Archimedes Steam Cannon. You’d think that Adam and Jamie would have learned by now not to mess with Archimedes. But apparently not. This time, the myth is that he created – or at least planned out – a cannon powered by steam.
The plans used (actually produced by Leonardo da Vinci) have a chamber that is super-heated, which then accepts an amount of water, which is instantly vaporized, creating steam, which in turn shoots the projectile out the end, creating the cannon. Unfortunately this doesn’t really seem to work all that well. The first problem is getting the thing hot enough to vaporize enough water. Then getting all the water to vaporize the water at the same time. Busted.
After this plan is abandoned, and they take a different approach, creating a small boiler to do the work, and that goes off great. However when they try to create a larger version, they can’t get to the pressure they want. So they shoot it off at a lower pressure. This shoots the 24-pound ball a mile!
While the wrap-up says that the ball went less than that, then rolled to a stop, the shot at the end clearly shows the ball sitting in a depression. If the ball rolled to its final resting place, I’m not so sure it would have created a divot like that. I think that while it may not have dropped right there, I don’t think it rolled to a stop there either.
Which is Better for You: Breakfast Cereal or the Box? In this myth, apparently Adam’s mom used to tell him that the sugary cereal he liked to eat had less nutritional value than the box it came in. So naturally, it’s time to find out! The simplest test is to check for calories, and in that case, it’s actually pretty close – 8 calories per gram for the box and 9 calories per gram for the cereal.
But then it goes downhill rapidly as they start looking at other aspects, such as fat, protein and the like, and that’s when the box starts to really look bad (did you really expect it to do well?). In fact, the calorie counter is the only category where the box holds up even marginally well. In everything else the cereal just completely out-performs the box without question. Busted.
