09x06 - Blow Your Own Sail

[bunniefuu]

On this episode of "MythBusters"...

Adam and Jamie are taking
silver-screen sounds to task.

We want to see whether these things

make the same sounds in real
life that they do in the movies.

Bye-bye.

Yep, are those audio clichés fact or fake?

Ka-boom!

Meanwhile, Kari, Grant, and Tory
cast off for science.

This is "blow your own sail"
with the full-size boat.

They're testing the physics
thought experiment

"is it possible to blow your own sail?"

Come on!

Chaos, mayhem, high-sea high jinks ahoy.

I feel like there might be just
a little element of danger here.

Who are the MythBusters?

- Adam Savage...
- I'm done with science for today.

- ...and Jamie Hyneman.
- Way to go there, buddy.

Between them, more than 30 years
of special-effects experience.

Joining them... Grant Imahara...

It's why we can never have
anything nice.

- ...Tory Belleci...
- I'll try not to let you guys down.

- ...and Kari Byron.
- Whoa!

You know, I went to college for this.

They don't just tell the myths.

They put them to the test.

Mythbusters 9x06 - Blow Your Own Sail
Sync, corrected by atrn97g - www.addic7ed.com

First up, an audio-myth that
Adam's having nightmares over.

Mm. Look at that.

Somebody's left me a present.

Beautiful. Aah!

Looks like I'm gonna
have to take care of this myself.

Aah!

Bye-bye.

What was that?

- That was our next story.
- Really?

'Cause it looked to me like you
were trying to k*ll me.

No, no, no, no.

It sounds like I'm trying to k*ll you.

I don't get it.

Well, our next story

is about whether the sounds
you hear in the movies

are accurate to the real world.

Oh, sounds cool!

Yep, the sounds of Hollywood

are being put under
the MythBusters microscope.

To give a story suspense...

add dramatic punch...

or even a real one...

Movie-makers manipulate,
massage, and enrich

every single sound effect we hear.

But do these audio clichés bear any
resemblance to the real thing?

To find out, Adam and Jamie
have got their ears...

...for the sound.

All right, so, if memory serves,

the classic movie sound effects
we'll be working with

are things like the punch, the
sil*ncer, and explosions.

- And any others we run into along the way.
- All right.

And the testing seems to be
pretty straightforward.

We punch something, we use a sil*ncer,

we blow something up,
and we record those sounds

and compare them to what the movies

generally represent as those sounds.

Let's start with the punch.

Okay.

Fear not, Adam.

There will be no sobering sequel.

Instead, Jamie's reprising
the "violence of the hams".

I always like to wear rain gear
when I carry around my pigs.

Yep, porky here is stepping up

to take one for the team... again.

And, clearly, Jamie and I are
about to start punching this pig,

but in order to compare
the sound of our punches

to your classic movie punch, we're
going to record it with this...

a directional microphone pointed
exactly at the point of impact.

We will hit the pig,
record it on this mike,

and we will store it on this computer,

where we will compare it to this...

...the sound of a classic movie punch.

Ohh!

Go at him.

Ohh!

Nice!

- Did that hurt?
- A little bit.

I hit my fingers a little wrong.

Considering his hand
was unprotected,

Jamie gave it all he could, but the sound...

wasn't exactly silver-screen superhero.

You want a piece of me?

Aah!

We're gonna get hurt
if we keep doing it like this.

To avoid hurting themselves,

they have to pull their punches,

limiting the power they can put into them.

And the audio recording...
Ohh!

reflects their
less-than-action hero efforts.

Aah!

All right, and for comparison,
here's the movie punch.

There's no... there's
no equivalency at all.

Ohh!

Which leaves the myth
reeling, but not yet knocked out.

Yet another use for duct tape.

Next, they're going to
add a little action-movie oomph

to try and get a more
Hollywood-style sound.

And with his
makeshift boxing glove,

Jamie will be able to throw
a full-blooded right hook.

But despite pounding
the pork appreciably harder,

it's clear the audio
still doesn't match up.

It's still nowhere near.

Next up, Kari, Grant, and Tory

set sail for a physics thought experiment.

Okay, now, this is what I'm talking about.

So, can you tell us
what we're doing out here?

Yeah, what, are we testing the myth

of "if we take Grant sailing,
he's gonna throw up"?

No, but we're actually
doing a sailing myth,

so I figured, "why would we be
in the blueprint room"

"when we can be out here"?

All right, well, can we get on with it?

Because this is a ticking time b*mb.

Okay, well, our next myth

is actually this year's
"plane on a conveyer belt."

They call it "blow your own sail."

Ah, that's the one that,
if you have a windless day,

if you take a giant fan
and blow it into your sail,

you can actually start sailing.

Exactly. But fans say it might not work.

Right. Because of newtonian physics.

All right, well, I think we need
to get to the bottom of this one.

Or get sick trying.

Speak for yourself, landlubber.

It's a classic physics fable.

Becalmed in the doldrums,
our hero pulls out a fan,

whips up a wind, and, hey, presto...
she's blowing her own sail.

But do Newton's laws really mean
this myth is dead in the water?

What happens if you take
this physics thought experiment

into the real world?

Okay, it's not because I'm
prone to getting seasick,

but shouldn't we go back to the shop

and do some small-scale experiment?

What?

Why? I mean, we're here now.

Let's just put a fan on here and go for it.

Well, the problem is,
it's not a windless day.

We won't know if we're
sailing because of our fan

or because of a change in the wind.

Ah, he's got a good point.

All right, why don't we
go back to the shop,

do some small-scale tests,

get some miniature sailboats
and some miniature fans,

and find out exactly what's
happening before we go full scale?

Yeah, it's probably a good idea.

Grant is looking a little green, isn't he?

So, to avoid Grant's nautical nausea,

it's back to terra firma, where
the goal is getting to grips

with the underlying science of the story.

So, this myth is essentially
about Newton's laws.

And specifically, his first law,
which states that an object

will remain in its current state of motion

unless acted upon by an external force.

Now, in our case, the
external object is the boat.

Current state of motion... at rest.

The external force... the
wind acts upon the boat

and causes it to move along.

Now, in the case of our sailor...

If this person were able
to generate the wind

while sitting on the boat, it's
no longer an external force.

They're internal... in the
same frame of reference...

so when they blow on it,
theoretically, the boat won't move.

And worryingly for the myth,

it's not just Newton's first law
making movement unlikely.

So, there is another newtonian principle...

that is the third law of motion,
which says that for every action,

there is an equal and opposite reaction.

So, therefore, if the fan
is blowing wind into the sail,

it's also pushing the fan backwards.

If this is true, these two forces
are gonna cancel each other out,

and this boat's not gonna go anywhere.

It's just gonna stall.

So with two of Newton's laws

lining up to sink this sea-going saga,

the team prepares for a
proof-of-concept test...

one that will put the scientific
theory into practice.

And while Kari makes a raft on wheels,

Tory stays high and dry on a fake blue sea.

Because although this
myth is all about boats,

there's no need to get wet yet.

Now, obviously we could test it on water,

but water poses a couple of problems.

One, it takes a lot of force

to get the boat to move through
the water... .44 pounds, to be exact.

Plus, getting the boat to
move straight in the water

is gonna be another problem
we have to overcome,

but I have a solution for both of those.

Instead of using the boat and water,

we're gonna use this cart with
wheels on this flat piece of acrylic.

That way, the cart will go straight,

and we're gonna reduce
the amount of friction.

It only takes .24 pounds
of force to move this car.

This is gonna be perfect.

Still to come on "MythBusters"...
- Wap-sha!

...the audio action heats up,

...there's a sting in the tail,

This is Big Bob.

...and Tory rides back to the future.

This is a very bad idea.

Over the years, the MythBusters

have tackled a heap
of Hollywood tall tales.

Until now, the myths have been based
upon the tendency of movie-makers

to suspend reality with
physics-defying visual effects.

But this time, Adam and Jamie
are hot on the aural trail.

And to find out if a big-screen punch

sounds anything like the real
thing, Adam's upping the ante.

As I really don't want to hurt this anymore

by punching this poor pig,

I'm gonna make a fist-punching
analog... not a machine.

It's gonna be pretty simple.

It's gonna be a combination of
this and a combination of that.

Here we go.

The ballistics-gel fist
will provide an accurate-sounding

skin-on-skin contact, and
the leverage of the bat

will ensure Adam gets a good, solid hit.

Wap-sha!

I think it's ready.

That was nice.

Let's listen.

To the naked ear,
it was a marked improvement,

but let's get an objective comparison.

That was pretty good.

All right, let's listen to the movie sound.

There's no comparison.

If the myth was on the ropes before,
it's down for the count now.

But if the movie effect isn't
a recording of a real punch,

what exactly is it?

We need to talk to an expert.

I think we do.

Where are we gonna find one?

With a résumé that includes a heap

of Tim Burton blockbusters,

Steve knows exactly how
to pack a Hollywood punch.

Why doesn't our best punch sound like this?

You have a punch that
sounds like punching a face.

The Hollywood one is not about that.

It's about drama. It's
about selling the story.

You might add a whoosh
of something like this...

a pipe or a dowel.

- All right.
- Just a little bit of that leading into

the punch is gonna give you that
sense of the fist really moving fast.

I noticed that you had
the really good slap sound,

but you might want to have
a little bit of chest,

kind of, like, low end to it.

You can either just...

Just a little bit of that can give
you that sense of kind of a skull

- underneath that face slap that you got.
- Yeah.

What else?

You might want to hear the
sound of a skull cracking.

Wow!

Walnuts. I love it.

So those are the individual elements

that go to make up a Hollywood
punch, and by layering them,

you get a result that's rich
in texture and depth.

Let's take our best punch at the pig.

All right, now, Steve said
it needed some low end.

Let's take one of Steve's chest hits.

Now, he said it needed a whoosh.

Let's take one of the swings
he made of that little pipe.

And then, finally, let's add in
some bone-cracking walnut sounds...

and play them all together
and see what we get.

It's pretty good, huh?

Yep, but it doesn't change the result.

Punch sound effects are Hollywood
fiction, and the myth is busted.

Kari, Grant, and Tory
are tackling a maritime myth

that contradicts the father of physics.

Can you move your boat
by blowing your own sail?

To find out, they're setting up
a small-scale proof-of-concept.

Okay, the next step is the fans.

So I got a whole bunch
of the little desk fans,

and I'm gonna see if any of them are
gonna work for this experiment.

When I turn them on and put them on here,

it should push the little car backwards.

- Kari needs to find a fan...
- Okay, you're not gonna work.

- ...with a power-to-weight ratio...
- Nope.

...that will make the raft move.

I think it's too heavy.

The desk fans are just too feeble,

so Kari goes for broke
with a model airplane propeller.

Okay, ready?

That ought to work.

Meanwhile, Grant has
a small-scale sail up his sleeve,

and after he rigs it to the raft,

the guys are all set to clear up
the fan-site controversy.

Wow! Wow! Wow!

When you blow your own sail,

will you stall, as the
newtonian advocates predict,

or sail off into the sunset?

All right, now it's time to
replicate the myth in small scale.

We have our fan attached to our raft,

which is going to be blowing into the sail

that's attached to the raft.

Now, according to Newton's
third law of motion,

these two forces should
cancel each other out,

and this boat is gonna stall.

So, just like in the myth,
the wind source is on the boat.

Okay. Blow your own sail.

Here we go.

- All right.
- That's great.

All right, looks like Newton's laws
are canceling out cartoon laws.

Yep, and here's how.

If you do a test without
the sail, using just the fan,

you can see there's enough thrust
to move the boat backwards.

But put a sail in the way,
and that backwards thrust

is canceled out by the
equal and opposite force

pushing the boat forward.

The boat stalls, and the myth is busted.

Or is it?

Because our intrepid trio
aren't giving up so easily.

Coming up next on "MythBusters,"

can we use this fan to blow our own sail?

What do we have next?

Well, as you know, the rattlesnake...

the venomous rattlesnake
and its iconic warning rattle

are completely endemic to American Western.

And what I want to know is,
is the sound we're accustomed

to hearing from the rattlesnake
actually a real rattlesnake sound?

Well, this isn't a rattler.

This is a Madagascar tree boa.

You are such a buzz k*ll.

She likes you.

Yeah.

I like her.

Anybody that's seen a Western

knows the sound that a rattlesnake makes,

but is that actually the sound,
or is that a movie construct?

So we're gonna have to get
ourselves a real rattlesnake

and see what they sound like.

So, Owen, are we gonna be
able to get him to rattle

without freaking him out?

Well, this is Big Bob,
and just try stopping him.

Really?

- Yeah.
- He likes to rattle?

He likes to talk.

This is Big Bob, and this
is the classic movie sound effect

of the rattlesnake.

What we want to know is how much
like that does Big Bob sound?

Shall we record this guy?

I think so.

Here we go.

Let's go for it.

Awesome!

There we go.

That sounded pretty good,

but let's get an objective assessment.

All right.

Let's start with the movie rattlesnake.

Here we go.

And now here's Big Bob.

That is dead on!

That's the same sound.

Absolutely clear that
they used real rattlesnakes

to make rattlesnake sounds in films.

I think so.

Confirmed!

So far in "blow your own sail",

there are no flaws in Newton's laws.

The forward thrust captured by the sail

has an equal and opposite
force pushing backwards,

leaving the boat grounded.

But it's not over yet.

The team thinks that tweaking the
variables might get things moving.

So, we're gonna do
all sorts of experiments.

We're gonna try different sails,
we're gonna try different winds,

and we're gonna see if we can
actually blow your own sail.

Yep, with the fan, sail, and boat

all in proportion,
everything is canceled out.

So they're starting by making
their small-scale sail smaller.

Now, you're probably asking yourself,

"why are you guys testing a small sail"?

But if you look to the graphic,

you'll see what I think is gonna happen.

I think that the wind is gonna
actually get around the small sail

and push the sailboat backwards.

Now, given what we've seen so far,
it may seem surprising to you

that we think the boat
is gonna travel backwards.

Now, there's a lot of thrust
coming off of this prop.

If the size of the sail is small
compared to source of the wind,

you may get some of that thrust

escaping around the edges of the sail,

giving us a net thrust,
pushing the boat backwards.

All right, here we go.



Hey, look at that. It cancels itself out.

All right, you know what?
Should we turn up the speed?

- Sure.
- Yeah, let's try it and see what happens.

Whoa!

- That was weird.
- It's going backwards.

It seems if the sail
contains all of the fan's thrust,

the boat is marooned, but tweak
the sail size and fan speed,

and you start moving.

However, they're heading
in the wrong direction.

To reverse that, maybe
they need to go bigger.

For the next test, we've
stepped up the size of the sail.

But to do that, we also
had to raise the fan

so that the air stream hits right
into the center of our sail.

Hopefully this will propel the boat.

- Ready when you are.
- Okay. Here we go.

- Wow.
- Yeah.

It's not going forward at all.

The forces are still
canceling each other out.

Can you dial it up?

Going to 100%.

Whoa! That's looking scary!

It's starting to go! It's starting to go!

Faster! It's moving forward!

Whoo!

Hey!

Hey!

With faster wind speed,
you can blow your own sail.

All right, look... I'm not a sailor,

and I'm not an aeronautical engineer,

but this is what I think is happening.

So, the fan provides a
certain amount of thrust

that blows into the sail.

The sail, in turn, can only
absorb so much of that thrust.

The rest of it gets reflected back,

leaving us with a net-thrust vector,
causing the boat to go forward.

Yep, the reflection
means the sum of the total thrust

is in a forward direction.

So, you just need a lot more wind.

A lot more.

What is the most wind we can produce

with the biggest fan we can use?

- Jet engine.
- Yeah!

- That would be awesome.
- Now you're talking.

What a great proof-of-concept, though.

Next on "MythBusters"...
- Come on!

...will "blow your own sail" take off?

Kari, Grant, and Tory

have found that with enough
puff and big enough sail,

it is possible to blow your own sail.

Oh, more power!

But their little toy
raft didn't move very fast.

To nail this sea-going
saga in the small scale,

the team feel the need for more speed.

So we are moving on to a
jet-cap model turbine engine.

This thing can make a model
plane fly at 250 miles an hour.

It puts out 17.5 pounds of thrust.

This is gonna give us the
wind speeds that we need.

But first, what I need to do

is mount this engine to
our longboard skateboard.

And the reason why we're using
a longboard skateboard

is because this thing
puts out so much heat,

we got to keep our sail
away from the source.

And speaking of heat...

So, one of the problems with
upgrading our source of thrust

to a jet engine is that the exhaust gases

can be in excess of 600 degrees Celsius.

Now, this is silk.

This is the ideal material we found
for our small-scale experiment.

The only problem with silk is that
when you expose it to flame...

this happens.

So while Grant looks into
flame-resistant sail materials,

Tory gets busy with the sailboard build.

Just like before, they'll be on land

using wheels rather
than on water in a boat.

It's kind of fitting that
we're using this jet engine,

'cause a long time ago,
I actually built a jet engine

out of a vacuum cleaner motor.

It didn't have much thrust.

I mean, it practically
had no thrust at all,

but it's kind of cool to
actually use a real jet engine

for an experiment.

With the baby engine
on board, it's over to Grant.

Okay, so, this is flame-resistant material.

This is a 6061 aluminum frame,

which has a melting temperature
above that of the jet exhaust.

This is the kind of sail you're gonna need

if you're gonna use a jet engine
to blow yourself along.

The jet-powered sailboard is done.

Now to give it a run.

There are not many places you
can fire off a mini jet engine,

but a creepy, abandoned naval base is one.

This thing looks dangerous.

Yeah, I think we need
to ride it before we test.

- What do you think?
- Ride a jet-powered skateboard?

Yeah! Aren't you guys dying to do it?

Not really, but I would
enjoy another decade

of watching you fall off
this thing in slow motion.

It worked for the bicycle.

Oh!

I think this is a very bad idea.

So, before we start doing the experiment,

I want to test this engine.

So I've turned the engine around.

That way I can ride it,
and I won't burn my butt.

And fortunately for Tory,

our health insurance actually
covers a full body cast.

Kind of getting nervous. I don't know why.

So if anything untoward should
happen, he'll be covered.

What could possibly go wrong?

I got a jet engine strapped
to this skateboard.

All right, firing it up.

Medics standing by.

Somebody dial 91.

On his jet-powered skateboard,

is Tory about to take a trip to the future

or a trip back to the E.R.?

Oh, my God, it worked!

Every kid's gonna want one
of these for Christmas.

Now, that was a good test.

I mean, what that tells me
is that the jet engine,

which, mind you, is only this big,

provides enough thrust to carry Tory,

who weighs 175 pounds,
on top of the skateboard.

Now, if we replace Tory with the sail,

I think we're gonna have plenty
of thrust for our experiment.

All right, this is extreme
"blow your own sail".

Do it.

Oh, I love this sound.

Come on, baby!

Come on!

Come on!

- Got to love that sound.
- Come on!

- It's going! It's going!
- It's moving!

That worked perfectly.

The jet engine was powerful enough
to overcome the canceling forces,

and we got our sailboat to move forward.

Whoo!

All right, we did it!

We blew our own sail!

Nice!

So, initially, when we started
out testing this myth,

it was with a very small
boat on top of a table.

And this... this is what we do.

We step things up each time,

and we've gone to a jet-powered
skateboard with a fireproof sail.

And I've got to say, this is great

because what this says is that, each time,

it's been possible to blow your own sail.

Now we just got to go up to the
big thing... the real thing...

the boat.

Next step's gonna be fun.

Full-scale, baby.

And back at the shop,

they've taken delivery of just the thing...

a boat with a built-in fan.

So, we are gonna take this myth full-scale,

and this is the boat we are gonna use.

It is a shallow-water spider swamp boat.

And this thing comes with a fan,

which is attached to a 40-horsepower engine

that's capable of putting
out 200 pounds of thrust.

We're gonna take this fan, flip it around,

put up a mast, put up the sail, and
see if we can blow our own sail.

It was dragging me.

It was actually pulling me off my feet.

I think this is gonna do it.

With Grant measuring
wind speeds of 63 miles per hour,

this puppy is clearly powerful enough...

which means it's time
to take delivery of the sail

and get busy with the rigging.

Okay, now that we have the sail,
it's time to erect the mast.

Now, we're making it out of aluminum

because it's lightweight and has
a really high tensile strength.

But we're making a removable
base completely out of steel.

We want to clamp onto the boat
instead of drilling or welding

because it's a borrowed
boat and it's gorgeous.

Against all odds, our team of landlubbers

has built and rigged its own
square sail from scratch.

Faster.

Go faster.

Whoo!

Ready to blow your sail?

Yeah, I don't have enough wind.

To find out if it'll go when the fan blows,

it's time to take this test
down to the waterline.

We found ourselves a lake
that's completely isolated

so we have no current and no wind.

This should be the perfect
place to experiment.

And the perfect
place for a pre-test joyride.

With the throttle full on,
the team thrashes around,

getting their bearings

and getting a feel for the swamp
boat's fan-powered thrust.

It handles beautifully.

Love it.

But will it sail?

The next classic Hollywood sound effect

to get the MythBusters
treatment is the g*n sil*ncer.

And down at the South
San Francisco Police Department

sh**ting range, the boys mean business.

Cue Meyer Sound's senior audio
scientist, Dr. Roger Schwenke.

With several previous
appearances on the show,

he gets the much-sought-after
title of "honorary mythbuster".

Stir the pot, baby.

And today, he's brought along

his laboratory-grade recording
and analysis equipment.

We want to see whether these things

actually make the same sounds in real life

that they do in the movies, or
do they make any sound at all?

How do these silencers work?

Well, they're kind of
like mufflers on cars.

They've got a series of baffles
in them that sort of slow down

and redirect the gases
that are passing through

and absorb a lot of the
energy and the sound.

That's how silencers silence,

but outside a movie theater,
what exactly are they used for?

Look, we would be
remiss if we didn't explain

that this is not an assassin's tool.

Actually, military and law enforcement

love suppressors for four main reasons.

The extra weight out
at the front of the g*n

actually reduces both muzzle
lift and the recoil of the g*n,

making it easier to aim and stay on target.

It does, actually, reduce the
sound and the concussion...

the blast of the b*llet.

And it also reduces the
muzzle flash to zero.

All of which makes this a safer
and easier weapon to use.

Right. Let's get down to testing.

First up, Adam and Jamie
take aim at a baseline.

First, we are going to fire an
unmodified p*stol at the target.

And 3, 2, 1.

Then we're going to put
a sil*ncer on that g*n

and sh**t again at the target

and compare the silenced round
sound to the original g*n sound

and to the movie sound
effect of a sil*ncer.

I'm holding a silenced p*stol!

It's just as cool as you think it is.

Now for the suppressor.

Is the movie version anything like reality?

Thank you.

Do silencers work as well
in real life as they do on film?

That's nice.

That was pretty cool.

That seemed a lot quieter
than I thought it would.

And Jamie's 9-millimeter
p*stol is equally surprising.

It's an impressive improvement,

but for analysis, let's hear
from our expert acoustician.

First, decibels... a measure of the
intensity of the sound pressure.

So, we go from 161, and then
suppressed, we go down to 128.

That's a big change.

That goes from dangerous
to your hearing to safe.

But it's not just the power.

The texture and time signature
of the sound is also altered.

Can we hear them?

Here's the unsuppressed.

Okay, now let's hear suppressed.

Yeah, that tells the story.

And it's a story worth hearing again.

A story with a surprise ending.

I swear, I went into this one

thinking this would be completely
busted, and I'm kind of blown away.

But what about the
all-important movie version?

How does that stack up?

Can we hear the Hollywood sound?

Yeah, sure.

Dude, that is far out.

Far out, indeed.

But although it's not quite identical...

the real-life suppressor
does reduce the volume

of the g*nsh*t to Hollywood levels.

And that's enough to impress Adam... a lot.

One of the most common questions we get is,

are we surprised by the results
that we come up with on the show?

Today... monstrously surprised.

I arrived at work this morning

expecting that we would
completely bust the myth

that you could possibly
suppress the sound of a b*llet

anywhere close to what the
movies would lead you to believe,

and I leave today being
a convert to the idea

this thing is totally plausible.

The only reason I'm
not calling it confirmed

is because instead of a "kew! kew!" sound

like they do in the movies...

I'm sh**ting my cameraman's
knees out here...

...it's more like a "pff! pff!" sound.

But that is picking nits
as far as I'm concerned.

This is astonishing.

Okay, so, here's the plan...

We've got our full-size fan
boat and our full-size sail.

We get out on the water and try it first

in its regular configuration
of fan facing backwards,

and we'll turn it on and,
hopefully, go forward.

Then, we're going to flip the
fan around, raise the sail...

All right, we're in.

...and see if you can
actually blow your own sail.

There she blows!

So, first up, with
the fan pointing backwards,

Kari and Grant will do a
straight-line speed test.

That way, when they get the sail
up and face the fan forwards,

they'll have a reference
for their performance.

How do you feel about calling
this the "Queen Airy"?

She may have a name,

but the "Queen Airy" is
not off to the best of starts.

I think we're in a bit
of a predicament here.

The weight of the sail

is making it very tricky to maneuver.

All right, you guys
are going zero miles an hour.

But despite Tory's encouragement...

Looks like these islands are boat magnets.

...Grant and Kari do
finally get into position.

The first test up is the
fan in the right configuration,

the sail down.

I'm gonna get in the chase boat,
have them drive towards me,

and I'm gonna check their
speed with the radar g*n.

All right, this is the first test...

fan facing backwards, sail down speed test.

Here we go.

Now, if you asked me
when we were in the shop

and we first turned on the swamp boat

and Grant took out the anemometer

and got 60 miles an hour
standing behind the fan,

I would have said that
"blow your own sailboat"

was going to... boom!...
blast across the water.

But now that we've done a
test with the mast on,

even with the sail down,
it really slowed down the boat.

I think we're gonna get some
movement, but it's gonna be slight.

How fast were we?



That was a good test.

Let's flip the fan around
and put the sail up

and see how fast we go
when we blow our own sail.

- Aaah!
- Aah!

Whoop.

Kari, Grant, and Tory
are preparing to flip the fan

and raise the sail for
a physics-defying finale.

They're about to find out,
with a real boat on real water,

if it's possible to really
blow your own sail.

But plain sailing it's not.

I feel like there might be just
a little element of danger here.

I hope that holds.

I mean, the swamp boat is not
meant to have the fan backwards,

and it's definitely not meant

to have this giant, lumbering sail on it.

How's your line of sight?

I think we might actually have
a little danger of tipping.

I just really don't want to get wet today.

Raise the mainsail!

Trim the jibjab!

I'm trimming as fast as I can!

Now, in order for this
myth to be confirmed,

what we're looking for is forward movement

due to the fan blowing into the sail.

Not drifting, not just poking along...

we're actually talking about
directed forward movement.

We get that, and we're
looking at "confirmed."

Okay, I think that looks parallel.

So, what we're also interested in

is the comparison of the speed
of the fan blowing into the sail

versus the fan pointed backwards.

All right, you guys ready?

Will we get improvement?

Probably not.

The target that we're
looking at is 20 miles an hour.

If we get even a quarter
of that... 5 miles an hour...

I will be very, very impressed.

Or... and it's a very real possibility...

the shallow-bottom boat with its
top-heavy sail goes bottom up.

Okay, we're in.

We have no idea what can go wrong.

I mean, the mast could blow off.
The boat could flip over.

They might get sucked into the fan

and chopped up into little pieces.

Hey, good sailing.

Good luck.

What was that about
being sucked into the fan?

Chopped into little pieces?

They're off.

Tory in the support vehicle
tows them out to open water.

With plenty of space,
no major winds or currents,

it's the perfect location for
a spot of scientific sailing.

- All right, you ready to do this?
- Ready.

Okay. Here we go.

This is "blow your own sail"
with the full-size boat.

Full throttle!

I got to tell you, the funniest part

about this whole experiment is
when we first turned on that fan

and the boat just started to spin
and dip down in one direction.

Grant and I both were super wide-eyed

because we thought we were going over.

They're wildly out of control.

There's no forward movement,

just a whole lot of spinning and crashing.

So, when we first started and I gunned it,

we started turning in a circle.

I was like, "This is it. That's it."

"We're going in the water."

But I turned it down,
and we tried it again,

- and, actually, what I found was...
- Yeah!

It's moving forward!

...if you keep vectoring the fan,

if you keep that thrust at the sail,

you can actually get it to go forward.

There she blows!

Look at it! They're going forward!

We blew our own sail!

It's working!

By ramping it up
MythBusters-style, the team

has seemingly contradicted
newtonian physics.

It's working!

They're blowing their own sail.

Now, this was nuts.

We only got 3 miles an hour,
but we actually got movement.

We got forward movement,
and we were able to steer

by pointing the wind into
different parts of the sail.

I have to say, this is a successful day.



No doubt they'd go a lot faster

with the fan facing backwards and
no sail, but that's not the point.

The myth asks, can you power
a sailboat with your own fan?

And you can.

Now, I don't know
exactly what's going on,

because apparently we're flying
in the face of Newton's laws,

but here's what I think is happening.

We have a significant amount
of thrust coming out of this fan.

It's hitting the sail, and the
sail can only push so much.

The rest of that thrust
gets reflected back,

giving us a net thrust, pushing
us in a forward direction.

And forward in both directions,

because to prove that
real wind wasn't a factor,

Grant and Kari sailed both ways.

Dude, that was awesome!

I cannot believe it!
We blew our own sail!

This one is totally confirmed.

Totally confirmed.

I mean, this thing went forward
with the wind from our own fan.

Confirmed!

You may remember
in the opening sequence,

Adam and Jamie set off a
Hollywood-style expl*sive fireball.

Bye-bye.

But despite having plenty,

the guys didn't blow up
the car just for fun.

It was part of the test to find out

whether the ubiquitous
expl*sive sound effect

you hear in the movies
is anything like the real thing.

So first up, let's show you the ingredients

of a typical silver-screen big bang.

Two gallons of gasoline
ringed in some det cord

and stuck in the front seat...

that's how Hollywood makes its
spectacular fireball explosions.

But what do they really sound like?

Bye-bye.

It's quite a difference, huh?

Much like the punch,

the movie version has
a lot more texture and depth.

Quite simply, it's more
dramatic than the real thing.

How did the wave forms compare?

They're clearly very different.

The gas expl*si*n we just did
had a very sudden onset,

and the energy is concentrated

in a very narrow range of low frequencies.

Whereas the classic movie expl*si*n...

has a much slower onset,

and the energy is over a much
wider range of frequencies,

and it lasts for a much, much longer time.

It's a very different sound.

Which sounds like a busted myth,

but the guys aren't done yet.

They're not getting bogged
down with just one big boom.

If the sound of a gasoline-fueled fireball

doesn't match the movies,
maybe a real high expl*sive will.

Cue our old friend C-4.

Now we're gonna blow
this car up for realsies

and check out how that sounds.

All right, here we go.



Ka-boom!

That was a good, solid thud.

Kind of makes you feel all
warm and fuzzy inside, don't it?

It does.

A good, solid thud,

but once again, it's clearly
a completely different sound

to the sound effect.

I'm looking at the top
at the movie expl*si*n,

and I'm seeing this big,
wide bandwidth of sound.

And I see the C-4,
and I see nothing like that.

I see one sharp impulse, a
little bit of surrounding noise,

but nowhere near the depth and
the range of the movie expl*si*n.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and
say I think that one's busted.

Yep, the contrast

between the real explosions
and the film sound effect

is as clear as a bell.

And that leaves this final movie
myth about as busted as the car.

Let's get out of here
before our shoes get all dirty.