Wonderful! - Wonderful! 359: Stacking Till the World Ends

Episode Date: January 22, 2025

Griffin's favorite math-expressible physical puzzle! Rachel's favorite non-evil bony ocean friend!Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoyaPalestine Children's Relief Fund: https://www.pcrf.net/

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Music Playing! And Music Playing! And Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. Hello, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is wonderful. Welcome back to

Wonderful It Is A Podcast where we talk about things we like that's good that we are into as a husband and a wife should be. Should be? That sentence started to take on a sinister sort of shape. Well, you know, it didn't, the construction of that sentence.

It's a podcast about things we like that's good that we're into as a husband and wife should be. I don't understand what's wrong with the syntax of that, baby. As a husband and a wife, then you should be into the same things that's good. Oh, okay. Okay, I thought it was more like a suggestion,

like husbands and wives should all have podcasts. Husbands and wives should all have podcasts. I do think that it is. I mean, it holds true in your family. And there's a lot of healing that happens here, isn't it? Speak on that. I will say, in all sincerity, it is good for us to have a time where we have to talk about things

that we like that is not something that is on television in front of us. Or is our kids. It's nice to, I love, love kids. Oh yeah. Family. Family is so, so important to me. I don't know, this is probably different than most people.

This is probably a weird thing about us. Yeah. But family. Rachel and I have consumed so much reality television that there are certain words or sentences that have lost all kind of value as a piece of raw human communication. And I would say chief among those is like, for me, family is the most important. Yeah, this happens a lot on a bachelor,

bachelorette type program where a person will sit down and they'll be like, you know, he really shares my values because we talked about it and family is really important to both of us. And it's so interesting on this circle, I think most of all, because that is a game where you have to make a whole lot out of a very limited set of information. And so like people will say like, yeah, and I love my mom.

And then two episodes later will be like, Ricky is really into family. So he's getting my second place spot. We have a lot in common. We both have moms. And family is good. Do you have any small wonders for me? I mean, this might be stealing yours, but I really like your new office. Do you have any small wonders for me?

Ah, I mean, this might be stealing yours, but I really like your new office. I can't believe you've done this. Of course that was going to be mine. Of course you stole it. Here's what, I will zero in. I will zero in on a thing I particularly like, and then you can talk about a thing you particularly like about your new office setup.

Griffin took a real concentrated approach to his decor. Yes. And there is a wall that has show posters on it. And it is in perfect alignment. Like there are six rectangles and they are all lined up. 18 by 24, same frame. I'm very proud of it. And the colors look good together. Yeah.

It took a whole, now I will say two of the frames are empty cause I need to get a couple of posters printed so it does have like the background image that came with the poster. That took forever. I love that shit. I love measuring stuff out and drawing little diagrams to like make sure that my stuff,

I also hung some new shelves in here and like measuring that out and making sure it was all level and just perfectly aligned. Should you have been like a, I don't know, designer or architect or something? No, because it takes me so, like it literally took me a whole day to hang these six posters in these four shelves, like so much math because I'm so careful,

I don't wanna drill holes in the wall that don't have to be there. Like those shelves required eight holes to be drilled in the wall and don't have to be there. Like those shelves required eight holes to be drilled in the wall. And I feel very self-conscious about that. Cause I don't want mouses or borrowers. True, I was gonna say, you know, this is our house. Like nobody's gonna come in here and be like,

oh, holes on the wall. I don't wanna get in trouble. I don't wanna get in trouble. I'm gonna say, I'll use another piece of decor in my room that you didn't mention. It is a daily calendar invented by someone named Simone Gertz, who's sort of an old school YouTuber, science STEMI YouTuber, internet personality,

who invented this calendar to help her meditate every day. And all it is is just like a sort of grid. It has all 12 months and then going down from each of the months is just a sort of grid. It has all 12 months and then going down from each of the months is just a little button with a number, you know, one through 30 or 31 or whatever. And when you tap it, it lights up. And so if you do your stuff that day and you get done what you wanna get done that day,

you tap it. And you get, you have, all of a sudden you have this little very beautiful object in your room to track stuff. I was trying to figure out, I mean, it's good that you got it going in January too, that's very satisfying. Yes. But I was like, how does this help you meditate?

It's not for meditation for me, it's like a daily habit calendar, and for me it is, if I do everything on my to-do list, then I hit the button. I try to be very, very, very, I don't know, I've gotten very into my to-do list. I have it on my iPad and I only put stuff on it that I know I can do that day.

I only put stuff on it knowing like I have to do this or else I don't get to press the button. And it doesn't light up. No, that's very smart. That's very smart, honestly, because for me, I have to accomplish something every day that feels significant. Yeah.

And a lot of times I'm trying to come up with that stuff on the fly. So like the other day, I just organized our silverware drawer because I felt like I need to do something. You had that a couple of weekends ago where we hadn't done anything really productive and you were like, we have to move all the records. So we moved our record player, which we hadn't done anything really productive and you were like, we have to move all the records. So we moved our record player, which we don't use

and move other records to make space. I really appreciate, by the way, that you accommodate me on that. Of course, God, you look so strong right now. Rachel's wearing a tank top in the middle of January, which is like amazing. And you were just reaching upwards and your biceps were just like popping.

Thank you. So powerful. But yeah, we have a drawer as most people probably do where we keep all of our storage containers in and it has always been a nightmare. And so I just took everything out. Yeah. And I mean, it took like 20 minutes, you know?

But like in my head, I've been putting it off forever. It's very satisfying. Thanks, Adderall. I go first this week. I wanna be clear that I am not. I am, I am. I wanna talk about the Tower of Hanoi. You might not know what this is, but you do know what it is.

We went to the Museum of Illusions here in DC, which we've been to before, which is like a good guaranteed 30 minutes of fun. They have these all over the country too, by the way. And they're almost always exactly the same. Yes, it's not the most, you can't make a day of it, but it's neat and the boys like the illusions. I like the gift shop,

because once you get up in there, it's a bunch of puzzles. And there's one puzzle that whenever I see it, I feel this compulsion to solve it. And I think it's probably like the same way some people feel about Rubik's cubes where they see a Rubik's cube and they know how to solve a Rubik's cube. So they're like.

Is it the three pegs with the rings? It's the three pegs with the rings. That always compels me too. It is a mathematical puzzle where you have a tower of disks, varying in size, they stack up from biggest to smallest. And there's three poles, it all starts on the left pole, and the point of the game is to get the whole stack,

again, biggest to smallest, all the way over to the right pole. The only way you can do that is by moving one disk at a time, and the only other rule is that you can't put a bigger disk on top of a smaller disk. Okay. That's it. Did you not know that?

You can't, wait, you can't even temporarily? Like at any point you can? Not even temporarily. Okay. That's it. Did you not know that? You can't wait, you can't even temporarily? Like at any point you can't? Not even temporarily. Okay, because obviously I know that the point is to get like a little pyramid of disks, but I, yeah. You didn't know about that, Wrinkle? No, because I was trying to demonstrate for Henry

how it is done and I thought like, I'm doing pretty good at this, because I was just putting larger rings all over the place. Cheating left and right, no. The point of the game is that you can't do that. And the gist of it then becomes like, you move one small disc to one pole, and then you move the next one to the next pole. But then before you touch that first stack again,

you gotta move that small disc that you moved first onto the second one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it kind of like bounces back and forth between these three poles. You are almost always, I mean, not almost, you are always moving the very smallest disc, every other move, because it is like always at the top.

It's gotta be the one that you are like always, always digging out. And I feel like this game like really revels in the pleasure of digging your way out of a tricky situation. And once you like get it moving, baby, it is such a thrill. Yeah.

I call it a mathematical puzzle game because it is extremely solved, right? Like depending on the number of disks that you're moving, there is a guaranteed most efficient plan, like smallest number of moves required to solve the puzzle. And there's a very simple mathematical expression for that number of moves.

It is two to the nth power minus one where n is the number of disks. So for instance, if there's five disks, it's two to the fifth power, which is 32 minus one, always 31 moves is the fastest solution to solve a five disc puzzle. And there's all kinds of like sort of different ways to express the solution that you go through. The easiest way to think about it is the three poles

are like the source pole, and then there's a spare pole to help you with your moves. And then there's the target pole where you're trying to move everything. If there's an even number of disks that you're trying to solve for it, the very first move you do is you put the smallest disk on the spare in the middle. If it's an odd number of disks, you put that first disk

on the far right on the target, and then if you just kind of like follow what is the only legal move from that point, always moving the smallest disk with every other move, you will guaranteed solve it no matter what. And it gets sort of like exponentially more moves with each disc you free up from that first stack, right? So like the first time you wanna free up that second disc,

it only takes two moves, right? Or three moves. But then the next one takes exponentially more and more and more and more and more. And that's basically it, right? It is a math puzzle, and that is, I think, what makes it kind of so satisfying. It was actually invented by a French mathematician in 1883.

His name was Edward Lucas, who published it in a booklet in 1889. When he published it in this booklet, it was accompanied by this fictional origin story for the game, like I found this game. And the origin story was that there's a temple in Vietnam where Brahmins, scholarly monk-like folks, play a version of this game. They are always folks play a version of this game.

They are always constantly playing the version of this game with 64 golden disks. But it's following the same rules, three poles, 64 golden disks. And when they finish, the world will end, is basically the origin story. The good- What do you mean finish?

Once they get all 64 rings, following the legal rules of the game from the left pole to the right pole, the world ends. The good news is that the solution for a 64 disc puzzle would require 18 quintillion, 446 quadrillion, 746 trillion, 73 billion, 709 million, 551,615 moves. So if they made a move a second,

it would take them 585 billion years to solve it, which is 42 times the estimated age of the universe. So we're good, is basically what I'm saying. Very little risk. Do you think that's what climate change deniers use as an argument? Like guys, it doesn't matter. The Brahmins, once they solve this.

No matter what we do to the planet. It doesn't matter. The game is also called Tower of Brahma. It has a few different names. As the sort of like game spread and the legend of it kind of spread. You know, certain details changed. Now it's in a monastery and monks are doing it,

or it is in a temple in Hanoi, hence the name Tower of Hanoi. It is also sometimes called Lucas's Tower because it was invented by Edward Lucas, who did a bunch of stuff with like the Fibonacci sequence as well, and a bunch of stuff with sort ofibonacci sequence as well and a bunch of stuff with recursive patterns and recursive numbers. He's apparently a fairly big name

in the field of mathematics. I don't know anything about that, but apparently he is a known quantity and that was a math joke. And the fucking math heads out there are losing their minds about that right now. I enjoy a good Tower of Hanoi because, and I think it's probably like the same reason

I enjoy a puzzle or I enjoy like adult Legos, because there's like a solution. There's a guaranteed way to do it. There's a process to do it. And once you start doing it, all of a sudden it is a like chill sort of meditative thing. And it seems more achievable than a Rubik's cube to me because there's just those three poles.

Just those three poles, that's it. There's a very, I mean, at any point, there's only like one or two things you can legally do in the game. And it's just a question of like, which one is the right one to do? And there is a mathematical equation that is pretty simple to solve that.

And that's the Tower of Hanoi. Most of them come with like six to eight discs. That's sort of the sweet spot. Obviously you can go higher than that, but then it gets much, much, much, much, much, much more complicated as the discs go up. But I didn't know anything about the origins of it. I remember playing it in like old school,

like logical adventure games. Cracker Barrel definitely. And the origin story I find very fascinating. Yeah. Can I steal you away? Yes. Thank you. Yes. ["Can I Steal You Away?" by The Bumblebee Boys plays.] All right. What you got?

My thing. Yeah. Is actually, it's a fish. Baby, the way that you said that sentence was amazing to me. It sounded, the way that you said that sentence was amazing to me. It sounded, the tone that you used was like, Rachel always brings fish to the show. It was almost apologetic, like, now it is,

now listen guys, I am bringing a fish this week. Well, I honestly, like, I tend to stay away from animals because one, I'm not like a biology person. No. Also. Some animals are evil. Also, there is a Max Fun podcast called Just the Zoo of Us. Delightful podcast.

Yes, and they. I have guessed it on that a couple times. Yes, they review animals. That's kind of their whole thing. So I figure like, well, I don't wanna do another show. If you like Taz Abnumals, they invited me on to do a whole special about Ross Seals because my character in Taz Abnumals is a Ross Seal.

But I was super curious about this fish. And it is the ocean sunfish. I love these big fucking weirdos. Yeah, so this, you do know what I'm talking about. Yeah, I know about them because of Animal Crossing, I think is probably like the first, I feel like they are in mainstay in Animal Crossing and every time you pull a sunfish up out of the water,

it is insane because they are bigger than your villager most of the time. Yes, yes. Which is exciting. So this is what, for those of you that aren't Googling it right now, this is one of those fish that looks like a half fish. Oh, yeah. It's got like, it's got the regular kind of fins you'd expect, but it has no tail. No.

And so it looks like it has been chopped in half. And also it gets its name like people call it the sunfish because it floats on its side. Yeah. And typically towards the top of the water. And so it, yeah, it looks like a fish that has met- It's just sun tanning, just sunbathing. I love it, he's a big round friend. So these fish, super big, as Griffin mentioned,

they are the largest bony fish in the world. Which is how they're like, how they're like continually classified. Like I was going to multiple sites thinking like, that's a lazy way to describe it. And then I was like, no, that largest bony fish is like, that's how they. What's the largest not bony fish?

What is a, it's cause a shark is a fish, right? Shark is technically a fish, and I know that there's some sharks bigger than these guys, but I guess sharks are mostly just like, you know, two metric tons of just pure chomp muscle. The whale shark is the largest fish without bones. Yeah, okay, I got there. I just Googled it.

Good, thank you. It's not like I knew that. No, but I I got there. I just Googled it. Good, thank you. It's not like I knew that. No, but I appreciate it, I feel. I was really going out, I was worried I was really showing my ass there. So adult sunfish typically weigh between 545 and 2205 pounds. What a range!

What a tremendous range of weight that is. Yeah, so they, you know, they are vulnerable to predators. And so often they will not get to be that big, but like a fish in captivity or in ideal conditions can really get up there. Yeah. And as far as like their size, I mean, 5,000 pounds. What?

No, no, no. Sorry? Up to 5,000 pounds. That's what I'm seeing now on this other site. At the Monterey Bay Aquarium, they have a little exhibit. So the average is between 500 to 2,000. Yeah. The Monterey Bay Aquarium has a fucking unit,

an absolute brick shit house of a sunfish that weighs 5,000 pounds is what you're telling me? Yes, and 10 feet. 10 feet in diameter I guess, because it's a circular fish. Well, it's not really circular, it's more like bullet shaped. Yeah, okay, it has a more circular profile than most fish,

than most fishies, I will say. So yeah, that's a big guy. That is a huge, huge, it has a more circular profile than most fish, than most fishies, I will say. So yeah, that's a big guy. That is a huge, huge, huge fish. Yeah, I mean- Are we catching these? Are we catching and eating these guys? I haven't heard of a menu that has ocean sunfish up on it. So I don't know if they're natural predators.

Not in the US. Apparently in countries like Japan, Korea and Taiwan, you can eat it. Grab them and eat them, okay. But- Different strokes for different folks. Yeah, they have kind of a jelly-like covering. That's the, and that's the good stuff right there.

I would love to taste a sunfish jelly, not to hurt the guy, but if I could just get a little bit of the jelly, a little bit of the jelly off there. They have a thick skin and it's covered in like a mucus. All right. The skin can be up to three inches thick. Jesus Christ.

So yeah, it's hard to like, hard to prepare that. I have to imagine. There's a lot of why people don't take that. There would be a lot of stewing, but how do you get a pot big enough for a 2000 pound fish? You simply can't. I bet that slime makes you young. I bet that slime, I bet that sunfish slime.

That's the secret. I bet that sunfish slime, if you rub that on your skin, it's the substance. I haven't seen the substance. We haven't seen the substance yet. But I'm pretty sure it's a movie about a beauty product that makes you beautiful. So the sunfish host to more than 40 species of parasites.

That's not surprising to me. Because it is like up near the surface and on its side, a lot of birds will like land on there and like get those little parasites, like sea birds will get in there. But the sea bird won't. But if there's no sea bird that would see a sunfish and be like, I'll just eat the whole sunfish.

I'm gonna eat that jelly covered 2000 pound bullet shaped fish. That's probably an expression in the sea bird community. Like you can't eat the whole sunfish at once. No. You don't got, it's like it would be tantamount to us eating the plate that we are eating our dinner off of as well.

The thing that I saw, and I don't know how common this is, but often sunfish will get so covered in parasites and because they don't, they can't move very fast. They can move like two miles an hour because of their whole structure. I would think a flatfish like that could really zoom. I mean, they basically have oars. They're basically rowing, you know,

because they don't have a tail. Yeah, that's true, I guess that's true. They're just flapping up and down. Yeah, they don't have propulsion. Anyway, the sunfish in order to remove these parasites have been reported to breach, clearing the surface by approximately 10 feet in an apparent effort to dislodge the parasites.

Okay, so, okay. So when you say clear the surface, you mean they jump 10 feet into the, but they only move to about miles an hour. So how the hell is that possible? I don't know. There's a lot that isn't known about the sunfish and I'm sure that's something I could find out. There's a lot that isn't known about the sunfish

and I'm sure that's something I could find out. I did not see it in my research. I wonder if they have a symbiotic relationship with like another creature, like they get on top of a whale's blowhole and then the whale will blast them 10 feet out of the water because I don't know how these big boys are getting up that high.

Maybe they're incredibly buoyant and they just like swim down and just let buoyancy do the work. Just shoot them up. Just shoot them upwards, they get the bends. There's, I mean, I could go on for a long time about sunfish. Then do it, then go, do that.

But what's wild, so newly hatched sunfish weigh less than one gram. Aw. They're like super tiny, tiny. Yeah. And they school for protection like a lot of fish. Yeah. But as they get older, they don't school.

I have to imagine it's annoying to school when you can only go like two miles an hour. Yeah, right. You can't get enough distance between you and them. Those that survive, as I mentioned, they can get super huge, which will ultimately end up being 60 million times their original weight.

Jesus Christ, man. Yeah. I love that. God, nature's cool. The most extreme size growth of any vertebrate animal. I love that. Good for you guys. Everyone sees you and they're like, no way.

You'll never make it in this world, kid. And it's like, oh really? I am a 5,000 pounds slimy beauty. And they look, I mean, they look like they have already like met some kind of like poor fate. You know, like they- They do look a little haggard. They're like, it made me wonder if that kind of helps them

when it comes to predators. Absolutely. Right? Cause they look like somebody already got their first. Yeah. Yeah. They had, I, you know, animal instinct is such an interesting subject to me

because there has to be some sort of like deep seated, ancestral, genetic knowledge in the mind of a shark that when they see a sunfish, they just go, not worth it, man. Slimy, three inch thick skin, no fucking way. I'm not gonna be chomping on that today. Yeah, so their threats are more, I mean, they're honestly more manmade,

that's nets and sea trash. Because they are, one of the things they do eat is jellyfish, like plastic bags are a real issue for them. But yeah, that's, I mean, that's the sunfish. Can I ask you a question? Sometimes you bring a subject to this show and I can piece together exactly why you chose that. What inspired you to talk about the sunfish today?

You chose that. What inspired you to talk about the sunfish today? So, when I was bopping around the internet trying to figure out what I was gonna talk about, one of the sites I go to sometimes is National Geographic. Oh, sure. Just to see what's happening in the animal world. Or I'll go to, today I went to Ripley's, believe it or not.

Jesus. Really scraping the bottom of the old. But the sunfish is something that I was super curious about. This is not judgmental. Sunfish is like the fish that when I am at an aquarium or the like natural history museum and you're in the ocean exhibit, you're like, oh, there's a big whale.

Oh, there's an ancient invertebrate. That's cool. There's a little mollusk. That's neat. But then you see a big, big round guy and it catches your eye. And you're like, I wanna know more about that sunfish. And then your child pulls you away from it

because they have to go do something else and you don't get to read about the sunfish. Yeah, I had no idea they were that big. Like I kind of like, I could visualize that fish, you know, but I had no idea that they get that enormous. So awesome. I will say just one more, just one more fun fact. Females can produce as many as 300 million eggs at a time,

which is also more than any other known vertebrate. Get it, get it girl. Do you wanna know what our friends at home are talking about? Yes. I got one here from Melissa who says, my latest small wonder is discovering something already well known and beloved by others years later and getting to appreciate it.

It reminds me that there's still so much stuff that I enjoy undiscovered and waiting for me out there. This happened recently listening to Outkast's 2000 record, Stankonia. I was listening like, holy shit, do people know about this? Yes, yes they do. I love that. I do as well.

I don't know how you go 25 years without accidentally catching Stankonia. Here's the thing though, like very popular when we were young people. True, yeah I guess so. But if you were born, let's say in the year, I mean, gosh, I don't know, 2005, like you kind of missed it.

Probably didn't catch Stankonia if you were five years old. Yeah. Just SpeakerBox Love Below is waiting for you to be exhumed as well. I like thinking that they're listening going, wait, there's another one? Wait, what?

Caitlin says, my small wonder is when you discover a word that can be typed using just one side of a QWERTY keyboard. The longer the word, the more thrilling. Cat, reed, boink, onion, cascade, and lollipop are some of my favorites. Wow, I don't think I've ever paid attention to that. Yeah, I don't think I have either. It is nice though.

It does make me look at my keyboard and go like, lollipop, okay. Yeah, I mean, lollipop, It is nice though. It does make me look at my keyboard and go like lollipop, okay. Yeah, I mean lollipop, those L-O-I-N-P, those are all right next to each other. Your hands are not moving very far when you're typing out lollipop. The only time I ever really think about proximity of letters is when I'm doing one of those like typing tests.

And I get to a word that I'm like, oh yeah, this one's easy. Yeah. Yeah, that's always a treat. Man, I love typing tests. Thank you so much for listening. Thanks to Bowen and Augustus for these, for our theme song, Money Won't Pay.

You can find a link to that in the episode description. And thank you to Maximum Fun for having us on the network. Go check out all the great shows over on maximumfun.org. They have so much wonderful stuff over there, just like just the zoo of us, we highly recommend. We got some new merch over at the McRoy merch store, McRoymerch.com. We have an Energy's Dragon pin,

a bunch of new stuff over there. And we also have some live shows coming up in Florida, doing Taz and Mbem Mbem down there in February. If you go to bit.ly slash McRoy Tours, you can find out. Have you guys started talking about theming for the new year? I mean, it's early days.

It's early days. We have a logo design that McKay has whipped up for us. I know, but you're touring relatively soon. Yes, I think this first tour may be a tummy buddy life tour just because there was a significant amount of, I think this first tour may be a Tummy Buddy Life tour, just because there was a significant amount of, let's say, work, labor that went into Tummy Buddy Life in the week-long span where that was the year's theme.

Now that the year's theme is different, we will be adjusting, but I don't know if we will be quite agile enough or if we wanna throw away all of that incredible work that was done for Tummy Buddy Life. All the more reason to go to the shows in Florida just to see what- Get this Chase merch of Tummy Buddy Life

at these shows in Florida. Here later in February, we're gonna be in Tampa and Jacksonville doing all the shows there. That's it for us this week. Thank you so much for listening. Have a good week, have a fun weekend, have a great summer, and we'll see you next week for listening. Have a good week. Have a fun weekend. Have a great summer. And we'll see you next week.

Bye. Bye. Money won't pay, money won't pay, money won't pay Money won't pay, money won't pay, money won't pay Maximum Fun, a workaround network of artist-owned shows supported directly by you.