8 Things Breaking Bad Taught Us About Science

3. How To Escape Handcuffs

What happened in the show: In Season 5 Episode 6, Jesse and Mike decide to sell the $15million of methylamine they have acquired to a distributor named Declan. Walt€™s not interested in the sale but Jesse and Mike need his share otherwise Declan won€™t pay. Jesse asks Walt to sell his share, but he€™s on a bit of a power trip at the time, and replies that he isn€™t in the meth or money business, he€™s in the €˜empire business€™. Walt€™s being a big shot due to his damaged ego, harking back to his daft decision to sell his stake in Grey Matter Technologies before it got big. Mike catches Walt as he tries to retrieve the methylamine and prevent the sale, and happily zip-ties him to a radiator. Walt tries to free himself with a broken pot but fails, eventually escaping after melting the plastic of the cuff using an electrical arc created from a nearby socket. Could it really happen? Probably not. Plastic is an insulator, which would stop the wire from being live. Walt would have needed to get the current to flow in order to generate enough heat to melt through the plastic. This is certainly possible, but Walt would have definitely been electrocuted €“ probably killed or at least severely injured €“ as a result.
Contributor
Contributor

I have a pet hedgehog, I like to bake and I do science for a job.