Can a Fender Bender Trigger Hollywood Explosives? - Mythbusters - S07 EP11 - Science Documentary

on this episode of Mythbusters we lock and loow  get lost beh hold the Haman in his natural habitat and let loose who first up Adam and Jamie look  into the age-old anomaly that while blindfolded I feel like I'm doing pretty good it's supposedly  impossible to travel in a straight line drove us into the middle of a field then somebody  order a car carry Granton find out if a fender bender could detonate a trunk full  of special effects explosives this is our Target car stand by for a  rocket pro

pelled car crash [Music] my who are The MythBusters Adam Savage I am  the master of the Sun and Jamie heinan byebye between them more than 30 years of special  effects experience together with Grant Imahara Carrie Byron hi and Tori bichi it they  don't just tell the myths they put them to the [Music] test 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 fe

el 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 I 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 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 it's  a deceptively simple concept that has puzzled serious scientists for a hundred 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  thin

k 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  our testing here is pretty straightforward we've got a field in which we can walk 3,000 ft in any  direction that we choose we've we' got a blindfold this one here is from my personal collection and  headphones to remove any other stimulus and we're just going to try and walk in a straight line and  see w

hat happens sure we'll see what happens but Jamie likes to be more sciency 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 you ready  ready to go what then lastly we'll know if we hit the target because we will have had to have walked  in more o

r less a straight line to get there how do I think I'm going to do I don't think I'm going  to be able to maintain an incredibly straight line but I don't think I'm going to 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 Adam's confident okay blindfolded walking after all it's  level ground there are no topographical features to navigate in three and he can draw a bead on the  tar

get before he covers his eyes two one go all he has to do is walk in a straight line with his eyes  closed how hard can it be it is a very weird thing to be walking without any visual or auditory  stimulus what's really weird is apparently how surprisingly difficult it is you were holding a  picture of it in your head and in your mind's eye you're walking a nice straight trajectory across  that landscape I mean tickling at the back of your mind you're thinking something might be wrong  but try a

s you might you feel like you're walking straight whoa whoa you started out pretty nice  but uh 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 200t diameter circle I am totally amazed by  that result a result nailed by the GPS Trail the astonishing disparity between Adam's perception  and his actual route

is there for all to see that is hilarious it's a result that begs  several questions the first of which is will Jamie do any better Jamie's blind man walking in 3  2 1 go with all the confidence and certainty you'd expect from the Hamman 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 turned turns back on himself i

n a corkscrew pattern I ended up right back at  the road just like you did clearly I didn't know what I was doing I was literally walking around  in circles I mean it's not like I have a compass in my head and so without any visual or audible  cues it's all just random or is it time to delve deeper now the question we have is is that  leaning that we each had to One Direction or the other consistent walking mind test number two  is it something that could be corrected for well that's what we're

just about to find [Music] out  he's doing a little better this time Adam's start is certainly straighter but it's not long before  the test literally takes a turn for the worst 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 yep two things are clear from Adam's second test his route is far from straight and  there's no discernable pattern to his meanderings bye bye a theory compound

ed on Jim's second test  because once again he immediately heads off in the wrong direction I'm lost 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 keyote 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  pat

hs are showing is this looks like a Meandering stream and that Meandering cork screwing leads  Jamie and Adam straight to a firm conclusion 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 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 blindfolder well we can't do  that here no let's go someplace else all right [Music] you're going to 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 once  they're mixed you can set it off by shooting it wi

th a bullet okay so the myth here is that  the impact from 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 nope 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 Bluey in a car crash this is the first time

we 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 with those four questions and no small amount of  Mayhem in mind guns and explosives what could be better The MythBusters Rock

up to the bomb range  where it's time for our 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 powerered rifle you get a super fast chain  reaction that gives you a really nice explosion 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 sh

ow namely  it requires a shock wave in order to set it off a hammer won't do it uh small handgun Fire won't do  it even automatic small caliber Fire won't do it you need a high- powerered rifle and that's what  we're going to use and this is the gun it's a 308 sniper rifle this thing has a muzzle velocity of  2500 ft per second that's plenty of power to set off our binary explosive okay here we go firing  now the plan is we're going to fire into our Catalyst okay Catalyst load no explosion  and

then we're going to fire into our oxidizer no explosion time to mix them then  we're going to mix the two components together fire into that and see if it EXP explodes now if  it explodes that tells us a very important thing about this myth the chemicals were mixed in the  back of this guy's trunk which means that guy was crazy all right this is the mix binary explosive  you guys ready ready did you mix it good oh I did wow that was a good pop so we've come out to the bomb range  to find out exa

ctly 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 and the question is what's next does more  equal more if we ramp up to a trunk full of this stuff how much bigger will the  explosion be that's right it's bigger boom time our mythbusting pedestrians have already establishe

d that blindfolds  and straight lines don't mix wa but how about other types of travel I can't  believe we didn't get pulled over 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 our wet suit tight material tends to hold me in a little bit make me look a little less  tubby it's not working is it oh crap speaking of body shape GPS me is the wonky walking of the  previous test all about that particular method of movement oh it's cold will the biomechanics  of swimming keep our out of shape swim team on the straight and narrow well a mere 30 ft  into the test it's clear that the blindfold by blocking out any visual la

ndmarks makes the  answer a drifting dizzying no he's swimming around and around in a cork screw once again  the really compelling detail is not how far off course Adam is straying I must be close but  that he thinks he's going straight I feel like I'm doing doing pretty good if I meant the  landscape Target's still right there no no Adam it isn't take a look at Adam's GPS Trail he  made three complete circles almost the same size and what that tells me is that he's got some  bias to swim in tha

t direction and unless he has Vision to straighten that out that's just  what he's going to do Jamie has a good point perhaps Adam has a left biased swimming stroke  let's see if the wellness 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 aiming blindfolded for a  Target straight across the lake two things are clear for a Marine Mammal he's clearly not at  home in the water and his pre-test prediction

was right as well as the occasional left followed  by a right some more right and well you get the picture well Jamie didn't Fair any better than  I did in attempting to swim in a straight line in fact he fared far worse he did have the  intuition in the middle that things were going horribly arai I get the feeling I'm  swimming in a circle 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

I love  it [Music] can the impact energy of a fender bender set off a trunkload of binary explosive  and blow a card of smithin Carrie Grant and Tor are at the bomb range aiming to find out wow  that was a good pop so we know from working with explosives like AO when you use more of  it you get a bigger boom seems pretty obvious but that might not actually be the case here  in in special effects they use really small quantities one load is only half a pound and in  fact when it's mixed it's real

ly 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 wa wow now you can see from the destroy box doubling  the material gave us 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 going to mix up five jars of this  stuff line them up take a shot at one and see if it sets off the rest we've already  established that the material had to have been transported premixed and if so it was  likely to be stored in multiple containers so the question is will a single impact  set off a chain reaction all right here we go wow there you go that was awesome you got  a chain reaction they all went off totally I like combining guns and explosives yeah all  right and when we firs

t started the 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 before we tackle the final  question there's something that's been kind of bothering us the driver of the car claims  the impact blew his car up now this is an explosive that they use

in special effects  right it could just be a puff of smoke for the camera so I think we need to find out  if it can do the material damage that the myth implies now for that we've picked out a  couple pretty random items to do some tests on and first up Carrie has chosen melons which  shows the effect of the binary explosive is more than just special ring watermelon that  was great me I'm going to blow up my old TV and that proves it's not just a flash  in the film can that was a beautiful thing

finally it's tor's turn I've always wanted to  kill a zombie where did I get a zombie roll the tape yep seizing the opportunity to satisfy his  professional model making urges zombies are cool and a childhood dream to shoot our realistic  looking zombie Tori uses a spare lunch hour or three zombie intestines and really goes to town  bringing his creation to life he he's alive or reanimated bring on the apocalypse killing the  undead in three two [Music] one in reasonable quantities binary explo

sives clearly  have a detonation that could damage a car and are not just a puff of Hollywood  smoke which leaves one final piece of this puzzle the initiating impact so the  big question is will a high energy impact other than a high velocity round  be enough to set off our binary explosives that's right we are about to see if  we can create an explosion from a car crash in the myth of the exploding fender bender  carry Granton are having fun playing with guns and blammo all right so we know th

at 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 so now we want to see if an impact  will set off this binary explosives just like in a car crash so we brought out our giant  steel fist you might remember this from car flip this thing weighs 1,500 lb we're going to  take it up with the crane drop it on one load of our b

inary explosive and see if that impact  is enough to set it off so we've got our fish suspended over the Impact Zone with our Hollywood  binary explosive down at the Target area now why this might work well the round that we've been  using to successfully trigger our binary explosive is a 308 it has a kinetic energy of approximately  3,840 Jew our fist on the other hand has a kinetic energy 27 times that over 100,000 Jews that just  might be enough energy to trigger the explosion it's true that

the manufacturers claim only  a high powerered rifle will set it off ready but put it this way steel fist onto one load of  binary explosive when we approach the relevant authorities and three the only place they let  us do this experiment two was at the bomb range one no exp expion a big thumb well the test did  bomb in the sense that the fist fender bender failed to detonate the explosive which leaves the  team pondering where to next right now it is not looking good for this myth well maybe w

ith a car  crash you might even have more kinetic energy we have heavier cars we have faster speeds and  maybe there's metal flying around it still could be possible all right let's set up for that  while the 1500 lb steel Fist of Fury racks up an impressive amount of impact energy it hasn't got  the same chaotic shrapnel producing quality of a real fender bender dig big oh you need a big  shovel 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 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 buy a car halfway deep  so that just the trunk sticking out recreate the crash by dropping another car at 150 ft  so that it hit at threeway speed with 50 lbs of finary explosive in the trunk all right  so now that we have our whole dug it's time to put our car

nose down into the hole this  way the car won't move at all when we drop the other car from 150 ft from the crane into  the trunk looks like we C A big one with 50 lbs 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 we're almost doubling the speed and the Collision  will create 880,000 Jews of kinetic energy yeah I still don't think it's going to explode well  there

's only one way to find out dropping a car from 150 ft at 60 MPH and crashing it into  another car that's standing on end half buried in the ground with a trunk full of explosive exp  just another day at the office all right this is freeway speed 100 loads of binary explosive  in the trunk rear end collision in three 2 1 hit that was a great hit no exposion explosion no explosion add with a C cumstances  of the myth recreated exactly albeit at 90° the damning conclusion is quick to fall we  want

ed to create a crash at freeway speed I think we did one better why because that car  is 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 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 super sized 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 having walked wonky oh and swam 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 psych deprived it's a blindfolded driving should we get to it I think so this test is  really simple once ag

ain we're going to use blinders and hearing suppression and all we're  going to do is try and drive a straight line right towards the city of San Francisco this is  our vehicle a gas powered golf cart after a few modifications it's going to be the perfect  test bed platform for us so that we can tell where we've been we're going to attach this  Sports Chalker to the back of our golf cart and that Line's going to tell the whole story  they'll also be using their trusty GPS unit to plot their cour

se electronically go and in  this most straightforward of tests Adam thinks he's about to bust the myth by doing just that  going straight 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 aline the wheels and not move my hands  I'm holding my hand steady but I can't take the feeling that I'm drifting to the right interesting  once again Adam rejects StraightLine reality in favor of his own internal vision ok

ay you're  going to have to stop well you can open your eyes I was drifting to the  left yep 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 uhoh 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 it could be adjustments that are impos

sible  to make for Adam at least without a visual reference who it drove us into the middle  of a field well there you have it you've got three lines and every one of them  goes off to one side or the other very quickly no straight lines here nope and  the GPS data illustrates that perfectly the question is can Jamie do any  better on his three test drives go 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 doe

sn'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 foney I could be going around in circles  for all I do so this doesn't really work too well I don't think despite making it further down the  runway than Adam Jamie has only given this myth another kick in the confirmed Direction so far  we've walked we've swam and now we've driven I'll admit I thought we weren't going to get anything 

out of the driving test in terms of results but I mean supposedly you're in this 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 this 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 kening all over the runway even driving we could not make a straight  line it's an in 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 clearly confirmed but Adam and Jamie want to take it further and explore  the real wor

ld implications [Music] okay so a 60 MPH crash is not going to 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 couple 100 milph I love  it and I know exactly where we're going to go to test this road trip yeah but just in case  let's not put the explosive in the trunk good idea when ramping It Up is on the menu there's  one location that's guaranteed to find the dial ma

rked awesome turn it up to 11 rip it off and  run away laughing it's perfect day for science 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 lb of thrust over a quar second upwards of 30 100 miles an hour to create what  we hope is going to be the world's fastest car crash and this is our T

arget 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 but before the team launches a rocket propelled fender bender a control is  required and you know it's going to be a good experiment when the control test is a massive  explosion knowing ju

st what kind of Havoc the rocket sled can wreak 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 shakeing not so did to be sure the  team will set off the same amount of vinary 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 you can get a PhD and blowing up in fact it

's also the most robust bunker it  is built to withstand 20,000 lbs of TNT our explosion is not quite that big but it's within  the spirit of the myth a trunk full of binary explosive okay so because this is potentially  is so dangerous we need to be very far away and underground home sweet home so we're going  to do it the oldfashioned way use a det all right this is binary car control filled with  200 loads of binary explosive in five 4 3 two one wow that was a massive explosion that was an in

credible explosion I mean  I had no idea that this binary explosive had this much destructive power but we know that I took a  blasting cap in order to set this [Music] 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  in the ramped up rocket sled crash they'll be looking for a shock wave followed by a fireball  and and the car roof being blown 200 ft 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  I know this engine doesn't look like much but it's going to be putting out a million horsepower  today 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 hence the concerted  team eff

ort preparing the impact vehicle a truck with rockets as standard now the best part about  using a truck for this is we can actually use the chassis of the truck to build in the rocket sled  so that way it's one solid unit now back here is where we're going to put our Rockets now remember  this is the first time they are flying a vehicle down the track anything can happen but there's one  thing Tori thinks won't happen now we know a high rifle will set off the binary explosive and that  is trave

ling at 2,000 ft per second which is400 mph wouldn't be a truck without one of these now  our car is only going to be traveling at 300 mph so I have a hard time believing that that crash  is going to be enough to detonate the explosive but we have done everything we can scientifically  to cover our bases let's see what happens with a trunk full 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 t

hese are 5- in harar Rockets there's going to be 10 of them on our sled  now they were made in the 1950s but believe me they still pack a punch they're going to give us  65,000 lb of thrust in a quarter of a second and cause the sled to experience 17 GS of acceleration  that should be more than enough to get our truck going 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 d

oesn'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 lets you and  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 It's widely reported that u

nprepared 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 behold the  Hinman and his natural habitat on a clear day in unknown territory unable to see their direction  for the trees can they stick to a pre-selected bearing Jamie and I are each going to choose a  specific trajectory and try and walk a straight line on t

hat trajectory while being tracked by  a GPS in 3 2 1 here we go after 30 minutes we're going to come back home and see exactly how we did  did now I'm not talking walking a straight line like a ruler I'm talking I have some place I need  to get to and I want to go there directly and so in this Forest without being blindfolded I don't  think it's going to be so much of a problem they Great Outdoors now from a scientific standpoint  it's worth pointing out that Jamie and I are not equivalent test

subjects for this experiment Jamie  has had a ton of survival training and no it's not because his parents abandoned him in the woods as  a baby he's actually had professionals teach him how to survive in the wilderness I have not it's  an awful lot of downhill I'm going to be doing several things to keep me walking in a straight  line I'm going to try and take sightings off of trees or other landmarks and I'm going to 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 going to 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 oh that's the time time to go home using  their trusty GPS units they head back to position one where the results are in despite terrain  obstacles

and obscure 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 cork screwing the myth implies while I might  not have uh the survival training that Jamie has uh my techniques actually worked pretty  good with the help of a gorgeous day in the sun I was able to maintain a reasonably straight  trajectory but for the next test they're going to

make things tough and turn off the sun 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 recreate that kind of situation definitely not and it turns out the  perfect AR official snowstorm used by experts to train for white out co

nditions where your vision  is restricted to a radius of just a few feet is the bucket head okay here we go as before Adam  and Jamie have a pre-selected bearing they can see their feet at a limited distance in front  of them oh crap but crucially they can't see the Sun or use long range sight markers but  our expert Outdoorsman has his technique down pat by methodically pacing at right angles  around direct obstacles forward he maintains his straight line trajectory and go forward  again while

Jamie robotically Paces towards his goal the extreme conditions get the better of  untrained atom something tells me that things have gone horribly wrong until he's simply wandering  in the woods with a bucket on his head with the test complete the GPS results show that urbanite  atom beautifully Illustrated just how important survival training is in extreme conditions look  at that I almost Drew an emper sand in the woods in contrast Jam's route was indicative of his  practical approach and tec

hnique 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 right but with proper training you can still walk in a  straight line and to safety thanks Jamie 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 suc

cessful Escape what about  teamwork let's get out of here I'll navigate all right one way or another it seems that humans are  not inclined to walk in a straight line if they can't see very well it makes me wonder though  if there's not some kind of mechanical solution this I've got to see 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

cork  screw but now we've had an idea that may just be the solution to our problem now 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 take 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 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 hey watch I can make Jimmy dance the Fatal flaw for our blindfold e 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 g

ot my goggles here we go in three 2 1 one let's go they're off and the  early signs are encouraging I feel like walking in a nice straight line okay unlike Jaime's solo  efforts when he veered off course very early our pair of paramaters look like they've got this  conundrum cracked now I know what it really is like to have a monkey in your back 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 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 [Music] work we're facing where  we started that's amazing the arrows way over there thi

s didn't work at all well what are  you going to 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 so it seems that without Vision we're doomed to walking in  circles well at least we're outstanding in our [Music] field 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 [Music] that's what the detonation of a trunk full of  Hollywood binary explosive looks like love a good explosion in the morning question  is can the impact from a fender bender initiate that explosion all right ready for  launch if a rocket propelled truck can't do it no conceivable car crash ever could  because at 300 mph we're exceeding the speed of the

fastest supercar on the road  this is binary explosive versus the Rockets sled it's this myth's final chance here  we go and Final Countdown in five 4 3 2 1 oh my God what just happened what just happened was an old beat up pickup truck powered by 10 har Rockets pumping out 65,000  lb of trust pulled 17 G's and got up to almost 300 mph all right oh my God that was awesome wow  as fender benders go that was at the end of the scale marked insane but to find out whether  the binary explosive in th

e trunk of the target car was detonated the team needs to get a  closer look and compare it to the control blast we watched 200 loads of binary explosives  detonate so that we could compare it to what we just witnessed we saw a rocket sled come down  the track at almost 300 mph and crash into the back end of a car with the same amount of  explosives 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 any

body get the license paint  on that car now we know that our binary explosive can be set off by a high power rifle round but  this myth is about a collision specifically a vehicle collision we contined to ramp up our  speeds all the way up to nearly 300 mph and still no detonation 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 ca

n 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 highspeed  crash yeah and you know you're not going to see a crash like that on the road and even if  you did there' be no explosion definitely not a detonation all right so a collision  from a car is never going to set off a trunk full of binary explosive

s this one  is busted busted busted that was awesome [Music] oh [Music]