Lateral with Tom Scott - 4: The currency that cuts crime

Episode Date: November 4, 2022

Marques Brownlee, Hayley Loren and Wren Weichman face questions about crime-busting currency, a sporting crisis and night-inspired combat. 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

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The answer to that at the end of the show. My name's Tom Scott and this is Lateral. My name's Tom Scott, and this is Lateral. Three people responded to my bat signal for help with questions this week. Let's see how many wacky sound effects and comedy violence there's going to be over the next 40 minutes or so. From his own MKBHD channel and The Waveform podcast, Marcus Brownlee. Good to be here. Good to be here. Thanks for having me.

From the Fearless STEM Careers podcast and BBC Earth's How Did They Build That, Hayley Loren. Hello. And from Corridor Digital, Corridor Crew and the Corridor cast, Ren Weichmann. Yo, how's it going? Glad to be here. Thank you very much, all of you, for turning up. We are going to go straight into the first question. The questions I have for you have a maze of twists and turns, and your job is to find your way to the exit without chopping down too many hedges in the process. There are no points, there are no prizes, this is all just for reputation and bragging rights. So, good luck to you all. Your first question is... In 1976, Steve Jobs avenged his previous employer, Atari, by choosing a specific name for his new company. Why did he pick that name?

I'll give you that one more time. In 1976, how did Steve Jobs avenge his previous employer, Atari, by choosing a specific name for his new company? So, I have a sneaky suspicion he named his company Apple. Yes, that is definitely right. The first thing I have to ask is, does anyone know this? Has anyone heard this story? If you know it outright, Marcus, you have your hand up.

Right. You get to be the smug one here. You get to sit out this question. We'll take your word for it. If you have pen and paper, write down your answer. We'll take your word. We'll check in at the end, which means this one is for Hayley and Wren. You're absolutely right, Wren, that the new company was Apple.

I'm also not at all surprised that marquez knows the uh answer to this i this is one of those stories that i feel like i probably know and have just totally forgotten over time for some reason i keep thinking of uh newton like walking around his apple orchard and apple falls on his head and he invents gravity that's how it works right um yeah yeah there was that's kind of where my mind went to as well. There was no gravity before Newton. He obviously invented it. Nope. It was gravity. So, okay. Steve Jobs famously invented Apple along with Steve Wozniak and another dude whose name I will never remember. But why did he choose the name Apple? Was he inspired by the whole apple diet that

he had where it's like if you only eat apples you never have to shower was there wasn't there something like that hayley do you know i have never heard that in my life i know there's a load of people interested in a potato diet at the moment that's what i feel like i've heard that too i don't know it's been going around i honestly don't know whether it's just a food conspiracy theory or some weird science thing that someone's found but i thought carbs were meant to be out or is it now back in i get confused honestly i'm not gonna try and endorse diet advice on a podcast about weird questions well here's a here's a follow-up question was he inspired by a whole apple or an apple with a bite taken out of it already maybe he stole his apple maybe in the last day he had an apple with a bite taken out of it already? Maybe he stole his apple.

Maybe in the last day he had an apple in the fridge and he just thought, you know what, I'm just going to take a bite out of yours. Until you said fridge, I kind of had that confused with like the story of Genesis. No, this is just about the name, not the logo. Should I give hints? Should I? I feel like I got some decent hints. I would love a hint.

Yeah, go on. Drop one in. So, like, think if you were petty, if you were really petty, and you, your previous, yeah, yeah. Okay, right? So your previous job was at Atari, and you just want to get back at them. You want to make sure you've got the upper hand on them.

Maybe you even want to beat them specifically in the 70s on a list yeah you probably yeah you definitely got it yeah no way so if you're gonna open up the phone book and look for computer companies apple shows up before atari because p shows up before t but they both start with a that's my guess you are are absolutely right, Ren. This was, Jobs said that was partly the reason. Yep, you got it, Marques. There's the phone screen. 1980 presentation, Jobs admitted the name was partly chosen for that.

Also because, well, actually, does anyone want to guess the other reason he picked? Or at least the other reason he claimed in that presentation? Because he loves apples. Absolutely right, Hayley, yes. I like apples were the exact words he picked or at least the other reason he claimed in that presentation because he loves apples absolutely right hayley yes i like apples were the exact words he used there that's been tried in many other brazen ways can anyone just name some other companies that might have tried that i'm guessing it's an a like acne or like you won't you won't know the companies just just some aarp keep going keep going orange triple a keep going triple a quadruple a Just some... AARP. Keep going. Keep going. Orange. Triple A. Keep going. Triple A.

Quadruple A. Answerphone would be a valid answer to that question. Wow. People have just come up with as many as possible just to get that listing slightly higher. Would a 1 or a 0 or any number show up before an A alphabetized? And they've tried that as well. Yes, absolutely right.

When it went on to ordering by computer as opposed to physical typesetting, then, yep, people just used whatever came up first. Dang, okay. So the first three pages of the yellow pages are just the most petty business owners in the world. Just right at the very top. You just skip the first few pages and go to W and you've got a good guy there. Yeah, I always just started from the back. That was my lot in life. Two Ws for my names, I was always at the end.

You and Wonder Woman. Yes. Honestly, don't know where that came from, but never mind. Yes, in 1976, Steve Jobs was in part getting back at Atari by naming his new company Apple. We now go to one of our guests for the next question. And as always, I have no idea what the question is, and I certainly don't know the answer, unless I'm very lucky, as Marques was. We will actually go to Wren for this first one.

Wren, what question do you have for us? Here's a question for you. The organisation Fifth Pillar prints a banknote to dissuade people of India from contributing to a rampant problem. What is this banknote's unique feature? I will say that one more time. The organization Fifth Pillar prints a banknote to dissuade the people of India from contributing to a rampant problem. What is this banknote's unique feature? Yeah, so Fifth Pillar is not associated with the government?

It is recognized by the United Nations. Fifth Pillar. Wow. OK. OK, so they print money? I believe so. That would be a useful skill to have. And do we have a date? Have I missed that? Because I'm trying to think what might have been going on at that specific time.

I don't have a date, but this is a rampant problem punishable with jail time. Okay. Oh, my goodness. Wow. Okay, so that narrows down. One of my questions was going to be like, what's the rampant problem? And the only two I can think of are counterfeit or inflation. Punishable by jail time bends me towards counterfeit. Inflation is not punishable by jail time.

Exactly. So maybe there's some crazy, some crazy anti-counterfeit feature in this bill maybe i mean the we have bills here that have you know the they're printed by not the treasury the mint right and there's uh special little filaments in them and tiny details that they're hard to counterfeit maybe yeah so in india maybe fifth pillar is just all the all the banknotes fifth pillar i wonder if the name means anything but but but is i feel like so it's more about why they're trying to dissuade them so if it's about fraud i feel like there should be some sort of this is just stupid but some sort of like electrocution thing in the back or something like that. Can you imagine that? That'll be $10, please.

Exactly. Didn't someone make a thing like that? Like it's a watch that hooks up to your Apple notifications for Apple Pay or something, gives you a mild shock every time you spend money to try and dissuade you. I seem to remember that being some Kickstarter product at some point. That sounds like a Michael Reeves thing. You're not wrong. It does.

I feel like I need that in my life. I love the idea that there's something in the banknote or something like that, though. So I will say that knowledge of counterfeit techniques is not required. Okay. Which is a shame because there's a lot of cool features. We're going to talk about those features for a while, you know?

Yeah. So, like, it's not going to talk about those features for a while, you know? Yeah. So, like, it's not going to be, like, weird watermarks or anything like that. It's not. It's a feature. Is it that they can't fold it? Is it a material thing? Unfoldable banknotes. Oh, I'm stuck on fifth pillar.

I can't think what the other four pillars could be. My brain is stuck on fifth column, which is on fifth pillar I can't think what the other four pillars could be my brain is stuck on fifth column which is not fifth pillar that's like a group of people who are working against the society they're in I think and I don't think this is like a mistranslation of that I'm pretty sure the fifth pillar is a very specific organization

that prints money in india the rupees i believe is it like those novelty banknotes that um that churches produce with like in god we trust in you know enormous letters and they give you like eternal reward in heaven and they give them as tips just to like make people think they've been given a hundred dollars oh no jesus i'm not exactly sure on that one. Like, is this a government thing, Ren, or like a non-government thing? Like, are they printing actual money you can spend? They are printing actual money.

Whether or not you can spend it is a different question. Fake money, then. So it's like monopoly, monopoly money. So maybe inflation is the problem or no. So, okay. Theft is one possible problem, right? Maybe they're printing money with a certain feature where it looks like real money, but then once you steal it, you realize, oh, okay. So here's a guess. There's like some type of ink on it or something so when you steal it you get stained hands and then they can find you later have you ever seen that there's like a like anti-theft those die packs yeah and like clothes in the mall or if you steal it it

like breaks so you can't rip it off what if the what if the currency has some type of if you steal this you will be marked for the police to find you later type of thing. Could that be it? What if the police is the problem? Hang on, hang on, hang on, Ren. Whoa. The denomination of these banknotes, you said they were real banknotes. You didn't say they were real money. You said they were real banknotes, right? I believe I said something similar to that, at the very least. Is the denomination of these banknotes zero? Ding, ding, ding, ding! It's for bribery. It's for bribery.

You nailed it. I only know that because my brain connects it to a story that I read. I read this somewhere ages ago. If you're asked for a bribe, like I read this somewhere ages ago. It's if you're asked for a bribe, you give them this zero dollar banknote and it's like this shaming thing. Yeah, apparently just the very sight of these notes was enough to reduce the problem. Apparently corruption was starting to become a widespread problem and they didn't really know how to deal with it. So they just started issuing a bunch of zero rupee banknotes worthless banknotes

as money and so like if you'd hand it to him maybe it'd cause the police officer to maybe be like okay i'm gonna nope out of this wow that's just so kind of hilarious i like that and apparently this uh this idea is spreading to other countries like nepal and mexico And apparently this idea is spreading to other countries like Nepal and Mexico. That's a lovely plan. So it's like the good version of the Jesus banknotes that I just apparently had stuck in the back of my head and went on a minor rant about. So yeah, the official banknote that they were issuing had zero value

because it had zero literally printed on it. It was a zero rupee note to cut down on corruption. All right. Our next question. This one's back to me. Good luck. The actor Ian McKellen once gave the Pet Shop Boys this piece of celebrity advice. I nearly did an Ian McKellen impression there,

and I'm just not going to try and do that. Oh, man. Fine. When posing... No, it just sounds insulting to try and do that. Oh, man. Fine. When posing... No, it just sounds insulting. It just sounds insulting. I'm not aiming for Ian McKellen. I'm aiming for Gandalf, and it's going to miss.

When posing in a group photograph for the press, always stand on the extreme right. Why did he give that advice? I'll say that again. The actor Ian McKellen once gave the Pet Shop Boys this bit of celebrity advice when posing in a group photo for the press, always stand on the extreme right.

Why? Interesting. Why the extreme right instead of the extreme left? I was just going to say, I feel like maybe the bar is always on the right or something, so they just want to get there first. Oh, that's such a... I wish it was that.

That's lovely. There is a definite reason for this. So press photos, are we talking like red carpet type stuff? Do those usually go from left to right? Yeah, like if it's a group photo, only one of them can be on the extreme right, right? If it's a group of people, only one person can be the furthest.

Do they mean all of the Pet Shop Boys if they're in a big photo with loads of other people or just them? Are the Pet Shop Boys fighting amongst themselves to be on the extreme right? How many of these Pet Shop Boys are there? I mean, there are only two Pet Shop Boys. Oh, I will say.

Okay, so 90s British pop acts, not the panel specialist subject. Yes, the Pet Shop Boys are two people. You will have heard at least one of their songs in your life, but never mind. Oh, God. My dad is going to be so... It makes me wonder.

I wonder if it's like a psychological reason. Like when you're looking at a group photo, do you scan the faces left to right and you want to be on the far right so that you have like a lasting image in that person's mind? That seems like a little celebrity inside baseball baseball you know the weird thing came in my mind was like one of them's like married so they want their like right hand to always be out the side so you can see their wedding ring or something weird like that like you always you have a feature

on your right side that you want people to always see if that makes sense but there's two of them so only one of them could do any of you have a best side by the way do you know which way you yes yes uh top side okay are we talking like stage right or camera right like right from the group's perspective or right from the camera's perspective that is a very good question, Ren. Ah, okay. I think it's probably,

I think it's stage right so that your camera left. Okay. I think that would be the advice, right? Huh. That would make you the first person to see if you're reading left to right. Exactly. Exactly.

There's, there's, there's one more jump to get there okay why might you always want to be camera left this is oh do they have like writing on their shirt oh this is general celebrity advice he gave it to the pet shop boys but this is this is freely given to any celebrity you're in a group photo you want to be on the right of the group so yeah as you said camera left is this like one of those things where you like stand up and wait for your host to sit or wait for your guest to sit down and then you sit down type stuff like is there some sort of weird like because i'm on this side of you i'm more important well you get more camera time because often the camera will stand there longer before it starts panning. Are we talking about photo or TV?

Oh, we're talking about photos here. But it's the eyes. You're all dancing around the right thing. The left thing, I guess. There is a particular reason when you're having those big photos taken that you want to be on that side. Is it because they're more likely to crop the other side i don't know this is i don't know i'm trying to

picture these big photos you're really close and it's it's very much about the the way that that will be displayed oh it's because when the names are listed on all the faces underneath the photo in the newspaper, your name will be first. Absolutely right. It will say something like, Ian McKellen, pictured with, and it is this really petty thing that puts your name front and centre in the caption and makes sure it doesn't get cut off. Whether that's on the caption underneath a web picture or something like that,

it makes sure you are the star. And the Pet Shop Boys put this in one of their magazines as the advice that Ian McKellen had given them. Wow. That is even more incredibly petty alphabetical related.

That's some great advice there. Notably does not apply to movie posters. That's true. Do you know why not? Billing. First billing, whoever gets paid most. Yep. And it doesn't...

Their name gets displayed first, regardless of the order of faces in the poster. Yep, absolutely right. So yes, Ian McKellen's advice to the Pet Shop Boys was to always stand on the right. That way you'll appear camera left and your name will be first in the caption. Man, I'm going to carry that with me for the rest of my life now.

Wow. Next group photo. Anytime I'm going in a newspaper, that's happening. I'm standing to the right. I'll be like, hey, Sir Ian, can I get on this side of you, please? No, you shall not pass. There we go. There it is.

Marques, we are coming to you for the next question. What have you got for us? All right, I've got a question for you guys. So it's pretty simple. A man looks up into the night sky. As a direct result, he goes on to kill dozens of people. Why? Just one more time.

A man looks up into the night sky. As a direct result, he goes on to kill dozens of people dozens oh okay not like a specific number to the sky oh maybe it was was oh the night sky so it wasn't that he looked at the sun and then got in his car and accidentally ran out over people okay oh that's dozens of Dozens of people. We get these bleak questions sometimes on here. Nice guy. Was there a comet and it was just super bright and it still blinded him?

I mean, if this turns out to be the Heaven's Gate cult, I mean, that's quite a question just there. So the question did not clarify intent. It said that he killed people as a direct result, but it didn't specify that he intentionally murdered dozens of people. It said he would go on to kill. So they are directly connected, but it's a causation. He would go on to kill dozens of people as a result.

It's not like he was a serial killer for other reasons that just happened to look up into the night sky. All right. Did he also kill himself as a direct result? Is he one of those dozens of people? Good question. No. Okay.

No! Oh! We got a look from Marques there. Like, good question. Oh, Ren's got a thing? No. Oh, okay, fine. Okay, so he survived somehow and killed dozens of people, but perhaps not hundreds.

What could you see in the night sky? So we've got stars, moon, satellites. Clouds. Oh, yes, fair. Comets. Aliens. I feel like there might have been some sort of event happening. I don't know where the sun aligns in a certain way.

An eclipse or something like that? Is this a real world thing, Marques? Or is this some kind of metaphor for a thing? This is a real world, actual historical context this is real so it happened wow i'm gonna steer you a tiny bit all right which which which what was it what was he looking at in the sky ah okay he is looking at the big dipper constellation huh was it like jack the ripper inspired by the big dipper or something oh just what just because it rhymed that was i mean it looks like a pan sort of so does he then get

inspired to use a pan to kill people yeah it's kind of like making a face this cannot be right surely no is there something special about the Big Dipper? Or about how those stars are laid out? Wait, that's used for navigation. Isn't the Big Dipper one of the things that's used for navigation? You line up the points of it. The tip of the Big Dipper points to the North Star. It's about five lengths of the end of the Big Dipper.

Measure it out, that points right to the North Star, which stays centred in our night sky. Basically, the Earth's axis points right at it and spins around, so it doesn't move. So did this save someone who was, like, lost at sea? Is this Christopher Columbus, that he was lost at sea, happened to see the Big Dipper in the night sky, that pointed him on the right direction,

and he went on to... To shipwreck his whole boat? Yeah, that's an interesting train of thought, but no. You were kind of on the right path where you're thinking about the Big Dipper itself, though. Is he looking through a telescope? He is not, and that's important. Oh, maybe he got it wrong and he was looking at the wrong star. There are just some details about the big dipper that make it interesting so

a man looks up into the night sky he looks at the big stipper at the big dipper and then he goes on to kill dozens of people if he hadn't think about if he hadn't looked up at the night sky and seen the big dipper it would have been cloudy what might have oh oh no not dozens i had a moment of going no hang on is this is this a world war ii thing is this a bomber is this the navigator or the bombardier on like a world war ii aircraft and they needed the skies to be clear to navigate or something like that i think you're on a soap it's a yeah it's a little earlier but i i do like that you went to war there it is a little earlier though killing dozens of people but so it's some sort of warfare thing so why do you need a clear sky to launch some sort

of weapon i i will say that him looking into the night sky actually qualified him to kill those people. Is this like a biblical story or something like that? Not specifically, but it might be from around that time. Ah!

It's a history and science question. It's a history and science question. That a history and science question that means this is probably some sort of sign he probably saw this and was like this is a sign from god these people need to die yeah uh the danes uh what people though um where do we know where Did you say where it was? Is this? I did not. It would be a pretty massive hint. Okay. Right. Yeah.

Like Babylon. Is this like the Vikings when they believed in all of their different gods? Right. So like the Greeks, perhaps, the Romans. There's a bunch of groups of people, like the Egyptians, perhaps. Like what if there was like a Pharaoh who saw the Big Dipper and was like, because of this, I need to drink the blood

of dozens of babies. So you were, I'll pause you at the Romans. That is the closest we've gotten. You ever looked at those like apps where you can look at the sky of the constellations and it like labels them for you? Yeah. You ever notice how some of them are like so faint that you can look at the sky of the constellations and it labels them for you. You ever notice how

some of them are so faint that you can't really see them, but you just take their word for it, it must be in there? Well, imagine being back around the Roman Empire not having that app. That's too bad. But the fact that you could see the entire Big Dipper

qualifies you to go on to kill be an archer. To kill. Oh, yeah. It's an eye vision test. Yeah, there you go. It's a Roman vision test. Yes.

Okay, so that's the qualification. So it's a soldier, not anyone special. It's literally just a person. Okay, I have now qualified to be a sniper or archer you can see it because your eyesight is good enough yes so there are there are parts of the big dipper that that was used as a sort of an ancient form of an eye test to become an archer for the roman army there are actually uh some stars that are so close together that if you can tell them apart then they would say okay your

eyesight is good enough you're good to be an archer go on and kill dozens now how would they know that they're telling the truth though because can't you just say oh yeah i can see that bit i don't know that's a good question but they somehow validated and qualified yeah yeah because you just be like yeah i can see that or no because i don't want to be an archer and kill they just point you at a different star and if you lie about that one you get shot it's like all right you failed the test get out of here dang what a question yeah so in summary a man goes up to look into the night sky as a director's alt goes on to kill dozens of people that is because he was a soldier taking an ancient eye test to join the Roman army to become an archer.

The Big Dipper has some stars called Mizar and Alcor. And if you can tell those apart, your eyesight is good enough to be an archer and go on and murder, murder, murder. Okay, the next question is back to me. Good luck, folks. In September 1970, an aerial photo was taken of the island of Cozo Alcatraz in Cuba. The photo shows a soccer field, tennis court, volleyball courts, and a basketball court. How did that provoke a major crisis? I'll give you that again.

In September 1970, an aerial photo was taken of the island of Cozo Alcatraz in Cuba. The photo shows a soccer field, tennis court, volleyball courts, and a basketball court. How did that provoke a major crisis? Huh. Because they're having far more fun than everybody else, by the looks of it. How dare they? Alcatraz? Alcatraz being the one with the prison, or no? Cozo Alcatraz is just the name of an island in Cuba.

Different. Okay. So Cuba, the only crisis I could think of surrounding Cuba is the Cuban Missile Crisis. Yeah, same. It's not the Cuban Missile Crisis, Rem, but I will tell you, you are immediately honing in on the right area there. Interesting. So I wonder if the aerial photo just revealed that because there's, you know, all of these sort of activity locations on this island, that implies that there must be a lot of people here to do those activities. And people using those tennis and soccer fields versus not using them. Maybe that would imply something. Maybe it's a crisis if they aren't using them or are. not using them maybe that would imply something maybe it's a crisis if they aren't using them or are that's clever i know how i keep coming in with the silly things but now i all i am thinking

of is thunderbirds as if it's like this island and it's pretend and it's all the tennis yeah and these rockets come out i mean i think you've just basically described the cuban missile crisis there but different kind of rockets okay four different sports yes soccer tennis volleyball and basketball so is that is that important the specific sports you might you might want to start talking about that because some so soccer because tennis and volleyball are like you could play with like four people, but soccer, you kind of need a couple more people. Soccer, tennis, volleyball.

When I say aerial photo, it might be worth thinking about what that photo might have been. Aerial photo that could cause a crisis in 1970, perhaps it's from a spy plane of some sort spying on this island in Cuba. The Cold War is still going on. So Cuba, as a Russian satellite of sorts, is going to be very friction high. I don't know how to phrase that. I don't know.

There's a lot of friction between Cuba and the United States. So I imagine there's a United States spy plane checking out what's going on on this island. They see a lot of sports places here. But is that a red herring? Are they trying to imply that maybe some school kids might be coming here, but really no kids are here? Are they trying to hide guns or something in amongst all of the sports when people are playing and there's this club and they're actually selling guns and missiles and stuff? You're certainly along the right lines here. Not necessarily with what's being hidden, but the spy photo, the specific courts, like something in there is going to cause panic. I'm trying to think of uh why those sports particularly can you go through them one more time soccer tennis volleyball basketball did it have anything to do with the olympics like were they training up for the olympics and they cuba cuba has not

hosted the olympics unfortunately but uh but they participate, right? They do. They do. Which sports would they favour? Cuba, track and field, Cuba. I mean, you're right with the Cold War connection here as well. So if it's America taking that spy photograph, they're not going to care about anything unless it's a sort of national defense emergency type situation so whatever they saw in this photograph posed a danger and they saw those four courts maybe they weren't i mean i don't know hayley i think you might be right maybe they were straight up just like facades to open up for missiles i don't know i know i feel like tom's already shot that down they are they are real courts they They are absolutely real courts. Okay.

It would be interesting if it's like the crisis is that they saw people actually using the courts, meaning they're not doing something else. Or they saw that the courts were empty, meaning something else. I don't know. That's what I keep coming back to, like, whether they're used or not. Maybe it was kids using the courts and they were about to do a missile strike on this island. And they're like, uh-oh, there's a lot of families and kids here. We can't do that, I guess. One of those pictures seems wrong.

You've got that list of four. You've got soccer, tennis, volleyball, basketball. One of those isn't right. Oh. Wait, okay. like basketball court soccer soccer tennis volleyball basketball so a basketball court uh okay so a basketball court has to be paved the other three don't right so soccer is can be grass volleyball can be grass tennis Tennis is probably grass. And then basketball court implies

like, I don't know, recent construction. Maybe there's people where they didn't expect people. I mean, you got the last bit of that. There are definitely people there they didn't expect. They might not be able to pick them out, but there's something in those sports. There's balls.

Well, that's going to get taken out of context basketball doesn't require that much more people than soccer theoretically you can play one of the one might be some different people though you have to be really tall to play basketball maybe they saw some yeah maybe right maybe they saw some tall people and like what the heck those aren't cubans ah now it's not the people but you you getting very close there ran with the those aren't cubans russia was interested in cuba right yeah so you saw a bunch

of can you tell skin color from a aerial photo? You wouldn't need to. This would just be the fact that one of those courts is there and that a different one isn't. Okay, so it's soccer instead of football. I do not know enough about sports or history for this. It's soccer instead of something. So soccer is the biggest field, and they would typically put a soccer pitch where they would normally be like an American football field or a cricket field. You know what? You're close enough. You are close enough.

Because I think there's a bit of 1970s knowledge that I wouldn't have had either here. I think you're close enough there, Marcus. The story goes that Henry Kissinger, the national security Advisor, storms into Nixon's office with this photo, puts it down and says, the soccer fields mean war. Cubans play baseball. Russians play soccer. And the idea was that there's a soccer pitch there, and the only reason they're going to build that is if the Russians are coming to Cuba. Wow. Wow. Wow. Okay. That is very insider. It really is. Possibly worryingly so, but never mind. Dang. I feel like I'm going to take that with me. That's some incredible knowledge there. So yes, that photo produced a national security crisis, because as a general rule,

the Cubans play baseball and the Russians play soccer. Our last guest question of the day then comes from Hayley. When you're ready, give us the question. Yeah, so being an engineer has to be engineering related. So the British engineer and manufacturer Matthew Bolton once remarked that it was very appropriate that he was born in the year 1728. Why? Wow. British engineer and manufacturer. Matthew Bolton. 1720. Did he invent the bolt? Yeah. Yeah. He just. Yeah Did he invent the bolt? Yeah. Yeah, he just. Yeah, that's a long time ago.

Yeah, he just partnered up with Chris Nutt and just complete coincidence. That's how they got their names. Nailed it. Well, you're not too far off a partnership. Oh, okay. Because I was trying to do numerology on that immediately and go and try all right that's a a is one and and seven is is g 1728 is there any like is this a math like is

is 1728 representative obviously of something but like I might have to mess with 1728, like add the digits together. If you add it up, it equals 18. Is it like the atomic weight of something? No, it's far too early for that. We didn't have a periodic table. Did we have periodic? I don't think we had periodic tables in 1728. Certainly, we didn't know atomic numbers of stuff. I don't think so. So what was insignificant about 1728? So what was insignificant about 1728?

Engineer, manufacturer, is he American? Or I guess he wouldn't be American. That didn't exist yet. He's British. British. Yeah. English specifically from Birmingham. You were kind of, yeah, with the whole maths thing so i wonder is is like 1728 like is that the cube of something interesting um probably yeah 1728 for some reason i've got a pen and paper here and i just put

square root 1728 as if i was somehow going to be able to calculate that immediately um it it sounds like it's something like, it sounds like you can multiply a load of numbers together and get 1728, but I don't know. What? What is math? So what sort of stuff do engineers work with? What have we... Weights and materials, engineer and manufacturer. Marcus, so you just said weights, right? Yeah, just if I was an engineer or manufacturer,

what types of numbers would be significant to me? Yeah, like, yeah, materials, weights of materials. Maybe he worked a lot with a certain material that had a certain number weight. I was thinking like the number of inches in a mile or something like that. I mean, we've got two Americans here. So like with your systems that I don't understand, do any of those multiply together to 1728 or something like that? I will say that the cube root of 1728 is 12. Did you just calculate that?

Or did you just... Did you just, like, have a calculator? Okay, right. I don't know. Is that cheating? So it's 12 times 12 times 12. So... Oh, so that's his birthday? Is this some, like, old imperial measurement

that's, like, was, you take 12 times 12 times 12, something, and that becomes a flurgelschnitz or something like that. I don't know. How many stones make up a kilogram? Like, a 2x4 is, like, you probably measure some block or something in, like, 12 inches, like, in some cube. Does it work with cubes, I guess, is my question.

Yes. Oh. Yes. Oh, there are 1,728 cubic inches in a cubic foot. Yes. Oh, sorry. I go for it. Sorry. What? So he works with cubic feet in some way?

The engineer and manufacturer. Yeah, they're going to be dealing with stuff like that all the time. Volumes. So maybe he deals with a lot of cubic feet, but he has to deal with the units of cubic inches, and he has to remember how many cubic inches. Oh, wait, no. I was born in 1728.

We're good. I feel like you have got the answer. It's not really linked to it. It's just that engineers are pretty geeky. And the fact that he's born in a year that is, you know, 1728, which is, you know, a cubic inches and a cubic foot. So that's like what? It's exactly the sort of thing that mathematicians and engineers are going to be nerdy about. Yep. Yeah. And he even, he wrote a letter to his business partner, James Watt, who was basically, he invented

or made a really big improvement to the steam engine. And in his letter to him, he said, oh yeah, it's my birthday. And he said, as sure as there are 1,728 inches in a cubic foot, so sure was I born in that year. I mean, who put that in a letter other than an engineer? Classic. Okay.

Yeah. And you were right with the special name as well, because it's known as a great gross. Yeah, a great gross. So a dozen grosses. A gross is basically 144. So a dozen grosses, a gross is basically 144. So a dozen grosses are 12 times 144. A dozen, dozen, dozen. Because it makes much more sense to do everything in multiples of 12. To put this in practical terms, because I always have to do this in my head.

You know, when you move house and you buy a box to move house, most of those boxes, you go somewhere um proper to get one they're 12 by 12 by 12 because it's a perfect cube and it's a perfect packaging to put your books in so yeah next time you're moving house just thinking about that so engineer matthew bolton once remarked that it was very appropriate that he was born in 1728. And that's because he was basically a very, very nerdy engineer and loved the fact that there are 1,728 cubic inches in a cubic foot. One last thing to cover then. At the very start of the show, I asked the audience a question, which was 10-9-8-7-6-4-3-2-1. When is a countdown like that used? So very quickly before we go,

any of the panel heard that one before? Got any ideas about it? Because the guy forgot five. I think I've been on a live show and heard that countdown before, and I forgot why. Oh, I wonder if five sounds too similar to fire and that might cause panic? Spot on. Exactly

right. Really? With explosives experts. I don't know what show it was you were on, Marques, but yes, for anything that's got pyrotechnics or explosives, it is sometimes used as a tradition that you miss the number five just because it sounds like fire. I didn't know that, actually. That's quite cool.

That is our show. Thank you very much. Marques, tell us what's going on. Tell us where people can find you. Oh yeah, I make tech videos and it's that time of year where I'm making a lot of them. So any slash MKBHD anywhere. Hayley, where can people find you? You can find me at the Hayley Loren, also the Fearless STEM Careers podcast if you are an engineer or a scientist who work in STEM at all. And Wren, tell us what's going on in your life. You can find me on the YouTube channel Corridor Crew or Corridor Digital. We do a lot of VFX based videos. I do a lot of scale based contextual videos. Fun stuff. And that is our show for today. Thank you very much to all the guests congratulations on uh

plowing your way through those questions 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 on basically everywhere and you can catch video highlights on youtube.com slash lateralcast thank you very much to marquez brownlee thanks for having me on. See you later. Hayley Loren. Hey, thank you. Ren Weitman. Thank you for having me. This was a lot of fun, man.

I'm Tom Scott, and this has been Lateral.