A Problem Squared - 033 = Super Computers and Putrid Pong Tooters

Episode Date: May 9, 2022

In this episode:   * Can you alter the smell of your farts based on what you eat?   * When does a computer become a supercomputer?   * And, Any AOB!   A huge thank you to Dr Jess Biesiekierski, you can find them at @jessbersa and @monashnutrition on Twitter, Dr Dr CK Yao, find them at @yao_ck on Twitter and of course, Gareth Turkington , @G_Turkington on Twitter, @gareth.turkington on Insta, who created, sung and recorded the fantastic “Fart Life”.   If you want to find out more about pop-off related research referenced by Dr Jess, Dr CK and Bec, please have a look at the papers below:   - Gas profiling study: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19490976.2018.1451280 - Protein fermentation: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26527169/ - Co-supplementation in IBS: https://bit.ly/3M1FnPo - Charcoal cushion study: htt

Welcome to a problem square to the problem solving podcast that follows the ABC principle. Always be coming up with solutions to problems. My name is Matt Parker, I'm 50% of your hosts, and I follow the ABC principle of always be calculating. It's in the calculations, not, not, okay, both, both actually, now that I think about it. Yeah, there you are, skimming away in the corner right now. Exactly. You can't see this, but Matt is wrapping his fingers together. I'm touching my matching fingertips one at a time to each other.

Yes. Is that the right pose? Symmetrically contact, it's like fingertips one at a time to each other. Yes. Is that the right pose? Symmetrically contact. It's like I'm tapping a finger. Excellent. It is, isn't it? And as you've already heard, I am joined by the other 50% of the hosts. It's Beck Hill, who goes by the ABC policy of always Beck.

Always be chill. Always be chill. You know what? Yeah. When I thought ABC, I was like, it's always be chill. Yeah.

Comedian. That's it. People who have not yet enjoyed this, if you write Beck Hill as one word, it looks like be chill. Yes. And people often think Beck may have never noticed that. Yeah, that's true.

And pointed out to her. But if you put a K in there after the C, it completely ruins it. Such people would be dead to us. No. On this episode. I'm going to help you make your farts smell less bad. Wow. I've solved the problem of what makes a computer super. And there will be so many other business. Oh, so much any other business.

Let's do a show. Beat you. How have you been? Good. Good? Good. Good. So, good. Good. As of this episode coming out, my second book has come out. Oh, my goodness. Now, Live Screaming, Horror Heights. Nice. And I thought I would show you a little thing. Oh.

Obviously. Pop this out on the socials or link it in the show notes. No, people can buy the book. Oh, you said buy the book. So, I was going to show. Oh, you showed me the entire book. How long is this going to take? I'm showing you. No, people can buy the book. Oh, you said I buy the book. So I was going to show you. Oh, you showed me the entire book. How long is this going to take? I'm showing you a page from the book.

Because the protagonist is a kid called Ryan who wants to be a streamer. Gotcha. And he sort of gets trapped in the studio and body of his favorite streamer. Oh, wow. And there's a lot of chat that takes place in the chat room so i needed a lot of names all right right aren't real names so that you know kids don't look them up and find someone problematic exactly so look at that he spoke slowly my name is grimp and the first person in the chat. Hey, it's me.

Well, M-A-7-7-P-A-R-K-3-R. Oh, that's amazing. And who are the other people? That is my editor. Oh, nice. And the layout designer of the book. Should I do my line for the audiobook version? Oh, yeah. We know.

That's it. That's his line. That is Matt's one line. it appears on page 67 for anyone reading at home and you can just drop it in when you do the audiobook and i have popped you in the acknowledgments oh because i goodness i uh look at that you're amongst one of the oh one of the group of people who i ended up boring to death with. Yes, I'm listed right before. It literally says a bunch of people, Matt Parker and everyone else who spent countless hours on the phone with me as I tried to unravel their story. I mean, I did it on the phone and in front of a fire.

Yeah. And it really helped. One of the things we discussed around that fire ended up becoming quite a large moment. There you go. So thank you. No spoilers. My pleasure. In fact, my good news, I've got an even better fire pit. Oh, I imagine. Look up the book three. Oh, my. Because before, if you remember, it was a barbecue with the legs taken off. Yes. Right.

And by barbecue, I mean it's like a half cut open oil drum. Yeah. But even it's like a fake cut. It's like a fake half cut open oil drum Yeah But even It's like a fake cut It's like a fake Half cut open Oil You know when something's like Trying to pretend

Yeah To be the improvised Version It's just terrible We bought it from It was a piece of metal It's a piece of metal We got it for like

Super cheap It was the cheapest barbecue At one generic Big You know Warehousey kind of Superstore And for a long time And I may have mentioned this On the podcast I can't remember the cheapest barbecue at one generic big, you know, warehouse-y kind of superstore.

And for a long time, and I may have mentioned this on the podcast, I can't remember, I was caught in the getting a temporary fire pit loop where I'd be like, oh, I want to get a really cool geometric fire pit. Oh, yeah, yeah. And I'm like, oh, that can take forever. I don't want to rush it, but I want a fire pit now so we can start, you know, workshopping your stories. Yeah, burning my old receipts. And I was like, I'll buy something super cheap. And then I'm like, oh, actually, if I spend a little bit more, I can get something still cheap, but a little bit, I'm like, oh, I can get this one. Oh, I can get, oh, wait,

what if it was geometric? And then I'm like, ah, while I'm working on that, I'll just get a quick cheap one. Right. And I just went around this cycle over and over and over again. I finally broken out of it because someone emailed me and said, check out this fire pit I've made. Would you like it? And that fixed the problem. What? So the wonderful Stephen Mould hit a million subscribers just before me.

Yes, we know. Not by much. And when he hit a million subs, I went and did a Q&A with him. Yes. Where we asked some questions people sent in. And we got discussing the notion of being derricked which is derrick named after derrick who does the veritasium youtube channel because on several occasions derrick has put a video out on the exact same topic either steve or i were working on and so now when you're working hard on a video idea

and someone else releases it we call that being derrick. Right. And this isn't, Derek hasn't meant to do this? No, no, it's completely by accident. He is just as good as coming up with great video ideas as myself and Steve. I wonder if he could help me with my next book. No, yeah, go straight to the source. I mean, we've just been copying his every move and pretending we were working on it anyway. So, but I said Steve had derricked me where I was planning a video on something called a tensegrity structure.

And we're normally pretty good at communicating what we're working on. We just hadn't mentioned. So, I was working on this video and suddenly Steve releases a video on that exact topic. And to be fair, did it really well. And I was like, oh, that's a shame. And these are structures where they look like they shouldn't work because they're only held up by cables. And you're like, what?

How can you? So you're suspended, like a structure's, like instead of being suspended by hanging down, it's suspended by hanging up. Right. And it's really weird. And I mentioned I was a big fan of these structures. Steve beat me to the video.

And is it linked a bit to like how pulleys work yeah yeah sort of yeah yeah because once you've got tension in it you can pull something up yes yeah with the cable absolutely and so someone sent me i'm going to show this to you we'll we'll put it out on oh wow instagram this is a fire pit that is suspended so you can see there's a chain in the middle that suspends the top and it's held in place by other cables yeah there's actually no solid legs no solid legs between the top and and the floor there's solid legs at the bottom cables and chains this it looks a bit like a very shallow cauldron yeah yeah i give that and then it's got a little sort of dippy bit so it does have a solid bit that comes down but does not touch the ground.

And then that's attached by a chain that is going off. It's pretty good as a fire pit because it doesn't scorch the ground or anything because of the heat. Oh, yeah. The top bowl heats up, but it's got no direct connection to the base. Yeah. That fire pit is now in my backyard. Oh. And we're yet to put a fire in it

so tonight yeah tonight is the inaugural i'm so glad i brought a pit fire oh you got the marshmallows yeah that that is the sound of a pack of giant marshmallows so i'm very excited and so i got this fire pit i ended up paying the person for it i was like let me buy this pipe it off you uh and gonna deliver it is so good and so this was this fire pit i ended up paying the person for it i was like let me buy this pipe it off you uh and got it delivered is so good and so this was fusion fire bowls i did not promise them they'd get any kind of shout out or mention but it's such a cool fire pit yeah it looks like a photo of us enjoying it this evening and you're gonna need a new one after tonight because i am gonna fill it with so much marshmallow i've got you didn't bring like receipts and documents to dispose of no i forgot No, I forgot. You forgot? I know.

Now that you've got one big enough for me to use as a shredder, I forgot. Oh, well. Marshmallows. Yeah, this time marshmallows. Our first problem, and I think this is very much for you, Beck, is sent in by Professor Poopy Butthole. That's his pseudonym. Hilarious Rick and Morty reference.

Good work, everyone. And Professor P says, Can one produce less smelling or even well-smelling farts by eating or drinking a certain food? Wow. I guess it's just like, can they smell less based on what you eat and drink? Beck.

As in the farts smell. The farts. Yeah. Yeah. Can you alter? Not your olfactory. Not you smell less. Not the smelling.

Yeah. No, you won't smell less. It's called COVID. Yeah. That's a simple solution. Right. Next problem. So, can you alter the smell of your farts based on what you eat?

I love this question because this problem. It's perfect back. It's right up my alley. Way over. Out my alley. Because, I mean, I'm sure I've mentioned it on the podcast before, but I have IBS, which has led me to be very open and honest and shameless about my bowel situation.

Yeah. And for the record, you've got the sense of humor that goes hand in hand i think it's a candid approach oh do you reckon what came first what i i do you know what i think i think the tummy and butt troubles came first really yeah because i wasn't i wasn't really massively into like poo and i like i thought bum stuff was funny as a kid but fart jokes and stuff i was like but as i got older and i realized if i don't fart about it i'm keep that in explode if i don't laugh about it i'm gonna fart about it i would cry like it is because it is really embarrassing and you've got to make a choice whether you sink into the shame or just bathe in it.

And this is, I mean, some of you listening will find this too much information. Others, you might relate. But one thing I found being in a long-term relationship is uh not only do i fart in my sleep not only have i woken up my husband gav oh wow by farting in my sleep but i have woken him up not with the sound oh just just this smell he wakes up and he's like and there's been several times where I've woken up because he's getting out of bed to open a window. And I'm like, what are you doing out of bed? And he's like, oh, just letting in some air.

And he's so sweet. Oh, I just fancy hearing the street noise. He won't. In the past I have been so worried about waking him up from it. Not that I'm like ashamed. I can't control that. I'm asleep. But I don't want his sleep to be ruined by it.

And so there have been times in the past where I have been so conscious of it that as soon as I start to feel my body relaxed to go to sleep, I get worried I'm about to fart. And I quickly end up like running to the bathroom and being like, whatever I've eaten, like, get out the evil now. And I can't believe I've never actually looked into whether I can. It sounds so obvious now. Yeah. Now Professor Poopy Butthole brings it up. So one thing I do know is that I tend to have those farts if I've eaten certain foods.

Right. Beans. It's a classic one. But broccoli and cauliflower. I mean, not in sort of small quantities, but every now and then i've been known to have quite large quantities did you keep like a food diary or something to discover this was this just like anecdotal no you just start to like make the connections okay if i have a um like a steak with a very garlicky oniony sauce or something that'll tend to that'll bleed through yeah yeah that's right and so uh i sort of was aware a little bit

i looked into it and one thing is that high protein diets creates hydrogen sulfide which is that's the rotten egg it's the rock rotten egg smell yeah so basically if you're having very smelly farts yeah it might be because you've got a very high protein, high diet. I wasn't aware of this, but in my research, it was sort of supported quite a lot that a lot of bodybuilders and stuff tend to sort of be known for having quite smelly farts. Right, because they're like eating protein supplements and all this jazz. Yeah, yeah.

Because I guess eggs have a lot of protein in them. They do. Is that why they smell like that when they go off or is that just a... Ah, well, I'm glad you asked because we've actually got an expert that will tell us a bit more about it. Yes. Yeah. I reached out to Dr. C.K. Yao from Monash University.

Oh, wow. Melbourne. Yep. Who did a lot of research into this. Of course. About sort of five or so years ago. Was able to answer some of my questions, but she's also on maternity leave at the moment.

And so I also contacted Dr. Jessica Berzikerski, who is a senior lecturer and researcher at Monash University as well. That's also in Melbourne. Yes. And Jessica has worked on similar things and is also currently doing a lot of research on eggs. Oh my goodness. So I have an exact answer to your question. Literal expert. Right here.

Hydrogen sulfide is the predominant sulfur gas that underlines that famous term of rotten egg gas. However, eggs don't make most of us actually fart, but they do contain sulfur-packed methionine. So fermentable carbohydrates such as oligosaccharides, resistant starch, non-starch polysaccharides, these fermentable carbohydrates, they are found in a wide variety of foods, garlic, onions, even wheat and rye products. Galactooligosaccharides found in beans and pulses can not actually be broken down in the small intestine and they pass through into the colon. There they undergo fermentation by bacteria producing gas. This gas can lead to the wind, flatulence, blow-off, pop-off, farts, whatever term you feel comfortable with. The composition of the gas produced varies,

but mostly includes odourless gases such as nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, along with carbon dioxide and methane. When it comes to the smelly gases or scientifically termed maligrous rectal gas, the characteristic unpleasant odour comes from trace amounts of sulphur compounds. Overcooking an egg leads to a really strong sulphurous odour. So the sulphur that is naturally contained in the egg whites actually reacts with the iron in the yolks, resulting in that discoloration. So that olive green ring that you might see appear around the yolk. And this is due to that sulfide formation. So cooking the yolk releases the iron and cooking the whites releases the hydrogen sulphur. And that rotten egg smell, especially when eggs are overcooked,

is from the hydrogen sulphur and iron reacting to create hydrogen sulphide. As a side note, if anyone has tried a preserved egg, also known as the century egg or the thousand year egg, that unique traditional Chinese food, you would see that discoloration and smell that strong sulfurous odor now i know that pretty much answers the question yeah i think you've but if done it if there's one thing i know about our audience and the audiences who we've performed to yeah is that you can't have too much information. Oh, you cannot. So Dr. Jessica has explained how the experiments were done.

Amazing. Follow it through with more detail. Recently, Dr. C.K. Yao from Monash University used a novel in vitro gas profiling technology to assess real time the hydrogen sulfide measurement and assess its production following exposure to different dietary factors. So Dr. CK Yao's research showed us that readily fermentable fibers, resistant starch and fructans can suppress hydrogen sulfide even in the presence of excessive hydrogen sulfide stimulation. She mixed slurries from freshly passed healthy human feces and added different carbohydrates, which ranged in their

fermentation rate, and mixed it with cysteine alone or in different combinations. She used cysteine because we know that it's a major sulfur-containing component of meat, eggs, dairy, and other types of protein. And she sampled the hydrogen sulfide release every five minutes over a four-hour period. The results showed that resistant starch suppressed hydrogen sulfide production by a mean of 89%. And the fructan also reduced the hydrogen sulfide production by a mean 82%. And interestingly, the addition of the fructans to the slurries that contained cysteine

significantly suppressed hydrogen sulfide by 90%. So both resistant starch found in potatoes, bananas, legumes and some cereals and fructans found in wheat, rye, artichokes, reduced hydrogen sulfide production. Mechanistically, we know that these foods are highly fermentable, meaning they are preferentially broken down ahead of protein. So hydrogen sulfide was not produced as much. I'll make it very clear, all this gas sampling is not done in human. Yeah. It's a slurry in, I guess, a bucket or something in a lab. Yep.

This was one of the questions that Dr ck y'all was able to answer for me because i said when researching human gas emissions do you have to collect samples how is that valid question because i like to think that they just had a bunch of people lined up they walk around with a little little jar a little uh yeah pull everyone's finger while they collect it but dr ck said it was a the favorite question um yes my participants had to provide fresh fecal samples on demand wow in our laboratory uh laboratory in our laboratory i'm thinking of lavatory because in our lavatory lavatory lavatory yeah the lab lab and then she said they used to wait around for the time when they feel the urge to empty and collect them into a takeaway container i'm hoping it wasn't

just a like a noodle box yeah and then she says quite a few of them had stage fright yeah how about that yeah i think stage fright is still the wrong phrase to use yeah like it's a very niche show like whenever i've seen films or tv shows where you know the joke is that like someone took a dump or you know in you know they're like oh they took a dump in my lawn yeah on my car yeah i was like wow i don't know how i wouldn't have the confidence yeah Yeah. Because I would either. I don't know. When I got to go, I got to go. I'm not, I can't time it.

It controls me. Yeah. Volkswagen what around here? I also asked Dr. CK Yao about the fact that Gav and I often eat the exact same thing. And yet. And yet. He's the one getting woken up in the middle of that yeah yeah so she said it could be a lot of different factors differences in the types or amounts of gut bacteria that break down protein or metabolize sulfate might be one anatomical differences such

as your large bowel passage or transit could be another reason the longer it is the more time for fiber to be consumed by bacteria and turn by breaking down protein so i thought that was quite interesting geometry yeah yeah also the um the amount of gas doesn't necessarily relate to the smell yeah because i guess guess some gas is odourless. Yes. Some gas is horrific. Yeah. Yeah. So I had those answers as well. Of course, both Dr. Jessica and Dr. CK said,

if you are experiencing particularly smelly farts, something that feels a bit unnatural or unusual, definitely go see a doctor. So if it's not been ongoing and it's a new occurrence, speak to your doctor. It's a good rule of thumb. Yeah. Or even if it has been ongoing and you've never mentioned it to a doctor,

maybe. Maybe go ask them. Yeah. They're not going to be surprised or judge you about anything. No. No, not at all. But I wasn't going to get stopped. We don't bring it in a takeaway container, but carry on. Because I thought, right,

we've sort of given some rough examples of ways that you could reduce your smelly farts. Yeah. Yes, exactly. Well, actually, in some cases, no. Cabbage will make it worse. Oh, I gotcha. But I also wanted to see if there was anything in particular that was out there.

Right. Which is when I came across a french website for the for the pet pet pill pet pill you uh or pill you pet so pill is pill right pet fart oh fart pill fart pill and it's i'm going to show you a picture of the guy. I don't want to see this picture. Who has invented this. Oh, for the record, Becca's looking this up online. It hasn't been saved on her. Oh my goodness.

It's like the Father Christmas of farting. That's incredible. Oh my goodness. Okay. I take it back. It's somewhere between Father Christmas and a gnome or some kind of magical being there's there's a theme park theme park something called plopsaland what plopsaland i think it's in the netherlands i the first time i drove past the sign for plopsaland i lost my plop that's the

funniest thing i've seen in my life. And they've got like characters that advertise it. And he looks, that's what that reminds me of. Oh, right. Okay. It's not. No, no, no, no. It's like, it's like, you know, a theme park,

a perfectly family friendly theme park. It just happens to have a very funny name to my cultural ears. No, it's not like a poo themed theme park. Although I have no doubt that exists. People don't write in and tell us. So I asked Dr. Jessica Bukerski whether she thought if these pills were black. If Farta Christmas has something. Yeah.

So these pills apparently are meant to make your fart smell like roses. That's bold. Yeah. That's not even just neutralizing. That's the potpourri. Wow. Yeah, and the creator is someone called Lutin Malin. It says Lutin Malin is an inventor,

winner of the gold medal in 1999 at the prestigious Lépine Inventors Contest in France. Wow. There's loads of press about this. Never heard of it before, but now I'm amazed. Yeah, all this stuff. And they will take money in exchange for these pills? They will. Now, I'm not sure if we're going to get a full ding on this one. What, the pills specifically? Yeah. Right. But why? They

sound so good. I thought for the purposes of science. Uh-oh, you asked an expert, didn't you? I didn't only do that, Matt. I ordered some. Oh my God, of course you did asked an expert didn't you i didn't only do that matt i ordered some oh my and they haven't arrived yet oh my goodness but you get 60 pills in a pack so there is enough there is plenty it wasn't the quantity of them that i was concerned about what i'm saying is there is enough for both of us oh good oh good. Oh, okay. Yeah. Bring them next record. Oh, my gosh. And we're going to find out whether they work for either of us. If we have a record in the cupboard.

Oh, we'd be. We better. I hope they work. Yeah. Yeah. But obviously I didn't want to just be taking pills that we bought from the internet without checking with an expert first. So I checked it out. I'm afraid I'm not aware of any science to actually support these claims. Ideally, in a scientific setting, we would set up a series of studies to assess your fecal hydrogen sulfide response following manipulation

with various substrates of which one of these pills could be one. Interestingly, there was a study a while ago to develop some sort of absorptive device where they hypothesized that activated charcoal and zinc may actually remove the sulfur gases and eliminate the smell if used either internally or externally, so around the anus. And in this study, they tested a charcoal lined cushion that was instilled at the anus to absorb sulfur containing gases. Although they only assessed this in eight subjects, they did show that it limited the escape of these sulfur containing gases into the environment. I'll tag the papers below. And as a side note, look up charcoal fart pads. Interesting stuff.

That sounds like the polite science way of saying you've. I've just wasted. You've wasted your money. 19 euros. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, let's wait till we get them. Give them a go. Yeah.

Well, one thing I wanted to do was make sure that the ingredients weren't going to be anything that was too dodgy oh that's fair enough yeah smart yeah but i found that reading the list of ingredients sounded a little bit like the lyrics to a rather popular track so i sent those ingredients you took the ingredients for the i sent the list of ingredients of the fart pills of the pet pill you to a long time listener good firm friend yeah Gareth Turkington right wonderful actor and voice actor oh here we go and said uh could you do something with this oh my goodness and he sent this back Vegetable charcoal contributes to the proper functioning of the intestinal tract. Fart live and release flatulence and the feeling of fullness after a meal. Fart life.

The ESCOP and E2 have recognised the use of fennel seeds as a treatment for dyspepsia. Fart life. Probalis can prevent gastric ulcers and dry blueberries relieve diarrhoea. All the pep paloo. So many pep paloo So many pet paloo They all have lethal damage Lethal damage for your fart life Okay, that's... Gareth, thank you very much. That's incredible.

This is a comprehensive, I don't know how useful the song is for Professor Pippi Buttle. Yes. Name redacted. It cheered me up. It's your new ringtone. However, yeah, exactly. That's how I open and close all my shows now.

However, very early on, the type of starch? Resistant starch. Resistant starch and? Fructans. And fructans. I mean, I feel like you've solved the problem. And you've explored other avenues just to rule them out. Yes.

In both peer-reviewed science and parody song. Yes. And we might even be able to recommend a pill at some point. We will find out at some point. But probably not. But I would say even with that still pending, this is a ding. Yes. Ding.

Have a dinglet for you, Matt this is from benjamin yep who says when does a computer become a supercomputer and do publicly purchasable personal computers surpass the capabilities of the first slash early supercomputers if so how much how much would it cost? By the way, that is a tongue twister. That is a heck of a problem. There's a lot of P's and C's in that one. A lot of P's and C's, a lot of pops. Thank goodness we got pop guards on these microphones. I know, especially after the last problem.

So yes. So Benjamin, good question. When is a computer a supercomputer? It turns out if it's just a really good computer. There's no hard and fast rule. It's just, is your computer super? Yes. It's a supercomputer.

Are you serious? Yeah. It's just whether you name it a supercomputer? Well, it basically means it's way more powerful than your standard computer. And if you have a standard computer like my laptop that's in front of us or my computer over there, it's got a processor which might have a couple cores which is like processors within it like i was going to say every computer you use is going to be more powerful than probably the ones i use probably yes that's because i do ridiculous computational things with

them yeah but they're still off the shelf computers with arguably one processor yeah with you know again sub cores all that jazz maybe a gpu your graphical processor that's about it and and it's very general purpose like the i mean the gpu is a bit closer to what a supercomputer would be because it's made for a very specific task like the reason you have a separate graphics processor is you can like you can build it from the ground up to be good at just doing the sorts of calculations you need for graphics whereas your cpu has got to do whatever you throw at it so it's very general purpose a supercomputer is when you just get a lot of processors together to do a very specific task like a type of calculation and you just join a whole bunch of them together until you've got enough for it to be super and that's kind of

it so if we connected yeah our oh my gosh it's like voltron or like the power rangers zorg i'm gonna go with voltron i'd also accept the transformers when a bunch of them joined together to make a big one yeah because you're right're right. You just put a bunch together. Famously, people have made supercomputers out of like PlayStations. The US Air Force once joined together 176 PS3s because they can run a variation of Unix and they just joined them all together and made a supercomputer that sounds like something you would have done for your youtube channel oh it's so well there is a whole so i studied a little bit of computer science when i was at uni and but the whole way of how you program things

to distribute tasks to be done in parallel by all these processes is a is a huge area of research and undertaking so these, you've got to then be able to run calculations on them that can be done in a meaningful manner across all these different processes at once and then bring it all back together. But done properly, it's incredible. See, this is how I feel about how I, this is like how the difference between how you function and I function. Like I feel like i am just the ps3 and you're all the ps3 no that's not true definitely not true no i i'm like the very specific chip that just does one one thing which is calculations yeah but you can do a lot of things

which you've got a gui yeah that's true um no i'm gonna do. I can multi-thread. Whereas I'm an etch-a-sketch. I can skip between things. I always think, and this is a thing I've gone about a long time. No, it's going to be a whole distraction. Let's not do that. Yeah. I, much like an etch-a-sketch, if you shake me above your head, I forget what I'm meant to be doing too.

So that's an accurate. We're both full of magnetic filings. I have been Inside Two supercomputers In my life I hope you bought them Dinner first

Well No I It's a family podcast Do you want to guess where Two supercomputers So this is interesting This is both

Where do you think A supercomputer would be And where do you think I would be able to go And get access To a supercomputer Okay I didn't get to run any processes i literally just got to walk around is one in leicester no exeter it was at the met that is not what i was thinking oh you're right yeah like the weather office that do all the calculations that's in the southwest yeah of

the uk of the uk the met yeah as in the met gala not the met gala oh my goodness the meteorological people they've got supercomputers for predicting the weather oh yeah and so they run all their simulations on it's basically like a server farm you're in a big room with just rack after rack of processors is it like what all of the whenever there's like a film with something to do with computers and someone has to go and like destroy the mainframe. Exactly that. It's that. Exactly that.

And the other one is. Wait, I want to guess. Here we go. Yep. Not in the UK. Not in Australia. Okay. The US.

Not in the US. Oh. It's in Europe. Denmark. Switzerland. Oh, because it's cold there and they could keep the computers cold that's a good no but the amount of air like air conditioning as such like the ventilation stuff to keep these chips cool is yeah incredible undertaking huh soon the met office emailed we're on tour with spoken nerd and

said you're doing a show nearby do you want to drop by and see our supercomputer i'm like yes yeah and soon i was there anyway doing some stuff some other bits and pieces and i said can i see your supercomputer and they're like yes you may walk around in our supercomputer so when you say so basically in all those cases all you're really doing is you're just got a lot of processes all joined together that said you can still put a number on how big a computer is by how many floating point calculations it can do per second and floating point just means doing calculations on a type of number that's got a decimal point which actually means you can have very big numbers and very small numbers it's the scientific notation of numbers yep and you can measure how many of those per second a computer can do so at the time of recording apple claim

the iphone 12 can do 11 billion floating point operations per second so just to make this a bit easier it's 11 followed by nine zeros. It's a lot of zeros. So it's roughly 10 to the power of 10. Yep. The current batch of supercomputers are doing roughly 10 to the power of 17 calculations per second. Wow. Which makes a supercomputer about 10 million times faster than an iphone 12 or to put it another way

to rival the current top supercomputers you need to have 10 million iphones joined together wow and that's a phone though if you get a current mac like if you get one of the new m1 max and you just look at their gpus the graphics chip which is the kind of chips you probably want to use in a supercomputer they claim they're doing on the order of two and a half trillion calculations per second oh which is way more yeah because obviously it's a much bigger chip it's got better ability to remove heat all those things things. That we're talking, that's only like 100,000th of a supercomputer. So 100,000 Mac laptops could give you a top supercomputer. I mean, obviously you far fewer.

This is why there's only a couple hundred PS3s. Like it depends how many you need. But the absolute best supercomputers at the moment would be still on the order of hundreds of thousands of laptops. Right, but if you were going for the lowest... Yeah, far fewer. What you're saying is the difference is a computer or 100 PS3s. Yeah, yeah, give or take, give or take.

But the question from Benjamin was when does it become a supercomputer and how does it compare to ones of the past? if you think think about it computers yeah exactly i'm working my way around uh working my way around to benjamin's problem here and so there's a thing called moore's law where computers get twice as powerful every two years ah as a general rule of thumb every two years chips are roughly tight why don't you just say one times as powerful every one year? I will leave that to you to work out. Or zero times as powerful. Zero times, it'll be zero.

Yeah, so Moore's Law predicts that computers get faster. And Moore's Law is held for like half a century now, partly because chip manufacturers use it to set their targets so it's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy at this point but it still means if you want to roughly work out what's going to be happening in the future you can use it as a as a very vague guide this means if you wait for an iphone to catch up to the current best supercomputers, it's going to take about 46 years. Oh, my goodness.

That's potentially within our lifetime. Yeah, so the supercomputers now, potentially once we're super old, how does this thing work? We'll be using phones with the same computing power as the absolute best computers now. Ah, it'll be a chip in our heads by then. Whereas a laptop, a Mac laptop should eclipse the current best supercomputers in about 30 years.

Wow. Give or take. But then I was like, well, you know what? I'm talking about the future. I could predict the weather on my own computer. Exactly. And your own phone. But I wouldn't put it past our listeners to wait and check in 30 and 46 years, respectively.

But we can look backwards. Oh, yeah. And say, if I say a phone in 46 years from now will be the equivalent of a modern supercomputer. If I say a phone in 46 years, let's say 50 years from now, will be the equivalent of today's supercomputer. Is a phone now the equivalent of a supercomputer from 50 years ago when the first Crays were coming out? They were great supercomputers. They had a bench built in so you could sit down while they're doing a calculation. I love the Cray, the original Cray supercomputers.

So I looked back and the old Crays were doing about 160 million floating point calculations per second. Okay. million floating point calculations per second okay which is the equivalent of 68 and three quarter iphone 12s which is on the order of give or take one percent of a modern iphone 12 so actually a modern iphone the cutting edge iPhone, is about 70 times more powerful than a supercomputer from 1975. Oh, my goodness. This is terrifying, that is. It's terrifying. So there you are, Benjamin.

I hope that answers your question. Yes, about 50 years and a phone would be the equivalent to a supercomputer. Ding that. Thank you. Now it's time to take care of any AO business. Bec, what have we got in the AOB inbox this time? Yeah, someone wrote in to us to say, I think you need a website slash wiki page so that we can easily see

the previous questions asked and their solutions. There you could also include links to your sources or the spreadsheet slash code Matt makes for certain problems as well as pictures. I think that's a great idea. That's a great idea. Who sent that in? Matthew. Matthew.

Not me, by the way. Not you. I mean, I agree with Matthew, though. So do I. Because I forget what we've done in this podcast. The problem with the podcast is it's very conversational. We mean that in like a literal sense. We just sit down and chat.

Yeah. And that becomes the podcast. Yeah. And then Lauren, the producer. Turns it into like. Makes it sound good. Makes it sound like a legitimate. Cuts out all of our. Hours.

Hours of ramble. Yeah. No two consecutive words are left next to each other once the edit is done. Yeah, that's right. Totally reconstructed from the ground up. Lauren has to cut out every word and then she has a little soundboard. Yeah, exactly. Just plays it back in again.

Yeah. So, I mean, I forget what we've talked about. I don't know if I've mentioned stuff on the podcast. So a wiki would be really useful. Yeah, but we are not making it. We have not got the time or resources for that. If anyone wants to make a wiki, we will do whatever we can to help. Yes.

We can make the assets available from the the episodes yeah yep as in like all the pictures and stuff we share files and stuff i put some code on github but i could be better at that i'm happy to you know it's terrible code though but yeah anyway but some kind of definitive list just even a bare bones outline of all the problems we've solved in the world. Yeah. And then we can count them. We'll know how many dings have we had. Yeah. Because when's the hundredth ding coming up? I think we've already had it.

No. Yeah. This is episode 033. There's no way we've averaged three dings in an episode. We did some quickfire ones. Oh, that's a good point. But even then, I swear the average is going to be between one and two. The point is.

The point is. If anyone out there wants to undertake a project, get in touch. Get in touch. Get us on our problemsquared.com. Go to the problem posing page. It's the internet. Or just do it. Go wild.

Yeah, let us know. Thank you so much to all of our listeners who, by definition, listen to the internet. Or just do it. Go wild. Yeah, let us know. Thank you so much to all of our listeners who, by definition, listen to the podcast. Some of you review it and share it. Greatly appreciated. We thoroughly enjoy being able to sit down and make this. But let's not forget the most important people that make this happen is us. So God and us.

But on top of that, see, I do that just to make Bec laugh. Just to make sure I'm listening. Exactly. Just to check. Because you think I'm going to thank the Patreon See, I do that just to make Bec laugh. Just to make sure I'm listening. Exactly. Just to check. Because you think I'm going to thank the Patreon supporters. I do. And I thanked us again. You did.

What do you like? Anyway, the Patreon supporters are why we're able to pay the bills. Expensive fart pills. Oh, my goodness. You've spent more on fart pills than ever before in this episode. And I picked three names completely at random, rigorously at random, and we thanked them, which this episode is Andy Haney. Bernard Deber.

And David Veras. Veras? Yeah. Veras. Dave. I think that's Veras. Thanks, Dave. Ferris Dave I think that's Ferris Thanks Dave This episode of A Problem Squared

Featured Beck Hill And myself Matt Parker It was produced And somehow edited By the notorious LAC Lauren Armstrong Carter Oh, and Beck. Oh, I put my deck down.

Hang on. Sorry. In the interest of full transparency, we're recording this the same day as the previous episode, so I haven't had a chance to go and get my actual deck. So once again, I'm clutching at cards. Is this your card? No.

So unfair. Next time.