A Problem Squared - 003 = Teeth Tips and Defining Decades

Episode Date: January 31, 2020

- When does the new decade start? - The best system for brushing teeth. - How many orders are there for Bec's show? - Top travel tips. Get in touch if you have any more travel tips! https://www.instagram.com/aproblemsquared/ https://twitter.com/AProblemSquared Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/aproblemsquared

Welcome to A Problem Squared, a podcast where two humans attempt to solve a, I would say, ridiculous range of problems. So I'm mathematician by trade Matt Parker, and I'm, as always, with my co-problem solver Beck Hill. Hello! I am Beck Hill. Who is not a mathematician by trade. I am not I'm a comedian by trade but also so are you Matt so don't don't do yourself down. Yeah maths maths first and then comedy second. I mean see you work as a legitimate comedian I'm like a novelty nerd comedian and I'm okay with that. You do maths and then comedy is sometimes a byproduct whereas I do comedy despite the fact that maths exists. With no additional byproducts.

So in this podcast we accept problems from anyone. I mean we bring problems for each other and we attempt to solve them and our listeners and supporters will send us in problems. And my goodness, we've got a follow-on problem from last time because you worked out how much pizza was too much pizza. Yes, yes. So we're going to do a follow-up problem about dental hygiene. Which is fair enough. So someone's inquired about the best way, I guess, to clean their teeth.

We had a problem we've both had, which is that people online are arguing about when the new decade officially starts. Because we're in 2020. But people online have been a bit emotional about that. And you brought me a problem about your new show. Yeah, yeah, which I'll bring up a little bit later in today's episode. But I do need your help to work out an actual mathematical issue with my show. Yeah, yeah, which I'll bring up a little bit later in today's episode, but I do need your help to work out an actual mathematical issue with my show. I know, and I don't want to give any spoilers, but I've done a fair bit of maths. Before any of that, however... That's never a spoiler.

Everyone can always assume that about you. That's a spoiler would be I've not bothered doing the maths. Yes. So anyway, before we get to any of that, I think the most obvious problem so far is, Bec, your voice is a substantially lower frequency than normal. I think the word you're looking for is adorable. Sorry. Your adorable voice is substantially a lower frequency. Yes, it is. I lost my voice last week and then I had to do two kids shows and an hour long show on Sunday and that did not help.

And that was like two days ago. So your voice has not grown back. This is it better. You should have heard it two days ago. See, whenever I'm on the verge of losing my voice, I will go mute. I found that's the only way to stop it from getting worse. And my wife hates it because suddenly I'm just absolutely silent and I refuse to use it until it recovers. Wait, you're telling me your wife hates it when you stop talking so

much? You know, I thought she would take it as, you know, a break and an opportunity for her to get some words in, but she apparently is really creepy because I go from being all chat, chat, chat to just like eerily silent. Yeah, yeah. Like, who did you murder? Yeah. And the other reason why this podcast might sound different than normal, other than Beck's lower voice, is I'm recording from a hotel room in upstate New York somewhere. Yes. And I'm not.

I'm not there, annoyingly. I am in my bedroom in London. But you're recording at home because you're packing to go to Australia, what, tomorrow? Yeah, I fly out tomorrow morning. I'm going to go see my family and I'm going to do a couple of shows out there. So I'm technically starting my tour. Oh, okay. So this is a work trip, not just a visiting the family trip.

That's right. Yeah. Well, it's both, isn't it? Busman's holiday. And my brother has bought tickets to the Melbourne show and the Adelaide show. So he's bringing his girlfriend to Melbourne to come and watch me watch me there well he's paid for tickets to see his own sister well you know I think he still owes me for um all those years that I made him cool that's exactly why I'm doing this podcast with you back for your

your your secondary cool I knew. I knew it. I knew it. So, Matt, there's a problem which arose online just towards the end of 2019. And that was people arguing about whether 2020 is the start of a new decade or the end, you know, like the last year of the previous decade, with some people getting very upset that we were saying oh it's a new decade what are you doing you know there's a lot of fake news going around and I want to know who's right yeah because people argue like does the new decade start beginning of 2020 or end of 2020 but you tweeted like a thing of the decade yeah I retweeted someone who said this is the best video of the decade. And it's that incredible video of Tom Holland doing a lip sync battle on television

as Rihanna. And I agreed, video of the decade. And then this person replied to the retweet, which meant that I was then also copied in, getting very upset that we were spreading false information that it was a decade, completely ignoring the fact that Tom Holland is incredible singing umbrella, but that's by the by. They were very upset about decades. And so I copied you in, Matt, and asked for your input. Yeah, I got swept up in this as well. And I had people from both sides appealing to me because people like yourself who someone yelled at them for decade reasons, you're like, what? And then also people coming to me because they were annoyed that more people weren't getting annoyed that the decade hadn't started yet. So everyone expected me to be on their side.

So I did some digging into it. And it's very similar to what happened at the millennium. I think people who were alive and forming permanent memories from the year 1999 to 2000, there were a lot of people going, oh, technically the millennium doesn't start until the beginning of 2001. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think we had it as much in 2010.

Maybe it was too soon. Do you know what? We did, but there wasn't for the millennium, but there was no Twitter. Yeah. And 2010 was too early, I think, for Twitter for it to really kick off. Yeah, now we've got social media, people getting very, very upset. Do you remember a decade ago when people didn't have opinions? That was nice.

Good times. Well, they had opinions and they just had to yell them into the void or write. You had to write like to the editor of a newspaper if you wanted to express your opinion to a wider audience. And that's like a really good filter, isn't it? Because if you care about something enough to write a letter to a newspaper, then it probably is a very big problem that's worth, or even if it's not, it's clearly a big enough problem to you that it's worth that effort. Yeah. You got your typewriter out, you wrote it down. But now there's, it's so little effort to make your opinion heard because sometimes that time it would take you to decide to write a letter and send it. In that time,

you'll change your mind, but now there's no time time and you had to pay for a stamp so yeah there was a cost charge everyone who wants to tweet an opinion you should have to pay for the digital equivalent of a stamp each time you want to tweet an opinion and it should go to an editor there should be like the editor of twitter who because then you had to convince one other human that your opinion should be published what you've done is invented forums in the 90s when they had moderators we didn't know how well we had it yeah yeah but now everyone with an opinion can make it hurt and they find these threads and slam into them and and everyone yelling at me was saying but you care about zero and so the reason this was a problem is because there was no year zero we count from well an arbitrary point in time

and it was in the middle of the first millennium when people started trying to backdate the year system to the time of christ and they were kind of just guessing and working out when it would be. No one who was alive at the BC AD switchover knew it was happening. It was all backdated. And when it was backdated back, they went back to 1 AD, or now the Common Era. And then the year before that was 1 BC, or before the Common Era. And there was no year zero. And that has caused a lot of problems ever since and so because there was no year zero the first year the moment 1 ad started it was already one

which is not how we do ages like when when someone's born you're zero for the first year of your life and you turn one at the end of it because now you've done one year and then you're one for another year and then you're someone however this is like as if you were born and you're one because it's your first year and you're one that whole year and then you turn two at the end of the first year because it's the beginning of your second year that's how we count years we count them the other way around i I think when you're born, you should automatically be nine months. You think that time should count? It's like time served. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Exactly. Like you've got that in the back pocket. You've done that. So then it should be recognized as experience that should count. You get three months and then

you turn one. I think in Korea, they do something along those lines. Oh, that's amazing. Because I talk a lot about zero indexing and counting from zero. And people have seen me after shows and said, oh, either I am Korean or friends of mine are Korean. And you're born, I think. So actually, if people do know, if you know of a culture where you're born and you're already one, so you count your time served in the womb, let us know. And it makes sense because, yeah, you've spent nearly a whole year aging. That should count. But because we didn't have a year zero, and I kind of tolerated this for the millennium,

when we started the year 2000, we had only done 1,999 whole years since the arbitrary beginning of our current calendar system. Yeah. And I get that. It's a millennium, right? So it's only the second one we've counted. But for decades, so their argument is the very first decade will have started in 1 AD. But 10 years after the beginning of 1 AD is the beginning of 11 AD. And so their argument is that was the first, like the founding decade went from beginning of 1 to beginning of 11. It's the first 10 years. Yeah, exactly. So then the second one surely starts from the beginning

of 11 and goes to the beginning of 21. And they go, okay, got it. And then they just keep, they roll that forward a decade after decade after decade. And eventually we're like, oh, technically the last decade started at the beginning of 2011 and doesn't end until the beginning of 2021. And so that's their argument that all the decades should be across by one because we didn't have the zero year at the beginning. Yeah, I get that. And I think when people first started saying it's not a decade, I was like, oh yeah, that's right. That's correct. But then I also remembered that time is relative. Well, one problem is, I guess the 20s, as we're going to call them, it's the first decade to have a normal name in some time.

The 20s are going to start at 2020 and go through to 2029 because we're naming them after the beginning of the number. So these are the 20s. So one argument is that now the meaning of a decade is just the beginning digit of the last two digits of the year. And so the 20s, by definition, are just the ones where you start by saying 20. However, telling a pedant that everyone else says it this way, therefore, that must be right, is not going to work. And don't get me wrong, I'm saying pedants like I'm not one of them. I am a pedant and there are things that I insist on doing and I don't accept that everyone else doing them a different way means that that must be the correct way to do it.

So I refuse to say O instead of zero in like phone numbers and dates. And very few people have joined in. So I will say the full zero. It's like when I check out of this hotel. Oh, yeah. If there's a zero in the thing, I'll be like, what room are you in? Oh, I was in 401, not 401. Because it's not an O, it's a zero in the thing i'd be like what room are you in oh i was in 401 not 401 because it's not an o it's a zero hang on wait no so there's a book called 1984 correct i can say

1984 yeah there's a room there's a room that's referenced a lot yeah room 101 You so never called him 101. No. Well, so, good point. And I would... What do you call Bond? What do you call James Bond? Okay, okay. So, no, what you're doing now is you're quoting things... No, say it. Say it, Matt.

Tell me what you call James Bond. Well, you don't need those lead zeros. He's just Agent 7. Lead zeros, that doesn't count. That's unnecessary. Bond, seven. It just sounds like a child who's signing off a picture they've drawn. James Bond, seven.

You don't need the lead zeros. But I found a way. In every single scenario, other than when it's something like 101, where it's the words are in it's a name now it's no longer the number it's become a name and if it's a name then you sound like an idiot when you insist on saying 101 or something right but whenever there's a number i never use an o instead of a zero that that is a weird flex but okay yeah yeah yeah. So anyway, we can't just tell people, no, as a society, we have redefined what a decade is. So I looked up the fine people of the International Organization for Standardization. And these are the people who released ISO, I guess, Regulation 8601, which is the

representation of dates and times. And this is the official standard all computers and in theory, everyone should be using for recording exactly what date and time it is. And in that standard, standard they ruled that 1 BC is not negative 1 it's year 0 so 1 BC before the common era is 0 and then 1 AD is 1 and then 2 AD is 2 and so they have retrospectively put the 0 where 1 BC was but to be fair that was put there retrospectively anyway But then you have a weird quirk where 2 BC is year negative one, 3 BC is year negative two. But I think that's fine. Have the problem in the past. And it fixes the present. So it means our decade did start at the beginning of the year 2020. And so what normal people are doing is correct according to the fine people at the International Organization for Standardization. And what's great is if a pedant does complain, you can say now there was a year zero, it's 1 BC, and you've got the ISO on

your side. And what pedant can argue against a ruling from the ISO? I mean, that's what goes, pedant can argue against a ruling from the is i mean that's what goes the iso so it turns out we are we are right that's fantastic and i think the best takeaway from this lesson is to reiterate what you said essentially which is if we can fix the mistakes of the past then we manage to fix the present that's deep although i guess importantly, even if there was another year in the decade, nothing's going to beat Tom Holland singing Umbrella. I think that's brilliant, Matt. I think I'm happy to say problem solved. Thank you.

Ding! We asked our Patreon supporters if they had any problems, and one of them, Manic, was first of all pleased that we solved the how much pizza is too much pizza problem, which we did do experimentally. So they've said here, problem for you. Now that you've eaten too much pizza, what is the optimal sequence for brushing teeth? Upper before lower, left before right. They've got a lot of qualifying questions here. Insides before outsides working in quadrants i love it uh and oh here we go so maybe this counts as their actual question uh could

electric brushes require different sequences to ordinary brushes does the amount of viscosity of the toothpaste play a factor beck oh i was so excited when we got this question so first of all i'm going to answer the question sort of in parts. So what is the optimal sequence for brushing teeth? Upper before lower, left before right, insides before outsides. So all of those, it doesn't matter what sequence you brush it in. As long as you're brushing them equally in whatever order, then that's fine. Working in quadrants, I know you laughed when you read that, but that is actually the advice that most dental organizations offer as well as the NHS. So it's more to help you with timing rather than how clean the teeth are.

So because you're supposed to brush your teeth for about two minutes, most companies and organizations and dentists and everything recommend that you spend 30 seconds on each quadrant of your mouth, then all of your teeth are getting a thorough clean. I'm really impressed because I accidentally worked that out because when I first got my electric toothbrush, I started using it and it would buzz every so often. So I'd be brushing my teeth and it would go, I'm like, what was that? And then I realized it was doing that three times and then turning off. So it was splitting the time I was brushing my teeth into quarters. And so I was like, oh, that makes sense. I'll just do a quarter of my mouth for each quarter. Exactly. And that's the point. That is the reason. You managed to guess the thing it was actually intended for. So I guess points to you and the makers of that toothbrush. The user experience of that toothbrush is excellent.

I didn't have to look up a single YouTube video. Unlike this loser. But I'm just going to go back to the manual toothbrush before we jump on to electric toothbrushes more. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I've got an additional problem now for you for the electric one. So with the manual toothbrush, there's two different ways you can brush your teeth,

which are recommended. One is to go in circular motions along the teeth. And that's so that you're not going too hard into the gum line and hurting them. Receding your gums, yeah. The other one is to sort of place it at a 45 degree angle towards your gums,

but lightly back and forth across the teeth there are videos and everything online there's some great infographs and i'll pop that onto the instagram account and with electric toothbrushes it's the same as two minutes but essentially you don't have to use your hand to do the brushing so you just have it over a tooth move it across the next tooth move across the next tooth move across the next tooth, move across the next tooth, move it across the next tooth. And then you just do that on all sides of them, outside, inside, and on the surface. So it's not quicker to use an electric toothbrush? It's not quicker, but, and we're getting back to the original point, was that it's less effort. So when they asked what the most optimal way is, if you were going to go by the amount of effort

put into the amount of time, then electric toothbrush is less effort from us. Obviously, more effort from electricity. Now, I've got a follow on problem for you that I didn't even know we're going to address here is the optimal sequence. I worry that the quadrant I brush first gets a better brushing than the one I brush last because the toothpaste hasn't been used up or something. I worry that not all quadrants in the sequence are equal. So I tried to find a way to rotate the starting quadrant in my mouth. And then I always proceed in a consistent direction around. So wherever I start, it doesn't matter. I'll keep moving in the same direction. I'm not going to like reverse back on myself or anything. And I had like, I tried things like. I'll keep moving in the same direction. I'm not going to like reverse back on myself or anything.

And I had like, I tried things like, depending on the day of the week, I start in a different quadrant. But what I've ended up doing, that was too much effort. I just try and pick one I don't think I've started at recently and then go from there. I don't know if your research came across rotating starting quadrants at all. It didn't. And it is actually something I've been thinking about because I find that I end up with more toothpaste on one side of the mouth than the other. There you go. That said, no one seems to care about it enough to address it on the internet.

If any dentists are listening and they want to give this to us as an update for the next episode that would be fantastic but what i was going to say is starting in a different quadrant each time you brush your teeth isn't going to make a difference because when you brush your teeth you're clearing out the bacteria and food residue and all that sort of thing from that point and what you're also doing with the toothpaste is coating it in fluoride which gives it a new protective layer right so if you're doing that and changing the quadrant by the time you get to the next toothbrush you've sort of eaten off that protective layer anyway so you're not making up for the protective layer in another tooth like the difference just wouldn't be noticeable oh so it resets each time yeah yeah exactly what i worry about is if i'm always doing the same quadrant last it's always getting the least amount of bacteria removed or protection put on so it's the least protected between brushing

sessions and i want to rotate around which one's the least protected. So on average over time, they're all got an equal fighting chance. Or the other thing you could do is just chew on a different side of your mouth. That's true. I could rotate whilst doing the work. Don't use that side when you're eating. Yeah. So I'm going to get back to Manic's question. The amount or viscosity of the toothpaste, it doesn't play a factor so more toothpaste isn't going to help it's just going to be more expensive you'll get through it more quickly and the only amount you need is a pea-sized amount of toothpaste that's what is recommended by dentists and everything that's what it's been created for it's the same with like if you were

going to put on a moisturizer or something uh once you put on a certain amount of moisturizer any more moisturizer isn't going to make you more moist it's just going to make you stickier so um the amount does play a factor in that you should only use a pea-sized amount and the viscosity as far as i'm aware doesn't make a difference because it's more about the ingredients in the toothpaste specifically fluoride um every dentist was like, use a fluoride toothpaste. And there are a lot of people who don't like fluoride or are worried about it. I come from a city where fluoride is in our tap water. So I obviously don't care. But yeah, fluoride, that's your special sauce. That's the stuff that you want to keep on your teeth. And because of that, I actually came into some more things that I think might go further than

solving Manic's problem and that is some more teeth brushing tips so the first was don't rinse your teeth after brushing what so if you put if you rinse out your mouth after brushing what you're doing is rinsing out all of that fluoride that you've just covered your teeth in what do you do so you spit yeah but don't rinse wow just leave it so matt if you were changing quadrants to try and get more and more toothpaste on those teeth but you was rinsing afterwards you've undone all the work ah i don't know if i'm ready for not rinsing yeah well as someone who hasn't rinsed since they were a kid, it does mean that your breath smells nicer for longer too. So that was one thing. Another thing is you should be brushing your tongue.

A lot of bacteria builds up on your tongue. So you should brush your tongue after you've finished it. And if you watch videos of it, it's hilarious. Is there a tongue mode on the toothbrush? Some of them do have that. Really? Generally, like very few, but most of them don't uh it just suggests you use it like a like a normal toothbrush just to brush up oh you can also get tongue scrapers

which are these plastic things that you sort of scrape down your tongue and it pulls off all of the dead taste buds and everything like that and then you just rinse that underwater so uh that'll help this was an interesting one while we're on the don't rinse after brushing part don't use mouthwash for at least 30 minutes after brushing oh same reason if you use mouthwash immediately after same reason you're rinsing off all of that lovely fluoride so you want to give yourself at least 30 minutes post brushing before using mouthwash wow i don't think i i don't schedule my morning precisely enough to. The other thing is, um, it's not the end of the world, but it's recommended that you floss

before you brush because that way you're getting rid of all of the food in between the teeth and then brushing away anything that's come out while you were flossing. If it was a choice between flossing after brushing and not flossing at all, then flush after brushing, but preferably before. Okay, so floss first. Floss first. Don't put on as much toothpaste as the commercials. Correct.

Like just a pea-sized. Pea-sized amount. Brush your teeth for two minutes. Equally spread across the quadrants in any arbitrary order. Correct. Brush your tongue. Spit, but don't rinse. And then leave 30 minutes before you use

mouthwash. And there's one more tip which is you should allow roughly 20 minutes after eating before brushing because when you eat often there's acid and things in the food that soften the enamel so if you brush immediately after eating the enamel is quite soft you're more likely to brush away some of the enamel rather than cleaning your teeth. So do not brush your teeth immediately after eating. Give it at least 20 minutes for your teeth to re-harden after anything acidic. Well, Beck, I mean, what can I... I mean, the question was, what is the optimal sequence for brushing teeth?

And not only have you answered that, it doesn't matter. But I think we can say very, very definitely that is a problem solved thank you also the optimal brushing also in terms of trying to save time is something that i wanted to look into just in case there is something that we're missing and i found a all over mouth brush which was called the amma brush or aimer brush and it's it looks like a mouth guard and it's got bristles all on the inside on the upper and down and what you do is you bite on it and the bristles all like vibrate and it's meant to brush all of your teeth at the same time and because it's brushing your teeth at the same time you only need to do it for 10 seconds because it's giving each tooth 10 seconds worth of brush whereas normally you

would go past that tooth you maybe only spend a couple of seconds yeah 10 seconds each so brush them all at once as a lazy person i was like this is amazing i i want to get a 10 second all mouth toothbrush that's incredible i was like this sounds too good to be true and unfortunately most things that sound are um so it was a Kickstarter and it's still online. AMA Brush, AMA Brush, AMA Brush. It's still online on the Kickstarter. You can order it. But let's just have a look at the little updates page just in case.

How many have they shipped? Well, on the updates page, the last thing that they posted was in June last year, 2019. Sorry, 2019. Last thing that they posted was in June last year, 2019. Sorry, 2019. And it says, dear all, please find the information regarding the bankruptcy proceedings at this link. And when you click the link, it takes you to their website, which is no longer functioning. Classic Kickstarter. Yeah.

There are some ripoff versions on Amazon as well of all mouthbrushes. There are some rip-off versions on Amazon as well of all mouth brushes, but it looks like because everyone's mouth is a different shape, it's not really the ideal thing right now because you can't uniformly ensure that it's going to reach everyone's teeth at the right place like you could if you're using your own hand to guide a brush. So the simple answer is just own two electric toothbrushes because you've got two hands right that's fine and you can do a heart or do two quadrants do like do i would recommend

diagonally opposite quadrants to do simultaneously and then oh man i should not be miming this and then and then switch and do the other diagonally opposite quadrants boom half the time all right i think what we need to do uh and also to try and get more people following our instagram because our listeners are not instagram people is uh we need to get our hands on multiple toothbrushes and get some footage of us trying this out to see if it works. Okay. No promises. I'll borrow Lucy's toothbrush and I'll report back. Ding. A quick addendum to that last problem, which we're recording sometime after the rest of the podcast, Bec is now out in Australia and has something to add.

Yes. Yeah. I landed in Australia and remembered that my friend in Adelaide, Sophie, is a professional dentist. So I ran all of my answers past her to make sure that I was correct because it's not a problem solved if it's a problem incorrect. And I also got her to answer some of your questions, Matt. So we'll cut to her now. All right. So Matt, you don't need to worry about which quadrant you start in or rotating your quadrants each day, although I admire your dedication to your oral hygiene. Basically, the function of your toothbrush is,

whether it's an electric brush or a manual brush, is just to remove the plaque off your teeth. Your plaque is sticky bacterial film that builds up on the surface of your teeth each day and the brush will go in and disrupt that film to remove it off the surface of the tooth. So whether you start in the top right or the top left, finishing in the bottom left, bottom right, whichever way you choose to do it, if your technique is correct you're going to be removing the same amount of plaque from those areas no matter which one went first. It does stand to reason though that we would want to remove the plaque from the places where it builds up the most. Bec, you briefly

mentioned the importance of brushing your gums as well but I just wanted to emphasize this because it's something that a lot of people miss. The gum line or the little crevice between your gums and your tooth is an area that plaque absolutely love to live. So make sure that you rotate the bristles of your brush down towards your gum line so that you can brush your gums and your teeth all together at the same time. As far as a disproportionate amount of toothpaste going on to each area of your mouth, depending on where you start, again, not something we need to worry about too much. The whole point of fluoride or the whole point of toothpaste is to deliver the fluoride, the calcium and the phosphate within it to the teeth so that it can help to restore any areas

of weakness on your enamel. The way that that works is that when the toothpaste enters your mouth, all of those minerals will dissolve or saturate into the saliva. And then your saliva will wash it over the rest of your teeth. Saliva is really underrated. Not many people think about their saliva, but it is amazing stuff. It's basically an antimicrobial mouthwash on tap. And it is incredibly important in the delivery of fluoride. So you'll find that when you pop that toothpaste in, no matter where it is, your saliva is going to come in and wash it over the rest of fluoride. So you'll find that when you pop that toothpaste in, no matter where it is, your saliva is going to come in and wash it over the rest of your mouth for you. There are other important thing here, Beck, you did also briefly mention this, is that

you do want to wait half an hour before you eat or drink anything after you brush. And you also want to make sure you're not rinsing out your toothpaste. So you spit, don't rinse, and then wait half an hour. That's because this whole process of the minerals dissolving into your saliva and then washing over your teeth, it takes time. So if you can give it that half an hour, that will get the best result out of your toothpaste. Just a few other things to add. The manual toothbrush technique where you are rotating the tooth up towards your gum line is called the modified bass technique as in the fish, which I just think is really fun. The thing with mouthwash as well, that was briefly spoken about that mouthwash washes off your toothpaste. That is correct.

And for that reason, I don't tend to recommend mouthwash, but if you do like that minty freshness and you feel like you can't leave it, then I would recommend that you use your mouthwash before you start brushing. That way you still get the minty freshness of the mouthwash, but you don't lose the therapeutic effect of your toothpaste. Awesome. Thanks, guys. I love the podcast. Thanks again, Sophie, for helping clear up any leftover tidbits and making sure that my answers are actually correct. So my question to you now, Matt, have I properly solved that problem? That is even more comprehensively solved.

That is absolutely fantastic. So yeah, ding, I guess. Yay. And we'll return you to the rest of the podcast. I have a problem for you, Matt Pucker. Right. So as you know, I'm about to go on tour with my show called Out of Order. Good show. I've seen it. Yeah. So this is going to be a more updated one with some jokes that people haven't heard before and some of my favorite bits and that sort of thing. But one of the selling points of the show and the premise of the show, in fact,

and that sort of thing. But one of the selling points of the show and the premise of the show, in fact, is that my entire set list is written up on post-its, on 25 post-its on a board. And each time I do the show, the audience gets to yell out what joke should come next, which means that we change the running order of the show every time I perform it. So sometimes there'll be callbacks to jokes that they wouldn't get if it went in a different order because it wouldn't make sense. Sometimes we end up stumbling onto something together. Sometimes the audiences find segues between jokes that it's almost like I get to realise what connections they're mentally making.

Okay. It's a collaborative effort. Exactly. But I was wondering what is the maximum amount of times I could do this show before I hit the same running order that's been done in the past? Great question. And I'm a big fan of combinations and permutations, which this would be. How many different permutations are there of your 25? We'll call them jokes, but some of them are short jokes and longer bits. The listeners can't see, but matt just did quotation marks

jokes yeah yeah okay beck let's call what you do jokes yeah yeah and let's do what you do oh no i've got nothing i'm about to do that's because i don't have any jokes so maths i was gonna say that but no one can deny what you do is maths. Yeah, it's going to happen. It's going to be mathematical. It's pretty bulletproof in that regard. So, 15 septillion. 15 and a half septillion.

What's a septillion? Good question. So, the number. Are they the things that live in the center of the earth? That's them, yes. The septillion monster race. I knew it. So it's basically the number has 26 digits.

So what I did was I worked it out. And the way you think about it is at the beginning of the show, all 25 post-it notes are up on the board. Yes. And you ask the audience to pick one. Yeah. And they've got 25 they could choose. Yes. So there are 25 ways your show could start. Yes. The next time you ask them what they want next, there's only 24 left. So there's 25 ways you can start. And for each of those ways you start, there's 24 ways it could continue. Right.

And for each of those 24 ways it could continue, after you've done that one, there's 23 ways it could continue. Right. And for each of those 24 ways it could continue, after you've done that one, there's 23 left. Then there's 23 options for what happens next, and then 22, and then all the way down until eventually there's one left, and you have to do the last one. So to work it out, I just multiplied 25 options to start, times 24, times 23,

and then all the numbers smaller until I got to one. And in maths, we call that a factorial. It's got a name. It's quite a convenient calculation. And it comes up in lots of situations. Is that the shouty button? The shouty button. So in my show, I talk about factorials.

And so I calculated 25 exclamation mark. So shouty 25. So in my show, I go on about eight factorial or shouting 8. And so I did 25 factorial. And the answer you get out is, well, I could read all the digits out, but it's, oh, there are 7 million or 5,000 or something. If you try and assign all the names, it's 15 septillion, 511 sextillion, 210 quintillion, 43 quadrillion, 330 trillion, 985 billion, and 984 million. Exactly. So that's the number of different potential shows with 25 jokes. I need to put that on my flyer. Well, the problem is that's assuming that you systematically go through them one after the other. In reality, you're asking an audience to pick at random, right? Yeah. So odds are you won't just get them all in a row. Sooner or later, an audience will pick an

order you've had before. And so I worked out how many shows you would have to do before it was more likely than not that you will have done the same show twice. And you'll have to do it roughly 500 billion times. Whoa. Is when you'll hit the first repeat on average, on average, 500 billion shows. So you should be fine. How do I put this into legible copy for my marketing materials. I'm pretty sure I just said 15 septillion, 511 sextillion, 200... But I've seen your show back and I suspect audiences are not picking at random.

Do you find people will pick ones over other ones in similar orders? Yeah, actually, there's a few jokes where i think people are more inclined to choose them earlier or later in the show right so what i've actually done as well is i i also think people's eyes are drawn to certain parts of the board where they're displayed oh because it's like a five by five grid if i remember correctly yeah so i mean i'm very tempted to change the order of the grid to see if that then has any play on what people tend to choose first but i think for science's sake yes exactly for this year's tour i'm going to keep everything in the same place on the grid right and record what order each audience chooses to see where the similarities are. Got it.

And see if any of them may be changed depending on location as well. If you could do that, that would be great. I would love to. How many shows are you doing on tour? I think it's about 25. Okay. Okay. There might be some more in Europe later.

I was hoping for 500 billion, but I'll take 25 or more. Somewhere between 25 and 500 billion shows. If you can log the order that people pick them in, then afterwards we'll analyze it and see if there's any trends we can pull out. And if you want to also note what country, where you were. Actually, is there anywhere convenient people can go to, Bec, to find out all the places where you will be doing this show? Nailed it.

Yes, there is. Yeah, people go to beckhillcomedian.com and go into the tours link on there, Tours and Gigs. You'll see a nice Google map that I've put together with all the different locations and a list of all the shows. Excellent. So if you go along and see back in 2020, you will see one of a potential total of 15 septillion, 511 sextillion, 210 quintillion, 43 quadrillion, 330 trillion, 985 billion,

984 million distinct shows. Problem solved. Problem solved. Ding! shows problem solved problem solved so matt in episode two you asked me to solve the problem of jet lag for you yes i did and i gave you a solution yes you did which was to soak your clothes in water so that you would be hydrated and be given enough space on the plane to lie down flat and get some proper sleep did you try try my solution? I did not. Obviously, I gave it a go. I went into the room, the toilet on the plane. I took all my clothes off and I was about to soak them. I thought, wait a minute, why don't I just drink this water instead? And so I have to admit, I did not drench my clothes in water to try and clear space around me. I like to think this means that you just drank the water

and then went back to your seat naked. Don't need these clothes anymore either. No. So I just drank a ridiculous amount of water. So I was like, you know what? I would take the essence of Beck's advice, which is my policy on a lot of these things and drink as much water as I can. And so I took a bottle onto the plane with me, a water bottle, and then I got it refilled as frequently as I was allowed. And so you know what? I didn't have much jet lag. So I don't know if that's, because obviously I tried to get on the local time as fast as possible, but I think drinking a ridiculous amount, I had to use the bathroom a lot more often in the flight, but I think staying very, very hydrated was useful in my experience all right cool that's

good to know so you did you solved the problem and actually since then now I'm traveling and I've realized I've got one or two weird things I do when I'm traveling that I think help and I suspect our listeners have other travel hacks are we going to call them that oh yeah no this is good I need this because as you know i'm flying out to australia tomorrow so any type of advice or tips that you have to generally solve the problem of travel would be great well what i can give you right now beck hill yes to take some electrical tape with you oh i always travel with electrical tape originally just because it was in my kit from doing shows but i now keep it in my normal travel stuff because it really bugs me when hotel rooms have very bright LEDs on things.

Yes. And so, yeah. So before I go to bed, I go around and I electrical tape over all the LEDs in the room. And I get a nice dark night's sleep. I don't wake up in the night. Why are there like robot eyes all around the room staring at me? So bring electrical tape. I just use pillows.

I just lean pillows up against everything. Well, I also am annoyed you often don't get enough pillows in a hotel room. So I don't want to spend precious pillows. I don't want to put an eye mask on. How many pillows do you need? Many. I like to build a small fort.

I like to build an entire new bed on top of the current one that perfectly contours with my body parker and the p so i use a lot of pillows and um then so yeah so electrical tape there you are and and block out all the leds in the room good tip i like it end of travel tips so i i'd be very keen to hear any other tips people have. My tip for you, but it's more probably for me, you know those little slipper socks that you can get? They're just like, they look like little ballet shoes, but they're just rolly up.

Yeah, yeah. I just find that no matter where I'm staying, as long as I'm putting on the same slippers when I come in, I feel way more at home and more comfortable not just comfortable like oh then I'm all cuddly and warm I just been comfortable as in like oh I'm supposed to be here it's really grounding that's great bring your own slippers yeah so I take slip even when I go to stay at mates places in the UK and stuff I'll bring a little pair of slipper socks and as soon as I walk in the door I'll take off my shoes at the door so i don't dirty their carpets take out my little slippers put them on i'm good as gold i'm home that's great lucy and i

occasionally do walking holidays and we have to carry all our stuff as we walk between places and so you want to bring you know shoes are heavy so i realized pretty quickly i would get somewhere take off my walking boots and normally in like a like a hotel attached to a bar or a pub but then i just walk down in socks to go to get something to eat or whatever no that's not acceptable it's not a good look not a good look and so my mum knitted me some socks that looked like shoes so i could put my my camouflaged shoe socks on. I mean, Lucy said it made it worse because I'm clearly a grown man. No one is falling for that.

Not just that, but knitted socks. I thought they'd look more shoe-like. And I put laces on them and everything. Everyone's like, why is that guy wearing crochet with ribbons on his feet? It's like you were there. Yeah, it didn't work. So that's not a good tip cool thanks for that get get slipper socks just just just so you know if anyone else wants to rule that out as an option instead of trying don't it doesn't work so i think the takeaway from this is that if anyone has any travel tips that they want to give you or I or

anyone else or indeed any tips of things you shouldn't do while traveling they can get in touch how can they get in touch with us Matt we're on twitter at a problem squared instagram is also at a problem squared we've got a patreon patreon.com slash a problem squared yep and I think they're our main avenues for getting in problems or you can email either of us at a problem squared.com and we actually have more patreon supporters we've got 16 more since last time thank you so much yeah everyone who's we've got 31 in total now so we're 31 to our first target of 100 supporters at which point our goal is to keep making this podcast. Yes.

So thank you very much to Hayden. Kevin. Wagner, or Wagner, if I pronounce that literally. I do apologize. Jonathan. Spooky. That's spelled S-P-0-0-0-K-Y. Bill.

John. Alan. Antia. I've got a fun one here. It's spelled V-O-JJ-T-F-O with a squiggly bit C-H. It looks Polish? And the F looks like something. Yeah, sorry. Wojtwa.

Thank you, that person. I'm very sorry if I got your name wrong. The next one I think is pronounced Eric. Yep. And then Joe. Simon. Manic. Hey, it was the toothbrush question from Manic.

There you go. It was. So thank you very much to all of our new Patreons. And thank you so much for any new listeners or continued listeners as well, regardless of whether you're giving us money. You're the reason that we keep doing this. So tell your friends if you enjoyed it. Give us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts if you're using that.

Or give us a five-star rating in your heart. Oh, and thanks for listening to episode 003. Bye.