Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: Firewalking

Episode Date: February 2, 2022

It’s pretty amazing to see a human walk over a bed of hot coals – until you learn the physics beneath it. Then it’s just fairly impressive. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and this is short stuff. And

we're talking about fire walking, which is interesting because you can explain how it works. And I love those. I was convinced we had done this, but we have not. No, we haven't. I just felt, I don't know. I thought it fell into our circus arts or something. It does seem like a 2010, 2011 circus stuff you should know episode, like a full episode, doesn't it? Yeah, but it's not a circus arts thing at all. You know, I don't think it, I mean, maybe like a Jim Rose circus might do something like this, but it is generally sort of a religious thing in most cultures, right? Yeah. And they think that it dates back at least 32-ish hundred years. The first mention of it is in

an ancient Indian text from around that time. And either it spread out of there. I've seen some theories that it was actually, it actually predated that it was one of the things that the Mesopotamians and Neobabalonians did. And then it just kind of spread from there. Or people invented it independently because it has spread all over the world over the last couple thousand years. Yes. These days, India, Greece, China, Spain, Japan, Bulgaria, Thailand, Tibet, Fiji, it's all over the place. And it's almost always a religious thing, like you're paying tribute to somebody who was past or you are commemorating what you see as a miracle in your area. Some sort of celebration or parade. There might be a firewalker,

but it's usually got some sort of religious spiritual connotation. A firewalker in a parade would be hilarious because that poor guy would just have to keep running to the back of the float and walking over it again and then running back. That would be, that'd be a long parade for that guy. Oh, I was thinking more along the lines of there's a, the entire parade has to walk. There's one portion that's on fire. Yeah. All the spectators have to go down this way. Come over here. And we said on fire, spoiler alert, there's never flames. It's coals. Right. And we can thank our friends at the University of London Council for Psychical

Research back in the 1930s for figuring that out. And they did that Chuck by conducting two different experiments on firewalking in which they also participated too. Yeah. These are, they're not mean, but what they did was in both of these experiments in 35 and 37, they got a couple of British scientists and then, you know, someone from a native culture, like in India or someplace. And they basically, the whole point of the study was like, see, white British man did it too. It's not religious or special. Right. But they were skeptical societies, I think is what they were doing. Yeah. And I'm sure they didn't rub it in like that, but you know, 800 degree fire pit.

And then those two separate years, they basically, I think they use oak and they, the whole point of it was to kind of just debunk the, like you have to be, I don't know about possess, maybe that's too strong of a word, but guided by spirit to do so. Guided by voices. That's right. So that was, yeah, that at the very least in the West, those two studies put that to rest permanently. And they did it so thoroughly, Chuck, that for about, I don't know, 40, 50 years, people in the West, I should say, in the United States and Great Britain, didn't think much about this whole thing. They just were like firewalking's been explained,

whatever. And then as our friends in the New Age community kind of came along in the 70s and 80s, they adopted firewalking and apparently had never read the two studies by the University of London Council for Psychical Research, because they started attributing it to a more metaphysical explanation. And that's when interest in debunking, it kind of came around again. That's right. And I think this is a good time for a cliffhanger, because we have danced around the fire and not revealed the secret to why it has nothing to do with religion or spirituality. It's pure physics. And we'll explain it right after this. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me

in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael, um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts.

I'm Mangesh Atikular. And to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention. Because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, cancelled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had a handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father.

And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change, too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Yeah, and since we're talking about pure physics, I want to give a shout out to Professor David Willey, who's a physics professor. I believe it's Willey. It could be Wiley, W-I-L-L-E-Y. Yeah, I think it's Wiley. Oh, I'm thinking of Willie Ames from Charles and Charge. But Professor Wiley is a physics of fire walking guy. He has dedicated a certain portion of his career to explaining how it works and doing fire walking himself. So thanks a lot to Dr.

Willey because basically everything we're talking about is based on his research. Dr. Wiley. Yeah, that's right. So let's explain how this works. There are quite a few components that go into a successful fire walk, which is to say one where you don't end up with burns on your feet. The first thing that you got to start with is charcoal that is lit well before you walk over it. I sort of spoiled it earlier when I said there are no flames. But when you see a fire walker, they're walking over hot coals, not a real flaming fire, and these are embers that they're walking over. So right out of the gate, you've got a bit of an advantage in that there's not direct contact with a flame. Well, a huge advantage too, but also the embers themselves. So you've

got no flame. It's a big one. Just put that in your hat. Here's the second one for your hat. Those embers themselves are actually really good insulators. The type of wood that's typically used for fire walking, and you want to use specific kinds of wood, they glow really bright, but they actually don't conduct heat very well. Right. And I think the top two woods are cherry or maple for good looking coals that'll get the crowd whipped up into a frenzy. Right, exactly. But not super hot. No. And because there's also a layer of ash that coats them, here's the third part for your hat. Right. I think the investigator would say, you notice they don't do this during the day, because you'd see that ash all over the place,

but at night, that ash sort of goes away to the eyeball, and it makes for a better show, but that ash is going to also provide a buffer and cut down on that heat transfer. Yeah, yes, exactly. And then the last one, and this one's pretty important too, there's actually a really limited amount of time that your feet is making contact with the hot embers, because they are hot. Like these fires that you're walking over, if you hold the thermometer, it's going to register something like 900 to 1000 degrees Fahrenheit, 482 to 538 degrees Celsius. So it is hot, but again, it's not conducting that heat very well to your feet, and then your feet aren't touching them very long to begin with.

Yeah, there's a reason it's not called fire sitting. Yeah, fire standing around. There may be a thing, who knows, watch someone on right end and say, oh no, bro, fire sitting is a totally a thing. I work for the Jim Rose side show and I do fire sitting. It's fire walking. You want to walk across it at a brisk pace. They do say don't run. And by the way, we're, let's just go ahead and PSA here and say, or COA and say, please don't try this. Thank you for doing that. Kids don't try and fire walk. Just don't do it. But if you are a fire walker,

or you see someone doing it, they are walking at a brisk pace, but you don't want to run because they make the good point that, you know, you could actually dig in when you're running more than if you're just sort of hot foot in it. Right. I guess that's where the word comes from. Yeah, exactly. And you can end up with coals on top of your foot or just digging down too deep. So they say you walk less than a half a second of contact on a like a 10 to 15 foot fire walk. Yeah. So it's only a few seconds. Yeah. Yeah. So those four things together are basically the physics

of fire walking. But even if you, you know, if you're, if you're not well versed in the physics of fire walking and you hold a fire walking event, it can go wrong. And that actually has happened from time to time. Most recently from what I can tell was in 2012, where 21 people were treated for burns at a Tony Robbins event. Right. He's doing this. At least in 2012. Are you surprised by that? Have you seen Shallow Howl? Well, I haven't seen Shallow Howl. No, you're not missing much. But I don't know. I knew he's a motivational speaker. I did not know he did stuff like this. Yes, dude. Yes. I didn't know.

His whole jam is stuff. I thought he's got on the stage and just, you know, made people feel good. Random stuff like this is no, no, no. He's very hands on. Okay. He had a TV show once that we had to like cover for some reason back in the day. Do you remember that? It came in my mind today and all I could think of was what did we do with Tony Robbins? Did we interview him? We interviewed him. I think you did. I don't think I did. Yeah. But I don't remember whatever happened with the interview. But in the TV show, in the first episode, the pilot of this, there was a man who became paralyzed when he jumped into his pool after his wedding ceremony. He was so excited. He jumped in a pool and landed head first and

like became paralyzed. Tony Robbins talks this guy into skydiving. And if I remember correctly, essentially like pushed him out of the plane. That's right. If Tony Robbins is a very hands on motivational guy. So anyway, in 2012-21, it was the people at a thing walked on fire, I guess, had to get treated for burns. This made me want to try it. And why I won't? Why? Is because it's the bottom of my feet. Like if something did go wrong, then I'm not walking for a little while or I'm walking in a lot of pain. Right. It's not like a pain on my forearm or something, you know. Is it actually worth it? No, no, no. That's why I said,

I'm not going to do this because I'm going camping tonight. And I was like, you know. No, dude, no. Should I pull out all the stops? You understand the physics of fire walking. Who are you trying to impress at this point? Emily? No, she won't be there. All my dumb friends from 25 years ago. Oh, well, then yes, you should definitely fire one. No, I'm never going to do it. Not the bottom of my feet. You're going to be so impressed, dude, you have to. Let's stop. Just remember to use some cherry or what was the other one? Maple, I think. You got maple up there? No, it's a bunch of hardwoods. Yeah, you don't want those. They'll burn off too quick or else too hot. You want to use cherry or

maple, like you said. And if you don't have it, don't fire walk. My old friend, Jason Jenkins, jumped through the fire one time in a drunken fit late night on a camping trip. Did he melt like Snigga Dorchka? No, he was fine. He jumped right through it. But I remember thinking like, dude, if you would have tripped and landed in that fire, all of a sudden this trip is ruined. Which is another problem with fire walking. If you do trip, you're in trouble. Yeah. Yeah. So don't fire walk. I was really just joking when I was encouraging you to. No, I know. Well, I think that's it for short stuff, don't you? It sounds like a doubt to me. It is.

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