074 = Chocolate Powder Fails and Consonant/Vowel Details

Welcome to our problem squared podcast, the only podcast where every sentence has a square number

of words words

all the time.

Most podcasts would plan this out in advance, but not me.

My name is Matt Parker, and I thought it would be funny to do

this live.

Oh no,

I went too far.

I am joined by Beckhill.

Yeah, you're looking so proud with yourself, except

I'm not counting.

People will check

if

I did it correct.

It sounds like I'm holding you hostage.

I just realized I'm actually doing triangle numbers, not square numbers.

So can everyone...

Can everyone pretend I said triangle numbers at the beginning?

If you're a new listener,

I'm so sorry, but that is a really good gauge of what this show is like.

It's accurate.

It's very accurate.

If not successful.

Anyway, on this episode.

I believe in miracles.

By which I mean I'm going to be looking into some hot chocolate.

Ooh.

I'm going to sort out some vowels.

And we'll have some any other business.

Any other

business.

Triangle number.

Triangle number.

Nailed it.

So dumb.

I'm very sorry.

So nerdy.

Such a freaking nerdy.

So, Beck, how have you been?

I'm good.

Actually, speaking of friggin' nerds,

so a couple of episodes ago.

I believe it was episode 072,

you talked about Rubik's Cubes.

I didn't.

I was saying that I like to use them as fidget toys.

Yes.

Because I have a habit of picking at the skin around my fingers

until they bleed.

It's very.

I know.

And it's.

You leave that skin alone.

I know.

I know.

It's really bad.

Like, Gav, my husband, he'll like give me a whack in the arm if he notices me talking it.

Because

it hurts.

Yeah.

Not like a, it's not horrible.

Yeah.

It's just a little like a flick.

It was getting really bad.

And I always try and have something I can fidget with in my pocket.

And I had a gig in worthing.

Of course, my favorite thing about seaside towns in Britain is that there's always an arcade.

Oh, yeah.

And I am a bit of an addict for the penny pushers.

Uh-oh.

This is why I don't go into proper adult casinos because it would be far too easy for me to just lose a bunch of money.

But I like to go and be like, look, I'm going to spend, you know, £5

penny pushes and, you know, just get £5 worth of 2P coins and go nuts.

And I was...

If you make it sound too good, that'll make you a penny pusher.

Yes, that's true.

I don't want to big it up too much.

Don't push the penny pushers.

No.

You're going to lose money on average.

I was there with a fellow Australian, Josh Blank, who had never played a penny pusher before.

Oh, wow.

And he looked at me and just went, this is hitting all the right stimulus.

And I was like, oh, no, I've created a monster.

Sentilizing.

Look, it's a penny.

It closes falling.

It's not going to fall.

Yeah, he was very excited.

Well, we won a bunch of stuff.

But the thing I was most proud of is that not long after we recorded.

Oh, Becca's reaching into a bag.

Oh, I have an apple in here.

Oh, my goodness.

It's a tiny Rubik's Cube.

I've got a little Rubik's Cube on a key ring.

It's the perfect size for my pocket.

Yep.

So I can fiddle with it without a bunch of people.

That's been well fiddled.

Yeah.

So I've been sort of fiddling with it non-stop, but also I did start trying to learn how to solve them.

Ah.

Now, every now and then, I will forget how to do a Rubik's Cube, but that's kind of okay because...

When I did know how to do a Rubik's Cube, I made a bunch of instructions about how to solve a Rubik's Cube.

Were you practicing things, trying to do things, or were you just

twisting?

I was mostly just twisting, but do you know what?

At one point, I was trying to work out if i could get it so that at no point there were two of the same colour next to each other oh that's nice and that and i couldn't every time i do it i look around and there's on one of the faces

there's

i feel like that's technically possible i feel like that can be done but i wouldn't maybe it's just as hard absolute certainty do you accept diagonals or do they have to be on different faces

do i accept diagonals like if two of the same colour are touching diagonally, that's okay.

That's fine.

Okay.

Just that they don't want to change.

Yeah, I think there are even like some patterns you can do that will achieve that technically.

But I think it's a harder challenge to do it freestyle like you're doing.

Yeah, I'm just messing around.

So

that's how you've been.

Yeah, that's how I've been.

That's my catch-up chat is that I've been playing around with a tiny Rubik's cube.

And hopefully, next time we do catch-up chat, I'll be able to show you a complete adjustment.

Do you want to borrow the regular sized one?

No.

No, okay.

Actually, no, I do.

Yeah, I'm going to take the chip.

Okay, you can take the regular sized one.

It's much more fun for me it's way more pleasing to turn i find the little ones or at least the cheap plastic ones frustrating to turn whereas a nice rubik's cube i find it pleasurable and fun to turn in its own right the key ring was hard to start with but i've worn it down without the plastic yeah you know you can buy rubik's cube lubricant

for the people who really like their rubik's cube i'm just saying it's a thing that exists so i've been good yeah

Have you been?

I've been great.

You know what I've been doing again that I, and this is some closure for listeners, and you can correct me because I can't remember how much of this I've mentioned.

I got my new bicycle.

Oh, yes, yeah.

I had a bike.

I talked a lot about a bicycle leading up to the bike being stolen.

Bike got stolen.

Very sad.

Got a new bike.

And I suddenly realized I don't think, because it's the first time in my adult life, actually ever, I think.

I was going to say, bought a new bike, but I think I got a new bike as a kid.

Where basically the first time I bought a real proper bike from like, I went to the bike manufacturer and said, One bike, please.

And then got to choose from a menu all the bits they put on it.

Yeah.

And because they were making the frame, where the frames are made, and then they simple everything on it, they're like, Oh, you can get like a security name or something etched in the top tube of the bike.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

And so they're like, Well, how many, what would you like?

And I'm like, Well, what if I give you a lot of digits?

Could you run the digits of pie?

Don't look at me like that.

It's for your picycle.

Well, for my bicycle, exactly.

It's announced my bicycle.

And originally I was going to put things like Matt's Picycle or something, like a pun.

And then I was like, no, I just want the digits of Pi.

Because then what I'm imagining is, because the point of the security etching is that someone steals the bike.

Like, if someone steals my bike, and I'm like, if you ever look at the top tube, it's got the digits of pie written down the top.

Yeah, you've just given them extra homework to do.

Then they've got to look up what Pi is rather than just look for your name.

Well, unless they try and claim that they're just really into maths as well.

They would have to convince the police they're more into maths than I am.

And that feels like a high bar.

Yeah, you'd have to be.

It turns out that

two brown, one blue.

Yeah, yeah, Grant could steal my bike.

He's stolen your bike.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Then I got nothing.

Yeah, you're right.

Yeah.

To be fair, if someone could improv an argument that they're more into maths than me, I would give give them the bike

as the prize.

Yeah.

But then I was like, actually, you know what?

It's a good point.

What if Grant does steal my bike?

And so I ended up not actually getting the digits of pie etched on the bike.

I got the digits of pie etched on the bike.

But some of them are wrong.

It's ever so, so, it's not actually pie.

So if anyone's like, but I love pie, I can be, well, why is it wrong?

And from about 20 digits in,

there's a patch which is incorrect, and then it's right again.

So you've double-bluffed yourself because now someone's like, you know, I love maths.

I put that on there.

Yeah, exactly.

And then you'd be like, but it's wrong.

And why did you get it wrong?

Oh, you're right.

I don't actually love maths that much.

You're right.

Yeah.

I think that is a terrible idea.

Because if someone tried to sell me a bike

that had Matt Jeremiah.

That'll do.

Yep.

Matt Jeremiah Parker, right?

Yep.

Was etched into the bike.

I'd be like, hang on.

This person I'm buying it from is not Matt Jeremiah Parker.

Ah.

I'm pretty sure this is stolen.

This is stolen.

Yeah.

Okay, that's a good point.

And so then I'd be like, oh.

Either I'd be like, well, this is a stolen bike, or I'd report them and say this person is selling a stolen bike.

Yep.

A number of things.

Or if I found a bike, if I found a bike that had those things about it, I better return this to Matt Jeremiah Parker or try and get in touch with them.

Yep, nope, yep.

If I just put Matt Parker on the bike, I don't know.

I feel like I don't like to put my actual real name on my belongings because I had them around a bunch.

What are you talking about?

You write your name on literally every

name on this.

Every time you have a cup, a plastic cup, you write your name on it.

Do you like jumping Matt onto things?

That's a very good point.

Okay, you're right.

I'm an enigma, Beck.

So, but the compromise I came to is I put pi on the bike with 20 digits that are wrong.

What I did do, though, was make all the digits slightly smaller than they should be in a very strategic pattern.

So, if you subtract the number on my bike

from the real value of pi, it gives you the positions in the alphabet of the letters of Matt Parker.

Yeah, I should have done that with my phone.

I could have a bike by now.

Anyway, there you are.

I just thought that's my little bike update.

Our first

problem was sent in by David.

They went to the problem posing page at problemsquare.com.

They first of all highlighted the fact that they had David from Ottawa.

Oh that David.

That David.

Ottawa David.

There's more than one David.

They have a problem which they've summarized in a single sentence.

How

a lot of people roll their O's.

How do I stop my hot chocolate powder from clumping up?

That is a problem.

Now they give some extra details.

If this was a lab report, this is the method section.

Yes.

I warm up a mug of milk in the microwave, then add the powder and stir with a teaspoon.

Except I usually end up mashing chunks of clumped up powder against the side of the mug to break them up.

It feels like getting a smooth mixture is impractical, maybe impossible using this method.

They wonder if there's a better way.

And while we're on the topic, They're also curious why this happens in the first place.

Shouldn't the powder just dissolve like good powders should?

So, Beck, you've been on the case.

What do you got?

It's hot chocolate season, baby.

And I love me some hot chocolate.

I really do.

And I also sometimes have the problem where you're trying to push it up against the side of the mug with the back of the spoon.

And I too wondered.

So I looked into it.

And there is a scientific reason.

Oh, now, as a hot chocolate heathen, it's always with 100% milk that you're making this hot chocolate.

Well, see, I make it with, I make it the same way I'd make an instant coffee.

Oh, hot water and then a a dash.

Put the powder in, then hot water, then milk.

Yeah.

But I still sometimes end up with clumps.

Apparently it's because cocoa powder or hot chocolate powder.

That's not a good powder.

Well, it's starchy.

Starchy?

And when you hydrate.

That's what I was predicting.

When you hydrate a starch, it expands.

Oh.

Which then condenses the inside, keeping it dry.

Oh, okay.

It forms a protective layer.

Yeah, yeah, essentially.

I just thought it was a hydrophobic powder.

So it just repels water.

No, if you no, if you were like to pull out...

It's the same as like if you add, again,

like water to flour.

If you pull out the flour, it's not gonna magically all become dry.

No, exactly.

Yeah, it's just forming a doughy layer on the outside.

Exactly.

May not be actual dough.

So, David from Ottawa, you are correct.

It is very impractical and potentially impossible using your current method.

So I noticed that I don't have the lumps issue as much since I started using boiling water instead of milk.

And I think that's because I

tend because when I boil milk, I will like I'll heat the milk and then put the stuff in.

With boiling water, you just pour it in straight from the kettle.

Yep.

And I was getting less lumps.

So I looked into it and apparently that is exactly how you get rid of clumps in things.

Oh, hey.

And it's not far from what you were saying about creating a small dough.

So what it says is

only add little bits

at a time, make a paste.

That'll show those clumps.

And so then you can slowly keep adding it and keep adding it.

So I thought we should test this.

In front of us, I have a teapot wrapped in a tea tower.

A teapot of hot milk.

Full of hot milk.

Love it.

So I thought we could try three different types to compare.

So I've gone for some traditional bog standard cocoa powder.

Becca's put out the name of the product is literally just Cocoa by Sainsbury's.

It's less a product and more just an ingredient.

So I've done that.

Then I've gone for the slightly more upscale Cadbury's hot chocolate.

Oof, that would be fun.

And then finally for us,

I've brought a tin of Milo.

Oh my goodness.

Which is a chocolate malt drink in Australia and South Africa and a few other countries.

Yes.

Matt is shaking it because quite often what happens when you get Milo is that it gets the tiniest bit of moisture in there and then it forms

a cement.

So let's make some hot chocolate.

Okay, so Becca's first of all opening up the cocoa by Sangsbury's.

First with the cocoa, traditional cocoa.

So in one mug, you're going to put some cocoa at the bottom.

Yep.

You're going to add hot milk.

And we're going to make a paste.

Yep.

The sound you can hear is milk going everywhere.

I think I've put too much milk in because I'm already getting clumps.

Already getting clumps?

Problem is, is I had very little control over the milk.

Operation Paste has got a lot of milk in it, I will give you that.

But how many lumps?

I don't know, you're right, I think you are lump-free.

There's definitely some variation, but no, no lumps.

Okay, for comparison, what I'm gonna do, I've got a scoop of powder in the second mug.

I'm just gonna try and add it to the milk and stir it at the kind of speed where I think it won't have a chance to clump.

Oh, I got clumps.

These are definitely lumps.

I have to smush these against the side.

Okay, so paste, paste has been more successful than just rapid stirring.

Minimum lumps.

Oh, yeah, that's a

solid cocoa.

There's no sugar.

Now, you're opening the Cadburys.

Yeah, first ingredient is sugar.

There is more sugar than cocoa.

Then cocoa powder.

Then acidity regulator.

Potassium carbonate.

Flavoring.

May contain milk.

Well, we'll do it in a minute.

Cocoa solids, 31% minimum.

Do you think that that means we'll have 31% minimum lumps?

So what?

Instructions, it says, swell three teaspoons of Cadbury drinking chocolate into a mug of hot semi-skimmed milk and stir.

Alternatively, mix the powder with cold semi-skimmed milk.

Oh,

in a microwavable mug and heat in an 800-watt microwave on high for one minute.

Stir the microwave for a further 30 seconds.

Stir before drinking.

We're not going to do that.

No, but we could still do one paste and one full.

May I be team paste this time?

Yes, you can.

So three teaspoons.

That's what you want.

One.

Two.

Three.

Now may I have milk?

You know what?

I'm going to add it so I have no one to blame but myself.

Are you

okay?

I'm adding a very small amount of milk to this.

You know what I think is happening?

I think that by telling us to make a paste, they're just hiding all the smooshing into the stirring.

Like, I think we're still smooshing all the lumps out.

We're just doing it in a more concentrated fashion.

Maybe that's the point.

Maybe it's just a more efficient way to delump.

Okay.

So that's it's not a paste.

It's still pretty liquidy.

But that's what we're up against.

But now I'm sick of stirring it, so I'm going to dilute it out.

While Matt finishes preparing, I'm pouring some milk into my mug.

You know, that is clump-free.

I'm very happy with that.

Two, three.

Oh, oh,

yeah.

I mean, look, look at that.

That's not good.

I've just pulled the spoon out, and it's just like one clump.

It's just covered.

It's more clump than spoon at this point.

I've put my mug next to Beck's for a comparison of a post paste.

Oh, that's...

Ugh.

Can you knock it off?

There you go.

Oh, I just...

There was a central dry packet of hot chocolate powder in there.

You know what, though?

The actual finished product, let's have a wait for it.

There's some small clumps.

There are some small clumps.

But it's not bad.

Now that just could be maybe the sugar is breaking up.

Maybe.

Maybe the sugar dissolves better.

And if the sugar's dissolving and crystal mixed through the cocoa powder, it's leaving behind voids that then break up the clumps.

That's my theory.

Look at that.

That's pretty good.

Yeah, it's the tiny, tiniest of clumps, but I wouldn't say that.

But you did have to do some clump management.

Yeah, there was some solid mixing involved.

Should we

give it a drink?

Oh, that's sweet.

Oh, that's so much sugar.

That's so sweet.

Oh, sweet.

It's more sugar than cocoa.

Oh, it really is.

Here's a game changer.

I've got clumps at the bottom.

Not loads, but clumps at the bottom.

Clumps at the bottom.

That's what they call me.

That was your nickname in high school.

Yeah.

Old clumps at the bottom hill.

It was definitely less clumpy than pure cocoa.

Would that then break up, you know, make it less likely to clump together?

Yep.

But still, it wasn't impervious.

You still had some clump management.

Yeah.

So let's go to the third one.

This is the major test.

So while I take the lid off, I also want to point out that you and I are used to drinking this cold.

Yeah.

But the serving suggestion says put six heaped teaspoons.

Six heaped teaspoons of Milo into a mug.

It says add hot water, but we're doing this for David.

David, cold milk.

Yeah, but David from Ottawa.

David from Ottawa wants

hot milk.

Funnily enough, it says for a milkier choice, try adding milk powder and hot water to your Milo.

I'll do a paste.

Okay, then I'll do lots of liquid.

No, you do a paste.

Okay.

Okay.

Plenty.

I want the listeners at home to know that such a paste, I can pretty much stand the spoon up in it.

Alright, so can you...

Now that's definitely a paste.

Top me all the way up.

And while Matt stirs his paste into that milk, which I mean, he's having to put a lot of work in, I'm just going to pour the milk straight into the microphone mixing.

Oh, we're getting lots of bubblage.

So the paste on the spoon is not coming off and dissolving.

I don't know if that counts as a clump.

It might be a two-spoon operation.

Meanwhile, over on my mug, I'm getting large clumps being released from the the bottom, coming up to the top and sort of, oh wow, it just got a big clump just came on.

It's looking pretty good though.

Other than the paste that stuck to the spoon, that is clump-free.

Not a single clump inside.

Not a clump inside.

And I wasn't able to resist starting to drink it, I'm afraid.

No, that's fine.

Apart from

the paste that stuck to the spoon, that was impeccable beverage assembly.

Yeah, this one has definitely got clumps.

It's already in my teeth.

I'm not complaining.

I like it.

I like the clumps, to be honest.

So what have we learnt, Bec?

Hmm.

I think we've learnt that.

I think the paste has been proven to be the least amount of clumpiness.

Now I'm getting down, though.

There's a lot of paste sticking to the side of the...

Oh, yeah.

So I didn't do a good enough job of removing the paste.

Scraping the sides.

I think the paste is the best option.

You know, unless you're going to get one of those proper hot chocolate machines.

But if you're using instant,

paste seems to be the way to go.

But I also think you're right.

I think making a paste isn't taking the work out.

It's taking the clumps out.

It's just easier to hold them down in the paste so you can get them.

Yeah.

So then you're not having to do it later and you'll have fewer clumps.

I also think it might come down to the ingredients and what you're using in your hot chocolate.

So it might be worth, David from Ottawa, trying different brands, different types.

Yep.

Perhaps if you make it with traditional cocoa powder, put the sugar in with it first and

then create a paste from that.

We've definitely made some hot chocolates today without clumps.

So the answer is

by a blender.

Yeah, yeah, but one that can be hot.

Well, you know what you can do, actually.

Joking aside, if you have a coffee maker with a steam wand, you can use that to make hot chocolate by heating the milk and stirring it with the steam wand at the same time.

Ah.

Now you're going to have a chocolatey steam wand.

Yeah, you're going to want to clean that.

Which you're going to do anyway with milk.

Oh, true.

You know,

always purge your wand.

That's guess who does.

That's the first rule of being a barista.

So there is a better method.

Your current one is impractical.

And I believe that I've answered the question as to why it happens in the first place and why powder doesn't dissolve by itself.

Yeah.

So I think I've answered it.

I'm going to give you a dissolving.

Thank you.

And we will wait for David from Ottawa to report back.

Yeah, by then we might have actually returned from our sugar rushes.

Oh my goodness.

I don't think I've had that much sugar in that short space of time from yeah, you're not a sweet tooth person.

I'm not a sweet toast person.

I can't talk my tongue is slipping into a sugar coma yeah

and I've got half a black coffee left to finish so goodness knows what that's going to taste like now wow well it's a good thing there's still another problem to go yeah oh

that's okay that's been done oh me

this next problem comes from

Unknown oh they did not leave a name well either they didn't want to leave a name or they incorrectly filled in the form.

Possibly.

Yeah.

Maybe they're just a ghost.

That's an option.

A whisper on the wind.

A thought.

A concept.

Some bug in the system.

Or they don't know how to use a Google form.

Yeah.

At the problem posing page at problemsquer.com.

That's right.

And they've said, what makes a vowel a vowel?

Why do we need them?

At least in English, to form a word.

Maybe they haven't given their name because they're an alien or

AI.

They're like, yeah, exactly.

AI going, that is a vowel.

What is love?

Are there any sounds that could function as vowels that we do not use in English?

Can you name a vowel?

Ah.

Okay, and can you name

a different vowel?

I.

Well done.

Now, can you seamlessly

transition from one of the the R vowel to the I vowel?

Oh, it is hard, isn't it?

I.

There you go.

Yeah.

E-A.

Yeah.

Ao.

A-O.

It's actually...

Now, pick two consonants and can you transition between them?

Like an L.

That's just one than the other.

There's no intermediate.

So if you go from like...

Like stand.

St.

Yeah, but you're not gradually turning an S into a T.

Oh, I see.

But you can gradually turn an E into an O.

E.

E.

I see what you're saying.

So, as a very superficial answer to this question.

That's good.

That's good.

You went M to N.

Yeah.

Nicely done.

Thank you.

So,

a very superficial answer.

Vowels, you can transition from one to another.

And consonants, you can so-can't.

You can go from one to the other.

You can't, like, seem to transition.

Wow.

Now,

MNN is interesting, so park that one for a second.

So, it turns out, vowels, if you're into phonetics and pronunciation and these things, there is a vowel space, which is a bit like the color space you'll get in editing software, where you can move a slider around between different colors, because colours vary continuously.

And people look at vowels the same way.

Like a spectrum.

And someone's like a spectrum of vowels.

And I've got here some software that has the full spectrum of vowels.

And I'm going to see if I can make it say something.

Okay.

So here we go.

Oh, that's awesome.

That's like the throat singing that we did in the previous episode.

It's very, very close to that, actually.

Let me try and speed that up a little bit.

Give me one second.

That's very good.

Let me try to make it say, how are you?

One more go.

Ready?

How are you?

Okay.

Yeah.

It's not a million miles away.

I love you.

So I'm going to show you the screen.

So there's the screen.

Here's all your different vowels.

Now they're not using letters the way we would use letters for vowels, they're symbols to represent all the different vowels.

And by starting at one vowel, like here's E,

I can slide E down to A.

Like E.

Yeah.

or i can go up to oo

which is kind of fun that is fun and so you've got the symbols for the different vowels on there and you can slide from one to the other and vowels are understood

well the better definition what i said before it's when your i think maybe your airway is unobstructed

so consonants you're blocking the air getting out.

Vowels, it's just resonance through a straight open pipe.

And very crudely, you can alter the shape of your mouth and you can alter the shape of your throat.

Yeah.

And depending on which one's what size, you get different vowels.

Yeah, and that's also how we get like different tones and stuff, right?

Like when you're whistling, you can get different notes because

you're changing the shape of your throat.

So you're not like control, you're not like stopping the air from getting out.

No.

But you are altering how it resonates.

Yeah.

And you've got two different frequencies.

I forget which is which.

I think like F1 is like the resonance of your mouth, and F2 might be your throat.

And you can alter them relative to each other.

And that's what gives you this two-dimensional space of vowels that I can drag that thing around to pronounce things.

Now, I only know all this because I know nothing about phonetics, but I watch a lot of YouTube.

And there's a great channel called Dr.

Jeff Lindsay.

And I love watching Dr.

Jeff's channel.

and does all sorts of incredible videos about accents, pronunciation, all these things.

And I can't believe

that

the way that words sound can be completely different to how they're written.

So you think it's like you understand what you're reading.

Yeah.

It's totally different.

And it's often vowels.

So in that previous sentence, I used can't and I used can,

but I did not pronounce them anything like can't and can.

Yeah, yeah.

So the bit where I said, and I can't believe,

and actually I didn't even pronounce the T.

There's no T when I said can't.

I said can't.

But our brains just went, that was can't.

And when I said can, I didn't even put a vowel in it.

I just said can.

I can believe that's how it works.

Yeah, it's very British, actually.

Yeah.

Well, obviously, now accents are weird.

And so the way we do different vowels, so I would typically say can't instead of can't.

Yeah.

So accents are all over the place.

But I get so used to thinking about words as being these discrete individual objects and you look at the spelling and that's the word.

I mean having learnt Japanese for a couple of years now and I just started French to help me out while I was overseas, it makes you realize how difficult English is because when you're reading another word in another language and then suddenly what you've learned about how that character or spelling is meant to be pronounced and suddenly it changes for no reason and then you start to realize oh no we do that all the time.

All the time.

time.

English is the worst.

All the time.

There's several subjects that I absorb information via YouTube.

And this is one of them, but that's like my only source of information.

And Dr.

Jeff happened to be at the same YouTuber conference that I was at.

No, that's awesome.

So I walked past him.

I went, hey, you're the phonetics guy.

So we had a good old chat.

And he goes, oh, I'm working on a maths question at the moment.

He's like, would you mind?

He's like, I don't know what the etiquette is.

I'm like, mate, get it out.

Let's have a look at this maths problem.

So we had a look at it.

I went away and looked at it for a little while.

So, I just quickly did a screen grab and voiceover of what I had done, sent it over to him, and he put it in his video, which was a huge amount of fun to be able to look at some of the stats that he was collecting about the way things are pronounced.

And so, when I saw this problem about what is a vowel,

what are they doing in English, and

do we need them?

Or could we use different letters or vowels or sounds instead?

I just emailed him and he sent back a recording.

So

everyone!

That is the correct response.

Put your oohs together

for Dr.

Jeff.

Hi Matt, Jeff Lindsay here.

You asked me what makes a vowel a vowel.

Well vowels are basically sounds, not the letters that people associate with them.

There may be five vowel letters, but English actually has about 15 to 20 vowels depending on the accent.

So what makes them vowels?

Well think about Kermit the frog when he talks.

His mouth opens and closes, that's all it does.

But this movement is so fundamental to speech that we have no trouble believing he's actually talking.

We can say that when his mouth is open and most sound gets out, that's a vowel.

And when his mouth closes and less sound can get out, that's a consonant.

Each cycle of opening and closing, we call a syllable.

Now if you've seen my video on the vowel space, you'll know that true vowels are all similar in kind.

They're a bit like colours.

So that's what I was mentioning before.

Hmm.

So I just totally stole that from one of his videos.

Thanks for stopping to clarify.

Selling me out there, Jeff.

Everyone thought I was really clever until then.

Yeah, so he shows how it's a lot like the color space.

And in fact, he even goes into how it's strictly speaking as a three-dimensional space.

Because if you look at the third dominant frequency down, you can then distinguish vowels that are the same on the first two frequencies that our vocal system can produce.

So super interesting, and we will link to that video below.

In fact, his whole channel is amazing.

Okay, back to the answer.

But consonants vary a lot, and in linguistics, we place them on a sonority hierarchy, with really consonant-y consonants at one end and more vowel-y consonants at the other.

For something really consonant-y, take the T in Matt Parker, which isn't much more than a brief silence.

We know it's there because if it wasn't, your name would be Ma Parker, but its sonority is just about zero.

At the other end of the scale, we have sounds like M and L.

Like vowels, these let the voice out more or less unimpeded.

In M for example, the mouth may be shut, but the sound gets out freely through the nose.

Mmm, Matt Parker.

So that's what you were saying before.

You could do M to N.

Yeah.

But they're at the vowelly end of the consonant spectrum.

Yeah, right.

So, mmm.

You can get from M to N.

This is reminding me of how people tell you to learn a Newcastle accent, which is to say photocopier.

Photocopier.

Also, as an Aussie, I'm saying photocopier.

I'm not really pronouncing the T.

I'm sort of doing a D for

photo.

But with the Newcastle accent for photocopier, they almost don't pronounce any of the vowels.

So it's photocopier.

Like, it's just that.

It's a series of stops.

Yeah, photocopia.

I love the fact about when you say Matt Parker,

there's often there's no T's when people say Matt Parker.

They say say and then a hard stop and then Parker.

And that's, that's the consonant.

It's just, it's just a little bit of, I don't know if that's strictly a glottal stop, but it's just a bit of nothing.

It's similar.

It's, I, when I looked into

misheard lyrics and why our brains mishear them, and I think I'd done some similar stuff for a previous problem on here, can't remember which one, but I spoke to a specialist.

and like an expert and they were saying that when

we talk

we don't put the gaps there.

Our brains put the gaps in.

And the best way to describe that is if you're listening to someone speaking in a different language, it sounds like it's just one long series of sounds.

If you looked at English, like the waveform, yeah, yeah, exactly.

There's no gaps.

We can't see the individual words when we're recording the podcast.

All we can see is waveforms and sort of it being louder and quieter, but you can't tell where the individual words are, except for when we're doing it one word at a time, like

triangular compasses.

Yeah, yeah yeah yeah fine fine fine meanwhile back to Jeff these sonorous vowelly consonants can even make a syllable like the M on the end of rhythm at least the way some people say it or think of the way Americans say hurdle hurdle it's got two syllables but where are the vowels it's really just h r d l hurdle Other languages can go further.

I made a video in Prague where I talk about the river there, the Voltava, where Czech has a syllabic L that's stressed, something English can't do.

Voltava.

Or the Czech city of Brno, written B-R-N-O, which has a stressed trilled R.

R.

Is that a vowel?

Yeah, it depends on your analysis, I guess.

Anyway, I hope that helps.

That was very impressive.

It's like how you rolled your O when you asked, how do I stop my hot chocolate?

I know.

As I was saying it, I was like, Beck doesn't know it at the moment, but this is a setup.

Yeah.

So huge thanks to Jeff.

Do check out their channel.

We'll link to it in the show notes and everywhere else.

Jeff has a lovely voice, by the way.

Jeff is great.

I could listen to Jeff talk about the really good videos.

And there's one about Australians saying no.

Because it's like noise.

Yeah, exactly.

Nah, nah, nah.

It's so good.

And there's one all about the vowel space.

And there's him

in

town.

I'm not going to try and pronounce.

Talking about in Czech, you've got these extra letters that are vows.

So we'll check it out below.

But I think that has answered the problem.

What makes a vowel?

It's the unobstructed airway.

And it's not necessarily the letters that you see.

It's not like there are five letters that are vowels.

No.

There's like 15 to 20 sounds that are vowels.

And you can glide between them.

And there's more or fewer in different languages.

Why do we need them?

Well, we don't.

I got teased because I was an international student before I moved back to Australia from Hong Kong.

Oh, yeah.

And I got my accent teased out of me, but I used to say girl.

Girl.

Instead of girl.

I got made fun of when I was an international student for Encyclopedia, putting an R on the Encyclopedia.

and i'll say encyclopedia

encyclopedia like encypedia

yeah yeah there you go

and finally are there any sounds that could function as vowels we do not use in english yes a lot there are ones between the ones we use that we don't distinguish between actually it's very hard to even notice the difference as a native speaker of one language when a different language has vowels between the ones that we use because we just hear all of them as the one vowel.

Yeah.

And then they subdivide them differently.

And then bring into it things like accents and tones and everything else.

And tones and everything else.

And then on top of this, we've got, as was pointed out in Czech, you can use a type of L as a vowel.

They can use a rolled R as a vowel.

Yeah, I'm fairly certain Welsh will have something as well.

Yeah.

I at least know that double L is like a sound, I think.

Yeah.

Because I have a joke about how whenever I gig in Wales, I'm like, I'm Beck Hill, or as you guys would say, Beck Hill.

Ooh.

Ah.

So there you are.

I think, I mean, I didn't do a lot of the heavy lifting on this one.

Dr.

Jeff did.

But do you know what?

Dr.

Jeff is the right person to do the heavy lifting.

100%.

You save yourself.

My job is just knowing smart people who can answer these questions.

So there you are, anonymous, possibly alien or AI.

That's what makes it happen.

That's how you pronounce AI.

I'm going to give that a ding.

A ding.

Any other business is a triangle number of words already.

As was the whole sentence.

No, thank you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Very good.

You could tell by the spaces.

It feels like starting the episode was so long ago.

It's been a real long day in the studio.

It's been a real rot.

And that sugar, sugar, I think

we're crashing back down.

Okay, okay, we can do this.

What do you got?

So I've got a little update.

Well, sort of an update.

Okay, so in episode 064, A Tetris Education and Candy Bar Formation,

as a little aside, you remember we found out that there was an auction where there was the first Game Boy.

Yeah.

Now, I don't have an update on that, but don't get excited.

Remind me how cheap it was so I can feel sad again.

It was like $1,400

for the first video game ever played in space.

Yeah, yeah.

And for new listeners, we tried to hunt down who bought it and if they're prepared to sell it again.

And the answer was, if they're going to sell it again, it's going to go to auction.

Yeah.

And then the auctioneer will let us know.

But pretty sure it'd be.

I'm pretty sure it's going to be more than $1,400 this time.

And if I was going to sell it, I would not go through the same auctioneer because they only got it for $1,400.

I would take it to a better one.

Yeah, yeah.

But on that auction, we looked at all the other things that had sold.

It was all like space memorabilia stuff.

And there was a book called Apollo Expeditions to the Moon.

I think it was published in 1975 or something.

So that particular book was signed by like all of the original Apollo 11.

Yeah, the Apollo mob.

All the Apollo 11 crew.

But what struck me about this book on the inside cover.

Yes.

If you remember.

I do remember.

It's very childish.

Is a diagram of the Apollo missions

and Earth.

Yep.

But for some reason, they've put the moon twice.

Two moons.

Well, two depictions of the same moon.

Yes.

And I think we tried to talk to your wife, Lucy, about it.

Yep.

And she's a space scientist for

less childish.

And she was like, oh, I think it's to show the different directions in which the different flights have gone.

She just gave us a fact.

Yeah.

But,

and we will find this and put it on socials.

Because I laughed a lot seeing the diagram.

Because to me, I was like, they definitely knew what they were doing.

Like, they definitely knew what this looked like.

It looks like a penis.

It does.

It looks like a penis with testicles.

and like a childish drawing.

Like a childish drawing.

It's a cartoon graffiti penis.

Yeah.

But it's a scientific diagram.

Yeah.

And it's on the inside cover of this book.

But it's so obvious.

I don't think you get plausible deniability saying I was just trying to depict the orbital trajectory.

I don't know how anyone looked at it and went, yeah, this is fine.

That's fine.

And so what I want to do

is find now the artist may not be with us anymore.

No.

but if they are

I want to ask them if it was intentional.

Yeah, how about that?

So I found a copy of the same first edition, not with the autograph.

It's a bit cheaper if it was not signed by the actual astronauts.

Yeah, but I do have a copy of it.

I can't find any because I was thinking the book will have the credit for that.

I couldn't find anything online.

I did a ton of research on it.

Oh, no art credit?

No.

So then I, because I did like a reverse image search, trying to find the original source, like if there was, if it appeared anywhere before the book.

risky search yeah

but yeah so i bought the book still nothing that it doesn't say who drew the diagram it just says it's like from nasa's it's like the source is nasa yeah

so i'm putting it out there if anyone knows a way that i could find

the person who did this diagram or someone contemporary we'll put it on all the stuff in the show notes contemporary with NASA at the time, diagrams, the publisher, anything.

Yeah.

I'd love to find out.

Next bit of business, we now have the A Problem Squared Discord server up and running.

So get in there, you know?

It's a Discord server.

Come along, say hi.

We'll answer questions, discuss problems.

You still, if you're going to give us a problem, still go to the problem posing page at a problemsquared.com because we are too disorganized as humans to keep track of problems coming in from more than one direction.

So discussing problems and solutions is great, but if you actually want to enter a problem to be solved in a podcast episode, a problemsquare.com.

Yeah.

But if you're like, oh, hang on,

people need to know this.

Matt made a mistake.

Head on over to Discord.

Or if you're like, actually, I want to debate this with others.

Exactly.

Get involved.

We'll keep an eye on that.

And finally, we just want to say a quick thank you to a Patreon supporter.

I mean, thank you to all our Patreon supporters.

They keep this whole enterprise up and running so that everyone can enjoy the podcast for free.

They are podcasts.

Everyone is not paying for it.

Everyone is not paying for it.

Which is the vast majority of people.

This is true.

They have a Patreon name, which is the word unintelligible in square brackets.

I had one of my Patreon supporters for my YouTube work has a Patreon name with the symbols for a broken character where it's not.

Great.

And I was like, oh no, like, I don't want to get their name wrong.

And so I had to get in touch with them.

They're like, no, I just put in like the empty boxes.

Brilliant.

As my name.

I love that.

I'm like, you jerk.

I love you so much.

That's excellent.

That's great.

So unintelligible here, similar energy.

So we do,

because when we're warming up to do the main high quality podcasts, we do a practice podcast, which is available only to Patreon supporters.

And it's us chatting, catching up, being wizards, getting ready.

And we kind of, we make it.

It's fun.

It goes out.

They actually went onto Patreon to say how much they enjoyed that.

And in it, I don't want to, you know, give this away for free, but Beck did a rendition of the match of the day theme.

And they came to say, I cannot tell you how absolutely surreal it was to look up the match of the day theme, hear it for the first time, and realize Beck's rendition was a spot-on 10 out of 10.

Yes.

Yeah, amazing work.

Goal.

Beck.

So if you want to hear that, if you're a Patreon supporter and you haven't listened to that, I'm a Wizard bonus episode.

It's in there.

And if you're on the fence, Unintelligible does say, These are the kinds of life-changing experiences I subscribe for.

Absolutely superb.

So I just thought we'd share their enthusiasm because without the Patreon supporters, we wouldn't be able to do this.

Yeah.

So thank you so much to everyone who supports us on there.

And if you don't want to support us, but you just want to exchange money for an extra podcast, it could also be quite transactional.

Get involved.

Yeah.

Although they do say it's the best thing to listen to when they've just woken up.

Oh, because it's kind of waking up while we're recording it.

Yeah.

So that's it.

They said it's better than TikTok.

And I would say that's true.

Because you don't want to look at your phone when you wake up.

Then you'll never get out of bed.

And it's a bit jarring.

But stick on us.

Us being like, oh, where are we?

What's happening?

Yeah.

Getting ready to record.

That's a waking up experience.

Just set it on a timer.

Yeah, make us your alarm.

That's pretty special.

If anyone does that, let us know how it goes.

Now, as is our tradition, always, we pick three Patreon supporters to thank a random.

I'm just looking at the three random names now because we've got a tradition of mispronouncing names, and I'm wondering if people are leaning into that.

Yeah,

it's unintelligible as a name.

But

this time, we'd like to thank

Belt Shazar Mouse.

Beltes

Hazar.

Do you reckon they're going for a Shaza?

Belt Shazzar Mouse.

Belt Shazza Mouse.

Eline or Violet.

Eleni.

We should do them on that app.

Eleni or wow, Lord.

Adam.

John.

Adame and John's on.

Adam.

John's on.

Sugar's kicking in.

I think we're back in the sugar zone.

All those clumps just dissolved, if you know what I mean.

So that's it for the episode.

I've been Matt Parker.

that's Beck Hill, and thanks to our producer, Lauren Armstrong Carter.

You're doing that as one word, you're pronouncing the dash.

Yes, that was one word.

The end

now.

So, Beck.

Huh?

Last time you guessed.

What did you guess last time for the dice in the jar?

486 it says here in the number.

And you said less than.

I said less than.

So I'm going to say

398.

More than.

Ooh.

It's above that.

We're closing in.

It's between 398 and 486.

All right.

You're getting there.

Getting there.