Let's jump-start your brain. You fill an ice bucket with a bottle of bourbon, mix in several dollar bills and strike a match. What happens when the heat hits the bourbon? A. Nothing, the match goes out. B. It burns, the bills are unharmed. C. It burns, the bills are destroyed. D. NONE OF THE ABOVE? Correct answer revealed below.
In National Geographic Channel's new series None of the Above, host Tim Shaw challenges viewers to predict the outcome of spectacular experiments before breaking down the
Science behind the always-surprising results. These "man-on-the-street" experiments involve physics and engineering and will blow your mind or at least make you hold your breath.
None of the Above will premiere tonight, March 24 at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT on National Geographic Channel. Immediately following at 9:30 p.m. ET/PT, new series
The Numbers Game with host Jake Porway, a data scientist and National Geographic Emerging Explorer, will reveal the surprising and fascinating statistical
Science at work behind everyday situations. For more information, visit www.natgeotv.com and follow us on Twitter at @NGC_PR.
In each episode of None of the Above, what will happen next is just a matter of science. Tim takes his own irreverent brand of
Science and engineering to the streets as he shows us that the real world around us is far more impressive than any magic trick or illusion.
A helicopter lands remarkably on a single layer of eggs without cracking a shell. The surprising use of custard protects a watch from hammer blows. The amazing suction of just one vacuum cleaner holds a car 30 feet in the air. Tim sets out to amaze and dumbfound in equal measure, challenging the people he meets - and the audience at home - to guess the consequences of everyday, oftentimes offbeat and grand, experiments.
"I love science. What do I love more than science?" said Tim. "I'm passionate about taking what I know and breaking down the facts and theories, making them digestible and entertaining. Ultimately, I want to show how impressive this world can be, while having a ton of fun doing so ... and maybe blow some stuff up along the way."
In one breathtaking experiment, Tim demonstrates the power of friction using two phone books. He rounds up 10 of the biggest guys from a local gym for a surprising test of strength. He asks how much weight can the friction created by interleaving the pages of two phone books handle. How many weightlifters can the pages support? A. 2 of them? B. 4 of them? C. 6 of them? D. All 10 of them? The answer is D. All 10 of them.
Using a crane, Tim lifts more and more of them until all 10 weightlifters and Tim himself are dangling in the air with only friction keeping them aloft. Buoyed by this success, they decide to take it to the next level and actually manage to lift an entire family car with the phone books. If you were to get a microscope and zoom in on each individual page of any book, you'd see that they're actually a lot rougher than you might expect - they're like cheese graters. So when you put two of these together, it's like interlocking two cheese graters back-to-back. Once hundreds and hundreds of pages are interleaved like this, you'd need more than a car to separate them!
Fasten your seatbelt on this wild scientific road trip that will test your knowledge. You'll find out that sometimes, the correct answer really is: None of the Above.
About Tim Shaw
No stranger to the network, Tim pulls double duty as a host of
National Geographic Channel International's popular car makeover series, Car SOS, where he leads a team of mechanics who secretly restore classic cars for their unsuspecting owners. Tim's unique brand of charm has made him one of Britain's most popular broadcast personalities. His hosting duties have included a variety of radio shows on nearly every commercial station in the U.K., as well as the Channel 4 television series "Extreme Male Beauty" and "Balls of Steel," Channel 5's "Fifth Gear," More 4's "The Last Word" and ITV1's "Pulling Power." He is also the former host of "The Wrong Show," the largest content-based radio show in the U.K., and the "LOL Show" on Bauer's Rock FM. Tim has received more than 14 global comedy and speech radio awards, including multiple New York Radio Awards and a Sony Award. He was also named "Presenter of the Year" by the British Radio Industry and "Speech Broadcaster of the Year" by EMAP.
Today, he spends his spare time rebuilding cars, welding, carving wood and building huge (and sometimes bizarre) mechanical creations.
AND THE CORRECT ANSWER IS ... The bourbon is 40 percent alcohol; the rest is water and sugar. The contents of the pail will burn until all the fuel is spent but with a flame that's not hot enough to evaporate the water, so the bills remain soggy and safe. So the correct answer is B.
NGC continues to build upon franchises that complement hit series Brain Games, hosted by Jason Silva (@JasonSilva). New series Duck Quacks Don't Echo - with co-hosts Michael Ian Black (@michaelianblack), Tom Papa (@tompapa) and Seth Herzog (@Thezog) - puts an entertaining spin on assessing the validity of weird, unusual and over-the-top hypotheses through a series of interactive, original scientific tests. A highly anticipated new series hosted by world-renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson), COSMOS: A Spacetime Odyssey, aspires to awaken a global audience to the wonders of the universe, as revealed by the awesome power of the scientific perspective, and will serve as a successor to the legendary Emmy Award- and Peabody Award-winning original series.
Upcoming episodes of
None of the Above include:
NONE OF THE ABOVE: Sparks Will Fly (Series Premiere) Monday, March 24, 2014, 9:00 p.m. ET/PT In the series premiere, first stop is a BBQ in
The Middle of the night, where host Tim Shaw gives a whole butcher's pig wrapped in foil the Tesla coil treatment, generating up to a million volts in man-made lightning bolts. Next, Tim travels to a bar and challenges customers to get an olive into a wine glass - without touching the olive; and at a roadside stand, Tim creates the Frankenstein pickle by passing a live current through the pickle. Then he goes to an ice warehouse to find out how to make an ice mix that's shatterproof; and the freezing theme continues with a stopover at a restaurant where Tim introduces the concept of supercooling with a bottle of beer. Finally, he stops by a BBQ joint, where he attempts to deep-fry a frozen turkey in seconds, using one barrel of oil heated above 400 degrees. Will the answer be one of the choices on screen, or will it be None of the Above?
NONE OF THE ABOVE: Breaking Point Monday, March 31, 2014, 9:00 p.m. ET/PT Tim's opening experiment takes us trackside for a new way of re-creating the familiar trick of pulling a tablecloth away without disturbing the table settings. But the table will be set for a banquet of 24, and the cloth will be attached to a quarter of a mile of cord pulled by a stock car travelling at 115 miles per hour. Then, he attempts to rescue a tub of melted ice cream using a microwave and some flour, and demonstrates the reaction of a marshmallow placed inside a small vacuum chamber. The results are strange but the
Science is deceptively simple. The theory of strength in numbers is put to the test when Tim attempts to support the full weight of his Ranchero using simple party balloons. Finally, Tim tries to blow the doors from a locked safe using an explosive in four different shapes placed on top of the safe. Will any of them prove powerful enough to burst through the metal safe and blow open its door?
NONE OF THE ABOVE: Under Pressure Monday, April 7, 2014, 9:00 p.m. ET/PT Get ready for more surprising street
Science as Tim performs extraordinary experiments with captivating outcomes to get to the extraordinary truth behind "what makes things do what they do." At a gas pump, Tim recreates the circumstances - cigarettes, cell phones and static electricity - that could cause a raging inferno capable of blowing up a car. Then he turns his attention to his car's sound system, playing heavy bass through a mix of cornstarch and water for a different type of dancing. Next, Tim borrows hairspray, perfume, nail polish and nail polish remover from a beauty salon, transforming them into explosive fuel for a "beauty cannon." Which of these can fire a soap bar cannonball the farthest? More
Science ensues as he demonstrates the astonishing outcome of placing a Styrofoam cup in a sealed and heated pressure cooker. Finally, Tim creates a stunning transformation of a huge steel drum - using just steam and water and a vital finishing touch.
NONE OF THE ABOVE: Blown Apart Monday, April 14, 2014, 9:00 p.m. ET/PT Tim invites us to guess which product normally stored in a garden shed could actually blow one apart. The answer is both explosive and enlightening. Next, he tests which object - a tennis ball, a cue ball, a rubber ball and a steel ball - is the bounciest. The outcome has some of the group baffled. Then Tim invites some diners at an open-air restaurant to find objects that will resist the fire power of a very unique type of blowtorch. Tim uses
Oxygen and ham to produce a powerful flame. The diners put it up against a tin can, a metal tray, a glass plate and a slice of ham to see if any can withstand its heat. Getting ready for dessert, Tim comes up with an alternative way to make ice cream using a CO2 fire extinguisher.
NONE OF THE ABOVE: Spitting Fire Monday, April 21, 2014, 9:00 p.m. ET/PT Tim takes us on a journey into the world of the spectacular and surprising
Science that's all around us. This time he finds out how to shoot fire from the barrel of a shotgun, create a dramatic effect in a microwave and destroy a desert boulder with an improvised explosive. Will you or his volunteers be able to guess the outcomes of his incredible experiments - and work out why things do what they do? All the answers are in None of the Above.
None of the Above is produced by Renegade Pictures for
National Geographic Channel (NGC). Alan Hayling is the executive producer. For NGC International, Hannah Demidowicz is executive producer and Hamish Mykura is head of international content. For NGC US, JC Mills and Michael Kovnat are executive producers; Lynn Sadofsky is
Vice president, production; Alan Eyres is senior
Vice president, production and development; Heather Moran is executive in charge of production; and Howard T. Owens is president.
National Geographic Channels
Based at the National Geographic Society headquarters in Washington, D.C., the National Geographic Channels US are a joint venture between National Geographic and
FOX Cable Networks. The Channels contribute to the National Geographic Society's commitment to exploration, conservation and education with smart, innovative programming and profits that directly support its mission. Launched in January 2001,
National Geographic Channel (NGC) celebrated its fifth anniversary with the debut of NGC HD. In 2010, the wildlife and natural history cable channel
NAT GEO WILD was launched, and in 2011, the Spanish-language network Nat Geo Mundo was unveiled. The Channels have carriage with all of the nation's major cable, telco and satellite television providers, with NGC currently available in 84 million U.S. homes. Globally,
National Geographic Channel is available in 440 million homes in 171 countries and 38 languages. For more information, visit www.natgeotv.com.
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