Sunday, March 18, 2012

Adam Savage on the Mythbusters' New Show, Unchained Reaction

Early on, we pitted special effects artists against rocket scientists. And the rocket scientists came up with a switch. It was two pieces of wire stuck in a bowl of distilled water. And nothing happened. But then they had a see-saw above it, and the see-saw dumped a chunk of table salt into the water, which immediately made the water conductive, and contacted the switch and activated the next thing. And that was super fun to watch because while I know that salt water conducts electricity and that distilled water is a very terrible, poor conductor of electricity, I did not know that that reaction could be made to happen so quickly. Both Jamie and I were kind of giggly about it.

That?s really great, because then the show becomes more than a reality competition?people can learn about science, too. Absolutely. And therein lie the keys to the castle. Because you?ve got this structure which has some similarities with MythBusters?people having fun, putting stuff together, working with limitations and working with challenges. When you watch it, you?re actually learning something. You might not realize it, because hopefully it?s entertaining television, but when you go away, perhaps you have another arrow in your quiver for solving problems later on.

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/mythbusters/projects/adam-savage-on-the-mythbusters-new-show-unchained-reaction-7406983?src=rss

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