Do not try what you're about to see at home.
We're what you call experts.
Ow!
On this episode of "Mythbus--"
Did you bring it?
Yeah, we brought it.
It's beautiful.
That's right, folks.
We are smack in the beginning
Of a "Mythbusters"/ "Breaking Bad" special.
Yep, it's gonna be unstable...
Ooh! Whoa!
...Volatile, and dangerous...
Look at that! Oh, my god!
...As we break out with "Breaking Bad."
Walter White with 50 grams of mercury fulminate.
Whoa!
Who are the Mythbusters?
Adam Savage...
Am I missing an eyebrow?
...And Jamie Hyneman.
I feel like I just got spanked.
Between them, more than 30 years of special-effects experience.
Together with Grant Imahara...
Somebody order an explosion?
...Kari Byron...
Science gets more fun when I get a bigger gun.
...And Tory Belleci.
Say hello to my little friend!
They don't just tell the myths.
They put them to the test.
-- Captions by Vitac -- www.vitac.com
Captions paid for by Discovery Communications
Shall we get our viewers up to speed? Okay.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is Vince Gilligan,
Creator of the amazing show "Breaking Bad,"
And this is Aaron Paul,
Who plays one of the main characters on the show,
Jesse Pinkman.
Now, a few months ago, Vince was asked in an interview
What show he would most like to do a crossover
With "Breaking Bad,"
And his answer was, "Mythbusters."
So, guys, what do you have for us?
Well, "Breaking Bad" is usually about Walt and Jesse
Getting themselves into a whole lot of trouble,
And typically, it's science that bails them out.
But, you know, we've been getting a lot of grief
Whether or not that science
Is actually scientifically accurate,
And we're here hoping you can separate
"Breaking Bad" fact from fiction.
Like what?
First off, can you, indeed, use mercury fulminate
As an impact explosive and decimate an entire room?
Nice.
And two, can you dissolve
Through a bath, floor, and ceiling
Just by filling up the tub with hydrofluoric acid?
Explosives and acid.
Let's party.
Totally.
Yes.
The hit show "Breaking Bad"
Sees chemistry teacher Walt and his dropout student
Take on the crazy world of cartels,
Crime, and crystal.
There is gold in the streets.
But while science is always on their side,
Is their chemistry correct?
Well, first up, it's rub-a-dub-dub,
Acid eats through a tub.
Can hydrofluoric acid really chew through a crime scene?
And for this acid test, what's the plan?
Clearly, we should start in small scale
With, I think, small samples of each of the substances
The acid's supposed to have eaten through
Like ceramic for the bath, steel for the gun,
Pig bone and pig flesh for the body,
And wood for the floor,
And see if the acid actually reacts with it.
And if it can, then you'll ramp up to full scale?
We're gonna ramp it up to full scale no matter what,
But, yes, exactly.
Well, there's one thing you guys need to remember.
H.F. Is really, really dangerous.
Yeah. And that's an understatement.
We're gonna really have to lock down our safety procedures.
Good luck.
Yeah, good luck.
And since hydrofluoric acid is so toxic
That even a tiny amount on your skin could be deadly...
Stylish.
...It's off to berkeley,
Where their crack team of chemists
Have a supply of this concentrated corrosive.
Now, in the actual program,
Walt describes hydrofluoric acid as being capable
Of dissolving metal, rock, glass, and ceramic,
All materials commonly findable in an average bathroom.
We've added a couple of others
Plus our favorite human analogue, pig,
And we're gonna introduce them to some hydrofluoric acid
And see what happens.
All right, so, I'm gonna go ahead and load these
With 100 mils of hydrofluoric acid.
Eric the chemist carefully pours the acid...
Well, there's the meat.
It's not bubbling up right away though, is it?
No. Or smoking.
...Making sure that all the samples
Receive exactly 100 mils.
Well, now the most crucial aspect of any experiment.
Waiting. Yep.
And after an eight-hour soak in their acid bath,
According to "Breaking Bad,"
There should be nothing left, right?
Let's see what we got.
There's some residue on the bottom there,
But it seems completely unaffected by the acid.
Yeah.
The steel is still intact,
And so is the linoleum and the wood.
It seems like it's pretty much unaffected.
But the drywall is a different matter.
Ohh! Oh, the drywall is just a soggy, soupy mush.
Yeah, it looks like the plaster's pretty much gone.
And the acid has also affected the cast-iron tub.
Yeah, it's clearly eaten through the ceramic glaze.
Look at that.
Underneath, it feels quite solid.
Hmm. Now for the meat.
The main course.
Yeah, it's definitely affected the meat,
But, you know, I still see a bunch of fatty tissue there.
Despite some minor changes,
The acid failed to chew through every single material,
So it's clear the hydrofluoric
Doesn't have the same bite as "Breaking Bad."
So, at this point, it's looking pretty clear
That hydrofluoric acid is not living up
To the "Breaking Bad" series of events.
There's no doubt that it is a very dangerous
And potentially lethal acid,
But when it comes to turning a body into mulch
In a few minutes, it's not the acid of choice.
But that begs a real question.
What is the acid of choice?
Well, don't go anywhere,
Because when we come back, we're gonna find out.
Next, Kari, Tory, and Grant
Are throwing down the gauntlet.
All right, Kari. What's with the hazmat suit?
We have a classic from season one of "Breaking Bad."
Okay, so, Walt needs to teach the bad guy a lesson.
He needs to get away.
He grabs what looks to be a crystalline structure,
Which is actually mercury fulminate.
And when the bad guys don't expect anything,
He throws it down on the ground, it explodes,
Blasting out the windows,
Knocking the bad guys out, and allowing him to escape.
Wait, so, this mercury fulminate is some sort of explosive
That you can detonate by throwing it on the ground?
Time for some extremely dangerous chemistry.
This... Is not meth.
Armed with his crazy handful of something,
Walt blinds the bad guys with science.
But would his fistful of crystal really decimate a room,
Or is this counterfeit chemistry?
Are you nuts?!
Want to find out?
All right, so, mercury fulminate is not exactly easy to get.
So, what, is that it? Are we done?
No, luckily, we found a guy
Who is licensed to make this stuff,
And oddly enough, his name is Jesse.
Now, he has agreed to make us some.
However, we have to do it in a remote location.
Why?
'cause it's so nasty that, if you're making it,
You want to be out in the middle of nowhere.
Yeah, and given that we know so little about this explosive,
I say we go out to the remote location
And do some explosives tests just to see what it does.
I like it.
A little mercury fulminate 101.
So, it's off to the quarry
To get to know Walt's weapon of choice.
What are we gonna blow up today?
On "Breaking Bad," Walter White takes some fulminated mercury,
Throws it at the ground, and creates an explosion.
The question is is it gonna explode
The way it does in the TV show?
So, we've come out here to carson hill rock quarry,
Where we've done lots of explosions
To find out a little bit more
About what it does and how it's made.
And the person with that classified know-how
Is the aptly named explosives expert Jesse.
Mercury fulminate is extremely dangerous.
And that's why we have Jesse Taylor.
He is our expert.
Now, he is a consultant for the military
In homemade explosives.
And we're taking all of the precautions here.
He is away in a special tent remotely from all of us
And only making small batches.
Jesse, how dangerous is mercury fulminate?
Mercury fulminate is a primary explosive,
And so it is very sensitive to shock and impact,
Friction, heat, as well as spark.
So, the good news
Is this mercurial stuff is very volatile.
The bad news is it's a lot less photogenic.
The finished product doesn't look like it does on TV.
Right, mercury fulminate is normally a powder
In a silver or gray color.
And in the show, it's crystallized.
And to form those crystals, it's fairly complex,
Probably beyond the scope of an improvised setting
Like we're in today.
I'm gonna let you get back to work
'cause this looks like dangerous stuff.
Absolutely.
It may look nothing like its TV twin,
But now the question is, how much bang do you get
For your fulminated-mercury buck?
Now, there are two important differences
Between what they did on the show
And what we're gonna do here.
The first one is that Walt used 50 grams of fulminated mercury.
We're only gonna use five
Since this is the first time we're using it on the show.
And the second thing is that in order to activate it,
He actually threw it on the floor.
For this, we're going to use something a bit more controlled.
This is a squib.
And, oh, yeah, one more thing.
We're gonna put it inside of a pumpkin.
Why a pumpkin?
Well, to find out if this explosive bears fruit.
All right, here we go.
This is five grams of mercury fulminate.
All right. Let the pumpkin fly.
In three, two, one, fire!
Whoo!
That pumpkin is gone!
Well, it blows up real good.
So, I guess we go back to the shop.
It's time to really find out
If you can throw it and make an explosion.
Oh, man. This is gonna be so much fun.
Now what we need to do is test this myth.
So, we're gonna have to figure out a way
To throw that mercury fulminate safely onto the ground,
And we're gonna have to recreate a building
Just like the one in the TV show
So we can see how explosive this stuff really is.
Coming up on the "Breaking Bad" special...
Careful about the splashing.
...The acid reigns, but can it take a bite out of a bath tub?
It's like it's on fire.
And the team cooks up some crazy, crystal chaos.
All right, let's blow up this hideout.
Whoa!
Yo, I'm Jesse Pinkman, and it's time to science this biatch up!
The Mythbusters are Breaking Bad,
Scrutinizing their science, and checking their chemistry.
So, could hydrofluoric acid
Really burn a hole through your bathroom?
Well, the body of evidence says, "no."
There's been some activity here.
But it's not soup.
Why? Well here's Adam on acid.
All right, kids.
Time for a little lesson in acid chemistry.
Editors, please give me a periodic table right there.
Awesome.
Now, let's highlight the halogens --
Fluorine, chlorine, bromine, iodine, and astatine.
What's interesting to us about these five elements
Is their reactivity.
The lower their atomic number, the more reactive they are.
That means bromine is more reactive than iodine,
Chlorine more reactive than bromine,
And fluorine reacts with nearly every known substance.
Now, on to acids.
Thank you.
Hydrogen creates an acid with each of the halogens,
And you would be very reasonable
To expect that the reactivity of the halogen
Would correspond directly
To how caustic the acid that it makes with hydrogen would be.
But you'd be wrong in the case of hydrofluoric acid,
And it's because of the central bond in hydrofluoric acid,
That bond between hydrogen and fluorine.
See, these acids work
By releasing hydrogen atoms in the reaction,
And because that bond between hydrogen and fluorine
Is so strong, it doesn't ever want to let go,
Hydrofluoric acid is a less powerful acid
Than its brethren.
Lesson out.
Hydrofluoric acid may not have the right bite,
But Jamie has found something that does.
According to our experts at berkeley labs,
That would be almost pure sulfuric acid,
Along with one other ingredient,
Which we will refer to as our "special sauce"
Because we're not actually in the business
Of showing people how to dispose of bodies.
Let's just say it turbocharges sulfuric acid.
The hydrofluoric acid
Didn't dissolve the organic matter, the bath,
The floor, or the ceiling.
But Jamie's so confident
That this special-sauce solution can,
They're going full-scale for this chemical catastrophe.
In order to work with acid,
You need a location that's in the middle of nowhere,
And that's where we've come.
One of our favorite locations, the waste management
Altamont Landfill in Livermore, California.
Down there in that bowl where Jamie's standing?
That's ground zero.
In this rectangle, there's gonna be a hole.
In that hole, there's gonna be a tank,
And that tank is where all the nastiness
Is gonna fall if it burns through the tub and the floor.
I would have gotten there eventually.
That way, it'll be safely contained.
Safely contained
And unable to fall through the cracks.
And it's fully in place.
The bath that goes under our bath,
Made of cross-linked, high-density polyethylene.
And above that goes their elevated bathroom,
Built, of course, to code.
One tub -- of death!
So, this is our mocked-up bathroom,
And we've got a floor built to spec.
We have a cast-iron bathtub.
We even have a faux tile wall behind it.
But since this special sauce mix
We're gonna be pouring in the tub
Is about the nastiest stuff known to man,
If you're talking acids,
We're gonna have to take some special precautions
To do it safely.
To that end, we've employed the help of delta tech services.
These guys are a hazardous materials clean-up company,
And they've brought every toy in their arsenal to help us out.
Well, that's the worst-case scenario
Taken care of.
But now to break out the bad.
It's time to meet the dangerous stuff.
In these two bottles --
Nearly pure solution of sulfuric acid.
Eh, but we make it even stronger by adding this --
A 30% solution of our special sauce.
The two of these together hopefully will get ugly.
And in here is 35 pounds of dirty drug-dealer swine,
And he's about to take a bath.
Time to suit up.
Let's do it.
With guys hazmat-ed up,
It's time for the pig to take a bath.
Hello, little guy.
Oh, man.
Let's get the acid.
But for our drug-dealing swine,
The toxic trouble just got deeper.
Now, in the clip, we only ever see Jesse
Pouring two gallons of acid onto the body in the bathtub.
But to make triply sure
That we're totally covered in this experiment,
We're using three-times that much.
Yep, and once the pig is sleeping in the sulfuric,
Enter the special sauce.
You ready? Yeah.
Here we go. Special sauce going in.
Careful about the splashing.
Smoking coming up.
Okay.
Shall we retreat to our video cave?
Yep. Okay.
Come with us.
500 feet away,
The tent is set for their sulfuric surveillance.
So now begins the weirdest wait in "Mythbusters" history.
This is the worst movie ever.
Six gallons of special-sauce solution
Slowly starts to react with the bath...
Oh. Oh.
Bubbles are starting to form.
We've got white foam.
...And it's contents.
It's getting much darker and gooier over here.
There's all this cloudy crap coming into the liquid.
But after 40 minutes of gradual changes...
Oh, there it is.
...Suddenly the chemical reaction heats up.
There's a ton of smoke coming off this dude.
It's happening.
Oh. Oh.
Oh!
Oh!! The pig is dissolving.
Look at that. Wow!
Oh, look at the thermal camera.
It's like hell in a bathtub.
It's like it's on fire. Wow.
As the exothermic reaction gets even more aggressive,
The bath is cloaked in smoke.
Oh, look at that. Oh, my gosh.
That's going crazy.
That is going -- we just better clear out of here.
Yeah.
That acrid cloud of gas
Makes monitoring the bathtub not just difficult,
But dangerous.
I totally did not expect this to be so energetic.
But eventually when the smoke dies down,
It seems the acid has done it's dirty work --
Well, on the pig at least.
So it looks like a large portion of it is dissolved,
But there's a little bit left, and I have to say,
It looks about like what fell through the floor
In "Breaking Bad."
Yeah, except that the acid's not doing anything
To the bathtub. Yeah, not a thing.
It's not making its way through the tub.
That's what it looks like safe in video village.
But now that the reaction has run its course,
The guys go in for a closer look.
Ugh!
That's just wrong.
It smells terrible.
Ugh!
That's one of the ugliest things I've ever seen.
It really is one of the ugliest things he's ever seen.
Think about that for a second.
It's clear the acid ate through most of the pig,
But what about the bathtub and the bathroom floor?
Well, the floor is totally intact.
No tub's coming through there.
Yep.
So as the plug is pulled
And the experts drain the remains,
It seems this myth is sunk.
What do you think?
Three times the amount of acid we saw in "Breaking Bad"
Still didn't burn through the tub.
Well, you know, there's a lot more room in that tub.
I think we should talk to Vince about it.
All right.
Still pretty cool.
Kari, Tory, and Grant are testing this fulminate fling.
Whoo!
Could Walt throw down mercury fulminate,
Blow up a room, and get out unharmed?
Well, the show's creator and star
Have their own initial analysis.
So Kari, Tory, and Grant
Managed to find a real-life chemist named Jesse...
Yeah. ...Who works in a trailer
And is a genius at making the best "illegal" chemicals.
Wouldn't you say that's life imitating art?
Yeah, a little bit, you know.
They got the big boom, right?
But their Jesse said it's really difficult
To make mercury fulminate into a crystal-like chunk.
I know. That stuff looked like dirty play-doh or something.
Yeah, it didn't look as cool as ours.
So maybe does that mean
That their Jesse isn't as bad-ass as our Jesse?
Yes, that's exactly what it means.
Bad-ass or not, it's time to get this throw on the road.
So the Mythbusters have cooked up a plan.
Now that we know what the mercury fulminate can do,
A couple of builds need to happen so we can test the myth.
First of all, Grant needs to build a throwing robot,
'cause this stuff is way too dangerous to throw ourselves.
Secondly, we need to set the scene,
So Tory and I, we're gonna build a room.
First things first --
It needs to withstand a large blast,
So that's gonna mean a steel frame.
Power's gonna be provided by an air cylinder.
That pulls down on a roller chain.
That rotates the arm.
The mercury fulminate hopefully will hit the ground
And then explode.
First up is the explosion-proof
Heavy-metal frame.
And with the axle in place,
The robot gets its all-important throwing arm.
See, this is the best part.
Once the arm goes on,
This hunk of metal starts to look like something.
It's like I'm giving it life.
It's alive. Alive!
Hmm.
So my throwing robot,
Which I call "throwbot" for short, is done.
Now it's time to test it for the first time right now.
In three, two, one...
Yes!
Ahh!
It's pretty good.
So now it's back to the quarry
For the "Breaking Bad" house...
Gorgeous. That's great.
...The Mythbusters built.
We're building a house.
The walls and floors go up.
Grant positions the throw bot.
Careful of the paneling.
Don't scratch the paneling.
The roof is raised.
The room is glazed.
All right, these windows are a little dirty,
But we don't care.
And then the final touch is to add the "Breaking Bad" guys.
This is gonna be Walter.
He can't just be a robot.
He needs a little humanity.
For this experiment, we're testing two things --
Both lethality and injury.
Now for that, we have Oseco burst discs.
We're gonna put both injury at 13 P.S.I.
And death at 75 P.S.I.
At Tuco, Walter White, and his henchman.
We'll see who lives, who dies.
And with that,
The "Breaking Bad" tableau is ready to, uh, break.
Next...
Suddenly, I'm very uneasy.
...Can a fistful of crystal make a room ka-boom?
Oh, my gosh!
Put your pants back on. We got work to do.
All right, welcome to the bad guy hideout.
Now this is how we're gonna test this myth.
We're gonna take 50 grams of mercury fulminate,
Stick in Walt's hand, A.K.A. Grant's throwing machine,
Throw it on the ground, and see if it explodes.
Now, we've re-created the office just like in the TV show.
It's built to code, complete with windows.
Now, Tuco's over here. He's sitting at his desk.
He's counting his money.
Now, his henchmen, they have Walt surrounded.
So what we're gonna do is load up the throwing machine,
Throw the mercury fulminate on the ground.
Now, if it explodes, we have burst discs
Around the room to see if these guys would survive the blast,
And we're gonna be able to see if the windows blow out
Just like in the TV show.
Hello, gentlemen.
So, is that the real stuff?
Yes, it is.
There you are.
All right.
Suddenly, I'm very uneasy.
With the unpredictable payload in place,
Grant very carefully charges the throw bot.
Okay, system's charged. I'm pulling the pin.
Okay. We're hot.
And remember, to confirm the myth,
The throw must trigger a blast
Which blows out the windows and leaves Walt unharmed.
So now it's the countdown to the throwdown.
This is Walter White
With 50 grams of mercury fulminate
In three, two, one...
Oh! Nothing happened.
There was a second where I was hoping it was gonna work,
But it obviously didn't.
It's not that sensitive.
It seems mercury fulminate may be volatile,
But Walt's powerful pitch couldn't detonate it...
...Which means somebody has some explaining to do.
So, uh, I know you're my boss and everything,
But it looks like you were kind of wrong
With this one, huh?
Yeah, but what Kari, Tory, and Grant don't know...
Mm-hmm.
...Is that up here in my mind's eye,
You know, in that scene, what I think happened
Is that Walt mixed in with his mercury fulminate
A little silver fulminate.
Oh.
What's that?
It's the stuff they put in these things.
Wow.
Um, I love that you just have that with you.
But that wasn't in the show, so,
Well, you know, sometimes you got to read between the lines.
What is it?
Okay, so if we read between those lines...
Fulminated mercury...
A little tweak of chemistry.
...What Vince is saying is that Walt's crystal of chaos
Would definitely detonate.
So back at base camp,
The guys are priming their payload
Courtesy of a blasting cap.
Now, everything else about our experiment is exactly the same.
The bad guys are in the same places.
The burst discs are in the same positions.
And the mercury fulminate is being set off
From where it would have hit on the floor.
We're gonna fire this off with a blasting cap
And see if we blow out any windows
And how everybody in the room fares.
This time they'll certainly get a ka-boom,
But will 50 grams of fulminate still blow out the windows
And leave Walt unharmed?
Okay, this is 50 grams of mercury fulminate
And a blasting cap, just to see what it does,
In three, two, one...
That was a good blast,
But it definitely didn't blow out the windows.
Yeah, you know what? It's busted.
We couldn't throw it down
And set off the mercury fulminate,
And with the same amount as in the show,
It didn't blow out any windows.
It didn't blow out anything.
It's "no" to the throw,
And "no" to blowing out the windows.
But did Walt and the bad guys survive?
Okay, now that the room's been properly ventilated,
There's no danger of fumes,
But everything's covered in a fine mercury dust,
So I'm not gonna touch anything as I investigate the room.
I can see right here -- first henchman,
The injury disc is burst.
Also, injury disc is burst right here at Walter.
That means that everybody in the room is injured,
Probably asphyxiating from mercury fumes
Because the windows did not break.
It may be busted, but the throw's not over yet.
The next chemistry question is, what will it take
To re-create the small-screen scene?
Please, don't try what you're about to see at home.
The substance that we are working with
Is extremely dangerous.
And we have experts to keep us safe.
So far in the "Breaking Bad" special,
We've seen a pig disappear,
But we haven't seen a bathtub go bye-bye.
That's one of the ugliest things I've ever seen.
And it's time to break some bad... News.
Hey. Good to see you boys.
Well, while we've been out, uh, shooting --
Oh, you know what?
We actually just shot this crazy scene
Where, uh, Walt finally realizes that
Hey, hey. Ixnay.
Oh. Right.
Anyway, so, what have you guys found out?
Well, I hate to break it to you, but the myth is busted.
No.
Yeah. It's totally busted.
And we made two changes to make sure this could work.
One, we used a special-sauce acid
That's a lot more powerful than the H.F.,
And second, we used more than double
The amount that Jesse uses in the clip.
What do you mean, "more than double?"
Well, in the clip, you only see Jesse
Pour two one-gallon jugs of acid into the tub.
We used almost six, and it still didn't work.
Well, maybe you saw him pour two gallons,
But in my mind's eye, we always used more.
We -- I'm thinking, you know, we covered that body
At least, I don't know, 30 gallons.
Something like that.
Yeah.
In the trade, we refer to this as artistic license.
Yeah, well, you know, I don't even think 30 gallons
Would make it all the way through a cast-iron tub.
Oh, well, who said it was cast-iron?
Maybe it was made of some other kind of material --
Say, like a kind of a... Mild cheese?
That's it. That's your artistic license.
I get it. Okay. Here's how we should do this.
We should go back out to the site
With 30 gallons of our special-sauce acid
And a bathtub made of something --
Maybe not a cheese,
But of something that can be acted upon by our acid.
Based on what we find out back at the lab.
Exactly.
All right. Sounds, uh -- sounds like a plan.
We'll keep you posted.
So, we got caught making some assumptions.
We assumed it was a cast-iron tub.
Everyone knows what happens when you make an assumption.
You make an ass out of you and "umption."
Anyway, we've done some research,
And we have settled upon
Three of the most common bath materials --
Cast iron with ceramic coating,
Steel with enamel coating,
And perhaps the most common of all bathtub materials,
Simple fiberglass.
Now it's time to subject each of these materials
To our sulfuric acid with its special sauce
And see which one becomes our bathtub of choice.
Yep, and back at the lab for their acid quest,
It's time to turn the tables on the tub samples.
So, what do we have first?
Cast-iron bathtub.
All right.
Well, there goes the cast iron into the sulfuric acid.
Now we go for the special sauce.
Wow. That is really vigorous.
Six gallons of acid
Couldn't burn through the cast-iron tub at Altamont.
It's not making its way through the tub.
But more acid per inch of surface area
Could get a more caustic result.
Now, this is exactly what I was expecting to see
With acid and our materials.
However, after a 40-minute soak,
That stubborn cast iron ain't giving up its ions.
So, next up is...
Enamel-coated steel.
Wow.
That's bubbling up right away, too.
Bubbling away, but there's a pattern repeating.
Well, the enamel-coated steel went into the sulfuric acid,
And again, not much was going on
Until the special sauce was poured in,
And it started to bubble.
But we're told that that's just a reaction
Between the special sauce and the sulfuric acid,
Because now, a couple minutes later,
is no bubbling.
Which means it's time for the final contender --
The fiberglass.
Oh, man. That's so cool.
Fiberglass has been the most reactive substance
Thus far tested of anything.
We put it in here,
And once the special sauce went in,
The bubbling was incredibly powerful,
And now it's like four minutes later,
And it looks like there's a brown stain
Floating on top of the sulfuric acid and special sauce.
I'm very encouraged about this.
Are we done?
I think that's it.
You know what that means.
Time to go full-scale. Yep.
Fire!
So far, we have not seen anything even remotely close
To the TV show.
No throwing down the mercury fulminate,
No explosion, no glass going everywhere,
But now it's my favorite part of the show,
Where we replicate the results.
So, it's out with the throwbot.
And into the R.V.,
Where Jesse has been carefully formulating
A huge batch of fulminate.
So, this is the moment of truth
For our myth and mercury fulminate.
We're making the biggest batch that we can safely
In the amount of time that we have.
Our chemist, Jesse, has been at this
For a little over eight hours,
And the size of the batch is 250 grams.
That's five times what Walt used on the show.
Now, since at this point,
It's considered a shock-sensitive high-explosive,
It's way too dangerous to simply walk this over and place it,
So they're putting it inside an explosion-proof box
And carefully driving it over to the site.
We're gonna set this off, and see if this is enough
To blow out the windows in our building.
Yep, inside that box
Is more than a fistful of crystal.
And once our mild-mannered chemist
Has painstakingly positioned Walt's weapon of choice,
It's wired for detonation.
But can five times the amount of mercury fulminate
Finally get the "Breaking Bad" room boom?
All right. Let's blow up this hideout.
250 grams of mercury fulminate.
This is "Breaking Bad" boom in three...
Two... One... Go.
Whoa!
I think we got the windows.
Oh, my god!
We completely destroyed the hideout.
Yeah. Science!
250 grams of mercury fulminate certainly broke that room bad.
Wow.
Oh, my gosh.
The entire structure is gone.
That was awesome!
Shall we go see if anybody survived?
Why not?
And at the scene of the blast,
Kari's instincts were right.
So, all the windows are busted out, and everyone's dead.
Now, to be fair, a reinforced-concrete building
Like the one in the show might have fared better
Than our wooden house, but you know what?
That doesn't change the fact that this is still busted.
It's busted for the Mythbusters,
But for those of you reading between the lines...
All right, so, um, they're calling it busted,
But... What about you?
I say confirmed.
Confirmed? Hmm.
Explain. How so?
Well, Walt used that bag of mercury fulminate
To threaten everybody in the room, and he was right.
That bag would have caused total devastation.
In fact, if we use that much,
It would be the Jesse Pinkman show now, right?
Yes. Yes, it would have been.
Yeah? Damn it.
Okay, so, but what about it not going off
When it was thrown
Or how you need a lot of it
To make a, you know, big -- a big boom?
Those are just details, my friend.
Details. Details, details.
Man, you sound more like Walt every day.
I'm glad you're noticing.
After the break... Uh-oh.
...There's no more half measures...
It's going over the side.
Dude!
...As the guys go the whole hog
For a chemistry catastrophe.
Oh.
Vince, I wanted to tell you I'm a huge fan of the show,
And I've been wanting to ask this question.
See, I think of Walt as a flawed genius --
Clearly brilliant,
But also with serious anger-management issues.
Yeah, you know, and not just anger management.
I mean, this guy --
He's intolerant, he's bad-tempered,
But he's also really, really cunning
And, um... Kind of super methodical.
Right. Exactly.
So, my question is,
Where did you find inspiration for the character of Walt?
Honestly, couldn't really tell you.
It's a mystery.
Yo.
It's "Breaking Bad" in the house.
According to "Breaking Bad,"
Acid plus bathtub plus organic matter...
...Is a recipe for disaster.
But so far, not so good.
God, that's nasty.
The floor is totally intact.
No tub's coming through there.
However, for the final science of the hams...
Our last tub required this to move it.
For moving this one,
I've decided to reveal to the world my super strength.
Rah!
...They're switching tubs and upping the acid ante.
This is where we try to show what it would actually take
To replicate what we saw in "Breaking Bad."
And that involves pouring 24 gallons
Of almost pure sulfuric acid
Over a pig in this fiberglass tub.
To that, I will add 12 gallons of our special sauce,
Which will come out of this container right here,
Which I'll deliver with the gradall
Up and over our barrier.
And I'll open the valve, and we'll see what happens
When our special sauce gets to work on that pig.
It's a souped-up protocol,
Because with six times the acid, there's six times the risk.
It's not only fully protective, but I look good in it.
Damned good.
So, while Adam loads the special sauce...
I've done my part.
...Jamie gives the pig its sulfuric soaking.
Okay, Adam. That's the last two.
I'm ready for the special sauce.
Copy that.
Then, Adam carefully lowers his corrosive catalyst.
All right. Here we go.
And Jamie unleashes a torrent of trouble.
It's really bubbling.
The question now is will this combo
Get them the "Breaking Bad"-chemistry destiny?
Oh, wow. I can see the smoke from here.
Well, it's off to a very volatile start.
Uh-oh.
It's starting to go off. We better get out of here.
In fact, the guys don't even make it up the hill
Before the entire corral goes up in smoke.
Ooh! Whoa!
It's going over the side.
Dude!
I don't know if looking at remote cameras
Is gonna help at this point.
No. Adam's right.
The reaction is so fast and so furious
That even the cameras are in the dark.
Well, I'll you one thing.
I'm glad we decided to pour in the special sauce remotely.
You and I both.
Oh, my goodness. That is crazy.
That happened so much faster than I thought it would.
I'm glad the wind's blowing that way.
Yep, and once the smoke clears,
They have a very grisly angle on what remains to be seen.
Wow.
There's no pig.
There's a couple of chunks, it looks like, floating around.
I'm surprised.
It thought that the bathtub may have filled,
But it just looks like everything boiled over,
And now it's about half-full.
Yeah.
Half-full of black satanic sludge.
In five minutes flat,
The acid almost completely dissolved the pig,
But did they finally get the bathroom blow out?
Ahh. Oh, man.
How does the floor look?
The plywood's been affected, but it's not been eaten through.
It's just sort of like it's been charred.
And the bathtub?
The bathtub looks like it's been burned some,
But, uh... It's completely intact,
And it's holding 20, 25 gallons of stuff in there.
That's amazing.
I've never seen anything like that.
The -- the pig is just like it was never there.
It's turned into some kind of black goop.
What pig?
I don't know anything about no pig.
There's no pig because the chemical reaction
Literally broke it down into its elements.
Inside the tub was sulfuric acid
And our special sauce
Which, let's just say, is lots of hydrogen and oxygen.
And then, of course, there's the pig,
Which is made up of mostly hydrocarbons.
And the chemical reaction produced
When the acid was exposed to the pig was so energetic
That it released massive amounts of hydrogen and oxygen,
Making that huge cloud of water vapor
Along with carbon dioxide and hydrogen gas.
And then, all that was left
When the reaction had run its course
Was carbon and sulfur,
Leaving that black pool of sludge in the bottom of the tub.
That was spectacular.
The reaction happened much faster than we expected,
But our protocol accommodated for that, and --
And at the peak, this entire 30-foot-diameter corral
Was just shooting a plume of smoke to the sky.
Any experiment that has a plume of smoke shooting to the sky
Is, by definition, awesome.
"by definition, awesome."
But this bathtub breach is all washed-up.
Well, that was really cool.
Very cool.
Busted, but totally cool.
Let's go tell Vince and Aaron.
Cool.
All right, guys, the results are in,
And I'm sorry to say,
Even though our special acid with the fiberglass tub
Was an improvement,
It still failed to replicate what we see in the clip.
Oh, man.
And, because it didn't work with H.F.,
This myth is totally and doubly busted.
Yep. It's busted.
Wait, so, Jesse -- one, Walt -- nil.
Sure.
Should have used a cheese.