A Problem Squared - 099 = Most Watched Films and Homonyms

Episode Date: December 9, 2024

099 = Most Watched Films and Homonyms ✍️ What single word in the English Language has the most different meanings?  📺 Is the most consumed media of all time a holiday movie or song? 🗞 There’s some Any Other Business!  ⚔️ Battleships continues.   If you want to find out more about the Royal Flying Doctor Service, do that here:  https://www.flyingdoctor.org.au/nswact/visit/broken-hill-visitor-centre/ You can see the full contents of Bec’s new outback first aid kit here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPuwoOtTFV8  If you want to learn more about WordNet (as mentioned in Matt’s problem) follow this link here: https://wordnet.princeton.edu/ If you’d like to see the trailer for what is apparently the most watched film of all time, you can do that here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXqjcDchr14 And if you’d like to hear the most streamed song of all time, you can do that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHI8X4OXluQ&ab_channel=TheWeekndVEVO Finally, IF you’re on Patreon and have a creative Wizard offer for Bec and Matt, please comment on the ‘Sup ‘Zards’ pinned post! Perhaps you want to leave us a review, show the podcast to a friend or give us a rating? If you’d like to, please do that. It really helps.  AND if you want even more from A Problem Squared (and who doesn’t) you can connect with us and other fantastic listeners on BlueSky, Twitter, Instagram, and Discord.

Hello and welcome to a problem squared, the problem solving podcast, which is a bit like a home cooked meal. It's warm, familiar and really hits the spot. Even if it isn't necessarily prepared well or has any nutritional value. I'm your host, Beck Hill, and I'd say I'm similar to Welsh rare bit in that when I call myself a comedian and writer, it's just a fancy way of saying cheesy and basic. And I am joined by your other host, Matt Parker, who is like mash and gravy. Oh, because as a comedian and mathematician, he makes pie even more palatable.

Oh, wow. That's an excellent intro. Yay. I, I prepared. You did. In this episode. I've calculated the most common words. And I've looked at the most common media.

Oh, wow. A theme. Consumed. Five years in and we have a theme. Sort of. And we have some, any other business? Yes. Any other bakeness? I've done that before.

A... Amateur other business. Because a home-cooked meal is not prepared by professionals. It's not a pro... Well, it could be if you're a professional chef at home. Yeah. An okay bread is what I would cook if I was. Hey Matt. Beck, how are we doing?

I'm good. I'm good. Hey Matt. Beck, how are we doing? I'm good. I'm good. I did a gig for the Royal Flying Doctor's Service. Oh wow. Which is an Australian charity. They fly around to-

People who need a doctor. Yes, out in the middle of nowhere. Who are not near a doctor. Exactly. And they have like a bunch of patrons over here in the UK. They were doing an event, lovely comedian, Adam Hills asked me, I would like to be on the bill. And I thought, yeah, I'll help raise money for them. And I assumed that men, it was going to be like a gig with a bunch of comics and the ticket money all goes to towards That's what I'm assuming. Classic charity gig.

I realized far too close to the time that I was performing. Were you at the show? It was a gala. Oh, a gala. Like a dinner, a very fancy dinner for very rich patrons. Right. So the sort of event you've, you put on to try and convince rich people to keep giving you the money that keeps the service running.

So a normal charity gig, lots of people, a little bit of money from each one. This was way fewer people. 300 people, but having a very fancy meal. Got it. They put on a whole comedy show for them? Nope. I was the only comedian on the bill other than Adam Hills, who was hosting. What more do you need?

Yeah. Yeah. No pressure. We'll just let one of the best, most popular Australian comedians to introduce, to not do the comedy. Establish the bar. And then just before it all began, I went into the bathroom and washed my hands next to Julia Gillard, the former Australian prime minister and Australia's first female prime minister. Yeah. So that was very high pressure. The famous and the powerful. Beck Hill has come home. Also, I, cause originally Hillsie wanted me to do my flip charts, but the layout of the

room did not lend itself. Like there were people who would not be able to. Sight lines are quite important. Yeah. And it was too late to try and sort something out. And there'd already been a bunch of tech issues that they were having with other stuff. So I was like, there's no way that this would have worked. So instead I was like, okay, I'd taken all of my props, I'd taken all this stuff.

And I was like, no, that's gone out the window. I will just do a set tailored to what feels right. The only thing being is I realized that most of my like Australian and Britain's are different material is about like swears and rude stuff. So I ended up doing some pretty blue material to the former prime minister. How many former prime ministers were present? I think just the one. Okay.

Yeah. But they were all very kind, very nice to me afterwards. So I don't think I ruined the Royal Flying Doctor's Service chances. You've not tarnished there. Yeah. He did say something to me, which he said, I've never had to say this to an act before, I'm going to bring you on just after I've sung Happy Birthday to the King, because King Charles is the main patron of the charity.

You've got to be nice to him. And the main guy organizing it all has his number. So he got Adam to sing happy birthday while they filmed it just on a phone to text it to him. To just once happened to old Charlie, old Charlie boy. And then I went on stage and was like, are you ready to laugh? Now I would say that normally in this scenario with this sort of event, and I don't, I don't mean to shame these guys because this is something that is very close to Adam's heart and he's

been doing for a long time. If you are a charity that is putting on an event of this scale to get big money in, and you are paying the caterers and you are paying the tech people and you are paying the venue, which was the Dorchester hotel by the way, that is not free. Please pay your entertainment because I was there going, I am the only, like out of everyone in this room, I'm the one who was not getting paid to do my job. Yes.

Yes. They did, however, give me a nice thank you gift. Oh, okay. Would you like to describe for the listeners what I am? Some kind of swag-esque Royal Flying Doctor Service, a rolled up pouch with two straps holding it closed. This is an official first aid kit. An official first aid kit.

Yes. For the outback. Wow. It's got a real, not steampunk, not retro, but it's got a real leather straps and metal plate vibe. Like a swag. It's got a swag, swag vibe. It's got more attention to aesthetics than you'd normally expect from a first aid kit.

Not only first aid kits just go for extremely bright colors to make them easy to find. This one, this one would blend in to a anthropology store. I should also say when we say swag as Aussies, yeah, we're referring to, there's a type of like sleeping bag made of this very thick canvas that sort of got the mattress in it as well. And it's, it's so you don't need a tent. Yeah. Basically.

These are some of the kits that we got. Snake bite, burns, sprains and strains. Okay. So if you get bitten by a snake that's on fire, and then you try to run away too fast, this is the kit for fire. Yeah. And then you try to run away too fast. Yeah. This is the kit for you. Great. This is good if you've got a snake that has all the venom to kill everyone in the world

or something like that. Yeah. You just need this. Throw back to us. This Pro Home School Pencil case of equipment. I found it funny that these are things that I've been given in the UK where I need them at least. Less useful here.

This one in particular though, this is why I really wanted to bring this. The whole point was to come here and say this, all that story about the gala and that's just... Alright, ready? This is the best thing I've ever been given for doing a gig. Oh my goodness. Amputated parts bags. Look, look, here's what you need to do. Number one, control bleeding from stump. When you're like, oh, thank's what you need to do. Number one, control bleeding from stump. When you're like, oh, thank you for this lovely gift that you've given me for

doing a gig and then that's the first thing you read. This is arguably the biggest burn you could give a performer post gig. You're like, oh, that went so well. Now I've got the right- You might need to better control be leading from stump. You died out there, mate. Cause point two is just seek urgent medical assistance. I like how that comes after.

I feel like that's second. Yeah. But before step three, place amputated part into a clean plastic bag and seal. Four, preferably float the bag in a container of icy water or on top of crushed ice. Do not allow amputated part to be soaked in water. That's where I've been going wrong.

That's what you keep doing. I keep soaking them in the water and then they'll lose all flavor. That's, you know, I'm laughing because it's objectively very funny, but I don't think I would have got those steps right in an emergency. No, but the real kicker about this is, is that Adam also got paid with one of these kits. That's a little, not on the nose, but a little below the belt, if you will. Yeah.

Famously for any listeners who aren't aware of Adam Hills has one leg. Has one leg. Yeah. So he found this equally as amusing. I bet he did. It's very funny. It's good now to have an official Problem Squared first aid kit. Matt, how are you?

I'm good. Spent a weekend just sorting things out in the house. Not super exciting. But necessary. Yes, Christmas is very close. And so descending upon our house shall be. Because this is our first Christmas back in the UK. I did two Aussie Christmases.

We built up a Christmas debt with Lucy's family and they have come to collect. So her parents will be joining us. Her sister will be joining us and her sister's hangers on, which is her husband and her two children. Oh yes. So that's six additional humans. And Lucy's other sister lives not that far from us.

And they've got their whole family showing up there as well. Wow. Separately, the other half of the family. So there's a lot, there's going to be a lot of people around. And that's why we are recording this from a new desk. This is because I had to clear it out of a room at home to fit another bed, basically, just to have capacity for all the humans. Oh, I see how it is.

Yeah. Now you're getting a bed. Now we get a bed. But I'm very excited about this. I don't know if we've brought this up. A couple of days ago, I looked in the calendar, 30th of November, 2019, the first episode. Ooh. So this one, episode 99 will be the listening anniversary year five.

Happy five year anniversary. Yep. Congratulations to everyone listening who's been with us from the start. And welcome to all of those who have joined since. Yep. I've just looked it up and the traditional anniversary gift for the fifth year is wood. We're nothing if not traditional. Lauren Armstrong-Carter, our producer, pointed out we've got a new table,

which is made of wood. Happy anniversary, Beck. Thank you. We got a table. Yay. But I didn't have room for it at home. What's our golden, is it got no diamond birthday? When's our diamond birthday?

Cause we started in 2019, it's to be when the podcast turns 19. Yeah. Which should be in 2038. All right. Which is impossible. No. Mate, we're going to be real embarrassed if we're one day recording that and we're like, oh, we didn't think it would happen, but here we are.

I like to think we'll still be going. Shall we do our fifth anniversary episode? All right. Let's do a show. Our first problem is from Torin. Torin. How was that spelled? T O R I N. Torin.

I'll go Torin. Yeah. He said a friend who is an ESL speaker, that's English as a second language, recently asked me what I meant when I used the word nip in a story I wrote. Yeah, let's clarify. They pointed out it wasn't rude, but they were only familiar with the word as a contraction of nipple. Yep.

Which I think of all the rude versions is fine. This made me realize how many meanings nip has in English to nip out, as into the shops. Yep. A small bite. Oh, a nip. Yeah. Yep. A sneaky drink. Nip a whiskey. Oh, nip out as into the shops. Yep. A small bite. Oh, nip. Yeah. Yep. A sneaky drink.

Nip a whiskey. Oh, nip a whiskey. Address nipping or I guess frostbite nipping at your toes. Oh, yep. Yep. Your nose. They said, my problem is what single word in English has the most different meanings?

Good problem. Now this is a fun one because I took the problem on and then you said you'd also notice this one come in from Torrin. Yes. And we're also interested in it. Yes. And would be able to answer it properly.

Yes. Whereas I was going to answer it ridiculously. Because what you could do for a problem like this is Google which word has the most meanings. Which is what I did. Correct. And that's what what I did. Correct. And that's what one should do. Yeah. I, however, thought, well, can I work it out myself?

And famously I have a text document with all the words, but I haven't got all the meanings. It's just strings of texts that have been used on the internet. I thought, well, to complete my collection, maybe I should have all the meanings. Oh gosh. So I was like, how would I, cause here's what I need to do. I need to get all the definitions of all the words and then for each one, write some terrible Python code to count how many definitions there are, and then put them all on a spreadsheet and then sort them by number of definitions.

Yep. Piece of cake. Mm hmm. Yep. Piece of cake. Mm-hmm. So, so. I'm giving Matt a look right now that says I've been here before. Yeah. Yeah. And I've seen how it goes.

This time, what can go wrong? Cause last time, and by last time I'm referring to the five words, five letters, each 25 different letters. that was a computationally difficult challenge. That was finding a set of words that all work together. And the combinatorics of that get very complicated because there's lots of ways you can combine things. This is just a sort. It's just, which has the most like that's computationally easy.

Sorting a list is way quicker than finding combinations. Matt, is this going to be like the famous, a problem squared thing where we think something's going to be really simple and then it turns out to be far more complicated than we expected. It feels like that, doesn't it? So, so there are several steps at which this could get complicated. The first one was how do I get all the definitions? Yeah.

I couldn't find a dictionary you can kind of download and easily access all the definitions. You mean a thesaurus? Yeah. That's the inverse question of what concept has the most words that can describe it or we're doing is which word has the most things that can describe. Sure. it, or we're doing is which word has the most things it can describe. Sure.

So for dictionary, I then briefly dabbled in, is there like an old scan of a dictionary or an OCR, so a text version of a scan of like an out-of-date dictionary where I can just get a whole bunch of available data for all these definitions and that doesn't exist. But then I found the fine people at Princeton university have put together WordNet, a lexical database for English. If you're thinking, what is WordNet? A lot of people must because the very first thing you see on the page is what is WordNet. So in their words, WordNet is a large lexical database of English.

And so it's got words with definitions, but it's also got, like you were saying, it's also part of thesaurus. So it's kind of linking together words that have similar meanings. And for every single word, it gives you all of its possible meanings. Okay. I was like, that's exactly what I need. And I found someone who's already written a way you can interface with it straight from Python. Oh, so PI dictionary.

If you ask it for a definition, it takes care of the behind the scenes going off to Great. Wordnet. Awesome. Getting the definition, bringing it back. I then had to find a list of words to ask for the definitions of. I couldn't just say, Hey, what are all the words? And my other list of words is pretty terrible.

So actually I found a new list of the 20,000 most common words and thought, you know what, if a word is going to have the most definitions, it's probably a very common word. Okay. One definition. Okay. So I took the 20,000 most common words, took out a bunch of them. Does that include like the? Well, I took out a bunch of crap ones.

Which was the word crap. No, I left the word crap in. No, no, I meant the word the. The word the is, well, the doesn't have a definition on word net. Oh, interesting. Because it's more interested in, in like words that are like nouns or adjectives. Whereas the is just the glue that holds everything else together. Yep.

They care more about meaning. So actually, and it threw me cause like the was one of the most common words. Yeah. And so my code immediately failed because I was like definition of the, which is like one of the first ones that went out and it came back with no, nothing. I was like, what? So then I had to do some more digging into word net about why they don't have the, and then I was like, actually, you know what?

I don't really need words like that. So in the end I took out words that were like, you know, pairs of letters or three letters in a row that we wouldn't really consider a word, but it's just something that's used a lot accidentally in, in, um, in text. Three letters in a row? At the top of my head, for example, like one of the words might just be TT. Every letter appears in there by itself. I don't think they all count as words.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm like, meh, as words. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm like, it's not really a word. So I did some pre-pruning and then I threw every single one of the remaining, you know, 19 something thousand words. Took out TT. Took out TT.

Through them all at WordNet. And WordNet then took out more because it didn't bother having definitions for them. But I ended up with 16,441 definitions of words. Okay. And these are the most common words. So then I've got the spreadsheet here. I've got every single word and then the number of definitions that came back. I had to write a bit more code to get the definition that comes back.

And that's like one big definition and split it apart into individual definitions for the word and then count how many of those there are. Okay. And so I'm going to do right now, I'm going to sort by number of definitions, largest to smallest, go. What did you find is the top word?

Let's compare. Yeah, let's see. I've locked mine in, it's, I it and I can see it at the top there. Yep. Well, for a long time, when they prepared the first edition of the Oxford English dictionary, took them 70 years to do it. 70 years to prepare it. They began in 1857 and the first edition was published in 1928.

Oh my goodness. The longest word then, or the one, sorry, the one with the most definitions was a three letter word. Oh, sorry, the one with the most definitions was a three letter word. Oh, does that fit in with your, maybe I think so far it was the word set. If you go to the printed edition of that dictionary, you can see it occupies 32 full pages, 32 full pages, 75 columns with about 200 meanings. Oh my goodness. Uh, there was an interview with an author in 2011 called Simon Winchester, who

wrote also writes the New York Times and wrote a verb for our frantic times, which was about the fact that a new word had overtaken the word set. Yeah. Now other words had overtaken the word set. Yeah. Now other words had overtaken set. Yep. Before I get to that in the 20th, in the 20th century, set was replaced by put. Put. You put things on a table.

Yeah. Put it on piece of paper, put downs, but at least in 2011, this appears to still be the top one. And at this point in 2011, counted with 645 different meanings. 640. That's ridiculous. Was the word run. Run.

Run. Run came in for me with the third most definitions. How many definitions did it count for? 57. So not quite as extensive. third most definitions. How many definitions did it count for? 57. So not quite as extensive. So I think, and this is me speculating on the fly, the reason we'll have a slightly different ranking is I'm looking at a set of definitions, which is a more stringent

list. They've only gone for top or very common definitions, let's say. Whereas the one you're looking at is a more exhaustive, all the definitions possible. Yeah. Which I would argue is answering the question better. Whoa, whoa. No, no, no. If they're obscure, if they're not used, they really count. So the two words that beat run. It doesn't matter that there's some skeletons in the lounge room.

They were dead for ages. No, it's like, it's like if like the final answer was like, oh, it's over morrow or like some archaic word that's not used anymore. Yeah. I bet not all those definitions word that's not used anymore. Yeah. I bet not all those definitions are modern, frequently used definitions. Now you could argue that doesn't matter. Yes. And I do.

Which you are silently right now. The two words that beat run were break and cut. Oh. Now because I did this quite bluntly, like I've got every single word, I've got families of words. So the top three, just by sorting by number of definitions, are break, breaks, and broken. And I count that all as like the same kind of root family of words. Also in the top 10 are broke and breaking. Break wins, but that kind of family of words. Also in the top 10 are broke and breaking. Break wins, but that

kind of family of words is big. Cut and cuts and cutting, cutting is number 11 actually. They're all right at the top. And then run and runs were positions nine and 10. And then running is 13. Set and put, so set comes in at 29, but I haven't removed duplicate, like run and runs are both outranking it, for example. Yeah. So in theory, I should collapse those down. Set is there. Put nine definitions. So the nine definitions for put, the option to sell a given stock. Okay.

Makes sense as a verb put into a certain place or abstract location as a verb calls to be in a certain state calls to be in a certain relation. Fine. Formulate in a particular style or language. Okay. Put that in context, I guess attribute or give, make an investment estimate context, I guess, attribute or give, make an investment estimate, cause someone cause a range of thoughts, ideas, temporal events.

Yeah. So I think this is a real light touch set of meanings as opposed to the real, a lot of definitions. I reckon some of them I wouldn't actually see as very different. It depends how you group them. Isn't it? Yep. Did you say you just counted two letter words? Not all of them. One's that I thought were legit words, I left them in.

Do you have go? 35 definitions. Ah. Position 91. So in 2019, that had 368 definitions in the Oxford English Dictionary. Oh, wow. Yep. Not that many here. The one other thing I can do is the way the data came back, I could pull out nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs. I can actually re-sort the list just by what has the most meanings that are all nouns. So if I sort by number of nouns, largest to smallest,

If I sort by number of nouns, largest to smallest, the nouniest word, head. Oh yeah. I can believe that. You've got a head on your shoulders. You have a head of wheat. Yeah, a head of beer. Yeah. And, but then it's also a verb to head off.

Well, yes. Let's have a look here. So that's got 33 noun definitions and nine verb definitions. Should we find the one with the most verb definitions? Yeah. Sort by verb? This is still very impressive. It's still kind of fun. Like, the fact that I got the data myself, apart from the fact that makes it quite questionable, does mean I've got it all. I don't have to like chase sources or anything. Does Nip come up in your list? Oh, let's find Nip. Let's, let's end by with a nip. Oh, verb is break. So that's one of the reasons why break absolutely hit the top. Make is the

second highest verb. Give is the third and then take. So I think it's break. It's the word for the most definitions. Yep. Experts disagree. Also back. And I think head having the most nouns is interesting. Second most nouniest word is line. As in like to draw a line. To draw a line. What about nip? Okay. Fine for fine. To my document, nip. Nip is coming in at position 1,973. Oh, nipped at the post. Yes. Well, That was tied with a lot of other words, but these are the definitions I've got here. A small drink of liquor, the taste experienced when a savory condiment is taken into the mouth. Okay.

Okay. Oh, like it's, oh, it's got some nip. Got some nip. When you have like a hot sauce or something. I guess so. Yeah. Yeah. No, that tracks.

Yep. The property of being moderately cold. Yeah. There we are. It's a bit nippy. I used to think that the term bit nippy, but like was referring to the fact that when it's called a bit nippily, it gets a bit nippily, but it's not a fact. No, it's not that.

A tart spicy quality, a small sharp bite or snip, squeeze lightly between the fingers. Like a pinch. And there's other ones. And there's others. So there you are. That's the benefit of getting all the data yourself. You can answer more questions, but- The answers might be wrong.

Your less complex answers might be wrong. Yeah. It's a trade off. I still think that was a very fun way of going about it. I'm like, how complicated can I make this? Yeah. Classic. You've pocketed it. Yep. I stopped short of buying a dictionary and scanning it in.

I did think you might do that. And then try and work out which words had the most, like the most space on the pages. So there you are. And on the upside, as well as having all the words, I now have all the definitions, which feels dangerous for me to now have. Well, I need to ask Matt, did ding come up on that list at all? Oh my goodness, ding! Ending, folding. I don't think that's a word. That's just a prefix. So to be a postfix? No, ding. I haven't got it. But ding means one thing, success.

Or according to the Oxford English Dictionary, to make a ringing sound, to mark or dent on the bodywork of a car or other vehicle. Oh yeah, got dinged. That's kind of it. Well, we have now provided a new definition for the word ding. Which means solved. Which means the problem solved. Can we get this definition added?

Certainly not. Lexigraphical graffiti. Let's do it guys. Let's find the Wikipedia entry for ding. We said we'd only ever use our listeners for good. No, we didn't. Oh no, we didn't. You're right.

But before we use that ding as so well defined, we should probably get Torrin to choose. Oh, good point. Which of us gets the ding? Run versus break. Yeah. Break run. Break run Run versus break. Yeah. Break run. Break run. Run break.

Run. Next problem was sent in by a Matthew, one of many. And this one, full name Matthew, went to the problem posing page at problemsquared.com and said that they have recently realized they've probably watched The Santa Claus. That's a film. Yes. The one with Tim Allen. Tim Allen. Yeah. Become Santa. Santa Claus. More than any other movie in their life. Oh my goodness, Matthew. They go on to say once per year, they watch it every Christmas season. And I got them wondering, given the annual dominance of Christmas

movies and songs is the most watched divided by listened, no, watched slash listened to piece of media of all time, a holiday movie slash song. Bec, you've looked into this. I have. I have not for the record downloaded all the medias. Yeah. You haven't run some Python code. Well, before I give you an answer, do you have a Christmas movie you watch every year?

Nope. There's no piece of media in my life that's watched with a certain cadence for traditional reasons. Wow. What do you think your most watched film is? Oh, my goodness. Most watched film would either be Toy Story 2 or Jurassic Park. OK, sorry. Now, right.

Jurassic Park makes sense. But Toy Story 2. Now, that's because when I was at university a young 18 or 19 year old Matthew found out that you could buy a month long pass to the cinema to watch as many films as you wanted. And I was visiting the UK on my break from uni in Australia. And so I had a lot of time to fill. I had three movies for a month. I realized in the one day there were five different screenings of Toy Story 2. I was like, what else in my life?

This puts the year. This is the most Matt Parker thing. Like that's so you to be like, let's see if I can watch all of them. You don't even have an audience then. No, it's just me, literally me by myself. You're such a dork. They wasn't even making content. I was just like, can I watch the same film five times in a row at the cinema?

And so you're in another country and your first thought is... Can I stop it? It wasn't sad at all. So I watched the same film five times in a row for zero extra marginal cost for the record. I went out between the screenings to get some fresh air. So you just stayed in there. No, I left them in between. You have to. They kick everyone out. And then I had to come

back in again on a new. It's that the guy really likes Toy Story too. And in my head, you look like you do now. You don't look like an 18 year old. Which makes it creepier. The point I'm making, I feel like- And you've seen it since then as well. Yes. I feel like we're getting too lost in the weeds. What I'm trying to say is I don't tend to re-watch films that much.

And I feel like having a five viewing head start for Toy Story 2 is going to give it a decent lead that no other film is going to catch up with. I can't see another film that I've watched five times, definitely, other than Jurassic Park to be in the same league. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I saw Lord of the Rings, I think like seven times the first one when it came out. That's a long watch. You're making fun of me for five Toy Story 2s. Not on the same day though, but I think it was like, it definitely was way more, it was when there was no like streaming services or anything like that.

Every time I went to the movies with friends are like, Oh, I haven't seen all the rings yet. And so I just ended up with different friend groups. Seeing it. Towards the end. I was like, okay, I'm done now. My Christmas movie is while you were sleeping. My mom and I watch it together every year.

while you were sleeping. My mom and I watch it together every year. So that's probably the most overall, because it's, I think that tradition started quite some time ago. I found it quite hard to find the answer to this for in terms of films. Oh really? Well, I guess there's box office takings, but that's not really the same thing, is it? Exactly. If you Google most watched film of all time, quite often the top one, if you want to have a guess. Goodness. It was probably one of the avatars. Titanic. Titanic's still number one.

Comes up a lot. But I think that's because of the box office takings. Yeah. And avatar is also listed at the top. But doesn't necessarily mean it's the most viewed. Titanic, I believe they said is the most viewed because then they were adding VHS and DVD sales. Right. Which were a big thing. Yes. In the past.

Yes. And it's harder now that you've got things on different streaming platforms. Streaming, yeah. They're very guarded with their data. Yeah. So I did find this from James Kwan Lee, who's a film writer, director and producer, who said quite often the most viewed film is listed as Avatar or Titanic because they set the box office record for highest grossing film

worldwide. But the average movie ticket price today is at least 10 times more expensive than what it was in the past. Yeah. Inflation. Yeah. Avatar was a 3D film, so it would have charged even more. Ah, so they just go off pure box office.

Fewer individual bums applied to seats. Yeah. So they said if we adjust the box office numbers for inflation, the most viewed movie could be seen as Gone With The Wind. Oh! Because more people paid to see that at the cinema. Yes. However, in 1977 VHS started.

Yep. You know what else happened in 1977? Star Wars. Star Wars episode four, A New Hope. It's the second highest grossing film of all time when adjusting for inflation released on VHS, Laser Disc, it was re-released in 1997, re-released on DVD and Blu-ray. The sorts of people who watch Star Wars tend to be kind of nerdy, obsessive people. Or are they more casuals?

Yeah. In terms of people who like, uh, stability of repetition and yeah. Is it category A? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Surprisingly. You might even say that like a Christmas or seasonal film, there is a time of year that people might watch. There is. Might watch it.

So obviously every May the 4th, a lot of people get together and have watch parties. People have suspected it's the most pirated movie of all time. Oh, that's interesting. Yep. That could be a strong contender. Yep. But that depends on what sources we are. Yes.

Classic, where's your data coming from? Because you could also argue that the most translated film of all time means it's had a much wider view. If it's been translated into loads of different languages, Billions of more people can see it. Exactly. In 2022 with the Guinness book of world records, most translated film in history, having been translated and available for download in 1,977 languages. That's too many.

As of two years ago is the Jesus film. The Jesus film. It was a film made in 1979 and it's basically meant to be just the book of Luke. I think it's based on, was it not Jesus? The film it was, it's just called Jesus. Oh, just Jesus. Yeah. But you, but quite often it's talked about as the Jesus film. What are you watching? Jesus. Yeah. It does sound a bit like a bit shocked. Yeah. It was based on the book of Luke. And apparently it's, it's basically they've just tried to go literally beat for beat, beat for beat.

This is what it is. And they claim, and I say they claim because it's hard to. I feel like you can translate anything you want into any language. It doesn't mean people who speak that language are going to watch it or consume it. No. And I feel like there's, uh, additional motivation for people to be translating the Jesus film.

Yeah. You don't say. So in 2020, the people behind the Jesus film project, which the whole aim was to get the film seen by as many people as possible. How about that? It said that it had been viewed over 8.1 billion times. That's everyone. By over 4 billion people.

Oh, that's, that's half of everyone. Making it overwhelmingly the most watched movie of all time. Now there are detractors. There's an evangelical leader, Vinay Samuel, former executive director of the international fellowship of evangelical mission theologians. Sounds like they'll be on board with the Jesus film. You think this is how, this is what I mean. When the people criticizing it are the people who would benefit.

The other Jesus people are like, well, hang on. These numbers are to say the least not gathered in a social scientific way. They have no way of knowing this. How about that? A research firm apparently calculated the known viewings of the film from 1979 to 2015 as greater than 7.3 billion. Yeah. No. So there's a lot, it has been smuggled into many countries. Do you know what? When I see, if I show you pictures of it, because I was like, what? And then

when I, I saw sort of the images, I was like, well, you know, when I like, you're sick at home during the day and you're just watching like whatever's on TV, like if you see this Jesus. And now for a start, that's Jesus. I'm going to call them Jesus classic. It's classic white Jesus. But it's the opposite of classic Jesus. Yeah. That's the most Caucasian Jesus I've seen in my life.

Yeah. So Jesus was played by Brian Deacon. He's British. Interestingly, the film never had any credits in it because the whole point was to just try and get the point across rather than it to be about anything else. So the makers of it have never tried to claim royalties or anything like that. It gets uploaded to YouTube all the time. They never try and claim it, take it down cause they, yeah.

So it turns out potentially the most viewed thing would be some propaganda. And I say this as a Christian. So we're talking about Star Wars? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. This is about a guy who didn't really know his dad. So your answer is Luke Skywalker or Luke the Book Ope.

Oh, very nice. Thank you. Okay. So we've just had some extra information from substitute camera guy, Alex, who's my regular camera guy, pulling in for Gus, who said, actually Star Wars, A New Hope,

AKA episode four is a Passover story because it's the protagonist discovering that they are the son of the bad guy. And then leading people somewhere. Yeah. Cause there's that bit in the Nativity where Jesus is really good at racing. Yeah. He said, this is major racing.

Yeah. Yeah. What are they? X-Wings? What? No, it's not an X-Wing. The pod race. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Genuinely.

And you've never looked at me. So I'm like, I've said a lot of stupid things in my life. I just did not expect the whiplash of a set up to pod racing. And then you're like, where are they? X-Wings? Cause if I'd gotten like, if I, if I didn't know what they'll call it all, you would have forgiven me. But the fact that I still. Yeah. You had all the bits around it. And then you're like, what? X-Wings? Unbelievable. We'll see that. That's the same face.

Can you hear that? That's the sound of people unsubscribing to our podcast. Oh, a hundred percent. We've even got the word pod in there. You've never seen that face from me before. Cause you've never whipped a chair out for me as I'm trying to sit down. Um, well, I did find the only thing I could find in terms of streaming figures and stuff. I thought maybe that would be interesting. The one I could find actual numbers for was Disney, Disney's number one streamed film, which is obviously just specifically Disney's. Disney's? Disney's taking Disney, Disney's number one streamed film, which is obviously just specifically Disney's business.

Business, taking care of business. Disney business. That's what they say. Moana. I'm on a Disney's call. Moana. Audiences have watched 80 billion minutes worth of it, which equates to watching it 748 million times.

Is it just long? I know it's the frozen of a new generation. Okay. But that wasn't the only part of the question. That wasn't any other question. Well, the other part of the question was what's the most listened to song. Is that also a seasonal thing? I have just gone with streamed because it was hard to find all the numbers of everything else. I would potentially say there's an argument that in the modern era, we listened to way

more recorded music than ever before in human history. Yes. So I suspect streaming is not a bad metric. Yeah. And so Spotify have got their most streamed songs. So the most streamed Christmas song on Spotify is Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas, which has been played as of the time that I looked this up.

And since it was released on Spotify Open, 1,896,169,847 times. I imagine that's gone up since this has been recorded. That went up while you were saying it. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a lot. It's a lot. 1.9 billion. Yeah. But the most streamed song of all time on Spotify so far. Oh, okay. Was a song called Blinding Lights by The Weeknd. What? Which has been streamed 4.5 billion times.

No. And is it far and away the most streamed or are the kind of a bunch of songs at that level? Bunch of songs. Shape of You by Ed Sheeran. 4.1 billion. Okay. Someone You Love by Lewis Capaldi. I was just kind of wondering for a very popular modern era Spotify generation song, what kind of figures are normal?

So I guess big ones are hitting the ones of billions. Yeah. The, the, the weekend. I genuinely thought this was a, was a song from the eighties that got like a big. Popular again. Yeah. So I'm going to say that this is down to TikTok. Oh, you're going to blame TikTok? Yeah. Cause that song just went properly viral with people doing dances to it.

Yep. That's potentially the biggest achievement of humankind. Planting Lights by The Wicked. Wicked. So there you go. Matthew. Matthew. It is not a Christmas. Now my theory as to why it's not a holiday thing, partially not everyone celebrates Christmas.

Correct. Most people don't. Also there are so many Christmas films out there that yes, you might watch the Santa Claus every year. Yep. But I think I've seen it maybe three times in my life. I think I've sufficiently answered the question is what I'm saying. Well, what I think is interesting is just taking Spotify modern era songs,

the big popular songs are twice as many streams as the top Christmas song. Yeah. So that does say potentially it's not necessarily a piece of Christmas media that will get the top spot. Yeah. So that does say potentially it's not necessarily a piece of Christmas media that will get the top spot. Yeah. And if there's any evangelicals out there, get yourself a little Jesus Tick Tock. Get Jesus out there. Yeah. And I think Star Wars, Star Wars, until proven otherwise.

Yeah. Look, I'll jump on board with that. Great. Feels right. Yeah. Excellent. Matthew, let us know if you're happy with that. It's the same amount of source data that we've been given by the Jesus. By everything else.

Exactly. Yeah. I don't feel like I can ding or unding or de-ding or anything here. Let's let Matthew as their Christmas gift. Give us a dingle bells. Dingle bells. We should have saved that for the Christmas episode. Well, this is technically that one. Oh, is this it? Oh, Merry Christmas everyone. Listen to this episode

every year. There's a tradition. Oh yes. Oh, could you imagine? I can imagine. Oh, it's time to listen to Matt be disappointed at Beck that you didn't know about pod racing. It doesn't feel like Christmas. Listen to this on the May the 4th and Christmas. And then we'll double our list. In a year's time, I want to look back at the stats for this and everyone be like, why is that episode listened to so much more? After our lovely starter and main course, lovingly cooked at home, bringing it back to the theme.

We're like a home cooked meal. I forgot. On these cold winter or autumn nights, winter, I think, I always forget when the seasons start. It's time for our dessert. Any other business? That was good. You really landed it.

You stuck the landing. Thank you. Our first bit of any other business is actually an announcement from us that we're going to start putting some small sections of our podcasts out on YouTube as video. Yeah. Moments where I've accidentally said X-Wing. I think that's going to make the highlight reel. We'll pull those bits out and we'll put them on YouTube so people can enjoy

them in their video form. However, if you just listen to the audio version of this, you will notice no change in what we're doing because we're still recording the podcast as normal, just with cameras in the room. Yeah. So we'll link to our YouTube channel in the video description. There's a little bell, isn't there? You can hit the bell.

If they hit the bell for the ding. Oh my goodness. Bell. Ding that bell. You'll get notified? You can hit the bell. If they hit the bell, for the ding. Oh my goodness. Ding that bell. You'll get notified when we start uploading the videos. Yes. Final bit of any other business is we raised this in a previous episode. I forget how it came up. We were discussing people who may listen to this podcast, but not consume any other media

either one of us is in. Yeah. Because we for a long time assumed podcast listeners are either people who follow your comedy work or people who watch my videos, who want more in the back verse or the map verse and they come to a problem square. We hypothesized that maybe there were some people who were only podcast. We found very funny. Which we thought was very funny.

We've had two people. So the, the near miss Josiah here says that they watched Matt's YouTube channel and started listening to the podcast when I mentioned it since then. And this was five years ago. It's almost like you should mention it more often. It's almost like that's okay. Valid point. It's a long running thing. I should mention should mention it more often. It's almost like that's okay. Valid point. It's a long running thing.

I should mention this on YouTube more often. They in the last five years have only watched four more of my YouTube videos. Maybe you shouldn't mention it more often. Love to know what for. Maybe everyone will move over to this and stop watching your videos. That's what I'm really here for. You know what the answer is? Josiah is going to stop listening to this and start watching the clips on YouTube.

Oh yeah. It'll come full circle. Yeah. So, oh, Josiah then realized they had previously seen one of your flip chart videos. I've had that a few times where people were like, I didn't realize that I was familiar with your work. Yeah. Yeah.

So Josiah is like someone who started on my channel and was aware of your work and has now been fully drawn into almost completely problem squared. Ellie, however, Ellie here says that they found both of us via a problem squared. And while they have read humble pie, which is a book that I wrote, they otherwise consume no media from either of us, aside from this 100 emoji podcast. Yes. So Ellie, I think is this fabled listener who did dabble reading one of my books, but they're just on the side.

Yeah. But it was like, this isn't enough. This is no podcast. So we have, there's at least one person in that set of people. That's great. It's not an empty set. No. Brilliant.

least one person in that set of people. That's great. It's not an empty set. No, I mean, I won't say it's not insulting, but someone when this is the peak amount of you that I want. No, I'm happy with that. I feel like the point of doing a podcast as well as a YouTube channel, as well as writing books, as well as everything else, speaking for myself is to hit different audiences.

Like if I want to get more people excited about mathematics, put it out everywhere. We have different friends for different purposes as well, don't we? Like I have friends who I meet up with if I want to watch a dumb movie. Right. I've got friends that I meet up with if I'm feeling sad and want some sage advice. I've got friends that I meet up with to do cryptic crosswords with. You haven't covered me yet, but carry on. Well, how long have you got? I got friends I meet up with when I want to list all the categories of friends I've got.

Yeah, that's right. Exactly. I've got friends who I did podcasts with because I wouldn't meet up with them otherwise. We would, we would like to. We would, but we wouldn't. This means that we do. This happens.

Yes. Yeah. So I think it makes sense that there are some people out there who are like, you are my content creators for this. And I don't need you for stand up. That's my entire need. Or YouTube. Yeah, exactly.

That's fine. For other people in the Ali set, we appreciate you immensely. Yeah. Keep it up. However, if you are a big fan of either of our work from other things, you know, feel free to share them amongst yourselves. I want to know the four videos. What four videos brought Josiah back to YouTube? Josiah, what were they?

You know what? I don't care how you consume us. I don't care whether you only listen to this and nothing else. What I do care about is your sweet, sweet cash. There it is. So we're going to thank- Collect that coin. No, we love all of our listeners equally. You are all important. Yes. We especially like to thank the listeners who make this show possible by donating increments of money to us a certain time basis. That's vague. We thank them by naming three of them and pronouncing their names as terribly as possible on each episode. And on this episode, the random names we've drawn are. Robenap-ire.

The Landtrough. I'd go Ro-berte. Ro-berte. If you would like to support us on Patreon, there is a link in the show notes, or you can just look up A Problem Squ us on Patreon, there is a link in the show notes, or you can just look up a problem squared on patreon.com. You will also get access to our special bonus podcast, I'm a Wizard, in which Matt and I are very silly and warming up for the show and you'll get some other bonus stuff as well. In fact, are we still taking people who are signing up for the- If people sign up, we will, we can try and post you your holiday card. We won't make it by Christmas. We'll definitely email it to you by Christmas.

Yeah. I also want to thank you, Matt Parker. Me? Aw. Maths Parker. That's me. Yeah. You, who are like a warm dinner roll. Oh, we're doing analogies on the way out. Yep. In that you're fresh and buttery. I was going to say you're raising the standards, but no, I really, no, you're not.

I'm Bec-Hill, the other co-host. And I also want to especially thank our wonderful producer, Lauren Armstrong-Carter, who is the soup bowl, the soup bowl and in that she helps serve the delicious home cooked meal that is this podcast. Oh yeah. Yeah. We should probably also thank other people who are involved in the show now. We like you too. Okay, Beck. Matt. Yes.

I three. Hit. F seven. Hit. Yes. Blow for blow. It's happening.