Looking for a particular MythBusters result? Start with the archive below. You can browse by subject when you remember the experiment, or by episode when you remember the broadcast.
Find a myth or its verdict
MythBusters Results groups its summaries by topic, including movie myths, cars, food and historical feats. Its season menu leads to individual episode write-ups.
Find an episode title or air date
Wikipedia’s episode list is useful when you need the broadcast record rather than a result summary. Search for the experiment’s name if an episode number doesn’t match the version you watched.
This page keeps a few stories behind those results. A failed death ray earned a presidential rematch. A cannonball escaped a test range. Both are more revealing than a verdict graphic on its own.
The death ray’s third chance
The Archimedes story gave the show an irresistible prop: mirrors concentrating sunlight onto an enemy ship. The first two tests failed to establish the legendary weapon. Then President Obama asked the team to try again.
The request came during a White House meeting, according to Jamie Hyneman’s account to CBS News. The resulting episode was called President’s Challenge.
For that attempt, students helped aim an array of mirrors at a boat target. The larger setup still didn’t deliver the burning warship the story promised. The Christian Science Monitor’s report records the third busted verdict after the December 2010 broadcast.
There is an excellent television problem here. You’ve brought in a president, recruited the students and assembled the equipment. The sun has declined to improve the ending.
The retest earns its place because a challenge to the setup deserved another experiment. More people holding mirrors didn’t make the original claim more convincing. They made the new attempt more demanding to organize.
The cannonball that escaped the range
On December 6, 2011, a cannonball fired during filming at an Alameda County test range reached a Dublin neighborhood. It passed through a house and ultimately struck a minivan. No injuries were reported.
SFGate’s local reporting describes the damage and the hosts’ visit to the affected residents. The sheriff’s office and production later held a public meeting about the incident.
The route explains why this was a serious failure even though nobody was hurt. The projectile continued beyond the space meant to contain it. A viewer could switch off the episode; the neighbors were left with the damage.
That consequence belongs beside the spectacular footage. The show put considerable effort into making an experiment visible. Here, the aftermath needed to be visible too.
The setup matters as much as the verdict
A short result summary is a starting point. Read the test description before treating the verdict as an answer to a broader question. A claim about one boat, material or arrangement can change when those conditions change.
This is especially useful with film scenes. Our movie cliches article looks at the shortcuts a story asks you to accept. MythBusters could take one of those shortcuts and build the awkward physical version.
Computer scenes create a similar trap. A believable screen can distract from an impossible sequence of events, as the examples in what code does in movies show. Recognizing a real tool is only the first check.
For a disputed memory, start with the experiment’s name, find the episode, and read what was actually tested. The explosion is easy to remember. The qualifying sentence before it has a much harder job.