The Unmade Podcast - 146: Will it Lube?

Episode Date: July 15, 2024

Special guest Matt Parker joins us to discuss book titles, triangles, bicycle chain lubrication, and his annoyance with the number 8.Support us on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/unmadeFMJoin the discussion of this episode on our subreddit - https://www.reddit.com/r/Unmade_Podcast/Catch the podcast on YouTube where we often include accompanying videos and pictures - https://youtu.be/FOdtQ8-JLZs (this episode has some Easter Eggs!)USEFUL LINKSLove Triangle special editions (including signed) - https://mathsgear.co.uk/products/love-triangle-by-matt-parker-signedLove Triangle on Amazon (US) - https://amzn.to/4d035cfLove Triangle on Amazon (UK) - https://amzn.to/4cCOtQnMatt Parker’s website - https://standupmaths.comMatt on Numberphile - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLt5AfwLFPxWKuRpivZd_ivR2EvEzKrDUuMatt’s own YouTube channel (Stand-Up-Maths) - https://www.youtube.com/user/standupmaths

I'm putting all my faith in your technical ability here, Matt. Let me just make sure I'm getting a nice waveform. I'll look at that waveform. And I'll try it down the bottom. There we go. I've got the bass. There we go. Nice.

We're like the Bee Gees harmonising now. I have brought Tim to the south of England on a little road trip, and we have come to pay a visit to a man named Matt Parker. And anyone who watches my Numberphile videos will be very familiar with Matt. He is a real mainstay and superstar of the channel. He's a math dude, a former math teacher. He's now a YouTube superstar, podcaster, live performer, writer. That's a good job description.

What would we put on your gravestone, Matt? What's the top line? Knowing my luck, it would be the Parker Square. But I don't know. Yeah. Maths communicator is like the catch-all. Yeah. I feel like you never stop being a teacher.

So part of me still feels like deep down I'm a math teacher. When immigration asks going into countries, say math teacher okay people ask if i'm meeting a new person there's no idea what i do i'm at a party or somewhere i'll be like i'm a math teacher and math teacher is not going to flag up anything with immigration authorities either exactly they're going to leave you alone it's nice and simple everyone knows what it is i did consider flipping to say author but i feel like there's more follow-on questions yeah that could open the counter world do you still use the term stand-up mathematician i do yes right i feel like that's that gets across the essence of what i'm trying to do slightly irreverent enjoy you know recreational mathematics but in hopefully a

mildly and entertaining bit of comedy and a comedy you don't want too much comedy because obviously comedy is subjective and the moment you start adding comedy you lose some of your audience it's also like tell us a joke i find this hard tim with with um the unmade podcast when i had to categorize that under the categories of like what kind of podcast is this? I'm always really reluctant to call it a comedy podcast because then it's like, I think I'm pretty funny, actually. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah.

So, anyway, Matt and I have just been recording some Numberphile videos. Tim has been sitting in the corner. Judging? Watching. Sitting on his phone, really. What was it like spectating, Tim? I know there are many sort of Matt and Brady maths fans that would pay good money to do what I did this morning,

which is to sit in the corner and watch you record. Yeah, while I was, like, texting my family. Yeah. You're looking out the window. Gosh, it sounded impressive, though. Very impressive. I wouldn't say Tim was totally engaged with the mathematics, but he did say, I enjoyed the energy.

You did turn around to check a few things with me from time to time. Well, at the end, I turned around to Tim and said, did you see that? It was really cool. And then I wanted to re-explain it, which is always a sign of a good Numberphile video, is that I can't wait to tell other people about it. I couldn't even wait to say, come and look at this, Tim. I want you to see what we just did. So anyway, that's a video for another day.

Let me get into why we're here. The real reason is Matt has a new book out. Yes, that's a video for another day let me get into why we're here the real reason is matt has a new book out yes that's right and like anyone with a book i mean yes like any i could ask matt a thousand times to be on a podcast and he might say no he might say yes but if he's got a book out i know he's gonna say yes because he wants people to buy the book. And so they should. So, Matt, we are going to let you plug your book, but not yet. Fair enough. You have to earn the right to tell people about your book by coming up with ideas for a podcast. It's what we do here on The Unmade Podcast.

I'm happy to earn my right. Earn the right. So, shortly we're going to ask for some podcast ideas and then Tim and I will tear them to pieces. Hang on a second. I think, I mean, as I've become acquainted with Matt's work, I've been very impressed. And listening to him this morning go through maths, I've been very impressed. I feel like of all the guests that we've had, I have high expectations of what we're going to get here. That was me on my home turf. Right.

Right. Judging me, talking about maths is giving me the best possible light and rolling start all right well well so we will come to your idea shortly it's traditional that we will throw an idea out there first just to help you warm up give you an idea how things work and last night i came up with an idea for a podcast that i think you will like because i'm going to give you another free hit at plugging your book. Oh my goodness. And I think Tim will like because Tim is much more of a book reader than me. He's quite a bookish guy. So he likes anything to do with books because my idea for a podcast is to do with books. And I haven't given it a good name yet. So let's call it

Untitled for now, which may yet be its name. Not a bad title. Untitled. And the idea of this podcast is you have two hosts. So hypothetically, Tim and I are the hosts. There may be a third host. We'll come to that in a minute. But two hosts and then a guest. Matt, you are playing the role of the guest. Got it. And the idea of this podcast is the guest has written a book,

has just had a book published, and wants to promote their book, which is a pretty common. I feel like I'm describing most podcasts right now. Yeah, exactly. Kind of meta. Yeah, okay. But in this podcast, neither of the hosts, so Tim and I, wouldn't know the author,

wouldn't know what the book is, wouldn't know what it's about. You have to come in pretty cold and you tell the hosts the title of your book and then they will start asking questions and discussing and try and figure out what the book is about so it will start with them saying oh well i think a book called that would probably be about this it sounds like it'd be about that but let's find out more about you matt what did you do and you would tell us so i was a i was a teacher in perth and

oh teacher oh so it might be educational your boy might be a book. Oh, what else? Tell us, what did you teach? Oh, you taught math. Oh, where do you live? And things like that. So, as you unpick the person, you get closer and closer to figuring out what the book is about. Are you competing between yourselves to work out what it's about? Or as a team, are you solving the mystery?

I don't think you have like a winner as such. And there are no points. But I think there may, over time, a rivalry may exist between the hosts, you know, who's usually better at figuring it out, who usually goes off piste more, things like that. I mentioned the possibility of a third host. You could have a third person involved, like off to the side, who has actually read the book and at the end they come in and give you a bit of a review and tell you, well, actually, Tim, you were right. That is what the book's about. I've just read it and this is what I thought of it. But you're also interviewing the author

and who better to tell you what the book is about? So it sort of has the same sort of narrative flow. It's a bit like a book where you start not knowing anything. You're looking at the cover, judging it. You slowly make your way in. And I know there are different kinds of readers. Some like to know what's going to happen in the book. They read reviews about a book and they want to know what's good generally what it's about before they read it i also have another friend of mine who i was in a book club with and

he's like don't tell me anything i don't want to know anything i just start fresh i didn't even know what i know the genre and then he goes into the rhythm this is a novel like that it unfolds page by page at first before we go further first would you like my idea it's good i feel like we need to test it or i don't you know i'm yeah well conceptually sure okay it's fine it's a solid brady idea okay we can't we can't that's saying a lot while saying little we can't we can't properly test it with matt because we know too much about matt we know everything we know everything but the reason i did think of this idea was, and this is a rare compliment I will give Matt, is because I think your new book has an excellent title.

I think it was very clever. Thank you very much. Do you want to tell people what your new book is called? It is called Love Triangle. Now, we can't play my game on my podcast here because we already know too much about you. But Tim. It's sitting in front of me. But, Tim, what would you guess this book is about?

Like, what do you think is going to be in this book? Obviously, you have some idea. I do have some idea. I mean, you've got the maths background. So, it's going to be something, you know, it's a pun on love triangle, on shapes, triangles, geometry generally or something like that. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Is the book about triangles?

It's about triangles. Right. Yeah. I wanted to write a book about, well, I wanted to write a book about trigonometry. Yeah. Because I feel like things like Pythagoras and trigonometry are like the maths that most people were forced to learn at school. Yeah. So, you probably have experiences of learning Pythagoras.

Oh, flashbacks all the time. And I don't want to, again, Tim, we met today. It's been a wonderful day. I don't want to judge you too much, but that may have been the most advanced maths you had to learn. Maybe business maths a little bit more, money, that kind of stuff. Oh, yeah, yeah. But then later on, you might, you know,

have to learn functional maths for your job or career or something else, or survival. But I think a lot of people look back on trigonometry and pythagoras and triangles as like that pointless maths they were forced to learn yeah and it becomes like it's the mascot of stuff i don't use stuff i don't use i feel that way i i this is a terrible thing to admit as the person who makes numberphile but you know I'm not a mathematician, and I know surprisingly little about mathematics. I don't really know what sign and cos and tan are.

Yeah, exactly. There you go. Oh, yeah, I remember them. That's trigonometry. Wow, we had an expensive calculator with them up the top. Yes. They were expensive and still are. You said the prices would have tumbled, but no.

So how are you doing this in a book? How are you? Oh, look, I'm letting you plug your book already. Look at that. How good I feel like this. Yeah, yeah. So, how do you... Are there lots of pictures in your book? There's some pictures, but it's...

Because obviously I could draw quite heavily from where triangles and geometry and trigonometry are used in everyday life. So, it's probably a combination of stories about how this stuff is very practical and useful in the real world because people say this is pointless why do i have to learn it and i'm trying to point out there are some reasons why we want to know these things but then also it's me enjoying maths recreationally and talking about my adventures with triangles and the like that's trying to show that these things can be fun and enjoyable. Being forced to learn it when you're a teenager was not the optimal time to maybe meet sign cos and their friends.

But it's not a textbook, is it? No. What makes it not a textbook? You won't learn much. Right. It's more trigonometry PR than it is is trigonometry textbook my hope is some people will just read it and at the end be like oh okay triangles are very useful and trigonometry is important but other people might then be motivated to pick up a textbook or do some further learning

or you know pay more attention in their education if they're a younger person we will come back to plugging matt's book at the end i think he's getting way too much promotion i'm trying to i think the horse is bolted i know the horse is bolted uh there is a link to matt's book in the description by the way if you want to buy it and stuff like that and we'll give him a little plug at the end as well but let's come back to my idea for just a minute how important is the title of a book i think it's very important because i feel like it is too right yeah but a lot of titles of books kind of, they don't really tell you much about what's in the book. No.

And like, look, what are some, you know, we were talking about the book On Chesil Beach yesterday or the day before. And I thought it's a successful book, but that title wouldn't make me buy the book. I think there's a difference between fiction and nonfiction here, though. Right. Like a book that's going to, I'm going gonna look for something in it how to or something that's that's a little bit different to something that needs to be somewhat vague and abstract for a novel but have a sense of gravitas or a gesture to it or something like that what are you trying to do like you've had a few books now matt and i think the thing that they have in common the titles have

in common is there's usually like you're trying to be funny there's usually a sense of playfulness and a pun humble pie and things like that what are you trying to achieve with the titles of your books that's a great question and i was i mean the question is how does the title of a book differ from let's say the title of a youtube video yep because i think they're trying to achieve similar things but i think a book title has to be a lot shorter. Yes. What's also interesting about it is the author doesn't get to choose the title necessarily.

My domain is everything inside the book. Yeah. So my publishers, Penguin, Penguin Random House, lovely people. Technically, I have final say on anything inside the book, and they have final say on anything inside the book and they have final say on anything outside the book so the cover design the title the subtitle all of that is is penguins domain yeah now we obviously have a wonderful relationship and we go back and forth and with they've never done anything that i wasn't happy with so they're great but they did change

the title of my second book humble pie wasn Pie wasn't originally called Humble Pie. No. It was called The Wrong Book. Right. And I had a bunch of puns and ridiculous things about it being called The Wrong Book. Right. And then their marketing people were like, we don't think that conveys what the book's about. Yeah.

And we don't think it's like, you know, it's going to stand out as a book. So, they said that's a bad book title. Very funny, but not a good title so they then came back to me and said we don't want to use the wrong book can you come up with some other suggestions did you come up with humble pie i did yeah so i then went away and had a good think about it and came back with some other suggestions how did you feel though when the title that you'd given her and and you'd become attached to you were told not good enough like did do you get stroppy do you sulk did you agree like your instinct is all of those things to be upset and you actually your instinct is to justify it to go well here's why i think this is great this

is why i picked it etc and that's a very common instinct and you you get this a lot when, so if you're doing performance, like stand up, like, or any kind of like public speaking communication, you know, proper, candid, useful feedback is like the scarce resource. And being able to take on that feedback is a very important skill. And your instinct is when someone tells you what you did wrong and how you should do it, your instinct is to justify it and go, oh, no, I want to do it this way. But what you're doing is only going to get better by having someone giving you that feedback. And I learned this teaching.

Teaching, like your first year of teaching or your teacher training is brutal because like four times a day you get sat down and told all the things you just did wrong in the last hour. And then repeat. It's so emotionally draining. But that's how you get sat down and told all the things you just did wrong in the last hour and then repeat and it's it's it's so emotionally draining but that's how you get better at these things and so one of the reasons why i love publishing with like a publisher as opposed to self-publishing because i could write a book and publish it myself but my editors and my publishers and everyone who works a penguin their sole goal is not to make me feel good about myself. Their goal is to write a book which is good and people will want to buy and read. And in that regard, they align with my interest in writing a book that's going to be good at

promoting mathematics. And so, the reason why I love going through a publisher is I just get constant notes and feedback from my editor. by the time the book was written by the time they come back to me and say we don't like the title i've already gone through 18 months of constant notes and changes and feedback and i'm constantly reminding myself like this is the point of doing it this way is to get this feedback and they were right i mean they forced me to go away and humble pie is a much better title. And I was very pleased when I came up with it. So, you know, they were spot on.

I'm sure Tim's looking at me thinking, Brady could not write a book. I don't think I could handle that level of constant criticism. No, you have to. I've done this. I've published a book. And it's the same deal. And I look back now and with worshipful reverence towards my editors, I'm so grateful for how good they make my book sound, read. I say sound because it was an audio book in particular that sounds so impressive.

And it's like, gosh, that's me. The other thing is, I mean, the title for a book is a bit like, it's like an analogue clickbait, isn't it? You go into a bookshelf and you want to pick it up. I was horrified, partly because you spent so long with the manuscript and I had a really cool title, which was named after an REM song. And so it meant so much to me. What was the original title? The original title was called Walk Unafraid. And it was a book about surviving trauma from childhood. And so I lived with that all the way through. And then they came with a guidebook for so-and-so. And i'm like what no and i felt

visceral about it in the end i got to keep my title as like one of the chapter titles and we ended up with something that was um better and that worked yeah gosh that level of control brady though i don't know if you could no hands over here's the here's the million dollar question then was love triangle your first choice it was you kept your first choice this time i'm now two from three okay so things to make and do in the fourth dimension my first book that was the working title the whole time and love triangle that was the working title the whole time is this the time for us to finally reveal what our first title for the unmade podcast was oh we we did it we have done it on um in the request room but we have we haven't done

it here on the main show oh we went so far as to get a logo made up oh yeah we did be here for this for a little while it was called no idea and there was a deer like a stag like a stag's head and you changed i think yeah no i know i having no you know having no idea kind of i still don't think that was a terrible title but the stag would like with an with an eye missing or something like that oh yes i think it might have had uh like crosses where the eyes were yeah oh really i i i missed that uh that's brilliant you should have done that it went too late to go back it went through several incarnations but i don't think we ditched it because we didn't like it i think we ditched it for like practical reasons maybe urls that were available and things like

that but we also like the idea of you know say what's say on the tin what's in the tin you know what i mean something yeah unmade is a really good title for it and it's got podcast in it so you can say this is what it is yeah works are there any books that you think have been more successful than they would have been because they've got a great title or are there books that that are classics that you think have got rubbish titles but became successful anyway any of your favorite books that you look at and think i love that book but the title is a bit rubbish i always think one flew over the cuckoo's nest is a is a strange uh title yeah it's like the killer mockingbird That's the other one too, yeah, yeah. I remember reading something about the name, the novel, The Great Gatsby,

and there were different iterations, and then it came down to just simple. It's like simple, The Great Gatsby, and it works. And I think there's something profound about simplicity. You're looking for that, for it to be tight. It's got rhythm, yeah. But if, like, those authors came onto my podcast, like, hey, my book's called The Great Gatsby, or my book's called One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Like, you'd have no chance.

You'd have no idea what's going on. My dream job would be having bands come and ask me to name their albums. Like, have a listen to this. What should it be called? And pulling it all together and naming it. You could be a naming consultant. Oh, that would be awesome, wouldn't it? Anyway, there was my podcast idea.

I've got way too much promotion for Matt's book in way too early in the podcast. I'm done. I'm going to leave right now. Yeah, you could leave now. I don't have to deliver anything. No, but will you give us a couple of ideas? Will you throw us a bone? Absolutely.

What's your first idea for a podcast? So, I asked my wife, Lucy. I said, oh, hey, I'm doing doing unmade and they're going to talk about this podcast i want to make that i haven't made yet did you say like when you said i'm doing unmade is that like you know i'm going on the late show or something was there oh in our house no i had to explain what that was oh okay right so brady who i was like you know brady yeah i mean his mate tim had this podcast about podcasts that i'm going on yet i'm going on and i said to lucy this is how our relationship works i was just like oh it's like you know half improv

half romance i was like oh you know like that podcast i want to make you know the one and i was and i was like to see what she would say and she's like oh and so she looks around the room and she's like oh yeah your podcast about uh how to lubricate a bike chain. Right. And I'm like, oh, yeah, chain reaction. She's a physicist. She's like, yeah, every chain reaction has an equal and opposite reaction. And she picked that because she was like, what is Matt obsessed by?

Lubricating things. Lubricating the chain on a bicycle. All right. And so, I haven't quite, she wouldn't flesh out the concept any further. Hmm. So it needs some work. Hmm. But actually, I don't know if this would be the podcast, but I want to quiz you both now.

Do you ride bicycles as adults or did you ride them as children or both or? Both. I have a bike now. You have a bike now, yeah. Zoom around the city on. Oh, amazing. And how often do you clean and lubricate the chain? I have never cleaned and lubricated the chain.

There, see? Interesting. I am not a big cyclist. I would just do it occasionally. And I don't think I've ever lubricated a bicycle chain in my life. Yeah. And so I never did until I bought like a bike, like a road bike. And suddenly I've got to clean this chain like once a week or every couple of weeks.

Once a week? Yeah. Does everyone do that? I don't. Well, this is why I don't realise what's going on, because I never cleaned or lubricated a chain. And have you ever had a bike stop because you didn't? No. It's been fine.

Well, why are you doing it now? But now I do. Now the chain, I don't know how the chain gums up and it will start, like, catching on the cogs at the back because it's not flexible enough. Yeah. What are you lubricating it with? So, I'm wondering if it's a scam so i buy bike chain lubricant and i buy two different types yeah there's a like a summer dry one and there's like a winter wet one okay and the winter wet one is harder to wash off so

it's more resistant to water washing it off the chain but it attracts the dirt more so it collects more dirt and gunk around the chain right whereas the summer one collects less dirt that will be washed off and you've got to replace it quicker because you'll start to hear it like you know not squeak but the the bike equivalent of that um i'm going wrong and so now i'm constantly and lucy finds this hilarious because she's like she's never cleaned or lubricated a bike chain in her life yeah nor had i until until i was like is this is this a scam by big big lube big oil yeah yeah exactly so just so so what's your podcast idea is it just about lubricating bicycle is it is it matt lubricates stuff and you just go

different things matt likes to lubricate no i think we each episode we bring someone on who's got a different idea for how we lubricate a bike chain okay well that is super specific well what about if instead of using oil or something what if you just boiled the entire chain in wax? Or you know how you get those YouTube channels where, like, you compress different things or you blow it? You could lubricate bike chain with different things. Different things. And it could be butter. Yeah. Or honey.

Or olive oil. Yeah. How does lubricating the chain with this substance affect the performance of my bike? I'd like to say I did not make that up. Some people will boil their chain in wax oh really that's a legitimate way to lubricate your chain wow so it sticks to metal does it hmm okay all right or olive oil or wd-40 what happens people get very emotional about wd-40 being put on yeah yeah i don't think you're supposed to no some reason that rings a bell somewhere.

It's good for hinges on the door. It's good for displacing water. Well, you know, there's that YouTube channel, Will It Blend? Yeah. Ah. This is like original. Will It Lubricate? Will It Lube?

Will It Lube? Will It Lube? And each episode, we put a different lubricant on some bike chains. Yeah. And the podcast is us riding the bikes yeah until the chain stop and we're listening to the bike being ridden or like is the microphone oh yeah should we separately mic up the chain i guess what tim's getting at maybe this is like a better youtube channel than a podcast it sounds like the visual element could be important like does this lend itself to an audio only format i mean no doubt this is a

fantastic idea and is like gonna blow up but is it gonna blow up on video or audio yeah or book form is this the next book yeah yeah chapter one i uh i i yeah i do wonder if there is some substance out there that is just waiting to be found as like the hidden mystery substance that no one had thought of. Like you say, Vegemite. There are lots of counterintuitive things. Like if you want to clean your couch, it seems crazy, but baking soda is great. Or vinegar. Doesn't that stain?

Put vinegar in the kettle to de-skale it. Yeah, or pour wine on it. Doesn't that stain it? Yeah, but it gets rid of the smell or something. Who would have thought that that was the substance that would lubricate a bike chain? And just so I'm clear, the reason you need to lubricate it is so that it... Doesn't rust. Is it to stop it rusting or is it to start moving smoothly around the sprockets?

But don't you also want the chain to grip the sprockets? Like if it's too slippy, isn't there a chance the chain could slip off things that are supposed to be pulling and catching? What you need is the lubricant to be just in the kind of joints from the link to link in the chain. Yeah. And then separately, you've got the pointy bits on the cogs going in the gaps in the chain. Yeah. So you don't want lube there. Right.

Although the way the forces are applied, they're very much pulling it onto the cog so there's not really a force that would cause it to slip off okay but what you want is the chain to very freely be able to bend back and forth as it goes around for the cogs i'm thinking of special episodes about with chainsaws oh yeah that's a whole spin-off kind of yeah. So just one last question then about bike chains before we move on. I know a problem people have sometimes is they'll be riding a bike and, like, the chain will come off. It's even happened to me once or twice, and some people know how to put the chains back on and others don't

and you get your hands dirty. It's like a cliché problem. When someone's riding their bike and, oh, no, the chain's come off, oh, what a pain in the neck. What makes the chain come off? What is the normal cause of the chain coming off? It can be because on a modern bike, you've got multiple gears. And that means you're changing the size of the cog. So, your chain is longer than it needs to be because it's got to be able to fit onto the biggest one.

Yeah. And so, you get like a bit at the back to kind of tension it. Yes. But depending on how tightly it can tension it if you're bouncing around you get the chain slapping all over the place and so just that movement in the chain can cause it to flip off right you've also got a thing called a derailleur which is what bumps the chain from one cog to the next but if you move that too abruptly or that can knock it off particularly if you're gearing all the way down in quick succession it might overshoot and like knock it off the end

or it's the issue if you haven't got enough lubricant the chain gets stiff which means it no longer like curls around to match some of the small cogs at the back and because it's unable to bend enough that will cause it to pop off. All right. There's a lot going on back there. There's a lot going on. Complicated machines, like jet engines. I like the bicycle because humans, we're good at like marathons and long-term exertion.

But I don't like running. There's too much impact. But I do like very clever mechanisms and human ingenuity. And for me, the bicycle is a combination of what we've evolved to do physically There's too much impact. But I do like very clever mechanisms and human ingenuity. And for me, the bicycle is a combination of what we've evolved to do physically and what we've evolved to do mentally. Like, it's everything great about humans. It's the greatest way to move, isn't it? Absolutely.

It's perfectly clean. It's marvellous. It's hugely efficient in terms of energy. You can't beat it. Yeah, bikes are wonderful. I think the best way for humans to move, this would be another great podcast, different ways humans move. I hear you, but I think a way,

and this is something I'm not good at, but the few times I've done it and when I've done it well is a great feeling, is skiing. Skiing down a hill is a wonderful feeling. But there's no, it's not, it's totally impractical. It's only you can do one direction. Yeah, but there's just something about it. There's like, the geeky science-y side is like, oh, gravity's involved.

It's always in beautiful surroundings. It always sounds awesome. It always looks awesome. It feels, I think, lovely skiing down a hill. I think that's the ultimate human. So, I would say, I agree. I haven't done enough skiing to push through the terrifying phase nor have i to be into the relaxing phase okay but i would say the wonderful thing about

not that it's a competition okay although maybe that that's the podcast right two modes of transportation pogo stick versus jogging right yeah with cycling one day you can be doing the skiing equivalent you're rolling down a wonderful hill in the scenic countryside or you're in some foreign country. It's incredible. But then the same mode of transportation can get you to the shops and to work and back. Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough.

I'm just skiing out for some milk. I'll be back. Exactly. Yeah. There's a lot of like people from Finland being very upset right now. Yeah. They're like, we do practically ski. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. Let's move on from, we do practically ski. Yeah. We cross-country ski to work. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Let's move on from bicycles. Chain reaction. Chain reaction.

I like Matt Lube's stuff. Yeah. Will it lube? Will it lube? Okay, I'm prepared to go with will it lube. Do you have a second idea, Matt? I mean, you can't have a better idea than that, but do you have like a reserve idea in case that one- Oh, okay.

On the tiny chance that will it lube doesn't get any traction i well lucy's second suggestion was terrible right she was like you should do a she doesn't understand the way i relax because if i've been doing a lot of work and i'm busy i will relax by watching like educational youtube videos or staying up and doing she's like when she wants to relax she just stops doing everything yeah and gets an early night whereas i'm like i'm gonna watch a four-hour documentary about uh historical civilizations or something whereas i was like no no i want to do a podcast called um i i ate when that happens and the the the starting point for this is I get very upset when you see the digit 8 put upside down. Ooh.

I ate when that happens. I ate when that happens. Based on the... When does the digit 8 get put upside down? So it happened more when petrol stations had... Oh, yes. ...to put the digits up. Oh, yes.

I agree. That's right. Thank you. Yeah, the placards. You slide them in and they'll be just off. And people won't care. They put the digits up. Oh, yes. I agree. That's fine. Thank you. Yeah. The placards, you slide them in and they'll be just off. And people won't care. They put the eight upside down. Because a proper eight, if the two bulbous bits, like the bottom bulbous bit should be bigger.

A little bottom heavy. The belly rather than the head. You want the belly to be at the bottom, yeah. In most typefaces, well, I'm sure typography people will have opinions. But eights, a lot of the time, will have a preferential way up. Okay. And I get very upset when people aren't paying close enough attention to put the eight in the correct way. Now, I suspect that's probably not enough to hang an entire podcast on.

No. But I feel like there needs to be a forum for people to air things that bug them that are of no significant consequence whatsoever. So, does the famous bugbear of apostrophes fall under that or is that too big a one? That might be too important. Like, that's mildly practical. Okay. So, it's just things that don't really matter. It's got to have no consequence whatsoever.

I'll give you one of those. You tell me if this would qualify for your podcast yep if i'm watching a movie or something or it can even be documentaries if they're misusing footage but let's say i'm watching a movie and they're depicting apollo the moonwalks which is like one of my great passions if they get things wrong with that like obviously i'll be like that's not how it happened at the wrong speed and one of the ones that happen is on the later Apollo missions, I think it was Apollo 14 onwards. It could be 15, actually, so I could be getting this wrong myself.

But on the later Apollo missions, because they were having problems telling the astronauts apart on photos and television, they started putting a red stripe on the space suit worn by the commander. So you could tell, okay, that's the commander. They got the red stripe. And that's the other guy.

And sometimes you'll watch something and they'll say, oh, this is footage from Apollo 16 or something. And like both the astronauts are wearing white suits. And I'll be like, no, because if that was Apollo 16, one of them would have a red stripe on their suit. I hate when that happens. There you are. We could call the podcast Red Lining.

Red Line. Yeah, that's my red line. Yeah. We could call the podcast Red Lining. Red Line. Yeah, that's my red line. Yeah, across the red line. Yeah. One of my great joys in life, right, is to be watching something vaguely Brady related and then to find a fault, something like that. And I know it's a fault because Brady's explained it to me.

In other words, something I have no business knowing of my own volition. No business whatsoever. But I can hear Brady's explained it to me. In other words, something I have no business knowing of my own volition, no business whatsoever, but I can hear Brady's voice saying something and being able to articulate why it was wrong. Oh, that's nice. You accidentally learned from proximity to Brady. That's right. I've accidentally, yes, I happen to be listening on that occasion.

Have you got an H when it happens, Tim? Is there something that springs to mind yet that, you know, a bugbear? Oh, look, I have to say this is something that's on streaming services, so Netflix. There's two things that really annoy me, and one is that you know a bugbear oh look i i have to say this is something that's on streaming services so netflix there's two things that really annoy me and one is you know when you go to watch something and um you can skip the opening you can skip the opening titles if you want to skip intro skip intro and uh and then you can skip uh i've lost the word recap recap that's right i feel like they should be opt in rather than opt out no one wants the recap and no one wants the titles except maybe the first time you watch the first episode and

they should be opt in from then on right so that's one thing i watch the titles what every time every time what kind of a psycho it's the way that the creators intended it to be viewed because also like reading a book we're talking about how people read books. I will read a book from the beginning page to the end page. Right. Which sounds obvious. But Lucy, if it's nonfiction, will skip around. She'll look at the contents and go, oh, that's the bit I want to. And this is because her background's in science.

And so she's used to like digesting a scientific paper by finding the bit she wants. Whereas I'm like, no, I want to read it the way the person who created it wanted it to be read. And so I like the texture and pacing of watching the opening titles, where they were put and how they were designed to, like, represent the vibe of the show. I get that. I wonder if there are any creators of shows and movies and things that have provided them to Netflix on the stipulation that the skip intro thing doesn't come up.

Like they're so precious about their work. Or it's real small. It changes corners. You can't have my TV show if you let people skip the intro like that. I mean, that said, some titles can be too long. So, you know, I get that. When I come back to a book that I'm halfway through, I refuse to look at the cover.

I quickly open it to where it is. I'm not reading the title again. I'm not doing that again. The other thing I would have to say, and this goes even further, is when you're on the menu, right, so you're just perusing through, oh, well, I watch this or this or this, the sort of choosing something. Whatever it's lingering on is, you know, starts making noise at me. You know what I mean?

Oh, like autoplay. And I've searched online to try and turn that off. And certainly you can't turn it off with Netflix. And it drives me crazy. It's like I'm trying to... I will make noise when I get to the thing. I don't want to have Leonardo DiCaprio talking at me while I'm deciding, you know. I think noise is a right to be earned.

Yeah. I don't think it gets to blast sound at me. So, I mute on the menu. Yeah, I have to too. Yeah, you gotta. But it's annoying. It's a whole extra button press. I ate it.

You ate it. On the books thing, before I come back to more eights possibly, on the book thing, we're talking about consuming books as people intended. So, I want to ask you this question because Tim and I have discussed this before. So I want to ask you this question because Tim and I have discussed this before. What's your attitude then when reading books to footnotes on the page and footnotes at the back? So if you're reading and there's a footnote so you can go to the back and get more info or it could be at the bottom of the page. Do you read all the footnotes?

Do you read them at the end? Do you read them in situ? How do you consume footnotes? I read the footnote as I'm reading the text. Even if it's at the back of the book? Not at the back of the book. No. If it's at the back of the book, it's dead to me.

Okay. I never... End notes. I never read end notes. Only if... Sometimes you read a book and it's so good, you get to the end and there's like a mourning process for having finished the book. And part of what gets me through that sometimes is reading the acknowledgements or or flicking through stuff at the back yeah and so in those cases i'll spend a bit of time reading reading things at the back

but for the most part i will at the end of a paragraph if there was a footnote in that paragraph i'll finish the paragraph the way it was intended and then read the footnote and then back in where I was. Or I get to the end of the page and go, oh, it's a footnote. I didn't see where was the little symbol. And then I'll have to go back and find. It's like a game of where's Wally. Ah, there it is. And then I'll read it.

Do you use a lot of footnotes in your books? I use probably, I use fewer than I would do naturally, but probably more than I should. Because you strike me as a guy that would go pretty footnote heavy. I'm too footnote heavy. I put too many things in brackets. I got too many embedded clauses because I'd be like, oh, and his little aside or an extra thing. That's nice to know. So I try.

It only ends up in a footnote if I fail to find a way to fold it into the rest of the text. And then I accept defeat. And I'm like, this is still something I think people would like to know, but I can't put it in the main text without breaking the rhythm and momentum of the reading. Can I take that from books then to films? When you see a film, are you one of those who sits and watches all the credits all the way to the end because that's the way the artist intended not always sometimes though like again if you get to the end of a good film i feel i guess that's like the come down and if it's a good song it was a good song or something and these people worked hard on it but i won't you know systematically watch them all there's always that pause with comedies to go oh we're gonna

get a little bonus oh there are the end credits things, but yeah. Did you have any other eights or was it just the eight? That's it. That's just the one. Just the one. If anyone has any eights that bother them, like leave something on our Reddit or get in touch and Tim and I might discuss it in a future episode.

Can I ask you an eight related question then? Wow. Can I ask you a question about numbers? Have you met Matt Parker? You want to talk about a number? Well, I do, actually. I do. Because you're a numbers guy, you're a maths guy and so forth.

Do you have a favourite number between one, one and ten, one and nine? You know, favourite digit. Oh, favourite digit. Oh, that's a different question. My favourite digit is probably two. Why? Because I think it's a fun one to draw. Like, it's flowing, but it's got a bit of structure to it.

It hasn't got any kind of... No, it depends how you do the two. I do a little loop when I've got to turn around. Oh, right. You're like a typewriter sort of thing. I'm like, yeah, I'm like, whew, little... And I think that's kind of fun because it's one continuous thing. With something like a three, you've got to go in,

then you've got to back out again. And I like the continuousness of the two. I think that's a very pleasing one. It's up there. Five would be similar, but to do a five properly, it's a bit disjoint because I do. I used to do my fives basically like an ante two. But when I started teaching,

students were struggling to tell a five from an S because I got a bit... Mathematicians get very lazy with their handwriting. So, when I started teaching, I re-taught myself how to write a five to be like the back and the loop, and then you put the hat on. And it's way more distinct by doing it that way.

I have noticed, doing number five videos, that you do fives in an unusual way. Yeah. I taught myself to do that just to make my writing more legible for students. Tim, do you have a favourite digit? No. I do like the two. I always think the two looks like a person kneeling.

Oh, yeah. Maybe praying or kneeling. I like the six, but I think that's because it's related to 16 and a kid that I liked at school who played football who was number 16. Right. You don't make me sound so weird. Fair enough. 16 and a kid that i liked at school who played football who was number 16 right there's no rules no rules on favorite numbers i also like seven seven two which is like it's related in in that numerical thing there's like six is the devil seven is heaven seven is god there's something i never another thing i should know about but um it's got some sort of significance

there but i like seven. All right. Seven's nice. I mean, everyone loves the number seven. Yeah. It's a common favourite number isn't seven. Yeah. What about you?

It's hard when you go for just a digit. I do like two because two, even though it's just a digit, it's also a bit of a glamour number because it's the only even prime number and things so it's also got like a bit of prestige itself as a number so that's true yeah i would find it hard to go past two zero if you want to be a bit like contrarian i mean it was kind of fun yeah but uh and zero is like new on the block because for a long time there was no zero so yeah it's a bit like the most recent yeah so he's like the new the new kid on the block newest digit yeah all right we're slipping here guys off out of unmade space into number file space speaking of the way we write digits there are upper and lowercase digits which i used to do as a joke like if i was reading something out i'd be like a capital six which i think is very funny yeah until when i was doing my first book, they were like, oh, we want to-

Now, they didn't phrase it this way, but they're like, we're going to do the page numbers in lowercase digits. And I was like, you've got to be kidding me. But so- Sure, yeah, all right. Your capital digits or your capital letters are always like top to bottom. Like they fill the whole- They fill the whole line.

The whole line. And all digits are like that. So actually, in my mind, all our normal digits are capital digits. But then you get the lowercase ones where they kind of slump down. You can get nines, but the downstrokes are descender, like it goes below the line. Right. But it's not a subscript.

There's not a subscript. And you get zeros, which are half height. And so if you look at the page numbers on some books and they've used the same ones for all the ones i've written the numbers in the text and regular digits uppercase yes but the numbers for the page numbers are lowercase they're a little bit a little more relaxed a little jaunty yeah go below the line a bit yeah and they're fine in isolation when they're down there at the bottom of the page. But within the text, they look a bit weird. But they look very at home as a page number.

I like them when I'm printing out, like a journal or something like that. I like them down the bottom, the page numbers with a little full stop as well. Oh, it's interesting. I'm not sure I would like that. It's like the shortest ever sentence. 16. End of sentence. It's like a little, it's like the shortest ever sentence. Yeah. Okay. 16. End of sentence. It's nice.

All right, Matt. Final swing at plugging this book. Oh, yeah. Love Triangle, the life-changing magic of trigonometry by Matt Parker. Why should one buy this book? Oh, I mean, if you already love triangles, you're going to have a great time reading it. Really? Yeah.

It's a celebration of all things triangle. It's a love letter to three-sided polygons. Exactly. Very much so. And trigonometry, and a little bit of Fourier at the end. I justify sine waves by looking at then how waves underpin a lot of modern technology. Okay. Which I have a lot of fun with.

And if you don't already love triangles, it's about time you got on board yeah and discovered why triangles are so important okay and it's a nice gentle there's no tests there's no you know problems you got to solve yourself obviously there's something you can if you want that's just like a nice hopefully fun read yeah about why triangles are so incredible i I haven't read Love Triangle, but I have read your other books and they have all been not only like clever and interesting, but funny. And if you find Matt like a funny guy, like reading his books is a bit like talking to him. He very much comes through in his books

and I can't recommend reading them enough for that reason alone. Is it kind of like maths for people that don't know a lot about maths? Like, is this how I would learn a lot, really? Correct. You don't need any prior knowledge or memory of learning maths at school. You can come in completely zero maths and enjoy the book as much as someone who's... Obviously, if you're a nerd, you know, I'm playing to a home crowd. But if you're not, it's fine.

It's been written for everyone to read now. That's good idea for a podcast actually just talking about a different shape yeah because i don't know if you go into this or not if you're fascinated by the way triangles um are exist in life you know in terms of um uh relationships you know they talk about triangulation when one person gossips to another person and that person comes back and gossips about them to that person and that person's excluded. You know what I mean? Like it's like a triangle. And of course what we were joking about before, the love triangle about someone who cheats on someone else. I do like a podcast that like first episode is triangles, the second episode squares, pentagons. You could see where they exist in relationships and dynamics and families.

Yeah, I didn't go near, like, kind of... I did this a couple of books ago, looking at, like, networks, looking at how relationships and people are linked together. But I did actually know I didn't touch on it in Love Triangles. That would be... Well, and another great reason to get the book is so you can see these lowercase numbers. That's enough reason for me.

And we are going to link to ways to buy the book in the description to this episode and you should look at that link because this is a chance to get special editions Matt's got like special editions with different dust covers and signed and there's all sorts of good stuff so yeah you can go and buy it on Amazon and all the usual places and that's cool

oh it's fine yeah it's cheaper that way but if you want like something a little bit different if you don't mind paying full price. If you don't mind paying full price and you want something a bit special and a bit collectible, I would highly recommend that as well. So there'll be links in all the usual places. Go and check it out. This is a really good book to add to your collection.

It'd be a really fun read. Look, in this little triangle here, I'm not the maths guy, right? But I'd like to read it. You would? So there we go. Yes. So, Matt, if we were a triangle, we are a triangle around this table, like how would you define the different vertices here?

Like who would be the right angle and who would be the- Oh, my goodness. Yeah, you're right. Who's obtuse? Who's acute? Acute. Yeah. I think Tim's a bit cute.

Tim's a bit cute. Yeah. And you know what? If we were a triangle I think Tim's a bit cute. Tim's a bit cute. Yeah. And you know what? If you were a triangle, you'd be the acute angle. So that's. If I had to sit here and say, Tim, tell us everything you know about triangles. Hmm. We'd still finish the show on time.

Can you tell us one fact about triangles mathematically? Could you name a triangle? A name a triangle. There's an isosceles triangle. Is that right? Nice. Nice. Bing.

One point. I think all the angles in a triangle add up to 90 degrees. Is that right? Oh, you're very close. Close. 180. 180, is it? Yeah.

Right. Of course, because you get a 90 degrees angle. One of them could be 90. Yes. What's it called if there's a 90 degree angle in your triangle? Oh, I know this too. It's called a triangle. Triangle.

A beautiful triangle. A beautiful triangle. I don't call it triangle. Oh, no, no. Well, yeah. I thought it had like a special name. It feels like you're just describing it. That's a special name.

That is a special name. Right angle triangle. Right angle triangle. Oh, that's boring. I know. Scalene triangles. It's just saying what you see. That's a bit different.

Scalene. That means all the sides are different triangles that's a bit different scaling sedimentary triangles prime triangles triangles of prey