136: Kayaking by umbrella

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Firstly, we have someone who's been using the same pencil since 2007.

It's marine biology PhD and, in her own words, also a mom that makes stuff for the internet.

Welcome back to the show.

Virginia Shuttie.

Hi, thank you.

I'm very attached to my pencil.

The last time we talked, you were just about to head off to Antarctica and we haven't chatted since.

So in the 30 seconds allocated for this in the show, how was Antarctica?

It was amazing.

That's under 30 seconds.

There you go.

What did you get up to out there?

It was, we went to the wrong side of Antarctica.

Most people go to a very predictable spot near South America because that's where the continent's closest to like where people usually live.

We went way far away from that.

And it was like being in a Star Wars episode every day, a different landscape that just seems unimaginable, but so, so cool.

Which also wonderfully applies to the questions in this show.

So, very best of luck today.

Next up, with a collection of over 200 erasers of various types, it's a PhD in biomechanics from Draw Curiosity on YouTube and Twitch.

Welcome back.

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It is so great to be back.

What are you working on at the minute?

What's the big projects for you?

Right now, I'm working on a bunch of different projects.

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Thank you for having me.

It's lovely to be here.

I mean, tell us about Mavericks because I feel like we slightly skipped over the actual book last time.

That's very sweet of you.

Mavericks is about 24 people throughout history who've had weird lives.

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Give us a couple of names.

Who have you covered in there?

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Thank you.

Well, as we always say on this show, every pencil has a point and every point has a story.

With that in mind, let's write a new chapter with question one.

This question has been sent in by Fernando de Querro.

When touring round a coastline or river by kayak, why is it particularly useful to bring an umbrella?

One more time, when touring around a coastline or river by kayak, why is it particularly useful to bring an umbrella?

Are you putting the umbrella upside down and floating it on the water or like carrying something in it upside down?

Does it work?

Oh, bird poop.

Oh, I was gonna say live birds.

I've been attacked by a swan in a kayak before, and I wished I had an umbrella.

I've been attacked by a coot in a kayak, and then shortly thereafterwards, I was no longer in the kayak.

You

got you out of the kayak?

No, no, no, no, no.

I stand by this.

They look like tiny little birds.

I'm just paddling along, and I get too close to a nest that I don't know is there, and suddenly this black, feathery ball of death flies out and thankfully starts pecking at the kayak, not me.

But I just had to kind of swim away.

Did you wish you had an umbrella?

I mean, it would have helped.

Ines, you very enthusiastically said bird poop.

I may have stories, not involving kayaks, but involving birds and poop.

You can't stop there.

Go on.

I know.

And poop.

Let's hear it.

Most embarrassing email I ever had to send in my entire life

was as I was walking to a very important PhD meeting where I would go from candidate to PhD student.

And I was leaving, so I'd be there early.

So my alarm went off.

The one that says, In Ace, you should leave home now so you get to your meeting on time.

So I just stopped in the middle of the street.

I bent over, I opened up my bag, and as if it was trying to score 100 points, this pigeon.

Oh, no.

I did not know that so much

stuff.

Yeah, yeah, no, I regret asking for this story now.

I regret asking for this story now.

On me, my laptop.

I could barely

type on my phone, but it basically says, Can the meeting be an hour later?

A pigeon just defecated on me.

Oh,

no, you poor thing.

And if you'd left, if you'd left the house late, that wouldn't have happened.

Well, we we

were there early.

It depends if it's a pigeon with a vengeance.

All I I can say, supposedly being pooped on gives you good luck, but unfortunately it did not give me good luck in this meeting.

No,

but it's okay.

Ever since then, I kind of wish I'd had an umbrella.

So that is why my guess is bird poop.

Not in this case, because if you were touring around a coastline or a river, not in a kayak,

then it's to keep the seagulls off you with your chips.

When you're paddling with with your chips in one hand you gotta have an umbrella to keep the seagulls off you that's still true if you're not in a kayak though is it so you can use the hook of the umbrella to pull your oar back if it falls away and you can use the hook so it's less about the umbrella part and more about the handle i'm wondering if it's like a collapsible sail

So the wind can pull you, but then and you can marry poppins your way through the water, but if there's no wind or it's the the wrong direction, you just fold it up and stick it in the bottom.

Virginia, you have got it.

Out of the blue, out of nowhere.

Marine biologist, Virginia, those stuff.

So there was one summer when I was studying stuff in the Florida Keys and I had to kayak.

It was like two miles one way, each way.

to get to my experiment and I never got abs, which was unfair.

But I remember thinking, if I'm not going to get abs, I might as well go faster if only I had a sail.

And I should have used an umbrella.

Yep, when embarking on a longer tour, kayakers can use the umbrella as a makeshift sail.

And if the tailwind is strong enough, you can steer the rudder of the sea kayak.

If the wind is lighter, you can sail and paddle at the same time.

Amazing.

Well done.

The catch is, of course, you can't quite see where you're going.

Our question writer says this is something I've seen while kayaking and being by the river in northern Germany.

How resourceful.

I love that.

Ines, we will take the next question from you, please.

Okay.

On some rugged terrain in South Utah, there is a pair of sturdy metal poles about eight feet or 2.5 meters high.

There's nothing else of note as far as the eyes can see.

What are the poles for?

On some rugged terrain in South Utah, there is a pair of sturdy metal poles about 8 feet, 2.5 meters There's nothing else of note as far as the eyes can see.

What are the poles for?

Are they some sort of scientific instrument?

They're measuring like wind strength.

Southern Utah makes me think of Monument Valley.

Monument Valley, right?

Yeah.

I don't know if that's southern Utah.

It's definitely in that part of the world.

Pretty rocks.

Yes.

Yes.

It's just because it's rugged.

So like

Utah has a lot of pretty rocks.

Some great rocks.

Top 10 rocks.

Which is

unfortunately the exact opposite of marine biology.

Hey, hey, I'm smart in many things.

Didn't mean to delegate.

I withdraw the comment.

Now I have to get this one right.

They for campers, and they're like, you can use this as your washing line to dry your tent out.

It probably doesn't rain that much.

I mean, we don't know how far apart these are.

These could be two poles that are next to each other,

or they could be miles apart.

I'm assuming they're vertical.

They might not be.

Oh, they are vertical.

And I can say how far apart they are.

Are you going to?

I could let you all talk a little bit more.

I could see it being something safety related, like lightning rods, but I could also see it being a very silly thing, like it's for the traveling

magicians who are following some app's recommendation.

There's a challenge you have to complete there, like climb up the poles with one, you know.

There's a wide range of how serious we can be with this answer, right?

That just puts me in mind of the world's longest golf course.

There is a golf course across the Nullabore Plain in Australia.

And it's just, it's called the Nullabor because there's nothing there.

And it's like a three, four-day drive through nothing.

And someone has just set up 18 desert golf holes at intervals along there, just so you have something to do on the long trek.

So, it could be just like one of those weird tourist attractions that America just sets up in places.

So, one of the clues, which Virginia got correctly.

Tom, I am smart.

Never underestimate a marine biologist.

Oh, I've learned this.

I've learned this very quickly.

They are a safety feature.

Do they go down into the ground?

Are they for, like, do they vibrate and scare away like moles or the mole people?

Because they're 2.5 meters high, they probably do go quite a bit into the earth so they don't fall over.

But the information of that is not something I know.

So, no.

I'm just going to pick up on mole people there, Jenny.

You know, the mole people of southern Utah.

Is there something that connects them, like a wire or a rope or a line?

They are just two vertical poles.

Are they antenna?

Is it just two very tall people from Poland?

Oh.

Just stood there.

Eight feet tall each.

There are no two metal replicas of Polish people.

All right.

You said it was a safety feature.

So

I think Virginia already guessed to catch lightning, right?

It's not for that.

And eight meters, eight feet wouldn't really do anything.

You don't really need a lightning rod in the desert, unless you happen to be standing

right there on your.

Yeah, but they're in the desert ground.

So.

I mean, is it as simple as marking something like, here lies a death pit, don't get within 10 feet?

Is it a marker?

Yeah, there is.

This is no place of honor.

Right.

Oh, yeah.

No, no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here.

No highly esteemed deeds commemorated here.

Magicians come through here.

And let me tell you, beware.

Beware.

get you might you might get close-up magic tap I once saw on the internet somewhere that someone got this place is not a place of honor which like the nuclear warning things on booty shorts just as a

you've you've outed yourself as a tumblerite tom oh no I've outed myself as having someone who just insists on forwarding things to me like that

I am certainly downstream of Tumblr, but I'm not going into those waters.

On the other hand, Jenny, Jenny, you have just doubted yourself as a Tumblr, right?

Although, given last time you were on here, you made multiple fanfic references.

It's,

girl, I was also at the Devil's Sacrament.

Right.

They are kind of a marker, as said, but in different ways.

We haven't figured out what they're doing.

Is there anything on the poles, like a sign or a piece of cloth?

It's just an enormous sign that says, look out, two giant poles.

I don't know.

A bird?

There is a sign with the answer.

So there is a sign.

Oh.

There's a sign explaining what the poles are.

Yes.

We have previously talked on lateral a long time ago about markings for speed.

about highways that have markers drawn on them a mile apart

so you can well partly for that and partly to test your speedometer and partly so that people watching when they say speed enforced by aircraft there's occasionally someone up there looking down with a stopwatch at the and looking at the mile markers.

With a sniper rifle, what?

What are they gonna do?

They will radio the cop a couple of miles down the road.

Okay, so it's actually gonna be enforced by a car.

Yeah,

but I'm wondering if it's something to check

to check your own speed or to check something you're doing.

You can use this to test something or calibrate something.

It is used to check something.

It is also used in a much for a much less sophisticated measurement.

if the sun if you stand at the base of the pole and the sun is lower than here you're going to be caught outside in the dark and that's not good it's a very concise sign

like you're not wrong it says if something

if if something is the case don't do the thing oh something is the case don't do the thing if the shadows line up if you can't touch if if these poles are too hot to touch then do do not continue into the desert.

You'll be caught out in the wilderness and can't carry enough water.

But I love this, though.

If these poles are covered in flies, it is fly season.

I can't think of anything that wouldn't be really obvious.

Okay.

It's an area that is very popular with tourists.

So people who wouldn't necessarily be prepared to...

for desert rugged hiking.

What are the tourist attractions in Utah?

If you go past that sign, it's five hours till you get back or something.

Time?

It is not, it is not time.

But it is a very simple measurement.

You don't need to,

you don't need a watch.

You don't need a watch.

All I can think of are plagues now, like the underwater thing.

If the sign is covered in locusts, there's a locust plague.

Yeah.

If the sign is painted with lamb's blood, then the firstborn will die.

Is it

a measurement?

Is it like can you reach from pole to pole if you can touch them both?

If you can't fit between these poles,

then you're going to get stuck in this cave.

Yep, that is.

Yay!

That's the answer.

Yay!

Good job.

So the poles are roughly 30 centimeters apart, one foot.

It says to prevent tourists from getting stuck in a very narrow canyon.

For the context, the spooky slot canyon, which I have to say, most amazing name ever.

You can't call it that and then expect tourists to not go in it.

You've got to call it like sand canyon or like rock canyon or something.

You can't call it spooky canyon.

So, so great.

It's the narrowest in Utah.

A slot canyon is when the walls are over 10 times higher than the narrowest point.

The posts act as a size gauge.

A sign at the top says, if you have trouble fitting your body between these posts, do not proceed through spooky gulch.

You may become stuck and need rescue.

And then

there is also the peekaboo slot canyon nearby, which is also a favourite for tourists who don't have claustrophobia.

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Next question's from me.

Good luck.

Once a year, a primary school teacher puts on a crocodile glove puppet.

Why?

And one more time.

Once a year, a primary school teacher puts on a crocodile glove puppet.

Why?

It's the annual school play.

See you later, alligators.

Why not?

That sounds good.

Because she wants to tongue.

That That sounds fun.

Don't be ruining her fun.

It is bring your crocodile glove puppet to work day.

No, it's not that.

It's not that.

Is it for the children?

It is for the children.

I'll give you that much.

But I'll let you talk about it between yourselves for a while.

She hates it.

Show up to the lunchroom that day.

All the teachers are like throwing things.

They're so mad about the song.

I'm just thinking, like, I don't know, vaccination day in primary school.

Like, is it to distract the kids?

So they're like line up for the yearly jabs or something.

and it's like a distraction for them.

Like, look, smile at the alligator, or he'll bite you.

My mum, uh, was a my mum was a press photographer, and whenever she, whenever she had to take the picture of a very young child, she had a little uh toy of the character Sweep from the children's show Sooty and Sweep, and Sweep has a squeaker, so she would like waggle sweep in the air and squeak him to get the child's attention.

Is that what the crocodile is for?

It's not, unfortunately.

But it is for the kids, and the kids are roughly eight years old.

Is it

does it have to be a crocodile?

It could be an alligator.

I have a crocodile, it could be an alligator, but anything I'll tell you about.

It's teaching the difference between crocodiles and alligators.

When in puppet form, they have teeth.

Maybe it's, you know,

the tooth fairy.

Aren't kids losing teeth around that age?

It's like a dental hygiene seminar.

About brushing your teeth.

Yes.

Oh my god, that's the dentistry outreach.

It's a sponsored by the alligator.

This is how you brush the teeth on the little alligator puppet.

I mean, you should know that by the time you're eight, but like maybe just in case we do it again.

Virginia and Inesi, you were making some hand gestures there.

And honestly, I think those might start to help.

Folks at home, feel free to make the gesture you think a crocodile glove puppet would make.

is it like stop talking when when the when the alligator talks the teacher's talking when it's not you may raise your hand is it like a sort of it's only once a year though is this like the christmas alligator

the christmas crocodile so i i was thinking something with chomping like a motion like

if if it's like If it's not to teach about alligators or crocodiles, like hello, we live in a place with reptiles and they can bite you, then maybe it's like the physics of, you know, this is your hand, get caught, gets caught in the door.

You know, this is why we don't, I don't know.

Something with

the children are told that the crocodile is greedy.

Greedy.

Is this the crocodile like the cookie monster?

Oh, is it to take donations?

Oh, put money inside the crocodile.

Eat your donations.

Asking money from kids

in this economy?

What?

Oh, we're YouTubers?

Is there like a National Greed Day?

I know there's a National Giving Day.

We celebrate being greedy.

Is it like the Tuesday after Black Friday, like giving Tuesday?

Keep going with those hand gestures.

Right, so hand gestures.

Is it like a coordination exercise?

Once a year, you need to stretch your hand.

You've not got fingers.

Imagine children, what would be like if you didn't have fingers?

Are we teaching flamenco to the kids so they learn how to click with the flamenco alley?

What I love is that a load of people listening to this are all suddenly.

Oh, now, Jenny, not quite, but you're getting closer.

It's a concept kind of like that.

Direction is important.

Left and right?

Open and close.

Jenny, not that, but the direction the crocodile is facing will be important.

This is just a boom for reel of us.

There is no point in this question.

It's just so we can look silly.

Mission accomplished.

Is it different?

times is she telling no because you can't do sometimes

uh

greedy for for

this is

greedy.

This is for an eight-year-old's maths lesson.

Fractions!

Oh, greater than, less than.

Keep talking.

I don't greater than less than?

The alligator eats the bigger number because it's greedy.

There we go.

Nice one, Virginia.

I never had crocodiles in my math lessons.

I'm writing a letter of complaint.

Marine biologists also know about operations.

This is to teach children about the greater than and less than signs.

I remember a lesson similar to this from when I was a kid.

We did not get taught it with an alligator glove puppet, but there was certainly the metaphor of the alligator's jaw being greedy and going towards the bigger number.

This is a glove puppet used by quite a few teachers to teach greater than and less than.

I'm impressed it was just once a year.

I feel like our math was fire thing.

Virginia, we will go to you whenever you're ready.

This question has been sent in by Zilland.

A man in

Minasteray, Brazil, rides a bicycle for eight hours.

Though his bike goes nowhere useful, it saves him a day of time and makes the local population safer.

How?

And I will read it again.

A man in Minas Gerai, Brazil, rides a bicycle for eight hours.

Though his bike goes nowhere useful, it saves him a day of time and makes the local population safer.

How?

It goes nowhere or it goes nowhere useful.

Like nowhere useful.

It isn't a static bike, but he's not going anywhere in particular.

Is he generating electricity with it still, though?

It might, if you use that electricity to power.

There were a lot of questions in there.

I would like to let you process for a minute.

So I'm talking about yourself and I ask it not directly, I ask it out loud to the universe.

I wonder if his job is to ride around on his bicycle, and maybe he has a banner that has information or it's part of the authorities, so people feel safer when they see him around,

even though he's not actually going anywhere.

But, you know, a sort of presentee-ism

that is made better by him being on the bike, it saves him a day of time.

Oh, yeah, yeah, that's the like making the local population safer, sure, but saving him a day.

My first thought was he was scaring birds or something like that, and it saves him time for

the crops.

Yeah, or something like that, crossing a date line or something, but that's not in Brazil then now in Brazil.

Nowhere useful, saves him a day of time,

makes the local population safer.

If it's eight hours, are you just three times faster on a bike?

So if he were walking, it would take him a day versus on a bike, it would take him eight hours.

Like he could do this walking, but

since he's doing it on a bike, that's much faster.

Maybe he used to do it walking.

Is this something that could be done with something that's not a bike?

And

the other question is, does the bike actually move?

Is it a treadmill bike or a...

So I'm going to step in with a couple pieces of information because I feel like

you need that.

them.

I love you all.

However,

so, all right, Jenny and Denise, you have asked whether it's going nowhere or going nowhere useful.

And I think you should know because I think you both hypothesized that it was going just nowhere.

And I think you should know that that part is correct.

The bike does not move even an inch forward.

Huh.

Is he doing a spinning class?

An eight-hour spinning class.

Oh, brutal.

That saves him a day of time somehow.

Does this bike power something?

I was thinking electricity generation or something like that.

But you don't get that much power from one person peddling.

I've seen experiments like that, but you don't really get enough to power anything and it's not consistent.

But what if you just needed something to like turn around?

You don't need to generate power.

You're just moving something.

Rather than generating electricity, could the power be used more directly?

Could like one of the wheels be attached to a cable or something that does something?

Is he a baker?

Is he kneading dough or something?

And it's a way of

making something doing it.

It's a crazy Wallace and Grommet invention where it's like connected up to like paddles or...

cable that pulls a boat like it pulls a ferry the thing about powering something like generating electricity that part is correct

but i also think you should know

that he is not the only bicycler and i want to remind you of the question

his bike goes nowhere useful and we now know that means nowhere saves him a day of time and makes the local population safer

so If you imagine he's not the only one doing this, I really want to see if y'all can get the population safer and then saving him a day of time.

I guess if everyone is saving the electricity bill by cycling at the same time, they will be engaged and then too tired to commit crime, Ergo.

Everyone's safer.

It is a bicycle.

It is too tired.

Dang, man.

The puns today.

Yeah, sorry.

I'm not sorry.

That's a lie.

So I actually want to use that opportunity to steer you toward

a different meaning for the word time.

Is he cutting down time the plant?

Like it's harvesting time.

Rosemary sage and time?

No.

Okay, so along with the alternate meaning of time, I want to direct y'all back to the, you know, this man is not the only one doing this.

So where could you get a population of people for which multiple people at a time could be riding bikes and it would each one of them would be saving time?

I mean, I've just got a spin class.

Like someone mentioned that earlier.

In my head, this is just like exercise that's also generating electricity.

That's correct.

Okay.

But for these people, well, it's not exercise.

I mean, it is exercise, but like...

They're riding, it generates electricity.

And then also it holds special.

The time part for these people is special.

Is is this I don't think I'm helping is this electricity that they would have to go to great lengths to obtain otherwise?

Like, is it sort of a reserved journey?

I'm gonna walk for a mile to the electricity farm and bring back a bucket of electricity.

A bucket.

I've got my umbrella full of no.

So the

keeping people safer part is separate from the time reduced.

Okay, so the biking on its own keeps people safe.

Or at least, are these oh, they're not like, no.

They're not people who would otherwise be committing crimes.

Oh, no.

Oh, stay with that theme.

No.

Really?

What?

They're not like...

This isn't like a prison treadmill situation.

Is it?

Is there a meaning of time that is special to people in prisons?

They're doing time.

Oh, no.

And they get time off.

They get time off.

This is Victorian.

We did that to Oscar Wilde, man.

I feel like this is actually a really good thing because if you think, like, there are lots of ways that people take time off their sentence, right?

Like community service and stuff.

So this is not like dark, sinister, like whipping people to peddle faster.

Okay, there's no whips involved.

That's different from us.

They're not squeezing into slot canyons.

Yeah, so, okay, so let me tell you, inmates in the Brazilian state of, I'm so sorry, mi des churai, rode stationary bikes to charge batteries attached to them.

The scheme's initial four bicycles, oh, initial, so it grew, initial four bicycles provided enough electrical power to light 10 lamps at a perilous riverside walkway.

So these people were doing a real community.

This is community service.

In exchange for eight hours of work, the inmates were offered a reduction of one day of time off their prison sentence.

The scheme also provided inmates with fresh air and exercise they wouldn't normally receive.

One inmate was reported to have trimmed 20 days off his sentence and four kilos from his waistline.

The next question is from Christopher Henny Turner.

Thank you, Christopher.

So Robert Watson Watts' experiments in detecting thunderstorms found an unexpected application for which he was knighted.

However, in 1956, he was shocked by an unexpected charge complaining that he had become the victim of his own invention.

What happened?

I'll give you that again.

Sir Robert Watson Watts' experiments in detecting thunderstorms found an unexpected application for which he was knighted.

However, in 1956, he was shocked by an unexpected charge complaining that he had become the victim of his own invention.

What happened?

So there's no way that that's a charge as in an electrical charge.

That's either a criminal charge or a bill.

Like

he's somehow being billed for all this electricity.

So say is he is he

is he surprise shocked or is he I was really trying to read that question as best I could to get like electricity charge and and electricity shock as the subtext.

But yes, you have correctly identified the one in the question there.

And all I'll say is that he was not shocked by an electrical charge got it all right i thought i was being clever but i guess not

yeah

it was real obvious um

so yeah either a a criminal charge or a bill and this is in the 50s well the unexpected charge was in the 50s yeah but so he's been doing something for a while and unex and after i don't know 20 years of this invention he has has an unexpected, it either turned out to have been illegal this whole time or turned out to have been costing him a massive amount in his electricity bills.

And they didn't bill him for 20 years for some reason.

Maybe they.

I was going to say, it sounds like an overcharge.

I think it's going to be that one, though, because I think the criminal thing, like, I don't think we'd have two criminal questions.

That's pretty dark.

Good point.

I think it's going to be silly.

Yeah.

Just based on

Tom, how silly are you feeling right now?

I mean, it is moderately silly.

I'm imagining him like as a grumpy person in a local newspaper, like holding up his council tests.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

This is a grumpy person in local newspaper stories.

Was everyone using his device, and so he got charged for everyone, not just himself?

Maybe?

Like, he only made one or

it didn't distribute like he thought.

Did he think he was generating power, but actually he just plugged into the mains and was using the mains power?

and his invention didn't work at all.

Despite saying this is not about electricity you have all honed in on electricity and that's not what this is about.

Oh well his name is Watts.

Like

his name is Robert Watson Watt

but I didn't mention anything about electricity here.

Did he get sued

by Mr.

Watt

for using the same surname?

for lightning related things.

Copyright on his name.

This is that Watt, but he was working on a lot of things.

What was he working on?

A lot of things?

His experiments in detecting thunderstorms.

Okay.

I mean, those usually have electricity, but.

I can see why you picked up on electricity here, but that is a bit of a red herring.

He's not finding the thunderstorms through

lightning.

He's finding them...

through like

uh

thunder maybe he's like he's got a a seismograph in the sky that wobbles every time there's thunder.

Or like there's a press, like you can test it with pressure, right?

Like your barometer goes really low when there's a

thunderstorm.

Keep thinking that way.

So inventions that might help detect things far away.

So what if it's sound?

And he was listening to thunder super far away and then he gave everybody sound listeners from far away and everyone heard him like insult the local

mayor or

infiltrating radio waves somehow was oh hang on this is the 50s was he was with with was this a is this a russian spy thing did he pick up like

did they find out that he was also selling secrets to the ruskies because he'd accidentally broadcast on his lightning detection system.

Between you, there were all sorts of points that head in the right direction.

Virginia, you were talking about sound waves and sound detection.

His invention actually made that obsolete.

And in Nace, you were talking about radio waves.

Jenny, I'd try and add a third thing, but unfortunately, I don't have one from what you said.

That's really kind of you to have tried.

That's all right.

Was he cancelling out emergency radio waves so he was charged with interference of some sort?

If you figure out the invention, you'll be able to figure out the second part of the question.

So it made sound listening obsolete.

Yeah.

There are sound mirrors on the British coast, which are giant concrete structures that people used to, for a little while, obviously they were testing them, stand in them as giant amplifiers and try and hear things far away.

Watts' experiments and Watts' discoveries were part of what made that obsolete.

Did he accidentally deafen deafen some people so they got rid of it?

Like, was this a safety concern?

Radio waves in ACE.

Radio waves, okay.

Did he invent the radio?

I don't know who invented the radio.

It's a technology that's used with weather even now.

Like, if you are in the US, they will talk about their

cloud detecting, rain-detecting thing, and they will give it a name.

Radar or something?

Radar.

Yes.

So Robert Watson Watt,

obviously there's a lot of people working on things like that, but his discoveries helped create radar.

So radar is World War II.

Yep, vital tool helped detect the Luftwaffe.

That was why he was night.

Did he accidentally reveal the position

of

people on their side and that was discovered?

Therefore, he was releasing information.

Not in 1956.

This is years after the war.

He has been given his night.

Was he like still listening in to the RAF in the 50s going, oh yeah, they fired me, but I can tell where they all are.

I mean, radar just kind of gives you a ping.

It just kind of gives you

location and speed.

That's about it.

And he was using it to find.

Oh, did it lead to police guns and speeding stuff?

Yes.

Keep going, keep going.

So he invents radar, and it's a weather tool and then the police are like, oh hi, we could use that for our own purposes.

And then they train it around town and he gets caught speeding and he's like, oh, I made that happen.

Yeah, that's basically it.

He was driving in Canada in 1956.

He was stopped for speeding by a policeman using a very early form of the radar gun and was charged with an on-the-spot fine of $12.50, which...

You'd be kicking your son, wouldn't you?

Yep.

Yep, even though his wife tried to use the line, don't you know who you're giving a ticket to?

Police officer was like,

Mr.

Watt, he invented electricity.

That's what the police officer said.

How much is $12.50 in?

$12.50 Canadian dollars back then.

I couldn't tell you what that is now.

Enough to be frustrating.

He claimed that he had been the victim of his own invention.

His original request from the British government was to invent a death ray that would heat up enemy aircraft.

And

he had to write back and say that that is impossible, but I can tell you where they are.

Can we just say Virginia got like a full house here?

Storm in it.

Marine biologist.

Marine biologist.

If you go backwards in time in this video, I think you will hear Tom say something about speed.

And so I think all I was doing was listening very hard.

I don't think I was doing it.

You were majoring in very well.

Jenny, it's your question.

Whenever you're ready.

This question has been sent in by Evie Joe.

Krakow, Poland, has one of the largest medieval market squares in Europe, dating back to the 1200s.

Though its location hasn't changed over the centuries, the medieval thoroughfare is up to four meters, 13 feet, away from the current one.

How?

I'll say it again.

Krakow, Poland, has one of the largest medieval market squares in Europe, dating back to the 1200s.

Though its location hasn't changed over the centuries, the medieval thoroughfare is up to four meters, 13 feet away from the current one.

How?

Is that just how tectonic plates work over the last

800 years?

That's simple.

I don't know that there is a tectonic fault in Krakow.

No, it's a fairly inactive area, that.

But that is a problem in some countries.

Like for GPS, Australia is moving so fast, I think it's northeast that every so often they just have to kind of update the basis for where the GPS goes to, and it's actually a bit of a problem.

So, I will say I have been to that square, and

there was having to crack up.

I don't know the answer, but I have a story there, which was I wanted to buy a pretzel and I accidentally opened my wallet, and all the money went everywhere.

I was like, I'll pay for this.

Coins exploded everywhere.

Oh, nice.

You're probably not the first person to have done that.

But I'm pretty sure people excited to pay is not the reason that the market has displaced by a few meters.

Okay.

I feel like when it says off, my initial instinct is it's moved sideways.

But a lot of cities famously like build up over time.

because refuse and stuff like piles up and things are built.

Like Seattle has an underground city.

And I know that was maybe more deliberate, but like a lot of cities are kind of building up a little bit.

Or it's four meters down just because it's been eroded by so many cart tracks and so much over the years.

I mean, that's the fastest question we've ever had.

Well, well done, Virginia.

Really?

You, I mean, you do a market for

enough people drop their coins on the ground over 800 years.

And this is the reason this happened.

My wallet's so heavy, It made the market go down.

That's it.

So the current square is built on four meters of debris.

That's really deep operating.

That's,

yeah, it's...

I mean, a lot of medieval cities will have something like that.

But yeah,

that's quick.

That's fast that that's happened.

Wait, that's over 800 years.

Yeah, that's like since the 1200s.

That's like half a metre a century?

Yeah, that's a good thing.

So I'm doing math.

I'm doing maths in my head, and that's like 50 centimeters.

That's,

am I right in saying that's like five mil a year?

You know what, though?

It may not be a linear accumulation.

It may be that back when they dumped all their crap in the street, like a literal figure.

It may be that it built up a lot in the beginning in the last 200 years.

It's been pretty stable.

That's what I'm going to think about.

Yeah, so the reason it happens is because basically every time it got too dirty, like every time the roads got too mucky, they would put in a load of new straw and new dirt to clean it up.

And so over the years, that's why it's happened so fast.

And there is a museum where you can like go down into the excavation.

It's called the Reineck Underground Museum, if that's how it's pronounced.

So one last order of business.

Thank you to lateral player Oliver Vorge for sending this question in.

In Iceland, which which publication contains 19 ninjas, 44 Jedi and seven Supermans?

I'll give you that one more time.

In Iceland, which publication contains 19 ninjas, 44 Jedi and seven Supermans?

Is it the phone book?

It is the phone book.

Yes, it is.

Because in Iceland,

they have matronymics or patronymics, I think.

And so

all of them have such similar names that I guess you get to pick a fun name to differentiate yourself because otherwise everyone would just have the same name.

You've got the phone book, you haven't got the other half of that.

This is not the names of the people in there.

Well, it's not all the names of the people in there.

Are these businesses?

If you have lots of people with the same name, what else might the phone book do?

Addresses?

It's going to give you some other way of differentiating them.

Addresses or who they're related to, maybe?

Is it a job?

Is that like if people put their jobs in and they put my job as a ninja?

Oh,

suck.

Gotta get one right tonight.

Yep.

Iceland's phone company couldn't keep up with the modern years where people change occupation frequently.

So they start to allow anything that passed a profanity filter.

So some people put in ninjas, Jedi, Superman.

There are also five people who have the forename Ninya, which means that there are some extra ninyas, ninjas in the phone book.

Congratulations to all three of our players.

What's going on in your lives?

Where can people find you?

We will start with Jenny.

You can find me at J Draper London on YouTube and TikTok, and you can find my book, Mavericks, in all good bookshops.

In Ace.

You can find me on YouTube and Twitch at Joe Curiosity.

I make videos about once a month and I stream a few times a week all about science.

And Virginia.

I am at VGW Shooty, my last name, on YouTube and Instagram.

And if you follow me, you'll be promoting a pitch I'm making this year for a talk show.

So please come talk to me.

And if you want to find out more about this show, you can do that at lateralcast.com where you can also send in your own ideas for a question.

We are at lateralcast basically everywhere.

And there are regular video highlights at youtube.com/slash lateralcast.

Thank you very much to Jay Draper.

Thank you for having me.

It's been great.

Virginia Shooty.

Yay!

And Inase Laura Dawson.

Thank you for having me again.

I've been Tom Scott, and that's been Lateral.