A Problem Squared - 002 = Too Much Pizza, Not Enough Space

Episode Date: December 31, 2019

- How much pizza is too much pizza? - What is the optimal way to store shirts? - How should Matt deal with jetlag? Update from episode 001: someone embroidered their shoes! http://twitter.com/AlexRob2001/status/1200926733807095809 SHOW 002 LINKS: Watch Bec on the Jonathan Ross show: https://youtu.be/1x9dGTSA1-I The Ri Lectures are on iPlayer now and the Ri channel a month later: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pmbqq https://www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution All the images we mention are on our instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aproblemsquared/

Hello, I'm Bec Hill, comedian and person who does many other things. I'm Matt Parker, friend of Bec. And mathematician. And mathematician. And stand-up. And I do many other things. Yeah. Yeah, we both do many things.

Too many things. Good for us. And amongst them is this podcast, A Problem Squared, where we solve each other's problems and some of yours. And we're on our second episode now. Yeah, hello. This is very exciting. Yay.

Which means we've got updates. Yes. On old problems. Yes. Give us an update from the last episode, Matt. Someone embroidered their Mondo Point shoe size on their shoe. That is incredible. It's amazing.

Yeah. So someone did it and i actually i think maybe one or two people did it but the first one that got to me was a guy called alex from wiltshire and they've embroidered it looks like 2b i'm pretty sure it's meant to be 28 yeah yeah because pretty sure 2b is not a mondo point size but a pencil measurement maybe somewhere there's a pencil with a mondoo point on it. And they only did one dimension, not the two that we asked for, and they spelled Mondo point wrong.

That is, I don't know what you're expecting from our first episode, Matt, but the fact that we've already had, we've made someone embroider a number on their shoe in one episode. We're ahead of what I expected, if I'm being honest. So I'm very excited. Alex from Wiltshire, I have posted them a book, as Beck generously promised them I would. I was supposed to sign it, Matt.

Oh, you were going to sign it. I already sent it to them. Sorry, Alex. Beck will sign a sticker and we'll send it over afterwards. Or just bring the book to one of my shows and I'll sign it for you. At the confusion of everyone else at the show who will be like, I't know she wrote a book about maths book wow she does do a lot of other things uh well what else have you been up to oh my goodness it's been a busy december um i was involved in the ri christmas lectures which is a royalitution. I know it's always one or the other.

They get really upset. They hate Institute. One of the highlights of my life, because I've helped out on these lectures previously, was when they had a link to Tim Peake, who was on the International Space Station, and they were doing the lectures all on space. Kevin Fong was hosting them, and they were trying so hard to get this link up, and they finally got Tim Peake live from the International Space Station, and he said, hello, Royal Institute.

And they were livid, but they could not use it. So, anyway. But for the first time, well, not for the first time, for like the fourth time in the two centuries these lectures have been happening, it's on mathematics, which is very exciting. That is exciting. And Dr. Hannah Fry, fantastic human and mass communicator. And friend. And friend was doing the lectures, which is a big task. And she very kindly got me involved. And she generously described me

as co-host a couple of times when I'm doing roughly 5% of the work. I like that she called you a co-host, but I've seen the picture of what you had to wear in it. I was sending you photos because I got dressed up as a robot at one point. Yeah, which is very Beck brand. It was very on brand for Beck. Yeah. I felt a little bad. You were one fringe away from infringing on my copyright.

I really was. The fact that they made me wear like a colander hat as part of the – did I send you a photo of the hat? Yeah, and that's what I just do on the weekends. Exactly. And at one point I send you a photo of the hat? Yeah, and that's what I just do on the weekends. Exactly. And at one point I got... What's the correct terminology? Slimed?

Gunged? Yeah, both. Both? Yeah, I had slime dumped all over me for important... Because they're kids, they're children's lectures, right? Yeah. And so I was way out of my comfort zone. Like, definitely in Beck territory.

It's the first mass lecture I've ever been involved with where i had to have a shower halfway through which is funny because normally i need a shower because maths makes me end of story um yeah but but you you've when do they go to air as well they will be airing as people are listening to this they're on iplayer for a month and then they'll be on YouTube. They will be on the Royal Institution or the Royal Institute YouTube channel as of, I guess, late, late January. I'm going to start a company called the Royal Institute. And it's just where we do lectures about farts. Speaking of which, you've done more prestigious television than the Royal Institution Christmas Lecture.

I don't know. Well, it depends what people like. By the time this goes out, hopefully people would have seen that on Christmas Eve, I'm going to be on the Jonathan Ross Show doing a brand new flip chart that I made specifically for the show. The best part was I got to draw a picture of David Tennant, which he then saw in the studio.

And was photographed with. And was photographed with. He's really nice. You were very excited. I was very excited. I had the best 2009 versus 2019 picture. I don't know if you saw this. I did not.

So in 2009, I came in possession of, and you've seen this. Because you still own it. I still own it. A life-sized cardboard cutout of David Tennant. It's still in your kitchen. Yep. It's actually moved flats with us. So it came with us when we moved.

And so then in 2009, I bought that around Christmas time and had a photo of me with it. And then cut to a decade later, is a picture of me with the actual David Tennant at Christmas time. That's amazing. Yeah, that's my 10 year difference photo. I can't beat that. I wore funny shoes.

I can't compete. But we'll put these photos up on the Instagram. That's another update. We've got a Problem Squared Instagram page. So we're putting up pictures and infographs and anything that we've used in our research to answer the problems, anything that's sort of vaguely linked to what we've talked about. So we'll put pictures. I'll put a picture up that Matt sent me of him in a robot costume. He can't stop me.

He doesn't know how to use Instagram. I don't. It's so true. And we'll put up other stuff that we've been up to. And hopefully there'll be some clips and stuff in case anyone missed Jonathan Ross or is from international waters. You can probably watch it on my Facebook page or something. We received a problem on Beck's Facebook page when you mentioned a problem squared. The podcast you're listening to right now.

And Chris Patterson has a problem. How much pizza is too much pizza? It's such a good problem. It's a great problem to have. Yeah, yeah. Are they ordering pizza? Have they come into possession of a lot of pizza? I know.

There is no – so what I've had to do is narrow down what I think this problem pertains to. Otherwise, this would just become an entire podcast about trying to work out. A pizza squared. Yeah. Yeah, it would be a pizza squared, which is, what is a pizza squared if it's a circle? It's a surface area, I guess. There we go.

So what I've done is I've decided that we're going from consumption of pizza rather than just- So no other uses of pizza. Well, you know, if people want to specify that as a problem for future episodes, they can. And we'll delve deeper into the the dish of this so i've decided that it's about how much pizza is too much pizza to eat just to refine it down so um first of all i looked at uh stomach capacity so what what how much can an average human stomach hold because my first thought, what's the upper bound?

Right. Which is like, in maths you'll often go, like, well, you go, what is a ridiculous answer, which is obviously wrong, but it's at least, it can't be bigger than that. So like, for example, a million pizzas. I mean, correct. And then you work your way down. And then I was like, but wait a minute,

it's got to be less than your body weight. But also. In pizzas. how big are the pizzas because a million tiny pizzas i mean that's a lot of pizza they're using pizza how much pizza not how many pizzas so i would say how much pizza the pizza is is like the volume yeah yeah A non-discrete quantity. It's just pizza. What's the mass? Yeah, pizza in general. So on average, human stomach holds a liter. Right, okay. On average. And so I thought I would try and find, just to make this easier on myself, to decide what our measurement for pizza is,

I've gone with a Domino's classic crust cheese pizza. A large, which is a large Domino's pizza. And I think it's the same for Pizza Hut. There are other commercial varieties available. A large is 10 slices, which it's 14 inches, 10 slices. Yes, exactly. Which means that when you cut it, you cut it down half, but then you sort of do it at an angle.

Yeah, about to say. Which is why I think when you get a pizza that's cut all out of shape, it's because that's not a natural. Someone's learning how to gauge. I used to work for Pizza Hut when I was a kid. Like a teenager, not like child labor. And so we had the big cutting machine. But we just did 12-inch pizzas.

That was the largest that we did. So there were eight slices. Because you you have to cut it in half and then you'd have to eyeball 72 degrees around from that first cut because 90 would be easy at right angles yeah done but seven yeah i guess it's trial and error you get a knack for it so that was the first interesting thing that i was like oh what but then then I realized, yeah, that's right. Well, that means we've got a unit of pizza is the Domino's cheese pizza. Yeah. And then a desi pizza is a slice.

Yes. Yeah. And also the reason that this helped is because a large classic crust Domino's cheese pizza is roughly 968 grams. I'm going to round up to 1,000 grams. So that's about a litre if you were converting it into... What's the density of pizza? I don't know. Because if...

Why would you ask me this? Because... I'm just trying to solve a problem easily. No, I like it because you've rounded up your pizza to a kilogram and a kilogram of water is exactly a liter. And if pizza is more dense than water, it'll take up less than a liter. If it's less dense than water, it'll take up more than a liter. Blood is thicker than water, but not thicker than pizza.

Pizza, that's where the phrase comes from. Yeah. But I'm prepared to accept pizza. I mean, I'd really appreciate it if you stopped throwing spanners into the works that is my working out. One pizza is a liter. Let's say one pizza is a liter. You know, I'm genuinely happy with that. What we should have done is got a blender.

I mean, we can still do that. Maybe in another episode. Maybe if someone poses the problem that they found a problem with my answer to this problem. I am happy with the assumption that one pizza is one liter all right my hypothesis was that that means that one large pizza is roughly when people start to feel a bit sick like that would be your sort of maximum average limit now this is where it starts to get interesting competitive eaters also known as gurgitators gurgitators yeah because they're not they're not regurgiting no they're just gurging and they're not masticating they're just

good just gurging they can stretch their stomachs to about to the capacity of about four liters or more see this is the upper bound i wanted that That's the upper bound you wanted. And they do it through years of training. So they stretch out their stomachs, usually by eating, obviously, higher and higher amounts of food, but they tend to go for low-calorie foods so that they're not, like, killing themselves. But it just means that when they get to those eating competitions, then their stomach can move.

Expand. There's an incredible video on ESPN, because clearly it's about sport and um competitive it's competitive and um and basically they're all training they uh they attach a condom to a tube in a and like a plastic anatomy of a person and they basically get a stick and shove 69 hot dogs down its gullet because that was the record the record to show what that would look like and it's horrific it's so awful it got like the record at the time. That's the record to show what that would look like. And it's horrific. It's so awful.

Like the stomach ends up looking like it's pregnant, pushes all the organs out. It's crazy. And that theoretically, that means that if you were trained, you could potentially eat up to four large pizzas before feeling ill. It had never crossed my mind that people have to train for competitive eating to expand their stomach. It's a crazy world, isn't it?

When you reach maximum stomach capacity, several things tend to happen. One, the expanded stomach puts pressure on the surrounding organs. So you can see that in that video on ESPN. Obviously causing discomfort and in some cases slightly restricted breathing. Lungs are being compressed. Two, your stomach produces excess acid to try and digest the food which usually results in heartburn three you eject the excess food through vomiting that yep once you reach over capacity and for any unvomited food takes too long to digest so the undigested food is not converted

into energy but stored as fat so that's where you start to get into danger zone. If any one of those things happened, I would say that's a marker of too much pizza. Yeah, I would say so. Like if I couldn't breathe properly, I've had too much pizza. Yes, exactly. So I had a really interesting chat with Kwame Asante, who's a comedian and doctor. And I asked him this question, how much pizza is too much pizza? We also decided that this was based on one sitting.

And the reason we decided on that is because he said, first of all, with one sitting, your body will tell you how much pizza is too much pizza. As soon as you hit that capacity, it will expel everything or you just can't do anything. So that's your body he said the problem with uh one sitting versus just over life is that your body will tell you in one sitting when you've had too much pizza your body won't give you a warning long term long term

so obviously if you eat too much pizza but you're not doing anything to get rid of that excess energy then eventually your body will just shut down and you'll die and that is the sign of too much pizza but you won't get the warning that you will probably because your stomach's got a short memory next day it's like yep ready to go again your stomach doesn't really like your stomach trusts your brain ah so it's like oh you're probably you probably know what you're putting but the brain's also thinking well stomach says it's hungry exactly and that's the thing isn't it because it still goes back to our basic instincts which is uh you never know where or when the next meal will happen so get them calories in get them in because it might be

a long winter and you'll have to survive off of that fat that you've stored on you. But when we don't have to worry about that, then, yeah, then it becomes an issue. Now we get to the fun parts. The most amount of pizza eaten in 10 minutes was 19.25 nine-inch pizzas. Cheese pizzas. I thought you were going to say slices. No, nine-inch pizzas. Cheese pizzas. I thought you were going to say slices. No, nine inch pizzas. So this is where we get your maths head involved, Matt. Is this why I got a text saying if I had 19 pizzas that are nine inches each?

Yes, this is exactly. Well, I think that wasn't the question. How do I divide circles into other circles? Because I then rang you up and I said, look look follow-on question do you care if you're cutting out circle shapes like do you have to fit the circles inside the bigger circle or do you just want to be the same amount of area once you're done yeah and i was very relieved when you said it was the latter yes and i was like fuel because the latter is trivial whereas the first one fitting the circles in uh one of the highest problems in maths is stacking shapes inside shapes

is insanely difficult. Can you imagine if how much pizza is too much pizza ended up being the most difficult mathematical problem? It was very close to being that. Because packing shapes, very complicated. Converting between areas. Gotcha. So with that in mind, can you help me out yes

so what we've got to do i'm allowed to interrupt with a spanner again please so i'm trying to work out um how many nine inch pizzas uh can be converted see I can't even ask the question. That's how much I'm not used to it. So what is 19.25 nine-inch pizzas put into 14-inch pizzas? So you're going from nine to 14? Yes. Okay. So I guess all pizzas are defined by some measurement.

In this case, it's the diameter across the pizza. Because you're caring about area, all you've got to do is divide one by the other and then square the answer okay so in this case um so actually i've just opened up um excel here because i like to use an overpowered calculation device i'm doing 9 divided by 14 it's about 0.64 ish and then i'm squaring that and that will give you the ratio of the area between the two. It's about 0.413-ish. So if I multiply your 19.25. So does that mean if that is how much of a large pizza a nine-inch pizza is?

Yeah, you got it. Yeah. So a nine-inch pizza is 0.413 or 41.3% of a large 14-inch pizza. So what he's doing is he's eating less than half a large pizza. Less than, I know, it's not that impressive. Not that impressive. He only eats a total of 7. So times by 19.25.

Done that. The.25 is there. Cool. 7.955 large pizzas. Right, so almost 8.5 pizzas. Just shy. In fact, you know what? If they had made it to the full 20, which I can only assume they were attempting to do,

they would have been at eight and a quarter. So let's sit on eight, shall we? But they came in just shy. If they had, I could have worked this out properly. If they'd eaten 19.4, they would have got to eight large pizzas. There you go. They quit at 19.25. Fun bonus fact.

That thing, if you divide the two measurements and then square it to get the ratio to convert between pizzas, works for any shaped pizza. So if they were rectangle pizzas and you just measured the same side on both, or they were triangular pizzas, they were any any crazy shaped pizza that because area is just a square of length that conversion what about a calzone which is which is a pizza but folded in half oh that's now volume you'd have to cube the you take the lengths and then divide them and cube it amazing the guy who uh ate nearly eight large pizzas is a fellow called Jeff Esper. This was in 2018 as well, so quite a recent one. Oh, I actually did ask this question on Twitter as well. Oh, yeah?

I asked my followers on Twitter with a poll how much pizza can they eat, assuming it's a large 14-inch pizza, how much can they eat before they start to feel sick? I gave the options of up to half pizza, up to one pizza, up to two pizzas, and then two or more. Please provide more details. No one can eat two or more. I did have a couple who said that they could. One guy said he's never felt sick from eating too much.

That's not true. He swears by it and then i said when do you stop and he said when the food runs out wow just for a lack of pizza yeah so i kind of feel like he's gonna go into training yeah get those numbers up keep it can become a professional gurgitator yeah so do you want to guess what the what the most two-thirds of a pizza on average i mean i, I didn't go that specific. I'm just going by who clicked the thing. No one can eat more than one pizza. So you're going between one...

Without feeling happy with yourself. If I eat a whole pizza and look down and there's no slices left, I feel bad. Yeah. If there's a slice or more, I'm okay. So 54% of people Who answered the poll Said they can eat Up to one whole pizza Before they feel sick

And I thought We should test that So What I did Just before we started recording Is I placed an order For three large I'm including our producer

In this Miss Emma's gonna get A pizza as well Emma's gonna get A whole pizza I put in an order For three large Cheese

Classic crust Did you ring up I'd like three standard units of pizza, please. Yes, yep. Which we're going to go and collect now. Come back here. Yeah, let's do it. And see if we can eat a whole pizza without feeling sick.

There is no end to this solution to the problem. All right. So, we've just had our pizzas. We've eaten pizza. I've eaten slightly more than enough pizza. Yes. I, too, have eaten too much pizza. I've eaten slightly more than enough pizza. Yes. I too have eaten too much pizza. How much pizza did you?

I managed to get through. I left the room as you were finishing. I went to make coffee. Yeah. Yeah. I got to seven and a half slices. Seven and a half slices. Yeah.

I did seven. I did a flat seven. But we discussed this. I'm not in anything today. That's a good point. And you've had a music bar. I had a flat seven. But we discussed this. I'm not in anything today. That's a good point. And you've had a muesli bar. I had a muesli bar for breakfast. And I've probably been up earlier than you as well.

So I've been way longer. You've accumulated more hunger. Yes, that's how it works. And we had some discussion early on as to how big the slices were because they were not consistently cut. No, no. No. I took a photo of an over over the head shot of my pizza

and the center of the cuts is clearly not the center of that disc it's off to one side we'll put that on instagram for people that would be pretty exciting apart oh did you get that that was my tummy that just went it's gonna be a lot of that for the rest of the podcast man can you do that on command oh getting the reflux i did actually while um you stepped out to get some water and whatnot i uh looked up signs of overeating uh and um it's all the symptoms that we described so we've definitely had too much we've hit the limit we've had too much pizza yeah so too much pizza is somewhere between three quarters of a pizza and a pizza in a sitting? For us.

For us. Yeah. Do you know what? Go out and do your own experiments. Yeah, but I think within, you know, for quite a vague sentence, how much pizza is too much pizza, that back is a problem solved. Ding. We have a Patreon for Problem Squared. Yes, we do.

And the nice thing about that is we will prioritise problems from our patrons. Oh, absolutely. You can pay to work your way up the problem queue. No problems there. No, that's right. So, this one comes from our patron, Alex Brown. One of 17. 17 Patreon supporters. I was going to say one of 17 Alex Browns.

I love that you know how many. Way more Alex Browns. There's got to be more. Sorry, Alex. Not to say we're not unique. I mean, I have a super generic name, so it's fine. That's true. I don't.

Mine's awesome. So Alex Brown has the problem, which is, what is the mathematically optimal way to store shirts in terms of volume used? Folded, rolled, hung up, or some other method? It's a comprehensive problem. Yeah, it's a proper problem. They've defined the problem and some of the terms. They've offered some a comprehensive problem yeah they've defined the problem and some of the terms they've offered some solutions you said they've defined it they haven't specifically

said what type of shirts that is our first problem and given that if it's a business shirt you hang it up you hang it up and that's why i think it must be t-shirts because if the first options folded followed by rolled and hung up is only coming in third. It's got to be t-shirts. So I guess the question is, if you're going to put a bunch of shirts away and you want to minimize the volume they take up, in theory it shouldn't make a difference, should it? Because it's the same amount of t-shirt. Can I ask just quickly?

Yeah. How do you, prior to this problem coming in, how do you store your shirts? I fold them. Interesting. In a stack. It's not great. I hang mine. You hang yours?

Yeah. I dream of a world where I hang mine. That would be my ideal solution. It's for hangers, mate. No, it's for hanging space that's required. Yeah, the strip my cupboard is like packed, absolutely. I was about to say I've not been allocated a lot of space. But they're in color order.

Oh, that's tempting. Anyway, okay, right. So I do want to discuss all these things, but we need to do an experiment. So I thought I want to get that going. So you brought pizza to the party. I did, yeah. I have brought a lot of t-shirts. Yeah, t-shirt party.

So I just went and grabbed as many clean t-shirts as i could find at home and i've brought a box so what i thought i would do beck if i give you this massive stack of t-shirts here and what i should point out for the listeners is that the amount of t-shirts that matt has brought is much bigger than the box how what's the capacity of this box matthew well let's just have a look matthew i just made a specific. Nine litres. Nine litre box. All right. And so what we've got to check is if you were to blend t-shirts. Well, this is it, right? What's the density of a t-shirt? Is it equal to water?

So the question is, because the volume of the t-shirt is not going to change, it's how much empty space is there going to be when you put them in the box? What size are your t-shirts, by the way? They are all either large or extra large. Okay. You right so yeah so i wouldn't know do you know what i would do when i'm packing to go away i uh keep my clothes on the hangers and i take them off and then i roll i roll them with the hanger at the center so dresses t-shirts and stuff i'll do them with the hanger in there so i'll lay all the dresses and t-shirts and stuff. I'll do them in one go. With a hanger in there. So, I'll lay all the dresses and t-shirts so the hangers are stacked. With all the hangers.

Then I'll roll them up in a big thing and then just stick them in the suitcase. No, that's incredible. Which means that when I come out the other end, I just unroll it and hang them all up. That's amazing. And it's done. It's like so inefficient. Well, for space. For space, yes.

But if you've got the space. But amazing. No, and I'm definitely going to do that next time. Yeah. But amazing. No, and I'm definitely going to do that next time. Yeah. So, I guess the question, it's ambiguous if this is storing them at home or if it's packing them to take away with you.

Oh, you've gone for a very tight roll. Yeah. You know where this comes from? Camping. Do you roll in? Because you know what? I do roll when I pack a suitcase. No, no, no.

For sleeping bags. And like when you're rolling up when I pack a suitcase. No, no, no. For sleeping bags. And like when you're rolling up an air mattress and stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, so you've gone for that style of roll. Oh, and you're putting it in vertically. Yeah, so that you can see them. That's great. So you know what colors you're looking at.

It's like a time capsule now. Yeah. So I'm going to leave you to the t-shirts over there. The problem, as stated, only has one measure of success, a sole criterion, which is volume used. They've even specified in terms of volume used. I don't think that's enough because I think the issue when you put clothes away... Those t-shirts are so nerdy.

Please, please refrain from judging my t-shirts as you are putting them away. That's not a judgment. That's a fact. It is a fact. The thing is, I don't think it's just volume when you're storing i think it's ease of access yeah and the problem i have is which i realized just getting these t-shirts out today i will neglect t-shirts for long periods of time like i was pulling some out going man i haven't worn that in ages and that's a really good t-. I just forgot I had that or I couldn't find it. And so I want a system in a perfect world where it's a last in, first out storage system.

So for every new t-shirt you get, you give out away an old one? No, no, no. So whenever you go to get a t-shirt out, the first one that comes out is the last one that had gone in of all the ones available. Ah, so they get proper rotated. At the moment, I'm running a first in, first out system. You know, I've got that with my coat hangers as well. Well, now this is why. You know about this, don't you?

Do you put them in at one end and take them out at the other? No. No? Once a year, I turn all of my coat hangers to face the other no no i once a year i put uh i turn all of my coat hangers to face the other way so that they're at an awkward you know where they're facing yeah so it's harder to get them so you've got to move them into the wardrobe to get them out of the wardrobe that's right and then after i've worn something and it's been washed and goes back in it goes back the normal way yeah and that means after a year i can see what i've worn in a year and what i haven't and

then decide what needs to go that's an amazing system it also means that as you get towards the end of the year you're like but i don't want to give away that you gotta wear it yeah yeah because i was thinking what i would do is have a system where i put all the t-shirts in one end of the hanging space and then i take them from the other so they naturally work their way along but obviously occasionally you'll pull one out from the middle or you'll ruin the system. So if anything gets to the front and sits there for a month or 20 T-shirt wears, yeah, you set it on fire.

And so you're flipping the coat hangers as a marker. It's very nice. I could reckon I could roll that into my system as well. You should have just got questions about coat hangers and you'd be grand. I know. This is just a trick you've had to have me fold up on your t-shirts. You did a great job. So I would, if I was going to roll like we're doing at the moment,

do you want a hand rolling? You're being more meticulous than I expected, which is great. Well, because I want to try and fit them all in. Actually, I've discussed this before at a Radio 4 series called Domestic Science. Oh, well, then why are we bothering? No, no. Everyone switch off right now.

I pitched that you should have, you should cut a hole at the back of one of your drawers and then you put the rolled t-shirts in the front. Hang on, I've noticed. Is this like the cinema popcorn trick? No, it is a very, very different trick, Bec. So you invite someone to get a T-shirt. Someone's hand. So the hole at the back of the drawer,

as you put the shirts in one drawer, they get gradually pushed to the back, they fall down the hole, and then they get gradually pushed to the front of the drawer underneath. Oh, like a penny pusher. Yeah, like a penny pusher. Yeah, like a penny pusher. That's a much better analogy.

Can you please do a penny pusher t-shirt machine? Deal. Well, that's just it, right? But it's so impractical, which is why I was very happy to revisit this. It doesn't work. You can't. I want a more practical solution to have a last in, first out procedure. Our lovely producer emma has

raised her hand i think the last in first out is the wrong way around i think oh i want first in first out you want first in first out again because last in first out is like you are absolutely right i've mixed them up i want first in first out so it's the one that was in the longest time ago is then the next one out whereas last in first out is what I'm doing. Yes. No, you're right. Thank you very much. I didn't pick up on that.

That's why we keep Emma around. As you know, I can't multitask. So you're rolling. You've asked me to do something while you explain stuff to me. And you didn't pick up on that. No, you're absolutely right. So I want the oldest thing. So use this for stock rotation.

So if you've got stock in a supermarket, you want people to be taking the stuff that's been there for the longest. And they do it by putting new stock at the back. But people know that. So people reach right to the back to try and get the newer stock. Yeah. I'm that guy. You are that guy.

I never go for the first one. You're right at the back. Do you read the dates to find the oldest expiry? I do. Yeah, yeah. I see what what goes out what goes off the only time i do it is if i want something i don't trust those open fridges i want something at the back that's cold so i will um i will i will go on an expedition to the back of the fridge in that scenario i feel like you've filled this box now yeah i think we would struggle

to get the lid on i think if you were gonna going to make a system, it would need to be... Talking about supermarkets, you should use one of those things that they use for the money. Oh, like the pneumatic tubes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you should... What you do is you wash your shirt. Yep. Put it into the...

Roll it up, put it into the tube. And then to the back of the... And then when you want a t-shirt, press a button. It's back. Oldest one comes out. Love it. Great system. I feel like it may have

over-engineered the problem. Ding! No, there's not a ding. I'll do it. Hang on, I'll get it back. So how many T-shirts did you end up in the box? I wasn't counting.

Let's count them out. You're the maths one. Here we go. Okay, here we go. I'm in charge of counting. One, two, three. I think it's 15. Four, five, six, seven.

He's taking them out. Eight, nine. We've got to compare them to a different method now. 10, 11, 12, 15. 15. What if- We should say that would have been hard to get the lid on. It would be 14 or 15.

It would be hard to get that lid on. You're right. Shall we try folding them? I say we. Would you like to try folding them? The only problem with the way that we're doing this is because they're stacked, you cannot see what choice you have in T-shirt. Now, the reason I fold and stack at home is because if you look at it from the end on,

I always fold them in the right way. It's not inside out. And I fold them like you're doing. So the middle of the design is on the fold here. So when you're looking end on to the stack of t-shirts, you can see little fragments of all the design. Is that a draw though or not a shelf? That's a shelf. So I fold and shelf my t-shirts.

Oh, we've just undone this whole thing. I've run out of shelf space at home. So there's now an overflow drawer, which is where I got all these t-shirts from today, which is why it's a combination of ones I don't wear and ones I'd forgotten I owned. Okay. I think Bex got the last, is it the last t-shirt in, you reckon?

I think that's about it. Okay. So we got 15 in when they were rolled. How many have we got now they're folded? Four, five, six on this folded four five six on this side and six on this side so 12 so the answers in rolling will fit more t-shirts in if you ignore the lid that's true there's some lid issues but with the draw you kind of shove it back and what if we just scrunched them up and crammed them in there would that make a difference there's only one way to find out i feel like the control has to be just scrunched up t-shirts

all right because part of me is like it's disorganized but part of me is like five six seven oh this is way worse eight nine it's already full full, isn't it? Nine. Yep. No. Nowhere near. Nowhere near. There's some space, but I think we would... Do you know what? I would struggle to get another five in there. No way.

I reckon if you got a vacuum pack, you'd be all right. That's true. But then it'd be an awkward shape. It's a trade-off for accessibility of the T-shirts. Yeah. Unless you live in a vacuum. That's true. And if they were frictionless spherical shirts they would actually they'd be worse for stacking can you get creases in space you'd want frictionless cuboid shirts can you get what creases creases in space like

you have to worry about space no one can ironing crease okay look what i'm trying to say is here, right? Alex just said, what is the optimal way to store shirts in terms of volume used? Folded, rolled up, hung up, or some other method? We've ignored hung up because it's inefficient. Correct, because that's the winner. However, it is, I think hung up wins for our first in, first out policy. However, we've tested it in a box. And Alex, we can tell you, you want to roll those T-shirts

if you want to fit as many in as possible. Problem solved. Ding. I have a problem for you, Bec. Go on. Excellent. I am traveling to the US not long after this recording. Oh, that is a problem.

It is a problem. Yeah, I'm just a little humble brag there. I've got to go travel around the US. It's not so bad because I do have a bit of downtime, but my problem is jet lag. And you'd think like for both of us, we routinely go between here and Australia. We should make it very clear. There was some confusion from the first episode. We both have Australian accents to some extent, episode we both have australian accents to some

extent yeah but we both live in the uk yes which is why we sound australian but we were talking about pounds and being in england that's true yeah and it was apparently that was mildly confusing it's not like an adorable quirk of the it's not like with the mighty boosh where they do everything in euros exactly no because they're like oh we're wacky yeah so we sound australian but we live in england and we both routinely have to travel from here to australia and i have never really mastered the knack of jet lag and so i'm really good at jet lag so well so that's my problem you know it can have you got a solution for jet lag because also we're being very uh privileged here and not everyone listening will necessarily know what it's

like so um jet lag uh best i can describe is it's a lot like um when you end up pulling an all-nighter either for work or partying or whatever um a friend of mine ended up going to shift work for a while where she was having to work on la time for her job yeah so she was working from 11 p.m till 7 a.m and that's really thrown her shifts which was working with the japanese space agency and she'd have to be on teleconferences during the night shift in the uk so she was having jet lag just living at home yeah and that's called shift worker syndrome so a lot of doctors get it obviously nurses anyone who's on call um so it's the same thing though and basically what it means is that um because your sleeping patterns are disrupted it disrupts your circadian rhythm and that

basically just means you feel very out of whack because everything sort of your hormones you um i wanted to say menopause but that's not correct that's some pretty severe melatonin melatonin yep yeah so melatonin is the is um because you can buy melatonin you can and i've tried it i've heard it once i think it sometimes makes me feel sleepy if i take it sort of an hour or two before i want to go to bed so sometimes it's's helpful, but it doesn't necessarily solve the jet lag. It just sort of helps if you're having trouble getting to sleep, but it doesn't necessarily mean that I'm more awake when I wake up the next day. Because jet lag for me just feels very foggy. I feel like I'm looking at everything through a haze. Yes. Yeah. It's like having a hangover. And in fact, a hangover and jet lag are very,

very similar because a lot of them come they're made worse by dehydration so a lot of it is that you're not hydrating yourself properly um and uh and obviously not sleeping properly and if you've drunk a lot stayed out late then similar deal yeah just feels like the problem is if you're not sleeping properly and you're a bit dehydrated and you're changing time zones your body's going to be in a bit of a state for a while. Yeah. So this is to help answer your problem of jet lag. What I thought we'd do, because the NHS gives sort of similar answers

to what others say, which is, you know, get plenty of rest, you know, try and start eating meals at the same times that you would in the location. I try and follow up. I thought, why don't you just go really hard on the things that make it worse? So dehydration is a big thing that leads to jet lag. So don't just drink lots of water. Why not take your clothes off in the little bathroom?

Yep. Soak them all in the sink. All right. Put them back on. Nice and moist. Nice and moist. You'll stay nice and moist for the rest of the ride. Not only will you be moist and your seat humid, several seats nearby will benefit from the

humidity. No. What I think will happen is the people near you will not want to sit near you because you're so moist. That's how you get your flatbed. Lying down space. Lying down space. You've thought this through.

So that's how you get your sleep. Yep. And then. And you're moist. And you're moist. Those are the two major things, really. Yeah. Then you're done. We're pretty much there. So I think you should your sleep. Yep. And then. And you're moist. And you're moist. Those are the two major things, really. Yeah. Then you're done.

We're pretty much there. So I think you should do that. Deal. When you go to the US. I'll give it a go. Problem solved. I'm going to call this a problem delayed. I'll report back.

We have a Patreon, don't we? We do. And thank you 17 people who now support us on Patreon. Yeah, which is really cool which is great we've only got one episode before this that's amazing and there are a few perks at the moment you can get the podcast a couple of days early and that's the end of the perks yes we will we're working on it one of the perks at the moment is you get to help us decide what perks we should put on patreon that's true so we want to hear from you what you want from us

and of course we will be prioritizing problems from our patrons. Patreons. Patreons, yeah. One of our questions is already from one of our Patreon people. Yes. That was Alex. Thank you very much, Alex. But we also want to thank Daniel.

David. Elias. Frank. Hamish. Hayden. Johannes. John. Justin.

Levi. Lewis. Matthias. Matthias. Michael. Michael Hill. That's my brother. That's your brother. Oh, Levi. Lewis. Matthias. Matthias. Michael. Michael Hill. That's my brother. That's your brother.

Oh, thanks, mate. Your brother's giving us $5 a month. He's a dude. Good on him. As is Mike. Neil. Paul. Randall.

And Richard. Thank you. Thank you all very much, everybody. Well, that's it for this month's episode. Episode 002 complete. Thank you all very much, everybody. Well, that's it for this month's episode. Episode 002 complete. For the record, I'd like to state that three slices of pizza have been next to me the entire time for the rest of the recording. And I have felt no urge whatsoever.

Yeah, the idea of... I don't want any pizza. No, me neither. I have definitely had too much pizza. Me too. What have we done? We've solved the problem of... How much pizza is too much pizza? The best way to store t-shirts.

We had a good close look at jet lag. You've been listening to me, Bec Hill. And me, Matt Barker. Happy New Year!