How Scientifically Accurate Is Breaking Bad?

Like the great meth-dealer poet Jesse Pinkman once said, “Yeah, science!” Creator Vince Gilligan’s AMC drama “Breaking Bad” followed the downward spiral of high school chemistry teacher Walter White (Bryan Cranston) after he was diagnosed with cancer and decided to make and distribute meth to make enough money to provide for his family after he was gone, so one would imagine that the chemistry in the series had to be somewhat sound. 

While most of the audience will have the general science knowledge of Walt’s meth-cooking partner and his former student, the aforementioned Mr. Pinkman (Aaron Paul), there are enough people out there watching with a real science background that Gilligan and co. had to find the right balance between keeping the science accurate and making entertaining television. We know they did a great job of entertaining us, creating an entire extended “Breaking Bad” universe with “El Camino” and “Better Call Saul,” but what about the science?

The “Breaking Bad” team consulted with advisers like Dr. Donna Nelson, a chemistry professor at the University of Oklahoma, to try and keep the show at least rooted in reality. That means that while some things are exaggerated for the sake of drama, the chemistry concepts are at least usually sound. Experts ranging from government officials to the Mythbusters have weighed in on the accuracy of some of the biggest science-based moments in “Breaking Bad,” so let’s take a look at what they have to say. 

Initially, Walt learns how to make basic meth from home cook Jesse, who would ridiculously add chili powder as a part of his special recipe, but they soon moved on to a larger and more complex scale. Like real-life lower-scale meth makers, they used pseudoephedrine (the main ingredient in cold medicines like Sudafed) as the basis for their meth, but when they got bigger, they needed a way around it because pseudoephedrine is highly regulated. They decided to use methylamine and went about stealing the chemical in a rather entertaining heist, rolling the barrels as quickly as they could. 

Scientists online have argued about whether or not Walt would have stolen the substance or made it himself, with the general consensus being that stealing it made for much better television. Similarly, the blue color of the meth wouldn’t have anything to do with purity, either, and Dr. Nelson revealed that it was a purely fictional invention of Gilligan’s made to set Walt apart.

There is one thing the show got completely correct, however, and that’s when Walt uses a chemical reaction to burn through a metal lock so they can break in and steal the methylamine. In an article for the BBC, chemist and physicist Dr. Jonathan Hare explained:

“Walt describes the process they are using — the thermite reaction — to Jesse. Here you mix a metal oxide (for example iron oxide) with a reactive metal powder (such as aluminium) and it produces iron metal and aluminium oxide. The temperature of the reaction is extremely high and can be used to weld train tracks together or indeed burn out a lock.”

Unfortunately, there’s another great “Breaking Bad” moment with acid that is much less scientifically accurate, and that’s Jesse’s attempt at melting down a corpse in a bathtub in season 1. 

Very early on in Jesse and Walt’s long and winding road to becoming drug kingpins, they have to dispose of a body and Jesse tries to do so by melting the corpse in a bathtub using hydrofluoric acid. He ignores Walt’s request to get a plastic bin made of a material resistant to acid and instead melts not only the corpse but the bathtub and the floor beneath it. In a special “Breaking Bad” episode of “Mythbusters” with Gilligan and Paul as guest stars, the Mythbusters tested the bathtub scene using several different bathtub materials and even stepped up to a much more powerful acid, but in the end, the tub and floor always remained intact. (The same could not be said for the pig parts used as a replacement for the human corpse from the show, which similarly turned into a disgusting black goop.) 

Hydrofluoric acid can eat through glass (and that includes fiberglass, which the Mythbusters tested and the acid ate through), but bathtubs are never made of just fiberglass, so it seems that the show only got this one half-right. Hydrofluoric acid will eat through flesh and bone and turn it into death pudding, but it’s probably not going to eat through a bathtub or a floor. According to Hare, the acid’s chemistry makes it great at eating through certain compounds and not others, which means it’s the acid’s chemistry, not its “strength” that makes it so useful. 

Watching Walt go from mostly mild-mannered chemistry teacher to stone-cold meth lord is pretty wild, with a few big moments that indicate that he finally “broke bad,” to use Jesse’s terminology. One of those early on is when he uses fulminated mercury as a bomb, throwing a small piece of it to the floor when meeting with rival drug distributor Tuco Salamanca (Raymond Cruz) and blowing up his office. Everyone survives, but the newly christened “Heisenberg” (Walt’s drug lord name) has shown his capabilities. 

Dr. Hare said that while mercury fulminate is very volatile and a high school chemistry teacher could produce it, the size of the crystals Walt has would be too unstable to walk around with so casually. He also noted that the shock of Walt’s thrown crystal would have ignited the other crystals, which would have led to an explosion that most likely would have been fatal. The Mythbusters team put the scene to the test and discovered that it would have taken five times the amount of Walt’s thrown crystal to blow out the windows of the office, and everyone inside would have been injured at the very least. 

“Mythbusters Jr.” would later tackle season 5’s magnet caper only to discover that it, too, was the stuff of science fiction and not fact, but scientific accuracy isn’t everything when it comes to entertainment, after all. “Breaking Bad” may have fudged the science a little in the name of compelling TV, but it ended up being one of the best shows of all time, and that has to be worth something.