Cell Phone + Gas Station = Explosion? You have undoubtedly encountered a gas station (or more than one) that has a sign asking you not to use you cell phone because it may cause an explosion. Is that really the case? Can you blow up a gas station with your cell phone?
It seems unlikely, and after some investigation, it seems the most likely cause is probably a static discharge, because most of the gas station explosions come when people are getting into and out of their car.
After watching traffic at a station, women are six times are likely as men to get into their car while they are pumping. So Adam and Jamie set up a blast chamber using some women’s underwear. The underwear is moved back and forth to create a spark in hopes that it will create a spark and ignite the gas fumes
It doesn’t work, so they go back to the lab and experiment with some ratios, so they go back to the blast chamber and create a richer combination. Eventually they create a “longer spark” because the shorter one isn’t working and eventually they get a big boom – but it’s been pretty well determined that, even though the cell phone does generate heat, the phone ringer doesn’t seem to spark long enough to ignite the fumes. Busted.
Incidentally, this is also the segment where Jamie makes the comment that polycarbonate “will stop a bullet” (which he says he didn’t do during the What is Bulletproof segment of Ancient Death ray, Skunk Cleaning, What is Bulletproof). Watch this episode and hear it for yourself.
Exploding Implants. After salvaging a chamber that can be sealed and pressurized to various altitudes (and depths), Adam creates a torso out of ballistics gel and places the implants inside the torso. Then they place the torso inside the chamber and pressurize it to a variety of levels to see the affect on the implants. At a level of 8,000 feet above sea level, nothing happens. At a level of 30,000 feet, nothing happens. Then they take the torso on a deep-sea dive and still nothing happens. Busted.
Exploding CDs? Rumor has it that CDs are failing beyond a particular speed. The only problem is that the cheap computer that Adam purchased won’t spin fast enough, so Adam and Jamie have to modify a router to spin the CDs fast enough – as fast as 30,000 RPMs. When they do, the CDs shatter into the ballistics gel torso that they created, especially when they have scratched or otherwise damaged the CDs, and even more so when they pump 220 volts into the router. It’s determined that even if this happened, it would be inside the computer, so unless you’re opening your computer and watching the CD spin, you should be okay. Busted.
