What the lie detector thing was missing, is the "penalty for a false positive" - i.e. in real life, if it's wrongfully telling somebody did something wrong, they have consequences to fear. So their truthful answers will also be given under stress. In this case, a false positive would have no consequences, so the answers are much more relaxed by definition.
When they talk about the studies on the polygraph. They fail to mention that the lower figure would mean two out of ten being wrongly convicted if they used this in court. Why are the figures not more consistent if it's so good?
They also curiously dont mention the false positive rate, which is quite high. If you are innocent, getting a polygraph test is a bad idea. It's inherently not designed to measure falsehood, its designed to measure stress and the stress of avoiding a false conviction is quite high.
45:07 "it never pierced our pig and I think that's really where the rubber meets the road with a weapon of war" is certainly the craziest idiom I've ever heard
@@MonotoneCreeper that's not accurate though. It is not the results (mostly pseudo-scientific gibberish, anyway) but the records of previous and maybe later interview what they could use to indict you. That's the big secret about polygraphs, the machine is only part of a staging designed to build up the stress on the interviewee with the hope of obtain a spontaneous confession.
@@MonotoneCreeper there will never be a time where you will be forced to take lie detector test. The police will guilt trip you to take it or anything so they can have an excuse to hold you or search you whatever they make up. Just get a lawyer and stfu.
It always disgusts me how the polygraph people lie about the accuracy & efficacy of their stupid pseudoscience machine, and about the related scientific research. The fact of the matter is they *need* people to believe it works, in order for it to have the intimidating effect that the operators rely on. The process needs to intimidate people in order to put the subject under stress in order to break their composure and force mistakes and inconsistencies in their answers. A "lie detector test" is less about the stupid machine, and more about the interrogation techniques of the operator. In theory, you might think, if someone is telling the truth they shouldn't feel the stress, right? Wrong! The "false positive" rate of a polygraph "test" is estimated to be about 50%. That is, assuming you're being truthful, there's still a 1-in-2 chance that the operator will conclude that you are lying. For most honest people, simply being falsely accused of something is incredibly stressful, and polygraph tests are *not* designed to be reassuring in any way. Polygraph tests have been an integral part of innumerable false convictions and forced false confessions. If you are someone who cares more about justice than about securing a conviction (ie, you're a normal person, and not a police detective), I believe the more you look into this ridiculous tool of injustice, the stronger your moral conviction against it should be.
I guess overselling the polygraphs ability is necessary to make it work. If anybody would think they don't work, the polygraph has nothing to detect. Like magic tricks, its about convincing the audience.
You got the point. Polygraphy has never been about rate the sincerity (or insincerity) of your answers. That's scientifically impossible, the mere concept of truth is not about facts but moral standards. Polygraphy Is about press you enough to confess (whether you are guilty or not). And that put it at the same level of sleep deprivation and other forms of psychological torture.
@@danataininja1243 Basically polygraphs are statistically bullshit since they measure stress, and being arrested tends to be stressful, leading to false convictions. It's less about being able to lie to them and more about them not detecting the truth.
Adam keeps playing gleefully with balls and what's basically a simple metal tube, nothing more. Jamie: "Yeah, I know it's fun, let me get back to work." That's probably the most succinct characterization of the two possible..
Supposedly the two of them couldn't stand each other whatsoever. I'd have to agree Adam is way more enthusiastic than Jamey. As the beginning of each episode says they have a combined 30 years as actors and special effects experts. This is absolutely one of my favorite shows growing up. I am truly grateful for all the years and truly wish I could make a living myself having the time of my life everyday. I'm at a point in life where I am stuck. I have done just about every occupation in one way or another. I am crippled with option overload.
@@sethstatler8480 "Supposedly the two of them couldn't stand each other whatsoever." Yep. That said, them still working great on screen just shows how professional they are.
@@sethstatler8480 I don't think they couldn't stand each other they just aren't compatible as friends. Haven't read or heard a bad word about the other from either of them. I think the media really blew their relationship out of whack because people for some reason want everyone on non-scripted TV to be besties. If they couldn't stand each other, there wouldn't ever have been a show.
@@calumsanderson6741 I have read/heard lots that supports your theory. Jamie actually suggested Adam as a co-host when the show was first pitched to him. Since the show ended, Jamie has been a teacher in one way or another. He does not miss cameras in his face, from what I have read/heard. Adam has his YT channel, which I sometimes watch. I mostly miss the myths, though. I miss Tory, Grant, and Kari doing stupid stuff and looking like they loved life. I miss learning I was wrong in a fun way that never felt insulting. I miss learning I was right, even if I told no one about it because I didn't want drama in my life. I miss the format, I miss the fun, I miss Myth Busters. I would be fine with all new people, I just want the fun back.
Okay not to be the boo man here, but the last test had them all steal either the ring or the watch which means the lie detector test was a 50:50 chance for all participants... I think they should have done at least 2 runs with someone not stealing something and see if they would have falsely accused someone. Still a very entertaining episode to watch!
Agreed. A better method would be to have a bunch of items in the drawer and ask each of them. For each item it decreases the chance of accidentally getting the right answer.
What's weird is that I remember seeing this when it was airing, and I remember Grant beating the polygraph by stealing neither the ring nor the watch, and taking a pen instead.
Polygraphs (I refuse to call it a "Lie detector") measure stress responses. Which physiological stress is CORELATED to lying, but not a guaranteed indicator.
the way to beat a lie detector is to overthink the question. if the question is "is your name .... ?", immediately think of a situation where people may know you by another name. the question wasn't "does your ID specify your name as ... ?", it was "IS your name ... ?". if your name IS one in one situation and IS another in another situation, that's an ambiguous question, where the operator meant it to be straightforward.
They would put someone under the detector and comes out as innocent, and then collect enough proof to know that it was him, so he had to have beaten the detector
Polygraphs can totally be beaten. And it is easy. It's Yes/No questions So blank your mind and pay just enough attention to know what answer they need to hear. What they need to hear is the "right " answer and will register as "truth"
@@hedgehog3180 It's a tv show and it's believable enough. Calling them stupid is calling everybody else unaware of countless agendas stupid too. But at least on one level people are just living their lives with the best information they have.
@@kaptein1247 depends on how you define lethality. If it's a chance of penetration, it will definitely help, since the pressure would increase. For example, a 2000 kg car at 3 km/h will have similar energy to a 9mm bullet at 1300 km/h (if I didn't mess up the calculations). That car will probably hurt you and might even kill you, but, the worst case scenario, it will be because it crushed your bones, not because it went through you. Besides, a smaller ball at a higher velocity will be more accurate since it can resist gravity a bit better.
I probably missed it, but did they say what the projectile was made out of? they look like rubber balls, which isn't the deadliest to begin with. I venture a guess they didn't try other types of rounds as the gun broke down, but it's still a shame they didn't get to try other projectiles.
You may like that the fact that thy've tested the polygraph, but it gave a lot of people on TV the opportunity to know how it works. Same as many other myths whose methodology you may not agree with.
Part of me wonders if the steam machinegun wasn't fully intended to kill, but was meant to be more of an intimidation factor? I mean, you didn't exactly want to charge a musket line to begin with, even with how innaccurate they could be at range. Would you, as a civil war soldier, want to charge toward a line with a couple of these strange machines hissing and bellowing steam; that suddenly start hurling shot at you in rapid succession? Even if the rounds couldn't penetrate like in the MB tests here.. considering it still broke bone? you hit someone in the chest, head, throat? and they're still going down with internal trauma, concussion ext depending where it hit em. Given the time period, weapons n such of the day and what was going on; I think it'd still have been effective in certain areas of combat, even if only as a deterant.
There is also the idea that injuring an enemy soldier is more effective then putting them down. With injuries you take more people out of the fight. Think about what it takes to get a soldier back from the front lines. All that equipment and manpower isn't there to shoot back.
You have to understand that the comparison point is artillery fire, from cannons. There aren't a lot of things scarier than artillery fire, but civil war era cannons firing shots you can see travel towards you as you are advancing towards your death would be something else. If artillery can't act as a deterrent against advancing infantry, no amount of blowing steam a mile away from the line will. Anything that doesn't cull men in the thousands where they stand is not comparable to artillery fire by any metric.
weapons are designed to kill & maim, not just scare, and this steam gun thing was no exception - when they found out it wasn't good at it, they abandoned it so as not to waste precious time and resources as someone pointed out, artillery would be the benchmark of the day of the most effective killing machines, and this steam gun wouldn't come close to matching even the weakest contemporary gun take the example of a line of these steam guns firing at an opposing line of infantry - cannon loaded with grape/canister shot would be far more devastating to the opposing infantry, and probably far more intimidating as well - not to mention the artillery can fire other shot at further ranges most weapons that have been used as purely intimidation/propaganda were failed or obsolesced prototypes that kind of necessitated some kind of use to mitigate the investment of production (personally i am thinking of numerous big, weird armored vehicles from the interwar/ww2 era)
Yes, the best, and which will get you caught. By simple logic and the fact that you're held to your words in court. You'll also have to do mental gymnastics for every answer, and it doesn't really matter what you say if your vitals spike when key subjects are mentioned. The better one is to simply refuse to cooperate and keep silent. Even that will not stop a discerning and capable interrogator from getting at least something. The better better best one, is to actually believe you are innocent. Without a shred of doubt, not deceiving yourself, but knowing you are spotless. A great actor that can fully immerse themselves in their role, mentality and all, should be able to pass just fine. The alternative better better best one, is transcended equanimity, serenity, detachment. But that's just a cheat in general. Of course, the better better better best one is to have the ability to not have to go through the lie detector if you don't want to, in the first place. Or have the machine display the results you want.
@@mrprogamer96109 It's been well known that polygraphs are unreliable for decades, it just wasn't public knowledge when this episode was made but considering Mythbusters has a research team they could have easily figured it out themselves. And well it's kinda bad for a show called Mythbusters to support a pseudoscientific myth.
Isn't it funny how the losing side of every war seems to have had some mythical, unfinished "secret weapon" that could've "won the war" for them? It's weird, don't you think?
Surely the actual advantage to the steam powered rotating gun, would be to use it more like a Claymore mine and have lot of shots coming out of one side as an antipersonnel gun.
Wouldn't this Steam Powered Machine Gun work better with steam pressure behind the projectile, its easy to do, using the rotary valve principal on the shaft would make it much more powerful and accurate, a missing part of the design ?
@@amarok5486they literally just showed you how they are. sample size wasn't big enough. but the amount of reliability tests the man performed made for a reliable reading. not saying they work in 99% of cases (that number is definitely propaganda bs) but 80% seems likely. better than chance. it's good that it's not admissible in court but it can be a decent method of assessing whether someone should continue classifying as a suspect.
@@acidtears they are actually quiet bad at that, too. John Douglas notes in his book "mind hunter" that criminals can often pass a test quite easiely. False negatives are a huge downside for the police because they could have their guy but let them go. Is the 80% number based on a study? Or just a rough guess?
They needed much longer barrels to get higher velocities. The fact that they didn't do speed tests on this thing makes it look like they decided they didn't have the time to do this one right and so they just covered up the weak design by not talking about the velocity issue.
According to Google Maps, Public Transit from MUSC to M5 Industries would have taken around three days. That was more than enough punishment. To be fair, driving that monster of a road trip wouldn't have been much better!
I know it would probably not be leathal but the amount of blunt force trauma one of those bullets could cause would probaly still take you out of the fight. Yes a sledgehammer to the chest might not make a wound but that does not make you okay or nessisaly alive afterwards. The pellet size seams to have been ideal in transfering all the energy to the target nevermind penetration
It's just a slingshot equivalent. Maybe at best Joerg Sprave's kind. Very cumbersome, hard to manage, and wasteful slingshot equivalent. Certainly not fit for war in any way. It's a like a barrage of small hammer swings transitioning to punches at a distance. And it will probably break itself after a while and need repairs. It's only effective short range, and a regular old wooden shield will block everything, plate and padded gambeson will do well, too. It lacks a turret, it cannot aim, it needs high precision machining and balance or it will break itself - it was probably never built. Not by the horse and wagon type of guys. It is so wildly ridiculous, the story that this thing was built during the war because they were running out of gunpowder. If they had the leisure and resources to... Why build this thing if you can put a cannon or a just a few gunmen on that armored chassis?
45:20 in all fairness that would be intimidating enough to the point where you could effectively supress and demotivate troops and possibly incapacitate them. That's not bad at all really 😅
Higher brain activity, motion, stress? Boy howdy my adhd would not help. Random spikes in brain activity, restlessness, anxiety, the works. I honestly wonder how that would perform
There was no myth on this show that was less interesting and more flawed than the "lie detector test". No wonder they packaged it with the sweet steam cannon.
So they measured the "range" of their machine gun (even though Adam kept calling it a cannon) at 700 yards, even though they were firing a metal ball onto pavement. Um, ya think it could have gone 300 yards in the air and rolled another 400 yards? Range is the distance a round travels in the air, not on the ground.
the way to make a domestic water heater boiler safe for steamy power is simply to have a steam whistle relief chooooooooo when hot enough to use the steam or follow the natural temp-vs-pressure curve of water and set the temp to just below the failure point(actually best to run at 2/3 the failure point max for safety) 150c is about 5 bar, low pressure steam territory, but if that system can take as high as 300psi before getting dangerous you could crank it to 150c just fine, just don't expect it to last as long as if it was used at 50c max for it;s design
I mean ... no, it doesn't need to kill. If it can injure that's also useful in a war. Imagine getting hit in the face with such a ball - and not just one but multiple times... you probably won't be fighting any longer.
You mean have a huge contraption and a team of engineers manning it just to try and hit some unlucky fella's face? If you tech this thing up a bit, a low to medium velocity mass driver seems feasible. And with supermaterials for the arms, electromagnetic bearings and power, in an airless environment... this simple catapult may be of some use. It still has to be balanced and send an equivalent load backwards if we're to really talk big and high energy here. But a smaller setup may handle the vibrations just fine. In concept, It is very similar to a railgun, except the energy stored is limited by the material strength of the arms, and not the capacitors.
under interrogation Grant was forced to admit using ballistics gel to create robots with realistic human breasts, thats why they switched to using pig carcasses
Yes it does but since you need to agree to polygraph test, in best case scenario you would look like ldiot that you agreed to it and then not answering and in the worst case you would look suspicious af and become suspect no. 1.
Amazing...i watched this episode as a teenager and when I heard about Grant death few years ago, I almost immediately remembered this episode and had this same question...
Well the thing broke, I guess with it being able to spit the bullets this far you could increase the weight and hope it carrys more force, but a higher diameter would also cause more space for said force to disperse upon impact. I actually believe this thing is lethal, yeah one hit might not kill you but a barrage of steelballs raining down range breaking your legs, arms and rips are effectiv enough.
@@Nikagor You could increase weight without increasing size. You'd just need something more dense than steel. I rather agree. Even if not, if you could consistently fire 400 rounds per minute in a cone in front of this contraption that consistently broke bone on any hit into a crowd charging you, beginning fire at 500 yards... this would do a lot of damage and seriously hurt morale. It'd probably take a lot of rounds to keep it firing though.
That lie detector test could have easily failed, if they just went with the mindset that they didn't actually steal anything, but borrowed it for the episode.
A bit like how the MRI detector basically maps the blood flow. Which is higher when your brain has to work to make something up. On the other hand, a lie that is told often enough can be recalled as easily as any truthful memory.
The worst part of Mythbusters was the editing. They show the best parts happnening 10 times before it actually happens. Destroying all excitement. By the time the clip comes by, you know by heart, whats gone happen.
It's a bogus stat anyway. Bet they were very happy to get more free advertising by having the show say "Hey look out, this test is still super accurate and catches everyone who committed a crime" It's a feedback loop of keeping to convince the public the polygraph is infallible so that they get nervous and stressed when undergoing it.
@@matoatlantis I was curious about the time it would take as well and had to look it up. Tickets were available to two different buses as of writing this comment, and the faster one was 67 hours. That's a long damn time spent sitting in a bus. Costs over 400 clams as well. At that price, let alone length, I can't imagine anyone ever doing that voluntarily.
I didn't get this test of machinegun killing power at all. They shot HUGE round balls - of course those have no penetration power. Shouldn't they use some smaller rounds?
Yeah the problem being that they knew someone was lieing, meaning at this point their chances for success was that much higher and most likely more based on opinion than facts.
What the lie detector thing was missing, is the "penalty for a false positive" - i.e. in real life, if it's wrongfully telling somebody did something wrong, they have consequences to fear. So their truthful answers will also be given under stress. In this case, a false positive would have no consequences, so the answers are much more relaxed by definition.
It doesn't "say someone did something wrong" it only gives you clues that someone is being deceptive. This is why they are not admissible in court.
This is one of my fave eps. The steam machine guns is one of the coolest builds the show had
When they talk about the studies on the polygraph. They fail to mention that the lower figure would mean two out of ten being wrongly convicted if they used this in court. Why are the figures not more consistent if it's so good?
Because all humans are muntants and there is nothing that fits everyone.
Because it's a good tool to support accusations in the eyes of the public.
They also curiously dont mention the false positive rate, which is quite high. If you are innocent, getting a polygraph test is a bad idea. It's inherently not designed to measure falsehood, its designed to measure stress and the stress of avoiding a false conviction is quite high.
It's just an all too small samplesize.
@@hexlart8481 Why would the stress of avoiding a false conviction be higher than the stress of avoiding a righteous conviction?
Kari's face after the second test......she was actually angry :)
45:07 "it never pierced our pig and I think that's really where the rubber meets the road with a weapon of war" is certainly the craziest idiom I've ever heard
17:20 "YEA STOP TALKING WHAT IS THE PSI"
about 171 psi, it does not propel the projectile, it just spin the barrel
😭
fun fact we are still in the age of steam. everything that honestly generates power for our homes, coal power, nuclear its all boiling water
Wind, hydro, and photovoltaic don't use stream. (though concentrated solar does)
By that same methodology you could also say we're still in the iron & bronze age as they still play pivotal roles in our day to day lives.
Youll never really have to worry about beating a lie detector test, theyre inadmissible in court
True but they can use the results to obtain a confession from you, or to give them leads in their investigation that might lead to concrete evidence
And falsely passing one may get them off your back
@@MonotoneCreeper that's not accurate though. It is not the results (mostly pseudo-scientific gibberish, anyway) but the records of previous and maybe later interview what they could use to indict you. That's the big secret about polygraphs, the machine is only part of a staging designed to build up the stress on the interviewee with the hope of obtain a spontaneous confession.
@@MonotoneCreeper there will never be a time where you will be forced to take lie detector test. The police will guilt trip you to take it or anything so they can have an excuse to hold you or search you whatever they make up. Just get a lawyer and stfu.
Court is where justice will hit ya. Lie detectors may be in use where you have no right to an attorney ;)
It always disgusts me how the polygraph people lie about the accuracy & efficacy of their stupid pseudoscience machine, and about the related scientific research. The fact of the matter is they *need* people to believe it works, in order for it to have the intimidating effect that the operators rely on.
The process needs to intimidate people in order to put the subject under stress in order to break their composure and force mistakes and inconsistencies in their answers. A "lie detector test" is less about the stupid machine, and more about the interrogation techniques of the operator.
In theory, you might think, if someone is telling the truth they shouldn't feel the stress, right? Wrong! The "false positive" rate of a polygraph "test" is estimated to be about 50%. That is, assuming you're being truthful, there's still a 1-in-2 chance that the operator will conclude that you are lying.
For most honest people, simply being falsely accused of something is incredibly stressful, and polygraph tests are *not* designed to be reassuring in any way. Polygraph tests have been an integral part of innumerable false convictions and forced false confessions. If you are someone who cares more about justice than about securing a conviction (ie, you're a normal person, and not a police detective), I believe the more you look into this ridiculous tool of injustice, the stronger your moral conviction against it should be.
I guess overselling the polygraphs ability is necessary to make it work. If anybody would think they don't work, the polygraph has nothing to detect. Like magic tricks, its about convincing the audience.
You got the point. Polygraphy has never been about rate the sincerity (or insincerity) of your answers. That's scientifically impossible, the mere concept of truth is not about facts but moral standards. Polygraphy Is about press you enough to confess (whether you are guilty or not). And that put it at the same level of sleep deprivation and other forms of psychological torture.
I ain't readin allat 💀
@@danataininja1243 tl;dr Polygraphs are a scam
@@danataininja1243 Basically polygraphs are statistically bullshit since they measure stress, and being arrested tends to be stressful, leading to false convictions. It's less about being able to lie to them and more about them not detecting the truth.
Adam keeps playing gleefully with balls and what's basically a simple metal tube, nothing more.
Jamie: "Yeah, I know it's fun, let me get back to work."
That's probably the most succinct characterization of the two possible..
Supposedly the two of them couldn't stand each other whatsoever.
I'd have to agree Adam is way more enthusiastic than Jamey.
As the beginning of each episode says they have a combined 30 years as actors and special effects experts.
This is absolutely one of my favorite shows growing up. I am truly grateful for all the years and truly wish I could make a living myself having the time of my life everyday.
I'm at a point in life where I am stuck.
I have done just about every occupation in one way or another.
I am crippled with option overload.
@@sethstatler8480 "Supposedly the two of them couldn't stand each other whatsoever."
Yep. That said, them still working great on screen just shows how professional they are.
@@sethstatler8480 I don't think they couldn't stand each other they just aren't compatible as friends. Haven't read or heard a bad word about the other from either of them. I think the media really blew their relationship out of whack because people for some reason want everyone on non-scripted TV to be besties. If they couldn't stand each other, there wouldn't ever have been a show.
@@sethstatler8480 @storymasterQ there was a producer who was egging them on. they eventually fired the producer.
@@calumsanderson6741 I have read/heard lots that supports your theory. Jamie actually suggested Adam as a co-host when the show was first pitched to him. Since the show ended, Jamie has been a teacher in one way or another. He does not miss cameras in his face, from what I have read/heard.
Adam has his YT channel, which I sometimes watch. I mostly miss the myths, though. I miss Tory, Grant, and Kari doing stupid stuff and looking like they loved life. I miss learning I was wrong in a fun way that never felt insulting. I miss learning I was right, even if I told no one about it because I didn't want drama in my life. I miss the format, I miss the fun, I miss Myth Busters. I would be fine with all new people, I just want the fun back.
4:20 I'd pay to hear their hourlong brainstorm uncut.
Be a good Tested Ep
I'll smoke to that!
Okay not to be the boo man here, but the last test had them all steal either the ring or the watch which means the lie detector test was a 50:50 chance for all participants... I think they should have done at least 2 runs with someone not stealing something and see if they would have falsely accused someone. Still a very entertaining episode to watch!
Agreed. A better method would be to have a bunch of items in the drawer and ask each of them. For each item it decreases the chance of accidentally getting the right answer.
What's weird is that I remember seeing this when it was airing, and I remember Grant beating the polygraph by stealing neither the ring nor the watch, and taking a pen instead.
Oh my god XD Grant's celebration is so genuine
Be careful about letting people hook you up to a lie detector, you might end up a Scientologist.
🤣
"that sounds like a maschinegun" and I expected an AFT guy appear out of thin air and shoot a dog.
Too much fun, you guys are killing me...!!! Handing-out those bus tickets was killer funny 😁...!!!
Polygraphs (I refuse to call it a "Lie detector") measure stress responses. Which physiological stress is CORELATED to lying, but not a guaranteed indicator.
47:02 Jamie riding a Conversion Ebike in 2007.
I feel like they should have mentioned that polygraph tests are unreliable at best
the way to beat a lie detector is to overthink the question.
if the question is "is your name .... ?", immediately think of a situation where people may know you by another name.
the question wasn't "does your ID specify your name as ... ?", it was "IS your name ... ?".
if your name IS one in one situation and IS another in another situation, that's an ambiguous question, where the operator meant it to be straightforward.
I do love the fact that Jamie takes the pigs home after and eats them😂😂
How do they know the polygraph hasn't been beaten? Surely the whole point of defeating a lie detector is to not get detected beating the detector.
This "experiment" is full of confirmation bias. It´s almost like a police enforcement paid promotion. 🤣
Well they do know that's why the rest of the world doesn't use them... Because they are extremely unreliable
They would put someone under the detector and comes out as innocent, and then collect enough proof to know that it was him, so he had to have beaten the detector
@@LeVarito I reject your reality and substitute my own.
Some spy beat the polygraph twice, I think it was on show QI.
Polygraphs can totally be beaten.
And it is easy.
It's Yes/No questions
So blank your mind and pay just enough attention to know what answer they need to hear.
What they need to hear is the "right " answer and will register as "truth"
I guess they had to give the cops a propaganda freebie on the lie detector stuff so that they can keep using their bomb squad
ok then buddy.
@@tipf You know UA-cam has a like function right? You don't need to leave a comment
@@DeadAndAliveCat not everything is a conspiracy.
@@tipf then the Mythbusters crew are just stupid.
@@hedgehog3180 It's a tv show and it's believable enough. Calling them stupid is calling everybody else unaware of countless agendas stupid too. But at least on one level people are just living their lives with the best information they have.
They could increase muzzle velocity on the cannon
Longer barrels. Lubricating the rounds
I believe that with tweaking the design could make it lethal
also smaller balls
Like yours?@@Astharot90
@@Astharot90 How would that improve the lethality?
@@kaptein1247 depends on how you define lethality. If it's a chance of penetration, it will definitely help, since the pressure would increase. For example, a 2000 kg car at 3 km/h will have similar energy to a 9mm bullet at 1300 km/h (if I didn't mess up the calculations). That car will probably hurt you and might even kill you, but, the worst case scenario, it will be because it crushed your bones, not because it went through you.
Besides, a smaller ball at a higher velocity will be more accurate since it can resist gravity a bit better.
I probably missed it, but did they say what the projectile was made out of? they look like rubber balls, which isn't the deadliest to begin with. I venture a guess they didn't try other types of rounds as the gun broke down, but it's still a shame they didn't get to try other projectiles.
You may like that the fact that thy've tested the polygraph, but it gave a lot of people on TV the opportunity to know how it works.
Same as many other myths whose methodology you may not agree with.
RIP Grant
Seeing Grant on brain scan machine is extra sad.
Yeah
Part of me wonders if the steam machinegun wasn't fully intended to kill, but was meant to be more of an intimidation factor?
I mean, you didn't exactly want to charge a musket line to begin with, even with how innaccurate they could be at range.
Would you, as a civil war soldier, want to charge toward a line with a couple of these strange machines hissing and bellowing steam; that suddenly start hurling shot at you in rapid succession? Even if the rounds couldn't penetrate like in the MB tests here.. considering it still broke bone? you hit someone in the chest, head, throat? and they're still going down with internal trauma, concussion ext depending where it hit em.
Given the time period, weapons n such of the day and what was going on; I think it'd still have been effective in certain areas of combat, even if only as a deterant.
Most soldiers would look at that and laugh. But in a serious note not many men of the Union Army would understand velocity, range, or ECT..
Yes, add rifling to a spherical projectile, because that'll work...@@AbeYousef
There is also the idea that injuring an enemy soldier is more effective then putting them down.
With injuries you take more people out of the fight. Think about what it takes to get a soldier back from the front lines. All that equipment and manpower isn't there to shoot back.
You have to understand that the comparison point is artillery fire, from cannons. There aren't a lot of things scarier than artillery fire, but civil war era cannons firing shots you can see travel towards you as you are advancing towards your death would be something else. If artillery can't act as a deterrent against advancing infantry, no amount of blowing steam a mile away from the line will.
Anything that doesn't cull men in the thousands where they stand is not comparable to artillery fire by any metric.
weapons are designed to kill & maim, not just scare, and this steam gun thing was no exception - when they found out it wasn't good at it, they abandoned it so as not to waste precious time and resources
as someone pointed out, artillery would be the benchmark of the day of the most effective killing machines, and this steam gun wouldn't come close to matching even the weakest contemporary gun
take the example of a line of these steam guns firing at an opposing line of infantry - cannon loaded with grape/canister shot would be far more devastating to the opposing infantry, and probably far more intimidating as well - not to mention the artillery can fire other shot at further ranges
most weapons that have been used as purely intimidation/propaganda were failed or obsolesced prototypes that kind of necessitated some kind of use to mitigate the investment of production (personally i am thinking of numerous big, weird armored vehicles from the interwar/ww2 era)
Who knew Jamie was so buff?
Adam has said this was one of the most terrifying projects on the show.
The best way to get through the lie detector is to lie on every single question even if it's a simple question. Lol
Yes, the best, and which will get you caught. By simple logic and the fact that you're held to your words in court. You'll also have to do mental gymnastics for every answer, and it doesn't really matter what you say if your vitals spike when key subjects are mentioned.
The better one is to simply refuse to cooperate and keep silent. Even that will not stop a discerning and capable interrogator from getting at least something.
The better better best one, is to actually believe you are innocent. Without a shred of doubt, not deceiving yourself, but knowing you are spotless. A great actor that can fully immerse themselves in their role, mentality and all, should be able to pass just fine.
The alternative better better best one, is transcended equanimity, serenity, detachment. But that's just a cheat in general.
Of course, the better better better best one is to have the ability to not have to go through the lie detector if you don't want to, in the first place. Or have the machine display the results you want.
That MUSC campus is right down the road from me. It's cool that the Mythbusters came to my state.
Shilling for the bogus interrogation technique. The lie detector is a sham.
Granted, this was recorded over a decade ago, before it was known how bad it was.
Yeah, funny thing about police polygraphs, they rarely ever cleared anyone of a crime. The cops got the outcome they wanted.
@@mrprogamer96109 It's been well known that polygraphs are unreliable for decades, it just wasn't public knowledge when this episode was made but considering Mythbusters has a research team they could have easily figured it out themselves. And well it's kinda bad for a show called Mythbusters to support a pseudoscientific myth.
yeah, we've all seen The Wire!
They are absolute geniuses there ingenuity is amazing!!!! That machine gun is incredible!!!!!
I just realised that Adam sounds like Herr Flick from Allo Allo at 19:30 🤣
Isn't it funny how the losing side of every war seems to have had some mythical, unfinished "secret weapon" that could've "won the war" for them? It's weird, don't you think?
Surely the actual advantage to the steam powered rotating gun, would be to use it more like a Claymore mine and have lot of shots coming out of one side as an antipersonnel gun.
I always remember this episode because of that machine guns sound
RIP Grand Imahara
A sad thought occurs - if that episode happened in early 2020, might the MRI have accidentally detected the issue that took Grant's life?
Wouldn't this Steam Powered Machine Gun work better with steam pressure behind the projectile, its easy to do, using the rotary valve principal on the shaft would make it much more powerful and accurate, a missing part of the design ?
Asking the US police about the efficacy of polygraph tests is like asking a burglar if you should lock your doors. Very weak episode, sadly.
It was just propaganda by the MB to subvert others and make them believe amerinazistan is democratic
You’re not even American how would you know
@@dopaminedreams1122because there's overwhelming scientific evidence that polygraph tests are not sufficiently accurate
@@amarok5486they literally just showed you how they are. sample size wasn't big enough. but the amount of reliability tests the man performed made for a reliable reading. not saying they work in 99% of cases (that number is definitely propaganda bs) but 80% seems likely. better than chance. it's good that it's not admissible in court but it can be a decent method of assessing whether someone should continue classifying as a suspect.
@@acidtears they are actually quiet bad at that, too. John Douglas notes in his book "mind hunter" that criminals can often pass a test quite easiely. False negatives are a huge downside for the police because they could have their guy but let them go.
Is the 80% number based on a study? Or just a rough guess?
They needed much longer barrels to get higher velocities.
The fact that they didn't do speed tests on this thing makes it look like they decided they didn't have the time to do this one right and so they just covered up the weak design by not talking about the velocity issue.
Wait I thought polygraph questions should be only yes or no questions? Why is there math?
No, they will ask lots of different types of questions, including forcing you to lie.
I would just pass out in that MRI Test basically instantly.
Thanks again
According to Google Maps, Public Transit from MUSC to M5 Industries would have taken around three days. That was more than enough punishment.
To be fair, driving that monster of a road trip wouldn't have been much better!
Steam powered lie detector?
I know it would probably not be leathal but the amount of blunt force trauma one of those bullets could cause would probaly still take you out of the fight. Yes a sledgehammer to the chest might not make a wound but that does not make you okay or nessisaly alive afterwards. The pellet size seams to have been ideal in transfering all the energy to the target nevermind penetration
It's just a slingshot equivalent. Maybe at best Joerg Sprave's kind. Very cumbersome, hard to manage, and wasteful slingshot equivalent. Certainly not fit for war in any way. It's a like a barrage of small hammer swings transitioning to punches at a distance. And it will probably break itself after a while and need repairs. It's only effective short range, and a regular old wooden shield will block everything, plate and padded gambeson will do well, too.
It lacks a turret, it cannot aim, it needs high precision machining and balance or it will break itself - it was probably never built. Not by the horse and wagon type of guys. It is so wildly ridiculous, the story that this thing was built during the war because they were running out of gunpowder. If they had the leisure and resources to... Why build this thing if you can put a cannon or a just a few gunmen on that armored chassis?
A steam machine gun, fascinating.
It's a shame they didn't see Grant's aneurysm in that MRI.
24:27 load bearing "scantily clad women"
Kari should have cleaned the cars too.
She didn’t beat the test.
She didn't need to. Nothing was on the line. She also didn't win anything.
29:45 all of a sudden the ship starts sinking
Imagine Jamie telling his guest to chew carefully on the porkchops
Shirtless Jamie awakened something in me...
Anyone know where the mythbusters tell all podcast is?
45:20 in all fairness that would be intimidating enough to the point where you could effectively supress and demotivate troops and possibly incapacitate them. That's not bad at all really 😅
Higher brain activity, motion, stress? Boy howdy my adhd would not help. Random spikes in brain activity, restlessness, anxiety, the works. I honestly wonder how that would perform
There was no myth on this show that was less interesting and more flawed than the "lie detector test". No wonder they packaged it with the sweet steam cannon.
So they measured the "range" of their machine gun (even though Adam kept calling it a cannon) at 700 yards, even though they were firing a metal ball onto pavement. Um, ya think it could have gone 300 yards in the air and rolled another 400 yards? Range is the distance a round travels in the air, not on the ground.
the way to make a domestic water heater boiler safe for steamy power is simply to have a steam whistle relief
chooooooooo when hot enough to use the steam
or follow the natural temp-vs-pressure curve of water and set the temp to just below the failure point(actually best to run at 2/3 the failure point max for safety)
150c is about 5 bar, low pressure steam territory, but if that system can take as high as 300psi before getting dangerous you could crank it to 150c just fine, just don't expect it to last as long as if it was used at 50c max for it;s design
45:12 But imagine the horror a weapon of this sort might induce in the opponent that doesn't know but fears it might kill.
I mean ... no, it doesn't need to kill. If it can injure that's also useful in a war. Imagine getting hit in the face with such a ball - and not just one but multiple times... you probably won't be fighting any longer.
You mean have a huge contraption and a team of engineers manning it just to try and hit some unlucky fella's face?
If you tech this thing up a bit, a low to medium velocity mass driver seems feasible. And with supermaterials for the arms, electromagnetic bearings and power, in an airless environment... this simple catapult may be of some use. It still has to be balanced and send an equivalent load backwards if we're to really talk big and high energy here. But a smaller setup may handle the vibrations just fine. In concept, It is very similar to a railgun, except the energy stored is limited by the material strength of the arms, and not the capacitors.
under interrogation Grant was forced to admit using ballistics gel to create robots with realistic human breasts, thats why they switched to using pig carcasses
I miss old Jamie
lie detector beating? it has literally 51% accuracy
Right to remain silent applies to a polygraph test?
Yes it does but since you need to agree to polygraph test, in best case scenario you would look like ldiot that you agreed to it and then not answering and in the worst case you would look suspicious af and become suspect no. 1.
I wonder how much they spent for the busride.
I wonder if they really made them take the ride all 3000 miles of it.
makes me wonder (and a bit scared abut my tests) that they didn't find anything wrong with Grant during his MRI.
I mean this episode was probably filmed a bit over a decade ago so that's most likely why
This was filmed quite a long time ago.
Amazing...i watched this episode as a teenager and when I heard about Grant death few years ago, I almost immediately remembered this episode and had this same question...
Cant detect an exploding bloodvessel 10 +years before it happens
If you did the most basic bit of research you wouldn't have to wonder nor worry
I wonder how long their bus trip was. 😂
I'm surprised they didn't ramp up the steam machine gun to see what it would take to make it lethal
Well the thing broke, I guess with it being able to spit the bullets this far you could increase the weight and hope it carrys more force, but a higher diameter would also cause more space for said force to disperse upon impact.
I actually believe this thing is lethal, yeah one hit might not kill you but a barrage of steelballs raining down range breaking your legs, arms and rips are effectiv enough.
@@Nikagor You could increase weight without increasing size. You'd just need something more dense than steel. I rather agree. Even if not, if you could consistently fire 400 rounds per minute in a cone in front of this contraption that consistently broke bone on any hit into a crowd charging you, beginning fire at 500 yards... this would do a lot of damage and seriously hurt morale. It'd probably take a lot of rounds to keep it firing though.
43:00 ice cold oh hell no!
😂😂totally relatable, I’d dam near kill myself but don’t make me catch the bus 😂😂
1:27 Ooooooof.... 😬
That lie detector test could have easily failed, if they just went with the mindset that they didn't actually steal anything, but borrowed it for the episode.
A bit like how the MRI detector basically maps the blood flow. Which is higher when your brain has to work to make something up. On the other hand, a lie that is told often enough can be recalled as easily as any truthful memory.
The worst part of Mythbusters was the editing. They show the best parts happnening 10 times before it actually happens. Destroying all excitement. By the time the clip comes by, you know by heart, whats gone happen.
What a waste of an MRI to test lying.
14:04 Hover-Hynemann
I love these guys! Thank you, Mythbusters, for the greatest show ever.
And what about evidence?
man i myss busters
99% is not even enough of a percent chance. that mean 1 in 100 people is innocent.
It's a bogus stat anyway. Bet they were very happy to get more free advertising by having the show say "Hey look out, this test is still super accurate and catches everyone who committed a crime"
It's a feedback loop of keeping to convince the public the polygraph is infallible so that they get nervous and stressed when undergoing it.
Damn Tory was proper mad the whole ep haha
Did they really take a bus?
My thoughts exactly. Over 3k miles ? That's probably 3 days worth of traveling. That's a lot.
@@matoatlantis I was curious about the time it would take as well and had to look it up. Tickets were available to two different buses as of writing this comment, and the faster one was 67 hours. That's a long damn time spent sitting in a bus. Costs over 400 clams as well. At that price, let alone length, I can't imagine anyone ever doing that voluntarily.
If they beat the polygraph, they wouldn't say how to on national TV.
They dont have to polygraphs are not scientifically sound and you should never let one touch your body in the first place.
The show bullshit did
I didn't get this test of machinegun killing power at all. They shot HUGE round balls - of course those have no penetration power. Shouldn't they use some smaller rounds?
20:57 leave it to a woman to chicken out from a fake crime
21:10 the test results fall anywhere from 80% to about 99% inaccuracy
Wouldn't a longer barrel make the gun More deadly so that the balls have more time to build speed when slingshotted out?
I'd be willing to bet the polygrapher had them all pegged before they even took the test.
Yeah the problem being that they knew someone was lieing, meaning at this point their chances for success was that much higher and most likely more based on opinion than facts.
Fun fact the KGBs lie detector test so so bad if you puckered your butt you could beat it
I don't get it, if they were not allowed to test cards chips why hasn't anyone on UA-cam done it?
The polygraph experiment is flawed. The subjects face no real consequences, so, honest or not, they know it is just a game.
I thought I've seen every episode but I guess not
fun test
Banijay Science uploads faster, I wish this channel can upload even faster and the old seasons.
But Banijay has crap audio most of the time.
It's a water heater , there would be no need to heat water that's already hot Holly smokes y'all !!
Damn Carrie !!! She is steak sauce !!!
Soo 6x11-15 is 54? :D
I didn't remember Adam being this annoying