President Obama Appeared on MythBusters Last Night

For those of you who do not watch the popular show MythBusters on the Discovery Channel, you really should. MythBusters has become one of the most popular television shows in a primetime slot, airing Wednesday nights at 9PM EST. The premise of the show focuses on testing the validity of traditional myths and folklore with science experiments and physical tests. At the conclusion of each set of experiments, the myth at hand is then either deemed "busted", "plausible", or "confirmed". The show is enhanced by its nerdy science humor and playful banter between the MythBusters team.

The "MythBusters" are made up of the two hosts, Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage, along with Tory Belleci, Kari Byron, and Grant Imahara. Jamie and Adam lead the charge of the main experiments as they have several decades worth of experience in science and theater effects. While the show has been a hit for people of all ages, nothing has compared to the special guest appearance that they received on last night's show.

In a special episode, the MythBusters traveled to the White House to meet with President Obama, who had a bone to pick with them. Obama claimed that they had not tested a myth sufficiently in one of their previous episodes, and presented them with the task of retesting the myth and reporting back to him. The myth as the president explained was one in which the Greek scientist Archimedes was rumored to have created a solar death ray by organizing giant mirrors to reflect sunlight towards a fleet of Roman warships who were attacking them in 212 BC. The combined rays were said to have created such a focused ray of heat that it set the sails of the ships on fire, thus rendering them immobile and useless in battle. Jamie chimed in that while they had previously "busted" this myth, that what they had not considered was the use of manpower to focus each individual mirror on the same target.

The team went to work by trying to solve the main problem associated with the myth - that it was too difficult for every person to be able to focus the ray from their mirror on the same location. Adam figured out that the solution to this problem was to put a net directly in front of the people shining the mirrors (500 college students) that could be used as a reference point to control the direction of the beam. The net was extremely effective in helping each of the students isolate their target, so that a very small and accurate focal point was created on the sail of the ship.

While the participants were able to generate a temperature of about 260º F, it was still not nearly close to be able to generate enough heat for ignition. The MythBusters even cheated by bringing the ship extremely close to the shore, much closer than the ships got in the original myth before they were exposed to the solar death ray.

Jamie and Adam had to return to the White House to deliver the bad news to President Obama, but he seemed to take the failure well. Jamie explained that the fact that the experiment had failed was perfectly fine, and offered the hypothesis that the distracting and intimidating spectacle of hundreds of mirrors shining along the coast may have deterred an attacker from sailing too close to the guarded territory.

If you are at all interested in the power of science as it is applied to common myths and fables, then you should definitely tune in to MythBusters the next time that it airs. The hour-long program is usually filled with tons of cool experiments, high explosives, and cutting-edge technology that will make you a fan instantly. And as President Obama said, it is a great way for children to learn about math and science in an entertaining way that encourages them to continue their learning outside of the classroom.