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Discovery: Welcome to our live chat with MythBusters Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman. Likely you're coming here having just seen the premiere of "Cell Phones on Planes," but don't feel compelled to keep your questions limited to that episode. Adam and Jamie are here to answer your questions about the series, mythbusting in general or whatever's on your mind. So ask away.

Adam: Hi to everyone from San Francisco!

Jamie: I'm here too.

Logain8955: How do you choose what myths to test? Do you guys sift through all the suggestions or are they handed down to you from Discovery?

Adam: The process of choosing myths is a long and involved one. Currently, about 30 percent of the myths we get are from the show's fans, either from suggestions posted on the Web site or from e-mails that Jamie and I get directly. We always try to look for things to test that have some basis in the physical world so that we can test them. Consequently we refuse to do aliens, and we'll probably never tackle Bigfoot.

Jamie: Today and yesterday we were having fun creating whirlpools that will be put into an episode to deal with "Whirlpools of Death," the ones that would suck a ship down. At this point, after about 60 episodes and about 150 myths, we're getting into our groove with the science of these kinds of things. We started out (I believe it was yesterday) with a little cappuccino frothing machine in a cup, looking at small whirlpools. Through the course of three days, we're working up to what will be tomorrow a 55-gallon drum to create whirlpools in, and in about another week when the tank arrives, it will be a couple of stories high and involves a massive turbo pump, we think. We'll be seeing what it's like to be inside a whirlpool. That's a classic example of the kind of myth we like to do because we're able to get some sort of logical progression getting near to death.

Adam: Usually it's me that ends up getting a little more scared to death!

Wolfyhound: Has there ever been a time that Jamie's shirt actually did get dirty?

Adam: Jamie's shirt does, in fact, get occasionally "dirty." But it rarely goes beyond small dots of oil or hydraulic fluid or some small amount of paint. I believe that, years ago, he developed some kind of personal force field, as well as a miracle fabric that keeps his shirts absolutely pristine. A little known fact is that Jamie has one shirt for every day of the week, like Einstein.

Jamie: No comment.

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Stgrendel: I love your show. I am a high school science teacher. I watched the "Penny Drop" episode and used it to teach my class. I was wondering if you could explain how a bullet fired in the air can do more damage than a penny falling down. If they have the same mass, shouldn't they do the same damage (Newton's Laws)?

Adam: For the record, bullets have more mass than a penny. But go ahead, Jamie.

Jamie: The thing to note is that the penny is shaped differently, and one could, say in theory, have a feather that weighs the same as a penny. But it obviously would be a very large feather and travel to earth slowly. What we found with the penny, and in another episode soon to air about bullets, is that objects like that in both cases tend to tumble, and the tumbling creates turbulence, which slows the object down until the object is not going at a speed lethal from their own terminal velocity. The thing to note, and you'll have to watch the episode to see all the details to do with bullets, is that we have gone out and fired bullets straight up, and we got some really interesting results. What I can tell you is it's definitely NOT recommended! But the turbulence in falling objects is one of the key things that makes them not fall at high velocities.

Adam: You picked one of my all time favorite episodes. I am really proud of the elegance of the science in the "Penny Drop" episode. And the upcoming episode about bullets fired up is not only better and goes further, but we obtained data that even the US Army wasn't able to get with our experiment.

Logain8955: Buster gets beat up a lot. How often do you guys have to rebuild him?

Jamie: Well, let's see ...

Adam: It's a weekly occupation at this point.

Jamie: Buster is a work in progress. It depends pretty much on the nature of the story. If the story happens to involve explosives, Buster usually gets rebuilt more frequently.

Adam: Over the course of 150 myths, we've probably repaired Buster maybe 50 times. But we've only rebuilt him once.

Jamie: He's a trooper!

Wolfyhound: How much teaching time does Adam get in nowadays with the horrendous filming schedule?

Adam: I haven't taught in about three years. However, it's something I absolutely love to do and I will return to it as soon as I do have some time. I'm a firm believer in keeping no secrets where skills and techniques are concerned.

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Scmpbanks: For years now, I've heard old stories of Coca-Cola doing subliminal advertising on theaters full of people, where they flashed intermittent and consciously imperceptible frames with suggestions to buy their products. Is this true, and does it really work?

Adam: I can't comment on whether or not Coca-Cola has actually done this, but the idea of subliminal advertising is something we tested recently in an episode on various types of mind control. Again, I'm going to have to say that you'll have to watch the episode to see what the results are.

Jettyboy: Hey Jamie and Adam, love the show! You've really inspired me for my future. What do you most get a kick out of in your work?

Jamie: The thing that I get the most kick out of is the tremendous amount that we're learning while we're doing our job. Forget that we're on TV or busting myths; I'm just flat out learning a whole lot on a daily basis, and it's just incredible. On a regular day, we may go from something involving, you name it, — electronics, physics, chemistry, all over the scale as far as the types of things we're exposed to. I can't think of another way of earning a living that would come even remotely close. I'd say it's almost like we're getting a Ph.D. in the world at large as we do this show, whether we like it or not.

Adam: One of the parts you might not expect I enjoy is the initial problem solving phase, as we work through a myth. The actual building of the experiments and the large scale testing rigs that we do is often determined by elaborate conversations we have on how to demonstrate best what we're doing. Dialing in on the clearest way to explain the science behind what we're doing is one of the best parts of this job.

Jamie: In all of this, keep in mind that while we're trying to figure out the best ways to explain the science, we're often for the first time being exposed to this particular phenomenon. So, in general, we don't have a clue what we're doing! But by the end of dealing with the episodes, in most cases, we do, which is wonderful.

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Dawin45: What is the most tested and revised myth? And what's the name of your hang out/hanger/warehouse and where is it?

Jamie: Well, let's see ... the first one that comes to mind would be the bridge myth. I must say that I think maybe you can remember better than I can what we've done, but I don't know if we've revisited something for the third time. In the bridge myth, as is the case in many of the myths that we do, we simply ran out of time. We come into these things, and in many cases we just throw ourselves into them and try to get oriented and start building things. In the case of the bridge myth, that's sort of what happened — we built a bridge and some little soldier things to go on the bridge, and then we realized that we didn't really get anything useful out of it although we tried our darndest. On the revisit, what we did was simplify the myth, and it was a lot less interesting in some ways than the first attempt, although it was more accurate in the results. In many cases, when we revisit these myths, they would move along those lines where as we go through the thing, it gets simpler and in so doing we're able to more clearly understand the dynamics. We do the show in San Francisco, but due to the nature of what we do, we don't encourage people to know where it is, lest they get hurt.

F15eagle-RC: Will you be doing more shows where the viewers can try to bust the myth?

Adam: Yes, I think so. Given the success of the mailbag special and how much fun we had doing it, and given how passionately the people on the Discovery Web site discussed the success/failure of our experiments, we relish the opportunity to include the fans in the actual production of the show when we can.

Acm37: If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?

Adam: The moon!

Jamie: How big is "the world"? First of all, I would consider the world as not just the earth. My first desire would be to leave the earth and go as far as I possibly could.

Adam: But that's just because Jamie's a little anti-social. I personally like traveling for work and for jobs, but for the most part, I live in one of the most beautiful cities in the world and I'm very happy here. That being said, given how many e-mails Jamie and I get from all over the world where "MythBusters" is airing, we'd love to someday be able to bust myths on every continent.

Jamie: Personally, I'm very fond of the tropics and the diversity in areas like the rain forest and any tropical place. I've spent a fair amount of time in such places, and the intensity of the life there is thrilling.

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Todd: Dear Adam and Jamie, I love your show. I just wanted to know how you two met and what the circumstances were that brought you two together to make such a great show. Thank you.

Adam: I was working at the Berkeley Repertory Theater in Northern California when Jamie called me in around 1994 (?) asking if I could come in and show my portfolio, because he was running the special effects of a place called Colossal Pictures. I brought in a bag of toys, things I'd built, and started working for Jamie and continued for about four years on over 200 commercials.

Jamie: Adam's name kept popping up when I was running that shop, from other employees there who knew him. So eventually I brought him in, and his passion made him work fast, which is pretty much the primary requirement for working in this field where miracles are expected on a daily basis. The only way that you'll get anything that resembles that is by working really quickly. That speed, I've found over the years, has certain costs associated with it in terms of wear and tear on both me and my equipment. But being a bottom line sort of guy who is mainly concerned with getting the job done, we worry about the mess later. Adam and I have had a long and productive relationship.

Adam: We've said it before, but it bears repeating: Jamie and I are not and have never been real friends. We don't hang out together, but we think therein lies the secret of partnership.

Mustangmania01: What are all the movies you guys have worked on?

Jamie: My first movie was something called "Rude Awakening," which was a movie that involved Cheech of Cheech and Chong. I built, among other things, a pot-smoking trout and a series of 8-foot-tall potato heads that were part of Cheech's hallucinations while doing LSD testing. It's been downhill since then! At this point, I figure it's been a couple of dozen films, many of them bad, but I would say if they weren't good, it wasn't because of the effects.

Adam: It's not Jamie's fault!

Jamie: The most interesting was "Naked Lunch," which I would recommend although it's somewhat disturbing. That being said, the bulk of the work I've done has been mainstream things like "Flubber" and "Arachnophobia," and I've certainly enjoyed doing that work. Adam has worked more on films to do with "Star Wars" and things through Lucasfilm.

Adam: I worked with Jamie on "Flubber" and other Robin Williams films like "Jack." At Industrial Light & Magic, I worked on "Star Wars" (I and II), "A.I.," "Galaxy Quest," "Space Cowboys," and "Terminator 3." I also worked on "Bicentennial Man" and the two "Matrix" sequels. Jamie and I also have a cameo appearance in a film that just played at the Sundance Film Festival called "The Darwin Awards." We have a small scene as the owners of a junkyard specializing in military hardware and we sell some equipment to David Arquette.

Jamie: Neither Adam nor I consider ourselves actors. What we do on the show is pretty much the way we are. "The Darwin Awards" was an interesting adventure in what being an actor might be like, although Adam was a child actor a long time ago.

Adam: When I was a child. They didn't have movies when Jamie was a child.

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Siriscevic: In the "Cement Truck" myth, why didn't you drill a hole in the cement to explode a firecracker or dynamite in the middle of the cement mass, thus destroying it like a closed fist around a firecracker? (Same principle you can see in the movie "Armageddon.") It would probably have more effect. Now go out like good little children and get another cement truck to blow up.

Jamie: You know, you're right.

Adam: And we'll get right on that!

Jamie: If you have a cement truck that you want to put forward to the cause, then we'll be happy to blow it up for you.

Robbie: Were you concerned about doing the cell phone myth tonight? That could be a controversial topic for airlines.

Adam: To be honest, we've been trying to do the cell phone myth for years. We were turned down because of the controversial nature. However, if we felt that anything that we concluded on the show would lead to people behaving in dangerous ways, we wouldn't air it. We don't shy away from controversy when we feel we have science on our side.

Mythbusterdude: Adam, in the "Helium Football" episode, was it difficult to breathe with helium in your lungs?

Adam: (laughing) I want to start with a disclaimer: No one should try to breathe helium to breathe funny because it's not HARD to breathe with helium in your lungs — it's not POSSIBLE to breathe with helium in your lungs. And if you're not paying attention and do it too long, your lips will turn blue and you could asphyxiate. That being said, I will always take any opportunity to talk stupid and make funny voices.

Jamie: My understanding is that inhaling helium can be lethal very, very quickly — although I've not tried that.

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Toga Dan: Who inspires you? Who inspired you as a kid?

Adam: As a kid, the first two things that I thought I really wanted to do were to design for Lego, and to work on "Star Wars." As an adult, the people that inspire me are people like the physicist Richard Feinmann, and artists like Marcel Duchamp. I find it humbling and amazing getting email from people who say they're inspired by what Jamie and I do on the show, and I'm glad that having fun and learning while doing your job have had such a positive effect on our fans.

Jamie: I was an ornery child, and I don't think I had any particular idols or role models that I looked up to. I seem to have acquired those as I've gotten older, and they would be scientists and engineers. I don't think there are any in particular I would point out, but in this job we become familiar with these people and the kinds of insights they have in their jobs, and I'm in awe.

Powblair: I saw the episode where you tested the myth of splitting a wooden arrow in two. I was wondering if you tried using fiberglass arrows. I think maybe a fiberglass arrow could be split in two.

Adam: Ahh, but that was not the myth!

Jamie: While some types of fiberglass rods are lined up linearly, I believe that a similar effect would occur. It's very difficult to expect a long, flexible and hard structure like an arrow shaft to be able to support splitting right down the middle. unless it was prearranged to do so.

NYstoogesjet: Know any science experiments to do in science class?

Adam: Actually, I'm sorry to sound like a salesman, but coming up later this year we have a book coming out called "MythBusters: Don't Try This At Home" that's absolutely full of experiments you can do safely at home or in class. I'm sorry that nothing for your project comes to mind right now.

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Mr Figsworth: Are you more cautious around various household items now as a result of any of the myths you have worked on?

Jamie: I would say that we're more cautious around pretty much darned near everything, because our experience has been that pretty much darned near anything can be lethal, given the right opportunity. That's not to say that we wouldn't be inclined to have a little fun with it before becoming worried.

Adam: If you can find a household item that's not lethal, I'm sure that Jamie and I could find a way to make it lethal!

Cowsgomoo109: This one's for Jamie: How long have you had that moustache?

Adam: Ever since he got rid of the dreadlocks.

Jamie: I started to have a moustache when I started to shave my head, because without the moustache I'd look like a cue ball.

Adam: I have the same problem. My head is like a grape.

Jamie: On an almost irrelevant side note, one of the things that is a regular occurrence in a shop like what we have, which happens to have 400-500 wigs in boxes somewhere, is called Wig Day. We have wigs of pretty much any description, as well as just random hair, even things like bags of stuff called "Fly Hair," which is large bristly stalks of things that would be implanted into rubber. I recently ran across a bag that I've kept and put on my shelf, and the bag had a label on it written in marker: "A**hole Hair" just in case anyone was wondering. Wig Day, generally, involves everybody picking a wig of their choice. For some reason, in my case, it arouses a particular amount of humor.

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Kelley321: What did you both major in in college?

Jamie: I started out as an art major, but quickly discarded it and decided to get a degree in Russian language and literature. I found it intricate and kind of like playing chess to speak the language. But I must say, after having gotten a degree in it, that I haven't had much opportunity to use it.

Adam: I spent six months at New York University studying acting. I spent the next six months lying to my parents about my attendance and have spent the resulting 18 years learning on the job.

Ellie: Did you see Alton Brown's semi-tribute to you on the "Good Eats" episode "Myth Smashers"? What did you think?

Adam: With the schedules we have, neither Jamie nor I have a lot of time for television.

Jamie: But we'll look into that.

Adam: Absolutely!

NerdyBeatnik: What's your favorite flavor of ice cream?

Jamie: I don't eat much ice cream.

Adam: Currently, my favorite restaurant has a homemade caramel ice cream that I dream about occasionally.

CDsmith: What is actually in that bin marked "RAW MEAT"?

Adam: You're just going to have to visit to find out! Remember when Jamie said it wasn't a good idea to visit M5?

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Ibeechu: My mother always used to tell me not to microwave an apple without poking a hole in it or it would explode. Is this true?

Adam: I haven't the slightest idea! And I have a hard time wondering why one would want to microwave an apple.

Jamie: I'm sure we could figure out a way to make it explode. Any kind of fruit or vegetable, including potatoes, that has a skin on it could potentially explode when heated, although I regularly cook things like that in microwaves and have yet to have an explosion.

Adam: If I found definitive proof that microwaving an apple could explode it, I would definitely try it tomorrow under very controlled conditions. By "controlled," I mean I'd do it when Jamie's not in the shop. And when he found his broken microwave, I'd deny having anything to do with it.

Andrew: Is there a myth that turned out so bad that you could not show it?

Adam: No. We have filmed myths that we had to stop shooting while we tried to find the resources to finish them off. But we've never completed a myth that didn't get aired.

Jamie: There are myths or episodes with myths in them that have aired that don't have everything in them that actually occurred, even parts that might be considered crucial to the myth.

Adam: Unfortunately, in the interests of the time constraints put on us by American television, some things end up on the cutting room floor. And it has always ticked Jamie off a little bit that the show seems to favor me falling on my ass over him explaining some esoteric concept.

Jamie: I was not referring to those kinds of things, although what Adam says is true. I was referring to something like certain content, for example, in the story called "The Facts About Flatulence," which one can understand might generate content that would not make it to air. So to speak.

Adam: Nicely done!

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Mrthreepsood: You guys said the show won't end based on a lack of myths to bust. How do you picture the "MythBusters" saga ending?

Adam: Amazingly, I was just thinking about this the other day. I was picturing us, years down the road, a little older and grayer, I'd be missing a finger or two, and I was thinking about the "MythBusters" series finale. I concluded it would have to end with Jamie's and my ultimate destruction, thus propagating our own myth and leaving it for someone else to bust.

Jamie: I like to think that this will go on as far as the subject material will allow. I don't see "MythBusters" as just being about urban legends and, as such, something that we could run out of. I think the show is about a lot more than that, and the show would be able to go on and (I'd hope!) be interesting as long as Adam and I find interesting things out there to explore. I think that would mean the show would last a very long time.

Adam: I also imagined that the show and the ideas behind the show might continue after Jamie and I were no longer interesting to the audience as hosts, and we might pass the myths to other mythbusters. Not that we have any plans to do so!

Discovery: Thanks for a wonderful chat! Unfortunately we are almost out of time. Do you have any parting words for us?

Jamie: Gee, I guess it's wonderful that all the people out there that watch the show are finding it interesting. We're certainly having a lot of fun doing it, but we're just trying to make a buck. (laughing) So don't take it — or us — too seriously!

Adam: Thanks to everyone for watching and for sending Jamie and me your words of encouragement. Thanks to the East Coast for staying up late, and hopefully we'll do another one of these chats sooner rather than later. Have a good night!

Discovery: Well, thanks for joining our live chat. In case you missed anything, look for the transcript of this chat on the fan site later this week. And to hear from Jamie and Adam on a regular basis, be sure to visit our MythBusters discussion board at Discovery.com and look for postings by "mistersavage" and "jamiehyneman." Thanks again for stopping by!

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