A Problem Squared - 043 = Millennia Tripled and Why Are Males Nippled?

Episode Date: September 26, 2022

In this episode... * We run the numbers on the 2002 hit song 'Year 3000' * Why do all humans have nipples? * And, A Problem Squared goes to New York City!  If you happen to be in New York City at 4pm on Saturday the 8th of October, Matt will be performing with A Podcast of Unnecessary Detail. That's at Caveat Comedy Club in Manhattan!  You can find tickets for that, here: https://caveat.nyc/events/aeoud-10-8-2022  Please send your New York related problems to the Problem Solving Page, and tag it 'New York'.  Juat a reminder that you can now buy APS merch! Head on over to: https://a-problem-squared.teemill.com. As always, if you've got a problem or a solution, hit us up on our website aproblemsquared.com. And if you want want even more from A Problem Squared, find us on Twitter and Instagram.

somewhere in the dark nasty regions where nobody goes stands an ancient cupboard deep within this dank and uninviting place lives beck ally overworked servant of the Matt Parker. Beck, feed me. But that's nothing compared to the problems sent in by their listeners. For there are always questions being posed from the website wanting to be read out. Don't you open that spreadsheet. You're a fool if you dare. Don't you open that spreadsheet. You're a fool if you dare. Don't you open that spreadsheet.

Because it's problem squared. That's good. Thank you. For the listeners record, all the problems you enter in the problem posing page go into a spreadsheet. Yes. And that's the spreadsheet that we are. That is the spreadsheet. Being warned not open. Don't open it. Don't open that spreadsheet. More than a spreadsheet. Yes. And that's the spreadsheet that we are. That is the spreadsheet. Being warned not open.

Don't open it. Don't open that spreadsheet. More than a thousand. That show, Trapdoor, terrified me as a kid. Yeah. So, hello. Welcome. Welcome to the podcast.

Any new listeners, this is not the Trapdoor. This is a Problem Squared, a podcast where myself, Beck, chill. Beck, chill. Be chill. You're doing a Halloween special. Technically, yes. It's the end of September, so we're about to go into October. Beck chill Beck chill be chill you're doing a Halloween special technically yes it's the end of September so we're about to go into October

we're about to go into spooky season I'm joined by that other voice the bodiless voice that's me there's no one else in the room Beck what Matt died 50 years ago

that is comedian mathematician YouTuber extraordinaire Matt Parker. Yeah, correct. Yeah.

And yes. Yes. You were talking about the trap. Yeah. That was me parodying the opening to The Trap Door, which for anyone who doesn't know was a stop motion animation. Yeah. They're only about five minute episodes. And they came out.

Guess when they came out? I remember watching them in what would have been the late 80s. Yeah, I remember the 90s. Right. So when did they come out? 86. 86? The Trapdoor is as old as me.

There you go. Wow. That blows my mind. I remember there was one where there was a bit where he leaves the castle. This little blue guy, he leaves it and it ends. And you're like, that's the last episode. Like I was,

it blew my mind. And then after the credits, he showed back up and he was like, all right, I'm back. And that was it. And it was my first experience of a post credit. This is way before Marvel.

Yeah. And I couldn't believe it. I was so, I thought it was the funniest thing I'd seen. I thought it was the cleverest, like to me, it was so avant-garde. That's amazing. Yeah.

And since then, I've always been obsessed with post-credit things. You watch Solar Opposites. It's all the sci-fi ridiculousness of Justin Roland from Rick and Morty. Without being as problematic? Without being problematic. I absolutely love it. And they have done my all-time favorite setting up a post-credit gag. Oh, okay.

I'm going to have to watch it now just for that. So good. Oh, anyway, we're doing a podcast. Oh, yeah. And in this episode. I've run the numbers on the 2002 hit song Year 3000 by Busted. I'm looking at nipples. And I've got a problem.

And solving a problem. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the Problem Squareds are going to New York. Ooh. More of that in any other business. All right, Matt. I'm okay.

How have you been since we last spoke? My voice is croakier. It is croaky. Yeah, I thought I'd better flag that up. I prefer to say How have you been since we last spoke? My voice is croakier. It is croaky. Yeah, I thought I'd better flag that up. I prefer to say husky. Husky. Yeah. I'll take husky.

I think I mentioned this maybe in the Patreon only bonus. I'm a wizard podcast that I was going to be doing a geometric building thing at a festival. Yes. I have now done that. Yeah. So now you can talk about what it is. I can now talk about it. Instead of just saying geometrical building. Oh, yeah. I was making mirror balls. Yes. festival yes i have now done that yeah so now you can talk about what i can now talk about instead

of just saying geometrical building oh yeah i was making mirror balls yes so there's a big festival called the big feast of all which is in the cotswolds it's achingly middle age middle class middle everything middle england it was founded by um alex james from, wasn't it? Yeah, bass player from Blur. The cheese one. The cheese one, who's also a big maths fan. So rock star Alex James watches maths videos about YouTube and reached out one time to say, hey, I love your videos. Do you want to come to my festival and eat some cheese? Of course he did. And I said, yes.

I assume all his rock star friends just think that I'm his accountant or something. Like that's the only logical explanation for why lucy and i are milling around that's so unfair to yourselves it's so true though come on interesting people yeah no oh yeah and where there is like his pet scientists so we'll talk to his other buddies artists and and whatnot about science and math and stuff which is great fun and we thoroughly enjoy it he He was like, Brian Cox is doing well. Oh yeah. Maybe I should go down that route. Exactly.

This is the, that's it. You go rockstar and you go science or math. He's like, Hey, that math, that's math star. That's the direction.

They say you do, you work in STEM twice in your career. You do on the way up and on the way down. So, yeah. So as many times we'd discussed doing a mass thing at the festival. And so, I said, because Alex James has kind of like a festival inside a festival. They're like the big festival that's on his property, his farm.

And within that, because then that's run by a proper festival. He's got his own cheese hub, which is like a converted. It's where the sheep live the rest of the year. They put in DJs and bars. and he has his own sub festival and i'm like how about we do a geometric building activity where i make geometric mirror balls that will go up in the dance section of the cheese up now mirror balls are technically geometric though aren aren't they? A lot of things are. Yeah, that's true. But they're made of little squares. Yes.

Who sticks squares on a sphere? That's the worst way. I see. The worst way to do it. So I looked up other ridiculous shapes that approximate a sphere. Found one which had 150 faces. It was only discovered in 2019, I think, a couple of years ago. Crazy shape.

I loved it. I thought it would make a great disco ball, specifically a mirror ball. And particularly because it's a shape with handedness. Handedness. Handedness. As in it's got chirality. As in there's a right-handed. It's a perfectly cromulent word.

That's a real word. It really embiggens the ball. It embiggens the symmetries. Right. No. So you've got like a right-handed and a left-handed version. Because if... Actually, there's a football in my office right behind your back.

That football, if you looked at it in the mirror, would be indistinguishable from the original football. Oh, yes. It's perfectly symmetric. Got it. But some shapes, if you look at them in the mirror, look different because they flip. If you look at a left-handed and a mirror, it looks like a right-handed. Yes. And so we use that as an expression to say left or right-handed and then we generalize that to say there's like a left and

a right-handed versions of shapes and are these two-dimensional three-dimensional they can be any number of dimensions you can have whether or not seven correct you can have seven it's one heck of a disco so it depends what you're on in the disco yeah it depends if you can see through time or not so i designed a mirror ball that had chirality and then we built both versions the left-handed and the right-handed which are themselves mirrors of each other and then they were suspended and they rotated in opposite directions so they moved like they were mirror images of mirror balls. That's cool. And I thought I was terribly clever.

Yeah. Had a good laugh. A friend of mine laser cut an awful lot of mirrored acrylic and then we built them and installed them at the festival. But the reason that links to my croaky voice is this was right in the heat wave in the UK. Oh, yeah. And the farm was incredibly dusty.

We were building right where the DJs were. And so i spent basically a weekend inhaling dust and yelling over djs right my voice has still not fully recovered from that experience ah your life is worth it for the balls i know i'm not here for sympathy i'm just here i need to explain myself how have you been i've been well i went to a festival as well i went to end of the road festival which is in dorset pretty much the end of the road i endorse it it's so much fun it's a really fun festival it's good for families but it's also just good for people who don't want to go too hard at a festival but still want to go medium yeah there's a really

nice forest where they pull these lovely lights installations. They walk through and it's very pretty. And the comedy part is so fun. There's a big slope and they just put these hay bales on. Everyone sits on the slope. And then they have a stage at the front, a bit like an amphitheater. There is something very nice from a performer's perspective of looking at an audience from an amphitheater sort of thing. Because you can see them all. Yeah, they're great. They can all hear better so yeah it was really really fun i did a an entirely new set

so i decided to do a bit that i was trying out which was my celebrity pun fair celebrity pun fair yeah puns on celebrity names so i had the ferris wheel which was just pictures of matthew broderick's face i made a puppet it's i'll see if you can guess what the pun is all right it's a fun fair setting yep the puppet is a coconut with a little beret black curly mustache and big arms and muscles as if it's topless with a six pack. Ah, it's a strong coconut. What's the strong strength tester? It's nothing to do with that.

Right. You also threw things at coconuts to try and knock them off the thing. You do? Do you know what it's called? I do not know what that is called. A coconut whack? No. Should be.

Roll up, roll up. Roll up the coconut whack. Here's the coconut. Whack a nut, win a prize. Whack a nut is the most aussie version so it's called a coconut shy a coconut what shy shy yeah s-h-y so coconut shy lester stallone oh you do you know what you're not far off like you are but but that was pretty good okay okay what was it i kind of don't want to say now i kind of want people to guess Oh really?

Okay let's do it Okay we're not going to say I'm not going to say We'll put the video up And then people will guess Wow They'll reply to it Yeah

People love that stuff Okay people want to guess Bec you're going to put it on the At a problem squared Twitter account Yeah People reply with what they think People probably got it Listening to this now

I want everyone to put shilester stallone yes see if we can force a name change do you know what someone else guessed one that was not correct but a really fun one and i really enjoy those quite a lot as well but then it all worked up to the final bit which i think i might start doing more often i ended it with getting the audience we're going to go on the world's largest roller coaster not in terms of going up or down or anything doesn't go higher it's just that it's really wide so right the audience are all sitting in one one big carriage yeah yeah so uh i said we're gonna play some music and when we're going

up everyone goes we're going down everyone goes put your hands in the air and then we'll move move around side to side and i was like hit it and so they start playing never gonna give you up gonna let you down but that was of course the um rick roller coaster hey oh my god i didn't even see that sneaking up on me amazing out of yeah it was fun but i'll tell you what i forgot to say that punchline what so we did it we played the music and then i was like thanks very much bye and then i walked off and then the wonderful huge davies who was on after me i said to him i forgot to do my punchline can you say it and he was like okay and he's quite

deadpan in his delivery of stuff so he just walked on he was like the first thing he said was like beck just said she forgot to say a punchline which was rick rollercoaster and then just shrugged but it was wonderful like to imagine the audience like you don't do the punchline and like for the next month audience members are just waking up in the morning going rick rollercoaster this first problem is for you, Matt. It's from Simon. And Simon says, in Busted's 2002 hit, Year 3000, they proclaim that your great-great-great-granddaughter

is pretty fine. Assuming technological advances in keeping humans alive. They do live underwater now, after all. We'll get to that. A reference to the lyrics. What is the youngest this great, great granddaughter could be with just five generations separating you in the year 2002 and her in the year 3000?

I'd totally forgotten about this song. I don't think I'd heard it since the 2000s. I had never heard of it. Really? Even when it got played to me, I was like, nut, doesn't ring a bell. Wow. I don't know how I missed it, but I had never heard of it really even when it got played to me i was like nut doesn't ring a bell wow never i don't know how i missed it but i had never heard of it and when i did the 2019 show i'll be back where the premise was i go to the future and then tell everyone what's happening

in the future when i was asking people what do you want to know about the future so many people were like do we live underwater underwater and you're like, what? And I was like, I just assumed everyone was asking because of the climate crisis. No, it was a bastard song. But yeah, it was all reference. A boy band from England. Yeah. Called Busted. But you weren't, were you in uni in 2000?

Oh, I was. Yes. And you went to uni here, didn't you? No, I was in Western Australia, in WA. I don't know why I know it. But it would have been like I heard it on commercial radio or in shops or that kind of. Maybe I was deep in my Triple J phase by then. Me too.

I wouldn't have heard it on Triple J. Yeah. I think because I moved to the UK in 2005. Maybe it was still in rotation at that point. It might have just been still in rotation. That might be it. So, I had to look it up. So, I kind of half recognized it from the problem,

but I went and watched the video and then downloaded the lyrics. And just to help us, I've printed out two copies of the lyrics. Oh, okay. So just for reference, I thought before we get to the great, great granddaughter, we should just work out, given that these people have been to the year 3000 and discovered much about the future. Those of us who know that they live underwater, but we should just check through the rest of it the rest of it

yeah now a lot of it is set up they put a surprising amount of effort into explaining how they got to the year 3000 which is the obvious question yeah that's true a level a level of detail they don't carry on throughout the rest of the song. Okay. They don't really commit. No. But also, it's a bit of a cheat. To summarize the first verse, they heard a noise, went outside. One of their neighbors, who they name Peter, I don't know why, doesn't appear again, had built a flux capacitor-based time machine, like from Back to the Future. It'll be because Peter rhymes a little bit with capacitor

you think so yeah a real labored rhyme i i don't know the tune of the song so i don't i'm reading this as if it's a poem it comes off worse was my neighbor called peter and a flux capacitor like i that's maybe yeah but do you expect more from a boy band shall i play that bit in and you can see if it rhymes okay yeah okay let me just pull it up one day when i came home at lunchtime i heard a funny noise went out to the backyard to find out if it was one of those lucky boys there was my neighbor called peter and a flux capacitor no it is peter oh wow yeah okay i'll it back. Are there better names that rhyme with flux capacitor?

If your name rhymes with flux capacitor, please. Let us know if there's a better name. At a problem squared on social media. No, at Busted. So it's not too late to fix the lyrics. And then they explain the neighbor built a time machine from a film. Oh, my gosh. And then Busted joined with the band McFly to become McBusted.

But McFly is the surname of Marty. Oh, my. There you go. Wow. They were foreshadowing McBusted. Yeah. By a decade. Because they went to the future.

And they knew. They knew. Oh, my goodness. That's the whole premise of the whole song. We're getting right to the bottom of this. So far, everything holds together quite neatly. Now we hit the chorus. And this is where the vast majority of the information comes from.

Oh, this is in the voice of the neighbor though. He said. Oh yeah. I've been to the year 3000. Not much has changed, but they lived underwater. So that's where that came from. And your great, great, great granddaughter is pretty fine. So.

Is pretty fine. His neighbor, Peter. His neighbor, Peter is telling Busted. great great granddaughter is pretty fine so it's pretty fine his neighbor peter his neighbor peter is telling busted he went to the future and he saw that person i assume someone from buses great great granddaughter who is quote unquote pretty fine right in the kind of casual misogyny you'll get in very early 2000s boy band and it doesn't get better they get in the car. They go to the future. In the flux thing. Yeah.

Flux thing. Flux thing. Come on, mate. Come on, people. Also, when he said his neighbor was standing there, you know, was my neighbor Peter and a flux capacitor. Like the flux capacitor is in the DeLorean. It's a small. And actually, if you look in the video, it is a DeLorean.

There. Well, it's not. It's a car. It's not a DeLorean. And actually, if you look in the video, it is a DeLorean. Well, it's not. It's a car. It's not a DeLorean. It looks like some kind of late 80s, early 90s car. Furious. They comment upon the women of the future. Yeah.

This is the theme. Yes. Yes. First of all, they comment there's lots of boy bands. Okay. Just to put everyone's mind at ease. Or just that they're aware that they're not that talented. They're not that talented.

Anyone can do it. Plenty of them. Oh, it's a reference to Total Recall. It's Total Recall, yeah. So it says, a warning for anyone with small children listening. I mean, it is a perfectly normal body part. Triple-breasted women swim around town totally naked. That's the line in its entirety.

And so maybe they went back to the 1980s. Which, to be fair, that is just an observation. Just an observation. State and facts. They drove around in their time machine. Then they reiterate they've been to the year 3000. Everyone's underwater. Great, great granddaughter.

Just more repetition. More of that. Because boy band. Then they point out that the song that we're listening to has gone multi-platinum. Oh, okay. Which is meta. Yeah, it's a bit hopeful isn't it everyone bought their seventh album okay and it outsold michael jackson how many albums

have busted brought out as of now yeah four okay so they've they've only got to make three in the 1,000, no, 982 years. 78, so close. Oh, so close. You added the 2,000. I added the 2,000, yeah. Easy mistake. This is why I've never been to the year 3,000. Exactly.

You wouldn't get your flux thing working. I wouldn't get my flux thing. I'd go into the past. I'd do the wrong calculation. You would be in total recall. Yeah. Here's my issue. Oh, by the way way the rest of it the

rest of the song is time machine 3000 underwater great-great-granddaughter year 3000 underwater great-great-granddaughter year 3000 underwater great-great-granddaughter 3000 underwater they just they repeat that another four times that's right there's no additional information so the next three albums might just be the same album yeah they're not against padding it out that's how i outsold michael jackson they just kept now this song came out before michael jackson died yes obviously they went to after michael jackson died yeah so all i can imagine is they got there, realized he died not that long after the song came out and realized on a technicality, they're now outselling Michael Jackson.

You're thinking in terms of outselling in the current sense. Yeah. I think what they're saying is as of the year 3000, they are outselling Michael Jackson. Yeah. Because at the time, this was their first album. They'd only been a band for two years when this song came out. So they're projecting in the future, they're bigger than Michael Jackson. Yes. And what I think they've realized, they've got to the future, this was their first album. They'd only been a band for two years when this song came out. So they're projecting in the future they're bigger than Michael Jackson. Yes.

And what I think they've realized, they've got to the future, realized he's deceased and gone on a technicality. If we're vague with the wording, we can go back to the past. No, but you're assuming that everyone stops buying Michael Jackson albums after he dies. No, that's a good point. Yeah. No. Okay. And even...

A thousand years in the future, you reckon there. yeah no okay and even a thousand years in the future you reckon there all things considered surrounding that that we won't delve into on the podcast but people are still very much buying michael jackson oh that's very true yeah first issue before we get to the great great great granddaughter is how are they a thousand years in the future only seven albums into what is by all accounts a very successful and still current career yeah they are obviously not releasing albums at a standard rate and are they saying that they're there yeah they're there in the year 3000 still active performers still selling out concerts yeah i took it to mean the seventh album had just come out they formed in the year 2000

they released their first album in the year 2003 when this song these predictions were made their nostradamus moment all right they released the second album the next year and you're like that is a generous rate to only do seven in a millennium They then ceased to be a band in 2005. Right. As everyone's like, well, these predictions of still being a band, ridiculous. But then as you pointed out, they became McBusted. And then they became fully busted. They reformed in 2015.

Oh. The predictions were true. I see. They reformed and produced another two albums. Which is why they're now up to four. After a 10-year break. And so what I figure is they're not like a regular band who are just putting out albums at a semi-regular interval. They will release a pair of albums and then go into stasis.

Oh, it's like me on YouTube. It's like you on YouTube, yeah. And then release another pair of albums or videos and then disappear again. Oh, so you're sensing a pattern. I'm sensing a pattern. Right. Now for this pattern to result in the seventh album coming out around the year 3000, they need to have another very long stasis, two more albums,

another very long stasis, two more albums. And those last two are the seventh and eighth ones, and they have to straddle the year 3000. I see. And so I figured what if each stasis is a multiple of the previous one? Okay. And if each time that they disband is 9.4373 times longer than the previous one, they will reform the final time in the year 2998. Perfect.

Just in time yeah to bring out the seventh album to then have their past selves show up in the flux thing yeah so as long as their disbandings become exponentially longer like a multiple of the previous one that all checks out great that's okay that's dealt with now the great the great, great, great granddaughter. They see their future selves in the video. They have not aged that much. They've aged a couple of decades, not a thousand years. Right.

And you were comparing images of them. Yes, I looked at what they look like now compared to what the actors that play them in the video look like. And they didn't get it quite right so you could argue yeah that they were replaced by people like every time they who situation yeah each time they go into stasis there's a new one regenerates yeah that could be it so let's see the first two times it was the same people yep so the next two times would be different people i just figured how long is the stasis between those ones they get pretty long the final one they're out of action they have the first gap for 10 years they have another gap

which is 94.3 then they have a gap that's 889.25 years yeah and then they're back in action so i reckon each time it doesn't quite fit because the first two are them that yeah they do well we think i haven't compared actually i would compare pictures of them from recently maybe it's not the same people maybe they're different people yeah there's a conspiracy no one's gonna care about about when McBusted reformed in 2015. They also regenerated. Yeah. I just think it was medical advances and whatever they do to extend their lifetime altered their appearance slightly. I feel like that's a... I think it's more realistic.

That was they come out of the cocoon each time. They look different. There's so many bad... Like the Wiggles aren't the original lineup anymore, are they? No, they're a complete overhaul of the Wiggles. Yeah. It's a Sugar Babes situation. Yeah, exactly.

So, I think that's what's happened. I think you're right. I think it's churn. Yeah. Yeah. But still with disbandings. And then when they reform, they recast. Yeah, exactly.

And the ones that form the band in 2998. Yep. Might be so talented that even though Michael Jackson has had over a thousand years of sales. It's so good. The 7th album. It outsells them. Outsells them. Amazing.

I think you're right. I'm looking forward to it. Okay. Now onto the great, great, great granddaughter. Okay. Issue. Outsells them. Amazing. I think you're right. I'm looking forward to it. Okay. Now onto the great, great, great granddaughter issue. Yeah. It's too long with current generational lengths for that to happen. Right. So part of the problem was how many generations would that actually be?

Okay. And so I then, I looked up. And we know this from the family tree stuff you did in episode 034. So I then, I looked up- And we know this from the family tree stuff you did in episode 034. Was it novel seal of approval and distant family? For the record, Beck writes the titles. I do. It was a good one.

Whatever it was, it was great. Yeah, it rhymed. Anyway. We know some family trees. Yes. And when I was looking at how many generations we are away from a common harbor seal. Now, I double checked my working out for that. I didn't include, like, proper human generations.

I just had different mammals along the way. And so I thought, you know what? This time I'm going to properly look into what is the average human generation length. Yeah, because it used to be that people would be having kids before they were 20 or around early 20s now at least in our society it's closer to 30s yeah but it's interesting the difference between people going oh we think it's this it's about that versus actually working out what's

happened oh historically so some people analyzed the last 250,000 years of human evolution to work out the changing average generational gap. Wow. And it's substantially different by sex. So I looked up. This is human generational times across the past 250,000 years by some researchers in Indiana and Houston. And what they did was they looked at parts of DNA and genes that we know mutate at very predictable rates. They could track how they changed across different human populations

across the last quarter million years, which is all modern humans. And then they were able to work out how much the average generation was across time and they could split it out comparing male to female only generational and when we're talking generation here we're talking like the difference between when someone is born to when that person then has children correct it is the average age of an individual across all the times they had offspring. Okay. I think that's an accurate definition. So obviously, if you have loads of kids, you're going to be different ages when you have them. But then you average your ages across all the children you have.

Got it. And the male generational gap is consistently bigger than the female generational gap. And they don't go into why but across wide across history i'd argue it's because males can have offspring up until they die arguably yeah whereas females can't and childbirth is one of the larger causes of mortality yeah so that could be a factor. I'm not qualified enough to speculate. But here is the plot. Oh.

And so we'll share this. It's a fine looking graph. Now it's a bit confusing in so much as it's backwards. So this is the, it starts at the modern day and then goes back in time. Oh, interesting. And you're looking at a log plot. Like my flux thing. Like a flux thing.

And you're looking at a log plot of number of generations on the x-axis so it goes back to 10 000 generations ago which if it's an average of you know 25 years per generation is about 250 000 years okay you can see from 10 000 generations ago to about a thousand generations ago the average generation length was gradually going up until it's like high 20s. And actually for the male generational gap, it's over 30. And then it gradually came back down again. And now in modern times, it's going back up again. Okay.

And so there's been some drift back and forth over human existence. And I don't know if you could argue this is on the order of us living in cities and agriculture. I'm just speculating, looking at the shape and the timeline. That's probably the recent uptick coming back up again. But their results were, across the entire thing, the average generational length across quarter million years of human history is 26.9 years, plus or minus 3.4 years. Okay. You can plus or minus 3.4 years. Okay. You can then split that out. The average male generational link was 30.7 years plus or minus 4.8 years.

And the average female generational link is 23.2 years plus or minus 3 years. Wow. So now it depends if your great, great, great granddaughter doesn't mean every generation with daughters in between, I assume. It just means through a bunch of descendants. Yes. Eventually daughter.

Yes. Is fine. So we want to take the average generational length for this, which gives you 37.1 generations. Wow. Over a thousand years. Great, great. From 2002, 998 years great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great

great great great great great great great great great great great great great grant oh you did too too many start again great 35 greats yeah yes going back to our previous one although you could argue that the first generation is already alive so you're already one generation in before you start counting because they're talking to someone yes so arguably you knock one off so you don't need like or you or you'd you'd add one because you've got enough time to do 37 more generations so it would be your 38th generation by then because the first generation is already alive to be sung at in the song yeah check out they've heard this noise about the flux thing yeah so there's to answer one part of the problem

that's you're talking 35 36 greats depending on if you count the generation I'm being sung at. Then we go, hang on, what if this is accurate? What if it is great granddaughter? And actually the gap in generations is going up. Obviously we're living longer. Generational gaps are going to get bigger. I thought maybe it's like the stasis periods of Busted. Maybe it's an exponential increase in generational lengths. That means we are only up to our great-grandchildren in the year 3000. So did you have to reverse engineer this?

I did. It is 2.1 times longer per generation. Okay. If each generation is 2.1 times the previous one, in the year 3000, it will be bastards, great-grandchildren kicking around. Sure. And everything lines up. So as long as, thanks to medical science, we have exponential increasing in generational lengths. The last generation is over 500 years on average. The last generation is over 500 years on average. So to answer the problem,

it's either 36 greats, grandchildren, or the average generational gap is increasing exponentially by a factor of 2.1 per generation to make the lyrics accurate as written. That is like the latter answer. Thank you and thank you simon because you have both given me a deep fascination with this song that i never had before i'm gonna give that a ding our next problem is one of the more concise problems we've had put in the problem posing page at a problem squared dot com. Someone has just entered. Why do boys have nipples?

Question mark. Big problem. Now their name, because we do endeavor to credit these problems to the problem havers, is we think Danish. It's a long Danish sentence. En skal rod? Root? What's the O with a... It's R null set D.

We think it's Danish for a type of pudding. There's red berries in it. Danish berry pudding person wants to know, why do boys have nipples? There is a lot to unpack here beck fortunately their name is not the problem that they've posed thank goodness yeah it's a nice quick answer this one right and that is because all embryos are female in the early stages oh so they form nipples at that point yep and then it's only i think after a few weeks that they differentiate between the male and female. Oh, so you already, I was going to say grandfathered in.

That's probably not the right phrase. The nipples are already locked in. Yes. What's a grandfathered in? Grandfathered in is where it's the gendered version of when you're ancestors into an old contract or deal. Huh. So if you've had the same mobile phone for a long time,

you might be ancestors in to a better deal than is available now. Got it. But because you've never stopped using it, you've still got that locked in. Yeah. It's often referred to as being grandfathered. Yeah. Well, if anything, it's more grandmothered.

You're grandmothered in to your nipples. Yeah. So there you go. And I guess there's no evolutionary pressure to not have nipples. No. so there you go and I guess there's no evolutionary pressure to not have nipples no like we we never lost vestigial nipples

yeah yeah it's not like it's been a there's a great advantage to we haven't suddenly died because

ah caught by the nipple yeah dead yeah it has not happened enough yeah

for it to have an impact on the gene pool Yeah Oh wow that was easy Yeah Which is again Why gender is a construct It's so true It's real

Yep So there you are everyone The problem And the solution Were shorter Than the name of the person Who asked about it Do I get a

Ding ding Dingles One ding per nipple our first b to any other is in a previous episode i think this was last episode one before in the last couple episodes we were discussing dental hygiene and for some reason we were arguing about if you couldn't brush your teeth with a toothbrush what is the best food to eat you you were pro cheese yes i was not no we asked the people we did and you gave the options a carrot an apple or celery right the votes were in yep and i would say that a carrot and some cheese came in at 25.1%. Yeah, neck and neck.

And apple got 16.7%. Not good. But coming in with the most amount of thoughts was celery at 33.1%. Solid third. You got to brush your teeth with celery. So once the poll finished, I sent it to Dr. Sophie. Oh, look at you. Which, by the way, now actually someone pointed out that I refer to Sophie as a professional dentist.

And they thought that was funny because it suggests that there's amateur dentists out there. It does, it does. Which I would argue I am one as someone who collects baby teeth. You are an amateur dentist also it highlights the fact that we need to point out that while you might think we approached an amateur dentist we have actually approached a professional dentist yes exactly we want to make that very clear very clear but i also said it because i didn't know when i asked you are dentists doctors i did not know and so i uh i asked and because i looked it up and in the UK dentists are not. They're not doctors.

They don't get a medical degree. They're not doctors. Not medical doctors. Gotcha. But in Australia, they have to obtain a doctor of dental medicine. A DD. DDM. All right.

Because it's an MD. So my wife has a PhD. Yes. A medical doctor is an MD. Yes my wife has a PhD. Yes. A medical doctor's an MD. Yes. And these guys are... Actually, it says DMD, which I wonder stands for Doctor of Medical Dentistry. Or Dental Medical Doctor.

Yes. Or... Might be. Or DDS, it says, Doctor of Dental Surgery, depending on the completion of their program. Either way, they are classified as doctors. So, Dr. Sophie. When you have a DDS attack, you can't speak. That's a niche computer security joke for everyone out there enjoying that.

Carry on. I wish I got it. The joke occurred to me and I went... But people are going to go nuts for that. I'm pretty sure this is a very small percentage of the audience. Yeah. And I want to say that I'm really happy for you all. Yes.

And I'd like to apologize because then no one in the room would. When you make those jokes, it's like having a partner who talks about having a really fun time with their very attractive colleague. You're like, oh, it's cool. I'm not like. I'm making jokes with other people. I'm not jealous or oh you're like that's cool i'm not i'm making jokes with other people i'm not jealous or anything like it's cool i'm confident but also i wish i could be a part of this yeah so i messaged dr sophie and sent her those results yep and said this is what we thought what you say? This is what the people thought. And she wrote back. The short answer is cheese.

What? It is not. And then. No way. I will read the rest of it because she's so brilliantly. So she said. So the enamel of your teeth is a mineral and it likes a neutral pH environment. Not too acidic.

Not too basic. Just right. The reason plaque and bacteria can damage your teeth is because when the bacteria eat sugar they excrete acid right the acid decrease the ph and the mineral of your enamel enamel starts to break down oh that sounds bad this is called demineralization and if it continues then you get a hole in your tooth but the coolest thing ever is that not only can d teeth demineralize they can remineralize. They can remineralize.

That's amazing. Yeah. So if the pH can go back to neutral and there's some calcium and phosphate floating around, then the tooth can reabsorb mineral and get strong again. This tug of war between demin and remin is happening all the time. So to keep enamel healthy and not get holes,

you need more protective factors so she said things on the team remin yeah then you have risk factors things on team demon yeah so team demon are sugars that are fermentable by plaque plaque bacteria lots of plaque which can happen if you eat sugars frequently through the day and or have poor oral hygiene and acidic food and drink yep she's put a little picture of an apple next to that well that's why apple came last and for sugars she's put the carrot and the apple because sugars are carrots are very high in sugar that's why you can have carrot cake oh yeah team remin saliva now as we've mentioned several times now i won't even say what episode numbers but anytime teeth has come up saliva it's got the calcium and phosphate in that you need for remin plus it's a buffer so it comes in comes

into an acidic environment buffers the acid to get the ph back to neutral and then supplies the calcium and phosphate to remineralize the teeth full remin team she's written honestly it's magic no you sure she's a doctor yeah yeah that's right a doctor of magic toothpaste because enamel that has fluoride in it is 10 times more resistant to acidic environments and therefore 10 times more resistant to demon gotta be reman and therefore 10 times more resistant to getting holes water because it dilutes the acid and increases the ph nice and she said here's the piece de resistance. Unsweetened dairy.

Unsweetened dairy. Because it's high in calcium and it acts as a natural buffer. So you eat cheese and you raise the pH of your mouth and encourage mineral uptake by your enamel. Cheese is the only one on that list that's on Team Remin, so it's a clear winner. In a close second place is celery. For its low sugar content and fibrous texture,

that should brush, just put in brackets, some of the plaque away. It's got Switzerland in this demon-remin war because it would remove plaque but isn't actively encouraging the remineralization of the enamel. She also says that if you were more worried about gum disease than decay, then celery might come out on top. There you go. Because in that scenario, plaque removal is key.

Sounds like one-all. And remin versus demin is less critical. Carrots and apples are not even contenders for me. They have a high sugar content, albeit natural sugar, but unfortunately the plaque bacteria don't care if it's natural or artificial sugar. They're going to use the same anyway. So in my eyes their sugar content outweighs the benefit of any mechanical plaque removal they do they're on team

demon so the answer is get some cheese put it on some celery i then suggested would you say cottage cheese there we go would make the perfect can't brush my teeth snack and then she said yep cheese and celery make a great combo. I'm struggling to think of a better one, to be honest. But then she did suggest, or just staring at your favorite food, but not eating it so your mouth fills with saliva. So, obviously, the best thing you can do is brush your teeth. Yeah.

But we now know that if you're hungry and you can't brush your teeth quite a cheese on celery there you go cheese and celery you're less likely to end up with can i just say cheese and celery with the top two if you assume that if you really look at some more decimal places cheese edges out carrot, then. Yeah. Then I'll find. We were both right. Yeah, the listeners, you've nailed it.

But I am very, I feel very vindicated. I can't believe it. I'm still mildly suspicious. But you said doctor a lot, so I feel like it must be true. Our last bit of AOB is we are going to New York City. We are. Which is very exciting. And very soon after you hear this. Very soon. Oh my goodness. So if you're near New York City. Now we're not actually doing a Problem Squared like a show while we're there. No. But we are doing a show. Yes. So I'm doing an evening of unnecessary detail which is a regular show that we used to do in London. And you've come along many times. Yes, it's a fantastic show.

I enjoy doing it. I host it. And a bunch of my nerdy friends talk about something in an unnecessary level of detail. What's not to like? Yeah. So we're doing that at Caveat, which is a comedy club, lower Manhattan somewhere, on Saturday, the 8th of October at 4pm. Which is a slightly early slot. But I'm not changing the title to an afternoon of unnecessary detail it's still evening

so four o'clock caveat we'll have a link wherever links are well it'll be technically evening in the UK exactly yeah it's a UK based show so I'm doing it I'll be hosting

you're going to come along and do a spot I'm going to do it we've also got Grant Sanderson from 3 blue one brown uh youtube channel about maths and moira dylan friend of mine she's a psychology researcher at nyu studies early childhood understanding of math one of these things is not like the other exactly like that it's me it's me guys and other acts yeah but they'll be flip charts they'll be flip charts they'll be great fun yeah so if you want to come along you can see both of us on stage yeah not dissimilar to this podcast no that is true it's i'm very excited i'm very very excited and the profits

go to water aid yep everything goes to charity which is very exciting not great for us financially no for anything we're losing money we are what are you doing for the love what are you gonna do so if you want to come along and see us, that'd be great. If you can't. Oh, I should also say that you tweeted a very subtle link to this last night. And we've already been an uptake of tickets. Well over 10% of tickets are gone already. Yeah, so.

We might try and keep it quiet so there's still tickets available. We are the worst promoters ever. Yeah, come along. It'll be emotional. It'll be fun. You can still join in even if you can't get to New york city because we figure we're both there for the weekend we may as well record an episode while we're out there yes so we're going to record a new york special a new york episode yeah we'll be in new york yeah for a problem squared we're going to record an episode a problem time squared

a problem time squared oh my goodness oh i don't think we can record it in times squared. We're going to get yelled at. We'll look into that. If anyone's got a problem which is New York related that we can solve while we're in New York, let us know. Yeah. Use the keywords new and York on the problem posing page at problemsquared.com. Yep. And we will, if there's a good one if we can

the ideal problem would be one that forces us to have an excursion gets us out and about i want to go to coney island but that is more new york state well okay that's not close but no you're probably thinking more manhattan i'm thinking definitely thinking manhattan yeah i do love exploring manhattan and making stupid videos so exploring man exploring Manhattan and making a stupid podcast would be a lot of fun. I would like that. So ourproblemsquared.com. Or come and see us. Caveat.nyc.

And as always, we want to thank all of our listeners for doing such a great job. Thank you for. Thank you. Supporting us, telling other people to listen to us. We really appreciate it. Thank you. And a special thank you to our Patreon supporters who allow this to occur.

Yes. So we'd like to thank three random Patreon supporters each episode. And Matt, you've put it into the machine. Yep, yep. You've crunched it. Three random names have come out. Three random names have come out. Three random names have come out.

So we'd like to thank... Chaos Floors. All one word. Tony B. Dano W. All one word. Big thank you to you. And finally, a massive thank you to Matt Parker.

Thank you. Myself. Thank you. And our brilliant producer, Lauren Armstrong Carter. Thank them. It's more of an instruction. Yeah, exactly. Thank them.

Thank them. you know what we should do yeah because we're out of my out of date thank goodness chips i thought this would never happen but we're going to new york correct so we need to find a new york alternative there must be a usa twisty yeah crunchy cheesy crisps crunchy cheetos maybe maybe a type of cheetos if you've got if you're aware of twisties and you think that there is a u.s equivalent that we find in New York City. Yeah. Let us know. We're not going to Kearney Island, somewhere in the centre. Let us know on the problem posing page at A Problem Squared or on socials at A Problem Squared.