A Problem Squared - 013 = Heavy Lifting and Clever Gifting

Episode Date: November 30, 2020

What's the most cunning way to move furniture on your own? Thoughtful ideas for Christmas presents Answers to the riddle of Pudding's Wheel, including a brilliant piece of maths by a listener. Recipe for microwave fudge: 3 cups of milk or dark chocolate bits (roughly 500g) 1 tin condensed milk 1/4 cup of butter Step 1. Microwave all ingredients for 3-5mins, stopping to stir occasionally. Step 2. Grease or line a deep tray/dish with baking paper and pour in the mix. Step 3. Refrigerate. Step 4. Once firm, cut into squares. (Note from Bec: in Step 2, I like to dust the baking paper with cacao powder and then dust the squares again once cut in Step 4. It helps stop them from immediately melting back into each other. You can also add nuts and dried fruit or spices if you want to get experimental. Make sure you store this in the fridge whenever possible, as it has a low melting point!) Pudding's instagram: instagram.com/hamsterpud

Welcome to a Problem Squared, a podcast that solves problems and is a bit like a cuttlefish in that there are many more prominent members of our class, indeed, phylum, but we're here putting in the effort. And like a cuttlefish with... I haven't done the intro yet, Beck. Sorry. I have no idea what you're talking about. And I'm not a biologist, so this is tough. I was about to say, like a cuttlefish with pigmented cells under their skin,

we also can adapt and change our patterns based on the audience's needs, which I think is a good, solid introduction. So I'm Matt Parker, mathematician, and some would say, like a cuttlefish, I also have my brain capacity distributed throughout my limbs. As in, I've definitely worn more than one calculator watch at once. And I'm joined by Beck Hill, who is beloved by budgerigars everywhere. Yay! Thank you.

I'm convinced now. I was like, this analogy is awful. But when you got to budgies, I was like, no, you know what? You're right on that. Also, when you say you've worn multiple calculator watches

because your brain is dispersed through your limbs. Thank you. Do you mean on the same wrist or like on your ankles or other bits? I don't want this to become the focal point of the episode. I've definitely worn four smartwatches simultaneously, one per limb, for an experiment to compare how they tracked number of steps for an educational project. That's not as bad as it could have been.

Thank you. You could have said you wore five and that would have been way more dodgy. Bingo. I did have a joke in there because then I had to present this at an educational event and I had a joke about how I couldn't understand why one specific watch on my right wrist was just counting way more steps every morning. And then again, way more steps every evening. I was like, oh, brushing my teeth.

Ah, I should have thought of that. Very good. And the people in charge of the educational event made us do a rehearsal. And they were like, that's just good fact. Good, good reviewing your data collection. I'm like, there you go. Anyway, so on today's episode, we will be solving the problem of how to lift heavy things up to a third floor apartment. What to ask for when you don't want anything and budget friendly gift making.

We have an update on the cheese packaging cover-up. And an answer to last month's a pudding squared problem. All will be revealed. Here we go. Bec, it's been another month and another lockdown. We're here at episode 013. How are you doing? I'm good. Since we last recorded, we managed to get in a block of filming for Makeaway Takeaway, the CITV kids show. Your legitimate TV show. Yeah, yeah. And it was really fun because I got to make loads of arts and crafts stuff with kids at a very socially responsible distance, which I'm sure they'll, you know, edit so it doesn't look quite as terrifying.

It does sort of look a bit like the kids are like trying to stay away from me. Yeah. Well, kids always respond well to having an adult yelling at them from the other side of the table. Yeah. Just shouting craft instructions from a distance. It was so much fun. And the kids are so great.

Like I can't wait to see that when it all comes out, because the kids were really, really fun to work with. What about you, Matt? What have you been up to? I had the joy of using the excuse, sorry, I'm late to this meeting. The Daily Mirror unexpectedly wrote a story about me, which is technically true, but more, they just, they took something from A Problem Squared, last episode, 012, and turned it into a whole new story.

And it's really surreal when a journalist would just take something from a video or a podcast and then spin it out as if it was like a big finding that's been announced or an interview you've done. And in this case, people may have noticed it was the all of coronavirus. If you took all the virus particles, there'd be about one teaspoon's worth. Yes. Yeah. Spoiler alert for anyone listening backwards. Spoiler alert. Previous episode. And hello to all the Daily Mirror readers who are now joining and listening in.

Sorry, I mean, yes, hello. And Daily Mail, they ran with it. Oh, yeah. Several news outlets. Of course they did, yeah. So there you are. We're now a legitimate publication vehicle for scientific findings, according to the mainstream national print media.

Wow. With great power comes great responsibility. That is my family motto. Our first problem comes from Fabian via email. Fabian's based in Berlin and says, I'm living by myself three floors up without an elevator and I often find really nice furniture outside that I can't take because I can't carry them up the stairs by myself. Is there a most efficient way of carrying something big and heavy upstairs in terms of how much energy one has to put into it? Good question.

Good problem. I like the fact that Fabian says they often find really nice furniture outside. in terms of how much energy one has to put into it? Good question. Good problem. I like the fact that Fabian says they often find really nice furniture outside. I'm assuming it's, you know, like free furniture and not like... Being thrown out, not like theft. Yeah. Actually, Bec, I like your take on this because in Australia, I recall, at least this is in Western Australia where I grew up, there'd be like the big bulk rubbish collection.

People would put stuff out on the curb. And it was pretty much a help yourself situation. Yeah. Where if you see something... I remember as a student, my washing machine was missing parts. And I saw someone throwing out pretty much the same washing machine. I was like, brilliant. And I went over and took off all the hoses and attachments in the back that I needed and I was able to use it to fix the one that I had at home so last episode I mentioned

I put a gazebo at the back of my garden as part of the step and conquer pub that Lucy and I refer to the back of the garden as so we can pretend we're getting out during lockdown that gazebo actually got blown away in the recent storms. Actually, it got blown over the fence and it was stopped by our neighbor's bigger gazebo. And I found them kind of cuddled together like it caught it. And it was, you know, like those salt and pepper shakers where it looks like they're hugging? It was that. It was that.

It's very cute. It's like two cats where their tails make a heart shape. so i got it i threw it back over the fence but some of the bits were broken and we were out walking and we were in the fancy part of town and someone was throwing out the same gazebo and i deliberately bought a super cheap gazebo but also I don't like to just like buy things and they're disposable. And so I was like, how am I going to fix this? And I realized theirs had broken the same way, but still had some perfectly good parts on it.

I was like, what are the chances of someone in the good neighborhood buying the same cheap gazebo broken the same way in the same storm? And I was like, Lucy, I can just get a screwdriver and take the bits i need and fix the one we've got at home and this started a conversation about what is the etiquette to take someone else's rubbish or rather dismantle it on their drive and in the air lucy was like it's not really done but it would be nice to fix the gazebo and And I ended up knocking on the door to say, hey, I bought the same gazebo as you. It broke the same way.

Can I come back with a screwdriver and take some parts off it? Lucy did say in hindsight, I went straight into that a bit. I didn't have enough chit chat at the top before I opened with, we're gazebo buddies. I'm with you. Be direct, especially if you're knocking on someone's door. If you just try and do an icebreaker, immediately I'm like you. Be direct, especially if you're knocking on someone's door. If you just try and do an icebreaker, immediately I'm like, what are you trying to sell me?

That was my exact thought. I don't want them to think, what's this person selling or trying to convince me of or collecting for? I want it to be like, bam, I'm here because we are partners in Gazebo. We have the same Gazebo ales and you've obviously cut your losses. Can I pick over the carcass of your gazebo to bring mine back to life? It's like those friendship necklaces where they're like two halves of a heart and you put them together. Exactly. Exactly like that. Yes.

We're now linked by gazebo. Yeah. So we went back with the screwdriver and pliers. I knocked on the door a second time hey it's me again that guy i'm here now to do the business because it was like almost dark at night and i didn't want to be hiding in someone's driveway dismantling a thing anyway so i got the bits brought them home took them up to put them on turns out they haven't got the same gazebo they've got the same model but they bought the more expensive bigger version which i should have realized nice part of town they got a bigger yard and so they'd gone so i i was there in the

backyard with a hacksaw and a drill cutting down the parts and then re-drilling the holes yeah and when you come around to see the fire pit and and burn some paperwork you'll be able to spot some of the struts have extra holes which are like the original ones when they were on the bigger gazebo i've now hacked it down um to work on mine you're the sort of neighbor who gets up to enough odd things that if you did decide to do murders you could probably get away with hiding it for quite a long time because everyone would just assume it was another one of your wacky projects. I think that would cut both ways because on one hand,

they'll be like, it's just some crazy project. On the flip side, when they're interviewed on the news after the fact, they're like, always did seem a bit odd. If I had to pick someone, it'd be the guy hacksawing a gazebo at night. It'd be someone saying, yeah, you know what? He came to my door and he didn't even have any small talk. He just directly asked for parts from my gazebo.

Straight to the gazebo. It's like he didn't understand the etiquette in England for asking if you can take someone's rubbish. So anyway. Fabian is like that. Yeah. So it's good to see.

There's another data point. What I'm saying is in Australia, I wouldn't think twice about doing this. In the UK, it was a bit awkward, but ultimately successful. And it's good to know in Berlin, that's another seemingly people put stuff out, you take what you want, the rest gets picked up by the council. So the problem now is how do you get that furniture up to the third floor fabian mentioned energy and i thought there must be a physics way to go about solving this problem and for a start physics kind of solves a bit of it for us because the problem is it's the objects are too heavy which is to say they've got a certain amount of mass, and it means the Earth's gravitational field is pulling them down, and that force is difficult to overcome to pick them up and carry them. The good news is the greater the distance between where you are and the center of the Earth, the smaller the force due to gravity the less let's say acceleration due to

gravity so so there's less force the greater you are from the earth and actually berlin is about 52 degrees north of the equator and because the earth is an oblate spheroid that means is it's kind of in the middle of good and bad. Like if you're on the equator, you're a greater distance from the center of the Earth. If you're at one of the poles, you're much closer. Berlin's kind of in the middle. It's more closer than not, though. So you're going to get a bit more gravity there

than you would on the equator. But you also get less gravity as you go up the building. I estimated each floor in an apartment in Berlin is about five meters, which means Fabian's going from street level up to 15 meters off the ground. And over the course of that journey, the actual weight of the object, so the mass won't change, but the weight because of gravity will be reduced by 0.0004%.

So there you are. To some extent, the higher you go, the better it gets. So that's good. So your answer is for them to take it past the third floor well part of it is just to look on the bright side it's not all bad going up more and more flights of stairs whatever you're carrying is technically getting lighter the more you carry it up i then had a thought there are other ways to overcome the force due to gravity and one option is buoyancy and so i thought what if you like filled it with helium

or attached balloons to it or something? I thought you were going to suggest that they flood their stairwell. That would also work, right? Because if the furniture is buoyant, if it's less dense than water, open a tap, force it, fill it up. You'd force it up the stairs. That's how you do it. Thank you. so then i thought

okay what if you just attach helium balloons to make it lighter and i was about to start the calculations but then i found someone has already done it there is a calculator for how many balloons you would need the helium balloons calculator what to be able to lift any object of any mass. So if you want to work out how many balloons it would take to levitate yourself, you can go onto the calculator, you put in the mass. So I've done this for a bit of furniture and I've said, let's say it's 40 kilos, which is quite heavy. You can then put in the size balloons you have available. You can enter what gas you're going to fill the balloons with. I've gone with helium in an 11 inch balloon. You can enter what gas you're going to fill the balloons with. I've gone with helium in an 11-inch balloon. And it will then tell you, in this case, that you

need 3,347 of those helium balloons to achieve neutral buoyancy where it would just start to hover. And you can then put in the altitude you want to reach. If you want to get up to 15 meters, And you can then put in the altitude you want to reach. If you want to get up to 15 meters, then a few more balloons. If you get to 3,352 balloons, that's an extra 129 balloons, then it'll drift up to a height of 15 meters. And we'll put a link to it in the show notes, so you can check that out yourself. The advanced version, you can even put in the mass per balloon and the string

because each time you add a balloon, you need a bit more helium to counter the mass of the balloon. Like it's such a well thought through calculator. I'm so impressed. So we will definitely have a link to this in the show notes if you want to check it out for yourself,

work out how many balloons you need for whatever gas you want to use to lift something. And that's a practical solution. Should you not have access to balloons and gas, there are other ways of doing it with physics. And the thing to remember is actually, you know what? Something may be heavy and difficult to lift, but odds are you weigh more than it. Just bear that in mind. You are probably heavier than the thing

you're shifting so if you're moving like for me um if i'm moving a 40 kilogram bit of furniture that's incredibly heavy but i weigh twice as much i can use that to my advantage you want to get a pulley you want to get like a a fulcrum some kind of lever maybe not an incline plane but if you have a pulley you weigh twice as much piece of cake even if even if it's heavier than you you can get a bit of mechanical advantage with these things i mean the issue is if you're going to use like a lever you've got to be a long way back so that's not super convenient but just bear in mind you weigh more than it and so you've got you've. And so you can leverage that both metaphorically and literally to shift it. You know how you get those buildings that have the little door at the top of them

and then the little jut that comes out that you attach a pulley to? They're like converted old industrial buildings. Yeah. There you go. Or just run a rope over a banister, lower the rope down, tie it onto the thing, and then you hold onto it at the top and you jump off. You weigh twice as much. You go down. I feel legally we should cover ourselves to this. We are not liable for any injuries incurred by taking any of our advice. Yeah. There's a famous internet forward story

from decades ago based on this premise. And like the punchline is like if you jump off and then you hit it on the way up and all these horrible things happen. But then at the end, the person lets go of the rope,

which means it's now going to reverse and it's going to fall back down again. So there's famously several things that can go wrong with this. Maybe don't do that. Maybe stick with the helium balloon idea yes much safer unless beck you've come up with a better solution i'm open to ideas lucky for you matt i have come up with uh not just not just safer solutions but ones that expel a lot less personal energy. So I realize the problem is here that we're trying to work out how to do this. And the most energy efficient way for you to not have to go to this effort

is to get someone else to do it. So I'm assuming that the problem was posed because, you know, of either a budgetary issue. You can't just pay someone to do it. So I've bared that in mind. Yep. So I've come up with five suggestions of how they could get someone else to do it for them. Nice. Five.

Wow. So the first suggestion is Fabian could dress up as a little old lady nun and just look like they're struggling really hard. And I think a good Samaritan will just be like, can I help you? And then you just be like, oh, I need to get this up to the third floor. And then they'll do it. Might take a while, but there'll be someone. When you said five options, I thought you're splitting them out unnecessarily to sound like a lot. But you've put together a little old lady and none.

I mean, either of those separately would be a convincing costume to get someone else to move it. Well, then in that case, I've got six. I know. Don't play down your number of options here. No, I never did. You were. Sorry, one A and one B. Got it.

Yep. Second option is to just convince some children it's a game just some passing kids feel like hey let's play who can get the washing machine up the stairs the quickest right yep yep so uh that's another option. The third option is to, this one is a bit more specific, I'll admit to this, is that if Fabian is any good with tech, what they could do is design a virtual reality game called Removalist. And what it is is that you put out the call out online for some beta testers, beta testers, and then they come over and you put the headsets on them. But you make it so that when the thing they hold in the game,

they're actually just holding your thing in real life. I feel like it's really realistic feedback. Like the tactile, like, wow, there's a word for this. Yeah. I know what you mean, the tactile feedback. Yeah. The thing where you feel stuff. Where you feel stuff.

It's not telemetry, but it's something like that. Anyway, the thing. There's someone listening right now who's like, it's this, you guys. Yelling, it's this. They'll tweet us. Could you, just the real convincer, could you give them the bit of furniture to hold with the balloons attached and say, hang on, let me just turn on the gravity simulator

and then you cut all the strings. And they're like, oh, okay, wow. I'm really feeling it now. And you're like, wait till you see the walking up the stairs minigame. They don't even have to design a game. All you have to do is make a headset like out of cardboard that has no script like they're literally just looking out of it just tell them it's a virtual reality headset so when they put it on you're like look how real it

is just have it slightly frosted right like you know uh system loading in the corner yeah to draw a little battery battery percentage in the corner and then yeah and then basically get get them to not only take your stuff upstairs but then uh do a survey afterwards to say what they thought of the game and what tweaks you could do and then what you could do then is that tell them that you've slightly tweaked the system and get them back every time you have to move a different thing. Say, okay, we went through your bug list and we think we're fixed. Now about the fetching the groceries side quest.

Yeah. Yeah. You got to like add details by making them sign an NDA before they do it and they'll believe it. That's realism. Yeah. Yeah. So that's the third option. Fourth option is actually not too far from your suggestions, Matt.

I've gone with the Acme Catapult. Catapult? Yeah. Like a, what do you call it, trebuchet? Wow, they're very different things. Trebuchet, vastly superior to the catapult. True. I think a catapult would be easier because then you could use that mat,

like your own weight, as you were referring to with the pulleys. You just need to make sure you get the trajectory correct between the item and your window. I think we are in too deep. You might have to hold some heavier things when you jump on the other end to get the height. You know what?

I was about to go into how you're still thinking of a trebuchet not a catapult even though i think we're probably too far in for that level of pedantry however i think you're like you've got a better version of the fulcrum lever yeah angle because mine was just you use your mass as a counterbalance and you gently move from one state to the other. No, no. I've got you and probably several children that you've pulled in off of the streets telling them it's a game. It's a game. They've all got visors on.

Jump out of the window. Jump out of window. Bam. Patwang. Yep. Love it. Wow. What are you saving for last?

Oh, my gosh. The final option is probably the most realistic, which is just Fabian could leave the item out in the street for my mum to trip over and then she'll put it away for you. It's anything about my childhood to go by. Yeah, but she'll throw out the cushions that you were keeping in mint condition. Yeah, that's true. Go through your drawer of old sweetie wrappers. They were memories, Mum. But you threw out the box it came in.

Of course, I say this, there are some very real options out there. We mentioned this talking off air before, but you can get those little trolleys, can't you, that have the three wheels? Oh, yeah, the three wheels. They're amazing. So they're a bit like, what are they called again, those little? Sack trolley. Sack trolley.

Yeah, so you get those, but it's got three wheels that are the sort of right height for stairs. So as you pull them up, each one leverages against the corner of the step and then goes up a stair. So providing that you're strong enough to pull it up and to not drop it on anyone. That is an actual realistic option. You can buy those online if you look them up, Sack Trolley. If you just do stairs.

You're getting dangerously close to practical advice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I wanted to make sure that Fabian had enough options to go with to make sure this problem is well and truly dinged. So I contacted a friend from Australia. It's a comedian called Luca Muller. He's based in Melbourne. He does a podcast with two other comedians called Ooh Spooky.

That's spelt with three O's and an H. But other than doing comedy and podcasting, he's a professional removalist. Perfect. So I asked if he could answer this problem for us. Hello, I'm Luca Muller. I'm a comedian and removalist since the pandemic has happened. More so removalist, obviously. But if I was solo trying to move something heavy upstairs, it is difficult.

You'd definitely rather have someone else with you. But there's sort of a bit of a trick you can do to not have to have that much strength. The maneuver is called like the lover's shelf, some people call it, or some people, some of the older guys call it the mover's G-spot. have a bit of a shelf built into your body, like below your hip bone, just below your hip bone, above your thigh bone in that little bit there in the crease. I think the medical name would be the Mons pubis, which is something I wish I didn't know. And if something's like sort of nice and square and has a nice flat corner on it, you can rest it in that area and then to take it upstairs, your legs will sort of be naturally under it and will push it up as you walk up the stairs, like little pistons pushing it up from underneath. And so, your arms only really have to act as like balance to hold

it into your little hip groove and then you'll push it up just with your natural motion. It's pretty good. You'd be surprised at sort of what you can do with that. It's a bit uncomfortable, definitely. And we sort of don't do it if the customer's around because it fully looks like you are just slowly humping their furniture. So, be careful with it, but get intimate. It's very good. It's helpful.

Wow. I mean, it's practical advice. I, for most tasks in life, try to get into the hip groove before I embark on them. So I think we've provided enough information there to help Fabian out. And massive thanks again to Luca Muller for giving us his professional perspective. And finally, of course, to remind everyone to bend with your knees, not with your back. With that said, Beck, I think, does that count as a ding? Yeah, I think so.

I'm going to call it. I'm going to say ding. Fabian, if you have any issues with it, you know where to find us. Get in the hip groove. Our next problem is a bit of a two for one we're gonna wrap two problems up together and put a bow on them both simultaneously hopefully on twitter from someone with the name he has a weak constitution they have said that their birthday is coming up. I don't want anything. People insist on getting me something. What do I ask for? And they've put on the additional condition that it must be a physical item.

At the same time, Joanna Williams sent us an email saying that with Christmas looming, I want to do some nice stuff with my boyfriend and for my family, but I don't have a lot of disposable income. And with the second lockdown, we're obviously limited in what we can do. That's an additional point. If you're in the UK at the moment, you're a bit limited on what you can actually go out and purchase. And so Joanna's also asked what to do. This is the other side, giving gifts. So we're going to put them together and say, Beck, what can we do? Well, the reason I thought these two problems complemented each other well is because when he has a weak constitution on Twitter, said that people want to give them stuff and they don't

necessarily want anything material. The best way to deal with that is to ask for something handmade because that will then really test how much people want to give you something materialistic. You know, like, is it a case that they just want to throw money at you or do they really want to give you a present? Call their bluff is what you're saying. Yeah, call their bluff. Exactly. So by making suggestions of things that could be handmade, I'm not only helping out our Twitter problem, but I'm also helping out Joanna work out what they can do with their boyfriend in the lead up to Christmas.

Great. And you can test just how serious people are about their relationship with you by seeing if they will make you a handcrafted gift. Yes. So I've put together a list of some fun, easy to make handmade things, which are actually pretty good budget wise as well, which means that if you're asking people to make handmade things which are actually pretty good budget wise as well which means that if you're asking people to make them for you it's not too much you know it's things that they can probably easily access so you're not asking them to go out to a craft shop or anything like that so the first thing I

suggested was it's a recipe for fudge and I use the term lightly because it is one that my mum passed on to me and it is the easiest thing to make and that I can make it as well. Basically, it's just condensed milk, chocolate and butter. And you meld it together in the microwave and then put it in the fridge and it goes hard. And it feels like you've gone to a lot of effort to make something special but you've basically just melted together some fairly affordable ingredients can i just say that is the classic australian christmas recipe anything you get some stuff you melt it a bit you put it in the freezer yeah christmas time so what i will do is I'll put the recipe to that in the show notes and I'll pop it up on our social media as well at A Problem Squared on Twitter and Instagram.

So that if anyone does want to spend, I was going to say an afternoon, but let's be, let's be serious. If anyone wants to spend 15 minutes. 10 minutes. Making this. The great thing about it as well is that if you make this and then put it in a dish and cut it up and maybe package it up nicely in some tissue paper or wrapping paper or a little Tupperware box or whatever, it still feels really special and nice. And it would be a nice thing to both give and receive. It's super tasty as well. The frozen, melted, condensed milk is just an excuse to package it up nicely and then gift that thought love it yeah actually some of the favorite gifts i've been given are variations on that same theme

a friend of mine uh katie steckles people might know does fantastic math things one year she made everyone her and her partner paul a spice mix like one of their favorite spice mixes they bought all the different spices in bulk mixed them them in the correct ratios, maths, and then put them in little jars, package them up nicely. Boom. Spice mix for everyone. That's lovely. You don't even need to have a microwave for that one.

And actually, the most appreciative homemade gift we've been given is some friends of ours locally keep bees. And they gave us basically local honey in a jar, which I appreciate is a lot more effort. You've got to train bees and then look after them. I guess they come pre-trained, right? But it is a bunch of work. But the fact that they took a hobby and then that was the gift,

I thoroughly enjoyed. Yeah, that is nice. Another suggestion I had was salt dough. Salt dough. Basically, you're making Play-Doh where it's flour, water, and salt. And that's pretty much it. Again, it's another recipe. I'll pop up wherever possible.

But you could probably find it as well just by Googling salt dough. But you can make ornaments out of it. But you could also make like little figurines. You could could make if you wanted to make your own board game you could do a little board game tokens out of them there's so much you can do it's such an easy type of dough to make and form and then you just bake it in the oven and then that's it oh so instead of putting it in like a kiln or something like clay you just bake the dough in the oven yeah and it goes hard yeah it's like making biscuits but you don't want to eat them um and so afterwards you could choose to paint them and varnish them if you wanted or you can just leave them

plain but yeah that's another uh another nice little fun thing to do it's also really personal and if you had a need or a want for anything in particular, a model of anything, then you could probably ask for that. See, now I'm feeling woefully under creative. We make candles. I say we make candles. I always collect up all the wax, melt it down and make new candles, which I feel is bordering on a creative craft outlet. In reality, I just enjoy melting wax. It's really good fun.

Is it string? Yeah. Ah. I look at all the string in the house and pick the one that looks the most like a wick, and then I just kind of blue-tack it to the bottom of... Honestly, last time I did it, I got a beer can and cut the top off the can and blue-tacked the string to the bottom of honestly last time i did it i got a beer can and cut the top off the can

and blue tacked the string to the bottom of the can i love that you put it in you made beer candles i love that beer candles you got it it's the most australian thing i've ever thought of this one's probably more for joanna's part of the problem but again I think you could easily ask for it maybe not for a birthday present but for Christmas is a treasure hunt advent calendar so what you do is you write down a series of 25 clues and each clue then you find what it is that's part of the advent calendar and obviously you could do that to either existing things that belong to someone that you've hidden around the flat or your home. Or it could be a chocolate or maybe a piece of microwave fudge. Maybe a homemade candle.

But you'd then find that around there. And again, it gives you something to do and lead up to because planning a treasure hunt is always really fun you come up with all the clues you can make it rhyming you can do all that sort of thing but at the same time you have a nice project for whoever you're living with when they open up oh look it's the first of December oh what's this little clue here it says i am cold but i am hot i run when i'm not i am white what am i and then you're like oh my gosh it's a fridge i literally just thought of that on the spot by the way i just want to say i'm really proud of that clue you can have that listeners so uh wow yeah hang on let me just get this straight so you get an advent calendar and each compartment or you open an envelope or a flap or whatever has a clue in it.

And then you follow that clue around the house. And at the end of it, you're like, oh, look, it's that thing I already owned, but disappeared between one to 25 days ago. Yeah. And then that carries on. Got it. Got it. Okay.

There's the batteries for the remote. Oh, yeah. Well no i love that that incorporates all the previous ideas we've had to gifts plus theft so yeah top marks and of course we've got a lot of very crafty listeners as well so if there's anyone out there who has something that they enjoy making or receiving that's handmade, why don't you let us know? We're on Twitter at a problem squared or Instagram at a problem squared. Let's share the ideas. I also wanted to go back to the original Twitter question about birthday gifts because you might not necessarily want something that's handmade if you don't want anything that's materialistic so the other option is to ask for something that is a physical item that also helps out other people

so I've also got a couple of suggestions with that if you I mean obviously alcohol is a big thing at both birthdays and Christmas so there is a company called Old Curiosity that do wild gin. And they give 20% of proceeds to the RSPB Scotland to helping conserve the flow country's peatland. The peatland, a lot of people don't realize this in Scotland, actually holds on to twice as much carbon than all of the trees in the UK. So it's really important that the peatland is looked after. So things like that are really nice. And obviously, if you get a nice little tipple, as well as knowing that a really great cause has been helped out, I think that's a win. I mean, you should make it very clear,

we're not sponsored by any of these brands or organizations. No. Just big fans of peat. Buy peat-free compost, people. Love it. Good suggestion. I will say, though, it's no candle, but it's pretty good. So I'm going to prepare to say,

given that this was a multi-person problem, on behalf of everyone, I'm going to give you a ding on good gift suggestions. Ding. Thank you. So last episode, we tried to tackle a problem about packaging for cheese. Matt, do you have an update for hashtag cheese cover-up well yes i think it's

it's a work in progress so thank you everyone who got onto the various social medias and asked tesco about their packaging claims hashtag cheese cover-up and we've got a variety of confused responses from various social media managers who work at tesco things like because people i think their their kind of their instinct is to take it more seriously than the situation is so one of my favorite responses is from a poor person called donald who's come back with i I'm sorry, I need more information. Do you have the barcode of the product you are inquiring about? To be fair to Donald, they had a stab at it. They're like, as a generic answer, I would think the 41% reduction is from the previous packaging.

However, I would need the barcode to clarify that. Thanks, Donald. Really shining some light on the situation. However, I would need the barcode to clarify that. Thanks, Donald. Really shining some light on the situation. Someone called Jane responded once and said to someone who asked, bear with me, I'll look into this for you.

Thanks, Jane. We never heard from Jane again, I assume. I think Donald took over. It went up the chain. Chain to Donald. So, guys, Jane. Jane. Yep. Donald. Donald. So guys, Jane. Jane. Yep.

Donald. Donald. Captain Tesco. That's how it works. Captain Tesco. Yeah. It's the saddest superhero ever. You know, their uniform is actually 41% less than Captain America's.

So our original, you've now labeled them the OPP. OPP. OPP. The original problem poser, Adam, Adam Light. They, we don't discourage this, but it's the first time someone's posed a problem and then stepped back in with the major breakthrough to advance the solution. Making us slightly redundant, but given the nature of this breakthrough, I am okay with it. So they found another cheese manufacturer making the same claim. I can only assume Adam Light buys a lot of cheese

from a lot of different brands, from a lot of different shops, because they've had a snap and they've also found that Pilgrim's Choice are claiming 40% less plastic as well. And that led them to a press release from a company who manufacture the packaging for both Pilgrim's Choice and Tesco branded cheese. So it goes deeper. Tesco branded cheese.

So it goes deeper. They found the common thread, a company called Onua, who make packaging. And they're the ones who came out with this press release saying that they've reduced the plastic in cheese packaging by 40% with what they're calling the mega block. And this is what Tesco had, is what Pilgrims are using.

They reckon it's going to save 83 tons of plastic annually big call i mean a lot of big claims here in the uh in the press release two things to bear in mind so first of all it's opened up an additional avenue of investigation which is a thread i'm now going to continue pulling on, because in the press release, they give away the name of the head of packaging at Tesco, who was since found on LinkedIn. So you better believe we're going to try and get a comment from them. And we've got the marketing director of the manufacturer of the packaging. We haven't found contact details for them.

We're going to continue pursuing that. So we're going to try and take this up the chain, potentially to captain level. However, separately to that, if you look at the photograph that comes with the press release, you can see this is the first side-by-side photographic evidence of the old packaging next to the new packaging. And, Bec, we quickly spotted a significant change which is not just the amount of surface area no they seem to have done away with the ziploc element yep so the previous packaging the non-mega block just the regular block was one of those packets where you tear off the top and then there's a resealable like a ziplock bag bit whereas the new mega block has simply got rid of that it's almost like what

happened was they've gone back to the original way of packaging cheese yeah and managed to spin it so it sounds like an environmentally conscious decision yeah the packaging now less convenient wasn't as good a feature as less plastic. But the problem here is I love those little Ziploc things on the cheese. I think that was such a big step forward because it means you don't need any additional packaging once you've opened the cheese. Otherwise, you've got to use, well, I would call it Glad Wrap from Australia. It's cling film here in the UK. I think it's like Sarin Wrap or something in the States.

Like the plastic food wrapping stuff. Or I even would have my own separate Ziploc bags that I would then have to put the cheese in to re-zip it up. So, once again, I think this is a very very narrow, short-sighted

40% saving. 40 saving 40 less plastic yeah but also but you've now caused the need for more plastic so i'm disappointed yes i also want to know what that one percent difference is but between 40 and 41 yeah yeah like does that just mean that pilgrim's choice had slightly less packaging to start with by one percent or you know is someone playing silly buggers has someone rounded up when they should have rounded down well that's my exact theory i'm just flicking through the press release and the um actual press release from the manufacturer says a new packaging solution that will deliver a saving of over 40 percent of plastic per pack wow i think the manufacturer said over 40 and it's some 40 point something tesco have rounded up pilgrims have rounded down i'll add that to my list if i can get an answer

from or on or whoever make it i want to see who's doing the sneaky fast one on the rounding. Yeah. I mean, obviously it's going to be Tesco because if it obviously rounded up to 41, everyone would be saying 41. Marketing speak for over 40% is not enough to round to 41%. Yeah. So I'm pretty sure Tesco are the ones here, but I'll dig into that and we'll find out. I like to think that Adam Light actually works within this cheese packaging company, knows the truth, wants to whistleblow, but can't. So they posed the question to us, assuming that we were good enough to do it.

And then when we didn't solve it, they were like, oh, look at this. The Dairy Reporter have said this. Yeah. Like who reads the Dairy Reporter for fun? Adam Light. There are deep throat in this situation. Yeah. I reckon when they brought out that Ziploc feature, it was advertised as saves waste because it's resealable and you don't need to separately wrap the cheese you just

use the original packaging ah i think more things should have that i'd be very happy if my cereal came with that if if crisps chips everything i purchased had a resealable thing in it you'd save so much on packaging come on i'm outraged no I'm not like you. I eat everything in one go. As soon as it's open, it's done. It's gone. That is environmentally friendly. You should see my breakfast bowls. Last episode, episode 012,

Beck introduced a new segment called A Pudding Squared because Beck has an adorable pet hamster named pudding and Beck uh so that a pudding squared is where we pose pudding based problems for offspring of listeners to solve and the first one was if pudding has a 14 centimeter diameter exercise wheel and she'd be doing nine kilometers of exercise a night, how many times does that little wheel have to rotate? And Beck, did we get some answers? Yes.

Yeah, we got a bunch of answers via email and Twitter. Although I believe you've seen them as well. You said only one of them is properly correct. I will. So the technically incorrect ones that we've received of which there were plenty yeah and just to make sure so the the formula just to confirm to work this out would be to work out the circumference of the circle based on the diameter and then divide the distance of nine kilometers by that circumference to work

out the amount of revolutions correct that are needed yeah when we were ballparking it we're like right the diameter is 14 centimeters pi is a bit over three so it's going to be around 45 ish i love that you said we when we were doing. You did that in your head when we discussed. We were both there at the time. And then I'm like, okay, nine kilometers, you can work that out in centimeters or meters or whatever. And then it comes out to, I said at the time about 20,000. Yes. And then we ran the numbers. Yeah. And I was pretty happy with that yeah as an as an about the most common answer we received was 20 454 point whatever a lot of people rounded up yep but that was not the most correct answer we received no one person did it properly and they sent in their working out yes one person not only sent us an answer but got their parents take a photo in their working out. Yes. One person not only sent us an answer, but got their parents to take a photo of their working out and tweeted to us.

On a whiteboard, no less. On a whiteboard. And that is Dexter. Aged seven. And then they've even put 269 over 366 to show that that is the exact age. The fraction of days from the year dexter great work and they've yeah they've given their working out and they have come up with the answer 20 462.78 which is the correct answer there you are people you can't just round halfway

through your calculation it's a difference of eight revolutions, depending on how you round it, ironically. And, I mean, eight revolutions, that's a significant difference. That's the difference between rounding halfway through, thinking that's good enough, and doing what we now call a classic Dexter, and maintaining the appropriate level of precision until the very end, and getting it right and i oh so good can we make that canon now is that any time we use precision maths all the way to the end it's doing a dexter doing a classic dexter classic dexter because when you think about i can see

why everyone else did the rounding so early they've, there's a difference of 0.2 millimeters. It's not much. It's not much at all. So you would just go, ah, it's nothing. Let's just round up. But of course, once you are looking at 900,000 of those, that's a difference. Yeah.

And I mean, I'm pro rounding. Like I said, the first time I did it, I did a ballpark. But it's all, you either go all in on the rounding or you go for the precision, or if you get around, be careful, make sure you're not breaking your calculation. So there you are, Dexter, you're now official, a pudding squared cannon shorthand for getting the correct level of precision. Ding. Oh, pudding. Hang on. Let me do that again. Pudding! Hang on, let me do that again.

Pudding! Oh my goodness. Pudding now also has his own Instagram. He is on instagram.com forward slash hamsterpud where you can see the new running wheel and various other adorableness. You make tiny things for your hamster. I do. He did a painting last night. It's adorable. It's real cute. Now it's time for everyone's favourite

part of any meeting or podcast. It's time for Any Other AOB. So, Bec, we have gotten a bunch more problems since last time. Yes. Yes, we have. Sorry bunch more problems since last time. Yes. Yes, we have. Sorry, what's AOB stand for?

Any Other BOA. What's BOA? That stands for business? Other any? You just probably trolled me. First of all, I want to thank everyone who has sent in problems since our last call out for it our inboxes and social media was inundated so thank you so much please do feel free to keep them coming but just to say we are getting your problems apologies we haven't been able to reply

personally to them but we are receiving them and we'll be going through them in due course. Don't panic if you don't hear from us. Doesn't mean it's not in our queue. And we should mention that we put the survey out last episode, episode 012, and that is still ongoing. We will do a wrap up at the end of year episode about some of your answers. So if you do still want to complete the listener survey, you go to thatsurvey.ilikeit.aproblemsquared.com. Follow up from last month's problem regarding weather jackets can cool you down in hot weather. We actually did get some really great suggestions on how to do the experiment, but of course, then lockdown two started and I can no longer do the experiment that I wanted to do. So we're going to put that on hold for a bit, but don't despair. We will get back to it. But I think we can provide some closure to the

A Problem Squared Christmas card problem, because you've assured me back that you have designed, problem because you've assured me back that you have designed i've not seen it yet are a problem squared festive card yes i have i've sent it to you and i told you specifically not to look at it until this moment yeah so um obviously don't read it out but uh if you'd like to have a look at it and tell me where now because the subject is all caps do not open or view attachment yet that's christmas card yeah okay i'm opening it oh it's loading it's a kind of maths pun yeah i wouldn't describe it because we want to keep it a secret it's oh it's so good it's got okay i think without spoilers it references several problems. And I can tell you because I have seen the preliminary survey results, some of our favorite problems from throughout the year.

And at the bottom, Bex put a slogan, which is a pun. It's Christmas themed and it's playing off a maths ongoing problem in the show. I love the fact that you made me not look at this until now so I can react during the recording while not saying anything specific about it. So it's great. I'm seeing it for the first time. I love it, but I'm not going to say any more than that. If you want a copy of this Christmas card,

we're going to email it to all of our Patreon supporters, patreon.com slash a problem squared. And if you are a wizard level supporter by the Sunday, the 6th of December, we will post you a physical card. If you sign up after that, we'll do our best, but we can't guarantee it. Oh, we've got to double check. We've got your postal addresses. I'll look into that.

And we will somehow get a physical copy of this card to our wizard supporters. Thank you so much. All our kind supporters who make this podcast possible. I feel like there's other problems that we've done over the previous 12 episodes leading up to this one that we haven't properly dinged. Have you been keeping track of those? Oh my. Actually, you know what? Just looking at the card, I'm like, I don't think we've closed.

Actually, I think most of these are closed. But things like the dishwasher one, people have actually brought up that we never finished the why do things come out of the dishwasher and have droplets of water on them. We need a Wikipedia page. We need a Wikipedia page that says what problems we've solved and what ones are yet to be solved. I want to know when our 100th ding is. Oh, yeah.

I would be sad to not celebrate. I think we're safe for a while, but I don't want to miss the century ding. Our next episode will be coming out on New Year's Eve. So we are going to make it an end of year special. We're going to be trying to make sure that all the problems we've left undinged get dinged or at least covered. So if there are any. As many as possible. If there's any that you posed that we haven't answered yet,

please feel free to remind us. We will also be looking at the results of our survey and things that we can do to make your podcast listening experience more enjoyable in 2021. We'll see you then.