Postscript to Experiment 008

As briefly chronicled yesterday on this blog, President Obama was on MythBusters. Lame.

OK OK OK, so the episode of MythBusters was not fully lame, but asking them to again explore a myth, which they had already done three times, is lame.

Last night, host James Hyneman noted:

• The mirrors failed to achieve the temperature needed to ignite the sail.
• The show is not about replicating results, but experimentation.
• The true genius of Archimedes might have been
  the blinding effects of the mirrors.

I understand the goal of the president to excite the youth of the nation about science; however, just doubling the number of participants did not change the result. In the broader sense, nothing this president has done has proven anything or changed anything for the better, although I might have to think about that.