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Thread ID: 118273	2011-05-27 04:59:00	Mythbusters - busting out of jail	martynz (5445)	PC World Chat

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
1205061	2011-05-27 04:59:00	Last night's episode (a repeat?) investigated using antacid tablets + water to generate sufficient pressure to burst open a jail cell. It worked but I'm left wondering why they didn't do the experiment using only water and no fizzing tablets. The water alone, as it filled the cell, would have increased the air pressure. Am I right?	martynz (5445)
1205062	2011-05-27 05:18:00	It's called good TV :D	pcuser42 (130)
1205063	2011-05-27 05:28:00	You are also warned not to try at home for a reason. Unless your home is a cell maybe.	Snorkbox (15764)
1205064	2011-05-27 08:42:00	it's a new series of mythbusters they're showing on prime good episode though	GameJunkie (72)
1205065	2011-05-27 09:27:00	Last night's episode (a repeat?) investigated using antacid tablets + water to generate sufficient pressure to burst open a jail cell. It worked but I'm left wondering why they didn't do the experiment using only water and no fizzing tablets. The water alone, as it filled the cell, would have increased the air pressure. Am I right? Not necessarily. You're assuming the prisoner has ready access to a LOT of high-pressure water - said pressure being sufficient to burst the door on its own. To fill the [airtight] cell with water, the pressure you need to cram the water in rises until you get to the cell's (door) burst pressure. Hence if the water pressure in the tap is lower than the burst pressure, you simply can't do it. I can't remember what pressure they ended up reaching, but to double the air pressure, you need to fill half of the cell volume with water, and so on. The antacid tablet idea removes the need to pump in thousands of litres of water (say, a 2x3m cell with 2m ceiling would need 6000 litres to double pressure, 9000 to quadruple, etc). All you need is enough to sustain the chemical reaction, which was a LOT less, as seen in the episode.	MushHead (10626)
1205066	2011-05-27 09:35:00	I wasn't asking if a prisoner could have done it but why they hadn't thought to check out their results with water alone, they did seem to be using a firehose and pump, rather more volume and pressure than just from an ordinary tap supply.	martynz (5445)
1205067	2011-05-27 10:09:00	Why check their results? They were trying to establish whether the myth was plausible. Obviously if you just wanted to pressurise the cell by whatever means necessary, at some point you'd get beyond the burst pressure. Doesn't matter if you just used gas, or liquid under the gas (or an explosion - that's more Mythbuster's style!), in order to get the pressure rise. What they were testing is whether our mythical prisoner could have used the materials at hand to get the result. I'm not convinced that the firehose approach actually proved anything. All you'd need to do is to ensure you had enough water & antacid to ensure that the equilibrium of the chemical reaction would be reached at a pressure that was higher than the burst pressure - it wouldn't matter how fast you got the water in. They just went crazy with the quantities to ensure they got a result.	MushHead (10626)
1205068	2011-05-28 04:24:00	I wasn't asking if a prisoner could have done it but why they hadn't thought to check out their results with water alone, they did seem to be using a firehose and pump, rather more volume and pressure than just from an ordinary tap supply. The myth was that a prisoner had used 150,000 antacid tabs. in bath of water to explode his way free. He would have been worse off than the cell-door, lol. Lurking.	Lurking (218)
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