The MythBusters The MythBusters

MythBusters Episode 42: Steel Toe-Cap Amputation, Bottle Rocket Blast-off

Premier Date: November 9, 2005

Steel-toe boots are more dangerous to your toes than normal boots when a heavy weight is dropped on them. Whereas a normal boot would just crush your toes, a steel toe would curl and crumple in, cutting your toes off.

busted

Using similar tests to those used to test steel toe boot certification, Adam and Jamie determine that your toes are much safer with steel toe boots than without. There was no toe-cutting curling of the steel toe, and even using a blade attachment didn’t work, only glancing off the steel toe to cut right above where it ended.

According to a Japanese trivia game show, it’s possible to use fifteen 3-liter sized water bottle rockets to launch a human 40 meters.

busted

While bottle rockets, on their own, could launch 1/15 of Kari’s weight a fair distance, their combination into one super-rocket system did not have enough thrust to give the crash test dummy the trajectory or distance stated by the television show, and was considered too dangerous by paramedics to feasibly launch a human being. More bottle rockets proved only to add to the difficulty and complications. The Build Team also found that water cooler jugs, while able to launch higher at the standard air/water ratio for water bottle rockets, were weaker than standard soda bottles, failing at around 60 psi (413 kPa) less than the soda bottles (90 as opposed to 150 / 600 kPa as opposed to 1000 kPa).