Running head: MYTHBUSTERS: BREAKING BAD SPECIAL

Mythbusters: Breaking Bad Special

Angel Alexander
Ivy Tech Community College

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This special episode of Mythbusters included one of my favorite television actors of all
timeAaron Paul, a.k.a., Jesse Pinkman from the famous show Breaking Bad. This is the
Breaking Bad special of Mythbusters that originally aired on August 11, 2013. Creator of the
show, Vince Gilligan, was asked in an interview what show he would ever do a cross over with,
and he replied Mythbusters! Vince Gilligan and Aaron Paul picked a few of the scientific ideas
that were put in the show and were questioned by fans. One of those being the body disposal of a
major drug dealer in Jesse Pinkmans bathroom using hydrofluoric acid. In the show, Jesse places
the body in the bathtub on the second floor and pours a couple gallons of hydrofluoric acid over
the body. A few minutes later, a partially-decomposed body came crashing through the ceiling
and onto the main-level floor. The acid had eaten through the bathtub, the floor, the ceiling, and
most of the body. They decided to test and see if this idea from the show is a myth, or if you can
really use hydrofluoric acid to eat through a bathroom and human being.
First, Adam and Jamie went small-scale and got tiny samples of everything the show said
the acid ate through: ceramic, wood, cast iron bathtub, steel, linoleum, drywall, and pig meat in
place of a human. Because of the dangerous nature of acid, they went to a lab where a specialist
could help them pour over the acid in a contained area. Once all of the samples were submerged,
they waited to see their results. They finally conclude that the acid did not completely decay any
of the samples they had. This poses their next questionwhat is the acid of choice for
decomposing all of these items? Adam and Jamie make the accommodation and bring in sulfuric
acid and another substance they call their special sauce because they cant say the combination
on television. The show prefers not to tell people how to decompose bodies. Feeling more
confident about the power of this acidic combination, they go out to the middle of nowhere and
build an elevated mock bathroom with a plastic tub underneath. This is for safety precautions, so

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the fumes cant affect anyone and they can catch what acid may fall through the floor of the
bathroom. A hazardous material cleanup company is also hired for safety measures.
The first step of their experiment is to put the pig in the bathtub. They decide to use three
times more acid than Jesse does in the show, so they use three gallons of sulfuric acid and three
gallons of their special sauce. Watching from a television many feet away from the actual site,
they can see a lot of smoke and heat through the thermal camera. Although the acid did some
damage, the pig was not fully decayed, and the bathtub and floor were not decomposed at all.
The team goes back and asks Vince for advice. According to Vince, the team made assumptions
about how much acid Jesse really used and what type of bathtub was used. They do another test
at the lab in order to see which type of bathtub is the most reactive to the acid, and between cast
iron, enamel coated steel, and fiberglass, fiberglass was the winner. They switch out the cast iron
tub for the fiberglass and add 30 gallons of acid for a much quicker and destructive reaction. The
pig was completely gone and melted into black goo, and the acid poured over the edge burning
the tub and the flooring. Overall, it still did not eat through the bathroom tub and floor, and the
myth is very much busted.
From my understanding of scientific inquiry, the Mythbusters team did exactly what I
predicted they would. They came up with an initial questioncan hydrofluoric acid eat through
a human and bathroom floor like it did on the show Breaking Bad? The claim was coined by the
creators of the show, and they believed that it could indeed act as it did in the show. Then the
team did experiments and tests and collected enough evidence to prove their claim wrong.
Instead of giving up, they went back and asked new questions, made modifications accordingly,
and even asked for some assistance when they were stuck. Assumptions were made, but they

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were guided in the right direction and made the corrections they needed to. I believe they did
exactly what I think of as scientific inquiry.
A scientific concept presented in this episode was the group of elements on the Periodic
Table called Halogens. Adam gave a mini-lesson in the episode about them and their reactivity
with other elements based off of the atomic number. The lower the atomic number, the more
reactive it is with a substance. When drawing their conclusions about why hydrofluoric acid
didnt do its job, Adam made a point to say that fluorine has the lowest atomic number of the
Halogens, which would make one assume it would cause the most damage. This brings on the
next concept of acids. A halogen combined with hydrogen and water makes an acid, and being
that fluorine has the lowest atomic number, it is assumed it is the most corrosive acid. In an acid,
hydrogen is released. But because of the strong bond between the two elements, the hydrogen
doesnt want to be released as easily when bonded with fluorine, making it less corrosive than
expected.
This information makes perfect sense to me. Ive heard these ideas in a chemistry class
before. I learned about halogens, acids, and the periodic table. I didnt remember them exactly as
Adam said it on the show, but as he was explaining it and I was looking more into it online, a lot
of it came back to me and I can understand how hydrogen bonds with the group of elements and
how it forms certain acids. The reasoning behind hydrofluoric acid being weaker was new
information to me, but now that I fully understand the chemistry of acids and halogens, it is easy
information to take in.
The first question that came to mind when watching this episode is one I feel many
people have. What is the special sauce they combine with sulfuric acid to turbo charge the
effects of it? It is understandable why they cannot provide that information to millions of

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viewers, and not because I wish to melt dead bodies away, I was curious to find out what it was
they used that did so much damage to the pig. I did a simple google search on the acid and the
episode of Mythbusters that lead me to a blog where someone was asking the same question I
was. Someone had shared a link to a YouTube video where Adam and Jamie were in a
conference and were asked about the special sauce. Jamie states, it was sulfuric acid and blur
in a bath tub, and it makes something called piranha (Jamie, 2013). Still not saying what the
other part of the mixture was, I researched piranha acid and found that the traditional piranha
solution is a 3:1 mixture of sulfuric acid and 30% hydrogen peroxide (Chemical Information,
2014). Thinking it was some high-tech-chemistry term I had never heard before, I was surprised
to see it was something sitting in my house.
I also noticed that when they were testing the different types of bathtubs with sulfuric
acid, fiberglass was very reactive and disintegrated a lot more than the others. Thats why they
chose to test with a fiberglass bathtub for the second experiment. My question is, why didnt they
test the bathtubs after the first experiment failed with hydrofluoric acid? They only used a cast
iron tub to test the hydrofluoric acid, then they moved onto sulfuric acid. Instead, I think they
should have tested the different kind of bathtubs first. The fiberglass tub could have had a very
different reaction to the hydrofluoric acid, and it could have been closer to what happened in
Breaking Bad. I dont think Ill be able figure out what the Mythbusters team was thinking that
day, but it is a little frustrating that they didnt fully test hydrofluoric acid as much as they could
have. They changed the acid instead of the type of bathtub first, when I think changing the tub
would have done more justice. According to the faculty at Columbia University, fiberglass can be
dissolved by hydrofluoric acid (Lee, 2008). I do not think they went about their modifications the
right way.

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Overall, I think that this Mythbusters episode was a great example of scientific inquiry. It
opened my eyes to questioning and going back and changing the claims and questions originally
asked. I also saw what kind of damage making assumptions can do. It can hinder the outcome of
the entire experiment. Along with making assumptions, not fully exhausting every variable in an
experiment can also change the outcome. When doing experiments, it is important to try to look
at all of the different variables in the beginning, instead of in the middle. That way all of the
possibilities are known upfront and something isnt missed, like it was when they didnt test a
fiberglass tub with the hydrofluoric acid. There are many different ways to do experiments, but
all in all, as long as there is a question, claim, and evidence to support or disprove the claim, I
believe this experiment can be viewed as successful.

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Works Cited
"Chemical Information." Chemical Information. Princeton University, 09 Apr. 2014. Web. 02
Feb. 2015.
"Jamie and Adam's Dragon*Con 2013 Panel." YouTube. YouTube, 6 Sept. 2013. Web. 02 Feb.
2015.
Lee, Jean J. "Policy for Safe Use of Hydrofluoric Acid." Policy for Safe Use of Hydrofluoric
Acid. Columbia University, 2008. Web. 02 Feb. 2015.