulus.
And we're just gonna try and walk in a straight line
and see what happens.
Narrator: Sure, we'll see what happens,
but Jamie likes to be more science-y.
We've got three ways of telling how good we are
at walking in a straight line while blindfolded.
First is by using the global positioning system, or GPS.
This little thing will be plotting a map for us
that we can look at afterwards.
Secondly, we've got these lovely little orange flags
that we can place.
- Are you ready to go? - What?
Oh!
Then lastly, we'll know if we hit the target
because we will have had to have walked
in more or less a straight line to get there.
How do I think I'm gonna do?
I don't think I'm gonna be able
to maintain an incredibly straight line,
but I don't think I'm gonna be that far off.
I think I may veer to the left or to the right,
but I think I'll end up pretty close to my goal
of that cluster of trees over there.
Or is it there?
Okay, in 3, 2, 1, go!
Narrator: All he has to do
is walk in a straight line with his eyes closed.
How hard can it be?
Adam: It is a very weird thing
to be walking without any visual or auditory stimulus.
Narrator: What's really weird
is, apparently, how surprisingly difficult it is.
Adam: You're holding a picture of it in your head,
and in your mind's eye,
you're walking a nice straight trajectory
across that landscape.
Tickling at the back of your mind,
you're thinking something might be wrong,
but try as you might, you feel like you're walking straight.
Whoa!
[ Laughs ]
Jamie: You started out pretty nice,
but after about 300 feet or so,
you started to turn to the left,
and you just kept doing that
until you ended up right back at the fence.
I swear I thought I was walking a perfectly straight line.
Nothing told me that I was possibly walking
in a 200-foot-diameter circle.
I am totally amazed by that result.
Narrator: A result nailed by the GPS trail.
The astonishing disparity
between Adam's perception and his actual route
is there for all to see.
[ Laughs ]
That is hilarious.
It's a result that begs several questions.
The first of which is, will Jamie do any better?
Jamie is blind man walking
in 3, 2, 1, go!
With all the confidence and certainty
you'd expect from the Hyneman,
he strides off towards the target tree...
before veering off course like he's got a short right leg.
And any doubt that subtle topographical features
were the reason Adam went left
are dispelled as Jamie leans so far to the right,
he turns back on himself in a corkscrew pattern.
I ended up right back at the road just like you did.
Narrator: Time to delve deeper.
Adam: Now, the question we have is,
is that leaning that we each had
to one direction or the other consistent?
Walking blind... test number two.
Is it something that could be corrected for?
Well, that's what we're just about to find out.
He's doing a little better this time.
Narrator: Adam's start is certainly straighter,
but it's not long before the test
literally takes a turn for the worse.
Adam: Test two, I didn't walk straight,
and I didn't even walk straight
in the same way I didn't walk straight the first time.
I went in a circle in the other direction.
Narrator: Yeah, two things are clear from Adam's second test.
His route is far from straight,
and there's no discernable pattern to his meandering.
- Bye. - Bye.
Narrator: A theory compounded on Jamie's second test
because once again,
he immediately heads off in the wrong direction.
Jamie: [ Laughs ] I'm lost.
Jamie: Trying to walk in a straight line
while being blindfolded
is an exercise in futility
because without any cues like vision or sounds and so on,
you're relying on purely mechanical means
of determining your direction.
I feel like he's Don Quixote,
and I'm following him around.
But you're fluid. You're not like a machine.
You can kind of meander and wander,
and, in fact, that's kind of what these GPS paths
are showing,
is this looks like a meandering stream.
Narrator: And that meandering corkscrewing
leads Jamie and Adam straight to a firm conclusion.
Stop.
We came here to look at the myth
that a person who is blindfolded cannot walk in a straight line,
and we have definitely proven that
with the data we've gathered.
Narrator: But the myth specifically says travel
and not just walk.
So to complete the data set and nail the science,
Adam and Jamie will be hitting the highways and waterways,
attempting alternative forms of blindfold locomotion.
What's next?
Swimming blindfolded.
- Well, we can't do that here. - No.
- Let's go someplace else. - All right.
Advertise your product or brand here contact www.OpenSubtitles.org today
You're gonna love this one.
This myth is about a binary explosive
that is used in Hollywood effects films.
A guy is transporting it in the trunk of his car.
He gets rear-ended, and the car explodes.
Now, here's the thing.
Under normal conditions,
until you mix the two parts together,
the explosive is completely stable.
But once they're mixed, you can set it off
by shooting it with a bullet.
Okay, so, the myth here
is that the impact from a car crash
has enough energy
to actually set off this supposedly stable explosive.
Exactly.
Guns, car crashes, explosions...
- I mean, it doesn't get any better than this. - No.
Narrator: It's the rear-end fender bender from Hollywood
that was never meant to end up on screen.
Considering it usually requires the impact of a gunshot
to set it off,
can a trunk full of special-effects binary explosive
really go ka-blooey in a car crash?
This is the first time
we've actually used this particular explosive,
so I think we might have to do a little research.
Yeah, let's go to the bomb range,
and we'll ask ourselves four questions.
One, what is it? Two, how does it work?
Three, will a car collision set it off?
And then, four,
will a bigger amount give us a bigger explosion?
Explosions at the bomb range?
That's my favorite kind of research.
[ Tires screech ]
Narrator: With those four questions
and no small amount of mayhem in mind...
[ Sighs ]
Guns and explosives... what could be better?
...the MythBusters rock up to the bomb range,
where it's time for a little shoot and tell.
This is the Hollywood binary explosive of the myth.
You've got an oxidizer and a catalyst.
The beauty of this... on their own, they're virtually inert.
But if you mix them together
and shoot them with a high-powered rifle,
you get a superfast chain reaction
that gives you a really nice explosion.
Grant: This is the first time we've used it on our show,
but it shares many similarities with other high explosives
that we have used on our show.
Namely, it requires a shock wave in order to set it off.
A hammer won't do it.
Small handgun fire won't do it.
Even automatic small-caliber fire won't do it.
You need a high-powered rifle.
And that's what we're gonna use.
And this is the gun.
It's a .308 sniper rifle.
This thing has a muzzle velocity of 2,500 feet per second.
That's plenty of power to set off our binary explosive.
Okay. Here we go. Firing.
Now, the plan is, we're gonna fire into our catalyst.
Grant: Okay. Catalyst alone.
No explosion.
And then we're gonna fire into our oxidizer.
- No explosion. - Time to mix them.
Tory: Then we're gonna mix the two components together,
fire into that, and see if it explodes.
Now, if it explodes,
that tells us a very important thing about this myth...
that the chemicals were mixed in the back of this guy's trunk,
which means that guy was crazy.
All right. This is the mixed binary explosive.
- You guys ready? - Ready.
- Did you mix it good? Kari: - Oh, I did.
- Wow! - That was a good pop.
So, we've come out to the bomb range
to find out exactly what we're dealing with.
Turns out we're dealing with something pretty awesome.
You mix it together,
you add a little energy from a high-powered rifle,
and you get a chemical reaction
that results in a cloud of rapidly expanding gases,
or as we like to call it, an explosion.
Now, the question is, what's next?
Does more equal more?
If we ramp up to a trunkful of this stuff,
how much bigger will the explosion be?
That's right. It's bigger boom time.
Narrator: Next on "MythBusters"... [ Barking ]
...the walrus is back in his not-so-natural habitat.
And later...
[ All cheering ]
...Kari, Grant, and Tory
ramp it up with rockets.
Narrator: Our myth-busting pedestrians
have already established
that blindfolds and straight lines don't mix.
Whoa!
[ Laughs ]
But how about other types of travel?
I can't believe we didn't get pulled over.
[ Laughs ]
We've already established that when blindfolded,
we were unable to walk in a straight line.
Now it's time to find out
if we're able to swim in a straight line while blindfolded.
Each of us will take a turn putting on a pair
of blacked-out swimming goggles.
Then we'll see if we can swim a straight line
from here to the reflector across the lake.
The GPS will tell us how we did.
You know what I like about tests where I get to wear a wet suit?
Tight material tends to hold me in a little bit,
make me look a little less tubby.
[ Sighs ] It's not working, is it?
Oh, crap.
Narrator: Speaking of body shape...
GPS me.
...is the wonky walking of the previous test
all about that particular method of movement?
Whoo! Whoo!
Aw, it's cold.
Narrator: Will the biomechanics of swimming
keep our out-of-shape swim team on the straight and narrow?
Well, a mere 30 feet into the test,
it's clear that the blindfold,
by blocking out any visual landmarks,
makes the answer a drifting, dizzying no.
He's swimming around and around in a corkscrew.
Narrator: Once again, the really compelling detail
is not how far off course Adam is straying...
I must be close!
Narrator: ...but that he thinks he's going straight.
I feel like I'm doing pretty good.
In my mental landscape, the target's still right there.
Narrator: No. No, Adam, it isn't.
Let's see if the walrus can do any better.
I'm ready.
Well, Adam didn't do so well.
Will I be able to do any better?
Without any kind of reference, I don't see why I would.
Narrator: Aiming blindfolded
for a target straight across the lake,
two things are clear.
For a marine mammal, he's... [ Barking ]
...clearly not at home in the water.
And his pre-test prediction was right...
as well as the occasional left, followed by a right...
[ Laughs ]
...some more right,
and, well, you get the picture.
Adam: Well, Jamie didn't fare any better than I did
in attempting to swim the straight line.
In fact, he fared far worse.
He did have the intuition in the middle
that things were going horribly awry...
I get the feeling I'm swimming in a circle.
Adam: ...whereas I thought I was heading straight for the target.
Verdict time.
Is it possible to swim in a straight line while blindfolded?
- No. - So, what's next?
Driving.
[ Laughs ] I love it.
Narrator: Can the impact energy of a fender bender
set off a trunkload of binary explosive...
[ Tires screech ]
...and blow a car to smithereens?
Kari, Grant, and Tory are at the bomb range, aiming to find out.
- Wow! - That was a good pop.
Kari: So, we know from working with explosives like ANFO
when you use more of it, you get a bigger boom.
It seems pretty obvious.
But that might not actually be the case here.
In special effects, they use really small quantities.
One load is only half a pound.
And, in fact, when it's mixed, it's really, really stable.
So what we need to know is if a single bullet
will actually detonate the entire batch
when you're using a very large quantity.
All right.
This is Hollywood binary explosive double load.
Send it.
Kari: Whoa!
[ Laughs ] Whoa!
Wow.
Tory: Now, as you can see from the destroyed box,
the double material gives at least double the explosion,
if not more.
But now what we want to see
is if you had multiple cans mixed up,
would hitting one of them set off a chain reaction,
or would the one that got hit by a bullet just explode?
So we're gonna mix up five jars of this stuff, line them up,
take a shot at one, and see if it sets off the rest.
All right. Here we go.
Grant: Wow!
Tory: There you go.
That was awesome!
You got a chain reaction.
- They all went off. - Totally.
Kari: I like combining guns and explosives.
- Yeah. - All right.
Grant: When we first started this story,
we had four questions...
what is this explosive, how does it work,
does more equal a bigger boom, and can a car crash set it off?
Well, we have answers to the first three.
We know what it is, we know how it works,
and we know that one small canister
will detonate a chain reaction in a much larger batch.
So the big question is, will a high-energy impact
other than a high-velocity round
be enough to set off our binary explosive?
That's right.
We are about to see if we can create an explosion
from a car crash.
Coming up next on "MythBusters", where did I leave my car?
Narrator: In the myth of the exploding fender bender...
...Kari, Grant, and Tory
are having fun playing with guns and blammo.
All right. So, we know that our Hollywood binary explosive
needs to be mixed to go off.
We also know that it takes
a high-velocity round to make it explode
and that it can go off in a chain reaction
even if it's in several different little containers.
[ Tires screech ]
So now we want to see if an impact
will set off those binary explosives,
just like in a car crash.
To dig a big hole, you need a big shovel.
Narrator: So to replicate the exact conditions
of the mythical scenario,
the team is setting up for an actual car crash...
Somebody order a car?
...in a controlled environment.
Kari: Now, you'll notice we're not on a road or on a runway.
Turns out it's really hard to find a place
that'll let you crash a car with explosives.
So this is our answer.
We're going to bury a car halfway deep
so that just the trunk's sticking out,
re-create the crash by dropping another car at 150 feet
so that it hits at freeway speed
with 50 pounds of binary explosive in the trunk.
Grant: All right. So now that we have our hole dug,
it's time to put our car nose down into the hole.
[ Laughs ]
This way, the car won't move at all
when we drop the other car from 150 feet
from the crane into the trunk.
Looks like we caught a big one. [ Kari laughs ]
Narrator: With 50 pounds
of premixed binary explosive in the trunk...
20 times more than this...
it could well be the end of the road
for our flame-covered friend.
All right. Car's loaded.
Let's drop a car on it.
Kari: We're almost doubling the speed,
and the collision will create 880,000 joules
of kinetic energy.
Yeah.
I still don't think it's gonna explode.
Narrator: Well, there's only one way to find out...
dropping a car from 150 feet at 60 miles an hour
and crashing it into another car that's standing on end
half-buried in the ground with a trunkful of explosives.
Just another day at the office.
Kari: All right. This is freeway speed.
Grant: 100 loads of binary explosive
in the trunk.
Rear-end collision
in 3, 2, 1.
Direct hit.
That was a great hit.
- No explosion. - No explosion.
No explosion.
Narrator: No explosion.
And with the circumstances of the myth re-created exactly,
albeit at 90 degrees,
the damning conclusion is quick to follow.
Kari: We wanted to create a crash at freeway speed.
I think we did one better.
Why? Because that car's buried into the ground.
It had nowhere to go.
That means it absorbed all the energy of the collision.
Still no explosion.
This myth is busted.
Narrator: Under normal circumstances,
the myth is busted.
But can the impact from a fender bender
ever initiate an explosion under any circumstances?
To find out, this story is getting supersized.
I think we need more speed...
some extreme speed.
Well, we could make a rocket-powered car.
I mean, that would give us a lot of speed.
All right. Road trip.
I hope this works.
Narrator: Having walked wonky...
Whoa!
...and swum squiggly,
the myth that it's impossible to stay on the straight and narrow
while blindfolded is looking good.
But our dynamic duo are covering all of their bases
and taking human locomotion out of the equation.
Even with the aid of a machine,
can you travel a straight line while sight-deprived?
Some blindfolded driving.
Should we get to it?
I think so.
[ Laughs ]
Jamie: This test is really simple.
Once again, we're gonna use
blinders and hearing suppression,
and all we're gonna do is try and drive a straight line
right towards the city of San Francisco.
So that we can tell where we've been,
we're gonna attach this sports chalker
to the back of our golf cart,
and that line's gonna tell the whole story.
Narrator: They'll also be using their trusty GPS unit
to plot their course electronically.
And in this most straightforward of tests,
Adam thinks he's about to bust the myth by doing just that...
going straight.
Adam: I do have a prediction for this test.
I don't think it's going to be very hard
to drive in a straight line.
Go.
I think all I need to do is align the wheels
and not move my hands.
I'm holding my hands steady,
but I can't shake the feeling
that I'm drifting to the right.
Interesting.
Narrator: Once again, Adam rejects straight-line reality...
[ Laughs ]
...in favor of his own internal vision.
Okay. You're gonna have to stop.
Well, you can open your eyes.
I was drifting to the left?
Yeah. Want to try again?
Absolutely.
But two further tests
only confirm the fact that driving in a straight line
is not as simple as holding the steering wheel steady.
Oh.
Oh, I feel a terrain change.
I think I'm in trouble.
Any number of small adjustments and corrections
have to be made to stay the course...
You know, I think the wind
is, like, giving me a false feeling of turning.
Could be.
Adjustments that are impossible to make,
for Adam at least, without a visual reference.
[ Laughs ]
Whoa!
I drove us into the middle of a field.
And the GPS data illustrates that perfectly.
The question is,
can Jamie do any better on his three test drives?
Go.
Jamie: Basically, I'm trying to focus
on my internal sense of orientation.
And I have to say, it doesn't feel like it's very accurate.
Well, that doesn't feel right.
That leaves me with only a very rough sense of what I'm doing
based on the wind and the roughness of the road,
which isn't a whole heck of a lot.
Funny. I could be going around in circles
for all I know.
So this doesn't really work too well, I don't think.
Narrator: Despite making it
further down the runway than Adam,
Jamie has only given this myth another kick
in the "confirm" direction.
Adam: So far, we've walked, we've swum,
and now we've driven.
I'll admit I thought we weren't gonna get anything
out of the driving test in terms of results.
I mean, supposedly you're in this machine
where all you need to do is hold tight to the steering wheel
and it'll carry you on a straight line.
I'm holding my hands perfectly steady.
What's wrong with me?
But even in that machine,
the kinesthetic feedback we're getting from the world
forced both Jamie and I to make corrections.
These corrections were based on a map of our landscape
we had in our head which wasn't correct,
and thus our corrections were incorrect
and sent us careening all over the runway.
Even driving, we could not make a straight line.
Narrator: It's an interesting anomaly,
and there seems to be no rhyme or reason
as to why we can't do it.
There's no correlation between left- and right-handedness
or body asymmetry.
It simply appears that, deprived of our eyesight,
we are physically incapable
of maintaining the unnatural construct of a straight line.
So the myth is confirmed.
But Adam and Jamie want to take it further
and explore the real-world implications.
Okay. So, a 60-mile-an-hour crash
is not gonna set it off.
But we can't stop there.
All right. How about this?
How about instead of a regular fender bender,
it was like a super car crashing into the back of another car
at, say, a couple hundred miles an hour?
I love it, and I know exactly where we're gonna go
- to test this. - Road trip?
Yeah. But just in case,
let's not put the explosive in the trunk.
Good idea.
Narrator: When ramping it up is on the menu,
there's one location that's guaranteed
to find the dial marked "awesome",
turn it up to 11, rip it off, and run away laughing.
Perfect day for science.
Tory: So, we are back at New Mexico Tech,
one of the most incredible test facilities in the world.
Why are we here?
Because of their rocket sled.
Last time we were here, we split a car in half.
With this track, our rocket sled
should be able to accelerate with 63,000 pounds of thrust
over a quarter-second, upwards of 300 miles an hour
to create what we hope
is gonna be the world's fastest car crash.
And this is our target car.
It's completely isolated, as if it were stopped on the freeway
with 200 loads of mixed binary explosive in the trunk.
When that rocket-sled car comes crashing into the back end,
we will find out once and for all if a collision
has enough energy to create a detonation
and give us a massive explosion.
Narrator: But before the team
launches a rocket-propelled fender bender,
a control is required.
Tory: Now, you know it's gonna be a good experiment
when the control test is a massive explosion.
Narrator: Knowing just what kind of havoc
the rocket sled can wreak...
Adam: Wow!
...detecting whether the binary explosive
has actually detonated amongst the carnage...
What an impossibly large amount of force.
...may be difficult.
MythBusters version of cocktail.
Shaken, not stirred.
So, to be sure, the team
will set off the same amount of binary explosive... 200 loads...
in the trunk of this car
and establish a devastation benchmark.
This is the biggest bomb range at New Mexico Tech.
New Mexico Tech, where you can get a PHD in blowing $%^@ up.
In fact, it's also the most robust bunker.
It is built to withstand 20,000 pounds of TNT.
Our explosion's not quite that big,
but it's within the spirit of the myth...
a trunkful of binary explosive.
Okay, so, because this is potentially so dangerous,
we will be very far away and underground.
Home, sweet home.
So we're gonna do it the old-fashioned way...
use a detonator.
All right. This is binary car control
filled with 200 loads of binary explosive.
In 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
[ Laughs ]
Wow! That was a massive explosion.
Tory: That was an incredible explosion.
I mean, I had no idea that this binary explosive
had this much destructive power.
But we know that it took a blasting cap
in order to set this off.
The real question now is, will a car crash have enough energy
to set this off and do the same amount of damage?
Well, at least now we have a benchmark.
Narrator: In the ramped-up rocket-sled crash,
they'll be looking for a shock wave, followed by a fireball,
and the car roof being blown 200 feet in the air.
And those are just the control benchmarks.
With that, it's time to hit the track
and set up for the fender bender to end all fender benders.
Tory: I know this engine doesn't look like much,
but it's gonna be putting out a million horsepower today.
Kari: This is the first time New Mexico Tech
has actually put a car on the rocket sled.
There's a lot of jeopardy here aerodynamically.
If that car starts to lift off the track,
it's going to pull that rocket sled off of the track,
trash the experiment and the track.
Narrator: Hence the concerted team effort
preparing the impact vehicle...
a truck with rockets, as standard.
Tory: This is the first time
they are flying a vehicle down the track.
Anything can happen.
Narrator: But there's one thing
Tory thinks won't happen.
Tory: Now, we know a high-powered rifle
will set off the binary explosive,
and that is traveling at 2,000 feet per second,
which is 1,400 miles an hour.
Wouldn't be a trip without one of those.
[ Drill whirrs ]
Tory: Now, our car is only gonna be traveling
at 300 miles an hour,
so I have a hard time believing that that crash
is gonna be enough to detonate the explosive.
But we have done everything we can scientifically
to cover our bases.
Let's see what happens.
Narrator: With a trunkful of premixed binary explosives
in the target car...
200 loads.
...all that's left to do is winch the truck
back to the start of the track and add the rockets.
These are 5-inch H-VAR rockets.
There's gonna be 10 of them on our sled.
Now, they were made in the 1950s,
but, believe me, they still pack a punch.
They're gonna give us 65,000 pounds of thrust
in a quarter of a second
and cause the sled to experience 17 G's of acceleration.
That should be more than enough to get our truck going.
Narrator: Next, it's mythbuster versus wild.
Will you really walk in circles in the woods?
Aw, crap.
So, the blindfold cleanly removed our ability
to walk, swim, or even drive
in anything remotely approaching a straight line.
Well, that pretty much means the myth
is confirmed, doesn't it?
Yeah. But there's something that's still bugging me
- about this story. - What's that?
Well, under no circumstances do humans ever actually try
and perambulate while blindfolded.
Where's the real-world application?
What do you have in mind?
I'm thinking that if humans
are supposed to get lost in the woods
and that they supposedly walk in circles,
let's you and me head out to the woods
and see if we can get lost and end up walking in circles.
- It's a plan. - Excellent.
Narrator: It's widely reported that unprepared walkers
lost in the woods unwittingly wander in circles.
With no clear view of their destination
or established landmarks,
it's as if they were blindfolded.
It's a potential life-saving story
Adam and Jamie can't resist tackling.
[ Laughs ]
Behold the Hyneman in his natural habitat.
Narrator: On a clear day in unknown territory,
unable to see their direction for the trees,
can they stick to a preselected bearing?
Adam: Jamie and I are each going to choose a specific trajectory
and try and walk a straight line on that trajectory
while being tracked by a GPS.
In 3, 2, 1.
Here we go.
After 30 minutes, we're gonna come back home
and see exactly how we did.
Jamie: Now, I'm not talking
walking a straight line like a ruler.
I'm talking I have someplace I need to get to,
and I want to go there directly.
I'm gonna be doing several things
to keep me walking in a straight line.
I'm gonna try and take sightings off of trees or other landmarks,
and I'm gonna note my position relative to the sun.
Right now the sun is directly overhead and off to my left,
and so if I want to use that to orient myself
as I'm walking through the forest,
all I have to do is keep it in approximately that position.
Of course, as time passes, it's gonna move through the sky,
but I can still keep it kind of on that one side fairly easily
to compensate for it,
and that'll make sure I don't walk in circles.
[ Bell dings ]
Oh!
That's the time. Time to go home.
Narrator: Using their trusty GPS units,
they head back to position one, where the results are in.
Despite terrain obstacles and obscured long-range visibility,
Jamie, using a range of techniques,
maintained a very accurate trajectory,
and even Adam generally headed in the right direction.
Using the sun to get his bearings,
he clearly avoided the corkscrewing the myth implies.
While I might not have the survival training
that Jamie has,
my techniques actually worked pretty good.
With the help of a gorgeous day and the sun,
I was able to maintain a reasonably straight trajectory.
Narrator: But for the next test,
they're gonna make things tougher and turn off the sun.
Jamie: We have to replicate a situation
that is less than optimal as far as navigating.
Maybe it's a snowstorm, or maybe it's at night,
and all you've got is a flashlight.
One way or another, you can only see
in the immediate vicinity right next to you.
Now, I tried a number of different things
back at the shop
to see if I could re-create that kind of situation.
[ Coughing ]
Definitely not.
Narrator: And it turns out the perfect artificial snowstorm,
used by experts to train for whiteout conditions,
where your vision is restricted to a radius of just a few feet,
is the bucket head.
[ Laughs ]
Okay. Here we go.
As before, Adam and Jamie have a preselected bearing.
They can see their feet
and a limited distance in front of them.
Aw, crap.
Narrator: But crucially,
they can't see the sun
- or use long-range sight markers. Adam: - Ow.
But our expert outdoorsmen has his technique down pat.
By methodically pacing at right angles
around direct obstacles...
Forward.
Narrator: ...he maintains his straight-line trajectory.
And go forward again.
Narrator: While Jamie
robotically paces towards his goal,
the extreme conditions get the better of untrained Adam...
Something tells me that things have gone horribly wrong.
Narrator: ...until he's simply wandering in the woods
with a bucket on his head.
With the test complete,
the GPS results show that urbanite Adam
beautifully illustrated just how important survival training is
in extreme conditions.
Look at that!
I almost drew an ampersand in the woods.
Narrator: In contrast, Jamie's route was indicative
of his practical approach and technique.
I think we've learned an important lesson here.
You don't have to obliterate someone's vision.
You can just merely restrict it,
and all of a sudden, they might start walking in circles.
[ As Jamie ] Right. But with proper training,
you can still walk in a straight line and to safety.
[ Normal voice ] Thanks, Jamie.
Narrator: Yep. While lost in the woods,
as long as you can see the sun,
anyone can walk in a straight line.
However, with limited visibility,
you'll need training and a disciplined approach.
But is there another option for a successful escape?
What about teamwork?
- Let's get out of here. - I'll navigate.
All right.
Narrator: Coming up, there's a blastoff...
...and a dance-off.
Watch. I can make Jamie dance.
One way or another, it seems that humans
are not inclined to walk in a straight line
if they can't see very well.
Makes me wonder, though,
if there's not some kind of mechanical solution.
[ Laughs ]
This I've got to see.
Jamie: All episode long, Adam and I
have been trying to travel in a straight line...
I'm holding my hands perfectly steady.
What's wrong with me?
...without very much success, I must say.
He's swimming around and around in a corkscrew.
But now we've had an idea
that may just be the solution to our problem.
And we're not exactly sure, but the problem seems to be
that lacking any stimulus,
the human mind creates a landscape for itself...
Can't shake the feeling that I'm drifting to the right.
...that's not exactly correct
and then makes corrections based on that landscape
that lead it very far astray very, very quickly.
So we thought what if a device could be created
that would allow two people working in tandem
to directly, physically feel
when they were being led off of a straight line?
That's when we came up with this.
Narrator: By securing themselves into each end
of a rigid, straight-line tether,
the theory is physical feedback from the hip harnesses
will alert them if they wander off the straight and narrow.
Watch. I can make Jamie dance.
The fatal flaw for our blindfoldees
could be the high degree of teamwork required.
That's enough of that.
With their simple "A"-to-arrow course set up,
it's time to turn out the lights.
I got my goggles. Here we go.
And 3, 2, 1.
Let's go.
They're off.
And the early signs are encouraging.
- I feel like we're walking in a nice, straight line. - Okay.
Unlike Jamie's solo efforts,
when he veered off course very early,
our pair of perambulators
look like they've got this conundrum cracked.
Now I know what it really is like
to have a monkey on your back.
[ Laughs ]
But it's not long before their internal reality
conflicts with the real one,
and they steer off course.
In my mental landscape,
we're traveling slightly to the right of the arrow.
Feels like we're doing okay.
I feel like you're leaning a little to the right.
Adam: Our device's whole point
was to try and add a kinesthetic sense to the human body
that it was moving off of a straight line.
And I honestly felt
like we were maybe slightly veering off course,
but we walked a complete horseshoe,
and not once did I have the sense
that we were making a tight turn.
Just didn't work.
[ Laughs ]
We're facing where we started.
That's amazing.
The arrow's way over there!
[ Boing! ]
[ Both laugh ]
This didn't work at all.
Well, what are you gonna do? That's science.
You come up with a theory. You test it.
Either it works, or it doesn't.
And in this case, it didn't.
Are we ready?
Yes. We're ready.
Right.
Well, it would seem that all of our tests
have definitively shown that human beings
tend to lack the ability to walk in a straight line.
Now, what we haven't attempted to figure out
is the why of that phenomenon.
But I think it's safe to say that it's confirmed.
Are you there?
I'm right here.
It's totally confirmed. I agree.
Narrator: That's what the detonation of a trunkful
of Hollywood binary explosive looks like.
Love a good explosion in the morning.
Narrator: Question is, can the impact from a fender bender
initiate that explosion?
All right. Ready for launch.
Narrator: If a rocket-propelled truck can't do it,
no conceivable car crash ever could,
because at 300 miles an hour,
we're exceeding the speed of the fastest super car on the road.
This is binary explosive versus the rocket sled.
It's this myth's final chance...
Here we go.
...and final countdown.
Tory: In 5...4...
3...2...1...
[ laughs ]
Oh, my God. What just happened?
I don't know.
Narrator: What just happened was an old, beat-up pickup truck...
...powered by 10 H-VAR rockets,
pumping out 65,000 pounds of thrust,
pulled 17 G's
and got up to almost 300 miles an hour.
[ Laughs ]
Oh, my God. That was awesome.
[ Laughs ] Wow!
Narrator: As fender benders go,
that was at the end of the scale marked "insane".
But to find out whether the binary explosive
in the trunk of the target car was detonated,
the team needs to get a closer look
and compare it to the control blast.
Kari: We watched 200 loads of binary explosive detonate
so that we could compare it to what we just witnessed.
We saw a rocket sled
come down the track at almost 300 miles an hour
and crash into the back end of a car
with the same amount of explosive.
Now, though a spectacular sight,
it was not a detonation.
What we saw with our explosion was a flash of fire.
What we saw here was a disintegration.
Anybody get the license plate on that car?
Now, we know that our binary explosive
can be set off by a high-powered rifle round.
But this myth is about a collision,
specifically a vehicle collision.
We continued to ramp up our speeds
all the way up to nearly 300 miles per hour,
and still no detonation.
Narrator: As incredible as it seems,
the energy that could cause this type of damage
was still not enough to initiate the explosion.
And that's the beauty of binary explosives.
Safety-conscious Hollywood special-effects teams
can rely on a very specific detonation fingerprint
and know that any incidental impact
will not have disastrous consequences...
...which leaves just one conclusion.
- Wow. - That was incredible.
I don't think this myth can be any more busted.
Now, that was a high-speed crash.
Yeah. And you know what?
You're not gonna see a crash like that on the road.
And even if you did, there'd be no explosion!
Definitely not a detonation.
All right. So a collision from a car
is never gonna set off a trunkful of binary explosives.
This one is busted.
- Busted. - Busted.
That was awesome.
Sync and corrected by atrn97g www.addic7ed.com
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