Comments on: BA on Manswers?

By: Chris De Vries

Chris De Vries — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 07:04:49 +0000

I got interviewed for MANswers. They asked some interesting questions, some of which had been covered on other shows like Mythbusters. What struck me was the fact that they did not appreciate the nuanced answers I had. I know the physics based questions are not as intriguing as questions like, “How do I get into a girl’s pants?” and “How can I hire a cheap hot hooker?” (also questions which may appear in season 3), but the question I thought was interesting and answerable was how much energy would it take to blow up the world. I calculated the gravitational potential of the Earth, checked it against other peoples’ calculations, and then set out to compare that to other events: It takes 5 times the energy of the impact that resulted in the Moon, 500,000,000 times the energy of the KT event impact, etc… They asked how much TNT would that be, and it’s just a gigantic amount that conceptually is difficult to fathom. Unfortunately I think that is the part that will air, and my whole explanation about asteroid impacts and energy will be lost.

The other aspect which was disconcerting was that I was given very little time to make the calculations.

Oh well, I did it mostly for fun anyway… I will try anything once.

By: James

James — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 04:22:33 +0000

The show is so stupid. It degrades women for sure, and the announcer should jump off a cliff!

By: Perry

Perry — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 19:01:31 +0000

UGH! Uhhhh, it’s a man show. Hello?

I thought it was pretty funny, myself.

By: Greg2

Greg2 — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 15:20:54 +0000

i watched the show a couple times, i enjoyed it, not the greatest, you guys need to take yourselves less seriously, but yeah that annoucer can take a hike

By: Science After Sunclipse

Science After Sunclipse — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 17:57:44 +0000

Pop Science in Die Zeit and Spike TV…

For today, I’m going to let I Postdoc, therefore I am voice my complaints for me:
What bothers me, is that both journalists and the public seem to be so much more interested in, ahem, improbable science than in the usual garden variety.
Via Doug …

By: Tales From The Industry XIV - MANswers - Asymptotia

Tales From The Industry XIV - MANswers - Asymptotia — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 06:15:36 +0000

[...] some mention of it over on Bad Astronomy, and so I placed a comment or two there to explain (see here and here). Then I forgot about it for a while, until rather more than a couple of people mentioned [...]

By: Buzz Parsec

Buzz Parsec — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 00:37:30 +0000

The Moon doesn’t really exist? It’s just a hoax? I was right! Everything I know *is* wrong!