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Hello, and welcome to the Physics World weekly

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podcast. I'm Hamish Johnston.

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It's book week here at Physics World. And

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over the course of three days, we're presenting

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conversations with the authors

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of three fascinating and fun books about physics.

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First up is my Physics World colleague, Michael

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Banks, whose book Physics Around the Clock,

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Adventures in the Science of Everyday Living,

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starts with your morning coffee and ends with

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a formula for making your evening television viewing

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more satisfying.

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This episode is supported by the APS

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Global Physics Summit,

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which takes place on March

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2026

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in Denver, Colorado

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and online.

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At the largest physics meeting in the world,

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you can join thousands of physicists,

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students, and policy leaders for a week of

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connection and collaboration.

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Immerse yourself in the cutting edge science that's

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shaping our shared future,

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and be a part of the global physics

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community

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driving innovation

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forward.

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Explore the meeting at summit.aps.org.

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Why do Cheerios tend to stick together when

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floating in a bowl of milk?

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Why does a runner's ponytail swing back and

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forth

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rather than up and down?

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These might not be the most pressing questions

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in physics,

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but getting to the answers is both fun

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and provides insights

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into important

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scientific concepts.

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These are just two examples

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of everyday physics that Michael Banks explores

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in his new book,

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And he joins me here in the Physics

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World studio.

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Hi, Michael.

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Welcome to the podcast.

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Hi, Hamish.

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So, Michael, before we explore your book, and

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some of the amazing anecdotes,

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physics anecdotes that you've got in there, I

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thought I'd ask you about,

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the the the book itself. What motivated you?

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What inspired you to write the book?

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Yeah. So the book is about the the

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physics of everyday life. So this is kind

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of physics you might come across in your

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daily routine, you know, starting off, you know,

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breakfast,

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all the way to bed.

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And I've always enjoyed writing about topics that

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you might call everyday science. You know, this

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is, research about topics that you kind of

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might come across, whether it's a Cheerios effect

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at breakfast or the dribbling teapot

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or things like that.

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And so those kind of topics have always

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kind of excited me and I've enjoyed writing

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about. And actually regular readers of Physics World,

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will may well recognize the regular column called

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Quanta, you know, which features these kind of,

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research stories, you know, about everyday life. Yeah.

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I thought some of them looked very familiar.

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That's right. Yeah.

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The actual the book itself is organized into

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12 chapters,

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and that takes you all the way from

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breakfast to breakfast itself when you look at

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things like, you know, how the physics of

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even the physics of eggs, cooking,

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as I mentioned, the Cheerios effect, the Brazil

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nut effect, Physics of Coffee as well. You

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know, coffee is a favourite of, physicists, definitely

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a physicist's favourite beverage.

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So it starts off with the morning routine

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looking at, you know, you take your dog

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out for a walk,

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when it gets wet and it carries out

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a wet dog shake, you know, how it

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manages to expel all that water

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and, you know, help itself dry off.

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Then it moves into the daytime, so certain

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kind of daytime activities you might carry out.

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So say, you know, physics of you might

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come across in the garden.

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If you're playing sports, for example, you know,

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things like the Magnus effect or spinning balls.

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And then it kind of finishes off then

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into the evening. So looking at some of

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the physics that you, come across,

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your favorite takeaways, like pizzas,

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physics of pasta. Pastas are definitely a big,

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another big area of research that physicists,

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work on. Physics of champagne, that might not

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be a daily occurrence of champagne, but, you

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know, the physics of, bubbles in certain beverages,

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there's a lot of interesting physics that goes

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on there.

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And then, yeah, so then it basically goes,

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you know, from breakfast to bed all the

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way across. And it was really, you know,

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interesting. And also, you know, writing the book,

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it was, a lot I had a lot

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of fun writing it because there's a lot

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of, like, fun anecdotes in there about researchers

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who come across all these different different ideas,

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in their daily research.

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Yeah. I mean, it really sort of,

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touched a note with me. I mean, right

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from the beginning because, you know, like a

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lot of people, I'm pretty useless in the

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morning,

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without my first cup of coffee. Well, actually,

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without my first two cups of coffee. You

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know, as you pointed out, coffee is is

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is a fascinating thing. You know, there's some

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it's it's a granular material,

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and you're you're sort of forcing hot water

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or steam through it. There's a lot of

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physics there.

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I've got a steam kettle at home, and

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I think you touch on,

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on the physics of of the whistles in

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a in a steam kettle, which I thought

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was very interesting. But so so of all

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the things that you've written about quite a

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few aspects of of the physics of coffee,

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what what do you think is the most

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interesting

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little tidbit that you've got in the book

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about coffee?

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One of the interesting aspects is actually when

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you grind coffee.

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Some some of us, if we have,

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you know, like a bean bean to

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cup type of machinery, you'll kind of put

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the beans in, they'll grind, and then the

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hot water presses through. I've got some people

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just like to grind beans anyway.

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But one interesting thing though is about,

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the static electricity that's produced during the grinding

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process itself.

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So, actually, some researchers studied this in in

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details. There's a,

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Christopher Hendon,

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a researcher, a geochemist in The US. He

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was doing demonstrations at his university.

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And,

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some volcanologists, so people who study volcanoes,

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were kind of intrigued by this demonstration of,

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coffee grinding that he was doing.

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And they kind of asked him, oh, yeah.

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What do you what do you think about,

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you know, teaming up to to look at

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what happens when you actually grind the coffee

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beans themselves, what's what the process that's, occurring

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there. So we teamed up with these, researchers

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and they they actually discovered that there's actually

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a lot of static electricity that was produced

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during the process itself. That's, like, kind of,

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the metal

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blade grinding up the beans at, you know,

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incredibly high speed.

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And what this actually happens then is basically

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the coffee

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actually clumps together.

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So you kind of, you get the, obviously,

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the very little kind of minuscule grains, but

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then you also get kind of bigger clumps

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due to this kind of static electricity.

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But the actual implication of that is that

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then the water doesn't pass fully through the

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grinds properly because of this clumping.

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And that actually

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results in a weaker

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brew.

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So basically, by this static electricity from happening,

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the water's kind of like looking for an

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easy escape route through the beans, which or

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through the through the grounds,

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which it then can manage to do if

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lots of it is clumped together.

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So one technique actually, which is happens in

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the coffee industry itself, is to add a

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little bit of just a little touch of

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water

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to the beans themselves.

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And when they're in then being ground,

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they don't clump so much. So then it

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kind of, like, can negate the statics in

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some way. So Hendon and colleagues, they then

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carried out experiments where they added some water

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to it and then to then measure the

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resulting static, and they found, yeah, there wasn't

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very much static at all. But actually, when

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they then looked at how much kind of

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coffee,

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kind of dissolved into the into the water

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itself, they found actually there was much more

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consistent

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and a lot stronger brew than that resulted.

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So so if you do actually manage to,

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grind your beans at home, if you just

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add a little kind of splash, just a

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drop or so of water, you know, you

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may find that,

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that, you know, that the coffee is much

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more consistent as a result. And of course,

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like coffee

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is it is a very experimental beverage. You

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know, there's lots of different parameters you can

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change. You know, you can change the

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size of the coffee grounds,

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the amount of water,

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the temperature.

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There's lots of different things you can,

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change. So actually when I had a chat

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with,

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Christopher Hendon,

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about, you know, about how to improve your

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coffee extracting technique. You know, he was saying

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that it's very difficult because there are so

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many parameters to change. That basically is a

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way of just, you know, you kind of

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almost have to test it out yourself, you

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know, you change one of the parameters,

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see what the resulting

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brew is like, the output is like, you

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know, and then if it is something to

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your taste, then, you know, maybe you can

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tweak something else. You know, so it's kind

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of about playing around a little bit. Yeah.

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Yeah. I mean, one interesting thing about coffee,

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and I suppose you allude to it in

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the book, is that there's also different types

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of coffee makers, isn't there? And they all

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seem to work in in different ways. You

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know, for example, I'm a big fan of

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the, you know, the classic Melita

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filter,

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where you stick the filter on top of

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the cup and you pour in your boiling

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water,

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and you get your coffee. And I think

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I think I read somewhere that that's how,

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you know, professional coffee tasters, that's how they

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judge a coffee. They use,

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like a traditional paper filter. But then you've

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got,

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you know, you've got your your the the

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sort of espresso maker that you have at

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a cafe where the the steam is forced

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downwards

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into the coffee. But then you've got the,

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you know, the the classic stovetop.

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Is it called a mocha? Moka pot. Moka

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pot. Where the steam comes up.

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And, you know, it's and then you've got

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other

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well, the press and all these other sort

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00:10:01,514 --> 00:10:03,754
of crazy ways of making coffee. And, I

272
00:10:03,754 --> 00:10:05,294
mean, it sounds to me like,

273
00:10:05,990 --> 00:10:08,250
you know, in a sense, if I know

274
00:10:08,870 --> 00:10:10,409
how I like the coffee,

275
00:10:10,949 --> 00:10:13,209
I'm not I'm not sort of being

276
00:10:13,829 --> 00:10:17,029
fusty or frumpy or picky about how I

277
00:10:17,029 --> 00:10:19,049
make it because there's so many different variables

278
00:10:19,110 --> 00:10:19,610
that

279
00:10:19,955 --> 00:10:22,195
I know how I like it, and I

280
00:10:22,195 --> 00:10:24,115
know the coffee that I use, and the

281
00:10:24,115 --> 00:10:25,815
the filter gives me the best

282
00:10:26,434 --> 00:10:27,414
coffee possible.

283
00:10:28,195 --> 00:10:30,355
Yeah. That's right. I mean, actually, Christopher Hendon,

284
00:10:30,355 --> 00:10:32,595
he actually uses the, filter as well. That

285
00:10:32,595 --> 00:10:34,754
was his actually preferred way of, so maybe

286
00:10:34,754 --> 00:10:36,329
there is something in that. But when you

287
00:10:36,329 --> 00:10:37,610
talk about the yeah. The moka pot is

288
00:10:37,610 --> 00:10:38,909
an interesting one because

289
00:10:39,370 --> 00:10:41,449
it's actually quite the physics that happens in

290
00:10:41,449 --> 00:10:43,069
a moka pot is actually really complex,

291
00:10:43,449 --> 00:10:45,389
because you have this kind of different,

292
00:10:46,329 --> 00:10:47,929
you got the temperature of the water, but

293
00:10:47,929 --> 00:10:49,595
then you got the the steam the pre

294
00:10:49,674 --> 00:10:51,434
the pressure of the steam, kind of the

295
00:10:51,434 --> 00:10:53,355
vapor pressure of the steam pushing the water

296
00:10:53,355 --> 00:10:55,754
up. But then it actually changes that kind

297
00:10:55,754 --> 00:10:58,394
of the granular nature of the coffee bed

298
00:10:58,394 --> 00:10:58,894
itself.

299
00:10:59,514 --> 00:11:02,394
So, actually, researchers have also studied, the moka

300
00:11:02,394 --> 00:11:04,414
pot in in various detail.

301
00:11:05,250 --> 00:11:07,649
One interesting thing about it was that when

302
00:11:07,649 --> 00:11:08,149
they

303
00:11:08,769 --> 00:11:10,610
so when they put cold water in the

304
00:11:10,610 --> 00:11:12,370
in the bottom compartment and then put it

305
00:11:12,370 --> 00:11:15,330
on the stove, then heated it, and then,

306
00:11:15,730 --> 00:11:17,595
obviously what kind of the output was,

307
00:11:18,554 --> 00:11:20,814
when they actually took the temperature of the

308
00:11:20,954 --> 00:11:22,714
the output, it was only about the output

309
00:11:22,714 --> 00:11:23,855
water as a coffee.

310
00:11:24,475 --> 00:11:26,314
It was actually on it wasn't actually very

311
00:11:26,314 --> 00:11:28,334
high in terms of the actual temperature itself.

312
00:11:29,434 --> 00:11:31,694
And then they reflect on that that maybe

313
00:11:31,754 --> 00:11:33,879
it wasn't extracting as much of the coffee

314
00:11:33,879 --> 00:11:35,720
as it could have done. So instead, what

315
00:11:35,720 --> 00:11:38,279
they did was they heated the temperature, the

316
00:11:38,279 --> 00:11:40,679
initial temperature. So instead of putting cold water

317
00:11:40,679 --> 00:11:42,460
in, they put kind of, you know,

318
00:11:43,559 --> 00:11:46,220
temperature water of about 40 degrees or so.

319
00:11:46,365 --> 00:11:48,044
And then they actually found that a lot

320
00:11:48,044 --> 00:11:50,284
more coffee was dissolved if they did it

321
00:11:50,284 --> 00:11:50,865
that way.

322
00:11:51,644 --> 00:11:54,125
So one tip could be to actually don't

323
00:11:54,125 --> 00:11:55,565
use cold water in a mock up, but

324
00:11:55,565 --> 00:11:57,105
actually use, you know,

325
00:11:58,125 --> 00:12:00,205
like lukewarm water or something like that. I

326
00:12:00,205 --> 00:12:02,459
I could find it very difficult to convince

327
00:12:02,459 --> 00:12:03,199
some people

328
00:12:03,659 --> 00:12:04,480
about that.

329
00:12:05,579 --> 00:12:07,980
Actually, you know, moving right along to tea.

330
00:12:07,980 --> 00:12:08,879
And of course,

331
00:12:09,259 --> 00:12:11,259
you know, I think, a lot of people

332
00:12:11,259 --> 00:12:14,059
would be outraged if you put hot water

333
00:12:14,059 --> 00:12:16,065
into your kettle to make a cup of

334
00:12:16,065 --> 00:12:18,964
tea. You you also look at the teapot

335
00:12:19,105 --> 00:12:20,884
effect, which is sort of a dribble

336
00:12:21,345 --> 00:12:23,904
of of liquid that comes down the spout

337
00:12:23,904 --> 00:12:25,125
and, you know, annoyingly

338
00:12:25,745 --> 00:12:28,704
goes onto your countertop or tablecloth or or

339
00:12:28,704 --> 00:12:29,204
whatever.

340
00:12:30,289 --> 00:12:31,589
And and

341
00:12:31,889 --> 00:12:34,549
one of the takeaways from from that anecdote

342
00:12:34,850 --> 00:12:35,509
is that

343
00:12:35,889 --> 00:12:37,509
gravity is not a factor

344
00:12:38,129 --> 00:12:40,690
in the production of this dribble, and it

345
00:12:40,690 --> 00:12:41,350
would happen

346
00:12:41,730 --> 00:12:43,845
in outer space. I suppose, you know, the

347
00:12:43,845 --> 00:12:45,225
the the English,

348
00:12:45,845 --> 00:12:47,764
astronaut Tim Peake, when he has his cup

349
00:12:47,764 --> 00:12:48,644
of tea, would,

350
00:12:49,284 --> 00:12:51,524
would produce a dribble. And and so so

351
00:12:51,524 --> 00:12:53,444
why is I I I find it difficult

352
00:12:53,684 --> 00:12:56,644
hard to understand why gravity isn't involved in

353
00:12:56,644 --> 00:13:00,309
this dribbling process. Apparently, with the teapot effect,

354
00:13:01,490 --> 00:13:02,950
the way gravity actually

355
00:13:04,210 --> 00:13:06,290
affects the teapot effect is where it actually

356
00:13:06,290 --> 00:13:07,509
detaches from

357
00:13:07,889 --> 00:13:09,970
the the spout itself. So it's not effect

358
00:13:10,050 --> 00:13:11,884
it's not an effect of actually the teapot

359
00:13:11,884 --> 00:13:14,205
effect in terms of dribbling down. It's more

360
00:13:14,205 --> 00:13:16,445
about where it might detach from the underside

361
00:13:16,445 --> 00:13:18,144
of the spout and then dribble down.

362
00:13:19,245 --> 00:13:20,924
But, yeah, the teapot effect is something I

363
00:13:20,924 --> 00:13:22,845
think it was like the nineteen fifties where

364
00:13:22,845 --> 00:13:24,870
researchers started working on that.

365
00:13:25,589 --> 00:13:27,450
And they discovered then it was various

366
00:13:27,830 --> 00:13:30,649
effects such as, like, surface tension, etcetera,

367
00:13:31,350 --> 00:13:32,389
that was behind it.

368
00:13:33,110 --> 00:13:34,870
But it's only anti in recent years, I

369
00:13:34,870 --> 00:13:36,649
think in the February

370
00:13:36,710 --> 00:13:37,210
where,

371
00:13:38,295 --> 00:13:39,975
I remember seeing the paper itself actually when

372
00:13:39,975 --> 00:13:41,894
it was released where it said researchers have

373
00:13:41,894 --> 00:13:43,894
come up with an ideal version of the

374
00:13:43,894 --> 00:13:45,995
teapot effect where they've solved it at last.

375
00:13:46,934 --> 00:13:49,375
And basically that what they found was this

376
00:13:49,575 --> 00:13:51,175
the teapot effect is not so much about

377
00:13:51,175 --> 00:13:52,634
gravity, but it's more about

378
00:13:52,959 --> 00:13:55,279
surface tension, actually the capillary effect as well,

379
00:13:55,279 --> 00:13:57,440
like another way. But, actually, the physics of

380
00:13:57,440 --> 00:13:58,980
the teapot effect is actually

381
00:13:59,360 --> 00:14:01,120
quite complicated, and it's,

382
00:14:01,600 --> 00:14:03,519
quite involved in terms of what the actual

383
00:14:03,519 --> 00:14:05,894
process processes are going on. But the but

384
00:14:05,894 --> 00:14:07,975
that that they effectively found that this was

385
00:14:07,975 --> 00:14:09,514
a a universal theorem

386
00:14:10,134 --> 00:14:11,815
of the teapot effect and now the,

387
00:14:12,455 --> 00:14:15,014
teapot effect is solved. But as you mentioned

388
00:14:15,014 --> 00:14:15,735
before about,

389
00:14:16,455 --> 00:14:18,389
you know, the kettles, one of the

390
00:14:18,870 --> 00:14:20,889
one of the interesting aspects of the the

391
00:14:21,110 --> 00:14:23,190
the noise the kettle whistle. So the noise

392
00:14:23,190 --> 00:14:25,509
that's produced during the boiling during a kettle,

393
00:14:25,509 --> 00:14:27,830
which is quite an interesting area. And that

394
00:14:27,830 --> 00:14:28,070
was,

395
00:14:29,269 --> 00:14:31,350
that was a a researcher in Cambridge, actually,

396
00:14:31,350 --> 00:14:33,450
who just who who found out

397
00:14:33,845 --> 00:14:36,105
that basically no one had really ever studied

398
00:14:37,045 --> 00:14:40,085
how the noise in the teapot whistle was

399
00:14:40,085 --> 00:14:41,285
produced. You know, it was like one of

400
00:14:41,285 --> 00:14:42,725
these things that, you know, people just heard

401
00:14:42,804 --> 00:14:45,045
have heard it for decades, but no one

402
00:14:45,045 --> 00:14:46,884
really knew how it was actually produced. So

403
00:14:46,884 --> 00:14:48,644
he looked at it in great detail with,

404
00:14:48,644 --> 00:14:49,139
you know,

405
00:14:49,700 --> 00:14:50,200
various,

406
00:14:50,820 --> 00:14:52,360
microphones and cameras, etcetera.

407
00:14:52,899 --> 00:14:56,580
And what they discovered actually was that basically

408
00:14:56,580 --> 00:14:59,000
when this this kind of stream of steam

409
00:14:59,059 --> 00:15:01,080
goes through the teapot whistle,

410
00:15:02,195 --> 00:15:04,375
It enters the first so the teapot whistle

411
00:15:04,435 --> 00:15:06,915
is basically two plates with a small circular

412
00:15:06,915 --> 00:15:08,134
hole in each of the plate.

413
00:15:08,995 --> 00:15:11,235
So that kind of steam initially goes through

414
00:15:11,235 --> 00:15:13,095
that little hole, and then

415
00:15:14,149 --> 00:15:16,070
it kind of enters into a jet basically

416
00:15:16,070 --> 00:15:18,070
when he goes through this first hole. But

417
00:15:18,070 --> 00:15:20,550
that's not actually the the actual sound that's

418
00:15:20,550 --> 00:15:22,470
produced that you hear isn't produced in that

419
00:15:22,470 --> 00:15:22,970
cavity.

420
00:15:23,509 --> 00:15:25,269
What they actually found is that that when

421
00:15:25,269 --> 00:15:27,190
the steam then goes through the second hole,

422
00:15:27,190 --> 00:15:29,050
it kind of then turns into vortices.

423
00:15:29,504 --> 00:15:30,725
So this kind of jet

424
00:15:31,665 --> 00:15:34,144
powers out of the second hole, produces these

425
00:15:34,144 --> 00:15:36,384
kind of vortices, and that is actually where

426
00:15:36,384 --> 00:15:38,004
the noise is actually produced.

427
00:15:38,384 --> 00:15:40,565
And that's a technique called vortex shedding.

428
00:15:41,184 --> 00:15:42,725
So it's actually the same physics

429
00:15:43,105 --> 00:15:43,470
that

430
00:15:43,949 --> 00:15:46,509
happens when you have, like, telegraph wires in

431
00:15:46,509 --> 00:15:47,169
the wind.

432
00:15:47,549 --> 00:15:48,669
They're kind of, like, moving in the wind,

433
00:15:48,669 --> 00:15:50,350
and they might be, like, producing a noise.

434
00:15:50,350 --> 00:15:51,169
Oh, yeah.

435
00:15:51,549 --> 00:15:53,709
So I checked exactly the same effect as

436
00:15:53,709 --> 00:15:55,089
what's happening in the teapot,

437
00:15:55,709 --> 00:15:56,209
whistle.

438
00:15:56,574 --> 00:15:58,095
And it's the same thing that you might

439
00:15:58,095 --> 00:15:59,214
hear, like, you know, if you're driving a

440
00:15:59,214 --> 00:16:00,894
little motorway and you have roof bars on

441
00:16:00,894 --> 00:16:02,654
top of your car, and it produces that

442
00:16:02,654 --> 00:16:05,134
characteristic whistling noise from the roof bars. It's

443
00:16:05,134 --> 00:16:07,454
the same, like vortex shedding. So where this

444
00:16:07,454 --> 00:16:10,095
kind of kind of wind is passing over

445
00:16:10,095 --> 00:16:12,179
a certain object and they're producing these kind

446
00:16:12,179 --> 00:16:12,759
of vortices

447
00:16:13,379 --> 00:16:14,659
that produce a noise. But it's, yeah, it's

448
00:16:14,659 --> 00:16:16,899
just really fascinating kind of research. You know,

449
00:16:16,899 --> 00:16:18,980
that's kind of a classic example of this

450
00:16:18,980 --> 00:16:19,799
kind of everyday,

451
00:16:20,339 --> 00:16:22,259
you know, phenomena. And then you kind of,

452
00:16:22,259 --> 00:16:24,259
like, find new things about, you know, how

453
00:16:24,259 --> 00:16:26,375
to build things like that. And and sort

454
00:16:26,375 --> 00:16:27,115
of moving

455
00:16:27,495 --> 00:16:30,235
on, into I suppose you've had your breakfast

456
00:16:30,615 --> 00:16:30,934
and,

457
00:16:32,535 --> 00:16:34,774
you know, you're moving on to shave. I

458
00:16:34,774 --> 00:16:37,014
don't know. Either your face or your legs

459
00:16:37,014 --> 00:16:37,754
or both.

460
00:16:38,990 --> 00:16:39,490
And

461
00:16:39,790 --> 00:16:40,769
you've got something

462
00:16:41,309 --> 00:16:43,710
about razors. And I I can remember when

463
00:16:43,710 --> 00:16:44,450
this story,

464
00:16:45,389 --> 00:16:45,889
appeared,

465
00:16:46,350 --> 00:16:48,590
on the Physics World website, so it made

466
00:16:48,590 --> 00:16:50,769
me laugh to see it again. And,

467
00:16:51,565 --> 00:16:53,644
basically, the question is, well, you know, a

468
00:16:53,644 --> 00:16:56,065
razor is made out of a very hard

469
00:16:56,285 --> 00:16:57,185
piece of steel.

470
00:16:57,644 --> 00:17:00,945
And so how on earth do fairly soft

471
00:17:01,004 --> 00:17:01,504
whiskers

472
00:17:02,125 --> 00:17:02,865
or hairs

473
00:17:03,325 --> 00:17:06,410
dull the razor? And I I can remember

474
00:17:06,410 --> 00:17:08,890
when this story went up on the on

475
00:17:08,890 --> 00:17:09,630
the on the website.

476
00:17:10,009 --> 00:17:11,789
And at that time, we had comments

477
00:17:12,410 --> 00:17:14,109
on the website. We don't anymore.

478
00:17:14,650 --> 00:17:14,970
But,

479
00:17:15,450 --> 00:17:17,210
you know, I remember this story went up,

480
00:17:17,210 --> 00:17:18,589
and it gave this wonderful

481
00:17:19,375 --> 00:17:19,875
explanation.

482
00:17:20,494 --> 00:17:22,654
And somebody wrote in and said, oh, you're

483
00:17:22,654 --> 00:17:23,554
you're being dozy.

484
00:17:23,855 --> 00:17:25,615
The reason they get dull is so they

485
00:17:25,615 --> 00:17:26,914
can sell more razors.

486
00:17:27,214 --> 00:17:29,855
Exactly. And I thought, okay. I can't argue

487
00:17:29,855 --> 00:17:30,914
with that. So,

488
00:17:31,529 --> 00:17:33,450
yeah, I suppose there might be some truth

489
00:17:33,450 --> 00:17:35,690
to that. But why why on earth does

490
00:17:35,690 --> 00:17:36,990
a a very, very sharp,

491
00:17:37,850 --> 00:17:38,570
and and,

492
00:17:39,130 --> 00:17:40,590
hard piece of metal

493
00:17:41,049 --> 00:17:44,009
get dulled by, you know, a fairly soft

494
00:17:44,009 --> 00:17:44,984
piece of hair?

495
00:17:45,464 --> 00:17:46,904
Yeah. So that's what another one of these

496
00:17:46,904 --> 00:17:48,444
life's mysteries, isn't it?

497
00:17:49,065 --> 00:17:50,204
Yes. A razor blade's,

498
00:17:50,744 --> 00:17:53,144
mostly made of steel. And, of course, the

499
00:17:53,144 --> 00:17:55,704
actual hairs on your face, they're around 50

500
00:17:55,704 --> 00:17:56,765
times softer

501
00:17:57,384 --> 00:17:59,704
than the materials of razor blade itself. So

502
00:17:59,704 --> 00:18:02,619
you might think, how on earth does something

503
00:18:02,619 --> 00:18:04,400
that's 50 times softer end

504
00:18:04,700 --> 00:18:05,279
up blunting,

505
00:18:06,059 --> 00:18:07,740
you know, something that's so hard such as

506
00:18:07,740 --> 00:18:08,640
a razor blade?

507
00:18:09,100 --> 00:18:11,440
And that's what these researchers at at MIT,

508
00:18:11,980 --> 00:18:12,859
in The US,

509
00:18:13,674 --> 00:18:15,375
were very keen to understand.

510
00:18:16,555 --> 00:18:17,375
So they actually,

511
00:18:17,674 --> 00:18:19,775
carried out a number of experiments,

512
00:18:20,954 --> 00:18:22,255
in which, you know,

513
00:18:22,555 --> 00:18:23,055
kind,

514
00:18:23,674 --> 00:18:24,974
students plucked

515
00:18:25,595 --> 00:18:26,734
individual hers

516
00:18:27,035 --> 00:18:29,669
from their face, and then they got this

517
00:18:29,669 --> 00:18:31,529
blade basically to cut,

518
00:18:32,069 --> 00:18:33,669
just a single or very few, you know,

519
00:18:33,669 --> 00:18:35,929
very few strands of of hair itself.

520
00:18:36,789 --> 00:18:39,029
And they looked under that at that process

521
00:18:39,029 --> 00:18:41,450
under a microscope, you know, very powerful microscope.

522
00:18:42,149 --> 00:18:44,825
But they were amazed to discover that even

523
00:18:44,825 --> 00:18:47,724
single hairs like that could actually end up,

524
00:18:48,265 --> 00:18:48,765
chipping,

525
00:18:49,464 --> 00:18:51,224
the blades themselves when you look under, you

526
00:18:51,224 --> 00:18:51,884
know, very,

527
00:18:52,705 --> 00:18:53,724
you know, very,

528
00:18:54,184 --> 00:18:55,085
powerful microscope.

529
00:18:56,025 --> 00:18:57,325
So that kind of really

530
00:18:57,839 --> 00:18:59,519
surprised them about how on earth, you know,

531
00:18:59,519 --> 00:19:02,179
what is the process that's happening to, you

532
00:19:02,319 --> 00:19:04,339
know, such that a hair can actually blunt

533
00:19:04,720 --> 00:19:05,299
a blade.

534
00:19:06,160 --> 00:19:07,359
So they looked at it in much more

535
00:19:07,359 --> 00:19:09,440
detail. They got, did a lot more experiments

536
00:19:09,440 --> 00:19:12,015
on it. And they actually discovered there was

537
00:19:12,015 --> 00:19:13,875
kind of three different types,

538
00:19:15,214 --> 00:19:17,214
of process that was happening when a when

539
00:19:17,214 --> 00:19:18,355
a hair was being cut.

540
00:19:18,894 --> 00:19:20,755
So one example is,

541
00:19:21,535 --> 00:19:22,174
where the hair

542
00:19:22,859 --> 00:19:24,960
basically there's like, there may be small imperfections

543
00:19:25,339 --> 00:19:27,660
in the blade itself during the manufacturing process

544
00:19:27,660 --> 00:19:29,339
where you have little cracks, so it's kind

545
00:19:29,339 --> 00:19:31,500
of really unavoidable that you've got these kind

546
00:19:31,500 --> 00:19:33,200
of small imperfections.

547
00:19:33,660 --> 00:19:35,119
So if a hair kind of then

548
00:19:35,420 --> 00:19:37,904
slightly hits one was a crack, it's like

549
00:19:37,984 --> 00:19:40,325
kind of slightly hits one side of it,

550
00:19:40,544 --> 00:19:43,424
that is enough to eventually kind of chip

551
00:19:43,424 --> 00:19:44,944
the blade if it hits if it is

552
00:19:44,944 --> 00:19:46,005
a side of a crack.

553
00:19:46,464 --> 00:19:46,964
Another

554
00:19:47,505 --> 00:19:50,625
possibility is that in the angle itself, so

555
00:19:50,625 --> 00:19:51,265
if a

556
00:19:51,829 --> 00:19:54,470
if the blade is kind of perpendicular to

557
00:19:54,470 --> 00:19:55,769
the hair, it should generally

558
00:19:56,150 --> 00:19:57,210
avoid cracking

559
00:19:57,910 --> 00:19:58,569
or chipping.

560
00:19:59,269 --> 00:20:01,349
But if the angle is actually an if

561
00:20:01,349 --> 00:20:01,849
the,

562
00:20:02,470 --> 00:20:04,569
blade is an angle to the hair

563
00:20:04,984 --> 00:20:07,025
itself, then that can actually that also could

564
00:20:07,144 --> 00:20:08,984
they found it could also result in in

565
00:20:08,984 --> 00:20:09,484
chipping.

566
00:20:09,865 --> 00:20:10,605
And another,

567
00:20:10,904 --> 00:20:11,945
the third option,

568
00:20:12,345 --> 00:20:14,424
that they that they discovered was actually kind

569
00:20:14,424 --> 00:20:15,565
of, inconsistencies

570
00:20:15,945 --> 00:20:18,045
in the material itself. So in in homogeneities

571
00:20:18,505 --> 00:20:19,484
basically where

572
00:20:19,960 --> 00:20:22,440
the material was kind of softer, say, in

573
00:20:22,440 --> 00:20:24,059
one part than it was in the other.

574
00:20:24,440 --> 00:20:26,200
So if, again, if the hair was then

575
00:20:26,440 --> 00:20:28,840
if the hair hit that softer part, it

576
00:20:28,840 --> 00:20:30,700
would then basically end up chipping,

577
00:20:31,400 --> 00:20:32,059
the blade.

578
00:20:33,005 --> 00:20:34,764
So that's what they discovered. They discovered these

579
00:20:34,764 --> 00:20:35,264
three,

580
00:20:36,284 --> 00:20:38,464
these three kind of processes that are happening.

581
00:20:38,684 --> 00:20:41,005
But when it comes to, as you mentioned

582
00:20:41,005 --> 00:20:43,484
before about, you know, does the actual industry

583
00:20:43,484 --> 00:20:44,784
want this to kind of happen,

584
00:20:45,990 --> 00:20:48,309
one way of getting around it is to

585
00:20:48,309 --> 00:20:50,590
have is to produce a material that's more

586
00:20:50,710 --> 00:20:52,869
much more consistent. So it doesn't have those

587
00:20:52,869 --> 00:20:55,430
certain kind of softer and harder regions. You

588
00:20:55,430 --> 00:20:56,330
know, it's more,

589
00:20:57,109 --> 00:20:58,650
more, I mean, homogeneous,

590
00:20:59,975 --> 00:21:01,975
so that the that those kind of chips

591
00:21:01,975 --> 00:21:04,855
won't happen. But in terms of actually for,

592
00:21:04,855 --> 00:21:06,855
you know, stopping the chips altogether, it's gonna

593
00:21:06,855 --> 00:21:08,934
be very difficult because you will always have

594
00:21:08,934 --> 00:21:10,394
these kind of little cracks

595
00:21:11,174 --> 00:21:13,434
in the material itself, which will then

596
00:21:13,950 --> 00:21:15,950
even be even, you know, hers can end

597
00:21:15,950 --> 00:21:17,630
up chipping, you know, end up chipping those

598
00:21:17,630 --> 00:21:18,130
blades.

599
00:21:18,669 --> 00:21:20,629
But actually the researchers at MIT are actually

600
00:21:20,629 --> 00:21:22,450
at the moment, they're they're developing

601
00:21:22,829 --> 00:21:24,450
new materials, which are,

602
00:21:24,909 --> 00:21:25,724
you know, more

603
00:21:26,044 --> 00:21:26,865
more consistent,

604
00:21:27,404 --> 00:21:29,404
in the blade. And I think, from what

605
00:21:29,404 --> 00:21:30,684
I heard, anyway, is that they, you know,

606
00:21:30,684 --> 00:21:32,625
they are looking at developing products where,

607
00:21:33,565 --> 00:21:35,484
you know, blades could be more consistent, and

608
00:21:35,484 --> 00:21:37,884
that may end up, you know, increasing the

609
00:21:37,884 --> 00:21:38,384
lifetime

610
00:21:38,899 --> 00:21:40,740
of certain blades. Right. But but, of course,

611
00:21:40,740 --> 00:21:42,119
that was kind of, like, you know, disposables,

612
00:21:42,179 --> 00:21:43,480
etcetera. I mean, you could

613
00:21:43,859 --> 00:21:45,380
you could use a blade where you sharpen

614
00:21:45,380 --> 00:21:47,299
it. That's one option of getting around it,

615
00:21:47,299 --> 00:21:49,480
where you would purposely sharpen the blade.

616
00:21:50,179 --> 00:21:52,394
Like an old fashioned straight razor. Exactly. An

617
00:21:52,394 --> 00:21:54,315
old fashioned straight razor would get around that

618
00:21:54,315 --> 00:21:55,994
problem because it would then end up, you

619
00:21:55,994 --> 00:21:56,494
know,

620
00:21:56,954 --> 00:21:58,714
making it much more sharper each time.

621
00:21:59,194 --> 00:22:00,714
But yeah, that was quite an interesting,

622
00:22:01,835 --> 00:22:03,914
discovery actually, but there's kind of different ways

623
00:22:03,914 --> 00:22:04,414
of

624
00:22:04,799 --> 00:22:06,799
of firing us. And the same goes for

625
00:22:06,799 --> 00:22:09,360
things like cutting a cutting a knife through

626
00:22:09,360 --> 00:22:11,680
cheese. It's just exactly the same process, though,

627
00:22:11,680 --> 00:22:14,880
where effectively cheese itself could blunt a knife.

628
00:22:14,880 --> 00:22:16,400
And it's the same very same things,

629
00:22:16,960 --> 00:22:18,580
but these kind of small imperfections

630
00:22:18,960 --> 00:22:21,494
can result in, you know, a failure of,

631
00:22:22,055 --> 00:22:24,134
even something so hard as a a steel

632
00:22:24,134 --> 00:22:24,634
knife.

633
00:22:25,335 --> 00:22:27,335
And and sort of staying on the, on

634
00:22:27,335 --> 00:22:28,555
the subject of hair,

635
00:22:28,934 --> 00:22:31,095
you you you also look at,

636
00:22:32,055 --> 00:22:33,275
runners' ponytails.

637
00:22:34,230 --> 00:22:35,589
And I think, you you know, if you've

638
00:22:35,589 --> 00:22:37,529
seen someone with a ponytail running,

639
00:22:37,990 --> 00:22:40,789
normally the ponytail sort of swings back and

640
00:22:40,789 --> 00:22:41,289
forth.

641
00:22:42,069 --> 00:22:42,569
And

642
00:22:43,349 --> 00:22:45,269
if you think about it, a runner is

643
00:22:45,269 --> 00:22:46,890
sort of going up and down.

644
00:22:47,204 --> 00:22:49,065
So why isn't their ponytail

645
00:22:49,444 --> 00:22:49,944
oscillating

646
00:22:51,284 --> 00:22:52,105
in the horizontal

647
00:22:52,484 --> 00:22:55,565
direction rather than the the vertical direction? But

648
00:22:55,565 --> 00:22:55,924
the

649
00:22:56,404 --> 00:22:58,664
clearly, there's some sort of coupling going on

650
00:22:58,964 --> 00:22:59,464
between,

651
00:22:59,765 --> 00:23:02,089
those two degrees of freedom. So what what's

652
00:23:02,089 --> 00:23:05,289
happening there, Michael? Why do runners' ponytails go

653
00:23:05,289 --> 00:23:07,789
side to side rather than up and down?

654
00:23:08,089 --> 00:23:10,269
Yes. It's actually not only I mean, ponytails

655
00:23:10,329 --> 00:23:12,730
is one possibility, but also, like, if you

656
00:23:12,730 --> 00:23:14,490
have flight if you find you have, like,

657
00:23:14,490 --> 00:23:16,424
a hoodie on sale, which has got

658
00:23:16,805 --> 00:23:18,724
tassels, you'll find exactly the same thing. So

659
00:23:18,724 --> 00:23:19,545
if you walk

660
00:23:20,085 --> 00:23:21,865
at a at a brisk pace,

661
00:23:22,325 --> 00:23:24,105
you might find as you're walking,

662
00:23:24,404 --> 00:23:25,705
the tassels on your hoodie

663
00:23:26,644 --> 00:23:28,884
are not swinging off, like, you know, back

664
00:23:28,884 --> 00:23:30,484
and forth, but actually swinging from side to

665
00:23:30,484 --> 00:23:32,200
side. So you're kind of thinking exactly as

666
00:23:32,200 --> 00:23:32,859
you said,

667
00:23:33,400 --> 00:23:34,299
how on earth,

668
00:23:34,599 --> 00:23:35,960
when when your head is, you know, head

669
00:23:35,960 --> 00:23:37,099
is moving up and down,

670
00:23:37,400 --> 00:23:39,159
you know, why why is your your body

671
00:23:39,159 --> 00:23:41,240
moving forward, and why are the tassels moving

672
00:23:41,240 --> 00:23:43,259
from from side to side?

673
00:23:44,134 --> 00:23:46,054
And it's actually a bit of a strange

674
00:23:46,054 --> 00:23:47,254
story behind it, but it was,

675
00:23:48,855 --> 00:23:51,095
it was someone who was actually working on

676
00:23:51,095 --> 00:23:53,575
the kind of three body problem in terms

677
00:23:53,575 --> 00:23:54,154
of the,

678
00:23:55,014 --> 00:23:56,075
in terms of astronomy

679
00:23:56,500 --> 00:23:59,000
and kind of the relationship between the sun,

680
00:23:59,380 --> 00:24:01,220
the earth, and the moon. And it was,

681
00:24:01,859 --> 00:24:04,659
various kind of equations that they produce from

682
00:24:04,659 --> 00:24:05,159
that.

683
00:24:05,700 --> 00:24:07,779
And somehow that could actually then be used

684
00:24:07,779 --> 00:24:09,220
in terms of the physics of how a

685
00:24:09,220 --> 00:24:10,659
ponytail moves. And it's to do with a

686
00:24:10,659 --> 00:24:12,884
couple as you mentioned, the couplings between

687
00:24:13,265 --> 00:24:15,904
the the kind of what's swinging and then

688
00:24:15,904 --> 00:24:17,605
what's its kind of anchor point.

689
00:24:17,984 --> 00:24:20,304
So they discovered that if there's kind of

690
00:24:20,304 --> 00:24:20,704
a,

691
00:24:21,265 --> 00:24:21,924
the frequency

692
00:24:22,384 --> 00:24:22,884
is

693
00:24:23,424 --> 00:24:24,164
a doubling.

694
00:24:25,210 --> 00:24:27,049
So say if you're walking, you've got a

695
00:24:27,049 --> 00:24:28,890
certain frequency that your head is moving up

696
00:24:28,890 --> 00:24:29,710
and down, your,

697
00:24:30,809 --> 00:24:32,429
your body's moving up and down.

698
00:24:32,809 --> 00:24:34,890
If there's kind of a relationship between the

699
00:24:35,210 --> 00:24:37,049
between that length and actually the length of

700
00:24:37,049 --> 00:24:38,269
the ponytail itself,

701
00:24:38,815 --> 00:24:40,575
then basically, if it's if it's if it's

702
00:24:40,575 --> 00:24:43,154
a double wing, then basically any small

703
00:24:43,695 --> 00:24:44,195
deviation

704
00:24:45,455 --> 00:24:45,955
between

705
00:24:46,575 --> 00:24:48,494
that up and down movement and side to

706
00:24:48,494 --> 00:24:52,099
side, basically then it it expands, basically. So

707
00:24:52,099 --> 00:24:54,359
if you've got a very tiny deviation

708
00:24:55,059 --> 00:24:57,320
that you're slightly going to the side,

709
00:24:57,940 --> 00:25:00,840
what happens is that basically then expands exponentially.

710
00:25:01,940 --> 00:25:03,619
So that's what you see then, basically, is

711
00:25:03,619 --> 00:25:05,220
because, you have this kind of,

712
00:25:06,654 --> 00:25:08,974
coupling in your stride length and your between

713
00:25:08,974 --> 00:25:11,234
the actual coupling of the of the ponytail

714
00:25:11,375 --> 00:25:11,875
itself,

715
00:25:12,414 --> 00:25:15,055
it's basically then it expands and you get

716
00:25:15,055 --> 00:25:15,954
this kind of,

717
00:25:17,055 --> 00:25:19,694
exponential increase in the swinging from side to

718
00:25:19,694 --> 00:25:20,994
side. It's only a very

719
00:25:21,319 --> 00:25:23,160
small thing that then results results in something

720
00:25:23,160 --> 00:25:24,700
that you actually kind of see.

721
00:25:25,559 --> 00:25:27,400
And so is there any up and down

722
00:25:27,400 --> 00:25:28,940
motion in the ponytail?

723
00:25:29,319 --> 00:25:31,799
Or is it only moving side to side?

724
00:25:31,799 --> 00:25:33,400
Or is it there's is it much more

725
00:25:33,400 --> 00:25:36,039
complicated than just going side to side? It's

726
00:25:36,039 --> 00:25:36,599
sort of going

727
00:25:37,294 --> 00:25:39,615
well, it is going up and down. Right?

728
00:25:39,615 --> 00:25:41,454
Because your head's going up. Yeah. Exactly. Because

729
00:25:41,454 --> 00:25:43,054
your head yeah. Yeah. Because your head's going

730
00:25:43,054 --> 00:25:44,434
up and down, not the link.

731
00:25:44,734 --> 00:25:46,414
So the ponytail is going, yeah, up and

732
00:25:46,414 --> 00:25:48,194
down and side to side. Yeah. But

733
00:25:48,575 --> 00:25:50,835
it's only that because you have that very

734
00:25:50,894 --> 00:25:51,394
small,

735
00:25:52,909 --> 00:25:54,349
tweak in it going side to side that

736
00:25:54,349 --> 00:25:56,450
it kind of expands and ends up going

737
00:25:56,509 --> 00:25:59,089
way, you know, really far side to side

738
00:25:59,149 --> 00:26:01,890
because of that kind of doubling relationship between,

739
00:26:02,750 --> 00:26:04,589
the frequency of the head movement and the

740
00:26:04,589 --> 00:26:06,974
and and the lens of the ponytail. So,

741
00:26:06,974 --> 00:26:08,015
yeah, it's kind of all in the mass

742
00:26:08,015 --> 00:26:10,095
of that. But, yeah, it's quite interesting that

743
00:26:10,255 --> 00:26:12,095
yeah. Something that you see when you see

744
00:26:12,095 --> 00:26:14,095
someone walking around and they're or or going

745
00:26:14,095 --> 00:26:15,934
for a run, you see their ponytail wafting

746
00:26:15,934 --> 00:26:17,214
around. It's, you know, it is all because

747
00:26:17,214 --> 00:26:17,855
of those

748
00:26:18,815 --> 00:26:20,734
it came from the mathematics of working out

749
00:26:20,734 --> 00:26:21,474
those relationships

750
00:26:21,775 --> 00:26:22,095
between,

751
00:26:22,769 --> 00:26:23,990
the sun and the moon.

752
00:26:24,450 --> 00:26:27,090
And sort of moving on from running to

753
00:26:27,090 --> 00:26:29,509
to driving a car, I mean, I think

754
00:26:29,970 --> 00:26:33,250
one thing that's really fascinated physicists for for

755
00:26:33,250 --> 00:26:34,230
years, I suppose,

756
00:26:35,410 --> 00:26:38,204
ever since the first traffic jam occurred, I

757
00:26:38,204 --> 00:26:40,944
think physicists have been fascinated as to why

758
00:26:41,164 --> 00:26:43,244
why they occur. And then, you know, there's

759
00:26:43,244 --> 00:26:45,964
a particular kind of traffic jam that I

760
00:26:45,964 --> 00:26:48,065
think any driver is familiar with.

761
00:26:48,365 --> 00:26:50,924
You're driving along, and the traffic suddenly comes

762
00:26:50,924 --> 00:26:52,625
to a halt for no good reason.

763
00:26:53,059 --> 00:26:55,299
There's no obstruction on the road, the speed

764
00:26:55,299 --> 00:26:56,599
limit hasn't changed,

765
00:26:57,539 --> 00:27:00,019
and then the traffic jam breaks up and

766
00:27:00,019 --> 00:27:02,099
you move along for, I don't know, half

767
00:27:02,099 --> 00:27:04,819
a mile, and you slow down again. And

768
00:27:04,819 --> 00:27:07,140
there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or

769
00:27:07,140 --> 00:27:09,444
reason to this. And I think when the

770
00:27:09,444 --> 00:27:10,904
physicist looks at this,

771
00:27:11,284 --> 00:27:13,144
I think they're seeing some sort

772
00:27:13,524 --> 00:27:14,825
of emergent behavior,

773
00:27:15,605 --> 00:27:17,204
some sort of there's gotta be a phase

774
00:27:17,204 --> 00:27:20,164
transition in here and, you know, lots of

775
00:27:20,164 --> 00:27:21,304
interesting mathematics.

776
00:27:22,049 --> 00:27:23,730
And, I think you look at some of

777
00:27:23,730 --> 00:27:25,889
that in the book, don't you? Yeah. That's

778
00:27:25,889 --> 00:27:27,409
right. So one of one of the issues

779
00:27:27,409 --> 00:27:29,409
is about, you know, the annoyance that you

780
00:27:29,409 --> 00:27:31,569
have on daily life of coming up against

781
00:27:31,569 --> 00:27:33,490
traffic jams, whether it's on the motorway or

782
00:27:33,490 --> 00:27:35,409
even just, you know, out and about in

783
00:27:35,409 --> 00:27:35,909
town.

784
00:27:36,924 --> 00:27:37,805
And, but one of the, yeah, one of

785
00:27:37,805 --> 00:27:40,684
the interesting aspects is how traffic jams can

786
00:27:40,684 --> 00:27:41,184
occur.

787
00:27:41,565 --> 00:27:43,964
Even when even in the absence of, you

788
00:27:43,964 --> 00:27:46,285
know, anything that you may expect can cause

789
00:27:46,285 --> 00:27:48,464
a traffic jam, such as, you know, roadworks,

790
00:27:49,420 --> 00:27:51,039
a broken down car, for example.

791
00:27:51,980 --> 00:27:55,200
You know, traffic jams can seemingly just occur

792
00:27:56,059 --> 00:27:56,960
for no reason.

793
00:27:57,340 --> 00:27:58,799
And the kind of

794
00:27:59,180 --> 00:28:01,039
reason for it is because,

795
00:28:01,580 --> 00:28:03,945
you know, even if a driver kind

796
00:28:04,565 --> 00:28:06,005
of just takes her eye off the road

797
00:28:06,005 --> 00:28:07,845
for a split second, for example, you know,

798
00:28:07,845 --> 00:28:09,445
and then just kind of a lack of

799
00:28:09,445 --> 00:28:09,945
concentration,

800
00:28:10,644 --> 00:28:12,805
what what can basically happen is that that

801
00:28:12,805 --> 00:28:14,485
that then has a kind of a spillover

802
00:28:14,485 --> 00:28:16,424
effect. So you have someone who,

803
00:28:16,940 --> 00:28:18,220
say they lack a bit of lack of

804
00:28:18,220 --> 00:28:18,720
concentration,

805
00:28:19,339 --> 00:28:20,859
might veer off a little bit to the

806
00:28:20,859 --> 00:28:21,759
road, they break,

807
00:28:22,140 --> 00:28:24,220
then the person coming behind them then has

808
00:28:24,220 --> 00:28:26,299
to react to that, they break, you know,

809
00:28:26,299 --> 00:28:27,980
the person behind and it's basically a domino

810
00:28:27,980 --> 00:28:30,640
effect where you then you're effectively creating,

811
00:28:31,974 --> 00:28:34,375
kind of a wave within the traffic itself

812
00:28:34,375 --> 00:28:35,674
of people just breaking

813
00:28:36,054 --> 00:28:37,595
and then accelerating off.

814
00:28:38,534 --> 00:28:40,534
So yeah, physicists have studied these kinds of

815
00:28:40,534 --> 00:28:43,095
waves and the physicists call these waves,

816
00:28:43,494 --> 00:28:43,994
jamitons.

817
00:28:44,950 --> 00:28:46,950
So basically, they just kind of happen happen

818
00:28:46,950 --> 00:28:48,870
for no reason. And that was kind of

819
00:28:48,870 --> 00:28:50,870
the theory about how, you know, waves could

820
00:28:50,870 --> 00:28:52,809
actually form. But there were these researchers,

821
00:28:53,350 --> 00:28:55,370
in Japan actually, who did an actual experiment.

822
00:28:56,390 --> 00:28:57,450
Basically, they got,

823
00:28:58,035 --> 00:29:00,215
a number of cars on a circular road,

824
00:29:00,835 --> 00:29:02,595
just kind of a few 100 clump a

825
00:29:02,595 --> 00:29:03,734
few 100 metres,

826
00:29:04,595 --> 00:29:05,414
in circumference.

827
00:29:05,875 --> 00:29:07,715
And they put all they told the drivers

828
00:29:07,715 --> 00:29:10,035
is said, look. Just drive along the circular

829
00:29:10,035 --> 00:29:12,339
road and just keep going round, you know,

830
00:29:12,339 --> 00:29:13,700
as many times as you want. Just keep

831
00:29:13,700 --> 00:29:14,200
going.

832
00:29:14,579 --> 00:29:16,279
And they actually discovered that

833
00:29:17,700 --> 00:29:20,259
traffic jams just occurred naturally. So, you know,

834
00:29:20,259 --> 00:29:21,720
people would just drive along,

835
00:29:22,819 --> 00:29:23,960
and then they just,

836
00:29:24,285 --> 00:29:26,285
Basically, they probably just, you know, they just,

837
00:29:26,285 --> 00:29:27,965
some kind of something caught their eye and

838
00:29:27,965 --> 00:29:29,884
they just became distracted. They then broke and

839
00:29:29,884 --> 00:29:32,285
then basically they saw this exact kind of

840
00:29:32,285 --> 00:29:33,825
jamaton wave form.

841
00:29:34,365 --> 00:29:36,924
Even during a very, such a simple experiment

842
00:29:36,924 --> 00:29:39,184
as that way, you have basically circular road

843
00:29:39,460 --> 00:29:41,000
and cars on it.

844
00:29:41,380 --> 00:29:43,460
So that was basically the idea that, you

845
00:29:43,460 --> 00:29:44,519
know, it doesn't take

846
00:29:45,380 --> 00:29:47,619
traffic, it doesn't take a car to break

847
00:29:47,619 --> 00:29:48,680
down or,

848
00:29:49,299 --> 00:29:51,240
road works or anything like that. But even

849
00:29:51,565 --> 00:29:53,244
on a road where there's kind of a

850
00:29:53,244 --> 00:29:54,924
number once you get a certain density of

851
00:29:54,924 --> 00:29:56,445
cars on the road, then you can get

852
00:29:56,445 --> 00:29:58,465
these, jamaton waves forming.

853
00:29:59,965 --> 00:30:01,664
And, you know, that's basically,

854
00:30:03,880 --> 00:30:05,440
you know, how these waves can actually form.

855
00:30:05,440 --> 00:30:07,679
And it's, it's quite interesting research, but there's

856
00:30:07,679 --> 00:30:09,839
also, like, a lot of different aspects about

857
00:30:09,839 --> 00:30:11,039
driving around the city,

858
00:30:11,919 --> 00:30:12,819
that are interesting.

859
00:30:13,440 --> 00:30:16,079
There's one one particular interesting point that's been,

860
00:30:16,240 --> 00:30:18,134
covered in the book where I talk about

861
00:30:18,214 --> 00:30:19,515
the physics of parking

862
00:30:19,974 --> 00:30:22,214
a car on a one I mean, it's

863
00:30:22,214 --> 00:30:23,595
on a one dimensional road,

864
00:30:24,295 --> 00:30:26,134
which is, you know, a classic your classic

865
00:30:26,134 --> 00:30:26,634
physicist,

866
00:30:27,654 --> 00:30:29,414
you know, taking a problem down to its

867
00:30:29,414 --> 00:30:30,075
bare minimum.

868
00:30:30,720 --> 00:30:32,160
But then they look at, you know, how

869
00:30:32,160 --> 00:30:34,160
how you what strategy you could come up

870
00:30:34,160 --> 00:30:36,319
against. Well, if you have a one, one

871
00:30:36,480 --> 00:30:38,400
basically a single road and you want to

872
00:30:38,400 --> 00:30:38,799
get,

873
00:30:39,599 --> 00:30:41,039
you want to park in the best spot

874
00:30:41,039 --> 00:30:42,640
to get to a destination at the end

875
00:30:42,640 --> 00:30:44,319
of the road, you know, what is a

876
00:30:44,319 --> 00:30:45,855
certain strategy to do that?

877
00:30:46,414 --> 00:30:48,994
So they looked at three possibilities. One was,

878
00:30:49,855 --> 00:30:52,654
the so called meek strategy, where you basically

879
00:30:52,654 --> 00:30:54,595
just go and park in the first spot,

880
00:30:55,134 --> 00:30:55,794
end of

881
00:30:56,174 --> 00:30:57,375
you know, but the issue with that is

882
00:30:57,375 --> 00:30:58,654
that you park in the first spot, but

883
00:30:58,654 --> 00:31:00,380
then you have to then walk to the

884
00:31:00,380 --> 00:31:02,079
destination. So that takes time.

885
00:31:03,019 --> 00:31:06,059
Another option was a prudent strategy where you

886
00:31:06,059 --> 00:31:07,519
ignore that first spot.

887
00:31:07,980 --> 00:31:10,159
You then see a group of cars,

888
00:31:10,460 --> 00:31:11,899
in front of you, and maybe there's a

889
00:31:11,899 --> 00:31:12,639
spot there.

890
00:31:13,095 --> 00:31:15,015
Then you go into that spot. That's called

891
00:31:15,015 --> 00:31:16,394
the so called prudent strategy.

892
00:31:17,095 --> 00:31:19,494
And then a third strategy was called an

893
00:31:19,494 --> 00:31:21,654
optimistic one, where you basically drive all the

894
00:31:21,654 --> 00:31:22,794
way down to the,

895
00:31:23,654 --> 00:31:24,554
end of the road,

896
00:31:25,069 --> 00:31:27,150
turn back on yourself, and then go in

897
00:31:27,150 --> 00:31:29,150
the first spot. So you kind of think,

898
00:31:29,150 --> 00:31:31,789
well, surely the optimistic strategy is the best

899
00:31:31,789 --> 00:31:34,269
because you basically get it's guaranteed that you're

900
00:31:34,269 --> 00:31:35,490
gonna get the best spot.

901
00:31:36,190 --> 00:31:38,349
But when the researchers run through the various

902
00:31:38,349 --> 00:31:39,490
simulations, etcetera,

903
00:31:40,035 --> 00:31:42,355
they actually discovered that the prudent strategy was

904
00:31:42,355 --> 00:31:43,494
a better one,

905
00:31:43,875 --> 00:31:45,555
because that got you in a spot that

906
00:31:45,555 --> 00:31:48,115
maybe not was is maybe up the furthest

907
00:31:48,115 --> 00:31:48,615
away,

908
00:31:49,075 --> 00:31:50,515
but it's some kind of, you know, nearer

909
00:31:50,515 --> 00:31:52,355
to the destination, then you can walk to

910
00:31:52,355 --> 00:31:52,710
it.

911
00:31:53,429 --> 00:31:56,329
And that actually has links with, the secretary

912
00:31:56,390 --> 00:31:57,849
problem in mathematics.

913
00:31:59,190 --> 00:32:00,490
But it's kind of the optimal,

914
00:32:01,349 --> 00:32:03,349
how many how much do you kind of

915
00:32:03,349 --> 00:32:04,970
ignore before you then,

916
00:32:05,669 --> 00:32:07,305
park? So, yeah, if you're ever on a,

917
00:32:07,705 --> 00:32:09,945
basically, if you're ever on a one dimensional

918
00:32:09,945 --> 00:32:12,505
street, then the optimal solution to it is

919
00:32:12,505 --> 00:32:14,365
to kind of ignore about half the spaces

920
00:32:14,585 --> 00:32:16,025
and then park in the next in the

921
00:32:16,025 --> 00:32:17,945
next one. Right. Then you've kind of got

922
00:32:17,945 --> 00:32:20,345
about a 25 to 30% chance that you'll

923
00:32:20,345 --> 00:32:21,660
actually end in the

924
00:32:22,299 --> 00:32:23,440
best spot possible.

925
00:32:23,820 --> 00:32:26,220
Gotcha. Yeah. And now I'm trying to imagine

926
00:32:26,220 --> 00:32:27,740
how to make a u-turn on a one

927
00:32:27,740 --> 00:32:30,220
dimensional road, but I'm guessing that they don't,

928
00:32:30,460 --> 00:32:32,539
they don't they probably reverse bike, all the

929
00:32:32,539 --> 00:32:33,039
way.

930
00:32:35,575 --> 00:32:37,735
And then you've also looked at,

931
00:32:38,295 --> 00:32:40,634
at other modes of of transportation.

932
00:32:40,934 --> 00:32:43,255
And, you you know, you've got that classic

933
00:32:43,255 --> 00:32:45,434
thing, the boarding of aircraft,

934
00:32:46,215 --> 00:32:47,115
which I think,

935
00:32:47,654 --> 00:32:49,494
you know, I've been I I suppose I've

936
00:32:49,494 --> 00:32:49,994
been

937
00:32:50,600 --> 00:32:53,160
I I've I've flown on aircraft for the

938
00:32:53,160 --> 00:32:55,799
last, I don't know, four forty five years.

939
00:32:55,799 --> 00:32:56,359
And I think,

940
00:32:57,960 --> 00:33:00,940
you know, definitely the strategies that the airlines

941
00:33:01,080 --> 00:33:03,559
take have changed over the ages, and maybe

942
00:33:03,559 --> 00:33:05,340
they've refined them. Or,

943
00:33:06,825 --> 00:33:07,724
and and

944
00:33:08,265 --> 00:33:09,545
so you have a look at the at

945
00:33:09,545 --> 00:33:12,025
the various different strategies. And then there is

946
00:33:12,025 --> 00:33:14,025
a twist in the tale, isn't there? There's

947
00:33:14,025 --> 00:33:14,684
a surprise,

948
00:33:15,785 --> 00:33:17,005
at the end about,

949
00:33:18,419 --> 00:33:20,339
a technique that you might as well use

950
00:33:20,339 --> 00:33:23,000
because it's it's almost as good as,

951
00:33:24,059 --> 00:33:27,059
as the actual best technique for boarding an

952
00:33:27,059 --> 00:33:29,079
aircraft. So what what what have people

953
00:33:29,539 --> 00:33:32,099
found when they've looked done research into,

954
00:33:32,500 --> 00:33:33,720
into boarding aircraft?

955
00:33:34,384 --> 00:33:35,984
Yeah. I think they can the basically the

956
00:33:35,984 --> 00:33:36,944
bottom line is,

957
00:33:37,505 --> 00:33:39,505
the kind of the current method of boarding

958
00:33:39,505 --> 00:33:40,164
an aircraft,

959
00:33:40,625 --> 00:33:42,544
you know, usually it's kind of back to

960
00:33:42,544 --> 00:33:44,464
front boarding where you get all the people

961
00:33:44,464 --> 00:33:46,644
on the back and then they altogether

962
00:33:47,410 --> 00:33:49,329
unload, and then you get the next next

963
00:33:49,329 --> 00:33:51,009
batch in. So you, you know, you board

964
00:33:51,009 --> 00:33:52,049
it all the way to the front.

965
00:33:52,609 --> 00:33:54,930
That kind of in terms of the speed

966
00:33:54,930 --> 00:33:57,109
of boarding isn't the kind of ideal,

967
00:33:58,289 --> 00:33:59,990
way. Actually, one one

968
00:34:00,595 --> 00:34:03,095
possibility that is actually quite quick is actually

969
00:34:03,394 --> 00:34:05,315
one that you might not think, which is

970
00:34:05,315 --> 00:34:07,954
basically random. That's right. Where you basically just

971
00:34:07,954 --> 00:34:08,454
randomise

972
00:34:08,835 --> 00:34:11,974
people boarding and that actually in the simulations,

973
00:34:12,514 --> 00:34:14,355
that people have carried out, that actually is,

974
00:34:15,519 --> 00:34:16,019
quicker

975
00:34:16,720 --> 00:34:17,599
than the current,

976
00:34:18,480 --> 00:34:20,160
than the current method. But there is a

977
00:34:20,160 --> 00:34:21,940
there is a one that a researcher,

978
00:34:22,640 --> 00:34:23,920
came came up with,

979
00:34:24,320 --> 00:34:25,380
which was,

980
00:34:27,039 --> 00:34:29,119
the kind of the best tech best technique.

981
00:34:29,119 --> 00:34:30,734
And that's kind of like splitting up the

982
00:34:30,734 --> 00:34:32,255
roles itself. So you would, you know, you

983
00:34:32,255 --> 00:34:34,894
go in one one, say 12, and but

984
00:34:34,894 --> 00:34:37,375
then you don't board the next row 11,

985
00:34:37,375 --> 00:34:39,074
you kind of skip skip one.

986
00:34:39,934 --> 00:34:41,635
So it's a bit more kind of involved

987
00:34:41,775 --> 00:34:42,514
than the

988
00:34:43,135 --> 00:34:44,994
the way that airlines do at the moment.

989
00:34:45,140 --> 00:34:47,400
But that was actually found to be the

990
00:34:47,780 --> 00:34:50,420
quickest way. And they actually the researchers themselves

991
00:34:50,420 --> 00:34:53,140
actually carried out an experiment where they got

992
00:34:53,140 --> 00:34:53,880
a mock

993
00:34:54,579 --> 00:34:56,119
aircraft, an actual

994
00:34:56,420 --> 00:34:59,699
life-sized mock aircraft, and they tested out all

995
00:34:59,699 --> 00:35:00,760
these various strategies,

996
00:35:01,994 --> 00:35:04,494
including the, completely random one.

997
00:35:05,194 --> 00:35:07,194
And then they discovered that basically, you know,

998
00:35:07,194 --> 00:35:07,674
this,

999
00:35:08,554 --> 00:35:11,034
this way of kind of splitting up roles,

1000
00:35:11,034 --> 00:35:11,855
you know, 10,

1001
00:35:12,554 --> 00:35:15,054
to what say, row twelve, ten, eight,

1002
00:35:15,789 --> 00:35:16,529
was actually

1003
00:35:16,829 --> 00:35:17,650
quick. But,

1004
00:35:18,429 --> 00:35:21,069
it seems like airlines actually are beginning to

1005
00:35:21,069 --> 00:35:22,349
look at the,

1006
00:35:22,909 --> 00:35:25,230
the procedures for for doing that. I think

1007
00:35:25,230 --> 00:35:26,049
there was something

1008
00:35:26,429 --> 00:35:27,730
about United Airlines,

1009
00:35:28,190 --> 00:35:29,257
in October

1010
00:35:29,257 --> 00:35:30,164
2023.

1011
00:35:30,644 --> 00:35:32,565
So they they they announced that they would

1012
00:35:32,565 --> 00:35:33,304
start boarding,

1013
00:35:34,724 --> 00:35:38,344
economy class passengers on, this method called Wilmer,

1014
00:35:39,204 --> 00:35:40,485
which is kind of a way of just,

1015
00:35:40,485 --> 00:35:42,804
you know, splitting up people in different in

1016
00:35:42,804 --> 00:35:43,545
different roles.

1017
00:35:44,660 --> 00:35:46,579
So, yeah, maybe, you know, maybe in future,

1018
00:35:46,579 --> 00:35:47,860
we won't be boarding just from the back

1019
00:35:47,860 --> 00:35:49,460
to the front, but we'll actually be using

1020
00:35:49,460 --> 00:35:51,539
these different different ways of boarding. You know,

1021
00:35:51,539 --> 00:35:52,500
because I guess, you know, at the end

1022
00:35:52,500 --> 00:35:53,700
of the day, you know, time is money,

1023
00:35:53,700 --> 00:35:55,220
isn't it? You know? So if you can

1024
00:35:55,220 --> 00:35:57,059
get people onto an aircraft quicker, you can

1025
00:35:57,059 --> 00:35:58,500
get away quicker, you know? So it does

1026
00:35:58,500 --> 00:35:58,934
have

1027
00:35:59,494 --> 00:36:02,295
financial implications. So you would think that airlines

1028
00:36:02,295 --> 00:36:04,394
would be more interested in,

1029
00:36:04,775 --> 00:36:06,954
you know, changing those boarding methods.

1030
00:36:07,255 --> 00:36:09,494
I mean, the interesting thing about when you

1031
00:36:09,494 --> 00:36:11,355
compare the, let's say, the Wilma

1032
00:36:11,719 --> 00:36:12,619
to the random,

1033
00:36:13,319 --> 00:36:14,059
is that

1034
00:36:14,519 --> 00:36:16,519
I mean, is there really a big difference

1035
00:36:16,519 --> 00:36:18,599
between those two strategies? Because when you think

1036
00:36:18,599 --> 00:36:20,619
about it, if you're doing it randomly,

1037
00:36:21,400 --> 00:36:23,319
if it is random, then if I get

1038
00:36:23,319 --> 00:36:25,614
on the plane, chances are the person in

1039
00:36:25,614 --> 00:36:28,434
front of me and the person behind me

1040
00:36:28,734 --> 00:36:29,714
are going to be

1041
00:36:30,014 --> 00:36:32,894
separated from me on the plane. So we'll

1042
00:36:32,894 --> 00:36:35,775
all have enough space to pack our stuff

1043
00:36:35,775 --> 00:36:36,914
away and quickly

1044
00:36:37,539 --> 00:36:40,260
get into our seats. So is I mean,

1045
00:36:40,260 --> 00:36:42,659
is there is there really any benefit between

1046
00:36:42,659 --> 00:36:44,739
Wilma and the random? Because I think I

1047
00:36:44,739 --> 00:36:46,279
think in the book, you say that

1048
00:36:46,659 --> 00:36:49,059
random is almost as Is it almost as

1049
00:36:49,059 --> 00:36:49,836
good as Wilma? That's right. It's almost as

1050
00:36:49,836 --> 00:36:50,599
effective. Yeah. That's right.

1051
00:36:52,224 --> 00:36:53,764
You would think in that sense

1052
00:36:54,224 --> 00:36:56,164
that it probably is better just to go

1053
00:36:56,224 --> 00:36:57,984
just to go random. Yeah. Because, I mean,

1054
00:36:57,984 --> 00:36:59,284
Wilma seems very

1055
00:36:59,664 --> 00:37:01,505
complicated and, you know, how you you know

1056
00:37:01,505 --> 00:37:03,125
what it's like. I mean, I just flew

1057
00:37:03,264 --> 00:37:05,505
back from Toronto and, you know, you always

1058
00:37:05,505 --> 00:37:07,859
get the situation where, you know, people who

1059
00:37:07,859 --> 00:37:09,400
are last to board

1060
00:37:10,500 --> 00:37:12,119
stand at the front of the queue

1061
00:37:12,659 --> 00:37:16,039
and basically block everybody else from getting on,

1062
00:37:16,819 --> 00:37:19,219
you know, which is very annoying. Actually, once,

1063
00:37:19,219 --> 00:37:20,659
I I took a flight. It was from

1064
00:37:20,659 --> 00:37:22,744
Toronto as well. And,

1065
00:37:23,284 --> 00:37:26,005
one of the gate staff actually stood there

1066
00:37:26,005 --> 00:37:27,625
and berated people

1067
00:37:28,005 --> 00:37:29,924
and said, you, what what group are you

1068
00:37:29,924 --> 00:37:31,684
in? Five. Oh, no. No. No. This is

1069
00:37:31,684 --> 00:37:34,005
three. Get out of here. Right? You know,

1070
00:37:34,005 --> 00:37:36,500
I was thinking, this is great. You know?

1071
00:37:36,719 --> 00:37:37,219
Unfortunately,

1072
00:37:37,519 --> 00:37:39,440
the the last flight, they they didn't have

1073
00:37:39,440 --> 00:37:40,579
somebody doing that.

1074
00:37:41,039 --> 00:37:41,440
But,

1075
00:37:42,000 --> 00:37:43,920
but, yeah, that is and, you know, it

1076
00:37:43,920 --> 00:37:45,679
is interesting because when I tell people, I

1077
00:37:45,679 --> 00:37:47,460
say, well, you know, physics says

1078
00:37:48,005 --> 00:37:51,125
that random boarding is is actually a pretty

1079
00:37:51,125 --> 00:37:53,545
good way of doing it. Nobody believes you.

1080
00:37:53,765 --> 00:37:54,164
But,

1081
00:37:54,724 --> 00:37:56,644
I mean, I I I don't know if

1082
00:37:56,644 --> 00:37:59,045
it's maybe it's because I'm a physicist. I

1083
00:37:59,045 --> 00:38:01,065
have a I sort of have a great,

1084
00:38:02,109 --> 00:38:04,030
you know, I think randomness can be very

1085
00:38:04,030 --> 00:38:07,389
useful. I mean, a classic one, is stuffing

1086
00:38:07,389 --> 00:38:08,530
a sleeping bag

1087
00:38:08,909 --> 00:38:11,550
into a sack. Right? Now you'd be very

1088
00:38:11,550 --> 00:38:13,949
tempted to think the the most efficient way

1089
00:38:13,949 --> 00:38:16,075
to do that is to roll up the

1090
00:38:16,075 --> 00:38:18,795
sleeping bag. But the problem with rolling it

1091
00:38:18,795 --> 00:38:20,335
up is that you're introducing

1092
00:38:21,114 --> 00:38:21,775
a preferred

1093
00:38:22,155 --> 00:38:22,655
direction.

1094
00:38:23,355 --> 00:38:25,675
Right? And if you don't get the the

1095
00:38:25,675 --> 00:38:27,695
length of that roll correct,

1096
00:38:28,309 --> 00:38:29,510
it you're gonna have a hell of a

1097
00:38:29,510 --> 00:38:31,989
time getting it into the sack. Whereas if

1098
00:38:31,989 --> 00:38:33,369
you just stuff it in,

1099
00:38:34,710 --> 00:38:37,030
it's random. And, you know, the sleeping bag

1100
00:38:37,030 --> 00:38:39,590
can randomly fill the space. It's a bit

1101
00:38:39,590 --> 00:38:41,130
like a glass, right,

1102
00:38:41,429 --> 00:38:42,090
I suppose.

1103
00:38:43,394 --> 00:38:45,094
Anyway, that's how I think of it.

1104
00:38:45,394 --> 00:38:47,235
But, yeah, maybe it's one of those perfect

1105
00:38:47,235 --> 00:38:49,155
things where randomness is. Because you wouldn't It's

1106
00:38:49,155 --> 00:38:51,074
your friend. You wouldn't exactly. You would not

1107
00:38:51,074 --> 00:38:52,375
expect a random

1108
00:38:52,994 --> 00:38:55,089
boarding process to be. You'd think it'd be

1109
00:38:55,089 --> 00:38:57,010
chaotic. You just need to be absolutely not.

1110
00:38:57,010 --> 00:38:59,089
But, yeah, you know, the experiments say otherwise,

1111
00:38:59,089 --> 00:39:00,449
and it is actually one of the best

1112
00:39:00,449 --> 00:39:01,489
ways to do it. So

1113
00:39:02,609 --> 00:39:04,769
And the the the there's a few you

1114
00:39:04,769 --> 00:39:06,230
you you talk about health,

1115
00:39:06,849 --> 00:39:07,969
in your book. And,

1116
00:39:09,295 --> 00:39:11,054
it's interesting that a lot of the the

1117
00:39:11,054 --> 00:39:12,974
things that you mentioned were were things that

1118
00:39:12,974 --> 00:39:14,434
came up during the COVID

1119
00:39:14,894 --> 00:39:15,394
nineteen

1120
00:39:15,855 --> 00:39:18,914
pandemic, where we were obviously very, very, very

1121
00:39:19,054 --> 00:39:20,894
concerned about the spread of,

1122
00:39:21,454 --> 00:39:22,355
virus particles.

1123
00:39:23,819 --> 00:39:25,579
And the the the one thing that you

1124
00:39:25,579 --> 00:39:27,339
looked at, and, you know, I have to

1125
00:39:27,339 --> 00:39:29,819
say it's made me think of toilets in

1126
00:39:29,819 --> 00:39:33,259
a different way ever since, is how toilets

1127
00:39:33,259 --> 00:39:35,039
are actually very good at

1128
00:39:35,534 --> 00:39:36,674
spreading aerosol

1129
00:39:36,974 --> 00:39:39,694
particles. So what what what exactly happens there?

1130
00:39:39,694 --> 00:39:41,534
This is when you flush the toilet, I

1131
00:39:41,534 --> 00:39:43,295
assume. That's right. Yeah. So it's when you

1132
00:39:43,295 --> 00:39:45,375
when you flush the toilet. And and, yeah,

1133
00:39:45,375 --> 00:39:47,454
this research was one of those ones that

1134
00:39:47,454 --> 00:39:50,139
basically came out purely from the COVID,

1135
00:39:50,780 --> 00:39:52,480
pan you know, pandemic where,

1136
00:39:53,980 --> 00:39:54,880
some researchers

1137
00:39:55,179 --> 00:39:58,219
researchers contacted this, a researcher in The US

1138
00:39:58,219 --> 00:40:00,880
who was an expert in kind of imaging,

1139
00:40:02,860 --> 00:40:03,360
aerosols

1140
00:40:03,739 --> 00:40:05,519
and, you know, the spread of aerosols.

1141
00:40:06,324 --> 00:40:07,925
And they were interested in, you know, looking

1142
00:40:07,925 --> 00:40:10,565
at the aerosol that's created when you flush

1143
00:40:10,565 --> 00:40:11,144
a toilet.

1144
00:40:12,244 --> 00:40:14,005
So there had been before then, there had

1145
00:40:14,005 --> 00:40:15,844
been some theoretical work done,

1146
00:40:16,324 --> 00:40:18,164
which showed that when you basically flush a

1147
00:40:18,164 --> 00:40:20,250
toilet, you know, the the water pours in.

1148
00:40:20,250 --> 00:40:21,070
It's quite energetic

1149
00:40:21,610 --> 00:40:24,590
process, and it flows into the cistern.

1150
00:40:25,289 --> 00:40:27,210
And then it can basically create like a

1151
00:40:27,210 --> 00:40:28,110
jet where,

1152
00:40:28,730 --> 00:40:30,590
it can basically just fling

1153
00:40:30,969 --> 00:40:33,074
particles out of this chaotic

1154
00:40:33,614 --> 00:40:34,114
vortex

1155
00:40:34,494 --> 00:40:36,655
like jet in the toilet in the toilet

1156
00:40:36,655 --> 00:40:37,155
bowl.

1157
00:40:37,934 --> 00:40:39,375
But that was all of that just kind

1158
00:40:39,375 --> 00:40:42,114
of, theoretical work. So these researchers,

1159
00:40:43,055 --> 00:40:45,150
were really wanting to find out whether this

1160
00:40:45,150 --> 00:40:47,389
is the case in terms of doing actual

1161
00:40:47,389 --> 00:40:48,530
experiments. So they,

1162
00:40:49,389 --> 00:40:51,550
basically filmed this toilet set up,

1163
00:40:52,030 --> 00:40:53,389
when they have all this kind of green

1164
00:40:53,389 --> 00:40:55,329
laser light around, so they could basically

1165
00:40:55,630 --> 00:40:58,589
visualise the plume that's created without actually disturbing

1166
00:40:58,589 --> 00:41:00,925
it. It's quite important that you don't

1167
00:41:01,385 --> 00:41:03,804
disturb the plume itself when you're actually

1168
00:41:04,105 --> 00:41:05,005
looking at it.

1169
00:41:05,465 --> 00:41:07,724
And what they found, you know, they told

1170
00:41:08,505 --> 00:41:09,465
me, you know, wrote about it in the

1171
00:41:09,465 --> 00:41:12,125
book, you know, really startled them,

1172
00:41:12,505 --> 00:41:14,460
that they literally found this kind of

1173
00:41:15,179 --> 00:41:16,880
these particles just shooting out,

1174
00:41:17,339 --> 00:41:19,179
like a rocket, basically, where you know, and

1175
00:41:19,179 --> 00:41:21,420
they were going basically about a couple of

1176
00:41:21,420 --> 00:41:22,239
meters high.

1177
00:41:23,339 --> 00:41:25,260
Where presumably you could breathe them in. Well,

1178
00:41:25,260 --> 00:41:25,660
exactly.

1179
00:41:26,059 --> 00:41:26,559
Contained

1180
00:41:27,179 --> 00:41:27,659
COVID,

1181
00:41:28,114 --> 00:41:31,014
COVID nineteen virus particles or some other nasty

1182
00:41:31,234 --> 00:41:33,574
Exactly. Basically, head height for most people,

1183
00:41:34,114 --> 00:41:36,135
they they could actually reach.

1184
00:41:37,795 --> 00:41:39,875
So, yeah, basically, by the process of flushing

1185
00:41:39,875 --> 00:41:42,380
itself is so you know, energetic that it

1186
00:41:42,380 --> 00:41:44,219
can create it can throw particles out, but

1187
00:41:44,219 --> 00:41:46,480
it also can create this kind of aerosol,

1188
00:41:46,539 --> 00:41:47,039
basically.

1189
00:41:48,460 --> 00:41:49,820
You know, a bunch of particles that then

1190
00:41:49,820 --> 00:41:51,420
can kind of spread around as well because

1191
00:41:51,420 --> 00:41:53,200
they kind of move around in the air.

1192
00:41:53,739 --> 00:41:56,219
So that's actually another another piece of work

1193
00:41:56,219 --> 00:41:57,315
as well looked at,

1194
00:41:58,514 --> 00:42:01,394
you know, where this aerosol could could kind

1195
00:42:01,394 --> 00:42:02,775
of how far it could travel.

1196
00:42:03,795 --> 00:42:06,034
And they seeded the toilet itself actually with

1197
00:42:06,034 --> 00:42:07,815
kind of bacteria, e coli, etcetera.

1198
00:42:08,835 --> 00:42:10,514
And then they flushed the toilet, and then

1199
00:42:10,514 --> 00:42:11,494
they took swabs,

1200
00:42:12,159 --> 00:42:13,380
swabs around the room.

1201
00:42:13,840 --> 00:42:16,000
So they kind of took samples around and

1202
00:42:16,000 --> 00:42:18,400
they found basically that the, that the process

1203
00:42:18,400 --> 00:42:20,659
of flushing an open toilet just basically

1204
00:42:20,960 --> 00:42:23,539
put, you know, put stuff e coli everywhere,

1205
00:42:23,760 --> 00:42:25,440
basically around is on the walls, on the

1206
00:42:25,440 --> 00:42:26,820
ceiling, it was on the floors.

1207
00:42:27,795 --> 00:42:29,394
So you might think because the result's that,

1208
00:42:29,394 --> 00:42:31,474
you might think, well, that's obvious. You just

1209
00:42:31,474 --> 00:42:33,394
close the lid. That's an obvious solution. You

1210
00:42:33,394 --> 00:42:35,474
know? What what could go wrong? But when

1211
00:42:35,474 --> 00:42:37,714
they actually then decided to do that and

1212
00:42:37,714 --> 00:42:39,974
did the experiments, they actually found that,

1213
00:42:40,690 --> 00:42:42,550
you know, it didn't help at all. Basically

1214
00:42:42,610 --> 00:42:44,690
more material was put on the floor, but

1215
00:42:44,690 --> 00:42:45,590
it even reached

1216
00:42:46,050 --> 00:42:48,230
the walls and the ceiling itself.

1217
00:42:49,329 --> 00:42:50,869
So basically there is no,

1218
00:42:51,969 --> 00:42:54,309
there's no real way to get around that

1219
00:42:54,394 --> 00:42:56,635
except, you know, of course, from disinfecting your

1220
00:42:56,635 --> 00:42:58,335
toilet quite quite often.

1221
00:42:58,714 --> 00:43:00,394
It's probably the best way of getting around

1222
00:43:00,394 --> 00:43:00,894
it.

1223
00:43:01,594 --> 00:43:03,275
But the researcher who did that way, you

1224
00:43:03,275 --> 00:43:04,074
know, they said,

1225
00:43:04,554 --> 00:43:06,155
they gave me a funny quote where they

1226
00:43:06,155 --> 00:43:08,860
basically said that after they did that research,

1227
00:43:08,860 --> 00:43:10,699
you know, they basically flush the toilet and

1228
00:43:10,699 --> 00:43:11,199
run.

1229
00:43:11,739 --> 00:43:12,239
That's

1230
00:43:12,699 --> 00:43:14,539
and also a bit and also to not

1231
00:43:14,539 --> 00:43:16,460
put your toothbrush anywhere near,

1232
00:43:16,940 --> 00:43:19,019
the toilet because basically, you know, that aerosol

1233
00:43:19,019 --> 00:43:20,835
is basically just going all over it. But

1234
00:43:21,155 --> 00:43:21,655
Right.

1235
00:43:22,675 --> 00:43:24,994
On that note, let let let's move on

1236
00:43:24,994 --> 00:43:27,554
to something much more cheery, and that's the

1237
00:43:27,554 --> 00:43:28,855
physics of champagne.

1238
00:43:29,875 --> 00:43:30,195
And,

1239
00:43:30,755 --> 00:43:32,835
one little tidbit. I mean, I suppose I

1240
00:43:32,835 --> 00:43:34,855
should have known this is is the incredible

1241
00:43:34,994 --> 00:43:35,494
pressure

1242
00:43:36,239 --> 00:43:38,099
that, champagne is under

1243
00:43:38,559 --> 00:43:39,039
when,

1244
00:43:39,760 --> 00:43:42,079
inside a bottle. It's what was it twice

1245
00:43:42,079 --> 00:43:44,400
the the pressure of a a car tire?

1246
00:43:44,400 --> 00:43:46,800
Yeah. Something like that. Car tire is around

1247
00:43:46,800 --> 00:43:47,300
two

1248
00:43:47,599 --> 00:43:50,179
bar. And, yeah, the pressure in a champagne

1249
00:43:50,400 --> 00:43:52,855
so the in the neck of the champagne

1250
00:43:52,855 --> 00:43:54,934
bottle can be around, yeah, around five bar

1251
00:43:54,934 --> 00:43:55,815
or so. So quite

1252
00:43:56,614 --> 00:43:58,214
and, of course, the pressure increases with the

1253
00:43:58,214 --> 00:43:59,815
temperature. So you have a chilled bottle and

1254
00:43:59,815 --> 00:44:01,414
the temperature's a bit lower, but it's a

1255
00:44:01,414 --> 00:44:03,519
warmer bottle and it's a bit higher. So

1256
00:44:03,519 --> 00:44:04,500
it can be quite,

1257
00:44:05,119 --> 00:44:07,840
actually, yeah, opening a champagne bottle can be

1258
00:44:07,840 --> 00:44:09,680
quite a lethal process because, you know, if

1259
00:44:09,680 --> 00:44:11,519
you've got all that pressure just in that

1260
00:44:11,519 --> 00:44:12,019
headspace,

1261
00:44:12,640 --> 00:44:14,480
and then it'll, you know, impact on the

1262
00:44:14,480 --> 00:44:16,180
cork, and the cork can and actually,

1263
00:44:16,559 --> 00:44:18,545
during holiday season, holiday periods, and you have

1264
00:44:18,545 --> 00:44:19,605
a lot of injuries,

1265
00:44:20,305 --> 00:44:21,744
where people, you know, hit cork. Cork to

1266
00:44:21,744 --> 00:44:23,744
the eye. Conte. Exactly. A cork to the

1267
00:44:23,744 --> 00:44:25,425
eye. Yeah. Yeah. Which you can can be

1268
00:44:25,425 --> 00:44:27,265
actually very dangerous. It's, you know, it's a

1269
00:44:27,265 --> 00:44:27,925
lot of,

1270
00:44:29,025 --> 00:44:30,385
you know, it's a lot of pressure that's

1271
00:44:30,385 --> 00:44:32,869
kind of, you know, producing that high speed

1272
00:44:32,869 --> 00:44:34,950
cork. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure if it went

1273
00:44:34,950 --> 00:44:36,550
in the wrong direction, it could, you know,

1274
00:44:36,550 --> 00:44:37,930
smash a window or

1275
00:44:38,309 --> 00:44:40,410
take take out your your your favorite,

1276
00:44:40,789 --> 00:44:41,289
knickknack,

1277
00:44:43,030 --> 00:44:44,090
over the fireplace.

1278
00:44:45,094 --> 00:44:45,755
And and

1279
00:44:46,135 --> 00:44:47,194
one thing that you

1280
00:44:47,815 --> 00:44:50,375
you talk about is the that sound of

1281
00:44:50,375 --> 00:44:51,994
the pop, that characteristic

1282
00:44:52,454 --> 00:44:53,275
pop. And

1283
00:44:53,894 --> 00:44:55,655
am I writing in thinking it's a bit

1284
00:44:55,655 --> 00:44:57,894
like the a sonic boom, or maybe it

1285
00:44:57,894 --> 00:45:00,289
is a sonic boom? Yeah. That's right. So,

1286
00:45:00,769 --> 00:45:02,949
when you open a bottle of champagne,

1287
00:45:04,289 --> 00:45:06,389
basically, it's the the pressure,

1288
00:45:07,010 --> 00:45:08,150
drop that happens.

1289
00:45:08,690 --> 00:45:10,289
Basically, I have a huge kind of temperature

1290
00:45:10,289 --> 00:45:13,244
drop that happens when the champagne opens itself,

1291
00:45:14,204 --> 00:45:14,704
opens.

1292
00:45:16,045 --> 00:45:17,885
And then basically what can happen though is

1293
00:45:17,885 --> 00:45:19,885
you have the creation of, like, these MAC

1294
00:45:19,885 --> 00:45:20,385
discs

1295
00:45:20,765 --> 00:45:23,244
in the due to this huge temperature pressure

1296
00:45:23,244 --> 00:45:23,744
drop.

1297
00:45:24,365 --> 00:45:26,445
In temperature up, you have this, creation of

1298
00:45:26,445 --> 00:45:27,869
MAC discs. So, basically,

1299
00:45:28,170 --> 00:45:30,969
each time you are opening a champagne bottle,

1300
00:45:30,969 --> 00:45:32,429
you are actually kind of breaking

1301
00:45:32,730 --> 00:45:34,409
the soundbar in some sense by, you know,

1302
00:45:34,409 --> 00:45:36,570
the creation of these. It tends to be

1303
00:45:36,570 --> 00:45:38,570
just a single MAC disc up produced and

1304
00:45:38,570 --> 00:45:40,329
then basically kind of then kind of moves

1305
00:45:40,329 --> 00:45:40,829
up

1306
00:45:41,684 --> 00:45:43,684
into high you know, people have done various

1307
00:45:43,684 --> 00:45:45,605
high speed imagery on it. Moves up and

1308
00:45:45,605 --> 00:45:47,045
then it kind of moves back down into

1309
00:45:47,045 --> 00:45:48,505
the into the bottle itself.

1310
00:45:49,204 --> 00:45:51,045
But there's been various yeah. Lots of kind

1311
00:45:51,045 --> 00:45:53,684
of experimental work and actually theoretical work on

1312
00:45:53,684 --> 00:45:55,789
it as well where, you know, people,

1313
00:45:56,809 --> 00:45:58,250
have calculated that. You should actually be able

1314
00:45:58,250 --> 00:45:59,690
to see a few Mach disks created. It's

1315
00:45:59,690 --> 00:46:00,670
not just one.

1316
00:46:01,369 --> 00:46:02,989
Similar to what you see in a jet

1317
00:46:03,050 --> 00:46:04,969
fighter plane, where you see the creation of,

1318
00:46:05,210 --> 00:46:07,450
Mach disks and then Mach diamonds as well

1319
00:46:07,450 --> 00:46:08,744
in the exhaust plume.

1320
00:46:09,704 --> 00:46:11,385
A similar thing is kind of via the

1321
00:46:11,385 --> 00:46:12,905
physics of it. It's very similar to what's

1322
00:46:12,905 --> 00:46:14,825
happening when you open a bottle of champagne.

1323
00:46:14,825 --> 00:46:15,565
We have the

1324
00:46:15,865 --> 00:46:17,704
creation of these Mach disks due to that,

1325
00:46:17,704 --> 00:46:18,525
you know, incredible

1326
00:46:18,825 --> 00:46:20,445
kind of pressure drop that happens.

1327
00:46:21,305 --> 00:46:23,144
And the the other thing you look at

1328
00:46:23,144 --> 00:46:23,644
is,

1329
00:46:24,969 --> 00:46:25,469
bubbles

1330
00:46:26,489 --> 00:46:26,989
and

1331
00:46:27,369 --> 00:46:30,269
the bubbles that, champagne is famous for.

1332
00:46:30,570 --> 00:46:32,809
And the the thing that that sort of

1333
00:46:32,809 --> 00:46:35,070
fascinates me about beverage bubbles

1334
00:46:35,369 --> 00:46:37,650
is that they can vary. You know, a

1335
00:46:37,650 --> 00:46:39,550
a a champagne will have these tiny

1336
00:46:40,164 --> 00:46:40,664
bubbles.

1337
00:46:41,204 --> 00:46:42,664
And, I don't know,

1338
00:46:43,125 --> 00:46:44,964
probably get in trouble for saying this, but,

1339
00:46:44,964 --> 00:46:48,344
you know, a a lesser wine like, Prosecco,

1340
00:46:49,444 --> 00:46:50,964
you know, the bubbles will be a bit

1341
00:46:50,964 --> 00:46:51,464
bigger.

1342
00:46:52,085 --> 00:46:53,605
And by the time you get to a

1343
00:46:53,605 --> 00:46:54,420
fizzy drink,

1344
00:46:55,059 --> 00:46:56,039
you know, like,

1345
00:46:56,420 --> 00:46:58,659
Coca Cola or something, the the bubbles are

1346
00:46:58,659 --> 00:46:59,159
huge.

1347
00:46:59,699 --> 00:47:01,460
And, you you know, you think, well, this

1348
00:47:01,460 --> 00:47:02,920
is just liquid with

1349
00:47:03,940 --> 00:47:04,920
carbon dioxide.

1350
00:47:05,859 --> 00:47:07,079
Why are the bubbles

1351
00:47:07,784 --> 00:47:09,944
so different in size? And, you know, why

1352
00:47:09,944 --> 00:47:13,385
do we associate a high quality beverage with

1353
00:47:13,385 --> 00:47:14,204
small bubbles

1354
00:47:14,744 --> 00:47:18,204
and, you know, pop with with large bubbles?

1355
00:47:19,065 --> 00:47:21,724
That's something that's always fascinated me about

1356
00:47:22,050 --> 00:47:23,510
about carbonated drinks.

1357
00:47:24,369 --> 00:47:26,210
Yeah. Because with champagne, for example, it tends

1358
00:47:26,210 --> 00:47:27,570
to be, you know, a sign of the

1359
00:47:27,570 --> 00:47:29,650
quality. It's kind of the little kind of

1360
00:47:29,650 --> 00:47:31,090
bubbles that you kind of feel on your

1361
00:47:31,090 --> 00:47:32,690
mouth or your tongue when you're kind of,

1362
00:47:32,690 --> 00:47:34,469
you know, when you're drinking it.

1363
00:47:35,454 --> 00:47:37,214
But one one interesting thing about the the

1364
00:47:37,214 --> 00:47:39,375
bubbles that's create that you that you see

1365
00:47:39,375 --> 00:47:41,295
in champagne as compared to, as you say,

1366
00:47:41,295 --> 00:47:42,914
different beverages like

1367
00:47:43,295 --> 00:47:44,914
beer or Coke, for example.

1368
00:47:46,255 --> 00:47:48,414
One interesting effect with champagne is you get

1369
00:47:48,414 --> 00:47:49,714
these kind of bubble trains.

1370
00:47:50,130 --> 00:47:51,269
So you get literally

1371
00:47:51,969 --> 00:47:54,069
lines of bubbles, whereas in,

1372
00:47:54,769 --> 00:47:56,369
Coke, for example, you'll get them kind of

1373
00:47:56,369 --> 00:47:58,529
moving around. You know, they'll just be wavering

1374
00:47:58,529 --> 00:47:59,750
your own to the top.

1375
00:48:01,170 --> 00:48:03,489
So, yeah, you know, people have done research

1376
00:48:03,489 --> 00:48:04,789
about what why

1377
00:48:05,514 --> 00:48:08,014
does champagne have these bubble trains and other

1378
00:48:08,234 --> 00:48:09,215
drinks don't.

1379
00:48:09,755 --> 00:48:10,894
And that actually

1380
00:48:11,434 --> 00:48:12,574
all comes down to,

1381
00:48:14,074 --> 00:48:16,155
the kind of molecular makeup of the champagne

1382
00:48:16,155 --> 00:48:17,534
itself, and it kind of contains,

1383
00:48:18,869 --> 00:48:20,569
surfactants in the champagne.

1384
00:48:21,829 --> 00:48:24,569
And people have done various experiments where they've

1385
00:48:24,630 --> 00:48:27,190
kind of produced bubbles, and then they've kind

1386
00:48:27,190 --> 00:48:30,074
of adjusted the amount of surfactant in the

1387
00:48:30,394 --> 00:48:31,534
in the drink itself.

1388
00:48:32,474 --> 00:48:33,454
And, basically,

1389
00:48:33,755 --> 00:48:35,835
it's a result of champagne having more of

1390
00:48:35,835 --> 00:48:37,775
the surfactant molecules inside it.

1391
00:48:38,074 --> 00:48:39,855
That basically then is quite complicated,

1392
00:48:40,315 --> 00:48:40,795
you know,

1393
00:48:41,275 --> 00:48:43,994
bubble physics, but, basically, that results in all

1394
00:48:43,994 --> 00:48:45,135
these bubbles magically

1395
00:48:45,434 --> 00:48:46,019
kind of

1396
00:48:46,500 --> 00:48:47,480
forming a train

1397
00:48:47,780 --> 00:48:49,320
and coming one after the other.

1398
00:48:49,699 --> 00:48:52,260
Whereas other drinks, terra- nagal. Also has something

1399
00:48:52,260 --> 00:48:53,780
to do with the size of the bubbles

1400
00:48:53,780 --> 00:48:55,699
as well. Yeah. Mhmm. That's right. Yeah. So

1401
00:48:55,699 --> 00:48:57,619
that's all too, with that surface tension and

1402
00:48:57,619 --> 00:48:58,900
all and all those things.

1403
00:48:59,539 --> 00:49:02,304
But, yeah, whereas diff other drinks don't have

1404
00:49:02,304 --> 00:49:03,985
that level of surfactant in it,

1405
00:49:04,864 --> 00:49:06,785
which then, you know, results in the kind

1406
00:49:06,785 --> 00:49:09,025
of bubbles moving a bit more kind of

1407
00:49:09,025 --> 00:49:10,244
in a wavy way.

1408
00:49:11,265 --> 00:49:12,945
But, yeah, the bubbles is also where all

1409
00:49:12,945 --> 00:49:14,065
the a lot of the flavor and the

1410
00:49:14,065 --> 00:49:15,025
taste comes from,

1411
00:49:15,590 --> 00:49:17,269
in champagne. So we've got some popping of

1412
00:49:17,269 --> 00:49:19,429
those bubbles is what gives that kind of

1413
00:49:19,429 --> 00:49:20,329
magic flavour,

1414
00:49:21,110 --> 00:49:21,929
to champagne.

1415
00:49:22,389 --> 00:49:24,710
And and finally, Michael, I wanted to talk

1416
00:49:24,710 --> 00:49:25,210
about,

1417
00:49:26,309 --> 00:49:28,550
I mean, this is, I suppose, an all

1418
00:49:28,550 --> 00:49:30,150
time classic in terms of,

1419
00:49:31,125 --> 00:49:33,204
the, you know, the physics of the real

1420
00:49:33,204 --> 00:49:36,585
world, and that's the the broken spaghetti problem.

1421
00:49:37,844 --> 00:49:39,684
And essentially, the idea here is that if

1422
00:49:39,684 --> 00:49:42,184
you take a piece of spaghetti, dried spaghetti,

1423
00:49:42,565 --> 00:49:45,059
and you hold it at either end, and

1424
00:49:45,059 --> 00:49:47,000
you bend it until it breaks,

1425
00:49:47,460 --> 00:49:49,800
it almost always will break

1426
00:49:50,180 --> 00:49:52,900
into three pieces. No. That's right. Three or

1427
00:49:52,900 --> 00:49:54,579
three or more. Yeah. That's right. Into never

1428
00:49:54,579 --> 00:49:55,880
two. Well, yeah.

1429
00:49:56,180 --> 00:49:58,715
Very rarely two. And I think, you know,

1430
00:49:59,015 --> 00:50:01,355
when when physics students are told this,

1431
00:50:01,735 --> 00:50:03,335
you know, the first thing they do is

1432
00:50:03,335 --> 00:50:04,775
they go home and they get out the

1433
00:50:04,775 --> 00:50:07,655
spaghetti, and they just keep trying and trying

1434
00:50:07,655 --> 00:50:09,515
to break it into two pieces.

1435
00:50:10,055 --> 00:50:12,869
And, it's very, very difficult to do.

1436
00:50:13,190 --> 00:50:13,690
So

1437
00:50:14,150 --> 00:50:16,730
why is that? Why does why does spaghetti

1438
00:50:17,030 --> 00:50:19,750
break into three or more pieces and not

1439
00:50:19,750 --> 00:50:20,250
two?

1440
00:50:20,630 --> 00:50:21,450
Do we know?

1441
00:50:22,070 --> 00:50:24,150
Yeah. I mean, this is actually a question

1442
00:50:24,150 --> 00:50:25,130
that even flummoxed

1443
00:50:26,204 --> 00:50:27,644
Richard Feynman. He was,

1444
00:50:27,965 --> 00:50:30,204
he I think along with his friend, William

1445
00:50:30,204 --> 00:50:33,025
Hillis, they spent apparently, they spent hours,

1446
00:50:33,885 --> 00:50:36,525
just in the kitchen breaking spaghetti and, you

1447
00:50:36,525 --> 00:50:38,525
know, to desperately try and get it into

1448
00:50:38,525 --> 00:50:40,980
two pieces. But, you know, they always found

1449
00:50:40,980 --> 00:50:42,900
that it ended up breaking into three or

1450
00:50:42,900 --> 00:50:43,400
more.

1451
00:50:44,099 --> 00:50:45,539
But they never kind of come up with

1452
00:50:45,539 --> 00:50:47,940
an explanation of what why that kind of

1453
00:50:47,940 --> 00:50:48,440
happened.

1454
00:50:49,780 --> 00:50:51,160
But then actually some researchers,

1455
00:50:51,539 --> 00:50:52,594
at MIT,

1456
00:50:53,215 --> 00:50:55,215
they decided to look into the into that

1457
00:50:55,215 --> 00:50:56,675
process in a bit more detail.

1458
00:50:57,135 --> 00:50:58,414
And then they they came up with this

1459
00:50:58,414 --> 00:51:00,574
kind of elaborate setup where they had,

1460
00:51:01,054 --> 00:51:03,454
one end they had a spaghetti strand, one

1461
00:51:03,454 --> 00:51:04,679
end that was fixed.

1462
00:51:05,639 --> 00:51:08,139
And then it would then basically move into

1463
00:51:08,359 --> 00:51:10,940
another end. So it'd be basically just slowly

1464
00:51:11,000 --> 00:51:11,500
bend.

1465
00:51:13,319 --> 00:51:15,239
And they found actually that there is a

1466
00:51:15,239 --> 00:51:16,300
way of doing it,

1467
00:51:16,839 --> 00:51:19,344
that to create just two pieces, and that's

1468
00:51:19,344 --> 00:51:21,605
if you just do it very, very slowly.

1469
00:51:21,824 --> 00:51:22,565
It sometimes

1470
00:51:23,904 --> 00:51:25,664
can actually break into just two pieces. So

1471
00:51:25,664 --> 00:51:27,025
rather than just, like, you know, getting it,

1472
00:51:27,025 --> 00:51:29,025
but I'm just snapping it. You just do

1473
00:51:29,025 --> 00:51:30,944
it very slowly. But the ultimate way of

1474
00:51:30,944 --> 00:51:31,844
doing it actually

1475
00:51:32,289 --> 00:51:33,029
is to,

1476
00:51:33,730 --> 00:51:36,069
kind of slightly twist the spaghetti strand.

1477
00:51:36,849 --> 00:51:38,929
So the explanation they come with was to

1478
00:51:38,929 --> 00:51:40,769
do with all these kind of twisting waves

1479
00:51:40,769 --> 00:51:41,429
that happen

1480
00:51:41,889 --> 00:51:44,630
that basically dampen the effect of,

1481
00:51:45,329 --> 00:51:47,775
of the spaghetti wanting to break further.

1482
00:51:48,394 --> 00:51:50,255
So these kind of torsional waves,

1483
00:51:50,715 --> 00:51:53,195
by twisting it, these torsional waves stop the

1484
00:51:53,195 --> 00:51:54,255
spaghetti breaking.

1485
00:51:54,954 --> 00:51:56,795
So it only tends to break in two.

1486
00:51:56,795 --> 00:51:58,715
So they found that, actually, if you twist

1487
00:51:58,715 --> 00:52:00,335
the spaghetti on the one end,

1488
00:52:01,962 --> 00:52:03,530
I think it was around about two seventy

1489
00:52:03,530 --> 00:52:05,849
degrees, so not quite a full revolution, but,

1490
00:52:05,849 --> 00:52:07,929
you know, not not far off. And then

1491
00:52:07,929 --> 00:52:10,329
they actually did the same experiment twisted. It

1492
00:52:10,329 --> 00:52:10,829
always

1493
00:52:11,769 --> 00:52:13,550
more or less broke in two pieces.

1494
00:52:14,409 --> 00:52:16,514
And the reason for that is it is

1495
00:52:16,674 --> 00:52:18,694
because the creation of these when it breaks,

1496
00:52:18,755 --> 00:52:21,714
these torsional waves then dampen the effect of

1497
00:52:21,714 --> 00:52:22,214
further,

1498
00:52:23,074 --> 00:52:23,574
breakages.

1499
00:52:24,355 --> 00:52:25,255
And and do

1500
00:52:25,635 --> 00:52:27,014
do they actually know

1501
00:52:27,315 --> 00:52:30,214
why it breaks into three or more pieces?

1502
00:52:30,275 --> 00:52:32,239
The because I suppose, you know, when you

1503
00:52:32,239 --> 00:52:34,639
think about it naively, you think, well, you're

1504
00:52:34,639 --> 00:52:37,539
gonna bend it, and it will break somewhere

1505
00:52:37,599 --> 00:52:38,099
first.

1506
00:52:39,359 --> 00:52:41,219
And then why would it break again?

1507
00:52:41,920 --> 00:52:42,420
Or

1508
00:52:42,974 --> 00:52:44,414
why would it what what are the odds

1509
00:52:44,414 --> 00:52:46,195
of it breaking in two places

1510
00:52:46,575 --> 00:52:48,095
at the same time? You know, both of

1511
00:52:48,095 --> 00:52:49,635
those things seem

1512
00:52:50,175 --> 00:52:50,675
unphysical.

1513
00:52:51,934 --> 00:52:52,894
So are they

1514
00:52:53,855 --> 00:52:55,855
do neither of those things happen? Is it

1515
00:52:55,855 --> 00:52:58,352
something different? So So I think what happens

1516
00:52:58,670 --> 00:53:01,537
what they say is that when so when

1517
00:53:01,537 --> 00:53:04,403
you when you bend a spaghetti strand, it

1518
00:53:04,403 --> 00:53:07,270
creates these when they call them bending waves,

1519
00:53:07,270 --> 00:53:10,136
basically. And these propagate when it when it's

1520
00:53:10,136 --> 00:53:12,454
bent, when it snaps, these bending waves then

1521
00:53:12,454 --> 00:53:14,934
propagate down the strand, and then it kind

1522
00:53:14,934 --> 00:53:16,795
of re results in more,

1523
00:53:17,414 --> 00:53:19,815
breakages because of these kind of these waves

1524
00:53:19,815 --> 00:53:22,055
are produced. But that's then what the that

1525
00:53:22,055 --> 00:53:23,894
these kind of these twisting waves or the

1526
00:53:23,894 --> 00:53:27,029
torsional waves actually counteract the bending waves.

1527
00:53:27,489 --> 00:53:29,089
So that's the way then to get around

1528
00:53:29,089 --> 00:53:29,909
it is because,

1529
00:53:31,250 --> 00:53:33,670
the bending waves are dampened by this torsional

1530
00:53:34,289 --> 00:53:36,929
waves. Yeah. It's on, but, Well, that would

1531
00:53:37,170 --> 00:53:39,489
yeah. Yeah. That's interesting because, you know, it

1532
00:53:39,489 --> 00:53:41,534
just popped into my mind that,

1533
00:53:42,174 --> 00:53:43,855
if you actually take a big bunch of

1534
00:53:43,855 --> 00:53:44,355
spaghetti

1535
00:53:45,214 --> 00:53:46,275
and break it,

1536
00:53:46,574 --> 00:53:49,214
it will break into two. Every almost every

1537
00:53:49,214 --> 00:53:51,534
strand will break into two. So I suppose

1538
00:53:51,534 --> 00:53:54,034
when you're grabbing the spaghetti and,

1539
00:53:55,219 --> 00:53:56,760
sort of squeezing it together,

1540
00:53:57,139 --> 00:53:59,780
you're probably dampening You're probably dampening those those

1541
00:53:59,780 --> 00:54:01,940
breakages. Yeah. That's that's yeah. That's probably the

1542
00:54:01,940 --> 00:54:03,699
case, actually. Yeah. So yeah. That's one way

1543
00:54:03,699 --> 00:54:05,460
you're getting around it, maybe. Get the whole

1544
00:54:05,460 --> 00:54:08,244
packet and, bend it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's

1545
00:54:08,324 --> 00:54:09,284
I mean, I you know, I have to

1546
00:54:09,284 --> 00:54:10,485
say I'm I'm sure this is,

1547
00:54:11,204 --> 00:54:13,925
I've I've I've I've probably insulted the Italian

1548
00:54:13,925 --> 00:54:14,824
nation again

1549
00:54:15,284 --> 00:54:17,545
by saying that when I do cook spaghetti,

1550
00:54:17,605 --> 00:54:20,164
I do break it in half and cook

1551
00:54:20,164 --> 00:54:20,664
it.

1552
00:54:21,364 --> 00:54:22,344
Yeah, I've said

1553
00:54:22,700 --> 00:54:24,460
I I was planning on going to Italy

1554
00:54:24,460 --> 00:54:26,800
next year, but maybe Maybe not anymore.

1555
00:54:27,579 --> 00:54:30,079
My visa will not be granted. Yeah.

1556
00:54:30,380 --> 00:54:33,420
Well, thanks thanks, Michael. Thanks so much. And,

1557
00:54:33,579 --> 00:54:36,860
actually, there's more about, Italian cuisine in,

1558
00:54:37,664 --> 00:54:39,344
in your book because you've got a wonderful

1559
00:54:39,344 --> 00:54:41,184
section about pizza as well and how to

1560
00:54:41,184 --> 00:54:43,585
cook a perfect pizza. But, you know, I'm

1561
00:54:43,585 --> 00:54:45,905
afraid we we just don't have time to

1562
00:54:45,905 --> 00:54:49,045
cover that. So Michael's book is called Physics

1563
00:54:49,344 --> 00:54:51,344
Around the Clock, and it's out now. Is

1564
00:54:51,344 --> 00:54:52,869
that right, Michael? Yeah. I suppose it's out

1565
00:54:52,869 --> 00:54:53,610
in The UK,

1566
00:54:54,309 --> 00:54:56,309
now, and it will be published in The

1567
00:54:56,309 --> 00:54:58,570
US in April 2026.

1568
00:54:58,630 --> 00:55:00,469
Okay. And I'll put a link,

1569
00:55:00,869 --> 00:55:02,869
at least to the to The UK version

1570
00:55:02,869 --> 00:55:04,869
in the notes for the podcast. Thanks a

1571
00:55:04,869 --> 00:55:06,789
lot for coming on and talking about,

1572
00:55:07,485 --> 00:55:10,144
some wonderful physics, Michael. Thanks, Hamish.

1573
00:55:17,644 --> 00:55:20,840
That was Physics World's Michael Banks. His latest

1574
00:55:20,840 --> 00:55:23,019
book is Physics Around the Clock,

1575
00:55:23,400 --> 00:55:26,920
Adventures in the Science of Everyday Living, and

1576
00:55:26,920 --> 00:55:29,179
it's published by the History Press.

1577
00:55:29,480 --> 00:55:31,400
I'll put a link to the book in

1578
00:55:31,400 --> 00:55:32,699
the podcast notes.

1579
00:55:33,174 --> 00:55:36,074
Thanks to Michael for joining me today and

1580
00:55:36,135 --> 00:55:38,154
to our producer Fred Ailes.

1581
00:55:38,775 --> 00:55:41,275
And thank you for listening to this podcast,

1582
00:55:41,654 --> 00:55:42,554
which is supported

1583
00:55:42,855 --> 00:55:43,914
by the APS

1584
00:55:44,454 --> 00:55:46,074
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1585
00:55:46,579 --> 00:55:50,039
To continue advancing physics beyond this podcast,

1586
00:55:50,579 --> 00:55:54,739
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1587
00:55:54,739 --> 00:55:56,829
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1588
00:55:56,829 --> 00:55:58,920
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1589
00:55:59,204 --> 00:56:00,505
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1590
00:56:01,204 --> 00:56:02,265
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1591
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1599
00:56:17,599 --> 00:56:22,659
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