Can You Swim in Bubbly Water? - Mythbusters - S07 EP02 - Science Documentary

on this episode of Mythbusters W oh the current  is really strong it's bubble bubble toil and like riding a [ __ ] Bronco as the guys test the  busy table that it's impossible to stay a in bubbly water you're just not trying hard enough  that's more like it yeah baby but will it be a case sink or swim swim harder meantime Carri Tor  and take aim at a myth that's got them quivering with anticipation okay it's lit can an exploding  arrow CLE a mighty Pine Tree in two with Precision explosives and

the mother of all pine trees it's  time to split I'm so ready here we go three two one who are The MythBusters Adam Savage that's  the spirit soldiers Jamie H I'll be Dar between more than years of special effect experience  joining them Carrie byon that is messed up Grant Imahara start the car and Tor bichi let's CH  this car up they don't just tell the bits they put the hangover no I'm setting up a demo for our next  story which is well there's a myth going around that it is impossible to swim

in bubbly water  whether it's an acid tablets or carbonated as long as there's bubbles in the water you won't be  able to swim really yeah the conventional wisdom is that the bubbles make the water overall less  dense and so while you'd float in non-bubbly water when you get to the bubble part you'd sink Like a  Stone sounds like we're going for a swim I think so ACC to the you supposedly sink without Trace  but does the density difference of bubbly water really mean that swimming in it is impo

ssible well  since we used up all our an acid breaking out of jail let's say we start with something small like  a fish tank and make a bunch of bubbles in it and see what happens sounds good let's do it so the  myth is that it is impossible to swim in bubbly water because the air rated water is supposed  to be less dense than regular water are you ready for some experimenting I don't think so  so I'm about to conduct some scale experiments to see if there is a change in density of water  when I

run a crapload of bubbles through [Music] it all right let's try that again it's a  great place to start Adam and his 2D Mini Me will test the science at the heart of  this myth do bubbles make a difference to the density of water what I've made here is  a crude hydrometer it's actually floating at a very specific depth depending on the density  of the water if I increase the density of this fish tank would say salt he would float a little  higher if I decrease the density with let's say air bu

bbles he'd float a little lower now if  this myth is true and I put a whole bunch of air bubbles underneath this guy little Adam  there is going to drown so now that 2D Mini Me is neutrally buoyant it's time to see  if he'll sink like the myth suggests 3 2 1 someone's happy but aside from putting a smile  on Adam's dial what are the results I'm seeing almost no change at all in the hydrometer's level  if anything it's actually Rising a little bit and I must admit I had a little bias going into t

his  I thought that as soon as I turned on the bubbles that hydrometer was going tooop drop below the  surface I'm fully in the camp of the bubbles lower the density but there's something else  going on here at any rate in the small scale test it's not looking very good for this meth  a conviction only confirmed after Jamie Gets a demo so I see you're fixing a dump water all  over my floor no no I'm containing it in this lovely tank so what do you think is going to  happen I think it's going to

sink check this out it's not sinking not at all not even  a little bit if anything it rises up a fraction of an inch you would think that  the increased amount of air in the water would make it less dense so it would sink but  that seems to be counteracted and then some by the upwelling current of the movement  of those bubbles it's not looking very good for the story at this point no far from  sinking the Hydra Rose slightly but it's too early to call this myth yet after all you  can't test a s

wimming Saga without getting wet next up a myth that's going to blow you away  all right so this myth comes from a viewer a guy in Iowa wrote in and said that his uncle used to  take a bow and arrow strap a stick of dynamite to it light it fire it into a tree and when it would  explode it would split the tree up the middle okay are you sure this is a viewer myth and like a Tory  bichi family history no I'm serious he wrote it in all right well I'm willing to try it sounds like  we need a stick o

f dynamite an arrow and a tree as any William Tail fan will uh tell you the trick  of splitting an apple with an arrow is a [Music] blast but according to this myth an arrow coupled  with dynamite can split a much bigger eff but is this B Fable B okay for this experiment I think  we need to just go for it get the biggest log we can find and just anchor it to the ground at  the bomb range but remember we're trying to split this tree down the middle with explosives  we don't want to just blow it i

nto pieces right full scale testing means finding the right  tree we're here at the bomb reach to find out if our Dynamite arrows can split a tree these are  our trees they are pine trees from recycler now they're 20 ft long and almost 6,000 lb so  the first step dig a hole the pine trees tech specs match the F myth almost to the left all  right how's about right here while Carrie gets on with step one so much better than a shovel  getting to grips with the Pine's parameters is Grand now we've c

hosen the pine tree because  it's one of the most common trees in America in fact there are over 35 varieties in North  America alone but there are two reasons that might make it easier to split down the middle  one they have vascular bundles that run the entire length of the tree and these are tiny  tubes that carry water and nutrients to the top and two it's got a spiral grain which goes  parallel to the axis of the tree those things together might just help us get a split that's the  theory a

nd with the target tree now Standing Tall Now That's What I Call real stick in the mud the  guys turn their attention to the weapon setting up a remote bow and arrow firing mechanism  so we need to fire a lit stick of dynamite from a bow and arrow into a tree now that is  way too dangerous for us to do so we brought out our remote Arrow firing mechanism this way  we can shoot from a distance and we'll be safe plus we're going to be using a compound bow that  way we get the maximum amount of ener

gy with the least amount of effort with the bow ready to go  that just leaves the payload we're not going to use Dynamite cuz actually it's a fairly unstable  substance instead our experts Frank Doyle and JD Nelson have given us this it's a binary explosive  it's a lot more stable which means it'll go off when and where we want it to and it has exactly  the same amount of energy as a stick of dynamite after a quick test fire to make sure their remote  bow and arrow is on the money it's time to t

ake aim at this myth it's time to load up our  Arrow firing machine shoot it into the tree and see if we can split it down the middle do  I think that's going to happen sure absolutely if we lived in a cartoon Wy coyote Carrie has  her DS but there's only one way to find out all right so the Dynamite's lit let's see if we  can cleave this tree okay this is dynamite arrow take it here we go in three two one the arrow gets  triggered the fuse Burns through and then [Music] oh and the tree still st

and just laughing  at us it sure was a hefty blast but When the Smoke Clears it's clear it wasn't Hefty  enough the tree appears to be pretty well undamaged all right well the tree is still  in one piece yeah I don't even see a crack well maybe we need more explosives maybe this  was more than just like a stick of dynamite maybe it was extra powerful Dynamite that  is a great idea after a surprisingly feeble first test the myth is already on thin  ice so it's time to up the adding we're going to

double the amount of explosive that  we're attaching to the tip of the arrow same as before we're going to light the fuse  remote fire it into the tree and see what happens I don't know man it's not looking very  good for this story our hydrometer didn't just not sink in the water it rows well you know  sometimes things as basic as air and water just doesn't scale that well let's say we bump  it up a notch and go larger all right hey you know that irrigation tank we use for whirl pool  of death

what say we filled that full of water and put a bubbler at the bottom of it I think  we still got it I think we do let's do it yep the small scale wasn't particularly promising  it's not sinking but the myth hasn't sunk just yet and as Adam won't fit in that tank the team  is upsizing everything starting with the bubble so this assembly of aquarium bubblers work pretty  well for this test but if we're going to do this in a larger scale I don't want to have to do  all the plumbing and you can bu

y a thousand of these little aquarium thingies I need to figure  out some more efficient way of creating lots of little Bubbles and the method is typically James  in its practical Simplicity compressed air pumped into a canvas pillowcase forcing thousands  of Tiny Bubbles through the fabric oh that is very cool very cool indeed with the proof  of concept pillowcase bubbling away Adams on to the next task well let's start figuring out  how to go full scale with this cuz I'm dying to get in the wa

ter with this if the myth is true  dying could be right but Jamie doesn't seem too bothered by the prospect it's going to be fun but  before the fun begins Jamie has to upscale his prototype into a heavy duty working [Music] model  so all we've done here is welded together a couple of steel frames and we've sandwiched inside the  frames a pillowcase we're pumping air into that pillowcase and as it pressurizes it comes through  the weave of the fabric that's great it makes a little bubbles but no

t in the shop it won't for  that they're heading for some familiar queasy scenery brings back memories don't it not very  pleasant ones yep the last last time Adam took a dip in the irrigation tank well that's great  things did not go quite to plan I'm done with science for today we've done our small scale  tests and we've learned a thing or two but if we're going to find out if it's possible to  swim in fizzy water we're going to have to swim in fizzy water so we've come back out here to  Alam

to this 10,000g tank that we installed a few years ago and we're going to put a larger  bubbler in it and Adam's going to go for a swim or not now comes the tricky getting the  giant bubbler up and in all right take it on up so our bubbler is just about ready to be  put in place that's a tight fit okay stop what happens next is that we hook up the Air Supply  okay go ahead and give us some air nice and then we slowly lower it the 20 ft to the bottom of  this t tank which is full of reasonably cl

ear but quite cold water then I will put on some  scuba gear and then we're pretty much ready to do this test which I hope happens quickly  because this water right now is about 50 51° as plans go it's pretty straightforward I'm  above ground and yet I'm going scuba diving on vage all right here we go how's the water  the water is so cold I got an instant headache but you know what's really cool in here what  looking out the port holes but before Adam can unhook the bubbler it needs to be in the

right  position is that good enough I think so will you start to low it very slowly we'll do the aim  is to get the bubbler perfectly level to have an even spread of Bubbles at the surface fire up  the generator please slowly bring it up to the mark as the rig Roars into life a perfect  h of bubbles burses forth It's a gorgeous stream of bubbles can't wait to get into  it okay well I'll pull the chain out with their fully functioning rig in the right  position what's next this test is pretty mu

ch the same as our small scale experiments  except this time we're going to have a human hydrometer namely Adam now we're going  to try and weight him so he's neutrally buoyant and just his head is floating above  the water and when we turn the air on if he goes up or down that'll tell us what's  really happening it's time to sink or swim Carrie Tori and Grant are testing the myth  that a dynamite Arrow can split a tree down the middle but so far it's got the team well and  truly Stu well the tr

ee is still in one piece yeah I don't even see a crack today's solution  double the dynamite so this is two times the explosives that we used on on the first test  let's see if this is enough to split the tree down the middle all right we're lit we're lit all  right granty call it okay so this is splitting a tree with dynamite double the explosives in three  two one w wow yeah that was a good [Music] blast well i' say this is looking pretty bad for the  myth yeah I mean we used twice the amount

of explosives as the myth calls for and still we  did not get any cleaving whatsoever even with two sticks of modern Dynamite the tree was left  with hardly a scratch let alone a cleave and Grant thinks he knows why now my theory is that  the dynamite is outside and when you explode it all that energy just gets dissipated away from  the tree and not where we actually needed to be focused which is right on the trunk in order  to split it and without that Focus the myth unlike the tree is looking

busted so what's  next well any more explosiv strapped to that Arrow it's going to mess with the aerodynamics  there's no way it's going to fly so why don't we just push an arrow into the tree put as  many explosives on it as JD will allow and just see if we can get anything now you're  talking for round three The MythBusters are going gang busters strapping an arrow with as  much Dynamite as could be crammed on but too much for it to actually fly so how much is too  much JD says the amount we c

an use out here is six sticks of dynamite is that going to split the  tree down the middle I don't know but we're going to get a big bang I like big bangs six drops of  essence of Terror five drops of sinister sauce with the mother of all explosive arrows prepped  and embedded in the tree Mega arrow is in place the team is taking no chances they Hunker in the  bunker because this is going to be big fire the hole fire the hole fire hole this is splitting  the tree with dynamite six sticks in thre

e two one that was a good explosion let's go see if we split the tree I don't think  so man but we rattled the bunker there's just no Timber on the timber even  with six sticks of dynamite the shock wave barely scratches the surface let alone causes  a cleave so it's back to the drawing board so right now this myth is looking busted we  used one stick of dynamite two sticks of dynamite finally six sticks of dynamite it was  not enough to split a tree up the middle like the myth talks about but t

his is MythBusters  we're going to go deeper and not stop here and we're going to figure out is there a way way  to use nothing but explosives to split that tree in Bubble Trouble Adam is about to find out  if decreasing the density of water with air means you'll sink Without a Trace and to do that Adams  ditched the scuba tank and turned himself into a neutrally buoyant human hydrometer my wet suit  makes me quite flous I'm overly buoyant so I'm putting weights around my weight so that I  will

be neutrally buoyant ideally floating right around here then we'll be able to see the  best effect that the bubbles might have on it all right let's try it I think that's perfect it's  a simple test let's fire up the compressor when Jamie turns on the bubbler if bam sinks the myth  is looking good okay open the valve to the mark please oh here they come with the bubbles  on Adam does go under but not quite as planned he first gets pushed to  the side and only then does he sink I'll tell you it's

not making me sink  like a stout but it is creating this really strong current that's throwing me to the side  and I feel like dragging me down a little bit you don't seem to be able to stay right there  no D can't stay on top of this it's very very it's a super strong push and and if get pushed  to the side I get dragged under is what he was going to say it seems Adam is being lifted up  and away from the central column of Bubbles and then just like a convection current there's  a downward dra

g at the outer edge where to from here well I think you for seeing this kind of  effect where it's an upwelling that drags me down on the outside let's turn it up and see if  the effect gets more pronounced it's my kind of thinking of course it's the one instruction  that fits all mythbusting occasions ramp it up trying to stay on top of it who you wouldn't believe how gentle it looks at  the bottom the Bates are so small it's like smoke rising from this gentle platform and up here  all hell is

rcking loose wow that's significant significant and as they turn it up again let's uh  move it up another notch it only becomes more so the bigger current pushes Adam to the side faster  and then pulls him under further you know that when the water was C we were like a foot below  the surface now it's like 6 in below the surface so we have in fact increased the volume of the  water which means we've decreased its density and yet on the bubble stream I'm not sinking that's  amazing yep The increa

sed volume is confirmation that density has decreased which according to the  m should result in atam Sinking I'm of the bubbles in fact the upwelling of water associated with the  rising bubbles W oh the current is really strong is pushing him upwards until he reaches the sides  leaving just one further test we need more power Scotty Jamie just made a Star Trek reference  awesome and with a compressor giv us all she's got it's like riding a [ __ ] Bronco Jamie and  Adam are ready to wrap it up

well I don't feel like we can call it on the basis of this tank I  think it's actually too small this current being everything it sort of overwhelms the original  story which is about bubbles so I feel like we need to create more bubbles in a much bigger space  the myth is that you can't swim in bubbles there's no swimming going on in there up it's treading we  need to go someplace we can do some some swimming the close proximity of the Tank's walls has  rendered the results unreliable to truly

test the myth they'll need somewhere with much more  room to make a splash in this was a great test it was also an excellent proof of concept for my  prototype bubblemaker it put things in a human scale and showed us a lot about Bubbles and how  they interact with water but given that this myth is about swimming in bubbles to test it properly  we're going to have to go up yet more in scale now when you're getting out of a tank this big the  Dismount is really important to do it safely watch this

any questions after three big booms the myth of a  dynamite axe is well 100% bust you're not going to split a tree using one stick of dynamite let  alone six sticks of dynamite yeah all the energy is going outward it's completely external I think  to actually cleave the tree you need something inside all right what if we tried reconfiguring  the explosives get it closer to the core maybe that will split the tree up the middle yeah let's  go to a smaller scale so we can experiment with different

kinds of explosives great idea with the  myth busted the team is going to try to replicate the and they're starting by shrinking things down  with sapling trees hoping to get that mythical split so we are back at the bomb range with more  trees and this time what we're going to do is experiment with different types of explosives and  different techniques for getting those explosives into the trees and hopefully we'll get a split  much as they love blowing things up this myth is about dividing t

he tree not destroying it that's a  fine looking tree it's a shame we have to blow it up so in small scale the guys are going to start  start by putting two explosives head tohe the first type is TNT or TR Nitro toine now this is  a faster moving more tearing explosive the other kind of explosive we're going to be using Is AO  that is a slower moving explosive but it has more pushing power we're going to see if either of  those is able to split our tree up the middle just like the myth but switc

hing the explosives  and using tiny quantities aren't the only changes there drilling down for this test so what we've  done here is solve what I think is the biggest problem of our previous test which is getting the  explosive to where it needs to be which is the strength of the tree the core the Heartwood but  will this internal placement cause the cleave the dynamite Arrow couldn't well to find out they're  starting by embedding explosive one the TNT smoke good all right this is TNT in the li

ttle pine tree  woohoo let's do it it's a tense wait for the fuse to burn down until oh it could have had the boom  but did it give the team the kind of bre they need I see some cracking going  on but not what I would call a split yeah it seems like it's shredding more than anything tor's on the money traveling at  more than 21,000 ft per second the shock W from the TNT simply ripped the tree to pieces  will their low velocity explosive do any better this is ano which stands for ammonium nitrate

  fuel oil it's a lower velocity explosive than TNT which means it has a higher likelihood of  actually splitting the tree without shredding it where the TNT ripped and tore the ano  should push and split get in there and to try and avoid destroying the tree they're  using the smallest amount of explosive that will detonate all right you ready to light  the candle ready let's do it we got smoke okay let's get out okay it's lit cool note to  self when you see a smoking tree run especially around

the MythBusters and a burning fuse  means you can't know when it's going to blow just a cup full of ano the tree toppled but  in the midst of all that Carnage the team can see signs of success from this test so what we're  seeing with the ano is larger splinters which is more like what we want but just to remind you  here the idea is to assist the splitting with the explosives not to annihilate the tree so I think  rather than directing all the energy at a single point at the base what we need t

o do is distribute  it up along the length of the tree so that when you go boom it goes like that in other words the  gene thinks test 2's explosives were right but the placement was wrong so next they're sticking  with ano you ever have a chance to cut down a tree with high explosives I highly recommend it but  cutting some zipper likee grooves in tree three what I've just done is cut some vertical grooves  in the bark of the tree that way we can lay up our explosives along the grain the vascul

ar bundles  of the tree cuz what's happening right now is we have an explosive at the base and it's cross cross  cutting what we want is a vertical split so this way we put the explosives up the line of the tree  and that Force punch is through and hopefully we get that vertical split that we're looking for  all right the grooves are loaded we're going hot all right we're lit you know JD yes I heard cool  guys don't look at explosions they turn around and then they walk away okay so this is cutt

ing  a tree in half with explosives zipper technique it didn't go completely to plan but at least the  team hit slightly more than a toppel trunk it's kind of a split in the right direction wow that  is definitely a better technique finally we got a split of sorts it's still not the clean cleave  they wanted but promising enough to Warrant one more go at a mighty Grand Finale what did we do  right well on this test we got our explosive in a line that's parallel to the grain of the tree  instead

of focusing on one spot we went all the way up the tree and I think that is what made  the difference now this is a small tree but that's fine we proved the concept here now  it's time for us to go onto a big tree and try it full scale that is awesome but I mean  this myth is still busted but I mean with the little engineering we got the results we were  looking for a split tree well I think think this is enough for us to find a big tree and  move on to full scale oh wow this going to be crazy s

o far Bubble Trouble is looking like a  bust wow I feel it totally Lifting me but Adam and Jamie aren't done yet ow I took a pin in  the leg to put this Miss to bed they're going to sink or swim in a fulls siiz pool with a super  sized bubbler one that's 4 ft wide and 16 ft long and to get the job done in double time Jamie  welds the massive steel frame while Adam sews the giant canvas bubbler bag well based on what  we saw at the big tank this new bladder ought to be perfect for the swimming po

ol you know what  it looks like it looks like the world's largest whoopy C with both bubbler components ready  to roll the truck gets loaded and locked and it's off to familiar location please don't start  talking like a pirate again okay Adam may be able to resist are you excited yeah kind the strong  silent type he is but we can't so the myth is that it is impossible to swim in bubbly water and  so far we've tested that in small scale in a fish tank it's not sinking and in a 10,000g irrigation

  tank in what is now only medium scale I'm on top of the bubble spot in both cases we found evidence  of upwelling and currents that really make us feel like we haven't fully answered this question so  now it's time for Mondo scale full siiz swimming pool yeah that's it we've built a bubbler that  will give us a swath of bubbles 4T wide and 16 ft long I'm going to get in it and see if I can  swim yeah we recognize that you have a choice of myths and we thank you for flying Myth Busters  that's

nice and stable remember those little fish tank bubblers and then that little bag that  I tested out in the shop that's not bad well this is the final result of all that testing  the granddaddy bubble we've got eye beams on it to hold it down against the flotation we've  got a massive steel frame the big bladder and not one but two air pumps to supply all the  air we need we drop it in the pool and you got yourself a big ass bubbl it's big but will it  be big enough to eliminate those supposed E

dge effects well to find out Adam designated to  do the wet work goes under to guide it into position and make sure it's level it's within  one or two degrees of level and uh I'm inclined to start up the pump and uh see what it looks like  I'm on it okay okay go ahead and let some air in with the air pump on things  seemed to be proceeding smoothly until cut the air luckily Adam was clear of the  rig when it made an unexpected and dangerous break for the surface and make no mistake despite the 

muffled noise and sub Aqua slow motion that was, 1600 lb of runaway Rogue Steel not enough weight  not enough weight the whole thing started to float well that's a bummer but the solution is simple  it could simply be a matter of just placing the barbell weights in the corners well that's  why we brought the barbells I'll start to break them out with an additional 100 lb on each  Corner totaling 2,000 lb surely they've got this covered Q test number two I see little bubble  start to come up and

at first it all seems to be working beautifully but once again the  astonishing force exerted by the buoyancy of the trapped air is evident stop cut the air  and that's another bummer yeah it was looking so good it was looking so good but now the whole  rig in yeah so far the team has selected option f for failure but it takes more than 2,000 lb  of runaway Steel to throw the MythBusters off their game this is just a minor setback all we  need are heavier eye beams or Bars of Steel of some sort

to put on this thing we'll be able to  wait it down we'll fix it look when you want to rescue big things from the bottom of a body  of water you use what are called lift bags these uh airtight canvas bags you fill with  air and the air lifts stuff off the bottom what we've essentially made here is a captured  air bladder and we're trying to keep it on the bottom which is proving more of a challenge  than we surmised as a workout huh oh this is where things get dangerous late in the day let's  le

t's test him out yeah uh right in place yeah I'm going to stay far away from this rig while you  pressurize it their first unsuccessful test of the rig weighed in at600 lb this time they've  got 4200 but will this be enough there they come yeah baby so that may have been about halfway  that's perfect nothing's budging it looks gorgeous excellent so we had a few bugs to work out so  Sumi we added more weight it took care of the buoyancy problem and uh we're all tested good to  go I think we're re

ady for [Music] tomorrow now we've already busted the myth that you can use  a dynamite Arrow to split a tree in two but we wanted to find out if you can use explosives  to create that perfect cleave so we did a few experiments we tried TNT we tried ano as you  can see it didn't quite work from a singular point so we went and took it one step further  we made sort of a zipper by Perforating the tree with little slots and filling them with ampo  and we did get a split so now it's time to take it

to full scale we've come out to the forest  to make a tree s split mythbuster style doing it mythbuster style means driving to an isolated  Tree Farm man this is way out there isn't it and blowing the biggest tree they can see with the  technique they sort of perfected in small scale it's like a winter wonderland out here you can't  see the trees for the forest here's the tree wow that is one big tree definitely this is a 100  tall ponderosa pine now you might be a little freaked out that we're

using a perfectly good tree  in our experiment but it's already been earmarked for lumber and it will be recycled at the end  of the experiment depending on how successful we are it'll either be Lumber or if we manag to  split it firewood given their earlier results splitting This Tall Tree seems like an even taller  order but Tori for one is confident now we learned from our small scale that AO was the best type of  explosive it was slower moving more pushing and what we also learned is cutting

grooves along the  vertical of the tree will give us a better chance of splitting the tree so we're going to do just  that we're going to cut a bunch of grooves up the length of the tree so that way the force of  the explosion is vertical and hopefully we can replicate the results in other words going big  means thinking small cutting lots of vertical slots near the core to house small bags of  boot but t and Heights have never been the best of friends oh I love Heights remember last  time I wa

s up this high and I fell don't let go [Music] oh let's hope nothing like that happens at  a chainsaw to the mix it seems like a recipe for disaster we're going to die hi here we  go fortunately he stays focused enough to cut the zipper likee grooves from top to  bottom that may the perfect all right so we finished cutting 15 slots up the length  of the tree now what we're going to do is we're going to fill those slots with AO ignite  them and see if we can split this tree up the middle but firs

t they need to do a serious  calculation of just how much B they need for their bik okay now when you usually  see explosives into the mythbuster scene you're used to seeing mass quantities  like the 850 lbs we used in the cement truck now for this experiment we actually  want a pushing rather than a huge destruction so we're only going to use about 25 lbs of ano  in small bags strung evenly up the side of the tree that way hopefully we get a nice clean  CLE it's a delicate operation too much an

o and the tree will be blown apart too little  and the explosive may not even detonate all right so one PB bags one PB bags luckily bomb  expert Frank is on hand to take charge of the charge okay what do you think Frank am I going  to be able to join the bomb squad after this hey we're signing you up right now all right  ready to decorate the tree ready to wire in ano there we go working somewhat  gingerly Carrie and Grant carefully plac the 251b bags along the entire  trunk oh you know what the

sap is a natural adhesive to holding the bags  in so add wiring explosives at Heights to my resume all right you done I'm done  and as the saying goes let's make like a tree and leave going down on this level we  have explosives Timber and ladies lingerie hey this is the very last bag of explosives  going in the tree we've wired them all the way up I think we might actually have a shot at  this one I mean we've given it all the advantage we possibly could using this nice low velocity  explosive

we've given it a perforation so that it could go really really well I think we might  get a nice clean split but the guys on the other hand aren't so sure so do I think the tree is  going to split there's a lot of factors that go into it too much explosive of too little  the weight of the branches given all that I think we are going to get a split maybe not  super clean but it's going to split looking at all this ampo in this tree I have a feeling  we're just going to blow this tree in a bunch

of pieces yeah this looks safe enough here all right  I guess we're all set you guys ready I'm so ready bur the hole bur okay so this is splitting  a tree with ano here we go in three two one fire after Double Trouble with the bubbler  cut the air Adam and Jamie are ready to test the myth that it's impossible to swim in  bubbly water our first test is the control without turning the bubble on I'm going to  swim from here across the pool and back and I'll I'll take a reading on the stopwatch  onc

e we've got that timing we're going to turn the bubble on and going to do the  same thing again and see if there's any difference and if there's anything to this myth  it should take Adam longer to swim through the [Music] bubbles have I mentioned this pool is  not heated all right I'm ready okay swimming without bubbles in three two one go the neut  Frisco torpedo is off to lay down a marker the theory being that a comparison of lap times  in bubbly and non-bubbly water will tell us if there's

anything to the myth at all it may not  be impossible but it could be more difficult stop I got 29.84 seconds let's call it an even  30 seconds which means it's time to fire up the generator blow some Bubbles and see if the  torpedo is effed by those millions of tiny pockets of air okay swimming with bubbles in  three two one go on the first lap displaying all of his exemplary style and technique Adam  poers through the bubbles but on the way back it's not so easy just like the small scale tests

  the upwelling current pushes him to the side and outweighs any effect the lower density may have  okay 32 1/2 seconds that's a lot that's like 8% so where does that leave us at this stage it  seems that the myth that it's impossible to swim in bubbly water is pretty much busted it  does however seem to be more difficult to swim in bubbly water and the timings we've been taking  from my testing seem to bear that out so given that there might be a grain of truth to this story  that it might be m

ore difficult but not impossible to swim in bubbly water we're going to ramp it up  as far as we can go and see if we can't make that artifact more pronounced we've done our testing  at one qu compressor capacity and the results were interesting but perhaps not conclusive so I  think now it's time to ramp it up that's more like it and that means we're going to go full power  with those compressors we'll see what happens wow that's a lot of bubbl you ready ready all  right full scale bubble test

and in three 2 1 go with the dial turn to 11 the forces atam has  to deal with are clearly evident despite looking quite Serene below it's a broiling froing volcano  at the surface and the current is just too strong to swim across swim harder meaning in this case it  is impossible to swim like any good myth this one has a grain of Truth at is heart and that is that  when you mix air with water it is going to make that water less dense the thing is that by taking  it to ridiculous extremes like w

e have you're just not trying hard enough stop screwing around that  decrease in density relative to its surroundings causes an upwelling and a very vigorous current  in fact uh that current is so vigorous that it makes it virtually impossible to swim through it  I swallowed some water after small scale me medium scale and full scale it wasn't until super full  scale that they got the result they were looking for Adam for one is boy this myth is a letter  perfect case for why I love doing this s

how we started out with a myth about it being impossible  to swim in bubbly water the conventional wisdom being that bubbles make the water less dense and  thus you would sink when in fact it turns out that the bubbles create this churning upwelling of  current as they rise to the surface and it is the current and not the bubbles that makes it in  fact impossible to swim in bubbly water I love being surprised by results like that well that's  pretty neat we had a build that was more difficult th

an we thought a surprise ending and a myth  that is I got to say plausible but not for the reasons we originally thought and bubbly water  is kind of festive isn't it yes yes it [Music] is busting the myth of the explosive  tree split has been a bit of a misfire from Big scale failure the tree is still  in one piece to some small scale success wow that is definitely a better technique  but now the Moment of Truth here we go to replicate the results of this myth it  all comes down to this one sho

t wonder One monster pine tree filled with 25 bags  of explosives they're using the smallest amount of ano that will still detonate  but will it be small enough in three 2 one fire wow that was a good one uh well the tree's down let's see if it splits  if there's anything left of it wow well what's clear is the ano detonated but  what is not clear is what happened to the tree wow there are bits of tree everywhere with the  smoke gone it's bad news for the myth instead of a split the tree's been

diced into a nice pile of  kindling for Bear Grills the result that we were looking for for this experiment was two pieces  one left one right split right down the middle what we got was 200 pieces the tree shattered  all over the forest there's bits everywhere it turns out the Ana was just too much even at the  minimum amount to detate to sustain that crack all the way to the top that's the key they really  did use the smallest amount of low explosives that would get and yet it was still too mu

ch for the  tree now if you look at the it did actually split it however it did not split the entire length  of the tree like in the myth even with giving at the best possible chances by cutting in little  grooves and filling it with the AO it still did not split down the middle getting it to do that  with explosives is very very difficult and that leaves only one conclusion all right no matter how  you look at this myth this one is busted busted busted but at least we have all this firewood and

  kindling now this isn't a split this is a shack the tree and the myth are both shattered and let's  face it if this method didn't work then a dynamite arrow is not even a lawn shot all right I got some  seedlings okay the myth might be busted let's do our part but at least the team has given something  back to the forest sort of the strange mythbuster circle of life that is strange I think it's a  good deal for the forest I mean three for one [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] n