101 = Squear Data and The Big Banana (in an Aussie accent)

Hello and welcome to A Problem Squared, the problem solving podcast, which is a bit like a board game, that it's kind of best to just start playing it and pick it up as you go along.

This show is hosted by Matt Parker, a YouTuber, mathematician and comedian who, to my knowledge, has never been to jail, but did once come second in a a beauty contest.

Is that right, Matt?

That's correct.

I came first.

No further comment.

I'm Beck Hill, a comedian, writer, and presenter who ran out of time while writing this intro and therefore doesn't have a funny board game analogy yet.

Something to do with it.

You're a bit like Connect 4.

You come in on an unexpected angle.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm a bit like Trouble in that I am in a bubble.

I do describe you as Popper Matt.

Yes.

Evidently that helps.

Yeah, there we go.

We'll take that.

It's better than the options I did have, which involve lots of less than PG gags to do with chess.

Let's keep it pop a match.

On this episode, I've uncovered the most spectacular year.

I go big on big things.

And we have some any other board gameness.

Yeah.

And if I don't like how this goes, I am so flipping this table.

Matt?

Beck.

I am in Adelaide, Australia.

You are...

Yeah, that's changed.

That's new.

Surrey, I believe.

I am still in the UK, yes.

How are you?

So you're okay.

What else?

Oh, so much.

We had Christmas.

Yeah, you were sick.

I'm still frantically catching up on everything that got postponed because I had flu right before Christmas.

And I know you were sick because you weren't replying to texts.

And while sometimes there can be delays you generally will eventually get back

and that you there was just silence yeah and i was like oh this boy is not well i have a slow but thorough text game but i was you know fever sleep for a week which i struggle with anyway anyway i'm okay i'm okay i'm over it i'm fine um I got caught in a coat hanger.

You did?

Yeah.

New Year.

Just going through the list.

Are you going to explain to our listeners?

Because we've got footage.

We've got receipts, you guys.

Well, that's why I thought I better rip the bandaid off.

So

you and I, we had a little outing.

Before you got sick.

Before Christmas, before I got the flu, unrelated.

And we went to see Mr.

Thing to see a Christmas thing.

So Mr.

Thing, I don't know how you describe them as a comedy performance

event.

Collective.

They're very, very good.

I'm a huge fan of Mr.

Thing.

Go and see one of their shows if you get a chance you said hey They're doing a Christmas show in London.

They're doing a runner shows in the West End we should pop along and see one and before the show they get people to fill in a little form and one of the questions one of the one of the things they ask the audience members if you opt into the form is do you have any party tricks?

And I wrote I can climb through a coat hanger

and you wrote that you can do a very good impression of a siren

or a car alarm.

I've done the car alarm before.

Have I not?

Now

have you done the car alarm on the.

No, the producer Lauren is shaking her head, so I'm going to go with you.

Have not.

Would you like to hear my Kar Alarm sound effect?

This is me making this.

Yes.

You guys can witness it.

Okay, I'm going to close my eyes.

I want the full immersion.

Okay, all right.

All right, ready?

Yeah.

Got it.

That was very convincing.

I can go longer if you want.

So you were not called upon to do this in the show.

And it's a good party trick.

It's nice.

It's quick.

It's It's enough for people to go, whoa.

Whereas I was called upon to do my trick,

and

I have historically climbed through coat hangers.

That's a thing I've done.

A friend of mine who's like into circus skills one day, because I'm unusually flexible for someone with my level of coordination.

You feel like hyper mobility, don't you?

Hypermobility, I can do all sorts of ridiculous things.

My arms are going a little bit further than most should.

So my elbow goes more than 180.

Like I can move my arm out to flat and then it just carries on.

It's like, yeah, we got more.

But someone once said, oh, I reckon you can climb through a coat hanger.

And that's because the hard part of the coat hanger is getting over the shoulders.

You've got quite broad shoulders.

My shoulders are my limiting factor in buying clothes.

Shoulder to shoulder.

To get like a jacket or something to sit correctly on my shoulders means it's got more fabric elsewhere.

So the fact that I can move my shoulders around on my arms means I can get like my head and one arm through a coat hanger and then I can reposition everything and then get my other arm through the coat hanger and then I can and then it just gently descends to the ground.

Now, I haven't done that for like over 10 years.

I used to finish a show by climbing through a coat hanger.

Now, at some point, one of the two things has happened in the last 10 years.

Either coat hangers have gotten smaller, that's option one.

Vote now.

Or option two, I've gotten bigger.

They're the only two

possible things that could have happened in the last 10 years.

Now, with you as my witness, I did the difficult bit.

I got the coat hanger over my shoulders.

Yep.

And then

the coat hanger came grinding to a halt.

Yeah.

There's a great

thing.

Because I filmed it thinking, oh, this is brilliant.

And then there's this beautiful

moment where the look on your face says everything.

You just pause the moment you realize you're stuck.

and you just give in yeah and it's glorious how how you just throw it you throw it and may I say

you handled it with both hilarity and grace and I think that's a really hard line to walk like

you went into it in a way that meant that you acknowledged how funny it was and yet didn't seem to lose your dignity.

And I don't know how you managed that because I think.

I don't know.

I felt like my dignity, my dignity managed to fit through the coat hanger, but it left me behind.

I think that's what happened.

Well, I had two overriding thoughts when I was on stage stuck in a coat hanger.

And one was because the producer was trying to communicate to everyone else to just get me off stage and they can fix this somewhere else.

Because initial attempts failed.

So they tried to unwind it at the back and then

in perfect comedy timing the head of the coat hanger snapped off

Then they scrabbled for some pliers to cut me out

and They couldn't cut through the coat hanger like it was a real solid coat hanger

I know I now know what I want to do in my Halloween costume 2025 you're dressed up as me stuck in a coat hanger I can lend you the same hoodie so the other thing was I was deeply enjoying the fact that this wasn't my show.

Yeah.

When I got stuck in the coat hanger, my first thought was, well, ironically, it's not my problem because

these are professionals.

They've brought me on stage.

They just accepted an audience.

I'm a generic audience member.

They've brought down, put me in a coat hanger, and I'm now stuck.

And I'm like, well, you've now got an audience member in a coat hanger.

What are you going to do?

I'm fine.

I can write this out.

Now, I did, in the interest of closure, reverse back out of of the coat hanger.

It was in the end.

I think we can all agree: if the goal was entertainment, I feel like it was a complete success.

Yeah.

I give it a ding.

Yes.

And so what else have you been up to now out in Australia?

Well, not out in Australia, but I have been sitting on this piece of information for quite some time.

And finally, I get to share this.

Okay.

So the last time we recorded, I was getting the train home that night and as the train got to, I think is it Woking?

They mentioned that there was going to be a delay.

When we got into Woking they said that if anyone was going direct to London without any stops to change onto a different platform which was about to leave.

So of course everyone rushed up the stairs and raced over and we all rushed across

and on the last couple of steps a woman stumbled down the last few steps.

Not pretty.

And I would say that she was about the same age as my mum, somewhere in her 60s.

So I raced down to check if she was okay.

I noticed that she hadn't hit her head, but she said she'd scraped her knee.

She'd hurt her knee.

So I helped her up, and she was like, oh, I've really hurt my knee.

And she was sort of limping, but I have to get on this train.

I was like, are you sure?

We can get a station guard, get some first aid.

So no, no, no, no.

I need to catch this train.

I'll get your first aid people.

I just need to get back.

I just need to get home.

So I said, okay.

So I got her onto the

and uh she was you know still a little bit in shock and and she sort of touched her her knee and she said oh i'm bleeding through my jeans there was some blood on the knee of her jeans oh i wish i had a bandage or something at which point

i was able to say wait a minute i have a full Royal Flying Doctor's Service first aid kit in my bag.

That's oh my goodness.

From when we recorded episode 99.

We recorded 99 and 100 at the same time.

That's incredible.

And then I pulled out this full first aid kit.

The full now I was very sure not to let her see the first bit, which was the bags for amputated limbs, because I was like, I don't want her to think that this is going to go this far.

That's even an option.

You've come too prepared in some regards.

So, yeah.

Now, the interesting thing about having a first aid kit, especially a big one like that, is that everyone makes space for you on the train.

If you, it doesn't matter how ramped that train is, if you want people to make space for you, take out a massive first aid kit.

It felt like I'd been on a flight and someone said, is there a doctor on the flight?

Like, that's the level of...

The implication is you just carry this with you all the time.

And you're just going, oh, wait, I forgot.

I've got, everyone's thinking like a band-aid, like something of the scale at which you can forget it's in your bag.

And then it turns out 80% of your bag is a full emergency rescue first aid kit.

I'm pulling out stuff for skin.

It looks like you are holding out stuff.

I'm pulling out like vials for urine.

I'm pulling out like all sorts of topical treatments.

A foldable crutch.

Yeah, yeah.

Probably got a bit carried away talking about how amazing it was that I had a first aid kit, rather than paying attention to the fact that she was in rather a lot of pain.

Yes, but she was also very impressed.

So we start pulling her jeans up.

They're quite like skinny leg jeans.

We get to her knee and this is where you might not want to listen if you're particularly squeamish.

As I pull it up past her knee, basically the entire flap of skin covering her knee came up with the jeans.

Oh.

And I can own, and I'm a very squeamish person, but it's interesting how when you are the one who's meant to be in control, your brain just goes, nah.

You're the one with the kit.

All I thought was, oh, it's like when you pull the skin off a chicken thigh.

I hope you, that was your inside voice.

that was my inside voice no the outside voice was oh and then hearing her go what and then me quickly going oh let's just put your jeans back down the jeans were kind of behaving as a bandage at this stage let's be honest you're first aiding at like an amateur level and this feels like a professional situation this is the third thing and it really like stuck with me for a while afterwards I think sometimes I think as long as I have the kit I will be fine As long as I've got a go bag with like all these things, I will know how to do it.

The moment that I was like, I don't actually know what to do in this situation, and I don't know what I would have done if it had been like

something completely alien either.

I was so aware of my limitations and what I didn't know about first aid.

And so what I did come away with is that I need to do a first aid course.

I haven't done a first aid course probably for at least 20 years.

And so that's my newest resolution, 2025.

I want to do a new first aid course because I don't want to be stuck in a situation where I don't know what I'm doing again.

Yeah.

That train actually ended up getting cancelled.

So it never even left.

Don't rush.

It's not worth it.

Take your time.

Stairs are dangerous.

I helped her get to a cab so she could get a cab home.

That evening she went to hospital.

The next day I checked in on her to make sure she was doing all right.

She was still at the hospital.

She was waiting to go into the theater to have the wound closed.

She was very grateful that, you know, there'd been someone to help and everything.

So she didn't say anything like, thanks for making it worse which was my biggest fear that was the biggest thing I was worried about

but yeah I think I'm now officially a Royal Flying Doctor I think that's how it works I think so I think that's how it works

our first problem comes from Alia Alia

A-L-Y-A

via the problem posing page which is a problemsquare.com and they've said there's a lot of numerical curiosities about 2025 floating around.

It's a square number.

It's a square of the sum of integers one to nine.

It's the sum of the cubes of integers one to nine, etc.

My question is not what other interesting facts about 2025 are there, but rather, is this the most interesting, in double quotation marks, year number in living memory?

Was there a more interesting

double quotation marks, year, number in the past 100 years, or will there be one in the next 100 years?

Matt, as always, I'm going to ask you to explain the question to me before you start answering it.

Agreed.

Let's start by unpacking what's in the problem and we'll go from there.

So we'll get our fundamentals down.

2025 is a square year.

A square, I think they're called.

A square.

S-Q-U-E-A-R.

Oh, it's a square.

You're portmanteaued square and year.

I'm coining it now.

It's going in the title, you guys.

So welcome to the only square of our lifetimes.

We are in the year 45, squeared.

And

we also had someone called CJL went to the problem posing page.

And instead of sending in a problem, they picked sending in a solution, which is perfectly valid.

A lot of people send in solutions for things we've asked or talked about on the podcast.

But they've said, they start with not technically a problem, and they've given us a solution to something we've we've not even asked for.

They've said, oh, don't forget that 2025 is a square number.

It's 45 squared.

And 25, if you add 20 to 25, it is 45.

And it's 45 squared.

And I'm like, oh, that is kind of fun.

However, there's two things in there.

One is...

2025 is a square number.

And the other is if you add 20 to 25, you get 45.

And 45 squared is 2025.

And that's kind of both things we're talking about here there are independently interesting unique things about a number or in our case a year and then there's just kind of numerical coincidences things that that happen

and every single year if you're on any kind of social media where there's a decent number of mathematicians around people will start exchanging number facts about the year.

And

to my knowledge, not a year I've lived through where I've been anyway involved in social media have I not received and sent messages about fun numerical facts about the year.

Every number has something interesting about it.

Things like, in this case, 20 plus 25 is giving you 45 and then 45 squared is the year.

And you'll see these get sent around every single time.

2025, I would argue, is subtly different.

I think it's not just where

retrospectively, you know, backfilling in some interesting facts.

I think 2025 is independently an interesting numerical year to live in.

And I can say that because 10 years ago, in the year 2015, I made a YouTube video on the channel number file saying how much I was looking forward to the year 2025 specifically.

So it's not just, it's become 2025 and now we're excited about it.

For 10 years, and even before that, I have been looking forward to the year 2025, and it's because it's a square number, and square numbers are wonderful numbers, and they're quite rare.

The previous square year was 1936, and we haven't got many 1936 people around.

And the next square number is not until 2116,

almost a century from now.

Yeah, now the added bonus to it being a square year is, and it's 45 squared, the square, is

I will be turning 45 during the year 2025.

So I am going to turn the square root of the current year, which is a very rare fact.

The only people that happens to are people who were born in the year 1980.

Because 1980 plus 45 equals 45 squared.

And I discovered that because a mathematician named De Morgan

in their lifetime wrote how happy they were that they were born in the year 1806

because

43 years later they turned 43 in the year 1849 which is 43 squared so

i saw this fact and i was like oh my goodness that's amazing i'm so envious what an incredible mass fact to have as a mathematician i wonder when the other years are only to discover that the year I was born was one of those incredibly rare.

Like, it's like a one, two percent chance, like one point something percent chance of of it happening to someone, and it happened to me.

And so, I was so excited.

That's why, for a very long time, now I've been looking forward to the year 2025.

So, you could argue, on one hand, square numbers are quite rare, so people are looking forward to them.

And so, they're kind of you know intrinsically interesting.

You could then say the fact that it's because I'm turning 45 is unique to me and people born in 1980, and some stragglers who are born in 1979

who start the year 45 and then become 46.

I guess we're gonna we're gonna allow that.

But is it the most interesting year, which is what we've been asked here?

I will acknowledge that our friend Elya here

has put the kind of the interval at 100 years in each direction.

And the problem with that is it now encompasses

three separate square number years because you're going to get 1936 in that catchment area area and you're going to get 2116.

So there's an argument to say that yes on the scale of our lifetimes 2025 is incredible because it's a square number but if you go a century either way there's actually a handful of them.

So the question now is

is there a better year?

Now when I did the video back in 2015 I suggested that the ultimate year to be born is 2184, which is a way from now.

And 2184 is because

you will have

you will turn the root of the year twice in your lifetime if you're born in that year

three years later it'll be the year 2187 which is three to the power of seven and you turn three in that year and then when you're 13 in the year 2197

that year is 13 cubed so you will turn the root the cube root of that year so you'll get two roots now the downside is it's when you're three and 13 so you're only forming permanent memories for half of them i feel like 45 is a better year i mean i've had a decade and a half of looking forward to this so i feel like that's the preferable way to go about it statistically and for that life

celebrating 45

because

of how life happens sometimes because yes yeah because we start with a lot and then we just lose people as the years go on correct so it's it's also more than 100 years from now so it's not technically within the remit of the problem.

And just to finish the rest of the problem, as stated, 45, which is the square root of 2025, because it's a square number, 45 is itself a triangle number, which means if you had

45 objects, you can arrange them in a triangle.

So

it's like 10 pin bowling.

The reason we have 10 pin bowling is because 10 is a triangle number.

And that also means you can have one pin, then two, then three, then four.

Makes a nice neat triangle.

10 in total.

We could have had 15 pin bowling because the next one would be a row of five at the back.

And then we could have 21 pin bowling because you'd have six at the back.

And if you keep going up, by the time you've got nine rows going all the way back, you're playing 45 pin bowling.

We're going to go 45 pin bowling for your birthday, is what you're saying.

We should go.

Oh my goodness, I would love to go 45 pin bowling.

Wouldn't that be so special?

So I'm also turning a triangle number in the year when I'm the square root of the current year.

I mean, it's such a, come on, what a year to be alive and to be me.

Funny when you brought out that book about triangles last year, what an idiot.

I know, I know, it's outrageous.

Last year, 2024,

was a tetrahedral number.

So you can make a triangle-based pyramid out of 2024 things.

The bottom layer would be a triangle that's 22 objects along each edge and then on top of that you fit a triangle that's 21 along each edge and on top of that you fit a triangle 20 along each edge all the way up and you'll get this Ferregal base pyramid and it's exactly 2024.

It's just Ferrero Rocher.

Like exactly like, well, exactly like Ferrero Rocher where I tried to then balance a bunch of them and found it very difficult.

A friend of mine, Max, he was involved in organizing the pie by hand calculation I did and I've done a bunch of stuff with Max over the years.

Max realized that 2024 was a tetrahedral number and 2025 is a square number, and that hasn't happened.

We haven't had consecutive tetrahedral to square numbers since the year 120 to 121.

So he got 2024 balls and on New Year's Eve tried to arrange them into a giant tetrahedron that he could then rearrange into a giant square by adding one more.

Now, I'll link to Max's video.

Yep.

I was going to say, what a terrible way to spend New Year's Eve.

Then remembered that I spent my New Year's Eve doing a cryptic crossword

and then turned on the TV 10 minutes before the countdown.

I actually think that sounds like it would have been more fun than my New Year's Eve, to be honest.

Spoiler, it's really difficult to balance 2,024 objects into a tetrahedron.

Were they live things?

Was it like bugs or something and they kept crawling everywhere?

No, it was just pitballs.

Bugs might be better if they could all hold hands.

That would stay in formation.

Cute.

Exactly.

So you might say, well, that's spectacular because that hasn't happened in almost two millennia since the year 120.

But that's just one of those backfill things where we're just like, oh, we happen to notice it's this.

But it's not like we've all been counting down to this for years.

So that's, oh, also the other thing from the problem, the first nine cube numbers, if you add them together, equals 2025 there's actually a website I'll link to it there's a website called the aperiodical who do all sorts of great mass articles and Peter Rowlett put together a complete list of all the numerical coincidences for the year 2025 there's a massive massive list did you know if you add any two consecutive digits in the number 2025 you get a prime answer Did you know 2025 is divisible by all the factors of 15?

What I care about is, have we been looking forward to this year?

That's my litmus test for is it actually interesting.

And there are really three candidates left once you rule that in.

And if you wait it for the number of people looking forward to it.

The year 2000, it's going to be real hard to beat

the millennium tick over.

And people have been looking forward to the year 2000 for a very long time.

I remember my late grandmother discussing when she was a child in

goodness, the 40s, maybe earlier.

They were discussing that they may live to the year 2000.

Like, people have been looking forward to this for so long.

It's ridiculous.

Pulp Cocker, huge fan.

I didn't know that you'd get married.

Pulp.

I feel like you know all the lyrics, but you're choosing to just only give us a couple.

If you heard it, Matt, you would be like, oh, yeah, yeah.

Oh, I know the song.

I know.

Yeah.

No, I 100% know it.

The moment you started singing it, I know the song.

Yeah.

Good.

So people have been writing songs about the year 2000 and partying in 1999 in anticipation, I assume, for a very long time.

And then we had the year 2000.

Everyone went nuts.

It started the craze of wearing glasses that look like the year number you're in.

All this stuff.

So I actually, I mean, I hate to, you know, to give away the ending, but I suspect it's the year 2000 because

that's a really neat whole number, and I think you'd struggle to say we've been looking forward to another year more than that.

I would love it to be the year 2048

because that is a power of two.

That's two to the power of 11, and I'm very excited about that.

The fact that we get a power of two in our lifetimes, we haven't had one since 1024, and the next one's 4096.

Can you explain

what you're saying to me?

So, powers of two are if you do the doubling game.

So,

two times two is four, times two is eight, is sixteen, is so on, is so on and so on.

You go up for a while, which is why you can't get it.

You get to 512.

Yeah, it gets twice as long between each one.

And we've just had to wait 1024.

Well, we are almost at the end of waiting 1024 years for the year, 2048.

And in that time,

we started significantly using binary numbers, invented computers and binary, and computers are all about powers of two.

So the fact that we invented computers just in time to fully appreciate the year 2048 is very pleasing.

And we will probably be doing something different by the year 4096.

So, ah, so wonderful.

Congratulations, humankind.

You've nailed it on this one.

That's fun.

I don't feel like the general public will get as excited about 2048.

I'm prepared to concede, while I would argue 2048 is a more significant round number, depending on your definition of round, 2000 is way out there.

And then all the other candidates, I mean,

nothing stacks up to the year 2000.

So very sadly, my answer is

the year 2000.

Sorry for everyone who was born after then and missed it.

It was great.

It was really quite special.

It always blows my mind when I am talking to someone as a full adult and it turns out that they weren't alive.

I was a kid and I remember it being exciting, but I can't imagine people just not being there.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, for me, it was the middle year of my undergrad at uni and I was traveling in England at the time.

So I went down.

I was at Big Ben for the 99-2000 tickover.

It was

very special.

No, you weren't.

You were watching Toy Story 2.

We all know it.

That was the same.

I think that was the same trip.

You're right.

It's a big year for Matt Polly.

Fresh off.

Watching Toy Story 2 five times in the same day.

I was still partying like it was 99.

Yeah.

Getting ready.

I'm very impressed, Matt.

That's very cool.

I enjoyed hearing the problem.

I enjoyed having it explained.

I enjoyed.

You sound like a parent who's just received a drawing from their child and you're saying some nice things about it.

No, no, the problem is, is that the thing is,

I'm an optimist, right?

And

I don't like to yuck anyone's yum as the kids sometimes do.

It's very true.

You don't.

You're very good.

But I also keep finding myself going, yeah, but like...

2000 based on our civilization, like our society.

Like I find

that it's like, yeah, it's hard.

Really?

The Earth's pretty old.

We can say whatever year we want.

I could say right now that judging by my own calendar, we actually already are in the year 2048.

So

it's a special year because they both occur on the same time.

And actually, for someone else, it's the year 2000 right now.

So actually, we're all at the same time enjoying this coincidence.

It's true.

We all enjoyed your well-actually voice.

Secondly.

Thanks.

That's why I decided because we kind of start with the assumption that years are arbitrary and different calendars have different, like different countries have different year counting systems.

That's why I was trying to wait it for the number of people who have been looking forward to that number for the longest time.

And so that's why I think it's 2000.

I think that's a very solid understanding.

Even non-mass people just looked at all those zeros and they're like, so many zeros.

That's going to be pretty special.

Yeah.

I'm giving it a ding.

Thank you.

I've actually got a pair of glasses glasses that say ding that I can wear.

Man, we have so many good merch ideas and we don't do anything with them.

Imagine if we had time to do stuff, it would be unstoppable.

Well, if you lived in my year, I've decided the year is 19.99 and we've got loads to go, baby.

All my deadlines have suddenly gone way in the future.

Back dated.

Oh, well done.

Well done.

Thank you.

Congratulations.

I don't want to award Joke of the Year this early,

but it might be backdated.

Next problem was sent in by Adam, who says, Hello from Canada.

Great opening, Adam.

Now, they've enjoyed on Location Matt's recent reports.

I think we all did, let's be honest.

From the field, and Adam thought that on location Matt might be interested to know that, should he ever find himself in the great white north, I assume that's Canada, there is no shortage of big things.

So, to name just a couple that come to mind, there is a giant nickel that's a canadian five cent piece in sudbury there's a giant pison pisonka which is a ukrainian easter egg in vegreville there's a giant oh my goodness

kielbasa some kind of polish sausage in mundere

and there's a giant canada goose that i can pronounce in wawa i don't recognize any of those places i think they are all made-up locations i like we can talk particularly Wawa.

That's so true.

Wawa.

Good point.

Good point.

It's just basically WAWA, which is the opening of the theme song of WA.

Adam's actual question is,

which country has the most unusually big things?

So they're thinking ahead to be, you know, gentler to on location Matt's future travel itinerary.

They're kind of asking where's the highest density density of unusually big things.

And Bec, I believe you looked into this.

Yes, I did.

So, first of all, I'm going to show you something that I recently purchased.

Could you

read to our listeners what I'm holding up?

You've held up a book called Big Things.

Oh, my goodness.

It appears to be from a range called Spotto Books, which I assume are books full of things you can spoto.

And on the front, it's got a picture of the big banana.

It's got a big, maybe a dinosaur, it's hard to say from this resolution.

But it looks like some collection of big things in book form.

So they have listed.

You can tick off.

They've put them in a sort of a vague order.

Can you mark in fruit as you see each one?

Animals.

Great.

And some natural things as well.

They've included Uluru.

Oh.

Which I think is an interesting thing.

That's potentially insensitive.

Yeah.

It's a big rock.

But it's not, it's a one-to-one scale of it.

Like, it's got to be both big in absolute terms and big in scale factor.

And I feel like Uluru fails on the scale factor.

Yeah, because it's not a big version of a big rock.

It is the big rock.

Yeah, it is the big rock.

Now, interestingly, this is not a definitive guide.

I thought it was when I purchased it, and then I realized it's missing quite a few things.

First of all, your big cricket bat is not.

No big cricket bat.

There are the big cricket stumps.

Oh, great.

In Kuda Mundra and New South Wales.

Doesn't it tell you what the scale factor is?

It doesn't.

It doesn't.

It just gives you a little tip.

What kind of a big thing guidebook is this?

I know.

It's very much for the children for car rides.

I will give you that.

Oh.

And it seems to be independently published.

The inside text says, hi, I'm Outback Jess.

I've traveled Australia far and wide, and one thing I still love is seeing is big things.

I've put my favourite big things into this Spotto book.

So I believe all the photos were taken by this person and their friends and family.

So I've kind of got a song.

I've got to send in a photo of the big cricket bat.

I'll submit a photo.

Now this is where we get to the major problem in answering this question because there's no definitive list of big things.

I got conflicting information all across the internet.

Mate, this is a journey on location Matt has already travelled.

If I were to go to Wikipedia and look at lists of big things,

there is an entry

for a list of largest roadside attractions.

Oh, yeah.

It does say it may not represent a worldwide view of the subject.

It essentially asks for people to make amendments.

And it has a list of, you know, areas in Asia, Europe, North America.

Right.

Canada has its own entry, Giants of the Prairies.

Quite a good list there.

Oh, nice.

Australia and New Zealand both have their own entries.

Australia by far has the most listed in a table.

Normally that would be probably it.

But I found loads of other things contradicting it.

Blogs that say that there's between 130 and 250 big things in Australia.

One place that said 130 qualified big things, but then they never said what that meant, that they qualified.

And then I managed to find a research article published in 2022 called Making a Mark, Displays of Regional and National Identity in the Big Things of Australia and Canada.

Amazing.

In an abstract, they've said this article takes a comparative approach to the 1,075 big things in Australia.

What?

And 1,250 in Canada.

Revealing chronological, geographical, and typological trends that highlight the capacity of these structures to represent the surrounding regions.

I suspect they've used a very generous definition of Big Thing because they want to cast the net wide as a cultural study.

Yeah.

And they have mentioned in their notes just how many things they've had to take into account.

All the other publishings on big things, but again, there's no like

central authority on it.

They said some big things in Australia were approved by local government authorities on the stipulation that they be demountable or movable in cyclonic weather.

I did notice in one of the lists of big things that I saw it included the Big Santa Claus, which is in Adelaide.

And that only gets put up at Christmas.

No, I think it's going to be permanent.

So the thing that I noticed, first and foremost, is that there's just no...

There doesn't appear to be anything that is like the central authority on this, except at the moment for on location Matt.

And now, on location back.

What?

On location back, I'm going to throw to you.

Oh my goodness.

Okay.

Hello, Studio Beck and Studio Matt.

It's on location back here at the Big Banana in Coffs Harbour.

Yes, that's right.

It is the first big thing built in Australia.

This thing kicked off the whole phenomenon.

So

do you have any questions, Matt?

I did not know the Big Banana was first.

That's incredible.

I have a question for OnLocation Beck.

All right.

What's your question?

How big is the big banana?

That's a great question, Matt.

And I'm sure Studio Beck will be able to answer that as she has some notes.

Oh.

Oh, so we've thrown straight back to Studio Beck for how big it is.

Okay.

Yes.

Turns out OnLocation Beck

does not have access to the internet and really struggled to find easy access to any actual information.

Have we potentially heard everything we're going to hear from OnLocation Beck?

Can I ask further questions after this one?

I think she's done now.

Okay, excellent work on Location Beck.

She's getting the hang of things, guys.

It's her first day.

Give her a break.

It's the first trip out.

Come on.

Yeah.

Cut on Location Beck some slack, everyone.

That's good reporting.

Yeah, OnLocation Beck has sent me a postcard, though.

I believe every part of that sentence.

I'm very lucky.

Great.

Great, great, great.

The big banana.

Did you know?

And then facts about the big banana.

Great work.

So she thinks

that the postcard would hopefully answer any questions.

So funnily enough, it does say 13 meters long, 5 meters high, and 2.4 meters wide.

That's a big banana.

I would like to know when was it built?

It was opened in 1964, in December 1964.

Oh, wow, that's an old banana.

It is an old banana.

I thought you might also want to know that

but

I have, since researching for this question,

seen evidence to suggest that the Big Scotsman, which is an Adelaide thing, it's very, it's very close to where I grew up.

The Big Scotsman apparently was built a month before the Big Banana.

A month.

Now, normally I would ask why, why a banana?

But I feel like it's in a banana-growing region.

Like

that part of Queensland is famous for growing bananas, so I understand why there's a big banana.

People want to sell more bananas, all that jazz.

So I'm always curious what they made it out of.

And, you know, two-thirds of the time it's fiberglass.

What is the big banana made of?

Primarily ferro concrete.

And then

in the 80s, it received a fiberglass coating.

Oh, there you go.

Yeah.

classic.

The 80s.

But I thought you would really enjoy this.

On location, Beck has also taken some photos and asked me to pass them on.

Great.

Okay, so I've got some photos here.

Amazing.

There are some commemorative teaspoons.

On some graph paper.

On some graph paper.

Assumed cross-section traced around slice of banana.

Was this like in a display case?

Yep.

So is this from when they designed it?

Yeah, can you see in the second photo?

There's a picture of a banana.

That's great.

So they've got like a printed out cross-section of the banana labeling the horizontal center line and then they've got I assume this is only one of several bits of paper they use when designing it the cross-section relative to the central axis of the banana to make sure they could accurately recreate the banana shape at scale.

Yeah.

Oh, and there's a display board.

Well done on location back.

Building the big banana.

It seems that the best way to get the correct shape for the big banana was to obtain the very best banana possible, enlarge it to the desired size.

Gordon Jarrett, an award-winning local banana grower, searched his packing shed and selected the best banana in which he had, which was approximately 11 inches long.

Back in 1964 there were no photocopiers which could reduce and enlarge a drawing or photo.

So the banana was supported on a table in the position desired and a line 0 to 0 was scribed completely around the banana using the surface gauge thus creating a horizontal baseline.

Another straight line was scribed along the top to provide a reference to the plane curve.

So obviously you did some cross sections of the banana.

Sliced up the banana.

Yep.

Did the cross sections.

Enlarged them by six times.

That answers another one of my standard questions.

What's the scale factor?

Six times.

Well, then what happened was they put a flat concrete slab scribed with square lines approximately seven times the spacing of the lines on the design drawing.

So that gives us a scale factor of 42, which gets us up to pretty much 12 meters.

Now the remaining question that we like to ask our on-location representatives is always: would they recommend other people visit said big thing?

So, would on location back?

I don't know if she mentioned this to you on the back of the postcard, would she recommend people visit the big banana?

Look, if you happen to be near Coffs Harbor, and I mean like no more than an hour's drive out, like real close, got it, yeah, yeah.

Um,

I, I, yeah.

It was a good gift shop.

In fact, I did get

a tote bag.

Tote bag.

This is an image from like when it first opened.

It has the word bananas on there.

I don't know why.

It's only one banana.

And it's not even scented.

And the thing is, this is on all, this is the same design for all of, like, you can get t-shirts with this.

Like, at no point did someone say, let's tweak this design.

It's on everything.

And it's such a bad design that I was like, well, I'll get a bag.

Beck, you've got to remember, this is from before photocopiers.

That's right.

This design was actually first sketched out at six times the size.

It was locked in.

You can't change it.

Once you realize you've misaligned it and the word big didn't fit inside the frame, your bag just says bananas.

Bananas.

Yeah.

Someone's like, well, I mean, slap on an S, bananas are really better than just banana.

We'll stick our images of this up on um on various social medias i look i don't really have an answer there's a research paper that suggests there's more in canada but i i so i i i feel like australia has the most but i am biased i think

i'm gonna challenge our listeners right i think

if you live near something that purports to be a big thing and it has it can't just be like oh

you know uh that's a pretty big picture of a pizza well that's a big flag

of a pizza like it has to name itself the big thing like it needs that's its the big thing it has to have the title of it's his name the big or the giant or like you know it is and that's its sole purpose is that it is a big thing we'll ac yep yeah we'll accept world's biggest in some situations too But you know, you can't have like, oh, we serve the world's biggest pizza.

No.

It's not the same.

It needs to be like a big version.

It's a very comically scaled up yeah yeah i'm thinking of like uh world's biggest thermometer which i saw this in america i went and saw it and you're like it's called world's biggest thermometer but it's clearly a comically oversized thermometer so that counts yeah so i think everyone wherever you are if you're near a big thing check out the wikipedia entry for big things in your country is it listed if not maybe it's time to stick it in there Now, Bec, I feel like, for no fault of your own, you've been unable to solve this big problem just due to the quality of the current information available.

And you've taken strides to remedy that.

However, the fact that you sent on location back to the big banana means I have to give on location back a ding for on locationing well done.

Yeah, so a ding to on location back.

I was just passing it and figured I should probably film some

in case something comes in about me.

No,

no, unrelated.

But for everyone else, please do.

Please, let's sort out the Wikipedia entry on this.

Let's get some standards.

Let's get some photos.

We can do it.

And then we'll get the big ding.

And then we'll get the big ding.

And now it's time for any other bandido, which is.

Oh, I thought you were going to go with boggle, but that works too.

Yep.

Boggle is good.

Any other boggle is nice, and it sounds like some sort of curse that you would say instead of a a sweat word.

Boggle.

Boggle.

Boggle off.

Anyway, we heard from

Gunfernerfer,

GNF, NRF.

They have not bought a VAL.

They're saving money there.

Yes, they are.

We were discussing the most listened to piece of music in episode 9-9, I think, 9-9.

And they said they believe the most listened to recorded piece of music, as discussed in episode 99, is without a doubt, Rock and Roll Part 2 by Gary Glitter.

Now, we're not going to talk about Gary Glitter and

how problematic that person is, but now I believe is that the song?

It says sometimes known as the Hay Song.

Is that the one that's in the middle of the nineteen?

I'm playing it right now.

It is.

It is.

Yep, you nailed it.

Anyway, they go on to say this piece of music was everywhere in American professional sports for 25 years in the late 70s, 80s, and 90s.

It was played at nearly every NHL, NBA, NFL and MLB game and at most college and many high school sporting events as well.

Now, I think that's a good point.

I think that's very interesting.

However,

how are we deciding most listened to?

Because let's say it's played at a major sporting event in 10 states every night of the week.

That's 70 plays, right?

Are we just going by the fact that it was played 70 times or are we counting how many people were listening?

Listening to it, yeah, because then you've got to multiply that by thousands, maybe tens of thousands, depending on the

game.

Because then you could argue it's the national anthem of whatever country has the most events where the national anthem is played.

Off the top of my head, I don't think that's going to outweigh plays at people listening at home.

I feel like that's still going to be more significant than sporting arena plays.

But I haven't run any numbers on that.

That's just my instinct.

If people want to join in and comment on that, let us know.

Yeah.

Or discuss it in the Discord.

We have a Discord.

Very active.

And a Reddit.

Next bit of any other boggleness.

Adam got in touch, sliding into our problem posing page with not a solution per se, but a warning.

This is back relating to our discussion about can you make tea in a microwave by just microwaving a mug of cold water to make it a cup of boiling water.

And Adam, and I think a few other people may have chipped this in as well, warned that a microwave can lead to superheating of the water due to a lack of nucleation points around which bubbles can form, which is very dangerous.

Disturbing the water can lead to it instantly and violently boiling, such as adding a tea bag, spoon, or even just moving the mug.

So they wanted to just warn us and everyone else.

So you can both superheat and super freeze water, where Where, if you're very gentle, you can get the temperature of water above the boiling point or below the freezing point and the water hasn't noticed because it needs it needs a little kickstart's the wrong expression.

I mean nucleation points the correct expression.

It needs something to get the ball rolling.

So it's either got start

a little bit of activation energy.

But in this case, when it's freezing, it's akin to it needs somewhere for the the ice crystals to start forming and once they form more crystals form on them and more form on them and the whole thing freezes and boiling it needs a point where the the bubbles like the the the vapor starts becoming gaseous and then bubbling out and then it cascades and it goes nuts so you'll see videos i saw one recently i think it was a vending machine that had accidentally super cooled bottles of water and people took them out and then hit them the whole bottle freezes like

magically at once it's It's very cool.

We will put a link in the show notes to either we can find the one I remember seeing or an equivalent one so you can see some water super freezing in a bottle.

But you need very pure water in a very clean container so there's no little bits of dirt or grit or anything that would cause it to start, which, you know, most of the time there is because we live in a messy reality.

And you need to cool it or heat it very, very gently.

And so if you've got something in a pan or a kettle, it's never going to happen.

But a microwave is the perfect situation to heat water without disturbing it.

So you can end up with superheated water.

You pick the mug up, it all suddenly, like very violently boils at once and erupts out of the mug, and you can get very serious burns because of this.

So Adam is completely correct.

It's the boiling version of this, the superheating is incredibly dangerous.

Please be careful.

Don't just microwave water and grab it out.

And I know I mentioned Discord earlier.

Speaking of of which,

people on Discord have been discussing when a problem squared will roll over.

Have a rollover problem.

Yeah, they've been hard at work.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So we list our episodes as 001 onwards, which means that we have a maximum of 90%.

I thought ahead.

Yeah.

Yeah, you did.

I've seen other podcasts start and get to like 99 and realize they've not left the room to move.

And now ordering things, like sorting things in a spreadsheet, doesn't work properly anymore.

If you've got a design based on putting the number in it, it doesn't work anymore.

So, I was like, look, out of the gates,

three digits.

Let's just be consistent.

Yes.

Though they won't obviously last forever, three digits will get us a long way.

And I didn't,

because we've changed the rate at which these come out as well.

So, so there will be a point in the future where we will hit 999, and then we're in trouble.

So, the word on the Discord with their current estimates of the rate we're producing podcasts is we will run out of

digits on the 23rd of June in the year 2059.

So the question for us, Beck, is will we still be making this podcast in the year 2059?

That is a good 34 years from now.

I'll be about to turn 80.

I'll be 79.

I like to think we are.

I like to think we might be like, you know, a band that was successful and then breaks up, but then keeps getting back together whenever we need more money.

Oh, we spun up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We'll get back together and do another

quick hundred episodes.

And then we're back.

Then we'll have another falling out.

We're back into retirement.

It'll be great.

But that way, I like to think

maybe we're more than a podcast by then.

Oh, what if we're frankly?

We're whatever the new medium is.

I think a problem squared is going to be like a very popular hologram-based content.

Yeah.

Well, here's something I can say with some certainty, Beck.

Neither you nor I are particularly good at planning for a timer.

So I think we're going to be doing this for as long as we need to buy groceries.

We're going to have to keep this going in order to pay our

fees.

And if anyone has opinions of what we should hypothetically do when we run out of digits, there is a thriving discussion on the Discord.

People want to put it in hex, different numbering systems, put a letter on the front.

If you've got an opinion, dive in.

And speaking of people who listen and care about us, this is a segue, isn't it?

We like to thank

three of our supporters chosen at random at the end of every episode.

And on this episode, those Patreon supporters are Vikator

Ver

Stray Ellen.

I stand by that.

That's it.

Final version.

Bank.

There's more.

There's more.

There's more.

Bar

Ma T

G Old.

And finally, I want to thank everyone for listening.

I'd especially like to thank my co-host, someone who I would recommend for players age 2 to 100

and for up to four people.

And I'd like to thank our incredible producer, Lauren Armstrong Carter.

Our producer is like the dice to the board game that is a problem squared, in that she's integral and has sneak eyes.

So, thank you

and to everyone else who makes this podcast possible.

We couldn't do it without you.

Intergalactic battleship B.

Okay.

I4

hit

And

you sunk my battleship.

Oh!

It's gone.

Yeah, it's a sad day.

But before it sunk below the waves, it was able to get one final shot off.

Aimed squarely at F4.

Hit.

No sound of sinking.

Interesting.

Nope.