073 = Farting Thrust and Pocket Mistrust

Hello and welcome to A Problem Squared, the podcast equivalent of a train if the solution to your problem is the destination.

We're not always on time, sometimes there are delays due to planned engineering works,

and we don't always stay on track.

But despite our occasional derailments, we're still a lot safer than flying.

One of your hosts is comedian and mathematician Matt Parker, who is a bit like a Shinkansen bullet train.

Ooh.

In that he is long.

Yes.

I mean, tall.

When you're lying down.

The better way to phrase that.

Efficient.

And driven by alternating magnets.

That is true.

That is spot on.

And I am your other host, comedian and presenter Beck Hill.

And I'm a bit like a steam engine in that I am adorable, but slow,

and a little loco.

Mode.

I thought you're saying you've produced vast quantities of heated gases.

Yeah,

I mean, I wouldn't call it.

I guess my farts are somewhat steamy.

That's not what I'm saying.

I produce a lot of carbon emissions.

Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yep, that's the intro.

What do you reckon?

At full steamer head.

In this episode, I've calculated the power of a fart.

Yeah, that's apt.

I'm going to pick a pocket or two.

Oh, wow.

And if you like your business, any other, get ready.

Because we're going to pull into the stations

soon.

Any other business class?

Tickets, please.

Check your tickets.

Matt, how are you?

I'm good, I'm good, I'm good.

Excellent.

I lied.

Oh, I got it.

What a twist.

Not then, I am good.

I was going to say, you would make a terrible filmmaker and Mike Shyamalan just immediately start and then just.

By the way, he's yours.

Everyone's dead.

Yeah.

It doesn't look like it,

but they are.

No, I think you were just saying you were listening back to a previous episode where I said, by the time it comes out, I will have handed in the second draft of my book.

Yeah.

And I have not.

No, and I laughed when I heard you saying it.

And you also was like, oh Matt, you've frecked to laugh.

It's like in the final throes.

So I'm very excited.

But I still went to the Mass Jam conference.

Oh, yeah.

It came on last weekend.

So anyone who goes to Mass Jam can nominate to do a five-minute talk.

And then we select the top N offers and, you know, bearing in mind like a mix of different topics and everything like that.

And the topic, people can talk about anything they think will be interesting to someone who's into maths.

So we have, you know, talks about textiles and crafts.

We have talks about programming.

We have talks about very abstract mathematics.

We have talks about engineering, baking, you names it.

Love it.

Such a great range of topics, but all very nerdy.

And my favorite one was given by someone called Ben Ashford, who's done some great talks and bits in the past.

Yes.

And he realized that in Europe, like mainland Europe, not the UK,

you get streets named after days of the week.

So you get like 22nd of December Street or like 4th of November Street or something like that.

Yeah.

Where?

Europe.

I mean, I've just, I you were there.

I was just in there.

I don't recall seeing any streets named.

Well, apparently it's way more prevalent.

And his theory was

in a lot of countries, if you write an address, you put the house number at the end.

Yeah.

So it'd be confusing to live at number 20, 22 December Street because you've got two numbers one after the other.

Whereas in you, it would be like 22nd December Street, house number 20.

Yeah.

And that works.

I find that that way of writing things, although it seems counterintuitive because of the way that we were brought up,

I find it a bit like, and I'm going to say it, I think I've mentioned this before.

I think the American way of doing the date makes more sense.

Yeah.

Oh,

yeah, because I know how you feel about it with little bigger biggest.

Yes.

But my reasoning is like, actually, when it comes to say, if it's like, I'll see you on the 20th, it's assuming the context of this month.

Yes.

So like if you write 20 as like the first number, it's like, but of what?

Like I like to have the context first.

You want to have the month first and then you want the day within the month.

Yeah, because for me that that's better for my the way I store it.

That's a lot.

It can take a moment to process that.

And I think that this works the same with the street.

I don't like how it looks,

but I think it makes more sense for a post.

If I was delivering mail,

I want to know the street.

It doesn't matter what the number is.

That's what the street first is.

Without the context of the street, the number makes zero sense.

I like the fact it's in order because you go from

you zoom out, you got the position on the street, and then you've got which street, and then which town, and then which kind of

thing.

Yeah, no, I agree, but realistically, you're right, okay.

You don't know what's coming next.

Well, that's the way it works in Europe.

Yeah, so you'd be very pleased.

I would be pleased, but they do dates the not-American way.

Yes.

I don't know.

I don't know if there's anywhere in the world that puts their house numbers after the street name, but puts their month before.

You'd think it would be both because it's the same idea.

Yeah.

Huh, interesting.

Tell us, listeners.

Well, Ben got curious about this.

Apparently there's like one or two streets in the UK which are named after a specific day of the year, like a calendar day, not just

December street, yeah, but like, you know, 5th of June or whatever.

All right.

It was like the day the town was founded or something like that.

But there's just this culture of doing that.

And he was like, I wonder if they all exist.

Oh, all the dates?

They're all the dates.

Of course.

All 366 dates, right?

Yep.

And so he downloaded, he tried looking on Google, but that got a bit tedious.

So he found different data sets, like open maps and stuff he could download and write a bunch of code to then find.

and check off every single oh yeah he had to do it a bunch of different ways it wasn't a straightforward process does he include the when the month is in a different language?

Yes, wow, yeah.

So there's one, like they're all different languages, but there's one street of each day.

Yeah.

So you could visit all of them and take a photo to make a calendar because you'd have an exact one for every single day.

And so then Ben thought, how far would that be to visit?

So he wrote some more code to work out an optimal path to visit them all.

It would take seven weeks.

So he took two months off work.

No.

Yes, and he visited.

He visited every single day of the calendar, a street named after it.

That's awesome.

It's incredible.

So been one mass jam.

That's very cool.

So that's how I've been.

Speaking of Europe, how have you been?

Yeah.

Oh, what a link.

So

we call that a Eurostar in the business.

Yeah.

Yes, I mentioned this in a previous episode, but I was co-hosting Comic-Con in Brussels with Matt Highton, the other Matt.

The other Matt, one of your many Matts.

One of my, well, the two main Matts.

The two main Mats.

So we got to Brussels on the 3rd of November.

My birthday is on the 4th of November.

I was meeting up with my friend Sam.

He's actually a sound engineer on several podcasts.

He does Office Ladies and Comedy Bang Bang and

Conan and all those ones.

Big podcasts.

All the big podcasts.

But it was his first time overseas.

Whoa.

Yeah.

First time overseas outside of the States.

And so he was like, I'm going to do a European trip.

And he's a massive nerd.

So he was like, I'm going to come to Comic-Con in Brussels.

And I was like, awesome.

I'll be there.

So I went to go meet up with him.

And I'd said to him, I'd made it very, I said, right, it's your first time overseas.

Brussels, this particular area, very big with pickpockets.

Right.

Lots of thieves in this area.

So watch all your stuff.

Keep an eye on yourself.

Because you're thinking as a seasoned traveler.

As a seasoned traveler.

You've got to give advice to people who've not traveled overseas before.

Yeah.

And this is like my 10th time in Brussels.

Yeah, you're an old hand.

Yeah.

So we catch up, we're at the pub, and then we're walking back to my hotel, and I take out my phone to check the directions, put it back in my pocket, and then a couple of blocks away, go to check my phone again, realize it's not in my pocket.

Wow.

Yep.

That's amazing.

Annoyingly, someone had bumped into me while they were walking.

And I remember thinking, that was a...

They definitely didn't need, like, there was space.

Yeah, there was space to not bump into me.

Yeah.

But at the same time I was like oh maybe they're drunk or whatever like I was like oh and also it was mid-conversation I didn't want to like suddenly stop and be like who buddy what's your problem your problem and then I suddenly was like and I just turned to Sam and I was like I've been pickpocketed

and I of course on my my phone because I'm one I'm a nerd I get those cases that's like a wallet so it had my card and everything in it

my hotel key card everything so I got back to the hotel Matt Heighten was like where where were you?

He's like, I've been texting you.

I knew you were meeting up with a friend.

And then I heard nothing.

And then I heard nothing.

I was like, have you been murdered?

Like, what's going on?

I was like, my phone got stolen.

He was like, oh, no.

And of course, this all happened.

So on the day of my birthday,

we interviewed Jean-Claude Van Damme.

Oh, yeah.

And I don't have any phone calls.

I don't know if you guys have anyone.

I can't post about it.

I just, I was at home going, man.

Beck's been quiet.

Like, I messaged you on the Monday.

Oh, yeah.

Nothing.

So this this is the other thing.

I was like, huh.

Tried to ring you on the Tuesday.

Nothing.

I'm like, that's unusual.

Very unusual for me.

Well, so on the Friday, when I got the train from Amsterdam to Brussels, I thought, well, it's going to be a very busy weekend.

I don't want to spend my weekend doing admin, you know, in my spare time.

Oh, I get that done early.

And I knew I had to finish the design for the Christmas card for our Patreon card.

So I did it on the train, on my phone, because it had like a stylus and everything, and I use it for drawing.

And so I did the design on my phone and I sent it to you.

Thank goodness you sent it to me.

I know.

Normally I'd be like, oh, I'll send it later.

I was like, no, send it now.

Yep.

And then mere hours later, I had it stolen.

And I remember thinking, thank goodness I at least did that.

Yeah, because I got the design.

I'm like, oh, Becca's on it.

And then I sent it back to you, like the final version of the card for you to sign off on and heard nothing.

Yeah.

I was like, weird.

Rang, nothing.

And then eventually got a message from Gav

saying your phone was gone yeah

well

I mean the annoyance of one stranger and the kindness of many more yes it's a net gain of kindness oh yeah yeah much bigger gain of kindness

this first problem is for Matt and it's from James and Annabelle James's daughter who's nine age nine and a square number Annabelle yeah good work and they would would like to know how low would gravity need to be for your farts to lift you off the ground.

It's a good question.

Yeah.

On this podcast, I do a lot of maths and you do a lot of fart jokes.

And farts.

And farts.

Yeah.

And so I thought, hey, you know what?

I'm going to give it a go in the interest of.

What?

A fart.

Not a fart.

Some fart mathematics.

Some maths.

Mathematics.

Yeah, no, we'll workshop that.

We'll work on that later.

So I thought, you know what, I'll give this a go.

Yep.

Even though it's going to be complicated, it's probably going to involve biology and chemistry and physics.

But I'll see if I can simplify it down to just some maths to work this out.

Yeah.

So the problem is this.

If you fart,

that exerts a force.

And in theory, enough force could lift you off the ground.

Yeah.

Propulsion.

A bit like if you've got a balloon.

Yes.

And you let go of the balloon

and it flies all the way around the room.

Yep.

Or a jetpack.

Or a jetpack.

Oh, something like that.

Yes.

Now, the problem is the fluid dynamics of how that works is very complicated.

Okay.

And so I thought, you know what?

I don't want to get right into

all the nitty-gritty of...

like gases moving and the forces involved.

I thought I'd just try and simplify it down to if when you fart, you have to accelerate some gas.

Yes.

Because there's gas in you that's not moving.

And after you're fart, it's moving quite quickly.

Yeah.

And I thought I'd look up how fast a fart is.

Yeah.

Now we've done how fast is the speed of smell.

That's right.

Yeah.

This is a subtly different question.

This is the gas molecules.

When you fart them out, how fast are they going?

I feel like that's dependent.

It is dependent.

Yeah.

And someone claims to have done the research online and they say between seven and ten meters per second, which is 25 to 36 kilometers an hour yeah which is believable yeah i think so i think if it's the sort of fart that's like a ball yeah yeah yeah yeah so i'm not one of those slow long ones a slow long one we're back into the world of fluid dynamics

i've told you that

in their mind well you know don't trust them so what i don't want is an ongoing

jet of gas You want a quick,

yep, done.

One and done.

Right.

And then I want to work out how much it took to accelerate the gas up to speed and is that enough to lift you off the ground yeah i've seen that on enough tv shows i think that's a real thing i'm pretty sure then i got into the chemical composition of farts because then i was like well how heavy is a fart oh well it depends the volume of the fart and the chemical composition of the fart the loudness

the loudness yes

so so

so now there's more research apparently farts they vary everything varies dramatically as you can imagine particularly involving digestion.

On the order of a hundred milliliters

seems to be an average fart volume.

Okay.

A tenth of a litre.

A quarter of the gases are just air that you've inhaled.

Only a quarter.

Only a quarter.

Yeah.

That you've inhaled and it's gone into your tummy.

Yeah, when you eat and chew and do all these things, you're constantly...

Bits of air always sneaking along for the ride.

The ones that don't come out as burps.

Some come out as burps.

Some gets passed through the whole digestive system.

so apparently at the end 25 of your fart is just air that's like at last yep done and then the other three quarters are byproducts from digestion and that varies dramatically person to person there's hydrogen in there there's methane in there there's things that don't smell great in there like but the things that don't smell great are actually quite small as a percentage.

Right.

Yeah.

So I was like, well, if I want to work out the mass of a fart,

the heavier the fart, the more it's going to push you off the ground.

Okay.

So I just decided to assume it's all heavier gases.

In fact, I thought it would be, I assumed it would be all air because it's a quarter air and the rest is stuff that's generally lighter than air.

So I'm going to say, you know what, let's just for ease of calculation say it's all air.

And that means that your average fart weighs 0.1 grams, which is not much.

Yeah.

And you accelerate it up to a speed of seven to 10 meters per second over what kind of time interval do you reckon?

What's the stationary air to moving air?

Oh, as in the length of a fart.

Yeah.

Half a second.

Half a second?

I'm going to put that because I've got a spreadsheet here.

I can put all my assumptions in.

So let's say you go from not moving to moving in half a second.

Okay.

That means

you've got an acceleration, an average acceleration, so I averaged seven and ten meters per second final speed of 17 meters per second per second.

17 meters per second per second.

So every second the velocity of something goes up by 17 meters per second.

Okay.

Once a second.

Right.

So acceleration, confusingly, because

speed is meters per second,

but the rate at which that's changing every second is meters per second per second.

Got it.

And that's what gravity is measured in.

Acceleration is always meters per second per second.

Or it's always length per time per time.

Okay.

right so what's our current gravity as a measurement 9.81 meters per second per second huh that's the acceleration due to gravity so can you explain that what that means yep so if you were standing let's say you're going parachuting so you're gonna land perfectly safe this is not dangerous you jump off a high object initially When you step off a high object, you weren't falling at all to start with.

Your acceleration down was zero.

You were going down zero meters meters every second because you weren't moving yet.

One second later, you're going to be moving quite quickly.

Okay.

In fact, a second later, you're going to be moving 9.8 meters per second.

That's going to be your speed.

Okay.

But you will keep getting faster and faster.

Another second later, actually, no, let's round it.

Let's say it's 10 meters per second.

Just for

it's 9.81, but it does vary a bit, but it's easier to say 10 seconds.

So after a second, you'll be falling at a rate of 10 meters every second.

Yep.

So if I'm very high in the air,

one second later, I'm 10 meters lower than I was before.

No, one second later, you're moving 10 meters every second.

But it's been, oh, so I've got to wait a second.

But yeah, but the thing is, that's your instantaneous speed, but it took you a while to get that fast, so you won't have actually done a full 10 meters yet.

Because for most of that second, you were still speeding up to 10 meters per second.

So after one second, I've fallen some amount of distance.

Some amount of distance, yeah,

less than 10 meters.

Yep.

But as of that second,

between that and this and the next second yep I've fallen 10 extra meters yep but you will have gotten faster during that time

and so the second after that it's 20 meters well by then you've got by then you've you're going faster again by then you're going 20 meters a second because you're still accelerating This measurement is dumb.

It's ridiculous.

Oh, yeah.

Why do we...

This makes zero sense.

This is why calculus was invented because you're constantly changing the rate at which you're changing your position and it's silly.

This is why I prefer terminal velocity.

Oh yeah, terminal velocity, then you stop, then everything.

What is terminal velocity?

Terminal velocity was the acceleration due to gravity trying to speed you up so you fall faster matches the amount that dragging through the air is slowing you down.

Okay.

And so it all cancels out and you just keep moving at the same speed.

You're not accelerating, you're not decelerating.

You probably won't fart that hard.

No, no, we're not going to gain terminal velocity.

So now I know the force you've got to put on your fart to get it up to speed.

I then use the fact that force is mass times acceleration, and we know how heavy the fart is, we know it's mass,

and we know how fast we accelerated it.

So I can work out the force that you've put on the gas to get it up to speed and become a fart.

And that is because of...

Newton's laws of physics.

Like if you throw something forward, it also pushes you back.

Right, yeah.

And so we now know if you've got to accelerate, you're pushing a fart one way,

you're going to get pushed the other way.

So now I got the force that's going to push you in the other direction, which is not enough to lift you off the ground.

So I ran all the numbers, and the unit of force is called a Newton.

The force it takes to get a fart up to speed is about two

millinewtons.

It's not a lot of force.

But we know the amount of force that's holding someone down.

So what mass should we have for our person?

How heavy are they in kilos?

So if I round up, say, like, I'm 60.

So this, should we do it for you?

I was less before my holiday, but I've eaten a lot of delicious pastries.

60 kilos,

right?

The force holding you down on the earth is 294 Newtons.

Okay.

And the force from your fart is only 0.002 Newtons.

Yeah, so it's making zero difference.

No, it's 140-ish thousand times smaller than it needs to be.

Okay, okay.

So with the gravity, it's got to be 140,000 times less, or you're going to be able to fart 140,000 times stronger.

Okay.

To lift yourself off the ground, according to our assumptions in this model.

Yeah, I understand.

However, could you reread the question for me?

What was the wording again?

How low would gravity need to be for your farts to lift you off the ground?

Well, it occurs to me there's another way to interpret that problem.

Because I've gone with like the propulsion from the farts pushing you off the ground.

But actually, a fart on average is less dense than air.

So actually, there's a level of buoyancy you'd achieve.

Oh, oh, as in

like a helium balloon.

Yeah.

In fact, a lot of farts.

Wouldn't you lose it if you fart?

Well,

a lot of farts is hydrogen.

And that's a good lifting gas.

So if you were wearing like an airtight outfit.

Oh, like a space suit.

Like a space suit.

On On ground, though, and you fart enough, you could build up enough buoyancy

to float.

I would say two problems with that.

Surely one is that that gas is already inside you.

That's a good point because the gas is inside you.

Yeah.

But you're producing it all the time.

So you could hold in your farts and this would still work.

Yeah.

So that's one issue with it.

My other issue is if you were in a spacesuit, an airtight spacesuit filling up with farts, wouldn't you eventually suffocate?

I imagine you can't breathe.

More of a wetsuit situation.

No, that's when I'm fine.

Imagine if you seal off like all the sleeves and the neck and you gradually inflate a wetsuit.

So I thought I'd run the numbers on that too.

Sure.

But now, okay, so now I've gone the other way.

So before I assumed it was all air.

Now I'm going to assume it's 25% air and 75% hydrogen gas, which is not.

But that's the most buoyant realistically it's going to be.

It's a lot of hydrogen, but it's other gases.

Methane's also very, not that everyone produces methane, apparently, depending on your gut microbes, but that's also a very light gas.

Yeah.

So you're producing a lot of light gases.

So I worked out

how much lifting force you would get from a fart.

Like if you stayed in this inflating suit for like the course of a day,

how much buoyancy would you accumulate?

And the number of farts per day, again, varies dramatically.

It'd be like a Zorb ball.

Like a Zorb ball, yeah.

Sure.

Yeah.

You've got to get in it with no air to start with so that it's room to expand.

You know, when you work in a small room all day without the windows open and stuff and people walk in and they're like, whoo!

Yeah, but you're fine.

So you've got to climb into a Zorb ball.

No, you've got to bring breathing apparatus.

That's why your head has to be outside the ball.

Oh, okay.

So you can

talk to people.

Okay, yeah, yeah.

And then the ball gradually inflates.

I'm really enjoying this.

So I, well, I worked out you're going to get on the order of one and a half liters of hydrogen a day.

That's like assuming maximum hydrogen production and 20 farts a day.

Okay.

Where did you get this?

I looked at a couple of different websites for a number of,

I've got my search history is average of times we fart.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that seems to be...

That's at the high end of the scale, 10 to 20 apparently.

And so that's not enough hydrogen to lift you off the ground.

That's enough to lift 1.8 grams off the ground.

Okay.

And people weigh more than that.

Yeah, what?

I know.

In fact, it would take, so for the 60 kilos we put in, it would take 91.2 years

of farting wow to be able to lift yourself off the ground because of the buoyancy uh-huh which is plausible like that's it would be a lifetime endeavor but

how low would the gravity need to be if you've got lower gravity if you lower the gravity you would speed that up yeah

so

you know what let's do a quick how low would the gravity need to be like that divided by this that one's better if you fart for a day

and gravity

was

33 34,000 times weaker

you'd float that's versus after a day after versus 180

versus 140,000

But that's with a singular fart.

That's for a singular fart.

Yeah.

If you store them up all day and use the buoyancy instead,

only 33,000 times weaker.

I've got one more question.

I don't think this is going to be in your

spreadsheet.

Yep.

What if, seeing as you're presuming a lot of hydrogen?

Yep.

It's a good point.

Hydrogen is flammable.

I have not worked it out.

But you can use hydrogen as rocket fuel.

Hydrogen is flammable if it's mixed with oxygen.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, and there's oxygen in a fart because you've got air.

That might be the limiting reactant.

Hmm.

But maybe if you could liquefy your farts to use them as a

co-op.

Look, this is a mature discussion.

You can mix them with liquid oxygen.

You could use them as rocket fuel.

Yeah.

Potentially.

But this was not the question sent by your listener.

For future research.

Yeah.

As I mentioned in the intro, we do sometimes go off track.

But you know what?

To bring us back into this into the station.

I want to say, a single fart to propel you, 140,000 times less gravity.

Collecting your farts all day and being buoyant, 33,000 times less gravity.

Wow.

I hope that answers the question.

Problem.

I'm going to give it a far ding.

Hey,

that's good work.

I like it.

I hope that's enough for James and Annabelle.

I think I can dig another year off doing fart content now.

I feel like that's my quota.

Oh, well, I'll just have have to take over then, won't I?

And if any other listeners have kids or are kids and they've got questions for the show, we are planning on doing a special kids edition.

Yep.

We're calling it the kid edition.

Kidition episode of A Problem Squared.

So if you would like that, please send in your problems to the problem posing page, a problemsquared.com, and popition.

Kiddition or kids.

Kids edition.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Just so that we know that it's specifically for that.

We will also take any links to voice notes or things if

your kids want to ask us in a voice note setting.

So yeah, well done, Matt.

Done.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next problem was sent in on the problem posing page at a problemsquared.com by Chocklad.

Chocklad.

That's what they typed in.

That's what we're going to say.

They say they have a predicament involving their pockets in their pants.

Huh.

According to Choclad, they are on the taller side and when they sit in a seat that's lower, like a couch or a car seat, and they point out, for any US listeners, they don't mean a children's seat in a car.

They mean the actual regular seat in the car.

Apparently, if you say car seat, people think of like the kids insert seat.

They mean just the regular seat.

Their issue is their knees end up higher than their hips, which leads to an emptying angle, great phrase, of the front pockets.

They keep their phone and their wallet in their front pockets, which means they run into issues with the phone falling out and getting lost in the couch, or accidentally leaving it on a seat in a car.

They have tried some solutions themselves.

They've attempted to fix it by buying pants for our UK listeners, trousers, with zippers on the pockets.

That feels like problem solved.

But Chock Lad says they feel like there may be a better solution.

And Beck, I mean, I have this problem too.

So I'm also looking forward to hearing the solution.

I thought you might because you're quite tall.

I am quite tall.

So I imagine that you have the similar,

was it an emptying angle?

I do have an emptying angle.

And I have lost my wallet before because of an emptying angle.

Actually, it was a pub in Gotaming.

I sat in the chair and stuff slides out of them really easy.

So easy.

So I've had the same issue as well.

Even though I don't have the angle of emptying, it's more that I'm a wriggle bum.

Right.

So I change position a lot.

Yeah.

And so usually

stuff will work its way out of my pockets that way.

The other reason I was drawn to this is because

when my phone got stolen, I was wearing a trench coat and I normally wouldn't keep I would normally keep my phone on like a

pocket that's closer to my body.

Yeah, but I didn't have any pockets in those clothes, which was why it was in my trench coat pocket, which was a much easier pocket.

It was a to be easier lift am i using that right i should yeah sure why not

yeah and so that was my issue with that is that not enough pockets frustratingly there was something that i nearly packed which i am now going to use a lot more yep because of this very problem this one's made by a charity in uh australia oh where they train refugees for tailor

how to make bumbags well they they

give them sewing skills so they can start up businesses link in the show notes

yeah So you are now the third person I know who has a functional bum bag.

Well, it's funny you should mention this because I was thinking, now, look, while a bum bag or a funny pack, whatever you want to call it, is really

useful and does sort of do the job.

Yeah, problem solved.

It's not always convenient.

No, that's true.

Sometimes

it gets in the way if you're sitting down, then you end up with this thing sort of

scrunched up in your stomach.

Yeah, it ends up like all scrunched up on your stomach.

and so you can't sit up properly, and sometimes it's sweaty and sits heavy and stuff.

And then I realized we've sort of talked about this before.

Oh.

Because in a previous episode, we toyed around with the idea of a utility belt.

We did, we did.

Which would help lower crime.

Yes, that was the and I've recently been the victim of a crime.

Oh, you have, yes.

And if I'd had a utility belt, you wouldn't have had that crime.

The crime would have potentially

down by one.

Yeah.

By one crime.

So I've been looking into things like tool belts and utility belts.

There are a lot of options out there where they have essentially it's a pocket on a belt.

Pocket on a belt.

Pocket on a belt.

What I think you'd want is something that you can slip your hand into easily and pull out your phone, but someone else would, it's not so loose that someone else could easily do that.

I think it needs to be both functional and fashionable.

It needs to be something that sits nicely without looking too,

you know, too.

It's not in your face.

It just kind of blends in.

Yeah.

So my plan is to design this.

But I thought what I would do is talk about it first because there is an off chance that one of our listeners might be

sewing inclined and say, I've already made something.

Or someone might know of a product we haven't made.

Exactly.

Like a utility sash.

Yeah.

And there's a lot of, and now I need to say, as I said, said, I've done a lot of search.

There's a lot of utility belts out there at fashion, but a lot of them, a lot of them look like they're for fantasy cosplay.

Like almost all of them look fantasy cosplay or like cowboy cosplay.

There's a lot of leather.

There's a lot of, and they're nice, but they're not, and I don't judge anyone for wearing them, but they're not going to go with my sorts of clothes.

They're not going to go with every outfit.

And has an angle that's not going to empty when you sit down, or at least has something

that means it stops the stuff from sliding out, but you want to be able to slip your hand in, take it out again.

The other option is you can get phone cases that have shoulder straps now.

You see a lot more people with them.

So people just wear the

very small purse.

Yeah, like a tiny handbag, but it's just your phone.

Wow.

For me, I still feel that that's dangerous because the way that I move, I'm more likely to crack the screen on something.

Yeah.

But that is also an option is wearing a phone a little bit like a handbag.

And then that way you can easily pick it up and grab it and look at it at any moment yep if you drop it that's the added bonus it's just it's hanging on you so it's not going to fall to the floor you're not going to lose it if you sit down maybe if you get something that has a little pocket in it maybe there's two options here maybe we need an over-the-shoulder option yep yep and we need a belt option

so that's the challenge isn't it i realize i haven't officially solved the problem but the reason is because i I thought, yeah, I can design something and I can try and make it or get it made, but on the off chance that I've missed something that someone else is like, actually,

especially if anyone's like, I've actually designed a product that I'm trying to get off the ground.

Yeah.

Perfect time, perfect place.

So to be continued, I think.

My solution

is basically

partly is multi-tap.

Every time I get up or I leave a room, I tap my pockets.

Oh, you check everything, yeah.

Yeah.

Change is hard, though.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, that's why I have to do it every time.

It makes it look like, you know, it's a little ritual you have to go through.

But I found if I just do it every time, and I realized very quickly if I'm about to leave a room and I haven't got my phone, because every time I go through a doorway, I tap my phone.

Which

could arguably be overkill.

No, it would have stopped me

potentially.

But that's what I ended up doing.

So those are our answers for now.

Yep.

I mean, look, Chocolad might be happy with that.

Chocolate may have never heard of a bum bank or a utility belt.

Yeah.

Or chocolate, if you end up buying one of the many phone holder options online, let us know.

Send us pictures.

Or if any listeners have something, if any listeners have solved this for themselves, just using what's out and about.

Someone's like, I glued non-slip

rubber matting to the back of my phone and that solved all my problems.

Let us know.

Like that might do it.

Yeah, maybe.

That's a good shout.

Just put a

non-slip case on everything.

Everything.

Or your change.

changes.

Every surface, just glue on a little bit of non-slip mat.

Yeah.

So let us know.

Problem posing page.

There's a drop down.

Click solution.

That's our problemsquare.com.

And we'll provide an update in a future episode.

Or a past episode if you're listening backwards.

We are now arriving.

In station, any other business?

Please be aware that the front four coaches

exceed the length of the platform oh my goodness you will need to move back in order to disembark the train i don't know i've seen how much a ob we've got this time and it's a it's a long platform oh i see yeah well what would you like to kick us off okay let's do the twitter poll now this might take some explaining if you missed the halloween zombie episode But we put a poll out on Twitter.

Yeah, was that 071, I think?

And we asked, if a zombie can ride a chicken,

does that also mean it can ride a bike?

Because I argued, no.

Because I was like, riding a chicken and riding a bike are very different things.

Well, I dare say the internet agrees with you.

Yeah.

Because

then not everyone's an idiot.

Now, a suspicious number of people were like, yes.

Vaguely a quarter, 23.3% were on board, 74.6%

were not.

Oh, and an extra 2.1% had

additional options they wanted to choose.

Now, some of the arguments are pretty good.

I quite enjoyed.

Adam J3141 wanted to consider the contrapositive, saying, if a zombie cannot ride a bike, does that mean it cannot ride a chicken?

And they said, if it's plausible, a zombie can't ride a bike, but it could, in theory, still ride a chicken.

And therefore, riding a chicken does not mean you can ride a bike.

And a lot of people got very excited about the fact that pedaling is a whole separate skill.

Yep, that's what I argued.

Correct.

Wow.

Chickens do not run on pedals.

In the interest of data integrity, we did two other polls to make sure we got as many respondents as possible.

And the Spotify, the baked-in Spotify poll, is unnervingly close to the Twitter poll.

Like, it's also gone 75%-ish no, 25% correct, which is interesting.

However, if you think, you're like, well, that just means we've done two different samples and got the same result.

It also went out on Instagram.

Now, Instagram is a lot closer.

61% said no and 39% said yes.

And there were more votes on Instagram.

Ah.

So, I mean, I don't want to be Captain Rounding too much, but I feel like like 39 to 61 is basically 50-50.

So it was 39 for...

Oh, 39 for yes, they could ride a bike.

And 61 for no, they can't ride a bike.

But we got more votes on

the story.

We could do a weighted average because we know the number of votes.

But in both cases, I mean, in all cases,

even though you're arguing that 39 versus 61 is the same as 50-50.

Yeah, yeah.

I feel like we're focusing very heavily on can, if a specific zombie can ride a chicken, can the exact same zombie ride a bicycle?

Or is it more if the concept of zombies are able to ride a chicken, that a different zombie can ride a bicycle?

Like if all zombies could ride chickens, could they ride a bicycle?

Well, if there's a zombie out there capable of riding a chicken, that demonstrates that zombies are able to maintain and utilize a complex skill set.

Right.

Which means they could also a different zombie.

No, I disagree.

I still disagree.

Because a chicken and a bike are different.

Well, no one's arguing.

Okay, the people have spoken and Beck, you are correct.

I would like to humbly concede.

Yeah, that's right.

I'm correct in the fictional thing.

In the hyperstakes.

In the very important

high stakes.

Yeah.

Thank you.

It's a win for democracy.

We also got a ding.

From Spina.

It's always nice.

Yeah, Spina came back to us about the...

The nerdy decor.

Yeah, that's right.

Nerdy Decor from episode 069, tiling planes and driving planes.

And Spina wanted to know how they could decorate their rented home with

nerdier.

Thank you for taking that problem.

I don't think I'm cool enough to be given signed discoveries by the discoverer, which is a reference to the signed hat tile, I guess.

Hat tile, or as I call it, a t-shirt tile.

They said they guess I have to get more famous.

In the meantime, they're a big fan of the idea.

Doesn't solve all your problems.

Doesn't solve your problems.

No, it creates more, arguably.

But they're a big fan of the idea to replace knobs with numbers and/or shapes.

So pleasantly, it turns out I have exactly 13 knobs in my kitchen, so each one will be a Catalan solid.

There are exactly 13 Catalan solids.

Perfect.

If you accept the Archimedean counting of shapes.

Same glasses are in the deltoidal

hexacontahedron isn't as smooth, but it's worth it.

Nice, good shape.

I don't know what any of that sentence meant, but it was fun to say.

Yep.

I know they've ended with ding.

Dink, excellent.

Yeah, love a ding.

Official ding.

Speaking of dings,

we also heard back from Nettle, who posed us the paint set problem in ZM2, which was the last episode.

There is a fast turnaround.

Yeah.

They've given me a ding.

Yay.

Paint ding.

Yeah,

they've just said they've given

there's a ding.

Well, concise.

Love it.

Perfect.

That's what I'm after.

Finally, people have noticed that I made a prediction in episode 051.

Yep.

And they've come with receipts.

They're like at 20 minutes and 16 seconds in.

It was stated that the official problem squared prediction for hitting 2 million downloads.

TM.

They've trademarked it.

Trademarked it.

Possibly we trademarked it.

I can't remember.

Would be the 7th of November or November 7th.

Yes.

2023.

So

what is on with that now?

It said said signed a human being re-listening to episodes.

Yes.

In an unknown order, because people listen to them in different orders.

So, good point.

And no, we haven't hit 2 million downloads.

We fell compared to 2 million, 11.7% shy.

It took us three years to hit 1 million, pretty much.

And now it's taken us, what, nine months to hit

an extra 700?

Yeah.

So

we don't know.

It depends how you want to measure inaccuracy.

If you compare the date, I was

12% off.

If you're looking at the number of downloads on that date, if you're looking at accurate in terms of when we do hit 2 million, still to be determined.

We need to find out when the true date is, and then we'll know how far off I was in time.

Ah, right.

I mean...

Do you have a new prediction?

I do not have a new prediction.

You're scared now.

Yeah, I'm scared.

I'm nervous.

Maybe I should just make a prediction and we'll see whether my

natural.

No, I'm just going to get exactly your natural fire.

I think that I feel I need to listen back to episode 051.

It might not have made the cut, but I feel like I thought it would be closer to February next year.

Oh,

would you like to pick mid-Feb, 14th of Feb?

Oh, Valentine's Day.

Let's do it.

There you go.

Okay.

I mean, it's probably going to come in earlier than that now.

Between the moment we are recording right now

and the 14th of Feb, 93 days from now, we need to get an extra 2,500 downloads a day.

Right.

That feels plausible.

And for a really rough estimate of how many we're doing a day, I'm just going to download total downloads from the year divided by the number of days we've done so far in the year.

Oh, Beck.

2,300.

What did you say we need?

2,500.

Oh, totally.

Oh, totally.

Totally do all.

Totally do all.

everyone can stand down you don't need to tell anyone to listen if anything hold off no don't tell me that

i would say uh that's by prediction however if good prediction look you've been proved wrong a lot in this episode

come on

i i'm reason i'm saying this is because if people like oh poor matt he's been proved wrong and beck's really killing it right now so which is an accurate assessment if they want to punish me which is fair enough

they should share the podcast yeah tell everyone to listen get us there real fast yeah

if we can get it before the end of the year oh oh no way there's no way

that would take maybe it would take a lot be a lovely valentine's treat of course this podcast wouldn't be existing if it weren't for amazing patreon supporters so true who we are very appreciative of and ensure that the show can be available to listen for everyone.

Yeah.

You listening right now.

Yes.

So we want to say a big thank you to three Patreon supporters chosen at random.

And on this episode, those Patreon supporters are Remo.

Remo.

Or Remo.

Remo.

We do try our best to mispronounce everyone.

Justin Begley.

Justine

Bigley.

He did it the same way, but slower.

Justin.

There you go.

Big lay.

Scoot.

Or Scott T.

That's it.

Scott.

Thanks, Scott.

Great, Scott.

And for our fine Patreon supporters, we are going to send you a Christmas card, which Beck designed on a train before her phone was stolen.

If you are a supporter by the end of November, you will definitely get a Christmas card.

Any supporter at any level, we will be emailing you a card, so you can keep an eye out for that.

And if you're at the wizard level or higher, I mean, go nuts.

Do we have a higher level?

We don't, but you can just type in a number.

You typed in a bigger number than a wizard, you massive wizard.

We will post you.

All wizards get a physical card.

Becca and I sign it.

We post it to where you live.

Please don't live in Germany.

And I think they'll be all right with a card.

Let's hope so.

And that's just to show our appreciation on behalf of us and everyone who listens to the podcast for making it possible.

Yeah.

As well as our Patreon supporters, I want to thank my co-host, Matt Parker.

That's me.

Myself.

I'm a conductor.

You are?

Yeah, sure.

Why not?

In a way.

I conduct.

Yeah, electricity.

Yeah.

Sure.

And so, what am I, the ticket inspector?

I think so.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'll do that.

You're on tickets.

Yeah, do you know what?

I'm the one.

You know how there's always someone who does the little announcements?

Yeah, okay, yeah.

Like what are they called?

The train

guard?

That works for me.

Anyway, that's me, Beck Hill.

And most of all, I want to thank our incredible producer, Lauren Armstrong Carter, who is, I don't know, the one that runs all the trains.

Station manager running around.

Yeah.

Who owns the trains now?

Everyone.

It's not national.

We have private equity fund.

You can tell I really ran it.

I didn't really think of how the analogy would continue.

You guys, look, I've given you the ingredients.

It's great.

Put that together.

Put it together.

I want to thank Lauren Armstrong Armstrong Carter, our brilliant producer.

Okay, back.

We're in the office.

There is a jar of dice.

Yes, there is.

You previously guessed 600.

It is fewer than that.

You also guessed π00.

It's more than that.

How many dice are in that jar?

486.

486.

Yeah.

Lower.

Okay.

You're narrowing in.

I am.

I also just took a guess then.

That's a good guess.

Yeah.

I mean, I should be applying some sort of science, but

that would involve me getting out of my chair.

I'm measuring or counting.