A Problem Squared - 061 = Shifting Dates and Lifting Waits

Episode Date: June 5, 2023

On THIS episode... 🌍 Where should Earth be?  🛗 What's the best way to spend one minute in a lift?  ♾ Why are there different sizes of infinity?  💼 And, business. Any other.  Send your problems and solutions to our website: aproblemsquared.com. If you'd like to find out which Muppet you are (who doesn't, right?) you can skip ahead of Matt and Bec to do the quiz here: https://www.buzzfeed.com/jenlewis/which-muppet-are-you. And if you want more from A Problem Squared, find us on Twitter,  Instagram. and Patreon.     

Hello and welcome to A Problem Squared, the podcast equivalent of a shandy, in that we'll solve your problems, provided they are trivial enough that all they need is something light, bubbly and a little bit alcoholic. I'm Bec Hill, the lemonade half of the show, because I'm full of sugar and gas, and I'm joined by Matt Parker, who is the beer half of the show, for obvious reasons. Bang. Because you like beer. I'll just grab you a sparkling, but also contains gas. Yeah, always gas.

Yeah, either. Definitely gas. On this episode... I solve the problem of where the earth should be. I'll look at what to do in a lift. And we've got plenty of any other business. Oh, my absolute favorite. You love it.

I love any other business. I would ask how you are. You would. You know. You know how I am. Your face is telling me. So tired. Yeah. So tired.

Yeah, so we're recording in person again. Yeah, we're both in the same room. Because the last two episodes were recorded while you were in Australia. Correct. And I was in a cupboard. Yep. As per. And you're not in a cupboard.

Nope. I am now in Godaming with you. Yep. I'm not in Australia. No, but you got back yesterday. But I was. I landed yesterday. What time did you land? I'm not in Australia.

No, but you got back yesterday. But I was. I landed yesterday. What time did you land? So I got the direct flight from Perth to London, which is just over 17 hours, and it landed at 5.30 in the morning. Oh. Yeah. Yeah.

And I don't negotiate with jet lag. So I landed. Jet lag negotiates with this guy. I landed, got home at 6.40 in the morning. I did a full and rewarding day because I had a bunch of work to get done. I don't know how you do that. I just don't function. I push through.

It's not my best work. But you say that as if that is an option. If people watch the video about when I went to the solar eclipse in Australia, which should be out about when this podcast goes out. I recorded all the voiceover for that yesterday when I just landed home and was deeply jet lagged. So see if, see if you can see if you can spot any jet lag.

I suppose I'd be more able to do that than when you say work, I just imagine emails and my brain wouldn't be able to do emails. I did a bunch of data crunching. If people look at my video about basketball shooting percentages. Is it out? No, but it will be. You were there. I know.

I'm so excited. I genuinely found that so fascinating when you were talking to me, what it's going to be about. It was a lot of fun. And I was like, this is really interesting. So I was crunching the data. Mm-hmm. Yum, yum, yum.

Spoiler. Ooh. I think I can say this. We haven't got it confirmed yet. We're moving it up, up the chain. I found some anomalies in the official NBA stats. What? I know.

Which has slowed me down a lot because I got real distracted by that. Yeah, of course. I'm really hoping I've found something that the NBA will then fix. And then you get to be on TV for the NBA. Exactly. You, tall person. You belong here. You've played basketball.

Get in here. So anyway, yeah, so if you also watch the one where we're playing basketball, I was doing some more of the stats crunching for that. I was doing a bunch of the plotting all the plots that you see and i should say that any footage of um really decent balls going through the hoop as they call it that is word for word is um because i was there you were there and i'm not in the experiment because i was taking score but or am i did i make it oh you're yeah yeah well i haven't i haven't got the final edit okay you know what let's just quickly watch the stupid montage there's you

we saw you shoot but we didn't see the ball there we go oh look at that oh you see that i didn't realize you guys got that on camera yeah i'm chuffed that time you made a shot shut up from downtown no it's one of your many many now everybody many three point shots yeah yeah so anyway so that's the rough cut and i needed to do some final number crunching and i might record the voiceover for that but i don't know if i'm i don't know if i'm gonna make it i'm matt parker that's basically the voiceover yeah but that's a lot of jet lag talk that's's not why we're here, Beck. Let me just go to producer Lauren.

Lauren, how many people have been demanding a stump date? Oh, okay. So actually, stump date is mainly we were going to move the tree when I was back this time, but it had a parasitic wasp in it or a number of them. Oh, no. Like gold wasps. Yeah. Because we were going to move the tree to my sister's place.

But they're like, well, our neighbors have lemon trees and they've got another citrus tree. We don't remove parasitic wasps that target citrus trees. So we realized we can't transport the lemon tree. And the lemon tree had become a key part of stump date. We were going to move the tree when I was back this time. But it had a parasitic wasp in it. Or a number of them. Oh, no.

Like gall wasps. Yeah. So we realized that we can't transport the lemon tree. And the lemon tree had become a key part of stump date. So this time when we were back, we still finished digging up the tree. But very sadly, we then just chopped it up into small bits and was sent to the tip. So the lemon tree is no more. But I did, while we were cutting down the tree,

get you a present. You kept me a bit of the wasp infested wood. No. I was going to say, you're not even allowed to carry that over international lines. Lemons? A lemon. No way. I brought a single lemon. Here it is. I'm handing over a single lemon.

Wow. From the Parker family no longer lemon tree. Look at that. Yeah, it's a happy one. You could draw eyes on it. I don't think I won't. Thank you. So, yeah.

So, as we were moving the tree, I was like, that looks like a perfectly good lemon on it. And so, I was like, I'm taking that back for back. This is another reason why I'm the lemonade half of the shandy. There you are. Yeah. And guess what else happened when we pulled out the lemon tree? Another stump. Well, I looked down into the void left behind.

I was like, wait a minute. I jumped into the pit. Played some sand. More stump. Pre wait a minute. I jumped into the pit, cleared some sand, more stump. Previous old stump? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So the old Jarrah root that went under the tree, now I got the good bit last time, but I got at least another meter and a half. And now my family were like, Matt, we're done. The tree's out. We're just going to fill the hole.

And I said, no, I'm getting in there. I'm not leaving that stump behind. Yeah. So a lot of digging later. What? That is like a stump, but it's a big bit of stump. The wood's not as good as the bit that we're getting worked on at the moment, but that is a solid meter and a half.

The fact that your parents had to stand around while you dug. I know. They were like, it was so hot. Yeah. I was it. I know. They were like, we're done. It was so hot. I was sweating. And they're like, Matt, we're done. Yeah. I then asked my dad if I could just leave that in his shed.

So I think we're still going to focus on the primary bit of stump. But we now have this secondary, lower quality but longer bit of stump. I think a staff. I think a walking staff. A staff? Okay. What were you doing while I was digging for buried stump? I've been doing gigs.

Oh, yeah, yeah. You're gigging again. Gigging again. How's it going? Has it all come back? It's good. I've started, I did Ted Hill. Oh, yeah.

I'm spreading the rumor that we're cousins. I would believe that. Related to our Uncle Harry and our great uncle benny ted has done evening of an esoteric detail yes yeah ted's great ted is like king of the powerpoints yes yeah he's very funny um so he's got a show called uh niche humor which is a deliberate pun on the uk comedian uh uh, Nish Kumar. Yep. I tried out a new bit that I think I might take to an evening of unnecessary

detail in New York. Oh, excellent. Yeah. So that went down well. Update on that by the way. Sold out. Yeah.

So if you're just listening to this now and going, Oh, you guys are going to be in New York. Then sorry. We are. Might be. Cause if there's any like returns or cancellations, there'll be like last minute tickets. So I did that. I that i also did uh been doing some comedy club for kids gigs oh yeah

which i love i love comedy club for kids gigs i did a couple at uh digcot art center and they're really fun but there was a birthday party in and they are the child equivalent of the adult is outnumbered oh yeah yeah so there was like nine kids to one adult just kids tearing around in that group uh the rest were all you know parents with their kids yep and they were fairly well behaved towards the end and i was at the end uh it's called a headliner guys and so oh now he's broken so i went on and they were fine and then they started to get chatty and yelly and i made the mistake of going like going what because i couldn't tell if they were yelling at something

that i'd dropped or missed or something you showed weakness i showed weakness because i gave them a moment to yell something out and i said oh what was that and they're like where's your flannel and it turned out that was the heckle was where's your flannel where's your bathtub where's your flannel what a burn where do you keep your flannel now obviously it's some you can't recover from that which i think is hilarious i think that's a great joke and so but i just went where's your manners more like oh dang the parents all went nuts for it like like it got a round of applause from everyone else and then I couldn't stop laughing. Cause I was like,

cause I could hear the other comics laughing off stage. And I said, yeah, that's right. That's yeah. That's like, yeah. Comedian destroys heck.

Exactly. Nine year old heckler. Yeah. And, um, and, uh, I really enjoyed that,

but I do, and I'll let the listeners in on a little secret. I was very tempted to, when they said, where's your,. I was very tempted when they said, where's your bath? Or like, where's your bath tub? Where's your flannel? I wanted to be like, at your mum's house. And I was like, I can't do that for multiple reasons. But I really wanted to.

There's a non-zero chance you could have got away with it. Yeah. But the risk reward. Do you know what? It's not that I couldn't have gotten, I think I definitely would have gotten away with it. I think risk reward do you know what it's not that i couldn't have gotten i think i definitely would have gotten away with it i think it would have gotten a good laugh to be honest there was enough adults in that it would have gotten a good laugh but because you wouldn't be expecting that the adults would find that very funny we know that this is that we get it we get it we get i don't really mean that yep but kids aren't

going to know that i really don't mean that and kids will probably then go and say the same thing oh good point i've said it before and I'll say it again. I think they're like poisonous berries. It doesn't matter how delicious something is. If it's poisonous, it's still poisonous. So the same with the joke. It doesn't matter how funny it is. That's true.

If it's bad ethically. Bad core. Yeah. If it's going to have a bad effect on people, whether you intend it to or not, then it doesn't matter how funny it's going to have a bad effect on people, whether you intend it to or not, then it doesn't matter how funny it is. It's still bad. Where was that when you were making fun of me

for bragging? Oh, it wasn't a joke. Oh, good point. Should we get on with the show? Yeah, let's do a show. The first problem is for you, Matt. Yep. And it's from Burgermeister. Oh, there's a burger blast from the past.

Yeah. Yeah. So Burgermeister, we have solved one of Burgermeister's problems in the past. Well, you did. I did. Yeah. In episode 009. Whoa.

First 10. Yeah. In episode 009. Whoa. First 10. Yeah. They wanted to know how big the biggest burger would need to be. You did a whole video. And I did a video. I made a video for it as well. Deep in lockdown. Yeah.

It's somewhere on my YouTube page if anyone wants to check it out. Back Hill Comedian. But the mystery, like the mysterious thing about it is that, and I found this out while doing the video, is thatgermeister asked us this question on twitter because it was before we had a problem posing yes it was wow i certainly and bergermeister did not have any other tweets and i realized they created the twitter account yep i believe just to ask the question we saw that the twitter account got was it suspended or was it just missing i think we tried to find it again later. Yeah, we have.

I did reach out to Burgermeister because they said they opened the account just to send that problem on Twitter. But then they used like some throwaway email address. They couldn't verify their email. And then the account got locked. So that's what happened. It was a disposable Twitter account. Yeah. Just to send in.

It was that. Yeah. Because I think I also wasn't sure whether maybe it was just someone who really Twitter account. Yeah. Just to send in. It was that, yeah. Because I think I also wasn't sure whether maybe it was just someone who really likes burgers. Yeah, that was my theory. But it's the only time that they've tweeted. And this is why we have the problem posting page at a problemsquared.com. Yes. You don't have to make a temporary Twitter account to get in touch anymore. No.

Go there. Give us a problem. Just like Burgermeister did now. So, Burgermeister says, Matt recently made a video about the number of weeks in a year and it made me think could we move the earth further from the sun until we have exactly 53 weeks in a year yep it is neater and removes leap years would it also fix climate change that's a real real clutch final sentence there yeah i mean look i know you're going to answer this but they phrased it to say could we move the earth oh could we move and i'm gonna say no no

no you're right you're right actually that's hard you're right you're you're focusing on a different part of the problem yeah i don't want to i don't want to spoil this but i did not factor in how we would move the earth yeah i. I did it with Kudwig. Yeah. So we'll go down that route. Yeah. So for starters, the video, if you want to find out,

I've got a YouTube channel, go to Beck Hill Comedian. The algorithm will work out. Yeah, you'll work it out. Watch enough of Beck's videos. Mine will get recommended. So I found a, not a loophole. I found, so during that, I point out a quirk of the uk tax system i don't know if you've seen this video where you pay different amounts of ni tax depending on if you're paid monthly versus weekly but exactly the same benefits because the hmr, which is the tax department over here, they use a weird definition of a year or a month rather that doesn't actually match up to the correct number of days because a year is ridiculous.

Because the earth spins. That's our day. What? I know. And it orbits the sun. That's our year. Yeah. I know. And it orbits the sun. That's our year. And the two have no direct physical relation to each other other than they're both counterclockwise viewed from above because that's the dominant angle of momentum in our solar system. But they don't need to be a neat multiple of each other. So that's a mess. And HMRC don't bother doing it properly. And it means there's a mismatch in where the boundaries and the tax kicks in.

Because everyone says, you know, how many weeks are there in the year? 52. How many days in a week? Seven. But it can't be because you multiply them together. That's not 365 days, 364 days. There's always a bonus day left over. Bergamot has got an interesting point though so what we could do and this the assumption here is we don't break the length of a day yeah so the earth is still spinning at the

same yes speed so whatever we do to move the earth i'm leaving the details here for someone else to work out yeah can't interrupt it's spinning on its own axis yes that's got to stay the same yeah but we just got to move it a little bit further away from the sun yeah because the crazy thing is if you know how far something is from the sun you can know exactly how fast it's moving and how long its orbit is purely based on that distance oh because the the distance determines the determines everything about the orbit. Because the sun is so much bigger than anything orbiting it. If it was like a binary system, that's different and more complicated. If you actually factor in gravitation from any third or fourth bodies, that gets more

complicated. But if you're just looking at a big sun and a tiny planet, the distance tells you how long the year is. And the further out you go, the longer the year gets. Yeah. So Venus and Mercury have shorter years than the Earth and all the planets further out, Mars and onwards, have longer years. Yeah.

So what we've got to do is just bump it out ever so slightly and we'll have ourselves a longer year. Yeah. Just enough that it could spin around seven more times before it- Six more. Yep. Six more. Because we've currently got 52 weeks in one day more times before it. Six more. Yep. Six more. Because we've currently got 52 weeks in one day. Oh, yes, of course.

We need to get six more spins in. I'm thinking adding another week. Yeah, no, we'll do all that work. It's the same problem. Yeah. Now, a little detour. I'm going to point out something people are worried about and then explain why they don't have to care. So if people want, you don't have to pay attention to this.

I'm very jet lagged. So if it doesn't make sense, that's why. Okay. Here's the problem. A year is not actually how long it takes the Earth to orbit the sun. What? They're different things. Oh, now I don't understand anything now.

I know. So they're very closely related. It actually takes the Earth roughly one year and about 20 minutes to orbit the sun. So it turns out one year is actually slightly less than one orbit around the sun. So just by increasing the orbit, the orbit is not the year. And what we care about is the year being 53 weeks. We don't actually care about the orbit. We just care about the year. And the reason they're different is we define the year as being the complete cycle of all the seasons. So from the exact midpoint of, let's say, summer, pick your favorite solstice. From

one solstice to the equivalent one the next year, that's your tropical year. And if you're not going to spacecraft looking back at the earth, if you're living on the earth, that's your year. Your year is season to season. But the earth, actually, can I borrow the lemon I gave you? This is now the earth, right? And the little knobbly bit at the top is the axis that the earth actually can i borrow the lemon i gave you yeah this is now the earth right and the little knobbly bit at the top is the axis that the earth rotates on the reason we have seasons is because the earth is on about 23 degree tilt yeah and i think we talked about this yeah previous episode but what we didn't mention is that that tilt wobbles around and the tilt actually does a complete lap once every 25,772 years. What does that mean?

So what it means is, so what it means is if the lemon, the earth is on this tilt and does a full orbit around the sun. So Matt is holding the lemon at an angle. Yep. And gets back to where it started. orbit around the sun so matt is holding the lemon at an angle yep and gets back to where it started by the time it gets back it's actually tilted around ever so slightly like that okay so actually because it's tilted around slightly when you get back it lines up with the same tilt compared to the sun sooner because the tilt has like moved in towards where it needs to be.

Okay. So the vast majority of the tilt changes the Earth going around the sun, but also the tilt itself has changed very, very slightly. One, 25,772, like a tiny, tiny amount. I feel this feels like the sort of thing that climate change deniers would lean on oh there's a whole there's a whole host of stupid things the earth and the sun this whole system does on very long time scales there's something like milankovitch cycles because it also player right i think so yeah it's also it also uh processes and actually this is a

procession i'm talking about but the entire elliptical orbit also moves there's a bunch visit look there's so many ridiculous things that the earth does on long long time scales but this one there's just enough of it happens per year that it means every roughly every 70 years 72 years the earth has moved an entire day earlier in the orbit so new year drifts around the orbit okay because of this procession and so what you people are thinking they're like well no no you got to factor in the balance between how much of the orbit makes a year because of the thing processing. And then you've got to compensate for that. It turns out they're linear.

So actually, if you're increasing one by a percentage, you increase the other one by the same percentage. So this is a lot of chat to say, yes, there are tropical years. Yes, there are sidereal years. And by changing the orbit, we're changing the sidereal year. But if we change that by a certain percentage, we get the tropical year for free. Because we get the same percentage. So if everyone wasn't paying attention for that, thank you for lending me your lemon. It means actually we're all good. We don't have to worry

about that. And that's a nice bit of the podcast that if it's too long, Lauren can take out of the edit. But I went, I was like, oh no, I got to compensate for this. I did a bunch of working out and went, doesn't matter. It's all good. All I got to do is just do the percentage. I did the percentage. So I worked out if instead of having the ridiculous number of weeks per year, which I did on the long-term leap year calendar we use at the moment.

If we want to increase that to 53 weeks, we just need to make the year roughly 1.576% longer. Okay. Which means we've got to increase the radius from the sun such that that's the increase. Yep. Now, you know, I talk a lot about how things changes like the square or the cube or something ridiculous like if you get twice as big your volume goes up as the cube of that yes yeah it's a bit more complicated with orbits the square of the time changes in proportion to the cube of the distance you've lost me. I have no idea what you're saying.

Yeah, so. You could have said the door is in proportion to the light switch and an anomaly of that which. It means if you want the year to be twice as long. Yeah. So you want it to be times two. Okay. First of all, you've got to take the square of that,

which is two squared is four. Okay. Then you've got to take the cube root square of that which is two squares four okay then you gotta take the cube root of that which is some ridiculous number one point whatever to get the amount you've got to change the radius by how do you work out a cube root you well you ask excel okay you don't want to calculate what is a cube root a cube root is a square root is working out what number if you multiply it by itself gives you back the original number yeah a cube root a cube root is a square root is working out what number if you multiply it by itself gives you back the original number yeah a cube root is working out what number if you multiply it by itself twice gives you back the original number okay so the cube root of eight yeah is two right

because two times two times two yeah is eight cool. And so you've got to then factor in the square of 1, change it with the cube of the other. But it's not that bad. I put it in Excel. I worked it out. So you want to increase the distance by 1.048%. That's all you've got to do. Just bump it out 1.048%,

which is approximately 1,568,022 kilometers. All right. Which is a long way. One million. One and a half million kilometers. Oh, so like a mega kilometer? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. One and a half gigameters.

Yeah, cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Well done. One and a half gigameters. Yeah, cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Well done. One and a half gigameters? That's my doc impression. There you are. So that's it. That's it.

Yeah. And then just for completeness, I thought, well, I better work out how accurate it would have to be. Because do you want to go to all that effort to move it all the way out, but then you're slightly off? Yeah. To move it all the way out, but then you're slightly off. Yeah.

So I then worked out to be accurate within one second drift in a year. So we're exactly 53 weeks in a year within a second. I thought it would be a nice level of accuracy. Yeah. And to get that level of accuracy, you need to be within 5% of the distance change. Right. Yeah. So we need to be within 77,000 kilometers. Okay.

Of where it needs to be. Yeah. So that's pretty good. Piece of cake. So that's the answer to the problem. Yeah, we can. Yeah. We're just going to move the earth one and a half gigameters within 77 megameters. Yeah.

Job done. Sweet. I also checked... Whenever you're this sure, I feel like there's a but coming. There's no but. I did check the climate change thing there. Okay. We might go too far the other way. Who knows? Oh, no. Well, I then worked out how much less energy would get, which goes with the square of the distance, just to add another proportion in there. And how wide is the Earth in kilometers? Pretty big.

Like 77, whatever the difference was? Oh, no, it's less than that. It's like 12,000, 13,000-ish. Yeah, so we've got a couple of Earths space. Oh, yeah, yeah, within several Earths. Yeah, yeah. Of the movement, yeah. So we would have, compared to our current orbit,

97.9% of the heat from the sun, which means it's a roughly 2% drop, 2.1%. Oh. It's actually a 2.06% drop. Isn't that good? Yeah, well, I couldn't find any research in to say how much we would need to block out the sun to cancel out climate change. We don't want to block out the sun. Well, 2% of it.

Well, if you blocked out 2% of the sun. We're not blocking it with cloud cover or anything like that. It's just less energy that is reaching us. Sorry, I'm using that synonymous. percent of the sun we're not blocking it with cloud cover or anything like that i block less energy that is reaching yeah sorry i'm using that synonymous it's like if you take a step away from the fire it's cooler that's right so we're moving it away so we're reducing it by getting further away as opposed to just blocking some of it but staying where we are that's a real one and done scenario yeah if you get it right yeah so that sounds handy. It makes me think of Red Dwarf and Lister playing pool with planets. Yeah, it's basically that.

You have a couple of drinks. You move the earth. So if anything, I feel like we might have to make more carbon dioxide. It would be the other way around. We'd have to increase global warming to compensate for the reduced energy from the sun. Yeah, the oil companies will love that. So we can lean right into that.

Yeah. I feel like we're solving everyone's problems. I mean, the capitalists, sure. So not only... There's still the cost of living crisis, but we'll get onto that one more time. Nah, nah, nah, we'll fix it. There'd be a lot of jobs to move the sun.

I mean, they'd love it if it was colder because then we'd have to spend more money on heating. Well, look, I'm just saying, we would give ourselves scope for even more climate change. There you are. Yeah, great scope for even more climate change. There you are. Yeah, great. And humans love climate change. Yeah, that's like I was thinking the other day about how much I would love to have a bigger flat.

Yeah. Because our flat feels too small for the two of us for me to work in and everything. And a hamster. And a hamster. And I was like looking at my boff uh office which is the opposite of the lounge the old bed the old bedroom office yep and so i was looking around the office and i was like i just don't have enough space and i was thinking don't you know what if i had a bigger place i would just fill that up with more stuff like yeah i would just keep going up and up and i'm

never gonna stuff makes you happy yeah until it doesn't and then i need more exactly and i'm saying we'd have a lot more headroom so i feel like that's what we're doing here is yeah yeah so eventually we'll have to just keep moving further and further out until we're technically not a planet anymore that well there is an upper limit to oh actually oh you're right good point yeah yeah let's keep moving out yeah we get darker and darker. Wow, you get Mars and you got like an asteroid belt. That's true, but this wouldn't increase the light. Yeah, I don't want dimmer. I don't want dimmer.

Where's 2% dimmer? It's like tinted windows, isn't it? It's fine. All right, cool. Yeah, so the answer is yes. Yes, yes, yes. I mean, I'll say ding, but... You guys aren't happy about it.

I feel like it's something that could actually happen now. Like I'll be laughing about it, but I feel like in the future people will be listening to this and be like, do you remember when they made a joke about that? When they joked about moving the Earth. Yeah, it feels like something Musk would do. Yeah, it means it won't work. I know.

That's the worst part. It wouldn't even work. Well, thanks, it won't work. I know. That's the worst part. It wouldn't even work. Well, thanks, Matt. I think that's great. And thank you, Bergermeister, for asking a solid question. I look forward to us

having 53 weeks in the year. I mean, we could just change the way the calendars are done, but why? Why would we do that? Why would you do that?

Because we just get the week off. Have a prime number of weeks. Is it just a week? We get a free week? Actually Have a prime number of weeks. Is it just a week? We get a free week? Actually, a prime number of weeks means there's no neat way to put it into months. Oh, I should have stopped with the ding.

I think it's good. The people need to know this. They'll tell us otherwise. Yeah. We have a problem sent in by someone who goes by Just Ed, and they say that they spend a lot of time in a small lift and feel like they're wasting valuable time. They want to know, what can I do in about one minute while I'm waiting?

And this is lift specific. It's not like things you could do waiting in a queue or waiting at the train station. This is your inner lift, I guess by yourself. So they then say, I had a thought about doing a few press-ups every time they're in the lift, but the lift floor isn't quite big enough. Oh, here we go. The lift is usually empty except for me. So just Ed would like to know what they can do with roughly one minute while in a small

cuboid. Yes. Beck, what do you got? We're changing levels of gravity because you're in a lift. I don't know if that's important. Just Ed hasn't mentioned that it's so much so that they can feel the lift really moves. Yeah. Yeah. I'm so curious to know what Just Ed does. I like to imagine they're in a little dumbwaiter a minute they work in a dumbwaiter yeah it's actually the rat from ratatouille and they're just like coming up and down uh now i'm assuming there's no other equipment in there with them because they talked about maybe doing press-ups yeah and that makes me imagine that the rest of the floor is somewhat clear.

I imagine it's clear. But obviously not large. Yeah. There's not enough space for press. I guess they can't install any equipment. Yeah, like no rowing machines. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

They put a chin-up bar in or something, you know. Why don't they put things to do in lifts? Why not? Well, that actually comes to one of my options. Okay. One of the things I suggested was they should slowly decorate the lift. That's great. Just one minute at a time. Go in and just take a little poster and put the poster up.

Put like a little side shelf. Yeah, exactly. Give it a week, put a vase on it. Yeah, that's right. Another week, flowers. And cushions. Yeah. Obvious ones are admin.

Well, you know how to have a good time. Yeah, but if now- Just Ed, have you considered getting more admin in? Reception. Text someone you haven't spoken to in ages. Again, depends on reception. But I find quite often I'll think of someone and I'm like, I wonder how they are.

And then I just don't. The moment passes. This could be your dedicated reach out time. Yeah, check in on someone you haven't spoken to. Just send them a quick message. How are you? And then next time you're in the list, can see if they responded i've also put learn a coin trick so one thing i it's hard to do these days because i don't tend to have a coin on me

but i'm trying to one of the things that helps with coin tricks is to do the thing where you make the coin like go over your like your not your knuckles but the space between your knuckles on your hand yeah you let it like fold over the people's reference the word beck has forgotten his finger more no but like not like the whole it's like if you've got a fist yeah and then you're your fingers yeah but i don't know i think it's okay that's true heart the the section of your finger so that's a good thing to try, to just keep doing. See, my first thought was learn to juggle. Yeah, very similar.

And that's what made me think about the changing gravity because I was like, actually, is a lift a good place to learn to juggle if the acceleration of the balls varies depending on where the lift is in its movement? Yeah, because when you're learning, because you and I, I think, can both juggle three balls yes the trick is not to look at your hands it's to look at the point at which the where you want the ball to start going back down so anyway there's that oh yeah i thought also what's something you could do in a minute like instagram reels are a minute long can't do more

than a minute for an instagram reel currently would you have like beck's uplifting thoughts i did hashtag lift life because lift life to the fullest if you're in a lift all the time yeah yep like fill us in on your lift life what are you doing there what are your thoughts what are your little end end of episode jerry springer moments like i want to see that i also looked up world records in a minute oh that's interesting because you could start you could just start if you get good at doing them yeah what world records are under a minute so this one is nicely uh relevant to our i'm a wizard patreon episode um there's a world record for the most claps in a minute that's great just getting the lift and yeah yeah just do a round as soon. Just get in the lift. Yeah, yeah. Just do a round of, as soon as you get in.

That's excellent. Do you want to guess how many it was? 320. More. No. 500. More. No, can't be.

It can't be more than 600. Yep. That's more than 10 a second. What? 1,140. That's insane. That's like 19 a second. It's in the Guinness World Records.

Wait. Okay, tell it. I'm going to do 30 claps and you're going to time it. Okay. Done. I feel like that was all. Oh, okay. I mean, that's under 10 a second.

Vaguely 30. Yeah. You have to get better if you want to beat Dalton. Twice as fast. Twice as fast as that. I'm impressed. Keep practicing, Matt. You'll get there one day.

Thanks. There's the most amount of punches in one minute. Full extension punches. Wow. Most spins of a Guinness World Records book on one finger. Oh, that's ridiculous. Is 394 in a minute. Yeah, big book, man.

A lot of records. It would be very funny if someone came in. Came in while you're spitting the book in your finger. While you're clapping would be great. Welcome. Okay. I'd love it if it was one of those lists where you can kind of hear it as well. As the list goes by. Yeah.

The final thing that I thought I would look into, because they said they wanted to try doing push-ups, which makes me think that maybe they're a bit more fitness. Yeah. And, you know, there's a lot of like workouts in a minute and stuff, but they all require some level of space. Right. Let's take something also doesn't require too much movement because I don't know if you've ever been a lift where someone jumps up

and down, but I think that's terrifying. You don't want to upset the lift. I hate it. Yeah. Don't want to upset the lift. So I reached out to Abigail Shimon, who's a comedian from New York who lives in London now. Right.

She is one of the hosts of the Neurodivergent Moments podcast. She said, obviously, with yoga it's more about the movement. Obviously, you don't want to rush yoga. But she gave a few very basic moves, poses that she recommended. Right. That are very good. And they're all very useful, good for the body. And if you've got a minute, it'd be a nice way of recentering yourself.

Good for your mental health. Are you sure there's no world record for most yoga poses in a minute? I haven't checked. In the meantime. If there's not, you're pushing at an open door. I mean, it's a very good way of causing liability because they hurt themselves. Now, one thing I will say is probably very good

for your core strength because if the lift is going up and down, it's wobbling. And so you're going to have to better at your balance. And they're very minute moves, but if you're doing them, that's still very good for that posture. So I'm going to do the poses. Oh, my goodness. And you can doing them, that's still very good for that posture. So I'm going to do the poses. Oh, my goodness. And you can describe them, Matt.

And then after we finish recording, I'm going to get you to recreate them. And we're going to take photos of them so people can use them as examples. It's like the worst way possible to convey these poses. They're very, very simple. And these are because I'm not good at yoga. The first pose is taking off your jacket. Yeah, yeah. All right. Just a slight back bend slight back bend got it pose one look at the ceiling of the lift yeah a nice big deep breath as you go back a bit and then an exhale as you stand up

straight again got it becca's doing the classic touch your toes pose just bend forward and forward let your head i don't think i can touch my toes but I'll give it a good go. Just relax. Hang there for a bit. Just enjoy the moment. Take a nice deep inhale and exhale. Have a good look at the floor or the lift. Okay, there's this one. Becca's doing the Y in YMCA.

Oh, now it's like Y but there's a stiff breeze coming from Beck's left. And then back up again. And then the other left. And then back up again. And then the other way. And then back up again. Love it. We call that tree in the breeze. Sure.

Yeah. So that's like a side stretch. But the key with that one, and they'll say this a lot, is that you're trying to create space in the side rather than trying to condense the other side. You meant to expand the other side. Yeah. Okay.

We'll see if you can work out what this one's called. Like doing a squat with like a Superman pose on the front. So that's called awkward pose? Correct. Sometimes it's also called chair pose, but quite often you have your arms a bit higher up. Squat and flat arms. Well, I will say Abigail, I made it very clear.

She said I would do one pose per minute. Really take your time. Oh, you're going to do all of these each time. You pick one. Now, me as Bec Hill, I'm not saying you need to do that, but I am also not a yoga instructor. Got it. So please don't hurt yourself.

Right, two more. Bec has once again put her hands on her hips and she's lifted up one leg and taken it to the side and put it on her other leg, like knee pointing out like a capital P legs only. With that one, I've got my left foot resting on my calf. What you instinctively want to do if you're like me is rest it so that your foot's on your knee.

Don't do that. It's bad for your knee. Got it. So calf or inner thigh. Were the steps to get into that important or is it any steps to end up in that position? So again, it's about the movement. So raising your knee up ahead of you.

You did a real deliberate knee up, out, foot in. And then out to the side. Got it. And then the foot on the calf. And then do it on the other side. And then the final one, I'll have fun describing this one, Matt. She's lifting up her right foot and tucking it on the opposite side of her left leg she's done her elbows are on the wrong side hands together kind of move yep she's definitely a brochure for the

in-house hotel uh wellness center yeah you can swap sides with that one as well. And that one's called Eagle Pose. Eagle Pose. Yeah. Excellent. I feel like I'm going to knock those out of the park. And just it, I'm very fascinated to hear if you do any of those. Yes, please let us know what you end up doing.

Please get in touch. Yeah. Photos, video, let us know about your Instagram reels. Well, I think, and this is one of the cases, Bec, where I cannot ding or non-ding in the moment. No, we need to wait. We've got to find out what Just Ed does. So Just Ed, please do let us know.

But we'll get a lifting if we do that, won't we? I love a lifting. Do you know what? This whole time I've been fighting the urge to say this is a problem on many levels, but I haven't. Well done. Because I'm better than that. So we have some, any other business?

Yep. Vincent wrote into the problem posing page, selected solution, just to make a comment about the candy bar problem from 059. People want to know, have we discovered all the candy bars? Yes. Now I don't think we've got a response from the problem poser. No, not that I saw. But Vincent says, Beck's solution to come up with a new candy bar feels very similar to showing uncountable infinity. Oh. Thus proving there are uncountably many possible candy bars to be invented. What? And I don't know what

uncountable infinity is and I knew I could look it up but I thought it might be more interesting to be invented. And I don't know what uncountable infinity is, and I knew I could look it up, but I thought it might be more interesting to ask you. Wow, that's. So there's different types of infinity. Which I did not know. Oh, really? Yeah.

Yeah, so many. So you've got one type of infinity, which is the countable infinity, which is the infinity where you just like one, two, three six you count things oh okay there are infinitely many whole numbers as you keep counting up but then you're like well hang on what if instead of having whole number counting what if you allow the numbers in between like one and a half one point six seven whatever and it turns out there are there are more numbers between zero and one than there are whole numbers.

There's a different infinity. And so it's a complicated mathematical proof. Is this like an elaborate fence post problem? No, no, no, it's not. Good reference. So how are there more in between zero and one than there are? So what you do, the way the proof was done, so there's actually people may have come across a thing called Hilbert's Hotel,

which is like the kind of catchy name for the way that this. Yeah, this already sounds more interesting to me because of that. So the way Hilbert's Hotel works is you've got a hotel with infinitely many rooms in it. And they're numbered, let's say, one, two, three, all the way Hilbert's Hotel works is you've got a hotel with infinitely many rooms in it and they're numbered let's say one two three all the way up yep and the idea is you use it as a way to visualize a systematic way to process when you've got infinitely many things so one opening question would be how many cleaners do you need? Actually, there is a problem where you've got a cleaning crew who clean the hotel.

I love this. But at the beginning of the shift, you work out which rooms need cleaning and which don't. And there's a different cleaner for every combination of rooms that need cleaning. So, for example, if you're like, okay, today we've got to clean room 2, room 71, and room 18, and there's a single cleaner whose job is only to clean when those specific rooms need cleaning. And the question is, what sized infinity of cleaners do you require in order to implement that cleaning system? Oh, that one won because there's only three rooms that need cleaning.

Yeah, but how many do you need on reserve for every possible situation right and so so the proof of because someone might throw up in their room exactly yeah okay so the classic opening example is what's infinity plus infinity and i'm using my language is not very precise there because infinity is not a number it's the size of a set of things yeah it's like what's blue plus trees exactly yeah so in the opening way of saying that is you go right if there's like infinitely many people shop on a bus and they're numbered one through infinitely many you it's like easy everyone goes into the room with their number on it but then if another bus

shows up you know where are we going to put these people? What you can do is go to the people who are already in their rooms and say, very sorry, you're going to have to change rooms. You have to go to the room that's twice your current room. And so everyone leaves their room and goes to the number that's twice the one they're in at the moment and then settles down for the night. Okay.

Which means everyone's still got a room, but now everyone's in an even numbered room and there's now infinitely many odd numbered rooms empty and that's where you put the new busload of people. Okay. And you can repeat that as many times as you need. Okay. Each time a new infinite bus shows up.

And what's that got to do with uncountable? Well, that's countable infinity. Yeah. But then a bus shows up. The hotel's empty. A bus shows up with infinitely many people, but they've all got- Big bus. Big bus, but they've all got a number between zero and one.

So one person's 0.762948. So the way the proof is done is you show that there's no way to assign all of those numbers between zero and one to the rooms in such a way that no one misses out on a room. You can always find someone who doesn't get a room in any given way of assigning people their rooms. This has not answered my question at all. I still have no idea why that is. So it's a long, complicated proof.

It's not that long and complicated but it involves writing things down okay so i'm not gonna i'm not gonna go into that but that's the essence the proof is then showing if you list all the people in what rooms they're going into you can then generate a new number because not on the list. There are more combinations of numbers that happen after point. Once you've got a decimal point, you can have infinite combination of numbers that go on forever. But with whole numbers,

it's just... Yes, but whole numbers can also get as large as you want. Yeah. There's still as many digits as you fancy in one direction of the decimal point as there are on the other direction of the decimal point. So there's a slight subtlety. Now, so this person said, it's a long way to say, this person said your thing reminds them of that.

You didn't find a chocolate bar which is deliberately different to every other chocolate bar that exists. But you did make sure it was a new chocolate bar that we weren't previously claiming we've already categorized every single chocolate bar. I can see why they think there's a similarity, but I don't think it's not the same. I would say it's not the same i would say it's not the same proof is it are they saying it's similar because like if you think of a candy each candy bar is a whole candy bar yep but i'm saying that the elements that make up a candy bar could be anything there has to be candy bars that haven't been invented yet because we haven't tried putting everything into a candy bar uh no ah because that would have fit very nicely

yes i think but that that was what you were doing what they've done is they've said the proof about uncountable infinities involves making a big list of all the numbers and then finding a number that's not on that list yet and you making the new candy bar was starting with a big list of candy bars and then finding a candy bar that's not on that list yet yeah so in that regard it's the same process of you start with the collection of things and you deliberately find one more than was already in the collection okay but where i where i would say it breaks down from my jet lag point of view the reason that works for the proof is you've you've already got infinitely many things like you think you've got everything in that set you've got infinitely many of them and then you find a new

one that's definitely not in there whereas what you were doing was more similar to just um making assumptions it was a statistical thing of you know oh i think i've found every animal that lives in this habitat and but then you go out and you're like, well, maybe we missed some. And then you see how long it takes to capture a new animal that you haven't previously discovered. So for me, it's more of a population estimation, statistical experiment, what you were doing, which I thought was very clever.

Thanks. I'll take that. There you are. Which is a long way to say no. Yeah. My answers tend towards infinity. Do you know what might perk you up? What might perk me up?

After your jet lag. Well, I could use. This infinitely long description. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It might be. I'm very excited. A problem square. Oh, you've got them.

I'm so excited. They're good. It's a bit like a, you get like those, it's not a croissant, but like a chocolate pastry thing. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. That's what it is.

Where the chocolate part is very thick. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Well, I'm prepared to ding. Yay. That's, that's, it's definitely a novel candy bar.

Now, this podcast is free for you to listen to. However, that is only because we have some wonderful Patreon supporters. We like to thank three of those Patreon supporters at random each episode. And in this episode, those supporters are... Billy Jarvis. Hugo Bwama. Bwama. Because I'm like, Bwama?

Bwama. Hugo Bwama. I'm going to say Panga Ban. This will be Ban. Panga Ban. So thank you very much for being our wonderful Patreon supporters. I'd also like to thank our amazing producer, Lauren Armstrong Carter, and my co-host, Matt Parker.

Thank you. I'm Bec Hill. Have a lovely day. All right, Bec, I need to know what game would you rather play so we can continue our BuzzFeed survey of which Muppet are you? Banana Grams is on the options, as is Scrabble. Scrabble in my family is a chance to argue about whether or not something is a word before we consult the dictionary. That sounds great.

It's a lot of fun. It's an immense amount of fun. Rummy Royal, is that on there? No, it won't be. It is not. Your other options were Guitar Hero, which I liked in a video game. Quirkle.

Quirkle's not on there. Angry Birds, Battleship, Duck Duck Goose, very different types of games. They are different types. I do like Duck Duck Goose But I feel like that's 100% gonzo Because it's bird related I'm doing Scrabble I'm afraid

I love Guitar Hero But I'm going to go Charades I did enjoy Guitar Hero I played a lot of Battleship when I was a kid I think some of the first videos Or some of the earliest videos I put on YouTube Was Extreme Charades There you go

Which is where I used to do Charades In extreme situations Okay, Charades and Scrabble. Locked in. Done. you