Lateral with Tom Scott - 101: George Washington and boxing

Episode Date: September 13, 2024

Corry Will, Luke Cutforth and Jordan Harrod face questions about animated ants, badminton brilliance and peculiar products. LATERAL is a comedy panel game podcast about weird questions with wonderful answers, hosted by Tom Scott. For business enquiries, contestant appearances or question submissions, visit https://lateralcast.com. HOST: Tom Scott. QUESTION PRODUCER: David Bodycombe. EDITED BY: Julie Hassett at The Podcast Studios, Dublin. MUSIC: Karl-Ola Kjellholm ('Private Detective'/'Agrumes', courtesy of epidemicsound.com). ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS: Quinn, Ari, Daniel Edgardo, Tams, Tom, Randy Bruder. FORMAT: Pad 26 Limited/Labyrinth Games Ltd. EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: David Bodycombe and Tom Scott. © Pad 26 Limited (https://www.pad26.com) / Labyrinth Games Ltd. 2024. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Why might an illustrator find it useful to see marching ants? The answer to that at the end of the show. My name's Tom Scott and and this is Lattery. As you can see from the satellite picture, we're tracking a slow-moving front of dense peculiarity headed our way. Expect erratic gusts of the utterly preposterous, with patches of disorientation forming sporadically throughout. The low will be 52, and as for the high, it's here now. Hi! To our guests, we start with, from the PsyGuys podcast,

and with its head in his hands at that joke, Luke Cutver. Hello! The last time we were on, I did send a couple of fairly sassy shots, both at Luke and Corey. Just because, apparently that's the mood you'll get me in here. I saw a joke. At your expense and I went for it, which is unusual. So I'm going to apologise for that, but also say that this might well happen again, this show. I'm fine with it, Tom. You let all your sass out. You've broken free from that schedule and now you're feeling sassy and I'm here for it.

Tell us about the show. What have you got coming up? On Sci Guys, what have you got coming up? On Psy Guys? What have we got coming up, Corry? We have got some comedy science episodes from loads of weird topics, some mental health stuff, some gay stuff, some other stuff too. Can you tell I haven't planned out that far ahead yet? Also preempting his own introduction there, the other half of the Psyguys podcast, Corry Whelk. Hey!

Hello! Honestly, I wanted to say, Tom, I really like your new haircut. I think that is the reason that you're so emboldened to be sassy. I think it's the confidence, and it looks good on you, you know? The sass. Well, thank you very much. Since you did Luke's introduction, Luke, would you do Corry's introduction, please? Yeah, so I'm Cory. I'm currently editing side guys all the time and doing all of side guys

because Luke's on paternity leave. And I hate that guy, so there we go. And I'm Luke and I'm just looking at a baby. That's, that's, nevermind, you could cut that. Rounding out the slightly disastrous trio we had last time, we have a PhD in medical engineering student, AI expert, person who has just far too much going on, Jordan Harrod, welcome back. How are you doing after the last one of these recordings, which went somewhat sideways a couple of times? I'm excited for this one to also go sideways. I had not thought about doing gay stuff on my channel this month, but it is Pride Month, so that will likely change.

It'll be bisexual stuff. It'll be fun. Good luck to all of you with both this show and your bisexual stuff. Thank you! You're moving from AI to BI, like you're just going down the alphabet. Eventually you'll be a detective inspector. You couldn't think of anything for CI either, could you? I was really trying.

I couldn't think of anything for CI. Central Intelligence? We got about 22 more of these before we get into the showtime. The thing is, we've now done so many gags that everyone's forgotten that I did the start of this like a weather forecaster, so my next bit of the intro's not going to make any sense at all. Well, whatever the weather, a bit of lateral thinking will provide you with an umbrella to shelter you from any brainstorm, often by turning inside out at the first sign of

any trouble and ending in the bin. So turn your collar up, and let's run for the shelter of question one. This question has been sent in by Tom, thank you very much. In March 2023, Marcus Rinshaw of Denmark played in the Polish Open Badminton Tournament. He did something that turned an unfavourable situation into a clear advantage. Two months later, it was banned. What was it? I'll give you that one more time. In March 2023, Marcus Rinshaw of Denmark played in the Polish Open Badminton Tournament.

He did something that turned an unfavourable situation into a clear advantage. Two months later it was banned. What was it? So this has got to be the Fosbury Flop of Badminton, basically, is what we're talking about here. I understand this reference. For those who do not understand that reference, Luke, do you want to... So the Fosbury Flop is a style of high jump, where basically before the Fosbury Flop, everyone was doing one type of high jump,

and then Fosbury came along and he did his flop. Dick Fosbury. Dick Fosbury, thank you. He did his flop, and basically it's the thing that you think of now as high jumping, where you sort of run up and then you sort of jump and then sort of flip your back over the top of the bar. And before he did that, people were jumping significantly less high and now you can jump much higher with that flop. Are you telling me that there was a man named Dick who was known for flopping and this is the first I've heard of this? I'm terribly disappointed in all of you for not telling me about this sooner.

But badminton, all I know about badminton is that it's like tennis, but it's worse and I hate it and I don't enjoy it. Whoa, rude. How do you feel about pickleball? Ridiculous sounding name that I assume only suburban dads get in at. Would that be an accurate estimation? I don't know about sports. SUNDING NAME THAT I ASSUME ONLY SUBURBAN DADS GET IN AT? WOULD THAT BE AN ACCURAIT ESTIMATION? I DON'T KNOW ABOUT SPORTS. It's a massive sport. It's a massive ball. It's just giant.

It's tennis played with volleyballs. No, yeah. It's a new sport. It's a fairly new, like, growing sport. It's like low impact tennis, right? It's tennis that hasn't been optimized to all hell, so it's just becomes a smashing serve game. It's like a slightly lower, slightly slower pace. Yes. I should know that. So I once came second in a tennis tournament with people who were, you know, sort of a

national level of competing whilst in school. Yeah. It was by default. No one else played their games. I played one and lost. But still, that's second place, you know? So I'll bring my expertise into this. LLOYD So you came last, is what you're saying. You came last. JANUS Look, I don't know. You hit the shuttlecock. You are kind of close with it being a Fosbury flop event.

This would have completely changed how the game of badminton was played, or at least one part of it, if it hadn't been banned. Oh, was this... This was recently, right? This was 2023. This actually really rings a bell. I feel like I remember hearing about this, but I don't remember anything more than that. So I'm happy to have been a help here. So I'm thinking like, basically, there's a few things that can go wrong in badminton,

which might then become an advantage. So like, could your racket have deformed in some way? Could something have happened to the shuttlecock, could something have happened to the net, and then that makes the shuttlecock either move faster or easier for you to hit, so it's floating a little bit more slowly, those kind of things. I'm thinking along those lines. When I say unfavourable situation, this was not something particular to that game. That's just a situation you can find yourself in in badminton. Oh, right. Or in a lot of racket games.

Your racket breaks one of the strings, and because they're under high tension, it launched the shuttlecock. I don't understand these games, honestly. I'm really grasping at straws here. And knocked out the opponent. And that was fortunate. Okay, it's a situation you can find yourself in in many racket sports. So that sounds like you sort of let slip that it's specific to the racket as opposed to like to the net. More in how the gameplay works. It may not always be a disadvantage, but in badminton it is.

Okay. So in badminton, I think you played a 21. That's blackjack. Okay, I think you played a 21 in badminton. Obviously there'll be different types of badminton. The way the scoring works. The umpire could not count. Talk me through what happens in a point, and is there something in there

that might mean you're not going to score at this point? And is there something in there that might mean you're not going to score at this point? Well, an extreme amount of wind, either from you or from the earth. Okay, so a point of badminton, okay, so you stand behind the line, one of you serves like this usually and skims over the net and the other person hits it back and you just do that until one of you doesn't hit it back Or it goes out At what point oh, okay There's there's something that can happen in tennis which apparently you do know about that

You can't happen in badminton there at least unless your opponent's terrible Okay, so you can't over arm serve in badminton, but you can over arm serve in tennis Which means there's something that can't happen at the start. Oh, you can't spike it at the start, can you? No you can't. Is it because the other sports do overhand, like the reason why there's the difference? Can you put spin on a badminton thing? No.

Yes you can, and you've just nailed it. Absolutely right. Yeah, that would be the only thing that you can, and you've just nailed it. Absolutely right. Because that would be the only thing that you can. Yes. The unfavorable situation is that you are serving. In Badminton, you can't do an ace smash across the court. It's a shuttlecock. You can't do that.

Marcus Rinshaw is believed to be one of the first professional players to try and spin the shuttlecock as he throws it up into the air. Which is a really, really skilled technique. And that means that the opponent who is expecting a normal serve suddenly gets a curving shuttlecock through the air coming at them, and it is incredibly difficult to return. So like, Luke, at the start, you were right. It's a Fosbury Flop-type moment. But it was banned.

Well, the Badminton World Federation, May 2023, has put a temporary ban on the technique until they can research it. Because up until that point, no one had thought to do that professionally, no one had the skill to do that professionally. So it is, like you said, a Fosbury Flop moment, and Jordan, you nailed it.

It is putting spin on the shuttlecock. Wow. What does research into that look like? Just watching it. Just watching it happen a lot. Just doing it over and over again. And you write it down. And then you watch it some more. Imagine you're trying to conduct your research and nobody can do it.

So you're like, how do we research? I feel like that happens in sport too often, wherein you're too good and they say, well, you're the best, so let someone else have a try, you know? Because they did that with gymnastics, didn't they? Well, I feel like a lot of the time when they do that, it's like, because you did something that if everyone else tries it, it's like gonna kill them. Like there's a bunch of stuff you figure skating that you like cannot do as like a legal move because it's like, you're gonna die.

Everyone else is gonna die trying this. Yeah, wasn't it a somersault or possibly backward somersault? Something like that was just ruled completely. Yeah, there's like a backflip equivalent that they were like, no, you can't do this anymore. One person did it in competition and everyone was like, cool, you get good stores, but like, we're not, no one else can do this. But that will cause death. Yeah. Luke, we will go over to you for the next question whenever you're ready. Okay, so this question has been sent in by Daniel Edgardo, so thank you very much for this. The question is, in the instructions from his 1918 suite, The Planets, Gustav Holtz states that

the female chorus is to be placed in an adjoining room. What effect does this permit and how is it achieved? I'll give you that again. In the instructions for the 1918 suite, the planets, Gustav Holtz states that the female chorus is to be placed in an adjoining room. What effect does this allow you to create and how do you do it? I fully assumed that this was going to be something like sexist like we don't want to be around girls when they're on their periods Blah blah blah. I'm assuming it's not that but I did just want to rule that out up front Normal, of course, like obviously right? Oh gosh, I'm joking

For the second show with this crowd. I've just heard the sound of a bullet whizz past show with this crowd, I've just heard the sound of a bullet whiz past my ear. I'm glad you guys made those jokes. Okay, so I'm going to catch that bullet for you, Tom, and say early doors, there is no significance in the choir members being female. It's not because they're women, it's not because they're on their period or whatever you just said, Jordan. It's not significant that they're female. But if you do put all the choir members in a room for enough rehearsals, they do sync up. No, sorry. This is a myth, apparently.

That's true, that's true. Specifically among choir members, everybody else. And I knew when I said that someone was going to pedant me on it, so thank you, Jordan. That was the correct decision. I mean, it's a myth that I also continue to fully believe. There we go. Jordan said it, so that's fine. So, singing in a room, is it got something to do with resonance or other such sound-related words? Like, if you put them in the room, you can make it sound different.

That was in the question. I will grant you that it does have something to do with sound related words. Yes. J. With sound related words. C. Hmm. That really narrows it down. L. Yeah, it does, isn't it? Well, it's less than all the words. C. So, when you have sound traveling through objects like walls, different frequencies travel better than others.

So I imagine if you hear swap, I say, I imagine when you hear something through a wall, it obviously sounds different, not just quieter, but like almost different in quality than when you hear it without the wall there. So is that, is that what's happening? They wanted to cut some of the, some of the frequencies to have a different, sort of more ethereal sound by making it sound like it's coming through a wall. Well, you'll get more bass, won't you? You'll get the kind of the low tones through, but the high tones are more likely to get reflected.

I'm just going to put this out here, guys. You are all way too smart for this question. Like this is much stupider than you're giving it credit for. Okay, follow up question. Follow up question. Is there a door into the room? Thank you Jordan! There's a door! Yes! Okay. Oh, so they open the door and close the door. They just slam the door shut to mute you. Or something like stereo separation, where you've got...

Tom, I'm gonna edge you up to you again and say you're too smart for this question. Please be more stupid. Do they slam the door shut to mute them? They didn't slam the door shut, no, but they do close the door. Do they close the door shut to fade them out? They close the door shut to fade them out? They close the door shut to fade them out. So yes, thank you, Jordan. They couldn't just have them like, de crescendo, like you can just sing quieter. Okay, so I've got, I actually have, there is something else on this, Jordan, which is

even funnier than the door. So the answer is yes. In the Planet Suite, the piece Neptune, the Mystic ends with the female choir repeating a loop of unresolved chords which gives a sort of mystical feeling. The composer's notes say the chorus is to be placed in an adjoining room, the door of which is to be left open until the last bar of the piece when it is to be slowly and silently closed. The chorus, the door and anyone else must be screened from the audience. If an adjoining door is not available, Holst suggests that the choir slowly turn away from the audience or stuff a handkerchief in their mouths.

He's really committing to this, committing to just not having them sing quieter. They're in a different room. The door is slowly closed to fade them out. And everybody involved in the last 10 minutes of my life is way too smart. Maybe it's like film, you know, maybe it doesn't sound like they're fading out. they actually fade out. You need a door to make it sound... Like, you know how you use a horse when you want a cow in a film? That's just on The Simpsons. Never mind. But like, they don't use actual spit to be spit in a film. They'll use something else, you know?

Maybe it's like that. Strong choice to go with spit there, Corry. I don't know why. Someone interrupt him, please not me Hey you yeah you scrolling tik-tok and avoiding your chem homework check here hot take you've seen enough Bama rush ASMR keyboard and viral dance videos for one day Let's lock in and start that assignment if you you need a little help, lean on Chegg's expert-supported learning tools. I say this with love. Put on some lo-fi beats and get going with our step-by-step study support. Your weekend

will thank you. Small steps today means big wins tomorrow. With Chegg, subscribe today. You got this. After decades of shaky hands caused by debilitating tremors, Sunnybrook was the only hospital in Canada who could provide Andy with something special. Three neurosurgeons, two scientists, one movement disorders coordinator, 58 answered questions, two focused ultrasound procedures, one specially developed helmet, thousands of high-intensity focused ultrasound waves, zero incisions, and that very same day, two steady hands. From innovation to Thank you to Randy Bruder for sending this next question in.

A company makes a line of products, most of them selling the same quantities, except for three that sell 94%, 92%, and 58% as much as the others. Why? I'll say that again. A company makes a line of products, most of them selling the same quantities, except for three that sell 94%, 92%, and 58% as much as the others. Why? I was assuming it was 98% more, and then I was going to say...

No, never mind. I was going to say like, shoes or mind. I was going to say like shoes or something, but no, that doesn't make sense. Never mind. Thank you for your contribution, Corry. Yeah, yeah. Look, I started talking before... I try and yes and people on this podcast if I can, but... I started talking before I'd finished the thought in my head, which is something you should never do. So let's just pretend I said nothing.

Wait, you said 94, 92, 58? JG 94, 92, and 58, yes. LWIPE Is it that these products are only relevant at certain times of the year, for example? So, like, I know that there was something I heard about recently where, I think it's like the fish option at McDonald's was invented because of some religious sort of event where you couldn't eat meat and so people ate fish instead. So maybe these are- That's Fridays in Catholicism. Oh, great. Okay. So maybe it's a seasonal product or it's in some way related to that and then that's roughly like half of the year or like a 25%-ish of

the year. Oh. Luke, that is staggeringly close to the answer. It is absolutely a calendar thing. Okay, so those numbers are so irregular that I'm thinking maybe it's something to do with months, because it's not like a clean fraction, it's not like a clean fraction, whereas months are not clean, 30, 31, et cetera. So, what's 90? I mean, we're rounding that.

Okay. We're rounding. Okay. Yeah. So I'm just wondering whether like there's 94, what's 94% of 365, what's 92% of 365, and what's 58% of 365? And would that tell us something interesting? I don't want to do any maths, so...

You have basically all the elements required to solve this, Luke. You just haven't put together in the right order. Okay. Have we got the products? The sort of... We don't have the types of products because that's the answer. It could be any sort of product. Any sort of product. OK. There is something about this particular product, whatever line it is, that would cause this to happen.

Is it color related, maybe, in that some colors are either more suited to different times of year or seasons, or are just preferred by people because of some underlying psychology based on the time of year. LLOYD No, you're moving away from it here. Luke's basically got it. It is mathematical and it is about the calendar. C. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, hold on. Wait, is this to do with... No, this won't be it. I was going to say something about like, not digital displays, but certain letters or something. Where would you sell letters to do with a calendar if you were maybe using

a printing press? But that's not the answer, so I'll stop talking. It's not letters, but it's that kind of personalization. It's like diaries. Yeah, the exact example I have here is sort of numerology birthday cards or something like that. Okay. But there's something you've not worked out why here. You're right, it's personalized about dates.

Because more people are born on certain times of the year. It's not equally distributed, is it? I don't know. I would imagine not. More people are born on certain days than others but there's something you've not quite tweaked. Oh, oh my god, hold on. Oh wait, no, no. You gotta stop doing that! Because my thought was like leap day but that doesn't work. No, yeah that's why I was going as well. Again, you're dancing around the right thing here.

I was thinking about how, when it comes to months, you've got sort of one, two and three would be used more often. Sorry, when it comes to days of the month, one, two and three would be used more often than any other numbers, because they show up just a little bit more than four five six seven eight and nine Because there are 30 up to 30 days 31 days in a month. What numbers would show up less than oh Oh my god, 29 30 and 31 would be yes less because all of the months have 28 but not all of them more

Not all of them have more. Very good. Is that it? Exactly right. The specific example that a question writer sent in was some fancy numerology birthday cards that have secrets about your birthdate and things like that. They are sold in the day number. Right. That's the part I was getting stuck on, was like, what's the product?

One to 28 is pretty much even. 29 starts to dip down a little bit. 30 starts to dip down a little bit. 30 starts to dip down a lot more. 31, that is about 58% of the others, because there are simply fewer 31s in the calendar. Very cool. Yeah, we were overthinking that a lot. It's full-on overthinking this episode.

It's amazing. I can see the comments right now raging at us for not getting this. Jordan, over to you for the next question. What is the very specific connection between George Washington greeting guests at receptions and a boxing match? I'll repeat the question. What is the very specific connection between George Washington greeting guests at receptions and a boxing match?

We didn't wear a top doing it. He had like really badass entry music. He wore massive gloves so he didn't have to even feel their hands. Yes! Gemaphobe. We've gone from overthinking to under thinking. Let's do this. He had ring girls wandering around just holding on to how many guests he'd currently met. Jordan, is this a specific boxing match or boxing matches in the abstract?

In the abstract. Okay. Okay. No, I'm sorry, we're going to roll with this for a while, because the idea of George Washington just entering wearing a large gown and trunks. Oh, oh no, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. I've said hold on seven times there, I think, or something like it. That's also not the answer. Is it hold on eight times, maybe?

Was George Washington a YouTuber pivoting into a new career as a boxing star? Yes. Wait, is that what Tom's doing? Is this just... Oh yeah, I've talked to like two or three people in the last few months who've done like YouTuber boxing matches, because I know a couple of them, and they're all like, no, not doing that again. Definitely. Not risking traumatic brain injury for a stunt.

They're all really glad they did it. At least the ones who won are. But like, no. Absolutely not. I still think that they missed a trick by not doing professional wrestling instead. Because the physicality's still there, the skill's still there, you can tell stories however you want.

And I really want to see Logan Paul take an elbow off the turnbuckle by like Michael from Vsauce Perfect, oh, we should launch our own side thing Where it's just like SuperCamp, SuperScript is But like specifically the sort of more education focused YouTubers, you know The bookish one looks like Yeah

Within educational creators I feel like there have been multiple conversations about whether there should be an Ed YouTube chest boxing tournament. Oh yeah. So it could be chest wrestling. Yeah, can we just do chess? Or trivia, or something that doesn't involve the risk of serious injury? Just ego injury instead, sounds better.

That's the most Tom Scott thing you've said this entire episode. I mean, I have actually, like, for a video, I took a body slam in a wrestling ring in a small indie promotion, like I learned to do it. It hurts a lot. Like, there's nothing, you just have to get used to it. It sucks. Maybe you just pair up with someone and like, one person does the chest and the other person does the... ...fuck face.

I was going to say that at the start of a wrestling match you have an announcer saying who's coming into the ring. It's George Washington! Just like in Hamilton! Right? Did George Washington have his guests announced? Like that was a thing that used to happen in fancy dinner parties, you'd have someone announce who was entering the room. So my thought was maybe that they both have people announcing who is entering the room.

No. Was there a panel of judges judging the handshakes? No. So 9.2, 8.6 from the East German judge. Did they run really fast on a treadmill and drink no water for several days beforehand? Also, no. OK. OK, I have a question.

Is this George Washington, the founding father, or is this a different George Washington? Like George Washington Carver, the peanut butter dude? It's not the peanut butter dude. No, it is. It is. It is specifically the George Washington, the founding father. Okay. But nice lateral thinking, Corey. He wore weighted gloves to make his handshake much more devastating.

Oh, that would be it though, wouldn't it? No. What about, is it like he had a fake hand? Like you have a boxing glove. Like boxers have a fake hand? They have a somewhat of a fake hand. Like you have a boxing glove. Like boxers have a fake hand. They have a... Well, it's somewhat of a fake hand. You know, when they pull out their fake hands.

Like he didn't want to touch other people? Yeah. Okay, no. No. So it does relate to, I guess I would say, the guests and, like, how they sit in relation to each other. Oh, so they're sat in a ring around a square, right? Is that how they do it in boxing?

Yeah. They sit in a ring and then the ring is actually not a ring, it's square? Yes. So they're sort of sat in a donut shape around. So there's some kind of stage in the center where George Washington is meeting people on a raised platform and people are observing it. I'm going to say that's close enough. So the answer is that circles of people explain the geometric phrases of the Oval Office and the Boxing Ring. But the reason why I think that's close enough is because the reason why Taft, when he remodeled the White House,

created the Oval Office was because back in the days when George Washington would greet guests, the guests would stand in a circle around him during the reception so that everyone had an equal view of him. Oh. Oh. Like a panopticon, but with George Washington. I'm trying to portmanteau George Washington panopticon and it's George Opticon. It doesn't quite work. It's close.

It's not the best one, but there's something there. So they specifically mandated that upon meeting George Washington, you had to be sat, or stood sorry, it's not circle time at school, you had to be stood in a circle. Yes, they called it circle time. Circle time! George Washington! So that everyone could see the sort of handshaking ceremony equally. So I think he specifically required that people did that with him. I don't know that it was like an oval office, well there wasn't an oval office then, but it was not like a presidential

mandate. It was just like you get there and he's like, no, this is the thing that you do. Oh, wow. But if it was an oval office, and if it's not a circular oval, if it's more of a sort of stretched ellipsis, then not everyone would be. Hmm. So right. Well, there you go, George. George Washington, you have, you know, one week to respond.

In ancient times, people would gather in a circle to watch a fist fight between two people bearing a grudge. This would happen either naturally or because a circle had been drawn on the ground first. This rough circle of spectators gave rise to the concept of a ring. The ring kept its name even when rules for a square boxing arena were formalized in 1838. I love that you said in ancient times as if that wasn't something that happened in my secondary school like twice a week. We gathered in a ring to watch two people fight who have a bear grudge. Thank you to an anonymous listener for sending in this question.

Why are extra precautions taken when disassembling the tail section of a Boeing 747 built in the 1970s for scrap. One more time, why are extra precautions taken when disassembling the tail section of a Boeing 747 built in the 1970s for scrap? Well, the 1970s, now we built a lot of schools back then that had problematic ceilings. Um... Ah! Er...

With like, materials that didn't have very good stuff in them that sort of give you cancer. And it's a whole thing. Why are you afraid of saying the word asbestos? Is this like, Luke, have you considered a Korean politics? I don't think there's going to be asbestos. I'm trying to do a general point, which is I don't think there's asbestos in the tail wings of Boeing 747s. And so like... I just like the idea that if you say the name, it manifests. If Luke says asbestos three times, then he has to get someone in to check his ceiling.

Into a mirror. Don't say it three times into a mirror. Yeah, you get bad lungs. So my point is being that like... Seven years bad lungs! God, throughout time we have used materials that have certain properties that we like, and then later on gone, oh wait, this is really, really bad for us. And so I'm wondering if that's a good place to jump off. If you know, these are old Boeing 747s, we're dismantling them for scrap, so we might expose some kind of hazardous material we used back then.

And that might be the answer. And I win. Here's the good news, look, yeah, you absolutely win. That is how the show works. Um, again! You're a sassy, sassy boy! Who are you? We did, clearly.

Apparently. You've basically gone through all the notes I have. I can't give you anything else on this question, Luke, because you've got everything apart from what the material is and why it might have been used. Well, if it's anything like using lead pipes, it's because they give that water a sweet, sweet taste. No, that's not true, but lead does taste very sweet, but you would not want to eat it. What kind of material would you use in a plane? Jampos Yeah, so you obviously got a rudder on the back of a table.

The plane absolutely wags its rudder. I'm just happy that... C. That is how planes fly. I know this, OK? Jampos So it's got a rudder on it. It's... I suppose in that case, it's then got some kind of motor in there. So maybe it's for like cold resistance. The material is there to like prevent like frost.

J. Oh God, is it hydrogen? Did they use hydrogen? Is that it? I feel like a lot of times it's hydrogen and it goes boom. Is it something that goes boom? It's not something that goes boom. Why do you think hydrogen? Hindenburg? Oh, yes.

But why were they using hydrogen? Or why would you think they might have used the hydraulics? Hydraulics is water. Yeah, I know. Hydrogen. Hydraulics? Hydrogen-drolics? Obvious question to ask, like, why did the Hindenburg and why did airships back then use hydrogen? Because it's very not dense. It's not as dense as air, and so if you put... If you encase hydrogen in something, it'll probably make that thing good at floating in air.

Yes. It's also very flammable though. So don't... that thing good at floating in air. It's also very flammable though, so don't. In this case, Corry, you could not be further away from the answer, but that is in itself quite a big clue. Is it something really dense then? So, dense metals, there's tungsten, there's lead. They use tungsten now. Really?

That is, these are counterweights in the elevators and the upper rudder. Yeah, you're absolutely right, it's really dense stuff. These days, they use tungsten. Oh. So the material would be then, would have been lead then, right? No. No. You don't really need special precautions for that.

Okay. Um, okay, let's picture a periodic table in our heads. Cesium! Cesium! No! That goes boom! All of the ones on that end go boom! C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C- dangerous. I mean, you're not wrong. I've seen pictures and videos of cesium. It does look like cheese. It looks like cheese. I just look, my last thing I want to do on this earth when I'm old and on my deathbed, I just want to eat some cesium. My head goes bang, but it will

be, I'll go out the way I want, you know? Iconic death. So we're looking for a, we're looking for a dense and dangerous metal then. Radioactive metal. Oh, plutonium, then. Or another one of the radioactive ones. Yeah. I mean, I'm tempted to give you it here, but there's a specific thing that's known for being really heavy. Like, it's used by the US military in tank rounds, bullets, things like that. Oh.

And it's not plutonium? Did we already say plutonium? It's not plutonium. But you're only a couple of planets away. Oh, uranium! Uranium, right? I thought that was too obvious. Yeah. Oh, thank god.

Deplete. Yeah. Yeah, until 1981, Boeing used depleted uranium counterweights in the elevators and upper rudder of 747s. They were painted to reduce the risk, but in the event that a Boeing 747 crashed, then they had to spend special operations out to recover them. And also, if they crashed and didn't die, and there were survivors, then you've just got to all stay away from the tail. That's... Yes. JANUS Yes.

LLOYD Wow. JANUS I find that when I'm making a plane, I also want it to double as a dirty bomb. So, yeah, I can understand why they did that in the 70s, you know? Jesus. They were just making everything as dangerous as possible back then, weren't they? They had no cares whatsoever. LLOYD I mean, have you paid attention to the news?

They're still making everything as dangerous as possible, Corry. JANUS Oh, yeah. Look, but I have TikTok now and I can peruse that to forget about it. When you're working out at Planet Fitness, it's a judgment-free zone, so you can really step up your workout. That's why we've got treadmills. And our team members are here to help, so you can be carefree with the free weights. They're also balance balls, bikes, cables, kettlebells, and T-Rex equipment. But like, no pressure. Get started at Planet Fitness by September 13th for $1 down and then only $15 a month.

Hurry, you don't want to miss this $1 down sale that ends September 13th. $49 annual fee applies. See Home Club for details. Kori, over to you for the next question. Okay, so this question has been sent in by both Quinn from Wisconsin and Ari. So, two sick dolphins were being treated at a Chinese aquarium after swallowing plastic fragments. Why did Vets specifically ask herdsman Bao Zixun to remove the plastic? Something he did with little difficulty. I'll give that to you again.

Two sick dolphins were being treated at a Chinese aquarium after swallowing plastic fragments. Why did vets specifically ask herdsman Bao Zixun to remove the plastic, something he did with little difficulty? Okay, to be clear, I don't want to punchline to this if anyone can think of one, but two sick dolphins were being treated at a Chinese aquarium. Sounds like a setup for a racist girl. Oh, I think it sounds like they're not actually ill. They're just awesome dolphins. Two sick dolphins. They're sick.

If we're gonna be talking about the word sick in relation to dolphins and countries that bad things happen in, that would be America, based on a lady called Mary and her affair with a dolphin. Well, this is where I'm going with it. This is what I'm wondering is that you're saying that they've asked, um, what is the herdsman? What is a herdsman? So herdsman in this sense, just take away from it that it's not a veterinary professional. I guess a herdsman is someone who has a herd of animals or other things.

What I'm wondering is, if you have your herd of dolphins, and your herd of dolphins really trust you, was this plastic lodged somewhere very personal to the dolphins? And this dolphin herdsman is trusted by the dolphins, and so he just, like, goes and gets that plastic out real easy. And the vet wouldn't be able to do it because the dolphins don't trust the vet. So, um, I would say no to all of that, thank God. The plastic was... It was very much lodged in them. The question did say swallowing plastic fragments. So, you know...

I mean, it would end up, it could end up somewhere very... Anyway... Can someone save Luke from this, please? Was the herdsman very short? Is he the only person that could fit into the dolphin's mouth to reach far enough? Was he a baby? Dolphins are like, not that big.

I don't think you can own a herd of dolphins when you're a baby. We have specifically trained this baby to grab plastic out of. You know what, Tom? I'll say you are almost 100% right. There is literally one word in what you said that is wrong. That is, it's as wrong as you could be. Tall. Tall. Yes. Oh! So does someone put it...

That's obvious in hindsight. I don't thinking that someone was being grabbed by the legs and was small and short enough to be put up. But no, he's just got really long arms, obviously. I was like, so they're thin and long, because you can't... this isn't like, you get swallowed by the whale situation, I don't think. I was thinking it was a swallowed by the whale situation! Yeah, I was thinking those cartoons where you shrink yourself really small into like a little submarine and you go inside something. This is absolutely the overthinking episode.

You 100% got it there, Tom. Yeah. And Jordan, as well. I just fluffed the important word in the answer. Thank you for coming in with that, Jordan. Yeah, so you're spot on. So he was the tallest man in the world at the time. He was the seven foot and nine inches tall, which is obviously quite tall.

It's taller than me. And he had very long arms to go with his long body. And he just wore sort of towels around his arm and reached down into the dolphin's stomachs, grabbed the plastic out and that was it. No special equipment or anything. They literally just contacted him because he had long arms. He had no experience with dolphins. He had no other qualifications other than being the tallest man in the world.

If you're a vet and you're presented with this problem, I don't think it's a normal response to go like, there's only one thing for this job, we need the tallest man in the world. Why can't it just be a different... why go straight... like, what about the person with the longest arms in the world? Well, maybe the vet had already tried. I'm like, oh, my arms are not long enough. Because, like, what else are you going to use? Like, a really expensive endoscope with a gripper? Yeah, I was thinking something like that, actually. If I'm honest though, I think we forget that it's actually often a lot easier just to do things

manually, because if you have to go through a machine, one, that's expensive, and two, you know, it's just so many complexities, there's more mistakes that can be made. If you just got a tall guy, get him to reach down there. But my favorite image from all of this is the fact that, clearly, the tallest man in the world is just being called out to do odd jobs for random people based on his height. We need a TV show about this guy. Which is a TV show! Can that be a call in reality show? You like calling with your problem. And also, producer Dave says that, Corry, you're right, they tried vet instruments but it didn't

work. They actually just needed someone who could manipulate better than that. Which brings us to the question I asked the audience at the start. Thank you to Tams for sending this in. Why might an illustrator find it useful to see marching ants? I have a suspicion that from three people here who work in the creative industries, you might already know the answer to this. Luke, you have your hand up? No, go on, Cory. Cory knows this too. You go ahead.

No, Luke, you're the director. You go ahead. You do it. Okay, marching ants are... In Photoshop, when you sort of select something, when you outline something, the sort of UI element that shows what you've selected is called marching ants. It's basically like little dots that sort of march round in a circle of what you've selected. Oh, and now that's what that was called. Yes, it is technically called the marquee.

And that line that goes round your selection, those are the marching ants. With that, thank you very much to all our players. What's going on in your world? What are you up to? We'll start with the PsyGuys this time. Luke, tell us about the podcast, where can people find it? Okay, well, PsyGuys is a show where we basically tell a different science story every week. I'm currently on paternity leave from it, but Corry is absolutely nailing it in my absence. And you can find it on any podcast platform and also on YouTube. Just search for Sci Guys Podcast.

And Corry, what specifically... No, you know how sometimes you say something and then you don't want to? I was going to say, Corry, what specifically are you nailing at the moment? But that has a different meaning, so... Oh! Woo! Corry, what specifically are you talking about on the show at the moment? We are talking about so many things. We're talking about gay things and

mental health things. Anything you might be interested in, we're talking about it. So, definitely listen to our podcast, please, please, please, please. And Jordan, where can people find you? You can Google my name and you'll find me on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, talking about how AI impacts your life and also why Sam Altman is a very interesting person at the moment. And if you want to know more about this show, you can do that at lateralcast.com, where you can also send in your own idea for a question.

We are at Lateral Cast basically everywhere, and there are regular video highlights at youtube.com slash lateralcast. With that, thank you very much to Jordan Harrod. Thanks for having me. Corey Will. Thank you very much. Luke Cutforth. Thanks so much, Tom.

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