Barack Obama Is Going to Be on MythBusters

We all already knew that President Barack Obama was a bit of a geek, what with his buying Star Wars memorabilia in public, joking about dilithium crystals, and telling reporters that he was actually born on Krypton, sent by his father Jor-El to save Earth. (Maybe that’s what all those birth certificate rumors are actually about?) Now, he’s about to add another feather to his cap o’ geekiness by appearing on the Discovery Channel’s Mythbusters.

Obama will appear in an episode exploring the ancient Greek myth that scientist Archimedes was able to set invading Roman ships on fire using reflected, focused light.
From the White House official release:

“Did Greek scientist and polymath Archimedes set fire to an invading Roman fleet using only mirrors and the reflected rays of the sun?” a press release for the show asks. “Will Adam and Jamie be able to pull this off, or will they have to report back to the president that they failed?”

Note that the MythBusters have already gone over the myth of the Archimedes death ray twice — once in 2004, and again in 2006. They were only able to achieve temperatures of 280 degrees, not enough to burn any ship; Jamie even stood in the concentrated beam at one point, and he’s still with us today. It’s doubtful that they’ll undebunk one of the world’s oldest scientific myths, but we hope there’ll at least be cool demonstrations and a Presidential one-liner or two.

(via NYT, Deadline)

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Robert Quigley