Category macgyver

MacGyver Season 3 Episode 4

rhettallain 1 Comment

Pressure Lift Bag

This one is pretty awesome.  MacGyver needs to lift up a truck to get it un-stuck.  So, he takes a rubber bladder (not sure where he got it – it could be part of a shock) and connects it to the exhaust (or maybe he connects it to the liquid oxygen).  Anyway, he fills the bladder with an expanding gas.  The bladder fills up and lifts the truck.  This would totally work.

Check out this version you can do yourself.

How does this even work?  Ok, so you have a trash bag.  When you blow air into it, you can approximately get a pressure of 2 atmospheres (just a guess).  The force from this pressure depends on the surface area using this formula:

F = PA

If you want to lift a human (mass of 75 kg) with a gauge pressure of 10^5 \text{ N/m}^2, how big of an area would you need?  Solving the above equation for A:

A =\frac{mg}{P} = \frac{(75\text{ kg})(9.8 \text{ N/kg})}{10^5 \text{ N/m}^2} = 0.00735 \text{ m}^2

That might seem like a tiny area – but that would be a square about 9 cm on a side.  So, this is clearly possible (as you can see in the video that I actually did it).

Liquid Oxygen

We normally think of oxygen as a gas – and at room temperature it is indeed a gas.  Actually, it’s a molecular gas of O2 – two oxygens bound together.  I guess we should first talk about air and oxygen.  Yes, we need air to breath – but air is more than just oxygen.  It’s approximately 21 percent O2 and 79 percent nitrogen gas.

If you decrease the temperature of oxygen gas – it will turn into a liquid.  Yes, it has to be super cold at negative 183 C.  How cold is this?  Here is a video that shows how cold this is (and liquid nitrogen) along with some of the cool things you can do with super cold stuff.

High Pressure Air

Humans can survive under very high pressures.  However, there is a problem with breathing high pressure air.

The nitrogen in high pressure air can be absorbed into your tissues and stuff.  When the human then goes back to a lower pressure, this nitrogen comes out of the tissues.  If the change in pressure happens too fast, this nitrogen can bubble and cause all sorts of problems.  This is basically what we call decompression sickness.

The other problem is oxygen.  At 21 percent oxygen at normal atmospheric pressure, everything is fine for humans (since we live in this stuff).  However, as the pressure increases, the partial pressure of oxygen also increases.  At normal cases, the partial pressure of oxygen is 0.21 atm (atmospheres).  If you have 50 percent O2 at atmospheric pressure, this would be 0.5 atm.  The partial pressure is the current pressure multiplied by the fraction of gas.

Here’s the deal.  If the partial pressure of oxygen gets over 1.6 atm, bad stuff happens.  Stuff like convulsions.  Oxygen is bad stuff.  How do you get a partial pressure of 1.6 atm?  If you increase the pressure, the partial pressure of 21 percent O2 is 1.6 atm.

OK, now back to the show.  MacGyver can survive in high pressure one of two ways.  Method number 1: don’t breath air.  If he breathes a gas mixture that has a lower concentration of oxygen, This is what deep divers do when they breath mixed gasses like trimix.  Method number 2: use a constant atmosphere suit so that he stays at 1 atm pressure.  That’s what he does in this case.

What happens if MacGyver pulls out his air hose? Yup.  That would work.  Even at super high pressures.  Oh sure, his lungs would get super small because of the external pressure – but that’s just fine.  This is exactly what happens when a free diver goes deep (breath holding).

Oh, he would have to equalize his ears just like a free diver.

MacGyver Season 3 Episode 3

rhettallain 2 Comments

Transparent Explosives

Yes, this is probably real – http://www.guns.com/2016/10/21/army-working-on-high-tech-see-though-explosives/

Liquefaction of Sand

This is real.  You can make a simple version of this yourself.

 

 

 

Or you could make a crazy huge version like this.

 

Weather balloon pop

MacGyver needs to get a thermal camera down from a balloon.  The balloon (it’s not actually a weather balloon) is tethered down by multiple lines.  So Mac uses the jumper cables from the car and connects them to the car battery.  Then he connects ONE cable to the wire and the current causes the balloon to burst.

OK, let’s step back for a moment.  Remember that this is a show – this is not real life.  I just want to make sure we are all on the same page there.  So, there’s a small mistake here (you can blame me if you like).  In order to get an electric current from the car battery to go through the balloon, you would need to make a complete circuit.  One jumper cable connected to the line is a start, but there needs to be a path for the current to get back to the battery to make a complete circuit.

One way you could get this to work is to take another line going to the balloon and connect the other jumper cable to that one.  If you look close, it seems like the other cable isn’t connected to anything (in the show).  Of course, that mistake is better than connecting both wires to the same line.

This is sort of the same problem as this double spark in Iron Man 3.

Thermal camera

Yes.  Thermal cameras are indeed real.  Yes, the heat signature of an electric car would be different than an internal combustion engine car.  Actually, I need to see how hot they get in real life (electric cars).  I’m going to test this the next time I see a Tesla.

Oh, and here is an overview of seeing stuff in infrared (also called “thermal image”).

Just for fun, here is a visible and infrared image of me with a bag over my head.

X-Rays from a Vacuum Tube

MacGyver needs to find the transparent explosive.  One of the tools he needs for this is a source of x-rays.  This seems to be real – but it appears you can make x-rays from a vacuum tube, a lighter (the long kind) and a diode.

Here are the instructions from hackster.io (I need to build one of these).

There are so many cool parts of this hack, I could probably write a book on just this one thing – maybe I will write a separate post.  This x-ray device does the following:

  • Uses a vacuum tube from an old radio.  Historically, the vacuum tube was used where transistors are used now.  These things are awesome.
  • The lighter has a piezoelectric in it.  When you apply a pressure to these devices, it produces a voltage – the voltage can get high enough to make a spark in air which lights the gas from the lighter.
  • When you connect the piezoelectric to the vacuum tube, you can make a super high voltage inside the tube.  This can accelerate electrons such that they crash into the other electrode.  This crashing electrons is exactly how you create x-rays.
  • X-rays are just like normal visible light except that they have super small wavelength.  This can make them interact differently with matter.  For instance, they can pass through some materials (like human skin).
  • What is the x-ray used for in this hack?  X-ray fluorescence.  This is essentially the same as glow in the dark (kind of) material except get’s “activated” with x-rays instead of other visible light.

Oh wait! I already have a video on x-ray fluorescence.

 

 

One final note.  In the show, MacGyver says something about shooting ions.  That’s not really what happens here.  X-rays are not ions.

Hydrogen balloon from a trash bag.

Can you fill a trash bag with hydrogen?  Yes.  Will it lift stuff?  Yes.  Could it lift a trash can?  Maybe…just maybe.

Here is my super short introduction to buoyancy.

Suppose you take a box of air – the box is 1 meter on a side such that the volume of this air is 1 x 1 x 1 = 1 m3.  Assuming there is no wind or breeze, this “box of air” will stay in the same location.  Since the box is at rest, the total force acting on the air must be zero.

OK, there is obviously a downward gravitational force on the air puling it down.  Yes, air has weight.  If something has mass, it has a gravitational interaction with the Earth.  Everyone likes to think of air as being weightless – but that’s probably because it has a low density and it’s normally “floating”.  But if there is a downward gravitational force on the air, there must be an upward force pushing to counteract the weight.  This upward force is the buoyancy force.

Since the box of air floats, we know the buoyancy force has to have the same magnitude of force as the weight of the air.

Now let’s suppose I take away that “box of air” and replace it with a sealed cardboard box (it could be a box made out of anything, but in my mind it’s a cardboard box).  The air around this box is going to interact with it in the same way as it did with the box of air (because air is dumb and doesn’t know any better). This means the cardboard box has the same buoyancy force as the box of air – it is equal to the gravitational weight of the air the box displaces – this is essentially Archimedes’ principle for floating stuff.

Oh, this buoyancy force is still the same no matter if the object is floating or not – it just has to displace air.  You can also do this with water or really any substance –  like pudding.  Not sure why you would float something in pudding.

But what if you want to calculate this buoyancy force?  In that case, you need to know the density of the air (which is around 1.2 kg/m3) and the local gravitational field (9.8 N/kg).  With that, the buoyancy force would be:

F_\text{buoyancy} = V_\text{object} \rho_\text{air}g

Finally, we are getting somewhere.  Now you can calculate the size (solve for V) of a balloon needed to lift a trash can.  If you want a simple estimate – you can ignore the mass of the hydrogen in the balloon (but it does indeed have both mass and weight just like the air).  I’m leaving the rest of this as a homework assignment for you.

 

 

MacGyver Season 3 Episode 2

rhettallain 1 Comment

I’m going to change up my posts on MacGyver hacks.  I’m going to limit the focus on things that I can significantly talk about.  So, suppose there is some hack involving a belt that loops around a pole and something happens.  It might be a great “hack” – but if there’s no fun science to discuss, I will just skip it.

Also, I’m not going over any of the chemical explosions.

Radio Squeal Device

MacGyver does something to a radio to such that it creates a high pitched squeal – a type of sonic weapon.  Is this plausible?  Yes.

Since a radio has both a microphone and a speaker, it’s possible to set up an audio feedback loop.  Here is a short video showing this.

Actually, this demo leads to some interesting questions.  In particular, what does the feedback frequency depend on?  I think that the frequency of the squeal depends on both the audio properties of the speaker AND the mic.  If you change either one of these, the frequency should change.  This would make a great science fair project.

MacGyver Season 1 Episode 6 Hacks

rhettallain 1 Comment

 

 

Episode 106: Wrench

Using an air bag to break through a bullet proof car window

(physics, explosive, car hack, fairly plausible)

So the heroes are stuck in a car in the water.  The windows won’t roll down.  MacGyver takes an air bag from the car and connects it to the window to blow it out.

Yes, this has a fairly decent chance of working.  Air bags are basically explosives – ok, they are.  There is surely enough explosive power to crack open a window.  However, there is one problem – forces.  As the air bag expands, it pushes in all directions.  If you don’t have it attached to the window, it will just shoot off.  Even in that case there is still a chance it would break the window.

Related: have you seen those crazy videos of people sitting on air bags and then setting them off?  Don’t do that.

Covering a bomb.

(explosive, plausible)

Mac puts a bomb in an upside down dumpster and then pins it with a car.  That has a good chance of helping with the explosion.  Oh, but hot wiring the car isn’t going to be easy.  Most cars made after 1997 have those chips in the key – no more hot wiring.

Smart Phone Camera Extender

(electronic, based on real stuff)

MacGyver takes the camera out of a smart phone and attaches it to a blade so that he can look on the other side of a door (by sliding the camera under the door).  Let’s be honest – there is nothing technically wrong with this hack except for one thing.  There is no way you are going to take apart that phone.  Have you tried taking apart one of these things?  They are glued together and the camera is usually part of the main motherboard.  There is rarely a cable running in there that could be extended.

Diesel fuel dissolving SEMTEX

(chemistry, explosive, plausible)

MacGyver uses diesel fuel to dissolve explosive.  Yeah, this has a good shot of working.  It wouldn’t dissolve right away though.

DIY Pulley System

(physics, mechanical, real)

In order to yank a bolt out of an explosive, MacGyver makes a pulley thingy.  Here is a video with something similar you could build yourself.

The key to a compound pulley is to arrange it such that one string gets pulled further than another string.  This means you can pull with a small force over a long distance to get a large force over a short distance (the key to all simple machines).

Here is a blog post that goes over this in more detail.

MacGyver Season 1 Episode 5 Hacks

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You know what would be great for these posts?  Images or gifs of the different hacks from the show.  Maybe someday I can add those.  For now, It’s just science and stuff.

Episode 105: Toothpick

Redirect a heat-seeking missile

(physics, infrared radiation, barely plausible)

I don’t like to use the “barely plausible” tag – but let’s be honest.  It’s going to be pretty difficult to redirect a heat seeking missile.  I guess it’s not impossible though.

A heat-seeking missile has an infrared receiver to look for “hot” objects.  Usually, this hot object is the jet engine exhaust for an aircraft.  So, for this hack, MacGyver wants to get the “attention” of this missile using a flood light.  Yes, these things get hot – but not jet engine hot.

Normally, a plain light would radiate energy in all directions.  Imagine this light as an expanding sphere with a particular radius.  Since the light must be even over the surface of this expanding sphere, the intensity of light decreases with distance.  The area of a sphere is proportional to the square of the radius – so this is where we get the “inverse square law” for light.

Of course the inverse square law means that a bright (and hot) flood light won’t do much if it is far away.  One way to fix this is to use a parabolic dish to refocus the infrared light – a spot light.  Yes, you can do this with a plain metal dish for infrared.

So, in the end MacGyver has an infrared source he can focus on the heat-seeking missile and perhaps get its attention.

Electric Razor Taser

(electric, plausible)

MacGyver makes a type of taser (not really a taser) out of an electric shaver.  The basic idea behind a taser is to shock a person with an electric current.  There are two types of current – there is direct current (DC) like the stuff that comes out of a battery.  This current just goes “one way” in a circuit.  Shocking people with DC current is a little bit more complicated.

The other current is alternating current (AC) in which the current constantly switches directions with some frequency.  In the US, AC current is at a frequency of 60 Hz.  Why does this matter?  It matters because if it’s a plug-in type razor then you already have AC current and it’s easier to shock someone with AC.

So, to make a plug-in razor taser you just need to take the main power lines coming into the razor and connect them to something on the front.  When a human victim touches both of these wires, the human becomes part of the circuit and gets shocked.

Don’t try that at home.

Toothpick gun jam

(mechanical, seems real)

If you don’t clean your gun, it probably won’t work.  A toothpick in the move-y part will probably mess it up.  Not a gun guy.  Oh, I don’t think this would make the gun misfire – just jam.  But you can see where the name of this episode comes from.

Smoke grenades in a jacket

(physical, seems real)

So, MacGyver puts two smoke grenades in a jacket . Really, there’s not much to say here.

Metal Belt Buckle Attack

(physical, real)

In a classic MacGyver move – he uses his belt buckle as a weapon.

Fork Lock

(physical, real)

MacGyver uses a fork to lock a door.  This is a sliding door – but I was thinking of something like this:

Torpedo attack

(explosive, probably real)

MacGyver uses a train torpedo to attack a dude.  Not much to say here.

Thermite

(chemical, based on real thing, plausible)

MacGyver uses a pipe to hold the stuff – magnesium shavings and iron oxide shavings.  Boom – thermite.  Thermite is a chemical reaction that gets SUPER hot.  It’s actually pretty awesome but not easy to make.  You need to get the metal into a very fine powder.  But if you do that, here’s what happens.

Stopping a train

(electric, physics, partially plausible)

How do you stop a train?  One way is to mess with the DC motors.  Yes, most trains are diesel-electric.  They have diesel engines that power electric motors.  If it’s a DC electric motor, you can switch the polarity of the wires and the motor will rotate the opposite way.

This might not stop the train right away – but it’s a start.  Here is a demo you can try at home.  Oh wait – I can’t find the video.  Well, here’s what you do.  Get a battery powered toy car with a motor (a cheap one).  Switch the direction of the batteries and the car will drive backwards.

I found the video.  Here it is.

MacGyver Season 1 Episode 4 Hacks

rhettallain 1 Comment

Let’s keep this going.  Honestly, there might be some mistakes in some of these early episodes.  I need to rewatch all of season 1 – sometimes the script that I work on ends up being slightly different than the final production.  Oh well, the science is still the same.  Right?

Episode 104: Wire Cutter

Network Cable Trap

(plausible, physical hack)

Basically, MacGyver sets up a type of trap powered by a falling server rack that pulls a network cable into a loop to lift a baddie.  It’s just a classic physical hack.

Radioactive Depleted Uranium

(not a hack)

Just a quick note – depleted uranium is used in ammunition and it is indeed radioactive.

Tubular Lock Pick

(physical hack, plausible)

Everyone knows those locks for bikes with the round keys, right?  So apparently, some of these can be “cracked” using the outer case of a plastic pen.

Not sure how many locks this would work on – but clearly it’s possible.

Aerosol Can Explosion

(unlikely, explosion, bullets)

OK, I’m having trouble remembering this one.  MacGyver gets of these mobility scooters (a slow scooter for people that have trouble walking).  He hacks the engine (I think it’s electric) to make it go faster.  Then he puts aerosol cans on the scooter so that one of them sprays stuff at the other.  When a bullet hits a can, the whole thing explodes.

The problem: bullets don’t really make sparks.  I’m pretty sure the MythBusters tested this – but I can’t find the episode right now.

If you DO make sparks, then yes – the stuff will explode (ish).

Note about Russian computers

There was a bunch of discussion on this episode about how to hack a 1960s era Russian computer.  What would it look like? What would the programming language be?  How would you hack it?  Tough stuff.  Maybe I will save this discussion for a future post (remind me later).

Computer AC-DC Converter

(Real, computer, electricity)

Electricity from the wall is AC (alternating current).  Your computer runs on DC (direct current).  In this hack, MacGyver takes a DC battery from a laptop and uses it in a computer.  This would basically work.  The only problem is power – some of those old computers were hogs.

Flour Explosion

(real, explosion, chemistry)

Flour is indeed explosive. If you get it in the air, then each “flour particle” (not really particles) has a large surface area to mass ratio and can burn super fast.  Burns so fast it explodes.

You can do this at home.  It’s only slightly dangerous.

Hook and Barrel

(physical, plausible)

MacGyver hooks a cable to a barrel and the other end to a mechanic creeper.  When he pushes the barrel down some stairs, it pulls the creeper.  Classic.

Belt Ring Belay Thingy

(plausible, physical)

The ring on a belt is used to run a rope through to act as a brake.  This would probably work.

Improvised Keyboard

(plausible, computer, electricity)

It depends on what kind of computer keyboard this would be – but keys are pretty simple things.  It’s possible to make a key out of some everyday items and connect it to a broken keyboard.  Of course, this would take a bit longer than you would expect to get it to work.

MacGyver Season 1 Episode 3 Hacks

rhettallain 1 Comment

Welcome to my continuing series on the science behind MacGyver hacks.  Really, I should start changing the blog title so that it includes the episode name – this one is titled: Awl.

Another note: I was going to wait until the MacGyver Season 1+2 DVD came out so that I could rewatch each episode.  I don’t want to wait, so I am just going from my original notes for this episode.  Let’s get started.

Episode 103 Awl

Body bag with fire extinguisher for jumping out a window

(slightly plausible, physics, forces)

MacGyver and Jack need to escape a burning building.  They grab body bags with fire extinguishers and then jump out of a 3 story building.  On the way down, they inflate the body bags with the extinguisher to make a cushion to land on.  That’s the hack.

Actually, I already wrote a whole blog post on this hack – here it is at wired.com. But the short answer that this is based on some real stuff.  Increasing the distance over which a human stops decreases the acceleration.  Smaller accelerations are better than higher accelerations.  Oh, filling up the body bag on the way down is the best so that the CO2 won’t have time to escape.

Still, I wouldn’t try this at home.

WiFi Jammer

(very plausible, light, electronics)

MacGyver uses one of Riley’s wireless cameras to make a wifi jammer.  There are two important parts to this hack.  First, he needs to do something to the camera so that it sends out some type of signal to “jam” other wifi.  He uses a cigarette lighter to solder wires.  I’m not sure that this would work – but it’s at least plausible.

The next part is to add a directional antenna to the wifi camera so that the signal can be sent to the house (that needs to be jammed).  MacGyver builds a directional antenna to add over the existing antenna using a soda can.  This is real.

In fact – you can build this yourself, here is how.

Thermal Camera Note

(maybe, light, infrared)

This isn’t really a hack – but there is some science.  The team uses a thermal camera to watch the dude they are spying on enter his pin code.  The keys he pressed stay warm and they use this to figure out his alarm code.  This part is real – in fact, there was a story about people using thermal cameras to steal pin codes.

Now, there are two possible problems in this “hack”.  First is the glass.  Actually, I can’t recall how it happens in the show – but I advised to be sure to look through an open window.  Infrared light doesn’t go through glass.  Even though infrared is still a type of electromagnetic wave (just like visible light), it interacts differently with matter.  It doesn’t go through glass, but it CAN go through some plastic – here is more details.

The other issue is resolution.  Infrared has a longer wavelength than visible light.  This means that it’s more difficult (but not impossible) to see small details from far away.

Bullet Vent Seal

(plausible, biology, medical)

A guy has a bullet wound.  MacGyver uses a drivers license and tape to make a flap.  This flap allows gas to escape – but not other stuff in.  That’s all I have to say about that.

Headrest Smoke Bomb

(plausible, fire)

Mac stuffs some paper into a car’s headrest and lights it on fire.  It makes smoke to act as a smoke screen.  It probably wouldn’t work very well – but it would make some smoke.

Hot antifreeze disinfectant

(slightly plausible, medical)

If you want to do some medical stuff in the back seat – you need a clean environment (or the patient will die from infection).  In this case, MacGyver uses hot radiator fluid to wipe down the area.  Hot stuff usually kills bacteria – but this probably wouldn’t work.

Windshield wiper pump for gross stuff

(plausible, medical, electrical)

MacGyver basically uses the windshield wiper pump to suck stuff out of the guy’s lungs.  I don’t want to talk about this.

Improvised syringe

(plausible, mechanical build)

This is just putting stuff together.

Soda bottle gas mask

(plausible, mechanical build)

Cutting a soda bottle (plastic) so that it fits on your face is pretty straight forward.  Filtering out stuff is harder.  In this case, the filter is just wet newspaper.  This would filter out some stuff – but just smoke and dust and things.

Refrigerant gas attack

(it’s a stretch, chemical)

Mac uses refrigerant as a gas attack – not so sure about this one.  It’s clearly bad to breath in – but it would probably take quite a bit in a small space to knock someone out.

MacGyver Season 1 Episode 2 Hacks

rhettallain 1 Comment

Now I’m excited.  This is an episode that I fully looked at before they started working on it.  Actually, it’s sort of funny.  I remember getting this script and I remember reading it.  I was on my way to give a workshop in South Africa and I had a 9 hour lay over in Paris.  I sat in a lounge chair and read this script.

Oh wait.  I even have a picture of where I was sitting.

Ok.  That has nothing to do with MacGyver or science – it’s just one of those things that comes to my mind.  I don’t know why.  Now for some science.

Episode 102 Metal Saw

Siphoning Gas

(Plausible, fluids, pressure)

A siphon is actually pretty cool.  The basic idea is that water (and most fluids) don’t really compress that much.  If you get a fluid in a tube and the fluid moves down – it would leave an empty space after it moves.  This empty space would have a region of lower pressure.  That means the far end of the tube will have a region of higher pressure due to the atmosphere.  This higher pressure pushes the fluid.

But here’s the trick.  You can get this siphon flowing by itself – but there can be no air in the tube AND the end point must be lower than the starting point.

Gasoline Draino and Fertilizer

(Plausible, chemistry, explosive)

Ok, let me get this out of the way.  The general rule for bombs is the following: any two or three chemicals mixed together can potentially explode.  The details don’t really matter too much.

Why? Well, first – bombs are dangerous and no one wants to encourage bomb making. Second, you don’t want to train people how to make real bombs.

Ignite Alcohol with Cigar

(Plausible, fire, burning)

Really, there are two questions here.  First, can you light alcohol on fire?  The answer to this one is – yes.  Often, the idea is that alcohol over 100 proof will burn – but that’s not always true. The important thing to realize is that it’s actually the vapors that ignite – not the liquid.

Now for the second part. Can you light it with a cigar?  Probably.  You really want an open flame – not a smoldering bit of tobacco.  However, if you suck in air – you can probably get it hot enough to ignite.  It’s not a sure thing though.

Dropping a rock down a shaft

(Real, physics, acceleration)

So, a rock drops down a shaft.  By measuring the fall time, you can determine the height.  I won’t go into all the physics details – but here is a post I wrote for something else.

Arc Welder from a Car Battery 

(Plausible, electricity)

Yes, you can use car batteries to make an arc welder – but a normal car battery is only 12 volts.  It looks like you would need a few more to get up to arc welding voltage.

But wait! Can you cut instead of weld?  Yes apparently.

Using a Camera to Make Infrared Night Vision Goggles

(Real, light, vision, infrared)

How can you see in the dark?  Answer: you can’t.  Humans need visible light to reflect off objects in order to see them.  No light means no seeing.

However, you can make a type of night vision goggles using infrared.  Infrared is just like visible light – but with a slightly longer wavelength.  Human eyes can’t see it.  But wait! Some cameras can indeed see infrared – and that’s where this hack comes from.

If you take some infrared lights – lights that only produce IR then they can shine on things and humans can’t see it.  That’s where the camera comes into play.  So, it goes like this:

  • Infrared lights (like from a TV remote or a security camera).
  • Camera to pick up reflected IR.
  • Video screen so that a human can see it.

Note: there was lots of back and forth getting this thing to work in the episode – but eventually we got something good.

Oh, there is a difference between NEAR Infrared and FAR Infrared.  Near IR is stuff that is almost the same wavelength as visible light – that’s what some cameras can detect it.  FAR infrared is stuff that we associate with thermal radiation – I will talk about this later.

Now for a video.

Sunlight and Mirrors to Ignite Ammo

(plausible, light)

Yes, the sunlight gets hot.  If you can collect enough and focus it – it will get hot enough to burn stuff.

Razor Wire Caltrops

(plausible, physical)

MacGyver makes some caltrops out of wire – straight forward.

 

MacGyver Season 1 Episode 1 Hacks

rhettallain 1 Comment

Hello and welcome.  I should have started this a long time ago, but it’s never too late.  In this series, I am going to go through each episode of MacGyver (the reboot) and describe all of the science in the “Mac Hacks”.

Oh, I guess I should mention that I am the Technical Consultant for the MacGyver show – but maybe you already knew that.

I will also give a score for each hack.  Here is the grading scale.

  • Real. This is a real hack that would probably work.
  • Very plausible. This is based on real science, but might not work – it might require some luck to get it to work.
  • Plausible. Also based on real science, but it probably wouldn’t work as shown.
  • Iffy. Yeah, this probably wouldn’t work in real life and it might not even be based on real science.

Of course I will start with Season 1 Episode 1: The Rising. Note: I didn’t really work on this episode.

1) Finding Fingerprints.

(Very plausible, forensics, biology)

MacGyver uses tailpipe soot to sprinkle on a glass to find fingerprints.  He then uses tape to capture the print. I don’t really have much to say about this hack

2) Electromagnet.

(Iffy, physics, electromagnet, radio waves)

Getting the battery from a stud finder and stripping a wire and coiling around iron to make an electromagnet .  He then uses this to interfere with a radio.

Now for an explanation.  Ok, electromagnets are real.  An electric current does indeed make a magnetic field.  You can make a stronger magnetic field by forming a wire into multiple loops.  One quick note – you can’t use bare copper wire.  The wire has to have insulation around it – like rubber or enamel (a thin coating in magnet wire – used for motors).  If you add a ferromagnetic core (like iron) inside the loop, the magnetic domains in the core will line up with the magnetic field due to the loop and create a stronger magnetic field.

What about jamming a radio?  Radios send signals (and receive) using electromagnetic waves.  These are oscillations in both electric and magnetic fields (way more complicated than just one sentence – but that’s good for now).  So, can a magnetic field interfere with EM waves?  Not really.  What you COULD do is make an oscillating magnetic field.  This would in turn create an oscillating electric field and its own EM wave.  If the frequency of this EM wave is the same as the radio – boom – you have interference.

There are ways of making an oscillating magnetic field – but I will leave this for now.

3) Tricking a hand scanner.

(iffy, forensics, biology)

Put dust on a hand scanner and then blow off the excess.  The remaining dust sticks to residual oils.  Mac then covers over with his shirt.

This hack is fine for a show, but if these hand scanners were that easy to fool – wouldn’t everyone be doing it?

4) Paperclip picking handcuffs.

(plausible, physical hack)

I assume you can pick a lock with a paperclip.  Nothing more to say about this.

5) Smoke bomb.

(plausible, explosive, chemistry)

Mixing tinfoil, muriatic acid and ammonia to make smoke – yes, this makes lots of smoke.  Putting it in a closed bottle would be a bad idea though – it would probably create a small explosion when the pressure inside the bottle got too high.

6) DIY Bola.

(plausible, physical hack)

Mac builds a bola from a soda can filled with asphalt, and cut in half.  The two halves are closed up and tied together.  Nothing super special about this – but I am a big fan of these types of hacks where he actually builds some physical thingy.  It feels like the fundamental essence of MacGyverisms.

7) Disable aircraft landing gear.

(plausible, physical hack)

MacGyver uses his swiss army knife (SAK) to disable the retracting landing gear of a plane.  This seems very plausible.

8) Hot wiring a circuit.

(plausible, circuit)

Mac does some type of hot wiring – not sure what’s going on here.

9) Disable a bomb.

(very plausible, circuit)

I mean – MacGyver was a bomb guy in the army.  I’m sure he could figure out some way to disable this bomb.