How did Adam and Jamie wrap up this short new season of MythBusters? By getting fast and curious about drifting!

Warning, I am going to spoil the results of these myths. You’ve been warned!

The Myths

Is drifting faster than regular race driving?

After receiving some instructions on how to drift from a pro drifter, Adam and Jamie each made timed runs on a 90-degree turn, a 180-degree turn, and a full course to see if drifting was faster than plain old driving. Hollywood sure makes it look that way.

Can you drift into a parallel park?

The flashiest way to park your car is to throw it between to cars with handbrake in hand. But can it reliably be done?

The Results

BUSTED

As it turns out, drifting is just as fast if not slower than regular turning. But why? Think of the car as a vector, that is to say, a point with some speed and direction. When drifting around a corner, is the car’s speed increasing, or is the vector pointing in pretty much the same direction at the same speed? Add this to the fact that you have to get that flicked car tail under control after a drift and you have a similarly fast if not slower technique.

PLAUSIBLE

This is all about precision. Though Adam was unable to fling the limo into the space, their experienced racing driver did it on his first try. I hope he took his kids to prom like that.

What We Learned

Kinetic Friction: In physics, there are two kinds of friction: static and kinetic. Static friction is the force that tells you how much of a fight a surface will put up if you try to push a non-moving object over it. Kinetic friction tells you how much resistance to motion a surface will give to a moving object.

Thoughts

This episode marks the end of the first season since Tory, Kari, and Grant’s departure. I hate to keep bringing that fact up, but it seems to be always on the fan’s mind. That might tell us something.

The new direction of MythBusters is gorgeous. It looks great, the production values have gone up, and the science gets featured much more in each episode. I can’t help but think that the budget to make those changes came from the build team’s salaries. Even so, each episode of this new season was consistently entertaining, even if it lacked a bit of the heart and levity that the old team brought to the show.

They may have taken a different path, but I’ll still follow the duo. MythBusters is still nothing less than the best science show currently on TV.

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READ MORE:

What We Learned From the MYTHBUSTERS SIMPSONS Special
What We Learned From The MYTHBUSTERS A-TEAM Special
What We Learned From the MYTHBUSTERS INDIANA JONES Special
What We Learned From The MYTHBUSTERS Videogame Special
What We Learned from the MYTHBUSTERS Transformers Special

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