AK-47 vs Prince Rupert's Drop (at 223,000 FPS) - Smarter Every Day 170

Hey, it's me Destin, welcome back to Smarter Every Day! I've been waiting on a sunny day to do this. You remember the last video I fired a .38 special versus a Prince Rupert's drop, and the Prince Rupert's drop won. Well, we're going to fix that today.

We've got the high-speed camera back out, and even though it beat full metal jacket rounds last time, you remember I fired the .22 magnum, and this particular Prince Rupert's drop survived. Then I fired the .38 special and it survived. We're to move up here. So now we've got this—this is my Mini-14. It's comparable to an AR-15, except I like poor man guns.

This is a much different round, a lot higher velocity. It's pointy. I know that sounds silly, but I think it matters. I think a pointy bullet is going to create more of a localized stress on the Prince Rupert's drop. I think it's going to beat it. We've got the AK-47 if the Mini-14 doesn't work. The AK-47 round has a lot more mass here. So if that doesn't work, we'll just put more energy into it. Then, if that doesn't work, Mosin Nagant. If you don't know anything about Mosin Nagant, this is like, it's a big deal. You can see there's a lot more energy there.

Anyway, let's get to shooting. There's a lot going on here. It's gone! I think we beat the Prince Rupert's drop! Yeah, surely! Yes, we totally beat it! And there's light! There's a light that goes off, and it turns it into a fiber-optic. A lot of light, okay, this light thing. I want to talk about it.

It's something called triboluminescence, and I had to research that because I didn't know about it. You know the Prince Rupert's drop was first investigated in the 1600s, right? Well, the same thing was true for triboluminescence. Sir Francis Bacon, the father of the Scientific method, says this: "It is well known that all sugar, whether candied or plain, if it be hard, will sparkle when broken or scraped in the dark." They knew that in 1620.

A lot of people don't know that today. If you have hard candy that's sugar, and you put it down there, and you have well-adjusted eyes, and you smash it, you can see sparks. I think it's amazing that 400 years after triboluminescence was first documented, the scientific community still does not completely understand what's happening. That's amazing. That's cool. I want to do it again. We've got to do the AK just because we can.

That's how that works. All right, here we go. It's a very expensive camera-mount, by the way. No, no, no! We saw the— we saw the light again! There was a localized light this time. It's just a glancing blow, but it was enough to destroy the bullet—that's an AK round! Look at that!

Come back. I'm not really aiming. I'm just kind of looking... Oh man, we cut. Okay, weapon's clear. I didn't see any powder. I have no idea what just happened. That thing didn't even try to stand a chance to that. Man, beautiful. I think we have our answer: once you get faster bullets that are that pointy, they can easily beat the Prince Rupert's drop. Now we know.

Okay, one more thing that falls into the "just because I can" category. This is the biggest Prince Rupert's drop I've ever seen. It's got like multiple shapes and stuff. It's really scary. I'm going to try to set it in tannerite and see what happens when we shoot the tannerite, see what a shockwave externally does. I don't think it'll break; I just want to see what will happen.

Mom, there's about to be a big boom! Okay, before we go blow stuff up, I've got to share this letter with you. I'm a dad, right? So when you get a letter from a little girl named Paisley in California, you pay attention. Check this out:

"Dear Destin, My name is Paisley. I am in second grade. I am seven years old. I love your videos. My favorite is the tempered glass one because I like to smash things. But my mom won't let me. Darn it. My mom says I'm crazy because I am. I'm homeschooled. I'm good at art. My dog had puppies. I love science and math. I am left-handed. Love, Paisley."

Paisley, this is an adorable letter, and I thank you very much for it. The really cool thing about this to me, though, is your name—Paisley—that reminds me of the fabric pattern, Paisley, which looks to me like Prince Rupert's drops. This is really, really cool because it made me think about why we don't have a shirt at the Smarter Every Day website that has Prince Rupert's drops on it. So you just inspired me to do that!

So, Paisley, I'm going to send you a shirt. For anybody else, you can go check the shirt out, but it's for Paisley. One more thing, Paisley: your mom who won't let you smash things, if you tell her you're going to be doing science, she'll probably let you smash things.

Okay, if you want to take the bait, go check out the shirts, and you should totally take the bait. I'll leave a link down in the video description. You can go to the website while you're there. As you know, Audible has supported Smarter Every Day for quite a while, but I've made a website that details every book I've ever listened to on Audible and what I thought about it. It's really kind of fun.

Anyway, one in particular I want you to check out is Ready Player One. On the next episode of No Dumb Questions, which is a podcast I do with Matt Whitman, we're going to talk about Ready Player One because it's a discussion we've been wanting to have for a really long time. It's a good book—probably not for the kids, but it's really deep.

If you want to do this with us, go to audible.com/smarter and download Ready Player One or just smash the big red button that I got on the website there. Again, that's audible.com/smarter. Get a copy of Ready Player One, and right now, it's time to go blow stuff up. Mom, there's about to be a big boom!

Complete professional. Wow, holy cow, it's raining Prince Rupert's drop. That's amazing. Okie-doke, that was fun. Things happened here. Wow! What do you think, chicken?