Page "Telephone directory" Paragraph 35

* In the show MythBusters on the Discovery Channel, Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman tried to separate two phone books with the pages interlaced with each other.

The myth states that two phone books with interlaced pages cannot be pulled apart.

After using themselves in a game of tug-o-war, two five-person tug-o-war teams, all 10 people vs. the anchored books, then two rental cars, they resorted to using two older American military vehicles, a tank and an armored personnel carrier.

While the phone books were separated, the force gauge that was used recorded of force when the interlacing failed.

Savage explained that they would have been able to suspend the weight of the two rental cars they used earlier, using the interlaced phone books as the attaching point.

The books stayed together due to the friction of the hundreds of pages rubbing against each other.