Something You Should Know - How to Project Confidence and Competence & Answers to Fascinating Questions

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Starting point is 00:00:17 You can now make the first move or not. With opening moves, you simply choose a question to be automatically sent to your matches. Then sit back and let your matches start the chat. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. Today on Something You Should Know, can being sad actually make you sick? Maybe, but not in the way you think. Then, the strategies that help you project confidence and competence, like eye contact. Very interesting research project. Eye contact is very effective when you're talking, but if I'm listening, it's actually better for me if I don't look

Starting point is 00:00:53 at you. So when somebody's talking to you, don't keep eye contact. Look around, you know, look at other people. Makes a very big difference. Plus, what makes a food a comfort food? And some answers to some fascinating questions of everyday life, like what time is it in the North Pole? Do dead people outnumber living people? Or why does a whip crack? The very, very tip of the whip, you can actually exceed the speed of sound with the velocity of the very tip. So there's a mini sonic boom going on. It's actually breaking the sound barrier. All this today on Something You Should Know.

Starting point is 00:01:30 People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology.

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Starting point is 00:02:37 The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hi. It seems to me, I don't know about you, it seems to me that even with the pandemic this past year, the year has gone by pretty fast. I mean, we are about to head into the holiday season.

Starting point is 00:03:01 And every year there's talk about sadness around the holidays. Perhaps you've even heard that being sad for extended periods of time can make you sick and even lead to a shorter lifespan. But recent research suggests that that long-standing belief is flawed. It has mixed up cause and effect. In other words, being sick can make you unhappy, but unhappiness doesn't make you sick, nor does it shorten your lifespan. Yes, there's a link between a shorter lifespan and being unhappy, but the link is not direct.

Starting point is 00:03:38 For example, unhappiness can lead people to smoke or drink or take drugs, and those things can lead to an early death. But unhappiness in and of itself does not. The research looked at data from the Million Women Study, which has tracked British women since 1996, and after discounting those who were sick to start with, they were left with 720,000 women and showed conclusively that unhappiness cannot and does not cause illness or early death all by itself. And that is something you should know. We all like to think that we're good at what we do and that other people notice how good we are at what we do. But in fact, that often isn't the case.

Starting point is 00:04:29 The people who get noticed, the people who get promoted, the people who get asked to collaborate and move up, those people do something different besides just hope they get noticed. And you're about to find out what that is and how to do it. Jack Nasher is the founder of the Nasher Negotiation Institute. He's a professor at the Munich Business School and a visiting faculty member at Stanford. And he's author of a book called Convinced, How to Prove Your Competence and Win People Over. Hi, Jack. Thanks for being here. Well, thank you very much, Mike. Thanks for having me.

Starting point is 00:05:06 So we all want to be perceived as competent and good at what we do. So it seems to make sense that we should be competent and good at what we do. So why isn't that enough? What else do we have to do for people to notice and say, wow, this person is really outstanding? Yeah, I mean, in the first place, you just have to realize that, you know, being good has very little to do with how you're perceived. You know, this explains a lot. This explains why you have some colleagues or some competitors are actually worse than you, but more successful because, and people think that, wow, you know, they're fantastic, they're great. And the question, of course, the obvious question is, well, what counts then? If it's not, you know, the result of our work, what counts? You know, with about a thousand

Starting point is 00:05:54 studies, you know, a clear picture forms of how an expert behaves, how an expert talks, speaks, moves him or herself, that really makes a difference. For instance, the distance, I mean, really how far you're away from somebody really affects how, you know, if you are perceived as being competent or not competent. And that's really amazing, because obviously distance has, you know, nothing to do with your actual competence. Well, right. I mean, who would have thought that someone would perceive you as competent depending on how far away they are standing from you. So what's the right distance? is a distance where you're perceived as being most competent. I think that was a very boring study conducted with thousands or hundreds of people where they would just sit them or stand them next to each other and see if the perception is different according to the distance,

Starting point is 00:06:54 and lo and behold, it was. So we have a very, very clear number, four to five feet, and it really makes a difference. Now, if you see politicians talk to some journalists, you always see that distance, and that's makes a difference. Now, if you see politicians talk to some, you know, journalists, you always see that distance. And that's not a coincidence. So I think people have a sense that confidence is very important in projecting competence and looking like you're good at what you do,

Starting point is 00:07:17 but maybe don't understand exactly how it works. So talk about confidence. You know, people trust others who they perceive to be confident. People who are confident are perceived as being more competent, are being perceived as leaders. Now, if you know, you never see a politician during a campaign ponder about subjects. The politician is always very certain about what to do, about a certain problem, even though that's nonsense

Starting point is 00:07:49 because he or she doesn't know how a certain plan of action will affect world peace or will affect the economy because these systems are so complex. And yet they show certainty to such an extent that once you know something about the topic, because, you know, I worked for the UN as a junior diplomat.

Starting point is 00:08:10 And once you know about the complexity of the issues, it's laughable because it's impossible. You know, everyone who really knows what he or she is talking about would say, well, you know, this could happen. Probably this could happen. I'm not sure. Let's try. But, you know, we can't guarantee. But no, nobody would elect such a politician. And that's the problem. We look for people. So you can't blame them. We look for a politician.

Starting point is 00:08:33 We look for leaders who show us certainty in the midst of uncertainty. So if you don't know the answer, do you fake it? Well, that's that's a good question. I mean, honestly, look at Donald Trump. In his campaign, obviously, he didn't have any political track record. And the only thing he always said was that he was great. He's fantastic. He's the best. That's it. And I thought, well, this confidence, it can go quite far, but not that far. He's not going to get away with that or even win with that. Well, I was wrong, obviously. And,

Starting point is 00:09:06 you know, that's how far it can actually go and how far it can take you right to the Oval Office. So what is confidence? What is it you project so that people say, oh, well, that guy's got confidence? Confidence is, you know, the way you talk, that you have to know. It's the way you talk about tasks at hand, that you're very optimistic about your tasks. It's also the way you talk, that you have to know. It's the way you talk about tasks at hand, that you're very optimistic about your tasks. It's also the way you move. Lots of studies have shown that if you show confidence in your posture, how you stand, how you sit, you will be perceived as more competent as a leader. Your language, and there's something called power talking found by actually a feminist researcher that she analyzed the language patterns of men and women and she found that women tend to use a

Starting point is 00:09:50 low power language they tend to be overly polite they tend to use question tags they tend to make statements sound like questions by raising their voice at the end of the sentence like that and it sounds kind of polite and nice and cute but it's not good if you want to project competence so again here you have to use a technique called power talking that shows confidence in your statements so when you make a statement it very clearly sounds like a statement and not like a question okay so when i say confidence it's not that easy because it's about the way you talk it It's about, you know, in terms of power talking, it's what you say when you talk. It's your posture when you sit, when you stand.

Starting point is 00:10:33 But I think when people think about confidence, they think about it's a feeling. I feel confident. And it sounds like what you're saying is regardless of how you're feeling, you need to project that confidence with those techniques. The very first person you have to convince is yourself. And that's what you do by a technique called priming. Priming means that you have to get yourself in a state of confidence. Well, how do you do that? Well, you do that like good athletes.

Starting point is 00:11:01 Before important games, tennis players watch video clips of their best matches so you know you have to get in that state where you look at your successes so you know what i tell my because i you know i give seminars usually on negotiation but we know you know what we practice is that remember your greatest success and i ask people well what was your greatest success you know stand up in front in front of everybody here. What was your, you know, what are you really good at? What, you know, why should anyone be led by you? Now, the problem is, if you can't answer these questions, how would you convince other people that, you know, they should follow you? How should you convince other people that you're actually good? So the very first thing you have to do is to convince yourself to be in

Starting point is 00:11:43 this state of mind, to think about your successes, to think about what you're really good at. And it's only then that you can effectively communicate your competence by showing confidence. Otherwise, you will feel like a fraud. Let's talk a little bit about the nonverbal ways to project that competence and confidence. Smiling, for instance. Interesting research conducted on smiling. Now, the good news is you just don't have to smile a lot at all. As a matter of fact, smiling can make you look like an imbecile, like an idiot, because especially if it's not fitting.

Starting point is 00:12:16 So you don't have to smile. Just smile when something is funny. Now, that probably sounds like common sense to you, but a lot of people learn, well, you always have to smile. Well, you don't. That's kind of good news because it will make you look like a low status salesperson so in that sense actually it's it's you know only smile when you feel like it you don't have to eye contact very very interesting uh research project which surprised me because eye contact is very effective

Starting point is 00:12:42 when you're talking and you know and i'm looking at you when I'm talking. But if I'm listening, it's actually better for me if I don't look at you. Why? Because, again, it will turn me into a low status, like a servant looking at my master to take commands. But so if you talk to me and I look away, of course, I have to be careful not to be rude. By looking away, by pondering, you know, kind of looking in the air and thinking about what you're saying, that's fine. That's actually good. That's effective. So when somebody's talking to you, don't keep eye contact. Look around, you know,

Starting point is 00:13:13 look at other people, look back, so you're not rude. But when you're making a point, don't be shy. Look them straight in the eye. Makes a very, very big difference. Something I've noticed is that gestures, the gestures that you make while you're speaking can really influence someone's perception of your competence and your confidence. I want to ask you about that. But first, I'm talking with Jack Nasher, and the name of his book is Convinced, How to Prove Your Competence and Win People Over. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a co-founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lightning,

Starting point is 00:13:58 a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. During her journey, Isla meets new friends, including King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, and learns valuable life lessons with every quest, sword fight, and dragon ride. Positive and uplifting stories remind us all about the importance of kindness, friendship, honesty, and positivity.

Starting point is 00:14:20 Join me and an all-star cast of actors, including Liam Neeson, Emily Blunt, Kristen Bell, Chris Hemsworth, among many others, in welcoming the Search for the Silver Lining podcast to the Go Kid Go Network by listening today. Look for the Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show.

Starting point is 00:14:49 Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation.

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Starting point is 00:15:45 you get your podcasts. So Jack, let's talk about gestures and how important they are in projecting your competence. I was giving a talk a few years ago, and it was filmed. So they told me, you know, you have to stand there, the light is here, just don't move a lot. And what happened was I was just standing there because I was scared, you know, I wouldn't be on the picture. So I didn't move at all. And I gave the same talk I'd given a couple of hours earlier, and there was almost no audience reaction. And I was thinking, why? I mean, it was verbatim. It was the same talk, the same slide. Everything was the same, but I was standing there. And it just didn't work. And there was an interesting experiment conducted comparing the movement. And the result was very clear.

Starting point is 00:16:31 It was called the Dr. Fox experiment, where they had a fake Dr. Fox giving a nonsensical talk. But when he moved with great enthusiasm, wow, what a difference that was. All of a sudden, he was perceived as being so much more competent, interested in his own subject and so on, and so much more competent. He got great ratings, even though it was an audience who should have known that. It was utter nonsense. But all he did was, well, he was an actor, so he was, you know, moving around and seemingly really, you know, like Steve Jobs kind of,

Starting point is 00:17:02 really into what he had and loving the topic. Seemingly it was all fake. It was all fake. Here we go again. And yet it worked. So move around, you know, show real enthusiasm when it's when it comes to your topic. And that actually does make a tremendous difference. And again, it was surprising to me because I thought, well, if I stand there and I just talk and, you know, all the attention is on my talk, it's actually better.

Starting point is 00:17:29 But it wasn't. I'm wrong. You know, I was totally wrong. Talk about likability. That's one of those things that it's hard to put your finger on. But we all know what likability is when we see it. But how do you do it? The good news is that we're pretty good at being likable.

Starting point is 00:17:44 You know, we're pretty bad at making a competent impression. There was an experiment conducted when they told people, please, you have five minutes to talk to somebody, be likable. And people were reasonably good because they were just nice, they were polite, and they were interested and so on. Most of the techniques you know because of common sense. But there are some things that are probably more interesting than other you know that aren't that clear and one thing I just want to tell you is that if you don't like somebody and you have to deal with them and that happens you know I've been you know I'm a negotiation advisor so you know most negotiations fail because people don't like each other

Starting point is 00:18:20 they say well you know we're an idiot how you know why is he or she working there and whatever but you can't change it. So I'm just telling you, you don't have to suck up to them, but the least thing you can do is to show respect because you can't convince anyone of anything if they feel that you don't respect them. So, um, again, you don't have to fake anything for that. You just have to find something, anything that you would respect about that person. It can be the shoes, the haircut, what he or she said. It doesn't matter. Just find something and think about that.

Starting point is 00:18:53 But doesn't sucking up help, doesn't praising people and telling them how great they are, doesn't that make them like you more? It does, yeah. Edward E. Jones from Princeton University did 40 years of research on the topic, and I just gave you in a nutshell what he found. And yes, as a matter of fact, to ingratiate yourself, to build how he calls it I really liked it how you presented, you know, used the slides and the presentation. I like that a lot. Very nice. A specific compliment. Not just, you know, great.

Starting point is 00:19:34 And be reluctant when you give a compliment. So, for example, yeah, you probably don't want to hear this, know that you've done something that didn't go very well, that you've got a reputation because something you did screwed up or whatever. How do you dance around that? Oh, yeah. That's an important topic because, of course, we do screw up here and there. You know, screw ups happen. But, you know, some people seem to get away with the biggest screw up. And the question is why?

Starting point is 00:20:08 And we can use an effect called the halo effect for that. And the idea is quite simple, that if you have good news, you have to associate yourself with the good news as much as possible because, you know, the halo effect is basically the power of association, you know, to sum it up. So if we have good news, we want to associate ourselves with it as much as possible. So if you have good news, stand up, be in the center of the room, talk about it as much as possible.

Starting point is 00:20:36 You can give credit to thousands of people. It doesn't matter because you're the one standing there. People remember you. You will be associated with the good news. And the same if you have bad news, do the opposite. You know, just stay seated. You can take all the responsibility, but just kind of don't be in the picture. And then immediately redirect, redirect the bad news to good news. So instead of just saying, oh, you know, I made this mistake, that mistake, this and blah, blah, I'm sorry. I'm so, you. I'm sorry. By the way, I also sucked at that two years ago.

Starting point is 00:21:06 I did this and I know. What you should do is, and that's every PR agent crisis communication, that's what they will tell companies. First thing you do, admit, accept responsibility. This takes you probably 30 seconds. Then immediately shift to the learnings. Immediately tell them what you learned. Immediately tell them what you learned.

Starting point is 00:21:29 Immediately tell them what's going to happen from now on and what you will do from now on. So you can turn bad news into an advertisement showing that, wow, you're responsible and also you learned a lot. This will never happen again because of A, B, C, D, and so on. And then you stand up because, again, people remember the positive things about your presentation because you stand up, you're associated with them. What's an example of something you see people do wrong over and over again? Modesty is a huge mistake. You know, modesty concerning your core abilities. You know, people saying, oh, you know, it worked out. I was just lucky or, you know, I was just there at the right time. You know, if you say that you get a laugh and

Starting point is 00:22:09 people will think, wow, you know, modest person, but it will destroy your perceived competence. You should never do that. It is interesting that, you know, when you say modesty is, is a mistake and yet we're told not to brag we're told we were we learned growing up that we you know shouldn't just keep the the spotlight on ourselves but yeah we learned that the world is fair you know that's what we learned we learned that you know work hard and you know you will be successful and that's just not true it's all nonsense and of course if I could change the world we see you know everybody should get what he or she deserves.

Starting point is 00:22:45 But we don't get what we deserve. We get what we negotiate. Right. You know, it's just like that. And the question is how do we react to that? And, you know, sometimes as a business psychologist, you know, I see phenomena. I think, wow, you know, we're so irrational. It's unbelievable.

Starting point is 00:22:59 But what can I do? You know, there's nothing I can do about it. I can't change our modus operandi that's been programmed in our brain for the last, you know, I don't know, hundreds of thousands of years. You just can't do that. You know, that's how we are. I remember, you know, when I was young, one of my first jobs, and I grew up believing what you just said, that, you know, you work hard, and that's what helps. And then I saw, I work for a guy who who couldn't have been more incompetent if he tried. But he always came out looking like a smelling like a rose.

Starting point is 00:23:32 He had the ability to get jobs, but he didn't necessarily have the ability to do the job because people liked him. People kept promoting him. People. I thought, wait a minute, there's something here. There's something to this. Yeah, it happens all the time. I mean, you know, once you realize that you will, and that's, you know, it really helped me because, you know, it's kind of like you and I was, sometimes I was really depressed because I thought the world is just so unfair, you know? And then I figured, well, either I'm going to, you know, be depressed for the rest of my life, or really I'm going to do something about it because it's like JFK once presumably said, the world is not fair, but not necessarily to your disadvantage. And that made all the difference. And then I thought, OK, let's just, you know, live with competence and confidence isn't as important as being competent and confident.

Starting point is 00:24:30 And you have the story of the violin player, which helps to drive your point home that you can't expect people to see your competence just by looking, that you need to make them pay attention. The story of Joshua Bell, the greatest violin player, probably of our times, and he went to play at a metro station in D.C. a few years ago, and they thought that people would stop, people would go crazy, because even if they're uneducated, they know nothing about classical music, they would just notice that this is a genius at work and uh you know what happened nothing happened not a single person it was like i think 42 minutes or so not a single person stopped nobody and that to me was just mind-blowing and but again you know

Starting point is 00:25:19 illustrating that you can be the best and nobody cares. Nobody notices. You can die the best who's ever lived and nobody will know. Nobody will care. You have to, you know, take care of people know that you are good. And if you don't do it, nobody else will. And I love that story because it, it so proves your point because that violin player in a concert hall with those very same people sitting in the audience would be applauding it on their feet and yelling, you know, bravo and genius and everything else. But in a subway station, eh, you know, because so much of what people think of us is, like it or not, how you dress it up and how you project it. And that's such a great story. Jack Nasher has been my guest.

Starting point is 00:26:09 His book is Convinced, How to Prove Your Competence and Win People Over. You will find a link to his book in the show notes. Thanks, Jack. Appreciate you being here. Well, thank you very much. Thanks for your interest. Do you love Disney? Then you are going to love our hit podcast, Disney Countdown. I'm Megan, the Magical Millennial. And I'm the Dapper Danielle. Thanks for your life. So if you're

Starting point is 00:26:45 looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, join me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa Demonts for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? Each week we deliver four fun-filled shows. In Don't Blame Me, we tackle our listeners' dilemmas with hilariously honest advice. Then we have But Am I Wrong, which is for the listeners that didn't take our advice. Plus, we share our hot takes on current events. Then tune in to see you next Tuesday for our listener poll results from But Am I Wrong. And finally, wrap up your week with Fisting Friday, where we catch up and talk all things pop culture.

Starting point is 00:27:22 Listen to Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. So I think it's human nature as you travel through life. Interesting questions just pop into your head. It seems that's how the brain works. What time is it in the North Pole? Why are the windows on ships typically round and not square? Why are the numbers on a telephone keypad in a different order than the numbers on a calculator keypad? Well, you could look up the answers to these questions, but you probably never do. However, Ivan Semenek,

Starting point is 00:28:12 who is a science reporter, he has looked up the answers and a few others. A few years ago, he, along with New Scientist magazine, released a couple of books that explored these questions, which came from readers of the magazine. One of the books is called Why Don't Penguins' Feet Freeze? And Ivan joins me to discuss some of these questions. Hi, Ivan. So let's start with the title. Why don't penguins' feet freeze, or really any animal, even dogs or cats? I mean, animals don't wear shoes, and their feet come in direct contact with snow and ice and other cold surfaces. So why don't they freeze? Well, penguins have a particularly tough time of it, more so than dogs and cats, which would probably, you know, on a very cold night, dogs and cats would probably find a way to

Starting point is 00:28:54 keep their toes warm just by keeping them curled up. But penguins, you know, they have to go marching out there on the ice and snow, and the way they do it is with a very highly adapted circulation system to their feet very small blood vessels very rapid circulation flow which minimizes the heat loss and and minimizes any heat loss to the core body temperature or keeping the blood flowing through the feet very very efficiently so it's all it's all down to fluid, the pump system, I guess, with the feet. Here's one you tackle that I think is a universal experience that's pretty interesting, and that is, why does a light bulb, when it burns out,

Starting point is 00:29:37 almost always burn out at the moment when you turn it on? Why doesn't it ever just blow out by itself? And occasionally, I've seen light bulbs do that, but almost always when a light bulb burns out, it's when you first flip it on. Basically, the short version of the answer is that resistance, electrical resistance, is related to temperature. So the lower the temperature, the less resistance. And if the temperature goes up, the more electrical resistance there is in a wire. So the filament of the light bulb, when it's cold, when it's been off for a while, is when the resistance to electricity is the least.

Starting point is 00:30:15 So at the moment you flip it on, that's when the highest current can go surging through the filament. And then as the filament warms up, the current actually drops a bit because the resistance is going up so that it's that surge of current at the very beginning that if there's a weakness in the filament that's when it's going to get kicked and and it'll break at that point yeah I remember reading somewhere that it was in some firehouse somewhere that they had left a light bulb on and it burned for like 40 years because they never turned it off it and then therefore never had to turn light bulb on, and it burned for like 40 years because they never turned it off, and therefore never had to turn it back on again.

Starting point is 00:30:49 And it just kept going. Yeah, it's probably better for the light bulb to, of course, it's not very good for the environment to just keep the lights on all the time, but it certainly explains, there's no doubt that lights are on sort of more stressed, or incandescent lights, anyway, are more stressed at the moment you're turning them on. You see this with kids a lot, and that is, you know, when they're concentrating or they're trying to do something, they're writing or they're drawing or something, they stick their tongue out.

Starting point is 00:31:16 And I wonder, why do people do that? Yeah, this is a really interesting question. I think it's one of those where we could still stand to have more answers. We've got a couple of different answers to this question. It definitely has to do with focusing. You bite your tongue when you're trying to focus on something else, like threading a needle, that sort of thing. It seems to be that a large part of your brain is dedicated to some of these motor activities like speech.

Starting point is 00:31:48 You know, there's a lot of neurons that control the tongue, for example. If you clamp down on your tongue, in a sense, you're suspending some of that activity, and you're reserving more, you know, for the thing you're trying to concentrate on, especially if you're doing a fine motor thing like threading an needle. Having said that, I think there's sort of different behaviors going on. I know that my daughter does this funny thing with her tongue where she's almost talking to herself. You can see her tongue moving around in there

Starting point is 00:32:17 as she's concentrating on something. And my wife tells me I do the same thing. So it may have something more to do with, you know, almost communicating with yourself in a way tells me I do the same thing. So it may have something more to do with, you know, almost communicating with yourself in a way, and maybe clenching the tongue is a way of silencing that while you're trying to do a delicate job. So hard to say, but I think that's kind of where the answer leads us. Here's one I remember. I remember always wondering about this when I was a kid. Why do whips crack when you do that thing with them? Why do they

Starting point is 00:32:46 make that noise? Well, the cracking whip is another lovely example of physics in action. The amazing thing about how a whip works is it's kind of this springy fiber, which gets narrower and narrower as you're going along the length. You've got this fairly thick handle that's getting thinner and thinner and thinner. So as the energy is being transmitted down that long fiber, you basically have the heavy end of the whip transmitting its energy to the lighter end of the whip, and it's essentially because there's less mass at that lighter end of the whip, the thinner end of the whip, the energy is turning into velocity. And you get to the point where at the very, very tip of the whip,

Starting point is 00:33:27 you can actually exceed the speed of sound with the velocity of the very tip. So there's a mini sonic boom going on at the very tip of the whip. It's actually breaking the sound barrier like a jet would flying through the atmosphere, but it just happens to that tiny object, and it creates an incredibly loud noise for something so small. I thought this question about sheep was pretty interesting because it's not something that I've witnessed a lot of, but when you're driving in your car and you encounter a sheep on the road, what it typically does is it runs in a straight line ahead of you, like you're

Starting point is 00:34:05 chasing the sheep. It doesn't get out of the way. It tries to run in front. And why would a sheep do that? You know, if you're like me and you live in the city, this whole concept was new to me, but a lot of our readers from around the world live in rural areas, and apparently this is a big problem with sheep. Once they're in front of your car, they just want to go in a straight line and they don't

Starting point is 00:34:29 veer off to the side. So, in fact, the sheep are programmed to do this. They're actually doing a little bit of mental arithmetic because sheep are evolved to escape from predators who might be chasing them, you know, wolves, that sort of thing. And a sheep realizes that if it keeps itself in front of the predator, it's presenting the least target. And it's also, you know, giving it its best chance to escape from a predator that's running after it. The minute a sheep veers to the side, it's exposing its flank to the predator.

Starting point is 00:35:02 As it's turning off to the side, the predator can try to get closer to the sheep by kind of triangulating and making a shorter distance and making a run for the sheep that way. So the sheep know that it's smarter, mathematically better for them to just keep going in a straight line. Plus some of the kinds of places where sheep live, the roads often have high slopes, that sort of thing, and the sheep don't realize that the car isn't going to chase them up those hills. So they continue on that straight line, which apparently is very infuriating for people who live in these parts of the world. This probably wreaks havoc with Santa's workshop, but what time is it in the North Pole? If the North Pole is at the top of the Earth, theoretically time doesn't change.

Starting point is 00:35:48 That's kind of a philosophical question, and that actually led to many, many answers. Of course, there's no real time at the North Pole. You know, all the time zones theoretically converge at that point. They can essentially be any time you want. And people who are polar explorers or who work in high polar regions actually have to just go through the motion of selecting a time that makes the most sense for them. It's actually not that different from people living on the space station. Or if there were astronauts on the moon, they would have to essentially live and eat and sleep by a time that they chose that probably makes the most sense to sync up their activities with mission control. So it's somewhat similar at the Arctic or the Antarctic.

Starting point is 00:36:34 Of course, a lot of our readers also weighed in on how this might affect Santa Claus and whether the fact that there's no real time at the North Pole, you know, does that somehow explain how Santa Claus can deliver gifts to all parts of the world at the same time, at midnight all the time? Because it's essentially midnight all the time at the North Pole, or any other time you want it to be all the time. So there could be something in there to explain the Santa Claus mystery. Here's one I remember hearing about or thinking about, and that is, the air that I breathe, who has breathed it before?

Starting point is 00:37:07 Someone famous may have breathed the same air I'm breathing. I think that is such an amazing thing. And as it turns out, yes, it is. The number of atoms in your breath is not unlike the, you know, the comparison between atoms and the amount of volume of air in your lungs is not that different from the amount of breaths that there are in the Earth's atmosphere. And if you just allow for the laws of diffusion as those atoms spread around, you are almost certainly breathing breath that was breathed by Napoleon or Julius Caesar or Shakespeare or virtually any other

Starting point is 00:37:46 human being that ever existed on the face of the earth. It's a remarkable thing. This is kind of by averaging it all out, of course. And if you go further, I mean, it's also true for all, you know, there are extinct species. You know, we're breathing the same air that the dinosaurs breathed long ago. And certainly some of the air that you take in every breath was air that at one point went through the body of a dinosaur. A question I think a lot of people have wondered about in their lifetime when you look at a ship is, why are the portholes, the windows on the ship, why are they round? Well, in fact, the roundness of windows on ships is something that's an artifact or is a byproduct of the switch from wooden to metal ships. If you look at pictures of those old tall ships of the past, or if you watch carefully Master and Commander or some of those great naval films,

Starting point is 00:38:42 you don't actually see any round windows in those wooden chips. You know, wood is not very susceptible to fatigue. It's a very pliable, durable material. So, you know, windows can be any shape if you're making them out of wood. But metal is a little different because when you cut a rectangle or a square into a piece of metal, the metal is subject to more fatigue at those corner points. And, you know, those are places where the metal can wear or tear more easily, and if the ship is under great stress, that would be a vulnerable location.

Starting point is 00:39:15 So over the years, naval architects quickly learned that the roundness, you know, the roundness of those round windows still preserve the most strength in the metal halls. And that's, you know, traditionally where that shape comes from. One of the questions one of your readers asked, which I thought was kind of unusual, was, do the number of dead people outnumber the number of living people? And I would have thought, well, of course. I mean, throughout all of human history, all the people who have come and gone has to be much larger than all of the people who are here right now.

Starting point is 00:39:55 It depends on how you do the math, because if you're just sort of doing the straight, you know, accelerating population growth, in other words, if the population at all times in history was growing the way it's growing now, kind of doubling over the course of a human lifetime, then for sure the living would very quickly outnumber the dead in short order. But in fact, over historic time, that's not the way the population of the world has grown. In fact, there have been times when the population of the Earth has barely budged, and yet there have been plenty of deaths accumulating over that time.

Starting point is 00:40:33 Humans lived under some very stressful conditions in the past. So there are some pretty good estimates for the populations of large parts of the world. Of course, we don't know for sure how many people were living in ancient times, you know, five, ten thousand years ago. But over the course of human history, you know, the estimates seem to suggest that probably by now about 60 billion people have lived on Earth. And of course, there's about six billion of us now. So that would suggest that we're outnumbered about 10 to 1 by the dead. So we have a long way to go. One of the questions that I knew the answer to, but I'd still like to get you to talk about it,

Starting point is 00:41:14 that I think is really interesting, is why, on a telephone keypad, the numbers 1, 2, and 3 are the top row. On a calculator, the numbers 1, 2, and 3 are across the bottom row. And why would they be different? Why, when they invented the keypad for the telephone, didn't they make it the same as the keypad for a calculator? Well, we got one interesting answer to this question from one of our readers. It has to do with, you know, the telephone and the calculator are two pieces of modern technology that come to us from two different evolutionary

Starting point is 00:41:51 tracks, you might say. The calculator is basically a descendant of the mechanical adding machine. And, you know, adding machines, and I still remember my parents had one of these adding machines. They ran a restaurant and they used it to add up their bills at the end of the day. And those adding machines always had the zero at the bottom with the one and the two working upwards. So the lowest numbers were always at the bottom. And I think that has to do with statistically, you probably press the one and 0 more if you're adding up numbers, especially if you're adding up prices,

Starting point is 00:42:32 and you keep those numbers close to the functions, you know, the add and subtract and equal signs and so on. The phone, completely different history. Phones originally didn't have any numbers at all on them, and then when they got the numbers, it was the big rotary phone where you had the number indicated the number of clicks as you were turning the dialing rotary phone. So the lower numbers were at the top. You didn't have to turn the rotary very much to click one or two times. You had to turn it all the way around to click nine clicks. And then the zero actually was put by the nine because it kind of stands

Starting point is 00:43:05 in for a ten, basically. So today, when you look at a digital phone with the numeric keypad, it still keeps the lower numbers at the top, and the zero is down there by the nine. Well, I always think it's fun to explore those questions that everybody wonders about, but doesn't know the answer to, or isn't sure of the answer. It's always fun to get the answer. Ivan Semenik has been my guest. He's a science reporter and, along with New Scientist magazine,

Starting point is 00:43:35 released the book, Why Don't Penguins' Feet Freeze? And you'll find a link to that book in the show notes. There's a pretty good chance that this time of year around the holidays you're eating some of your favorite comfort food. Maybe some foods you don't eat any other time of year. So what makes a food a comfort food? Well, the term comfort food was added to the dictionary in 1977 as food that comforts or affords solace. So any food can be a comfort food and your comfort food can be and likely is different than mine. A study published in the journal Appetite found that the power of comfort food is based on the association that it calls to

Starting point is 00:44:21 mind. So during times of stress or discomfort, people who have strong family relationships often reach for something that reminds them of those strong family relationships. Often those reminders come in edible form. This could explain why you want mashed potatoes or pizza in times of stress, which could help you recall memories of a family Thanksgiving or childhood pizza party. Another study found that chicken soup was considered a comfort food by people who had strong emotional relationships. The stronger the relationship, the more satisfying

Starting point is 00:44:58 the soup. So it's all about relationships you associate with food that makes it comforting or not. And that is something you should know. Please take a moment and share this podcast with someone you know. I'm sure they would enjoy it as much as you do. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local

Starting point is 00:45:37 deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions,

Starting point is 00:45:58 and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. Chinook, starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan. Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited

Starting point is 00:46:25 to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lining, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. Look for The Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Something You Should Know - How to Project Confidence and Competence & Answers to Fascinating Questions

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