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00:30Good evening, and welcome to QI, where tonight we'll be struck by wave after wave of, well, waves.
00:39Making waves, it's Phil Wang.
00:44Surfing the waves, it's Sarah Pascoe.
00:50Blue-ling waves, it's Tom Allen.
00:54And already waving a white flag, it's Alan Davis.
01:00Let's wave hello to our guests.
01:06Phil goes.
01:10Ooh, Sarah goes.
01:15Tom goes.
01:20And Alan goes.
01:21Bye, bye, baby, baby, goodbye, baby, baby, bye, bye.
01:30Right, let's dive right in with question one.
01:32What is 4.8 inches long, begins with W, and is guaranteed to invigorate a frigid hamster?
01:40Phil Wang.
01:42Phil Wang.
01:43Phil Wang.
01:44APPLAUSE
01:46We're off and running.
01:48The experiments have proved very successful.
01:50What were you going to say, Phil?
01:52A warm hamster, perhaps?
01:53Oh.
01:54A heated up one.
01:55Yeah, mine just gently microwaved.
01:56LAUGHTER
01:57Can I just say that out of nowhere, that is exactly the right answer?
01:58Oh!
01:59APPLAUSE
02:00APPLAUSE
02:01APPLAUSE
02:02I thought we were all going to rip into you, cos 4.8 inches is too big for a hamster.
02:06Is this a monster hamster?
02:07OK, so I didn't necessarily say that the hamster is too big for a hamster.
02:11OK, so I didn't necessarily say that the hamster was 4.8 inches, did I?
02:12I said, what is 4.8 inches long, begins with a W, and is guaranteed to invigorate a frigid hamster.
02:16Wheel?
02:17No, it was the microwave.
02:18You got the right answer and I'm having to tell you what it was.
02:20I thought we were all going to rip in to you because 4.8 inches is too big for a hamster.
02:25Is this a monster hamster?
02:26Okay, so I didn't necessarily say that the hamster was 4.8 inches, did I?
02:31I said, what is 4.8 inches long begins with a W and is guaranteed to invigorate a frigid hamster.
02:36Wheel.
02:37No, it was microwave.
02:38You got the right answer and now I'm having to tell you what it was.
02:42But microwave doesn't start with W.
02:45Well, it is the waves that start with W.
02:48Oh, it's going to be a long night, isn't it?
02:52It's like theme, it's waves.
02:54Have you ever been in a restaurant where they tell you it's all freshly done
02:57and you turn to each other and you go like this, right?
02:59You just go like that and you go, that means it's been microwaved.
03:02So we do that in the restaurant, you go like that.
03:03I think you're a bit posh with some of us.
03:05Tiny waves.
03:06Tiny little microwave.
03:08It's not that subtle, I'd say.
03:10No.
03:10Since you're doing it in front of your face.
03:12Also, that means something else in Essex.
03:15So be careful.
03:164.8 inches.
03:18LAUGHTER
03:19APPLAUSE
03:21LAUGHTER
03:22APPLAUSE
03:23About microwaves, the very first domestic-sized microwave oven
03:30was invented to bring half-dead hamsters back to life.
03:34Ooh!
03:35I know.
03:36So, quick primer on how microwaves work.
03:38Anybody know how they work?
03:39Don't they heat things up from the inside out?
03:41So, they have electromagnetic waves and, by definition,
03:45the wavelength can be anywhere from a millimetre to a metre,
03:48but they fire a wavelength of 4.8 inches,
03:52which is the thing that I asked about.
03:54And that is just the right size for the energy to be absorbed by the food
03:57or, in this case, by the hamster.
03:59So the energy in them is transferred to the food and it heats it up.
04:02Don't try this at home.
04:04Yeah, I was about to say.
04:05LAUGHTER
04:06Yeah, no, no, it's a very bad idea.
04:07Because that wouldn't work.
04:09It'd hurt them.
04:09Yeah, that's...
04:10They'd be dead.
04:10Yeah, I think that would...
04:12Is it the frequency of microwaves that make the water molecules shake
04:14and that's what heat is?
04:16Yes, you're absolutely right, darling.
04:17It was really in-depth there, Phil.
04:18Yeah.
04:19I thought I was just coming here to mess around.
04:22Yeah.
04:23You knew about the frequency of water molecules.
04:25I can't believe you've revised for the test.
04:27LAUGHTER
04:28And why did they give us books on this?
04:30Yeah.
04:31Why were you scribbling like Good Will Hunting,
04:33like you'd solved an equation?
04:34I'm just drawing waves for inspiration.
04:36Let's just see what I'm doing.
04:37Well, you are the first person to not draw a penis, so well done.
04:41Oh, it's a penis.
04:43Oh.
04:43LAUGHTER
04:44A wavy one.
04:46Maybe just with very long pubes.
04:48LAUGHTER
04:49So, 1950s, there was a British scientist called James Lovelock
04:53and he was working on a project to freeze
04:55and then reanimate cell tissue, OK?
04:59Now, you can see that that could serve all sorts of useful medical purposes.
05:03So, preserved tissues for transplant would be a good example.
05:06So, I don't think you'd be allowed to do this now.
05:08He gave hamsters an hour-long ice bath of minus 5 degrees Celsius.
05:15Yeah, it was not good.
05:16The heart stopped beating, they stopped breathing,
05:18and what you said, a lot of the water in their body froze to ice.
05:22So, they've got this frozen hamsters, and I like this.
05:25They experimented with various ways of reviving them.
05:28They tried thawing them out with intense beams of light,
05:30and this is all I've got on this.
05:32Hot spatulas.
05:34LAUGHTER
05:35I think it explains itself, really, hot spatulas.
05:38Really? Yeah, weirdly, it didn't work.
05:40Hot spatulas sounds like a seedy late-night show, doesn't it?
05:43Yeah. Yeah.
05:44Like, cooking-based.
05:46Yeah. Welcome to hot spatulas!
05:50Anyway, it won't surprise you to learn that some of these poor hamsters
05:53then got severe burns.
05:55Then Lovelock decided that he would try firing microwaves at them.
05:58I mean, what on earth is going through his mind at that point?
06:01Yeah, I don't know.
06:02I don't know.
06:03He's frozen them.
06:04He's tried to heat them up with hot spatulas.
06:06Yeah.
06:07And now he's going, do you know what, let's just ding them in the microwave.
06:11It does mean that he had only stuff from the kitchen.
06:14So, he was like, freezer, cutlery drawer, hot spatulas.
06:18Microwave.
06:19Yeah.
06:20Oh, thank goodness he didn't have an air fryer.
06:21That was next.
06:25You have to understand, there were no domestic microwaves at this time.
06:28The only microwaves were owned by the government who'd used them
06:31for various purposes, like radar and stuff.
06:33Anyway, he fried microwaves at the hamster, which was frozen,
06:38and after a few seconds, it got up and started wandering around.
06:43So, it's a form of hamster cryonics.
06:46What is the difference between cryonics and cryogenics?
06:49Phil?
06:50Phil, yeah.
06:53Cryogenics is when it's people.
06:55Cryonics is when it's hamsters.
06:58I like that.
06:59People often say cryogenics when what they actually mean is cryonics.
07:02So, cryonics is to freeze somebody like you could freeze a human being
07:04and revive them.
07:05Cryogenics is the wider field of the study of extreme cold.
07:08Anyway, he never used it for cooking, Lovelock.
07:10He just stuck to the hamster thing.
07:12You'd think he'd be exhausted at the end of the day.
07:14It would have been really handy for him to have a microwave meal.
07:16This is the James Lovelock.
07:17He was an environmental scientist.
07:19He wrote The Revenge of the Guy.
07:21He was the person who used science to prove that, you know,
07:23the climate catastrophe was coming if the earth heated up.
07:26Yes, he wrote the guy hypothesis.
07:28But how did he get from that, from freezing hamsters?
07:30I mean, we've all got to start somewhere.
07:33You know what would heat up all the hamsters in the world?
07:36Yeah.
07:37Climate change.
07:38Yeah.
07:39The person who thought of actually building a similar thing specifically
07:43to cook food was an American physicist called Percy Spencer during World War II.
07:49But the one he made weighed over 340 kilograms and was six foot tall.
07:53So, possibly not the one for your kitchen, I would say.
07:57Also, it was designed so, like, organ transplants and things could be...
08:01Imagine waiting there on the trolley, about to have it done.
08:03Yeah.
08:04And then you hear, ping!
08:06And then you go, it's ready!
08:09What would be worse is if they said,
08:11do you mind if we try some hot spatular sweat?
08:13We're convinced these hot spatular must be good for something.
08:17It must be.
08:18It must be.
08:19It must be a few people who've had heart transplants
08:21and it's still a little bit cold in the middle.
08:23LAUGHTER
08:25Take it out and stir it halfway.
08:27LAUGHTER
08:28Now, on to crime waves.
08:31Imagine you are a full-time wig thief.
08:35What would be your technique?
08:37Oh, I've failed so many times.
08:39LAUGHTER
08:42It's harder than it looks.
08:43What worries me about this question is the full-time aspect of it.
08:46Yes.
08:47So, you'd have to make a lot of money.
08:49What's a time in history when you might have made a lot of money from...?
08:52Georgian times?
08:53Yes.
08:54So, where are we? We're in the...
08:55In your face, Phil.
08:56LAUGHTER
08:58Why am I the enemy?
09:00Because we're doing history now and we're all playing for ourselves.
09:02LAUGHTER
09:04It's humanities.
09:05No!
09:06Oh, no, the...
09:07Bring it back to maths! Bring it back to this!
09:09LAUGHTER
09:10So, 18th century, there's a wave of wig thefts, right?
09:14Because they're worth stealing, right?
09:16Every day, powdered wigs.
09:18Nothing special.
09:19Cost the equivalent of £100 today.
09:20But there were some that were so elaborate that they would be £5,000 in today's money.
09:25And that's where we get the expression big wig from.
09:27He's a bit of a big wig.
09:28So, what would your technique be, do you think?
09:31First, I would get a monkey for some reason.
09:33LAUGHTER
09:34Yes, that is one way of doing it.
09:37They often train small children and animals to steal them.
09:40So, you might get, for example, a child in a basket carried on somebody's shoulder,
09:46be just the right height to whip the wig off,
09:48and then the wig-snatching team would run in opposite directions.
09:51Wig-snatching team!
09:52I know!
09:53I would be more subtle.
09:54So, first thing, I might not want the person whose wig I'm stealing to know,
09:57so I'd want to swap it for something of the same weight really, really quickly.
10:01Like Indiana Jones, just the...
10:03Yeah, yeah.
10:04The sack on the head, yeah.
10:05Or I would pretend I was a wig inspector and say,
10:08you've contravened some rules for wigs.
10:13Wig rules.
10:14Or say, I think you've got fleas, can I get rid of them for you?
10:17And then I've got it, haven't I?
10:19Or what about if you put Velcro on the inside of a tunnel or a bridge and...
10:24As people walked through, they'd be like, lovely, going through here,
10:29going through here, suddenly in the light, it's gone.
10:32Where is it?
10:33It's stuck in the tunnel, but by that point it's too...
10:35Yeah, you've closed the tunnel.
10:36You've closed the tunnel.
10:37Yeah.
10:38You've only got to wait 200 years for somebody to invent Velcro in your office.
10:41I like the people who go through the tunnel going through here,
10:44going through here.
10:45Yes, that's what I do in tunnels.
10:47I would run up and say, your wig's on fire!
10:49It's on fire!
10:50It's on fire!
10:51And then I'd grab it.
10:52Yeah.
10:53Imagine being, imagine how undignified it would be like,
10:56don't you dare, you give me my wig back!
10:58I know what you're doing!
10:59You're trying to steal my wig!
11:01Come back here!
11:02Going through here, going through here!
11:04Stop that man!
11:05He's got my wig!
11:06So jostling somebody was one way of doing it.
11:08You get two boys and a dog, for example.
11:10One boy jostles a bewigged man, the other grabs the hairpiece,
11:13tosses it to the dog and they all go off in different directions.
11:15So you might see a dog running past with a wig on?
11:17Why do you think wigs were so popular?
11:21People had terrible heads.
11:23Because there was no conditioner back then,
11:26so everyone's hair looked terrible.
11:28It looked like liceous.
11:29A lot of it's to do with syphilis.
11:31Syphilis was rampant.
11:33Oh, yeah.
11:34It caused men to lose their hair.
11:36What?
11:43I don't know what you mean.
11:46Wig crime.
11:47Why did it stop?
11:48Wigs went out of fashion.
11:50Correct.
11:51Two points.
11:53So there was a supposed wave of detergent theft in the United States
11:56in 2015.
11:57There was supposed to be a great wave and people were stealing it.
11:59They had to lock it to the shelves.
12:01Because of drugs.
12:02Well, so there was one police officer who said he had seen people
12:05buy drugs in exchange for sort of six bottles of detergent.
12:09It's like the Daz Doorstep Challenge, isn't it?
12:14Would you consider swapping your usual heroin for six bottles of
12:20a QI wash?
12:22I imagine that's always been popular.
12:24It's something everybody needs.
12:25It's untraceable.
12:26It's easy to steal.
12:28You can get rid of all the evidence.
12:30Yes.
12:31I was in the supermarket the other week and the bottles of olive oil
12:36were in Perspex cases, lock boxes.
12:39Wow.
12:40On the shelf.
12:41Because they were £10 each.
12:43That's the state we're at.
12:45I always thought, like, the price of...
12:46When people talk about the price of oil going up,
12:48I didn't know they meant extra virgin.
12:50Oh, you'd want to be oiled up if you had a hot spatula.
12:51You would.
12:52In 18th century London, it was easier for crime to pay.
13:08Oh!
13:09I like that.
13:10It kind of slid off the edge of that noise.
13:15Now, what wouldn't you want to find in a hairdresser's pocket?
13:20Uh, my husband's phone number?
13:23I'm not saying they're all hussies.
13:26No.
13:27Some of them are.
13:28Statistically.
13:29More hair that they stick back on when you're not looking?
13:34Because then you've got to come back.
13:35It's weirdly, what happens is you go off on a tangent
13:38and get quite close to the real answer.
13:40Oh, really?
13:41OK.
13:42The whole show is about waves.
13:44What were waves, early waves in the hair?
13:46Perms.
13:47Perms, absolutely right.
13:48Early perms, short for permanent wave.
13:50And they were sometimes called pocket perms by hairstylists
13:53because it was such rough chemicals that what would happen
13:57is that large chunks of hair would break off and the stylist,
14:01instead of telling you that, would grab it
14:04and not want you to know and stick it in their pocket.
14:07So you wouldn't...
14:08Yeah, and you were sticking up from earlier.
14:09Yeah.
14:10Have you ever had a perm?
14:13Have you had a perm?
14:14I wanted a perm, Mum wouldn't let me.
14:15Why?
14:16Because she's a bitch.
14:18LAUGHTER
14:19APPLAUSE
14:21You'd be a very good therapist then.
14:22You'd be right to the heart of people in one question.
14:25LAUGHTER
14:26LAUGHTER
14:27My mum's...
14:28I'm under such strict instructions to never mention her
14:31in any of my comedy.
14:33Right?
14:34And I'm trying so hard and I can't believe that slipped out.
14:36LAUGHTER
14:37I can't believe that slipped out.
14:38Does she watch QI?
14:39She does watch QI.
14:40And she's a really lovely woman.
14:41What's her name?
14:42Gail.
14:43Gail.
14:44Can I just say, we'd like to dedicate this whole show to you.
14:46LAUGHTER
14:47And we're sending Sarah home with a perm.
14:50LAUGHTER
15:07So the very first perm machine was invented by a hairdresser called
15:09Charles Nessler in 1909 in Paris.
15:10LAUGHTER
15:12in 1909 in paris that's a milking machine
15:20here's the thing is he didn't really bother about health and safety his wife was his very first
15:24volunteer and he burnt all her hair off and oh no yep scalded and blistered her scalp several times
15:31he blistered her scalp it's over
15:33and he basically applied an alkali substance to his client's hair so he started with cow's urine
15:48later moved to borax that is the chemical we use today in laundry detergent and for rat poison
15:55and then he wrapped hair around heavy rollers which were 100 degrees centigrade but each one of those
16:00rollers weighed a kilo and so he had to have that contraption the counterweights to try and take
16:05the strain off the head and they had to sit like that for six hours it's impressive she won miss
16:10america without on her head now can you recommend a reliable way of having a brain wave i always find
16:21just as i'm about to go to sleep the most relaxed i can be while still conscious that's when i'll
16:26think business people say that they call it the shower principle instead of being in water
16:31okay that's that's big so between you you've had an idea which is quite exciting
16:36so water and being on the edge the precipice of something sitting on the edge of a bath
16:46that's how they came up with the idea for the towel
16:47there's a professional inventor in tokyo called dr yoshiro nakamatsu and he comes up with his best
16:56ideas underwater okay but his method is to bring himself to the brink of drowning right he believes
17:04that the lack of oxygen is what engenders his creativity he says half a second before death i visualize
17:09an invention and he dives down with the waterproof notebook and pencil his own invention and he sketches
17:15out his ideas he's applied for three and a half thousand patents in his time these are his boots
17:20that he invented what do you think they do are they for stealing wigs 100 could do that because
17:28they're just for bouncing so that was his idea he nearly died for that yeah so does someone else wake him
17:34up like how who who's in charge of the okay he's about to die get him out i think he just comes out of
17:39the water at that so he's in control of all of this this is the theory until he dies i mean unless he
17:43drowns himself and that might be his very best idea and we never would know he stays for an extra half
17:47a second it's kind of like auto-erotic asphyxiation but for ideas
17:54at least what he says bursts out of the water and says bouncing shoes bouncing shoes
18:01is that it that's that what you've come up and then he runs into dragon's den sopping wet
18:05he has actually invented a wig funnily enough it's a wig that doubles as a weapon um so yeah so it's
18:14great ideas definitely worth it it's lined with metal so that you can throw it at an attacker
18:21isn't that odd job in james bont it's attached with a rubber string so you can pull it back
18:27you'll throw it oh no it ain't coming back at you do it yeah exactly his soy sauce spray bottle i
18:35think is very clever you can evenly spritz your sushi that's quite good that's well that's a good
18:39idea yeah but it's not worth nearly dying is it no when there's other ways of getting soy sauce on
18:44things like those little fishes yeah they are good yeah but you get the rice the rice gets soaked and
18:49it falls apart i don't mind if he downs by accident because that's a really good invention okay he also
18:56invented an electromagnetic condom again fantastic does it cure syphilis asking for a friend
19:13is that just so you can find true north is that
19:18currently what do i know the motion of copulation induces a small current in the bloodstream and that
19:23increases pressure would you have to plug it in
19:33darling you don't want to be plugged into the mains well that's how that's what i'm thinking
19:36after getting out an extension lead what i love is that the elves know they're sending me a message
19:42saying it's wireless thanks guys yeah anyway he calls himself dr nakamats and he claims to have
19:54invented the floppy disk anybody who had early computers will remember the floppy disk ibm's don't
19:59agree they don't say it was him but he claims he is the true inventor to the extent that the gate to his
20:05house in tokyo is in the shape of a floppy disk and he says his invention was the start of the information
20:12revolution and silicon valley so since he was 42 he has taken a photograph of every single meal that he
20:20has eaten i'm glad he said meal i don't know what he was gonna i mean have you been on instagram that's
20:28what everyone's doing yeah did he invent that as well she's been doing that since he was 42 he was in
20:34his mid-90s oh wow but he analyzes his food and lifestyle and says he will reach the age of 144.
20:41oh there is an extraordinary culture in japan though of sort of curious ideas they have a word for it
20:46called chingdougu and it means weird tool the selfie stick is one that came out of japan 1995
20:53but 20 years later was you know they're ubiquitous there is a hay fever hat
21:01so you've each got a prop next to you see if you can guess what they are for
21:05these are weird tool inventions that hay fever hat is by kenji kawakami i mean mine are right
21:12so phil that is a daddy nurse it's called the daddy nurse it's great but actually there's all kinds
21:21of people who might want to breastfeed their children who can't for whatever reason people
21:25who adopt or people whose milk just doesn't come in or they don't have a big enough supply so i know
21:29it's really silly but it's also quite a beautiful invention right what have you got alan i mean they're
21:34plastic glasses and they've got little funnels on them so you could pour
21:40um eye drops is exactly right darling they are eye drop funnel glasses so that you don't spill
21:52together alan we could get some pretty precise milk in those eyes
21:55very clean eyeballs what have you got sarah well i've got a toilet plunger but it's got a ribbon
22:05on so you know it's a girl what do you think you might do with it though it's not a toilet
22:11plunger i can tell you that is this to get my milk to come in it is a portable subway strap so what you
22:18do is you're on the subway stick it to the roof no i worry it's not going to be oh hello so if you
22:29put it above your head yeah but there's nothing there it'll be like i see what you mean so just
22:34yeah when you have to get off that must be difficult to be like
22:41right what have you got darling now there should be some toasters oh yes there is oh i didn't know
22:45if that was serious i thought you'd ordered a snack open the the stick oh oh yes and have a look
22:53oh i bet i know what this is going to be is it butter it's a butter stick for buttering your
22:58toaster oh look it works oh that's good oh look it's lovely and would you take this with you to events
23:07you're not on qvc you know
23:09it's so elegant i think if i saw somebody with that i would think gosh i wish i was them
23:21then you can do a little bit on your wrists and your neck and then you smell it all day long
23:26true maybe put it on your spatula or if you are swimming the channel you could put it on your chest
23:32yeah it's a really good idea i think we're all trying to use less single-use plastic though aren't
23:37we you could make it of wood or another fabric which was a material which was more denim denim
23:48yeah i think that's the market in that i can't understand why the two of you have not made a
23:51fortune so far there's a lot of things though you do think did they need to be invented at all
23:57like self-lathering soap yeah you know when you get hand soap and it's like a foam i thought who
24:03went oh do you know what i find too exhausting lathering my day would be so much easier if i didn't
24:11have to lather a bar of soap for sometimes seconds at a time now i've got this self-lathering soap i can
24:20finally get on with those things i really need to do i've got other things as well what am i what's that
24:25those are just tissues in case you get butter on you now now what's the loudest thing you can't
24:34hear oh is it all the dialogue in the christopher nolan movie because
24:46i mean i've watched those things in imax with speakers as big as buildings and it's just loud
24:52mumbling i can't pick out a single word it's really interesting because it is a common thing
24:56now in a lot of films do you know why that is the actors not know their lines well it's a different
25:01way of recording is one of the issues so in the old films people had to speak up in order to make sure
25:06their voice went to the central microphone now everybody's wearing a personal microphone and so
25:10mumbling has come in so what we need to do is is go back to the old system where people just have one
25:16mic but it is a common problem i think it's about 40 percent of people in britain watch television
25:21with the subtitles on do you think people are going to go back to sort of brief encounter days i hope
25:25so i love that film it's my favorite what happened there they were just screaming it's beautiful um
25:31david lean film written by noel coward and um about a woman who sort of almost has an affair with
25:38someone she meets at a train station it's very much up my alley there's no mumbling no mumbling at
25:45all there's a child in it having an argument uh with her brother and even the child speaks very
25:50clipped they always use adults afterwards don't they always that makes sense that's why they all
25:54have some creepy little voices oh that because the the little girl they're having an argument about
26:00it's not her birthday but she wants to go to the theater and the senior johnson walks in and goes
26:04what on earth are you arguing about and this little girl gets up out of bed and goes
26:07my birthday's in june yes because it's really famous there are silly pantomimes in june
26:12and of course isn't that very clipped 1930s 1940s way my birthday's in june
26:22it's a very famous bit for being an adult coming out of a little child that exact line yes yes so what is
26:28the loudest thing that's about some of my favorite movies is it going to be some naturally occurring
26:36phenomenon is this to do with a tree fallen in the woods is that a bear no no no it's the pope
26:48my birthday's in june oh
26:49so let's just define loudness okay so loudness is another word for amplitude sound waves right
26:59they travel like this and the loudest bit is going to be this and it gets quieter and quieter and quieter
27:05like this and the distance between them is the frequency or the pitch okay will we get a gcse after
27:10this you will the reason i tell you all this is that some noises are too high or too low for humans to be
27:19able to hear them however loud they are so the loudest sound ever recorded hardly anybody heard
27:27it the dogs hear it elephants can hear things infrasonic sound that we can't hear so the loudest sound
27:33ever recorded was 1883 a volcano erupted in krakatoa in indonesia and 100 miles away the noise was 172
27:42decibels so sound becomes painful at 130 decibels if you were standing right next to a jumbo jet engine
27:49that would be 150 decibels so 170 decibels it's 100 times louder than that okay i've sat on a plane
27:56near a jumbo jet engine i didn't mind it no if you're right by it standing on on the ground i mean
28:00it's just the wing it's there and i'm looking forward my ears facing out the window yes there's a whole
28:06window and a fuselage between you i'm talking about standing right by it oh so 170 decibels close
28:12that's it a hundred brief encounter in your headphones yeah in 1883 with a wig on standing right next to
28:23krakatoa going not that loud on a ship that was 40 miles away half of the crew's eardrums burst oh half the
28:33eardrum or was it half how did they measure it then all of them lost the left ear there are things
28:43called barographs and what they do is they measure fluctuations in atmospheric pressure and this was
28:49measured all around the world it was the loudest noise ever measured and yet it was inaudible to most
28:55people it was just a form of pressure on the eardrums and did they not not hear it just because
29:00there is had exploded the sound was so powerful it traveled around the world seven times over the
29:07course of five days i mean it is unbelievable but was it inaudible because it was too high
29:11or too low it was too low i'd love the idea of it being too high like a volcano going
29:15like a microwave yeah ready but i want to try something with sound waves um now phil you
29:31just do your little crack a little crack of tower there for you thank you darling i really appreciate
29:35the color just for yeah could you do the fact that elephants can hear through their feet i love your
29:40animal impersonation oh yeah yeah yeah what's that can you hear that can you hear that okay i can't
29:50i've got my shoes on but they can hear at much lower frequencies than human beings can and they
29:59would have been able to actually hear the explosion much further away than human beings but i want to
30:03try a little experiment phil you like a bit of science don't you oh yeah i love it okay so
30:11we're going to look at a cladney plate the cladney plate was named for its he doesn't look well at
30:16all does he his arms completely detached from his body oh my god i was dead but they microwaved me
30:33anyway that's ernst cladney and he invented this thing where you attach a plate to a machine and it
30:39makes it vibrate and the number of times it vibrates per second that is its frequency the amazing thing
30:45is to see if you put salt on this plate the patterns that it can make at different frequencies so if we
30:51have a quick look at one that is actually working can you see how it depending on what the frequency is
30:57you can i love crafts that's the population of north korea from outer space
31:08we've got a homemade version so i'm going to get phil to help me you can make your own
31:14cladney plate so i'll play with your tits while you're doing that
31:22you know what's really sad is i nearly stayed behind
31:31okay so here's what we're going to do uh is we're going to put some salt
31:36on here and sprinkle it everywhere okay so we're going to make it vibrate we're going to keep an
31:41eye on what happens to the salt so if you take the flat of the bow there and then just run it down and
31:48then oh
31:55now why do you think that this plate that we've made is shaped like a violin what do you think might be the
32:00reason for it presumably they use these principles in the design of violin yeah so you want the perfect
32:05sound right so during the construction of the plates they use metal filings and they vibrate the
32:10wood to create the patterns you want the patterns to be symmetrical so it has a practical purpose
32:15oh yeah right well done phil fantastic
32:26it was um it was vivaldi's four seasons i was playing it was lovely now which of these is the
32:32wobbliest wall oh is it is it the straight one is correct darling yes why because it's always the
32:40unexpected one isn't it a straight wall you're absolutely right it's got multiple layers and
32:47cross beams in order to keep it safe usually if it's just straight at some point it's probably going
32:52to topple over if you build a bendy wall what is the bit in it that's keeping it strong oh the centripetal force
33:04i think that's only a thing if you're actually a centipede
33:06i just remember learning centripetal forces at school and i thought gosh i'll use that one day
33:15hello the day k what is it the shape itself the shape of the wall itself keeps it up there's an
33:21enormous strength in the arch so all arches give you extra strength and i love these walls they're
33:27called crinkle crankle walls so they are much harder to build but because of that they became a fantastic
33:32status symbol for large english country homes uh there's one in eastern village in hampshire there's
33:36one in livington in hampshire the one in eastern village was once two and a half miles long it was
33:43the longest in the uk but most of it demolished in 1924 which is really sad but which english county
33:49do you think has the most walls per square mile buckinghamshire why because they're all posh aren't they
33:55i think so compared to essex maybe that's just the nearest posh place
34:04mind my head everyone in buckinghamshire's got a horse and they probably just put some walls around
34:09it to keep it safe every kid's got a wall yeah umpty dumpty loves it yeah it's one county by a long way
34:20one county has many more walls i'm gonna go lancashire it's cornwall oh it wasn't the name
34:31what's really curious about cornwall i mean it's almost double that of the runner-up which is derbyshire
34:35a lot of cornish walls are completely hidden because cornwall does not have any hedgerows around
34:41its fields it has cornish hedges which are two stone walls which are built back to back and then
34:45the earth is stuffed between them related to the subject of walls what is sheep creep is no i'm not
34:53going to make some simplistic joke about people being creepy towards sheep or sheep being creepy towards
34:59people yeah looking through your window yeah when you're getting into your pajamas i'm just a sheep
35:07don't mind me i think if there's any wool they recognize yeah that's mine yeah nice don't wash
35:12that in hot water do you worry about the sheep looking through the window while you're out no i don't
35:17i'd love it i'd leave the curtains open be like lads so sometimes if you look at the bottom of dry stone
35:24walls you'll see a hole and it's to allow the sheep to get through and they're known as sheep groups and
35:31they're also called creep holes lunky hog hole smoots or smote and it's designed to be big enough so
35:36it can move between the fields but it blocks cattle so cattle can't get through so the cows are going
35:40where's the sheep gone where's their leg on how'd they get in the other field yeah it's like shawshank redemption
35:48right it's time to wrangle with the tangle that is general ignorance fingers on buzzers please
35:53what happened when war of the worlds was first broadcast on the radio everybody panicked they
35:59thought it was real they set you up man they set you up is it the case that it was a news bulletin
36:08about it that caused the panic and not the actual broadcast i mean the whole thing is a sort of myth
36:14that's built up around you so orson welles who you can see directing this is a rehearsal and you can
36:17see him directing because it was about an alien invasion and people thought it was real well they
36:22did and they didn't it's 1938 it was trailed for weeks as fiction and wells told people before the
36:28broadcast and after the broadcast that it was fiction it was interrupted four times to tell the listeners
36:33it's just a play and anyway only two percent of the population listened to it aliens would say that
36:39though wouldn't they yeah that is they were invading they would say it's just a play imagine if that
36:44happened with other tv programs imagine if like every five minutes in gavin and stacy they had to turn
36:48and go i'm not really called this my name's james the very few isolated instances wells agreed to
36:56compensate one man from massachusetts for a pair of shoes since he had spent the money he had saved for
37:02a pair of shoes to get a train ticket to escape the martians and he said i'll buy you some shoes
37:07because you're an idiot the only place that people did kind of freak out was a place called concrete
37:14washington and it coincided with the power cut how did they hear the radio then yeah sounds like
37:20they were trying to con some shoes there ten years later there was an actual riot after a radio adaptation
37:28of the same play in quito ecuador but the you know this was much more understandable there'd been no
37:34warnings there was a sister newspaper that had deliberately posted fake ufo sightings the play used
37:40impressionists to pretend to be actual politicians and so on and that riot did result in seven deaths
37:45but the original 1938 um everybody was pretty much fine now where would you find the longest heat wave
37:54in living memory sahara desert that's hot isn't it spain have you seen a place in the sun
38:04you remember our japanese inventor dr nakamatsu oh yeah japan and the underwater doctor
38:13underwater underwater underwater is the longest heat wave on earth it was in the north pacific so off the
38:18western coast of the united states it lasted 711 days from 2014 to 2016. so we get a large mass of
38:25unusually warm water it's basically a heat wave for the sea oh i just thought it was someone weed in the water
38:31but it's very bad when it happens so algae thrives which is very bad news for lots of species like
38:37salmon and they swim away to somewhere to put their arm in and just swoosh it about yeah just keep
38:42getting the other end of the bath but if the fish go because it's too hot or it's too unpleasant then the
38:48seabirds die and during that heat wave it was the cause of the biggest known mass die off of a single
38:55species four million guillemots died so i mean we need to pay attention the way in which marine heat waves are
39:00defined as quite different to land heat waves land heat waves it's a period of at least five days when
39:05temperatures are at least five degrees above average so 2013 antarctica had a heat wave reached heights
39:11of minus 30 degrees celsius the longest heat wave that we know was in india and that lasted in 2024
39:19lasted for 24 days and here's the thing is that when it's hot we don't think so well you'll like this
39:25scientists discovered this by directing heat lamps at people and making them do maths
39:31i could have saved them some time if they just walked along a beach and saw what everyone was
39:34reading yeah it's quite clever people the minute you get to the airport you're like i'm not gonna
39:39actually no yes i like something with a raised cover and you know it's a romance yeah yeah with that
39:44gold lettering i like that yes i think that's very good that's because we're so dumb lying on the beach
39:49that i'm just stroking my book i'm sure it's going in there was a british heat wave 1976 which was
39:57uh remarkable i remember it well oh my goodness and so there was a minister called dennis howell and
40:02he was made the minister of drugs oh yeah and he was the color of his bath water
40:10he was charged by the then prime minister james callaghan to persuade everybody to use less water and
40:15even persuaded to do a rain dance on behalf of the nation outside number 10. that's when politicians
40:20really gave it their all anyway days later there was an enormous amount of rain after his dance
40:27and he was made minister of floods were they not taking it seriously in the old days i don't know
40:33because two years later he was the minister of state for snow so he did all the weather yeah that guy and
40:39this was a professional picture this wasn't like this wasn't like leaked i don't know if it's his
40:45tinder profile you see the shadow of the photographer it's a sheepy creep the pattern of his hair is
40:52because of the vibration going through okay moving along what's the largest animal in the world that's not
41:05a whale christopher biggins i love christopher biggins biggest non-whale on the planet is it still in the
41:18water though yes oh i say an octopus because they've got those really long tentacles haven't they okay i can
41:25tell you it's about one and a half times the length of a london bus it's always buses isn't it it's always
41:30buses the biggest non-whale on the planet is a whale shark we're always talking about buses yeah right
41:39and i don't want to do that so what we're going to do is we are going to use people so what i do when
41:44i come out beginning of the show i learn the names of everybody in the audience which is nice because
41:50then i can speak to them so joe where's my friend joe right so joe is going to hold up a sign at this
41:56end i want to show you how big a whale shark is and then where is my friend neil thank you neil
42:02darling so neil's going to stand up so from neil to joe that is the size of a whale shark however
42:12this is not even cracking into the top 10 of animals obviously we have to go to the large blue whale
42:18for something really big and i don't think we've ever been able to do this before
42:22but my darling could you go all the way to that wall with your sign thank you so much neil
42:28and if he walks all the way to that wall there that is the size of a blue whale do you not think
42:35that is remarkable and we wanted to show you rather than tell you it's just so many buses so well done
42:41boys thank you so much all of which wibbling and wobbling brings us to the straight matter
42:51of the scores oh is it the end yeah you won't want to know the end because in last place
42:58all washed up with minus 27 it's tom
43:08in third place on the brink of a wipeout with minus 19 it's sarah
43:15in second place wavering on the edge with minus eight it's phil
43:18our winner tonight riding the wave with a whole minus four it's alan
43:37so i wave goodbye to sarah tom phil and alan and i leave you with this wise crack from the late
43:43former u.s president jimmy carter my esteem in the country has gone up substantially so that now
43:50when people wave at me they use all their fingers thank you and good night
44:13they use all their fingers thank you and good night
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