Just because no one else has said, Adam has been involved in EFF for a long time. EEF Podcast episode with him in it:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/04/podcast-episode-making-hope-adam-savage
Which delights me as he’s more mainstream and so wakes people up to things like the Right To Repair movement.
EFF?
Edit: Electronic Frontier Foundation, apparently.
Yep, Electronic Frontier Foundation. Key players in Right To Repair in the US. With good history of “fighting for the user”.
It make me really sad when I learned that James and Adam were not friend.
James said their relationship doesn’t really extend beyond the show.
You mean Jamie?
No, he means James. James Franklin Hyneman.
Who goes by Jamie, and always has?
Yes, he does always go by Jamie. Cordlesslamp technically wasn’t wrong though, and I think Adam even called Jamie by his full name a couple times for comedic effect.
Yeah, I’m sorry English is my second language, sometimes I’m confused how names are spelled.
Interesting, what’s your first language?
That’s fine and I think its pretty much the perfect example of a solid professional relationship (no need to be buddies or “like a family”) and what greatness can be achieved when you work with same endgame in mind. They may have disagreed plenty but only because they wanted to achieve the best outcomes possible.
While they are not friends, if you follow Adam on youtube, you’ll realize there is a huge amount of mutual respect between the two, even to this day.
Ive told people this many times, we need to create more room for failure. From school, to jobs, to building businesses, to loans, to health.
If we can try something because if we fail we can try something else, we would find a hell of a lot more to care about in this world.
And the most important thing we would care more about is ourselves
Science and academia, too. There’s way too few papers being published about failed experimemts. “I thought A, so I did B in order to achieve C, but it didn’t work out because of D.” is a very useful result.
I cannot agree enough with this statement and especially love your closing. We definitely don’t tend to be able to take enough time to really care for ourselves and try and fail at new things.
Oh thank you very much
Mandatory Dwarf Fortress in every school.
Okay thats it im tired of people commenting about this Dwarf fortress. How much of my soul does it cost? Whats that in hours needed?
Yes. Be ready for the most fun you’ll ever experience in a game.
If you’re the type of gamer that gets sucked into Rimworld, then Dwarf Fortress will very likely consume you.
First, read Boatmurdered. Then realise it’s worth whatever the cost is
It doesn’t matter how you run because ALLIGATORS WON’T CHASE YOU.
I used to live in Florida on the edge of a big lake where my landlord had carved out a lagoon that mama gators used to hatch their broods, so there would often be between 50 and 100 little alligators chilling out in my backyard sunning themselves. For fun I would try to sneak up on one of them and poke it on the head just to watch it and all the others scatter into the lagoon. Everybody I told about this thought I was absolutely batshit crazy, but I knew that at the time there had been something like 5 alligator attacks on humans in Florida since the 1940s, always on little children playing in water (I was obviously a little child mentally but physically I was a 200-pound adult man). So I knew I wasn’t risking life or limb doing this. For the record, my sneaking up technique was to stand stock still and only move a step or two towards the gator whenever the wind blew; it seems that the gators just took me for a swaying branch and ignored me.
What made me stop doing this was one day I happened to look down at what I thought was a big log and realized that it was actually the mama gator, about 12’ long from tip to tail and probably 2’ in diameter at her midsection. I was fairly confident that she wouldn’t attack me on land either - but not that confident.
but not that confident.
That’s how you bust myths!
So, we meet at last, Florida Man!
No way! I left and I still have all my teeth.
This is why most skepticism based programs don’t work, and Mythbusters did.
They didn’t try to be smug about it, they didn’t belittle people who believed in the myths, they never brought religion and politics into it, and the biggest pitfall they avoided: They never pretended that the “science was settled” and that they “already knew everything”, they simply did the research and went where the data took them.
Too many skepticism based programs seem to think the scientific method is running into a church, yelling “FAKE!”, and then running outside to hurl insults at passersby.
Mythbusters didn’t do that, they skipped the dogma and went straight to the science.
Also, most of the myths weren’t “serious”- it wasn’t like they were debunking flat earth or something.
it wasn’t like they were debunking flat earth or something
Though you could do that. And with equipment and a type of experiment that would make sense on their show. The experiment conducted at the very end of the documentary Behind the Curve is perfect. Great big lasers, a simple and easy-to-visualise pass condition. If they had wanted to, they absolutely could have done it.
Could’ve had an episode where they tried as many experiments as they could fit into a two-week production.
I hate that debunking flat earth is now seen as serious rather than a 5th grade science experiment.
My favorite is planes on a treadmill.
Mostly because fans still argue about it and it’s hit the point they had to ban PoaT comments.
Which is insane as it’s not that difficult to understand. When a plane is on the ground, its gear/wheels will roll at ground speed, but the wings provide lift at airspeed.
If the ground is being moved under the plane (as on a treadmill,) the wheels will just roll faster.
Sure they’re not zero friction and some of that needs to be overcome; but this is something encountered on a daily basis all across the world- or rather, the opposite.
If the wind is coming from ahead, its airspeed is increased and the plane needs a lower ground speed to get into the air where if the wind is coming from behind, then they need more.
(This is why carriers set course into the wind when launching jets,)
At no point is ground speed and airspeed necessarily the same (i suppose you could have a calm day, but most days, the wind is blowing at least some.)
I think the confusion is that the conveyor belt is running at a fixed speed, which is the aircraft’s takeoff speed. That just dictates how fast the wheels spin, but since the plane generates thrust with its propeller, the wheels just end up having to spin at double takeoff speed. Since they’re relatively frictionless, that’s easy.
The more confusing myth is the one where the speed of the conveyor belt is variable, and it always moves at the same speed as the wheels. So, at the beginning the conveyor belt isn’t moving, but as soon as the plane starts to move, and its wheels start to spin, the conveyor belt movies in the opposite direction. In that case, the plane can’t take off. That’s basically like attaching an anchor to the plane’s frame, so no matter how fast the propeller spins, the airplane can’t move.
Except it’s not like attaching an anchor. The plane isn’t physically attached.
The wheels will just roll double whatever the current ground speed is. If the plane has enough thrust to take off with the treadmill moving an inverse of its take off speed, then it has enough force to start rolling, too.
At most, the force applied by the treadmill would be sufficient over enough time to lengthen the take off roll, but given enough space to do so, the plane will take off.
To keep the plane from rolling forward; the treadmill would have to be able to apply an equal force as the engines, it can’t do that through the wheels- the wheels can only apply a force equal to their rolling resistance and friction in its mechanics.
If the conveyor moves at the same speed as the wheels, it is exactly like attaching an anchor. That isn’t the myth they were testing, but it’s a more interesting myth.
it can’t do that through the wheels- the wheels can only apply a force equal to their rolling resistance and friction in its mechanics.
It can do that if it can spin the wheels fast enough. Picture the ultra-light airplane from the episode with big, bouncy wheels and a relatively weak propeller. If the treadmill was moving 1000 km/h backwards, that little propeller could never match the force due to rolling resistance from the wheels.
Just to clarify; you understand that because the engines are pushing on the plane itself and not the wheels, by the time the wheels start moving, the plane is already moving relative to ground and air alike.
Which, said another way, this thought problem appears confusing because it’s being considered from otherwise irrelevant reference frames.
An anchor sufficient to keep the plane from rolling forward is different because the force it is apply is significantly greater.
Sure, you can deflate the tires and increase the rate of spin on the wheels. But at that point, you might as well ask “can we creat a scenario where planes can’t take off”
To which the answer is definitely “Yes”,
And as a side note, if we assume the wheels are indestructible, which I’d argue is only fair, then even if what you’re saying is true and we ramp up the drag induced by the wheels sufficient to counter the engines… then the wind generated by the rolling treadmill would be producing a sufficient headwind for the plane to take off. (Remember, the air resistance of the treadmill’s belt moving will accelerate the air some.)
But again, the wheels have almost zero drag to begin with, the speed at which the roll is independent of both the actual groundspeed and the airspeed of the airplane.
If it has the thrust to over come friction at take off speeds, and at standing, then it has enough power to get to take off velocity eventually.
On the other hand, this entire conversation assumes the thrust to weight ratio is less than 1. If it’s more than one, well they just…. Go straight up.
Just to clarify; you understand that because the engines are pushing on the plane itself and not the wheels, by the time the wheels start moving, the plane is already moving relative to ground and air alike.
The wheels are attached to the plane so they move at the same time as the plane. But, I get what you’re trying to say, that the wheels are effectively being dragged by the plane, they’re not powering the movement. But, what you need to think about is that if you oppose that dragging by moving the conveyor belt in the opposite direction you can prevent the plane from moving at all. Yes, the wheels are merely dragging and there isn’t a lot of friction there, but friction increases with speed. And, if you move the conveyor belt fast enough, you can stop the plane from moving relative to the ground, which can stop it from moving relative to the air, which can prevent it from taking off.
An anchor sufficient to keep the plane from rolling forward is different because the force it is apply is significantly greater.
No, by definition it’s the same. The conveyor moves with however much speed is necessary to stop the forward motion of the plane. The conveyor would eventually go so fast that it generated enough force to stop the plane from moving, so it’s indistinguishable from an anchor.
Sure, you can deflate the tires and increase the rate of spin on the wheels.
You don’t need to deflate the tires, you merely need to increase the speed at which the conveyor moves to match the speed of the wheels.
if we assume the wheels are indestructible, which I’d argue is only fair, then even if what you’re saying is true and we ramp up the drag induced by the wheels sufficient to counter the engines… then the wind generated by the rolling treadmill would be producing a sufficient headwind for the plane to take off
That seems like an unfair assumption because you’re assuming that the conveyor belt has second-order effects on the air (i.e. generating a “wind” over the wings of the plane), while ignoring the second-order effects the conveyor would have on the wheels (massive heat from friction leading to failure).
On the other hand, this entire conversation assumes the thrust to weight ratio is less than 1. If it’s more than one, well they just…. Go straight up.
I mean, the discussion is of a plane, not a helicopter or a rocket. Even jet fighters with a thrust-to-weight ratio of more than 1 typically have engines that only have that ratio once they’re at high speed, not from a standing start. That’s why even fighter jets on carriers need a catapult-assisted takeoff. A VTOL aircraft like a Harrier wouldn’t need that, but then its takeoff speed is zero, and the myth isn’t very interesting when the conveyor belt doesn’t move.
The wheels are attached to the plane so they move at the same time as the plane. But, I get what you’re trying to say, that the wheels are effectively being dragged by the plane, they’re not powering the movement.
no. I’m saying that by the time the wheel is rolling, the plane’s is already moving forward, the engines have already overcome the drag in the wheels. the treadmill is locked to the wheels, not the plane. The plane would continue accelerating even as the wheels reported weird rates of turning.
As for the (very brief) time delay, that’s a function of the plane’s gear’s suspension that is quite well sprung.
the rate of roll on the tire is, effectively, decoupled from the airspeed (and groundspeed) of the plane. which makes this:
No, by definition it’s the same. The conveyor moves with however much speed is necessary to stop the forward motion of the plane.
… entirely different. an affixed anchor does not allow the free motion that a wheel would.
You don’t need to deflate the tires, you merely need to increase the speed at which the conveyor moves to match the speed of the wheels.
And one of a few things happen. Either the plane has enough engine thrust to overcome the acceleration induced by the wheels, and therefore takes off, or it does not.
In the case that it does not, the wheels would continue spinning in increasing RPM until the plane begins moving backwards. because, again, the airspeed of the airplane is not dependent on the wheel’s RPM. Assuming the airplane doesn’t crash from suddenly becoming incredibly difficult to control… eventually it would take off anyhow. because the airflow over the wings would still generate lift. (though they would become horribly inefficient.) and therefore take off.
this is of course ignoring the whole “can a pilot actually control that and manage a take off like that” thing. If you don’t want to grant godlike piloting skills, we could then just make the treadmill irrelevant and leave the brakes on.
Which is insane as it’s not that difficult to understand
I found it hard to understand because neither they nor any of the other sources I’ve seen explaining this even attempted to answer what I thought was an incredibly obvious question: at what point does this become true? A stationary aeroplane on a treadmill will obviously move with the treadmill. I assume an aeroplane moving at like 1 km/h still gets pulled backward by the treadmill. At what point does the transition occur, and what does that transition process look like? Why can’t a treadmill prevent the plane from taking off by pulling it backwards by never letting it start getting forward motion? Where does the lift come from?
I can understand how a treadmill doesn’t stop a plane that’s already moving, but how does it get lift if it is prevented from accelerating from 0 to 1 km/h of ground speed (relative to the real ground—relative to the ground it experiences, it is moving forward at the same speed as the treadmill is moving backward), since until it starts getting lift, airspeed and ground speed are surely effectively equal (wind being too small of a factor)?
at what point does this become true?
It’s always true.
A stationary aeroplane on a treadmill will obviously move with the treadmill
What do you mean? The plane has its parking brakes on and moves with the treadmill surface? If you don’t have parking brakes engaged and start up a treadmill under a plane, the plane’s wheels will spin and the plane will stay pretty much in one place. Because the wheels are free to spin, initially that’s all that will happen. The inertia of the plane will keep it in place while the wheels spin. Over time, the plane will start to drift in the direction the treadmill is moving, but it will never move as fast as the treadmill because there’s also friction from the air, and that’s going to be a much bigger factor.
I assume an aeroplane moving at like 1 km/h still gets pulled backward by the treadmill.
Moving at 1 km/h relative to what? The surface of the treadmill or the “world frame”? A plane on a moving treadmill will be pulled by the treadmill – there will be friction in the wheels, but it will also feel a force from the air. As soon as the pilot fires up the engine, the force from the engine will be much higher than any tiny amount of friction in the wheels from the treadmill.
but how does it get lift if it is prevented from accelerating from 0 to 1 km/h of ground speed
It isn’t prevented from accelerating from 0 to 1 km/h of ground speed. The wheels are spinning furiously, but they’re relatively frictionless. If the pilot didn’t start up the propeller, the plane would start to move in the direction the treadmill is pulling, but would never quite reach the speed of the treadmill due to air resistance. But, as soon as the pilot fires up the propeller, it works basically as normal. A little bit of the air will be moving backwards due to the treadmill, but most of the air will still be relatively stationary, so it’s easy to move the plane through the air quicker and quicker until it reaches take-off speed.
The point it occurs at is when the plane uses the air to propel itself.
but how does it get lift if it is prevented from accelerating from 0 to 1 km/h of ground speed
That’s the thing - it is not prevented from accelerating. The wheels are functionally frictionless. That’s why planes have brakes. The plane pushes on the air to move, & the treadmill could accelerate backwards until the plane’s tires explode.
A stationary aeroplane on a treadmill will obviously move with the treadmill. I assume an aeroplane moving at like 1 km/h still gets pulled backward by the treadmill.
so, every wheel or ball or any other kind of rolling-thing has rolling resistance, which is how we sum up the total drag on the system. A steel ball bearing on a steel plate will have a significantly lower rolling resistance than, say, a steel cube on that same plate. Tires have some- but not a lot- of rolling resistance.
You can see that in a car, just put it into neutral and watch as you slow down, even on flat ground. Plane wheels also have rolling resistance. it’s just the way our world works. But it’s generally ignored because it’s hard to model perfectly and in any case pretty negligible relative to the amount of acceleration being put out by modern aircraft engines.
A treadmill will only push an aircraft or whatever else along, with an acceleration that is equal to, or lower, than the rolling resistance. If you try to accelerate the plane faster, it’ll ‘slip’, and the plane will remain largely stationary- like the dishes in the tablecloth trick (if you want to try that at home… make sure the tablecloth doesn’t have a hem, heh.)
But, keep in mind you’re thinking about the plane relative to either the ground, or the treadmill’s belt.
the plane’s wings and it’s engines are ‘thinking’ about the plane relative to the air it’s moving through. It’s the airspeed that generates the lift, and the engine isn’t coupled to the wheels, they’re just rolling along doing their thing. (aircraft engines work by taking a volume of air and accelerating it. newton’s equal-and-opposite does the rest.)
Oh wow thank you. This is genuinely excellent and immensely helpful. I think this bit:
A treadmill will only push an aircraft or whatever else along, with an acceleration that is equal to, or lower, than the rolling resistance. If you try to accelerate the plane faster, it’ll ‘slip’
As well as this video that I found where a pilot explains how under specific but unrealistic conditions you could construct a treadmill that does indeed prevent an aeroplane from taking off,
Really helped solidify my understanding of the problem. So you end up with a situation where the wheels are going to be slipping, just like the slippage created when your hand pushes a toy car on a treadmill.
Thanks!
So, another way to think about it is with Kites.
The air flows around it the same way it would any other kind of aircraft, though they have effectively zero ground speed.
They do differ in that, being tethered, they’re pulled through the air, with the wind providing the energy to stay up.
But they’re still moving through the air, and the airfoils are inducing drag to convert some of that energy into lift.
In both cases, the important speed is relative to the air, not the ground and not the treadmill. The wheels might impart some drag while they’re on the ground, but they’re never going to impart enough to overpower the engines- 747s typically take off at about 75% of their rated take off power, which means a longer take off roll, but less wear and tear.
The key insight is that the force a plane uses to move is independent of the ground, because planes push on the air, not the ground.
Imagine you put a ball on a treadmill and turn it on, what happens? The ball starts to spin and move with the treadmill. Now take your hand and push the ball backwards against the motion of the treadmill, and the ball easily moves in that direction. The force your hand put on the ball is exactly what planes do, since they push on something other than the ground (the treadmill) they have no problem moving, no matter how fast the treadmill is moving.
Plane on a treadmill is really interesting because if you understand how planes work its so obvious what will happen you don’t need to test it. Planes move on the ground by running their engines, which push against the air, the wheels provide zero motive force. It’s also why planes need tugs to move away from the gate, you can’t run the engines in reverse. Planes are not cars, but people tend to assume the thing they don’t understand works like the thing they do understand, and refuse to believe their hasty assumption is wrong even when told directly their hasty assumption is wrong.
You actually can run the engines in reverse. They have thrust reversers. There’s very good reasons that they do not reverse the plane from the stand using the engines, but it is possible.
Kind of related but there was a video on StarTalk a couple days ago on NGT rebutting a Joe Rogan interview with Terrence Howard. It’s was joyous watching a breakdown in how science works while very politely calling TH an absolute moron.
He even went out of his way to compliment the ridiculous amount of work Howard put in, and his art etc. Dude should consider it a win to even get a red marked up paper back from an actual respected scientist. That in itself is a pretty cool achievement.
My favorite is the fan mounted to the boat blowing the sail causing the boat to move. I mean there are a shitload more experiments in fun episodes that are far better and more entertaining, but this one is my favorite because it flies in the face of logic. It shouldn’t work. My brain rejects the possibility. But physics and fluid flow work otherwise and I found it pointlessly infuriating only because I’d been unassailable in my confidence that it couldn’t possibly work. Yet there it is with a perfectly logical explanation. I still find it irritating even if I accept the reality of it. (Episode 165 if anyone’s wondering)
That said, I still follow Adam on various platforms. That enthusiasm and joy of discovery is all still there, along with some maturity and some life observations. Literally the only celebrity figure I follow.
Love this show
One of my most favorite shows growing up.
“Failure is always an option.”
Being able to separate your ego and desire to be right from the learning process is such an important skill.
I remember being stubborn, being proved wrong, continuing to be stubborn, and being proved wrong even harder, in front of others.
It’s such a pathetic and embarrassing feeling to be that wrong.
I don’t want to be wrong a moment longer than I need to be.
There’s no shame in being corrected, but there is in holding on to shit ideas.
This is the right attitude more people should have. But all too often, when people are proven wrong, they genuinely believe that it must be the other person/group, because they cannot accept the emotional consequences of being wrong.
I know that I’ve had a hard time learning this because growing up I was never held to account for my actions on an emotional level. It was the 80s and 90s, and adults at that time would either shrug it off, or go straight to the nuclear punishment of corporal punishment. Never once would they sit down and talk to you about why what you did was wrong and how to do it better next time. I, anecdotally, believe that a lot of genx suffer this same way. They simply haven’t learned that there is a better way.
Well, talking to kids and explaining things to them takes time, and it’s basically work. How inconvenient.
Also, you have to know what a better way to handle a situation is. If someone’s the type of person who hits a kid for misbehavior, maybe they don’t know how to do better.
My husband and I are in our mid thirties, and are actively holding off on kids until we feel like we’ve gotten better at managing our emotions. Our parents had kids much earlier, and ended up exercising their emotional dysfunction on small children
I could be completely wrong, but my life experience so far suggests that the best way to get better at something is to put yourself into situations where you have to actually practice the skill. I’ve been fostering cats and kittens for a few years, and I think it has really pushed me to learn how to manage my emotions better.
Plus being able to figure out a semilegitimate excuse to blow stuff up. “This could be very dangerous so we’re going to do several things to make it safer. That’s teaching safe lab techniques, so it’s educational!”
Or at least use classical conditioning to associate the I’m wrong feeling with the impending new cool facts feeling.
Sometimes there’s a twitch stream of random mythbusters episodes. It’s so fun.
I wish they came back :/
We need less entertainment that runs forever and more that has a plan for how long it should be.
In this case it ran as long as it was feasible, then a little longer and then they where done.
I think Mythbusters is a little bit of a different case than something more narrative. There are always new myths to bust; every generation needs something that makes science cool. I guess now that’s a role mainly filled by various YouTubers.
Remember kids: The difference between science and screwing around is writing things down.
There’s a bit more to it than that
Yes. Being exploited by greedy publishers and a failing academia system, while barely making a living for example.
Remember kids: publishing negative results is hard.
But super important and not done enough! Disproving something can save humanity such time.
Sometimes they called stuff busted because they couldn’t personally do it though, even though the myth involved elite athletics. I was pretty stoked when they brought in an actual ninja to test if ninjas can grab arrows out of the air. The guy actually did catch some arrows, which was quite amazing.
I liked the one where they tested it you could stop a sword by slapping your palms together to stop the swing like in ninja movies They actually built a machine with rubber hands to simulate it. Long and short of it … No you can’t
Yeah… There are many pitfalls to doing a Skepticism based program, sadly one of the few Mythbusters DIDN’T avoid was “Well I can’t personally do it, so it’s impossible for everyone!”
“Could the DOOM marine actually carry all those weapons while running for ages?” - Adam and Jamie couldn’t manage it, but they brought in someone who could.
I thought you were joking till I clicked the link.
Ha! That was fun.
Man i should rewatch the whole thing. I only watched few of the earlier seasons, totally missed this one.
Which was ridiculous considering they’re a couple of science nerds with no physical aptitude at all. LOL. They nailed the science stuff though.
Yeah, one that I always think of is the see-saw one where a sky diver’s parachute failed so he aimed for a see-saw with a girl sitting on one end which resulted in the girl launched shot upwards and then landing safely on top of a building.
Their first test used basically a metal plank on a fulcrum and the forces did more to bend the plank than they did to launch the girl and she didn’t get high enough.
Their second attempt used a see-saw that was built using suspension bridge tech to essentially make it instructable, resulting in fatal forces from the launch. At this point, they called it busted.
But I see two unrealistic extremes where reality would exist somewhere in the middle where see-saws are designed to not break easily but not to the point of being indestructible and there might be a sweet spot where the forces are high enough to launch girl several stories up but not high enough that she dies from the forces.
Also, for the bull in a china shop one, I’m guessing that saying resulted from a bull ending up inside a china shop during a running of the bulls event, where stress would be high and there wouldn’t be an easy and obvious path out on the other side, plus maybe a shopkeeper suddenly trying to get it out in a panic. I think that would get the expected result, especially after a few shelves have broken and each step makes more broken sounds.
If you want to accelerate a person to “fly high into the air” speed over a distance of a see saw’s arc is going to kill the person. There is no sweet spot
