I’ve been watching an episode here and there of a new show on the Discovery Channel called Smash Lab. It’s very reminiscent of Mythbusters, but Smash Lab has a more practical scientific outlook–that is, rather than testing myths, they test big new ideas to see if they’re plausible for use in real world situations. Their tests usually involve blowing something up.

One of the episodes has the team playing around with liquefied sand. Despite the name, it doesn’t actually have anything to do with liquid; rather the adjective is being used to describe the behavior of the sand. Liquefied sand is sand that is blasted with air, causing the sand to behave as if it were a liquid, something like quicksand. So for instance, if you have a big tub of sand, you could stand on top of it, because all the sand particles would be compressed beneath you. But when you blast the air into the chamber, it makes the sand behave like a liquid, so you sink into it. Seeing it in action is pretty cool.

But that’s only the beginning. What they do with the liquefied sand is pretty interesting: they use it to make traps, in this case for security purposes, to catch thieves. The team sets up a fake bank heist, with one man on foot and a getaway driver. To foil the robbery, they create liquified sand traps by the door to the bank and by the parking lot exit. Basically, they dig big trenches (really big for the one that’s supposed to catch the getaway car), insert some piping for the air, fill the trench with sand, then cover the pit with bricks. In their tests it worked pretty well, and seemed like an intriguing security method.

In another episode, however, their idea was not as bright. They had the idea to develop a way to stop trucks that are pulling trailers when the truck’s brakes fail. Their idea: strap rockets to it. Yeah, rocket brakes. Needless to say, it doesn’t work, and actually fails spectacularly.

The show’s interesting, but the problem with it is that nothing they do seems practical, or even the stuff that does seem to work seems like it would be so expensive as to be prohibitive. And in the case of the rocket brakes, it’s just so dangerous, I don’t even understand why they would bother testing it. You can’t drive around with a pair of ROCKETS attached to your trailer!

You can watch both of the episodes I was talking about on The Discovery Channel’s website.