i'm jamie hyneman on reddit ama I am a
whatever the question I'm answering is
one from ho4 X what's one myth you've
always wanted to test but couldn't due
to financial slash illegals that slash
safety etc reasons there's this one
thing that for some reason I can't talk
anybody else into getting interested in
but me and it's based on the on a story
that Cary Grant or did a while ago where
they had a baseball or a guy on a train
who's a professional pitcher rather has
a baseball and he throws it backwards in
the direction opposite to which the
train is going and he throws it at
exactly the same speed that the train is
traveling so to a person on the side the
suppose admit is the ball would drop
straight out of the air and just sit
there on the ground and so that's all
well and good they tested it and it and
it's possible and everything but the
thing is I want to be the baseball and
my idea is that we would set up some
sort of a low trailer sort of a thing
and put it on a truck or trailer behind
a truck and we would put a backward
facing slingshot like you know out of
surgical rubber tubing or bungee cords
and and I would get into a sort of a pod
or maybe you can just sit on a chair or
something and get fired backwards at the
same rate that the truck is going
forward now for some reason insurance
won't let me do this and you know my my
problem with that and the reason that I
should be able to do it is that you know
we can deal with these things
incrementally like for example would you
let me do it at five miles an hour of
course you would you probably let me do
it at ten miles an hour and if it's safe
at ten miles an hour and there's
absolutely no problem why not you know
fifteen or twenty or fifty you work your
way up to it and of course you can be in
some sort of like
if there's any kind of question you can
have protection like a bee in a cage or
a pod that that you know won't that
nothing bad can happen and and or we can
also test Buster before doing it now the
thing that they're worried about and
this is where it got interesting for me
is that I started to break it down and
it's not the fall it's the potential
problem that you'll have if there's a
mismatch in speed if the bungee cord
doesn't shoot you backwards at exactly
the same speed that the truck is going
forward and and so the you know you can
set up this slingshot thing so it's
right above the ground so it's not the
fall it's about that mismatch and what
happens with myth mismatch as I started
to think about it is mainly friction
because once friction starts to come
into the equation the thing that touches
the ground first is going to catch while
the rest of you wants to keep going and
so you start to tumble and if all this
is happening really fast then you tumble
really fast and you break your bones in
your head or whatever but assuming that
we've not got any kind of like curbs or
obstacles like we do it out on there a
runway or something like that if you
don't have any friction you've not got
any kind of problem with tumbling you're
just going to slide that's what they
have that's why they have a motorcycle
gear that is armored doing with plastic
or leather and if the motorcycle falls
down as long as you don't hit a curb or
something you're just going to slide
you're going to be fine and and so I you
know reasoned that the other way to do
it or of course is like there's all
sorts of different ways of removing
friction then that could be lots of
lubrication which would be quite funny
and make for a good episode and I don't
know why the producers don't think that
that's fun but the other thing one could
do is is have something that is
something like a like a ski or a shallow
metal pan and so you get you know fired
to speed if there's a Mitch Matt and
this mismatch of these philosophies
you're just going to the pan will send
out some
ARC's or something or maybe it's a
plastic thing you're just going to slide
and so the end result of all this
testing would be that in theory you
could have a bus that could go buy a bus
stop and deliver passengers without even
slowing down which you know may not be
something that gets picked up by mass
transit I'm sure in the near future but
it would be fun to try it
