Busting the Mythbusters
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[ATTACH=CONFIG]216[/ATTACH]Our discussions of friction this week reminded me of a Mythbusters episode that I saw a few months ago. In it, Jamie and Adam were trying to bust the myth that cartoon characters could slip and fall on banana peels. They came to the conclusion that this was not possible, and to prove it, they had a person run across a field of banana peels without falling. However, I had some problems with their conclusions.
First of all, the mythbusters altered their walk when they went to step on banana peels. While it makes sense that they would tread carefully on potential areas of slippage, they walked in a way that decreased the chance of falling. They put their feet down more purposefully, and picked their feet up in between steps. This increased the angle between the person's leg and the ground and decreased the horizontal component of the force on the peel, so the force of the step would not be able to overcome the force resulting from the coefficient of static fiction between the bottom of the banana peel and the floor. When the mythbusters walk normally, they walk with their feet in front of them. When they walked over the banana peels, their center of mass was directly over their feet.
Also, the mythbusters were wearing shoes that would increase the coefficient of static friction between the shoe and the banana peel. Their shoes had rubber treads on them, and because there is a larger coefficient of friction between rubber and banana peels than there are between traditional leather soles and banana peels.
And thus, I disagree with the conclusion given by the mythbusters on this occasion.
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