MythBusters and Obama - Yes they can

When President Obama asked the presenters of cult TV science show MythBusters to test out an ancient legend, they couldn’t refuse. Gerard Gilbert hears how they did it

Is it possible for a plane loo to create enough suction for someone to get stuck on it? Is running better than walking for keeping dry in the rain? Can being painted in gold leaf actually be deadly? Will you get electrocuted if you pee on the third rail? Can using a mobile phone near a petrol pump cause an explosion?

You won’t find these questions being addressed by Imperial College or MIT, belonging as they do to the realm of urban myth, while others – such as whether bulls really do react angrily to the colour red – are as old as folklore. Fortunately a global fan-base of the idly curious knows a man who does, two men in fact, Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage, collectively known as television’s MythBusters.

From in and around their San Francisco workshop, former special-effects experts Hyneman and Savage blow up, crash, submerge and propel objects and people in their dedicated search for the truth behind such popular beliefs as whether firing a bullet in a plane can cause it to tear apart, or that a goldfish’s memory only lasts three seconds. It’s television science for people who don’t even realise they like science, delivered by two men with no scientific qualifications whatsoever. “The fact that we have a real lack of qualification and we don’t necessarily know what we’re doing means that we are accessible,” says Savage, a former model-maker on the Star Wars and Matrix films. “What we are doing is subtly powerful in that we’re saying science is not just for guys in lab coats – it’s simply a matter of thinking methodically and creatively. Engineers and scientists are among our most staunch admirers.”

As is the White House, and in a special episode that opens the new series, President Obama himself sets them a task of proving or disproving the Archimedes solar ray myth – that during the Siege of Syracuse in 212BC, the Greek scientist set fire to the Roman fleet by focusing the sun’s rays on it with mirrors.

“We were invited to the White House to be in the audience while President Obama gave a policy speech on what he called the Stem initiative”, explains Savage, “which is getting American children more interested in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. And he had us in the audience as exemplars of people who are making science cool – he actually gave us a shout-out during the speech, which was totally unexpected – and while we were there we met several members of his staff who turned out to be fans of the show.

“We had all of 13 minutes with Obama, but in those 13 minutes he put everyone at their ease, he came in and knew all his lines. And then he went off to actually go and do important things”. Whether or not the MythBusters team, with the aid of 500 mirror-wielding schoolchildren, are able to set fire to a Roman galleon will be revealed in tonight’s episode. It’s one of the less dangerous of the often combustible experiments the duo undertake to see whether a myth will be rated “busted”, “plausible” or “confirmed”. New ideas are suggested by earlier experiments, or are dreamt up the show’s ever-expanding backroom team, but Hyneman (he’s the beret-wearing one with the bristling moustache and chin hair) says that 20 or 30 per cent of what they do is suggested directly by fans. “I’ve gotten a bunch from Twitter, Jamie and I get a lot of emails personally, people on the street…”

These can be sweetly lo-tech: how easy is it to find a needle in a haystack, for example; frat-house crude (do pretty girls fart?), and sometimes life-saving – as when their demonstration of how to survive if your car goes into a river (open the door before the car sinks) was actually carried out by a woman in Minnesota who skidded into a drainage ditch. But they won’t go near conspiracy theories such as those about the JFK assassination or the 9/11 attacks.

What really excites the duo, however, is crashing objects at speed and blowing things up. With their background in special effects they often do film specials – testing out the realism of James Bond stunts, for example – and although they baulked at a story in which one of them was going to get Tasered to see if it was possible for a Taser gun to set fire to a person, their insurance company apparently remains remarkably sanguine. “Over the years we’ve actually got more latitude from our insurers,” says Hyneman. “They’re saying ‘they’ve got all their fingers and toes and they haven’t killed themselves yet...’”

Never mind the insurers – have either of them scared themselves? “Once”, says Savage. “When I built this portable tornado shield which bolts up into a backpack and got behind a 747 in it and they cranked the wind up to 180mph.”

Any favourites? “Our favourite episode is the same episode – it’s ‘lead balloon’. We made a floating 14ft diameter helium balloon out of 28lb of rolled lead and it’s one of the best examples of a scientific approach to something completely idiotic. Nobody needs to make a balloon out of lead, but from a real problem- solving standpoint we feel it is one of the most elegant narratives of exactly why we love what we do on the show.”