A Problem Squared - 050 = Nearly an Hour of Mirth About Places Called Perth

Episode Date: January 2, 2023

In this BRAND NEW and Perth based episode...   * Which Perth is the best Perth?   * If you scale human DNA to match the DNA tower in Kings Park could you reach the ISS?   * And, Bec and Matt present: Any Other Beersness!   If you want to see more from this week's episode, check out Twitter for social links and images!    As always, if you've got a problem or a solution, hit us up on our website aproblemsquared.com.   You can buy A Problem Squared 'DING' t-shirts here https://a-problem-squared.teemill.com.   And if you want even more from A Problem Squared, find us on Instagram or Patreon! 

once a jolly mass man recorded a podcast under the shade of his co-host talents and he spoke as he watched and waited till his problem solved you'll come a solving some problems with me welcome to a problem squared aussie edition that was beautiful thank you brought a tear to my eye writing it yeah i was uh enjoying this tea from this billy exactly i feel like my twilight zone introduction ran Yeah. So I thought short and sharp. So everyone, welcome to a Problem Squared, a podcast where we solve problems and have appropriately length introductions. I'm Matt Parker, mathematician and other things. You gave up real quick there.

Thank you. You're also listening to Bec Hill, comedian and other things. Yeah. And both Aussies. We love a sunburnt co-host. That's it. Yes. Yes. And both Aussies. We love a sunburnt co-host. That's it. Yes. Yes.

And here we are on this episode. I'll be comparing which Perth is best. Like that's even a problem. I'll be getting to the top of the tower. I mean, as vague as possible. Thank you. It's the Perth Tower. I imagine there'll be so many other business,

but I'll be honest, guys. We have not. We have not planned this one. No. We're both technically on holidays. Yeah, and Lauren, because of the time difference. Oh, yes, our producer's not here. She's not here currently.

She will be listening back to this, but it will be far too late for her to remind us what we were supposed to say. This episode of A Problem Squared is coming to you from Australia and everyone at A Problem Squared would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present

and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today. Worth mentioning. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's something that's important. It's literally the least we can do. It is.

And yes, and it is the bare minimum. And as long as that's not the only thing we're doing, that's something. So, yeah. Australia. It's weird coming back to Australia. We both lived in the UK for a long time. Oh, my goodness. I've been there for like.

How long have you been in the UK? I'm just adding it up in my head. I've been 14 years. 17 years. Oh, my goodness. I win. You win. Immigrant bingo.

Yeah. In a year, you can vote. Is that how it works? Well, I've got my citizenship now. I had to earn it while I was over there. Oh, yeah. I retained my Aussie one, and that confused the check-in people at Cathay Pacific immensely because they were trying to check me in for my flight to Australia.

And this was the one. So I flew by Hong Kong. People listen to the I'm a Wizard bonus podcast for our Patreon supporters. I discuss my stop off in Hong Kong. And when I was getting back on the plane to come to Australia. So obviously I'm very committed to this journey. The check-in people were real quiet for a good couple of minutes. And they called someone over and they're both on the computer.

And it's because I'd gotten that far on my journey. And they suddenly realized they couldn't find my electronic visa to get into Australia. Oh. Because I'd given them my British passport. Yeah. That's your problem. And it's a big problem for them because they shouldn't have let me get that far. Oh. Because I'd given them my British passport. Yeah, that's your problem. And it's a big problem for them because they shouldn't have let me get that far.

Yeah, right. Without being able to get into Australia. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that is, then I was like, oh no, sorry, wrong passport, wrong passport. And so I gave them the Aussie one and they're like, on your way. Yeah. Right? They said that in Hong Kong.

They did not, they did not. I did not travel. I came straight here from London. Kong. They did not. They did not. I did not. I came straight here from London. Yeah. Straight to Paris. Very straight. Doing a little stopover before I head off to Adelaide. My mum's here having a nice time.

I had a pie with her today. Oh, nice. Award-winning pies. Oh, you messaged me. From Brighton Bakery. Award-winning pie. Yeah. They had so many titles on the wall.

Now. So many, like decades worth of medals. At the same time, I was literally eating a pie when you sent me that message today. The pie I was eating was from the Miami Bakehouse, which is also festooned in awards. So I want to know, because I think I replied to you, there must be different awards. Yeah, because, yeah, and they 100% are. Because I'm pretty sure all the awards for the ones I had were world's hottest pie.

It was, I got a cheese and steak pie. Right, yep. And you know how, like it was real good. And like it was real melty cheese. Cheese can hold a lot of heat. It does. That whole pie was like molten lava. I ended up having to basically open up the bag on a table outside

and sort of dissect it like doing surgery. Fan the individual ingredients. Lift the top off it and let it cool down. And then I had to scoop it into my mouth because it was so gooey after it had cooled. I didn't have any utensils. So I just had to scoop it all into my mouth and my fingers. And I accidentally made eye contact with an elderly gentleman

for far too long and had to apologize. Yeah. He was like, no, you're right, because we're in Australia. We're in Australia. People don't mind. Yeah. So it was quite amusing. Yep, that was my day.

It's not like in New York with the cliche that every place has world's best cup of coffee. I feel like these are two particularly award-focused pie outlets. That's not a common thing in Perth. No. That was good. How was yours? Great, really good. What did you get?

I had a peppered steak pie. Really, real tasty. There were a lot of peppered steak pies left, which made me cautious. Well, actually, one of the reasons why I had the peppered steak pies, I got there quite late in the day. Right. Yeah. A lot of the other ones were gone.

Yeah. I had the steak and cheese because all the normal steaks had gone. I'm still a big fan of the old peppered steak pie. I was very pleased with that. There you go. Well. Good pie chat. We're recording this before Christmas.

Yes. We're aware that this comes out just after New Year's. Happy New Year. Happy New Year, everyone. We should have mentioned it by now. Happy New Year. Yes. Hope you had a wonderful New Year, everyone listening.

And also, excitingly, if everyone is still listening and has told people to listen to this. Maybe, maybe, maybe. We may be hitting our millionth download with this episode. Which is a big deal. And we can confirm on the next episode. That's exciting. Well, we can confirm how close we are. Well, we can confirm how close we are.

We'll be able to extrapolate because I've been running the numbers and I'm pretty confident it's going to happen after this episode drops. Yeah. In the surge of people downloading episode 050. But seeing as we're in the lead up to Christmas, I thought. Well, we are, the two of us. I should get you a present. Oh, my goodness.

You keep. Oh, Beck. Is that for me? Yeah. I didn't get you anything. No, that's all right. I got you literally nothing. It's wrapped.

Now, for the listeners who want to know what this looks like, Beck has somehow found, I mean, I've seen ornate Christmas wrapping paper in my time. It's got sparkles. It's glitter. Oh, that's very good. It's detailed. Yeah.

But yet not crowded. It's also a blank piece of, not like brown paper, just like off-white paper that's not intended to be viewed by human eyes. Do you want to know what it's from? Okay, I reckon I can get it in three guesses. Okay. Did it originally come encased around fish and chips? No.

Was it packaging inside a box that came from Amazon? No. Did you find it blowing down the street? No, it's not Bob Dylan type of situation. So for the listener, just so you know, I normally do put a lot of it, not loads of it, but I enjoy wrapping presents. However, I am in an Airbnb at the moment, which did not have wrapping. And I haven't had time to go out and buy things to wrap things.

I have to take them back to Adelaide. No. So that is the paper that was inside a pair of new shoes that I brought over with me. You know, the stuff they used to like support. You know, I wasn't far off with packaging. No. Okay. I'm going in.

Wow. A present. Careful. I wasn't far off with packaging. No. Okay, I'm going in. Wow, a present. Careful, I've left the price on because I wasn't sure. Oh my goodness. So I've opened up slightly and the Twisties logo is already poking out. And it's not a snack. Although I may look like one once I've got it. But please don't look at the price.

It's two. Okay, one half of it is a pair of twisties branded like bathers i'd call them board shorts swimming cosy board short and the other half is a shirt that's incredible oh my goodness like like the kind of formal shirt you would wear to a wedding or a ceremony that's something out you spent too much money on these, Bec, for the caliber. That's only half of it because I had to get... Are you not matching up? I didn't want to be the only one wearing them.

Wow. Okay. You know what we need to do? Now, we are recording this at night. Yes. We need to meet tomorrow morning on we are recording this at night. Yes. We need to meet tomorrow morning on the beach. Before my flight. What time's your flight?

I probably need to be at the airport for 11.25. Oh, yeah. Loads of time. We'll meet on the beach. Both wearing... Deal. Deal. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sold. We'll meet real early on the beach. We'll get breakfast. Yeah. And then you don't get changed. You go straight. Go straight to the, I'm going to fly in this. Tell you what, I'll then drive you to the airport after.

Deal. Yeah. You're on. We previously asked our listeners for Perth-related problems for us to solve, and the first one we're going to tackle is from someone named Bennett who went onto the problem-posing page at a problemsquared.com and asked, what are the similarities between Perth, Scotland, and Perth, WA on a quantitative level?

And they go on to indicate things like, you know, population and whatnot. However, Beck has tackled this. Yes. Yeah. Well, partially. Partially. So I did what anyone would do. And I thought, let's look at how they compare as tourist destinations.

Because unlike you, I've never lived in Perth. No. This is my first time in Perth. First time here. I grew up here in Perth. No. This is my first time in Perth. First time here. I grew up here. You did. You grew up here. And for people listening who are unfamiliar with Australia,

you've got Australia, you've got all the important bits on the right, and then you've got Adelaide a bit to the left, and then you've got a whole lot of nothing, and then way over on the left, barely Australia, is Perth. Yep. The forgotten city. The world's most isolated city. Yeah, most isolated capital city. Yeah.

But I figured, I mean, you're going to be biased. Very. One way or the other. You really like Perth or you really don't like it. I have not lived here for 17 years. I haven't been to Perth in Scotland yet. Oh, I have. I'm interested.

You might be able to give me some perspective on this. But I thought I'm going to have to look at this from a tourist angle as an outsider to both places. That's true. You haven't been to either. Well, I mean, I have been to Perth now. You have now. But I didn't get to do the things that I wanted to do. So basically what happened was I went to TripAdvisor to see what the top 10 best things to do in Perth, Australia,

and Perth, Scotland, to see how they compared. Yep, yep, yep. I was all settling in. I was ready for a whole time of comparing. Yeah. I got to the Bell Tower. Oh, the Bell Tower. In Perth. The tower.

In Australia. Sorry, I just said that as if you should know which one. And I didn't get any further than that because, look, it's got four out of five circles. That's what TripAdvisor uses. Yep, yep. And what I did was I was like, hmm, there's not a full five. This means there's 1,833 people who have reviewed it.

Out of 1,833 reviews, 40 are terrible. That is literally what it is filtered as. Now, just to add some context before you carry on. The Bell Tower is not like some obscure thing. It's a big part of Perth. It's a big part of the Perth identity. I think it went up, and you can probably correct me on this, would have been the late 90s coming in towards

the year 2000 but not quite from memory no earlier so perth bell tower was decreed as a waste of money when it was built in 99 oh people are very angry in the middle of the city's latest controversial redevelopment oh yeah key which you were pointing out yeah betty's jetty yeah means nothing to me didn't make it down there Betty Jetty It's like Elizabeth Key named after Oh, cute The ex-queen

And everyone calls her Betty's Jetty Betty's Jetty Very funny That is very sweet Because that got put in while I was away And I learnt about it when I was back driving one day And the road I was used to driving down ceased to exist Yes

And there was water Yeah And I was very angry And you had to speed up real fast. Exactly. I made the jump. How dare things change while I'm living elsewhere. We're going to have to do it again.

Do you want to hear my fun bell fact? Yes, please. You know, when we record in my office in Godaming, when we're doing an in-person England recording, we are literally the building next to a church. Yes. And we can't record on Tuesday nights. That's when the campanologists are practicing. Why have you never told me this?

I've never brought that up. Yeah. And so only once was I filming a video and I forgot and I filmed it on a Tuesday night and I had to do every bit with lines just between the bursts of bells, which is made for a real choppy intro. Thankfully, it wasn't a lie. I said to film one quick intro, which is a little bit annoying. They got new bells in 2017.

Ooh. And they're like, what are we going to do with these old bells? And the bell tower in Perth, Australia was like, hello, we'll take your bells. Not far off. You're very, very close. Oh, yeah. Because in the UK, there were just bells everywhere.

And if they don't sound great, they just cast new ones. But countries like australia churches covet the old historical bells and so the bells from the church next to where we record in england are currently in a church in geraldton western australia no which is a country town a fair way out the coast from here we're not to be able to make it before you fly out tomorrow. I was going to say, did somebody say road trip? Exactly. So the bells are now in WA. So from where I live in England, they ship the bells out to my home state in Australia.

And everyone's a winner. You should have got a lift. You should have got a lift with the bells. Yeah, so the bell tower. So I had no idea it was so controversial. And do you know what? Its reviews live up to it. Hit me with the worst reviews.

Okay, my favorite one is the most recent one which was september this year this is from anonna and it says uh whatever we write here will be counted by holier than vow comments but let us write the decibel of this tower is too high very boring counter comments are welcome oh open to debate yeah because they were meant to have special like shutters and stuff to direct and change the volume of the bells. Right. Yeah. Okay, yeah.

Well, they're not doing that. Not up to this person's standards. And the bell tower Perth has replied, Hi, Anonna, but they've spelt Anonna. So Anonna is spelt A-N-O-N-N-A. But they've spelled it like, do you know that meme? I see it with the SpongeBob picture a lot where they do the capitalized and the lower cases and you're like, eww.

That's very funny. So it's like capital A dash N lowercase N zero double N-A. Hi, N-O-N-A. And I want to say it's a typo, but there aren't any other typos in here. Like this is definitely a choice. There's some real sass coming on from the bell tower here. And they might listen to this because I did email them last night to see if you and I could have a visit today because they were closed.

They were closed, yeah. And look, I was not expecting a response. Nope. They're not open during this time. You got what you expected. Yeah. So this is, look, by- One circle. One circle. No got what you expected. Yeah. Yeah. So this is, look, by- One circle.

One circle. No, no, I don't. And I'll be honest, when I read this, I sided with the Bell Tower Perth. Oh, okay. Okay. I kind of, I've worked in customer service online before and already I was like, hmm. Yeah. You know, I feel for you.

There's a, hi, Nona. It looks like you didn't enjoy your time at the Bell Tower and are particularly interested in the comments of our trip advisor. We are real people who read and respond to each comment left by our visitors and welcome any constructive feedback. I'm sorry you find me holier than thou. I'm just a regular employee doing my best like everyone else during a pandemic. Sad face. And do you know what?

My heart goes out to you, regular employee. Regular employee. Honestly, it was that response that made me go, I want to go to the bell tower. There you go. I like these guys. And look, 40 out of 1,800. That's amazing. That's a pretty good ratio.

I dream of that ratio in my comments. Right. So, you know, but a lot of the negative comments are, I mean, yeah, waste of space. You can see more from the fifth floor of the office building where I work. Why do you charge people for this? People saying it's boring. It's iconic. Reading the comments, it looks like everyone who went there went there

because they were expecting some amazing view. And I've seen a picture of it. You're not there for the view. I was looking. It's a pretty building, but it is not tall compared to the other buildings. It was the only building there on the foreshore. Right. There was nothing and it. Right. And now it's quite a built up area. Yeah. So it's kind of overshadowed by a bunch of hotels. Well, a lot of them say they went to the sixth floor, which is the observation deck. Oh, okay. And that's where they were disappointed.

Yeah. I feel like it got dragged along by out-of-town friends and family. Yeah. No, no. I think a lot of them are saying that they went expecting good views and were sad by that. There was another review from CGW99 who says, nothing special. Wow.

Nothing special. How harsh. You think at least being born in the same year. So I don't think they even visited the bell tower. They said, we heard the bells from Elizabeth Key, but it took us a while to attribute them to the bell tower. Now that in itself is a hilarious sentence. This might have been because.

Where could those bells be? This might have been because the bells had a traditional bell sound that you might expect to come from an old church or cathedral. In this case, they came from an unremarkable piece of modern architecture. Now, look, I've seen pictures. It's not unremarkable. It's nice. Yeah.

Swooshy. It's not like it's just a block. Looks like a sailing boat. Oh, I should say, in the interest of full disclosure, one of my favorite Bell Tower facts, the designer was taught in primary school, and I believe year three by my grandmother whoa she remembered the names of all the kids she ever taught and when they

announced the designer of the bell tower she was like oh i taught so and so um it's so perth i hate to break it to you matt but i would so look i would tell everyone that i remember the names of kids that I've worked with and then I would just point at anyone and go oh yeah I taught them yep they were yep yep everything they know in order to really resolve that we have to find the designer and ask them who their teacher was their year three plus or minus a year teacher yeah yeah there's a challenge so back to the sentence it came from an unremarkable piece of modern architecture the three plus or minus a year teacher. Yeah. Yeah. There's a challenge. So back to the sentence.

It came from an unremarkable piece of modern architecture that bordered on fugly. Fugly? Fugly, a word I haven't heard in ages, actually. The bells rang at seemingly strange times, like five to the hour. My overall impression was, eh? I guess we know they're a local. Yeah.

And then the bell tower purse wrote back to say, we are sorry you feel this way, especially as we are constantly receiving positive feedback from our guests about how unique the bell tower is, which I love. That's so passive aggressive and I love it. I'm here for it. Our bells are 18th century royal bells from London

and are all manually hand-rung by people. Our bells are not automatic and thus do not ring at timed intervals. We do have a clock from 1896 that does ring every quarter of an hour. The bell tower was built as a centre for bell ringing and is one of the only places in the world where the general public can chime the bells. So that's why it's ringing at random intervals, just because every time there's a tour,

there's people doing it. What I love is like, there's just people ringing bells all the time. And the bell tower is just filled with loads of different bells. Loads of bells. There's a massive Anzac bell, you know, that was done for remembrance.

There's a 26 bell carillon. I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that correctly. Do you know what a carillon is? Nope. Okay. So it's like, imagine a church organ. Got it. But instead of pipes, it's bells.

Right. And it's not like a keyboard. It's like levers. Oh. And so a carillon player hits the levers with their fists. And they're whacking the bells. Yeah. It's like a very big piano. Yes. and so a carillon player hits the levers with their fists. And they're whacking the bells. Yeah.

It's like a very big piano. Yes. Now I think their carillon is like coin operated. I don't think they have a carillon player. You throw coins at the bells. I think it's you throw coins at the bells. Yeah, it comes from a kinder surprise. That's a reference for our Patreon. That's not going to help anyone.

But I do have a recording of it here so let's see if you can guess what tune this is okay yep here we go okay Is it the opening titles to A Problem Squared? Yes, it is. Excellent. Yay. So that's Waltzing Matilda on the Carolyn Bells. Now we've got to get back to the problem, don't we?

I was about to say, because we were meant to be discussing the difference between Perth, Scotland, and Perth, Australia. and you know me matt adhd i love to hyper focus now we're listening to waltzing matilda played on a bell piano yeah bell piano so i was like right let's see if anything compares to this in in the other perth yeah in other perth so i swooped on over to trip advisor but we're not sponsored by trip advisor by the way to scotland for perth scotland and looked up bells just in case turns out the kirk of saint john the baptist in uh perth scotland has amazing bells oh so yep i did i had a little look at their reviews. Now, it's not quite the 1800.

Do you want to review? Yeah. 92. I mean. But they do have four and a half circles. Oh. Yeah. And, but they do have one.

One. One bad review. One bad review. Which, ratio wise, is worse. Is worse. Yeah. Yeah. That's way more.

So, Jim underscore Lincoln. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. That's way more. So Jim underscore Lincoln, that's right, I'm naming Jamie, says, as with St. Ninian's Cathedral in Perth. Is that worse or is that better? Yeah. So ratio-wise, that is better. It is better. Much better. Yeah.

Like four times better. How are they keeping the people so pleased? I don't think I quite got that right. I bet their architecture is less modern. Yeah, it is. It is a bunch. And the view is incredible. It is more remarkable.

Less fugly. That's what the reviews say. Right, right, yeah. Yeah. It's futiful. Futiful. Futable? Futable.

As opposed to irrefutable. You can see for files. So Jim underscore Lincoln, this is the one one circle review says as with st ninian's cathedral in perth now i feel like st ninian's is surely a film i think it's an insult you what a sin it's completely closed to visitors from october until march so much for perth as a tourist center and what church especially a cathedral and the oldest church in perth completely shut for any visitors, including worshippers. Well, actually, they've written worshipers.

It's pathetic and a front for any Christian venue. Wow. And then they've posted a photo saying, Welcome to the cathedral, summer opening hours, Easter to September, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday to Thursday, Friday by arrangement. Opening times are subject to the availability of volunteers. I mean, who sees opening times are subject to the availability of volunteers. I mean, who sees opening times are subject to the availability of volunteers? Subject to availability of people who are not getting paid.

And then gets outraged. And then gets outraged. I'm sorry, Jim underscore Lincoln, but I think you're being a bit harsh. No, I think you should have volunteers sitting all winter long in a freezing church. Right. In case a lone jim comes along yeah demands to see the bells you know what i would argue you're being very unchristian jim underscore lincoln so i thought i'd have a look at what their bells are like yeah we've got some

very interesting so they've got a carolyn i got very carol i might be mispronouncing maybe it's a double l like welsh maybe it's a double L like Welsh. Maybe it's a h-h sound. Cale-chon. Wow. Yeah. So the carillon, which is played regularly, consists of 35 of these bells. That's more. 35. They've got more.

They include the largest bell in the collection, the early 16th century burden, the Jehannes Baptista. That means nothing to me. Which is the keynote bell with a further 34 bells cast in 1935, which what I love means that it just started with one massive bell that was the keynote and then they added... The tunes weren't so great. They kept, yeah, well, yeah, let's add the rest. And I also learned this from the website, that Campanology is... Yep, it's bell ringing.

It's bell ringing. It says Campanology in Scotland follows the North European tradition and is quite different from the norm in England. The bells are fixed and tunes are played on them using a clavier or keyboard. That is different. Because normally you've got to swing them backwards and forwards. Yeah. Do you want to get a good peel out of them? Or use a coin.

That's the WA way. That's the WA way. So I've got here a clip of Dr. Ian Cassels playing some Burns, Robert Burns music on St. John's Kirk bells using a carillon. Now we'll obviously play this in audio, but we'll see if there's a way we can pop this up on social as well, because it's quite interesting to watch him play as well. Oh, okay.

Let's hear a bit of the 35 bell carillon in st john's kirk Now that's what I like to call the hungry hippo technique. He's really whacking those pedals, huh? Yeah. In fact, you can hear in that, what you hear more than the bells is the sound of him whacking these pedal things. A lot more mechanical noise in that one. And also I would say, and and again obviously not biased at all that's not as uplifting and as rousing as waltzing matilda yes it's not waltzing matilda it was much clear but then again maybe that's just because we're not seeing whatever it is that's hitting

these levers that's true yeah so that's my two comparisons that's that's your okay well done yep so if i was going to just on those two if i was going to rate the differences yep i would say obviously john's kirk i mean ratio wise in terms of reviews is better is better it's got more bells and it's carillon got more bells um then again the bell tower a bit more sass Way more sass, come on I think it's dead even between the two so far Based on Bells alone I mean, I don't think I should be the deciding call

I did go to Perth, Scotland Not for this Not for this, separate This was many years ago, it would have been around the year 2012 I think Lucy and I were on a writing retreat somewhere in Scotland, not that far from Perth. And we thought, wouldn't it be funny if we went to Perth? So we made a journey in one day, sent a photo to my parents, said, hey, we're at Perth train station with a photo of us at Perth train station. My parents are in Perth, Australia.

That's horrible. They would have been so excited for a second. Very briefly, very briefly. And then it turns out we're not, we're in Scotland. Very funny. But the one bit of research i did and i say research i just read a different problem someone sent in this is a problem within a problem it's not the main problem but the side problem dan says hello you mentioned on your most recent episode that you're looking for perth problems i have a perth problem and their perth problem is they're an Australian who lives in Canada. Their fiancé is from Brazil.

And they have an obsession with the name Perth because of how it's pronounced if you've got a Portuguese background. Okay. And they give no further information. Oh. But it's become a running – apparently the th consonant isn't normally used in Portuguese. Right. So it's just per.

I don't know if they substitute in a different consonant on the end. So they have been to the following Perths. Perth WA, where we are right now. Perth Scotland, where I've been and the comparison Scotland we're going with. They've also been to Perth Ontario. Oh. There is a Perth in Canada. So their problem is actually, how many Perths are there?

And they sent through a list. So there's a website called Geotarget, which is I guess like a database with geographical things. There are 17 Perths. That's a lot of Perths. That's a lot of Perths. So we're comparing two, but they are actually, according to this map, there are two in Canada, nine in America.

Wow. One in the Caribbean, one in Scotland, I guess probably the original, one in South Africa, two in Australia. Where's the other one? Tasmania. Huh. The only place less Australia than Perth, they're still technically Australia. Yeah, the other one? Tasmania. Huh. Yeah, the only place less Australia than Perth. They're still technically Australia.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tasmania. Now, I take it that Perth in Western Australia is the biggest Perth. 2,192,229. Yep. And I wasn't here during that census, so that doesn't include me. More than Adelaide then. Now I feel sad.

2.2 million. Perth, Scotland, 47,350. Yeah, a bit of a difference. Yeah, Perth, Australia is 46.3 times bigger than Perth, Australia. I think Perth, WA is the biggest. But I thought given, you know, we're comparing, I think people consider the two major Perths, Perth, Scotland and Perth, Australia, WA specifically we now know. But if we want to solve a side problem for Dan,

if anyone has been to any other Perths, let us know. If you could send in, I mean, photographic proof would be ideal, but if you've just got a story or a fact from when you went to a Perth, or just the vibe, let us know what it was like. Yeah. If you're actually to a Perth. Or just the vibe. Let us know what it was like. Yeah. If you're actually in a Perth anywhere, record yourself doing a little review live on the street. Give us, give us, give it short.

Give us, just say hi, your name, which Perth you're in, and a one-sentence description and send it in. Love it. Go to a problemsquared.com on the problem posing page, pick solution, and send us a link. Okay. So we've done an in-depth comparison of two Perth tourist destinations. Just the bell-based towers.

Yep. And now you've looked into. I've thrown it wide open. What you've done is you've compared the population of both. Yep. And then talked about other Perth's. I just think there are other Perth's. I think we can't compare just two when there are 17.

I see. So you're looking for a larger data set. As always. As always. So this is an undinged problem. Undinged. Yeah. We need more Perth research.

Ironically, considering the amount of bell chat. Yeah, you're so true. We don't even know which bell to ding this with until we discover the best Perth. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you what. We need at least a 17-bell carillon, a bell for each Perth. There you go. Our next Perth-themed problem comes from Michael John Smith.

Good old MJS. MJS. They say, in our lovely Kings Park, so I'm guessing Michael John Smith is Perth-based. Do you know them? I probably, you know what, I would say statistically it's more likely than not we know someone in common. Yeah. Almost without a doubt. Whenever I meet someone from Perth overseas, we do the who do we know in common dance.

Yeah, same. Yeah. Yeah. It's multiple times. Yeah. But let's just say we know everyone. We both come from tiny cities. Yeah.

But also large. Yeah. Do you know what? Perth and Adelaide are a bit like me. Everyone thinks I'm shorter than I am, but actually I'm a decent size. I was going to say, their cities are big, but they're inwardly focused. Yeah, that's me in a nutshell. There you go.

Always thinking of myself. So they said, in our lovely Kings Park, there is an infamous, they've put in brackets, DNA tower, which I'm assuming is a tower called DNA tower. It's a DNA tower called DNA tower. Not a tower made of DNA. Correct. Yeah, good. Because that would be horrific. Hugely inappropriate. If human DNA was

scaled up to be about the same dimensions as the DNA staircase, so if it was going to be as big as this tower, then they've got a few questions they'd like to ask. How tall should the tower be? Good point, yeah. Would it crash into the International Space Station?

That could be problematic. Or the moon or even Mars? And how many becks could you fit onto the staircase? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Now. Now. Look, I'm pretending like I don't know what the DNA tower is.

We went there today. We went there today. That was a little trickery. I'm sorry, listeners. Yes. Yeah. But I do know what it is because I've seen it. You've seen it with your own eyeballs. And I was both little trickery. I'm sorry, listeners. Yes. Yeah. But I do know what it is because I've seen it. You've seen it with your own eyeballs.

And I was both excited and disappointed. Well, to set the scene, we also took my wife, Lucy, who's not from Perth. She's from the UK. And she was excited to see it as well. And when we got there, she looked at it and went, oh, yeah, I haven't been here before. With a deep level of underwhelm. Right. It's a tower made of two staircases that are shaped like the double helix. And it is famous in Perth for being a bit of a, like everyone has to go there.

It's a landmark, but it's a bit underwhelming. I tell you what disappointed me. I mean, it's not as tall as I'd hoped, but that's fine. Because, you know, it's like there's not like safe stuff there you could easily climb up it and jump oh yeah oh yes yeah so you know it's dangerous yeah um but uh and lucy agreed with me on this because i said i expected it to be painted and as soon as that word came out my mouth she went blue and red and i was like yeah because that's what you see when you see like a and i know dna isn't blue and red but they show that

in so many diagrams and i was expecting it to be those colors it's just white but what's interesting about it is when it was built it wasn't designed to look like dna no kidding that's a late well it's a later thing now as you noticed half all the signs reference DNA as in the molecule. But I wouldn't have necessarily gone, that's a DNA tower. I would have gone, those are two staircases. Two spirally staircases. Yep. So that was a later thing that came along.

So I read an interview with two of the offspring of the designer talking about it. Did your grandma teach them? Although, remember the two sisters talking about their father when they were being designed? He basically just wanted a tower of a certain height so you could see Rottnest Island out in the coast and lines up with this big avenue, which you saw, and he was trying to work out the most efficient way

to get a staircase up to a certain height and then realized it would work nicely if you could go up one and come down the other. I imagine he was picturing a lot more people constantly going up and down. Yeah. We had it not to ourselves. My mom was on there. Your mom was on there.

My wife was there. A few other random people in Perth were there. Yep. Who had to walk past you and I going up and down each side counting the stairs. We'll get to that. One staircase would have been more than sufficient for the standard footfall going up and down each side, counting the stairs. Counting the stairs. We'll get to that. One staircase would have been more than sufficient for the standard footfall going up and down. Yeah. But visually, it is very pleasing.

Visually, I think it's quite nice. It is a Perth icon. And actually, all of Kings Park, it's a cliche. When anyone visits Perth and visits someone who lives here, you're obliged to take them to Kings Park. It's like the tourist thing to do. I mean, there are better tourist things to do. But for some reason, taking them to Kings Park. It's like the tourist thing to do. I mean, there are better tourist things to do. But for some reason, taking them to Kings Park is a real cliche. And just to kind of give some context on Kings Park,

it's just over 1,000 acres of parkland directly next to the main city center. So it's a ridiculously big park right in the center of Perth. It's bigger than Central Park. And Central Park's bigger than people think. You think, how long can this park carry on? Then there's a lake and then it just keeps going. Yeah. And then there's a water fountain where friends are hanging out.

Yep. And then there's the Pigeon Lady from Home Alone 2. Yes. And then the Parkhands. Yeah. And some ice skating, Which is featured in various films So I could see why Michael John Smith, being a local Would want to bring up the DNA Tower as a hilarious problem to set

Yeah But I took it quite seriously Good So, the DNA Tower, according to everything you see online Is 15 metres tall and has 101 steps Correct you see online is 15 meters tall and has 101 steps. Correct. Now, I took a photo of you standing directly in front of the tower as like a unit of measurement, the metric Beck.

Yes. And then in Photoshop, I went through and duplicated Beck's all the way up the tower. You did. And the tower is... No, we're just double checking vaguely. We're not going for exact. The tower is nine no, we're just double checking vaguely. We're not going for exact. The tower is nine becks tall. So Beck, how big is a standard metric unit?

165 centimeters. One. You are taller. Yeah. Than people would think. Oh, that's given us a DNA tower height of 14.85 meters. Whoa. Yeah.

We're pretty spot on. We're pretty spot on. To the nearest hole back. Good photoshopping skills. It's real good. So the question now is, what if we scaled it to be the length of human DNA? Yep. And so I looked up how long human DNA is. Two meters. Whoa. Yeah. Whoa. That's long. When you consider that comes out of a cell smaller than we can see with the naked eye. Yeah. And it's taller than you.

Oh, my gosh. Isn't that incredible? Oh, man. I'm even taller than I thought I was. Yeah. All your cells are taller than you just with the DNA. And that's all the DNA. How much DNA do I have?

Wow. Great point. Well, you've I have? Well, great point. Well, you've got 23 human chromosomes, not including duplicates. Yes. Stretched out. So long strands of spirals end to end, roughly two meters. Wow. So the answer is that the tau would be a lot shorter.

What? Well, if it was the same length as DNA, it would be two meters. That's currently 15 meters. Oh, I see. So we'd have to bring it right down. Not too big. But if it was scaled. Well, okay.

So now you're talking scale. At that point, I'm thinking, well, do I work out how thick DNA is? But that's not super useful because DNA is really bunched up and corally and super cold and all sorts of weird stuff. So I thought, actually, it's the number of turns. And so I looked up two things. First of all, I looked at photos of the tower to see how many turns it's got. And it looked like about two. I'm glad that we went there today because it's not two.

It's just shy of two. Annoyingly, the turns aren't consistent. Yeah. So you did a bunch of research into the number of steps required. In that I counted them as I went up. Correct. And it's broken into, is it four platforms? Four platforms. Yeah. But you were very keen to share your findings. I was very excited. You were telling everyone. I was. I counted 29 steps to the first platform. Yep. 27 to the next platform. Fewer. 25 to the first platform. Yep. 27 to the next platform. Fewer. 25 to the next platform.

Yep. Now, look, I've got three points of data. I'm like, hello, pattern emerging. Yep. It's going down. Last one? Yep. 20 steps.

Tiny. Didn't even go to 23. We were going down by increments of two. Yeah. But no, just 20. They got sick of building it. They did, yeah. Or they're like, we're exactly nine becks or whatever.

Yeah, exactly. Precisely nine becks. Stop building. It's perfect. I theorize it's like a Disney world where as they build things, they make the scale smaller as they get taller. So it looks higher. So from the ground, it looks way bigger.

Yeah. How small that is at the top of the mountain or whatever. Yeah, like the Shard. Castle. There's a Shard. But the Shard gets narrower as it goes higher. It looks way bigger. Yeah. How small that is at the top of the mountain or whatever. Yeah, like the Shard. Castle. I was like, there's a Shard. But the Shard gets narrower as it goes up. Yeah. In a predictable, honest way.

I don't know. Anything that comes to a spike when most buildings are just straight up and down. I like the Shard. The Shard's good. I think the tower, they start stacking them closer together. It's probably for structural reasons because you need reinforcement as you get higher. Sure. But I'm going to argue it's to cheat and make it look taller.

The same thing happens with the spirals. So it's just under two spirals. You don't get two full spirals. The first spiral is 56 steps. The second spiral is 47 steps. People may realize there's a total of 103 steps. That's too, too many. Because the second spiral, you've got to go back two to line up with where it ends and then do the second spiral.

So it's actually 1.96 and a bit spirals. So I then looked up DNA. Now you've got 23 chromosomes and they've got a certain number of base pairs, which is the number of joiny rungs, if you will. And you're small. I like that you're speaking my language. Exactly. I've learned. It took 50 episodes back, but I got there.

The smallest chromosomes are around 50 million rungs, pairs. The longest ones are like 300 million, and the total is 3 billion. So if you put them all one after the other is 3 billion. Let's be fair and say we're just doing the smallest one. So we're going to scale the tower up to the smallest one and DNA is on the order of 10 rungs per twist. So after 10 base pairs, you've done a full revolution. Okay.

So 50 million base pairs is 5 million twists and we've only got two just under yeah and the twists are like 15 meters for just under two right so it's going to get real big real quick and so the smallest dna tower that's scaled correctly in meters 382 million meters. That's quite a lot. 382 megameters. Yep. 382,000 kilometers. Now, would that get you to the ISS? Because they specifically said, would that hit the International Space Station?

It's pretty much exactly, like scarily exactly, the distance to the moon. Whoa. So yes, you would get the ISS. In fact, it's 99.49% of the way to the moon. Whoa. And for the record, the nine becks of 14.85 meters is exactly 99% of the true height. Oh. Because it's 15 centimeters off.

Yeah. So it's 15 centimeters off. Yeah. So it's 1% off. So this will make it make sense. A scaled DNA tower is closer to the moon, proportionally speaking, than if you had nine Becks stacked up next to the original tower. Oh, my goodness. I hope that cleared that up for everyone. Yeah.

So ISS, definitely. Moon, so close. Now the moon's orbit is not perfectly circular. Shoot for the moon and you'll hit the ISS. You might even clip the moon on its closest approach. You've now got Mars. It doesn't get anywhere near Mars. No.

It gets less than 1% of the way to Mars. Yeah. And that's the closest Mars, not the average Mars. But then I thought, what about the longest DNA strand? Still nowhere near it. That gets you almost 4% of the way to Mars. Right. What about all the DNA?

But definitely to the moon. All the DNA. Oh, definitely to the moon. That gets you to the moon almost six times. What about all the DNA together? Like if you got all human DNA, not duplicates, scaled it up, that would get you to the moon almost 60 times.

And it would get you almost 40% of the way to Mars. Wow. That's the closest approach. It would get, now Venus is slightly closer. Oh. In terms of its minimum distance. 54.8% of the way to Venus.

Wow. And then I thought, well, hang on a second. Cause you've got every chromosome Venus. Wow. And then I thought, well, hang on a second, because you've got every chromosome twice. You've actually got 46 chromosomes, just one from each parent. If you did a DNA tower scaled to human DNA size and you did all 46 chromosomes, you would be able to hit Venus.

You'd be able to climb that staircase to Venus at Venus's closest approach. How many steps? So it's 101 steps for the original. If it's the actual DNA tower scaled up for the correct number of twists, 25,750,000. But this is the helix. You go up one way and back down the other, 51 and a half million. So if there's 51 and a half million, roughly, how many of me would fit on the staircase?

Look, I like to take up a little bit of space. So I'm not going to try and put multiple minutes on each step. No, one per step. Yeah, one per step. They're wedge-shaped steps. Yeah, exactly. You don't want to be in that narrow. That's dangerous.

It could fall. Long way to fall. 51 and a half million. 51 and a half megabex. So that's. Long way to fall. 51 and a half million. 51 and a half megabacks. Megabacks. That's a lot of becks. That's a lot of steps. Cool.

That's a full problem. Yeah. I like problems that involve us having to go and visit things. It was fun. Yeah. We visited it. Assuming that we can get there. Count the steps.

I mean, we didn't fly here exclusively to do that. We haven't got that many Patreon supporters. No, no. Maybe one day. It doesn't happen to be that we are in the same place at the same time. So there you are. But hey, if more of you want to support us on Patreon, we are willing to go to more and more links.

Oh, we will go. There is no limit to how ridiculous a place we will go. Moon-based links. We will give it a go if we have enough Patreon supporters. So in conclusion, Michael John Smith, to answer your question, if you scaled up the DNA tower in Kings Park to the size of the smallest human chromosome, string of DNA, like you stretch it out, you would just get to the moon. If you did every single chromosome

including duplicates you'd get to venus anyway ding ding all right ding double ding for your double helix now it's time for aob austral Business. Bec, you got any other Aussie other business? Not necessarily specifically Aussie. Oh. Don't know what happened to my words just then. I slurred a bit. Necessarily not. Well, we have a.

Hush. We did Aussie up this recording session a little. We partook in some. Some local beverages. session a little. We partook in some local beverages. So, well, what I wanted to say was, we mentioned this earlier, we should hit a million downloads. Yes. With this 50th episode. We've extrapolated

ahead and this should be the one. Yeah. The next episode we will be recording the day after this episode comes out. Yeah, so we should be the one. Yeah. The next episode we will be recording the day after this episode comes out. Yeah. So we should be pretty confident, but not guaranteed at that point. Yeah. So I'm going to say on episode 52. Yeah. We will announce whatever it is that we're going to do to celebrate our first million

downloads. Because we're not going to plan it before it's happened. No. We're not going to count our downloads before the bits have hatched. That works. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah.

So you have got time to let us know what you think we should do in order to commemorate this occasion. Hit us up on the problem posing page. That's ourproblemsquared.com. Select solution. Tell us what you think we should do to celebrate a million downloads. It's a big occasion. It is. Yeah.

What would you do, Matt? Oh, I don't want to pollute the suggestions. I know. I want to do whatever the best listener suggestion is. I want to get a cake big enough to fit a million candles. Okay. Yeah. I want to high five every single downloader, but you know, there's practicalities.

How long would that take? No, too many problems! We're not setting more problems, you're giving us solutions. What should we do? Let us know. I also want to thank everyone who sent us Perth-based problems for this episode. We did get a lot. We got more. And we sort of went for the ones that we either had multiples of.

Or number one gave us a fun day out. Yeah. And number two, duplicates. There was more than one that mentioned Perth, Scotland. Yeah. Yeah. So, but we just want you to know that if you went to the trouble of sending us Perth problems, we really appreciate it.

We did. We read it and we loved it. And likewise, non-Perth problems, they're in there. They're in the database. So who knows? We may still come around to answering them. We tend to just, we don't go one by one. We can't solve them chronologically as they come in.

No. No. We skip around a lot. Yeah. It's whatever we feel that we can answer in the time given. So please do. Keep them coming. Yeah, keep them coming.

We appreciate them. We love your feedback. Also, we have had some, I'm just sort of doing an interview review now. You really are. We've had some feedback. Some people have sent us in some really good sort of admin-y type suggestions and things like that. And I've seen them. Lauren has seen them as well.

So if anyone has sent in sort of more admin-y type feedback, we have seen it, we appreciate it. We see it all. We action some of it. Yeah, if it's actionable, it's being worked on. Yeah. Honestly, we appreciate feedback of any type, variety. I'd also say 2023 bucket list, we need to get back on that Wikipedia.

We had people volunteer to help with the wikipedia because we forget what we've covered in this podcast i don't know how listeners keep track yeah you guys should do that we are terrible admin would you know what would enable us to do more admin more patreon support patreon supporters supporters Go and buy more Lauren Armstrong cutters From the lolly shop Wow You've only had some local beverage

Oh my goodness It's very late We haven't had dinner And we have had a beer Look I'm going to be to the point here The Patreons pay for this Including the beer I'm going to be to the point here. The Patreons pay for this, including the beer. I'm going to claim the beers. Wow.

The beers are now going on the Patreon tab. Goodness. This is sober Matt would not embezzle money like that. One beer in Matt, all over it. So we pick three Patreons at random. Oh, yes. Coming back to the point. Every single time to thank specifically by name,

which this time includes... Josiah Douglas. Kimberly McLeod. Ken Kobayashi. Thank you so much to those three people. And by the way, everyone who signed up in time, your Christmas cards should have arrived by now because you're listening to this in the new year.

Yeah. Thank you so much for joining in. We enjoyed sending you all the cards. And we hope some of you, that was your card. And to all a good new year. You have been listening to A Problem Squared with myself, Matt Parker, and of course, Bec Hill, both coming to you from Australia and absent.

I don't know if you noticed that. Our producer, Lauren Armstrong Carter, who got to listen to this recording after the fact. Thank you very much, Lauren. Beck, you know, before I said I didn't get you a present? I got you a present. What? It's in the cupboard right here, it's behind me. Give me one second.

Oh, I know that crinkle sound. It's in a bag. Season's greetings. Ooh. Here you are. All right. Sorry it's not wrapped in shoe paper. Oh, hello. We've got two lots of crisps here. Yeah. You's not wrapped in shoe paper. Oh, hello.

We've got two lots of crisps here. Yeah. You spoil me, so. I do. Okay. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. Okay.

Yep. This is amazing. Not since the twisty shirt. I'm going to have to read out the one that's laughing me. That's laughing me? Oh, gosh. Oh, the less predictable one. Yep to read out the one that's laughing me Oh gosh The less predictable one The one that's making me laugh the most Is This is a packet of crisps

Chips for fellow Aussies Which is in a very similar bag To Cheezels Now Cheezels are a bit Oh my gosh if we can't explain twisties How do we explain chisels? Oh my goodness. They're sort of like, they're not hula hoops because hula hoops are like a dense.

No, no, no, they're way softer, yeah. Imagine cheese balls in a flat donut shape. Yes, cheese balls, but you can wear it like a ring on your finger. Yes, and funny you should say that because these ones are not called chisels, they're called big ring. Big rings. Not even rings. Big Ring. What I love is that it has the Fonzie's logo on the corner,

which Fonzie's, as we know, is the Italian version of Twisties. And then it says the original cheese snack. So does this mean that Cheezels came after Big Ring? Who copying who? And then is that some Arabic? I think so. Across the top. Actually on the back.

I didn't have a close look. So for the context, I was in Hong Kong on the way to Australia. And while I was in Hong Kong, I thought I had to buy whatever is the closest to twisties that you can get in Hong Kong to give to Beck. And we were going to be recording in person in Perth. And so the other bag that Beck has now glossed right over is the closest thing to twisties I could find. And they look a lot like twisties.

I'm going to come back to that. Yes. But then while I was looking for those, I saw Big Ring. Yeah. And I'm a big Cheezels fan. And so I was like, I got to get some Big Ring. Now I don't think either of these are actually from Hong Kong. So where are Big Ring from?

Yeah. So Big Ring are from Malaysia. Oh. So it might be Arabic because it's a big Muslim community there. These look great. I'm going to come back to these in a second. Okay. Because now I'm picking up another one.

Now, I have been studying. Oh, you're going to read it. I've been studying Japanese on Duolingo, and this has Japanese on it. It does. So this is written mainly in Katakana, which is the borrowed alphabet. There's hiragana, which is the Japanese alphabet. Yep. There's romaji, which is basically hiragana,

the Japanese alphabet, but with English letters. Oh, okay, yeah. Spelled out with English letters. There's katakana, which is they look like simplified, sort of simplified versions. Not all of them are the same of hatsukana, which is they look like simplified, sort of simplified versions. Not all of them are the same of hiragana. And those symbols are used for borrowed words. So quite often if you see those symbols, if you read them aloud, a lot of the time they're English words.

Just phonetically. Yeah. And then there's kanji, which is the borrowed from Chinese characters. The more complicated looking ones. Yes. Yeah. Thankfully, this is katakana, which is much easier for me characters. Oh, yeah, the more complicated looking ones. Yes, yeah. Thankfully, this is katakana, which is much easier for me to read. Oishi. So oishi is delicious.

There you go. That's the one that's in hiragana. This is very exciting. Which one do you want to open first, Bec? Clearly this one is Japanese because let's go Japanese twisties first. Yep. I'm so excited about this. I've just hit my microphone.

Really excited about this one. I've checked and they're both in date. Oh, my goodness. I'm so excited about I've just hit my microphone Really excited about this one I've checked and they're both in date Oh my goodness I just opened the pack and showed it To the microphone Long day, long day They smell more like the Cheetos ones Oh Have a little smell

Oh yeah Hang on, I'll get the ones oh have a little smell oh yeah hang on i'll get the listeners have a smell i sarcastically held it up to the mic oh oh no no no no they're good but i was not expecting what i'm going to see what your reaction is i'm interested to see if you have the exact Look at it, those are twisties There is a word that came immediately to my head Matt just recoiled It's sweet Right, sweet

They're sweet They're sweet No There's sugar in these Cheese isn't sweet Yeah, it's good texture It tastes sweet Flavour wise, it's a bit too sweet

But the flavour, the aftertaste is very nice It's a bit umami My brain is not happy with that. Oh, I could eat that all day. Oh, no. Yeah, but the clash of expectations to execution. Oh. Now, okay.

Now that I know what to expect. I was looking forward to Big Ring. Open Big Ring. It's open. So I had Cheezels yesterday. Oh, really? Mm-hmm. Oh, you recently calibrated. Yeah. These are smaller than Cheezels yesterday Oh really Oh you recently calibrated

Yeah These are smaller than Cheezels No For any Aussie listeners Why isn't it Cheezels Let's see what they're like In the mouth Oh they are

Oh These taste good though That's very Cheezly Mmm That's real close Not as salty as Cheezels There's um It's like a toastiness to them

A bit more powder to them Yeah There's something Like it makes me think of toast Oh you're right There's like a toastiness to them. A bit more powder to them? Yeah, there's something like it makes me think of toast. Oh, you're right. There's like a smoky something in there. Yeah. Yeah, just smoky.

This is why we're not a food podcast. I like them. Yeah, me too. That's good. Yeah. Big up the big ring. Big ring.

Get in there. Big ding more like. Careful where I say that. Merry Christmas. And a happy new year.