Lateral with Tom Scott - 37: Keep left at the quarry

Episode Date: June 23, 2023

Jeremy Fielding, Estefannie and Inés Dawson ('Draw Curiosity') face questions about treaty texts, shirt sequences and practical photocopies. 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://www.lateralcast.com. HOST: Tom Scott. QUESTION PRODUCER: David Bodycombe. RECORDED AT: The Podcast Studios, Dublin. EDITED BY: Julie Hassett. MUSIC: Karl-Ola Kjellholm ('Private Detective'/'Agrumes', courtesy of epidemicsound.com). ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS: Alain Chen, Jonathan Levy, Nathan Lipke, Julian Atzlinger. FORMAT: Pad 26 Limited/Labyrinth Games Ltd. EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: David Bodycombe and Tom Scott. © Pad 26 Limited (https://www.pad26.com) / Labyrinth Games Ltd. 2023. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A budding author grabs something from a high supermarket shelf, and so what literary character is born? The answer to that at the end of the show. My name's Tom Scott, and this is Lateral. Welcome to another edition of the Lateral podcast, and we are, as ever, joined by three captivating guests. Sorry, that's captive guests because the doors are locked and we've got them for the next 45 minutes or so. We start with,

from his own YouTube channel, Jeremy Fielding. Hello, thank you for having me. Now, I met you a while back at ThinkCon. How would you describe yourself? I've got maker, but that doesn't seem to encompass everything that you do. maker, but that doesn't seem to encompass everything that you do. Yeah, I struggle with this every time someone asks me what I do. But my real goal is to teach people about engineering, but I try to design and build things that are interesting so they will want to learn about engineering. So that's really the goal. Everything from building robots in my garage to all types of machines and gadgets and teaching stuff as well. But yeah, that's what I do. So making is only part of what I'm after.

Making is like a means to the end. Which I think is also true for our second guest, also joining us. Estefani, from your YouTube channel, are you going with Maker? Are you going with something else? Because last I saw, you were taking a lot of pictures of your cat. Yeah, I don't know. I just like to invent things. Because I think my dream is to become like, a dog from, you know, back to the future, and I just want to build stuff in my garage.

And then, I think as a. And I just want to build stuff in my garage. So like, I guess, and then like, I think as a result, I could maybe inspire people. Hopefully the little Estefanis out there who, you know, like it's growing up, it was just like kind of male focused inventors. So yeah, I'm an inventor. A Mexican. Yes.

Our last guest is not a maker and is returning to YouTube after several years away. Now, Inés, from Draw Curiosity, you made a guest video for me many years ago. Thank you very much for that. What are you coming back with? So I'm coming back with actually some very long-awaited videos because they were ones that I planted the seeds for

just as I decided to take my break. One is, so I used to have knee length hair and I cut off a one meter long braid. And so I asked people to try to guess how much it weighed. So finally, the answer to that, along with some interesting science is going to come. And I also measured how stressful my PhD was. And spoiler alert, I was indeed very burnt out from it. I think everyone I know who has doctor before their name, which, by the way, on the video call that we're recording this on, you actually came in with your default name with the doctor in it, which I appreciate. That's making sure it's out there. I think everyone I know with that in their

name is just... has that memory of being a burned out ball of stress A lot of people joke that PhD really stands for permanently head damaged from the process Oh wow Let's hope it hasn't affected your lateral thinking skills at all because that is what the show is about The questions on this show

are like cosmic wormholes transporting us to realms of knowledge and imagination we never thought possible. So let's explore the vast universe of ideas before we're sucked into an intellectual black hole. I'm going to start you off with question one, which is, why did Alec photocopy the back of his extension cord? It's a short question, so I'll give you one more time.

Why did Alec photocopy the back of his extension cord? First, how do you define the back of an extension cord? I'm curious, which aspect of this extension cord is the back of it? I wonder if this is an international thing where different countries have different names for this thing. So the British use would be four-gang plug, which is that you plug one into the socket on the wall and you end up, there's a cord,

and then there's four sockets, six sockets there. I don't know what the translation of that would be for various other countries, but that's what I'd call an extension cord. Is he doing this once, or is he having a continuous photocopy running as if to keep track of whether other people are plugging things in and what direction the cords are going? Yeah, I guess I want to make sure I have the orientation right in my mind before I can figure

out why I would do such a thing. So if I have an extension cord that's got four plugs, what I'm envisioning on the top, we have plugs like that, and you flipped it over, there's a backside that's maybe flat so it could sit on the floor. The only thing that would usually be there is, you know, the rating and information like that. Perhaps it's got something to do with the capacity of the extension cord, wanting to keep track of whether too much power is being drawn, or if you're plugging the right things in. Am I even nudging in the right direction? It's a very small nudge, but it is technically in the right direction. I'll give you a slightly improved mental picture in that it's kind of one of those power strips,

rather than like a coiled cable. But yeah, it's the backside from the sockets. You've got that bit right. So I'm thinking more like to be able to trace it on some computer or a device or something to build something around it. Maybe they want to like hang it somewhere or like put magnets and like place it somewhere so it's like more accessible is this the kind of questions we're looking for yeah you're definitely heading the right way there i uh i like where you're going with this i mean this is again the only reason i would take that photocopy yeah and uh put it in my modeling software you know and get the whole dimensions

and things like that so that I could make something related to it. So that seems like another good reason to do that. Because, like, I have one right next to me right now, and I put magnets on it so I can just put it wherever I want and snap it on things. Because we used to cosplay ours. We used to put little Velcro things around it so we could attach it anywhere. You don't need to photocopy it for

that because we've all done projects around our extension cords without the need to photocopy. So we might all be wrong. So it's not necessarily that he needed to photocopy it, but he just decided this was the... He had a reason.

We want to know what that reason is. Was he trying to be a smart Alec? That is actually why the question writer named him Alec. This is not a specific Alec, but thank you. Now I don't have to read that joke out at the end. You have correctly worked out why he's called Alec in this question. Yeah, if you were building something, you could take measurements and you could copy it. But in this case specifically, a photocopy helps a lot more. Is someone asking for proof that he has an extension code so he decides to photocopy and fax it to them?

It's more practical. You're dancing around it. You've come up with solutions. It's a solution to something you've already mentioned, particularly you, Estefania. You've said you were doing something very much like this. Is this based in the 80s, or is this in current times? How dare I use photocopy technology! Could be any time. Because, well, it depends, right? So if it's in the 80s, then there's not a lot you can do with

a photocopy. But nowadays nowadays you can photocopy it and scan it and then put it on like a 3d cat autocad and then like print something just a just a regular plain paper photocopy well because you can do so much with it afterwards depending on the technology that you have access to at the time well a photocopy would allow you to just take a piece of paper and figure out if it will fit somewhere oh yeah cut it out and just like test fit make sure it fits in the space that it's the right size right orientation like a picture but why not use just the thing to measure with like if you yeah i agree you you're so close there's there's one more thing if you have this photocopy what can you do that you couldn't easily do oh i know i know oh i don't know should

i say it oh please oh okay so i'm thinking so that you can like mark something on a wall to make a hole with and like hang it yep you're absolutely right in fact you don't have to mark anything on the wall because you've got the photocopy yes yeah yeah so you can trace or you can poke through it yeah you can do so much with paper you can attach the photocopy to the wall with the screws that you then hang this power strip on and then you just rip the paper away. And I feel like so accomplished right now. This is great. Like, I don't have to work today, right? After this.

Yes, you're absolutely right. The photocopy of the power strip was to use as a template for hanging on the wall. Each of our guests has brought a question along with them. I don't know the question. I definitely don't know the answer. And we start today with Jeremy. What do you have for us? This question came in from Alan Chen. And the question is, US college basketball players are only permitted to use a limited range of numbers on their jerseys, namely 0, 00, 1-5, 10-15, 20-25, 30-35, 40-45, and 50-55. Why? I'll say it again. U.S. college basketball players are only permitted to use a limited range of numbers on their jerseys, namely zero, zero, zero, one to five, 10 to 15, 20 to 25,

30 to 35, 40 to 45, and 50 to 55. Why? I have two likely incorrect hypotheses. Okay. One is the less safe for work one, which is they probably don't want the number 69 cropping up. I was going to say that one as well. Like all the funny numbers are away from that list.

Yeah, okay. And then my other one is, well, I might be wrong about this, but I think, I don't know, I haven't really watched much basketball, but are there five people per team in basketball? I think there's loads of people per team in basketball and they can swap out. I think you get substitutions, don't you?

Oh God, I know nothing about basketball. Yeah, I mean, the whole team could be huge, yes. There are definitely more than five members on the team. But on the court itself, is it not just five against five? If there's not, then my hypothesis goes down the drain. But if it's just five... Yeah, it's five v. five. Then maybe you could have your one to five.

Maybe you could have your top substitutes, zero and zero, zero. And then as you knock players out, maybe that's when the 10 comes to substitute the zero and the 11 comes to substitute the one. This is my first working hypothesis. Okay. No, I would say you're pretty cold on that one. Is basketball American? I don't know.

Basketball is probably predominantly American, although it's played in the Olympics. So every country has basketball teams. But where was it invented? It's not relevant to the question, but maybe. I really don't know. That's an interesting question. There's an old story about it being that someone put like nets for oranges up on a hoop

and you had to try and throw the ball in there. And I think that's a myth. Because the story goes, though, like the ball kept getting stuck so they cut off the bottom of the nets. I just, I seem to remember a debunk of that somewhere. I know that the Aztecs had like this circle stone things and they had to like hit a ball with their hip towards that and aim at that. But that's not basketball. They claim soccer towards that and aim at that but that's not

basketball they say they claim soccer for that yeah that's the old aztec ball game which was meant to involve human sacrifice at some point as well yeah it's so fun but i do have a hypothesis that has nothing to do with aztecs yeah my producer just said it was invented at a ymca in the u.s with peach. I nearly got that right. My question is, does this have anything to do with the Chicago Bulls? No, it is definitely not. This is college basketball. College basketball.

I was wondering, did Michael Jordan claim 27 forever and nobody else can use it? Because that's the only thing I know about basketball. There are retired numbers in a lot of sports. Michael Jordan was 23. Oh, 23. Wow. I'm so wrong. And I love Michael Jordan. See, I don't know anything about basketball. A lot of teams, a lot of sports have retired numbers. If someone was that legendary or that infamous or that shunned by society now, they do sometimes retire the number. Or that's shunned by society now. They do sometimes retire the number.

Okay, wait, this is actually an interesting clue because retired numbers is a problem for this rule. Retired numbers is a problem for this rule. Because college teams do retire numbers and then you only have so many numbers left. So I'm wondering if it could be to do with the pronunciation. Maybe for some reason, one to five is easier to say than six to seven. And like you've got 16, 17, 25, 27, 36, 37. There's a lot of repetition and maybe there's some ambiguity in the way

and you remove more of that. But then you still have the problem of 23, 24, but maybe less with 13. So this is my next hypothesis. Keep going with that. You're on to something. It comes for the commentators because they go by name rather than number. Are the players' names, like for the commentators on a five by five grid, and they want to translate from the number on the jersey to the name and that's an easy way to do it, and they can't read more than five by five or something like that. Who would benefit from using limited jersey numbers?

The jersey manufacturers would, because they don't have to create the numbers six through nine to go on the back. If they're all two-digit numbers, which we... That's true. They would still be two- two digit numbers. That's true. They would still be two digit numbers. Yeah. Is there some reason they can't use six, seven, eight and nine? Uh-huh.

Think about that. Is there some keypad or some electronic thing that doesn't go that far? Or the score clock doesn't show those higher numbers or something like that? Well, the scorecard definitely does, but keep going there. You're getting so warm, I almost don't want to stop you. Help him out, guys. Could it be that 6, 8, 9, and 3, they all kind of look a little bit ambiguous

if they're a number on a chess, if you can just see half of it. Maybe it's, again, harder to disambiguate those players. But what makes 6, 7, 8 and 9 harder to communicate than the smaller numbers? You're on the right path. Yeah, it's the fingers. You've only got five fingers. So if you want to call a substitution or yell at someone

from the side of the court and you want to hold up your hands to say, like, number number 23 you can do that with two hands if you don't have more than five as each digit there you go yeah oh wow that's hard it's to avoid confusion so that the refs can just use hand signals to indicate the player's number spot the nerd who went for like keypads and commentator view grids before the literal hands i have in front of my eyes right now oh that's a lovely question thank you jeremy well that's a high five for that one yeah so the the primary goal there is just to communicate clearly when the refs want to indicate a certain player number,

if you're holding up a two and a five per se, you know for sure that that's number 25 and not number seven or some other number that would be above five. We have a listener question. Thank you to Nathan Lipke. Colorado's Department of Transportation sometimes closes I-70 eastbound at Floyd Hill for about 45 minutes of the morning rush hour, even if weather conditions are excellent.

Why? I'll say that one more time. Colorado's Department of Transportation sometimes closes I-70 eastbound at Floyd Hill for about 45 minutes of the morning rush hour, even if weather conditions are excellent. Why? Where in Colorado? Uh, Floyd Hill. More than that, I couldn't tell you.

I've only ever seen highways closed when you have, in terms of regularly closing a highway, I generally think of that as being, but it's not really closed. What I'm picturing is when they essentially make both lanes go the same direction because so much traffic is going into town that they limit the traffic on one side or they make all the lanes go into town, so to speak. Am I even on the right track?

No, they are just closing one way. Okay, the highway is closed. Maybe there's a lot of traffic going one way. Maybe there's a lot of demand to go into Floyd Hill or out of Floyd Hill. Whether the fact that there's so much traffic means that they're a lot more likely to experience accidents and maybe they want those lanes closed so they can have emergency services to respond faster by going down the other lane. Wow, I like that answer, even if it's not right. Yeah, I do as well. But in this case, when I say closed, I mean closed. There's a detour in place.

That whole stretch of interstate is closed eastbound. Is this because there's a cult meeting every day in that area? Only wrong answers. I mean, apologies to the people of Floyd Hill, Colorado, unless you are genuinely in a cult, in which case I hope you're able to get out of it soon. I'm wondering, could this be sort of the opposite of LA where driving is encouraged? Maybe they're trying to convince people

to use public transport. So by making it a little bit harder to go both ways, maybe they're encouraging people to take alternate routes that do not involve a car with the goal of reducing traffic over time. I think it'd be difficult to do that on the interstate. I'm pretty sure there's some federal laws about that. Never mind. I don't understand America. Who does?

Same. Nobody does. Oh, no, I was just going to ask if it is every day because I forgot the question. So, no, it's not every day. It is sometimes. Sometimes. But it will be around the morning rush hour for about 45 minutes and it will always be eastbound. So do we know how many days a week or do we know? Is it like a schedule thing or is it just random?

How many days a week or do we know? Is it like a schedule thing or is it just random? Oh, without giving too much away, it will not be on a... They'll know when it has to happen. By they'll know, as in people who are driving or the state or the road? Have a think about some of the words in the question. Eastbound, Floyd. When a Pink Floyd concert is in town i'm joking everybody knows

but it's not weather no it's not weather it's not weather does colorado have earthquakes or any other semi-regular natural disasters we're driving one way not a natural disaster but you're along some more of the right lines there it's not weather but it's not man-made huh is are we having an issue with um is there a river nearby or is there water that maybe floods that area and makes it so they have to close it until the water levels go down? That would still be weather. I'm one, oh, okay.

I was about to say maybe it could be wind related, but okay, that's also weather. So nevermind. You are running through most of the conditions here. And you're in your clouds. Okay. Well, again, might also be weather, but I wouldn't consider this weather. Probably also wrong.

But is it something where eastbound you're driving into the rising sun and precisely the way the sun is coming up, it blazes into your eyes and it's very unsafe, so they close it for that period? Yes, spot on. Oh, my God. Wow. LA should do that.

Eastbound in the winter months on a hill. So even if the conditions are fine, actually more so if the conditions are fine because the sun is going to be clear in the sky, the sun reflects exactly off the wrong angle of the hill you're going up and you are staring directly into the sun. So there's just this section of I-70 where Colorado Department of Transportation

judges it too unsafe, closes the entire interstate eastbound because people keep getting dazzled and crashing. Inés, it's on you. Your question, please. Okay, so this listener question has been sent in by Jonathan Levy. How did an old quarry in Swindon, England,

provide evidence towards the theory that ancient Romans drove their carts and chariots on the left side of the road? I'll read that one more time. How did an old quarry in Swindon, England, provide evidence towards the theory that ancient Romans drove their carts and chariots on the left side of the road.

Everyone's looking at me. Everyone's looking at the one Brit on this call. And this particular Brit cannot think of anything about Swindon other than the magic roundabout, which is a roundabout surrounded by five smaller roundabouts that are all treated as one big traffic thing. And you drive in and you follow the arrows and you hope you come out at your destination.

As far as I know, that's not an Aquarian, not from Roman times. I'm going to be honest. I don't know what Aquarius is. I'm just going with it. I had to check this because I also, when I first read it, I thought, what's Aquarius? I know it's mine related. It's basically an open pit mine. And imagine some sort of terracing.

So you would basically drive your way down into the mine. So in the times before elevators existed, you know, that's how you would go down into the mine and return from out of the mine. Certainly, if we're talking about a quarry, then we're digging. And if you're excavating, then there's an opportunity to find how things are oriented. So how might you do that? I was stuck on thinking they found some ancient Roman amphitheatre or something like that and they were

clearly driving on the left because honestly I hadn't finished that thought So is there indentations but that wouldn't tell you which way right? I guess? Like indentations on the road or on the stone,

like because they always went through that area. So like, you know. I know there's an old story that the reason we drive on the left in the UK is that you needed your right hand free for holding a sword in case someone, you know, when you're on horseback, you always rode on the left because that. And then that became tradition, and then car manufacturers in the US

wanted to avoid British imports and so decided to drive on the right. I don't know if that's true. Someone, if you want to fact check that, please don't email me about it, all right? I'm just going to flag that as legend and just move on. So I will say that this is in the notes as a fun fact to provide when you guess the question correctly. So it is correct, but not the answer to this question,

because we don't necessarily care about the swords going to the quarry. I will say Estefani is kind of on the right track. Track? Pun intended? Pun intended, yes. Yes, I like it. Okay. So you were talking about archaeology and them finding things in the quarry. And I will also add that the actual geology or where this was, you don't need to know anything about swindon it just

so happens that this is the place where the evidence was no one needs to know anything about i mean i can only imagine that if you found i mean if you found a relatively intact roadway and you know debris on the side i mean it's not like you're going to find a fully buried person on a chariot and he happens to be facing the right way. So I wouldn't expect that to be the case. But I think the only other thing I could think of would be if there was the way the debris is in at the site where this was dug up somehow indicated the flow of traffic and i'm hoping that that's another another clue

is that i feel like that that's definitely the direction we're headed but i just i don't know how to nail it and say yeah this is what they found that is on the right or left track how would you find out okay so i'm still on the track of like indentations of the tracks and so like are these chariots that were being pulled by horses and if so then it's like the horse moves direction like their tracks their markings but okay so one thing to think about is everything is going in and out of the quarry so there will be indentations going both ways but there's a telltale clue because i was thinking about like there's no way to tell which way they were going if they're just tracks but then i was like well if there's like a specific animal then you know the shape of their feeties. There's a way.

I mean, if they're passing each other in the road, then you would have tracks going in both directions. And also you'd have orientation. So if we're talking about horse footprints, then yes, I think that would clearly indicate which direction people were traveling. But it would be on both sides. So how would you know which side they were going on, if that makes sense? You'd just have ruts in the ground, wouldn't you?

You wouldn't have hoof prints there. You'd just have two sets of ruts. The hoof prints wouldn't survive. They'd be all over the place. The ruts would get driven in there so what other thing, what other permanent mark would they make with that's visible from one side

that's, ah so when you're going down to the quarry what evidence might a cart leave behind? I did like Tom's answer I feel like Stephanie and Tom are both going towards the right direction i have an idea what if um i mean if you're if you're hauling material the ruts would be deeper

on the side that you are leading on that's it exactly good job we got there between us yeah yeah good job team yeah i mean i liked all the answers i feel like you know stephanie's i do think those grooves would probably be deeper if they were using horses and i'm pretty sure there would be debris but i don't know if that would be cleared each time more carts go through but indeed the grooves are deeper as they're leaving the cargo, so they could ascertain which side was left and which side was going in, which side was going out, and they were going on the left. And so if you want the full answer with all the facts, carts would enter the quarry empty and they would leave heavily laden.

In a 1998 archaeological excavation at Blunson Ridge near Swindon, it could be determined which way the cart traffic entered and exited the site. The deeper grooves on one side of the road indicate that the direction of the carts leaving with the heavy load, meaning that a drive on the left wheel was in place. Our next question was sent in by Julian Adzlinger. Thank you very much. The Uhrterm is a large 13th century clock in Graz, Austria. To visitors, it rarely appears to show the correct time, yet locals still tell the exact time from it without issues,

thanks to an addition in 1712. How? So one more time. The Urterm is a large 13th century clock in Graz, Austria. To visitors, it rarely appears to show the correct time, yet locals can still tell the exact time from it without issues, thanks to an addition in 1712. How?

Does that mean they couldn't tell the time before 1712? Not the exact time. Not the exact time. Is it a solar clock? That's what I was going for, yeah. It is just a clock. Like mechanical clock? Yeah, there I was going for, yeah. It is just a clock. Like mechanical clock? Yeah, there's nothing special about the clock.

It is a clock. I mean, there's clearly something special about the clock, but it is a clock. It's not a sundial, it's a clock. Why does it have to have an addition? So like, because it clearly doesn't work if it needs an addition to it. It sounds like whatever the addition is, is augmenting the time that's being shown on the clock.

So you see the clock, it's wrong. And this addition is augmenting the time that's seen since other people who don't know about the addition or don't know what they're looking at can't tell what time it is. So it's got to be something that's just indicating the clock is off by an hour or five minutes. Is this something like daylight savings? Did they have that in Austria in 1712? And maybe they put a little symbol on the hands to indicate that? I don't think they'd have had that much precision back then okay yeah does it have to do with birds and cuckoos oh uh no i think that's switzerland not austria but i appreciate

that's an addition right you're right jeremy something. And before that, it was less precise. Maybe not less precise, but much harder to read. Do they add bell tolls at the right hour, regardless of what the clock is saying? No, it looks completely wrong to everyone else. Harder to read. So, like, did they add, like, another hand? Have they got the hour and the minute switched around? And therefore... Yes, they have.

But why? You've solved most of it. What's the story? What happened? I like the idea of this being some sort of about to be invaded city and so this was their way of tricking invaders so they would get their timings for battles wrong but

then the locals would actually know the time? It's not in this case. What did they add in 1712? The seconds hand. Not quite. Did they add the numbers or the lines? It'd have to be something that when other people look at the clock, they still don't know what time it is,

because only the locals know what time it is. So it can't be like an obvious thing. No, Inés is right. The hour and minute hands are swapped. The locals know that. Tourists don't. But what happened? What's the story that got them there?

They were running out of material. I don't know. You're also right. They added a hand in 1712. Oh, so they only went by hours first, and then they added the minutes later. Yep. And so they didn't know.

The hours were so long, they didn't want to add super long one. Is that what it is? That's basically it. There wasn't really a standard back then. So they had a perfectly functional clock that went round, sweeping every 12 hours, and then this new invention of the minutes hand came along, and I thought, oh, we'll just add a little short one because the minutes are less important. So for most people who look at the clock, go, oh, that's completely wrong,

and the locals know to mentally swap the hands around to tell the time. Wow. I never would have guessed that. Which means it's time for a guest question from Stephanie. Whenever you're ready, take it away. This listener question was sent in by Zealand and it is, In 1840, the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in New Zealand between the native Maori and the British settlers. Since Maori was an oral language at the time, how did the Maori chiefs personally sign the treaty other than with an X?

I'm going to say it again. In 1840, the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in New Zealand between the native Maori and the British settlers. Since Maori was an oral language at that time, how did the Maori chiefs personally sign the treaty other than with an X? I've got my head in my hands at the minute because I have been to the treaty grounds. Like it's a big, important site in New Zealand. When I was touring there a few years ago, I've been there. They've got the treaty. And I cannot remember this at all.

It's a complete blank in my head. I'm pretty sure I will have read an information plaque somewhere about this at some point. And it's just not stayed in there. Nothing. I like the idea of them leaving behind a personalized mark like i don't want to say spitting on the signature but maybe like licking their thumb and putting that down but maybe i'm reading too much into the oral tradition there but i'm thinking maybe a fingerprint or something that would be personalized, or maybe, I don't know, sticking hair, kind of leaving something from the chiefs

on that treaty that would be significant. I like that idea. Maybe like a wax seal of some sort, you melt it, impress, it could be a ring or it could be anything that's, you know, significant to the chief that will be left as a mark to indicate he was there. Or they could take a bit of the treaty with them. Like if you were to tear off a piece and to take it back with you, you could always prove that was you by bringing that piece back. Okay, Tom, you're way off, but everybody else is going to close their clothes. Sorry.

Okay, now, Tom, you're way off, but everybody else is going to close their clothes. Sorry. I had a, in my head, I've just invented a really clever analog document authentication system, all right? I'll write up a white paper about it, I'll send it up to a security conference. What if someone steals it? Okay, I've invented a terrible document authentication system. Sometimes the mouse just starts running, okay? But it's like a whole unique idea.

I'm just going to say that for now. Okay. So do they provide something unique to attach to it or to modify it in some way? Is it from the body or is it an item that they might own? Attached to it or to modify it in some way? Is it from the body or is it an item that they might own? It's the body sounds closer to the answer. That's very vague. I'm thinking hair.

I'm thinking fingernail clippings. I'm thinking like a kiss. I'm thinking spit. I'm thinking like a kiss. I'm thinking spit. I'm thinking. That's weird because you'd want to leave an impression that, and this was how long ago? 1840. So I don't know, a million years ago.

I'm just trying to imagine what would be, what would be meaningful to someone who just has an oral language as evidence that they've signed this document? Oh, that's true. Yeah. So leaving a seal, either a wax seal, it could be a brand. Like if I took a hot iron or something, heated it up and want to set the paper on fire but something that when i saw this again i would know that yes i was the one who uh who did this on this piece of paper but i don't feel

like in eight in the 1840s a fingerprint or a footprint would be sufficient um it wouldn't be sufficiently detailed is the oral language an important clue there? Is it something that would be important to someone in an oral language or is it just... I'm going through the... I don't think it has anything to do with language. Well, it does inherently, but no, I'm going to say it didn't involve language or words. That's what I'm saying. I feel like the key there, and I'm just guessing so that we can work together. I feel like the key and the part of it being oral is that, you know, there's no written component. We know it wasn't just a regular signature, right? It had to be something unique to the person that would indicate to them later that

was also not written that they signed it or that they were there um yes jeremy you're right it's something written but it's not like words or letters is there a symbol that they might display like something like a circle and a cross and maybe the circle could be a fingerprint or you know a continuation of that symbol Maybe it looks like a little person. I don't know. I mean, you're definitely on the right track of a thing, but how would it be so unique? Oh, it's going to be the moko.

It's going to be a marking of a tattoo or the marking that they use for the face tattoo. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Maori culture has moko, which are face tattoos, which are unique, I think, to each person. So if they were to create a simplified diagram of theirs, that would act as a signature? OK.

Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. So the right answer is by drawing their facial tattoos so that's how it's so unique to them because they're the only one yeah they're the one with the tattoo on their face and then if they draw it then people know oh that's the person with the tattoo so that's how it's unique to them yep okay i was um sitting behind someone on uh on the flight i took out of um new zealand to tokyo and uh she was maori she had moko quite a lot of uh of tattoos on on her face and like

japan doesn't really have good associations with tattoos so i was going well what she you know she's gonna be okay on arrival i don't know who she was but she was met at the aircraft door really have good associations with tattoos. So I was going, well, what? You know, is she going to be okay on arrival? I don't know who she was, but she was met at the aircraft door by six extremely different airline employees and whisked off to a separate line as a VIP. I have no idea who she was, but all my preconceptions were completely wrong. And I kind of want to know who she was and how she was important now, because she was clearly some very, very important person on that flight. That's awesome. Maybe she'll be signing the next treaty.

Which brings us to one final order of business. At the start of the show I asked, a budding author grabs something from a high supermarket shelf and so, which literary character was born? Before I give the answer, does anyone want to take a guess here? Wait, a supermarket?

And also, what year is this? This is fairly modern, late 20th century. And literary gives this some airs and graces that may not quite be what we're looking for here. This is very much pop literature. It grabs something from the top shelf and a character was born. It was named, let's say. My immediate thoughts are both, I had this little book as a kid,

which was Mr. Orange at the supermarket, which was a talking orange to one of the characters. And I have sometimes had the supermarket, which was a talking orange to one of the characters. And I have sometimes had the thought, could you get head rush whilst trying to grab something up high and you imagine the things talking to you. But I'm pretty sure that's not a famous children's book. It's not. And this is quite a famous book.

It's now also been adapted a couple of times into various, I think, TV shows and movies. It is Jack reacher really because he frequently had to reach up to the top shelf of the supermarket and uh author lee child's wife said oh this writing gig doesn't work out you could always be a reacher in a supermarket and from there he took the name jack reacher for the character so that, thank you very much to everyone who's played today. What's going on in your lives? Where can people find you?

We will start with Stephanie. Oh, okay. Yeah, I am on YouTube with just like my name, Stephanie, on Instagram. That's where I post most of the stuff. And also I'm on TV now, on the Discovery Channel with Revenge Nears. Yeah. Inés? You can find me on YouTube at Draw Curiosity

because it's all about things that draw my curiosity and hopefully yours as well. I do have Instagram and Twitter, but the thing I prefer the most is YouTube. And I will be coming back soon, as Tom has mentioned. Hopefully by the time this is out, I will already be back. But if not, it will be coming a few days later. And Jeremy?

I can also be found on YouTube and Twitter, Instagram, by the same name, Jeremy Fielding. So that's where you can see my content. And you can find out more about this show at lateralcast.com, where you can also send in your own listener questions. You can find us at Lateral Cast pretty much everywhere, and there are video highlights every week at youtube.com

slash Lateral Cast. Thank you very much to Jeremy. Thank you. To Inés. Thank you, Tom, for having me. And to Stephanie. Thank you, Tom. Thank you.

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