Can Popcorn Break Windows? - Mythbusters - S05 EP18 - Science Documentary

on this episode of Mythbusters there's Real  Genius today's forecast 70 chance of science lots of laughs and a whole heap of explosions like  a wet t-shirt contest really first Adam and Jamie take on a classic Urban myth it's awful with the  top down can you stay dry by putting the pedal to the metal whoa look at that then Carrie Grant  and Tori have a two-part popcorn parable [Music] they're asking can you cook corn  with explosions and then lasers am I missing an eyebrow [Music] who are The My

thBusters Adam Savage am  I missing an eyebrow and Jamie heinemann I usually don't let people do that between the  more than 30 years of special effects experience joining them Carrie virus that was a rush  Grant Imahara Tori belichi just tell them it's to the test so what's up with the umbrellas I'm planning  to use them to paint a metaphorical picture I want you to imagine that you are  having a midlife crisis and you run out and spend a bunch of dough on a  really nice convertible sports car

okay now further imagine that you're driving  it down the street and it starts to rain what do you do pull over and you put the top up  that's where the fan site myth states that you might be wrong that instead of wasting  your time putting the top up that you should floor it go as fast as you can because there  is a speed at which you can drive that no rain will enter the driver's compartment sounds kind  of unsafe to me sounds really fun to test to me aerodynamics dangerous wet weather driving

and  a classic Urban myth this is mythbuster country viewers want to know if you've got the top down  when it starts raining will putting your foot down keep you dry so does this mean we get to drive a  fancy car really fast in the rain we do but we are in sunny California and that presents a little bit  of a problem I think just as we did in running in the rain we're going to have to manufacture our  own rain here it's a bit of a chore but I think we can handle that we still get to drive a rea

lly  fancy car fast in the rain though right yes but slow down there Cowboy I think perhaps we ought  to take this model car and run some shop tests sprinkle some water at it look at it on high speed  see if there's anything at all to this minute and then we get to drive a really fancy car fast in  the rain okay look we'll get some driving lessons we'll wet down some tarmac we'll go out next  thing and drive a fancy car all right all right so to keep rev head Heineman happy they shelve  the shop

tests in favor of well the first thing on our agenda is to get some training and foul  weather driving on wet roads and in lovely sunny California there's nothing better for that  than a perfect sunny day God being the Boy Scouts that they are they came prepared to make  their own oh I've made a rainbow look at that this is gonna be fun that's the bad weather  so all we need now is a convertible car seeing MythBusters before you know that  generally when we have cars they explode but not that o

ne I don't think pretty Snappy I think I know what I  want for Christmas this year [Music] guiding the guys through their wet weather  driving instruction is Brian Fraser Brian's the guy that trains anybody that drives  an emergency vehicle how to do it right that means police fire ambulances Brian's a guy a  little bit of the steering out the catch right if I had a car like that I wouldn't  be letting Adam drive it harsh but giving Adam's track record and  current over caffeinated mood fair [Mu

sic] I might have gotten the microphone wet  there for a second despite Adam's best efforts the microphone still works  and they get down to business well the surface is now wet we're going  to lose that cohesion between the tires and the concrete surface we're on  a concrete pad out here today [Applause] hydroplaning can also be a  factor if we got standing water ways to deal with this or get off the  gas blow our speed down it's going to multiply any reaction we do so you want  to not be jerky

in your steering movements so to smoothing out your steering and backing off  speed can keep you in control of the car [Music] the clearest difference between driving on the wet grounds versus the dry ground is that  it's a lot slipper oh sorry about that mostly this feels to me like getting a  handle on wear out of control is that's the trick once you know where out of control is  you can back off from it or you can sneak up to it without getting in too much dangerous  try to get a slide to sh

oot straight down there you go I lost my hat we're just trying  to get comfortable with this scenario so if we hit something unknown out there on  the testing site we can recover safely and that's the key by simply getting the  grips with the car on a wet surface they can be sure they won't lose their heads  at high speeds on the real test which means they're licensed for wet weather  science that's okay I'm losing my hat now in part one of popcorn pandemonium is it  possible to pop popcorn with

an explosion [Music] you know going to the movie theater is one of my  favorite things to do but what does this have to do with the myth well the fans Love Popcorn  as much as I do and they've sent in a ton of myths about popcorn yeah like what hot popcorn  with explosives how's that supposed to work explosions generate a lot of Heat and the fans  think that is just enough to pop popcorn cool yeah it's delicious so nutritious  it's a tasty light popcorn and its distinctive explosive expansion 

is a ready-made recipe for myth and disaster and the fans want to know can  you put the pop in popcorn with a bang okay so popcorn with explosives how are we  gonna test this well this myth comes in a whole variety of forms everything from  a torpedo eating a container ship full of popcorn to an industrial accident  at a popcorn popping plant whoa what are we gonna do I think we should take our  favorite explosions from our favorite myths apply them to popcorn this is gonna be fun  oh this is th

e apartment she dies [Music] despite the various outlandish sources for this  fan request the basic premise for each is the same pressure from an explosion causes raw  popcorn kernels to cook in an instant to test this one Central Theory the team is taking two  classic blasts from the past and reigniting them at the bomb range first up now we do have a myth from James Bond  that is the exploding propane tank this doesn't pop the popcorn I don't know what will strap some  C4 onto a propane tank p

ut some popcorn kernels on top and see if we get this rain cooked popcorn now  we know that heat is what causes popcorn kernels to pop into popcorn I mean you could do it on  your stove and I think it's fairly likely that the size of Fireball that we'll get will generate the  sufficient amount of heat to make something pop oh so will the explosive C4 and propane cocktail  cook the corn or will it Simply Be Shaken stirred and sprayed shrapnel like all over the bomb  range all right here we go in

three two one oh wow that was some heat you think  we popped off work I don't know that's the burning question but up at the  corn Carnage epicenter the signs aren't good I see a lot of unpopped kernels on the  ground no popcorn nothing nope there's more foil over here it seems the force of the  C4 explosion and the rapidly expanding propane Fireball distributed the raw kernels far and wide  without actually cooking and popping any of them so propane did not pop the popcorn all we had  was a big

Fireball which is what we expected but that somehow wasn't quite right in order  to pop the popcorn I don't think there was quite enough heat and it wasn't sustained for  long enough for the popcorn to actually Pop I think we just kind of blew it out everywhere all  right what's next kettle corn Creamery Cannon yeah it's a popular fan site Fable can you keep  the rain out of your convertible by putting the pedal to the metal [Applause] after taking  their luxury soft top for a wet weather test

spin Adam and Jamie are back at the  Batcave for preliminary shop tests this is our Scout scale testing rig for driving  in the rain and since it's about two things wind and rain we're creating both of those in a small  scale I've got a leaf blower here creating the wind over the car I've got Jamie perched up  there in the scissor lip he's gonna be the rain he's got a pressurized bottle of some blue  dye so that we can actually see the raindrops oh that's nice hopefully if there's any  validity

to this myth that the rain somehow by the aerodynamics of the car going fast will  get in the driver's compartment are you ready I'm ready I would expect to see these blue  raindrops coming down and the wind coming up the car inhibiting them from continuing their  Journey onto the passengers in the convertible so they've got a convertible and they've got rain to simulate driving through the rain they've got  a 15 mile an hour wind all right go for it oh yeah followed by a small scale hurricane w

ith  many wind speeds of 30 miles an hour after which Adam is confident this myth holds  water I'm thinking that our scale tests are actually proving pretty fruitful there may be  something to this I think run three tests and they're showing me what I would expect to see  if this myth were actually true I.E we've run it with no wind and some rain a slow speed wind  15 miles per hour and a high speed wind 30 miles per hour and I'm seeing what looks like a bubble  forming over the driver's compart

ment with less rain seems to want to get into yeah it does show  the rain kind of zipping over the cockpit but I'm not that sure that the wind and the rain scale  that well we're gonna have to do it full size I knew you're going to go there well it involves  getting a sports car and driving really fast in but before said dangerous wet weather driving  Adam has a couple of issues the first problem with this is I see it is that this was loaned  To Us by a friend and a fan of the show and it's wort

h over a hundred thousand dollars and we're  MythBusters there's an inherent danger Factor just in letting us near something of this value  the second problem is that we've got to figure out a way at some fairly extreme speeds to be  able to know whether water has gotten into the driver's compartment this is a lot more difficult  than when we were doing running in the rain 785 grams so 18 grams of water we need to  have a rain detector for inside the car but because the amounts that we're dealin

g  with are really quite small it's not like we can put a funnel in a collector or  electronic instrument or something in there I figured that if we put something that would by  virtue of getting wet show a DOT that that would do the trick and so I thought of tissue paper  because when it's opaque you can't really see anything through the other side of it but when  it gets wet like so all of a sudden you've got a very clear indication that there's a drop of water  they hit uh it's like a wet t-s

hirt contest really shows you what's underneath don't it so far popping popcorn with explosives is  not looking good and it worked very well didn't work at all the extreme expansion  of gases typical of an explosion is simply Distributing the kernels over the  bomb range without cooking them but our Intrepid Trio have yet to light  the fuse on their final conflagration of all the Fireballs that I've seen  from explosions that we've done creamer Cannon has given us the most slow  Fireball it goes

into the air and then [Music] we're gonna have the popcorn kind of mixed in  with the creamer that's a recipe for disaster hopefully kettle corn so maybe the sticky creamer  will stick to the popcorn creating that heat for long enough that we'll get kettle corn big boom  aficionados will have noted that technically this won't actually be an explosion but in the  mythical scenarios a fireball could easily have been the causal factor in the reported popping of  the popcorn yeah we're good to go a

ll right we're ready to light the flare okay I'll see you behind  the blast Shields let's make some kettle corn I'm ever The Optimist I think that this actually  has a chance of work all right you guys want to run I do what happens is you launch the cannon  the creamer and the corn goes up in the air the corn is surrounded by fire somehow it's going to  make us kettle corn red to go in three two one oh you know what I saw a bunch of  Bernie something [Applause] [Music] the fine grain creamer onc

e again proves  extremely flammable [Music] leading to a satisfying Fireball and there appears  to be flaming food falling to the ground [Music] unfortunately it was just little  bits of creamer but there was such hope there for a minute I thought  we actually did it but get [Music] along so we've got a lot of non-dairy creamer  a lot of unpopped popcorn kernels maybe there wasn't enough heat maybe it wasn't there for  long enough I don't know but what I do know is that we don't know enough abou

t popping popcorn  so we need to go find an expert so with the myth looking pretty much busted it's back to the shop  where Carrie meets a popcorn Professor now we've been trying to pop popcorn with explosives and  I'm wondering if we just don't have enough heat generated why do you think that it's not working  for us popcorn pops best at 450 degrees Fahrenheit when the popcorn is exposed to that heat the  moisture inside the kernels expand and expand like your grandmother's old-fashioned pressu

re  cooker until finally there's enough pressure to break open the kernel and what you're eating is  the starch that has been condensed inside that's the key a popcorn kernel is basically a pressure  vessel made up of three layers the tough outer shell the starch-filled middle layer and the  small Central germ add sustained Heat and the moisture in the center turns to steam this heat  and pressure gelatinizes the starch until finally the shell bursts as the steam is released  the starch cools in

to the fluffy white ball we know and love so let me get this straight the  explosives didn't work because we didn't have any of the right circumstances you're saying we need  450 degrees even heating over a period of time more like a minute before we can actually get the  popcorn to expand so there's really no way for us to flash heat and have explosives make us popcorn  that's my understanding basically explosions conflagrations and combustions like these  thank you I adjust never going to pop

your corn well as exciting as that was we didn't really  pop any popcorn with explosives well there's one more myth I really want to test with the  fan sent in and that's why I brought you here to the movie theater which one's that well do  you remember a little movie called Real Genius yeah patted my life off of it do you remember  the last scene in the movie a laser pops an enormous amount of popcorn in the house blows  out all the windows in the doors just from the power of popcorn and that's

what we're going to  test yep that's we're gonna test check it out a template for Grant's life  a monument to geek Hood and a source for this myth can a five megawatt  laser really cook a gigantic ball of popcorn and can the expansive power unleashed really  bring down the house all right well first we need to see if you can even pop popcorn with  the laser and we need to characterize the force of popping popcorn okay well let's start out  with some due diligence before we Unleash the Power of

popcorn on an actual house how about  you and I go check out a military spec laser see if it pops popcorn while you run some  tests on for some expansion all right let's go we can't leave yet the credits are rolling  people work hard on this we'll work on Stewie Jamie and Adam are on the runway at Alameda  raising a Rainmaker it's a little Iwo Jima moment here yeah because to test the myth that  driving fast keeps you dry holy crapola they need wet weather at the flick of a switch and for  that

they're going back to their movie Roots Hollywood like MythBusters doesn't wait for ideal  weather conditions they make their own weather and this device is one of the ways they do it this is  a rain bar got it and it sprays water through a set of spouts these spouts there's six of them  and if what you want is torrential rain it can deliver 1200 gallons a minute for us it's going to  be delivering a linear swath of rain 200 feet long let's say that you're setting up one  of these rain bars for

some finale of a romantic movie it's the the guy and  the girl and they're in the rain do you heat up the water absolutely really  yes 90 degrees we bring it up to 90 degrees for their comfort and let them go  at it so the team is ready for a dry run well everything's hooked up and in place and the  next thing we're going to do is a dribble test gonna pressurize all the lines to the point where  water starts dribbling out the rain heads because of several things this amount of rain is perfect  f

or our test it's just about two inches per hour one that's a lot of weight of water about 600  pounds per bar and the weight distribution could change and they could swing so we need to make  sure we can control them too there's a little bit of a west to east Breeze here we want to make sure  the rain falls where the car is going to drive so we might adjust our final bar position based on  what we see here that's perfect with the rain ready to fall and the camera is ready to roll it's  time to b

ring in the star the car let's protect the Upholstery and put in our ring collection  gear okay we modified this car in a couple of ways to turn it into a data collection device for  this test first because it's a fancy car we've protected the whole interior with absorbent  fabric so that no water can damage the car second to measure what water does get in the car  we've got these two boards which is basically a piece of plywood faced with acrylic and tissue  paper any water that hits this surfa

ce is going to create a nice dark spot that's easy to see  easy to count and should give us a really nice comparative analysis of how much water is  getting into the driver's compartment under the different conditions for testing well let's  get to it okay and by to it they mean using their driving instructor as a human crash test guinea  pig the biggest danger posed by this experiment is hydroplaning that's where the car floats up  on a cushion of water and you lose all control okay go rain and

Brian our safety trainer and driver is actually  going to take this run at 120 miles an hour across the Rainy tarmac to make sure  that it's safe for Jamie and I to do Brian's about to hit what's essentially a  sluice down skid pad at 120 miles per hour interesting [Music] okay out of control through 450 degrees  is exactly why the expert was behind the wheel and not Adam or Jamie what  happened there buddy that's what we call hydroplaning wow that seemed quite  intense it was very intense and

a lot of fun I gotta say Brian gets real props for that one  looking at the footage Brian's expression didn't change at all he didn't Flinch while he's spinning  out of control around and around and around at 120 miles an hour so one thing's clear these tests  will be dangerous hitting a wet surface at higher than highway speeds as the potential to put you  into a spin cycle how do you feel about it Jamie he did it I'll do it all right you're  doing it we're going to be ramping it up we're going

to be going like 55 normal  highway speed then we'll ramp that up to like 80 and this is about the top speed  that we're gonna go about 120. so that's as bad as it's going to get yeah but it  looks like hydroplaning is guaranteed [Music] [Music] our Intrepid Trio are looking into  unconventional ways to pop popcorn and as anyone with access  to the internet will know there's one method that the conspiracy  theorists just won't let go [Music] so we're doing myths about popcorn when are  we doing

the one about the cell phone cooking the popcorn actually we're not doing it we're not  but that was one of the biggest viral videos you put four cell phones around some kernels you  get them to call each other and then pop pop I know I know but that one is busted so totally  busted that's just not worth our time look we already know that it takes at least 220 degrees to  pop popcorn and while cell phones do get hot they don't even approach those temperatures forget  about your brain frying you

r hair would catch fire but some people say it's the radiation from  the phone that causes the popcorn to pop again total and utter nonsense so we're not gonna test  it we've got a choice we can either sit around a table with cell phones and popcorn and watch  nothing happen or we can try and pop popcorn using explosives and lasers good point let's get back to  it all right and to test this popcorn theme scene from The Silver Screen Carrie and Tori go back to  school because they want to know if

there's any science at all in this science fiction sounding  scenario now what we're trying to find out here is can you pop popcorn with the laser and if  so could you do it from a plane I believe that they're both possible just a matter how much  laser power you have now how realistic do you think the laser in the movie was five megawatts  is a stretch I'm not saying it's impossible but it's a stretch even for chemical lasers which  typically operate you know the highest power is about 100 kil

owatts I don't think that a five  megawatt laser is around the corner just yet now one serious question that Grant wanted me to ask  you was how close are we to lightsaber technology oh that's classified so as unlikely as it sounds  there's a kernel of truth to this man [Applause] and for proof of concept here is my popcorn  kernel there we go they've got a 10 watt laser pointed right at it we're popping pop growing with  lasers looking at the thermal camera I'm seeing a tiny bit of heat at the

top and the bottom of  the kernel and they're expanding very slowly pretty sure this is not how mom used to make it  this is how Grant's mom used to make it [Music] [Applause] you can laser pop popcorn let's just concentrate  on the power of popcorn that is cool pretty good [Music] in part two of popcorn pandemonium we're popping  popcorn with lasers Carrie Grant and Tori have discovered that just like the myth you can  actually cook popcorn with a laser so now all we need is a five megawatt las

er and we can  finally find out if popcorn could break down doors and windows uh no in fact a hundred kilowatt is  most powerful you're gonna find and that's even in military applications Yeah so basically we're  never going to find a laser big enough to pop a house full of popcorn if we can't get a laser we  can substitute another heat Source already on it induction heating we just have to switch out the  tin foil for some sort of steel container sounds reasonable to me so did you ask him about

that  thing we're talking about the laser sword actually I did and guess what I got a prototype right  here there you go buddy don't turn it on inside so out goes the science fiction sized five  megawatt laser and in comes a giant steel frying pan painted by electromagnetism so we're  trying to find out does popcorn have the expansive power to blow open doors and windows of a house  we know in theory that a laser can pop popcorn but there's no way we're going to be able to get  a laser powerful

enough to pop a whole house full of puff wood so I'm gonna make a frying pan and  not just any normal frying pan but a giant steel electromagnetically heated frying pan this is  gonna be crazy it's a big pan but it's not house sized and that's because the second change to  the movie scenario is one of scale the team are starting small with just one window in the movie  the weak point was the windows so I'm obstructing a window bring it in a wall making that the lid  for our pan now if the Smith

is true popcorn should pop like crazy pop with mythical power  bust through the windows and spill out everywhere that's the setup and inside Grant is  using his apply the Jedi mind force mind to Crunch The crucial numbers for the expansion  potential of popcorn so the popped kernel has an increase in volume of approximately 30 times  which is pretty good next he uses the force gauge to measure the pressure of that expansion rise  popcorn rise push on the plate and give us holes which turns out

to be 0.22 PSI which  may not sound like a lot but over a large surface area that could end up being  a lot of force but we won't know for sure until we try it full scale so we're about  to heat up the pan to cook the popcorn now the way we're going to do that is we're using  an induction heating system how that works is there are copper coils underneath the steel  plate and they send out a high frequency AC current now that current creates a magnetic  field which will move the molecules around

in the steel as those molecules are moving  it creates friction which creates heat and that's how we're going to cook our popcorn  in essence we're making a giant skillet so now we're going to coat the bottom of the pan  with coconut oil to spread the heat evenly it smells like it smells like popcorn and then fill  it with three quarters of an inch popcorn kernels according to Grant's earlier calculations three  quarters of an inch of kernels should expand to over 20 inches and with the window a

mirrors six  inches above the uncooked corn we're all set to find out if popcorn has the power to break out  that's what we're looking for in this experiment is whether the force of the popping popcorn  will actually break the wind down Okay so it's on now my earlier experiment  found that the pop generated .22 PSI come on break the window which doesn't sound  like a whole lot but consider this is a relatively large surface area the windows  over a thousand square inches which means potentially

220 pounds of force but despite a  sterling stirring effort break it Grant now's your chance show us what you got boy the popcorn  fails to make an impression on the window and it never will because confining the popcorn  while it's cooking prevents it from popping most of our kernels popped and you might be  thinking well if they didn't bust through the window why don't they just add more popcorn but  there's actually a maximum amount of kernels you can use before it not only is a compression 

start making them pop smaller but everything just burns this is the most popcorn that's going  to pop in these circumstances so it's a catch-22 putting pressure on the popcorn means it doesn't  pop and can't exert that expensive pressure but the guys aren't giving up yet we do know from your  experiment the pressures that the popcorn should exert so what if we took the cooking out of the  equation use pre-popped popcorn and applied our own Force yeah then we can see if the popcorn  is strong en

ough to break out of the house or whether the kernels would simply Crush under those  conditions so back to the drawing board yeah good Adam and Jamie are lifting the lid on the myth  that just stay dry you don't put the top up you put your foot down first up is the control see  the myth states that if it starts to rain you're driving your convertible well the top down  you shouldn't waste your time putting it up you should gun it floor it go as fast as you can  so of course we're going to gun i

t floor it and go as fast as we can but what do we compare that  to We compare it to the control which is driving into a rainstorm stopping putting the top up and  seeing how much rain we gathered that way right Jamie here's your motivation you're going to be  driving with your top down and it starts to rain you're going to stop while it's raining and put  the tub up and to make it extra realistic for you we're gonna make it rain got that right knock  them dead tiger with a direct line to the we

ather Gods all right stand by for pressure or at least  John the rain bar operator Adam commences the ring today's forecast 70 chance of science go  ahead and pressure it up Jamie come on in remember this is a control  for comparative purposes all right now stop and put the top up it's awful if you're foolish enough to be driving  with the roof down while there's a rainstorm approaching we want to know how wet you'll get  in the time it takes to pop the top back on now go ahead and drive off and

it's pretty  clear because that's one wet pineamen oh look at our test boards there's no drops  to count they're just 100 soaked I don't know whether it's gonna turn out to be something to  driving really fast to keep the rain out of your convertible but it's pretty clear that stopping  at all even to put the top up is going to get you saturated with rain pretty quickly all right  now stop and put the top up now that we've got a good control it's time for some real testing if  there's any Merit

to this mitt we should see a lot less rain on our rain collection panels than last  time but the weather Gods the real ones otherwise known as the physical forces of meteorology decide  to rain on Adam and Jamie's scientific parade how do you like this we're in the middle of a long  California drought bummer and we come out here to make our own weather our own rain and apparently  we angered the weather Gods because it's raining for realsies out here the tissue paper rig is not  going to work i

n these conditions well why don't we do some runs anyway and shoot it on high speed  look at it close and see if we can detect any kind of pattern from it okay that sounds good first up  let's do 25 miles an hour okay for this stately 25 mile an hour test out go the rain detection  boards and in comes the high-speed camera and after a quick reset Jamie UPS the speed to a  healthy 55 miles an hour before heading back to compare the two runs at 25 miles an hour I don't  see any plume coming off th

e windshield at all you will it's coming up in just a minute Derek see  pretty small but still you can see the effect okay it's like a lot of it's going into the cockpit  though yes here's 55 though the difference is actually pretty marked so no plume look at how  the plume appear oh yeah isn't that Nifty yeah just totally clear totally clear well there seems  to be more of a plume at the fastest speed but is the cockpit actually staying drier there's no way  of knowing for sure until the real r

ain lets out I'm not going to say this too loud but looks like  it might actually be clearing up we might get a window for testing soon foreign Grant and Tori  are asking can popping popcorn blow out your house kind of tinkling against the window I thought  they'd be more aggressive yeah large-scale cooking didn't work so they're taking heat out of  the equation to focus on the expansion potential now what we do know is that if you can pop  popcorn it does exert a certain amount of force because

it's a PSI 0.22 so we're  going to try this experiment again but in a different way we're going to take  a bunch of pre-pot popcorn fill a house that we build at our own pressure and see if  the popcorn is enough to destroy the house apparel hot am I missing an eyebrow  so if you could hardest the expansive power of popcorn on a movie myth scale this  test will show us what damage it would do they're going to fill a house with pre-popped  popcorn and push against it with popcorn power 0.22 PSI

will the popcorn Crush in on itself  or will the house blow out like the myth suggests we've done the calculations to fill  a house that is six by six by six feet we're going to need 30 55 gallon garbage bags  full so we've got six Popcorn Poppers all popping at the same time and we're working  around the clock so we can fill the house after the corn mountain peaks carries four-legged  vacuum cleaners move in and the team can move on and with a house built to code in Fast  Forward Grant steps up

with a larger than necessary piston to apply the popcorn power  [Music] I'm not compensating for anything so I'm standing underneath what would be the  floor of our house we're going to fill up the entire house with popcorn and then this cylinder  is going to push up yeah it fits now initially it's going to be just the popcorn Force just to  see if under ideal conditions if we popped every kernel what would happen to the house would it  push up and blow out the windows or would it do nothing an

d with all of the pre-pot popcorn  emptied into the house what's next next step is to fire up the cylinder raise up the platform  so that the popcorn is at roof level I'm gonna close up the house okay set the PSI to the popping  force of popcorn and then we are ready to begin pump Sun all right you guys ready yep okay so this  is regular popcorn popping course three two one it's moving yeah hear the creaking Something's  Gonna Give some popcorn is it the house as it turns out neither popcorn pow

er which according  to Grant's calculations is 0.22 PSI and exactly the pressure exerted by the Piston just  isn't enough to do any damage at all went up an inch but not stopped I think it's done  Lockbourne power is not strong enough all right so basically the expansive pressure popcorn exerts  doesn't come close to denting the door or windows that means I gotta say this part of the myth is  looking busted yep busted yep busted but you know what we still have a house full of popcorn I  say we M

ax it out see what happens I want to see what's going to go first the house or the  popcorn do it all right let's wreck this house with Grant's piston cranked to the max three two  one this test is a transparent excuse to destroy stuff the only question is will the popcorn crash  into dust or will the house come tumbling down and as it turns out the popcorn wins out  [Music] or at least scratched giant piston dip board power that was how many tons of force  15. so it was really just popcorn as a

spacer yeah so popcorn power didn't really  destroy the house no but that was cool all right [Music] today's forecast 70 chance of science with the  weather clearing that forecast is looking good Adam and Jamie have already seen hints  of the aerodynamic bases for this myth isn't that Nifty on the next 70 miles per hour  run they're looking for physical evidence on the tissue paper rain detectors here's my prediction  take a look at the high speed after this run I think what you'll see is a nic

e line of wind  carrying water creating a bubble over Jimmy all right rainmakers let's balance those bars I think  you're gonna see a lot less rain on these panels Jamie you may start your run now this is 70  miles per hour gunning it got it Jake does hitting his Mark and holding steady at the  Target speed for the length of the course and cut the ring and with no hydroplaning or  dangerous spin out it's time to take in the results oh look at that wow that's far out it  looks like no rain at all

hit the middle here but we've got wetness up top here and on the left  hand side here you know I also happen to notice with the splots of water right here and the drops  over here are on the windward side of the car the direction from which the wind was blowing  during your run the wind obviously affected it it's important to note that whatever little  water came in here on the 70 mile an hour run was a tiny tiny fraction of what came in on the  control totally I predicted that there would be l

ess rain in the car on this run not nearly this  little it really seems to be some to the Smith a conviction only confirmed by the high-speed  camera that's really clear it's like there's a line it's a really visible bubble isn't it yes  that's what the windshield's for so it would seem looking at the high-speed camera it was clear  that all of the water that was hitting the car was going over the top of the interior of the car  there was hardly any that entered the car and what did was from som

e kind of turbulence going around  the outside of the car but the guys aren't done yet Adam who will observe from a safe dry distance  feels the need for more speed well as far as I'm concerned we should go for 100 miles an hour and  see if we can get those boards to stay bone dry I'd go ahead and leave the traction control on  but Brian our safety driver is concerned about the additional soaking the surface took from the  real rain so He suggests sticking to 90 miles per hour but if you can't l

et it go got it I've got  to do this test at 90 miles an hour hydroplaning at those kinds of speeds is a serious deal I might  remind you what happened to Brian earlier at 120. miles an hour is pretty fast I'll keep  my fingers crossed that I don't spin out like he did 90 miles an hour 90 miles  an hour 90 miles an hour let's do it let's go to full pressure I am set and ready to go awesome Jamie you may  start your 90 mile an hour run now let it rip [Music] cut the rain nice work Jamie and get t

he  hydroplane awesome let's open this top and see how we did oh dude look at that this is what I  call a result not bad not bad at all these things bone dry we wanted to find out whether driving  fast when it's raining will actually keep you dry and it turns out it does around 25 miles an  hour or so it's not so effective but as you go faster it actually does deflect most of the rain  you know it's not that hard to understand really because the rain's coming down like this if you're  going this

way and you've got something in front of you then it's going to catch all the rain  and send it up over the top of you you stay dry so it does make sense to gun it  the faster the better in fact yeah you might die in the process but uh you'll be  dry you'll be dry your honor ladies and gentlemen of the jury for my closing argument I'd like to  call your attention to exhibit 24 which is footage from the tailgate up or down fuel efficiency myth  at MythBusters film if you'll notice here in the wa

ter oatmeal test there's a bubble formed in the  back of the pickup truck that allows air to flow over the back of the pickup truck the self-same  aerodynamics that the engineers put into this sports card that allow it to be aerodynamic even  with the top down create the same kind of bubble over the passenger compartment and I contend that  that's what keeps the passenger dry at high speed all right this is a conundrum because  I don't feel like it's right to call this one confirmed yeah driving

  really fast in the rain can be very dangerous how about plausible but  not recommended I'll buy that [Music] his umbrellas are a totally reasonable  compromise to a convertible yeah a really fast convertible I don't think so they're  already about ready to take off yeah foreign for this popcorn parable Carrie Grant and  Tori have discovered explosions won't pop your corn that didn't work very well  didn't work at all but lasers will however a giant ball of corn  popped by a five megawatt laser

leading to a house explosion is pure fiction  busted yep busted now our house hasn't exploded yet and this myth calls for an exploding house so  we're out here at the bomb range and this is the plan we're going to load it with C4 at the top  and the bottom when this day is over we should see splinters and popcorn and that's all taught  me this in bomb School well we started with ending with a bang we've got a boom popcorn sandwich  all right you guys ready ready in three two one coming down the

reign of the house too whoa now  that is exploding a house with popcorn foreign [Music] well not really popcorn  with C4 surrounded by popcorn you know to get this result we had to go  very far away from popcorn power really push upon the house and blow the  windows open I didn't really do a whole lot popcorn power turned out to be science  fiction this explosion Real Genius [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] foreign