NARRATOR: What happens when you make
a breath-mint-and-soda rocket?
[Laughter]
When a dog takes a bite out of a Frisbee?
Or you break a brick with your bare arms?
If you want to know, you've got to get warped.
Uh-oh.
[Laughter]
NARRATOR: Take two guys whose slo-mo cameras
can stop the world in its tracks...
I'm gonna run down there and catch all the action.
-Good luck. -All right
Matt, you ready?
All right, Greg, I reset this camera.
We're gonna take a look at your takeoff this time.
NARRATOR: ...add a high-tech laboratory,
where anything can and will happen...
Oh, boy.
NARRATOR: ...and some of the world's wildest talents.
What happens?
Aah!
NARRATOR: You've seen them -- guys who invoke
mystical Oriental powers of mind over matter
to do something pretty basic.
Is it possible that the mind is all that matters,
that they can force their bodies
into a new dimension that transcends science?
In order to get warped,
we use ultra-high-speed digital cameras.
Normal video cameras shoot at 30 frames per second,
but our cameras shoot up to 650 times faster,
which means the end product is way, way slower.
This turns action like this...
LIEBERMAN: Very nice.
NARRATOR: ...into footage like this.
We need some blue.
NARRATOR: This is a perfect way for us to see
just how far mind can control matter.
[Roars]
Everybody has an inner energy that flows through them,
and that inner energy, which we call chi,
through training and mental preparation,
you are actually able to focus that chi throughout your body
to protect yourself from getting hurt.
You get that zone, and that's where you go to do breaking.
NARRATOR: Can the human brain
really tell the body not to experience pain?
[Roars]
NARRATOR: Not even get injured?
LIEBERMAN: You guys are experts in martial arts,
but I'm an expert in high speed.
And have you guys had a chance
to see what these things look like slowed down?
Mnh-mnh. No.
NARRATOR: Drew shares the world record for power breaking
in the heavyweight division.
And with our equipment recording at 5,000 frames per second,
we should be able to see
if chi can really cheat the laws of physics.
KEARNEY: So, any time you're ready to go, go.
NARRATOR: Each of these cinder blocks
takes about 300 pounds of pressure to break.
To break all six blocks,
Drew will have to generate nearly 1,800 pounds of pressure.
[Breathing heavily]
[Roars]
NARRATOR: That's over eight times his body weight.
All right, Matt, let's take a look at this concrete break.
All right. Let's cue him up.
LIEBERMAN: It's like a hero shot.
You know, totally like a movie.
-RALPH: That's slow, huh? -SERRANO: Nice.
LIEBERMAN: Let's take it super slow.
NARRATOR: Watch again.
RALPH: Amazing. Look at the arm.
Your muscle was relaxed.
Even though it was full of blood on the way down,
you're relaxing your muscles, so you go from being stiff
down to relaxed and just going through the target.
[Breathes heavily]
[Growls]
NARRATOR: Ralph and Drew
could not be more prepared for these demonstrations.
But with our cameras rolling, we can see that their chi
doesn't seem to do anything to protect their skin.
RALPH: That's the ideal break on a coconut.
LIEBERMAN: Yeah, you're contacting
a third of the coconut there.
RALPH: Causing it to explode from inside.
Anytime you're not successful in breaking,
you're gonna have some repercussion on the body.
SERRANO: Even with one board, there's a possibility of injury.
As you increase the materials,
now that possibility of injury also increases.
So, now that's where that zoning comes in
and being able to zone out everything around you
and just really focus.
NARRATOR: Drew will test this focus
as he attempts a break of 17 concrete blocks.
[Breathing heavily]
[Roars]
LIEBERMAN: Great break.
MAN: [Laughing] That was a great break.
That's pretty amazing.
NARRATOR: 12 out of 17.
Not bad.
Our cameras show Drew
just what was really happening to his body.
It's not a pretty sight.
SERRANO: I didn't even think I left the ground.
RALPH: Oh, you got up there.
But we've got this other angle right over here from the top.
We can really see the impact.
SERRANO: Oh, my God. Look at the ripple.
LIEBERMAN: Your tattoo just changed shape.
SERRANO: [Laughs]
That's amazing.
LIEBERMAN: And you see the dust coming out.
RALPH: Yeah.
KEARNEY: I've also got the tight shot.
Oh. Oh. Okay. Here's the most detail.
-This is 5,000 frames a second? -Yeah.
SERRANO: 5,000 frames.
RALPH: You see the reverberation all the way up to the shoulder.
The conditioning and the training itself
is what prevents him from --
A normal person would break their shoulder
or blow a muscle right out.
NARRATOR: Watch again.
Drew generates approximately 3.5 tons of force
in the instant of his strike.
And our cameras reveal every repercussion of that force.
Say what you will about the mind,
but this is one body that is definitely feeling the impact.
Maybe all the mind is saying here is,
"I'm gonna pretend this all isn't happening to me."
Now we're ready for the final test,
as Drew becomes the ultimate whipping boy.
Well, I think we brought some closet poles.
I think we got an inch and a half.
Those aren't easy.
[Breathing heavily]
NARRATOR: Drew is about to get whacked
by an inch-and-a-half solid wood pole.
Here goes.
[Both grunt]
It looks good.
Got some red marks, but as far as -- It's not sore, you know.
It's just the skin. Just the skin.
-So, it'll be painful tomorrow? -Maybe a little bit.
NARRATOR: Now let's watch again, warped this time.
Man: Oh!
NARRATOR: That's got to hurt.
LIEBERMAN: It's almost the same
as if you hit a stick into water,
whereas it's creating this wave, and your skin is just a ripple.
NARRATOR: So, it's pretty clear.
The only people who should try this
are people who confuse mysticism with masochism.
Right?
Come on. I want to see your eyes.
Let me see your eyes. Come on. Let me see.
Okay. Okay. Okay.
Tight fist. Squeeze it out. Squeeze it.
Hard.
Big arch.
Right to the ground. On three.
NARRATOR: Scientist meets board.
LIEBERMAN: That was pretty easy.
NARRATOR: Scientist wins.
LIEBERMAN: Time warp in the hizz-ouse.
KEARNEY: Good job.
Hey, Matt, can you take a second and just try to capture this?
Sure.
What is it that I'm capturing?
Well, I'm gonna try gargling some Mentos and Diet Coke.
Okay.
All right.
NARRATOR: Amateurs have been mixing up breath mints and soda
for years.
Now professionals are getting in on the action.
[Laughs]
Beautiful.
NARRATOR: EepyBird has taken a stupid human trick
that used to be found in fraternity houses
and made it a career.
The tall one's a lawyer.
The bearded one's a juggler.
And now, both tour the world exploding diet soda.
We decided to bring EepyBird to the laboratory
for some action of our own.
Just what happens between the time
a breath mint hits the soda and the whole thing explodes?
In order to find out, we've got to get warped.
It's a scientific process called nucleation.
It's a physical process, not a chemical reaction.
NARRATOR: Inside every half-gallon bottle of soda
is dissolved about one third of a cubic foot of carbon dioxide,
and those bubbles are yearning to breathe free.
And what's happening is the CO2 is looking for any crack,
any surface, any bump anywhere to start forming a bubble on.
You put your finger in, you'll see it on your fingerprint.
If there's a crack in the glass,
you can see it forming right in the crack in that glass.
And the Mentos have so many little points on them
that they're just perfect for this reaction.
NARRATOR: Normally, this reaction is instantaneous,
so we need to get warped
in order to learn the secret behind the spray.
First, to get a really good look,
we're going to use clear diet soda,
which also works pretty well.
LIEBERMAN: That's already looking cool.
You can see all the nucleation sites on the glass.
But I have a feeling we're gonna get a bunch more in a second.
So, one Mento is a Mentos?
GROBE: It is, actually.
Technically speaking, one Mentos is a Mentos.
Do they travel in herds or packs or gaggles?
VOLTZ: Packs. Packs of Mentos.
Thank you.
-LIEBERMAN: Are we set? -KEARNEY: Yup.
All right, I'm gonna lower the Mento.
-Drop it in. -Release the pressure.
Oh, yeah.
Now, that's great.
There we go.
Frothy.
Seems like there's bubbles forming at the bottom
that kind of drag across the whole surface
and pick up more and kind of release them all together.
And it's all about that rough coating of the Mentos.
All the carbon dioxide in the soda
is physically drawn to the surface of the Mentos,
which is covered with tiny little bumps.
There's 40 layers of sugar on the surface of that Mentos.
VOLTZ: That makes for a really bumpy surface, microscopically.
Once they create pits
and the carbon dioxide is reacting with them
and it wears it away, you get more nucleation sites,
so at first, it's gonna speed up
until all those nucleation sites get depleted.
And you can smell the mint and the Sprite at the same time.
-It's a great mixture. -Minty freshness.
NARRATOR: Now a more elaborate display.
GROBE: When we create a big geyser,
we'll drop six or seven Mentos in,
and that releases all the pressure.
The whole reaction is over in a few seconds.
NARRATOR: Now, because we can never leave well enough alone,
we'll take a giant leap for mankind.
-So, this is not a Coke bottle. -Nothing like a Coke bottle.
There's fins. There's a cone. It's a rocket.
NARRATOR: Now, kids, these guys are professionals,
so do not try this at home.
And we're gonna set this off with this delivery system.
What he have here is the fuel and a piston, acrylic piston
that will drive the fuel up into the reactive fluid.
The pressure of the carbon dioxide
will push the acrylic rod out through the mouth of the bottle,
sending the rocket flying.
So, we'll keep the piston grounded
so that all the force goes upward.
Exactly.
All right. Put it to work.
NARRATOR: EepyBird has taken Mentos and soda
to some pretty bizarre places in their act.
For instance, they triggered the world's most explosive dominoes,
pulled off a demonstration
that gave an entire new meaning to the phrase "dancing waters."
And EepyBird set a world record with 3,024 Mentos
exploding 504 bottles of pop all at once.
Now, with our help,
they've created the ultimate bottle rocket.
How high can this thing go?
It's time to go for the gold.
Three...two...one.
[Laughter]
NARRATOR: Our high-speed cameras document the explosive fury
of the humble Mentos.
They propelled our rocket 40 feet per second,
a nervous mother's worst nightmare.
And how high did we go?
Over 60 feet,
some kind of world record, if anybody's counting.
Let's watch our launch again.
[Laughter]
Now for the grand finale.
Three...two...one.
NARRATOR: 4 1/2 gallons of soda.
192 Mentos.
And one giant mess
for Matt and Jeff to clean up later.
And slowed down 5,000 times?
This makes the opening ceremony of the Olympics
look pretty puny.
Hey.
[Laughs]
Thanks very much.
NARRATOR: And while we're on the subject of patriotism.
[Record scratches]
Thomas Jefferson wrote eloquently
about some defining principles of the human condition,
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Inexplicably, Jefferson forgot to mention
perhaps the most important principle
that defines freedom.
The inalienable right to chuck a Frisbee to a dog.
Frisbee-dog competitions have been growing in popularity
for the past 25 years.
What's not to like?
How do dogs manage to do this?
And this?
Not to mention that.
In order to find out,
we move the Time Warp lab to a local park.
GEORGE: How many dogs do you know
that can actually walk on three legs?
Venus, limp.
This way. Limp.
Why do you choose to work with border collies?
When you're looking for a world-class Frisbee dog,
I think that border collies represent the total package
as a rule, though it does vary from dog to dog.
NARRATOR: What looks cool in real time
might look even cooler in unreal warp time,
so we decided to put Venus through her paces.
First, the running catch.
Instinct unleashed.
Yeah, caught it right in front of Thomas.
NARRATOR: Only by warping time can we appreciate that focus.
Dogs, like baseball players, track moving objects
by keeping them in the center of their retina
and anticipating a straight path to interception.
And here, her eyes are totally focused.
Right. Yeah.
NARRATOR: Watch that again.
When warped, the athletic complexity becomes apparent.
Nice catch.
Let's watch that one again.
Now let's try something a little more complex.
Back up. Ready. Go.
Wow.
[Laughing] This is ridiculous.
NARRATOR: To be a top-flight catcher,
Venus had to master the leap.
But despite their muscular hind legs,
most dogs are not great leapers.
Our cameras reveal
the astonishing coordination and timing
that makes this catch possible.
KEARNEY: So, yeah, she really does a nice job
of absorbing that shock
and sort of transferring it to forward momentum.
NARRATOR: In case anyone forgets,
man's best friend was once a predator.
And if you substitute Frisbee for bird,
you may get an idea
of where Venus gets the inspiration for this catch.
But, as in all things, practice does make perfect.
LIEBERMAN: How much training does this kind of trick take?
Probably takes maybe -- Oh, gosh.
Maybe a couple of months of decent practice.
This is not the type of trick
you would want to train to a weekend Frisbee dog, you know?
I mean, this takes exceptional conditioning on the dog's part.
Well-trained athletes always are good at transferring energy
in the right direction to not take the impact on their joints,
and she just does it totally instinctively.
NARRATOR: Though the back vault may require months of training,
our cameras clearly reveal one other thing.
Dogs may be instinctive predators,
reconnecting at will with their feral, primitive past,
but they also just like to have fun.
Let's hear it for our top dog.
Take a bow, Venus.
Something you want to see warped?
Check us out on the Discovery Channel Website,
dsc.discovery.com,
and the warp you see just might be your own.