The Mythbusters were testing the completely absurd "myth" that two semis that collide head-on AND sandwich a compact car between them will pancake the car and fuse together with it.
That by itself ensures a fair amount of insanity. Spoiler: two semis traveling at a combined speed of over 100mph do not obliterate a car.
But the killer bit was when they decided to dial up the crazy and see what kind of impact would be necessary to obliterate the car.
They went to a ordinance testing site where they used HVAR rockets to ram an inch thick steel plate into a compact car.
It looked like this:
What you're seeing there is the HVAR sled come in and wipe out the car, followed by the first stage boosters coming in later and spinning out of control.
This video doesn't show these just-as-awesome bits:
1) The full acceleration of the sled - showing the second stage ignition and the approach.
and, (for my money) the best bit from the show:
2) Adam's reaction shot. Adam is flat out stunned into silence when he sees the impact - and his expression is just priceless.
uuhh......Holy Crap!Honestly, there are few visuals in life that show you high-energy physics in action. The kind of mass-energy combinations that occur way beyond what our minds can think of by themselves.
My last such moment was looking at a picture of a twisted inch-thick I-beam from the World Trade Center bent almost double from the force of the collapse. I had no experience to appreciate the force needed to do that, but the picture thankfully supplied a slack-jawed steelworker gaping at the beam like it had just grown a mouth and licked him.
Adam's expression was like that.
A mind on the verge of a forced re-boot.
.........Ww-w-w-w-w....whaaAAaaaa?
The Mythbusters wind-out shows the rocket sled's metal plate was similarly bent and the car, well - Jamie's quote was pretty damn good, too.
So, our goal was to fuse metal and pancake the car. Did we achieve that?Love it.
[looks around]
What car??
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