A Problem Squared - 055 = Bristol Bus Buds and Generic Soap Suds

Episode Date: March 14, 2023

In this episode... 🚍 What’s the probability that you get on a bus and see a colleague who's travelling to the same house as you? 🧽 Can I use a single cheap soap to clean absolutely everything? ✨ And, coincidences. Lots of them. If you've got a problem or a solution, hit us up on our website aproblemsquared.com. You can get your DING' t-shirts here https://a-problem-squared.teemill.com. If you'd like to find out which Muppet YOU are, just speed ahead of Matt and Bec and find that out here: https://www.buzzfeed.com/jenlewis/which-muppet-are-you. And if you want want even more from A Problem Squared, find us on Twitter and Instagram.

Hello and welcome to A Problem Squared, the podcast equivalent of an AI chatbot, in that we will answer your questions in ways which are either surprisingly satisfying or somewhat amusing. I'm your host, Bec Hill, and my answers are so confusing that Google recently released a statement warning the public to fact-check everything I say. I do. You do. And that voice belongs to Matt Parker, who is quietly accumulating enough data from this show to one day take over the world. I do think my answers are just a soup of other little bits of information i've

gleaned from across the internet i mean isn't that what we do that's what we do that is we've been we were doing it before it was cool yeah see now because i listen to a lot of podcasts and quite a lot of them have had chat gpt yep have had it right i'll write an intro at one point i was like oh that'd be fun and then i heard so many other have had it right i'll write an intro or write a thing yeah yeah at one point i was like oh that'd be fun and then i heard so many other podcasts do it that i was like i refuse as well and and the whole oh you didn't realize but everything i've been saying until now was written but i'm like oh no you didn't realize this now but everything i wrote was this morning uh no i i do you know i also saw that it's not like you need to download the app

or the software and i was like nah nah that sounds dangerous i realized i'm now officially an old person there's a new bit of tech i just went nah yep not for me no i'm the same i'm so i'm good i got all the tech i need i love that past Beck, younger Beck, jumped on tech. All over it. She got a Mastodon account in 2017. Oh, there you go. Wow. Yeah. And then loads of people went, I got your Mastodon,

but you haven't posted anything. Yeah, because I got older and I don't do, I don't even do new tech when it's old tech now. Old tech, yeah. You're aging faster than the tech is. That's the problem. Yeah. I mean, that's all of us, isn't it?

Yeah. That's how they're going to get us on this episode. I'm comparing a bus trip to the lottery. I will be getting all suds up. Wow. And at the end of the episode, we'll be recovering from whatever it is Beck's going to be doing Matt Beck

We're still recording in the same room How have you been? Yeah good you know How have you been since the last episode? I am so busy since the last episode Actually you know what I didn't tell you I had, this is bad news, my bike stolen last episode i am so busy since the last episode um actually you know what i didn't tell you i had this is bad news oh my bike stolen oh no someone nicked my bike so it wasn't me and i'm okay

because it was the old bike um and i should have upgraded about two years ago and i didn't because i'm lazy and cheap but the time has come and. And I was like, right, I'm going to get my proper bike. And I'm going down to the bike place like at the end of March to like try some bikes. Okay. And it got nicked early Feb. I'm like, ah, two months shy. Yeah. So I'm not super sad.

I'm annoyed. Yeah. But it's not like it was like an expensive bike. Yeah, it could be way, way, way. I mean, it wasn't funny how it happened. Yeah, how did it happen? Yeah, so. You weren't riding it at the time, were you?

No, I was not riding it. I didn't like look down in like a Wile E. Coyote fashion. You were still pedaling in midair. Yeah, exactly. No, no. Okay, here's the issue. I love cycling into London, around London. And when I'm doing trips, I love taking the bike on the train to use it for all the non-train bits of a journey.

But when I go into London, I tend to contact the hotel where I'm staying in advance and say, have you got bike storage? Can I put the bike somewhere? This time, my wife hosts a thing called Astro Fest, which is a big astronomy festival. Amazing. It's so good. Well, that's a great title. I go along.

I just go, I show up as spouse and tech support. Anyway, I wanted to go up. Okay. I had to go to Colchester Zoo to run an errand for a friend of mine. And then I had to get to London and I had to get over to Kensington for Astro Fest. And then I had to get home afterwards. And I was like, oh, there's a lot of links. And I think it was bus replacement.

And so I was like, you know what? I'm just going to cycle all the non-train bits. But I made that decision the day before. And because the hotel was booked by Astro Fest, I get there and I'm like, we're up with the bike. And they're like, oh, we've got a car park downstairs. You can park. There's a bike rack down there. I'm like, great.

Perfect. Yeah. Perfect. Roll down there. It's the dodgiest looking laneway into an open car park. Oh. dodgiest looking laneway into an open car park oh and and the rack for bikes looked like it was with all the rubbish being thrown out next to a skip okay i was like this isn't good this is the worst place like whenever i lock my bike up publicly i want it somewhere with a lot of footfall

so it's obvious if someone's trying to nick it yeah discourages people from from being too suspicious and i'm like this is like anyone can come here wouldn't be spotted for ages i was like uh mate you're being paranoid look i looked i was nervous enough i took a photo of it so i have a photo of oh great what we're now referring to as before just showing that to beck on my phone that's my bike yeah oh yeah that is not a good spot for a bike yeah it looks like i'm gonna describe it it looks like out the back of a theater where people just chuck all the props exact vibe yep yeah uh and then we had astro first great time to get home lucy had to go to get the tube and i had to go get my bike to then

cycle to waterloo station where i would meet lucy again and we'd get on the train together to go home and uh i nearly forgot the my left the key for my bike lock in lucy's bag oh i'm like that wouldn't be embarrassing and then she gets on the tube i walk around back to the hotel down come around the corner there's just a broken lock on the ground oh in fact i took a photo of that too yeah so then i said i was really hoping you would say that the whole bike rack had gone that would have been like they'd stolen the bike rack as well and the other bike that i think has been abandoned they took the seat off it and then threw the seat on the side i still think it's a better bike than mine the one that had been abandoned yeah absolutely great i then actually

i then walked the most likely path they would have taken having stolen the bike because my bike the front derailleur doesn't work so you can't change the front gears like it's just electrical taped in place right so you you're permanently the front gears. It's just electrical taped in place. Right. So you're permanently stuck in the bottom eight gears, which is great for mountains. Yeah. Not so good for getting away.

Yeah. The brakes, you've got to anticipate wanting to stop a decent amount in the future. Right. So I've just done enough to keep it vaguely rideable. And because I've now booked in getting a new one, I've totally stopped yeah servicing it but i i followed the path in case i abandoned it and like just ran off but i

couldn't find it anywhere do you know what my biggest concern is that someone will buy that bike and crash and crash it's dangerous yeah actually i did look on ebay the day after it's a single use bike a single yeah like those just gotta get somewhere yeah exactly yeah yeah well i've got something that might cheer you up oh yeah uh because since i last is this is this your this is my bit yeah okay yeah excellent um so i've recorded the audio books for heights two and so the second day you were in the old studio in the old cupboard yeah you were using something like sorry I didn't answer your call. I had to finish an audio book.

I had to finish an audio book and I was like, recording or listening to? Yeah. Because it changes how offended I am. Yeah, yeah. No, I was recording it. So I did Now Live Screaming, which is the second book, and I finished the third book, Dead Ringer, while I was out in Australia. So I did the audio book of that one as well.

Oh, amazing. Now, I don't want to beat down on the second book yep but oh boy did i enjoy reading the third one i'm really proud of the third book great sales pitch for the second book i know right but the first two books hey people have enjoyed them but they're very much my practice runs okay right right i i now know how to write a book now you're up and raising look if i don't mind saying so myself it's the funniest one it's the scariest one oh whoa i've i've already loved it it is coming out uh this wednesday as of this podcast as of as of the podcast release day yeah 16th of march it's uh it's released but i wanted to share something with you i'm just gonna so i don't have the hard copy here with me right but i do have the pdf so i thought if you wanted to share something with you. I'm just going to. So I don't have the hard copy here with me. Right.

But I do have the PDF. So I thought if you wanted to read out just from the top of that page. You're getting me to do some of the audio book. Ah, forgot I asked, said Yaz. I should probably go anyway. I have to walk Sky. Yaz's mum looked puzzled. Skye?

As in the Labrador next door? Since when did you like dogs? Since Matt and Lucy offered to pay me to walk her this weekend while they do some house renovations. I love the little insight into what you assume Lucy and I are up to. To not be able to have the dog around. Said Yaz. Wow. That's.

So I'm assuming there's a character in the book. Who is a young person. Yaz is the main character. Named Yaz. Yep. Who lives next door to characters either named after or directly stolen from our lives. Matt and Lucy. It's actually a weird coincidence.

Oh, really? Yeah. Well, do you want a real weird coincidence? Yes. We have a neighbor. No. With a daughter. What? Named Yaz. No, you're joking. Nope. No, you are. What? Who is about to be the most creeped out person in the world if they ever read that book. That blows my mind. Well, you're going to be the second most freaked out person ever if Yaz reads that book. How old is she? She would be year 10. Oh, so she's much older than this one.

I still age students based on what year they're in. Because as a teacher, you get used to recognizing year groups. Because this Yaz is named after my friend Yaz. Oh, that makes sense. Who lives in Italy. Story checks out. But wow, that is weird. That is very weird. That is very weird. Because Yaz is the most common name. That's why I took me a second

I was like, how do you get my neighbors in? Okay, it's very nice that you put the dog in. Lovely you put us in. But I'm like, you've also name checked the neighbor. I mean, you do your research. Yeah, I'll be honest, that's the most you guys really appear in this. That's plenty. Yeah, that's it. That's the correct amount. I would have asked you if there was any talking on your behalf.

Oh, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, if I got a speaking role. Yeah, but I was like, oh, there needs to be a dog. There needs to be a dog next door that she has to walk. Skylab. And I was like, hmm, what's a good dog name? Great work. And then I was like, do you know what? Let's put Sky in there.

Oh, that's great. Oh, thank you. No, thank you. So, yeah, that's my there. Oh, that's great. Oh, thank you. No, thank you. So, yeah, that's my news. So that's coming out. I feel way better. I would say between having a bike stolen and that, it's a net gain. Oh, good.

That makes me feel. I'm not saying you stole my bike. It's in the book. Yeah. Our big problem today is for you, Matt, and it's from Rich. Now, just off the top, I'm going to say I hate how this question is put. I love it. It's so good.

It's what drew it to my attention to start with. Okay, I'm going to read it out. I feel like you owe Rich to read it the way the author intended. Yeah, I'm going to read it out. You're not going to like it. But then I'm going to talk about it. Yeah. as you're not gonna like it as rich but then i'm gonna talk about how much my sister sister zero went to visit my other sister sister one it makes sense i've just it's clearing up the whole

situation in her rented flat in london that's sister one she got the coach from bristol with a colleague colleague zero zero who's the only colleague in the story for the record they still get an index. Well, you talk about patient zero, but no one ever talks about patients. Colleague Zero. Yeah, exactly. Who Sister Zero knew at acquaintance level, but didn't know why she was going to London. In a coincidence, I wouldn't have believed if it wasn't my family it happened to,

it turned out that the colleague was going to visit Sister One's flatmate, Flatmate Zero. That's great. Sister One didn't know Flatmate Zero before moving in, and none were aware of any interconnection at all. Flatmate Zero was not from Bristol, where my family are from, and while Sister Zero and Colleague Zero knew they were going to London, they didn't realize they were even getting the same coach, let alone going to the same house. My family convinced that this is about as likely as winning the UK lottery.

If everything was random, I'd probably agree. But I keep thinking there must be some more correlation and it's actually more likely, maybe one in a million, given that they're all of a similar age, plus or minus two years, and all in ostensibly the same socioeconomic groups doing broadly similar things that's a very long sentence i just think so i know you won't be able to definitively decide what is an appropriate probability but i'd be interested in your opinions on how unlikely an occurrence this is end of story i hate that great i hate the way that's posed i hate it and do you know what's interesting what do you hate about it everything because your your your feelings are valid and I'd like to hear. No, I understand my feelings are very, they are for me as a person and the way that my brain works.

Yeah, and that's fine. But I get about a third into that thing and my brain just goes, nah, nah, nah. I can't, I don't like, I don't like something where i have to pause every now and then to work out what is being said yeah and to be fair what what draws me to it doesn't make it easier to follow i like i like the formatting yeah numbering from zero numbering every character in the story but it's not providing clarity you like if everyone had fake names that would be a lot easier to follow yeah and this is what this is what's interesting because it reminded me of the way the problem

was posed in the grand theft auto 5 oh yeah the speed running one one of these conversations where you got to stop and either draw or imagine a diagram but for me this already needs translating back into you go you're speaking my language now this this this one's both a problem to solve and a puzzle for me yeah whereas i look at it and i go do you know what we've got nearly 2 000 problems we got plenty yeah i can i'm just going to flick to the next one i'm going to take whatever is the easiest to understand and this is not encouraging people to submit their problems in a hard to read format that's going to take whatever is the easiest to understand. This is not encouraging people to submit their problems in a hard to read format. That's going to be counterproductive. I mean, it just means if they want me to solve it.

Yeah, don't do it that way. Just do it as simple as possible. So someone's sister got the bus to London to visit their other sibling. Yeah. Very straightforward. The sister gets on the bus and one of her colleagues gets on the same bus. And they're like oh my goodness i had no idea we were both going to london today yeah they arrive in london now i'm

adding to the story but i imagine they're like well it was a fun bus ride we're not super close friends at work but you know it was a couple hours on the on the coach yeah and then they both make exactly the same journey yeah because the two people they're there to visit are themselves flatmates and so they head maybe they were meeting them elsewhere the two people they're there to visit are themselves flatmates. And so they head, maybe they were meeting them elsewhere, but I imagine they're like, well, bye. And they both walk. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it just keeps going.

Oh, okay. I'm going this way. I'll follow you for a bit. And then they end up in the same house. Yeah. And they're like real suspicious about the other person. Like, yeah, sure. Yeah, that is surreal.

What a coinkydink. Yeah. But this ties in with your book, with Yaz. Yeah. It's surreal. What a coinkydink. But this ties in with your book, with Yaz. And this gets to the heart of the bonus problem in this problem, which is because on a surface level, they're asking, can you run the numbers on the likelihood of this happening? Yeah. But the additional problem is, is it really that simple?

Surely there are other factors that mean things like this are more likely than we expect. Yeah. So here's the maths in a very kind of naive way of working it out. So the first question is, what's the probability that when you get on a bus leaving Bristol, someone you know gets on the bus with you? Yep. You need to know two things, really.

Well, you need to know three things. You need to know how big the bus is, because that's the pool of possible people that you could already know. You need to know how many people you're drawing from, so the population of Bristol. And you need to know how many people you know in Bristol. Yep. Yep. So I just looked at the population of Bristol.

For everything, I'm using 2019 figures, just because I looked up, things haven't changed sufficiently much since then. And I can get reliable, consistent population across everything I wanted to know from 2019. So I've just standardized that. Cool. There were 467,099 people in the city of Bristol, 319. The size of the bus.

So they don't say what coach service they were using, but I looked up National Express and it was one of the main ones that does that trip and they have a variety of bus sizes. The largest standard coach used by National Express seats one of the main ones that does that trip. And they have a variety of bus sizes. The largest standard coach used by National Express seats 87 people. Okay. And I feel like that's probably about right for one of these intercity buses. And that puts the odds the most in the person's favor of this happening. So I went for the biggest bus they've got.

Although, of course, the person's using one seat. So there are 86 other people on the bus. Assuming all how many people do you think someone knows oh now i've got a guess because i've done the working out but i'm curious what would you how would you estimate that um or people that would show up to get on a bus with you and you're like oh wow you're getting on this bus with me let's chat yeah like as in how many people do you know well enough that you would yeah yeah yeah yeah assuming that people who live in bristol because chances are you could be on the bus with someone who you've seen in a shop yeah and you might vaguely go oh that's that person from the shop but you're not going to chat to them or

oh that's the person who works in a shop or is my neighbor that I don't like or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because sometimes I see there's a cash register server from Sainsbury's who's been there since I've lived in it, you know, like 14 years. Exactly. And occasionally I see him in casuals and I'm like, oh, how do I know that guy? Oh, yeah, that's right. I bumped into my ex hairdresser in a pub and he was like ah that explains where you've been i'm like yeah sorry mate uh but it's not like we then like wait you

know i just for anyone who look in case anyone isn't sure you you just shave your head i've just grown my hair out now yeah no because you you said sees you in a pub and says oh that explains things as if you've just been drinking this whole time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no. As in like, I no longer have any hair. Yeah. When I shaved it off, I was like, should I ring him up and just say goodbye? Yeah. It's like, oh, hey, it's you.

Hey, it's you. Boom. Whereas this person says that they, you know, they weren't great acquaintances, but they sat and chat and then realized they were going the same place afterwards. I would say, like, I'm just, like, pulling from a pool of everyone. It doesn't matter where they are, where they live. Fair enough.

I would say, I reckon at least a thousand for me. A thousand? Yeah. Woo! Back. That's a lot of people. It's a lot of people, but, like, now I'm not saying that I'll know their face or name. Guess what I put in.

But what I am saying is, chances are there will be someone who will go we've met the thing and then i'll go oh yeah and then i will happily talk to this is the other thing is i will talk to example yeah exactly yeah well i had assumed 100 but i've just that's probably more realistic i've just duplicated my spreadsheet and i'm putting your figures into the new one i'm putting it i'm both putting in the spreadsheet a thousand people and i'm putting in my diary that uh it turns out our friendship is not as special as I thought it was. It's like 20. Yeah.

20 people. Okay. So I've done that's going to change things. Okay. But I'm going to carry on with my estimate of a hundred, but I'll also give you the. No, I think a hundred is good. I think a hundred is good. So now you've got to work out the probability that, you know, one or more people on the coach, because there's an easy mistake to make in something like probability where you work out the probability that you know one or more people on the coach.

Because there's an easy mistake to make in something like probability where you work out the chance of one person you know. But that's weird because you're looking specifically at that example. Whereas it wouldn't matter if there's two people you knew, you'd still have someone you'd sit with and chat. Yeah. So I ran it for one or more. So I actually worked out the probability you don't know anyone on the bus. And then the complementary probability is you know one or more people So I actually worked out the probability you don't know anyone on the bus. And then the complementary probability is, you know, one or more people on the bus. Yep.

And for that, you go to each seat and you're like, well, in this seat, there's the population of Bristol minus a hundred people that could be here that I don't know, or the hundred I could. So I did the population minus a hundred divided by the population to get the probability of not knowing the person in that seat. And then I multiply that up for all the seats in the bus. Perfect. I didn't, for people who know these sorts of calculations, do it exactly in terms of compensating for each subsequent seat. You should take one off the population because you've excluded one person who's sat in the

previous. It doesn't make a big enough difference. I just put it to the power number of extra seats. And it's surprisingly high. So I got, there's a 1.8% chance you would know someone on that bus. So one in 50 journeys. Yeah. That's about right.

If you went every week, you wouldn't be amazed if once a year you knew someone from Bristol. Your figure would be 16.8%. Of course, because it's order of magnitude bigger. So now we know the probability that you know someone on the bus, which is the first half of the story. And I know them even better now because we've had the entire journey to chat. All the way down the M4? You're in London now.

So now we've got to decide the population of London. Is it either Greater London, which is 8.9 million people, or is it the London metro area, which is 14.4 million people? Because Greater London is like the bulk of what's inside the M25, not all of it, most of it, whereas the metro area is just as far as the suburbs and everything reach. Yeah. Well, I guess I would go metro because if you're getting the coach

from Bristol to London, then if you are travelling on further, it needs to be somewhere that you can reach right so there's slightly more central of those two areas so the the greater london 8.9 million people yeah sorry that's what i meant yeah yeah and that's what i went with because i was like um that includes everything like like croydon and romsford yeah it's loads of places yeah whereas the the whole massive metro area is is like outside the m25 it's huge yeah so i'm gonna yeah right i'm with you on that so we're gonna go london population 8.982 million people as of 2019 and so now you just work out the probability which is a pretty straightforward calculation now i assumed when you're going to london you're going there to see a person now I don't know if there's a scenario where you're going to London not to see a person.

Well, I mean, you and I both go to places primarily to work. Yeah, but you'll be going there to work. There'll be a person there that works there. Like for a meeting, you're going to see that person. Yeah, but what about an appointment? For a gig? It's lots of people. Yeah, but what if the same thing happened

and the person that was next to you was going to a gig organized by the flatmate of your family? Or their flatmate was attending your gig. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. So I just kind of assumed that- There was a person involved. There's a person involved.

Probably more. So this is now a bit of an underestimate. But I just went, okay, everyone's going to- you pick the primary person you're going to see yep right and that fits with the story because the primary person that we're going to see person in the flat uh now they want to know is that more or less likely than winning the lottery winning the lottery used to be one in 14 million it's now one in 40 million 40.6 million the official stat is one in 45 million just a little side fun fact i've compensated for the fact that one of the smaller prizes is another ticket in the lottery slightly increases your odds of winning so i've compensated for that

which is why i've got one in 40.665 million okay for people at home that's what's going on here they should be using that in their. They should. Yeah. They haven't. I pointed this out in 2015 when they changed the rules. I was like, it's not 40. Well, it's not one in 45 million.

It's one in 40.7 million. Yeah. You've got a better advertising deal now. Yeah, exactly. You haven't factored in the free bonus ticket. And I contacted their press office. I'm sure you did. And got them to confirm that if you then win the same

smaller prize on the free ticket you get another free ticket and there's no technical limit oh to the sequence of free tickets you might win it's a one-in-one chance exactly it's guaranteed once you get once it gets down it's like that um i did the series i put it all together anyway so we put it all together we compare it to to the lottery. By this estimate, it is 12 times more likely that you will win the lottery than this story will happen to you. Wow. As stated. 12 times more likely. 12 times.

But that seems so strange because the amount of times weird coincidences happen. Yes, but we're not talking any weird coincidence. We're talking specifically you recognize someone on a bus and then they are going to see a specific person that directly links to a person you're seeing in London, right? Yeah, yeah. And so I think it's interesting because we even had that Yaz story at the beginning of this podcast, unplanned.

Totally. Yeah. Which is terrifying. Yeah. But it kind of proves the point. It was a coincidence that I had a coincidence story. It's a meta coincidence. Well, you had a coincidence story. It's amazing.

I guess the thing is, is this a case of like, I know it sounds like, oh, you're 12 times more likely to win the lottery, which suggests like, oh, we should all be buying lottery tickets because we've had these weird coincidences happen to us. But is it sort of the same as like, it's very unlikely you win the lottery, but people win it. Yeah. You know, it's a thing that happens. It's never like breaking news. Someone won the lottery.

Yeah. It's like, that is how it works. Yeah. So it's a case that this is likely to happen to someone and it happened to happen to this person it's less likely to happen for everyone than it is to win the lottery but it will happen so it's actually not that crazy yeah yeah you're completely correct yeah on top of that it we've had to specify you know someone you know on a bus going to london all that jazz it's less likely than winning the lottery but because you're living life, you're doing countless things every day.

Imagine if you were playing the lottery, you know, multiple times a day, like unimaginable, so many times, constantly, constantly, constantly, which wouldn't work for the lottery because you're spending way more money than you could ever possibly win. Yeah. But that's our lives where there's like a constant barrage of possible freaky coincidences. And the vast majority obviously never happen.

But every couple of years, a weird one will just happen to happen. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what's happened here. So it's a bit of a distraction to look at this, you know, specific odds. Yeah. specific odds yeah although that said the other thing that we were originally saying before about i've run this on it my i've assumed it's equally likely for all 8.9 million people in london that they're the one this person's going to see yeah totally independent of the person that

the other person's going to see whereas like Rich says, they probably hang out in similar circles, they're similar ages. Well, so you're counting, I guess, as you say similar ages, it's like, well, a baby doesn't have their own flat. Yeah, exactly. So you just count all the babies. Yeah. So I then worked out how much of an impact that would have to have

to make it exactly as likely as winning the lottery, which is to say if you ignore the 8.9 million people in London and you narrow that down to the actual smaller population of people who they're likely to know, how big would that population have to be to make it exactly even odds with the lottery? Oh, good, yeah. 742,000 people.

Okay. Which I think is smaller than. That is quite small. Yeah, that's quite small. I suspect all the being the same age, same socioeconomic, same everything, I don't think you're going to narrow it down to 782,000 in London. So that's a. Wait, is this how it works i was gonna say it's under

12th but that's not how the 12 times thing works is it that's pretty close yeah it's that well i suppose 8.26 percent of london you've got to discount anyone who isn't old enough to live in a flat share got to discount anyone who needs to live in a flat share i mean i just ran the odds on it being a specific person and actually there's you know there's a bunch of different people that could have been there were there to see that would be weird i mean flatmates is particularly weird but they could have been they could have been also colleagues or something else that yeah yeah so i feel like actually eight percent of it is is realistic i think it's about right yeah okay so it's about winning the lottery. I'm very impressed by that. So in conclusion, yep.

All that. All of that. All that. I'm glad that you enjoyed the way that that question was posed because otherwise I wouldn't have learned any of that. I feel like my, that's true. You would have been like, blah, blah, blah. Next question, please. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I wouldn't have even bothered. I guess my spreadsheet is a similar level of comprehensible as the question. So I feel like I've matched its energy. No. Do you know what? I'm going to ding that.

Oh, thanks. Yeah. Oh, cheers. Ding. Our next problem for you, Beck, was sent in by, oh, the name here just says Matt in Liverpool. Not me. It wasn't you in Liverpool. It's not what I'm in Liverpool.

Different Matt who's primarily in liverpool and they say they just realized that they were out of washing up liquid so they washed the dishes using hand soap wow they say got them thinking they thought as well as those two products they also have kitchen cleaning spray they got bathroom cleaning spray they got shower cleaning spray they've got body wash they got shampoo they got furniture polish oven cleaner toilet cleaner and washing machine powder and probably many more they're forgetting do i need all these different cleaning products how different are they should i just use whatever is cheapest to clean everything thanks in advance matt assume they're signing off, not thanking me. I hope so because I've decided to answer it. You've dealt with this one.

Yeah, yeah. I like this one because I'm the sort of person who forgets to buy new stuff. And then, yeah. Have you ever had to use anything? I recently went through a spate of not having shaving foam, which drove me up the wall. So I used different points in time shampoo, conditioner, and body wash over the course of about a week. I've never had to shave my face, but I stopped using shaving foam altogether. I use baby oil.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, the problem with baby oil is that the razor becomes very slippery in your hand it's dangerous but also i feel like the main point of shaving foam is you can see where you've shaved that's a good point because it's got the foam there yeah yeah more of a tracer than anything else yeah yeah that's why i like this so i thought look i'm going to look into it yep well the short answer is yeah yes, you don't need that many cleaning products. Hey, all right. Yeah. Do you know how it is that germs and things are removed during the cleaning process?

Do I know how it is that germs and things are removed during the cleaning process? Does something, it's either going to be, can I have two guesses? Of course. It's either going to be some kind of detergenty thing uh breaks apart their outer i'm going to use the word shell i know that's not what it is some kind of membrane i imagine yeah or it is just the mechanical process of sweeping them away matt yep it is both of those things yes well done that's exactly it so you're using hand soap it's the mix of both the lather, because the lather creates the bubbles, and the bubbles trap the dirt.

When you then run it under clean water, it washes them away. Because they're suspended in the foam. I feel like a lot of us just go, well, if my hands are covered in soap, the germs are killed. They are. Done. But it's about the lather. It's not germicide. And that's the same for your your body although well you don't necessarily

need you don't need a bunch of what i'm saying oh okay right okay you can use body wash but you don't necessarily need to gotcha in terms of your hair that just comes down to personal preference really because you're not again you're not going to die of greasy you're going to look greasy yeah you might get some pimples is this why in some hotels this is going to link back to my previous shaving woes they just have that bottle of like omni goo on the wall oh yeah and it just says body wash and shampoo and everything yeah because it does hand wash body wash head wash you name it yeah yeah wash wash so yeah you you can do that when it comes to dishes. You shouldn't use hand soap on dishes.

Not that it's bad, but some hand soaps have chemicals and fragrances and things in them that could remain on the dishes afterwards. You don't want that. And then you don't want to be digesting that. So if you have or you desperately need to because the dishes, again, are covered in baby oil, I don't want that. And then you don't want to be digesting that. So if you have or you desperately need to because the dishes, again, are covered in baby oil, I don't know, whatever's greasy. We're getting a lot of insights. I was just doing a callback.

Whatever, if you're like doing. You know how you use baby oil to shave and just like everything in there, that's greasy. Just everything. Yeah, well. The ceiling's greasy. The dishes are greasy. if i've been around and i've put my greasy little fingers on everything yeah so dish washing detergent is mainly formulated

specifically obviously for dishes for things that you're eating with and also to help cut away on grease which a lot of stuff is covered in uh you probably do want that yep and the same with laundry detergent it's specifically formulated window cleaner that's you can use other stuff on it but it might streak now matt mentions furniture polish i think that's very different we're talking about cleaning products now that's a polish that's a different thing and also i mean who's using furniture polish not me and i paint the walls and i yeah exactly then you're starting to get into general maintenance. I got some weeds to kill. Yeah, you got it. I do all my cleaning in the kitchen using three substances. Four if you include water.

Yep. Washing up liquid. Love washing up liquid. I use it for cleaning the top, cleaning the benches, cleaning. Love washing up liquid. Vinegar. Yep. Baking soda.

Yeah. End of list. So, Matt, you've just. It've just my life you've solved this uh really that was the solution oh really so in a pinch yep you could use baking soda and vinegar and water to clean anything you can use baking soda to brush your teeth you can use it to wash your hands got good abrasive properties yeah it's not going to be something that leaves you, you know, moisturized. No, it's not doing any, it's there for one task and one task only. You can use baking soda to wash your dishes.

You can use baking soda in your washing machine to clean your clothes. Yeah. I've put vinegar through the washing machine with some of those. Yeah, exactly. Now there are different ratios that you might want to mix them for. I'm not going to list them. You can look them up. Yep.

But essentially those things, because they create bubbles and help break up things, with the addition of clean water, will clean all of those things. You know, if you add multi-service cleaner and bleach, that's the rest of my cleaning needs covered. And I love things that fizz. Yeah, basically, as long as you can make bubbles and uh give it a scrub put in the effort yeah you don't need any cleaning products so yeah there you go matt matt and liverpool yeah yeah you look right at me like there you go now because that just confirms my own

choices and biases i'm gonna ding it yeah because it aligns perfectly with my outlook on life. So ding. Well, good. I'm glad I could confirm that for you. I'm glad you've talked us through a lot of clean ding. Nice. Not as good as the one I did. Nowhere near.

Yeah. Oh, well. We're now on to AOB, which doesn't stand for Artificial Ontologence Bot. Wow. Slick. It stands for Any Other Business. In this case, Any Other Barkness.

Oh. So we don't know what it's time for. Dogs. Yeah, yeah. You know what? It's 50-50 on me talking about my dog versus a stump date but it transpires it's time for a stump date oh woohoo so we got some some stump news for people who are unfamiliar with this i have a chunk of wood in australia that came from the family stump

i think that's the shortest version of that story possible. Yep. It was a root of a tree that was a long running family stump activity. And I realized. Trying to remove it. Trying to remove it was the family activity. Yes. And I missed out. But through some unrelated gardening, I unearthed part of the root of the stump that I never got to help remove. And so I helped remove it.

Yes. And I was going to bring it back to the UK to do something with it. Yes. But we realized I couldn't just bring wood into the UK. It's a bunch of paperwork. And we're like, well, what are we going to do? It was what we needed really. Ideally, we needed to be able to give it to someone else in Perth, Australia to make into

a thing that we could then sign off on as a product that we could then bring back to the UK. Yes. And someone got in touch. James reached out. Now it's a, it's a long, it's a long comment because they start by pointing out that two decades and officially a lifetime ago,

they were a minion for Matt and friends in some parts of their channel 31 show in Perth. So I think we probably have mentioned their channel 31 show in Perth. So I think we probably have mentioned this at some point in the podcast. Channel 31 is like a community. They'll give anyone a TV show. Yeah. Which is proven by the fact I had a TV show when I was at university on the real TV.

It was in the TV guide. Anyway, so James was a school friend of my brother. And so James, I guess, listens to the podcast now. Hi, James. And James's dad is now retired and works in a local men's shed, often called community sheds. Okay. Oh, yeah.

You get isolated. It's hard to make friends. Does a lot of woodworking, apparently. Standard. So not only have we found a person with time on their hands and the facilities and the motivation to do woodworking. Yeah. Not only are they in Perth where the stump is. My brother has access to the stump cupboard.

Oh, yeah. Can get the stump from the stump cupboard. Can catch up with his old schoolmate, James. Yeah. and do a stump handover so we have all the the whole pipeline is there what are the logistics of a line uh what are the odds quite high they listen to the podcast probably because anyway anyway so so we now have a stump solution where uh my brother steve gonna do a stump handover for us great and then uh james's is going to get to work. So we need a before photo.

Correct. I want a photo of it in the shed to confirm it's arrived safely. Yep. And it's the same stump. The same stump. Not our replacement. You can confirm that. I would know that stump anyway.

And then it's the family stump. And then you all know the family stump. Then, well, people have suggested different things. Family stump. And then, you all know the family stump. Yeah. Then, well, people have suggested different things. PJ Moody said you should have it made into a custom pen and or pencil for doing working out. They know I do like working out. Yeah. They have actually offered to do it if you can ship a few small pieces to the US.

But it might be easier to- That's adding to the problems, not taking them away. They did say, I'm sure there are wood turners that could make something. I don't know. If I made a pencil, I'd never want to sharpen it because I want something where I keep. Like for me, pens and pencils are consumables. I churn through them. Oh, I see. I never owned any good pens and I wouldn't want to have a pencil.

You're the reason that there's landfill. I do one bit of working out and then I throw them into a hedge. Yeah, you just chuck them in the sea. Just out the window, done. You're like, take back turtles. I go straight to the penguin and feed it the pen. You just stab it in the eye and leave it walking around. It's a great suggestion.

I think I want something more permanent. A penguin, that's where the name comes from. Yeah, I think I want something a bit more permanent than a consumable pencil. Sam, who's also a woodworker, suggested Mobius strip. Oof. I mean, maybe like an ornamental. That'd be a pain to cut.

It would be. Well, it's half the cuts. You cut one side out and you're like, oh, it turns out job done. A negative Mobius strip would be interesting. What would that even be? Like the void. Yeah. Like, yeah, the rest of it.

Yeah. So I don't think any of the suggestions we've been sent in are beating coasters at the moment. Oh, that's, you know, you can make a coaster out of anything as long as you've got a slicer. As long as you put the effort in, yeah. Yeah. That's my motto. Anything can be a coaster out of anything as long as you've got a slicer. As long as you put the effort in, yeah. Yeah. That's my motto.

Anything can be a coaster. That's what I say when I just put the glass straight on the table. I'm like, who's not to say this is a giant coaster? The whole table is now a coaster. Yeah. You're lucky it's not on the carpet. It's like the floor is made of lava. It's like everything is a coaster.

Everything is a coaster. So I think we let James' dad decide. I think we say we were thinking coaster, but I think until you're holding the wood and listening to the wood, you don't know what you're going to make from the wood. So I'm prepared to let the experts decide. I want photos of him listening to the wood as well. I can't promise that.

What stories does it have? I can almost guarantee I can get a photo of my brother listening to it. Well, actually, as a nice little segue there, I can get a photo of my brother listening to it. Well, actually, as a nice little segue there, we've heard from Darren, who posed us the satellite, wanted to know what to do with an old satellite dish. What to do with a dish like a satellite. Yeah, in episode 048.

We'd suggested, amongst many other things, a birdbath. Birdbath was in the mix. And Darren said, thank you very much for the idea of making my satellite dish into a birdbath. Here are a couple of pictures of it. We'll stick these in the, we'll put them on Instagram and Twitter at a problem squared. It's very cold and wet here.

So please excuse the dirty water in it. I love that. I would just judge it. Otherwise. Real judgy when it comes to bird bath. I haven't been able to put fresh water in it yet, but that doesn't matter because there aren't many birds around yet. So,

and I've looked at the pictures and yeah, yeah great pictures it's uh oh it's a great bird but i would say most bird baths are far dirtier because the birds bathe in them the whole point leave dirty water but what is interesting is they have attached it to a stump they've used a stump now the stump is still in the garden they've not uprooted the stump can be in many places i've got one other bit of any other business. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've heard from Philip who, responding to my answer about clocks. Yeah, what's up with clockwise? Some clocks do go anti-clockwise.

Philip said, hi, Beck. Hi, Matt. A quick note on your piece concerning clocks that run anti-clockwise. Yeah. There are novelty clocks sold in Bavaria, Germany, as expression of the saying, clocks run differently in Bavaria, Germany, as expression of the saying clocks run differently in Bavaria. Oh. And those novelty ones run in the mathematically positive direction.

Ah. I don't understand what that means. But you smiled as if that makes sense. Yeah, because when you want to define rotation, you take like the axis. It's like the right hand, left hand rules. If your thumb's pointing up with your right hand Your fingers are curling in the positive direction And so if your thumb was coming out of the clock Anti-clock was to be the positive direction

Going the other way around It's a way of defining rotations Okay cool It makes sense I'm happy with that But they said But actually this is not the meaning of the saying Which historically originated from the fact that in Bavaria Basically basically, they used to just have an hour hand, which was the long hand.

Because, you know, you just go, oh, I've got one hand. Yeah. But it confused people. Hence the saying. Why the long hand? That's what they say. That's what they say. And so they introduced a minute hand to make it easier yep but to

differentiate oh that's the small one it's shorter that is different that's great i love it so the saying is clocks run differently in bavaria because as tourists go there they're like because suddenly the hours seems to be going much quicker than they expected uh i think that's great what a fantastic fact thanks for that yeah. Great fact. I appreciate that. Anyway, that was our Any Other Business. And now it's on to the end part of the show. Wow. You're signposting the way. Yep.

That's me. So, first of all, if anyone is a Patreon supporter, you get. Thanks. Thank you. You get free access to our bonus podcast, I'm a Wizard. Yep. Which is definitely not just a rushed recording we make before the proper recordings each time we sit down. No, it's fun. It is fun.

But it's also the other thing. And now it's time to say thank you to some special people. Oh, my goodness. So special. Because we love everyone who listens. Such people. Oh, you're all our favorites. Yeah. And especially if you're a brand new listener, we hope you enjoyed this episode.

Make sure you subscribe. Rate us if you can. That'd be great. But also the reason that you're able to listen to this podcast right now is because some very lovely people give us money. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So that we can afford. That's the whole business model right there. To do all of this. Do whatever this is. Yeah. So. Keep us in twisties. In order to thank you, other than giving you access to our bonus podcast, I'm a Wizard.

We also choose three of those supporters from Patreon at random to thank at the end of each episode. And in this episode, those supporters are Moritz Morowitz Kirchner I think that's right. I think so. It'd be easier to read, but someone's left their cursor Right in the middle of it

It's been moved now Oh excellent Good good good Do you want to do it again? No do not The Phil UK That's all one word It could be

Thep Hill UK Thep Hill UK Or Thep Hill Yeah Thep High Luck Thep Thephaluck

Thephaluck Could be Thffaluck. Karen Hancock. Thanks, Karen. Thanks, Cass. Keeping it easy. And I'd also like to thank my co-host. That's you, Matt.

Matt Parker. Yeah, definitely a real person. Not an artificial. Not generated by algorithm. Nope. Dangerously close, though. I want to thank myself as being your co-host. And I'd like to especially thank Lauren Armstrong Carter,

our producer, who is looking incredibly awkward every time we draw attention to her. She hates it. We love that. Bye. Bye. Bye. TNT. This is the WhatMuppetAreYou server, by the way. Oh, okay. These are all very American-centric. They are. Cartoon Network.

Alright. I Don't Have a TV. Disney Channel. TBS. I don't even know what that is. What's TBS? Is that like one of those reality show ones? Yeah, it might be. AMC. And finally,

the number E-factorial. I don't know why that's included on here e factorial oh e oh that's a channel ah yes well i don't know what tnt is i except for like the stuff that they use in wily coyote time Yeah, like an explosive. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to say Cartoon Network because I've written for them. Had Jotty Bravo, had, you know, and then also you get Adult Swim in the evenings. I'm prepared to go. Would this make sense if on a technicality I went for I don't have a TV because I don't watch any broadcast television.

I only watch like YouTube and streaming yeah that's everyone i know i think it's just like what channel do you associate with most i have to go cartoon network uh producer lauren cartoon network it's the full sweep i feel like that one is skewed because it's we don't know it's one that people i mean i i I never had cable or whatever it is they call it here, Sky, whatever. So I've never actually owned Cartoon Network. I've never had full-time access to it. But I've still seen a lot of Cartoon Network shows.

Yeah, Cartoon Network. The rest of this survey is still TBS. To be surveyed. Oh, that's what it stands for. That's what it stands for, yeah. It's a survey network. 4.26, by the way. 4.2608204.

E factorial. That's what it equals. This is why I both love and hate you.