A Problem Squared - 025 = Bec's Beck's and Bucks

Episode Date: November 30, 2021

In this month's episode Bec finds out how many Beck's beers would fit in Bec Hill. And Matt investigates how much he'd  have in Euros, if every person gave him 1 in their local currency.  Plus! A ding is given, and Matt goes to Antarctica. A big thank you to Adam Kay, Doctor Xand and sword swallowers Snookie Mono and Snake Fervor for their help with this episode.  As always, send your problems to www.aproblemsquared.com, EXCEPT if it's related to Antarctica, in which case, ask on Twitter: @AProblemSquared. 

Welcome to a problem squared the podcast, which is a lot like beer in that it causes as many problems as it solves, or at least is the source of many, many, you get new problems every time is what I'm trying to say. My name is Matt Parker, mathematician, and I'm a bit like craft beer in that I feature a lot of surprising percentages and been a real surge in popularity since the late 2000s. I'm joined by Beck Hill, who is a bit like Becks because it sounds the same.

Also not as bitter as you expect. Anyways, or sparkling and bubbly. Oh, yeah, yeah. We go with that? Yeah, sure. Yeah. I don't know if we're overdoing. We'll make it gassy.

Yeah, yeah. Produces a lot of gas. Yeah, that works. Yeah, that works. I hope we're not going to overdo the beer theme this episode, but it's been a real. It's inevitable. Yeah, that works. Yeah, that works. I hope we're not going to overdo the beer theme this episode, but it's been a real theme. In fact, you're drinking non-alcoholic beer as we go. I thought you were saying, in fact, I'm hopping right now. Yeah. So anyway, on this episode, I'm going to deal with how much money you would have

if everyone gave you one. That's the whole sentence. I'm going to work out how many bottles of Bex would fit in me. And I'm going to help with that previous one. Let's get to it. Let's do it. Normally I ask you how you're doing, but the fact that you're actually drinking from from a bottle of beer as I ask, are you okay? How are you going? You all right there? Non-alcoholic. It is non-alcoholic.

Yeah. So I'm great. I'm very hydrated. That's the spirit. It's not the spirit. That's the point. No spirits. Good point.

I went to the opera since we last recorded. You went to the opera? Yeah. What opera? Or wopera, to shorten that la traviata i think it was called it's got one very well people who are fans of opera be like they're all famous songs but there's one recognizable one for a breakout song yeah yeah the nickname is the drinking song and it goes... Is that the one that's used in films to indicate you're at a fancy party?

Yes. No, because there is one that sounds very similar, which is like... Yeah, that's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I'm at a fancy party and something wacky is about to happen. That's a different one. Yeah, yeah. Sorry.

I just don't know enough about opera. I probably a slight more than you and that is it. Having been to one. That is all. The thing is, everything about it was amazing. Like the singing was obviously fantastic. The orchestra, incredible. The set design was gorgeous, aesthetically pleasing.

The costume design was fantastic. The performances, the acting, everything, everything beautiful. The storyline is so boring. It's so, so boring. It is such nothingness that it would make Hollyoaks look like Lord of the Rings. The storyline is just there to hang everything else off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it is not, it cannot take the weight.

Gotcha. Collapsed. Wow. Yeah, which was a shame. So I'm not saying that opera is a write-off. Yep. But I'm saying that that particular time, not for me. Not for me.

But I see why others love it. The drinking song was great. Oh, oh, and the drinking song, big famous one, right at the beginning. Oh. Rest of it, you're like, oh. Bang up the classic. That's it.

That's like Len starting with Still My Sunshine. Then where do you go? And then what do you do? Yeah. I have never heard of Len since then. Most people will be going, I didn't know they were called Len. Did they close with the drinking song again? Nope. No. No encore. Wow.

Bold. It was bold. Wow. But that was that was... I have not been to the opera. That's what I've done. What have you done? I am going to go to the Antarctic. Yes, you are. It's very exciting and as you are aware, I've spent a lot of my recent

time getting ready to go to the Antarctic. Yep. Mainly just buying new filming kit. That's the bulk of my preparation. Do I own a warm hat? Yes. What's the latest GoPro? So we're going to see a solar eclipse.

And number one, my wife is a solar physicist. So she's big on the sun and we've been to see two solar eclipses before together and they've both been amazing and so when this one came up to see it you've got to be on a ship near antarctica yeah which is pretty fun look at how much have we changed since we're like pleaseastic Cruise. We're like, please, can you sponsor our podcast? Will you be a Patreon? I went to the opera. There's some mixed messages.

I mean, we were behind a pillar, guys. I just want to point out. We were in the nosebleed section. Is that the ones at the top or are they at the beginning? This is a work trip. And yes, yeah, you've. I mean, Lucy's going. I mean, it's not strictly like she doesn't have to go for work,

but it's good. But she does. Yeah, exactly. And I'm going, I mean, partly because going, I mean, it's not strictly, like she doesn't have to go for work, but it's good. But she does. Yeah, exactly. And I'm going, I mean, partly because other than the fact I love seeing eclipses and I've always wanted to go to Antarctica. And I'm like, when is there going to be a better opportunity? Like there's no better time than to double up with a solar eclipse. I'm like, well, it's kind of forced my hand. I've got to do it now. And it's one, it's a eclipse that goes the wrong way,

which is very exciting because all eclipses go in the same direction, as in the shadow moves across the earth in the same direction. Yeah. Cause they generally, is it from right to left? If you look down on the earth, the moon orbits in an anti-clockwise direction. Okay. Which means that the shadow will move from west to east as the moon moves past the sun. If I got that wrong, I'll draw some diagrams later and double check. I'm pretty sure that works. So if you're looking at the earth, it goes left to right. Yeah. But if you're looking at the solar eclipse, it's going to go right to left. Yep. Yep. Yep. So you read it Japanese manga style. Exactly. And then. You. So you read it Japanese manga style. Exactly.

And then. You're going to read it in Western style. Well, it's the only, well, not the only, it's a very rare eclipse that goes the other way. This one goes east to west, goes the other way. And the reason it goes the other way is it still goes left to right. Like that doesn't. But you're on the other side of the. Oh, you're on the other side of the pole.

Yeah. So, so east and west have flipped. That's incredible. So excited. Ordered you're on the other side of the pole. Yeah. So east and west have flipped. That's incredible. Ordered an inflatable globe to demonstrate this. Excellent. From the Antarctic Circle. And I've already got in touch. So the ship I'm going on, I knew this was the ship for us when I read reviews.

And people were like, oh, there wasn't any entertainment, but they've got this science lab. And I was like yes so they've got like a full-on science lab that anyone on the ship can use and they do loads of research and all this other stuff so it's kind of it's on the delicate edge between a tourist trip and a scientific research vessel so i've already been talking to the scientists on board i've been talking to other scientists who do research in antarctica i when i'm not allowed to catch an antarctic krill because that was our animal or creature that we deemed would have the longest qfa all lined up in a previous episode as a species as a species and i was like i could do a video about that and i could get one and they're like you're not allowed

to catch them even though they're the most abundant creature on earth yeah you're not allowed of all the species where you're not going to miss one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. However, they should. Maybe it's like fruit flies. Maybe it's if you bring it back here, it'll multiply like crazy. Yeah, well, yeah.

They've got a track record of doing that. However. You could take some sea monkeys. They were like on the side. And they often wash up dead on the coast of Antarctica. So maybe just go for a little wander and have a look. And you might better just find a pre-dead one.

So that's my plan. Try and pick up a dead krill. Try and pick up a dead krill. Or at least get some B-roll footage of Antarctic krill so I can do a video about it. Yeah, that would be cool. So actually, so I know we're not in the podcast proper, but I've already got a problem here that hopefully listeners can help me with. What should I do while I'm in the Antarctic circle? On a ship.

We go on a ship. Yeah. And so the exact route, I don't even know. Not just what you should do, what problems to solve. What problems I should solve. Exactly. It's not like do the I'm a king of a world thing. Good point. Good point. It's got to be sufficiently nerdy. So a friend of mine has an ice shelf down there that she does research on. Wow. And she's never been to visit it.

She's been to visit ice in the Arctic, but she's never been to the Antarctic. How does she have an ice shelf to do it? Well, it's, no, it's not her ice shelf, but she's been researching it since her PhD. She researched the mathematical models of how ice melts. Oh, wow. In Antarctica. And so she's like, that's my shelf because, you know, it's her shelf. It sounds like a housemate.

Basically, yeah. She'd put all of her name on everything. Penguin swaddling pass with labels, do not touch. Whose shelf is this? Yeah, so it's her ice shelf and she's never seen it. So I'm going to try and get a selfie with her ice shelf. A shelfie. A shelfie.

An ice shelfie. Yeah. Excellent. That's why I'm here. Exactly. I'm thinking I'm going to do a video about what the Antarctic circle is. I'm going to, uh, like I said, try and find our Antarctic crew. I'm going to try and find, there's a type of plankton, which is shaped like a dodecahedron. I'm going to try and find one of them. I know. Uh, but I'm open to suggestions. So if people have suggestions for what I should do,

I will be on the ship as you're listening to this because we're recording this right before I go. Yes. Yeah. So I can't take a thing that you request, but I could do a thing while we're down there. I think with this one though, because time is of the essence. Yeah. And so that we can separate it from the other problems. Oh, so many problems.

If you send it on Twitter to at a problem squared and we'll keep an eye out. Yeah. You can forward them them I will have occasional internets you can get them all together and send them over yeah I'll do a report for you excellent I will do at least one listener suggested thing in Antarctica our first problem for this episode

is from Ebi E-B-B-E. It's a cool name. It's a palindromic name. Yes, it is. They ask, if everyone in the world gave me one in their local currency, how much money would I have in euros? Such a good problem.

Yeah. And you know what I liked about this problem? I looked at it. I thought, that seems simple. Yeah, that should be our catchphrase for this show. Oh, that'll be simple. That'll be straightforward. Yeah.

Because in my mind, I'm just like, okay, all I got to do is get a list of every country and what currency they use. Get a list of every country in the populations. Match them all up. So now I have a list with every country, their currency, their population, work out the exchange rate for every single currency, and then multiply every population by their exchange rate and add them up. And that would be the total amount of money if every single human

reached into their pocket, pulled out one, and gave it to you. Yeah. And you know what? What? It was. Everything just came together. Oh, wow. I know.

I was as surprised as you are. Yeah. I went and got the list of every single country. And first of all, some of them have more than one currency. And so I decided. What countries have more than one currency? Oh, allow me. So a lot of countries, if they have their own currency,

will sometimes accept another major currency. So a lot of countries will take their currency and the U.S. dollar, let's say. Okay, yeah. So loads of countries do that. And even ones like the Cook Islands, they've got the Cook Island dollar, but they also accept New Zealand dollars just because. Just because it's convenient and easy. And then you get a place like- You get like Geneva and stuff where it's like the Swiss francs.

Yeah, Swiss franc, but they'll probably take euros. And depends, I mean, a lot of places will take currencies. I've got a list of all the official recognized currencies in each country. And then there's ones like Brunei, which is quite near Singapore and they have a lot of trade and whatnot, they accept officially the Brunei dollar and the Singapore dollar. And Singapore accepts the Singapore dollar and the Brunei dollar. And so I went through every single country that had more than one currency. I picked the most local currency.

Okay. Because Ebby said if everyone in the world gave me one in their local currency. So I took that to mean the most local of the currencies available. That sounds right. With the exception, I only used currencies that have an official ISO abbreviation. Okay. So I, because I knew I couldn't manually go and get every single exchange rate and work it out. I was going to have to look it up and automate this process. But thankfully, currencies, like the Australian dollar is the AUD. Yep.

A pound. GBP. Yes, the Great British Pound. USD, EUR, so on, right? So, like, the currency used in Ecuador doesn't have an official ISO symbol. El Salvador, East Timor. There's a few currencies around that are not sufficiently internationally recognized. So I sadly, for the purposes of automation, took those out.

But then I now had all the countries and not just countries like regions. So I've got like the Isle of Man, Jersey, like all the places that are part of the UK. And you're saying you took, sorry, the countries that didn't have the ISOs, did you say? They would have a different currency. They had a different currency. Yeah. So they've been counted just.

They've been counted just in a different currency. Fair. Like how my most local currency is hugs, but it's not recognized on the stock exchange is that is that is that pegged to a different currency in terms of value or does it float independently has it got its own it changes it changes depending on who the person is right so it's not like it's like negative if i don't like it oh right exactly so it's not like you know a set multiple of pats on the back it's its own exchange because a lot of currencies are pegged to another one. So unlike,

I think it was like Guernsey or somewhere, they've got a version of the pound, which is equal to one pound. And loads of places have like their local dollar, which unbelievably always equals exactly one dollar US. But I still included those. They're all equal the same. But you know, for completeness, they're all in my spreadsheet spreadsheet and then i wrote a little bit of software to automatically get all the exchange rates for me yes and i was a bit lazy on that so there are clever ways to do that i was like i bet there are like exchanges or currency websites where they'll have an official api or a way to automatically write code to interact with their database to get the current exchange rate. And I was like, oh, I'll have to learn a new thing. And I love learning a new thing, but this was meant to be simple

and straightforward. Yes. And so I thought, you know what, what if I just get a bit of Python code to just Google it? You've got the code for let me Google that for you. Exactly. Which is a very handy website when you want to be snarky. Yeah, just replying with let me Google that for you. Exactly. Which is a very handy website when you want to be snarky. Yeah, I might.

Yeah. Oh, just replying with let me Google that for you. Yeah. Yeah. So I've done that. That's what my code does. There's a few clever things around the edges. Like it doesn't check for the same currency twice.

It's already looked it up for a different country. When it gets to the next country, it remembers and then paste that in. And does the slightly clever thing. So if it fails, because Google doesn't want you doing this, so sometimes my code crashes when it's trying to pull that value out of the web page. And so I've got a way that fails safe and it tells me. So 20 countries, my machine crashed trying to process Google out of,

how many did I do altogether? 266. That's a lot. That's not bad. 266 is a lot, but only 20 I had to do manually. No, no, that's what I mean, yeah. That's what I was pretty pleased. Do you want some currency facts?

I do. Here we go. So everything is in euros. I turned everything into euro. I thought there'd be loads of wacky currencies that are worth a lot and wacky currencies that aren't worth much at all. Oh, yeah, yeah, because I feel like everyone has one of those like million dollar notes from some country. But by definition, those don't hang around in circulation for long because they've got hyperinflation problems.

You don't say. They're all, all the worst ones are only tens of thousands of them to a euro. So one euro is worth, if you're in Iran, 47,620 local. So they don't get worse. They never get worse than tens of thousands. That's as bad. And so the absolute worst case scenario, when you're asking a local person to give you one of their currency is Indonesia, which is the fourth most populated country in the world. What? Isn't that insane? What? Yeah Indonesia has 271 million people. What? I know there you go. That is mind-blowing. Is that insane? You've lived in Indonesia. I've lived in Indonesia. Did it feel like it was the

fourth most populated? The population went down slightly when I left. It definitely feels densely populated, but what you don't kind of get a sense of intuitively is like the empty bits. So like in Australia, it's obviously quite densely populated in the cities, slightly in the suburbs, loads of empty bits. Even the UK, big old empty bits. Yeah. Indonesia, just nonstop people. And so they've got, I mean, Java's, I believe, the most densely populated island in the world.

Wow. It's just outrageous. Like hundreds of millions of people. Isn't that something else? I'm very sorry to anyone who lives in or is from Indonesia then for totally not knowing enough about your country. As a huge population. You should look into it more.

But also the currency, the rupiah, is right at the bottom in terms of value per individual unit, which basically means they've not reset it to be a new. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Obviously, obviously inflation is constantly going. So it's like, there's like an acceptable value.

Like the pound has been inflating for centuries. And back when you're like, my annual salary is a pound and four shillings, right? Yeah. And now we're just like, it's a pound for a bag of cheese balls. Yeah. Just looking around the room.

So, or a Beck's non-alcoholic beer. So there's no correct value for a currency to have. They all drift over time, but they're all, because when you bring on a new one online, you tend to have it similar to other ones. They all drift over time, but they're all, because when you bring on a new one online, you tend to have it similar to other ones. They all kind of clump, but the, yeah, the, the, the ones that are worth the least per unit, tens of thousands of those units per Euro. And then your best case is like Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, they've got ones, which are all

individually, like the unit is worth less than three euros. So there's no currency that I could find, people correct me if I'm wrong, where the unit is worth more than three euros. And for the record, I know a few countries do recognize like Bitcoin as a currency, but it's not their main currency. It's not their most local currency. Hasn't got an official, I don't think it's got an official ISO code. So it's not on my currency. It's not their most local currency. Hasn't got an official, I don't think it's got an official ISO code. So it's not on my spreadsheet. So in terms of local currencies, the Kuwaiti Dina is worth currently 2.92 euros per unit.

That's the most I could find. So anyway, and the least useful statistic I will ever give you is the average currency value. So the average currency is in euros, 25.6 euro cents. Oh, right. Which for all our listeners is 29 US cents. It's 21 and a half pence. So then I did the calculation. I multiplied the population of every single territory by the value of their currency. I summed them all up and you would get in euros, 1,229,461,715 euros. So 1.23 billion euros. Wait, so if we, no, because then it depends on how much money

is actually in a place, hey. I was like, does that mean if we redistributed wealth? No, no, it's just, yeah. That's not how it works. No, no, no. Now, weighted for population, the average person would give you 15.8 euro cent. So that's the average value of currencies weighted for use.

Right. Yeah. So if a random person says, would you like a currency unit, then the average value of that is going to be 15.8 euro cents. Hmm. Yeah. Wow. So I thought it'd be straightforward and it was.

There you are. Yeah. Relatively. I would be straightforward and it was. There you are. Yeah, relatively. I don't think it's useful. I don't know if any of that, let us know, was any of that useful. Well, I mean, I can't speak on behalf of our listeners, but I am going to give that a ding. Hey. And a ka-ching.

I think everyone should give me one of their local dings. Yes. Our next problem is in from Darren via our problem posing page at problemsquared.com. And they are building on the previous problem of how many Beck Hills could fit in Beck's Hill. Yes. Which was in episode 017. Wow. 17.

Amazing of you to know that off the top of your head. Yes. And so they've built upon that problem by asking how many Becks could fit in Beck Hill. And they've clarified Becks with a link to the Bex Brewery Wikipedia page. Yeah. In case we mean the, I guess they mean the singer. The singer Bex. Yep. Yeah.

I mean, the whole thing is a homonym extravaganza. So I can see why they wanted to clarify. Yes. Which Bex. And as we discovered, Bex with an apostrophe for ownership, which I didn't realize. So it is actually, it's like me. It's a singular.

It's Beck. Yeah, it's Beck. Beer. Yeah. Yeah. And so they want to know, both, they clarify by consumption and theoretical total volume, how many Beck's could fit in Beck Hill. Yeah, I'm glad I said theoretical total volume.

As opposed to... Your presence in this physical plane is merely theoretical. So, Beck Hill, no one is more qualified to answer this question. It's true. And the fact that if I wobble the table we're recording on right now, we get a pub-cl closing foley yes sound effect noise i'm gonna go as far as to say that this entire episode sounds like we should have requested sponsorship before oh my goodness yes we are yeah the worst at sponsoring they we can we

can we retrospectively yeah they might send us a free six pack. Yeah. Although the last thing we want now at the moment, spoilers, is more Becks. Yes. Anyway. Yeah, so let's go into that first part, consumption. Let's do it step by step. We'll look at consumption first.

What I didn't want to do was make myself ill. Yeah, smart. Thankfully. Becks. Becks do a non-alcoholic version of their beers i think becks like beck uh you should enjoy responsibly yes thank you yeah i think i think all our lessons is responsibly enjoy you yeah and you were like well if you get to do drinking i'm going to be the control subject. So we can see how that is like compared to you. Exactly. And might I say, Matt, that I was surprised at someone who was so meticulous

with all of their calculations. That's me. Would be such a terrible control. Okay. I have. Can you lay out your control grievances let's say that i have no control in that you are my control and you are not present as a control we're out of control out of control fresh out of control well first of all you after a couple of bottles yeah decided

that you're gonna switch vessel yeah because thought that maybe it would change the gas. Now, for the record, I went from drinking from the bottle. Yes. To drinking from a pint glass. Yes. To drinking from a hipster beer glass. Yes. And I will admit, I went rogue.

I started, I know I was meant to be your control. Yeah. Your designated controller. You immediately was like, how can I do this differently? I was like, and I was kind of like, you know what? I'm going to have my own experiment within an experiment. And how did your experiment go, Matt? Badly. I don't think it got us any meaningful data. And then also quite quickly, you requested whether you could switch beers to a different beer.

I just thought... One would argue. As my role is the control, I thought I could also have a control beer, like a whole separate type of beer to compare to the main beer. And my final grievance is that you didn't keep drinking after I finished. No. The point was to see what it would be so i could in comparison to someone else's capacity nah i was done you were like i was done as well i just want to know if i feel like the

no we've only got two two data points here but i feel like capacity for becks the beer is a person invariant it doesn't matter who you are. After the amount of Bex we had, that's enough for anyone. I feel like what I confirmed was despite, and no spoilers here, having a different theoretical total volume to you, I still had the same Bex capacity. Right. So that's what I'm saying. There you go.

Okay. So we actually recorded ourselves. Oh, we did. Because we did a mix of non-alcoholic and alcoholic. I think by consumption people were assuming that that meant alcoholic beer. Yeah. Well, also, we didn't want to, you know, just drink a bunch of beer for the sake of it. You know what?

It was the closest I've felt in a long time. Because we were lining up the bottles as we were going. Yeah. To being like at a student party. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Where they have ambient music in the background.

Oh, okay. Reasonable chat. Yeah, okay. Get bored and start doing personality tests. Okay, 100%. We made it our own. But the concept of just drinking, I was going to say drinking beer for the sake of it. No, I know what you mean.

Yeah. Yeah, because we'd already socialized. Just drinking. I was going to say drinking beer for the sake of it. No, I know what you mean. Yeah. Because we'd already socialized. Normally I'm doing something else and I happen to have a beer. Yes. Whereas this I'm like, we're going to sit down and we're going to drink this beer. Yeah. And we're going to keep drinking this beer. Yeah.

It wasn't like we were there for the conversation and the beer was on the side. Exactly. The beer was the main event. It actually got to a point where we started talking so much that we were like, oh, it's taking us longer to drink the beers, which will affect the... Yeah, get back on task. So here is some of the audio.

The highlights. From our little session last night. All right, this is the first Bex. This is beer one. Beer one. Down the hatch. The beer one, 13 minutes. All right, 21.39

beer two cheers alright alright beer three three yep it is

22.11 22.11 we've already started giggling I'm still going oh my goodness uncontrollably yeah it's not good yeah I'm going to persist with beer three, which is alcoholic, while you serve your head.

Yeah. As of 2228. And I finished mine at 2226. Okay. All right. Beer number four is down. The non-alcoholic one. Speak for yourself.

We are pretty much two hours into this now. We just finished our fifth beers. I really need to wee. I'm holding it in. Beer six. Beer six. We've been doing personality tests. Cheers.

Okay, I'm finishing my sixth. I'm ready to run out of time. 23.38. Okay, and now I have to wee. Yeah. So the answer for consumption is six bottles of Bex. That was until I needed to wee. And we decided that early on.

We decided that the capacity thing would be until you needed to use the bathroom because that would then change how much you could, because then you could just keep drinking, especially the way that we were doing it. I had the equivalent of two pints and because I'd had the equivalent of one pint of non-alcoholic beer in between them. Yeah. I felt fine. Because when we were planning this, I've reached a point in my life where I'm like, I can typically

have four pints of medium alcohol beer without getting a hangover. Yeah. Now. And I'm two to three. I have had a four pint hangover. I'm not ashamed to say that. I try to be careful if I'm drinking other things, I would do the conversions into, into metric standard alcoholic pints so I can keep track. Right. Cause otherwise if you mix and match drinks, you can fall foul out quite easily. So I'm usually careful. And when we were playing, I was like, well, obviously the bottles are like half-pints. So I'm like, I can easily have eight of these without having a hangover.

I really struggled because it was so gassy. I think gassy was what got me. I couldn't believe how full I felt. Yeah, because I burped a lot, but you didn't. I did a lot of burps. I didn't want to bring it up. You know, yeah, but maybe I'm not. I didn't bring anything up.

That's the problem. And so I struggled. I was like, wow. That's why halfway through I thought, why don't I compare this to a hipster craft ale just to see? Because I suspect I'm just not used to consuming any volume of super gassy lager beer. Yeah, normally when you would drink, say, four pints, you go to the bathroom at some point. I think this is the thing.

Because we actually bought quite a lot, didn't we? We bought quite a lot of beer. We drank exactly a third of what we bought. Yeah, Yeah. And I think that's because we were thinking in terms of how much we can drink before we get ridiculously drunk. Yeah. Not what you drink in a single session before you have to go to the loo. Yeah. And in hindsight, I probably could have had six alcoholic ones and still been fairly reasonably

Yeah, but we drink responsibly. We were recording data and we didn't want to. And we did them in different orders. So you went alcoholic, alcoholic, non, non, alcohol, alcohol, alcohol, alcohol. So you went two, two, two. Yeah. I mixed it up a bit more. I went alcohol, alcohol, alcohol, alcohol, alcohol, alcohol.

Alcohol is very, I don't know why you're saying that, Matt. It's very confusing. You're not going to go, oh, sorry. It is not catching in the slightest. There was another word for non-alcoholic. Oh, there is. So, because I wanted to mix it up. So when I was drinking from the pint glass,

I had one of each, alcohol and non-alcoholic, and then likewise for the craft beer glass. Yeah. To see if I could taste the difference in the different glasses yeah did you taste the difference initially but i forgot pretty quick yeah yeah we each consumed for those of you who want the exact number 1.65 liters and you had an average of 20 minutes per beer i was 23 and a half minutes of beer so i was taking longer than you and i had a total drinking time of two hours and 29 minutes. However, if you run the numbers of how long it took to drink an alcoholic beverage versus the non-alcoholic beer, they came out exactly the same. Wow.

Yeah. Huh. I think that's more statistical fluke than any great insight. Yeah. But on average, over this sample, the alcoholic beverages combined average 21 and three quarter minutes per alcoholic beverage, 21 and three quarter minutes per non-alcoholic beer. Huh. Yeah, there you go. That is interesting. So I think the non-alcoholic beer performed better than I expected. Well, I've been doing a little experiment myself since we started recording this episode because we had quite a few non-alcoholic beers left over I started drinking them right before

we started recording to see if I could hit six or more yeah before I needed to wait just to see if there was a difference in terms of different time of day yeah there's been a different amount of time since I lost eight. Yeah, yeah. And I got to about almost full five. Yeah, nearly five. About four and a half before I had to go to the toilet. And so that could be a number of things. Could be that I'd had more water. I had three pints of water this morning or whatever. Could be that.

Could also be that when you're under the influence of alcohol, it takes you longer to realize things. So you don't realize you have to go to the loo. Oh, I have another one. But at least you didn't exceed what we did last night. Yes. So you have shown that last night might have been the maximum capacity. Might have been, yeah, my upper limit.

There you go. That is the total consumption. That is that. We've done that. Okay. Done. Tick. Part two. Part two. Right. upper limit there you go that is the total consumption that is that we've done that okay tick tick part two part two right so before we go into volume i wanted to quickly look at other ways i could fit bottles of becks oh dear yeah now my google algorithm absolutely ruined if you try and look at how many i looked at a lot of x-rays that i can't unsee now. Let's just say, though, that I haven't been able to find more than one beer bottle. One seems to be the max.

Yeah, a whole bottle, not the contents. To be fair, the ones that I believe that I saw seem to be empty. So it might not count. I don't know. I also put a call out on Twitter because I've definitely met loads of different types of performers over the years. So I just said, do I happen to know any sword swallowers? I have no doubt you know some sword swallowers. I was able to get in contact with two sword swallowers.

Brilliant. One under control. That's right. Yes. So I want to thank Snooki Mono, which is also their handle on socials, and Snake Fervor, that's F-E-R-V-O-R, who is a multiple Guinness World Record holding fire sword swallower, snake charmer, and circus sideshow act. Oh my goodness.

This podcast, we go above and beyond. So I asked them if you were to sort of attach the beer bottles. A series of beer bottles. How many do you think you could? Should we just clarify if anyone wondering, sword swallowing is not a trick. Yeah, it's not. The secret is you swallow the sword. Basically, yeah.

So I said, you know, if you were to attach them, how many could you get, Danny Gullet? And they both said, and this is from professional sword swallowers. Yep. Who make a living from putting swords. Swords. In their throats. Yep. And they said, none.

Zero. Do not do it. You will die. Oh. They said, first of all. If a sword swallower is saying, that's a bit dangerous. Yeah. They said, because of the circumference of the bottle, you'd be blocking your airway, so you won't be able to breathe.

That's not good. And because it's glass, there is a chance that it could break and then you would get internal injuries. So they very much. Very much warned against that. Yes. Said do not do that. I'd like to reiterate that for everyone listening.

Please do not try and insert bex bottles in any part of your body um even though i've seen x-rays i don't know how they turned out no so i i would argue um none none in in that sense but i also thought is there any other way i could fit bex bottles into me yep Yep. So I reached out to two doctors. Oh, my goodness. Yes. Adam Kay. Oh, yeah.

Yep. Yep. Who is Amateur Adam on Twitter and also has written a book or two. Quite a few. Yes. Yeah. I think more recently Kay's Marvelous Medicine for Kids. Oh, excellent.

Yeah. So that was Adam Kay and Dr. Zand, who is at Zand. That's X-A-N-D-V-T. Dr. Zand, also from Operation Ouch. Yeah. Yep. They both said, well, actually, skin is very stretchy. That's not what you want to hear from your doctor in fact dr zan said that

he had a colleague who was the nurse at the torture garden which is a uh a club a club type club who would routinely inflate people's scrotums with three to four liters of fluid oh my goodness Yeah. They both suggested you could either have the bottles surgically put in. Well, when you think about breast enlargement and stuff like that. Yeah, good point. So you could have it put under your skin. Yep. I think it'd be very funny to think of what it would sound like if you're walking around. Depends how many beer bottles you put in.

Well, actually, it is possible for someone to increase their body weight by over 10 times and not burst their skin. What? So the skin can stretch a lot. I mean, skin, it's got to be hard wearing. Like it, you know, holds us together. Yeah. Adam K. actually said if you could hollow yourself out and just use yourself as essentially a bag, a human skin bag, fill myself with bottles, then, you know, we could potentially fit loads of Bex in there. But even if they weren't full bottles, even if it was just liquid.

I occasionally use the phrase upper bound. Yeah. It's never been. I think this is the most definite upper bound. upper bound yeah it's never been i think this is the most definite upper bound well i'd argue that if you hollowed me out and stretched my skin out it's not me anymore no it's a theseus's beck is what they really all right yeah so uh so yeah it wasn't the answers that you asked for but they were ones that i looked into to make sure that I. That's the motto of this podcast. Yeah.

But let's look at the volume. So we decided to work out my volume. Yeah. Matt has a piece of paper here. We'll put some pictures up on Instagram, Twitter, Patreon. I always forget when I'm doing working out your. People want to see stuff. It's just a bunch of numbers and the outline of my bath. Yeah.

And you can see the weird shape that Matt's bath is. Hey. Don't even explain it. I want them to guess. If you're not from the UK, good luck. It looks like the blueprints for a house is what it is. Yes, but that was the aesthetic I was going for with my diagram here. You know what?

I'd never measured my own bath. I don't know if many would have yeah i don't like in the uk they put the showers in the bath yeah and i'm not a big fan of that because it's very dangerous yeah i don't like standing next to the slopey edge of the right yeah there's enough room and i like to have i want something that was a shower first and a bath second and so it's basically it's a bath but one ends bulbous yeah it's like it's been inflated with liquid and so you can stand in that end comfortably but yet still have a bath yes which you did yep so i had a bath at your house yes you did and we we filled i worked out how i got in the bath first yep uh and then marked a line on the side of it with a whiteboard marker. Before you got in, you got the water in the bath?

No, I got in first to work out how much water I need to put in. You worked out how high up you are. Yeah. That's amazing. Then I got out, then I filled the bath up to that line. That's so good. Well, you don't want to do it. I don't want to guess too little.

You just filled the bath by eye and then drew the line where the water was. But no, you pre-marked the bath. I've never used your bath before. I don't know how much space I take up. That was the whole point of the exercise. So, yeah. Then I got in the bath and then got under the water as much as possible. Much as possible.

With a little pen sticking out from the water. Drew a line where the level went up to. And we measured the difference. For people unfamiliar with the work of Archimedes. Yeah. Basically, we know how high the water was with no beck. Add an entire beck. Yeah.

And see how much higher the water is. And the difference must be all beck. Yeah. Ubica. Ubica. That's what they said. I was trying to put beer and eureka in the same. That's a real Alka-No.

So that's an Alka-No from me. So I then came in and measured the bath and calculated. Once I was out and dressed. Yes, yes. Once you're out. And thankfully the sides where the water was up to were all pretty straight. I had to compensate for one bit that was on an angle. But I took that into account, trying to be as accurate as possible.

Worked out the area, worked out the height difference. The water was six and a half centimeters higher once you were in the bath. But the bath had a surface area of just over 8,500 square centimeters. I did it in centimetersres because one cubic centimetre is one millilitre of water. It was a nice conversion. And so I can tell you, Bec, that your volume, according to this bath experiment, is 56.5 litres.

Ooh. Yeah. All I can think of is I'm 56.5 of those bottles of milk. Yeah. That's how I think of it. That's quite a think of it. That's quite a lot actually, isn't it? It's quite a lot.

But then the human body is largely water. I think we're probably, are we more or less dense than water? I want to say 70, but I think 70%, but then I think that's the earth thing, isn't it? Oh, yeah. That's how much water we're in. You often confuse yourself with the entire planet. I do. I do. So, ego much?

So, yeah. So, I think that's about this ballpark mass of a human should be about the same as the volume yeah give or take so that that checks out and you know what let's just do a quick divide to get you how many bottles of becks we could have got so you were 56.5 litres divided by each bottle is 0.275 litres. 205 and a half. Whoa. Call it 200. So if you were to make a mould of me and then pour it. Pour Becks in. Pour Becks in.

You'd need that many bottles. 205 and a half. Which meant you drank 2.9% of your volume in beer last night. Yeah. That's bonkers. That is bonkers. Huh. Wow.

You learn something new every day. So there's your answer, 2.9%. You're still going. Bottle number 17. Yeah, so I hope that answered your question, Darren. Yeah, Darren. Darren. Take that and give question, Darren. Yeah, Darren. Darren.

Take that and give it a ding. Give us more delicious problems, please. AOB. So what do we have in the AOB box? Well, first of all, someone has given you a ding, Matt. Yes. Always a good day. For your pumpkin problem, which was in the last episode. The Halloween special.

024. For anyone playing along at home. Yep. As everyone is. Eric VH got back to us via Twitter and said, so cool that you answered my hole in pumpkin question. My initial thought was, as Beck mentioned, yep, as it came to me while carving a pumpkin.

However, Matt was right with his answer to the stated question. Thank you. Of course, a pumpkin is not a jack-o'-lantern. Nope. Full ding from me. Technical ding. Yay. Best type of ding.

And I will address a semi-common comment On the companion YouTube video about this And I've picked Nathaniel's here to represent them all Because they very concisely said Do that with a sphere And I'll really be impressed And actually a lot of people had the opposite thing Where they're like

It's not impressive that you can have a hole in a thing That's bigger than the thing Because they make the impressive that you can have a hole in a thing that's bigger than the thing. Because they make the point that you can take a door off a doorway and then walk through the doorway with the door. Yeah, yeah, that's true. So a door, big flat things can very easily fit through a hole in themselves, which means by my definition, you can make a hole bigger than the thing in the thing. Because they've got such wildly different cross sections. Whereas a sphere has the same cross section from every direction which means a sphere always has the same shadow looks the same no matter how you look at it what nathaniel's doing

here is basically yeah pointing out that it wouldn't in fact i think anything with a circular section, this won't work for. That's my working theory because it relies on being able to get a cross section that wholly fits inside another one. And I think if you've got a circular cross section in there. You would cut it in half. Yeah. There's no way to get around that. You're always going to cut it in half. Yeah. And then you've got two things. And even I'm not going to try and argue that's one thing in two pieces. Yeah. Yeah. I would argue don't. Just don't try.

Good argument. Are you on the debating team? Who needs? Do you know what my debate would be? Who needs to put a sphere through a sphere? That's the real question. And then I would make them out to be evil. Oh, got it.

Right. Yeah. Which is how you become Oh, got it. Right. Yeah. Which is how you become a politician these days. Politics. And I did put it out as my jack-o'-lantern on my doorstep. I put a candle in it and I put it on my doorstep. So just so you, I mean, I know Eric was very kind. He said pumping doesn't have to be a jack-o'-lantern. I then did use it as a very pathetic jack-o'-lantern.

And just to recap, we had a cupboard versus nubbered survey on Twitter to see if you should be allowed to stay outside of the cupboard. In full disclosure, you are currently outside of the cupboard. Yeah. Yeah. Any new listeners, normally I record from within a cupboard in my house remotely. This time you've popped down and we're recording in my office. Yes. Which is lovely, very surreal. Yes, it's nice to be out again. Talking directly at your face.

Yes. Otherwise it would just be me drinking in my cupboard for this episode. Yes, I know. But this time for a reason. And so a few people feel bad that they've realized what they've done, that they had sent you back to the cupboard. They didn't realize the harm that their, you know, casual Twitter poll responding was going to enact.

And so someone tried to spin it. David here is claiming that the reason to vote cupboard was out of concern for your health, Bec. In an ongoing pandemic, they thought it would be safer for you. To be in a small enclosed space with not much breathing. With no ventilation. Yeah, exactly. Someone else, the crafty grammarian,

said the poll was presented without context and they'd forgotten that you record from the cupboard. So they voted cupboard just because they are pro cupboards. I would argue that the context was in the episode. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think they just saw the poll on Twitter and just saw cupboard or nothing. They're like, love cupboards. Yeah.

Why would anyone be anti-cupboards? Cupboard, please. And actually Mark has given you an out. I mean, literally saying that only 59% of the episodes should need to be in the cupboard if you take the ratio of the poll. It's like if the UK was out of the EU 52% of the time and in 48% of the time. You have like a timeshare arrangement. So Mark's saying you could just be in the cupboard 59 of the time oh see now

there's part of me that's like well i've already done most of them in the cupboard yeah so if you say oh that is 59 so far oh right and then for the next 41 of that i will do outside the cupboard oh my goodness so you can do basically another two-thirds of the time we've just done. Yeah. Which would be 16 episodes now out of the cupboard. Yeah. Okay. I see that.

But then I also realized that that would also mean that if we went by Brexit, then we were in there for a long time. I think any kind of seismic change requires a super majority vote. Yeah, agreed. And so that which is a two thirds majority. And we did not get that. So I think we're not putting into place any big changes. Who would make such a sweeping change?

Yeah. On a non super majority vote. So it's almost like we realized we shouldn't have put the poll out. With no plan on how we were going to respond to the results. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. And we had one more feedback as well on the last episode from Thomas who simply said, I enjoyed the episode.

Good feedback, Thomas. Thanks, Thomas. Yeah. Yeah. I like those. I like when I see that sort of feedback on stuff. Yeah, you do. It's nice.

Finally, I am just going to randomly sort a spreadsheet with all our Patreon supporters in it. Oh, here we go. And, huh, okay. So we would like to thank randomly selected Mattie. Earthwormia. And AV. Yay. thanks for your support and speaking of patreons you have until the 7th of december to uh join in as a patron if you would like the a problem squared

christmas card yes yes we'll be sending out limited edition christmas cards with my own art on it to all of our Patreons. And if you're a wizard tier level, we will personalize your card as well. It's amazing. So we need to get those locked in early so we can get them in the post. It's pretty special. Yeah. Some would say best part of Christmas.

Some would say that. Some would say that. That makes me sad. Thank you to everyone who tuned in to this episode and for telling people how much you enjoyed it. This podcast has been voiced by Bec Hill and Matt Parker and produced by Lauren Armstrong Carter. Now we're in my office, so I've had to get a new deck. I was just curious.

Maybe that was the problem. Wrong deck. That's true. You've ruined your system now. No. My system's in tatters as well. You'll have to remember that one. I'll have to remember. I'll keep this card out.

Hello, listeners. Bec Hill here, just popping up with a little extra something. As you know, if you're listening to this not long after it came out, Christmas is approaching, and we wanted to say that we've put a little something on our wish list. I listen to hundreds of podcasts. That's not even an exaggeration. And they're always asking people to leave an Apple review. And I always think they can't mean that much, but apparently they do. They really help. So if you'd like to get us something for Christmas, it would mean the world

to us if you left a review on iTunes, Apple podcasts, we'd love that. It would mean the world to us if you left a review on iTunes, Apple Podcasts. We'd love that. It would mean so much to us. And we'll read them. We'll read them. We'll enjoy them. If you are a Patreon supporter, we will be doing our Christmas cards again this year. We're going to be sending them out to all of our Patreons this time.

We can't guarantee, if you live overseas, that it will get to you before Christmas, but you will get a card with some of my art on it. Yeah, that was all the Christmas based stuff I needed to say. Better get, better get painting.