A Problem Squared - 064 = A Tetris Education and Candy Bar Formation

Episode Date: July 17, 2023

In this episode... 👾 What is the best way to win at Tetris?  🍫 Revisited: Have all the candy bars been invented?  📜 And some AOOOOOOOOOB.  You can find the Bonham's Nintendo Gameboy Sale: https://www.bonhams.com/auction/19144/lot/250/nintendo-game-boy-flown-in-space/  Check out the rest of the sale too...it's pretty cool: https://www.bonhams.com/auction/19144/the-space-history-sale/ Evidence of the Beng-Beng Chocolate Caramel Hazelnut Crispy Wafer bar: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/203119821326 As always, send your problems and solutions to our website: aproblemsquared.com. And if you want more from A Problem Squared, find us on Twitter,  Instagram. and Patreon.

Hello and welcome to our podcast, A Problem Squared. This is episode 064, which is very exciting. In fact, this podcast is a bit like the number 64 in that we solve a lot of problems, which is all about the power of two. Yes. 64 is the power of two. Yeah, it is. And it's two of us. Yep.

Doing things together. I'm joined by Beck Hill, who, much like 64, has a lot of factors. Mm-hmm. Yep. TV, writing, performing. And I'm Matt Parker, much like 64. I'm a massive square. Nice. Thank you. 64 themed. It's the first time i've used the number of the episode in the introduction wow but a power of two felt

so significant yeah it's good yeah is eight the square root of 64 it is yay i did a math it's only taken me 64 episodes to get to that On this episode I'll be answering a listener's question about Tetris I will be doing some complex mathematical calculations Keeping it vague Yeah, that's both of us in a nutshell really If you're a new listener, hi There's also a bit at the end that we call any other business Yeah, any order of business.

Yes. Stay tuned for that. So, sit down. How have you been this fortnight, Bec? I've been good. I had a voiceover. You had a voiceover? I had a voiceover job.

Occasionally I get it. One of the many factors I didn't mention in the intro. That's true. Well, the thing is, if you mention me as a voice artist, I feel like a bit of a shyster. I feel like the word artist there is voice over a person. Voice over a... Yeah. Yeah.

You do a lot of voiceover work, video games, TV, etc. I just do this voice. You just do that voice. Yeah, I don't... Which is why i wasn't like you're an artist in many other ways yes but your voice is not your canvas no in terms of changing it into other voices no i'm not yeah no i don't i'm not good at that you don't claim to do that no this voice is not good at that but sometimes people hire me specifically for this

they want that voice i come to you and so occasionally i get that and um some parents or you know not even parents who watch cbbs yeah might have heard uh or listened to previous episodes of this where we've talked about bluey mentioned this here hear me announce when bluey's on tv yeah you're the voice of bluey i'm not the voice of the character i'm the one who says coming up next at 9 a.m yeah that one so we call them idents and i was also the ident for queen of oz uh which is a katherine tate show where she is essentially sent to australia to be the queen of australia just as a great as a fun great thing yeah and normally when you do those idents the people who are there are just sort of i don't know like a producer or something like that yeah so i rocked up and um person

directing the ident was katherine tate what katherine tate was in the room that's ridiculous i was like because you never have like the star of the show as the person. Yeah. I believe the show's her baby. I'm going to. I'm doing the ident. Yeah. And I love this. I absolutely love this. I appreciated the amount of care she has in it because I would be the same.

If I had my own show, I'd be like. You'd be there in the ident recording. Because this is the thing that it's the ad. It's the ad. It's the ad for the show. So you're hoping it will sound good. And I appreciated being able to be a part of that, but also the fact that quite often they'll get you to do one thing

and then they'll use that across all the different clips. Yeah. And you just got to do the different like, oh, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, whatever. But she had a couple of different versions depending on what was coming out. The first one was like just all the clips from the show of it looking like chaotic and funny and so that one voice is just a starting 16th june it's queen of oz like it's just a real like they just wanted a not over the top australian accent but still one that was on brand on brand but the other one was a clip from the show where she's at like a very fancy dinner party and then she gets carried away she's like, look at me.

I'm the prime minister. I'm going to solve climate change or something like that. And it's very funny. There's a great pause afterwards where it's just proper crickets in the background you can hear. It's a really nice long pause. And then the title of the show comes up over the silence. Like there's no.

Yeah, there's nothing. Sting. There's no music. So she wanted to really ride the pause and have the voice not then come in queen of us yeah and normally if someone said that other people would be like oh no we can't do that like instantly but it's katherine tate so they're like oh yeah we could try yeah i could already tell that in their heads they're like we don't have enough time because you've got to fit it in a specific amount of time so i could tell that but as a comedian i'm all about the joke to the bit yeah so i waited as long as i could and still got it in before the end of the time i'm just like queen of ours

starting like this a little bit yeah and she was like that's it yeah it was my i had a great day that day that's why i describe you as an artist. That is right. Yes. So, yes. You get paid more for speaking less. Yeah, you're right. What am I doing? I'm wasting my time on this.

Which bit of the voiceover are you best at? The awkward silence. Yeah. Really? Really nail it, yeah. Just sit there. Just sit there. Stare at them.

Oh, boy. I think you're quite good at that, too. Although that's usually when you're waiting for a laugh oh someone's warming up yeah so that was me i've got a photo of us i'll put it in there we'll share that yeah how about you oh well i feel like maybe my stories have been getting too exciting of late and i feel like i need to to balance out that was a good story i didn't even mention brussels comic-con see you've done a lot i've almost finished mowing the lawn i was like you don't have a lawn oh you do yeah yeah in three parts yes so our backyard we live on the side of a hill for people who have not heard me discuss this previously

not me and so no i live on the side of a hill. You live in London. I am a hill. You are a hill. Wherever you are, you're in the hill zone. My wife and I live on the side of a hill in a house. And so the backyard, so the backyard terminates higher than the chimney on the top of our like two-story house. Yes.

It's a steep backyard. It's a steep backyard. It's a steep backyard. And you and I have been there. You've basically got three large lawn steps. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. A medium-sized giant could just walk straight up. No worries.

And we did, I don't know what the official terminology, you don't mow in May. No mow May? I've never heard of that. It's the opposite of Movember. It's the opposite of Movember. Actually, no, it's the opposite of Movember. It's the opposite of Movember. Actually, no, it's the same as Movember. It's the same idea.

You don't shave your lawn in May. And the idea is it encourages like wildflowers and animals that need cover and all this kind of stuff. Because we like a big pile of wood we leave undisturbed because that's good for like hedgehogs and insects and stuff. But that's like kind of out of the way. But then Lucy was very keen. This was all Lucy's initiative that we'd avoid mowing the lawn during May.

And we mowed the functional bits. So there's like somewhere for the dog to wee. Yeah. We could walk down the paths. And you don't want hidden poos. Yeah, exactly. But we kept the bulk of it unmown, which is great. Like the grass grew super high.

It's seeded. And I was like, that's great because now we get more lawn. Free lawn. Free lawn. People buy more lawn or you can buy lawn seeds. No, just wait. And a bunch of frogs moved in. And maybe other creatures that are better at hiding than frogs.

Councils were doing it as well. And I don't know if councils got on board because it saves a bunch of money not having to mow yeah it mainly seems to have resulted in old people online complaining that it looks terrible a lot of people did not like this like i think the general vibe and i don't want to be ageist i feel like young people are like this is great nature yeah older people are like this looks terrible mow your lawn um but we had a great time. But I suppose when you're older, one month is more of your life left. That's a good point. Yeah.

And you're spending it looking at disheveled grass, long grass. Anyway, converting that back into a regular lawn is now a non-trivial task. But I've took it upon myself as a little project to get the lawn back into a lawn. And that's evolved gradually. I also don't want to mow a frog. No. I do it in stages, give the frogs plenty of warning. Yep.

Done it a chunk at a time. Yeah. And I didn't cut it all the way down short straight away. I've been gradually moving it back. It's like how I shave my legs. Exactly like that. How do you clear the frogs out? And now you will see it.

It's one m mo away from being. So has it got like a mohawk right now? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It just looks a little scragglier than normal. But I reckon it's a final mo. So, you know, some of us record voiceovers with celebrities and some of us get our lawn back into a nice. Yeah.

Nice pristine. To say mo lawn mo mo there you are that's good that's what sometimes i feel like you only want to do this podcast with me because it's you know that i can't i have to listen to you yeah yeah yeah talk about yeah. Talk about this stuff. You've got to sit there and you need to be at least slightly positive. Yeah. And the listeners. You've got a yes and.

They don't have to listen. My story. No, they can skip ahead. They can switch off. You guys listening at home. They probably habitually do. You know what? If you listened up, like you could have skipped.

I'd like to say hello to everyone who did skip ahead and thought they'd skipped far enough. You haven't. We're still on lawn chat. Bec, our first problem comes in from Jack, who went to the problem posing page at problemsquared.com and they entered this problem. Hi, Matt and Bec. Bec spelt with a K. Do you know what?

Are you okay with that? I prefer that. Yep. The C is still there. Yeah. I prefer that than being called Becks. Okay. How good.

Or Becky, yeah. Well done, Jack. You're lucky. You're lucky. You're okay with that. With a K is also how the singer spells it. The musician. The musician spells it. And he's very cool.

Jack says, recently, my friend and I got into the classic game Tetris. Nice. And we were wondering. They were wondering a numbered list. One, is there a mathematical reason why the shapes are the shapes that the original developers chose? And two, what is the optimal strategy to score the most points in Tetris? So those are Jack and their unnamed friends. Two numbered questions.

Bec, what have you got? Well, first of all, I love Tetris. It's a good game. I love it. I have two Nintendo Tetris watches, although neither of them are currently working. Oh. I know. And not Game & Watches either, like actual watches.

Watch, watch. They were like from the 80s, yeah. Wow. Well, what I find interesting about Tetris as a classic game is there's a lot of- Actually, it couldn't have been the 80s. It must have been the 90s. Yeah. Because it didn't-

Yeah. A lot of people think of Tetris in the same categories like Space Invaders and Pac-Man and classic. But it's not. It's way more recent relatively speaking yeah than all these classic games from way back in fact it's a great game it's a really good game i love a puzzle game real into them very addictive puzzle but it's also adventure like the pieces are falling yeah it's not a danger game i wouldn't call it an adventure game i would say say reflex. Yeah. I would say it's. I'll compromise on reflex.

Quick cognitive decisions. Yeah. I wouldn't say that I'm great at it, but I love it. For me, it sort of sits in there alongside like Dr. Mario. Oh, that's like the pills one that they line up or something happens. You line up the colored pills and then they, it was very, very fun. Very addictive. And there was a great documentary

in 2011 called ecstasy of order the tetris masters oh which was i think it came out just after king of kong right okay i saw king of kong yeah great film but yeah it's really interesting and different people have different ways of playing you can rotate obviously rotate the shapes different directions. Oh, you could, you could, you could be a clockwise or a counterclockwise.

Yeah. And if you understand what the shape is, like immediately, you know, the fewest clicks you need to get it into the right orientation. So like people who've just mastered that also in a lot of the Nintendo versions, you can do a hold piece as well.

So if a piece comes along that you. Oh, you can save it for later. Yeah, yeah. But I think you have to hold it before it starts falling. So if it's next in the queue, you can hold it. And obviously if you do that again, it then pushes the queue forward. But it means that you could theoretically like hold a line piece. Until you're ready to drop the line.

Yeah. So we're going to come to that. So the first question was, is there a mathematical reason why the shapes are the shapes that the original developers chose? Yes, there is. So the inventor was a guy called Alexey Pajitnov, lived in Russia.

Yep. He was a big fan of pentomino puzzle games. Right. I'm pronouncing that right, aren't I? Yeah, pentomino. I would say pentomino. Yeah. And this is a classic bit of recreational mathematics and has been since, oh goodness.

I want to say the 50s or 60s is probably older than that. So pentomino is five squares joined together. It's like a domino is two squares joined together. Yes. And they just took that naming system from domino, triomino. You know, a singular one is a monomo. A monomo. Yeah.

Which, fun fact, Domino's. Yep. The pizza place. Yep. Their pizza boxes are actually monomos. Monomos. Yeah, they're not dominoes. They weren't actually thinking about what a domino is.

The pizza box becomes a domino. Oh my gosh, you're so true. That's so right. Okay. And in terms of puzzles with pentominoes, because you can, there's, well, there are 12 different ways you can arrange five's, well, there are 12 different ways you can arrange five squares and join them together edge to edge. But some of those have reflections. Six of them are a chiral, haven't got a mirror image. There's no left or right version.

Six of them do have left and right version. So there's 18, 18 in total. Yeah. If you're not allowed to turn them over. And there's all sorts of puzzles, like, if you're not allowed to turn them over. And there's all sorts of puzzles like, can you fit them all into this size rectangle? Which ones can cover whatever surface? So there's loads of different stupid recreational mathematical challenges,

problems, puzzles that are based on pentominoes. So Alexei went for tetrominoes. Four squares together. Four squares together. And all the ones that you get in Tetris are just all the different versions. So, yes. Yeah, one is he was into recreational mathematics and so picked tetrominoes. Yep. Number two, what is the optimal strategy to score the most points in Tetris?

So, look, I'm obviously not a champion at it so i'm not going to tell you like how to get the highest scoring game because that just means be good basically yeah there's too many variables have you considered being better at the game yeah but the best way to score points is to score tetris a tetris when you clear all four lines at once the most you can clear at once yes the most you can clear at once and the way to do that is with a straight line piece yep basically you create a well a lot of players like to create it at the side yeah of it because then they can just push when the line comes they can just push it all the way to the right or left and then down it also means you've only got two edges to preserve.

Whereas if it was in the middle, you've got four different edges where everything has to line up. Yeah. Although one of the issues is if you're quite close to the top, let's say you're, you haven't been successful doing a nice four bunch. Maybe you've got a couple of broken ones further down, but you've got nice four waiting, but it's near the top. The tidy four we call it. ones further down yep but you've got nice four waiting but it's near the top the tidy four we call it if you go all the way to the other side and try and rotate it sometimes you don't have space to like it'll push you out from the side and then you've got to go back in again bunch of spun you're wasting time whereas if you've got it in the center you can rotate it as soon as it comes out and then just press down if you know which if you know what you're doing then you don't

have to write you just go straight down so you can which. If you know what you're doing. Then you don't have to go left or right. You just go straight down. So you can leave the gap directly under where it's going to appear. Yeah. Huh. There you go. This is the short version. Is to clear all four lines at once. Four at a time.

Yeah. I have a feeling we're going to get a lot of responses to this one. I feel like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Look. If you are much better at Tetris than me, chances are you are. Send a solution to the problem posing page at a problem square.com and tell us if there is a very specific strategy i looked it up and i couldn't find anyone that

was saying more than what i'm saying what i find interesting about tetris is there's less of a kind of a canonical version of it so like space invaders or let's say donkey kong it's the arcade version and it's a very set version like it was programmed this way this is how it runs yeah boom whereas tetris you got like the game boy one and the the nez one and this done that one and they're all and there's one on a meta base yeah quest it's pretty good it's a fun game oh really yeah but for all of them like because what i was thinking is there's going to be a way there's going to be some kind of random number generator pseudonat random number generator where potentially because in some other games you can learn what

generates random events and then the player you can manipulate those by the way you're playing oh yeah yeah and because in tetris i've never come across anyone doing that so potentially oh i can tell you about that each time oh really yeah i can tell you about that so every official tetris game since 2001 yep has used the seven system which is aka random bag randomizer with this a bag of all seven tetrominoes are randomly shuffled and put in the field of play yep every tetronimo is guaranteed to appear once every seven turns. Huh. And you'll never see a run of three consecutive pieces of the same kind.

That's interesting. You could do the equivalent of counting cards. You'd know what pieces have to come up because of the guarantee. Interesting. I also think, and I could be wrong, people write in if you know what I'm talking about. I think when, because people do a bunch of stuff where they get machine learning to try and learn how to play old games. Yes.

And I think Tetris is one of the ones where like the machine learning realized if you pause the game, then the score won't go down. Like one of the ones where the AI, the definition of AI, learns that pausing the game is often the optimal move because otherwise you're going to lose and just leave it paused. I think it's Tetris that I was reading about that happening too. That's fun. I like that. I also found out it's the first video game to be played in space.

Oh. Yeah, you'd think it'd be something earlier. Yeah. played in space oh yeah you'd think it'd be something earlier yeah but yeah it went up uh in the sawyers in 1993 to the mer space station with cosmonaut alexander cerebrov yep uh with his game boy and his copy of tetris which was sold by bonhams in 2011 for guess how much the game boy and the game that was played in space yeah it was sold in 2011 that would be on the order of two million dollars you're gonna kick yourself i could have got it for a lot less mate yeah it was 1220 dollars what yeah that's a bad auction

no yeah i was like i would have bought that that's three orders of magnitude below who wasn't paying more for that in this room all of us would have bought that. That's $3 a magnitude below. Who wasn't paying more for that? In this room, all of us would have bought it at that price. Yeah, all this is, and like, it's not like this was so long ago that that was worth like, I mean, it was worth a bit more, but still, it's like, what, 12 years ago? That's outrageous. Well, what I've learned from this is if you want to sell

a priceless bit of history and retro gaming. Don't go to these people. Don't go to Bonhams. No. Who's got it now then? I couldn't to these people. Don't go to Bonhams. No. Who's got it now then? I couldn't find out. I couldn't see. Yeah, yeah.

But the listing is still up online. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. That's outrageous. It says that the item was sold, but you know what? It says ask about this lot. It's in the UK. Get in touch.

It's got an email address. Yeah, drop me a line. Yeah. All right, I will. Yeah. I'm going to do that. We'll have a whip round from all the listeners. Oh, my gosh. We could all own it together. Yeah, yeah. All of our Patreon supporters. Everyone gets it for a them a line. All right, I will. Yeah. I'm going to do that. We'll have a whip round from all the listeners. Oh, my gosh.

We could all own it together. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All of our Patreon supporters. Everyone gets it for a day a year. Yeah, yeah. Rebecca, I feel like you've answered both, both of Jack's problems. So I'm going to give you number one, a ding. Ooh.

Number two, a ding. Oh, thank you. Hey, you did the hard work. I think you've answered everything. I will pass it back to Jack if they wish to get in touch. Yeah. Or maybe they can confirm if your optimal strategy or if they have any other strategies that they've discovered they want to share.

That's fine. Yeah. And of course I will share if we get some real, real corkers. Oh, yeah. If you've got a Tetra strategy, get in touch. Let us know. If you've got a Tetra strategy, get in touch. Let us know.

This dinglet slash wing ding. It's a mini problem. Mini problem. It's for you, Matt. Yep. It's from Connor. Yep. From the problem posing page. And Connor says, have we invented all the possible candy bars?

Have we invented all the possible candy bars? Yeah. Matt. Good problem. Matt, I've done this one. You have. It got dinged on the last episode. It did.

By Connor. Dinged and closed. I brought it back. It's a problem squared first. I thought power of two episode, do a problem twice. Oh, yeah. That was mine. Fair.

Okay. Yep. Fair enough. It's only allowed on power of two episodes. Yep. Oh, I thought for the first time ever, one of us is attempting a problem already solved by the other person. Yes.

And I feel like the only reason I can do this is because you solved it so well. Thank you. You found a candy bar that didn't exist yet, thereby proving at the time of asking, we had not invented all the possible candy bars. But it kind of got me thinking i was like ah i wonder like mathematically could you take all the current candy bars and use them to find like the smallest number of ingredients bar that's missing oh right oh this is this is this reminds me of your wordle it's very similar to that yeah yeah yeah

but in a way that i find more exciting that gets a big stupid data set and there's a ridiculous search in it so how many months did it take fewer than you are so anyway i for this i needed to have all of the candy bars. Yeah. And I continued our definition of this being a chocolate bar. So I went to Wikipedia. I guess what Wikipedia's got. List of chocolate bars.

A list of every chocolate bar. And so I took the list of, like it's in the massive table. I took that, turned it into a spreadsheet. Of course you did. And then I had to write some code to pull out the ingredients of each chocolate bar so i didn't care about amount of them i just cared if it was in the chocolate bar or not does it have caramel does it have peanuts and does does wikipedia provide this nope oh so you had to program something that would find all the ingredients

i wrote something where i could give it a bit of text and it would search the description and the titles of all the chocolate bars in the table. If it found it, it would remove it from the description or whatever and then put it in as a separate entry. Nice. So it was partially automated, partially manual. So I had to also manually, I had to go through and look, oh, this is in one of them.

But then my code would find if it was anywhere else, remove them from the other ones, put them over in the correct cells and do all that. And then some other code would kind of like tidy that all up and put it together. Okay. To give me a big list. This is impressive. I also then had to manually split out versions. Like you'd have like such and such and chocolate bar also released as a hazelnut. Yeah.

And oh my gosh, Kit Kat's got all the flavors. Wow. Get ready. Wow. So. I just want to point out that you did all this while I went and got ice cream. So what I did while you got ice cream, I added on an extra feature I wanted to have in my code. Okay.

So the rest of this I did previously. Okay. But then there's something else I really wanted to do. I'll show you that. We'll see if it works. And I did get you an ice cream. You did get me an ice cream. I'll point that out.

And I did code this thing up real janky like. So the old code that was good, which I'd done previously, was to get all the stuff from... This did take several days. This was not a fast operation to get the data and tidy it up and imbibe it into the code. Once you split out all the variations and everything, I had a total of 735 chocolate bars. Okay. That's pretty decent. That's my starting data set from all around the world.

And my rule is, if it's not on Wikipedia, it doesn't exist. Yeah, I think that's fair. So if anyone's got any problems with my results. Put it in Wikipedia. Add it to Wikipedia. Yeah. We'll do it again. Now, of those 735 chocolate bars, 186 of them are Kit Kat bars.

Right. 186 different flavors. That is a big chunk of like the ratio. And you know who's, yes, 25.3%. Oh my gosh. Just over a quarter of all chocolate bars in the world are Kit Kats. And you know who is to blame for that? I don't know if you're after a person.

I'm after a country. Oh, Japan. Yeah. Yeah, a thousand percent. Japan. Japan. And they're often one-off chocolate bars. Yeah, they've got. They've had like, Japan. Yeah. Yeah, a thousand percent. Japan. And they're often one-off chocolate bars. Yeah, they've got-

They've had like baked potato. Yeah. They've had soy sauce. What? I want soy sauce. I know. And I was in Japan when I was doing all this. So I went out.

I bought some stupid ass Kit Kats. Okay, here we go. Yes! Oh, I can't believe I had to wait this long for some sort of Japanese treat. They're seasonal, so I could only get the ones that were around at the time. And the only one I managed to find was the matcha tea. Which are quite nice. Yeah.

And you could just buy them individually, but I found a gift box worth. And so I thought, you know what? Oh, look at these. Wow. There you are. We won't eat them in the microphone look it's green that's so cool oh you oh is that how you normally eat kit kats i just want to point out to the listener that matt just put both fingers in his mouth at the same time and it's a small one so you just put the entire thing in there i always eat train's finger you're you're a psychopath so anyway japan's to blame for over a quarter of all listed chocolate

bars now that might be selection bias because people probably love tracking them all and they end up on wikipedia and maybe there's other more obscure chocolate bars or variations that aren't on there but i think definitely every single time there's a new flavor of kit kat it's a whole thing in japan and it ends up on wikipedia so i did leave them in but i did take out chocolate bars that have an ingredient which only appears in that specific chocolate bar okay this kind of links to the follow-on that connor sent us because they then said what are the upper and lower bounds of a candle bar can include fish or are there no constraints can it you know what sort of weird stuff can you put in there and it is a good point you can put any old weird stuff

in a chocolate bar yeah as a one-off novelty thing yeah but i don't feel that that doesn't really classify it as a candy bar ingredient anyone Anyone can do a one-off one. Yeah. So I then removed all the candy bars that have an ingredient that doesn't appear in any other candy bar. So I've only got candy bars from the set of ingredients that appear in more than one candy bar. And that narrows it down to 104 different ingredients. Okay. Excluding chocolate.

They've all got chocolate. 104 different ingredients. Okay. Excluding chocolate. They've all got chocolate. And I've now got a list of 280 different bars where I've now removed duplicates and I've removed bars that have a unique ingredient in them. And by removing duplicates, I mean more than one candy bar brand or whatever has the same ingredients as another one right so for a start

there are 97 different candy bars which are just chocolate yeah yeah and i've just they're all the null bar as far as i'm concerned so i've grouped together all the candy bars that have the same ingredients and i've i've for each of them picked a mascot name. Okay, yeah. Which is arguably the most popular of all the names. Okay. But I did that by Googling every single candy bar and looking at the number of results on Google. But I was in Japan at the time. So it could mean skewed. It's skewed, yeah.

Well, by the, you know. But whatever country you're in, it's going to be skewed. And I figured Japan, home of all the ridiculous Kit Kats, they may as well be the decider of what's a candy bar and what's not. I get that. So from now on, I'm just going to use mascot names, but there may be other bars that have the same ingredient. Okay.

Would you like to see all 280 different bars? I mean, yes. Well, I haven't got them, but I did print out a menu. So I was originally thinking I'd get more of them in, different bars. I mean, yes. Well, I haven't got them, but I did print out a menu. So I was originally thinking I'd get more of them in, and then I didn't. And it's only a dinglet, right? So I didn't want to go all out. So anyway,

I'm passing over a list. They're numbered 0 to 279. Oh, wow. Yeah, there's a lot of pages here. Yeah, there's several pages, like seven pages? Yeah, it is basically a menu. And would you like to see the party trick? This is what I was teaching my code to do. This may not work.

What was the point of this again? I was trying to find a candy bar that doesn't exist yet. But first of all, I've come up with a stupid thing. Oh, yeah, you wanted to find one that doesn't exist yet with the fewest. With the fewest ingredients. Yeah, that's right. Now I know all the ones that exist. And I've got a set of all the ingredients that exist. Can I just point out some of the stuff that's here?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So first of all, number zero, well done. Of course I come from zero. Yeah. Is the 100 gram bar. Yeah. Which I believe is an American. It must be.

I think it's an American one, yeah. Which contains caramel and rice. Yeah. 100 gram with coconut. It just says coconut. Is that because you've taken out the. No, yeah. Which contains caramel and rice. Yeah. 100 grand with coconut. It just says coconut. Is that because you've taken out the... No, it won't have caramel or rice. If it's in the bar.

So it's just chocolate and coconut. Yeah. But that probably, in that category, there's probably like bounty maybe, if that's just coconut. Yeah. There is bounty. You've got bounty, but it says coconut and fruit. Oh, that's because there'll be a fruit variation on bounty that exists.

Eight just says null. Yeah, the null bar.'ll be a fruit variation on bounty that exists. Eight just says null. Yeah, the null bar. That's just chocolate. Got it. Okay. Yep. Sure. That makes sense.

Number 11 is a bros or bros. And the ingredient is air. So that's like aero bars. Right. Because the next one you've got is aero caramel, which is air and caramel. Yeah. Aero mint. Air is an ingredient in a

chocolate bar. I told you I was very thorough. Air is definitely a distinguishing ingredient. Yeah, no, you're, well, yeah, sure. I mean, there's maybe an argument, it doesn't count, but I decided that. It more just changes the consistency, doesn't it? Bubbles, anything that had like bubbles or aero or air in it has been classified.

Do you know what, because if someone said, get me a, just get me a plain chocolate bar, and you got someone an aero, you'd be like, I? Because if someone said, just get me a plain chocolate bar and you got someone an aero, you'd be like, I said a plain chocolate bar. I've heard a plain chocolate bar. Yeah. This also has the ingredient of air. So this is a detail we may cut from the edit if it doesn't work. Could you pick any bar on there and give me the number?

Okay. Just remember what it is. You've got Tim Tam in there. Oh, which one's that? 246. 246. Which interesting that Tim Tam is classed Oh, which one's that? 246. 246. Which interesting that Tim Tam is classed on Wikipedia as a chocolate bar. It did, yeah.

Because it is by Australian standards a biscuit. It is a biscuit. And can you pick a different chocolate bar? Just remember Tim Tam and 246. I've written it down though. You want to give me another one? Happy Hippo. Okay.

Happy Hippo. Which is 105, which I used to eat Happy Hippos as a kid. Is that another Aussie one? No, no no it's a kinder one and i remembered having it and had this very fond memory of it and never saw them again and then as an adult living here found that they still sell them here so obviously it was stayed in europe they tried it in australia didn't do that market didn't take so delicious so yeah happy hippo i'm trying to find a path between the two different bars. Oh, I see. You know what?

It did find a, it found a trivial journey. It found if you start with Tim Tam and you add Happy Hippo and you add Carl Fraser Biscuit Crisps and then you subtract. Tim Tam. Tim Tam. And then subtract. Subtract Carl Fraser Biscuit Crisps. Wow.

You end up with Happy Hippo. Wow, what a journey. I threw together some terrible code. All right. Let's go for 114, which is Kyle Fazer Domino. Oh, Domino. Which has cookies, cream, and Oreo. Okay.

It's found a path. Yep. So the path is if you take a Tim Tam and you subtract a boost candy bar. Which is, yep. So take a Tim Tam and this is specifically a Tim Tam caramel looking at the ingredients. If you subtract a boost. Take a Tim Tam caramel and you take away a boost bar, which is biscuit and caramel. Yeah.

So that leaves you with just cookies and then you add a carl frazier domino and then you subtract no no because it's left behind the cookies that you need that's the common ingredient yeah but then to then to get the cream and the oreo yeah it's added in also it counts oreo as a separate ingredient for yeah i i did i split ore out, but I've also got cookies in there as an ingredient. Maybe I've got to take that out. That is a tricky one because Oreo is such a specific. Such a specific. And it was listed in more than one candy bar has that listed.

Yeah. Okay, so my pathfinding algorithm is terrible. Yeah. You were going to put this in your book. Yeah. That's a shame. But if anyone. I'll keep working on that.

If anyone can do better. if anyone can do better if anyone can do better i'll fix the code it's our listeners it can be that wasn't that wasn't me asking oh by the way saying the the code i'll try well i will get this finished for the book uh this was an excuse to mess around with candy bars i now wanted to find the most simple candy bar that doesn't exist oh yeah that's right that's right. That's what we're here for. I keep forgetting. Yeah. I love that this is your dinglet. This is my dinglet. So what I did was, first of all, I thought, you can't just find like a combination of two ingredients

that don't exist in any other candy bar. Because what if they taste terrible together? And so I decided if I was going to combine ingredients, I need to have found another candy bar that has those ingredients together. And so I decided if I was going to combine ingredients, I need to have found another candy bar that has those ingredients together. And so what I did was I found all the sets of three ingredients, which is not yet a candy bar, but each of those ingredients appear as a pair in a different candy bar that's only got two ingredients. Got it. So the winner is, this is my brand new one, caramel, hazelnut, and wafer.

I refuse to believe that isn't already a candy bar. There's definitely a candy bar that has caramel and hazelnut. There's definitely a different one that's got hazelnut and wafer. And there's one that's got caramel and wafer. But nowhere on Wikipedia was there one that had all three of those. I then did Google it. I was like, same as you. I'm like, there must be a candy bar that's got that. And there was a Indonesian bar called a Bang Bang,

which I had in there. They did do a hazelnut version of the Bang Bang, which wasn't on Wikipedia, but it looks like it contains all those ingredients. So I moved down the list. I actually found 10 different ones. Whoa. And I ranked them by how popular those ingredients are in other candy bars. Great. So the second top one, caramel, salt, and wafer. Okay, like a salted caramel. Salted caramel, wafer. Couldn't find a candy bar.

Because it feels like salted caramel is a relatively new addition. Yeah. I found a vegan snack, which is a salted caramel is a relatively new addition yeah i found a vegan snack which is a salted caramel wafer bar but there's no chocolate oh wait hang on now wait yes because i know about labeling of things uh-huh and you can say chocolate yep you can get vegan chocolate yep it just can't have milk in it it actually hasn't got vegan chocolate either it's just like oh okay salted caramel wafer bar. Oh, okay.

But we said chocolate, so I don't know if that's. What was interesting, though, is nine of them had caramel in them with the new combinations. Only one didn't. Air, mint, and nougat. Yeah, because I don't know if you can physically do that. It's too much whipped air, man. It would be like.

Two versions of whipped air. But that's for the taking. I also had almond caramel and salt. Oh, no. Nougat, peanut and caramel. These feel like they must exist. Yeah. Nougat, peanut and caramel.

That's literally a Snickers. Nougat, peanut and caramel. What does Snickers got? Yeah, Wikipedia. Snickers. Yeah, Nougat, peanut and caramel. What does Snickers got? Yeah, Wikipedia. Snickers. Yeah, Nougat, peanuts and caramel. It's a chocolate bar consisting of Nougat, chocolate and caramel peanuts. Why did that not get picked up in my code?

Let's have a little look. So what I'm finding is all the candy bars do exist. I did then go through and find missing pairs. If anyone works for a candy bar company, go through and find missing pairs. If anyone works for a candy bar company, can you make these things for us, please? So there's a thing called a catch bar, which has caramel, marshmallow, and nougat.

But I couldn't find any bars that just have caramel and marshmallow without the nougat. I got a whole list of these. I think the mere fact that there is like, what, over 180 Kit Kats currently. Yeah. And it sounds like it's growing. Yeah. I think Kit Kat itself has proved.

Has proved there are more. That not all the candy bars have been invented. There are plenty of undiscovered ones out there. But also, we have found a lot. There are a lot of stupid candy bars out there. Yeah. And I struggled to find, I have not found a clear cut. Here's one stupid candy bars out there yeah and i struggled to find i've not found a clear cut here's one that unambiguously doesn't exist yet i'm gonna i'm not gonna ding

that matt now it's time for any order business which sounds like business in any order, but order is another word for like a power, like two to the power of six. Oh. Yeah. It's on theme, but it's not good. Are we a bit deflated after that? Yeah. Okay, first bit of AOB.

People have had some comments about you dismissing the ice cream and beer diet. Oh, yes. Yeah. Yeah, I did. I incorrectly said that you could not lose weight on the beer and ice cream diet. That was in the context of if food is cold. Yes. Your body has to spend heat to warm up the food.

Yeah. You could lose weight on a diet of beer and ice cream if you ate fewer calories of those things per day than you were spending. You could just eat a very small amount of beer and ice cream. Yeah. You'd probably miss out on some significant nutrients. Yeah, you would end up very tired and probably a bit sick. Yeah, but you could lose weight. But you could lose weight. I wouldn't recommend it at all. I think it's a very quick way of of being bad to yourself uh that was sent in by many people so thank you to all of that we also heard from uh peter peter peter peter peter who is responding to episode 060 or 60

oh wow recent someone had asked if the world was flat. Well, smooth. If the world was smooth. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, I should have been. Flat's a whole other thing. That's different. If the world was smooth, then how deep would the ocean be?

Yeah. Yeah, because it would have to spread all over the surface. And they said you found the volume of the earth. Correct. Then the difference in volume with water added. Yeah. Then you had a few more steps. Why didn't you calculate the surface area of the earth then divide the volume of water by this area

i get your exact answer but my brain wasn't as tired as yours was well they don't know that they've also said ps i'm an engineer so constructively lazy by education and training yeah no good point good point so what they're saying is i could have just taken the surface area of the earth and then to get volume, all you're missing is the depth. And that would have got me straight to the answer, except that assumes that the surface area, and the word surface is less relevant, doesn't change as you get deeper in the ocean. Whereas a sphere, as you go into a sphere the the amount of area gets smaller and i wanted to allow for that actually wait yeah does it yes because if you go so let's say you've got a lake and it's really deep yep and so you're counting just the the earth the part

that is not water yeah but where we're looking at totally covering a sphere in water, not just a small lake on a sphere. This is if the ocean covered the entire earth. Yeah. And if it, like, if, let's say hypothetically. Yeah, do you know what? It's because I'm thinking of a totally different problem because I'm thinking if you were to stretch out the land

that the water is in of a lake, then you would have more land because it's going down rather than straight across. Oh, I see what you're doing. Do you know what I mean? I've actually done that. That was many, many episodes ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah.

I'm doing the topography thing, but I'm doing it inverted. Yeah. You smoothed it out, but you have to inflate it. Yeah, no, no, no. Yeah. but i'm doing it inverted yeah yeah smooth it out but you have to inflate it yeah no no yeah because if like let's say it ended up being that half the distance from the center of the earth out is rock and the other half is water the top and the bottom of the water there'd be a quarter of the surface area at the bottom there's a risk to the top yes because it's yeah got it and so you're the deeper go, the more inaccurate that will become.

Now it transpires that the amount of water on the earth compared to the amount of earth on the earth is a trivial, tiny amount of water as a percentage of the radius. So actually over the depths we're looking at, Pita's method works fine because it's well within rounding and errors and everything else. But if we were on a planet with different things and they tried the same way of doing it they might get the wrong answer exactly and so i did it in the unnecessarily thorough way imagining i didn't start with any inkling about what the answer might be whereas an engineer

starts from well it's around this yeah or this you did a dexter that's not important i did a dexter i did every single so but if you do round things off it means that you could end up with the wrong answer uh which brings me very nicely to a to another piece of any other business which is from fika medhas fika medhase i apologize if i'm mispronouncing that. I definitely am. It says, I don't know if anyone has mentioned it yet, but I just wanted to say that Dexter is Latin for right.

So doing a Dexter literally means doing it right. Is that where ambidextrous comes from? I guess, yeah, dexterity. Yeah. Huh. That's deeply pleasing. So thank you for everyone who sent in corrections, comments, and Latin translations.

Now, we wouldn't have got to two to the power of six episodes without our fantastic Patreon supporters. They're the base to our logarithm. I just watched the energy seep out of your eyes. I've been writing a book. I've not got a lot of free time at the moment. So I didn't write this in advance. Anyway, thank you so much to everyone on Patreon who supports us.

You mean that we can make this podcast. And one of the many, many rewards and perks that Patreon supporters get is we pick three names at random every single episode and we read them out which i'm looking at the list are three random patreons this episode include tommy did all the m's tommy g-hawk g-hawk g Geehawk Geehawk Samson Danziger Or Danziger Danziger Danziger

Dan Danziger Thank you so much for listening To this episode I've been Matt Parker Massive Square Beck Hill Blitz of Factors

And I didn't write a thing for lauren um great figure okay i think the twos is too important our producer oh my god nailed it lauren armstrong Hey, Matt. Yes, Bec. We don't have anything. We've got nothing. Hang on. The next record is going to be in New York, isn't it?

Yes. We can just go buy a weird chocolate bar. Yeah, we can do that in New York. Well, people, if you can recommend a weird confectionary we should pick up in New York, let us know. Yeah. This has got to be... Look, Lauren, if there's something that one of us that says is funny, just chop it out and stick it at the end and have it random.