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The car also moves forward, given the precise phrasing. If it didn't, the conveyor wouldn't be moving either (that said, the speedometer would be showing a speed twice as fast as it's actually going)
While I never doubted the plane would take off just fine with the problem as stated I do still find myself thinking there is some speed the treadmill could run that would prevent takeoff but it would be considerably higher than the plane's takeoff speed. My logic here is that the friction between the plane's wheels and the surface is transferred to the airframe and thus does bleed off some energy. The plane's engine does have a maximum thrust force it can produce if you could produce enough friction that the force completely countered the maximum thrust you could prevent it from taking off. Granted attempting this experiment in practice would almost certainly result in catastrophic failure of the tires and wheel bearings since they are most definitely not engineered to sink 100% of the engine's maximum power output single-handedly. I'd bet on this experiment at a minimum resulting in autoignition of the tires and bearing lubricant, though probably the bearings would become severely deformed white-hot metal would along with much of the wheel itself. Those parts are much smaller and far less well cooled than the leading edges of the body that usually dissipate most of the power through air drag at higher power settings during normal operation.
Im not familiar with this episode but I am surprised it would cause that much controversy. Even the pilot thinking it wouldnt work blows my mind. Unless the wheels are driving the forward motion a conveyor belt isn't going to do anything but make the wheels spin really fast, meanwhile the pane continues to move forward just as it would normally. It surprises me that it's not obvious to everyone.
A good analogy would be roller-skating on a treadmill while holding a rope attached to the wall in front of you. No matter how fast the treadmill moves, if you hold on to the rope you'll stay still. And if you pull on the rope you can still drag yourself forward. The rope bolted to the wall represents the stationary air around the plane which the propeller uses to 'pull' the plane forward.
I think most people don't realize how slow a plane's speed is needed to take off versus its max speed can be. As long as the plane has power to hold still on the belt and has more power to read takeoff speed, it will take off
@@mikeuk666 The wheels can't make the plane stuck, they just spin. If the plane moves forward 1 m/s and the belt moves back 1 m/s, the plane still moves forward and the wheels just end up spinning at 2 m/s.
@@danno1111 ...so you're saying if the plane wheels spin faster than the conveyor belt it takes off. While true, it breaks the entire premise of the question.
@@macavitythemysterycat actually it doesn't push against the air, it simply fires the air back hard enough to move itself forward. that's the same argument that flat earthers put up to say that rocket engines wouldn't work in space, because they think that the rocket exhaust pushes against the air to move the rocket forward, however that has nothing to do with it.
A propeller is just a wing turning around a fixed point. The blade moving through the air creates a low pressure on one side and a high pressure on the other side. This then sucks the wing from the high to the low pressure side. The blade is attached to the engine and the airframe. This causes forward movement as the plane is sucked through the relative air. Same for a jet engine. There is a small amount of mechanical movement created by the actual interaction of the air molecules with the mechanical components but most of the action is throught a difference in air pressure. A rocket works by throwing mass in a driection. There is an opposite but equal reaction in an opposite direction. That is why a propeller does not work in a vacuum but a rocket does. Two completely different principles.
@@alexanderenericavanwyk9909 nah lol I'm pretty sure a propeller works by pushing air in one direction, not by causing a difference in pressure. It's literally the same thing as a rocket engine, but with internal combustion powering moving parts rather than being expulsed at high speed. And while there may be a pressure difference between the 2 sides of the propeller, it's because of the air being moved around.
I remember watching that episode, but at the beginning of this video, I thought "of course it won't take-off. if the plane isn't moving forward, there's no air moving over the wings to create lift", but listening to you re-explain the controversy and the reason it works, it was an "a-ha, that makes sense, didn't think of it that way" moment and then remembered the episode. So, even having seen the experiment, my gut reaction was "no, it won't work".
Yes but he only explained how a plane moves forward, not how it moves upward. How does he propellor making it move forward create lift under the wings? I’m just voicing my ignorance not arguing with the result
@@calumryan6328 Once the plane reaches sufficient speed through the air it will take off. So the propeller will generate "air speed" as Jamie explained and that will cause the air flow over the wings to generate the lift for take off.
@@calumryan6328 lift is generated because of the wings shape which causes a pressure differential to form. So the act of moving forward at a great enough speed would create enough of a pressure difference above and below the wing to allow for take off
To put it simply: All the conveyor belt does is make the plane's tyres spin really fast, which doesn't effect the body of the plane and thus doesn't keep the plane from moving forward and taking of.
I thought that exactly the moment he brought up the topic, but you need to explain further as to the fact the wheels are actually not the thing pushing the plane along. It really does need more explanation for some unfortunately 😄 ignore the wheels, they do notht
@@TheFatblob25 Yes, actually. The lift is generated by the aerofoil combined with the engines. The river flow doesn't do much here. The only exception would be if there were all out waves going over the aircraft (disrupting the aerodynamics of the shape of the aircraft) or if the wind was unfavourable. But not the flow of the river itself.
It’s the same reality. One side understands how the plane actually works, the other has a theory that’s valid, but that valid theory is for the wrong problem.
XKCD did an excellent write up on this. The reason there is a debate at all is 100% because the question is ambiguous and people make different assumptions of how the conveyor belt is going to act, not that people don't understand how planes work.
Every once in a while I see this debate pop up and I need to send people to that write up because the question itself is terrible, or at least how people tell the story. When I first heard it the specific detail was "the conveyor belt matches the speed of the *wheels*" which would obviously be an impossible physics task. Suffice to say I spent a long time trying to argue what that specific detail meant at the time.
@@gavinyeet5821 Well it depends on *HOW* one considers the "speed of the wheels" - Some people think its RPM, while others look at it as the wheel as a whole moving through space! - In Physics, we were teaching to look at the latter.
But in order to go forward the wheels must move forward relative to the ground. The question is actually more complicated than either side thinks at first.
@@hautehussey that's *not* true, though. As Adam just explained, the wheels and the ground have a absolutely nothing to do with how the plane propels itself during takeoff.
@@hautehussey yes, it depends on friction coefficients. Theoretically if you could speed up the ground fast enough that through the loss via friction in the wheel components you exert the same drag backwards on the plane as the momentum the plane is building forwards, you should be able to keep it stationary. But this can't be proven in the real world because a) the amount of force exerted via friction is minuscule, so to make use of it you'd need to accelerate the conveyor belt to speeds that are hard or impossible to manage from an engineering standpoint, and b) this friction on the wheel system creates thermal dissipation of energy. If you achieve this the wheel bearings would heat up and probably seize and fall pretty quick, as the rpm on the wheels necessary to hold the plane back thorough this friction would be astoundingly high.. in fact maybe the tires on the plane would disintegrate from the rotational force long before the friction in the bearings can destroy them.
@@coredumperror yeah like hautehussey is right that the wheels will be spinning faster BUT that’s not a problem, the wheels will just be spun faster since they’re free-spinning
I wish on the Mythbusters episode they'd put a speedometer on the planes wheels. Because what is happening is the plane moves forward at its normal speed but the wheels actually spin twice as fast as in a normal takeoff. That might have been a light bulb moment for a lot of people.
This is the lightbulb moment that actually falsely makes people believe that the plane would take off. Need to interject here. While the experiment showed that the plane would take off, the experiment itself was fundamentally flawed, and I'll explain why in a few lines. This is not a dig at Adam whatsoever. But in order to answer the question portrayed, the details have to be absolute. No new variables or flawed math, intentional or not. The wheels and the conveyer belt are the ONLY variables that matter and I'll explain why in a few lines. It's a fundamental physics problem. It does not matter if the wheels and engines are mechanically connected or not. Adam is a great educator, actor, tv host, etc., but he is not a scientist or engineer. It's not a problem of if the plane can reach a speed to take off. Obviously a plane needs ample amount of lift to take off .It's a problem of if the plane will move whatsoever. And the physics of the problem stated does not allow the plane to move. This is COMPLETELY wrong, and I wish he would just go do more research instead of sticking with his guns in the "my experiment proved it so it cant be wrong." fashion. I grew up watching Myth Busters and absolutely love the show, but experiments do not always provide correct outcome if the variables are not perfect and if external variables are added. The mode of force, tires vs propeller/engine are irrelevant. The ONLY variables that matter are the wheels and the conveyer belt. It doesn't matter if its a propeller pulling, an engine pushing, the wheels mechanically turning, a person off the conveyer belt pulling, any of that. If you tied an infinitely strong rope to the front of the infinitely strong hull of the airplane and applied an infinite amount of force, you would not be able to move the plane. The only thing that would happen is the wheels and conveyer belt would reach an infinite speed. This concept is so hard to grasp because it's out of touch with reality. 99% of physics questions taught in classrooms happen in a perfect hypothetical world, and could not exist in the normal world. And if they did, the results would be drastically different. This is one of those questions. There are two main reasons that the experiment that you did were flawed. 1a. It is impossible to instantaneously match the speed of the tarp and the speed of the wheels on the plane. 1b. As the plane tries to take off, the acceleration of the truck needed to accelerate match the planes speed. Going the same speed as the plane is useless. The math does not add up. 2. The tarp that you pulled was also in contact with the ground and not supporting the weight of the plane. Thus, the plane was able to use the ground underneath to help propel itself forward. It's even impossible to replicate the perfect experiment no matter how much money you throw at the project. So you have to rely on fundamental physics to figure out the problem. Breaking it down fundamentally. If the circumference of your tire is 1 meter, as the tire rotates, the conveyer belt moves back 1 meter, matching the speed of the plane's tires instantaneously. In order for the plane to move horizontally, the tires have to rotate. And the tires cannot rotate without the conveyer belt moving the opposite direction the same distance at the same speed.
The issue is that it’s not fulfilling the original question, there’s a bit more nuance. The original question has the belt matching the wheel speed, not the plane’s speed like he says here. Let’s say plane is moving forward at 1m/s, then the belt is moving back at 1m/s, then the wheels are spinning at 2m/s. But, now the belt matches the wheel speed, increasing the wheel speed, increasing the belt speed, and so on. Since the plane *must* move forward, it is impossible to make a conveyor belt match the speed of the wheels, so the premise of the question is impossible
@@expandingsalad786 but that part doesn't matter since the wheels are free spinning it would have no effect on the motion of the plane, so it is a trick question in multiple ways.
@@expandingsalad786 I think that's what makes it so controversial. The question is worded in such a way to make it sound like the conveyer belt would negate the speed of the plane, when in fact the motion of the plane has nothing to do with its wheels.
That's what I was thinking. Could you move the conveyor belt so fast that it could prevent the plane from taking off...in essence creating so much friction on the tires that it overpowers the friction of the air and the propeller?
What you need to tell people to break them out of the trick of this question is that the plane's wheels are free spinning. All the conveyor belt will do is increase the speed of the wheels spin, but not affect the speed of the plane.
@@briang9471 what? No. The treadmill's speed is irrelevant to the speed of the plane, the treadmill can only effect the speed of the plane's wheels. The plane's forward movement is unaffected, and it takes off like on a normal runway.
@@briang9471 the whole point is that the plane would not ever be going backwards as long as there is a force overcoming the rolling friction of the wheels, which a plane already does to take off on a normal runway, it will continue to move forward. sure, there could be a measurable drag on the plane because of the rolling friction, but it's vastly insignificant compared to the thrust of the aircraft. imagine that the wheels are blocks of ice on teflon or something. If you pull the big sheet of teflon out from under the blocks of ice, they almost wont move, like the tablecloth yanking trick.
You and Jamie inspired my kids into the Maker Movement which led to a kickstarter, learning to code, 3D Printing, College and all that sort of self-sufficient nonsense. Thank you for all you did. P.S. RIP Lucas the rat!
The question itself is a red herring. It makes you think the wheels have something to do with taking off, when really they're completely passive and couldn't care less how fast the ground is moving.
This isn't 100% true. The wheels do matter to a plane on take off. As a plane accelerates, the friction experienced by the wheels increases. It is possible that a plane with very bad wheels and an anemic engine would never be able to take off, because as it approaches takeoff speed, the wheels are relative the conveyor belt, moving twice as fast as normal takeoff. If the friction was high enough, it is possible that the wheels would slow the plane down enough that it can't ever reach take off speed, if under normal conditions it barely could. This is likely just an edge case, I would imagine most aircraft's wheels would not generate enough friction to prevent a plane from taking off even if they are moving at twice speed as normal, and most aircraft engines have more than enough power to compensate, but it does demonstrate that wheels are not entirely a red herring.
@@albertjordan3249, or, in the case of a 747 (as the question normally references that aircraft specifically), it could come down to the fact that it normally rotates very near to the maximum tire speeds that it can safely handle, and while it may have the power to overcome the added friction from the treadmill in theory, its tires would likely fail before it could attain Vr. Once the tires failed, the friction would increase significantly, and the aircraft would likely come to rest on its engine pods, destroying the engines, and ending its chance at taking off before it reached rotation. This would likely be true if heavy, and would be likely a tight one while light...
@@stephenhalby Yet wheels and tires survive landings, something that exerts many times more friction and forces than take off exerts on them, even with a conveyor belt striving to thwart the planes forward momentum.
@@stephenhalby You're not incorrect, but when talking about a conveyer belt the size of a runway you should accept that the discussion is no longer about practical limitations and more about the basic underlying physical principles.
@@albertjordan3249 Would it only ever get to negative the speed of the plane? I might have had it told to me worded differently but i always saw the treadmill speeding up infinitely to such an extent that the friction would always equal the force coming from the jets and my answer has always been that the bearings would explode and the plane would plop on to it's belly. I'm sure it's never been the conveyer belt "matches" it's speed when I've heard it. That is sort of insane thinking about it, I guess if the plane needs to go 300mph to take off so long as there's leftover power and the wheels can do 600 to offset the runway you'd be golden. Might still explode the wheels off and plop on to it's belly, no idea how fast planes go and how robust the landing gear is :)
This is WHY "Mythbusters," was such an important show. The actual SCIENCE behind this episode was incredible, and I truly appreciated that you did this!
Carlos Estrella, except for all the times when they screwed up the science. I always liked the concept of the show, but after watching enough episodes where they claimed to prove or disprove something, but actually did not because their understanding of the science was insufficient, or their experiment methods invalid, I gave up on the show. More recently, when the subject of the show comes up within group my associated who are scientists and/or engineers (I am both), it is always a heated topic, and those who still claim to like and respect the show realize they did so more for the concept than the reality, while those who claim to distain the show overlook all the times they did get it right. Myself, I just did not want to have to fact check everything they were doing in every episode. Take this particular video that we are commenting on. There are quite a few mistakes in Adam's understanding of the subtleties of what he is discussing, or maybe his understanding is OK but he is just erring in the way he describes what goes on. And things like "the 1st Law of Thermodynamics" is thrown out, when he was probably thinking "Newton's 3rd Law of Motion". But things like that add up, and can turn a good argument into a confusing one.
It’s great how you’re not just jumping to the answer, you’re diving into what drives the debate; addressing the controversy, and how and why it keeps going, rather than just the physics question.
But the idea that THAT is the misconception is, in fact, THE misconception. Nobody (I hope) is comparing the plane to a car. We're comparing it to a passive cart pulled by a car. Putting a conveyor belt under the wheels of a plane is like putting a conveyor belt under the cart but not the car. If the surface of the conveyor always instantly matches the speed of the surface of the wheels, then the cart will never move unless the wheels slip.
@@bacicinvatteneaca In the cart analogy, just like the plane, if the conveyor always matches the speed of the wheel, then both will instantly approach infinity in the absence of friction. If we had the alien technology to test this, the wheels and conveyor would instantly speed up to the point where the pulling energy of the car is cancelled out by the friction of the wheels. The pulling energy has to go somewhere, you can't just store it in the void, and that energy is going to go to friction with an infinitely fast conveyor. In the real world the conveyor/wheels would immediately melt and/or explode.
It's an underrated skill, yet not that hard to do. He's just taking his ego out and understanding the logic of each argument. Understanding the problem to find the solution without assuming your own correctness. I often see this with those math memes like 5/2(3+5). People choose the method they were taught as the only correct way to handle the implied multiplication with parentheses. The reality is both ways are right and have been valid in academia. No rule exists to address the specific issue because only an idiot would write it this way. I've explained the logic of both ways, including the mathematical principles that apply; and people still tell me I'm wrong.
There are two ways to phrase this: 1) The treadmill matches the speed of the wheels spinning. 2) The treadmill matches the maximum speed of the plane. They did option two here, with an obvious answer, the wheels just spin twice as fast. But with option one it is basically impossible, as once the plane starts moving the treadmill would have to accelerate indefinitely spinning the wheels faster and faster but failing to slow down the plane. So either the treadmill would fail to keep up, or it would move fast enough that something broke, maybe the wheels melting?
Yes I could see that #1 in your example may make people trip over it, but the sad thing is, #2 still plays out, Takeoff speed and maximum speed (air speed) of the airplane are two different numbers. I think a 747 takes off at like 210mph...But it flies at 500+ mph, so as long as the aircraft can move forward enough to get off the conveyor "before" the tires explode, #1 is no longer an issue.
I did some maths on #1, and with a 747 it would take around 8 days for the rim of the wheel to approach C. Option #1 does require some cherry picking though. Because you need theoretically perfect components. Option #1 requires the wheel to have rotational inertia, but one could argue that a theoretically perfect wheel has no rotational inertia at all.
@@misters2837 the question is the treadmill matches "wheel speed" if you increase thrust the RPM of the wheels indirectly increase. if the RPM of wheels increase the ground speed increases. if groundspeed increases air speed increases. if airspeed increases enough lift is generated. but the plane never moves a to b because the treadmill matches the wheel speed equally.... EVERYONE that doesnt see this is all doing the same thing. either changing the parameters of the question. ignoring the fact the aircraft is on the ground using wheels to travel a to b. ignoring the fact that thrust increases wheel RPM. He just said it on this video. we rented a plane that had 25mph take off speed.( 25mph airspeed)- so we pulled a treadmill at 25mph... it should be pulled at the wheel speed... it would word exactly like any other treadmill. you wouldnt move a to b if you are matching it equally. under the parameters of the question.
@ryanflood635 As I have explained to countless others here who are stuck on "wheel speed" = Nowhere in the question does it say wheel RPM... You are missing the "gotcha" in the question. *Think clearly: While you are going down the interstate in a car, with the spare tire in the trunk, how fast is the Spare tire actually traveling?* (The answer is: Same speed as the other 4 on your car!) "Speed" in the world of physics has nothing to do with RPM, but actually is its movement through the space or fluid it resides within. - Have a good day!
@@misters2837 no because again your logic has taken you away from the question.. lets not pretend its a car on the highway. lets not pretend the aircraft has no wheels even for a second.. lets not pretend its anything other than a 747 sat on a runway with a treadmill that will match the wheel speed equally. when you increase wheel rpm what happens to the speed? it increases. what do you need to take off ? airspeed, so no. wheel speed isnt irrelevant and just saying its a trick question doesnt prove anything either.
The amount of frustration shown by Jamie throughout this myth and the length you went to test it made this one of my favorite episodes but least favorite myths
Yeah, its just too bad he was wrong. I love these guys, but I just looked up and watched the "experiment". The camera clearly shows that the plane is in fact moving forward. The myth is that the plain would not be moving (relative to the stuff around / background) due to the conveyor. If the plane doesn't move forward air won't go under the wings to create lift. Jamie said they tested this with an "ultralight". The tarp material probably didn't have much friction. That combined with the plane being light is probably why it was actually moving and not remaining stationary. If you put a heavy 747 or similar on an actual conveyor with a high friction belt, the plane would not be moving forward so there would be no air going under the wings to create lift.
@@Me__Myself__and__I With properly oiled and working ball bearings within the tire mechanisms of an airplane, it is impossible for any airplane (no matter the size or weight) to not move forward through the air in relation to its surroundings.... assuming the propellers or jet engine is working properly. I’m pretty sure the question does NOT literally say that the plane is not moving in relation to its surroundings. Also, the amount of friction between the tires and the ground is completely irrelevant if the tires are spinning freely and properly as they are designed to do, no matter what type of plane is used. It’s the same as a plane designed to float on water. No matter how heavy the plane is, and no matter what direction the water is moving beneath the plane, it will always take off because it is always pulled through the air by its propellers.
@@patrickb-man1309 That does not make any sense from a physics perspective. Imagine this, a fully loaded 747 sitting on a conveyor belt. Now start that belt moving and ramp it up to 100 mph (backwards). Does the 747 sit still in relation to the surrounding terrain? No, it ends up moving backwards at 100 mpg in relation tot he terrain. Now fire up the plane's engines to the amount that would normally cause 100 mph forward - and the plane ends up stationary in relation to the terrain.
I once landed with almost no groundspeed - very strong headwind, for a laugh my instructor got me to land in the width of the main runway at Filton (there's a small cross runway so it's all legal). Approach was like going down in a lift!
A seaplane seems like a good way to explain the difference between a car and a plane. You get rid of the wheel confusion and they move forward the same way a regular plane does.
@@irtheLeGiOn Never thought about that. Just a thought that came to me, but in that situation with strong current...couldn't you just point the nose down current to generate some free headwind and take off easier? I mean I understand the headwind is going to be almost negligible, but I've never before this second considered the dynamics of a seaplane taking off at the mercy of a strong current.
@@kingtheoden2390it would also be possible, given the surface of a runway not being smooth enough or the airplane heavy enough, or let’s imagine a runway that is not a hard surface, for the wheels of an airplane to be enough of an impediment in the same way to prevent it from taking off.
@@irtheLeGiOn that's just friction. Normally the friction induced by the wheels on an airplane negligible. But if you ran the conveyor belt fast enough, you could actually generate enough friction to prevent the plane from taking off. This would basically mean converting all of the thrust produced by the airplane into heat, all concentrated in the wheels. For the few seconds before the wheel simply explodes because it's spinning hundreds of times faster than designed, the plane would be prevented from going anywhere
@@_FirstLast_ I don't think the issue is current; it's heavy surf which would make the plane bounce up and down and threaten the structural integrity (not to mention the effects on the people inside). In a hypothetical scenario with a wide open and calm body of water, it's not as simple as pointing the nose directly down current, of course. There is also the wind to consider which can reach much higher velocities rendering the current almost negligible. But there's probably a takeoff vector that maximizes the airspeed so that would be the best. But in a real world scenario you're only landing (watering?) the seaplane somewhere if there are interesting things at that location for the passengers or cargo to do, so there will be limitations on the lanes that can be used for a water runway.
I think "language can be confusing" is one of the larger root causes of people misunderstanding science and experiments like this in general. Which to me just reinforces the importance of education. Live these little videos. Thank you.
there are like three parts of this story that are all perfect examples of and/or metaphors for like, *every* misunderstanding on the internet, it's so wild.
I love this explination and I myself had an "oh, right!" moment when Adam unraveled the explanation. I also loved the emotional inteligence Adam displayed in "being easy on ppl and understanding our own biases."
I had the same initial impression that it shouldn't work at the start, but then thought of it from the angle not of an aircraft taxiing to its starting point on the runway, but as it would use its props/turbines to propel itself, thus creating the necessary wind (by moving itself through the air, rather than the air moving from point a to b) to achieve lift.
Same experience-but when Adam explained it I was like, “oh right that makes sense now.” Adam is very kind to say that people aren’t being dumb. People should be able to change their minds when presented with evidence.
@@maniac7770 When taxiing the vast majority of airplanes also use props/turbines to move. Some in-wheel systems exist for some commercial aircraft but I don't think they're used much.
Remember my first episode of MB that I watched with my father, now long gone, sadly. It was burn the enemy ship down with mirrors. He watched and then gradually begun to turn red in the face. Then true to his enginnering heart, he finally lost it, shouted to the TV: "The tolerances, the tolerances, you can burn it down in minutes. Just fix the tolerances! Bums." :-) That is a dear part of MB I will never forget. Thankyou for the memories, Adam. Edit: engineering
"fix the tolerances!" is exactly what I thought at the time (and still think). Shame on your father for ignoring how devilishly hard it is to fix those tolerances; as an engineer, he should know better.
@@extrahourinthepit Why not? The Greeks and romans were able to build sophisticated machines, they could make smooth mirrors and probably measure angles precisely. The problem would be having everyone track a moving target. If every soldier were trained on how to position their mirror accurately using muscle memory it might be possible, just like how a well trained archer can exactly position their arms to hit a target hundreds of meters away.
This came out when I was getting my Engineering degree in college and I was so annoyed trying to explain the propulsion of movement in an aircraft has nothing to do with the wheels. It was so painfully obvious.
"The everyday frustration of not defining your problems well enough" I'm an engineer and pilot and my initial answer was no. When you say treadmill, I think something stationary but its wheels moving. IAS = 0 = no takeoff. And I think that's how they initially defined it. But then by the end the plane was moving forward relative to the air so of course it's going to take off, as the wheel speed doesn't matter. Depending on how you define the question, the answer can be yes or no.
@@chainringcalf what a relieve, I'm an actual aeronautical engineer and my initial gut feeling was "NO WAY THAT THING WOULD FLY" ( coz= no matter how fast the wheels are spinning, the wing is not moving relative to the air = no flights). The way you described it, stopped me from shredding my engineering degree :D
@@chainringcalf I like your version better, because you pointed to the core problem, compared to my rather superficial frustration of miscommunication. It's often a mismatch between expectations and appropriately communicating them. I guess what makes things worse is, if someone is already settled on a design, vision or answer, and they refuse to leave their own shoes behind to understand the other side. Adam said it took him 10 minutes to explain this. That could also be translated to: "Take your time to understand, why another person says no or yes." And: "Take your time to not only tell your results, but how you got to them. Include your assumptions."
A convayor belt for a car would be a tredmill on the road. A convayor belt for an airplane would be a giant fan creating an equal and opposite tail wind.
"because I disagree with the outcome, I am going to ignore any empirical evidence that says I'm wrong" is one of my biggest pet peeves! The fact that such a mentality never appeared in Mythbusters was also one of the things I appreciated and respected most about the show. It was the best example I've ever seen of refusing confirmation bias and searching for genuine answers. I honestly believe I wouldn't be half as well educated as I am without Mythbusters setting that example of genuine curiosity unconcerned about who's right or what conventional wisdom has to say on a subject. Thank you for that Adam! you and Jamie and the whole rest of the crew have tangibly changed my life for the better in that way.
And one of mine is people misrepresenting things as just rejecting empirical evidence, as that is another form of confirmation bias. You think you have results that support your position so you dismiss anyone objecting to it in any way as confirmation bias. They aren't simply rejecting it. They are saying it doesn't match they conditions required. They are saying the experiment doesn't fulfil the required conditions and thus does not support the claim.
@@jeffreyblack666 I agree. That is an equally big problem, and one which I'll admit I'm sometimes guilty of, but I'm trying to be better. I think Adam made a really good point in this video about trying to understand the semantics of both sides of the argument. Because if people can suspend their expectations and take the time to listen to every side of an argument and their evidence, and then work together to figure out where any communication is breaking down, then both our pet peeves could be avoided.
@@DaveTpletsch And my point was that Adam hasn't fully understood the semantics of the other side. But yes, I agree that actually understanding what the other side is saying, rather than making assumptions about them, and importantly, distinguishing between reject results vs rejecting what those results mean, is key to further understanding and getting along.
I am that person, in the 15 minutes I've known about this topic, although I will say my misunderstanding ultimately comes from the fact that I've never studied aerodynamics (but am an engineer). Regardless I agree with Jeffrey, because I get what Adam is saying, and yes he tested it, but I'm still stuck on the semantics of the question, and I think it's ultimately the point of reference that is at question. Those that disagree with the experiment, for me at least, expect the plane to remain stationary, and in the experiment, it did not. Which throws out the whole experiment, because even as Adam mentioned, it should not take off, if the plane is stationary. So it is not a rejection of the experiment, but a questioning of the parameters in the experiment. But I understand his point, and plan on looking further.
@@Jarrettmonty99 The whole point is that the plane doesn't remain stationary on a moving conveyor belt; if the conveyor belt had moved 3 times at fast the plane would still move forward, the wheels just spin faster.
I remember when the penny dropped for me and I suddenly understood this problem. When you grasp the fact the plane's wheels aren't powered and they'll simply spin faster to overcome the moving runway, it feels just as obvious as thinking the plane won't take off. And I've flown planes and I know enough of the physics and it still took me longer than it should have ...
Adam and so many people miss a very important text in the problem: “the conveyor belt is designed to exactly match the speed of the wheels”. This necessitates that the wheels can’t “simply spin faster” to overcome the moving runway
@@dadabeaux_productions That is incorrect. The treadmill could match the speed of the wheels at all times. If the wheels start moving faster, we increase the speed of the conveyor. Even if you do this perfectly, it will not prevent the plane from moving forward. It will still take off. Your misconception is that the speed of the wheels matters at all. It doesn't. The treadmill could be moving at 5000mph and the plane would still move forward and take off. If you disagree, explain how you would change the experiment.
@@meepk633 I'm more confused on the air speed part. Yes the propeller will be up to speed and what not but isn't that like holding the ass end of a rear wheel drive car in the air, full build of revs and then dropping the car to go? The car will not go 180mph right off the bat there will be a build up. I'd like to see what the air speed and ground speed says when on said conveyor belt and throttled to take off. I think using an ultra light was a huge mistake in this myth as ultra lights can take off stationary with a strong breeze. Let alone once they are in the air the power to weight ratio of an ultra light is ridiculous. It will easily get to 25mph from stationary in the air. I totally see it working with an ultra light but I'd like to see how it plays out with a plane with a not so high power to weight ratio.
@@samwisegamgee3596 The plane only needs a PWR high enough to overcome the friction in the wheel bearing. An ultralight and a fully loaded 747 can both overcome that friction at idle. It doesn't matter how fast the treadmill is moving because the two components of wheel speed are additive and unrelated: speed of treadmill + speed created by propellor. You can change one or the other independently. Someone else in these replies stated it way better. Imagine you put a skateboard on a treadmill. Sit on the skateboard while facing backwards. Now hold onto the stationary sides of the treadmill. What happens when you turn it on? As long as you're holding onto the treadmill, you stay in the same place. The wheels spin freely under you. In order to move forward (or backward), all you have to is impart a small force with your arms. There's no way to change the experiment--no clever acceleration curve of the treadmill--that could prevent you from moving forward or backward freely. Like the plane, the wheel speed is unrelated to your motion.
Alternate alternate title: Adam Savage changes a simple puzzle into his own, solves it instead of the real puzzle and then takes credit for solving the original puzzle. That's called a straw man fallacy. The real solution is so obvious that nobody ever solves it.
@@jonydude Great idea! How to do the demonstration correctly and how to prove it! Let B equal the speed of the belt. Let W equal the tangential rolling speed of the wheels. Let S equal the forward speed of the plane through space. Put a speedometer on the belt and wheels. Use a fixed camera to measure the speed of the plane. Tie the tail of the plane to ta tree. Start the belt at 5 mph. Belt = 5 mph. Wheels equals 5 mph. The conditions of the riddle are met. Now allow the plane to move forward at 1 mph with the rope. Now the wheels are moving at the speed of the belt PLUS the speed of the plane, 6 mph. The belt is still moving at 5 mph. The speed of wheels and belt are absolutely required by the setup of the riddle to be equal. We've demonstrated that allowing the plane to move violated the terms of the riddle. The riddle REQUIRES that the plane be physically restrained from moving. That demonstration is easy, complete and absolutely conclusive. Any questions? Pro tip: attacking the person _("oh true understander of the original puzzle")_ telegraphs the wrong message. We're talking about an interesting and deceptive riddle, not you or I.
@@RockinRobbins13 THAT is absolutely the dumbest argument in here. None of the conditions require the plane to be motionless. THE WHEELS DO NOT DRIVE THE PLANE FORWARD! They are pulled along with the plane by the thrust provided by a propeller or jet engine. It doesn't matter what a fictitious conveyor belt is doing. The plane does not rely on the ground for forward motion. If the wheels drove it to take off speed, the second a plane left the ground it would slow and be on on the ground again. Geez. Do you have any clue how an airplane even works? All that matters for a plane to take off is AIRSPEED. If the plane needed 50 mph airspeed to take off, but was facing into a 50 mph headwind, as long as it was throttled up enough to to keep it from getting pushed backwards, the plane could lift off without turning a tire at ZERO ground speed. (No one in a plane small enough to take off at 50 mph would attempt to fly in the first place in a 50 mph wind, but that's what would happen) The "wheels" and GROUND SPEED are irrelevant. Put skis or pontoons on a plane and it can take off in the snow or from the water. In the water there could be a strong current, but the plane can still take off. Your argument is 100% wrong, not to mention ridiculous.
There is an opposing force. The wheels have friction with the ground. This friction depends on the weight of the plane. So as the plane speed increases , the wheel speed increases , the conveyor speed matches that and the airplane remains stationary relative to the air and ground. It cannot take off.
Aircraft have an order of magnitude more thrust than any wheel drag can ever amount to. You are essentially saying a conveyer belt acting on freely spinning wheels, which are supported by bearings, can somehow overpower a freaking jet engine?
The plane does not have “drive wheels” - they spin freely. Assume the required take off speed is 30mph and the belt is moving 30mph in the opposite direction. The plane STILL moves forward at 30mph like normal, but the free wheels are spinning at 60mph.
@@punkdigerati You would then need to have wheels that somehow automatically clutch/de-clutch themselves so that landing is possible, otherwise having wheels that don't match the relative ground speed exactly at the point of incident would result in many exploded tires... And by extension, planes. Or separate sets of retractable wheels, one for taxiing and one for landing/takeoff, but that sounds like both a weight and engineering nightmare.
@@hyphz Then the wheels will speed up to 120mph and the plane will still be moving forward at 30mph like normal. Less a tiny bit due to drag, but not enough to noticeably impact the take-off speed. As per the test Adam described.
@@Temp0raryName And then the belt speeds up to 120mph.. and so on until the belt or wheel reaches the physical limit on its speed. Presumably then the wheel would strip its treads and skid along the belt. But it's a shame this wasn't addressed.
Something you didn't touch on but I think is important is that the airplane's wheels spin freely. If the runway is moving, the wheels will spin faster, but it would have to move fast enough to actually break the wheels to the point of locking up for the plane to not take off. A fast enough conveyor belt would stop a plane from takeoff, but not at all for the reasons it would stop a car. It would be more like a belt sander. XD
The question has always specified that the runway "matches the speed of the wheels" so the runway doesn't simply move fast enough to damage the wheels. The problem is that "matches the speed of the wheels" is ambiguous. The wheels as a whole will be moving forward at the same speed as the airplane, but the relative speed of the wheels where they contact the runway is the speed of the plane + the opposing speed of the runway. In that scenario the wheels have to speed up to infinity the instant the plane starts to move.
@@suedenim9208 ah but you see, spinning up the wheels via belt actually imparts force on the rest of the plane as well, due to their inertia, so the belt does not need to spin up to infinity instantly. i can do some math to calculate the acceleration of the belt in order to counteract the thrust of the plane but id rather not go through the trouble.
@@aerbon You know the question isn't about real life, right? It's a hypothetical physics question , so the conveyor that's as wide and long as a runway and capable of exactly matching the speed of the wheels exists in an imaginary place where wheel friction and inertia aren't part of the question.
@@suedenim9208 It is exactly because this is an imaginary scenario that i bring up wheel inertia. A real conveyor would never be able to accelerate forever. I just like to point out that there is a reasonable way the conveyor can affect the plane. enough so that i believe if i had a high enough budget for a conveyor i could stop a plane from accelerating for a few seconds.
@@aerbon I think in a hypothetical scenario where there is no friction, it would also be assumed that the wheels are massless, meaning there wouldn't be any inertia.
@@shinigamimiroku3723 as much as I despise social media, I suppose I should give it some credit for largely consolidating this crap into areas I can easily avoid. Still a blight on society though.
The question isn't complicated. People are stupid. A treadmill works on people because people use the ground to propel itself. But a plane doesn't - a plane uses the air to propel itself.
Dang, for like the first four minutes I thought I was one of the people who understood it perfectly… then you mentioned cars and I went, “I’m an idiot.”
The best way I had this explained was from my dad(a licensed single engine pilot and engineer) a car pushes from the bottom, a plane pulls from the top. It doesn’t matter if the conveyor moves at 100 and the plane takes off at 70 the plane will take off. He said that the moment he heard the myth on that episode. Always stuck with me
Yuppers. The only bottleneck is rolling resistance. If you have some combination of unusually high rolling resistance in the wheels and the runway whipping backwards fast enough, you might produce enough effective drag by way of the landing gear to delay takeoff by a few seconds. Crank the rolling resistance up real good by feathering the brakes or something, and that may in fact manage to counteract the thrust to the point that you can't quite make takeoff speed. Granted, that works pretty well on a stationary runway too. It's also great for making your wheels catch fire as the brakes are converting your engine thrust to rather localized heat, so maybe don't?
@@Archgeek0 even if it was possible to make a conveyor belt that goes at a sufficient speed to cause enough drag from the tyres and wheel bearings.......that pull is only going to be relatively minor. Especially if it was possible to make that conveyor belt, it would also be possible to fit a plane with a sufficiently strong engine to power it with the brakes on, it would still be able to take off (albeit in a huge cloud of smoke, with the landing gear being so trashed you probably couldn't land it!)
And unfortunately, he was wrong. He didn't think about the conditions of the problem. The plane is required to be physically restrained from moving forward. It cannot take off.
@@RockinRobbins13 Uh, not quite, at least not in practice. There is no restraint to the plane, just the swiftly moving tarmac belt thing. Without much rolling resistance to back that up, the wheels' bearings make it all for naught and the plane gleefully pulls itself through the air until it's got the needed lift. Only terrible wheels with a lot of rolling resistance can provide any real opposition to the props' thrust, so you generally get a take-off regardless, unless you do something dopey like press the brakes to artificially raise rolling resistance a lot so the moving tarmac can have a noticeable effect.
An interesting way to conceptualize it is that the conveyor belt is effectively acting as a frictionless plane; the car can't move because the tires can't push against anything, whereas the airplane can just slide across the ground with no issues.
I like this. Made the think of this analogy. If you put a car out on a frozen lake that's completely smooth and a little wet, no matter how you mash the accelerator, the car can't get friction and won't move. A plane set down right beside it, when the throttle is pushed forward, will glide across the ice and take off.
But it's wrong. Friction is transmitted through the wheels, the plane doesn't slide, it just "mostly" slides. A fast enough conveyor could push it back.
@@SgtLion it would probably also break off the wheels at that speed, but the premise is that the conveyor is moving backwards at the same speed as the plane is trying to move forwards; the wheels would be turning at twice the speed they normally would for takeoff, and the additional slowing power that the friction would provide would be negligible
@@SgtLion You're going to have to explain this concept of friction being transmitted through the wheels. That doesn't line up with any of the physics classes I had. As the wheels spin faster and faster they would heat up due to friction, but on a frictionless surface, the wheels of the plane would never turn at all. They would remain completely stationary as the plane accelerated forward. You have to have friction in order to make the wheels turn. On a frictionless surface, you could replace the wheels with skis and achieve the same result. You put skis on a normal runway and they would shear off due to the friction.
My family is from Alaska where small planes are the _only_ way to reliably access large portions of the state year round (we live in the continental US now). This episode was so confusing to us specifically because we weren't sure what was being tested, since of course the tires (without breaks ofc) have zero input on the propulsion of the aircraft. In Alaska small planes are almost as likely to have floats or skis as they are wheels, so the idea of wheeled propulsion being an issue didn't even cross our minds. Also this episode was part of a larger series of Alaska episodes (moose vs car, specialty Deadliest Catch etc) and my parents recognized several high school and college friends that made it in to Mythbusters and other shows who've gone into various Alaskan bush careers, so thanks to Mythbusters for supporting them!
With a floatplane, the factors are a bit more involved, as the floats do have significant friction against counterstreaming water, meaning that it takes a more powerful engine to get sufficient airspeed, while also spending energy on creating a wake on the water surface. Sure, it would still take off, unless barely having enough power without the additional resistance.
The problem with the way the question is often put, is that it makes one jump the first consideration, which should be: "How does the plane move to the (stationary to the air) outside observer?". It kind of already implies that the plane stands still, even if it doesn't say it. Once you make that jump there's no way back but to start again.
There is an opposing force. The wheels have friction with the ground. This friction depends on the weight of the plane. So as the plane speed increases , the wheel speed increases , the conveyor speed matches that and the airplane remains stationary relative to the air and ground. It cannot take off.
@@AncientWisdom222 I don't understand how you come up with this? The 747 "normal" landing gear resistance during takeoff is 9% of its thrust. = Plane Flies
@@AncientWisdom222 The wheels of the aircraft are only there to reduce friction of the ground (Wright Flyer had Skids) - They have zero to do with the propulsion of the aircraft, the jet engines push against the outside air just like it always has, simple physics state, the wheels are going to be spinning twice as fast...same as the Mythbusters test...But the plane still flies...At no point will the rolling resistance be so great that it's going to stop a 747 that can take off on 3 engines, takes off at 210MPH and flies at 500MPH...That's the same thought process that Whitetail deer have when they jump in front of my 8000lb pickup while going 60mph....They aren't stopping the truck.
This is one of those questions that is specifically designed to trick people into saying the wrong answer. People don't say the wrong answer because their understanding of the physics of the question is wrong, they say the wrong answer because the question was worded in such a way to draw them to the wrong conclusion before they take into consideration the factors which would lead to the correct conclusion. The second somebody said, "Now try to build it and see what happens," you'd immediately realize why your answer was wrong. And you'd feel like the question tricked you, you wouldn't feel like you were too dumb to understand the physics. Anybody who says the plane wouldn't take off if it had no motion relative to the earth (and by extension no motion relative to the air) would be correct, physically speaking. They just made an assumption that the whole point of even mentioning the existence of a treadmill is because it would result in this zero relative motion. That assumption was incorrect, but they only made the assumption because why else would you ask the question unless that was supposed to happen?
I agree. This is why the people on the forums Adam mentioned argued the experiment was wrong. (On top of the standard internet cannot-be-wrong). The experiment the Mythbusters conducted genuinely wasn't the way they interpreted the question.
@@xdevantx5870 Well, that question is just basic order of operations. A lot of people who get it wrong actually just don't know how to do math, and anyone who knows how to do math won't get it wrong because there's nothing to actually be confused about. Sometimes there are questions around order of operations which are intentionally a bit ambiguous (often using the ÷ symbol, which isn't really used by real mathematicians.) Got example, 6 ÷ 2(1+2) = ? For this question my personal answer would be 1. This equation is vague and has no well defined answer. In my opinion, the 2 before the parentheses is acting as a coefficient to the value within the parentheses, and so that whole quantity should be calculated before the division happens, i.e. 6 ÷ (2(1+2)), resulting in an answer of 1. Other people might say that the equation can be rewritten as 6 ÷ 2 × (1+2), and then it would be calculated to equal 9. Depending on the interpretation of the question, either answer can be right. But the point is that the question just shouldn't be written the way it was written, because it's ambiguous. I'd say a more comparable case of trickery is when somebody tells you to say 'milk' 10 times and then quickly asks you what a cow drinks. And the answer is water, but they already put the idea of milk in your head, and your gut reaction when you think of drinking and cows together is milk.
@@MattMcConaha Order of operations are just conventions. The math question is written misleadingly. Just like you can get to the right conclusion about the Plane Conveyor by understanding the problem, but it's written misleadingly.
What I see as the major source of confusion in this question is, I often see it worded as "the tread mill exactly matches the speed of the tires." Taking out of account whether the plane could use thrust to move forward (it could and would eventually take off), the wording means that no forward movement and therefore no airspeed is gained. If the treadmill is exactly matching the speed of the tires, no matter what that speed is, the aircraft is not moving forward and therefore not taking off. This comes down to tricky wording.
Except this isn't miscommunication, is misinterpretation of the problem. When it leads to people choosing sides, jumping to conclusions, stating arguments and holding onto biases cause they feel attacked when you don't pick their side of the argument as the right one. This isn't miscommunication, its misrepresentation... the problem is no longer the plane on the runway, the problem is the scientific observers no longer being reliable. The function collapses and scientific progress is no longer achievable, myths and fake news proliferates, human race dies a slow and agonising death arguing over semantics over global issues like climate change, viruses, pollution, vaccinations, clean energy.
@@dieselscience I've seen plenty of arguments about physics/engineering that hinge on differences in the meaning assumed behind a word or setup, between the opposing parties. (The plane on a treadmill, for one.)
Need to interject here. While the experiment showed that the plane would take off, the experiment itself was fundamentally flawed, and I'll explain why in a few lines. This is not a dig at Adam whatsoever. But in order to answer the question portrayed, the details have to be absolute. No new variables or flawed math, intentional or not. The wheels and the conveyer belt are the ONLY variables that matter and I'll explain why in a few lines. It's a fundamental physics problem. It does not matter if the wheels and engines are mechanically connected or not. Adam is a great educator, actor, tv host, etc., but he is not a scientist or engineer. It's not a problem of if the plane can reach a speed to take off. Obviously a plane needs ample amount of lift to take off .It's a problem of if the plane will move whatsoever. And the physics of the problem stated does not allow the plane to move. This is COMPLETELY wrong, and I wish he would just go do more research instead of sticking with his guns in the "my experiment proved it so it cant be wrong." fashion. I grew up watching Myth Busters and absolutely love the show, but experiments do not always provide correct outcome if the variables are not perfect and if external variables are added. The mode of force, tires vs propeller/engine are irrelevant. The ONLY variables that matter are the wheels and the conveyer belt. It doesn't matter if its a propeller pulling, an engine pushing, the wheels mechanically turning, a person off the conveyer belt pulling, any of that. If you tied an infinitely strong rope to the front of the infinitely strong hull of the airplane and applied an infinite amount of force, you would not be able to move the plane. The only thing that would happen is the wheels and conveyer belt would reach an infinite speed. This concept is so hard to grasp because it's out of touch with reality. 99% of physics questions taught in classrooms happen in a perfect hypothetical world, and could not exist in the normal world. And if they did, the results would be drastically different. This is one of those questions. There are two main reasons that the experiment that you did were flawed. 1a. It is impossible to instantaneously match the speed of the tarp and the speed of the wheels on the plane. 1b. As the plane tries to take off, the acceleration of the truck needed to accelerate match the planes speed. Going the same speed as the plane is useless. The math does not add up. 2. The tarp that you pulled was also in contact with the ground and not supporting the weight of the plane. Thus, the plane was able to use the ground underneath to help propel itself forward. It's even impossible to replicate the perfect experiment no matter how much money you throw at the project. So you have to rely on fundamental physics to figure out the problem. Breaking it down fundamentally. If the circumference of your tire is 1 meter, as the tire rotates, the conveyer belt moves back 1 meter, matching the speed of the plane's tires instantaneously. In order for the plane to move horizontally, the tires have to rotate. And the tires cannot rotate without the conveyer belt moving the opposite direction the same distance at the same speed.
So I often see this problem presented with improper wording. Using the phrase “matching the wheel speed” (this is how I usually see it phrased) the answer is NO. Using the phrase “running in the opposite direction at takeoff speed” (this is the actual thought experiment) then the answer is YES. If the conveyor matches the wheel speed then as soon as the wheels start to spin you create a feedback loop because the conveyor has to accelerate to match the wheel speed but the wheel speed will keep increasing as you move forwards. In this version the wheels will explode after just a few seconds of forward motion.
....I remember that episode and I was highly disappointed that the pilot thought he wouldn’t take off...I was thinking “come on, man, if anyone knows how this works, it should be you”
@@davedown-under6779 You telling me that a microlight pilot doesn't understand what makes his plane move and fly? You telling me a go-kart driver doesn't understand what makes his go-kart move? Oh by the way...in reference to kart racers not being real drivers...Ayrton Senna would disagree
@@discipleofthecapedbaldy962 “We are tied down to a language which makes up in obscurity what it lacks in style.” - The Player, Rosencrans and Guildenstern Are Dead
We don't even listen to the language. The plane won't take off if it doesn't move forward. If it doesn't move forward the speed the conveyor belt has to match is 0mph. The plane moving forward on the conveyor is a prerequisite for the myth to exist. Game, set and match. 😎
@@AnttiBrax Yes, that's once You've realized, that the plane creates thrust by pushing against the air. If You go to the root of the confusion, assuming the forward motion coming from wheels turning against the ground, then the conveyor would have to counter the rotation of the wheels to actually keep the plane from moving.
i didnt quite unserstand the problem untill i heard: "cars mode of locomotion is it's tires contact with the ground" and my opinion instantly switched. of course it's gonna take off
@@mikeuk666 Wait. Are you just trolling? I keep seeing you replying to every thread, spreading ass-backwards misinformation and replying to actual explanations with "No." If you're not trolling, then please seek help. If you are trolling, please, get better at trolling.
This was my favorite myth that you ever did, it was super memorable for some reason (probably because the results completely surprised me, but the explanation made so much sense at the end)
As someone who has seen every episode, it feels much longer than 5 years. Love that the spirit is being carried on along with more. Thanks for inspiring such a mentality of curiosity!
@@andrewrobertson444 simply put - sum the speeds of the two devices and you get the net. In this case, rotation of the wheel means the same speed of the wheel axis, so this is saying nothing more than the wheel axis speed equals conveyor speed interchangeably depending on your frame of reference. The plane goes nowhere if the conveyor moves.
@MrDefreese The "wheels" and their axis are actually irrelevant, only there in the scenario to fool the uneducated.🙄 The plane still pushes on the air around it for thrust, the plane moves and flies. Regardless of the conveyor.
@@misters2837 once more. The source of the force on the vehicle is utterly irrelevant. It’s just force acting on the body. You should never comment again since you get that fundamental point flat out wrong. This is introductory physics and that is a Mythbusters induced error. Secondly, the vehicle either moves in exactly one of two ways while it is on the ground - either by sliding on the surface or by rolling on the surface. Hopefully everyone is able to dismiss the idea of the vehicle sliding across the surface so this is only a story of a rolling vehicle. If you can accept that without dispute then the relationship between distance traveled on the circumference of a wheel and the linear distance traveled by the axis of said wheel is also an introduction to physics problem. Very clearly - for each distance traveled by the wheel on its circumference …. The conveyor travels the same distance in the same amount of time per the parameter we are explicitly given. If you want to put it into terms that jar your sensibilities less, this is mechanically the same as two connected cog gears rotating at the same speed in sync. Those are two basic intro to physics mistakes in your response.
@@misters2837 wheels and axes are definitely not irrelevant. In fact, the calculation for wheel travel and linear travel at the wheel axis is one of the fundamental points in introductory physics. Additionally, it is an unfortunate mistake to be hung up on the flawed statement that 'the plane still pushes the air around it for thrust'. Thrust is just the net force of the propeller, jet or engine. It is just a force. A force merely makes an object go from one speed to another speed. The parameter you are given is that the conveyor exactly matches any speed of the vehicle. It is explicitly given that the system is in equilibrium. Not doubling the speed; not free spinning; not spinning to infinity.
@MrDefreese Well, considering I have taught physics for decades. If I had time to waste explaining how wrong you are, I would. I don't have time for people who can't open a book, or their eyes. Good Luck.
When I watched the original show, I was certain that the producers had told the pilot to insist that he could not take off from a "runway" moving in the opposite direction. Here, Adam is reporting that the pilot was genuinely surprised by the result.
As humans can't fly, we can't move ourselves without needing the ground, so if the ground moves the opposite way to the way we try to move, we get there slower or not at all. I imagine this is why we will think about the ground moving 'backwards' like this, at least at first, even if things we use operate differently. 'If I'm on this runway, can I get to the other end? No, therefore a plane can't take off if it's not moving towards the other end of the runway either'. But the plane *is* moving towards the other end of the runway because it's not dependent on drive off the ground, unlike a human. If you could ask the question to a seagull then I think they'd get it easier than a human, although now I want to see a seagull taking off from a moving treadmill, because I don't know if they actually need a little run up to get airborne. They would at least intuitively understand how they could take off without them or the ground moving forwards when the air speed is high enough for them to glide on the spot, or without moving forward relative to what they're standing on, like a car. They can just spread their wings and lift off of it.
I just cannot honestly believe that a PILOT would not know how a plane works at such a basic level. The question is so obvious if you know that plane wheels are not powered so it doesn't matter what the ground speed is, only the airspeed.
Same here, and being just as dumbfounded now when I was reminded of that! A pilot really should understand the basics of how a plane works :) Also, I find it funny that so many people are still arguing over this whole thing in the comments, while still not grasping even the most basics of basic physics. Perhaps its more sad than funny though, but as Adam said, people aren't (neccesarily) dumb for not understanding, but being dumb doesnt help :P
@@Robinlarsson83 You, and Adam, are misconstruing the question and are calling people stupid for actually engaging with it. Saying "well the wheels dont generate power so they will be faster than the belt" is a lazy excuse for an answer, the spirit of the premise obviously means that the force created by the thrust is equalled out. so that v(plane)-v(belt)=0. If we accept this, the plane can't take off because there is no air flow lifting the wings. The problem with the question is that thrust doesn't interact with a conveyor belt this way, and that for this premise to work, no matter the amount of thrust, the conveyor belt and the wheels would move at infinity and -infinty velocity repspectively. So, the correct answer is not: "The plane takes off", the correct answer is "the premise is flawed and not worth engaging because it is impossible in a practical and really even theoretical sense".
I love the "we" you always say about the team. Any time he references Jamie, the word genius follows. He lights up talking about Grant & Co. Love it. Makes my entire childhood worthwhile. Mythbusters is half of the reason I watched Discovery, and half the reason I got my degree in science.
That's awesome. Last week I posted that if Adam had been my science teacher I'm sure my career would have been very different. Unfortunately we're the same age. I'm glad you were able to take advantage.
People who make real riddles would be offended by this. There’s nothing clever or devilish about the question, and Adam going out of his way to defend the people who don’t get it is asinine
You would think that, but there are a lot of people who just seem to be unable to grasp the concept of how a plane moves VS how a car moves. I remember using a very similar explanation that Adam said, and tons of people then trying to tell me how I was wrong.
Sorry to Adam but Propeller or not, there's still no airspeed on the wings to create lift on the wings, so therefore the tires are still touching the speed-matching conveyor holding it stationary (0mph) and the conveyor will still be the dominant force along with gravity cause nothing is now fighting against gravity.
I think the controversy was because lots of people thought the question was: Will the plane with zero airspeed vertically take off because of the motion of the treadmill? I remember lots of the NO crowd was mad because they thought the yes crowd was arguing that point. Seems to me this thing was mostly two correct groups answering a different question.
Exactly and I feel like whoever first asked the question intended it to be that zero airspeed interpretation. The question that was answered was more like: What happens when a plane tries to take off from a conveyor belt that is moving faster than the plane's takeoff speed?
It’s weird to me that someone would even assume that that’s the question being asked cause that’s a dumb question to ask. No one would even expect the plane to takeoff when stationary in the first place.
I thought the correct answer was so obvious that the only way I could explain the "no it wont work" crowd was if they were answering a different question. MB crew should have recognized that and specified which question they were asking.
I work at a small airport and when high winds are expected the planes are hangared for the most part. The ones that cannot be hangared are faced into the wind and tied down securely. Even then, they will bob around and the wheels will lift off the ground once in awhile from the wind. If they are faced in another direction they will break the ties and flip over.
I had not seen this riddle until recently, and saw it twice in short amount of time. I actually used that as an example, along with a kite. In theory, a plane sitting still, with just a high enough head windspeed, could lift off a plane, without the plane moving at all, including a 747 jet. Would take an extremely high amount of windspeed to do it, but in theory, it could.
I remember when the episode first came out and my dad and I watched it, we misunderstood the question and thought that people were in fact arguing that a stationary plane could take off because the wheels were spinning fast enough or something. The animation for the myth really didn't help either since it depicted just that
I still to this day say they didn't go about the myth right. I have no opinion either way but I think it would have been more satisfying to people had they done it right.
@@mr.berardine1694 what did they do wrong? Seems legit to me. I have been flying planes in RC form most of my life and in real form for years. What is a different way to perform this experiment that would have a different outcome?
To be fair, the problem they had was that they were trying to illustrate the myth, not physical reality. It's very hard to animate something that is physically impossible. The fact that it can't be animated easily should be proof enough that it's a myth anyway!
@@mr.berardine1694 Yes, you'll have to explain that. The difficulty is that the description of the problem from the "can't take off" crowd can't actually be achieved -- it is incompatible with the laws of physics.
When I first watched the episode I thought they were going to hold the plane in place and move the runway beneath it, and of course that wouldn’t work so I was confused why it was even being tested
If I'm getting this right, all that happens is that the wheels rotate at twice the speed until the plane lifts off, due to the ground under them moving in the opposite direction.
And this brings up another point of semantics. What is meant by "the plane's speed"? Anyone reading the myth as meaning if the tires were connected to a speedometer will have a different thought path than some other statement of its speed.
@@globaldude100 Your first sentence is wrong: the wheels do not push the plane when it's on the ground either, it's still the propeller doing all the work. The only reason the wheels are there is to minimize the friction with the ground, but they do not provide **traction** (like they would in a car). If you look carefully at any landing gear you'll notice that there's nothing to make them spin. They're just like the wheels on a shopping cart (except for the turning around thing), they're free to spin forward/backward as much as they like. A nice example somebody else made: imagine that you're standing on top of the a treadmill with roller skates on your feet, and you're holding on a rope attached to a wall in front of you. No matter how fast the treadmill spins, as long as you hold on to that rope you're going to stand still relative to the ground; and if you start pulling on that rope you're going to start moving forward! In this scenario, your pulling on the rope is the exact same force as the propeller pushing against the still air around the plane: it is not affected by the treadmill in any way, and it's the force that pushes you forward. The wheels on your roller skates are going to spin as much as they like, but they won't be able to stop you in any way. To recap: 1) the propeller pushes against the still air, moving the plane forward 2) as the plane starts moving forward, its wheels start spinning as usual 3) as the plane is moving forward, the treadmill starts spinning in the opposite direction, making the wheels spin twice as fast 4) as the wheels spin faster, the friction with the ground increases a little bit, but it has an overall negligible effect on the plane's speed because the force of the propeller pushing forward is still much greater than the wheels' friction 5) the plane is able to pick up speed relative to the air just as usual, and will take off
@@MrShadowmaster00 I just phrased my comment poorly. :) I edited to make it better. May not actually better. Typed out alternate explanation in-between first comment and your reply. But didn't post cause we're all just trying to find different ways of saying: the wheels don't move the plane, the propeller does, and it pushes against the air, not the ground, so ground speed doesn't matter for takeoff. In what I typed out, I also used the shopping cart example. :)
The die hard "no take off" people say that the original wording was that the conveyor belt matches wheel speed resulting in infinite acceleration of the belt and enough force to stop the plane's engines from moving it forwards.
Recognizing the confusion of "well, it could be attempting to take off so it's already able to" is just as mincing as "well, a vtol can take off so gotcha!" There is no controversy except people deliberately trying to misrepresent the question.
Yeah for some reason I was thinking that while watching this but I also wasn't thinking of a propeller plane (even though a commercial plane would also take off)
@@ashakydd1 There's a system called EGTS under development, but it has nothing to do with takeoffs and landings. It uses electric motors in the wheel hubs to save energy during taxiing.
Came to say the same. Adam goes to great lengths to not offend those challenged by a thought experiment, but also shows that there are those who reject science that contradicts their perceived reality. Flat earthers, moon landing deniers, 911 deniers, and plane won’t take off-ers all operate the same way.
@@AnttiBrax Lol I said that exact thing when he mentioned people rejecting the evidence displayed in the show. Some will go to any lengths to not be proven wrong it seems...
@@MichaelGreen831 I agree, there's a difference between someone who is challenged by something they haven't seen before, and they're curious to learn how it works. On the other hand you have those who pick every hill as their hill to die on.
Working on my GA pilot certification currently and i think of this "myth" with every takeoff. The ground is irrelevant. ☺️ I've always had such respect for Adam and his vocabulary. Thank you Adam for so many years of education and entertainment.
HES WRONG.. Cant believe adam doesnt understand the premise of the riddle The conveyor belt (Exactly)matches the speed of the wheels the plane couldn't move forward at all because the acceleration of the belt would be pulling the plane in reverse with the same exact ammount of force its exerting into the air with its engines. if it was exactly matching it the tires would explode before the plane moved forward at all his scenario means the conveyor belt isn't working correctly for the riddle. (The plane could never move forward if the belt is quickly accelerating in reverse with the same force of its forward thrust)
@@emperorfaiz no, he's not; if the plane cannot move forward because a hypothetical conveyer is precisely matching the speed of the wheels in the opposite direction, and assuming (as Adam mentioned) the absence of a headwind at or above the aircraft's minimum take-off speed, there will be no lift and, consequently, no taking-off. Also, Adam's explanation of what a propeller does makes it abundantly clear he doesn't understand how a propeller actually works. Not once did he mention Bernoulli's Principle and/or what actually creates lift. ANY certificated pilot should arrive at these same conclusions; if not, they should go back to ground school.
Imagine a conveyor belt in the other direction with the wheels fixed so they couldn't spin. Would that plane take of? The wheels are irrelevant unless they are the driving force for takeoff
One way to explain it is: Imagine you are at the bottom of a pool standing on a conveyor belt going backwards, while wearing rollerblades. If you start swimming forward, you easily could pull yourself forward through the water, despite the wheels on your rollerblades being spun backwards by the conveyor belt under you.
It works if the conveyor belt is going at a fixed speed, like the experiment in mythbusters, but if the conveyor belt keeps increasing to match the speed of the wheels, then it comes down to a battle with friction. They're free spinning wheels so you're using the axle to pull the wheels forward with you. The friction of the conveyor belt is pushing back. It's not even important that they're wheels, it's the same as if you're swimming pulling a block forward and the friction is pushing the block back with the same force. The faster you swim, the more you push the wheels forward, then the faster the belt goes, pushing the wheels back to hold them in place. You're likewise held in place by the axle inside the wheels. It's no different than if your axle were through immovable steel rings.
@@annereilley4892 Yep. It's the equivalent of saying, "the wheels and assembly are perfectly frictionless, so you could sit on a conveyor belt without moving backward because the wheels would turn on their axles rather than driving you backward". Sure it works in a frictionless vacuum, but that's not the "traditional" conveyor belt of the question. Basically, proving Adam right that there will always be controversy on this.
@@LoadstoneKnight In a way, this problem is fixed ("fixed" in the way a boxing match is "fixed"), because it's implying infinite friction between the wheels and conveyor belt which no engine can overcome. Why not have it the other way around with infinite engine power and negligible friction? I think that's what the original poster was trying to do, which changed the premise of the question. I think in reality, the propeller engines could be stronger than the friction of the wheels on the belt. The wheels would lose traction and slide along the belt. On the other hand, since I read that WW1 sea planes sometimes were unable to overcome the water tension in order to take off.
@@annereilley4892I think you have a slight flaw in your reasoning. Just to make sure we are on the same page, you are saying that given the wheels do not slip on the conveyor belt surface that the plane will not take off. If i'm reading what you are saying correctly you are saying that if the conveyor perfectly matched the plane speed and the wheels did not slip or slide that the friction between the wheel and the conveyor would hold the plane in place by the wheels having to be connected to the axle. If that is what you are saying, I think you are making a slight error in that while yes, there is friction between the wheels and the plane, and increasing the plane speed increases the conveyor speed in turn increasing drag on the plane from the wheel friction. However, this does not really hold the plane in place. Unlike swimming and dragging a block, the wheels do not have their brakes applied and are rolling. The rolling resistance of a wheel which can also be termed as the dynamic coefficient of friction is minimal. As the plane moves forward the conveyor moves backwards with equal speed. When you spin a top or a fidget spinner or a large bearing they spin for a long time, much longer than if you pushed them across the ground. This is because the spin is what reduces friction, instead of having to overcome the friction required to drag the tire across the ground, all you have to overcome is the friction required to spin the tire. That friction is mostly overcoming the deformation of the tire itself as well as the friction in the wheel bearing. Much like a car, you can push it on level ground with one hand, the rolling resistance of the planes wheels is miniscule. So when the conveyor speeds up you are correct in saying that it will infact increase the drag from friction on the plane, however the increase is very small. A normal plane taking off normally with a takeoff speed of for example say 100mph will easily be able to overcome the rolling resistance of the tires. If you instead double the takeoff speed to 200mph it will still easily overcome the rolling resistance of the tires given the landing gear can handle that speed on the ground. So just putting a conveyor belt down and having the plane try to take off with an air speed of 100mph but a ground speed relative to the conveyor of 200mph is going to look pretty much the same. You will be able to measure extra resistance from the wheels, but it's so minimal that it doesn't matter. I think a better analogy is walking your bike down the hallway, vs walking your bike down one of those horizontal people movers while you stand on solid ground you see at airports. Yeah walking your bike down the people mover will have slightly more resistance, but it's nothing that will stop you from easily moving your bike even if you are walking at the same speed as the people mover.
My favourite example is: Guy goes to a doctor. Doc: "Hello Mr. Smith, I'm afraid I have bad news." Smith: "That's okay Doc, just give it to me straight." Doc: "Okay. I'm afraid your test came back positive." Smith: "What? Oh that's a relief. I thought you said news would be negative." Doc: "Uh, I'm sorry Mr. Smith, but you did not test negative. You have cancer." Smith: "What? But you just said... Are you sure?" Doc: "I'm positive -" Smith: "...WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?!"
The plane would still take off. The conveyor belt matching the speed of the plane would just make the wheels of the plane spin twice as fast on the conveyor belt, but still take off.
apparently Adam's experiment is at best incomplete as demonstrated in this video by captain joe. The first half is what most people think of and Adam is wrong in that scenario. Adam is right in the second half. th-cam.com/video/Y64ZdSaDdoo/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=CaptainJoe
@@Stormwern I was thinking about how the wheels would always need to be faster than they are going, wouldn't they lock up and become essentially runners? Like if you're running and grab a car going 100mph, your feet couldn't run fast enough and would get dragged behind you. Then the plane would take off like a sea plane which doesn't use wheels at all.
Just caught some reruns on TV of classic Mythbusters yesterday, it was good to see and brought me back..also it was nice to see Grant again, I remember I was shocked when I found out he passed away so it was good to see him on the show and having fun.
@@g00gleminus96 You are thinking of descent speed. With a ground speed of 0 a plane could land without you knowing as long as the pilot can control the descent speed.
People forget that in tornadoes and hurricanes, or even wind storms, light aircraft that arent chained down will take off and glide around uncontrolled. This is because lifting the wings causes takeoff, not groundspeed.
also a way to actually force a plane to stay grounded is tailwind. if you could produce a direct tailwind equivalent to the takeoff speed, the plane would stay grounded.
I thought the controversy was people thinking that the conveyer belt was rolling backwards so fast that it created enough friction in the wheel bearings that it prevented the airplane from moving forward with thrust from propellers.
That's the semantic ambiguity in "as fast as the plane is moving forward". In the 25 tarp/25 mph ultralight experiment, just before takeoff, the wheel speed was 50 mph. If you believe the semantics of the question then require that the tarp must be accelerated to 50 mph, because that's how fast the wheels are rolling, then the wheels will see 75 mph (and yes, slightly increased wheel bearing friction), and the tarp speed must be increased again, until something breaks.
This is it exactly. Take 25 mph as the take-off speed. If you somehow engineered the wheels to be incapable of turning faster than the equivalent of 25 mph, and assuming the plane wasn't powerful enough to drag itself forward with locked wheels, it would never move forward on a 25 mph treadmill. Of course, that's not how wheels work. The ambiguity in the language is the key. The question the "no" crowd actually has in mind is "can a plane take off without moving forward?" They're taking it for granted that the treadmill is a means to prevent the plane from moving forward, but that's not the actual premise. The question being tested here is "Can a treadmill spinning at 25 mph prevent a plane from moving forward?" The way to test what they have in mind would be to tie a chain from the back of a plane to a pole fifty feet off the ground.
@@kevinvermeer9011 Exactly, and it seems like even Adam is still confused about this. What you're describing is the same version of the question that prevents the car from moving. So, if it's true that the car can't drive, then the plane moving forward would instantly make its wheels spin up to infinity. In the version they tested (the conveyor moving backwards at the speed of the plane's body) the car actually can drive forward. If the car drives at 25 mph, the wheels' experience would be the same as driving normally at 50 mph.
Totally agree, I just want to explain it 10 different ways to they understand. Until you just have to back off and let them have their belief, and we’ll have ours 😁
When I started watching this episode back when I was in high school, I was in the camp that thought the plane couldn’t take off, but as I watched, my mind was totally changed. I felt stupid because I didn’t see the answer right away, but I think it was one of the most important episodes I watched because it helped me learn how the scientific method is all about testing your preconceived notions, and dismissing them when they prove to be wrong.
You were in the correct camp. It is impossible for it to take off. It's impossible for the plane to even start moving. His experiment was fundamentally flawed, and introduced unnecessary variables that greatly changed the outcome. The wheels and the conveyer belt are the ONLY variables that matter and I'll explain why in a few lines. It's a fundamental physics problem. It does not matter if the wheels and engines are mechanically connected or not. Adam is a great educator, actor, tv host, etc., but he is not a scientist or engineer. It's not a problem of if the plane can reach a speed to take off. Obviously a plane needs ample amount of lift to take off .It's a problem of if the plane will move whatsoever. And the physics of the problem stated does not allow the plane to move. This is COMPLETELY wrong, and I wish he would just go do more research instead of sticking with his guns in the "my experiment proved it so it cant be wrong." fashion. I grew up watching Myth Busters and absolutely love the show, but experiments do not always provide correct outcome if the variables are not perfect and if external variables are added. The mode of force, tires vs propeller/engine are irrelevant. The ONLY variables that matter are the wheels and the conveyer belt. It doesn't matter if its a propeller pulling, an engine pushing, the wheels mechanically turning, a person off the conveyer belt pulling, any of that. If you tied an infinitely strong rope to the front of the infinitely strong hull of the airplane and applied an infinite amount of force, you would not be able to move the plane. The only thing that would happen is the wheels and conveyer belt would reach an infinite speed. This concept is so hard to grasp because it's out of touch with reality. 99% of physics questions taught in classrooms happen in a perfect hypothetical world, and could not exist in the normal world. And if they did, the results would be drastically different. This is one of those questions. There are two main reasons that the experiment that you did were flawed. 1a. It is impossible to instantaneously match the speed of the tarp and the speed of the wheels on the plane. 1b. As the plane tries to take off, the acceleration of the truck needed to accelerate match the planes speed. Going the same speed as the plane is useless. The math does not add up. 2. The tarp that you pulled was also in contact with the ground and not supporting the weight of the plane. Thus, the plane was able to use the ground underneath to help propel itself forward. It's even impossible to replicate the perfect experiment no matter how much money you throw at the project. So you have to rely on fundamental physics to figure out the problem. Breaking it down fundamentally. If the circumference of your tire is 1 meter, as the tire rotates, the conveyer belt moves back 1 meter, matching the speed of the plane's tires instantaneously. In order for the plane to move horizontally, the tires have to rotate. And the tires cannot rotate without the conveyer belt moving the opposite direction the same distance at the same speed.
There's literally a small scale version of this at this science center in Orange County called the Cube. There's a model plane and model car on a circular track that you can spin up running opposite of both vehicles, and you have throttle controls over both vehicles. Sure enough, the model plane will always take off while the car can never overcome the reversing track.
When you realise that the conveyor belt doesn't pull the plane back but roll its wheels backwards underneath it - like somebody whipping a tablecloth out from under plates and cutlery and them staying put -, you realise how it was possible that the plane could continue to move forward. This was my epiphany as I did initially think that the plane would not take off and had to reconcile it in my head.
I don’t think your analogy works at all. Are you attempting to say that by ripping the runway out from under the plane it has the power to take off? Planes require lift to fly not speed. Making the wheels spin doesn’t matter. Think helicopter blade. The faster the air flows over the blade the more lift is created. The prop on the plane creates that lift with out spinning the wing.
@@MrArcher0 actually the propeller on a fixed wing plane only serves to pull the plane through the air. Air speed is what generates lift. Its not like the propeller alone is pushing enough air around the wings to generate lift. Thats different from a helicopter that actually moves the airfoil through the air to generate lift. There is a fundamental difference between the two.
This is just a great example of a situation where the way you communicate the problem makes a huge difference for the way people understand. Communication is a two way street, and it's just as much the speaker's responsibility to communicate empathetically as it is the listener to listen and understand carefully! This lesson was a difficult one which I came to learn by working phone tech support, rough.
While that sounds great, the reality is that even after the solution was demonstrated people still rejected the physics on the basis of their own logic bias. Which would indicate that they fundamentally do not understand the principles involved.
@@bensolo7217 The problem is its a trick question; yes some people arent so bright and do not understand that ground speed is irrelevant to a plane flying. However even people who do understand this concept debate the answer which is why its a popular question in the first place. Look at how the original question is phrased on google and you may or may not see the issue with a scenario where the plane takes off. Hint; in the mythbusters episode they tested the question based upon a different phrasing to the original question which means their logical approach and testing is irrelevant
I was met with this for the first time today, and I wanted to say it would lift off, but I couldn't justify my thinking, and I'm very thankful this existed to satisfy my curiosity.
Holy cow! Adam, I was never argumentative about it, but I was 100 percent one of those who couldn't understand how the plane could take off. Your explanation in this video cracked the code for me. I get it now! Thanks for continuing to teach me.
@@amtank someone upthread said, imagine being on roller skates holding a rope on a treadmill, no matter how fast the treadmill goes, you stay in the same spot, but if you use the rope to pull yourself yo move forward, no matter what the treadmill does (unless your wheels explode from the speed, killing you instantly). The propeller of a plane is treating the air like a person pulling a rope. But some people don't think of air as being 'solid,' like a rope is
Need to interject here. While the experiment showed that the plane would take off, the experiment itself was fundamentally flawed, and I'll explain why in a few lines. The wheels and the conveyer belt are the ONLY variables that matter and I'll explain why in a few lines. It's a fundamental physics problem. It does not matter if the wheels and engines are mechanically connected or not. Adam is a great educator, actor, tv host, etc., but he is not a scientist or engineer. It's not a problem of if the plane can reach a speed to take off. Obviously a plane needs ample amount of lift to take off .It's a problem of if the plane will move whatsoever. And the physics of the problem stated does not allow the plane to move. This is COMPLETELY wrong, and I wish he would just go do more research instead of sticking with his guns in the "my experiment proved it so it cant be wrong." fashion. I grew up watching Myth Busters and absolutely love the show, but experiments do not always provide correct outcome if the variables are not perfect and if external variables are added. The mode of force, tires vs propeller/engine are irrelevant. The ONLY variables that matter are the wheels and the conveyer belt. It doesn't matter if its a propeller pulling, an engine pushing, the wheels mechanically turning, a person off the conveyer belt pulling, any of that. If you tied an infinitely strong rope to the front of the infinitely strong hull of the airplane and applied an infinite amount of force, you would not be able to move the plane. The only thing that would happen is the wheels and conveyer belt would reach an infinite speed. This concept is so hard to grasp because it's out of touch with reality. 99% of physics questions taught in classrooms happen in a perfect hypothetical world, and could not exist in the normal world. And if they did, the results would be drastically different. This is one of those questions. There are two main reasons that the experiment that you did were flawed. 1a. It is impossible to instantaneously match the speed of the tarp and the speed of the wheels on the plane. 1b. As the plane tries to take off, the acceleration of the truck needed to accelerate match the planes speed. Going the same speed as the plane is useless. The math does not add up. 2. The tarp that you pulled was also in contact with the ground and not supporting the weight of the plane. Thus, the plane was able to use the ground underneath to help propel itself forward. It's even impossible to replicate the perfect experiment no matter how much money you throw at the project. So you have to rely on fundamental physics to figure out the problem. Breaking it down fundamentally. If the circumference of your tire is 1 meter, as the tire rotates, the conveyer belt moves back 1 meter, matching the speed of the plane's tires instantaneously. In order for the plane to move horizontally, the tires have to rotate. And the tires cannot rotate without the conveyer belt moving the opposite direction the same distance at the same speed.
@@tracruz You really need to watch back this video because you are completely misunderstanding (even though you are so strident in your belief). The conveyor built has virtually zero effect (except for the slight friction in the wheel bearings) on the planes ability to move forwards.
That's always been my confusion. "Why wouldn't the plane take off? It's not a car!" I really don't get it, why does the conveyor belt matter to a plane?
Adam, I have huge respect for your humbleness in approaching this topic. From the episode, to this video, you're gentle with people - that's an incredible quality in a human. It's something the world needs more of. It's something I'm working on cultivating - and as usual, you're an inspiration to me. I'm no genius - but I admit that I had the same reaction to the myth as Jamie - the only time in Mythbusters history I wondered "why test that?". You're The Man
if the wheels are spinning twice as fast the conveyor belt should be moving twice as fast. The question says the belt matches the speed of the wheels, if it matches the speed of the wheels the resultant velocity should be 0. That would mean in reality the belt would be moving so absurdly fast that the friction on the wheels would be in balance with the engine thrust, ensuring velocity 0.
@@NicollasAlexandre No, it means that as soon as the plane starts generating thrust, the belt would need to accelerate at an infinite rate, causing the universe to explode. There is no finite acceleration that can stop the plane from moving forward.
Yes, and I miss Mythbusters a lot. It is my all-time favorite show. I loved that I was a participant in the show and not a passive viewer, in the sense that I was trying to solve the problem while watching.
He's *only* right because he formulated the question differently than how it's commonly asked. He's responding to the question of the belt moving the same speed as the *airplane*. But it's normally asked if the belt is moving the same speed as the *wheels*. If the latter (the normal question about the wheels)... As soon as the plane started moving relative to the ground, the premise of the question was broken. If the plane was going 25mph into the wind with the truck going 25 in the other direction, the wheels would have been moving at 50mph, meaning the truck needed to be going 50. Then if the plane could accelerate, the truck would need to be going even faster. It was a bad experiment because it didn't address the common question. All it demonstrated was that a plane can take off if a belt was moving in the opposite direction at the same speed of the *airplane*, not the same speed of the *wheels*. Imagine a car in neutral on a slope. The force causing it to move is gravity, just like thrust for an airplane. If a belt could match the car's speed, it will roll downhill. If a belt could match the speed of the car's WHEELS, the car will stay still. And we can model this by doing something we do all the time to counteract the external force of gravity on a car: apply brakes. If a car's wheels match the speed of the ground on a slope, despite gravity's force, it will remain still.
Either the person is pulling the wagon forward or the treadmill is matching the wagon's speed. You can not have both. That is my problem with how the airplane question is sometimes worded. If the plane is moving forward through the air enough to gain lift, then either the runway is frictionless or it is not moving the same speed as the plane. If the runway is moving at take off speed, then as long as the wheel can handle the increased ground speed before the plan gains enough lift to not rely on the gear, the plan will take off. This is what was demonstrated on Mythbusters.
Of course then you can take it to the extreme and ask, how fast would the treadmill need to run before the rolling resistance of the wagon was greater than the external pulling force? Not necessarily what people were thinking when they assumed the plane wouldn't fly, but it might replicate the result they expected. I imagine the treadmill would have to be reaaaaally choochin though. And then there's the upward lift of the wings lowering rolling resistance so the conveyor has to move even faster...
No. It's actually the opposite. Confirmation bias kicks in quite quickly. We adhere to our snap judgments, and only when we work to investigate why the opposite of what we believe might be true can we hope to undo those snap judgments.
@@Mirality It kind of is, because there's practically no "investment" in the idea. It's one thing to believe and develop an Idea like the Geocentric universe then have trouble accepting the Heliocentric reality. It's another thing entirely to latch on to a whim you've given zero thought to and defend it with a furor equal only to the pigheadedness of a god.
@@mzaite Except that is exactly what happens. The OP quote might be better stated "The human mind, once settled on an idea, finds it very hard to let go". It may take very little mental effort to initially settle on an idea initially, especially if it superficially "makes sense". That is the trap of the mind. Ideas are easy to adopt as long as they don't directly contradict other ideas we already hold, yet are devilishly difficult to be rid of once they are adopted.
Arthur Schopenhauer, “All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident.”
Jamie will always be one of my favorite people just because of his ability to be so blunt like when Adam said "I took it to Jamie and he said why would we do this? It's stupid"
@@5hiftyL1v3a because such a treadmill would be impossible to build in real life. The only real test they could’ve done would be to fuse the wheels completely and then seen if a plane could take off!
@@hautehussey The Mythbusters did not get this one wrong. They simply answered a different question than you are answering. There is two versions of this myth. One is testable and practical. The other is not testable, and quite frankly, a broken question.
@@GamingVids1984 you don’t get to change the question just to make it easier to answer. That’s Trump supporter logic! But yes, they should’ve spent more time discussing the question, including in this video.
The reason a lot of people are annoyed by his conclusion is that he did not properly test the question. The question said that the runway would match the speed of the wheels, not the aircraft. That means you can't just spin the wheels twice as fast, the runway will just move twice as fast which means all of the energy from the engines goes into spinning the wheels faster and faster forever until the plane runs out of fuel. Obviously doing that in the real world would be impossible but Adam is trying to say that he has the only right answer and anyone who disagrees based on the content of the question is wrong.
So, the wheels on the plane are basically just bearings. Their only role is to reduce friction with the ground. (As much as possible when taking off, and in a controlled fashion when landing)
Need to interject here. While the experiment showed that the plane would take off, the experiment itself was fundamentally flawed, and I'll explain why in a few lines. This is not a dig at Adam whatsoever. But in order to answer the question portrayed, the details have to be absolute. No new variables or flawed math, intentional or not. The wheels and the conveyer belt are the ONLY variables that matter and I'll explain why in a few lines. It's a fundamental physics problem. It does not matter if the wheels and engines are mechanically connected or not. Adam is a great educator, actor, tv host, etc., but he is not a scientist or engineer. It's not a problem of if the plane can reach a speed to take off. Obviously a plane needs ample amount of lift to take off .It's a problem of if the plane will move whatsoever. And the physics of the problem stated does not allow the plane to move. This is COMPLETELY wrong, and I wish he would just go do more research instead of sticking with his guns in the "my experiment proved it so it cant be wrong." fashion. I grew up watching Myth Busters and absolutely love the show, but experiments do not always provide correct outcome if the variables are not perfect and if external variables are added. The mode of force, tires vs propeller/engine are irrelevant. The ONLY variables that matter are the wheels and the conveyer belt. It doesn't matter if its a propeller pulling, an engine pushing, the wheels mechanically turning, a person off the conveyer belt pulling, any of that. If you tied an infinitely strong rope to the front of the infinitely strong hull of the airplane and applied an infinite amount of force, you would not be able to move the plane. The only thing that would happen is the wheels and conveyer belt would reach an infinite speed. This concept is so hard to grasp because it's out of touch with reality. 99% of physics questions taught in classrooms happen in a perfect hypothetical world, and could not exist in the normal world. And if they did, the results would be drastically different. This is one of those questions. There are two main reasons that the experiment that you did were flawed. 1a. It is impossible to instantaneously match the speed of the tarp and the speed of the wheels on the plane. 1b. As the plane tries to take off, the acceleration of the truck needed to accelerate match the planes speed. Going the same speed as the plane is useless. The math does not add up. 2. The tarp that you pulled was also in contact with the ground and not supporting the weight of the plane. Thus, the plane was able to use the ground underneath to help propel itself forward. It's even impossible to replicate the perfect experiment no matter how much money you throw at the project. So you have to rely on fundamental physics to figure out the problem. Breaking it down fundamentally. If the circumference of your tire is 1 meter, as the tire rotates, the conveyer belt moves back 1 meter, matching the speed of the plane's tires instantaneously. In order for the plane to move horizontally, the tires have to rotate. And the tires cannot rotate without the conveyer belt moving the opposite direction the same distance at the same speed.
Yep. Imagine if you could drive the plane's wheels with say, an electric motor, and propel the plane along like a car to takeoff speed. If that were the only mode of propulsion, the plane would reach takeoff speed and take off, at which point the wheels would lose contact with the ground and no longer be able to sustain the plane's forward speed. Then the plane would slow down due to aerodynamic drag and come back down, at which point the wheels would contact the runway again and speed the plane back up to takeoff speed and it would take off again. I guess the plane would move along in a series of hops if it were driven this way, unable to sustain sufficient airspeed when off the ground.
I remember thinking it was kind of dumb since the wheels aren't the motive force, i thought it was kind of obvious from the start. didn't know about the controversy until now.
They are badly wrong in this instance. If you really want to do a project properly to test these constraints, you would need one of two approaches. First, install a measurement device on a wheeled vehicle to get the instantaneous rotational speed of the wheel. On the conveyor, you then need a controller that instantaneously matches the wheel speed. The second option is to use two programmable motors - one on the vehicle wheels and the other on the conveyor drive. Set them to identical performance and then see what happens. It should be self evident if they are set to the same speed. Mythbusters did not ‘exactly match’ conveyor speed to wheel speed. They always fudged to reach their desired outcome.
I recall that episode. What surprised me the most was the pilot claiming the plane would not take off! I am a pilot myself and I cannot imagine why he would think that way. Every pilot knows the landing gear has no motors, no propulsion, and thus no way to propel the plane forward. The wheels spin freely. The mains have brakes but that is it. The plane moves forward by the propeller moving the aircraft forward through the relative wind. And, quite correctly stated, if the relative wind, for example, is a 20-knot headwind and liftoff speed is 35 knots, then the aircraft will "appear" to be taking off at 15 knots - the speed over the ground (aka "ground speed"). But, to the airplane, it's still 35 knots because it is the speed into the relative wind that counts. But, Adam is correct. We should not condemn people for not understanding this concept. I hold judgment on the people who won't accept the results of an experiment just because they don't like the answer. I suspect (just a guess) that experienced pilots would intuitively know this. They would know this because for given power-setting, the indicated airspeed is predictable and expected. However, the ground speed is dramatically affected by winds aloft. I have had times in my Twin Piper Seneca where I have an indicated 160 knots but the ground speed is 120 knots because I am fighting a 40-knot headwind (160 - 40). Conversely, on the return trip, now with a tailwind, I still have the same 160 knots indicated, but my ground speed is 160 + 40, or 200 knots. It was a good episode. I do miss the show!
Your arms are also useless to run, yet you'd hardly run far if your arms were attached to the ground. The pilot expected the plane to not take off because he expected the experiment to be performed correctly (with the conveyor moving as fast as the wheels rather than the plane), which it wasn't, because it isn't physically possible to accelerate a conveyor to infinity instantly.
@@bacicinvatteneaca I'm not sure I see your point. The conveyor could be going at 200 mph. If the aircraft engine were off at that point, the plane would remain stationary (if the wheels were without friction). Wheels have friction so some minor effort to hold the plane in place would result in the airplane staying in position with very little effort. The only effort against the backward movement of the conveyor would be to overcome the minor resistance in the wheel bearings. Let's suppose the wheels had magnetic bearings and were essentially with zero friction. With the conveyor moving backward at 200mph, the plane would remain motionless. Now, while sitting there motionless, turn on the engine. Apply takeoff power. Let's suppose V2 is 65mph. At the point the forward movement of the airplane being propelled by the thrust generated by the propellor hits 65mph, the pilot pulls back on the yoke. The plane will lift off the conveyor and fly away like it always does. The wheels at the point of liftoff will the traveling at 265 mph. 200 + 65. The wheels have nothing to do except free spin. And, that's exactly what they are doing.
This is the exact reason why Adam will always have a special place in my heart. A seemingly simple question has an unintuitive but completely logical answer when broken down into its component pieces. Excellent storytelling and excellent delivery!
Except that he's wrong and I really wish he would listen to anyone with a STEM background (not him or Jamie) about it... If the conveyer belt really always meets the speed of the plane wheels, the plane cannot roll forward. This is nearly impossible in real life for a belt to do this, but that is how the myth is stated. A bush plane like they used is designed to propel lots of air directly over the wings, producing lift at low and even stationary ground speeds, but most propeller planes, and CERTAINLY jets like in the original myth, NEED speed to create a strong headwind to get enough airflow on the wings to take off. And if the belt REALLY constantly perfectly matches the speed of the wheels, due to the friction on the wheels (yes, they have friction, contrary to comments on this video, no wheels or bearings are perfectly frictionless, that is physically impossible), the plane cannot roll forward, and will not get sufficient airflow and lift on the wings to take off. Adam's confident tone in this video and dismissal of other views is very disappointing. I'm willing to explain any part of this if anyone still doesn't understand.
@@adamcel6 How can he be wrong? THE PLANE TOOK OFF! The wheels have nothing to do with the plane's motion through the air, the prop will pull it through the air regardless of what the wheels are doing. I might just understand your disagreement if we were talking about a theoretical, untested concept, but we are not. THEY DID THE TEST, THE PLANE TOOK OFF. Arguing against it is like arguing against glaciers.
@@christopherdean1326 yes we're talking about the theoretical, untested concept. It probably cannot be tested with any equipment that exists today, but in the myth to the letter, a jet plane cannot take off. It needs a sufficient headwind (granted by speed across the ground) to get lift, because it does not propel air directly over its wings, it pushes itself forward. Their plane took off because 1) they used an ultralight bushplane, which not only is a propeller plane but is specifically designed to blow lots of air directly across the wings at very low speeds and can take off nearly vertically which is not common for even other propeller aircraft, and 2) because they did not actually oppositely match the speed of the plane's wheels, if they really CONSTANTLY matched the speed of the wheels, constantly, there is no possible way it could roll forward. Yes the plane will want to move forward because it thrusts air, jet plane or not. But if this acceleration is matched millisecond for millisecond by a belt underneath, both belt and wheels will spin immensely fast as the small amount of friction on the wheels (yes it is small but not nothing) counteracts the forward thrust of the plane's engines. Yes, thrust is very powerful and wheel friction is very small, but if the belt really constantly perfectly matches the wheel speed, there is no physical way that wheel can move anywhere. They failed to test this part because they could not pull the tarp at the equal speed of the plane's wheels constantly, they fell behind. Remember that for wheel friction to overcome thrust, you'd need to accelerate very very very fast. With a truck and a tarp, it's virtually impossible to properly test the myth.
@@christopherdean1326 basically, yeah it will pull through the air, and if the myth is to be followed exactly, the belt will counteract this at sufficient speed to keep it stationary. The belt will go really really really fast in order to do this but the myth calls for it. The plane's movement on the ground IS relevant because that's how it gets a headwind and enough lift to take off. I don't like that he dismissed people with better physics knowledge than him as thinking a plane is powered by the wheels somehow.
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If a car goes fast enough on a conveyor belt it too will take off 🤣
The car also moves forward, given the precise phrasing. If it didn't, the conveyor wouldn't be moving either (that said, the speedometer would be showing a speed twice as fast as it's actually going)
While I never doubted the plane would take off just fine with the problem as stated I do still find myself thinking there is some speed the treadmill could run that would prevent takeoff but it would be considerably higher than the plane's takeoff speed. My logic here is that the friction between the plane's wheels and the surface is transferred to the airframe and thus does bleed off some energy. The plane's engine does have a maximum thrust force it can produce if you could produce enough friction that the force completely countered the maximum thrust you could prevent it from taking off. Granted attempting this experiment in practice would almost certainly result in catastrophic failure of the tires and wheel bearings since they are most definitely not engineered to sink 100% of the engine's maximum power output single-handedly. I'd bet on this experiment at a minimum resulting in autoignition of the tires and bearing lubricant, though probably the bearings would become severely deformed white-hot metal would along with much of the wheel itself. Those parts are much smaller and far less well cooled than the leading edges of the body that usually dissipate most of the power through air drag at higher power settings during normal operation.
Im not familiar with this episode but I am surprised it would cause that much controversy. Even the pilot thinking it wouldnt work blows my mind. Unless the wheels are driving the forward motion a conveyor belt isn't going to do anything but make the wheels spin really fast, meanwhile the pane continues to move forward just as it would normally.
It surprises me that it's not obvious to everyone.
A good analogy would be roller-skating on a treadmill while holding a rope attached to the wall in front of you. No matter how fast the treadmill moves, if you hold on to the rope you'll stay still. And if you pull on the rope you can still drag yourself forward. The rope bolted to the wall represents the stationary air around the plane which the propeller uses to 'pull' the plane forward.
That's a really good explanation!
I think most people don't realize how slow a plane's speed is needed to take off versus its max speed can be. As long as the plane has power to hold still on the belt and has more power to read takeoff speed, it will take off
@@mikeuk666 The wheels can't make the plane stuck, they just spin. If the plane moves forward 1 m/s and the belt moves back 1 m/s, the plane still moves forward and the wheels just end up spinning at 2 m/s.
That's a smart analogy!
@@danno1111 ...so you're saying if the plane wheels spin faster than the conveyor belt it takes off. While true, it breaks the entire premise of the question.
1:30 Jamie: "Why would we test that. It's stupid".
This is why I always liked Jamie. He openly stated his opinion
And he was right
I mean, the plane's jet engines don't push against the conveyer belt. It pushes against the air.
@@macavitythemysterycat actually it doesn't push against the air, it simply fires the air back hard enough to move itself forward. that's the same argument that flat earthers put up to say that rocket engines wouldn't work in space, because they think that the rocket exhaust pushes against the air to move the rocket forward, however that has nothing to do with it.
A propeller is just a wing turning around a fixed point. The blade moving through the air creates a low pressure on one side and a high pressure on the other side. This then sucks the wing from the high to the low pressure side. The blade is attached to the engine and the airframe. This causes forward movement as the plane is sucked through the relative air. Same for a jet engine. There is a small amount of mechanical movement created by the actual interaction of the air molecules with the mechanical components but most of the action is throught a difference in air pressure. A rocket works by throwing mass in a driection. There is an opposite but equal reaction in an opposite direction. That is why a propeller does not work in a vacuum but a rocket does. Two completely different principles.
@@alexanderenericavanwyk9909 nah lol I'm pretty sure a propeller works by pushing air in one direction, not by causing a difference in pressure. It's literally the same thing as a rocket engine, but with internal combustion powering moving parts rather than being expulsed at high speed. And while there may be a pressure difference between the 2 sides of the propeller, it's because of the air being moved around.
I remember watching that episode, but at the beginning of this video, I thought "of course it won't take-off. if the plane isn't moving forward, there's no air moving over the wings to create lift", but listening to you re-explain the controversy and the reason it works, it was an "a-ha, that makes sense, didn't think of it that way" moment and then remembered the episode. So, even having seen the experiment, my gut reaction was "no, it won't work".
Yes but he only explained how a plane moves forward, not how it moves upward. How does he propellor making it move forward create lift under the wings? I’m just voicing my ignorance not arguing with the result
@@calumryan6328 I am definitely not qualified to explain aerodynamics :)
@@calumryan6328 Once the plane reaches sufficient speed through the air it will take off. So the propeller will generate "air speed" as Jamie explained and that will cause the air flow over the wings to generate the lift for take off.
@@mecklejay7587 No.
@@calumryan6328 lift is generated because of the wings shape which causes a pressure differential to form. So the act of moving forward at a great enough speed would create enough of a pressure difference above and below the wing to allow for take off
Love that Adam's take on the confusion is "this is fantastic" instead of "people are bad".
That's the real lesson of this.
Nicely expressed! You are spot on.
To put it simply: All the conveyor belt does is make the plane's tyres spin really fast, which doesn't effect the body of the plane and thus doesn't keep the plane from moving forward and taking of.
Yes that's a really good way of describing it.
I thought that exactly the moment he brought up the topic, but you need to explain further as to the fact the wheels are actually not the thing pushing the plane along. It really does need more explanation for some unfortunately 😄 ignore the wheels, they do notht
Plot twist. The plane has water skids
@@MrEsphoenix & could a plane with water skids take off from a fast moving river?
@@TheFatblob25 Yes, actually. The lift is generated by the aerofoil combined with the engines. The river flow doesn't do much here. The only exception would be if there were all out waves going over the aircraft (disrupting the aerodynamics of the shape of the aircraft) or if the wind was unfavourable. But not the flow of the river itself.
I ADORE how he interrupts himself. It’s like a million Adams jostling for air time.
welcome to a small peak at what true adhd is like
He is approaching the subject matter from different angles to convey a better idea. This makes it more relatable and easy to understand.
@@shanebryant6478 still better than chronic depression
Cmon it can’t be more than 783,000
It's almost like people are rejecting your reality and substituting their own...
I see what you did there.
It’s the same reality. One side understands how the plane actually works, the other has a theory that’s valid, but that valid theory is for the wrong problem.
I see what ya did there, and I approve!
Nice work.
@@triforcelink Thank you for ignoring the joke and writing an explanation to a question nobody asked. It's very helpful.
XKCD did an excellent write up on this. The reason there is a debate at all is 100% because the question is ambiguous and people make different assumptions of how the conveyor belt is going to act, not that people don't understand how planes work.
Every once in a while I see this debate pop up and I need to send people to that write up because the question itself is terrible, or at least how people tell the story. When I first heard it the specific detail was "the conveyor belt matches the speed of the *wheels*" which would obviously be an impossible physics task. Suffice to say I spent a long time trying to argue what that specific detail meant at the time.
@@gavinyeet5821 Well it depends on *HOW* one considers the "speed of the wheels" - Some people think its RPM, while others look at it as the wheel as a whole moving through space! - In Physics, we were teaching to look at the latter.
"The ground speed is irrelevant because airplanes push off the air, not off the ground." seems like a pretty fast explanation to me.
But in order to go forward the wheels must move forward relative to the ground. The question is actually more complicated than either side thinks at first.
@@hautehussey that's *not* true, though. As Adam just explained, the wheels and the ground have a absolutely nothing to do with how the plane propels itself during takeoff.
@@hautehussey yes, it depends on friction coefficients. Theoretically if you could speed up the ground fast enough that through the loss via friction in the wheel components you exert the same drag backwards on the plane as the momentum the plane is building forwards, you should be able to keep it stationary.
But this can't be proven in the real world because a) the amount of force exerted via friction is minuscule, so to make use of it you'd need to accelerate the conveyor belt to speeds that are hard or impossible to manage from an engineering standpoint, and
b) this friction on the wheel system creates thermal dissipation of energy. If you achieve this the wheel bearings would heat up and probably seize and fall pretty quick, as the rpm on the wheels necessary to hold the plane back thorough this friction would be astoundingly high.. in fact maybe the tires on the plane would disintegrate from the rotational force long before the friction in the bearings can destroy them.
@@coredumperror yeah like hautehussey is right that the wheels will be spinning faster BUT that’s not a problem, the wheels will just be spun faster since they’re free-spinning
U also have to take the viscosity of air into account
I wish on the Mythbusters episode they'd put a speedometer on the planes wheels. Because what is happening is the plane moves forward at its normal speed but the wheels actually spin twice as fast as in a normal takeoff. That might have been a light bulb moment for a lot of people.
This is the lightbulb moment that actually falsely makes people believe that the plane would take off.
Need to interject here. While the experiment showed that the plane would take off, the experiment itself was fundamentally flawed, and I'll explain why in a few lines. This is not a dig at Adam whatsoever. But in order to answer the question portrayed, the details have to be absolute. No new variables or flawed math, intentional or not.
The wheels and the conveyer belt are the ONLY variables that matter and I'll explain why in a few lines. It's a fundamental physics problem. It does not matter if the wheels and engines are mechanically connected or not. Adam is a great educator, actor, tv host, etc., but he is not a scientist or engineer. It's not a problem of if the plane can reach a speed to take off. Obviously a plane needs ample amount of lift to take off .It's a problem of if the plane will move whatsoever. And the physics of the problem stated does not allow the plane to move.
This is COMPLETELY wrong, and I wish he would just go do more research instead of sticking with his guns in the "my experiment proved it so it cant be wrong." fashion. I grew up watching Myth Busters and absolutely love the show, but experiments do not always provide correct outcome if the variables are not perfect and if external variables are added.
The mode of force, tires vs propeller/engine are irrelevant. The ONLY variables that matter are the wheels and the conveyer belt. It doesn't matter if its a propeller pulling, an engine pushing, the wheels mechanically turning, a person off the conveyer belt pulling, any of that. If you tied an infinitely strong rope to the front of the infinitely strong hull of the airplane and applied an infinite amount of force, you would not be able to move the plane. The only thing that would happen is the wheels and conveyer belt would reach an infinite speed.
This concept is so hard to grasp because it's out of touch with reality. 99% of physics questions taught in classrooms happen in a perfect hypothetical world, and could not exist in the normal world. And if they did, the results would be drastically different. This is one of those questions. There are two main reasons that the experiment that you did were flawed.
1a. It is impossible to instantaneously match the speed of the tarp and the speed of the wheels on the plane.
1b. As the plane tries to take off, the acceleration of the truck needed to accelerate match the planes speed. Going the same speed as the plane is useless. The math does not add up.
2. The tarp that you pulled was also in contact with the ground and not supporting the weight of the plane. Thus, the plane was able to use the ground underneath to help propel itself forward.
It's even impossible to replicate the perfect experiment no matter how much money you throw at the project. So you have to rely on fundamental physics to figure out the problem.
Breaking it down fundamentally.
If the circumference of your tire is 1 meter, as the tire rotates, the conveyer belt moves back 1 meter, matching the speed of the plane's tires instantaneously. In order for the plane to move horizontally, the tires have to rotate. And the tires cannot rotate without the conveyer belt moving the opposite direction the same distance at the same speed.
The issue is that it’s not fulfilling the original question, there’s a bit more nuance. The original question has the belt matching the wheel speed, not the plane’s speed like he says here.
Let’s say plane is moving forward at 1m/s, then the belt is moving back at 1m/s, then the wheels are spinning at 2m/s.
But, now the belt matches the wheel speed, increasing the wheel speed, increasing the belt speed, and so on.
Since the plane *must* move forward, it is impossible to make a conveyor belt match the speed of the wheels, so the premise of the question is impossible
@@expandingsalad786 but that part doesn't matter since the wheels are free spinning it would have no effect on the motion of the plane, so it is a trick question in multiple ways.
@@expandingsalad786 I think that's what makes it so controversial. The question is worded in such a way to make it sound like the conveyer belt would negate the speed of the plane, when in fact the motion of the plane has nothing to do with its wheels.
That's what I was thinking. Could you move the conveyor belt so fast that it could prevent the plane from taking off...in essence creating so much friction on the tires that it overpowers the friction of the air and the propeller?
What you need to tell people to break them out of the trick of this question is that the plane's wheels are free spinning. All the conveyor belt will do is increase the speed of the wheels spin, but not affect the speed of the plane.
Until the landing gear break off/blowout anyway.
Cool thought, If the treadmill is going faster than the plane, i.e. the plane is going backwards, the plane will still take off
@@briang9471 what? No. The treadmill's speed is irrelevant to the speed of the plane, the treadmill can only effect the speed of the plane's wheels. The plane's forward movement is unaffected, and it takes off like on a normal runway.
@@briang9471 the whole point is that the plane would not ever be going backwards as long as there is a force overcoming the rolling friction of the wheels, which a plane already does to take off on a normal runway, it will continue to move forward. sure, there could be a measurable drag on the plane because of the rolling friction, but it's vastly insignificant compared to the thrust of the aircraft. imagine that the wheels are blocks of ice on teflon or something. If you pull the big sheet of teflon out from under the blocks of ice, they almost wont move, like the tablecloth yanking trick.
*affect
You and Jamie inspired my kids into the Maker Movement which led to a kickstarter, learning to code, 3D Printing, College and all that sort of self-sufficient nonsense.
Thank you for all you did.
P.S. RIP Lucas the rat!
The question itself is a red herring. It makes you think the wheels have something to do with taking off, when really they're completely passive and couldn't care less how fast the ground is moving.
This isn't 100% true. The wheels do matter to a plane on take off. As a plane accelerates, the friction experienced by the wheels increases. It is possible that a plane with very bad wheels and an anemic engine would never be able to take off, because as it approaches takeoff speed, the wheels are relative the conveyor belt, moving twice as fast as normal takeoff. If the friction was high enough, it is possible that the wheels would slow the plane down enough that it can't ever reach take off speed, if under normal conditions it barely could.
This is likely just an edge case, I would imagine most aircraft's wheels would not generate enough friction to prevent a plane from taking off even if they are moving at twice speed as normal, and most aircraft engines have more than enough power to compensate, but it does demonstrate that wheels are not entirely a red herring.
@@albertjordan3249, or, in the case of a 747 (as the question normally references that aircraft specifically), it could come down to the fact that it normally rotates very near to the maximum tire speeds that it can safely handle, and while it may have the power to overcome the added friction from the treadmill in theory, its tires would likely fail before it could attain Vr. Once the tires failed, the friction would increase significantly, and the aircraft would likely come to rest on its engine pods, destroying the engines, and ending its chance at taking off before it reached rotation. This would likely be true if heavy, and would be likely a tight one while light...
@@stephenhalby Yet wheels and tires survive landings, something that exerts many times more friction and forces than take off exerts on them, even with a conveyor belt striving to thwart the planes forward momentum.
@@stephenhalby You're not incorrect, but when talking about a conveyer belt the size of a runway you should accept that the discussion is no longer about practical limitations and more about the basic underlying physical principles.
@@albertjordan3249 Would it only ever get to negative the speed of the plane? I might have had it told to me worded differently but i always saw the treadmill speeding up infinitely to such an extent that the friction would always equal the force coming from the jets and my answer has always been that the bearings would explode and the plane would plop on to it's belly. I'm sure it's never been the conveyer belt "matches" it's speed when I've heard it.
That is sort of insane thinking about it, I guess if the plane needs to go 300mph to take off so long as there's leftover power and the wheels can do 600 to offset the runway you'd be golden. Might still explode the wheels off and plop on to it's belly, no idea how fast planes go and how robust the landing gear is :)
This is WHY "Mythbusters," was such an important show. The actual SCIENCE behind this episode was incredible, and I truly appreciated that you did this!
And yet, in this case, they were (almost) entirely wrong and even after all these years haven't gotten the point.
They were able to put the science into bite sized pieces and explain it and that is the true awesomeness of that show.
Carlos Estrella, except for all the times when they screwed up the science. I always liked the concept of the show, but after watching enough episodes where they claimed to prove or disprove something, but actually did not because their understanding of the science was insufficient, or their experiment methods invalid, I gave up on the show. More recently, when the subject of the show comes up within group my associated who are scientists and/or engineers (I am both), it is always a heated topic, and those who still claim to like and respect the show realize they did so more for the concept than the reality, while those who claim to distain the show overlook all the times they did get it right. Myself, I just did not want to have to fact check everything they were doing in every episode.
Take this particular video that we are commenting on. There are quite a few mistakes in Adam's understanding of the subtleties of what he is discussing, or maybe his understanding is OK but he is just erring in the way he describes what goes on. And things like "the 1st Law of Thermodynamics" is thrown out, when he was probably thinking "Newton's 3rd Law of Motion". But things like that add up, and can turn a good argument into a confusing one.
The test was done incorrectly
And yet still so many people just ignore the science for their own beliefs.
It’s great how you’re not just jumping to the answer, you’re diving into what drives the debate; addressing the controversy, and how and why it keeps going, rather than just the physics question.
But the idea that THAT is the misconception is, in fact, THE misconception. Nobody (I hope) is comparing the plane to a car. We're comparing it to a passive cart pulled by a car. Putting a conveyor belt under the wheels of a plane is like putting a conveyor belt under the cart but not the car. If the surface of the conveyor always instantly matches the speed of the surface of the wheels, then the cart will never move unless the wheels slip.
@@bacicinvatteneaca In the cart analogy, just like the plane, if the conveyor always matches the speed of the wheel, then both will instantly approach infinity in the absence of friction.
If we had the alien technology to test this, the wheels and conveyor would instantly speed up to the point where the pulling energy of the car is cancelled out by the friction of the wheels.
The pulling energy has to go somewhere, you can't just store it in the void, and that energy is going to go to friction with an infinitely fast conveyor.
In the real world the conveyor/wheels would immediately melt and/or explode.
It's an underrated skill, yet not that hard to do. He's just taking his ego out and understanding the logic of each argument. Understanding the problem to find the solution without assuming your own correctness. I often see this with those math memes like 5/2(3+5). People choose the method they were taught as the only correct way to handle the implied multiplication with parentheses. The reality is both ways are right and have been valid in academia. No rule exists to address the specific issue because only an idiot would write it this way. I've explained the logic of both ways, including the mathematical principles that apply; and people still tell me I'm wrong.
There are two ways to phrase this:
1) The treadmill matches the speed of the wheels spinning.
2) The treadmill matches the maximum speed of the plane.
They did option two here, with an obvious answer, the wheels just spin twice as fast.
But with option one it is basically impossible, as once the plane starts moving the treadmill would have to accelerate indefinitely spinning the wheels faster and faster but failing to slow down the plane. So either the treadmill would fail to keep up, or it would move fast enough that something broke, maybe the wheels melting?
Yes I could see that #1 in your example may make people trip over it, but the sad thing is, #2 still plays out, Takeoff speed and maximum speed (air speed) of the airplane are two different numbers. I think a 747 takes off at like 210mph...But it flies at 500+ mph, so as long as the aircraft can move forward enough to get off the conveyor "before" the tires explode, #1 is no longer an issue.
I did some maths on #1, and with a 747 it would take around 8 days for the rim of the wheel to approach C. Option #1 does require some cherry picking though. Because you need theoretically perfect components. Option #1 requires the wheel to have rotational inertia, but one could argue that a theoretically perfect wheel has no rotational inertia at all.
@@misters2837 the question is the treadmill matches "wheel speed" if you increase thrust the RPM of the wheels indirectly increase. if the RPM of wheels increase the ground speed increases. if groundspeed increases air speed increases. if airspeed increases enough lift is generated. but the plane never moves a to b because the treadmill matches the wheel speed equally.... EVERYONE that doesnt see this is all doing the same thing. either changing the parameters of the question. ignoring the fact the aircraft is on the ground using wheels to travel a to b. ignoring the fact that thrust increases wheel RPM. He just said it on this video. we rented a plane that had 25mph take off speed.( 25mph airspeed)- so we pulled a treadmill at 25mph... it should be pulled at the wheel speed... it would word exactly like any other treadmill. you wouldnt move a to b if you are matching it equally. under the parameters of the question.
@ryanflood635 As I have explained to countless others here who are stuck on "wheel speed" = Nowhere in the question does it say wheel RPM... You are missing the "gotcha" in the question. *Think clearly: While you are going down the interstate in a car, with the spare tire in the trunk, how fast is the Spare tire actually traveling?* (The answer is: Same speed as the other 4 on your car!) "Speed" in the world of physics has nothing to do with RPM, but actually is its movement through the space or fluid it resides within. - Have a good day!
@@misters2837 no because again your logic has taken you away from the question.. lets not pretend its a car on the highway. lets not pretend the aircraft has no wheels even for a second.. lets not pretend its anything other than a 747 sat on a runway with a treadmill that will match the wheel speed equally.
when you increase wheel rpm what happens to the speed? it increases. what do you need to take off ? airspeed, so no. wheel speed isnt irrelevant and just saying its a trick question doesnt prove anything either.
The amount of frustration shown by Jamie throughout this myth and the length you went to test it made this one of my favorite episodes but least favorite myths
Yeah it was fun. Stupid but fun.
Yeah, its just too bad he was wrong. I love these guys, but I just looked up and watched the "experiment". The camera clearly shows that the plane is in fact moving forward. The myth is that the plain would not be moving (relative to the stuff around / background) due to the conveyor. If the plane doesn't move forward air won't go under the wings to create lift. Jamie said they tested this with an "ultralight". The tarp material probably didn't have much friction. That combined with the plane being light is probably why it was actually moving and not remaining stationary. If you put a heavy 747 or similar on an actual conveyor with a high friction belt, the plane would not be moving forward so there would be no air going under the wings to create lift.
@@Me__Myself__and__I OMG
@@Me__Myself__and__I
With properly oiled and working ball bearings within the tire mechanisms of an airplane, it is impossible for any airplane (no matter the size or weight) to not move forward through the air in relation to its surroundings.... assuming the propellers or jet engine is working properly. I’m pretty sure the question does NOT literally say that the plane is not moving in relation to its surroundings.
Also, the amount of friction between the tires and the ground is completely irrelevant if the tires are spinning freely and properly as they are designed to do, no matter what type of plane is used. It’s the same as a plane designed to float on water. No matter how heavy the plane is, and no matter what direction the water is moving beneath the plane, it will always take off because it is always pulled through the air by its propellers.
@@patrickb-man1309 That does not make any sense from a physics perspective. Imagine this, a fully loaded 747 sitting on a conveyor belt. Now start that belt moving and ramp it up to 100 mph (backwards). Does the 747 sit still in relation to the surrounding terrain? No, it ends up moving backwards at 100 mpg in relation tot he terrain. Now fire up the plane's engines to the amount that would normally cause 100 mph forward - and the plane ends up stationary in relation to the terrain.
0:11 “almost exactly 5 years”
Spoken like a true engineer.
officially! lmfao
And if he where a physicist, they'd be spherical years in a vacuum.
But at the time I write this comment, 3 more years have past and the episode still airs in reruns, making the statement not true.
I once landed with almost no groundspeed - very strong headwind, for a laugh my instructor got me to land in the width of the main runway at Filton (there's a small cross runway so it's all legal). Approach was like going down in a lift!
I wonder how you would flare the landing 🤔
I was heading down the comments to mention that lift is independent of ground speed - but Adam headed me off, anticipating the pedants, haha
So with that strong of a headwind, is landing into the wind pretty much your only option?
@@Matio25091 Depends how long the runway is. :-)
@@jimbass1664 Lol :P
A seaplane seems like a good way to explain the difference between a car and a plane. You get rid of the wheel confusion and they move forward the same way a regular plane does.
But to add to the confusion seaplanes struggle and many can't take off against a heavy current.
@@irtheLeGiOn Never thought about that.
Just a thought that came to me, but in that situation with strong current...couldn't you just point the nose down current to generate some free headwind and take off easier?
I mean I understand the headwind is going to be almost negligible, but I've never before this second considered the dynamics of a seaplane taking off at the mercy of a strong current.
@@kingtheoden2390it would also be possible, given the surface of a runway not being smooth enough or the airplane heavy enough, or let’s imagine a runway that is not a hard surface, for the wheels of an airplane to be enough of an impediment in the same way to prevent it from taking off.
@@irtheLeGiOn that's just friction. Normally the friction induced by the wheels on an airplane negligible. But if you ran the conveyor belt fast enough, you could actually generate enough friction to prevent the plane from taking off. This would basically mean converting all of the thrust produced by the airplane into heat, all concentrated in the wheels. For the few seconds before the wheel simply explodes because it's spinning hundreds of times faster than designed, the plane would be prevented from going anywhere
@@_FirstLast_ I don't think the issue is current; it's heavy surf which would make the plane bounce up and down and threaten the structural integrity (not to mention the effects on the people inside). In a hypothetical scenario with a wide open and calm body of water, it's not as simple as pointing the nose directly down current, of course. There is also the wind to consider which can reach much higher velocities rendering the current almost negligible. But there's probably a takeoff vector that maximizes the airspeed so that would be the best. But in a real world scenario you're only landing (watering?) the seaplane somewhere if there are interesting things at that location for the passengers or cargo to do, so there will be limitations on the lanes that can be used for a water runway.
Wait, it’s only been 5 Mythbusterless years? It’s felt SO much longer to me! I thought at least a decade!
Ok
Same, it feels like it's been gone for much longer. I miss that show.
I also had to check wikipedia. I really thought it has been much longer.
what about mythbusters jr
"Go easy on people ... " FINE, Adam, FINE. I'll just delete everything I just wrote. It's FINE.
Idk man people are just stupid, I wouldnt hold back.
🤣👌
I can't 😂😂😂
Yeah its not about being dumb or not. Im a complete idiot and i got this one :D
It's fine, you are in the good place
I think "language can be confusing" is one of the larger root causes of people misunderstanding science and experiments like this in general. Which to me just reinforces the importance of education.
Live these little videos. Thank you.
there are like three parts of this story that are all perfect examples of and/or metaphors for like, *every* misunderstanding on the internet, it's so wild.
I love this explination and I myself had an "oh, right!" moment when Adam unraveled the explanation. I also loved the emotional inteligence Adam displayed in "being easy on ppl and understanding our own biases."
Yep, at the beginning, I was like, no way It'd take off, but once you grasp the understanding it's a very "oooooh" moment.
I had the same initial impression that it shouldn't work at the start, but then thought of it from the angle not of an aircraft taxiing to its starting point on the runway, but as it would use its props/turbines to propel itself, thus creating the necessary wind (by moving itself through the air, rather than the air moving from point a to b) to achieve lift.
Same experience-but when Adam explained it I was like, “oh right that makes sense now.” Adam is very kind to say that people aren’t being dumb. People should be able to change their minds when presented with evidence.
@@maniac7770 When taxiing the vast majority of airplanes also use props/turbines to move. Some in-wheel systems exist for some commercial aircraft but I don't think they're used much.
Remember my first episode of MB that I watched with my father, now long gone, sadly. It was burn the enemy ship down with mirrors. He watched and then gradually begun to turn red in the face. Then true to his enginnering heart, he finally lost it, shouted to the TV: "The tolerances, the tolerances, you can burn it down in minutes. Just fix the tolerances! Bums." :-) That is a dear part of MB I will never forget. Thankyou for the memories, Adam.
Edit: engineering
"fix the tolerances!" is exactly what I thought at the time (and still think). Shame on your father for ignoring how devilishly hard it is to fix those tolerances; as an engineer, he should know better.
@@RonJohn63 pretty much. If they couldn’t, neither could Romans.
@@extrahourinthepit Why not? The Greeks and romans were able to build sophisticated machines, they could make smooth mirrors and probably measure angles precisely. The problem would be having everyone track a moving target. If every soldier were trained on how to position their mirror accurately using muscle memory it might be possible, just like how a well trained archer can exactly position their arms to hit a target hundreds of meters away.
@@takanara7 but still nowhere near today. Again, if someone with modern day ways and means could not, neither could Romans.
@@RonJohn63 Shame on who?
That episode could also be titled "The everyday frustration of being an engineer reporting to non-engineers" 😁
Also "Why people avoid political discourse"
This came out when I was getting my Engineering degree in college and I was so annoyed trying to explain the propulsion of movement in an aircraft has nothing to do with the wheels. It was so painfully obvious.
"The everyday frustration of not defining your problems well enough"
I'm an engineer and pilot and my initial answer was no. When you say treadmill, I think something stationary but its wheels moving. IAS = 0 = no takeoff. And I think that's how they initially defined it. But then by the end the plane was moving forward relative to the air so of course it's going to take off, as the wheel speed doesn't matter. Depending on how you define the question, the answer can be yes or no.
@@chainringcalf what a relieve, I'm an actual aeronautical engineer and my initial gut feeling was "NO WAY THAT THING WOULD FLY" ( coz= no matter how fast the wheels are spinning, the wing is not moving relative to the air = no flights). The way you described it, stopped me from shredding my engineering degree :D
@@chainringcalf I like your version better, because you pointed to the core problem, compared to my rather superficial frustration of miscommunication.
It's often a mismatch between expectations and appropriately communicating them. I guess what makes things worse is, if someone is already settled on a design, vision or answer, and they refuse to leave their own shoes behind to understand the other side. Adam said it took him 10 minutes to explain this. That could also be translated to: "Take your time to understand, why another person says no or yes." And: "Take your time to not only tell your results, but how you got to them. Include your assumptions."
A convayor belt for a car would be a tredmill on the road. A convayor belt for an airplane would be a giant fan creating an equal and opposite tail wind.
Interesting
For once SOMEONE who understands what it would actually take to keep the plane on the ground.
"because I disagree with the outcome, I am going to ignore any empirical evidence that says I'm wrong" is one of my biggest pet peeves! The fact that such a mentality never appeared in Mythbusters was also one of the things I appreciated and respected most about the show. It was the best example I've ever seen of refusing confirmation bias and searching for genuine answers. I honestly believe I wouldn't be half as well educated as I am without Mythbusters setting that example of genuine curiosity unconcerned about who's right or what conventional wisdom has to say on a subject. Thank you for that Adam! you and Jamie and the whole rest of the crew have tangibly changed my life for the better in that way.
And one of mine is people misrepresenting things as just rejecting empirical evidence, as that is another form of confirmation bias.
You think you have results that support your position so you dismiss anyone objecting to it in any way as confirmation bias.
They aren't simply rejecting it. They are saying it doesn't match they conditions required. They are saying the experiment doesn't fulfil the required conditions and thus does not support the claim.
@@jeffreyblack666 I agree. That is an equally big problem, and one which I'll admit I'm sometimes guilty of, but I'm trying to be better. I think Adam made a really good point in this video about trying to understand the semantics of both sides of the argument. Because if people can suspend their expectations and take the time to listen to every side of an argument and their evidence, and then work together to figure out where any communication is breaking down, then both our pet peeves could be avoided.
@@DaveTpletsch And my point was that Adam hasn't fully understood the semantics of the other side.
But yes, I agree that actually understanding what the other side is saying, rather than making assumptions about them, and importantly, distinguishing between reject results vs rejecting what those results mean, is key to further understanding and getting along.
I am that person, in the 15 minutes I've known about this topic, although I will say my misunderstanding ultimately comes from the fact that I've never studied aerodynamics (but am an engineer). Regardless I agree with Jeffrey, because I get what Adam is saying, and yes he tested it, but I'm still stuck on the semantics of the question, and I think it's ultimately the point of reference that is at question.
Those that disagree with the experiment, for me at least, expect the plane to remain stationary, and in the experiment, it did not. Which throws out the whole experiment, because even as Adam mentioned, it should not take off, if the plane is stationary. So it is not a rejection of the experiment, but a questioning of the parameters in the experiment. But I understand his point, and plan on looking further.
@@Jarrettmonty99 The whole point is that the plane doesn't remain stationary on a moving conveyor belt; if the conveyor belt had moved 3 times at fast the plane would still move forward, the wheels just spin faster.
I remember when the penny dropped for me and I suddenly understood this problem. When you grasp the fact the plane's wheels aren't powered and they'll simply spin faster to overcome the moving runway, it feels just as obvious as thinking the plane won't take off. And I've flown planes and I know enough of the physics and it still took me longer than it should have ...
100% this!
Adam and so many people miss a very important text in the problem: “the conveyor belt is designed to exactly match the speed of the wheels”. This necessitates that the wheels can’t “simply spin faster” to overcome the moving runway
@@dadabeaux_productions That is incorrect. The treadmill could match the speed of the wheels at all times. If the wheels start moving faster, we increase the speed of the conveyor. Even if you do this perfectly, it will not prevent the plane from moving forward. It will still take off. Your misconception is that the speed of the wheels matters at all. It doesn't. The treadmill could be moving at 5000mph and the plane would still move forward and take off. If you disagree, explain how you would change the experiment.
@@meepk633 I'm more confused on the air speed part. Yes the propeller will be up to speed and what not but isn't that like holding the ass end of a rear wheel drive car in the air, full build of revs and then dropping the car to go? The car will not go 180mph right off the bat there will be a build up. I'd like to see what the air speed and ground speed says when on said conveyor belt and throttled to take off. I think using an ultra light was a huge mistake in this myth as ultra lights can take off stationary with a strong breeze. Let alone once they are in the air the power to weight ratio of an ultra light is ridiculous. It will easily get to 25mph from stationary in the air. I totally see it working with an ultra light but I'd like to see how it plays out with a plane with a not so high power to weight ratio.
@@samwisegamgee3596 The plane only needs a PWR high enough to overcome the friction in the wheel bearing. An ultralight and a fully loaded 747 can both overcome that friction at idle. It doesn't matter how fast the treadmill is moving because the two components of wheel speed are additive and unrelated: speed of treadmill + speed created by propellor. You can change one or the other independently.
Someone else in these replies stated it way better. Imagine you put a skateboard on a treadmill. Sit on the skateboard while facing backwards. Now hold onto the stationary sides of the treadmill. What happens when you turn it on? As long as you're holding onto the treadmill, you stay in the same place. The wheels spin freely under you. In order to move forward (or backward), all you have to is impart a small force with your arms. There's no way to change the experiment--no clever acceleration curve of the treadmill--that could prevent you from moving forward or backward freely. Like the plane, the wheel speed is unrelated to your motion.
Alternate title: Adam Savage takes 5 minutes to explain why a plane can take off from a conveyer belt without offending anyone.
*without offending progressive Adam Savage fanboys.
Alternate alternate title: Adam Savage changes a simple puzzle into his own, solves it instead of the real puzzle and then takes credit for solving the original puzzle. That's called a straw man fallacy. The real solution is so obvious that nobody ever solves it.
@@RockinRobbins13 oh true understander of the original puzzle, explain why Adam’s interpretation was wrong, and how you’d set it up to test
@@jonydude Great idea! How to do the demonstration correctly and how to prove it!
Let B equal the speed of the belt. Let W equal the tangential rolling speed of the wheels. Let S equal the forward speed of the plane through space.
Put a speedometer on the belt and wheels. Use a fixed camera to measure the speed of the plane.
Tie the tail of the plane to ta tree. Start the belt at 5 mph. Belt = 5 mph. Wheels equals 5 mph. The conditions of the riddle are met.
Now allow the plane to move forward at 1 mph with the rope. Now the wheels are moving at the speed of the belt PLUS the speed of the plane, 6 mph. The belt is still moving at 5 mph. The speed of wheels and belt are absolutely required by the setup of the riddle to be equal. We've demonstrated that allowing the plane to move violated the terms of the riddle.
The riddle REQUIRES that the plane be physically restrained from moving. That demonstration is easy, complete and absolutely conclusive. Any questions?
Pro tip: attacking the person _("oh true understander of the original puzzle")_ telegraphs the wrong message. We're talking about an interesting and deceptive riddle, not you or I.
@@RockinRobbins13
THAT is absolutely the dumbest argument in here. None of the conditions require the plane to be motionless.
THE WHEELS DO NOT DRIVE THE PLANE FORWARD! They are pulled along with the plane by the thrust provided by a propeller or jet engine. It doesn't matter what a fictitious conveyor belt is doing. The plane does not rely on the ground for forward motion. If the wheels drove it to take off speed, the second a plane left the ground it would slow and be on on the ground again. Geez. Do you have any clue how an airplane even works?
All that matters for a plane to take off is AIRSPEED. If the plane needed 50 mph airspeed to take off, but was facing into a 50 mph headwind, as long as it was throttled up enough to to keep it from getting pushed backwards, the plane could lift off without turning a tire at ZERO ground speed. (No one in a plane small enough to take off at 50 mph would attempt to fly in the first place in a 50 mph wind, but that's what would happen) The "wheels" and GROUND SPEED are irrelevant.
Put skis or pontoons on a plane and it can take off in the snow or from the water. In the water there could be a strong current, but the plane can still take off.
Your argument is 100% wrong, not to mention ridiculous.
"i cant help people like that"... those are the physics versions of flat earthers
There is an opposing force. The wheels have friction with the ground. This friction depends on the weight of the plane. So as the plane speed increases , the wheel speed increases , the conveyor speed matches that and the airplane remains stationary relative to the air and ground. It cannot take off.
Aircraft have an order of magnitude more thrust than any wheel drag can ever amount to.
You are essentially saying a conveyer belt acting on freely spinning wheels, which are supported by bearings, can somehow overpower a freaking jet engine?
The plane does not have “drive wheels” - they spin freely. Assume the required take off speed is 30mph and the belt is moving 30mph in the opposite direction. The plane STILL moves forward at 30mph like normal, but the free wheels are spinning at 60mph.
They perhaps should though, because of the immense amount of fuel relative to amount of movement required for taxiing.
But what if the belt speeds up to 60mph when the wheel tries to spin that fast?
@@punkdigerati You would then need to have wheels that somehow automatically clutch/de-clutch themselves so that landing is possible, otherwise having wheels that don't match the relative ground speed exactly at the point of incident would result in many exploded tires... And by extension, planes.
Or separate sets of retractable wheels, one for taxiing and one for landing/takeoff, but that sounds like both a weight and engineering nightmare.
@@hyphz Then the wheels will speed up to 120mph and the plane will still be moving forward at 30mph like normal. Less a tiny bit due to drag, but not enough to noticeably impact the take-off speed. As per the test Adam described.
@@Temp0raryName And then the belt speeds up to 120mph.. and so on until the belt or wheel reaches the physical limit on its speed. Presumably then the wheel would strip its treads and skid along the belt. But it's a shame this wasn't addressed.
Something you didn't touch on but I think is important is that the airplane's wheels spin freely. If the runway is moving, the wheels will spin faster, but it would have to move fast enough to actually break the wheels to the point of locking up for the plane to not take off. A fast enough conveyor belt would stop a plane from takeoff, but not at all for the reasons it would stop a car. It would be more like a belt sander. XD
The question has always specified that the runway "matches the speed of the wheels" so the runway doesn't simply move fast enough to damage the wheels. The problem is that "matches the speed of the wheels" is ambiguous. The wheels as a whole will be moving forward at the same speed as the airplane, but the relative speed of the wheels where they contact the runway is the speed of the plane + the opposing speed of the runway. In that scenario the wheels have to speed up to infinity the instant the plane starts to move.
@@suedenim9208 ah but you see, spinning up the wheels via belt actually imparts force on the rest of the plane as well, due to their inertia, so the belt does not need to spin up to infinity instantly. i can do some math to calculate the acceleration of the belt in order to counteract the thrust of the plane but id rather not go through the trouble.
@@aerbon You know the question isn't about real life, right? It's a hypothetical physics question , so the conveyor that's as wide and long as a runway and capable of exactly matching the speed of the wheels exists in an imaginary place where wheel friction and inertia aren't part of the question.
@@suedenim9208 It is exactly because this is an imaginary scenario that i bring up wheel inertia. A real conveyor would never be able to accelerate forever.
I just like to point out that there is a reasonable way the conveyor can affect the plane. enough so that i believe if i had a high enough budget for a conveyor i could stop a plane from accelerating for a few seconds.
@@aerbon I think in a hypothetical scenario where there is no friction, it would also be assumed that the wheels are massless, meaning there wouldn't be any inertia.
"Thousands and thousands of websites devoted to people arguing"
Yeah that sounds like the 2000s
And now it's consolidated into the cesspool that is Twit-ter...
@@shinigamimiroku3723 as much as I despise social media, I suppose I should give it some credit for largely consolidating this crap into areas I can easily avoid. Still a blight on society though.
The question isn't complicated. People are stupid. A treadmill works on people because people use the ground to propel itself. But a plane doesn't - a plane uses the air to propel itself.
Meanwhile in the youtube comments section...
Now social media tells us what opinions to have.
Dang, for like the first four minutes I thought I was one of the people who understood it perfectly… then you mentioned cars and I went, “I’m an idiot.”
You're not an idiot, Adam is WRONG. th-cam.com/video/Y64ZdSaDdoo/w-d-xo.html
It is quite simple when you understand it. But there are teo versions of the problem
The best way I had this explained was from my dad(a licensed single engine pilot and engineer) a car pushes from the bottom, a plane pulls from the top. It doesn’t matter if the conveyor moves at 100 and the plane takes off at 70 the plane will take off. He said that the moment he heard the myth on that episode. Always stuck with me
Yeah, but what if you are standing on the breaks !
Yuppers. The only bottleneck is rolling resistance. If you have some combination of unusually high rolling resistance in the wheels and the runway whipping backwards fast enough, you might produce enough effective drag by way of the landing gear to delay takeoff by a few seconds. Crank the rolling resistance up real good by feathering the brakes or something, and that may in fact manage to counteract the thrust to the point that you can't quite make takeoff speed. Granted, that works pretty well on a stationary runway too. It's also great for making your wheels catch fire as the brakes are converting your engine thrust to rather localized heat, so maybe don't?
@@Archgeek0 even if it was possible to make a conveyor belt that goes at a sufficient speed to cause enough drag from the tyres and wheel bearings.......that pull is only going to be relatively minor. Especially if it was possible to make that conveyor belt, it would also be possible to fit a plane with a sufficiently strong engine to power it with the brakes on, it would still be able to take off (albeit in a huge cloud of smoke, with the landing gear being so trashed you probably couldn't land it!)
And unfortunately, he was wrong. He didn't think about the conditions of the problem. The plane is required to be physically restrained from moving forward. It cannot take off.
@@RockinRobbins13 Uh, not quite, at least not in practice. There is no restraint to the plane, just the swiftly moving tarmac belt thing. Without much rolling resistance to back that up, the wheels' bearings make it all for naught and the plane gleefully pulls itself through the air until it's got the needed lift. Only terrible wheels with a lot of rolling resistance can provide any real opposition to the props' thrust, so you generally get a take-off regardless, unless you do something dopey like press the brakes to artificially raise rolling resistance a lot so the moving tarmac can have a noticeable effect.
An interesting way to conceptualize it is that the conveyor belt is effectively acting as a frictionless plane; the car can't move because the tires can't push against anything, whereas the airplane can just slide across the ground with no issues.
I like this. Made the think of this analogy. If you put a car out on a frozen lake that's completely smooth and a little wet, no matter how you mash the accelerator, the car can't get friction and won't move. A plane set down right beside it, when the throttle is pushed forward, will glide across the ice and take off.
But it's wrong. Friction is transmitted through the wheels, the plane doesn't slide, it just "mostly" slides. A fast enough conveyor could push it back.
@@SgtLion it would probably also break off the wheels at that speed, but the premise is that the conveyor is moving backwards at the same speed as the plane is trying to move forwards; the wheels would be turning at twice the speed they normally would for takeoff, and the additional slowing power that the friction would provide would be negligible
@@SgtLion You're going to have to explain this concept of friction being transmitted through the wheels. That doesn't line up with any of the physics classes I had. As the wheels spin faster and faster they would heat up due to friction, but on a frictionless surface, the wheels of the plane would never turn at all. They would remain completely stationary as the plane accelerated forward. You have to have friction in order to make the wheels turn. On a frictionless surface, you could replace the wheels with skis and achieve the same result. You put skis on a normal runway and they would shear off due to the friction.
@@garryuyahoo And there are plenty of planes which use skis and pontoons and so on, instead of wheels, too.
My family is from Alaska where small planes are the _only_ way to reliably access large portions of the state year round (we live in the continental US now). This episode was so confusing to us specifically because we weren't sure what was being tested, since of course the tires (without breaks ofc) have zero input on the propulsion of the aircraft. In Alaska small planes are almost as likely to have floats or skis as they are wheels, so the idea of wheeled propulsion being an issue didn't even cross our minds.
Also this episode was part of a larger series of Alaska episodes (moose vs car, specialty Deadliest Catch etc) and my parents recognized several high school and college friends that made it in to Mythbusters and other shows who've gone into various Alaskan bush careers, so thanks to Mythbusters for supporting them!
Guess they dont have conveyor runways either in Alaska. They are very big down south.
@@mokiloke Oh they have plenty in Alaska, we call them "rivers"
@@thecactusman17 holy crap that was witty and on point
With a floatplane, the factors are a bit more involved, as the floats do have significant friction against counterstreaming water, meaning that it takes a more powerful engine to get sufficient airspeed, while also spending energy on creating a wake on the water surface. Sure, it would still take off, unless barely having enough power without the additional resistance.
I'm with Jamie, it's painfully obvious how it works.
The wheels free spin, they will just spin faster on a treadmill.
The problem with the way the question is often put, is that it makes one jump the first consideration, which should be: "How does the plane move to the (stationary to the air) outside observer?". It kind of already implies that the plane stands still, even if it doesn't say it. Once you make that jump there's no way back but to start again.
There is an opposing force. The wheels have friction with the ground. This friction depends on the weight of the plane. So as the plane speed increases , the wheel speed increases , the conveyor speed matches that and the airplane remains stationary relative to the air and ground. It cannot take off.
@@AncientWisdom222 I don't understand how you come up with this? The 747 "normal" landing gear resistance during takeoff is 9% of its thrust. = Plane Flies
@@misters2837 Please elaborate.
@@AncientWisdom222 The wheels of the aircraft are only there to reduce friction of the ground (Wright Flyer had Skids) - They have zero to do with the propulsion of the aircraft, the jet engines push against the outside air just like it always has, simple physics state, the wheels are going to be spinning twice as fast...same as the Mythbusters test...But the plane still flies...At no point will the rolling resistance be so great that it's going to stop a 747 that can take off on 3 engines, takes off at 210MPH and flies at 500MPH...That's the same thought process that Whitetail deer have when they jump in front of my 8000lb pickup while going 60mph....They aren't stopping the truck.
This is one of those questions that is specifically designed to trick people into saying the wrong answer. People don't say the wrong answer because their understanding of the physics of the question is wrong, they say the wrong answer because the question was worded in such a way to draw them to the wrong conclusion before they take into consideration the factors which would lead to the correct conclusion. The second somebody said, "Now try to build it and see what happens," you'd immediately realize why your answer was wrong. And you'd feel like the question tricked you, you wouldn't feel like you were too dumb to understand the physics.
Anybody who says the plane wouldn't take off if it had no motion relative to the earth (and by extension no motion relative to the air) would be correct, physically speaking. They just made an assumption that the whole point of even mentioning the existence of a treadmill is because it would result in this zero relative motion. That assumption was incorrect, but they only made the assumption because why else would you ask the question unless that was supposed to happen?
I agree. This is why the people on the forums Adam mentioned argued the experiment was wrong.
(On top of the standard internet cannot-be-wrong).
The experiment the Mythbusters conducted genuinely wasn't the way they interpreted the question.
This is the physics version of 5 + 6 * 4 = ?
@@xdevantx5870 Well, that question is just basic order of operations. A lot of people who get it wrong actually just don't know how to do math, and anyone who knows how to do math won't get it wrong because there's nothing to actually be confused about. Sometimes there are questions around order of operations which are intentionally a bit ambiguous (often using the ÷ symbol, which isn't really used by real mathematicians.) Got example, 6 ÷ 2(1+2) = ? For this question my personal answer would be 1. This equation is vague and has no well defined answer. In my opinion, the 2 before the parentheses is acting as a coefficient to the value within the parentheses, and so that whole quantity should be calculated before the division happens, i.e. 6 ÷ (2(1+2)), resulting in an answer of 1. Other people might say that the equation can be rewritten as 6 ÷ 2 × (1+2), and then it would be calculated to equal 9. Depending on the interpretation of the question, either answer can be right. But the point is that the question just shouldn't be written the way it was written, because it's ambiguous.
I'd say a more comparable case of trickery is when somebody tells you to say 'milk' 10 times and then quickly asks you what a cow drinks. And the answer is water, but they already put the idea of milk in your head, and your gut reaction when you think of drinking and cows together is milk.
@@MattMcConaha Order of operations are just conventions. The math question is written misleadingly. Just like you can get to the right conclusion about the Plane Conveyor by understanding the problem, but it's written misleadingly.
What I see as the major source of confusion in this question is, I often see it worded as "the tread mill exactly matches the speed of the tires." Taking out of account whether the plane could use thrust to move forward (it could and would eventually take off), the wording means that no forward movement and therefore no airspeed is gained. If the treadmill is exactly matching the speed of the tires, no matter what that speed is, the aircraft is not moving forward and therefore not taking off. This comes down to tricky wording.
Miscommunication is way more common than malice. This is a perfect example of that.
But both Miscommunication and Malice have nothing on Semantics!
Except this isn't miscommunication, is misinterpretation of the problem.
When it leads to people choosing sides, jumping to conclusions, stating arguments and holding onto biases cause they feel attacked when you don't pick their side of the argument as the right one. This isn't miscommunication, its misrepresentation... the problem is no longer the plane on the runway, the problem is the scientific observers no longer being reliable.
The function collapses and scientific progress is no longer achievable, myths and fake news proliferates, human race dies a slow and agonising death arguing over semantics over global issues like climate change, viruses, pollution, vaccinations, clean energy.
@@mzaite Physics NEVER has semantics. There are people who understand it and there are people who have no concept of vector math.
@@dieselscience I've seen plenty of arguments about physics/engineering that hinge on differences in the meaning assumed behind a word or setup, between the opposing parties. (The plane on a treadmill, for one.)
@@FlyNAA In that case, at least one party involved in said argument(s) has no understanding of vector math.
Adam: "I reject your reality and substitute my own"
Also Adam: "I can't help people like that."
:) I get it, though. Thanks for this video!
Need to interject here. While the experiment showed that the plane would take off, the experiment itself was fundamentally flawed, and I'll explain why in a few lines. This is not a dig at Adam whatsoever. But in order to answer the question portrayed, the details have to be absolute. No new variables or flawed math, intentional or not.
The wheels and the conveyer belt are the ONLY variables that matter and I'll explain why in a few lines. It's a fundamental physics problem. It does not matter if the wheels and engines are mechanically connected or not. Adam is a great educator, actor, tv host, etc., but he is not a scientist or engineer. It's not a problem of if the plane can reach a speed to take off. Obviously a plane needs ample amount of lift to take off .It's a problem of if the plane will move whatsoever. And the physics of the problem stated does not allow the plane to move.
This is COMPLETELY wrong, and I wish he would just go do more research instead of sticking with his guns in the "my experiment proved it so it cant be wrong." fashion. I grew up watching Myth Busters and absolutely love the show, but experiments do not always provide correct outcome if the variables are not perfect and if external variables are added.
The mode of force, tires vs propeller/engine are irrelevant. The ONLY variables that matter are the wheels and the conveyer belt. It doesn't matter if its a propeller pulling, an engine pushing, the wheels mechanically turning, a person off the conveyer belt pulling, any of that. If you tied an infinitely strong rope to the front of the infinitely strong hull of the airplane and applied an infinite amount of force, you would not be able to move the plane. The only thing that would happen is the wheels and conveyer belt would reach an infinite speed.
This concept is so hard to grasp because it's out of touch with reality. 99% of physics questions taught in classrooms happen in a perfect hypothetical world, and could not exist in the normal world. And if they did, the results would be drastically different. This is one of those questions. There are two main reasons that the experiment that you did were flawed.
1a. It is impossible to instantaneously match the speed of the tarp and the speed of the wheels on the plane.
1b. As the plane tries to take off, the acceleration of the truck needed to accelerate match the planes speed. Going the same speed as the plane is useless. The math does not add up.
2. The tarp that you pulled was also in contact with the ground and not supporting the weight of the plane. Thus, the plane was able to use the ground underneath to help propel itself forward.
It's even impossible to replicate the perfect experiment no matter how much money you throw at the project. So you have to rely on fundamental physics to figure out the problem.
Breaking it down fundamentally.
If the circumference of your tire is 1 meter, as the tire rotates, the conveyer belt moves back 1 meter, matching the speed of the plane's tires instantaneously. In order for the plane to move horizontally, the tires have to rotate. And the tires cannot rotate without the conveyer belt moving the opposite direction the same distance at the same speed.
So I often see this problem presented with improper wording. Using the phrase “matching the wheel speed” (this is how I usually see it phrased) the answer is NO. Using the phrase “running in the opposite direction at takeoff speed” (this is the actual thought experiment) then the answer is YES.
If the conveyor matches the wheel speed then as soon as the wheels start to spin you create a feedback loop because the conveyor has to accelerate to match the wheel speed but the wheel speed will keep increasing as you move forwards. In this version the wheels will explode after just a few seconds of forward motion.
Which is why it’s impossible. But that was the original premise. And it was negligent of them to not even mention it on the show.
....I remember that episode and I was highly disappointed that the pilot thought he wouldn’t take off...I was thinking “come on, man, if anyone knows how this works, it should be you”
That is incredibly disappointing.
That's because microlight operators aren't real pilots...like go-karters aren't real drivers :)
@@davedown-under6779 You telling me that a microlight pilot doesn't understand what makes his plane move and fly? You telling me a go-kart driver doesn't understand what makes his go-kart move?
Oh by the way...in reference to kart racers not being real drivers...Ayrton Senna would disagree
@@animalmother556x45 as would every F1 and 90% of closed wheel drivers (except rally they are an odd bunch) go karts are the starting grounds.
@@ccleadge Rally drivers starting grounds are 2004 Ford Focus on gravel roads haha (in the US anyway)
“We are tied down to a language which makes up in obscurity what it lacks in style.” - The Player, _Rosencrans and Guildenstern Are Dead_
Anyone who quotes that film gets a like from me.
@@discipleofthecapedbaldy962 “We are tied down to a language which makes up in obscurity what it lacks in style.” - The Player, Rosencrans and Guildenstern Are Dead
We don't even listen to the language. The plane won't take off if it doesn't move forward. If it doesn't move forward the speed the conveyor belt has to match is 0mph. The plane moving forward on the conveyor is a prerequisite for the myth to exist. Game, set and match. 😎
It was a very good play and movie
@@AnttiBrax Yes, that's once You've realized, that the plane creates thrust by pushing against the air.
If You go to the root of the confusion, assuming the forward motion coming from wheels turning against the ground, then the conveyor would have to counter the rotation of the wheels to actually keep the plane from moving.
i didnt quite unserstand the problem untill i heard: "cars mode of locomotion is it's tires contact with the ground"
and my opinion instantly switched. of course it's gonna take off
no it won't 😂
@@mikeuk666 Wait. Are you just trolling? I keep seeing you replying to every thread, spreading ass-backwards misinformation and replying to actual explanations with "No."
If you're not trolling, then please seek help. If you are trolling, please, get better at trolling.
@@foureye7058 You're feeding this deviant.
This was my favorite myth that you ever did, it was super memorable for some reason (probably because the results completely surprised me, but the explanation made so much sense at the end)
As someone who has seen every episode, it feels much longer than 5 years. Love that the spirit is being carried on along with more. Thanks for inspiring such a mentality of curiosity!
Yea... I use to wach mythbusters wirh the babies. They are like 5 feet now
I started off: ‘Well duh!’ And then changed my mind about four times before giving up and waiting for the answer.
@@andrewrobertson444 simply put - sum the speeds of the two devices and you get the net.
In this case, rotation of the wheel means the same speed of the wheel axis, so this is saying nothing more than the wheel axis speed equals conveyor speed interchangeably depending on your frame of reference.
The plane goes nowhere if the conveyor moves.
@MrDefreese The "wheels" and their axis are actually irrelevant, only there in the scenario to fool the uneducated.🙄 The plane still pushes on the air around it for thrust, the plane moves and flies. Regardless of the conveyor.
@@misters2837 once more. The source of the force on the vehicle is utterly irrelevant. It’s just force acting on the body. You should never comment again since you get that fundamental point flat out wrong. This is introductory physics and that is a Mythbusters induced error.
Secondly, the vehicle either moves in exactly one of two ways while it is on the ground - either by sliding on the surface or by rolling on the surface. Hopefully everyone is able to dismiss the idea of the vehicle sliding across the surface so this is only a story of a rolling vehicle.
If you can accept that without dispute then the relationship between distance traveled on the circumference of a wheel and the linear distance traveled by the axis of said wheel is also an introduction to physics problem.
Very clearly - for each distance traveled by the wheel on its circumference …. The conveyor travels the same distance in the same amount of time per the parameter we are explicitly given.
If you want to put it into terms that jar your sensibilities less, this is mechanically the same as two connected cog gears rotating at the same speed in sync.
Those are two basic intro to physics mistakes in your response.
@@misters2837 wheels and axes are definitely not irrelevant. In fact, the calculation for wheel travel and linear travel at the wheel axis is one of the fundamental points in introductory physics.
Additionally, it is an unfortunate mistake to be hung up on the flawed statement that 'the plane still pushes the air around it for thrust'. Thrust is just the net force of the propeller, jet or engine. It is just a force. A force merely makes an object go from one speed to another speed.
The parameter you are given is that the conveyor exactly matches any speed of the vehicle. It is explicitly given that the system is in equilibrium.
Not doubling the speed; not free spinning; not spinning to infinity.
@MrDefreese Well, considering I have taught physics for decades. If I had time to waste explaining how wrong you are, I would. I don't have time for people who can't open a book, or their eyes. Good Luck.
When I watched the original show, I was certain that the producers had told the pilot to insist that he could not take off from a "runway" moving in the opposite direction. Here, Adam is reporting that the pilot was genuinely surprised by the result.
As humans can't fly, we can't move ourselves without needing the ground, so if the ground moves the opposite way to the way we try to move, we get there slower or not at all. I imagine this is why we will think about the ground moving 'backwards' like this, at least at first, even if things we use operate differently. 'If I'm on this runway, can I get to the other end? No, therefore a plane can't take off if it's not moving towards the other end of the runway either'. But the plane *is* moving towards the other end of the runway because it's not dependent on drive off the ground, unlike a human.
If you could ask the question to a seagull then I think they'd get it easier than a human, although now I want to see a seagull taking off from a moving treadmill, because I don't know if they actually need a little run up to get airborne. They would at least intuitively understand how they could take off without them or the ground moving forwards when the air speed is high enough for them to glide on the spot, or without moving forward relative to what they're standing on, like a car. They can just spread their wings and lift off of it.
He probably shouldn't be a pilot if he doesn't know how planes work on a fundamental level
I just cannot honestly believe that a PILOT would not know how a plane works at such a basic level. The question is so obvious if you know that plane wheels are not powered so it doesn't matter what the ground speed is, only the airspeed.
i remember seeing this episode and being dumbfounded that the pilot you hired thought the plane would not take off
Same here, and being just as dumbfounded now when I was reminded of that! A pilot really should understand the basics of how a plane works :)
Also, I find it funny that so many people are still arguing over this whole thing in the comments, while still not grasping even the most basics of basic physics. Perhaps its more sad than funny though, but as Adam said, people aren't (neccesarily) dumb for not understanding, but being dumb doesnt help :P
Yeah that is kinda terrifying to think about
@@Robinlarsson83 what part of "equal and opposite reactions" do people not get. blows me away too
@@HoldForHardFail yeah, I don't know :P a lot of people simply doesn't think very deeply (or even at all) on such things, it's sad really.
@@Robinlarsson83 You, and Adam, are misconstruing the question and are calling people stupid for actually engaging with it.
Saying "well the wheels dont generate power so they will be faster than the belt" is a lazy excuse for an answer, the spirit of the premise obviously means that the force created by the thrust is equalled out. so that v(plane)-v(belt)=0. If we accept this, the plane can't take off because there is no air flow lifting the wings.
The problem with the question is that thrust doesn't interact with a conveyor belt this way, and that for this premise to work, no matter the amount of thrust, the conveyor belt and the wheels would move at infinity and -infinty velocity repspectively.
So, the correct answer is not: "The plane takes off", the correct answer is "the premise is flawed and not worth engaging because it is impossible in a practical and really even theoretical sense".
I love the "we" you always say about the team. Any time he references Jamie, the word genius follows. He lights up talking about Grant & Co. Love it. Makes my entire childhood worthwhile. Mythbusters is half of the reason I watched Discovery, and half the reason I got my degree in science.
Whats the other half if you dont mind me asking?
@@ampadedoda5027 explosions
@@austinbrunette8773 Best answer you could have given.
That's awesome. Last week I posted that if Adam had been my science teacher I'm sure my career would have been very different. Unfortunately we're the same age. I'm glad you were able to take advantage.
Congratulations
I feel like this is more of a riddle than a controversy because once it’s explained to you it makes a lot of sense
Well that's a lot of the myths on the show
Physics, it's just crappy riddles.
People who make real riddles would be offended by this. There’s nothing clever or devilish about the question, and Adam going out of his way to defend the people who don’t get it is asinine
You would think that, but there are a lot of people who just seem to be unable to grasp the concept of how a plane moves VS how a car moves. I remember using a very similar explanation that Adam said, and tons of people then trying to tell me how I was wrong.
Sorry to Adam but Propeller or not, there's still no airspeed on the wings to create lift on the wings, so therefore the tires are still touching the speed-matching conveyor holding it stationary (0mph) and the conveyor will still be the dominant force along with gravity cause nothing is now fighting against gravity.
I think the controversy was because lots of people thought the question was: Will the plane with zero airspeed vertically take off because of the motion of the treadmill? I remember lots of the NO crowd was mad because they thought the yes crowd was arguing that point. Seems to me this thing was mostly two correct groups answering a different question.
Exactly and I feel like whoever first asked the question intended it to be that zero airspeed interpretation. The question that was answered was more like: What happens when a plane tries to take off from a conveyor belt that is moving faster than the plane's takeoff speed?
It’s weird to me that someone would even assume that that’s the question being asked cause that’s a dumb question to ask. No one would even expect the plane to takeoff when stationary in the first place.
I thought the correct answer was so obvious that the only way I could explain the "no it wont work" crowd was if they were answering a different question. MB crew should have recognized that and specified which question they were asking.
@@RibbitRibbit25 Yeah they never really approached the question, but complaining about stuff like that was part of why we watched MB
What? I was hugely involved in the debates back then, and I never heard this even once
I work at a small airport and when high winds are expected the planes are hangared for the most part. The ones that cannot be hangared are faced into the wind and tied down securely. Even then, they will bob around and the wheels will lift off the ground once in awhile from the wind. If they are faced in another direction they will break the ties and flip over.
Would be a fun (but dangerously stupid) attraction to tie an airplane to a pole or rope in a storm and then fly it in place
I had not seen this riddle until recently, and saw it twice in short amount of time. I actually used that as an example, along with a kite. In theory, a plane sitting still, with just a high enough head windspeed, could lift off a plane, without the plane moving at all, including a 747 jet. Would take an extremely high amount of windspeed to do it, but in theory, it could.
I remember when the episode first came out and my dad and I watched it, we misunderstood the question and thought that people were in fact arguing that a stationary plane could take off because the wheels were spinning fast enough or something. The animation for the myth really didn't help either since it depicted just that
I had the exact same thought.
I still to this day say they didn't go about the myth right. I have no opinion either way but I think it would have been more satisfying to people had they done it right.
@@mr.berardine1694 what did they do wrong? Seems legit to me. I have been flying planes in RC form most of my life and in real form for years. What is a different way to perform this experiment that would have a different outcome?
To be fair, the problem they had was that they were trying to illustrate the myth, not physical reality. It's very hard to animate something that is physically impossible.
The fact that it can't be animated easily should be proof enough that it's a myth anyway!
@@mr.berardine1694 Yes, you'll have to explain that. The difficulty is that the description of the problem from the "can't take off" crowd can't actually be achieved -- it is incompatible with the laws of physics.
Me at beginnings: of course it won't take off
Me at end: ahh yes, propeller goes brrrrr
When I first watched the episode I thought they were going to hold the plane in place and move the runway beneath it, and of course that wouldn’t work so I was confused why it was even being tested
Underrated comment
You sir have earned a chuckle out of me.
If I'm getting this right, all that happens is that the wheels rotate at twice the speed until the plane lifts off, due to the ground under them moving in the opposite direction.
And this brings up another point of semantics. What is meant by "the plane's speed"? Anyone reading the myth as meaning if the tires were connected to a speedometer will have a different thought path than some other statement of its speed.
@@globaldude100 Your first sentence is wrong: the wheels do not push the plane when it's on the ground either, it's still the propeller doing all the work. The only reason the wheels are there is to minimize the friction with the ground, but they do not provide **traction** (like they would in a car). If you look carefully at any landing gear you'll notice that there's nothing to make them spin. They're just like the wheels on a shopping cart (except for the turning around thing), they're free to spin forward/backward as much as they like.
A nice example somebody else made: imagine that you're standing on top of the a treadmill with roller skates on your feet, and you're holding on a rope attached to a wall in front of you. No matter how fast the treadmill spins, as long as you hold on to that rope you're going to stand still relative to the ground; and if you start pulling on that rope you're going to start moving forward! In this scenario, your pulling on the rope is the exact same force as the propeller pushing against the still air around the plane: it is not affected by the treadmill in any way, and it's the force that pushes you forward. The wheels on your roller skates are going to spin as much as they like, but they won't be able to stop you in any way.
To recap:
1) the propeller pushes against the still air, moving the plane forward
2) as the plane starts moving forward, its wheels start spinning as usual
3) as the plane is moving forward, the treadmill starts spinning in the opposite direction, making the wheels spin twice as fast
4) as the wheels spin faster, the friction with the ground increases a little bit, but it has an overall negligible effect on the plane's speed because the force of the propeller pushing forward is still much greater than the wheels' friction
5) the plane is able to pick up speed relative to the air just as usual, and will take off
@@MrShadowmaster00 I just phrased my comment poorly. :) I edited to make it better.
May not actually better.
Typed out alternate explanation in-between first comment and your reply. But didn't post cause we're all just trying to find different ways of saying: the wheels don't move the plane, the propeller does, and it pushes against the air, not the ground, so ground speed doesn't matter for takeoff.
In what I typed out, I also used the shopping cart example. :)
@@MrShadowmaster00 actually, I'm just gonna delete my comments since my bad explanation is just confusing. :)
The die hard "no take off" people say that the original wording was that the conveyor belt matches wheel speed resulting in infinite acceleration of the belt and enough force to stop the plane's engines from moving it forwards.
Recognizing the confusion of "well, it could be attempting to take off so it's already able to" is just as mincing as "well, a vtol can take off so gotcha!" There is no controversy except people deliberately trying to misrepresent the question.
the thought Steve-O from Jackass was part of this show made me smile for a second.
"Hi, I'm Steve-O and this is Plane On A Conveyor Belt!"
To add something:
Some people believe that a plane is driven by tire until its speed is fast enough for the air to create lift.
Yeah for some reason I was thinking that while watching this but I also wasn't thinking of a propeller plane (even though a commercial plane would also take off)
@@Uncle_Yam what kind of plane were you thinking of then?
I literally thought that so yeah lol
Is there any plane in existence that has motorized landing gear? I assume that there must be one in existence that is the exception to the rule.
@@ashakydd1 There's a system called EGTS under development, but it has nothing to do with takeoffs and landings. It uses electric motors in the wheel hubs to save energy during taxiing.
Came for the controversy that I wasn't aware of, stayed for the eventual uncovering of how all conspiracy theories work.
Hmm... People rejecting our reality and substituting their own?
Came to say the same. Adam goes to great lengths to not offend those challenged by a thought experiment, but also shows that there are those who reject science that contradicts their perceived reality. Flat earthers, moon landing deniers, 911 deniers, and plane won’t take off-ers all operate the same way.
@@AnttiBrax Lol I said that exact thing when he mentioned people rejecting the evidence displayed in the show. Some will go to any lengths to not be proven wrong it seems...
@@MichaelGreen831 I agree, there's a difference between someone who is challenged by something they haven't seen before, and they're curious to learn how it works. On the other hand you have those who pick every hill as their hill to die on.
Wow... Heavy.
Working on my GA pilot certification currently and i think of this "myth" with every takeoff. The ground is irrelevant. ☺️ I've always had such respect for Adam and his vocabulary. Thank you Adam for so many years of education and entertainment.
best of luck
HES WRONG.. Cant believe adam doesnt understand the premise of the riddle The conveyor belt (Exactly)matches the speed of the wheels the plane couldn't move forward at all because the acceleration of the belt would be pulling the plane in reverse with the same exact ammount of force its exerting into the air with its engines. if it was exactly matching it the tires would explode before the plane moved forward at all his scenario means the conveyor belt isn't working correctly for the riddle. (The plane could never move forward if the belt is quickly accelerating in reverse with the same force of its forward thrust)
@@tmaxxmm541 No, you are so wrong. Plane is not car.
@@emperorfaiz no, he's not; if the plane cannot move forward because a hypothetical conveyer is precisely matching the speed of the wheels in the opposite direction, and assuming (as Adam mentioned) the absence of a headwind at or above the aircraft's minimum take-off speed, there will be no lift and, consequently, no taking-off. Also, Adam's explanation of what a propeller does makes it abundantly clear he doesn't understand how a propeller actually works. Not once did he mention Bernoulli's Principle and/or what actually creates lift. ANY certificated pilot should arrive at these same conclusions; if not, they should go back to ground school.
Imagine a conveyor belt in the other direction with the wheels fixed so they couldn't spin. Would that plane take of? The wheels are irrelevant unless they are the driving force for takeoff
One way to explain it is: Imagine you are at the bottom of a pool standing on a conveyor belt going backwards, while wearing rollerblades. If you start swimming forward, you easily could pull yourself forward through the water, despite the wheels on your rollerblades being spun backwards by the conveyor belt under you.
Fantastic way of explaining it.
It works if the conveyor belt is going at a fixed speed, like the experiment in mythbusters, but if the conveyor belt keeps increasing to match the speed of the wheels, then it comes down to a battle with friction.
They're free spinning wheels so you're using the axle to pull the wheels forward with you. The friction of the conveyor belt is pushing back. It's not even important that they're wheels, it's the same as if you're swimming pulling a block forward and the friction is pushing the block back with the same force.
The faster you swim, the more you push the wheels forward, then the faster the belt goes, pushing the wheels back to hold them in place. You're likewise held in place by the axle inside the wheels. It's no different than if your axle were through immovable steel rings.
@@annereilley4892 Yep. It's the equivalent of saying, "the wheels and assembly are perfectly frictionless, so you could sit on a conveyor belt without moving backward because the wheels would turn on their axles rather than driving you backward". Sure it works in a frictionless vacuum, but that's not the "traditional" conveyor belt of the question.
Basically, proving Adam right that there will always be controversy on this.
@@LoadstoneKnight In a way, this problem is fixed ("fixed" in the way a boxing match is "fixed"), because it's implying infinite friction between the wheels and conveyor belt which no engine can overcome.
Why not have it the other way around with infinite engine power and negligible friction? I think that's what the original poster was trying to do, which changed the premise of the question.
I think in reality, the propeller engines could be stronger than the friction of the wheels on the belt. The wheels would lose traction and slide along the belt.
On the other hand, since I read that WW1 sea planes sometimes were unable to overcome the water tension in order to take off.
@@annereilley4892I think you have a slight flaw in your reasoning. Just to make sure we are on the same page, you are saying that given the wheels do not slip on the conveyor belt surface that the plane will not take off. If i'm reading what you are saying correctly you are saying that if the conveyor perfectly matched the plane speed and the wheels did not slip or slide that the friction between the wheel and the conveyor would hold the plane in place by the wheels having to be connected to the axle.
If that is what you are saying, I think you are making a slight error in that while yes, there is friction between the wheels and the plane, and increasing the plane speed increases the conveyor speed in turn increasing drag on the plane from the wheel friction. However, this does not really hold the plane in place. Unlike swimming and dragging a block, the wheels do not have their brakes applied and are rolling. The rolling resistance of a wheel which can also be termed as the dynamic coefficient of friction is minimal. As the plane moves forward the conveyor moves backwards with equal speed. When you spin a top or a fidget spinner or a large bearing they spin for a long time, much longer than if you pushed them across the ground. This is because the spin is what reduces friction, instead of having to overcome the friction required to drag the tire across the ground, all you have to overcome is the friction required to spin the tire. That friction is mostly overcoming the deformation of the tire itself as well as the friction in the wheel bearing. Much like a car, you can push it on level ground with one hand, the rolling resistance of the planes wheels is miniscule.
So when the conveyor speeds up you are correct in saying that it will infact increase the drag from friction on the plane, however the increase is very small. A normal plane taking off normally with a takeoff speed of for example say 100mph will easily be able to overcome the rolling resistance of the tires. If you instead double the takeoff speed to 200mph it will still easily overcome the rolling resistance of the tires given the landing gear can handle that speed on the ground. So just putting a conveyor belt down and having the plane try to take off with an air speed of 100mph but a ground speed relative to the conveyor of 200mph is going to look pretty much the same. You will be able to measure extra resistance from the wheels, but it's so minimal that it doesn't matter.
I think a better analogy is walking your bike down the hallway, vs walking your bike down one of those horizontal people movers while you stand on solid ground you see at airports. Yeah walking your bike down the people mover will have slightly more resistance, but it's nothing that will stop you from easily moving your bike even if you are walking at the same speed as the people mover.
"language is confusing" is one of the most underrated sayings I've ever heard. It is true to the infinite degree.
My favourite example is:
Guy goes to a doctor.
Doc: "Hello Mr. Smith, I'm afraid I have bad news."
Smith: "That's okay Doc, just give it to me straight."
Doc: "Okay. I'm afraid your test came back positive."
Smith: "What? Oh that's a relief. I thought you said news would be negative."
Doc: "Uh, I'm sorry Mr. Smith, but you did not test negative. You have cancer."
Smith: "What? But you just said... Are you sure?"
Doc: "I'm positive -"
Smith: "...WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?!"
the entire field of philosophy exists because language is confusing
Words are hard is my go to
“I’m just going to ignore the results of your experiment because I don’t like the answer” says every flat earther.
Yep. We're all being impacted by a bunch people who failed to learn about the scientific method in middle school.
And anti-vaxxer.
It's literally a weaponized attitude of stupid being re-enforced constantly.
@@sschmidtevalue tell that to the victims of thalidamide
@@ivanbluetarski9071 this wasn't a vaccine.
The plane would still take off. The conveyor belt matching the speed of the plane would just make the wheels of the plane spin twice as fast on the conveyor belt, but still take off.
"I can't help people like that". That's why flat earthers are a thing.
Yeah, when he phrased it like that it's basically the same reasoning flat earthers use.
which put me back on "these people are stupid"
Hahaa was thinking the same.
apparently Adam's experiment is at best incomplete as demonstrated in this video by captain joe. The first half is what most people think of and Adam is wrong in that scenario. Adam is right in the second half. th-cam.com/video/Y64ZdSaDdoo/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=CaptainJoe
@@annereilley4892 That interpretation is both practically and theoretically impossible.
@@Stormwern I was thinking about how the wheels would always need to be faster than they are going, wouldn't they lock up and become essentially runners? Like if you're running and grab a car going 100mph, your feet couldn't run fast enough and would get dragged behind you. Then the plane would take off like a sea plane which doesn't use wheels at all.
Just caught some reruns on TV of classic Mythbusters yesterday, it was good to see and brought me back..also it was nice to see Grant again, I remember I was shocked when I found out he passed away so it was good to see him on the show and having fun.
"Take off speed" is all about the air flow speed over the wings. That is why you better damn well have good tie-downs for a Cesna. :)
Or a cub.
Air-speed vs. Ground-speed.
One matters to keeping the plane aloft, the other doesn't.
@@ericgulseth74 More like one matters to keeping the plane aloft, the other counts to how hard the impact of touchdown will be.
@@g00gleminus96 You are thinking of descent speed. With a ground speed of 0 a plane could land without you knowing as long as the pilot can control the descent speed.
@@ericgulseth74 How 'bout an Antonov AN-2? Give it a 35mph headwind and it can achieve a ground speed of -5mph.
People forget that in tornadoes and hurricanes, or even wind storms, light aircraft that arent chained down will take off and glide around uncontrolled. This is because lifting the wings causes takeoff, not groundspeed.
also a way to actually force a plane to stay grounded is tailwind. if you could produce a direct tailwind equivalent to the takeoff speed, the plane would stay grounded.
I thought the controversy was people thinking that the conveyer belt was rolling backwards so fast that it created enough friction in the wheel bearings that it prevented the airplane from moving forward with thrust from propellers.
Thats where the phrase "matches the speed of the plane" lets us down. It doesnt make clear what speed thst means.
That's the semantic ambiguity in "as fast as the plane is moving forward". In the 25 tarp/25 mph ultralight experiment, just before takeoff, the wheel speed was 50 mph. If you believe the semantics of the question then require that the tarp must be accelerated to 50 mph, because that's how fast the wheels are rolling, then the wheels will see 75 mph (and yes, slightly increased wheel bearing friction), and the tarp speed must be increased again, until something breaks.
@@kevinvermeer9011 the question doesnt say anything about how fast the wheels turn.
This is it exactly. Take 25 mph as the take-off speed. If you somehow engineered the wheels to be incapable of turning faster than the equivalent of 25 mph, and assuming the plane wasn't powerful enough to drag itself forward with locked wheels, it would never move forward on a 25 mph treadmill. Of course, that's not how wheels work.
The ambiguity in the language is the key. The question the "no" crowd actually has in mind is "can a plane take off without moving forward?" They're taking it for granted that the treadmill is a means to prevent the plane from moving forward, but that's not the actual premise. The question being tested here is "Can a treadmill spinning at 25 mph prevent a plane from moving forward?"
The way to test what they have in mind would be to tie a chain from the back of a plane to a pole fifty feet off the ground.
@@kevinvermeer9011 Exactly, and it seems like even Adam is still confused about this. What you're describing is the same version of the question that prevents the car from moving. So, if it's true that the car can't drive, then the plane moving forward would instantly make its wheels spin up to infinity.
In the version they tested (the conveyor moving backwards at the speed of the plane's body) the car actually can drive forward. If the car drives at 25 mph, the wheels' experience would be the same as driving normally at 50 mph.
"I CANT HELP PEOPLE LIKE THAT!" soooooooooo true
Now to just get them to at least stop voting.
Totally agree, I just want to explain it 10 different ways to they understand. Until you just have to back off and let them have their belief, and we’ll have ours 😁
One might even call it... savage.
Perhaps better known as "you can't fix stupid"
But what if you could. Shouldn't we try just in case?
When I started watching this episode back when I was in high school, I was in the camp that thought the plane couldn’t take off, but as I watched, my mind was totally changed. I felt stupid because I didn’t see the answer right away, but I think it was one of the most important episodes I watched because it helped me learn how the scientific method is all about testing your preconceived notions, and dismissing them when they prove to be wrong.
I was on the other side and the episode confirmed that I was a genius, and that people who disagreed with me were stupid and closed minded, lol.
You were in the correct camp. It is impossible for it to take off. It's impossible for the plane to even start moving. His experiment was fundamentally flawed, and introduced unnecessary variables that greatly changed the outcome.
The wheels and the conveyer belt are the ONLY variables that matter and I'll explain why in a few lines. It's a fundamental physics problem. It does not matter if the wheels and engines are mechanically connected or not. Adam is a great educator, actor, tv host, etc., but he is not a scientist or engineer. It's not a problem of if the plane can reach a speed to take off. Obviously a plane needs ample amount of lift to take off .It's a problem of if the plane will move whatsoever. And the physics of the problem stated does not allow the plane to move.
This is COMPLETELY wrong, and I wish he would just go do more research instead of sticking with his guns in the "my experiment proved it so it cant be wrong." fashion. I grew up watching Myth Busters and absolutely love the show, but experiments do not always provide correct outcome if the variables are not perfect and if external variables are added.
The mode of force, tires vs propeller/engine are irrelevant. The ONLY variables that matter are the wheels and the conveyer belt. It doesn't matter if its a propeller pulling, an engine pushing, the wheels mechanically turning, a person off the conveyer belt pulling, any of that. If you tied an infinitely strong rope to the front of the infinitely strong hull of the airplane and applied an infinite amount of force, you would not be able to move the plane. The only thing that would happen is the wheels and conveyer belt would reach an infinite speed.
This concept is so hard to grasp because it's out of touch with reality. 99% of physics questions taught in classrooms happen in a perfect hypothetical world, and could not exist in the normal world. And if they did, the results would be drastically different. This is one of those questions. There are two main reasons that the experiment that you did were flawed.
1a. It is impossible to instantaneously match the speed of the tarp and the speed of the wheels on the plane.
1b. As the plane tries to take off, the acceleration of the truck needed to accelerate match the planes speed. Going the same speed as the plane is useless. The math does not add up.
2. The tarp that you pulled was also in contact with the ground and not supporting the weight of the plane. Thus, the plane was able to use the ground underneath to help propel itself forward.
It's even impossible to replicate the perfect experiment no matter how much money you throw at the project. So you have to rely on fundamental physics to figure out the problem.
Breaking it down fundamentally.
If the circumference of your tire is 1 meter, as the tire rotates, the conveyer belt moves back 1 meter, matching the speed of the plane's tires instantaneously. In order for the plane to move horizontally, the tires have to rotate. And the tires cannot rotate without the conveyer belt moving the opposite direction the same distance at the same speed.
@@tracruz you have to think in terms of momentum, not friction
There's literally a small scale version of this at this science center in Orange County called the Cube. There's a model plane and model car on a circular track that you can spin up running opposite of both vehicles, and you have throttle controls over both vehicles. Sure enough, the model plane will always take off while the car can never overcome the reversing track.
That model is wrong. Planes get lift from wind not tires.
@@adetola1649which is exactly what the model is showing by the plane taking off but the car doesn’t go forward
@@adetola1649 Pretty sure the plane model works jus like normal plane with free-moving wheels.
“I can’t help people like that...” That’s going to be my new motto! 😂
It was Adam way of politely calling people complete idiotes.
The people in question: “i reject your reality and substitute my own.”
When you realise that the conveyor belt doesn't pull the plane back but roll its wheels backwards underneath it - like somebody whipping a tablecloth out from under plates and cutlery and them staying put -, you realise how it was possible that the plane could continue to move forward. This was my epiphany as I did initially think that the plane would not take off and had to reconcile it in my head.
I don’t think your analogy works at all. Are you attempting to say that by ripping the runway out from under the plane it has the power to take off? Planes require lift to fly not speed. Making the wheels spin doesn’t matter. Think helicopter blade. The faster the air flows over the blade the more lift is created. The prop on the plane creates that lift with out spinning the wing.
@@MrArcher0 no that's not at all what I'm saying lol. The analogy just helped me realise that the conveyor belt isn't pulling the plane backwards.
Yeah the question is asked confusingly. It's not about taking off. It's "can a plane move forward on a belt moving backwards"
@@FalconX88 Exactly
@@MrArcher0 actually the propeller on a fixed wing plane only serves to pull the plane through the air. Air speed is what generates lift. Its not like the propeller alone is pushing enough air around the wings to generate lift. Thats different from a helicopter that actually moves the airfoil through the air to generate lift. There is a fundamental difference between the two.
This is just a great example of a situation where the way you communicate the problem makes a huge difference for the way people understand. Communication is a two way street, and it's just as much the speaker's responsibility to communicate empathetically as it is the listener to listen and understand carefully! This lesson was a difficult one which I came to learn by working phone tech support, rough.
While that sounds great, the reality is that even after the solution was demonstrated people still rejected the physics on the basis of their own logic bias.
Which would indicate that they fundamentally do not understand the principles involved.
@@bensolo7217 Yep, once you've lead a horse to water....
@@bensolo7217 The problem is its a trick question;
yes some people arent so bright and do not understand that ground speed is irrelevant to a plane flying. However even people who do understand this concept debate the answer which is why its a popular question in the first place.
Look at how the original question is phrased on google and you may or may not see the issue with a scenario where the plane takes off. Hint; in the mythbusters episode they tested the question based upon a different phrasing to the original question which means their logical approach and testing is irrelevant
I was met with this for the first time today, and I wanted to say it would lift off, but I couldn't justify my thinking, and I'm very thankful this existed to satisfy my curiosity.
They are incorrect because they focused on a different problem scenario.
Holy cow! Adam, I was never argumentative about it, but I was 100 percent one of those who couldn't understand how the plane could take off. Your explanation in this video cracked the code for me. I get it now! Thanks for continuing to teach me.
Thrust comes from the prop not tires.
@@amtank someone upthread said, imagine being on roller skates holding a rope on a treadmill, no matter how fast the treadmill goes, you stay in the same spot, but if you use the rope to pull yourself yo move forward, no matter what the treadmill does (unless your wheels explode from the speed, killing you instantly). The propeller of a plane is treating the air like a person pulling a rope. But some people don't think of air as being 'solid,' like a rope is
@@takanara7 Indeed. Can a sea plane take off from a fast moving river? Yup. Same concept.
Need to interject here. While the experiment showed that the plane would take off, the experiment itself was fundamentally flawed, and I'll explain why in a few lines.
The wheels and the conveyer belt are the ONLY variables that matter and I'll explain why in a few lines. It's a fundamental physics problem. It does not matter if the wheels and engines are mechanically connected or not. Adam is a great educator, actor, tv host, etc., but he is not a scientist or engineer. It's not a problem of if the plane can reach a speed to take off. Obviously a plane needs ample amount of lift to take off .It's a problem of if the plane will move whatsoever. And the physics of the problem stated does not allow the plane to move.
This is COMPLETELY wrong, and I wish he would just go do more research instead of sticking with his guns in the "my experiment proved it so it cant be wrong." fashion. I grew up watching Myth Busters and absolutely love the show, but experiments do not always provide correct outcome if the variables are not perfect and if external variables are added.
The mode of force, tires vs propeller/engine are irrelevant. The ONLY variables that matter are the wheels and the conveyer belt. It doesn't matter if its a propeller pulling, an engine pushing, the wheels mechanically turning, a person off the conveyer belt pulling, any of that. If you tied an infinitely strong rope to the front of the infinitely strong hull of the airplane and applied an infinite amount of force, you would not be able to move the plane. The only thing that would happen is the wheels and conveyer belt would reach an infinite speed.
This concept is so hard to grasp because it's out of touch with reality. 99% of physics questions taught in classrooms happen in a perfect hypothetical world, and could not exist in the normal world. And if they did, the results would be drastically different. This is one of those questions. There are two main reasons that the experiment that you did were flawed.
1a. It is impossible to instantaneously match the speed of the tarp and the speed of the wheels on the plane.
1b. As the plane tries to take off, the acceleration of the truck needed to accelerate match the planes speed. Going the same speed as the plane is useless. The math does not add up.
2. The tarp that you pulled was also in contact with the ground and not supporting the weight of the plane. Thus, the plane was able to use the ground underneath to help propel itself forward.
It's even impossible to replicate the perfect experiment no matter how much money you throw at the project. So you have to rely on fundamental physics to figure out the problem.
Breaking it down fundamentally.
If the circumference of your tire is 1 meter, as the tire rotates, the conveyer belt moves back 1 meter, matching the speed of the plane's tires instantaneously. In order for the plane to move horizontally, the tires have to rotate. And the tires cannot rotate without the conveyer belt moving the opposite direction the same distance at the same speed.
@@tracruz You really need to watch back this video because you are completely misunderstanding (even though you are so strident in your belief). The conveyor built has virtually zero effect (except for the slight friction in the wheel bearings) on the planes ability to move forwards.
Even Jamie was like, "that's dumb why would we do that."
That's always been my confusion. "Why wouldn't the plane take off? It's not a car!" I really don't get it, why does the conveyor belt matter to a plane?
I think he meant that to Jamie it was obvious that it could take off. Meaning Jamie was correct.
@@Lucas12v Of course. That's where the confusion comes from, disbelief that anyone could link that it would not take off, because it's so obvious.
@@brianwest2775 i agree but apparently it's not intuitive for a lot of people.
Especially since the pilot himself got it wrong. 12yr old me was incredulous.
Adam, I have huge respect for your humbleness in approaching this topic. From the episode, to this video, you're gentle with people - that's an incredible quality in a human. It's something the world needs more of. It's something I'm working on cultivating - and as usual, you're an inspiration to me. I'm no genius - but I admit that I had the same reaction to the myth as Jamie - the only time in Mythbusters history I wondered "why test that?". You're The Man
There are two versions of this question. One where the treadmill matches the speed of the wheel, and one for matching the speed of the plane.
and neither change the answer meaningfully.
The thing I remember most about that episode was Adam running on the tarp and making a lot of holes in the tarp.
Planes wheels just spin twice as fast, simple.
Plane just doesn't care, simpler
if the wheels are spinning twice as fast the conveyor belt should be moving twice as fast.
The question says the belt matches the speed of the wheels, if it matches the speed of the wheels the resultant velocity should be 0.
That would mean in reality the belt would be moving so absurdly fast that the friction on the wheels would be in balance with the engine thrust, ensuring velocity 0.
Imagine the speed those poor bearings would have to deal with
@@NicollasAlexandre Nope. Those wheels can spin as fast as they want, they won't stop the plane.
@@NicollasAlexandre No, it means that as soon as the plane starts generating thrust, the belt would need to accelerate at an infinite rate, causing the universe to explode. There is no finite acceleration that can stop the plane from moving forward.
Episodes like that is what made mythbusters so damn good to watch..
Yes, and I miss Mythbusters a lot. It is my all-time favorite show. I loved that I was a participant in the show and not a passive viewer, in the sense that I was trying to solve the problem while watching.
Also, Kari Byron didn't hurt its watchability any...
@@KnuckleHunkybuck Are you kidding? She WAS the reason I watched :)
He's *only* right because he formulated the question differently than how it's commonly asked.
He's responding to the question of the belt moving the same speed as the *airplane*. But it's normally asked if the belt is moving the same speed as the *wheels*.
If the latter (the normal question about the wheels)...
As soon as the plane started moving relative to the ground, the premise of the question was broken.
If the plane was going 25mph into the wind with the truck going 25 in the other direction, the wheels would have been moving at 50mph, meaning the truck needed to be going 50.
Then if the plane could accelerate, the truck would need to be going even faster.
It was a bad experiment because it didn't address the common question. All it demonstrated was that a plane can take off if a belt was moving in the opposite direction at the same speed of the *airplane*, not the same speed of the *wheels*.
Imagine a car in neutral on a slope. The force causing it to move is gravity, just like thrust for an airplane. If a belt could match the car's speed, it will roll downhill. If a belt could match the speed of the car's WHEELS, the car will stay still.
And we can model this by doing something we do all the time to counteract the external force of gravity on a car: apply brakes. If a car's wheels match the speed of the ground on a slope, despite gravity's force, it will remain still.
"can a person who is not on the treadmill pull a wagon forward on a treadmill that's matching the wagon's speed?"
Of course. Its the same principle as explained in this video.
This is a good analogy
Either the person is pulling the wagon forward or the treadmill is matching the wagon's speed. You can not have both. That is my problem with how the airplane question is sometimes worded. If the plane is moving forward through the air enough to gain lift, then either the runway is frictionless or it is not moving the same speed as the plane. If the runway is moving at take off speed, then as long as the wheel can handle the increased ground speed before the plan gains enough lift to not rely on the gear, the plan will take off. This is what was demonstrated on Mythbusters.
Yes, if you pull faster than the speed of the treadmill/wagon.
Of course then you can take it to the extreme and ask, how fast would the treadmill need to run before the rolling resistance of the wagon was greater than the external pulling force? Not necessarily what people were thinking when they assumed the plane wouldn't fly, but it might replicate the result they expected. I imagine the treadmill would have to be reaaaaally choochin though. And then there's the upward lift of the wings lowering rolling resistance so the conveyor has to move even faster...
The human mind, once sufficiently invested in an idea, finds it very hard to let go.
No. It's actually the opposite. Confirmation bias kicks in quite quickly. We adhere to our snap judgments, and only when we work to investigate why the opposite of what we believe might be true can we hope to undo those snap judgments.
That's not the opposite, that's what they were saying.
@@Mirality It kind of is, because there's practically no "investment" in the idea. It's one thing to believe and develop an Idea like the Geocentric universe then have trouble accepting the Heliocentric reality.
It's another thing entirely to latch on to a whim you've given zero thought to and defend it with a furor equal only to the pigheadedness of a god.
@@mzaite Except that is exactly what happens. The OP quote might be better stated "The human mind, once settled on an idea, finds it very hard to let go". It may take very little mental effort to initially settle on an idea initially, especially if it superficially "makes sense". That is the trap of the mind. Ideas are easy to adopt as long as they don't directly contradict other ideas we already hold, yet are devilishly difficult to be rid of once they are adopted.
Arthur Schopenhauer, “All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident.”
Jamie will always be one of my favorite people just because of his ability to be so blunt like when Adam said "I took it to Jamie and he said why would we do this? It's stupid"
The mythbusters actually got this one wrong, if you dive into the real original question.
@@hautehussey how
@@5hiftyL1v3a because such a treadmill would be impossible to build in real life. The only real test they could’ve done would be to fuse the wheels completely and then seen if a plane could take off!
@@hautehussey The Mythbusters did not get this one wrong. They simply answered a different question than you are answering. There is two versions of this myth. One is testable and practical. The other is not testable, and quite frankly, a broken question.
@@GamingVids1984 you don’t get to change the question just to make it easier to answer. That’s Trump supporter logic! But yes, they should’ve spent more time discussing the question, including in this video.
Safe to say, those people who didn't believe the outcome, rejected your reality and substituted their own.
One of my all time favorite phrases btw.
Reality wasn’t rejected, these clowns tested the wrong hypothesis.
@@zaddy83Found one lol
@@zaddy83 You clearly are a comedian.
@@ChristophBrinkmann how so?
The reason a lot of people are annoyed by his conclusion is that he did not properly test the question. The question said that the runway would match the speed of the wheels, not the aircraft. That means you can't just spin the wheels twice as fast, the runway will just move twice as fast which means all of the energy from the engines goes into spinning the wheels faster and faster forever until the plane runs out of fuel. Obviously doing that in the real world would be impossible but Adam is trying to say that he has the only right answer and anyone who disagrees based on the content of the question is wrong.
Only thing I remember from that episode is that some jackass ripped huge holes in the material trying run on it
So, the wheels on the plane are basically just bearings. Their only role is to reduce friction with the ground. (As much as possible when taking off, and in a controlled fashion when landing)
And to hold the plane up off the ground. Just supports trying not to hinder forward movement.
Need to interject here. While the experiment showed that the plane would take off, the experiment itself was fundamentally flawed, and I'll explain why in a few lines. This is not a dig at Adam whatsoever. But in order to answer the question portrayed, the details have to be absolute. No new variables or flawed math, intentional or not.
The wheels and the conveyer belt are the ONLY variables that matter and I'll explain why in a few lines. It's a fundamental physics problem. It does not matter if the wheels and engines are mechanically connected or not. Adam is a great educator, actor, tv host, etc., but he is not a scientist or engineer. It's not a problem of if the plane can reach a speed to take off. Obviously a plane needs ample amount of lift to take off .It's a problem of if the plane will move whatsoever. And the physics of the problem stated does not allow the plane to move.
This is COMPLETELY wrong, and I wish he would just go do more research instead of sticking with his guns in the "my experiment proved it so it cant be wrong." fashion. I grew up watching Myth Busters and absolutely love the show, but experiments do not always provide correct outcome if the variables are not perfect and if external variables are added.
The mode of force, tires vs propeller/engine are irrelevant. The ONLY variables that matter are the wheels and the conveyer belt. It doesn't matter if its a propeller pulling, an engine pushing, the wheels mechanically turning, a person off the conveyer belt pulling, any of that. If you tied an infinitely strong rope to the front of the infinitely strong hull of the airplane and applied an infinite amount of force, you would not be able to move the plane. The only thing that would happen is the wheels and conveyer belt would reach an infinite speed.
This concept is so hard to grasp because it's out of touch with reality. 99% of physics questions taught in classrooms happen in a perfect hypothetical world, and could not exist in the normal world. And if they did, the results would be drastically different. This is one of those questions. There are two main reasons that the experiment that you did were flawed.
1a. It is impossible to instantaneously match the speed of the tarp and the speed of the wheels on the plane.
1b. As the plane tries to take off, the acceleration of the truck needed to accelerate match the planes speed. Going the same speed as the plane is useless. The math does not add up.
2. The tarp that you pulled was also in contact with the ground and not supporting the weight of the plane. Thus, the plane was able to use the ground underneath to help propel itself forward.
It's even impossible to replicate the perfect experiment no matter how much money you throw at the project. So you have to rely on fundamental physics to figure out the problem.
Breaking it down fundamentally.
If the circumference of your tire is 1 meter, as the tire rotates, the conveyer belt moves back 1 meter, matching the speed of the plane's tires instantaneously. In order for the plane to move horizontally, the tires have to rotate. And the tires cannot rotate without the conveyer belt moving the opposite direction the same distance at the same speed.
I totally forgot that the wheels aren't creating the traction for an airplane. D-u-umb
me too i totally was on side "grounded" but i now feel smarter knowing the truth.
@@nyrmotworyk Until we forget it again... Lol
Yep. Imagine if you could drive the plane's wheels with say, an electric motor, and propel the plane along like a car to takeoff speed. If that were the only mode of propulsion, the plane would reach takeoff speed and take off, at which point the wheels would lose contact with the ground and no longer be able to sustain the plane's forward speed. Then the plane would slow down due to aerodynamic drag and come back down, at which point the wheels would contact the runway again and speed the plane back up to takeoff speed and it would take off again. I guess the plane would move along in a series of hops if it were driven this way, unable to sustain sufficient airspeed when off the ground.
I remember thinking it was kind of dumb since the wheels aren't the motive force, i thought it was kind of obvious from the start. didn't know about the controversy until now.
@@mrfancypanzer549 For someone who knows about airplanes enough to see that clearly from the start, it must seem dumb, I agree!
I'm very greatful for Mythbusters as a way to settle such arguements! Though, as you've found, sometimes even seeing it doesn't persuade some people.
They are badly wrong in this instance.
If you really want to do a project properly to test these constraints, you would need one of two approaches.
First, install a measurement device on a wheeled vehicle to get the instantaneous rotational speed of the wheel. On the conveyor, you then need a controller that instantaneously matches the wheel speed.
The second option is to use two programmable motors - one on the vehicle wheels and the other on the conveyor drive. Set them to identical performance and then see what happens.
It should be self evident if they are set to the same speed.
Mythbusters did not ‘exactly match’ conveyor speed to wheel speed. They always fudged to reach their desired outcome.
I recall that episode. What surprised me the most was the pilot claiming the plane would not take off! I am a pilot myself and I cannot imagine why he would think that way. Every pilot knows the landing gear has no motors, no propulsion, and thus no way to propel the plane forward. The wheels spin freely. The mains have brakes but that is it. The plane moves forward by the propeller moving the aircraft forward through the relative wind.
And, quite correctly stated, if the relative wind, for example, is a 20-knot headwind and liftoff speed is 35 knots, then the aircraft will "appear" to be taking off at 15 knots - the speed over the ground (aka "ground speed"). But, to the airplane, it's still 35 knots because it is the speed into the relative wind that counts.
But, Adam is correct. We should not condemn people for not understanding this concept. I hold judgment on the people who won't accept the results of an experiment just because they don't like the answer.
I suspect (just a guess) that experienced pilots would intuitively know this. They would know this because for given power-setting, the indicated airspeed is predictable and expected. However, the ground speed is dramatically affected by winds aloft. I have had times in my Twin Piper Seneca where I have an indicated 160 knots but the ground speed is 120 knots because I am fighting a 40-knot headwind (160 - 40). Conversely, on the return trip, now with a tailwind, I still have the same 160 knots indicated, but my ground speed is 160 + 40, or 200 knots.
It was a good episode. I do miss the show!
Your arms are also useless to run, yet you'd hardly run far if your arms were attached to the ground. The pilot expected the plane to not take off because he expected the experiment to be performed correctly (with the conveyor moving as fast as the wheels rather than the plane), which it wasn't, because it isn't physically possible to accelerate a conveyor to infinity instantly.
@@bacicinvatteneaca I'm not sure I see your point. The conveyor could be going at 200 mph. If the aircraft engine were off at that point, the plane would remain stationary (if the wheels were without friction). Wheels have friction so some minor effort to hold the plane in place would result in the airplane staying in position with very little effort. The only effort against the backward movement of the conveyor would be to overcome the minor resistance in the wheel bearings.
Let's suppose the wheels had magnetic bearings and were essentially with zero friction. With the conveyor moving backward at 200mph, the plane would remain motionless.
Now, while sitting there motionless, turn on the engine. Apply takeoff power.
Let's suppose V2 is 65mph. At the point the forward movement of the airplane being propelled by the thrust generated by the propellor hits 65mph, the pilot pulls back on the yoke. The plane will lift off the conveyor and fly away like it always does.
The wheels at the point of liftoff will the traveling at 265 mph. 200 + 65.
The wheels have nothing to do except free spin. And, that's exactly what they are doing.
This was my favorite myth you guys did, in larger part because of all that controversy in the run up to the episode. You guys nailed it, thanks!
This is the exact reason why Adam will always have a special place in my heart. A seemingly simple question has an unintuitive but completely logical answer when broken down into its component pieces. Excellent storytelling and excellent delivery!
Unintuitive? I never had the slightest doubt about the results, it seemed completely intuitive to me.
Except that he's wrong and I really wish he would listen to anyone with a STEM background (not him or Jamie) about it... If the conveyer belt really always meets the speed of the plane wheels, the plane cannot roll forward. This is nearly impossible in real life for a belt to do this, but that is how the myth is stated. A bush plane like they used is designed to propel lots of air directly over the wings, producing lift at low and even stationary ground speeds, but most propeller planes, and CERTAINLY jets like in the original myth, NEED speed to create a strong headwind to get enough airflow on the wings to take off. And if the belt REALLY constantly perfectly matches the speed of the wheels, due to the friction on the wheels (yes, they have friction, contrary to comments on this video, no wheels or bearings are perfectly frictionless, that is physically impossible), the plane cannot roll forward, and will not get sufficient airflow and lift on the wings to take off. Adam's confident tone in this video and dismissal of other views is very disappointing. I'm willing to explain any part of this if anyone still doesn't understand.
@@adamcel6 How can he be wrong? THE PLANE TOOK OFF! The wheels have nothing to do with the plane's motion through the air, the prop will pull it through the air regardless of what the wheels are doing. I might just understand your disagreement if we were talking about a theoretical, untested concept, but we are not. THEY DID THE TEST, THE PLANE TOOK OFF. Arguing against it is like arguing against glaciers.
@@christopherdean1326 yes we're talking about the theoretical, untested concept. It probably cannot be tested with any equipment that exists today, but in the myth to the letter, a jet plane cannot take off. It needs a sufficient headwind (granted by speed across the ground) to get lift, because it does not propel air directly over its wings, it pushes itself forward. Their plane took off because 1) they used an ultralight bushplane, which not only is a propeller plane but is specifically designed to blow lots of air directly across the wings at very low speeds and can take off nearly vertically which is not common for even other propeller aircraft, and 2) because they did not actually oppositely match the speed of the plane's wheels, if they really CONSTANTLY matched the speed of the wheels, constantly, there is no possible way it could roll forward. Yes the plane will want to move forward because it thrusts air, jet plane or not. But if this acceleration is matched millisecond for millisecond by a belt underneath, both belt and wheels will spin immensely fast as the small amount of friction on the wheels (yes it is small but not nothing) counteracts the forward thrust of the plane's engines. Yes, thrust is very powerful and wheel friction is very small, but if the belt really constantly perfectly matches the wheel speed, there is no physical way that wheel can move anywhere. They failed to test this part because they could not pull the tarp at the equal speed of the plane's wheels constantly, they fell behind. Remember that for wheel friction to overcome thrust, you'd need to accelerate very very very fast. With a truck and a tarp, it's virtually impossible to properly test the myth.
@@christopherdean1326 basically, yeah it will pull through the air, and if the myth is to be followed exactly, the belt will counteract this at sufficient speed to keep it stationary. The belt will go really really really fast in order to do this but the myth calls for it. The plane's movement on the ground IS relevant because that's how it gets a headwind and enough lift to take off. I don't like that he dismissed people with better physics knowledge than him as thinking a plane is powered by the wheels somehow.