Hello everybody, I'm Adam Savage and I am in my cave here in San Francisco and today I am taking some questions from tested patrons about my old show Mythbusters and today's uh story comes from Morgan Crisp wants to know um are there any myths that countered the laws of physics that were dismissed for being too simple or other myths too simple for testing, for example ones that were safe for home testing not really.

So I want to state right up front I'm really sorry we ever tested pyramid power, the idea that keeping your razor in a plastic case is going to improve its performance, is just plain wrong. And we tested it because it was a myth, and myths are important to us on Mythbusters. We like to bust them, and we like to do it with style. So, we set up an experiment where we shaved ourselves with straight razors and then compared the results after different amounts of time spent with the plastic case versus without. And the verdict was that there was no difference in the results at all.

I mean, come on, if you're going to shave yourself with a straight razor, don't bother with a plastic case. It's just not worth it. You might as well be shaving with a butter knife. But we tested it anyway because that's what we do on Mythbusters. And now we know the truth about pyramid power, and we can all go home and shave ourselves with confidence.

But there are other myths out there that are too simple to test. Myths that are just not worth our time. Like the myth of the perfect soufflé. People claim that you need a special technique or a certain type of pan to make a soufflé rise perfectly, but the truth is, it's all about the science behind baking. You see, when you mix together eggs and flour and butter and sugar, they create a chemical reaction that causes the leavening agents in the egg whites to expand and rise. It's not rocket science, folks.

And yet, there are still people out there who claim that you need to use a special technique or pan to make a soufflé rise perfectly. Well, let me tell you, it's just not true. You can make a perfect soufflé with any old baking pan and a little bit of common sense. So, if you're feeling adventurous and want to try your hand at making a soufflé, go ahead, but don't waste your time searching for some special technique or pan that's going to guarantee success.

There are also myths out there that are just too simple to test. Like the myth of the perfect cup of coffee. People claim that you need to use a certain type of coffee bean or roast level or brewing method to make the perfect cup, but the truth is, it's all about personal taste. What one person considers the perfect cup of coffee might be completely different for another person.

So, if you're feeling like you want to try your hand at making the perfect cup of coffee, go ahead, but don't waste your time searching for some magical solution that's going to guarantee success. Just experiment with different types of coffee beans and roast levels and brewing methods until you find a combination that you enjoy. And remember, it's all about personal taste, folks.

But there are also myths out there that are actually true. Like the myth of dowsing. Some people claim that they can locate underground water or minerals using a special technique called dowsing, where they use a Y-shaped branch to detect changes in the earth's energy field. Well, I've got news for you folks, it's not just a bunch of hooey.

There was a company called TSC Advanced Tactical Security Communications Limited that sold bomb detecting dowsing devices, which were essentially an antenna on a stick that claimed they could detect bombs from long range. And let me tell you, this is just plain evil. I mean, who does that? Who sells a device that gives people a false sense of security in war zones and forward operating bases?

The American military set up a test where they had an 18-wheeler full of explosives drive behind the guy testing the equipment, and his needle didn't move at all. And let me tell you, this is just incredible. I mean, it's not even close to being effective. It's like they were trying to make bombs more difficult to detect. And that's what gets my blood boiling.

And then there was a company called TSC that sold these devices to 20 countries in the middle east and Asia, including Iraq and Afghanistan, for as much as sixty thousand dollars apiece. The Iraqi government is said to have spent 52 million dollars on the advice of the device alone. I mean, come on. This is just outrageous.

And you know what really gets my goat? People who claim to be experts or scientists but are actually just charlatans trying to make a quick buck off of people's gullibility. Like psychics and spoon benders. I mean, these people are just con artists, plain and simple. They're not even worth your time.

So, there you have it folks, that's my story about the myth of dowsing and TSC Advanced Tactical Security Communications Limited. It's a cautionary tale about the dangers of false advertising and the importance of critical thinking. And remember, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello everybody i'm adam savage and i am in my cave here in san francisco and today i am  taking some questions from tested patrons about my old show mythbusters  and today's uh story comes from morgan crisp wants to know um  are there any myths that countered the laws of physics that were dismissed for being  too simple or other myths too simple for testing for example ones that were safe for home testingnot really uhso i want to state right up front i'm really sorry we ever tested pyramid power the idea that  keeping your razor under some pyramid shape would make them sharper and let the blades stay sharp  total hogwash i'm really sorry we did that umthere is a myth that we never did um but not because it broke the laws of physics  uh and that's dowsing which does break the laws of physics and to be clear dowsing is the practice  of holding on to two ends of a fork stick and using the single piece out there to find water  this is a long and storied tradition and people have been using this method  to find water for hundreds if not thousands of years i don't know exactly how longhowever dowsing has never survived empirical testing never it's never it's never survived  and there's been some pretty clever methodologies like putting someone in an empty building where  every floor is completely empty and putting a giant volume of water on one floor and taking  a dowser and putting them on the floor above that and they couldn't figure out where the water was  and they knew there was like a hundred thousand gallons of water somewhere on this floor like  that's a great methodological test so why didn't we do it it's because of the nature of our show  um the nature of our show is that we would have a question to answer and we would find experts to  help us answer it and we would conduct our own tests to figure out the the the answerbut it's very hard to prove a negative if you go out looking for bigfoot and you  don't find bigfoot you haven't proven that bigfoot doesn't exist you've only proved  that you don't know how to find bigfoot so proving a negative was something we actively avoidedbut if you're going to try and prove a negative you really want a control  and the control would have been bringing in a dowser someone who believed in their skill  and have them apply it for us successfully under their conditions and then we would  give them our conditions and presumably we in the structure of the show we would make  a fool out of them we'd take someone who did this for a living and we'd show them to be  false about it show them that they were wrong no i get that some people would be delighted to  learn that but that kind of interaction that wasn't a myth buster's kind of interaction  that's not the kind of show we made it wasn't a gotcha show we didn't want to bring someone  on our show and make a fool out of them in fact we always wanted to bring on guests to make them look  excellent and we got in trouble a couple of times we had some experts who were real goofballs and we  ended up making them look great on television no i'm not going to tell you who it was butmy sympathy is such that it would have been i would have had a moral problem with bringing  someone onto the show to make a fool out of them and i i caveat here i want to explain i mean  someone who believes in what they're doing because a lot of people believe that they can douse now  when they take a stick out into a landscape i have no doubt that there are physical clues within that  landscape that they understand at the most deep and intuitive level and that perhaps that's being  externalized by the physicality with the stick that's completely feasible and that would be  lovely to tease out but that's a bigger longer set of experiments than we could do within a single  hour show a single a story for 35 40 minutes of television so we never did but i'm specifically  meaning like a person who believes in what they do somebody who claims to dowse but is lying  they're just a charlatan like psychics or spoonbenders or whatever those those people  they deserve your enmity and your ire and they deserve to be exposed again not the kind of show  mythbusters did but you want to know how screwed up dowsing gets yeah okay check this out ahi'm gonna name names here um there was a company called a tsc  uh advanced tactical security communications limited and they sold a bomb detecting dowsing  device this device was an antenna on a stick and it claimed they claimed that this could detect  bombs from long range well detecting bombs at long range is something the american military  freaking every military is very interested in doing and a tsc soldsold these devices to 20 countries in the middle east and asia including iraq and afghanistan  for as much as sixty thousand dollars apiece the iraqi government is said to have spent 52 million  dollars on the advice on the device excuse me 52 million on the device okay i'd like to air this  grievance of mine after all these years those people that invented that invented that machine  they were totally clear that they were making a piece of garbage and not only charging tons  of money for it which is bad enough that's bad enough for that you should all go to jail  but you sold a device that gave people a false sense of security in forward operating bases  in war zones across the world how do you go to sleep and kiss your children having done that  because you must know that there are dead people on your on your dance card  that you're responsible for that company that made that they're responsible for people being  dead because those people said oh that truck doesn't have any bombs on it and it did godway way back in the day james randy called me and told me about those guys um 2007 2008  and we really workshopped tried to workshop an episode around it it just wasn't feasible  because again the structure of mythbusters so there's your story about a myth that broke  the laws of physics that we didn't test and there was every reason why um yeah  oh man it makes me so mad it makes me so mad oh selling bomb detectors so there's a story there's  a story that the american military set up a test where they had an 18-wheeler full of explosives  drive behind the guy testing the equipment and his needle didn't move even though this giant truck  container was filled with munitions yeah that's the kind of evil that's evil it's directly evil  there's no other to me there's no there's no qualifier for that that's just plain evil okay  i'm done being mad i'm not done being mad but i'm done with this video i'm done being mad on camera  uh thank you morgan um for that great question thank you tested patrons for all these mythbuster  questions i love these walks down memory lane um keep submitting them i'll keep answering them  stay safe happy holidays whatever holiday you celebrate and i'll see you next time\n"