A Problem Squared - 122 = Shocking Theories with Quickfire Queries

Episode Date: November 24, 2025

🔥 How many quickfire problems is it possible to solve in a single episode of A Problem Squared? 🧑‍💼 Why is Matt dressed like a maths teacher?🃏And we will deal out some Any Other BusinessIf you’d like to ask Matt and Bec anything for our special 2^7 episode go to the Problem Posing Page at aproblemsquared.com - select ‘Problem’ and start your message with AMA!A chicken slapping machine - click to view at your own riskhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68L6JA_CnmUHere’s where you’ll find the video of Matt in 374 different outfits (and the 375th outfit is on our socials)https://www.youtube.com/@standupmaths/videos From AOB here’s Chris’ working…https://chrisboettner.github.io/blog/posts/2025-10-28-card_game_blog.html…and here’s Dede’s working…https://github.com/dedebenui/cardgame See Matt on tour!http://standupmaths.com/shows Specifically, see Matt in London on Monday 1st December!https://lwtheatres.co.uk/whats-on/matt-parker/ Or if you would like to see Bec in Brighton on Monday 1st December, tickets are here:https://www.komedia.co.uk/shows/john-luke-roberts-geoffrey-chaucers-mediaeval-christmas-festivitye/Here’s how to get involved with Matt’s Moon Pi Kickstarter:https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/standupmaths And here’s how to volunteer for Calculate Pi By Hand with Matt: https://forms.gle/w44THpNJ3jWUPqHy6Join us on Patreon for early releases and our monthly bonus podcast I’m A Wizard. If you’re already on Patreon and have a creative Wizard offer to give Bec and Matt, please comment on our pinned post!  If you want to (we’re not forcing anyone) please do leave us a review, share the podcast with a friend, or give us a rating! Please do that. It really helps. Finally, if you want even more from A Problem Squared you can connect with us and other listeners on BlueSky, Twitter, Instagram, and on Discord.

Hey, pre-show Matt here to remind you you've got until the end of November to sign up on Patreon for either the digital or physical, a problem squared Christmas card. End of November and we'll send you a card. Hello and welcome to a problem-solving podcast, which is a lot like jazz. We don't always make sense but telling people you listen to us will make you appear more intellectual and cultured. That's true. I'm Beck Hill, a comedian, writer and the arse in brass section

and I'm joined by my co-host who you can hear occasionally punctuating. Just words of agreement. Matt Parker, a comedian, mathematician and the double ass in double bass. Hey! Look, before we go into the on this episode menu, I just have to address something.

Just before I started introducing this episode, you said, hang on, I just have to get change. I did, I said that. You were in your normal sort of jeans t-shirt. Classic matte civvies. You've returned in a crisp white business shirt. Yep. Done all the way up. Yeah.

All the way up. Because I'm wearing a tie. And a red silky tie. Your socks. Turquoise socks. Tokoi socks And then Are they the same jeans?

They're the same jeans Yeah They're the same jeans Yeah When Matt Walked back in I Said that he looks like a teacher

Which I know you used to do Matt Yeah But it's making I'm just like a math teacher Yeah I don't like it I'm not I keep saying back This is your time you're wasting

I know I'm not okay with this You're visibly not okay with this Okay let's do the little in this episode bit And we'll talk more about this We'll deal with this Yeah On this episode

I mean it's going to be a quick fire episode. It is, yeah. We're going to do everything. We're going to see how many problems we can solve in one episode. Yep. And we'll do a roundup of everyone who did calculations based on Morgan's card game. And I've dressed up.

And Matt has dressed up. You look like a politician. Hello, Matt. Hi, Beck. I've never said that before. But your outfit is. It's got more formal. It's so formal.

I don't like what it's bringing out of me. Okay, I'm dressed like a mast, teacher. Yeah. Because. Because. Because I did a project, a video. I found someone on Reddit who basically asked the math subreddit. How many items of clothing you need to own so that you could wear a different outfit every day for a year?

Okay. Now, this I like. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is my jam. So, I mean, how many items of clothing would you need? to have a different outfit every day of the year.

Right. So this is going to be one of those exclamation point. Yes, yes, yes, yeah. Exactly. It's that category, combinatorics. It won't be explanation point unless you've got things that you can wear in multiple locations. It's like socks for gloves, that kind of thing.

You know, normal stuff. Right. Okay. Yeah, because we're not measuring in what order you put the clothing on. No, it doesn't matter what you put them on, with a few minor exceptions. It's what outfit you end up with if it's different. But it is that same category of, of, type of calculation. Because you could do

like all of the clothes you're currently wearing but minus one sock. It's a different outfit and so on. Are we counting no clothes as an outfit? Is that a birthday suit? So I am technically right now wearing the null hat. That's an important part

of my outfit. Okay. Hang on a second. Could this just be a pair of underpants and that's all you need? Because in each Each day you're not wearing something else. Correct. Correct. It depends. Now, not all clothing of category could you have a null version,

but depends how adventurous you are, I guess. Like, for example, my first thought when I saw the problem was, oh, if I was teaching what I would have done, and I'm kicking myself, I didn't think of this when I was a teacher, is just by 31 different ties, and a number them, one for each day of the month, and then 12 different shirts. Yeah. And you're done. It's a different outfit. Now, you're going to wash the shirts. Well, yeah. You might eat duplicates, but you'd wear one... Generally, people have to wash their shirts anyway. It's a common problem anyway. But you'd wear the same shirt for a whole month and rotate

through all 31 ties, or up to 31 as required, then the different shirt for the next month or 31 ties. And so you can go the whole year. But that's going to be 31 ties and 12 shirts is 43 items of clothing. Yeah. And you can actually do it with far fewer. Yeah. The furiest, if you don't accept null clothing... is 17. Oh. But you need to have lots of different categories. I ended up buying 18 items of clothing to get a year's worth of outfits.

So I bought five shirts, five ties, five different pairs of socks. Yeah. And three hats, including the null hat. No underpants? They don't have to vary. Hang on. Wait a minute. You're going to go the whole year wearing one pair of underpants.

I don't think changing underpants doesn't change your outfit. Okay. from, you know, a user experience point of view. Okay, sure. So I didn't, the reason I didn't do different trousers is just trousers are expensive. I was like, what's the smallest amount of money I can spend to buy? Yeah. All these outfits.

And between those, because 5 times 5 times 5 times 3 is 375, you've now got enough items of clothing to go a whole year. So I did a whole video about that. It's the sum of the prime factors of numbers. And are you fully clothed? Yes. Yeah. Throughout. I then thought, well, I can't do a video without wearing all 375 outfits.

Yeah. Could I be wearing any more outfits? Exactly. I wore them one at a time. So I then did it like almost like a stop motion. I'm wearing each outfit for one fifth of a second. Yep. And we hired a studio and I did the whole 375 outfits.

Took a very long time. Okay. Two days of filming to get all outfits. What? Yeah. It takes time. I mean, it just takes time. You've got to put on and do the.

next thing, take it off, put it on, yeah. Then, but when I was reviewing the footage afterwards, I realized your tag was hanging out. Did you do it all over again? Yeah, I was facing the wrong way. Inside out. We missed one. Oh. Right in the middle, we missed one.

Which is what I'm wearing right now. Okay. Oh, good. I'm glad you decided to wear on the audio medium. I know, I know. I just needed a way to make up for the fact. that I missed one of 375. Have you done the full video yet?

This podcast will come out just after the video goes out. So we're going to get a photo of you in this outfit so you can say, I did wear the missing outfit. So anyway, that's what I've been up to. I wore 375 outfits to make a mathematical point. Yeah. Have you been back? I've been good.

I went and saw Too Many Zoos, Z-O-O-O. Z at the London Jazz Cafe recently. And it was fantastic. They are a jazz, well, they call themselves Brass House, which is very fun. It's sort of like a real fusion of, it's not, there's no lyrics, it's sort of like a hip hop. There's a bit of gypsy jazz in there, Latin American stuff. Anyway, they're very cool. They're a trio that used to do a lot of busking on the New York Underground, the Metro, I believe

it's called. They've been pretty big touring. But it's my first time at the London Jazz Cafe. It's just down the road from where I live. Really? Yeah, on Parkway in Camden. You've been more often than me now? Yeah. Oh, so this is the best thing. So the tickets were advertised earlier this year and I thought, oh, that's not too far from my birthday. Oh. I'm going to book myself a pair of tickets for you. For Future Beck. And the tickets for like 50 pounds each. And I was like, okay. You know, it's the jazz cafe. It's meant to be nice. And then when I saw it, It was table seating and then 20 pounds of the 50 pounds goes towards your food. Oh.

Oh, that's a good deal then. So you also bought Future Beck a meal. Yeah. And so I bought them and then like a week later got advertised the standing tickets for 16 pounds. And I was like, oh, nuts. But I tell you what, I'm so glad that I didn't realize. Oh, it was so nice. It was such a treat.

Yep. Yeah. I had a really nice time. Oh, lovely. Took my friend Nat, she and I had a lovely evening, feeling very cultured. While sitting down. While sitting down. Have a discount meal?

And normally, if I'm standing, I want to have a dance, right? Have you ever tried dancing to jazz? It is hard. Nothing changes pace. You don't know what's coming next. You really don't. And so I was like, this was the right choice. Yeah.

So that's what I've been up to. Right. Not as exciting as wearing the same shirt. Five different shirts. Yeah, sorry, five different shirts. Now, before we get on with the rest of the episode, do you mind if I get changed back into my regular clip? Please.

I'm going to go do that. I'm going to go do that. Okay, so for any new listeners, we normally tackle one problem each. Yeah. For a total of two. That's right. Every down and then, we get sent a problem where we think,

this might actually be quite quick to answer. We just never get around to it. No. Or is a problem we want to make knowledge. have a theory but not really a whole solution yeah so we've been collecting some of these and we're going to see how many we can get through before we run out of time before we run out of time so matt take us away so the first problem sent in by gametron who went to the problem posing page at a problem squared dot com and merely typed in is it possible to cook a chicken using a

defibrillator peck i looked into it the answer's no oh basically to cook something it needs to have a constant source of heat. Right. Otherwise, you're sort of just reheating the same bit again again. Also, with electricity, it follows the path of least resistance, which means you're most lightly going to, like, really cook the bits where the defibrillator touches and it passes through, but it's not going to go, you're going to end up with the raw inside. Right.

It's not going to go through the centre of it. Is cooked chicken got less resistance than raw chicken? Oh, I'll be honest. I didn't quite look into that. I feel like raw chicken would be more conductive. That's true. So when the first path of least resistance cooks, it would then find an alternate path.

It would be like a raw chicken seeking path. Yes. Now, defibrillator can see... When you consider the fact that this is something that is used to restart human heart and does not cook a human's flesh, it's not the same voltage as, say, like a lightning strike. No.

So it's not really a high enough... But if you were running a... it constantly. Well, that's not how to Prevabilators work. You've got to charge them. Otherwise, you're just sending an electric coverage through there.

See, you're thinking it's got to charge up the capacitors, then clear up. Then you might as well just say, can you cook a chicken running the mainstream to it? Yeah, good point. I'm like 98% sure I've seen like a video

which was, can you cook a chicken by slapping it. We don't want to know about your algorithms, I'm going to ruin my argument. I'm about to type this in. Okay. Can you cook a chicken? Last chance to stop.

Bye. Here it comes. Slapping it. Auto field slapping it. Oh, they made a chicken slapping device. Okay. And how quickly did it have to slap it? Okay.

It was a YouTube channel. I don't know this channel. Sorry, that's the sound of someone slapping a channel. I do apologize. You all had to hear that. I got to say that producer Laura and I cannot see Matt's screen. So as far as we know, that's the sound of slapping a chicken. So this is a YouTuber Lewis or Louis Wise.

Sorry, I've mispronounced that. Looks like a very good YouTuber by all accounts here. And they cooked a chicken by making a chicken slapper. but the point is right something like a slap or a defibrillator very different things very different things is putting energy into something and if you can put it in faster than it can get out you'll gradually raise the temperature yes however even a defibrillator isn't doing it enough okay also if you can't keep the heat consistent and building. Yes. Yeah, there's your problem.

Because raw chicken, as we know, the longer it's left out, the more time the bacteria can multiply. So you're not really allowing time to kill off the bacteria. So short answer, no. No. Great. Thank you very we done with that.

That said, I did have a friend tell me that you can get defibrillators at a pretty low cost. Oh. And maybe at some point I'll need to test this. Okay. So that's one for further research. I mean, I think it's a tentative ding.

Okay, let's go with a ding for no. But if anyone could prove me wrong. Wrong, right. Our next problem is from DOS, who says, if my cats are all named with the starting letter Y, and I expect to get more in the future, what would be the best name for future cats?

My current cats are Yasha, Yolo. And Yeti. Blah, blah, blah. Love the show. So these are more cat names that start with why? Yep. That's the problem that they've posed to us. You can see why we save this for a quick fire episode.

Yeah. I think yoga. Yoga's a good name. Yogi. Yogut? Oh. Yogut or yogut the cat? Yogget the cat.

Yogurt's a good name for a cat. Yeah, that would be a good name. I would name the next cat, Yo. Uh-huh. following cat yo yo yo and then the following cat yo yo yo yo yo oh i think i go yo yo yo yo yogurt yo yogurt yo yogurt yo yogurt yo yogurt yo yogurt yo yogurt yogurt yogurt yogurt no that sounds a g oh no i think yacht yacht because no one knows how to spell it I think you should start doing people names, but just change the...

So, Jonathan? Oh, I see what you're doing. Yiven? Right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yack and Yill. Yep. Usy.

Great suggestion, Yek. Yeah. All right, Yatch. Yabastian. Deng. Ying. Ying and yang. Ying and yang.

They're legitimate. suggestions. Duss, I hope that helps. Yep. I'll tell you what, if you get through all of those suggestions and then you need more, come back. Come back? Yeah.

Any more where those came from. On a similar theme, Wolfie wrote in, I wouldn't call this a complaint, but they say that our practice of mispronouncing names is highly entertaining. they also find it somewhat irritating. Now they're referring to when we thank our Patreon supporters at the end of the podcast and we pick three names at random to mispronounce. Why did we do that? Why did we, did we?

Because we weren't sure if we were saying the names right. Because a lot of them were hard to pronounce anyway. So we decided that to be fair. To be fair, everyone gets their name mispronounced. Yeah. Yes. And I dare say it's become a feature. I think people, like we're offering them a free

alternate pronunciation of their name. On us. So, Wolfie is finding that entertaining but irritating. Their question is, are their names that are unmistpronounceable? Maybe they're wondering about signing up to support us on Patreon at patreon.com slash Problem Squared. Well, we said Wolfie, but it's spelled W-O-L-F-I, so it could be Volfi. Vol-Fi.

That's a good point. This is why we do it. I don't think there are. I think you can mispronounce anything if you put your mind to it. As we've discovered. Yeah. You make your name the letter A. I'm going to say O.

That's just saying a different word. So mispronouncing has to use the letters. So you'll say if the name is pronounced a, then you would say A. It's pronounced A. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Wolfie or Volfei said that they like pitching this as a problem because we like to ridicule people's names. Now, I would say we don't ridicule them. No, number one, done with love.

Yes. But for me, trying to mispronounce every name, that is the conundrum that we're trying to solve. Well, how to mispronounce every name? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a lot of the time, we just move the spaces. Yes. That I'm a big fan of.

That's one of my favorite. Or add spaces. Ed spaces. No one said we couldn't add pauses. We do add pauses. Yeah. That's how you get T. I.M. out of Tim. Yeah.

Or m-att. Yeah, B. Eck. C? See? I don't think you could bulletproof a name so it's not mispronounceable. But, hey, if we've accidentally pronounced your name correctly. Yeah. How would they prove, though, that we pronounce their name correctly? I mean, I mainly said it as a joke.

You know. We don't joke on this podcast. We yoke. We yoke. That's another name for Doss's Catch. There we go. And we've come full circle. So in conclusion, no.

Deiang. Dinge. Dinge. We also heard from Canvoral. Don't know if I'm mispronouncing that or not, but I like it. I'm happy with that. What is the most efficient way to cool down a meal once it is already in your mouth? My favorite thing about this is an opening sentence

is cool down a meal A whole meal. A whole meal that is in your mouth. Either they eat very small meals or It's always a struggle for me because I do not check before if the food is very hot or very not. I feel like we could solve this problem upstream. So then I have to do weird breathing to cool it down in my mouth

before chewing or roll it around in my mouth. Yep, I think we could all relate to that. Is there a scientific? proven most efficient way to do it and as a bonus what would be the silliest funniest way ah now scientifically proven no it would be just to drink water while the food is in your mouth yeah you reckon that'd be quicker they're going yeah 100% yeah because the water's why they don't tell you to blow out flames yeah yeah yeah house on fire blow

a fibricade yeah don't show up with them season. I don't show it with straws. Yeah, the hose is just a straw. Exactly. The fire engine shows up, but there's a massive air tank on it. The fan. Now, fire is, of course, subtly different because you know, you're providing oxygen.

Yeah, yeah. But in terms of heat transfer, like water's going to be way better at heat transfer. It can take more energy before it heats up. So there's a difference between heat and temperature. and different substances have a different ratio, let's say, between the two. Because if you were to put different objects in the oven and got them all to the same temperature, and one of them was like a solid chunk of metal,

and one was a chunk of wood, you could pick the bit of wood up and you're like, oh, fine. Because it's going to let go of the heat more quickly. But also at that temperature, it hasn't absorbed that much heat. Its specific heat is quite low. So it's self-insulated. It's more fundamental than that. It's just it takes less energy for it to reach a certain temperature.

Okay. Whereas things like water take a lot of energy to change their temperature. That's why you have a hot water bottle, but you don't have a hot water balloon. You do get a hot air balloon. A hot air balloon. Not a hot air water balloon. Yeah, you're right. That's more of a container issue.

A hot water air balloon. No, that's not why I'm doing it. Well, a hot air balloon, you have to keep heating the air. Can I have a second pass? Yeah, a hot air balloon, if you took that to bed, would not keep your warm for very long. No. Because it would, it doesn't take much heat for warm up there.

No, it would flow to the ceiling. Oh, let's do a quick fire episode. That'll be you. So I'm trying to. say is water has a very high specific heat, which is why we use it to store heat. Yes. Radiators, etc. Yes. So if you were to drink water as opposed to just inhaling air through the weird hot food breathing thing, the water can absorb way more heat out of your food far. And in terms of transferring heat, you've got a way better conductive transfer when you put it in liquid because it's just way more

content. Okay. So my, what I tend to do when food is too hot. And this is, This is probably why people don't invite me out for fancy dinners. Oh, I know. You, like, spit it directly up in the air. Yeah, and then catch it. And then catch it again. Until it's cooled down while they're during the, during the fight. Yeah, I know.

I've seen you in a fancy restaurant. Because you're classy like that. Because I'm classy. No, I'm way more classy in that when something's too hot, I just go, uh, I just, like the amount of times. Back onto the plate. I've eaten and just gone, bluh. Just let it fall out of my mouth.

But what do you think is faster? Going bleh and letting it fall out my mouse. Or let's say I had... The water was there? In my hand. Oh, that's tough. Where the water is going to take the temperature out of your tongue and everything else as well. So it will also solve any burns that are in progress.

So the answer for scientific and silliest is to always have a glass of cold water. Ready to go. Ready to go in your hand. It could be ambient temperature. Sure. As long as it's not boiling. As long as it is cooler than the food. Yes, yes.

So those are your options. Yep. But you could try spitting it up in the air. You could try launching it directly vertically. But I do find it less energy just to let it fall out. Funniest when it's soup. We have a problem sitting in from a thad. Yep.

And thad wants to know in the word sense. As in S-C-E-N-T, meaning aroma. Is the S silent or is the C? I love this. S-T. S-T. Is it closer to I sent this problem in? This solution is my two scents.

I'm going to say they're both silent. Oh. And there's a hidden... There's a hidden... It's a hidden... Yeah. But the... The K is pronounced.

The K is pronounced. Yeah. I think the answer to this is yes. Yes. Okay, producer Laura claims she's found the actual answer. I have actually found the answer to whether the S or the C is silent. Did you do like a non-zero amount of research? Well, what I did was I didn't even type it.

I copied the question into Google. We couldn't even be bothered copying a Facebook. Laura, don't tell the listeners how they should be. Fair, Thad couldn't be bothered doing that either. So let's have it. I love that. It makes more sense for our listeners to go to a problem squared.com, add in all of their details and send in a problem and then wait for a twackly show to see if we'll cover their problem rather than pop it into Google. And I thank you for that because this is necessary for my well-being.

Laura, what did you find? Technically, neither of them are silent. They work together to make a digraph, which is when two letters combine to make one sound, like a pH, making a f sound. And so the so the se is its own special thing. S is its own special thing. So they are both necessary, even though they're not necessary in scent or scent, but they are in scent. Yeah, exactly. That is like us.

So the question was in the word scent, is the S silent or is the C? The answer is no. No. We also heard from Dr. Sophie the dentist. Now hang on, Dr. Sophie's meant to solve problems, not cause problems. I think Dr. Sophie has earned a freebie. That's a valid point. So she says we're planning on growing our family in the next few years, which will mean, James, that's her partner.

James' beloved study will need to become a bedroom. Oh, yep. Our plan is to renovate our garage into a gaming room for him. So now we need a boffess and blanche-style name for it. We'd love your help. the gaming garage yes yeah

I would float denage oh like a dene yeah like a den but fancy sounding can I welcome you to the denage where's James he's in the denage yeah that's nice James's surname is actually Devalve

so Deval's denage is really fan like that is I want to get that on a match like matchbooks like in a speakeasy Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I like Donaj.

That's really... Classy. Classy. Smoke-filled, but not in a bad for your health way. No, in like, uh, from incense or something. Yeah. I'm trying to think if I've got a better one than Donage, but I think that's my favorite garage, gaming. Yeah, you're distracted by the G's and the A's at the top there.

I am, yeah. I mean, if it's a games room for James, surely a James room. The James room, yeah, for jamming. For his jamming. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, James' room is fun for jamming, but I think D'inage nailed it. I feel like it's in the spirit of the blanche, the boffess.

Yeah. The Deneage. A Deneage. Yeah, it's sophisticated. I like it. Deneage includes Dene as in dentist. It's all coming together, guys. Perfect.

Dr. Sophie, let us know if that's a dang. in a similar naming of a space theme Ken Floor wrote in to say How long can the new studio The Nudio And they've spelled it both ways to be safe For the record The new studio is spelled N-E-W-D-I-O

Yes this is where we're recording currently We're recording in the new deal Now, for the record on the record, I've been trying to stop using the name New Deo. And I'm not having any of it. You're not having any of it. And we haven't got up with a better name. So we're kind of stuck for now. Ken Floor wants to know how long can it stay new a day, a week, a month, maybe next year.

Does it have to be superseded by New Studio 2, Electric New Deal? Good word. Oh, good work. Good work, Ken Floor. Best wishes, warmest things. Blah, blah, blah. Okay, what on. Well, I do like the idea of having to number them

because then eventually you get to Nudio 54. Yeah, that would be very funny. Yeah, okay. I do want to add as well that my mate, Robert Wells, lovey fella. Shout out if you're listening, Robert, had also sent me of Wistone recently to say, Just so you know, every time you say NU-D-O, I think it's somewhere you're recording in the news.

And then I wrote back, it's not my first N-U-D-O. N-U-D-E-O. Well, well done. Now, I would like a new name for the N-U-D-O. You said that, but we were chatting with comedian Donald Roberts earlier, who we had luncheatheed. I mentioned this problem And he pointed out that New York

is still new is still called New York I do like the idea that eventually Newcastle upon Tyne River or even Newcastle in Australia Yeah it's not become castle No

New South Wales Never became South Wales You could do a new New York But then would you have New York And then current New York becomes york and then york becomes old york

Britain becomes old york look I just feel like York that's another name for a cat correct or York and then in brackets new yeah comma new I don't know I feel like there's a more clever name

than newio and I feel like for the longest time Newdeo was being used in future tense and during the set-up phase. At some point, it's just going to be a studio. Not if I can help it. You can try Matt, but it's not happening. And I can tell you what, the more that you insist that we should not call this the new deal.

Please send in. Our listeners will be calling it. Really good suggestions for my studio. Denage. The denage. I prefer denage. Dr. Sophie, if you take Nudio... No.

It's not like the ring. Ah, fine. Electric Nudio. Yeah, there you go, we'll call it that. The electric Nudio, fine. Well, apparently that problem remains, I'm solved. It remains open. How long does it stay new?

Ken Flaw. We'll find out. Stay tuned. we heard from cam who says hi beck and matt first off i love the podcast blah blah blah blah then they've written oh how can you be so dismissive our listeners yeah that's what they've written in brackets then they've written no he's just doing the repetitive joke of writing blah blah blah in the problem hey were you going to skip over the context too which they've also put in fresh they've just scripted the entire okay well done thanks

says, I just got married a few days ago. Oh, congrats, Cam. I'm glad that... Congratulations. It was such a lovely time. You're already... Writing a show. Questions on the internet or podcast.

And was listening to the episodes where you discuss the meaning of marriage in the week before the big day, which was incredibly helpful. Phew. Thank you for your wise words. Fortunately, we had many people who we love come celebrate with us, and we want to thank all of them for coming and indulging in my need to be the centre of attention. Unfortunately, I'm not creative enough to come up with unique ways of thanking them all,

and the idea of a generic platitude gives me the ick. How could we thank all of our guests, including some who are already in another hemisphere, without repeating expressions of gratitude? With love from your distant and girt homeland, Cam. Easy, Cam. Individually mispronounce their names. It's the number one way to show gratitude.

Yeah, exactly. Pick three of them at random. Now you're talking. and then give the rest of them a podcast. Not a good one. Hey, I would argue it's all right. And you have. Well, firstly, I do want to say, now, Camby, you've been very kind and very sweet.

You said you're not creative to come up with unique ways for thanking them all. Firstly, you're creative enough to have fully scripted what we would have said. Yeah, the first two lines of that. I would argue, it's not that you're not creative enough. But that you do not have time because that is the reason why most people send out a like generic thank you card. When I got married, we did like a postcard with some photos from the wedding on the front and then like a pre-printed like, thanks for coming. Yeah. Blah, blah, blah, blah.

Which we sent to everyone. And the reason you do that is because you've got however many people attended and to write individual thank you cards. You know, like, sure, each of those people put aside a bit of time and an effort to come along, but they got, they got a party out of it. They might have got a meal out of it, whatever, right? Probably food, maybe free drinks. Yeah. So in a sense, the main thing they're doing is being there and, but that's not a huge amount of work when you boil it down to you take off like what they got out of it. Oh, okay.

You're trying to say the net effort. Yeah. whereas to write you've already done in the invites you've done all the organizing you've done all of this and then to have to do one last final bit of admin so you're just trying to take the pressure off cam I'm just trying to say because I think it'd be very easy to say it's not that you're not creative enough you're just lazy but it's not a laziness thing it's so much effort but I think cam wants to put that effort I think they want like some kind of act of gratitude I think nothing would say thank you like letters where you've cut all the letters out of

magazines. Like a ransom letter. Glued them into a thank you card. So it's the same platitude but spelt like with different. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh gosh, that's. Or maybe just their name. Well, it's got like a generic thank you message in the card, but you cut their name

from letters out of magazines. Yes, you could do that. There's also, I mean, might I suggest doing something where you get a different result each time like maybe if you were to let's say you invited 50 people to the wedding so you get 50 five ties five shirts two hats and you take a photo of you in a different outfit for every single person's card actually do you know what's quite fun do paper dolls do do a picture of you and your partner in like undergarments long johns whatever makes you feel comfortable right and then like paper dolls right and then you send just some little cut out things with no context with

loads and you just have thank you written on there but every person you send it to can like dress you guys up however they want me well it's because you were talking about outfits I thought you can make it creepier I'm creepy than sending a photo of you in different clothes I was going to say let's say you invited 50 people you get 50 pieces of A5 or maybe even A6 card put them all next to each other like in a sort of square shape or whatever

and then do a Jackson Pollock right you're in Australia that just chuck a bunch of paint and stuff at them So each card has its own unique design. Okay, yep. But part of a set. Yeah. And so, and then you can number them.

We're a big fan of individually numbering things. We've done that with our flyers in the past. Number them by hand. And then just, you know, appreciated you being there. Here is an original piece of art. Yeah, 17 of 50. But the thing is, is they're all individual. They're different.

It's not like one of 12 of the same piece. No. they're all but they're part of a greater big I think it's just something about brings everyone together it's you've put in some effort it's different it says thank you but you know they say a picture is worth a thousand words why say thank you in a thousand words differently when you could just do different images you said it yeah I think that's the best answer thank you I would do the lazier automated version of that Yeah.

Because you know I've done stuff with Python code where you can generate images. Mm-hmm. And you can generate individual images like use some kind of random seed or a pearlyne noise background or something. I've done that before. Yeah, Matt says easier. I remember having to stand there and film you on the Greenwich. Okay, yeah, yes. The Prime Redian.

Primerodeon. Yeah, I've definitely... held an iPad which showed up a different Patreon name at a rate of however frames per second so that you could take all of those frames and turn them into individual pictures. And we were there for like two hours. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're still putting the effort in. Oh, yeah.

I'd rather write out 50, thank you. You and I are very different people. Yeah, one of those things. I think the cards that are in a set that are unique is a really nice touch. Yeah. choose a nice piece of card and then you can stick a stamp on the other side and send it off as a postcard

that's how you get it to the overseas friends checking an envelope yeah well you don't even have to do that just send us a postcard they can frame it they can stick on the fridge do whatever they want with it sell it I hope that helps and finally

OSA has pointed out that we are a mere six episodes away from episode two to the power of seven to the power of seven is 128 Why is that such a big deal? Nerds love Powers of 2. Sure.

Partly because they're fun if you play the doubling game. I do like the doubling game. Yeah, I knew. And binary numbers. Binary numbers work in Powers of 2 basically. What's so great about 2 to the Power of 7? It's just Power 2. It's not a specific one.

If anything, 2 of the Power 8 is the famous one, 256. Yeah, that's a nice one. Everyone loves 256. But 1-2-8 is still a lot. very cool. Yes. So we're coming up on episode 128, which in binary, it would be 1-0-0-0-0-0-0-0. Very cool.

Oh, okay, that is good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Oza has a big problem. Oh, my goodness. I'm sorry, Oza. Oh, they have a big problem that the master episode might be the most appropriate for. Okay, here we go. So it turns out Oza has some questions here.

They don't know how us fine folks came together to create a podcast. why we left Australia and other questions as well things that are now these are OSA's words are run-of-the-mill fans might want to know about you folks and your work

so O'S's problem is would you be able to do an AMA episode that's an ask me anything or in this case it would be an ask must everything to solve everyone's curiosities

so we put a call for questions out in advance and then we do episode two to the seven is us answering a whole bunch of them. I think we could do that. Yeah. It'd be a bit like this one. Like, we don't often do these quickfire ones because they're a bit bitty. Yeah, and I know that a lot of our listeners come here because they want something. They can take the teeth into it.

Yeah, but I did think for a moment, well, hang on, this whole show is basically a big, ask me anything. Yeah, but it does, because things that can be contrived to be a problem, anything. Yes, yes. So, yeah, yeah, I'm up for that. If anyone wants to ask specifically Matt and I any questions about ourselves or anything like that. So if you have any questions for Matt and I, go to our Problemsquared.com. Choose problem in the drop down. And make sure you include the letters AMA together.

As one word. As one word. As we're going to search for that string. We will be looking specifically. Yeah. So AMA, make sure you mention that. in there so that we can collate your questions. And feel free to discuss AMA questions on Reddit, et cetera.

We will cast our eye across those. Yes. For anyone like me who isn't entirely sure how far away our two to the power of seven episode is, producer Laura says it'll come out in February. In February. Let's say you got till the end of 2025 to get them in. Cool. And we look forward to being asked anything.

Yeah. So technically, ding. Ding. We'll be ding. Future ding. Future ding. And that concludes our rapid fire episode. If you liked it, let us know.

We're on a problem squared across the social medias. I forgot about the jazz theme. Good work. That's how I pronounce B in jazz. You pronounced it correctly too. Thank you. So for any other business, this is when we cover things coming from previous episodes. So exciting any other business, a lot of people have run the numbers on Morgan's card game. The game that their family played, their mum never won, their dad played once and won immediately.

It's a solitaire type game where you work your through a deck, according to rules and you win if you eliminate all the cards by the end. But it's completely out of your control. Now, a few people did say that it cannot be one over the square root of two probability. This was what you found. Which is what? Well, I found the number looked weirdly close to that. Yeah.

Now, I should say, for any new listeners, if you're sitting there going, what the heck are you talking about now? Go back to episode 120. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, one to zero. and I simulated it in code and got a weirdly value very very close to 1 over root 2 divided by 100 technically

and that confused me because you very really don't really see square root of 2 in probabilities like that's just a very unusual place to see a root 2 a few people raised it can't be that because as we said it's a deterministic game where the setup at the deck determines the outcome and there are a finite number of ways to arrange a deck. Like, it's a very, very big number, but it's a number. Of which some end in zero and some don't. So the probability of ending in zero is some whole number divided by the whole number. That's the number of ways to arrange deck of cards.

And Route 2 famously is not a rational number. It cannot be written as the ratio between two whole numbers. So, in that regard, the exact probability can't be one over a number. root two in this specific case because it has to be a rational number. I would say maybe for bigger and bigger decks it approaches one over root two. I think the value could be one over root two and would get a rational approximation of it as the probability for a finite deck. But that's all a moot point because as a lot of people worked out, it's not one over route two.

It's just very, very close. So Chris worked it out with some error bars. They're like, it's not 0.707, which is around whatever Route 2. They've got it 0.706 with a 0.16% deviation from Route 2, meaning that they're confident. It's very close but not quite. And we have a lot of other people write in with the same thing. I'll name check a few people.

Deed or DD simulated 10 billion runs of the game. Wow. And they got 0.007-06-46. Josh wrote some very efficient code. They did 25 billion simulations in under 90 seconds. Now, I hate to bring up old, old wounds. But people writing code more efficient than me. Very funny theme on this podcast.

Thanks, Josh Yeah, my simulation code was super slow I just rat It was good enough to get Hey, it's faster than me I don't feel any better Oh Ow

Yeah that was We both got insulted by this I mean here's the thing I wrote some lazy code To answer a question where To the nearest percent or 10th of a percent, maybe a hundredth of the percent is all we really needed. Whereas the precision to tell the difference between Route 2 and this is like, you know,

one part and 100,000 or something. Right. Give or take. Don't quote me on that. So I didn't optimize my coat. Now, it should be said, I never optimized my code. So it's not like I would have. Just not what I do.

Josh here, super efficient code did their 25 billion in under 90 seconds. and they got 0.70638. And I then did run my code again a bunch and it also started 7063. It would round up to four. So it's not Route 2. It's just incredibly close. So thank you so much everyone who also ran the code as well

and simulated this problem to show it's not one over Route 2. and that's how maths, you know, investigation start. A lot of the time... That's maths. That's maths for you. You start by, you know, just messing around with something. And then every now and then, you know, catch your eye and you're like, it's odd.

That's interesting. And sometimes that leads to an interesting puzzle or discovery or pattern or whatever. And sometimes it doesn't. In this case, it was a quinky dink. So, anyway, thank you so much everyone who ran it. And other people also came. up with games where you never remove any cards, so you get all 52 cards put down. So well done.

Yes, we had fun. So did everyone else appreciated you all coming in. Also shout out to Chris and Dee Dee, who Matt mentioned earlier, who have both posted their workings. They've shown their working out. Yes, yeah, Chris did a blog post. Dede's popped it up on GitHub. We've got the links in the show notes.

And that's us for time. because if we do any more, we will go off on tangents. Oh, my goodness. But if you enjoyed it, please let us know. In the meantime, we're going to thank everyone who is listening. That's you in case you weren't sure. And especially thank three of our Patreon supporters at random by mispronouncing their names. And on this episode, the three random Patreon supporters that we have chosen are

C. Olin Janky. Orskiller, no filler. Craig. Well, that is how they pronounce it, isn't it? They said I mispronounce it. True, yes. Thank you.

We would say Craig. I mean, Craig, it's your name. If you pronounce it Craig, that's valid. If you pronounce it Craig, you're wrong. Craig should not rhyme with egg. A? Enders on. I also want to thank my co-host.

That's me. Matt Charlie Parker. Charlie Parker was a jazz musician. Oh, nicely done. Yeah. And myself, Beck Hill, because I am a jazz musician. You are a jazz musician. Yeah, wait.

And Laura, the Duke Grimshaw. Taking the lead. So now we're going to scatter our ways out. Let's go to be-b-d-bo-d-bo-p-d-b-b-d-b-b-d-b-b-b-d-b-b-d-b-b-d-b-b-b-dall-hap-bbdall-pppbdil-b-b-bdol-missary. Wow, we don't know where this is going. Oh, that's true. You get to shoot first. Oh, goody.

I mean, I'm definitely going to, if I don't hit. I don't know how that works. Um, C2. You're not going to believe this. Hit. And, you sunk my battleship. I mean, that's pretty cool. Well done.

If only, I didn't have a whole other battleship to go. I'm going to guess A-9. A-9? A-9. Miss. Bah, nuts. Because I know when you were going vertical.