082 = What Is Lint and Zero Hints

Hello and welcome to A Problem Squared, the podcast which is like the opposite of when a bird flies into a classroom.

Oh.

And I will not be elaborating.

I feel like that's cleared that up nicely.

I would say that's exactly

flying into a classroom.

It's the exact opposite of that.

No, no, I think it's.

What?

Yeah, it causes chaos.

No.

We solve problems, not produce chaos.

I do both.

Anyway, as you may have noticed, this is a podcast of two hosts.

We've got Beck Hill, writer, comedian, performer,

author.

The opposite of the kid at the back of the class saying, hang on, it's just a bird.

We've all seen birds.

Yeah, this is.

We're supposed to be learning here.

Yeah.

Yep.

Yep.

And I'm Matt Pucker, mathematician, YouTuber, etc.

The opposite of the teacher frantically jumping up on a desk,

waving a textbook at the bird.

Yeah, you'd be sitting there like, oh, just leave it.

I found it very funny when I was a teacher to be calmer than the situation required.

Okay, so this has happened to you?

I've not had a bird.

I've had all sorts of ridiculous things happen.

What's the most ridiculous thing that happened when you're a teacher?

The most exciting thing that's ever happened when I was a teacher is if it starts snowing outside.

Yeah, sure.

All the kids get up as one and run to the window.

Yeah, I would do the same.

Yeah.

But I said, what's the most ridiculous thing?

Most ridiculous thing.

Some students went through a phase of finding fake moustaches very funny.

And they had a little competition where they keep trying to hide them in different places on each other's stuff.

Okay.

And wear them.

Like you look up and a bunch of the kids would have fake moustaches on.

But like they just draw them and cut them out of paper.

Yeah, cute.

And it was one of those things where I'm like.

And you taught high schoolers, have you?

These are high schoolers.

Yeah, they were your nines at the time.

And you know what?

Like a lot of things, it was very funny.

Yeah.

But I just pretended I didn't even notice.

It must be really hard because you know if you start acknowledging that that is funny.

Yeah, it's not going to end.

It's not going to end.

And I've lost the high ground if other kids are mucking around in a way that's not as clever or as funny.

Yeah, because they're going to see the difference.

Then you've made a judgment.

Why do they get to mess around with their fake moustaches and we can't stab each other with pencils?

And then you've got to say, look, it's funnier if it's a moustache exactly then they start trying to make like shivs out of moustaches and i mean to their credit one of them managed to stick a fake moustache on my water bottle on my drink bottle and i continued to pretend i hadn't noticed it was there and just drink out of the drink bottle that's great i thought was hysterical which you know that they're like they think it's funny

because they're like he hasn't he notices it yeah yeah great love that had a lot of fun as a teacher i would not be able to last i'd find it far too easy to laugh oh yeah yeah yeah i thought my strategy was always don't let them know I know how funny things are, which amused me, no one.

I'm really bad at keeping quiet when something's funny.

Ah.

Well, you know what's going to be funny?

On this episode.

I'm going to look at the humble tumble dryer lint problem.

I've got a list of reasons why you should start counting at zero, and the list starts at zero.

And we'll have some

any other

blackbirds in the school?

Yeah.

Any other birdness?

Any Any other business we'll have coming up at the end of the episode?

Bec, how are you doing?

I'm good.

How are you?

I'm good.

You know?

Enjoying this halfway through March feeling?

Yes.

At the time that everyone's listening to this,

I'm now in LA.

Oh, you're there already?

I'm there already.

Hello, future me.

Oh, there you are.

Yep.

But at the time of recording, I'm I'm very excited because I was telling you about this.

I have hired a professional organizer.

You have?

You have.

You have told me about this.

Yeah, I was scrolling through Instagram.

Yep.

And instead of tidying.

Instead of tidying, exactly.

And there's a few people that I sort of follow who like tidy for mindfulness or clean for mindfulness.

Oh, like Zen gardening, but...

Yeah.

So there's someone who they go around to people's houses and clean them.

Oh, wow.

And but they like film the process and it's very very satisfying.

Yeah.

And clean doing deep cleans of everything and again very satisfying to watch.

Now, I don't need a deep clean.

I'm relatively hygienic and stuff.

Yeah.

But it's sort of organized chaos, but it's getting a bit more chaos than organized.

Yeah, I know that feeling.

Yeah.

And so I was like, hang on.

Like you can hire a cleaner.

Yeah.

But surely there's someone who can organize yourself.

It's tidier.

A tidier.

Yeah.

And so I found out there are.

And so I've got a lady coming in on Saturday and Monday.

I'm so excited.

She's going to go through all of my things.

I just, I can't even picture the logistics.

They help with paperwork, man.

They come in.

They help with paperwork.

I just, they sound like some kind of deity.

Like, they're going to come in and be like, right.

And then just sort your

physical life out.

Yeah.

Wow.

And what's really handy is that, because I'm going to be in LA for a month and a half.

And they're going to help me go through my wardrobe.

While they're doing that, I can be like, help me back for LA, please.

What do I want to take to my left?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

I can't wait.

And I'm going to.

You have to report back.

I will report back.

I'll report back if they're any good.

I'll tell folks.

I'm also going to have a Zoom meeting with a producer from America's Got Talent this week.

Because you've got talent.

Apparently.

So you'll be in America.

And you've had Zoom meetings with her.

Both Britain's Got Talent and America's Got Talent have come knocking at various points.

Oh, Britain's Got Talent have come to me many, many times.

Yes.

And actually, America's Got Talent have come a couple of times as well.

And in the past, the timing has not been good.

No.

But now, imagine if we're listening back to this in the future and I've got my own residency in Las Vegas.

Exactly, yes.

I'll be like, it's backfired tremendously.

I forgot everything.

I've got a gambling addiction now.

Be quiet for a second in case we can hear like echoing, like somehow Future Beck is able to.

To warn me.

Yeah.

Or it's just me going, but you had a Zoom meeting and nothing happened from it, Beck.

And now I feel like a fool.

Well, let's find out.

Oh, my tummy just rumbles.

That was Future Beck.

What are they trying to say?

How'd that tummy rumble make you feel?

Like I want to finish eating this biscuit.

Okay, it was Future Beck, but from 30 seconds from now.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

How about you, Matt?

I'm good.

I've been cycling every day.

Yeah, and you've been keeping me updated as well.

This morning...

was ride 83.

Yes.

As of recording.

As of recording.

Again, by the time this comes out.

And I estimate I'm feeling healthier.

I feel like I'm maybe 40% of the way there.

Yeah, you look healthier.

Yeah, I am feeling healthier.

Not as healthy as I want to feel, but I feel like I'm almost halfway healthy.

Yeah.

But I know health can't be gauged by looks alone.

No, exactly.

But I'm feeling halfway there.

Halfway to healthy is roughly what I'm thinking.

Yeah, I'm on the

halfway to healthy.

That's exactly.

Just like that famous song.

And I nearly, I nearly,

I was in London, doing some work in London.

And to be able to keep up my cycling everyday challenge, I would have to go out and use the London city bikes, which we've discussed before.

But then my schedule for the day kind of changed.

Instead of being able to do a leisurely afternoon cycle on a city bike, I was going to have to do it before I even started work.

So I was going to have to get up early and do it very early.

But as you may have noticed, at the moment in England, it's still winter.

Yes.

And I was like, oh, it's so cold.

And I'd brought like cycling-ish stuff,

but I hadn't brought gloves.

And I did it once before where I was like, eh, I'm not out for that long.

Less than an hour.

How cold can my fingers get?

Very cold, very cold.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So cold.

You need to be able to feel that you're gripping the handlebars.

Yeah, exactly.

And it's not that bad because, you know, it's not like I'm doing a multi-hour ride or I'm going somewhere or anything.

Like, I get back in, you warm up while you're cycling, but still,

it's not comfortable.

But I was like, oh, I still want to do the ride.

I want to be comfy.

So realized i had some spare pairs of socks i really like so you've made some mittens

well okay so i put a sock on each hand

and i discovered five reasons why that was a bad idea yeah because your thumb needs to go the opposite way around the handle that's one of them yeah well done well done you got rid of your prehensile thumb doesn't go around the handle

and i thought i'd be fine just doing like like a sloth like no you need opposable thumbs yeah and i tried like getting enough bagginess in the sock to reach around.

Yeah, like a sock puppet.

Yeah, but it wasn't comfy.

Like a sock puppet.

I did a sock puppet.

Your sock puppets were eating your handlebars.

Eating your handlebars.

You should put little giggle eyes.

Yeah.

I should have.

If I had googly eyes, that would have made it.

So that's one of the five.

Another one is when you're putting socks on, your hands.

And I was wearing like, because I had got like this high-viz cycling jacket with long sleeves.

Because it was, you know, it was cold.

And it was wet.

It wasn't raining, but the ground was wet.

Putting the first sock on, easy because you've got a free hand that's not in a sock

put the sock on yep the second the second socks what gets you

really

really struggled couldn't get the second sock on you've just reminded me that when i used to do a double act with tom goodlett another

laundry another awesome laundry it was called awesome

it's for children sorry

i was thinking of a different show when we wrote it we're like this is genius when it came to practice, getting the second sock off.

And it involved a lot of teeth.

I didn't.

I was also trying to shove it, like, I was trying to shove it up the sleeve.

So I ended up taking the first sock off to put the second sock on,

which solved one problem and caused another.

But I figured I'd just get better at it.

Yeah, so I eventually got both socks on.

And then I discovered the second problem, which is when I'm wearing socks on my hands, I can't use my phone.

Oh, yeah.

And I data log all my cycling.

Do you ever use your nose to do socks?

I have.

I definitely.

I gave that a go.

I gave the nose a go.

Too cold.

Oh, right.

Oh, for some reason, that wasn't responding.

So I had to de-sock one hand.

By now I'm getting real good at putting it back on, though.

Yep.

Set the timer going.

Uh-huh.

And then put the phone in my pocket and then put the other sock back on and get cycling.

Yep.

Now, the last two are pretty much the same thing.

Shoelaces.

Not shoelaces.

They stayed done up.

Thank good.

I double-knotted them and I tucked them under the other laces.

You could be arguing this is the same thing.

I think it's two distinct versions.

I figured...

You can't use your bell.

No, I can use the bell.

Gears.

Fine.

Gears were fine.

Gears are handier when the thumbs around because they're like on the city bikes, it's like a throttle.

But you still managed to.

That was all fine.

Okay.

I figured once I had these socks on, it would just look like I'm wearing gloves.

Yeah.

Like I wouldn't look ridiculous.

But they did look more like socks.

No, you should have done put some shoes on.

Space shoes.

But then, then there are two scenarios.

The problem is, partly I was cycling through London streets, and then I was cycling all the way around Hyde Park in London.

And so, partly I forgot I've got to indicate to other cyclists and people my moves, whatever I'm indicating.

I'm just waving

them in the face with a sock.

And then I count this as a separate problem.

Do you know how easy it is to buy gloves?

I did look up glove shops.

It was early in the day.

You don't need a glove shop.

Pretty much every corner store.

There's a good glove outlet.

Yeah, I think that's your problem.

You're looking for a glove specialist.

I was bringing talks at the time.

Service station.

Googling the heart.

Yeah, that's true.

Your nose can only type so quickly.

I can only nose type so quickly.

And then when I'm on the streets, I forget how much I wave at people who wait.

And

so I'm just waving at people.

Yeah.

Socks on my hands.

So.

He socks on his hands and gloves on his toes.

The point is, I've kept up my cycling every day until I'm healthy challenge.

But a great, great personal.

Yeah, but now everyone thinks that you are mentally unhealthy.

First problem was sent in by Stefan.

Stefan went to the problem posing page at a problemsquared.com, entered their problem, which is, well, it just starts with the word lint.

That's their problem.

Stefan's problem is lint.

To quote Stefan, more specifically, the lint that collects in a tumble-dryer filter.

They have many questions.

They've numbered them.

Number zero.

What is lint?

Okay.

Do you know what?

I'm going to start.

Oh, do you want to do it one at a time?

One at a time.

Excellent.

I mean, just so listeners know, there's more.

Yes.

But let's get zero out of the way.

What is lint?

Okay.

So

lint is generally like the little bits of fibers that come off of stuff and collect together.

You can get lint in all sorts of scenarios.

Anything fibrous.

You can get navel lint.

Navel lint.

That's your belly button lint.

So that's when all the little fibers and stuff that your belly button happens to catch.

Or coming off your t-shirt or whatever you may be wearing.

Yep, you can get pocket lint, which is usually when the fibers, basically when the pockets are inside the pockets, rubbing together.

And then

exactly.

And in this scenario, lint is all the little bits of fibers that are sort of coming across and bunching up together

in the tumble dryer.

And they're being caught by the filter.

They're being caught by the filter.

If anyone's thinking, what?

What's a lint?

Huh?

Go look at your tumble dryer if you have one.

Yes.

Or washing machine and check the filter.

Yeah.

And essentially, it's because most textiles are created by

bunching fibres, essentially.

So it starts as lint.

Well, in a sense, yeah.

Think about when you shave a sheep

and you end up with all the wool.

Now, if you had wool from a sheep.

I mean, my dad used to work shaving sheep.

Yeah, exactly.

Shearing, that was the phrase they would use.

Yeah, that's it.

Shearing.

I forgot what it was.

But if you're shearing, you aren't shaving.

You're shearing a sheep.

Yeah.

To shave it.

So you end up, the bitch of wool.

I don't know if anyone listening has had the joy of getting to hold fresh wool that's been shorn off a sheep.

It is, it's lovely.

It's kind of like when you get a haircut, but it's all soft and

dense.

Dense, yeah, especially when it's been washed a bit as well, because sometimes it's a bit dirty.

But it's, yeah, but you can sort of pull it apart the same way that you do with like loose cotton, like cotton balls.

You can sort of pull them apart.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So in a very long bit of wool or yarn, it's not like there's lots of very long fibers.

It's just a bunch of short fibers that are all

fizzled together.

And they, you know, back in the day, they'd use a spinning wheel for that.

Yep.

So you sort of got that.

It's bunching it together.

It's spinning it around.

And it's just becoming, it's sort of becoming bunched up enough.

Yep.

that it's pretty strong.

And the way it's all wrapped around each other, it's how you end up like that.

And if bits of that get worn off again?

Yeah.

Lint.

Because it's made of all tiny little fibers, then some of these fibers become loose, they come off.

Sometimes

they just get damaged and broken.

And so those little bits coming off in the same way that your hair and skin does that as well, you know?

Like life.

Yeah.

What's really interesting is the etymology of the word lint.

Oh.

So it's related to the word linting.

Linting.

Which is the term used for the cultivation of shorter fibers from the cotton plant.

Oh, so it is.

So you'd be linting if you were taking all the fibers from the cotton plant and then manufacturing it into cotton.

So it is going back to its original state.

Yeah.

It's returning to its state.

Which does bring us to question one,

the second question.

Yes.

Says, Stefan, if one were to keep a piece of clothing in the tumble dryer, so I assume with it running, would there eventually be nothing left of it?

So would it entirely turn back to lint?

And as an example, they say, how long would that take for the average t-shirt?

Yeah.

What I take from this is, is lint like, you know, like when you buy a new bit of clothing and the dye runs for a while, so you got to wash it carefully.

Yes.

And then that stops happening because all the loose dye has been washed out, or whatever the case is.

So is lint something where after a while you've got all the lint out and now it's just a t-shirt that won't lint anymore?

Or is linting just an inherent property of a cotton t-shirt existing and it will continue linting until the day it dissolves?

Well, the reason that

it occurs is mainly to do with the mechanical part.

The heat does play an element, but it's mainly the fact that it's being tumbled around.

It's the tumble part of the tumble dryer as opposed to the dryer.

Got it.

The dryer doesn't help, but the tumbling part, it's all the friction and everything, ends up meaning that the little bits are getting caught on each other.

It's all, yeah, like if you were to rub two pieces of fabric together for long enough, eventually they're going to worn down.

So in theory, you could keep tumble-drying something until it lints a hole in itself.

Yeah, until it's just lint.

The problem with trying to solve this question is that most of the time, the stitches that hold together the panels of a t-shirt come apart first, or holes appear in the fabric first,

and then the t-shirt's gone.

Like, people, people chuck it out, you know, and it becomes a rat.

If you had a, if you put it in there and you didn't let it out, you just ran the tumble drying

around the clock and you keep cleaning the filter as you should.

Well, you'd probably also want to make sure that, you know, that's the other thing, is that it can lead to fires and stuff like that.

So and I don't know if you can over-dry a t-shirt.

It's so dry.

I tried to, I really wanted to answer this.

I thought it was really interesting.

And I love this as a question.

But the only way I could physically answer it is if I...

tried to tumble dry a t-shirt as many times an average t-shirt for as long as possible until it disappeared and the issue with that is that I do not own a tumble dryer so good point.

Would you agree that it feels likely if you had the time, effort, and tumble dryer, you could get a t-shirt and systematically tumble dryer into dust?

Yeah.

Okay.

I don't know how long that would take.

No.

But because

when I tried to research it, I couldn't find anyone who'd gotten to that stage.

Because as soon as the t-shirt either fell apart or got holes in it, it gets turned into a rag, chuck it, whatever.

No commitment.

Yeah.

What I'm saying is if any

look, if I can get access to a tumble dryer and a lot of time and probably a fire department on hand, I would make that as a video.

I've been for a long time.

But I mean, I'm going to

give money.

Yeah.

I did find some research that suggested like certain towels and stuff.

They'd said that they'd tested that.

And after 20 washes,

quite often a towel has lost 50% of its sort of strength from the, yeah, a lot of link comes off in it.

Because obviously the texture of a towel is

designed to catch things.

So it sort of rubs up against itself and everything.

that's why you shouldn't wash towels question two do all clothes and various materials create lent and if they do or if they don't i guess follow-on question which are worse are some worse than others and they suspect a shot in the dark stefan thinks denim probably doesn't lint much i don't know

yeah denim actually does lint quite a bit it's cotton right denim yeah and um do you know what i will come i'll swing back around to this in an answer that's going to come up.

But yeah, denim does actually create a fair bit of lint.

Just think about the pockets in your jeans and how much lint you tend to end up with those or how much lint you end up in your belly button when you wear jeans.

But yes, basically everything, everything made of fibers has lint.

Lint created lint.

Yeah.

But I did find on UtopiaCleanersBoston.com.

Oh, yeah.

They call...

these clothes lint producers.

Oh.

It's called LPs.

And lint producers, more specifically, are ones that create so much lint that it tends to stick to the rest of your laundry.

So the culprits.

Link gives, not lint takers.

That's right.

And there are lint takers as well.

I'll get to that.

The culprits of producing lint are fleece sweatsuits.

Yep, yep.

Chenille items, new terry cloth towels.

Again, there's a towels.

And flannel pajamas.

Yeah.

Be creative lint.

Then look for lint attractors.

That's your...

Lint takers.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lint attractors are things like corduroy, synthetic blends, and dark fabric.

So they they tend to.

Take in the lint.

Yeah, I would argue that dark fabric doesn't necessarily take more lint than others, but

it's more obvious.

They said to prevent lint.

Now, this isn't preventing lint from occurring.

It's still going to show up in your filter.

Yeah.

But to prevent it getting onto other clothes,

sort lint attractors from lint producers and wash them separately.

That makes sense.

Question three.

What is the point of the filter?

Why not just let the lint fly out the vant?

Why not make it like you know like those candy floss machines?

Yes, just shooting lint out the top of the machine.

Yeah, just wave a stick around and click on it.

Well, that kind of answered the question there.

Because you're going to get lint everywhere.

Yeah, yeah.

Stephanie.

And if you're thinking, oh, but it's so fine, it's just in the air, it doesn't matter.

Inhalation of excessive amounts of lint, as observed in early textile workers, may lead to diseases of the lungs, such as bicinosis.

Lint shed from clothing during the course of wear may also carry bacteria and viruses.

So you kind of don't want that just

going off into the air.

And that's actually for the same reason that lint can present a danger during surgery.

Oh.

That's why they're going to wear all the scrubs.

You don't want lint in the wound.

Yeah, you don't want anything carrying microorganisms or anything like that.

Don't be breathing that.

No.

And stuff that goes in your lungs stays in your lungs.

This was something I only recently was told.

And it has changed everything.

So I'm one of those people where it's like, work in a well-ventilated area or wear a mask while doing this.

And I'm like, nah, it's fine.

It's fine.

I'll get a bit of a headache.

It'll be fine.

And now I'm like, oh no.

All those things I was breathing.

That's why, obviously, that's why asbestos is so bad.

Yeah.

It all stays in there.

Stays in there.

So, yeah,

that's why there's a lint filter.

Lint filter.

Yeah.

You can also get mechanical problems.

You can get mechanical problems.

Yeah.

So the lint that goes into the air, it's like fine fibers and stuff.

That can get stuck in mechanical devices.

Got it.

And so then you end up with, you you know, collecting in other places.

Why is my hipster coffee grinder not working very well?

Full of lint.

Full of lint.

Yeah.

Or it could cause a, worse, could cause a fire if it's, if enough of it gets clogged up in something it shouldn't be.

Yeah.

So, yeah, lint filters, very important.

Question four.

And Beck, I feel like we've hit peak back here.

Is there anything I could do with the lint to recycle it?

Yes.

Good.

You can compost lint.

Oh, you can compost lint.

Yeah, now, a lot of the stuff that we wear today is made of synthetics.

Oh, yeah.

So some of that might not compost.

Right.

But cotton lint or anything that's come from sort of

plastic.

Natural

natural things, you can compost.

Lint makes very good tinder.

So if you're trying to start a fire, you can use lint.

Again, be careful.

Because you don't want to burn any synthetic stuff that's...

Well, not just that it's flammable.

That's a point of tinder.

But you want to make sure that

you're not burning anything that then's going to put stuff in the air

chemicals and stuff.

You can't burn synthetic lint.

I know we talked about how it can be an issue with surgery.

But clean lint,

often used.

Clint.

Clint.

There you go.

Clint.

Was used as a form of wound treatment for cuts

as early as 1500 BC.

That's a long time ago.

Yep.

And as recently as the American Civil War.

That's also a long time ago.

That spans 3,000 years.

Yeah, that's a long time.

And that sort of lint was called Sharpie or Charpie.

Charpie.

I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right, but yeah.

Can you sell out the lint and make a smaller version of the original item of clothing?

Like make a tiny t-shirt out of your t-shirt lint.

Yes, technically you could.

Maybe not,

maybe not an amazing version

of what you had, but what you could spin it.

You could spin it in the same way that you do with fleece.

Back into thread.

Yeah.

Now it's not going to be a nice thread.

Not necessarily going to be a smooth thread.

It's probably going to be more like a lumpy wool.

But you could, in theory, turn that into some form of yarn and then remake something from it.

T-Mail, the t-shirt service

that I've used for our problem squared stuff and some of my SoundUp Mass merch,

you can basically recycle your cotton t-shirts by sending them back.

And I guess they lintify and re-re-cottonate.

Yeah,

I never looked into that.

But that's, do you know what?

I feel like that's

with my propensity to deep dive further than necessary.

Yeah, I'm going to leave this to the listeners.

Yeah, let us know, everyone.

Yeah.

Up next, question five.

Stefan has been led to believe that running a tumble dryer is expensive, especially compared to just hanging clothes up.

Because if you've got the space, you can hang stuff up and it will dry itself.

As someone who lives in a tiny flat, you can also do that if you don't have space.

That's very true.

We don't have space for a tumble dryer.

We do have space for a clotheshorse that you can move around.

So let's say they invest in a tumble dryer.

Can they then recover the lint and make some money on the side?

Who would buy it?

Ah, I can see this is similar to what we were saying a second ago.

Yeah, so

felting is another thing, making felt animals and things like that.

Sell them, yeah.

And there's a lot of people that demonstrate how to make things from lint online.

Okay, yeah, so there's loads of stuff out there.

If you're like, oh, what to do with leftover lint?

Yeah, there's loads.

But I wanted to find examples of people selling stuff made from lint.

It's the important step.

So I found it yarnyarn.co.uk.

Right.

Specifically, sell Recycled denim fibers left over from manufacturing.

Oh, and they're just selling the fibers.

They're literally selling.

They're selling the lint.

Yeah, for £10.

£10 for

what kind of massive lint are you getting there?

50 gram bag.

Wow, that's expensive.

10 pounds for 50 grams.

The copy says recycled denim fibers have been reclaimed from denim manufacturing in India.

Beautiful, ethical fibers, eco-friendly craft supplies.

They're making bank.

Yes, that's a resounding yes yeah i mean it looks much nicer than the lint that you get in the tumbled rack oh yeah but if you sold it for like five quid 50 grams

just put a real eco spin on it call it a craft supply yeah potentially you could sell your lint i think you'd be hard-pressed to find buyers i don't know how many

how many things yarn yarn make manages to sell good point good point but it's one thing to advertise it for sale it's another thing to sell it yeah but there you go technically potentially people out there might want to buy your lint.

They've then got, I don't know why this is 5.5, but they've decided to mix up the numbering system.

They want to know what's more expensive.

This is nothing to do with lint.

They just got a sub-question.

What's more expensive, running the tumble dryer for an hour or just hanging your clothes out and using a dehumidifier for 24 hours?

Wow.

They're just asking you to do some.

Yeah, this is a separate problem.

Oh, separate problem.

But you know what I'm like?

I know.

You lure back in with the lint.

What can you make from it?

Ooh, can you sell it?

And then you're like, oh, by the way, work up my power bell for two different options, please.

Yeah, so I did.

Oh, of course.

So what's the result?

Well, luckily, Curry's, the electrical

supplier of the UK,

on their website.

They actually have this question.

Is it cheaper to use a dehumidifier than a tumble dryer?

Oh, there you go.

They're doing the work.

Yeah.

Looks like, imagine what you could have found if you just googled Stefan.

Stefan.

That is your real name.

Curry says, if you're drying your clothes, it's definitely cheaper to use a dehumidifier instead of a tumble dryer.

Your average desiccant dehumidifier set to laundry mode uses about 650 watts whereas a tumble dryer you'll be looking at a whopping 4,000 watts.

While it might be slower it's easily the more cost-effective method.

Now

I will say that Curries have based this not on running the dehumidifier for 24 hours but as someone who does not have a tumble dryer and uses a dehumidifier

with a clothes horse

We never have it on for 24 hours.

That's ridiculous.

It's too long.

So I don't think you would ever reach that point.

I did calculate what it would cost for an average dehumidifier for 24 hours versus a tumble dryer running for an hour, and it worked out to about the same on average.

I think it was about a pound 20

per load of laundry.

Oh, okay.

Oh, there you go.

Yeah, but you wouldn't need the dehumidifier for 24 hours.

No.

Did not think we were going to get some consumer advice in the middle of this lint chat.

Final, final section of the problem, number six.

Stefan wants to know if they are thinking about this too much or have they not thought about it enough?

Are there more questions they should be asking?

So they're ending on a meta question.

Three questions.

Yeah.

So I'm going to say

if you are thinking about this too much,

correct.

No, the problem isn't that you haven't thought about it enough.

No, you've ticked that box.

Or you have thought about it enough, but you've stopped there.

You've stopped short of Googling and gotten the extra step of sending all these questions to someone else to do.

And you know what?

I appreciate it because I actually really enjoy it.

Thank you.

People think things up themselves.

We'll be out of a podcast.

We would, yeah, actually.

I'm making fun of you, but I really, I mean, there were a lot of problems to choose from.

And I was like, ooh, Lint.

Yeah.

That's a t-shirt there.

Ooh, Lint.

And then we will make that t-shirt, ooh, lint, and then we'll see how many times we have to tumble it.

Yeah.

Are there more questions I should be asking?

Look, Stefan, I think it's going to get to a stage where you're asking further and further questions away from lint.

Let's stick to the subject.

Six to of Lent.

Wow.

I mean,

I feel like you've solved all these problems in great detail.

Thank you.

Even the ones that were the Trojan problems.

Seven and a half if you count the zero.

Yes, which I do.

So I'm going to give you

an upcycled ding.

It's a ding left over from the manufacturing process of the previous episode.

Oh, thank you.

I think we could sell that for about 100, yeah.

It's a crafting supply.

Ding.

There you are.

Thanks, Matt.

Good job.

And thanks, Stefan.

I genuinely enjoyed looking into this.

This next problem comes from Thomas to the problem posing page.

And Thomas says, my cousin and I disagree on zero.

Oh, they agree on everything.

Yeah.

First off...

Should we say zeroth off?

Zeroth off.

She disagrees that starting a list at zero is a good idea.

Oh, what?

And also disagrees that you can count zero of something, such as the age of newborns or the number of coconuts in my pantry.

How can I win this argument?

Oh, wow, that got personal.

It's not which is better.

No, just how to.

How do I win?

I want to win this.

I'm right.

How do I win?

Yeah.

So, Matt.

Yeah.

A problem.

Dear to my heart.

Now, I can't tell if our previous problem poser, Stefan,

started their enumerated list at zero because they believe starting at zero is a great idea.

Yeah.

Or I do that and they're making fun of me.

It could be either.

Yeah.

But they did.

They started at zero.

And I famously like counting from zero.

So I have been using zero for a long time.

It took me a lot of emails.

When my first book was published, I really wanted to start on page zero.

Oh no, yeah, the publishing industry doesn't have to be.

They do not like weird channels.

No, they do not.

I tell a lot of stories where it's like me and my eternally frustrated publishers, but they are probably the most flexible and the most wonderful publishers I could have.

Yeah.

The crew at Alan Lane at Penguin Random House are absolute legends.

Yeah.

And they tolerate a surprising percentage of my ridiculous ideas.

Yes.

My next book, I did not think I would be allowed to do this.

Instead of page numbers, have I told you this?

No.

Instead of page numbers, each page has the sine of the page number where an angle in degrees.

So the page numbers start at 0.000000,

and then they gradually go up for the first quarter of a book until they get to 1.

And then they gradually come down to 0.

And then down to negative 1, and then back up.

They do a sine wave.

They go up to 1 and then down to negative 1 and then back up to 0.

And that equals a triangle.

It's a trigonomic function of

so they can have you can have two pages of the same yes number yeah and in the index it's like you look up a word and it's like that's on page negative zero and you're going to work out which one

yeah but importantly that is a problem with not a problem with but that's part of using trigonomic functions like sign is that they're many you get many different they're many to one you can put in different angles and get the same sign value yeah and i like ridiculous things in my books which give you the same sensation or the same situation as stuff I'm talking about in the book.

And so the fact that people can live the emotional experience of realizing a sign of an angle does not uniquely define the angle because it doesn't uniquely define what page something's on, I find deeply pleasing because you're experiencing the sign function and its drawbacks by using the index in my book.

I technically have a zeroth page.

I mentioned this in a previous episode.

I talk about the this page is the first and also a last the last which is a flip chart that I do but at the opening page

yeah it always comes back to that page which means that sorry if you can hear that there is a dog drinking loudly water very loudly now to us

but the um it does sound like I'm in the bathroom

I really needed a wee she's so loud give her a second Sometimes it feels like she's sarcastically drinking water.

Yeah

and she's just loudly dribbling everywhere.

Wow now the clock's ticking before 14 years oi.

Yeah, so the flip chart goes right back to the last page

that it ends on, which technically means that I think that it's a zeroth page.

Yeah, yeah.

I will, I will, I mean, I'll happily say it's the zeroth page.

It also means because the whole thing's a poem, and normally you do a poem in like rhyming couplets.

Yep.

And it does work as rhyming couplets, but the last line is the same as the first one.

First line, right.

So there's a technical number of

fun.

Very fun.

third reason.

It's fun.

To be fair, I do it mostly because it's fun.

So the third reason is a big one.

The other two reasons, the one that's probably less important is we,

in programming and computer science, you use zero all the time.

If you're going to index a list, you start from zero.

It's always the zeroth element in your list.

If people...

Remember last episode, the Pi, Pi Day episode?

Yep.

I talked about throwing together some terrible Python code.

And that was done by comparing consecutive strings of digits in pi, see if they're the same.

The way I programmed that was by having the two kind of sets of numbers move their way along pi.

And what I'd do each time is take the zeroth item out of the front list and put it at the back of the other list.

And then take the zeroth item from the back list and chuck it out of the list.

And I had to do everything specifying the zeroth item because in Python, like I think pretty much all programming languages, you start counting, you've got the zeroth item in the list and then you count up one, two, three, four.

Which can get a little confusing.

I'm not saying it's flawless, but

binary numbers or any numbers start at zero because you start with nothing.

Like, you've got zero, like it's there.

You can't say, no, there's no zero because the smallest number you can write down is all zeros.

Yeah.

And particularly back in the day when, like, storage and processing power and all these things were quite limited, why would you waste a whole number in your list?

You can get one more thing in your list for the same length of number you're using for the counting.

Yeah.

And we're always, humans have always squeezed every last bit of processing power out of whatever hardware we have available at the time.

And so, of course, in computing and programming, we use zero because to not use it would be wasteful and less efficient than the maximum we can get out of it.

So counting from zero is always

works.

In terms of computing, it just makes sense because otherwise it's wasteful.

And I then think it's hilarious to take things from the world of computing and programming and mathematics and then infuse them into my everyday life.

Yes.

Because I count from zero a lot.

The useful thing is sometimes things just start at zero.

Like they mention ages.

Well, that was the big one for me because I used to be much like Thomas's cousin.

Yep.

When we started doing this podcast, I was very annoyed

at how you count from zero.

I do.

It's very funny.

And I think I managed to talk.

You wanted to do you wanted to start the the episodes from zero.

Yeah.

But I was like, that is very confusing.

We didn't do it.

But I think we were going to do a trailer and that was going to count as zero.

Oh, maybe.

But for me, the big, the big thing to make me go, oh, yeah, was the realization that you don't turn one until you have been alive for one year.

That is then your first birthday because technically...

Technically, your first birthday is your birthday,

the day that you're born.

But we don't count that because

we're celebrating one year after that point.

Yeah, age.

So you've got to get to that point first.

And so that was kind of the big one that

made a difference for me.

And I think it was you had your joke about, you've talked about this in previous episodes and everything, about the 40th birthday.

Is when you turn 39.

Yes.

Yeah.

Because you've already had your...

Your first birthday when you turn zero.

Yeah, so when someone turns 39, you can be like.

Happy 40th birthday.

Yeah.

Ah, fence post.

So and it makes sense because it makes it's easier to calculate ages like time between two things.

If you use zero, it makes sense.

But like there's no zeroth year.

So if you go back in time in our common era, you get back to one

CE, and the year before that is one BCE.

So we go straight from one to negative one.

And we have discussed this a couple years back on the podcast about how there's no zero year.

And that causes problems if you're trying to work out the time between two dates yeah because you're missing zero you need zero yeah so sometimes you just and you're going from 1500 bc to the american civil war exactly you'd be off by one yeah classic and a friend of mine jim

you said that like you were making up a name i know it was because you were trying

you were thinking for a second i want to go to this certain james prop was getting out a mobile phone, a cell phone, they're American, contract for one of their kids.

And they had like a, you can cancel this within two weeks policy

and so they they took the phone out let's say on a Monday and the kid had it for a while and it wasn't working out they were going to go with a different provider or something and so Jim walked back into the place where they got it like on the Monday two weeks later so they got it like at 5 p.m.

on Monday

two weeks later he goes in first thing in the morning and says I want to return this phone within the first two weeks And they're like, no, you're currently on day 15 of your contract.

You passed two weeks.

And he's like, no, but it's literally been less than two weeks since I left the store with the phone because I left Monday afternoon, two weeks ago, and I'm back now Monday morning.

But they started counting with one.

I would also argue that they started counting on the day rather than on the time.

Yes, yeah, yeah, it's a good point.

Yeah, but because there's this, okay, in the case of the phone contract, fair enough.

But some

states in the U.S.

do or don't, I'm a little hazy on this, but they have to specify when they're doing things like this for like anything legal.

Competitions and stuff.

Competitions, bail,

look at any terms and conditions for a competition these days, and it will say something like entries will close at

0000

or like 00001 or whatever on

PST Pacific Standard Time or something.

But even if it's like you've got

10 days to make bail or something, they've got to specify, do they start on day one or day zero?

And it is explicitly spelled out in some legal systems.

They will say all legal whatever's start on zero or something like that.

So that's my second reason, is because when it comes to keeping track of, in this case, we're talking about time, other situations,

you need that zeroth

day.

Otherwise, like ages, you start counting too soon.

And particularly if you're going to straddle the positive, negative ends of a spectrum, you're going to mess up in the middle without having zeroth.

I mean, I suppose suppose the argument is you could say, well, you should say that when you're born, it's your first birthday, and then the rest of the year you are in your first year of life, and then you enter your second year of life.

So you could argue the other direction.

You could take, as someone who always enjoyed debating,

oh, yeah, which is why they're phrased as an argument, because you can argue these things both ways.

Yeah, if Thomas's cousin is listening, that's your argument.

That is your argument is actually, yes.

What is age?

You're right.

It should be wrong.

But that was the big one for me.

And I do agree with that.

You can count zero or something.

Like, I have zero

cookies right now because I ate one.

I have a lot of zero things to give.

Yes.

Yeah.

You can definitely have zero of things.

Yes.

And mathematically, just in terms of the way we write and manipulate numbers, you need to be able to have zero of something for numbers to make sense.

I mean, you can do it.

I mean, the Romans didn't really have zero.

They made it work, but it's chaos.

Having a zero in your numbering system and zero of things as like a legitimate number as perfectly valid as any other number is super useful.

So most numbering systems that we use now originate from the Middle East, don't they?

Yeah.

Did they have zero?

Yes.

Wow.

And that was a big, big technological breakthrough.

Yeah.

So...

So we have Hindu-Arabic numbers.

So how do they win the argument, Matt?

Well,

I think when they, like all good arguments, they should enumerate their points.

And they should start numbering the points in their argument from zero.

Say zeroth of all.

Yeah.

And then just do everything in one big point.

Yeah, I think for Thomas to win the argument, you're going to have to do everything starting on zero all the time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Nothing gets people onto your side like winding them up and being annoying about it.

Yeah.

I mean, that was my policy, and here we are.

All counting from zero.

Yeah.

And puns, like, you've got, there's nothing wrong with zero or that kind of, you know.

Yeah.

I'm not going to lie, I don't, I don't think you've solved this problem.

If anything, I'm starting to go, actually, I'm starting to go, yeah, why did I give in to the whole zero thing?

I'm doing my own good work.

Yeah, I've started to argue my way out of it.

Maybe the real solution is start a podcast with your cousin.

Yeah, then wear them down over time.

Yeah, that's it.

Eventually, they'll just get to a point where they accept that that's your thing.

Yeah, and they're like, fine.

Yeah.

And then, do you know what I think the other thing was?

Is that it's not something that I used to do, but I would do it as a, because I know you like it.

I would sort of be like, a zero thing.

I'm doing that thing.

I'm doing the zero thing.

The ridiculous thing you do.

As Stefan did, you know, starting starting from zero.

And eventually it does fall into a habit.

And then I'm like, oh, crap,

now I'm starting at zero.

Yeah, there you go.

Anyway, this is the 82nd episode.

No, sorry, because it exists.

Well, it will be once we finish it.

We will have done 82.

Right now, we're on 81.

We're in the 81 point something

episodes down.

Could you you do it by cake?

That's how you win all your arguments.

You've got one cake.

Yep.

And as soon as you start...

Like, if you take a slice out of that cake,

it's not a whole cake anymore.

You don't have one cake.

You've got

most of a cake.

Most of a cake.

So how do you count that?

You can have fractions of your cake and eat it too.

Yeah.

And you know what?

It starts with a zero point.

Yeah.

What is a donut if not a zero?

You can't.

It's It's because you can't.

Because

by your cousin's...

Drink a Coke zero.

By your cousin's argument, one slice of cake

is a cake, is one cake, is a whole cake.

Because they don't believe in zero.

I'd like to say that I do not endorse this current argument.

I'm saying, Thomas, tell your cousin they can have one cake.

one whole cake.

And if you give them a slice and they go, you said a whole cake, say, well, by your reasoning, it should start at one.

I don't think they're arguing that fractions don't exist.

Technically, they are.

I know.

You can't write a fraction without getting rid of the one at the beginning.

It's a zero point something.

I'm trying to help you, Matt.

Can we cut this bit so I don't get a lot of emails?

No, they can direct them at me.

Please do.

I'm arguing as the sort of person who thinks the way that Thomas's cousin does.

And if Thomas's cousin wants an entire whole cake,

they're going to have to admit that once you go less than a whole cake, it is no longer one.

Okay.

I'm going to leave this one, and I know I'm the one doing it, so this is not my call.

Undinged.

Yeah, fair.

Until we hear back from Thomas.

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

About what arguments they did or did not try and what worked.

Yeah, all right.

Or from Thomas's cousin.

Feel free to get in touch with us directly if you're listening to this.

Get your cousin to listen to this and then support us on Patreon.

Wow.

Go to a problem-posing page, our interactive page at a problemsquared.com if you're Thomas's cousin.

And give us your thoughts.

And now it's time for any other business, which is the exact opposite of any other birdness.

Yes.

Okay, Beck,

we've got some business in from the listeners.

Yeah.

Valdemar on Reddit replied to the subreddit for episode 80, naming cliches and squaring birthdays.

Yep.

The subreddit is for the whole podcast.

We don't have one per episode, just in case people.

No, we do.

We have

threads for each episode.

Oh, yeah, yeah, but within the subreddit.

Sure.

I don't know.

I don't know what these terms are.

People know what I mean.

There's a Reddit thing.

Valdemar wanted to point out, no, not all roads run to a Rome or Roma.

I grew up on a small island that has roads, but no Roma or Roma on it anywhere to be found, as far as I know.

Ah, I'm afraid they are a rounding error.

Not statistically significant, sad.

Sorry, Valdimar.

Yes, sorry.

I mean, where you grew up is perfectly valid.

I'm sure they're wonderful roads.

But yeah.

Nah.

For some rounded-up definition of all.

I'm afraid you fall under my zeros.

Fine, fine, fine.

Effectively, all roads lead to Rome and or Aroma.

Speaking of roads leading...

And it turns out all any other businesses do lead to the problem about roads leading to Rome because someone whose name is just typhoid fever says they were listening to episode 76 about the Road Rome situation.

And while they were listening to it, I guess they were in a car or some kind of moving vehicle, they drove past Beck Hill Road in northwestern Montana.

Wow.

A Beck Hill Road.

Yeah.

I did not know that.

It is Beckhill with a K, but like B E C K, but I'll take it.

I'll take it.

There is a Matthew Parker stream.

I know that.

That's discussing.

I'll put the sign up.

Unfortunately, says Typhoid Fever, they did not have enough time to drive down it.

Ah, that's a lack of dedication.

Oh, to find out if it does indeed lead to a Rome.

Belong to the home.

I mean, that's too much dedication.

Yeah, no, I appreciate that, though.

And if you do manage to find that sign not connecting to the pole,

by any means, you know, hold on to it for me.

And if anyone knows if there is a Beckhill Road with no K in it, let us know.

Yeah, that'd be pretty special.

Brianna got in touch to say, in regards to the square root party question from episode 80, I have a suggestion for food.

I would lean into the root part of square root.

So I have root beer, which I think was one of your suggestions, Matt.

Good suggestion.

And maybe carrot and or ginger cake.

There you go.

And have some square-shaped French fries.

Radishes and parsnips, I mean square-shaped French fries, I don't think that's a thing.

Well, I guess potatoes are a root

vegetable.

Yeah, I guess more like a square-shaped.

Make them square, make them cute.

Like potato cake.

That's what I I like.

Oh, okay.

Or potato waffle.

I'll accept that.

That's a square.

Radishes and parsnips might be found easily depending on time or year and country.

You could even go

on a root tasting and try new and unusual to you root foods as an added bonus.

The problem poser mentioned that their wife likes horses.

Yep.

Horses like carrots.

So

could come around full sale.

I wanted to add my own any other business to this.

Oh, really?

Because I had a realization this episode is coming out mere days before Easter.

Oh, yes, it is.

This will be the 31st of March.

Early Easter.

Early Easter.

And you know what that means.

Soon, there's going to be an abundance of Easter egg chocolate.

Oh, yes.

The best of all the chocolates.

Which is a prominent ingredient in a problem squares.

Yes, man, I've forgotten about a problem squares.

Because we had an episode of

Article on Request about, yes, if we could invent our own candy bars, I invented one.

I guess you did.

Proof proof by baking.

Which involved, I think it used every letter of the word problem.

Yes.

Because it was a problem and then square.

Yeah.

Because they're in square shape.

So,

you know,

if your wife's birthday is just after Easter,

make some problem squares.

And then you can sort that for your birthday party.

Are you going to make some problem squares, Matt?

I thought about making them again.

I mean, I'll be in the States.

I'll be in LA then, yeah.

But also, I was like,

you know, it was so much

work.

And so unhealthy.

So unhealthy.

And finally, I'm going to mention again periods of my book are happening.

And I'm mentioning it a lot at the beginning because I'm doing a collaboration with a print artist, Paul Catherall, who I love their print work.

They do the South Bank prints.

You know, you know.

You've got that National Theatre one.

Yeah, National Theatre one.

The Rudolphist Architecture Prints.

Amazing.

The artist who does that, we're doing a collaboration on a math shape architecture style print, and that will be the free limited edition covers people get if they pre-order Love Triangle.

I've loved Paul Catherille's work for years, and we got chatting unrelated a little while ago.

And then I pitched this idea of doing a collaboration print.

I love that.

Yeah.

But I haven't seen it yet.

Like, Paul's still working on it.

So

we've had a lot of back and forth, and I'm just kind of waiting to see what happens.

So very excited.

Yeah.

But if you need to be in the first N thousand pre-orders to get one of the three different stuff.

Or 0,000.

If you're in the 0,000, you get the simplex edition.

Yeah.

Pretty special.

At the time of record, we're halfway through the tetrahedron edition being allocated.

And then there's the triangle edition after that, which we'll have a finite number of.

None of that sentence made sense to me.

Ah.

For some people, they're now very excited about getting in on the tetrahedron edition.

Cool.

Yeah.

Normally, I'd asked you to explain, but I'm too tired now.

No, I don't.

Link below.

And that's the end of the podcast.

We'd like to thank everyone for listening.

We'd like to extra thank our Patreon supporters who keep this whole operation up and running.

They keep us in Easter eggs to make a problem squares.

And we pick three names from the Patreon at random.

And I've already spun the spreadsheet and found three people we want to specifically pseudo-name check.

And this time that includes

Thomas Anderson.

You're just saying it in a matrix style.

Yeah, because that's his name, isn't it?

That's very cool.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was trying to say Mr.

Anderson.

Like the agent.

I like it.

But I think his full name is Thomas Anderson, isn't it?

I think so.

Mr.

Anderson.

I know it was Mr.

Anderson, right?

It's definitely Mr.

Anderson.

I think his first name is Thomas.

Well done.

TJ

Dren Ann.

The last one is Maximum H-ness.

Thank you so much to all our patrons, supporters, everyone else who listens and shares this podcast.

I have been Matt Parker.

Why do you sound so bored?

Oh, it's so long.

What a day.

They're the ones listening to it.

Hey, everyone.

If you're still listening,

I mean, cut your losses.

Come on.

Oh, my gosh.

This is the opposite of good hosting.

Joined by Becca Hill, who can do better.

And a huge thanks to our producer, is the opposite of Single Leadership bursting into the room saying, what is this commotion?

Why is there a bird here?

Lauren Armstrong Carter.

It walked on my pillow.

It's my favorite line from Arrested Development.

Okay, Beck, we're getting dangerously close to the number of dice in the jar.

We know it's under 461.

We know it's above 453.

This is excited enough for you.

How many dice are in?

Sorry, I was double-checking that it is Thomas Anderson.

It is.

It is Thomas Anderson.

We've also, as well as Skylab, hanging out in the office, and my wife Lucy has joined us.

Yeah, we're stun casting now.

If you had to guess, professional cameo.

Can you see that bowl, the jar of dice up there?

Yep.

Beck's trying to guess how many dice were in that jar.

One, two, three.

Lucy's now counting them from afar.

She's like, one, two, three.

She's running the numbers.

Do you want to have a guess?

Or I can give you the upper and lower bounds we're currently working to.

No.

No?

Excuse me.

I'm not going to do all that hard work to have someone else step in and take the glory.

120.

Higher.

Okay, back.

Alright.

My guess.

Yep.

400.

Yep.

And 57.

Higher.

Ooh.

Not many left now.

Mm-mm.