A Problem Squared - 063 = Meta Magic Squares and Fire Hose Care

Episode Date: July 3, 2023

In THIS episode... 🔲 Is it possible to make a magic square of magic squares where each cell is the magic constant of another magic square? 📜 Bec becomes a document detective! 🚨 It's a New York Alert 💼 What's in the briefcase today? ❓AND a big muppet reveal. You can find the Magic Square of Magic Squares here (It's the second one on the page): https://inderjtaneja.com/2022/02/10/100-magic-squares-of-order-42-with-numbers-00-99/ Here's the original Numperphile video 'Magic Squares of Squares (are PROBABLY impossible)': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kdsj84UdeYg&ab_channel=Numberphile  The Firehose Specifications Document can be viewed here (It can't be real, right?): https://ifunny.co/picture/australian-government-fire-hose-spfcifications-all-hose-is-to-be-PDLNwbBZA?s=cl  Now you know, which muppets Bec and Matt are - tell us, which Muppet are YOU? And send in your CONEY ISLAND related problems to the Problem Posing Page:  www.aproblemsquared.com, or on social media @aproblemsquared. If you want to sponsor the podcast,  head on over to our Patreon page. You can can find that here: https://www.patreon.com/aproblemsquared

Welcome to A Problem Squared, the podcast equivalent of a hospital, except instead of trying to treat your medical ailments, we will just try to solve your trivial and often hypothetical problems. Although in the Venn diagram of a problem squared and hospitals, there is a very small intersection where you will come to us with your trivial medical problems. I'm pretty sure we get some trivial medical problems. That's what I'm saying. It's in the intersection.

Yeah, 100%. Yeah, yeah. Your practicing physicians today, emphasis on practicing. Matt Parker, DM, does maths. Hey. And me, Beck Hill, MD, massive dork. That could be maths, maths doer. That's not me though.

No, massive dork. Yeah. Well. That's it. That's the intro. Deal with it, guys. Love it. On this episode.

I will be clearing up some misunderstandings around squared magic squares. Ooh, squared magic squares. Yeah. I'll be source checking some interesting government information from Australia. Sounds saucy. And if you like business that comes at the end of a meeting, my goodness, have we got some any others? Wowee.

goodness have we got some any others wowee this is why we shouldn't talk too much before a show i mean normally it's like hey what have you been doing for the last month but i yeah i saw you twice last week oh yeah yeah that's a lot yeah we spent a lot of time we did i you know it i think because it was two consecutive days i've kind of mentally categorized that as one one big one visit yeah yeah yeah yeah but before that i went to japan oh my gosh you did and we haven't we haven't even done a recording since i was in japan and do you know what we didn't talk about that because we were like let's talk about it in the podcast yeah oh my goodness this is. Here's some stuff that I haven't actually heard yet. There you go.

Now, you look genuinely pleased all of a sudden. I'm so pleased. Did you see it? Thank goodness, something new. I relaxed instantly. Although you kind of know what I'm going to talk about because I did tweet about it slightly when I was in Japan. Oh, yeah.

We were in Japan for just over a week because Lucy was at a solar physics workshop in Nagoya. And that was during the week. It was like a Monday to Friday deal. So we did the flanking weekends in Tokyo. Nice. So we get there. We have like one day in Tokyo. I run around.

I make a video. We meet up with some colleagues of Lucy's slash friends of ours. And then we're down in Nagoya for the week. And then we're back up to Tokyo for the final weekend. Yes. And we did the journeys on the bullet train. Oh yeah which is a huge amount of fun and i hadn't been in japan for a while and there's been a noticeable change before and after the olympics there's more english signage than i remember from before so navigating the public transport system i found way easier this time i don't know maybe google maps is better as well but actually the whole experience of traveling around

japan was easier this time i think google translates also really good now and it was a huge amount of fun and the bullet train incredibly fast and super punctual except on our way back it was delayed immensely so yes there was a typhoon that came through and it just bucketed like like monsoon amounts of rain and apparently like when it was raining because i was just sat because we were in like staying on the university campus and lucy will be off during the day at the workshop in a physics building or whatever. And I'm in the student accommodation doing writing work. So I just pushed. There's a desk there.

I pushed up against a window so I could look out, see a bit of greenery, see a bit of the university, get some work done. I'm looking out on a lower bit of the building with a big flat roof. And then when the rain came down, it was just gradually filling up with water like just incredible quantity of water and i'm like wow but i guess it's designed for this and then afterwards everyone's like no this was like an above average like an abnormal amount of right it was not designed no no which we discovered the next morning when we went to get the bullet train back to tokyo and they weren't running or rather rather, there was a massive queue. Yeah, I think I did see some photos.

And it reminded me of when there's massive queues for the Eurostar. It felt like we got there right when the trains had just started running again. They had been down for like the 24 hours previous. So loads of people were showing up because you kind of get these unreserved tickets. And there were so many people showing up all at once when the trains just started running again. on reserve tickets. Yeah. And there were so many people showing up all at once when the trains just started running again.

And you could tell the station staff were kind of scrabbling to organize the queue. Which is surprising because when you think of organization. Yeah. Yeah. You think they'll have it. And we had to divide and conquer. Lucy got in what we thought was the queue.

So I went and got the ticket, Lucy got in the queue, and then for the first like half an hour, the queue moved pretty fast. But the queue we got in was like outside the station, down the street, and it just zigzagged backwards and forwards and backwards and forwards. And it moved super fast for half an hour and then completely stationary for an hour. Right. And I think that was them like adjusting the queue downstream i think they were first of all

if we move really fast because they were adding in lots of zigzags elsewhere in the queue right to get some more capacity and then we didn't move at all because i think they were clearing out a bunch of people who'd already clogged up the station and impromptu badly queued in the station. Yeah. And then after like, you know, an hour of then no movement at all, we then carried on. And it was just over four hours to get to the front. Yeah.

As I was in the queue, I was like, this is a bit annoying because this never happens with the bullet trains. Yeah. And it's a bit of a chaotic queue. It's not like an established queue you know you're going to do right so yeah but then i thought you know what given how rare this is and given how much people love public transport infrastructure there's a non-zero number of people who would be quite envious but i got to go i got to go have a four-hour bullet train queuing experience in

nagoya train station so i looked at the opposite app, I'm like, this is amazing. So few people ever have the opportunity to queue for a bullet train. Yeah, that's true. Particularly out of the station. Come on. How long was the actual journey for? Under two hours. Yeah.

So you queued for longer than you were on the train. Actually, the surreal thing was the queue was just to kind of get through the ticket gates. were on the train actually the surreal thing was the queue was just to kind of get through the ticket gates and once you're through it's just another free-for-all to work out the platform and then the sub queues yeah different carriages so we since let's do all that afterwards but in the in the end it worked yep i did loads of other cool fun stuff but none of it is exciting as the queuing story wow yeah i know what the people want what about you back what have you been up to anything as exciting as a four-hour queue i mean you were with me we drank four jugs of margaritas with

bobby fingers good times of the youtube jalapeno margaritas jalapeno margaritas which is very nice bobby had to film some extra behind the scenes stuff with his uh patreon supporters if people aren't familiar with the Mr. Bobby Fingers, they have a YouTube channel. Yeah. Yeah. We've mentioned on a previous episode, they make dioramas.

It's not family friendly. No. Yeah. I talked about the Michael Jackson stuff I did. Yes. On a previous episode. But we wish to reiterate the It's an Adult's Craft channel. Yeah.

But it is like incredible. He's ridiculously talented yes disgusting but he was in town uh and he was also seeing pen and teller who happened to be his patreon supporters we happen to be seeing the same show as him by pure chance yeah and so when we found this out when i said to him oh i'm going to see penn and teller with matt and lucy on the 17th and he was like that's when i'm going and i was like oh amazing and then instantly in my head i was like well now we have to meet penn and teller because if he's going as his as their guest yeah exactly yeah and we did we got to meet them very briefly yep backstage people

which is very cool i did get to meet penn's kid, who's an adult, so it feels great. But Moxie. Offspring. They're offspring. Moxie. And Moxie's doing a double bill magic show in Edinburgh called Young and Moxie, I think it's called. So I'm going to go see that because I'm going to go and get a princess here.

I'm not going to do a show. I'm just going for funsos. Going to DJ? Of course you're going to DJ. Yep. It's actually happening. So before we do our next recording, I have to dig back through and find out what the DJ name was.

Did we lock in a DJ name for you? We had something, yeah. Yes, that was good. That's pretty much my catch-up chat. We had a fun time. We had a fun time. And then we went out for more margaritas. Oh, we had more margaritas after Penn & Teller.

That was a theme for us. It's a margarita summer. Yeah. We'll be in New York soon. Mugs are all around. If you can recommend good margaritas in New and Teller. That was a theme for us. It's a margarita summer. Yeah. We'll be in New York soon. Mugs are all around. If you can recommend good margaritas in New York, let us know. Yes. This first problem is for you, Matt.

It's from a flock of Smeagols, which is maybe my favorite name. Great name. Yeah. On the problem posing page at a problem squared.com. And it says, I misread the title of the most recent Numberphile video. Numberphile being the channel that you sometimes appear on. YouTube channel about numbers. So on the most recent Numberphile video, magic squares of squares are probably impossible,

but they misread it as magic squares of magic squares are probably impossible. So it begs the question, is it possible to make a magic square of magic squares where each cell of a magic square is the magic constant of another magic square? I have no idea what this question means. Okay. Yeah, there's a lot here. That last part was me, not a flock of Smeagols. No, no, no, no.

A flock of Smeagols is all over it. Yeah. So first of all, what is a magic square? Okay, we'll go from the beginning up. Yeah. So a magic square. Is Penn and we'll go from the beginning up yeah so a magic square is it is it is pen and teller involved it's very similar is it like the magic circle but it's exactly like the magic yeah cool cool cool but with more corners yeah yeah wait are you allowed to tell us about magic i can't reveal any of the secrets of the you're

not allowed in the magic square anymore exactly you have to go to the magic triangle yeah right and then you get demoted to the magic circle. As you work your way up the ranks, you get more corners. Okay. That's how it is. And so the magic dodecahedron. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's the top. So a magic square is a grid of numbers, like a very small spreadsheet. I imagine that's a good reference point for everyone here. Yeah. Where if you add up all the numbers in each of the rows you always get the same total is that how sudoku works sudoku does do that as well but in a sudoku it's because every row has all the digits one through nine and every column has one through nine so So because everywhere in every column has the same digits in it, just in different orders.

Right. But this is the same title. If the, if, if it could be any digit, it still works. Yeah. It's not just one.

God. And, and the kind of, there are different standards in your magic squares, because if I wanted to make a really boring magic square, so I'm just, I'm going to, I'll write one out, but I'm going to describe it at the same time.

I'm just doing a grid of the number one over and over again. Now, am I right in thinking this has something to do with your Parker square? It does something to do with my Parker square. Okay, yeah, yeah. Correct, yeah. So I've just done a three by three grid of ones. Yes. Which adds to three in every direction.

Yep. So technically technically magic square okay it's just really boring and you could i could put one two and three in every single row and column it would still work but it's even more still boring yeah and so the kind of the ones that people really like don't have any repeated um digits in them so they they're all unique entries in the grid. And we've known about these for thousands of years. Like this is maybe one of the oldest

known bits of recreational mathematics. People love these magic squares and they've popped up independently around the world in different cultures all over the shop. And after a while you can find a bunch that work and you start thinking, well, if only we could add more conditions

to these things to make them even more interesting. So actually I've got one that I found, and I very quickly scribbled this out before we started recording. I'm going to pass it over to you. Okay. Matt's holding me a square piece of paper. Do you want me to read it out? Yeah, just pick a row, pick a column.

Okay. So the top row reads 5, 22, 18. Okay. And if you add those together, they add to, what's that? 45. Yep. And if you add up a different, add up a column, pick a column. So if I go down, it's 5, 28, and 12.

Oh, there you go. Yeah. So it works. And in fact, every row, every column, and the diagonals all add to the same amount. However, the one thing that's different about this one, normally I would write the things as digits. Yeah, you've spelled it out in words. Yeah, they're all written out.

In letters. Because if you count the number of letters in any of the rows or columns or diagonals. The letters add up too. There's always the same number of letters. No. Yeah, isn't that cool? How do you even, how does anyone figure that out? All the numbers are different.

They're all different numbers. Yeah, they are, yeah. I mean, you can see the numbers mentioned more than once because they're part of the other, like 22. Oh, that's true. There's also a two. Yeah, good point, good point. But also, they're all different lengths.

So there's not even a repeated length. So there's kind of two magic squares in one. There's one magic square, which is the actual values of the numbers. There's another magic square, which is the lengths of the numbers when they're written out in English. That's amazing. And the lengths are also still nine unique lengths. And so I found that one. I'm very proud of that. That's very cool. I was very excited. I wrote some software. I wrote some terrible Python code, as is my want. Yes.

And I thought, wouldn't it be cool if a magic square had this property where if you write it out, it's the same number of letters in every single direction. I wrote some code. I searched through all the magic squares up to two digit numbers. So they're all two digit or fewer numbers. There's no zero. And then I looked for that property and I found seven. There are seven magic squares, ignoring the fact that I could have obviously rotated that or reflected it and it's still the same. Yeah. Just use the same ones. Yeah. So there's seven distinct magic squares that have that property, but six of them have duplicate lengths. Right. Yeah. So the numbers are all different because I only searched for ones with different numbers,

but they would have the same length for more than one number when they're written out. And only one of them, the one you're holding there, has unique lengths. Wow. I found that. I was so excited. I had a look online. I couldn't see it anywhere. I went and gave a talk about it at the 2016 Mass Jam conference.

And then afterwards, someone pointed out someone else had already found that. Oh. In the mid-1980s. Oh, that was quite a long time before you did. Yes, quite a while before me. So you didn't just Google it first? I did Google it. I don't know how I didn't find it.

Yeah, it was already out there this whole time. Wow. Yeah. But I maintain finding something, like I had as much fun finding it. Now you know it definitely is right. Yeah. Because someone else. Wow. Yeah. But I maintain finding something, like I had as much fun finding it. Now you know it definitely is right. Yeah. Because someone else had already done it. And you've confirmed that for them.

And when they found it, people were very excited about it. People were saying it's the most amazing magic square. And I still found the same thing. It just so happens someone else found it before me. Yeah. And I don't think that in some senses that's a bit disappointing, but I don't think it in any way devalues the journey of finding i think we should buy a lottery ticket with these numbers there you go exactly i

can be the lucky numbers yeah and so what i'm kind of circling around here is you can write some software to find magic squares which is going to answer the problem that the person sent in oh right and so i actually wrote some software to generate magic squares wait let's have a now now let's go back to their problem oh let's see how many words you've now got okay yep so you did a video about magic squares of squares yes meaning like squared numbers yes so instead of having some ridiculous extra rule like the number of letters have to also be the same in every direction you could add other sorts of properties you could try and find a magic square where all the numbers are prime you could try and find a magic square with that that's four by four

or five by five different sizes yeah or you could try and find a magic square where all the numbers in the magic square are themselves squared numbers and so I'm going to pass you over another magic square that I wrote out. There we go. And so that's a magic square that I found where all the numbers are square numbers. Yeah. Yeah. So you've got 29 squared.

Look, I'm not going to do the maths. No, don't. No, no, no, no. It's not worth it. You've got 29 squared, 1 squared, and 47 squared. I can get you right to the punchline., don't. No, no, no. It's not worth it. You've got 29 squared, 1 squared and 47 squared. I can get you right to the punchline. First of all, you notice there's repeated. Yes, there are two 41 squared and there are two 29 squared.

And two 1 squared. One of the diagonals doesn't add to the same amount. Right. And so this is the infamous Parker square. Ah, I did. Do you know I was fighting very hard. There's one on your wall and I was fighting very hard not to look at it. Yes.

Yeah, it's the same one. In fact, it's probably the same orientation. I think it's the canonical arrangement. It is. Yep. So this is the Parker Square. And this was me. I looked up online and found that no one had ever found a magic square

where all the numbers are themselves square numbers. And I thought I'd give it a go. And I knew people had already tried up to huge numbers yeah so i knew i wasn't going to find one but i thought it was to be a fun video to make on numberphile to talk about the fact this something that's so easy to describe doesn't exist yeah but i thought there's no point doing the video if i haven't tried myself so as part of the video i thought i'd see how close i could get and that's as close as i could get yeah and then it got dubbed the parker square and that is basically now a metaphor for trying something and trying something and still failing correct correct no no it's the metaphor for giving

it a go we made along the way yeah yeah the real magic was the the friends we squared along the way yeah so uh so that became the whole thing brady released t-shirts and all that jazz is all very funny um and the reason that this person actually the video they were watching was someone like So that became the whole thing. Brady released t-shirts and all that jazz. It's all very funny. And the reason that this person, actually the video they were watching, was someone, like mathematicians have now done legitimate research into trying to find a magic square of square numbers. So there's already ample pictures of the Parker Square online, but we'll add to it. I should sign that.

Like that's a Matt Parker handcrafted Parker Square. You should give that away as a it. I should sign that. Like that's a Matt Parker handcrafted park square. There are. You should give that away as a prize. I should. The first wizard to find me in real life. Now you have to carry it with you everywhere. Oh, not that again. I did that last time.

I think we should just send it. We should just send it to a random Patreon supporter. Deal. We'll just do that. You've got until the end of July. At the end of this month, I will pick from the 1st of August. I'll pick a patron at random and I'll even write the person's name on it. So it's like personalized.

Do you know what? Underneath it? Yep. It's a big piece of paper. So people can cut it off. I'll do one. I'll do it. You do it.

You do it as well. Yeah. The spirit of the hill square is to definitely get it wrong. Right. And that way you cannot fail yeah yeah yeah sign up on patreon by the end of july and i'll pick someone at random and you'll get it yeah so anyway what both these things have in common is i had some code that makes magic squares and in both these situations the parker square and the what's called um alpha magic square or something i called it a letterwise magic square,

but it turns out I'm not allowed to name it because someone else already had. Right. In both these cases, I was just repurposing some old software I had written to find magic squares. And I originally wrote that software for the 2015 Festival of the Spoken Nerd show just for graphs. Oh, yes.

And in that show, which, I mean, you won't have seen for almost a decade now. I think you came and saw it in Adam Brice. I think I Oh, yes. And in that show, which, I mean, you won't have seen for almost a decade now. I think you came and saw it in Edinburgh. I think I did, yeah. During the show, I wanted to do a thing about magic squares. I wanted to do something new. And this is before the Parker Square, before any of this ridiculousness. And so I did a 10 by 10 magic square.

So a 100 number magic square for a member of the audience. All the rows and columns in this 10 by 10 magic square. So a 100 number magic square for a member of the audience, all the rows and columns in this 10 by 10 magic square, all summed to the number they gave me. Nice. Which was a ridiculous undertaking, but I thought it'd be very funny to do it. And what you do is you memorize a standard magic square and then you just adjust values to change all the totals.

But you memorize which ones you've got to adjust and by how much to hit different targets i mean you this sounds um what you've just said to me is like i'm a genius no it's it's it's all you have to do is remember their entire credit card number and pin number and i'm saying it's it's you don't have to be clever you just gotta throw a bunch of time at memorizing and practicing some stuff. Yeah. Which is all of magic to be honest. But I find that far more impressive than cleverness.

Oh, there you go. Excellent. So I did that. But then my unique twist on it was later on in the show, I get them to cover up all the numbers in the magic square below a threshold and it makes a picture of a smiley face. Oh, nice. Yeah. So I hid a picture in the magic square that doesn't get and it makes a picture of a smiley face. Oh, nice. Yeah, so I hid a picture in the magic square.

Okay, that's cool. That doesn't get broken when I change the totals. That's very cool. It changes the threshold, but it still works. Because I want to do something new that someone hadn't done. Because people have done magic squares on stage a lot. Wow. In nerdy magic circles.

Mm-hmm. And so what it means is maybe I could use my code that I originally wrote for that and i've applied it to the parker's grave applied to the letter one i could apply it to this suggestion from a flock of smiggles to make a magic square which is itself made up of magic squares right so then that's like so if you've got, wait, are magic squares? No, you said they're not always nine cells. They're just.

They can be any grid. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So that's basically just a bigger grid. It would be a bigger, it would be a grid. Well, yes, you've got it in one. Yeah.

So the concept is you'd have a grid, like a three by three grid. And in each cell, instead of putting a number, you'd put another magic square, but that's just another grid. And so you're just ending up with an even bigger grid. Yeah. And so I can say, yes, you can do that. And yes, people have already done it. And so I quickly went online earlier and I've got a person who emails me magic squares on the regular.

And I went and flicked through their website we'll link to it from uh the show notes also all our social medias and i printed one out for you so i'm just gonna go grab it okay so i'm handing over a magic square to beck the whole thing is one big magic square whoa so that's my eyes so at one level it's a 7x7 magic square, but each entry on the magic square is itself a 6x6 magic square. Okay. And each of those sub-magic squares has the additional property that if you add the central 4x4 numbers, you get the same total as the perimeter border numbers around the outside of the magic, each sub-magic square. Oh, my goodness. So this is a magic square of magic squares i don't like it it's it is terrifying it's very unsettling isn't it also it looks like one of those you know those uh magic eye thing yeah there's um

optical illusion things where they're like look look at this grid of squares and then it's like, oh, you can see a smaller squares or circles in between the squares. Oh, yeah. And it's always- It does that effect. It does do that effect. Yeah, yeah. Because it's got like a light and dark grid.

You look at one bit and all the other ones look like they're shaded in. And you look at those and they're not shaded in, but the other ones look like they're shaded in. Yeah. I find some keyboards do that to me. Oh. Like the blanks. Like if the mortar of the keyboard is light colored,

I get that effect when I look at it. Hmm. Yeah. Old Macs, you see it. I genuinely can't have that in my timeline. I will take it back now. It keeps like attracting my eyes and I don't like it. Yeah.

Yeah. It hurts. So to answer the problem, people do make magic squares of magic squares. And actually the magic square I did in that show nearly a decade ago was a magic square of magic squares because the way I made it was I didn't actually make a 10 by 10 magic square. I made four 5 by 5 magic squares.

Ah. And if you stack magic squares you you you still get the same totals in all the different directions in terms of columns and rows because you're still adding the two different totals that are always the same to each other so you still get the same grand total for each row in each column right so i i'm so i'm making sounds as if i'm yeah i'm not like i'm understanding that this makes sense i'm not a hundred percent following and i'm so i'm making sounds as if i'm yeah i'm not like i'm understanding that this makes sense i'm not a hundred percent following and i'm fine with that yeah what i'm saying is if you want to make a big magic square you can cheat and make a bunch of smaller magic squares

and just stack them together yeah because if you're adding you've got a row from one magic square and row from the other magic square, all the different rows in the squares will always add to the same thing. And so you're still always adding the same thing to the same thing. So the joint row is always giving you the same total. And likewise with the columns. Okay. Do you know what I understand now for some reason in my brain, I was like, no, but those, I was thinking as if you need to add up all the numbers that are in the square. No, just the rows. Yeah.

But if you did need to do that, if you had to add up all the numbers that are in the square. You'd still get the sum total. And then stack those. That would still work. Would it still work? Yeah. So, or the sum total of all the numbers in a magic square. Yeah.

For the same magic. Yeah. It will be the same. Yeah. because you're basically just doing all the rows at once or something like that cool anyway the point is magic squares don't have to be made up of smaller magic squares but you can always take smaller ones and put them together to make a bigger one it's a cheating way of doing it and so my software would have been too slow to search for a 10 by 10 one that did what I want.

And so I split it into four smaller problems. Yeah. Which were each way easier than a quarter of the whole problem because it's a combinatorics issue. And so I just knew which part of the smiley face had to be where in each of the five by fives. And I could generate them all individually and put them together. That's very cool. Yeah. And because they were all different in terms of like the values,

you couldn't really tell once they were all together, it was seamless despite having literal seams. So to answer that problem, yeah, a hundred percent. In fact, that's where the Parker square started was from making a magic square of magic squares.

And so it's very funny that that's what they misread. Yeah. was from making a magic square of magic squares. And so it's very funny that that's what they misread from the title because that's what I was doing in the first place before I ever got to square numbers. But if they did misread that, then it's wrong because they misread it as the original title as magic squares of squares are probably impossible. They misread it as magic squares of magic squares are probably impossible.

But actually very possible. Completely very possible. In fact, often the easiest way to get a bigger magic square. Yeah. Yeah. Magic squares and magic squares are probably. Very convenient. Would you say they're equally possible as the other one is impossible?

No, no, I wouldn't. But I'm glad you checked. That's because you're not willing to accept that it might be impossible i would be happy if it was proven impossible i'm gonna i'm gonna do it today you do it yeah or you can do one you find a counter count example start up to patreon i'm gonna give you a ding for that because not only did you answer that question but you've explained it to me i'm pretty sure you've had to explain to me in the past before but i know i definitely i look forward to explaining to me again in a few years we group in a couple years yeah yeah yeah a few more margaritas down the road yeah when they're giving me the

medal exactly we're cracking it for the whole square for anyone wondering why what it was so important my assistant matt here will explain yes yeah you have to wear a sparkly dress because it's magic explain yes yeah you have to wear a sparkly dress because it's magic our next problem was sent in on the problem posing page by someone who goes by fab and not fab like an acronym capital f lowercase a b and fab says i have seen this australian government fire host specifications document looks pretty old and that's true they've attached a link to it and looks like someone's scanned in or taken a photo of like a document made on a typewriter it's got that kind of old-timey feel or text and fab proceeds to say they cannot find out if it's fake or not oh interesting it does have some interesting specifications though and they're not sure if they're even physically

possible or if they violate i guess the laws of physics yeah they give an example but i actually think it's good to read out the whole document okay yeah so i think you've got the document there i do australian government fireifications. That's the title in the document. All hose is to be made of a long hole surrounded by canvas, rubber or plastic around the hole. Okay. I mean, they're not wrong. They're not wrong.

What is a hose if not a long hole? I mean. It does start to get into the argument about is it one hole? Yeah. They've answered it. A straw is a straw, is it one hole? Yeah, yeah. Well, they've answered it. A straw is a straw if not a long hole. One long hole. I'll let everyone know. All hose is to be hollow throughout the entire length.

Do not use holes of different length than the hose. This is clearly not. I mean, it's real in that it's a thing. Yeah. But it's terrible hose advice. The inside diameter of all hose must not exceed the outside diameter. Otherwise, the hole will be on the outside. And that's just good advice in general.

Yeah. The inside diameter has to be smaller than the outside diameter. I'm going to name that the hose inequality. I like that. All hose is to be supplied with nothing in the hole so that water can be put inside at a later date. All hose over 500 foot, which is 153 meters in length, should have the words. And I should say it specifies that. Oh, it does both.

Yeah, that wasn't me converting on the fly. That's in the document. Shall have the words long hose clearly stenciled on each end. So the firefighter will know it is a long hose hose over two miles 3.2k must also have the words long hose stenciled in the middle so the firefighter will not have to walk the entire length of the hose to determine whether or not it is a long hose or a short hose yeah all hose over hose over six inches, that's 125 mil, in diameter, must have the word large hose

stenciled on it so the firefighter will not mistake it for a small hose. Different to long hose for the record. Yes. People who aren't, you know, when it's written, it's easier to see that's different to long.

Finally, this is the last clause. Be sure to specify to the CFA whether you want level, uphill, or downhill hose. If you use downhill hose for going uphill, the water will flow the wrong way. Yeah. I feel like they were padding up the list at that point. I feel like they peaked at the inside diameter must not exceed the outside diameter.

It's a great. Otherwise, the hole will be on the outside. Yeah. So Beck, is this real? I mean, yeah, we'll get to the point. No, no, no, it's not. No. I love the fact that, um, I think first of all, the fact that it's like Australian government

fire hose, people like, it does sound like Aussies have a good sense of humor. It sounds like something they might sneak in there. Yep. Either that or they're dumb. Let's go with option A. I think there's also something about when you see a document that is from a time when sort of creating a document was a lot harder. Yes. You needed access to not just a typewriter, but you also needed the ink, the paper.

So you need that. there was a barrier typewriter but you also needed the ink the paper that so you need that and i chatted to my dad about this and he was like it could have even been rodeoed which like the rodeo machine which was like a copy machine oh yeah like originally typed and then and then copied uh and again anytime you see something's duplicated that is as you say uh ease of access to yeah those sorts of materials you you never assume that someone's going to use it for comedy because you're like, this is a limited resource. This is a scarce resource. Yeah.

And someone's just used it for larking around. Yeah. But also I had access. My mum is still a librarian. When I was growing up, I had access to a lot of like a binding, not proper book binding, but, you know, like she worked at TAFE, which is a bit like college library, so students would get their essays bound, you know,

in the little plastic rings. Yeah. So I had access to those things. So I happily would make my own little books and things and stuff. You know, they weren't official. Oh, I remember when I had to buy a laminator for some reason. Suddenly I was doing all sorts of joke stuff and getting it laminated because now it looks legit.

You're like, it's laminated. So to me what this says is, first of all, someone who had access to something that was being used for legitimate things. And I love that. I think there's a, obviously this is Dinglet so I don't have time, but I bet there's a ton of stuff throughout history where someone has had access to something. Yeah.

To an otherwise difficult to achieve resource. Yeah. Now I will say, looking at the document, first of all, you said it scanned all photo and I think it is the latter because looking at it, it appears to be at a slight angle. A bit wonky. Yeah. The aspect ratio is a little bit off and so that suggests to me that this was a photo that someone took of it it's not even been scanned which would

have been maybe a decade or two ago it means it was taken and it's a good quality photo and put online it could have been done on a digital camera earlier but i i reckon just in terms of ease, it's been done with a mobile phone. So this is something that is older but has been uploaded online recently. Recently, yes. So I wanted to try and find out where it was from. The first thing I did was a reverse image search, but it's very hard with those sorts of documents. Yeah, because you could just get typewritten things.

Exactly. And that's mostly what I got. So I did a ton of reverse style searches, different word terms and everything. The earliest one I could find was one that was posted in 2020. Oh, wow. That is recent. Yeah. And it was posted on the Central Victorian Fire Service Preservation Society Facebook page.

So I chatted to my dad because my dad is a member of the cfs which is the country fire service in south australia so we both looked at the top of the page is a good clue there's number four four yeah with dots inside so i was like obviously this was in something this is fourth page of something and dad said that there's quite a lot of time they would have little newsletters newslettersters that would go out amongst either the CFA or the CFS. He was like, it could be that this was originally by the CFA. It could also be that someone else had done one at one point and then someone else copied it and then changed it.

I will say that the mention at the bottom of the CFA with no explanation means that this is not something made like in the UK or the US where they're just using Australia as a placeholder for a foreign thing. Yeah. It's legitimately must have been in Australia, which is nice. Yes, yeah. There are a few clues there as to when it was probably written. Obviously the typewriter thing dates it.

Also the mention of the metric conversion. Oh yeah. Australia switched to metrics in 1974. Oh, 74. So it's likely that this was sometime after that. Yep. Because they're still needing to clarify. They're clarifying the metric, yep.

And my dad's theory is that it sounds like it was a bit of a snarky response to what was probably a bunch of new government regulations that came about. Oh, yes. Good insight. Especially with state fire services because they're like, well, we know what we're doing. And so they're kind of general vibe of like the government's just, you know, they don't actually know what's going on.

Yeah, we're on the ground. Yeah, exactly. So even though a lot of the time it's expert led, so a lot of the time the regulations are very on. Yeah, we're on the ground. Yeah, exactly. It says, even though a lot of the time it's expert-led, so a lot of the time the regulations are very good. Yeah, yeah. But it was probably a bit of a response to that. He wonders if perhaps there might have been a change of some more stern government regulations that probably came out

just after Ash Wednesday, which was the Ash Wednesday fires in Adelaide, South Australia, huge, huge fires in 1980. Oh, okay. So it could be. Like 50 plus homes were destroyed and stuff. It was really, really full on. So it's very possible that in response to that, the government went, okay, we need to.

Oh, I read it. Yeah. Send out some. Professionalize this a bit. Yeah. And then probably someone did that. Now I did actually hear back as well i i contacted central victorian fire service preservation society so they didn't upload the photo themselves

specifically they had also come across the photo from another friend uh who's no longer on facebook but and they don't know where they sourced it from so they can't specifically they did say however judging by the type settings and the style and color of the print, I'd guess that it is indeed sort of 70s era. It might have been published in the Fireman at the time. So the Fireman used to have a page. So I'm guessing it's a newsletter. Yep. For firefighters.

Jokes and locking around for firefighters. So it used to be informative, but it used to have a page, usually either the second or third last. If it's a small newsletter, that could have been the fourth page where the editor could place a joke or two or a funny photo. Yeah. So that was from Tim from Central Victorian Fire Service Preservation. Thank you, Tim. Thanks, Tim.

So, yeah, I know I didn't need to deep dive that much. That's the correct amount of dive. I really enjoyed it, though. That's great. I loved trying to look for all the clues and everything. feel like the answer is yes it is a thing and you have tracked its heritage that's true it is real it's real i say this is legit this is real it's not government regulation no but it's a real thing made for firefighters someone made yeah as a fun in joke and at some point probably recently I would say at the beginning of lockdown,

because this was around July 2020, someone was going through their things. Going through their old stuff or their parents' old stuff or something. They found a newsletter. Found this. They went, oh, this is good. This is funny. Take a photo. Send that to our mate.

All my buddies on Facebook. Yeah, exactly. And I'm glad they did because now it's made it all the way over here. That's great. And it is brilliant. It's very funny. That makes me very happy. We will link to it on the show notes and all our social media.

If anyone else recognizes it, let us know. Yeah. Or if anyone else has any other jokes from a FIRE newsletter. Oh, yeah, yeah. Please do share them. Or even not FIRE. If there's anything that you can legitimately find the source from the original uh newsletter or whatnot i'm gonna ding it thank you i think that's great you did a did

what we call a ding dive around oh nice i did do a ding dive thank you for doing a ding dive we're now coming up to the AOB ward of our podcast hospital metaphor. For out business. Yes. Any out business. Any other business. Have you got any other business, Matt? Oh, my goodness.

Do I ever. We're going to New York. Yes, we are. Very exciting. Back in New York. We are doing a show again. Yes, it is sold out. It sold out a long time ago.

Yeah, I'm sorry. We promised we will find a bigger venue for future times. We're in the US. Yeah. If anyone is wondering, the money is going to charity. Oh, yes. I don't want to get pulled up by someone at the thing. Oh, yeah.

Oh, I listened to the podcast. Apparently. We're well within our visa restrictions. Not making any money. Yeah, 100%. But because we're in New York together, we thought we should solve more New York problems. Yes. And if people could try and align them with stuff we're already doing.

Yeah. I've already made it very explicit that I want to go back to Coney Island. You really do. I didn't get to go last time. You didn't get to go last time. And last time it was very quick. Yeah. When I went.

So I'm up for doing it again. Up for you doing it again. And me, I get to come along. Yeah. Because last time we happened to be recreating scenes from the Olsen Twins film. Oh, yes. New York Minute. And that nicely doubled up to be able to solve a problem for the podcast at the same time.

Yes. So if anyone wants to do that. Yeah, we were just doing that for fun. If you're doing that anyway. Yeah, yeah. If we all get a line. Probably we took a whole day in New York to do that. I know.

So we haven't got time this time. So here are the things we're doing where we can also solve a problem while we're there and make the whole thing tax deductible. Going to Coney Island. Going to see a baseball game. Yes. Mets versus Dodgers. Ah.

Yeah. So anything, in both cases, we can do comprehensive hot dog research. Can we take jammy Dodgers there? I've got nothing. That's all I've got. What else are we doing hanging out hanging out yeah basically yeah i want roller coaster slash hot dog problems yeah basically go to the problem posting page at a problem square.com do do yes please do that i have so many other business as well. We've heard from Connor who gave us the problem in episode 059, have all the candy bars been invented?

And Connor said, thank you, Beck, for investigating my question about candy bars. I was fully satisfied. Excellent. Giving you a ding. Fully satisfied. Fully satisfied. All caps ding.

Yep. With an exclamation mark beginning and end yes yeah what's the upside down one it's a big ding it's the opposite factor yes it's the opposite of factorial yeah factorial there we go no questions asked they also want to know what are the upper and lower bounds of a candy bar can it include fish are there no constraints school glue there are indeed infinitely many candy bars wow i think if you're dinging a solution you don't get to reopen the problem i mean we we vaguely i my argument was you could put anything in it that's edible yeah as long as you could

still class it as a candy bar yeah yeah it needs to be enough that it's still classed as a candy bar. Yeah. Yeah. It needs to be enough that it's still classed as a candy bar. It's got a candy and bar shape. Yeah. I'm happy to hear that Matt enjoyed the problem squares. I did. Yep. They were dinglicious. And wanted to know

if Lauren got to try it, which she did. She did. Lauren was here, got to try one. We all agreed they were dinglicious. No one complained

to me later that they got food poisoning. Felt fine the next day. So they said, congratulations, well done on your beckoning. Is that like a combination of baking and beck? Oh, beckoning. Sorry, I read it as beckoning. I thought it was more like I'm getting to like, you know, I'm finally winning. Yeah. Thanks, Connor. It's lovely. Lovely to hear

that. Also, I should point out that people put solutions in the problem posing page. At a problem square dot com. There's a dot down menu so you can pick solution or problem. Yes. So they do that. Now, we don't always read out everyone's problem or solution. It's a very long podcast. Yeah.

There's like over 2,000 entries so far. Yeah, yeah. But we do read them all. We read them. Oh, yeah, yeah. We absolutely read them all. over 2000 entries so far but we do read them read them oh yeah we absolutely read them all and i just want to say that sometimes you uh send us the loveliest things or little additions in your notes we don't have time to read them all out but they are very nice and we don't we read them out together

when we're about to record so we do appreciate that thank you very much everyone who does that you can give us five stars oh yes uh whatever podcasting app that you're listening to this on. What a platform. Spotify is really easy. You could literally do it right. You just go to the- You're on Spotify right now. Boom, five stars.

We're still trying to beat No Such Thing as a Fish. Oh, how are we doing? I haven't checked recently. I haven't checked recently, but my episode of No Such Thing as a Fish hasn't come out yet. You've recorded it, but it's not out yet. It's still not out yet. As of the time of this recording, it might have come out by the next one. I was talking to my wife, Lucy, about how you were doing No Such Thing as a Fish because

one of our neighbors listens to it and will mention to us when they walk past if we've recently been mentioned in No Such Thing as a Fish. Right. And then we were just chatting about it. I said, you know, I've never done No Such Thing as a Fish. Lucy's like, what, are you sure? I've mentioned to a few people. Everyone assumes I've been on the podcast.

Yeah. I think that's great. I feel like I get- I think it's another Mandela effect. It could be. In a different universe, you have been on it. Because there's two options. I'm either getting all the credit of doing it with none of the effort in one universe,

or I have done it and I've just totally forgotten. Yeah. Like I've done their live shows, but I'm not in a recording. Yeah. Anyway. I like the hospitals in this country we are severely underfunded so if you want to do more than just give us five stars we we will take your money we will anywhere from the equivalent of one one dollar yeah you can sign up to our Patreon page. Yeah.

Link is in the show notes. Patreon.com slash problem squared. Yeah. We've got the lowest tier we've got is five American dollars. Five dollars. Five stars, five dollars. And it's per month, not per episode. Nah, per month. So for that, you get two episodes.

Or you get two and a smidgen. And a bonus. Yeah, that's right. And a bonus. Oh my gosh. You get three and a quarter episodes a month. Yeah. That's good value for money yeah that's good value for money

it is good value for money so uh oh and sometimes we do things like randomly send out send out a stuff a parker square yeah or i think we sent out some cards once yeah we post stuff out you get a christmas card yeah you get a christmas card well you get if you're a you'll get an email one and if you're if you go up to our wizard level. Oh, then we actually post you a physical one. Yeah. And then you'll get things like merch and stuff as well. Yeah. We appreciate you all.

Yeah, we do. But we'll only show it to the people who give us money. Yeah. You know, but as I say, like hospitals, the quality gets better as the money goes up. Look, anyone can listen for free. Yes. hospitals the quality gets better as the money goes up so look anyone can listen for free yeah if you want private private problem squared care yeah that's right you gotta pay for it that's right oh oh no we're the problem and and what also happens if you support us on patreon we will read out at uh three randomly chosen names of our supporters

at the end of each episode. And this episode, those random supporters are... The Legend of Della. That's a great name. Yeah. And they've actually used a typeface to force it to be all caps. Yeah. Rowan Sawney or Rohan Sawney.

Yeah. Rowan Sawney or Rohan Sawney. Jammers Higham or James Higham. Or Higgum. Higham. It'd be a double G if it was Higgum. Higgham. Thanks. Thank you.

Thank you, Patreon people. Oh, yeah, I've been back ill. People. Oh yeah. I've been back hill. If I was your doctor, you should leave. That's Matt Parker.

Thank you, Matt. And thank you as always to our producer, Lauren Armstrong Carter. Bye. Forget to find out what Muppet we are. Yeah, we are. We've done them all. We've got to enter the minute. I think we've both got a version of this open in front of us. And I'm going to go through. I'm going to fill in the song I picked, which was Under the Bridge. So the first question was pick a song. I chose Pump Up the Jam by Technotronic.

Yeah. Cartoon Network. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hang on. I'm flying through it. Matt, Matt. No, no, no. We have to go through one at a time So people can do it as they're reading

They're doing this At home fast Yeah they can choose it with us I'm up to what you value in a friend That's the ability to keep up Not patience What are you wearing We both said t-shirt for that

Pick a channel We had a surprising amount of overlap yeah pick a jim henson character uh you went for bert and i went for jareth uh what do you value in a friend now i'm up to it and i had puns yeah that makes sense on a saturday morning i should have said brains but i didn't no i was thinking more about what do i value myself uh on a saturday morning you can be found we were both sleeping we're both sleeping which actually isn't true i've been getting up pretty early these days some of my answers are technically changing now pick a movie this is like the opposite of a snapshot in time. Each individual bit is a different snapshot in time.

Yeah. But you can't change them now. No. Die Hard. I think we both went Die Hard. We both did Die Hard. What would you want as a pet? I had an ant farm.

You went for chicken. Oh, yes. Which game would you rather play? Okay, you were charades. I'll scrabble. Pick a word. Yeah, we all went meatballs. Everyone went meatballs.

Of the nine options available we didn't just okay take meatball out of nowhere uh yeah lauren have you been doing it too oh really i have a feeling that you and i are the same person the same character okay because i got on the count of three yeah one two three gonzo oh We're different Am I pleased I got Scooter? Yeah Scooter It's not 100% wrong The intern of the Muppets

Yeah But I think if they had to have a token like nerd But they've got like the professor Yeah scientist Oh that's true I think if they want like the classic doofus-y nerd Yeah You've got Gonzo

I have no further comments Gonzo's wearing a shirt that is not dissimilar to the one I'm wearing now. Hang on, I'll keep holding that there. Hang on. Hold it, I'm going to get a photo. It's so eerily accurate. It's outrageous. Okay.