I feel a Mythbusters episode coming on
Jul 6, 2008 Uncategorized
Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman have had a few episodes on their popular show MythBusters covering myths found in movies. The episodes ran as specials and you can find a list of them on the MythBusters Wiki.
In the movie Wanted, the characters which are professional assassins, have the ability to bend bullets around obstacles between them and their targets (0:45 in the video below).
Popular Science takes a look at this in their article “Can YOU bend a bullet?” The answer: “That’s not the way bullet-firing works.” They propose the following experiment to get an idea why abullet would go in a straight line: “Attach a string to a ball and swing it in a horizontal circle just above the ground, and then release it. Notice the path it takes after you release it. It’s a straight line.”
While the physics and ballistics theories all say the bullet would go in a straight line, I think it would be possible to bend a bullet’s trajectory. Of course the bullet would have to be engineered and the distance over which the bend would happen would be nowhere near as short as shown in the movie. I will leave it up to the MythBusters to either bust this myth or name it plausible.
Tags: movies, mythbusters, physics, PopSci.com