Lateral with Tom Scott - 2: What was measured in 'gillettes'?

Episode Date: October 21, 2022

Brady Haran, Mary Spender and Eric Johnson face questions about a creative fire, bloodless hitmen and partly-useless products. LATERAL is a comedy panel game podcast about weird questions with wonderful answers, hosted by Tom Scott. For business enquiries, contestant appearances or question submissions, visit https://www.lateralcast.com. HOST: Tom Scott. QUESTION PRODUCER: David Bodycombe. RECORDED AT & EDITED BY: The Podcast Studios, Dublin. EDITOR: Julie Hassett. MUSIC: Karl-Ola Kjellholm ('Private Detective'/'Agrumes', courtesy of epidemicsound.com). ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS: Josh Halbur, Ben Justice, Lewis Tough, Arun Uttamchandani, Eglė Vaškevičiūtė. FORMAT: Pad 26 Limited/Labyrinth Games Ltd. EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: David Bodycombe and Tom Scott. © Pad 26 Limited (https://www.pad26.com) / Labyrinth Games Ltd. 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In which specific sport do you not cross the finish line, nor cross the start line either? My name's Tom Scott, this is Lateral, and we'll tell you the answer to that at the end of the show. Three people are joining me today to hopefully show off their lateral thinking skills to some rather unique questions. Joining me today from Numberphile and 60 Symbols and from Hello Internet and just a lot of things, Brady Haran, how are you doing? I'm very well, thank you for having me. I'm a bit worried though, you've got me with a newborn baby in the house.

I don't know how well having a newborn baby meshes with lateral thinking, we're about to find out. I mean, get your excuses in early, you'll be absolutely fine, I promise. I've got more, I've got more if you need them. Musician, YouTuber, singer and songwriter Mary Spender. Hello. How are you doing? I'm doing really well. I'm really excited to be here, so thanks for having me. And from the Follow Friday podcast, Eric Johnson.

Hey, how's it going? I mean, I'm going well. How about you? Doing well. I'm in the middle of planning my own wedding, so I hope you all are ready for every bit of my lateral thinking to be somehow wedding adjacent. That is all my brain is occupying right now. Lateral's the name and also the game. We have some lateral thinking questions and we're going to have fun trying to find the answers. There are no prizes other than the bragging rights and the reputation.

So if you're all ready, here's your first question. In 1988, white t-shirts with a single black stripe diagonally across them began to be sold in Italian markets. Why? I'll give you that again. In 1988, white T-shirts with a single black stripe diagonally across them began to be sold in Italian markets. Why? That's right, we are starting you off with a fashion question. Good luck.

I'll tap out now. Do you think it's sport related? It could be sport related, couldn't it? Because, you know, the Italians like their sport. Yeah, I was thinking it must be music or sport. Yeah, how long has football merchandising been around? I mean, it was around then. I can't think of a team that just has a

diagonal black stripe though the other thing that came into my head straight away were those street signs for closed roads with a diagonal black line so i'm thinking either sport or street signs is that are those street signs the same like all over europe would that be the same in italy as it would be where you were doesn Doesn't that mean the national speed limit? I was thinking that. Oh, is that what that means? Yeah. Maybe that's not Europe-wise. I mean, you are actually, I'm not going to say you're

close with that, Brady, but of the options of sport or road signs, you are definitely in the right area with road signs. Right. So maybe it's the Blackstripe means something in some context that then is being re-appropriated by people in 88, is my guess. There's some secondary meaning here that people are picking up, some established meaning that people are picking up

and applying for fashion or for something like that. Are we thinking like ban or forbidden? That was my thought, yeah. Like a protest, a political statement of some kind, you know, something's not allowed here. I have I have an anecdote about the the national speed limit when I was learning to drive and how I was driving with my mother practicing age 17. And she was like, you really need to go faster. I was like, no, I'm going the national speed limit. And she was like, what? What's that you know that that was a moment that was a

moment where i realized shouldn't be learning with my mother um i mean she's she's a she's very talented at many things but driving maybe not um i'm wondering when when did that come in and when i don't know i'm trying to think of how that would be so you know you know when you you know when you come off at a junction in in the uk i don't know if it's everywhere else in the uk as you get closer to the junction you have that sign that has three diagonal black bars and then two diagonal black bars and then one diagonal black bar and i think it doesn't mean 300 yards 200 yards and one i don't know it means something like that but i know i know a woman who failed her driving test because she thought that meant that was the gear the car was meant to be in. So when she went to third gear, second gear, and first gear, she was just slowly coming off the motorway.

That was like, no, fail. In America, the only thing we measure in yards is football fields. Other than that, you know, do not use that in the American highways. I've never seen that, but that's fascinating. I mean, you are, weirdly, somehow, dancing around the right answer to this very, very quickly. Mary, it's not about speed limits, but there was a change in the law in 1988 in Italy about driving.

You are actually very close to that. Was it a campaign to have the speed limit changed? Not quite. I mean, the direction of the stripe was important. It was always from the driver's left shoulder down to their right. Oh, I think I got it. Yeah, seatbelts. Yes.

Seatbelts. Wow. You're absolutely right. I think you all got that at the same time on that last bit. Yeah. That was a whopper of a quote. Yeah, that was it. That's amazing.

Okay, so they weren't, I don't know, they weren't needed beforehand or they just weren't used beforehand? Yeah. Was it awareness basically saying, make sure you're wearing... Or people were wearing them to cheat. There you go. So they weren't getting caught. That's the last bit.

There you go. So they could drive without a seatbelt and look like they were wearing a seatbelt. You are absolutely right. It was a two inch, sort of 50 mil black line that just went from the left shoulder all the way down. And yeah, it looks exactly like you're wearing a seatbelt until you look too close. What a stupid waste of money.

Like, who cares? Just wear a stupid seatbelt. I've heard someone say that the best safety measure they could introduce on the roads rather than seatbelts would be a huge spike on the steering wheel because if everyone was driving with a massive spike pointed at their chest they would drive so carefully pedestrians would be a lot safer you wouldn't be going fast in a car like that which is fine as long as everyone has that spike yes this makes me think of like early in covid when people started requiring masks everywhere. There are a bunch of folks, at least in the US, I don't know about everywhere else, but folks who spent some stupid amount of money on masks that were mesh. So they technically

complied with like on an airplane, the requirement you have to wear a mask. And it's like, just buy a $2 cloth mask. Like why is why are you wasting so much money on this stupid protest? It drives me nuts. I mean, every single time there's a change in the law for driving for anything, there will be complaints about that. The first time a speed limit came in on British motorways, people just didn't see the point in it. There's old footage of people being interviewed.

Well, I don't see why you can't go any speed you want. Any time there's a change in the law, you get people who don't want to. And this was a relatively cheap approach compared to having seatbelts fitted to your car if it didn't have any. You realise if they introduced those spikes in Italy, people would go out

and buy ones that are made of pillow or inflatable ones so they could have them in their car and pretend they've got it there. So yes, in 1988, white t-shirts with a single black stripe were sold to try and get around the law on wearing a seatbelt. So now it's time for one of our guests to put a question forward. As ever, I don't know the question. I certainly don't know the answer.

I'm just playing along too. Eric, what have you got for us? I got a question about seeds for you. You ready? All right. As well as its olives and wine grapes, the residents of ancient Greece also valued another plant, the carob. It is said that its seeds had an unusual property

that led to a useful quantity that we use today. What is it? One more time. As well as its olives and wine grapes, the residents of ancient Greece also valued another plant, the carob. It is said that its seeds had an unusual property that led to a useful quantity that we use today.

What is it? I mean, I immediately looked at Brady on this question because I just assumed this is going to have come up in a Numberphile video sometime. There's some ancient Greek quantity causing plant. Sounds like exactly the sort of thing you'd have covered at some point. You would think so, but it's not immediately jumping into mind. But yeah, you think it's going to be some measurement, isn't it? Some kind of, you know, one of these, you know, there are 38 carob seeds,

weighs the same as this, or some saying that we use today maps back onto it? I was thinking like barley corns or something like that, but that's a different plant and a different measuring system. We don't use it today. So it's a terrible answer, but it's something. What do carob seeds even look like? Honestly, no idea. Honestly, I'm not even sure what a carob is.

Well, a hint that may help is that it's thought that the seeds were similar in size. Honestly, no idea. Honestly, I'm not even sure what a carob is. Well, a hint that may help is that it's thought that the seeds were similar in size. I can't tell you what they look like because I have not looked this up, but they are similar in size. So it's got to be something that's used. Similar in size to each other or similar in size to something else? To each other. So they could be used as a standard unit. You know, you could trust them to always be the same.

What do you... I'm thinking out the box just in terms of... This is completely wrong. One seed equating to millions of other seeds, like a sunflower or something like that, where it's... I don't know, would that then be a quantity? You've got to have 1,000 of these equals... I don't know, because...

Oh, Brady, that's a look on your face. Brady's got something. I think I might have it. Go for it. No, you can't be that enthusiastic and not... I'm not sure enough that I'm right, that I think I can put it out there. There's a good enough chance that I'm wrong.

But I think there's a really good chance this is where the notion of carrots come from, 24 carrots, using carrots as a measurement. Because it sounds like carob, and carrots are a very small unit, aren't they, of weight? About the weight of a seed. Is this the point where you put in a little ding-ding-ding-ding sound effect? As you have got it exactly right. Oh, well done. It was thought carob seeds were consistent in weight, or so they thought, and thus provided a good measurement for travelling traders in the Mediterranean.

And the word carob became carrot over time. The weight of 0.2 grams to one carrot was standardised in 1907. That is amazing. So is that for gold or for diamonds or for both? I guess. Isn't that for both? I'm not entirely sure. I've only just realised that you have... Diamonds are

measured in carats, right? I'm not making that up. And you have 24 carat... A typical carob seed weighs roughly the same as a one carat diamond. And so you have 24 carat gold as well. And I've only just realized that... That's to do with purity though, isn't it? With gold.

It's not to do with the mass. It's to do with the purity of the gold when you have 24 carat gold. So is that a different measurement? Or is that a weight of... Or perhaps it just started with diamonds and because it's also jewelry, they said like, well, people know this. It's probably the blend because it's probably the blend. think maybe 24 karat gold is just pure gold and then if you blend the gold with something else to make it like 18 karat it means it's got some silver in there or something else

i don't know that's um i i have been told that uh the diamond and gold carrots are basically two different measures with the same name so So that's... Oh, how perfect. So yeah, so the carob plant had seeds that were the source of what we now call a carrot for measuring diamonds and indirectly gold as well. Congratulations, Brady, on that sudden flash of insight. That's lovely. I know. I didn't keep calm, did I, when I realised? I kind of had these convulsions of excitement. All right, next question.

And this one's from me. In which common commercial product do 25% of the contents have no effect? I'll say that again. In which common commercial product do 25% of the contents have no effect? 25% of the contents have no effect. 25% of the contents? So it's not the product is 25% ineffectual, but 25% of it is just filler. As with all the questions here, it is very precisely phrased.

Because I would have thought most, I would have thought lots of products, there was lots of stuff not having an effect. Right. I would have thought basically in most, there was lots of stuff not having an effect. Right. Like I would have thought basically in like most, I mean, obviously in most medicines, most of the, you know, like in a pill, only a tiny fraction of the mass of a pill has got the effective medicine in it. Now you have got us on a technicality there. You're thinking very scientifically. I'm just thinking about crisp packets and how they're like mostly empty,

but maybe more so than 25%. I think I know where this is, but I'll hold my tongue for now. Do you think you've got this, Eric? I think I do. Okay. In that case, when one person just thinks they know the answer to this, Eric, we're not going to ask you to formally write it down, but you take a step to the side here.

Mary and Brady, this one is for you then. I'll write it down. I've got nothing better to do. Brady, Mary and Brady, this one is for you then. I'll write it down. I've got nothing better to do. Brady, yeah, you are kind of getting us on a technicality there. Let's say 25% of the items in it have no effect. Okay. We're not looking at the level of atoms here. We're looking at the level of like...

I once nerd sniped an entire table of techies. But it seemed like a really innocent question. What's the cheapest thing you can buy one million of? And we sort of worked out the rules. It had to be one million exactly. Like you couldn't say, you couldn't buy a bag of sand

and say it's several million grains of sand. It had to be like, you couldn't buy a few toilet rolls and say, oh, it's so many sheets. It had to be like, the number they were sold in had to be exact. And I will spare you the literal hours of argument that spilled out onto the internet. It's transistors. Turns out it's transistors from China, which cost less than a penny each. But we're talking that kind of, when I say 25% of the contents,

I am talking in terms of the products in it and not the atoms that make it up. The worst thing is I've become that guy, well, actually, technically. And I wasn't even trying to be that guy, which makes it even worse that I'm that guy because that means I'm naturally that guy. It is literally your job. Yeah. Mary, I feel like the 25% must be key. There must be something very significant about quarter. I feel like that's important.

But I have nothing more. I'm hooked on the idea of is it something that's added to then? Oh, no. 25% of the product of the, have, was it no effect? Yeah. If my guess is right, and I don't know if it is, but I think Brady mentioned pills earlier. And that's what had me thinking.

Yeah. Eric, you got it exactly off that. And you're definitely in the right area. And it's definitely not like the air in the packaging. No, no. It is very much the products that are in there. Exactly one quarter of the products in that packet have no effect. And you are so close. And I have the feeling this is something you either know or you don't. Oh, I've got an idea too, but mine's a bit more

out there. Or maybe it's not, maybe I've just got it. Oh, go for it, go for it. Is it a product that has holes in it, like polo mints or something, where like... If this was a hot or cold thing, you just walk right into the cold freezer. Like, that's just...

You were so close. It's lovely. But no, if these were polo mints, I mean, first of all, they taste better. But also, no, we are counting the whole as part of the single item there. That's air. All right, that would count.

Yeah. What's something you eat or buy where one in four are pointless? I mean, you are reducing the fraction a bit there. It's not one out of four. It's a bigger number than that. It's seven out of 28.

Eric is nodding along because he knows he's got it right here. Feels good, man. Wait, it's not like something like Smarties or something where it's like 28 Smarties in a tube? Well, there are 28 of these in a pack and they are pills and seven of them don't work. And if you don't know, you don't know. Eric, this one's on you.

Birth control. Exactly right. In a 28-day pack of birth control, seven of the pills have no effect, but they are there to remind you to take the daily tablet. Well, that's a reveal on my part. I mean, awkward. I was always the worst player on my quiz bowl team. So this feels really good to get something before other people. It's a new feeling for me. Did you actually pull a packet of birth control pills up and show them at the camera? No, no. It's a poster where I wrote down my answer earlier. Oh, right.

I thought you were holding up a packet of birth control pills. That is impressive. I should clarify. So this is not a giveaway. This is not all pills. This is obviously not all methods of contraception. There are plenty of pills where you do actually take one every day, no matter what. There are a decent amount of brands,

particularly the older ones, that work that way, just because it's easier to have a routine to take one every day and you are less likely to forget. Also, some of the fancier brands also include like multivitamins and things in what are meant to be placebo, so you still take them anyway. But yes, there are a lot of brands of contraceptive tablets where you take 21 regular pills and seven placebos just as a reminder. For the next question, we go over to Mary. This one's on you.

What have you got for us? Okay. So in 1991, a man lost his house and possessions in a large fire that spread through the Oakland Hills in San Francisco. As a direct result, he developed one of the biggest creative successes in history. What was it? Wow. As a result of the fire.

What did it do? It took out his house, did it? Did he say? A man lost his house and possessions in a large fire that spread through the Oakland Hills in San Francisco in 1991. And it led to, it led him having what exactly? It led him creating? He developed one of the biggest creative successes in history. Oakland, California.

This is too early for the studio fire, isn't it? There was a famous fire that took out a load of the archives of one of the music publishing companies, but I feel like that's LA, not Oakland, which is near San Francisco. And I don't feel like... Yeah, there was a fire in LA many years ago at like Universal.

That was it, it was Universal's backlot, wasn't it? Right, and it also destroyed like the King Kong riot or something like that. It's some part of the theme park as well, yeah. The word creative or created has foxed me a bit here because part of me thought oh well is is has this led to some invention that is to do with you know fire alarms or fire retardation or something like that but creative makes me think did did he lose all his stuff or did this person lose all their stuff and come up with some new idea artistic

idea about being you know possession free or it, was it some form of backup? Because it's in the, you know, it's in San Francisco, there's a good chance it's sort of techie. I was thinking that with Oakland. Did that result in coming up with some kind of backup? Yeah, if it's going to be. I've got the details in there for a very specific reason. If it's music and creative, it would be somewhere in LA

or the hills around there, but Oakland Hills. What year was it again, Mary? 1991. Huh. Because my initial thought was like, oh, well, if it's East Bay, maybe it could be Pixar related. But Pixar was already around by then. Like they were already making short films by then.

Is this the reason like Hewlett-Packard were in a garage because the house was burned down or something like that? It's backup related it's backup related so it's it's gonna it's it's about backing up or protecting your possessions i reckon oh okay shall i chime in shall i chime in give you a clue um well you're along the right lines in terms of the tech industry because obviously that is what san francisco is known for but i think the word creative so backups aren't particularly creative are they yeah okay could it be no i was i was immediately so two things came to mind firstly there's a backup provider called

backblaze but i'm guessing that's not that going to be, that's not a creative thing. It's not quite as sexy. I'm trying to think about, there's no companies named after fires or anything like that. There's no, like, burning. Well. How old is everyone here? Late 30s.

33. 33. So, yeah, so I'm 32. So we were all born around the same time. Let's see, early 90s. So it was created in 1991. I mean, the only other tech thing with Fire that comes to mind is Firefox, the browser that I normally use, but that also doesn't sound quite right.

That's still more tech. That got its name from, it was originally Phoenix, which would be a better name for this, but it's far too late for 1991, and they changed the name because they got sued or threatened to. So, 91. Oakland, California. Man.

Do you think it might be a game? Is it a game? Did someone come up with a game? A computer game or a video game? I will say you're very warm very warm there i mean so is his house and possessions um what's a game that's fiery and fire related and that you would think of as a result of losing all your possessions and why am i thinking sim city i oh well in sim city you can start a fire that burns down the city.

So this could be... Oh, yeah, that's what I used to do when I played SimCity. It's the right year. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. It's a computer game. Oh, The Sims. Oh. Oh.

Yeah, The Sims in general. So Will Wright, creator of The Sims, had already had significant success with titles such as SimCity, SimEarth and SimFarm. However, when his house burned down, it convinced him of the pleasures of setting up a new home, which I will say I spent all my childhood just creating homes and then, you know, slowly murdering people every so often. But mainly building homes. every so often as well. But mainly building homes. I feel like that must have come out of my head. There's no way I pulled SimCity from nowhere there. I must have read something years ago about that and that was sitting in the back of my head

waiting to make that link. Did Will Wright ever build a swimming pool in his backyard and then remove the ladder? Because if he has a real world story related to that too then i'm a little bit scared because he did force everyone to do that as like part of the creative process because of the gravestones it's so dark oh because of course you have to have that in the sims and wait was sim city earlier than 91 so i think so. Originally launched in the year 2000, the Sims franchise has sold over 200 million units. So I guess it was created in 1991.

But SimCity came first. Yeah. Yeah, I was playing SimCity in the early 90s. I was definitely playing it in 92, 93, I think. I loved that game. But then, obviously, I wasn wasn't into like, you know, having my stuff broken though. And occasionally in SimCity you would have an earthquake

that would destroy your city. But there was a, and that was unacceptable to me. But luckily there was a cheat you could put in at the start where you put some code in and you would then get like a huge earthquake that would happen and that would be the last earthquake you would ever experience. So you would make the earthquake happen at the start and then you could just build happily without

fear of natural disaster i don't i don't want i don't want my stuff broken i want my i plan this city i was obsessed with the first sims game i didn't keep up with like the sequels like they've kept on going i think they've been putting them out you know updates and new games consistently since 2000 but i just found out a couple days ago, apparently there is lore in The Sims. Like the characters in the game, I guess like the stock characters who you can populate your house with,

I think they all have like deep lore where over the course of games, if you like dive into the character descriptions, there's stuff about like this person actually hates this person and this person cheated on that person and i just i kind of love the fact that they had this blank check to keep on making these games that everyone loves so someone in the studio was just like you know what i'm just gonna write a bunch of fanfics about that or just using their personal life as like inspiration oh if you were a developer you would put the people you hated in as people who who have terrible personality traits and die oh is that just me

that might just be me i've literally been writing a web series about my life recently i'm not sure i'll ever ever see the light of day but just like you know when some things happen in your life that you're like if i wrote this down no one would believe me yeah it's it's it's like that i bet in the sims oh my god the, the power, the power they have. I was doing a podcast with a friend of mine, and we were doing this fictional thing. We were in this fictional environment where we were talking about this fictional sport, and we have this friend of ours

who was always quite fashion conscious and, like, a little bit vain. Like, we love him, but that was one of his personality traits. He was really into clothing. So in this fictional universe, we talked about how all the uniforms of the sports players have been designed by this special fashion designer who was flown in. And we named the fashion designer as this guy. And this guy happened to listen to the podcast and he didn't mind it. He was quite flattered by it and he knew it was done with affection. But he was listening to it with his young son. And a week later, they took his young son to this really posh school that they wanted to enroll him in.

And to enroll him in the school, you had to do an interview so the heads of the school could see his boy and make sure he was, like, you know, of sound character. And when they said to him, so what do you know about your father? What job does your father do? He said, my dad's a fashion designer for sports teams. And he's not. He's in recruitment. But, like, the little kid listening suddenly, like, it became real. And it caused him some problems later in life.

If my father were in recruitment, I definitely would never retain that information either. So I don't believe that kid at all. I definitely would never retain that information either, so I don't believe that kid at all. So in 1991, a man who happened to be Will Wright, creator of The Sims, lost his house and possessions in a large fire that spread through the Oakland Hills in San Francisco and resulted in the computer game that we all know and love

that sold over 200 million units and was launched in the year 2000. We've got one more question to come from Brady, but before that, last big one from me. In 1960, Theodore Maiman defined the strength of these in terms of Gillettes. What are they? I'll give you that again. In 1960, Theodore Maiman defined the strength of these in terms of Gillettes. What were they? How do you spell Gillette's? G-I-L-L-E-T-T-E-S. Exactly like you'd expect.

Like the razor. Like the razor. Exactly like the razor. Now, we have to think here. Is it something that didn't have a measurement before 1960? So was it a new technology that required this measurement or was he just replacing a measurement of something already that you could measure the strength of? I mean, it could be maybe electric razors.

Were those new in 1960 or something else? Strength, though. It's got to be the strength. What's something you have to measure the strength of? Like if it was an electric razor. Let's just ask Tom, are you going to tell us if it's razor related or not? Because we're just going to go around in circles here. There were certainly razors involved in this,

but it's not to do with how sharp they were. So not how sharp they were, how... Could it be your hair like your facial hair how hard is your facial hair to cut i mean if you need more than one gillette razor to take on facial hair i feel like i feel like you got a superman beard going on there yeah what about what about a haircut in terms of a number one number two number three oh it's like the razor head for the first time i get to say it's a great answer, but it's not right. That would have been a lovely answer.

Unfortunately, it's not that. In this case, the razors were not the thing doing the cutting. But you are right that it's something being cut. The razors aren't doing the cutting. Lawn mowing? Lawn cutting. I mean, earlier on, Brady, you did say whether it was something that was new and invented or whether it was quantifying an old thing. This was a brand new thing.

He was defining the strength of something that did not exist before around 1960. All right. That rules out lawn. Grass. I wonder if it's something like, you know, horsepower being used to measure like the the power of an engine like i wonder if it's something that's not exactly grooming related but something to do with the motion of a razor is similar or the effect is similar like yeah lawnmower or it's probably something that's doing cutting maybe right so it's not it's not measuring sharpness it's measuring strength yeah right what's something that what's something that was

oh invented in the 60s that you then used to cut things like what what what suddenly needed cutting in the 60s or what i guess yeah yeah what new technology was invented to cut things? In the 50s, that's at least in the US, that's when everyone was getting obsessed with lawn care, right? All the people moving out to the suburbs got to take care of their lawns and you get a weed whacker to take care of those unsightly weeds on the edge of the lawn. I wouldn't really draw a line between a weed whacker and Gillette razors, though.

That seems like a long bow. This did actually involve literal Gillette razors. Oh. This was defined in terms of Gillettes. So was it something that was invented and then to test how strong it was, however many Gillette razors took to cut it became its... So was it something that was invented and then to test how strong it was, however many Gillette razors took to cut it became its thing? Yes. Absolutely right. And that's a big logical jump there.

That just kind of got brushed under as we were talking about it, but yes, that's a big key part of this. It was how many Gillette razors that could be cut through. Now why they used Gillette razors, I don't actually know. Is it like laser? Lasers? Yes, it is.

Oh. Absolutely spot on. I don't know where that came from all of a sudden. Yeah, I don't know. Cutting through metal. Cutting through rather than cutting with. All right. I bet those razors are, to Tom's earlier point about what the cheapest thing you can get a million of,

I bet those are very cheap to buy a lot of in quantity. So if you wanted to test the strength of a laser, maybe that's how you find out. They were just the razor blades. So yes, I think you're absolutely right. They are a metal thing that you can buy cheaply in bulk. And they come in discrete units. So you could pile 10 or you could pile 20 or 30 and then fire the laser and see how deep the laser goes.

That's actually a really... Wow. What we've just done there is worked out a load of stuff that isn't anywhere near my notes, but you're absolutely right. Yeah, one Gillette is about 1.5 joules, which is several billion times less strong than modern lasers. So I made a video once about, I think at the time it was the most powerful laser in the UK.

And it was one of the most powerful lasers in the world. And I said, we're going to turn it on for you. We're going to use it for you. And they showed me the system. And it was this incredible place. It was almost the size of, it was bigger than a sports stadium, it felt like. And there was all this infrastructure and mirrors in one room to fire the laser. And then the laser went into this other room where it actually did the firing, which was this huge bunker with huge bricks and blocks and lead

lining. And I was so impressed by it. And I did all the filming beforehand. I said, okay, we're going to fire the laser for you now, Brady. You've got to go off into the safety room and we're going to press the button. And they pressed the button and it just went click and it lasted like about a fraction of a second. Nothing happened. And they said, it's done. And we went into the other room and I'm like, well, what happened?

Oh, it worked. It did it. We fired the laser. It was the most disappointing anticlimactic thing you've ever seen. There's a lot of big science stuff like that that I have occasionally got invites to film. I'm like, it's great, it's really cool what you're doing, but what you've got is a grey box attached to a computer that goes beep.

Yeah. But yes, the very first measurement of laser strength was in Gillette's because that was how many razor blades the beam could cut through. One guest question left and it's Brady's turn. What do you have for us, Brady? I'd like to take you all to 2013 when a Chinese man called Mr Feng hired professional hitmen to kill his 23-year-old son Zhao.

Despite this becoming public knowledge, he was never charged with a crime. What was going on? So in 2013, a Chinese man called Mr Feng hired professional hitmen to kill his 23-year-old son, Zhao. Despite this becoming public knowledge, he was never charged with a crime what was

going on oh I do love a bit of true crime the story yeah true crime podcast I love it yeah I mean there are so many things that are in the public domain that

are criminal and yet no charges are filed or no charges are put to the person. I think I know what this is. Are you doing this again? Are you going to try and claim a second one here? I'm going to write it down. I'm going to write it down. I have a hunch. Oh, it's on you and me, Mary. All right. Well, this is where I'm going to start writing it down and then just wait till the end. Let you just handle it by yourself

and then scribble it out when it's wrong. Yeah, that's right. If he wasn't charged, then maybe he didn't go through with the murder. Is this real? This isn't fiction. This isn't a story or something from a soap opera. Oh. Oh.

Oh. It was not fictional. Okay. But me saying it's not fictional may be misleading. But it's not. He's not a movie character or anything like that. But that's a hard question to answer. Okay.

So some. If my guess is right, I can see why Brady is waffling on that answer there. Some aspect of this... Some aspect of this wasn't real. Like, we've been told a lot of things in this question, and there's something in there that doesn't make sense. Did he... So, not a movie character.

The murder didn't actually happen. Well, actually, that's not true. So the murder actually happened. The murder actually happened many times. Okay. So I was thinking, like, was the son already dead or something like that? And for some legal reason, hiring the hitman is not a crime if it couldn't be carried out. But I think that's still a conspiracy to commit murder in most jurisdictions.

I don't claim to be an expert on law, let alone Chinese law, but I feel like... Let me give you another clue. The father was very frustrated with his son and wanted to resolve a domestic issue. So he wanted to teach him a lesson by murdering him over and over again? And this isn't like a metaphor. This isn't like a game of Go or something like that.

He wanted to modify his son's behaviour. How old is this son? Because if the son's like five or six and it's a kid... The son is 23. What might a 23-year-old be doing that the father wants to modify? I mean, I've got some jokes, but... Let's not go there. Playing too many computer games.

Oh! So was he being killed over and over again in a computer game, in a simulation? Is this another... Have we got two video game questions in one thing? We have indeed. You have nailed it. I mean, we can't quite see that.

Who's now holding up his... Oh, is this bloody World of Warcraft? I don't know what game it actually was. Eric's holding up his pack of contraceptive pills again. I can't believe I... I'm just glad I got there eventually on one of these questions. I'm very proud of this. I was nowhere near that.

Mr. Feng was worried that despite his son getting good grades, he preferred playing games at home and he wasn't going out looking for a job. So he hired professional gamers to hunt down Zhao online in his favourite games and make his life a misery. However, since Zhao could see the usernames each time he died, he worked out what was going on. He was later quoted as saying to his father, I can play or I cannot play.

It doesn't bother me. I'm not looking for a job. I want to take some time and find what suits me. So you're wasting your time trying to murder me in these games. That is pretty, I feel like that's the sort of thing I would do with a child. I mean, Brady, you've got, what, 20-something years till you're making that sort of decision?

I'm already thinking about it. So, indeed, you got there. Mr. Feng was worried that despite his son getting good grades at school, he preferred playing games at home rather than looking for a job. I can't tell if that's lovely or just a bit worrying. One last thing then, before I let you go. We have the question from the very start. I asked the audience, in which specific sport do you not cross the finish line

nor cross the start line either? Any ideas before we go? From anyone? Brady? I don't know. I like to think of myself as a bit of a sports fan, but it's not immediately. Something where you go around in circles like ice skating? It's not in circles, but

it's more back and forth. I'm just glad Eric's not nodding and writing something down at this point. It's got a... It's got a... It's got a... But it's got a start line and a finish line. It has a very, very solid start line

and finish line. It has a start line, sorry. But you've got to start ahead of the start line and you can't cross the finish line because there's something in your way. It's not the offside rule in football. It's always the offside rule in football. You're also going backwards.

You're approaching the finish line backwards. Oh, is the... Oh, no. The finish line's not in Finland, is it? What? Finish line. That took me like four or five seconds. That one is a stumper.

I'm not going to make you go through all the Olympic sports for this. It's backstroke swimming. Because you start in the pool, back of the start line, and you cannot cross it because you just have to hit the end of it. Yeah, yeah. And you start in the pool so you don't jump over the finish line, and you cannot cross it because you just have to hit the end of it. Yeah, yeah, and you start in the pool, so you don't jump over the finish line, like in all the other strokes, over the start line, yeah. Brilliant.

Very quick, bonus, completely non-existent points. Any other sports where you normally win by going backwards? Rowing? Rowing is correct, yes. Also, tug-of-war and high jump, technically. I mean, if you want to win high jump, technically. I mean, if you want to win high jump, you're going backwards. That is

our show for today. Tell us what's going on in your lives and where people can find you. Mary, starting with you. I am currently recording my debut studio album, but consistently making YouTube videos. So just youtube.com forward slash Mary Spender is where you will find me. Eric. I host a podcast called Follow Friday, which you can find at follow. So just youtube.com forward slash Mary Spender is where you will find me.

Eric. I host a podcast called Follow Friday, which you can find at followfridaypodcast.com. But that show is currently on hiatus, at least until next year. So for now, just find me on Twitter and Letterboxd at heyheyesj. And also there's an episode with me on there somewhere,

so you can check that out. And finally, Brady. I mean, I've got too many channels and podcasts to plug them here, haven't I, Tom? But if you want to watch something interesting, go to Objectivity and watch the video with Tom salivating over a space shuttle. You're all plugging the videos with me in it. Thank you very much.

That's our show for today. Thank you very much to all our guests. If you want to know more about the show or you want to submit an idea for a question, our website is lateralcast.com You can find us at Lateralcast in all the usual places, and you can also catch video highlights at youtube.com

slash lateralcast. Thank you very much to Grady Haran. Thank you. Mary Spender. Thank you. Eric Johnson. Thanks. I'm Tom Scott, and this has been Lateral