Next, it’s over to Grant.

 

One of the key parts of mythbusting is data. 

 

I’m totally psyched about numbers. 

 

Explosions are no exception. But usually the type of data we try to get is whether a person lives or dies. 

 

That was definitely the death zone. 

 

For that, our favorite tool is this, the rupture disk. This is a carefully engineered metal disk that’s designed to burst when it experiences a certain pressure.

 

Dude! It’s the burst disk. This is totally intact.

 

The beauty part is that there is a binary system. There is no complex graphs to interpret. There is no numbers to crunch. It’s either not burst or burst. It’s very simple and gives your answer right away.

 

Simple and quick, just the way the Mythbusters like it. 

 

It’s awesome. I love results!

 

Meanwhile, back at the bunker, Kari’s feeling the pressure. 

 

Back when we were on the letter E, we talked about the science of explosion where we concentrated on chemical explosions. But there’s another kind of explosion—pressure vessels. Now we do these a lot on Mythbusters and we’re going to do one right now. 

 

And for that they need three things—a pressure vessel, a heat source and a don’t-try-this-at-home warning.

 

A pressure vessel explosion is a mechanical explosion. The way it happens is you take a sealed vessel and you increase the pressure inside of it to the point where the vessel can no longer hold back pressure. When it ruptures it creates an explosion. But you know what? We have never done a can of shaving cream.

 

Until now. 

 

You know what my favorite part about pressure vessels are?

 

Waiting for the boom. You never quite know when they’re going to go off.

 

I love that!