A Problem Squared - 068 = Big Feastival and Bike Intervals

Episode Date: September 12, 2023

Coming to you AS-LIVE from a tent at The Big Feastival! In this wet and festivally episode... - How green is cycling really?  - An update on Stawberry-gate.  Again, if anyone has any information about the Time Fun jumper, please do send it to the Problem Posing Page! Check out our social media to see it if you haven't already.  And finally, please send your problems and solutions to our website: aproblemsquared.com. IF you want more from A Problem Squared, find us on Twitter,  Instagram. and Patreon.  

Hello and welcome to A Problem Squared, the podcast where we solve people's problems. Coming to you from a festival this time. Yes. Because A Problem Squared is a lot like being at a festival. because the problem squared is a lot like being at a festival. Show off some headline acts you want to hear from, but it's the unexpected bits that make the experience. In our case, other problems.

My name is Matt Parker. I am the overly prepared festival goer who has all the things I want to see in a spreadsheet. I'm joined by Beck Hill, who dresses every day like she's at a festival. It's true. I had so many compliments yesterday on my outfit, and I had to explain to people that that is my normal clothes. It's your regular wardrobe.

I love your dinosaur tracksuit and bright pink trench coat. Yep. Yep. Yep, this is what I normally wear. Wear my clothes. Yeah, my standard clothes. On this episode... We'll be solving some mini festival problems

I've run the numbers on carbon dioxide and cycling And there's some Any Other Business Some really good stuff In the Any Other Business tent It's the same tent we're in now Yeah, yeah It's all taken place in the Problem Squared tent So, Bec I want to quickly say hello to new listeners because we know people join us on any

given episode and you're always welcome. We do not normally record at a festival. We normally record in a studio with much better microphones and less tent rustling. However, probably one of the biggest limiting factors of a Problem Squared is Beck and I aligning our schedules. And we were both working at the same festival. Yes. And we figured, hey, if we're both here at the big festival doing shows anyway, why don't we use a bit of our downtime? Because we were struggling to find a day otherwise. Well, somebody is very busy writing a book.

That happens. So selfishly. I do apologize. I mean, to be fair, the book was far before we started. That's true, but people should appreciate that the reduction in audio quality they're experiencing now and the background noise from the main stage, which is inescapable, is resulting in a half a percent increase in quality of my next book. So your suffering is an ultimate net gain, assuming you also read the book.

Sure. I trust you. So, Bec, how are you enjoying the big feast of all? I'm having a great time. Yesterday I hosted Comedy Club for Kids. You did? I saw that. I'd started off by briefly mentioning that I'm from Australia.

And then I was asking children, if you could have any superpower, what superpower would you want? And a girl near the front of the stage put her hand up and I said, what would you like? And she said, teleportation. Yep. And I said, great. What would you do? And she said, I'd visit my family because they live very far away. Oh, that's lovely.

I had the same thought as you. I'm like, oh, they're overseas. Yeah, that's great. Listen, family. I know the feeling. So I said, oh, where do your family live? And she said, Telford. Telford.

Which is a place in the UK. It's going to take a couple of hours to drive there, depending on where you live. It's a long way. Yeah, for a kid. Yeah. How far is that? It's like three or four bluey episodes length. Yeah, yeah.

Another kid said that for their superpower, they wanted a very strong seagull. And I was like, oh, what? Just like as a pet. And they said, yeah. And I said, what would you call it? And he just went, John. Good name for a very strong seagull.

John the strong seagull. Yeah. There was another kid who said that they would want to be able to transform into a seal to annoy me. And I was like, well, joke's on you, mate, because seals clap. And I love applause. You love a good clap. Yeah. Look at that.

That's the quick thinking you get paid for. That's how I get my seal of approval. Hey. Yeah. So it was very fun. And then we did an evening of unnecessary detail. Yep. Which is one of the main things I was here to do, post that.

Yeah, you did a great job. The first year they've had a spoken word stage. And so they said, do you want to come and do an evening of unnecessary detail? And so it was you, me, Helen Arney, and Steve Mould. Yep. A lot of fun. Oh, and Alex James. Yeah, who supported me.

He was your warm-up. He was my warm-up act. Yeah. Alex James, people I'm familiar, bass player from the band Blur, owns the farm, owns the field we're currently sat in. Yeah. Alex James, people unfamiliar, bass player from the band Blur, owns the farm, owns the field we're currently sat in. Yes.

Hosts the big festival. Massive mass nerd. And so I think it might have been him behind the scenes why they got us involved. Yes. And so we gave him a spot

to talk about cheesemaking, which was one of his passions. Which was fascinating. He had a great time. Yeah. Yeah. And then Simon Pegg was DJing. Oh, and Simon Pegg was there.

Yeah. Yeah, it was a very surreal moment because we walked upstairs to the special... Special Friends of Alex James zone. Gav, my husband, was with us. And as soon as he stepped upstairs, Alex James came up to him and said, have some of this steak sandwich. It's delicious.

Gav was like, I'm not going to turn it down. That sounds like him. And it was. He let me have a bite as well. But Gav ate most of sandwich. It's delicious. Gav was like, well, I'm not going to turn it down. That sounds like him. And it was. He let me have a bite as well. But Gav ate most of it. It was great. Yeah, it was very fun. Simon Pegg came up and danced upstairs for a bit after you guys left. He's a fun guy. He was at the back when we were sneaking up.

It was very cool. What a festival. I didn't want to say hello. I wanted to be cool. Ah, yeah. That's the first rule of VIP zone. Yeah. Keep it real cool. a festival i didn't want to say hello i wanted to be cool ah yeah that's first rule of first rule of vip zone yeah yeah keep it real cool yeah i think that i always like to think that if i'm gonna meet someone properly it's gonna be on the same level yeah yeah so i've just gotta wait but one of the other performers came up to you and said that their kid's a big fan of your show. Yes.

So it balances out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true. To circle a big fan. There's a certain level of fame where you know you shouldn't bother people. And I'm not at that level yet. No, you're definitely in the botherable zone. Yes, please bother me.

I still need that very much. Speaking of problems, as we were recording, it started raining and we are in a tent. So right now, Beck has clambered outside the tent to roll down the front so we don't get rained on. There we go. So I guess that's our first problem. How have we both been dealing with rain? Well, the first thing that I did just then was zip up the front of the tent. Oh.

If you don't zip up the tent, it floods, as Gav and I found out yesterday. Oh, from personal experience. Yeah, it came down real heavy during calling a couple of kids. Oh yeah, came out of nowhere. Proper hail and everything. So my first way of solving a problem is, if you're camping, zip up your tent. I think the big ratio is never assume

the weather's gonna continue to be the same. I have really been risking it this time. I didn't bring my waterproof coat with me. Or my waterproof gumboots or anything like that. Right before I came to the festival, I looked up online all the weather data from the Met office to work out the chance of rain and when it's going to happen. I decided it was low enough. Not to believe it. Infrequent enough that I would be fine with a light jacket.

Ah. I solved this problem. Well, not this problem, but this kind of suite of problems by deciding I'm now too old for staying in a tent unnecessarily. Well, I don't normally camp. You know this. Yes. Because my rule, and I have almost definitely mentioned this on the podcast before. Yeah.

My rule with camping is that I love camping, but I think it's only worth it when you are not near a bed. Yes, yes. I think camping, if I'm going to camp, it's because it's allowing me to do something I couldn't otherwise do. Yes. Be somewhere I couldn't be, experience something I couldn't experience. I don't want to rough it for the sake of it when I could afford a nearby hotel.

Yeah. And so Lucy and I, we couldn't get, there's not that many very close hotels. So we're staying several miles away. But I brought my bike. We hired Lucy an e-bike. And we have been just commuting backwards and forwards. Yeah.

It's great. We could not afford a hotel. I did consider commuting just on the trains. Oh, wow. Because this festival is right next to a train station. Yep. But there were rail strikes. Oh, yeah. So on festival was right next to a train station. Yep. But there were rail strikes. Oh, yeah.

So on the day I was performing. So we needed to be here. And so we took the pre-pitched tent. Why? Mainly because I don't drive. We don't have a car. So we would have had to hire a car. That gets expensive.

Lucy and I came on the train one year to this festival. And we brought our pop-up tent and a self-inflating mattress oh hello but it was right on the cusp of how much stuff you can carry on a train to a festival because a pop-up tent goes up fast but doesn't pack down small no so it was a big chunky tent to lug big yeah likewise soft and blading mattress goes up easy but when you roll it down it's still massive yeah because it's full of foam it's basically it's basically a foam mattress inside an air mattress and you squeeze all the air out of the foam and then plug it before the air gets back in like how mattresses are sent in the post now like how mattresses are sent in the post so anyway I think e-bikes are part of what's made that possible.

And I think e-bikes are one of the best things that's happening to cycling in a long time. Because anyone can just jump on a bike and you can get to and from without being sweaty.

Doesn't matter if you've got different levels of not fitness, but I cycle a lot and Lucy doesn't cycle much. She used to cycle a lot more previously. But because we can hire

her an e-bike, she goes up and down the hills way faster than I can. She used to cycle a lot more previously. But because we can hire her an e-bike, she goes up and down the hills way faster than I can. She just turns up the motor assist and she's off. And so it means we can commute by bike to the festival. It's been great.

This problem comes from Dakota, who says, I'm fortunate enough to be in a city with a vast network of dedicated bike trails and only have to cross the street once during their commute when they're cycling. Got it. Luckily, there is a crosswalk signal specifically for the trail. Oh, amazing. My question is, how many average U.S. vehicles would have to be stopped by me crossing the road? So I'm assuming this means that if there's no one there at the crossing,

then the cars just run freely. Yes. Yeah. That my carbon emissions savings would be cancelled out. So if I drove to work rather than biking, it is around a 15-minute trip, just over 4.5 miles. Good problem, Dakota. around a 15 minute trip just over 4.5 miles.

Good problem, Dakota. Because if you cycle to work, but you cause a huge tailback of traffic that produce more exhaust, more carbon dioxide than if you were just driven to work and bin traffic yourself, then the environmental benefit of cycling is gone. Yeah, you still got the health benefits. Still got the health benefits. You still got the health benefits. Yeah. But if you're thinking you're reducing your carbon footprint, you're not. Now, there are three things we need to know here.

There's how much carbon dioxide would Dakota have produced driving to work. Okay. There's how much carbon dioxide does a car produce while idling and waiting for someone to use the crosswalk. Yes. And finally, there's how much carbon dioxide does Dakota produce while cycling. Because it's not free. You're using energy.

Your own energy. Yeah. But you've got to eat more food or burn fat to do the additional exercise required. Yeah. And we breathe out. We breathe out carbon dioxide. So I thought I'd start with working out how much carbon dioxide Dakota produces. Now there are different types of energy production in the human body.

I decided to go with burning fat just because personally I tend to cycle as a weight loss approach and I appreciate you can eat carbs and burn them immediately. I went for the amount of carbon dioxide produced when you burn one kilogram of fat. And there's some research done into this about 10 years ago that for every one kilo of fat you burn, 2.8 kilos of carbon dioxide come out of your body. Oh my gosh. That's a lot.

So the weight that you're losing is actually carbon dioxide. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You lose weight through breath. Yeah. Well, not entirely. It's a bit over, it's around 85%-ish, might be 86% of the mass you lose, you breathe out. What? And the remaining like 14% is through extra liquid. So weight loss is breathing. I mean, you can't lose more weight just by breathing more. So you've got to burn the fat to breathe it out. It gets converted into energy.

Yep. So the energy is what you're using to ride the bike. Yep. But the weight that is lost is not from the energy itself. Not from the energy itself. It's from the byproduct of creating the energy. Oh, my mind has just been blown. But the reason why you have to... So if I just breathe more, will I lose weight? If I just breathe twice as much as I do normally? No, you need to be exercising.

Because you can breathe more, but you're not adding more carbon dioxide in. It's not just the act of breathing, it's the amount of carbon dioxide ready to go. So when you're exercising, there's a higher percentage of carbon dioxide in what you're breathing out. Got it. And that's where you're losing the weight. Yeah. And it's not, it's subtly different because there's one way of looking at it is for every

kilogram of fat, where does that mass end up once you've lost it? And that's the, I think it's 86% you breathe out and 14% you wee out or perspire. Wow. But then if you look at the actual mass of carbon dioxide you produce, it's more than a kilogram because you've gotta breathe in a bunch of oxygen to then produce the carbon dioxide. So if you're just looking at the fat loss,

carbon dioxide out, 2.8 kilograms of carbon dioxide breathed out for every one kilogram of fat burnt. Kilogram of fat burnt, the whole process of doing that uses 9,400 kcal, which I'm going to call calories from here in. Yes. So you can now work out for a certain number of calories spent cycling how much carbon dioxide you'll breathe out. Yeah.

Assuming it's going through the fat burning pathway. Because it takes quite a lot to burn. We burn calories naturally throughout the day. Yes. Just through existing. The one thing I haven't compared it to because I figured the time scale was too short is the baseline calorie burn from just existing. I haven't subtracted that off. I've just looked at the calories you burn while cycling. I haven't compensated for if you were sitting on the sofa instead. I see. Yeah. You're welcome to do that as you're going to find out in a moment. It doesn on the sofa instead. I see. Yeah, yeah. You're welcome to do that. As you're going to find out in a moment, it doesn't matter. Okay.

All right. So I then realized I'm commuting by bike at the moment, and it's about three or four miles to cycle into the festival site. So I thought on my way in this morning, I would put on my heart rate monitor and the sensors on the bike and get it to calculate how many calories it takes me to cycle onto site. So I can then use that. But I don't know anything else about Dakota.

So I thought I'd just use my stats for this. And it took me, it's 3.78 mile cycle and that used 88 calories. Which is not much. No, it's like, if you try and purposefully go i'm gonna burn this the amount of calories that like i've been eating donuts you have been during the podcast before and during and i predict after well well predicted so uh if i was like well i'm gonna go and dance this off while listening to some music or something uh i probably won't be able to do that just by dancing

unless I dance for the entire day. You have to do a lot. Well, when I cycle at home, I cycle deliberately energy-intensive routes. So I've got a few cycle laps I do, which are all vaguely 10 miles near my house. You can get out and do them in under an hour. And they're ones where I'm going up and down hills,

doing off-road stuff. And so actually I looked up my most recent cycle at home, which is 11.3 miles, and that took 676 calories because I'm going up and down the Surrey Hills. That's off-road. That's a section of that's in sand cycling, which is a whole thing. So then I was averaging 59.8 calories a mile.

That's like 60 calories a mile, as opposed to the ride in here, 59.8 calories a mile yeah 60 calories a mile as opposed to the ride in here which was 23 calories a mile because it was pretty much almost a three to one difference yeah depending on the terrain so i've worked it out for both i've worked it out for the 60 calorie miles which is like a worst case i imagine because well i know there are more intense ways i don't cycle that hard. And I've worked it out for the leisurely commute. Because where I'm staying, it's uphill of the site here. Like most of the ride in was rolling down a hill. Right.

So I'm not surprised it was so low on the calories. I worked it out for both. I then took my results, my difficult ride and my easy ride. Yep. Compared them to the calories from burning fat. Scaled them to match the length of Dakota's commute, and then ran all the numbers. And if Dakota's commute is nice and easy, like my ride this morning, then they will produce about 31 grams of carbon dioxide on the commute. 0.03 kilograms, let's say.

If it's a difficult ride, 80 grams of carbon dioxide. Okay. But now you're thinking, what if they drove instead? Because this is in the US, I looked up on the official EPA website from the government in the USA, and they say, on average, because it depends on the car, depends on how fast you're driving, depends on the speeds, so many factors. And I was like, how am I going to get an average? The EPA have their official average. It's 0.4 kilos a mile of carbon dioxide. Quite a lot.

Quite a lot. Which means Dakota's drive on average in the USA will produce 1.8 kilograms of carbon dioxide. Compared to worst case scenario, 80 grams. Yeah. So it almost wasn't worth balancing out the carbon dioxide produced by cycling because it's so much less. The human body and bicycles are both very efficient machines. Yeah. Particularly compared to a combustion engine. Yeah. That we use almost no energy compared to going in a car.

that we use almost no energy compared to going in a car. And that's before you get to the fact that if you're eating food and cycling, that's carbon which was already in the carbon cycle, very recently went into food, got eaten, reproduced, whereas fossil fuels are getting all new carbon that's been locked away and putting it into the carbon cycle. So it's not even comparing apples to apples. It's comparing apples to apples, it's comparing apples to fossilized oranges because you're bringing in carbon dioxide that wasn't there originally

when you're burning fuel versus eating food is just carbon dioxide that's already on the go. Now, I looked up, according to the National Association of City Transportation Officials, I looked up, according to the National Association of City Transportation Officials, how much carbon dioxide is produced by a car idling. Because that's going to be different to driving at speed. So I, instead of needing mass per mile driven, I now needed mass per time interval sat doing nothing. And you produce 0.588 grams of carbon dioxide per second. Ooh, that's a lot.

It is and it isn't. It's 2.1 kilos an hour. Okay. So a car sat idling for an hour is about the same as having driven five miles. Okay. At regular speeds, much quicker than an hour. Yeah. So it's not as bad as driving, but you're still put now over two kilos an hour just out there and how long on average would you say a crossing?

Time is that's a great question back. Well, thank goodness the people at the National Association of City Transportation Oh my goodness, which I looked up also in the US they recommend because this is not traffic lights for traffic It's specifically a crosswalk. Mm-hmm where you're stopping traffic just for the purpose of someone crossing. Yeah. And they recommend crosswalks, depending on the situation, are ideally between 60 to 90 seconds of traffic stop time. So I've now got an upper and a lower bound. So I did this for 60 and 90 seconds. And I did it for the tough cycle and the easy cycle, even though they're almost indistinguishable now, to work out our upper and lower bounds.

So you know what? We just do it. We do it for the worst case difficult cycle. And we will compare it to both 60 and 90 seconds of stop time at a crosswalk. And if it was a difficult cycle, so you're producing lots of carbon dioxide anyway, and it was the shortest stop, so only 60 seconds, then it would take 48.7 cars being stopped by the crosswalk for the whole 60 seconds to cancel out the carbon dioxide saved by cycling.

Yeah. If it was a 90 second one, which would be more idle time, even worse, then that would be 32.5 cars. And this is for each trip? For each trip. Yeah. So if on the way in, for the single crossing,

33 cars have to stop for the full 90 seconds, that's more carbon dioxide produced than you'd save from cycling. That's quite a lot of cars. It's a lot of cars, and that's the full 90 seconds that's more carbon dioxide produced than you'd say then you would save from cycling that's quite a lot of cars it's a lot of cars and that's the full 90 seconds yeah i 30 cars depends what the road is that they're crossing i guess yeah like i've heard that the traffic in la is awful there's a lot of traffic jams and stuff so potentially you know it could be something like that but But realistically, especially if it's a road that has a pedestrian crossing, because a lot of the time if you're going to get that many cars,

they're going to build a bridge or something or an underpass. Infrastructure is always the answer. Yeah, because they wouldn't have like a multi-lane thing, because that means there's a lot of cars. No, if you have that many cars, you wouldn't have a crosswalk. Exactly. Yeah. This exact reason.

Yeah. It's inconveniencing a lot of people. And this is assuming Dakota is the only person crossing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's closer than I thought. Yeah, because if you, if Dakota rocks up to that crossing and there's multiple other cyclists crossing at the same time. That's better.

And they're not driving, then you're significantly. You're way in front. Yeah. But what's interesting is I didn't really comprehend because cars idling still produce so much carbon dioxide. And I've not looked into like cars that turn themselves off. Obviously, that would be great. Yeah. But this is assuming the cars are running the whole time then it's very easy to cancel out the savings

by stopping a bunch of cars and making them idle for a while yeah you're inadvertently producing a lot of carbon dioxide so it's definitely a consideration worth making yeah yeah it isn't something that i would have thought of but it's like when when uh you hear things about and i need to look into this but you hear things about how like recycled toilet paper potentially produces more carbon than yeah than other ones because the other ones require us to grow trees so the trees take out a lot of the carbon dioxide whereas a recycling one requires a lot of energy in order to clean it and bleach it. There's always more factors. And it's not like the answer this time, like the answer if it was like a thousand cars or ten thousand cars, then that would be like,

oh it doesn't matter. But on the order of, you know, 30 to 50 cars, we're like, oh okay, this is a factor and that's why good cycling infrastructure is important so if there were more crossings than just one then then it would add up even worse yeah yeah so if you are a cyclist and you often have to stop traffic in a way that wouldn't naturally stop for other traffic yep you're undoing all your good work you You could be undoing your work environmentally. That is assuming that you're the only cyclist. That's very true. Cool. Anyway, that's the answer. Between 32 and a half and 48 and three-quarter cars. Incredible. Thank you. I'm gonna give that a big old ding. Big old bicycle bell ding ding. Yeah. Ding ding. Time for any other business in the business tent.

And the band on the main stage are getting louder, so we're going to wrap this up reasonably efficiently. Any other big feastable. Any other big feastable. And us talking about parity between food items and people caused a lot of conversation on the problem posing page at a problemsquared.com. Yes. Yeah.

A lot of you thought you'd be very smart, very funny, very clever to point out that a food source where there is as many food items available as there are people is people. One to one, humans to humans. I put this on the same level as when, talking about my kids earlier, as I said I ask kids what superpower they want. There's always one smart aleck

who says, I want the superpower to have all superpowers. Oh yeah, or infinite wishes. Infinite wishes. And and you go cool i can't do anything with that yeah uh you know it's a bit like i think it's because there's part of me look i'm i'm not trying to shame you for writing in but also i am because i think we could all we all know this we all know this i don't know it's assumed it's it. Yes. It's very right. Yes. Exactly one-to-one.

If we were all cannibals. That's true. Which we're not. Which we're not. Even if you were to say like, oh, like milk. I'm going to give them technically correct. Yeah, technically correct. Which is the best type of correct.

It's not something we all eat. And I think that's the thing. Fine. Well, thank you. Thank you for everyone who thought of it and put it we all eat. And I think that's the thing. Fine. Well, thank you. Thank you for everyone who thought of it and put it in. Yeah. I say water. No, I do.

I'd rather people wrote in than didn't. There you go. Yeah. Also, I mean, Beck didn't go to sleep last night. Yeah, that's true. You're a bit less tolerant. I'm grumpy because it was very cold last night. So people mentioned all sorts of food products,

like fruit that didn't exist until we crossed other types of fruit, grain, or things that we've domesticated. And it's a great point. People pointed out the intermediate value theorem. If you've got something that's changing continuously, which you could argue, in the case of fruit, is whole values, we'll ignore that. And you know it starts below and ends up above at some point it must have gone through every value in between yes so the theory is assuming the new food products

over the last 10 000 or so years that have come in below the human population at some point as they pass the human population would have been equal to it and i will accept statistical arguments that's happened to so many different food products one of population would have been equal to it. And I will accept statistical arguments that that's happened to so many different food products, one of them would have been exactly bang on at some point in time. Yes. Which is very exciting. Yeah, that is a very good point. But I also want to give a special shout out to Eric D.

who wrote in and said, I'm proud to announce that I have made a huge Excel spreadsheet on strawberry production. Good work, Eric G. I figure I'd check when the strawberries were in season in every producing country. So good. Ah, Eric. Doing a Dexter.

Yeah. Assuming that these countries produce an equal amount per month in season, I could calculate how many strawberries that should exist during every month. Now, obviously, not all countries will produce an equal amount. No. And seasons vary from place to place. Yes, but I think that's more what we're looking at, isn't it? Yeah. This took time, of course, but I noticed something very interesting.

Very few countries produce strawberries in October. Oh. So I stopped what I was doing and only checked the statistics for October. The result? Possibly on a certain date in October, there just might be less than 66,000 tons of strawberries in existence. If a strawberry weighs 15 grams each, that would equal 5 billion strawberries. Fewer strawberries than people!

That's amazing! Yeah. I got so excited when discovering this, so I have not verified my calculations at all. Oh don't! Don't break it! I will do that some other day. That's incredible. We really appreciate that. So by the intermediate value theorem for strawberries.

Yeah. It dips below the number of humans every October. It's definitely above it. Yeah. When Wimbledon's on. Yeah. It must, at some point, there must be exactly one strawberry per human on Earth.

Yeah. Thank you so much for that. That's incredible work. there must be exactly one strawberry per human on earth yeah thank you so much for that that's incredible work now one thing that i believe didn't make the edit in episode 66 a lot of stuff doesn't make it a lot of stuff doesn't make the edit uh but one bit that i and i know lauren does an incredible job making sure that it's a difficult choice yeah yeah she tries to get it to a within a listenable amount of time rather than just us rambling on. But I had the realisation that my idea of what a tonne is is vastly different... Than what an actual tonne is.

To what an actual tonne is. A cubic metre of water. Yeah, yeah. So I had no idea that a tonne is a cubic metre of water. So I'd always been imagining, like, a shipping container. Right. Yeah. That's a lot more.

And depending on the... You know, if it's an empty shipping container, depending on how thick the metal is, I suppose that could be a lot more. And depending on the, you know, if it's an empty shipping container, depending on how thick the metal is, I suppose that could be a ton. Could be a ton. But when I think about it, I think of like a full one. Yeah. And of course, you know, if you're thinking about tons of plastic in the ocean or something like that, then it's not going to necessarily look the same

as a cube of water. No. No. It's going to same as a cube of water. No. No. It's going to be. Tiny bits of plastic. Yeah. So it might be much bigger because plastic is pretty light. But I just thought it was very interesting,

and I've spoken to other people since then who also did not know that a tonne is a cubic metre of water. I'm sure everyone listening does, but on the off chance. There you go. I'm not ashamed to say I didn't know. That's a ton metre of water. I'm sure everyone listening does, but on the off chance. There you go. I'm not ashamed to say I didn't know. That's a ton. Yeah. I think Eric G might have earned a commemorative plate.

Ooh, yeah, I think you're right. We'll give you a shout. We'll email it. We've got your email address here, Eric, because you put it on the problem posing page. If you don't already have one. If you haven't already got one, we'll send you one. If you send us your spreadsheet.

Simple exchange. Spreadsheet for bowl. Or plate. Plate. Bowl. Thank Spreadsheet for bowl. Or plate. Plate. Bowl. Thank you so much for listening to A Problem Squared, episode 068. I'm now actually at home recording on my normal microphone. So if you're new listeners, this is the audio quality we normally adhere to.

And I'm here because not only do we appreciate every single listener, the maximum amount possible, Not only do we appreciate every single listener, the maximum amount possible, but we extra super maximum appreciate our Patreon supporters who make this whole enterprise function. And we pick three of them at random every single episode to thank. And I realized in the field, I didn't have enough internet access to download the current list of all Patreon supporters. So I've done that. Now I'm home. And this time we'd like to thank... Bernard Dieber.

Die-die-die. Bernard Dieber. Space Sloth. I think that's pronounced... Space Sloth. Anne Jeffress. Probably Jeffries. I'm going to go with Anne Jeffress.

Once a little. Jeffress. Thank you so much to all our Patreon supporters and everyone who listens and reviews and stars and promotes this podcast. We couldn't do it without each and every single one. Well, we could. We just do it to a linear scaled lesson.

But we appreciate you a huge amount. I'm Matt Parker. My co-host was Beck Hill and the producer of this podcast is Lauren Armstrong Carter who had to edit all that festival noise into a podcast. I'm Matt Parker. My co-host was Beck Hill. And the producer of this podcast is Lauren Armstrong Carter, who had to edit all that festival noise into a podcast. You know what? Now Beck's not here.

I'm just going to say it. Cheezles are better than twisties. There you are. No one told Beck I said that.