A Problem Squared - 100 = Orchestral Seats and Calculator Beef

Episode Date: December 23, 2024

To celebrate A Problem Squared’s 100th episode… 🎼 What is the least popular instrument in an orchestra?  🍎 Matt is appalled.  🔮 Another unplanned, unexpected mystery segment!  💼 And the business briefcase is (briefly) open.  A big thank you to Katie Steckles for her brilliant contributions to this episode. You can find more from her on her website: https://www.katiesteckles.co.uk/index.html, on Twitter: https://twitter.com/stecks?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor,  or on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/katiesteckles.  If you’re on Patreon and have a creative Wizard offer to give Bec and Matt, please comment on the ‘Sup ‘Zards’ pinned post!   And if you want (we’re not forcing anyone) to leave us a review, show the podcast to a friend or give us a rating! Please do that. It really helps.  Finally, if you want even more from A Problem Squared you can connect with us and other listeners on BlueSky, Twitter, Instagram, and on Discord.

I'm cracking into the matrix. I know Kung Fu. Oops, I just pressed a thing. I don't know what I'm doing. Welcome to A Problem Squared, the problem-solving podcast, which is a lot like the number 100, because this is the 100th episode of a Problem Squared. There's now a hundred of us. Isn't that something?

Just a hundred of us. A hundred of us. Oh my goodness. Episode 100. And to celebrate. I told you that lead zero would be necessary one day. You did. Ah, here we are.

We're going to play every episode concurrently. Concurrently. Yeah. In parallel. Yeah. Now. I can't assume nothing happened because looking at Producer Lauren's face right now, that's not on the cards. So, first time listeners, welcome aboard.

Good time to join us. Yeah. You're listening to me, Matt Parker, who much like the number 100, So first time listeners, welcome aboard. Good time to join us. Yeah. You're listening to me, Matt Parker, who much like the number 100, it's all about the ones and zeros. I'm joined by comedian, performer, author, Beck Hill, who much like the number 100, her nickname has a C in it. Thank you.

Wow. It's good. Is it? Thank you. Wow. That's good. Is it? It is. Is it? Cause you, cause you specifically spelled Beck with a C. Yes. And a hundred specifically spells itself as a C.

Yep. And that's the joke. No, I got it. I got the joke. But you weren't laughing. I don't know. Huh. Interesting.

On this episode. I'll be looking at what instrument you't laughing. I don't know. Huh. Interesting. On this episode. I'll be looking at what instrument you should play to get into an orchestra. I've got some beef with Apple's scientific calculator update. Ooh. I think. There is a mystery math segment. There's a mystery math segment. It's been added to the running order.

Because it's episode 100. We're going all out. Okay. Yep. Well then maybe I'll add a segment too. Why don't you? That's the sound of me horribly typing something. And there'll be any other business. What a show. So Beck, how have you been? I wanted to show you something that angered me the other day.

Okay. So I saw this on the tube the other day. Just wanted to talk about it. Yes. Okay. That's valid. Becca sent me a photo she's taken on the tube, which is the subway transport system in London, where they have ads above the seats. Head height.

If you're standing. This is a one for some kind of content, the CRM that's a customer relation manager or something like that, contact relation manager. I don't know. It's a business thing. They've like that. I didn't even know that. Contact relation manager. I don't know. It's a business thing. They've got a stock photo of a business person.

Yeah. I really feel like they just did a search for business woman. Yes. Yeah. Real generic business woman. White business woman. Yeah. White business woman in power suit pointing at thing.

But heels. But heels. Yeah. She's still a lady. She's an acceptable business woman. Exactly. They've gone with the slogan, line up the value. I feel like that's important. And they want to visualize that. And they've gone for knots and crosses. And what I suspect has wound back up and indeed I'm now finding pretty

annoying is it's not a real game of knots and crosses now, is it? Right? No. Exactly. And it's not hard to come up with a real game of knots and crosses, or one that looks like a possible plausible arrangement of knots and crosses. Mid or end game. So what this is, is the standard nine square grid. Yep. There's five knots in a sort of diagonal cross fashion. Every square is filled. Yeah.

All nine moves have been played. That's the problem with this one. Yes. And then there's four crosses that are sort of in the middle outer squares. You could say circles or knots only likes going in the corners in the center and crosses only goes for the edges. Yeah. Yeah. Terrible strategy for crosses, if I may.

Yeah. So because there's more knots than there are crosses, we know this means that knots went first. Yeah. Yeah. Terrible strategy for crosses, if I may. Yeah. So because there's more Noughts than there are crosses, we know this means that Noughts went first. Yes. Normally you go middle spot, but you know what? Let's go top left corner. No move makes sense in this game. Yeah. Unless the challenge was whoever makes three in a row losers. Yeah.

There's a name for that. We happen to have your friend of mine, Katie Steckles in the room, who knows more about game theory than me. Isn't there, what's it called? The Mizzere version. So the Mizzere version of a game is where you flip the script and say, whoever achieves the thing that normally wins, losers. Do you have to force them into winning?

Yeah. So you're trying to duck around accidentally winning the game, winning. Yeah. Yeah. Which I think we, we may be lightly covered on when we talked about knots and crosses a few episodes ago. We might have done it with what's a better version of knots and crosses. Yeah. Yeah. So you could argue they were playing the Mizzere version of knots and crosses. Yes.

We could. It's still terrible. Yeah. You're right. Maybe that is it. Because at the moment. Badly played badly. They've done, what they've done is they've done is they've done it.

They've done it. They've done it. They've done it. They've done it. They's still terrible. Yeah. You're right. Maybe that is it. Because at the- Bad, played badly. They've done, what they've done is they've, they've drawn a line through the top left to the bottom right diagonal of the knots. They haven't drawn a line through the other three knots that are lined up there from the top right diagonal down to the bottom left. Which means we can forensically work out the center must have gone in last and they've picked one of the two sets of three it made simultaneously.

Yeah. But the steps leading up to that are ambiguous. Yeah. Cause if you went not in the top left and then across in the next square over to the right. Doing the inverse, trying to lose to win, but that doesn't really mesh with their slogan, line up the value. They very much have this to indicate lining up the value. Or your big business contacts, you've got to close.

And the copy says, just one supplier, one sign on and one interface. You'll soon be onto an all round winner. Makes no sense. Anyway, so that's, that's what I've got. That's my chat for the hundredth episode. That is my chat. Beef with some bad tic tac toe-age. So I might be in a similar boat. Oh, cause you started with beef. I had some beef recently. So there's a nerd called Randall Munro, who does the XKCD comic for people who make with that. Yes.

Thick figure comic. Yes. And they are an order of magnitude bigger nerd celebrity than me. Easily. It's a different medium. Oh, I didn't, the argument wasn't whether they're cooler than you. Of course they're cooler than you. They're bigger, they're bigger nerd celebrity. They're great. Anyway, I was doing some shows with Randall, who has a book out called What If, and the 10th anniversary edition was coming out. So we did

some shows together promoting the book in front of very nerdy audiences, which was a lot of fun. I had a great time. Randall's exactly as nice and as nerdy as anyone would ever expect. You wouldn't work with them if they weren't. Precisely. I only work with wonderful people. You only have space in your life for one jerk and that's me. Yeah, exactly. And that's because you're trying to slowly convert everyone one by one. You become a cool person.

Yeah. And then I bring in a new jerk. It's like my fair lady, but for jerks. Exactly. So as part of the show, we take questions from the audience about either Randall's career or things in the what if books. So someone sent in anonymous, this is addressed to Randall of all the improbable things you've written about.

How did you come to the belief that making tea in a microwave is acceptable? And then they wrote citation needed and they're referencing. This is from the book. What if the first one. So in passing Randall mentioned, and if people are unfamiliar with this in America, people don't own kettles. No, they microwave water to make tea or they boil it on the stove or they boil it on the stove.

They do have kettles, but they're they're stove top ones. Sometimes if they have one, if they have them at all. Yes. And so I then got Randall to step through his tea making process, which is to get a mug of water. Or they have a coffee machine that does hot water. It's getting worse. In Randall's defense, he's like, I've already got a microwave.

Heats the water fine. I know how long it takes, put it on, water boils, then they take it out, put the tea bag in, tea. The audience is aghast because this is a British audience. Some of whom have only just learned that Americans make tea in microwave and everyone else is reminded and knew that Americans make tea in microwaves. Or that they don't make tea at all. Or that don't make tea at all. Deeply upset at this prospect. Now, Randall then has to defend

himself. I'm on the side of that is outrageous. Now, Randall makes a perfectly good point. You're still just boiling the water. Yeah. I realized in that moment, because I was then saying, I was like, no, it matters. The water remembers. And I never expected myself to take a pro homeopathy stance. Yeah. Yeah. Like the water knows it remembers what you did to it. There is a weird thing that as soon as you said that microwave the water, my brain went, oh no, I would argue that in a place, especially like London with very hard water, a lot of lime scale is that it does mean that you're going to have a lot more lime scale still

in like in the, in the kettle. It gets caught by the little mesh thing. you're going to have a lot more lime scales still in, like in the, in the kettle, it gets caught by the little mesh thing. Yeah. And in the bottom. But would it even come out if you're microwaving it? Like a kettle, you get the scale built up over time. You're not going to get scale built up in the microwave or you reckon you'll get that

weird skin. Little bony bits that you get at the top, maybe. I don't know. but he was right. I hate to say it. I think the difference is, and you mentioned this Americans don't drink that much tea. It's less culturally ingrained. If you're making tea, it's an occasional mug for yourself. Whereas in the UK and Australia, if you're making tea, you're making it for a bunch of people all the time.

And having a kettle makes way more sense. Like if you're making tea in the microwave, you've got to put in one at a time or try and nuke a bunch at once, which doesn't work that well. So I think it's borne out of how infrequently they make tea and it tends to be one mug as opposed to in the UK where you put the kettle on to make several cups of tea. Yeah. I'm just going to check in with Katie you put the kettle on to make several cups of tea. Yeah. I'm just going to check in with Katie who probably has comments on this. So I know the science reason why it's worse. So I did an event at Cheltenham Science Festival several years ago with a tea scientist from

like a big tea company. When you boil the water, it brings the oxygen out because it's dissolved in the water. So this is the reason why you should never boil a kettle again because then the second time you boil it, there's no oxygen in the water and it doesn't make good tea. So tea that's been boiled once to 100 degrees and then used immediately will make really nice tea because it's just got the right amount of oxygen left but if you boil it again it takes too much out and the microwave will heat it past 100 or it will heat it really unevenly and some parts of it will go really, really hot and what have you.

And it averages out and you get water that's roughly the right temperature, but it isn't right. Like it takes out much more of the oxygen. Wow. That's an unexpected guest Katie, everyone. That also explains if I haven't used up all the water in the kettle, I just boil it again. So sometimes the water in there has probably been boiled like three or four times. Yeah. I'm not surprised.

But I also don't drink tea. There you go. I'm usually like boiling up for, I don't know, cleaning purposes or whatever. Now, the problem is in our first 100 episodes, we open the can of, if you put a spoon in sparkling wine, does it stop it from going flat? Yeah. And we need to do a bigger double blind test on that because the results we got back was it does stop it from going flat. Yes. Which we were both terrified by. And I haven't, I've got plans.

We will re-explore that. Yeah. We haven't done it yet. What we'll need to do is an experiment where we make a bunch of tea with freshly boiled water and multiple boiled water, and then see if we can taste the difference between them. Yeah. And then if we confirm, yes, the multiple boils gets rid of the oxygen, you can taste the difference. Yeah.

Then we need to do like a microwave one where you make some tea in the microwave and some with the kettle and see if we can tell the difference. Yeah. That would be- It'd be interesting to see whether I can tell the difference. Yes.

That is a problem for a future episode. I like it though. There you go. It's more affordable than champagne. It's a way cheaper experiment than last time. Yeah. On with the episode. Uh, first problem was sent in by Eleanor, who is a Patreon of the show, unrelated

to the urgency with which we treat problems sent in, but nice to know. Yes. They went to the problem posing page at a problemsquared.com. Thank you Eleanor. They start by saying that they played the flute in school, in their school band, many bands for many years. And they always told themselves it was hard to be a flutist. Is that pronounced correct? Flutist?

I was... Flautists? Yeah. Flautists. Hard to be a flautist because there are so many of them. Flutists for days, which meant there was a lot of competition for seats. Now, they're not just talking about the fact that when you come into the band rehearsal, everyone wants to sit down.

Like a music seat has a very specific definition. So the word flutist was first recorded in the Oxford English dictionary in the 1603 edition. Oh wow. So they reckon, yeah, they reckon it probably didn't come into existence until the late 1500s. It was first mentioned in literature in Chaucer's the house, H-O-U-S of fame,

which came out in 1384. The instrument obviously has been around for longer. It dates back to at least 43,000 years ago. What? That's a long time. I can't see anything else about that, which makes me worry. They must have found an old flute or something flute like. It said, having been popular in Europe, many peoples throughout the continent fell in love

with the flute, which has often held an enchanting role in popular culture. Right. Now flautist, F-L-A-U-T-I-S-T didn't come about until 1860 in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Marble Fawn. They reckon it was influenced by the Italian term flautista. Oh, well, I don't give a flute because none of that is Eleanor's question. Now Eleanor's problem here pertains to seats. That's in terms of the instruments that are in an orchestra.

Right. So how many flute players you have, you go, ah, we've got three flute seats. None of that's strictly how people would say it, but you get the idea. Now they were saying that being a flute-omagist is difficult because there's so many of them, but there are more flute seats than there are seats for say oboists. So if you were going to choose to play an instrument based on the highest ratio of available seats in a band or orchestra compared to the number of people competing

for those seats, what would be the best instrument to choose? Bec, you've solved this problem. Yes. Great. Tell us all about it. Well, firstly, I spoke to my friend Renata, who studied classical music. She explained that when a lot of composers were employed by royal families, they would compose the pieces in their minds and like would want them obviously to sound as perfect as possible given the venue.

So yeah, so sometimes they would change it depending on the space that they were playing in to make sure it could sound as good as possible with the space that they were afforded. So they might change the arrangement in terms of what instruments play, what and everything based on that. So they walk into a hall and they're like, this, this is a three oboe concert hall. We need that extra oboe to really make this room sing. Yeah. She said, sometimes if an opera or concert had a longer popular run, those

scores slash transcription would survive. And that amount of instruments or players would be the way things would be done moving forward. Right. So it's not so much as an orchestra has three cellos and that's just the way it's always done. It changes. It can change. Yeah.

I did also find this from professional cellist, Yvonne Carruthers, who said, when I got my job in the National Symphony Orchestra in 1978, the music director just initiated a new policy to have rotational seating. I think the Boston Symphony was the first major orchestra to experiment with it, but the idea was so popular that soon almost all major orchestras used it. With the old system, new players sat at the back supposedly to gain experience only inching forward one seat at a time when someone died or retired from that all major orchestras used it. With the old system, new players sat at the back, supposedly to gain experience, only inching forward one seat at a time when someone died or retired from that section.

Oh, wow. I guess like playing Space Invaders. So you'd be like the fourth seat or whatever, you're like, come on, hurry up and die. Exactly. So if one says that was not a healthy situation and everyone knew it, can you imagine being stuck next to the same person for your entire career? Oh my gosh.

Imagine having to sit next to someone for five years, a hundred episodes, never a change. We can rotate. We can swap. We could, we should swap. I'll sit over there. Yeah. So an algorithm was developed.

Love it. To ensure the rotational system is as fair and random as possible. I want to know what the algorithm is now. We trade seats every two weeks in the National Symphony Orchestra, but I don't know if other orchestras do likewise. I might be sitting under the conductor's nose for two weeks and then assigned to seat right next to the stage door for the next two weeks. I like all the seats rotating allows me to enjoy each of my colleagues for two weeks.

That's about right. If we're not getting along just then enjoy each of my colleagues for two weeks. That's about right. If we're not getting along just then, well, it's only two weeks. If we like sitting together and are getting too chummy, that only lasts for two weeks as well. I believe rotational seating spreads out the strong and the weak, the more experienced with the less experienced and builds a more cohesive sections. Love it. For what it's worth, I've never heard of a professional orchestra where the section leaders of the string section sit anywhere other than right up front. Oh, now there's instrument beef. Yeah.

So I reached out to a conductor. Yep. Ben Jannan is a conductor and also one of the hosts of Tom Allen's Monsters of Music podcast, which I may have guessed it on, talking about Puccini. I reached out to Ben and said, can you help answer this question? Ben's answered. And I thought that was better than any Google I could do. The founding principle of this podcast.

So Ben said, in an orchestra, my chances of career success would be greatly improved by playing the violin. As there's normally around 30 of them. 30 of them? You can sit on the back desk and play crap. As a joking aside, the competition is high. You could play the viola because no one else wants to. So I was thinking 30 seats for violins.

That's a lot. But a lot of people learn the violin. Yeah. Popular instrument. Easier to carry around. Easier to carry around. Viola? Yeah, viola. Viola? Voila! People are not chomping at the bit for the Voila. Similarly, tuba is good if you can be bothered to lump

the heavy metal around the tube. Oh yeah. The drummer of the orchestra world. Ben's added, although there is only one tuba seat in an orchestra and they don't play in half of the repertoire because it didn't exist. So easy job if you can count. Percussion would be a good one because modern pieces need loads of players to cover the menagerie of sounds and kitchen sinks, and you get paid extra for setting up slash hit the symbol at the big moment. Oh, that's interesting. Pressure money.

Oh, gosh, how much do I want to do that now? Yeah, this is a new career. Woodwind, I would avoid it all costs. Oh, as there's only normally a pair career. Woodwind, I would avoid it all costs. Oh. As there's only normally a pair of each flutes, bassoons, clarinets and winds. And often people hold onto these seats for life, even if decline in virtuosity has set in. Yikes. They said, does that answer or have I gone off on a tangent of prejudices?

That's what we're here for. Now it's not a mathematical answer, but I feel that with someone who's had extensive experience with orchestras, that that's a pretty solid one. If your main motivation is the minimum competition per seat. Final answer? Viola. According to a conductor. Done.

Great. Now there's probably a mathy reason. Yes, because what you would want is data on how many people learn each instrument. According to a conductor. Done. Great. Now there's probably a mathy reason. Yes, because what you would want is data on how many people learn each instrument and then the average number of seats each instrument gets in various pieces and orchestras or whatever. Yeah. And divide one by the other and then sort by smallest. And I thought that would be relatively easy.

I'm pretty good at finding sources of data, but I, I, all I kept finding was news articles that mentioned in a study or according to research, but then no links to the research. No. So I don't actually know what numbers I've seen percentages, but that's not the same I think going straight to the expert was the winning move. Yeah. And I do feel like knowing the listeners of this podcast, if anyone out there knows where we could find some data set, could you play any instruments, Matt?

Nope. No, not well. Not well. Can you? No, I was telling you before we started recording that one of my bucket list things is to learn the intro to Greig's Concerto. Yep. The one from the Malcolm and Wise sketch. If you could play any instrument, what would you play? If I could play any instrument. I mean, piano is good because there's always pianos around. Anything involving a keyboard, I'm pretty, pretty on board with.

I love a cello. I can buy a Casio keyboard. You want an extra faxing as this is the main problem. Here's one more fact. The seating for orchestras, there's theory here that originally it was just done because your right ear has an advantage for high tones. What? So seating for higher instruments is usually on the left side. And that wasn't necessarily done with that in mind, but it was done for,

this is how it sounds best. And then they've gone, Oh, we've also discovered this, which is probably why people think it sounds best. Well, I'll be. Well, I'll be. Well, Beck, I feel like you went straight to the experts and you got us a actionable answer. So I'm going to give you a triangle in the orchestra. Ding. Oh, thank you.

I'm conducting. Hey, even better. This next problem is not in the running order. So I can't read it out. It just says iPhone calculator. Yes. Is this your own problem? It's me. This is you own problem. It's me.

This is you. Okay. Do you remember when we first started the podcast? Yes. Even this is the 100th episode. We should look back. Yeah. We used to solve four problems an episode, which is too many.

I can't believe that. We were foolish. Two from listeners and two from each other. We would set problems that we would then solve. And then we realized we're taking way too long to do all that. And it's too much. Let's just do listener ones. So we stopped doing our own problems.

But I thought just for old time's sake. Okay. One of my absolute favorite things about an iPhone is if you open up the calculator app, which is just like a standard calculator and you turn your phone sideways, it becomes a scientific calculator, which I think is just the greatest thing ever. I went for lunch with your friend of mine, Dr. Carl in Australia. Dr. Carl is a long. Oh yes. In Australia. Dr.

Karl is a long time science communicator in Australia. Wonderful guy. I went on his triple J show, which is a very surreal experience. Yeah. As an Australian who grew up listening to Dr. Karl on triple J to now be there in the room is something else. And at lunch, I showed him that if you turn your phone sideways, it becomes a scientific egg later. And he lost his mind. He'd never seen it. Yeah. He thought it was incredible. And I, I still marvel at it every single time. You've checked your phone. What does it do? Yeah. I have an Android. Yep. Here we go. And it's turning on the side. Scientific calculator. Yeah. There it is. Now,

the other reason why I love this is because if you turn on its side and you get the full scientific calculator, and then you hit Rand, it's got a random number generator. What? So I use this all the time because my brother and I, because he lives in Australia, I live in the UK, but we meet up whenever we're both in the same country. And we go out a bunch over the course of our lives. We would have this conversation so many times if we had not come up with a wonderful solution to the problem, which is every time we buy drinks or food,

right when you go to pay, not before. So everyone's locked in on what they're ordering. We generate a random number on my phone. And if the lead digit is odd, Steve pays. And if it's even I pay. Okay. It's super convenient. It's wonderful. You guys could just flip is odd, Steve pays. And if it's even, I pay. Okay. It's super convenient. It's wonderful.

You guys could just flip a coin, but sure. No, no, no. This is way more subtle. Like if you walk up to pay at a restaurant and then you flip a coin, that's a whole... Whereas we walk up and just very subtly, we both look down, random number, we nod. One of us is like, I got this. And then we're done. A hundred percent easier than flipping a card.

All right, sure. Yesterday, we needed to generate a random number at home. I can't remember why. Lucy got her phone out, turned it sideways, and it didn't become a scientific calculator. It just became a widescreen regular calculator. And she's like, Oh, I think I updated the operating system. So I just thought we could, and this is how you're going to help me with this problem.

I'm going to live update the iOS on my phone. And then we're going to see what happens to the calculator. Now if that's not good podcast content, I don't know. Hey, Matt, Matt, you're forgetting we are also filming this. It's also great online content. So software update. Here it is. I haven't got iOS 18.1.1.

It is already downloaded though, so this shouldn't take too long. Install now. I'm going to agree to the terms, even though I don't know if they've changed the calculator, which would change if I agree or not. I love that. That's the biggest worry that you have. It's not my own privacy. My data.

Yeah. We're going to clone you after you die. We're using you to train AI, but okay, is verifying the update? Sure. You know, Steve has never like audited or verified. I haven't like found a way to fake the random numbers for him to pay more often. You could get a coin. I could.

Stop suggesting the coin. I did suggest that we do a memorial coin, a commemorative coin. A memorial coin. Is this how you announce that you're leaving? Because it's dead. No, I'm dying. 100 and out. She died of boredom waiting for this.

Well now we've got the progress bar. Phone to update. Yeah. This is exciting. For some definition of exciting. 100 episodes. This is what we've done to celebrate. I could have done this in advance, but it wouldn't be authentic. 100 episodes.

This is what we've done to celebrate. I could have done this in advance, but it wouldn't be authentic. I'm going to have a biscuit. Don't give one to the dog. No. I'll give the dog a treat. Shit, I brought my coffee out. Tell you what, given this has progressed so little, it's barely- Your surprise segment?

Barely moved along. We could do my surprise segment now and then come back to the update. Oh my gosh. Okay. I hope it's still loading by the time we finish the other segment. Okay. Surprise segment. For our 100th anniversary.

Yes. I thought I'd bring back our favorite guest character. Now it's not Gleb. Oh my gosh. Not Gleb. I thought it was Gleb. Gleb the calculator would have been very funny. Imagine if your phone updates.

That's it. It's Gleb. And I was like, hi, I'm Gleb. That would be great. No, it's location map. Oh. You know, yay. Where two episodes ago, you can cast your mind all the way back to episode 098.

Yep. Location mat was on location at a big thing. Yes. Went to the big RAM. Location mat is once again live on location. So studio mat handing over to on locationation Matt. Thank you Studio Matt. Yes I am once again on location. I'm in the town of Narakup which is way down in the southwest of Australia near Albany. I say town that's overstating things.

It's more of a a small location and I'm here for another big thing. This time, I have found a big cricket bat. I am looking at a cricket bat which is, I think, around about 8 meters tall. If I work it out properly, we will edit that in. So it is definitely a big thing. It's absolutely big, and it has a big scale factor. And it looks like a cricket bat. That is a proper cricket like a cricket bat. That is a proper cricket bat looking cricket bat and it is permanent although unlike other big

things this one's actually a replacement cricket bat so you can see over here the the Narakup combined sports club and they have a big cricket pitch here and they've made a fence out of cricket bats. So I'm looking at maybe a hundred, two hundred cricket bats that have been used as the upright supports in the boundary fence of the cricket pitch. Very nice and they take donations. If anyone wants to send in a cricket bat they will add it to the fence, and apparently back around the year 2015, someone got in touch and said, I have a cricket bat to give you for the fence, but it might be a bit too big.

And that was the original big cricket bat that went in here. It didn't last, it was worn, it deteriorated, and so this is the replacement cricket bat. We think this went in in 2022, so it's still reasonably new, but looking at it, that is absolutely built to last. I can verify this is a great big thing. Back to you in the studio. Whoa! It's a big cricket bat! That's a big cricket bat!

About eight meters. I didn't calculate it properly afterwards. Thank you, Location Mat. Thanks, Location Mat. So, as is tradition. He's so much happier than you. He's having a great time. He's wearing shorts.

Yeah. He's living his best life. He really is. Location Mat, best Mat. Now, Location Mat is standing by to answer your questions about the big thing. Okay. So if you have any questions for Location Matt about the big cricket bat, go for it. Okay.

Location Matt, what is the cricket bat's name? That is a great question, Beck, and I would love to answer it as always. However, I think that's better handled by Studio Matt. Over to you. Oh, that's a shame. Yeah. There was no mention of what its name is, if it has a name, and the place was completely deserted. So we don't know if the bat has a name.

What's the bat made of? That is a great question, Beck. The original big bat was wood. This one, however, is aluminium. So on the back of it, you can see a local aluminium boat building company has sponsored it. I guess they actually fabricated it. And because they build their boats out of aluminium, this is an aluminium cricket bat. For any American listeners, that's an aluminium weird flat baseball bat.

Aluminium, as they say in the States. Thank you. On location, Matt, is there a big cricket ball? That is a great question, Bec. I have had a good look around. And unlike the big ram, I cannot see anywhere any related big balls. True story. He knows me so well.

On location, Matt, are you seriously just there for this? Did you really drive all that way just to do this? That is a great question Bec. Online it says it's only worth visiting if you're either a big fan of cricket or a big fan of big things and as a member of one of those categories I can confirm I think it is worth a visit I wouldn't go out of my way for this one but if you're driving to or from Albany in Western Australia definitely check out the big cricket bat. How diplomatic. Yeah we were on the way to Albany. I say we like on location Matt and I were out there together. Yeah. Can I ask a final question? Absolutely. On location, Matt, did you get me a souvenir?

Thanks, Peck. Not technically a question, but a joke. I want to acknowledge that joke. And that was very funny. Back to you, Studio Matt. Yeah. It's always a joke. Yeah. Exactly. Your little big bad is a joke. You might, you, I, even if on location, Matt, if you can't answer this, I think you will enjoy answering this. Okay. How big would the pitch need to be? The bit that you run down.

The cricket pitch. Yep. The cricket pitch. Big cricket fan here. Between the wickets. Yeah. How big would that have to be if you were playing with a bat this size? It would be eight times bigger than normal.

I thought it'd be nice. That's actually a really easy answer. Yeah. Yeah. If it's eight times bigger than a cricket bat, then everything else is eight times bigger. Yeah. That's the scale factor. Yeah. I'll be honest. I see what I did there. Yeah. It worked well though. It's late.

Yeah. It's late. It's been a long day recording our 100th episode. Now, on location, Matt forgot to record an outro, but that's the end of that. Bye on location Matt. So there you are. The old OLM. The old OLM. So there you go. That's another big thing. Now, I don't want to ruin future surprises, but I might be out of big things. You're in Australia soon. If only someone else is going to be. Yeah, wouldn't that be great? Yeah. There you are.

So that's a big excitement about big things for the 100th episode. Meanwhile, we're in. It's doing the little hello animation. Okay. All right. Let's get in here. Software update. Three.

Complete. Okay. We're going into the calculator. Regular calculator. Yep. Turning it sideways. Just a wider normal calculator. Why would they do that?

I'm so angry right now. So I guess everyone should get an Android. Oh, now what they have done in the bottom left hand corner, there's a little calculator icon. And if you tap that, you can switch to scientific calculator. Can you do it now? And you go back up this way. Still scientific. Okay.

That's, that's a plus. Let me try and articulate why I'm so upset about this. No, I don't think you need to for sure. It's good. It's happening. I think, I think we're all pretty upset about this, to be honest. I think we're all, the word this in that sentence means different things to different people. So what upsets me about this is before, like a lot of people own iPhones, I think we can

all agree that's true. Sure. And it meant a lot of people who otherwise wouldn't own a scientific calculator were only ever one 90 degree rotation away from having it. It was just there. I liked living in a world where it normalizes all these cool things it can do, including generating random numbers. And I love that.

And now you have to know to press the button. No one's going to turn that on by default. Here's my solution. Yep. Cause I'm assuming you've posed this problem, you want a solution to it. You're correct. Everyone who is in this situation, choose a little calculator icon, switch to scientific, then it's the default, right?

You've got to wait for part two of the solution. Sorry, you're right. Now that we are all aware of how this works. All of us have that, yes. Next time, your friend is like, can you take a photo for me? Go into their calculator app, choose scientific calculator as a default. Cause they're not going to think to go in and turn it off. No.

By proxy, you will be defaulting everybody else's calculators. No, you're right. Before, you would have to turn it on the side. Yep. To know that. If you have made someone else's calculator by default, a scientific calculator, it's always there. They're always, it doesn't matter what, whether which way they're holding it.

Why didn't. Arguably it's better. Why didn't Apple just make it the default? Like, why is it starting the boring mode? Because guys like me press the wrong button. And then suddenly just while you're trying to like calculate what the tip is. Yeah. You've got the square root of it.

Yeah. And then you're like, Oh no, I've just cleared out my bank account. I just don't like that. There's a world where, wasn't it a wonderful world where we all had the same calculator. Have we ever all had the same calculator? My favorite calculator was solar powered smarties one. Okay. Ballot answer.

No, it was no M&M's. Sorry, it was M&M's. And that was the reason that I preferred M&M's to smarties. Oh, they did a better calculator. Yeah. Great. What's your favorite calculator? Casio FX39.

It's the one with the physical switch to go between degrees and radians. Classic. Yeah, it's a good one. Thank you for solving my problem. I knew if I came, there'll be a solution. So everyone, if anyone leaves their phone unattended or you're taking a photo for them, switch it into default scientific mode. If you listen on Spotify, there is actually an option to comment on individual episodes. Yep. So if you've done this,

tell us, tell us, put a little comment on this episode. But if you want to review it on Apple, say this podcast changed my life. Now I've turned on the scientific calculator mode on my friends phones. And give us five stars. Yeah. And now it's time for any other bigness where we go through miscellaneous things people have sent in actually an announcement first, we started putting some clips of this podcast on YouTube. So if you're into multimedia, we'll link to that in the description, but in

other, any other business, this is in reference to episode 097, number of maps and numbered pads we heard from T or just the letter T who said the Australian emergency services phone number 000 introduced in 1961 was chosen for several reasons. One of which was that because zero was nearest the finger stall. The finger stall. We talked about the finger stop. The little finger, yeah.

Yeah. And thus easier to dial in the dark or in heavy smoke. Whoa. So my issue was that it took to like, why would you make it all the way around? But it's because if you're reaching for the phone and you're making sure you are dialing the right number each time. You can tell you don't have to count around the holes to work out which one you're dialing, if you can't see it. Feel around.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. This is the first one. Yeah. Grab it and go. We got a message from Justin who has a comment on the phone versus calculator layout wants to add in different countries use different layouts for ATMs, the cash machine number pads.

They say hypothetically, it's important to know, should you be in Australia and visiting Hong Kong on the first day of your visit, you're trying to work out why your normal pin doesn't work and then your card gets eaten by the machine. That sounds very specific. Very specific. So hypothetically, don't just use muscle memory. Yep. The numbers may be in different places on different ATMs in different countries. So hypothetically, don't just use muscle memory. The numbers may be in different places on different ATMs in different countries.

Good advice, Justin. And we heard from Farquhadan, I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. They responded to episode 098, something blue and diamond birthdays too, saying something old bring a bottle of water or nothing at all. Almost all hydrogen in the universe, 11% of water, 8 to 10% of the human body was formed during nucleosynthesis, very close to the start of the universe and in a way, the oldest thing in the universe. Wow. Hydrogen, which is just a fancy name for a proton, I guess with an electron, fine, is the oldest thing, so I guess it was the first thing,

in terms of matter, in the universe. Well played. I agree. Well, they say that water is the building block of life, don't they? People might have said that. I think I've heard that. That's what big water says.

Yeah, they're just trying to get to us. Something blue, liquid oxygen is very faintly blue. Good solution. Thank you so much to listening to episode 100 of a problem squared. We appreciate each and every single one of you. It doesn't matter if you've listened to one or a hundred episodes. We value your listenership. We also very much value our Patreon supporters.

To celebrate, sign up for a hundred dollars, patreon.com slash a problem squared or less or more. And every episode we pick three names. We won't stop you. Completely at random to thank by mispronouncing them, which this episode includes I am Rob Ertz. Mad I. Son Joyce.

Sonj. Son, Sonjo. Songeoise. Songe. Sonjo. Sonjo Weiss. Saint Eve. Cha. Léwood. Léwood. That's what they call it in France.

So I've been Matt Parker. You've also heard Beck Hill. And our producer Lauren Armstrong Carter is a bit like the number 100 cause she's achieved a lot. She hadn't planned that. I was going to say it's really big. And she's 100 score. It's a big achievement. She's a bit like the 100 emoji.

Exciting and a cause for celebration. We approve. We approve. Oh, well, I guess we're just going to have to pack up the podcast now. 100 and done. I imagine if I just won Battleship. Oh, do you close Battleships now? Cause we're not playing, is it? Cause sometimes you can play it where if someone hits, they get another guess.

Don't they? Oh really? I feel like I would speed through it too quickly. Now all of my pieces have fallen out again since the last game. Yeah likewise. At least now we have. Did you do I won last time? You did.

Oh, you did I three. You think I didn't hear that. But you've just. Oh yeah. Yeah. That was a mistake. That was a heck of a misstep. Did I though, did I? Listener, he did. Also, meanwhile, I've been putting in

your hits onto my, so that counts by the way. No idea where anything's supposed to be. Right. Okay. Do you want to go first this time? No, no, we have a system. Now it could have been a double bluff, but you did ask, you did say, I did, I did. Yes. Did you go for I won? Uh, so I'm going to go for I won. Aha.

You fell for my triple bluff hit short for I won. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was just fate. If eight.

Oh, nice. Thank you. Eight. Miss nuts. I found the India ship or I've hit two parallel ships. Until next time back until next time. Well, nuts.