From April 8 through April 19, Liberty Science Center threw a special fairy tale-themed event called “Once Upon a Myth.” In honor of our new MythBusters exhibit, we invited guests to test some classic fairy tale myths, such as “Could you really feel a pea under a stack of mattresses?” or “Could a tortoise really win a race against a hare?”

Our guests helped us collect data on several of these well-known stories, and here are the long-awaited results:

The Princess and the Pea

In the story of The Princess and the Pea, a princess is able to feel a pea under a stack of 20 mattresses. Our guests were able to test a small-scale version of the fairy tale, using a stack of 10 crib mattresses (going by the logic that if you can’t feel the pea through fewer, much smaller crib mattresses, then no one could feel it through 20 full-size mattresses).

Additionally, we had several sports balls of varying sizes to see just how large of a “pea” would be needed to be

Not surprisingly, none of our guests were able to reliably feel the pea. The smallest diameter ball that an average guest was able to feel was a volleyball, which is approximately 25 times the size of a pea. Several guests were able to feel a baseball, but this would still be 10 times the size of an average pea.

Feeling a pea under a stack of mattresses: BUSTED!

The Tortoise and the Hare

A well-known Aesop fable, the tortoise is able to defeat the hare in a race because the hare becomes too cocky after an early lead and takes a nap, leading to the tortoise slowly but surely catching up.

Could a tortoise really beat a hare in a race? To test this, we used several of the tortoises that live here at LSC. A large board was created that had increasingly larger circles spreading out from the center. The tortoise was placed in the center and then timed to see how long it would take to reach the outer circles. By this method, the tortoises’ speed could be measured no matter what direction it went

In honor of Aesop’s Greek heritage, we then calculated how long it would take the tortoise to complete a half-marathon. We researched the speed of a hare and determined that the hare would be able to complete the course in approximately 20 minutes at top speed. Our tortoises, however, would have needed on average 56 DAYS to complete the course – far longer than the “nap” our hare would have take!

Tortoise defeating the hare in a half-marathon: BUSTED!

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

Tired after exploring (and taking advantage of) the home of the three bears, Goldilocks decides to take a nap. The first bed she tries is too soft, the second one too hard, but the third is just right.

Can a bed really be “just right,” as Goldilocks said? For our testing, we gathered three mattresses of varying firmness ratings: extra plush, extra hard, and medium. We made sure to use mattresses that had the same thickness. In order to eliminate any preconceived bias, we did not tell the guests which one they were lying on. However, we were able to track this by assigning each mattress its own color. More than 3,500 guests tested our mattresses by lying on them and then filling out a ballot card giving it a comfort rating of 1-10.

The medium firmness mattress did receive the highest average rating with an average of 7.62. The extra hard mattress was second with an average rating of 6.94, and the extra plush was last with an average of 6.59.

A mattress really can be “just right”: CONFIRMED!

Dumbo

The story of Dumbo first appeared in a short story before being brought to the mainstream in the well-known film. In it, a young elephant is born with gigantic ears that enable him to fly.

Of course we know that elephants cannot fly. Instead, we wanted to test the question that if an elephant with Dumbo-sized ears was launched through the air, would it be able to glide further than an elephant with normal-sized ears?

To test this, we built an “elephant launcher” that would be able to repeatedly launch all of our test elephants with the same force and angle each time. Through research, we determined that Dumbo would have been an Indian elephant and had ears roughly 2 ½ times the size of normal ears. We gathered accurate plastic models of Indian elephants and repeatedly launched them to get our control. The normal-eared elephants traveled an average distance of 21.08 feet with our launcher.

Next, we removed the ears off a number of the elephants. Our guests then created their own giant ears using steel wire and shrink wrap to attach to the elephants.

After nearly 1,000 launches of our large-eared elephants, we determined that they traveled an average distance of 20.17 feet. We believe this may be because the enlarged ears create more drag than lift, reducing how far the elephants travel.

Elephants with Dumbo-sized ears can travel further through the air than normal-sized elephants: BUSTED!