- 19 hours ago
First broadcast 2nd April 2010.
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Rob Brydon
David Mitchell
Johnny Vegas
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Rob Brydon
David Mitchell
Johnny Vegas
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:03Good evening, good evening, good evening, and welcome to QI.
00:09Tonight, as Clato said, let no one untrained in geometry enter here,
00:13for our theme is geometry, and sitting around our conic section tonight,
00:17we have the shapely Johnny Vegas.
00:25The curvaceous Rob Brydon.
00:32The hyperbolic David Mitchell.
00:38And a square peg in a round hole, Alan Davis.
00:47So, let's hear your geometrical buzzers, and Rob goes...
00:53Bermuda Triangle
00:56Anything will disappear
00:58And Johnny goes...
01:01You're so square
01:03Biggie, I don't care
01:04Oh, David goes...
01:07Like a circle in a spiral
01:08Like a wheel within a wheel
01:11And Alan goes...
01:13The wheels on the bus go down, down, down
01:17Holding along
01:19Now, I thought I'd begin tonight with some fashion tips.
01:22Johnny, you're looking very, very svelte, if I may say so.
01:26Um, what's your secret?
01:28Well, it's a tidy neck
01:30A tidy neck?
01:31A tidy neck, and the buttonhole just left casual enough.
01:35Yeah
01:36So, if a lady should approach you, you know, she's going, there's room for change.
01:40But not too much.
01:43That's...
01:43Two buttons down.
01:45Part slag, part hero.
01:48Hey, do you want to have any thoughts as to why he might be looking, or might not be looking
01:52svelte?
01:52Is it to do with the direction of his stripes?
01:56It is to do with the direction of his stripes, Rob Brydon.
02:00It is. Look at the picture of an earth. It's accentuating my breasts.
02:04LAUGHTER
02:06On the left, that's Alexander Armstrong on the left.
02:09It does look a bit like him.
02:10It does, doesn't it, yeah.
02:11It does look like him.
02:12It's true, yes.
02:13It's what they do with fat people, they make them wear stripes, and you can tell how old they are.
02:17It's like cutting a tree in half.
02:19LAUGHTER
02:20But it's supposed to be that vertical stripes make you look slimmer, but they don't.
02:24You're right.
02:24That's the point.
02:26You're absolutely right.
02:28You're absolutely right.
02:28People...
02:28People, they should wear the... the horizontal ones.
02:31Yeah.
02:32Johnny is sporting.
02:33It's very interesting and surprising, because almost everybody thinks that vertical stripes
02:38make people look slimmer.
02:39In fact, in prisons, sometimes women have asked for vertical rather than horizontal stripes
02:44so that they look leaner, or they think they'll look leaner.
02:48But it turns out, research from a man called Dr. Peter Thompson of York University
02:52has discovered that the large majority think the one in the vertical stripe is larger
02:58than the one in the horizontal stripe, when they are the same size.
03:01It's a bit like when you're hot, the best way to cool down is not by drinking a cold drink.
03:07Rob Brydon.
03:08It's by going into an air-conditioned building.
03:12And then having a cold drink.
03:15Surely...
03:15Surely this shows, actually, that it makes no real difference at all.
03:20Because what this...
03:20we're determining whether wearing vertical or horizontal stripes makes you look thinner.
03:26Yeah.
03:26And you can't tell by looking.
03:28You have to do research.
03:30Yes.
03:30It's just so slight.
03:32Yes.
03:32You have to do research with hundreds and hundreds of people.
03:35Basically, people look as fat or thin as they are.
03:39Yeah, basically...
03:39I beg to differ.
03:43I have a friend who's quite short, and he likes to wear vertical stripes because they
03:48make him look taller.
03:51Only when he's not standing next to anyone.
03:55It's not going to make him look taller than a taller man.
03:59It's all relative.
04:00He'll just say, well, there's a normal-sized man next to an enormous man.
04:04And then you go, oh, thank God he's taking his striped shirt off.
04:07It's actually a tiny man next to an enormous man.
04:09I've missed your angry logic, David, I have to say.
04:13I think it just alternates, doesn't it?
04:15For ages you think, okay, vertical stripes make people look thinner.
04:19Then you say, oh, she's wearing vertical stripes, therefore she must be fatter than she looks.
04:22Therefore you start thinking, oh, she looks fatter because she's wearing vertical stripes.
04:25So suddenly horizontal stripes start making you look thinner because, oh, she must be thin,
04:28otherwise she'd never dare wear horizontal stripes.
04:30Then they go, oh, no, horizontal stripes make you look thinner.
04:33Then they go, oh, she must be fatter, she's wearing other stripes.
04:41And these are the kind of things that go through your mind when you see someone wearing stripes.
04:45But then what happens when you see someone walking up with polka dots and you're going,
04:49she must be nine miles long.
04:52The point is that contrary to popular belief, horizontal stripes are actually more slimming than vertical ones.
04:57And now while we're admiring fine lines, David, you may well know this because you're a bright chap.
05:02Not the others aren't.
05:05Why do columns...
05:06I'm going to feel terrible if I don't.
05:08Yeah, why do you?
05:08Why do columns around the Parthenon look straight?
05:13Because they are.
05:15You say, I don't think I know this, but I think I'm going to say something embarrassing.
05:20Go on.
05:20It gets wider, doesn't it?
05:23So that it looks straight, because it's further away at the top, so in order to stop it looking like
05:27it's tapering, they made it wider.
05:28This was the theory for a long time.
05:31It's a thing called entasis.
05:33That if a column is exactly straight, then from a distance it looks as if it bows inwards, it looks
05:37spindly.
05:39So the secret is to make it bows slightly outwards, so from a distance it looks elegant and straight.
05:44But it turns out this isn't what they did after all.
05:46And that Alan's very first answer, that he almost whispered, which is they look straight because they are straight.
05:52That's not a question.
05:54No, no.
05:55Why does this man not think?
05:57Because he is.
06:02That has taken me on a whole circle.
06:06A train of thought.
06:07I'm going, the reason it looks straight is because they are.
06:10And you're going, this is why I struggled in school.
06:14It's the cue of QI.
06:15If a train travels at 40 miles an hour and leaves at 9 o'clock and arrives in Glasgow at
06:2012 o'clock, how did it get there?
06:22And you're going, because it did.
06:28It's sort of that, it's the cue of...
06:29It's not sort of that, it's very confusing.
06:32It's the cue of QI.
06:34It is going around in a circle but with a little twiddly bit at the end.
06:36Why does that look straight?
06:39Because it's not.
06:41That would have been a question.
06:43It might have been.
06:44Why does that look straight?
06:47Because it is!
06:51Sometimes...
06:51Because it is!
06:54Sometimes things look...
06:56Yes!
06:57No!
06:57You shall be unhappy, Johnny!
07:00I'm not!
07:00I'm just confused at the start!
07:02Fine.
07:04Let me un-confuse you because the same man who discovered...
07:09I'll try!
07:10You do!
07:10You do, Johnny!
07:12No, no, seriously, listen.
07:13The same man, do you remember what his name was?
07:16Who discovered that hoops...
07:17Peter Thompson.
07:18Peter Thompson, very good.
07:20And he also discovered that the straight lines on the path...
07:23A straight line!
07:24A straight line!
07:24But, Johnny, you can take it up with him because he's here tonight!
07:27Ah!
07:28In the studio, Peter...
07:29Where are you, Peter Thompson?
07:30What's he wearing?
07:30He's wearing a straight moustache!
07:33Hello, Peter Thompson!
07:34Hello!
07:34You've upset Johnny, unfortunately, but...
07:37What's your point?
07:38Well, he's looking...
07:38Well, he's looking fantastically slim tonight because he's wearing horizontal stripes.
07:43And it is true...
07:44Horizontal...
07:44Well, I still have a heart attack!
07:46Well, thanks to stripes I'll be in denial!
07:49But you will...
07:50What do you have to wear to look not dead when you are?
07:55Why am I looking so good?
07:57Well, you're looking good because you're wearing horizontal stripes.
08:00They will make you look taller.
08:02Vertical stripes will make you look wider.
08:06Certainly.
08:07Which is against what everybody believes, isn't it?
08:09Yes, but someone has to do the science to show what is true.
08:13Now, if you're really fat, it's not going to make a lot of difference because it's not that big.
08:18Oh!
08:20You may have roused the beast within Johnny!
08:24I'll give you my theory!
08:27Peter Thompson, thank you very much indeed.
08:29Dr. Thompson, everybody.
08:31Excellent.
08:33There you are.
08:39Who was it, though?
08:40Who was it that first saw some pillars that looked straight and thought,
08:44oh, that must be because they bulge rather than that they are just straight?
08:49I think it does exist, this emphasis, but it happens not to on the Parthenon.
08:53There are other places where it does quite notably happen there,
08:57where from the right distance they look straight but are quite bowed up.
08:59And other people believe that they may be bowed up just for structural reasons
09:02and it helps them stand up more.
09:04Are you good on Greek, Doric and other such columns?
09:08I'm amazing, don't get me stuff!
09:10Do you?
09:10Would you like to see some Greek columns and identify them for me?
09:14Those are the three classic orders.
09:15I had these in a book in my loo and I've forgotten to memorise them.
09:20Oh.
09:20Any thoughts?
09:21Anyone know?
09:22Well, the right-hand one, they got slightly wrong, haven't they?
09:24It's a little bit slightly too far to the right.
09:27That is the way they...
09:28Yeah, it holds up.
09:29That's the Corinthian order.
09:30And it's the most decorated, but it starts on the left with the Doric.
09:33Doric.
09:34And then the middle is Ionic.
09:36There's one thing that's really missing.
09:37Do you know the one thing that is so common?
09:40The rest of the building.
09:41Well...
09:43Arches.
09:44Arches.
09:44They had so much for Greeks, but they never had an arch.
09:46And because they didn't have an arch, they therefore didn't have a vault or a dome.
09:49So there's nothing round in Greek architecture.
09:51No arches at all?
09:52No.
09:52It's all...
09:53The Romans must have found that hilarious.
09:56When they discovered it.
09:57When they invaded.
09:58What, you say your husband's a builder?
10:01When's he home?
10:02Because I've got some notes for them.
10:04What do the words mean?
10:06Doric.
10:06Yeah.
10:07It's a part of Greece.
10:08And Ionia was at the Ionian Sea.
10:10Oh, so they're different regions.
10:11The Gulf of Corinth.
10:12Yeah, they're in the middle of the regions.
10:14For an extra point, Stephen.
10:15Yes, go on.
10:16What makes these different to Christopher Wren's columns at the Guildhall in Windsor?
10:22Let me turn the tables on you, Stephen.
10:24No, no.
10:24There are a number of Christopher Wren fables about how his columns don't reach the ceiling.
10:30It's also said of his library at Trinity in Cambridge, the same thing.
10:33That they insisted on extra columns.
10:35Yeah.
10:36And the guides will always tell me this.
10:37And it probably is true.
10:38And he said, it doesn't need extra columns.
10:40Yeah.
10:40And they said, no, no, you've got extra columns, it'll fall down.
10:42So he put in the extra columns.
10:43But he left a kind of, like, gap to me about that thick.
10:46This is what the guide at Windsor told me.
10:50To prove that he could do it without them reaching them.
10:53My point is, Stephen, if you let me get it out, is that these do touch the ceiling.
10:58You're right.
10:59They do.
10:59Beautifully put and some points for you at once.
11:01And surely even with Christopher Wren's building some of the columns.
11:06Yeah.
11:06Yeah.
11:07We're thinking of David Copperfield.
11:10Yeah.
11:11He was a great architect.
11:14He did not invent the hover ceiling.
11:16No.
11:16That was David Blaine.
11:19And he just hovered like that.
11:22Very true.
11:23I've seen so many people who bought the council homes and put these up.
11:28Yeah.
11:28He's Collins.
11:29I drive past them every day and I've never questioned.
11:32No?
11:32The different styles, the different nuances.
11:34Yeah.
11:35It's rather wonderful.
11:36And there's a name for every single part.
11:38You know, even...
11:38What about the two lions on the gatepost?
11:41Yeah.
11:41Do you have lions on your gatepost?
11:43Geoff and Marge.
11:44Geoff and Marge.
11:46That answer was quick enough for me to believe you do have lions.
11:49Geoff and Marge.
11:50Very pleasing.
11:51Well, there you are.
11:52Yeah, the columns on the Parthenon look straight because they are straight, basically.
11:56Now, look at these two shapes.
11:58They have names.
11:59All right?
12:00Geoff.
12:00Yeah.
12:01Well, one is the Kiki and the other is the Booba.
12:05Tell me which is which.
12:07Booba's on the right, clearly.
12:08Booba's on the right.
12:09Would you agree with that?
12:10Oh, definitely Kiki.
12:11That's the spiky one.
12:12Kiki's the spiky one.
12:12I would say Kiki is the splodgy one and Booba is the spiky one.
12:16Yeah.
12:16Oh, would you?
12:17You'd say the other way round.
12:18And what would you say, Johnny?
12:20God, I hate to think.
12:21I would...
12:23I would say they should go back to their dating agency.
12:28And ask for the refund.
12:30Yes.
12:31Shall we ask the audience what they think?
12:32If you think Kiki's one on the left, put your hand up.
12:36Well, that's a huge majority.
12:37So you obviously think that Booba's on the right.
12:39Who thinks the Kiki may be the one on the right?
12:41Put your hands up.
12:42There's a few of you going along with Robert.
12:43Are you all Welsh?
12:45Well, interesting.
12:47There is no right or wrong answer.
12:49Wolfgang Kerler was an investigator.
12:51A pirate!
12:52A pirate.
12:53That's the word I was after.
12:54A pirate!
13:00I was...
13:02I wanted to say psychologist, I looked at you and all I could think of was psychiatrist.
13:08I don't know if it's the same in other languages, but in English, point sounds pointy, blob sounds blobby.
13:14What's the point?
13:14And the point is that it's true in all languages.
13:17That Kiki sound to anybody, whatever their culture, whatever their background, they would think that was the spiky one there,
13:23the one on the left, the blue one.
13:24Crack and slop.
13:24And a b-b-b thing they would think of as a blobby thing.
13:28Is it a form of onomatopoeia, Stephen?
13:29It kind of is a form of honour, as you rightly say, matter, as you pointed out, peers.
13:34Well done.
13:35That's right.
13:36Exactly what I would say.
13:37Yes, it is.
13:38And it seems to go deep within us in whatever our culture is.
13:40And there are other languages, for example, in Hwambisa, which is a South American language, 98% of people who
13:47didn't speak Hwambisa, when seeing the words chuntrykit and morts, thought that if one was a fish and one was
13:55a bird, that chuntrykit would be a bird and morts would be a fish.
13:58Flap, flap, flap, flap, flap.
13:59Somehow, yeah.
14:00There is a deep onomatopoeia, it seems, within.
14:01And yet, the Welsh word for carrot is moron.
14:06Is it?
14:08So there we go again, bucking the trend.
14:10I'd say, I'd say, as if moron was going to be a word for a food, I'd say it would
14:14be for something, you know, like, more like a moose, or a, you know, a pate, maybe.
14:18A potato, I would see a baked potato.
14:20Well, they're quite blunt, aren't they, carrots?
14:23Yes, but you...
14:23Moron is the Greek for blunt, which is why it means obtuse, blunt-witted.
14:27Oxy is sharp, moron is blunt, hence oxymoron being a...
14:31But carrot is right for carrot, because it's crunchy.
14:35Carrot.
14:36When you bite it, carrot.
14:38Moron, there's nothing moron-y, is there?
14:41Unless, unless you're being inappropriate with a carrot and going...
14:44Oh...
14:46So what about onion rings?
14:50Morish.
14:51Yeah.
14:52Exactly, but what real do they come on, then?
14:54So, well...
14:55Onion rings.
14:56No, no, let's not...
14:58It's not that every single word in every language is onomatopoeic, it's merely an example like that.
15:03They often are, though, aren't they?
15:04They often are, yeah.
15:04Desk.
15:05Yeah.
15:08Tin!
15:09Tin!
15:09Tin!
15:10Tin!
15:11Tin!
15:11Boo!
15:14Bing!
15:16This is how you teach a chimp to speak.
15:19Well, then, pay attention.
15:22Paper!
15:23Boo!
15:28Very mean, most unjustified.
15:31Yeah, and mother and father, in a lot of languages, the mother is the m, m towards you, and the
15:35father is the b, like a b, and da is the away from you.
15:38Well, speaking as a father, can I say that my parenting doesn't consist of that?
15:42No, no, it's the baby doing that.
15:44The baby's going, the mother is towards me, and the father is the one over there, the da.
15:48He's da.
15:48He's there.
15:49In a lot of languages.
15:51Well, yeah, alright.
15:52He's sometimes...
15:53Well, don't get cross with me!
15:54He's asking some absolutely ludicrous things, right?
15:58And you've sat there going, oh, with your northern charm.
16:01I'm not...
16:02I give you one theory, and you look at me like you're on arse.
16:07I was just, I can't answer...
16:09You've done this before on this show.
16:10I don't know.
16:11You really don't question something.
16:12Now I'm, you're my friend and my pet, Rob.
16:14I'm very sorry.
16:15Maybe I think you can take it more, and that John is a little more vulnerable.
16:18I don't know why I would think they're because of his big, soft side eyes.
16:22You see?
16:24My eyes are soft!
16:25Oh, they are, that's true.
16:26No, your eyes are keen!
16:28Mind yourself, yours are keen!
16:30Mine are not keen!
16:31You're looking for the weakness of the side!
16:33Oh, oh, oh, oh!
16:34I just...
16:35You only have the eyes of trust, you have the eyes of prostitution.
16:42Whoa!
16:44I tuned out, I thought I was watching the Mr. Men behind Alan's head.
16:49I've given them different names.
16:52Well...
16:53What names have you given them?
16:54Mr. Frost and Gonorrhea.
16:59He does look like Mr. Frost actually, doesn't he?
17:01Yeah, but he does not like Gonorrhea, but I...
17:04I've never seen Mr. Gonorrhea in the series.
17:07With Arthur Lowe's voice.
17:08Okay, well it could be a humbutton.
17:11I don't know, I just, I like the bright colours.
17:14Yes, yes.
17:15I like my eyes, and I like the fact you leave me alone when I go quiet.
17:18I do.
17:19Well done everybody there.
17:22Tarts and chimpanzees and all, after that display of topological trickery, perhaps we should get back to our books.
17:29So, can you tell me what the most successful textbook of all time is?
17:34Is it the one that teaches you what LOL means and LMAO?
17:38It probably is now, lolspeak.
17:41Yeah.
17:41No, what's our theme for the day?
17:44Geometry?
17:45Oh, it's the...
17:46Logarithms!
17:46Not logarithms, no.
17:48No, not logarithms.
17:52Do you want my eyes?
17:54Do you want my eyes?
17:56Stephen?
17:57Is it logarithms?
17:58No.
17:59It's not logarithms, it's a jolly good guess.
18:02Some sort of ancient geometrical textbook.
18:04Written probably by a Greek.
18:06Euclid.
18:08Euclid is the right answer, David Mitchell, actually.
18:10Euclid.
18:10Euclid's stoichia.
18:12Euclid's elements.
18:13And his propositions of Euclid are basically all about claims and the conical sections and all the forms of the
18:20circle and the square,
18:21the provable facts of geometry that are the basis of everything, really.
18:25All the physics that came afterwards, all the geometry.
18:27Essentially turned out and said, this is why all the buildings have been falling down.
18:31Well, there's an element to that, because engineering obviously owed a huge amount to it.
18:34Many mathematicians would believe his book is perhaps the most beautiful of all the mathematical books.
18:40We are looking at there, I think, one of the earliest editions.
18:43What does it say there?
18:44The most something, most awful, something philosopher.
18:47I can't let you read it.
18:48Yeah, I'm brilliant with Latin.
18:50No, it's written in English.
18:51It's written in English, the elements.
18:53LAUGHTER
18:59But the names, you're right, the names are written in Greek there.
19:03Yeah, that's what threw me.
19:05Yeah.
19:06Elizabeth's court magician John Dee, Queen Elizabeth I. Have you heard of John Dee?
19:11Yeah, he was a very extraordinary man who worked as a spy.
19:14Now, there are points here, if you can tell me the cipher he used as a spy.
19:17Did he use invisible ink?
19:18No, he had a particular cipher, his call sign.
19:21And a writer many, many, many years later, who was extremely learned in the ways of the world,
19:26despite being thought of just as a thriller writer, used it for his own spy.
19:30Ian Fleming.
19:31007.
19:32007.
19:33Exactly.
19:33It was John Dee's call sign.
19:35I sense points.
19:35You get points.
19:36In fact, you will have seven points.
19:38Seven points.
19:39Yeah.
19:40Very good.
19:40Excellent.
19:41I couldn't have 700 if you're backwards, that's too much.
19:43I'm not going to speak again.
19:45Yeah.
19:46And he was also one of the people responsible for bringing Euclid to the attention of the world.
19:51Although he was known as a magician, he was all kinds of different things.
19:54Was he an astrologer as well?
19:55He was an astrologer as well, absolutely right.
19:57Yeah.
19:57But interestingly, or quite interestingly, which is all we're after, it was a pop-up book,
20:03Euclid, when John Dee produced it.
20:05Little pop-up geometric shapes.
20:08Yeah.
20:08Yeah.
20:09Pop-up books were for adults, way back then.
20:12The thing is, when pop-up books, when you read normal books, you end up, like, putting
20:17them in front of you and just kicking them from behind because you think they're lazy.
20:30And then, as a 19-year-old, you explain the difference between an illustration and a pop-up.
20:35That difference is, for points?
20:37Well, if you kick the book hard enough, you break the spine and it's very hard to take it back
20:41to a second-hand bookshop.
20:44Most of the pages fall out.
20:45They would do this.
20:46You could do a pop-down book.
20:48That'd be like a good murder weapon.
20:50You could hold a pop-up book upside down.
20:52It might be really bad if you're paranoid.
20:54If you open a book and every time you turn the page, it goes,
20:57No!
21:01And what happens to the giant?
21:07Now, Euclid's Elements has been a mathematical bestseller for over 22 centuries.
21:12Now, let's get our noses out of our textbooks and into our tuck boxes.
21:15What do you call a left-handed lemon?
21:19A potato.
21:22Yeah, but you're thinking along the right lines.
21:24You're talking about molecules and their arrangement.
21:27You mean the opposite to a lemon?
21:30Yeah, exactly.
21:31The mirror image of its molecular...
21:33So there, an orange?
21:33Is the right answer.
21:35There's a lemon, obviously.
21:36Seven points?
21:37There's an orange, seven points.
21:39That's your number.
21:39Don't you know I'm good at catching?
21:41No, you can stop a roll.
21:44No, you can't.
21:45Fair enough.
21:46There's a lemon for you.
21:48There we are.
21:49Who else wants one?
21:50Oh, yeah, go on.
21:51Well done.
21:51Have a lemon.
21:53There you are.
21:54I'm alright, Steve.
21:58Did he make scissors for both?
22:04Or just...
22:06Just...
22:08Just a lemon.
22:10Just a lemon.
22:11Just a lemon cut out boys and girls together in a piece of paper and the orange is going,
22:15I'm rubbish, isn't it?
22:16You're only left-handed.
22:17Yeah, it just looks like a bunch of oranges falling over.
22:20It...
22:21It's...
22:22Along those lines, Johnny, yes.
22:24The arrangement of the aroma molecules is exactly the same, except a mirror image.
22:29And the result is as different a smell as the smell of a lemon to an orange.
22:32So, if you smell an orange from the wrong direction, it smells like a lemon?
22:36It doesn't quite work like that, because...
22:37Because this particular quality of chirality, as it's called, is present in our nose molecules
22:42as well.
22:43So, they...
22:44It hooks onto them and we recognise them in the same way.
22:47So, the molecules, as it were, dock with other molecules in a certain direction.
22:51Yeah, they kind of do.
22:52It's all very chemical, obviously, but it's interesting because all these chemicals that
22:57are discovered to be right-handed and left-handed, like glucose, only right-handed glucose can
23:01be metabolised by the body.
23:03And so, natural glucose in sugar, for example, is all right-handed.
23:07And all the left-handed ones are the diet ones, sucralose and that sort of thing,
23:10which are the ones that aren't metabolised and therefore you can eat as much as you like
23:13without gaining weight because they don't get metabolised by the body.
23:17So, there are useful sides to it, this kind of handedness of chemicals.
23:20You've got to go in and ask for right-handed fruit.
23:23Why are you left or right-handed?
23:25Which... which are you?
23:26I'm right-handed, but it's really interesting.
23:28Yeah.
23:28My... my friend thinks he's right-handed, but his wife thinks his handwriting is so bad
23:34because he's left-handed and lives in denial.
23:37Oh.
23:37Any left-handers?
23:39No, all right-handers.
23:40Do you know the proportion of right-handed people around the world?
23:43Not just in... as opposed to left-handed?
23:44Nine out of ten.
23:46Just about.
23:46It's a little less.
23:47They think it's between 70 and 90.
23:49It'll be far less when the Warcombs.
23:51With the what?
23:52The Morecombs?
23:53The Warcombs.
23:55What's a Warcombs?
23:55The left-handed and the right-handed.
23:58Warcombs.
23:59Not when the war.
24:00Oh, when the war comes, I'm sorry.
24:05I'm so sorry.
24:07I thought it was a family called the Morecombs.
24:09Morecombs.
24:11Surely one day the right-handed will rise up and crush the left-handed.
24:15They may do.
24:16Yeah, because there's no way I'm feasting on that.
24:19Fair point.
24:20I think.
24:21But yeah.
24:24So yes, is there a prevailing theory as to why right-handedness is the most common?
24:28Well, isn't it sides of the brain and, you know, different sides do different things and you look off to
24:33the right when you make another lie.
24:34You look to the left if you're recalling something real.
24:37Yeah.
24:38I would imagine it's to do with that and how straight the columns are within your brain and whether or
24:43not they actually touch the roof of your head.
24:46The molecules that make oranges smell, orangey and lemons smell.
24:51Lemony are the same, just mirror images.
24:53So a left-handed lemon in sense is an orange.
24:54Perhaps we should examine an easier shape.
24:56How many cricket pitches are there in Kansas?
24:59One big one.
25:02Well, certainly it's a big square shape but not a cricket pitch shape, Kansas.
25:07It's to do with the measurement of corn, isn't it?
25:09It's to do with the measurement.
25:10It's nothing to do with the measurement of corn.
25:11No, you're on exactly the right lines.
25:14Americans, how do they measure?
25:16Do they use the metric system or do they use a version of our imperial system?
25:19They use yards and feet and miles.
25:22Yes, and the length of a cricket pitch, which is?
25:2422 yards.
25:2522 yards and it's called a chain.
25:27Okay.
25:28And when America was being measured out, they used these ancient English measurements.
25:34A chain, as I say, is 22 yards.
25:36There are ten chains to a...
25:38A word that's still used in sport.
25:41Furlong.
25:41A furlong.
25:42Brilliant.
25:42Oh, points.
25:43Seven points.
25:44Eighty chains to a...
25:46Mile.
25:47Mile, yes.
25:48Excellent.
25:49And an acre is ten square chains.
25:52That's where an acre is derived.
25:54Okay.
25:55And this man, Gunter, Gunter's chain, he actually had a chain that he used like that to measure out the
26:01land.
26:01So the whole of the northern mid-western states were initially into blocks of 24 miles by 24.
26:08Within that, some divided into 20 chains by 20 chains, known as 40s, because that would be 40 acres.
26:13You may remember in the Grapes of Roth, the Steinbeck novel, that the farmstead is the smallest type of farm,
26:18which is known as a 40.
26:20I know a thing about the 40.
26:22Oh, yes.
26:22The 40 acres.
26:24Did they not, when they had the emancipation of the slaves, were they not each entitled to a 40?
26:29Yes.
26:29That was indeed.
26:30And a mule, which is why Spike Lee called his...
26:32Yes.
26:33Company 40 acres and a mule.
26:34That's the thing I know about the 40.
26:36Seven points again.
26:38It's just...
26:38The seven times table.
26:42Isn't it?
26:43And, um...
26:45And is the country still divided by the William Nelson line?
26:48You can see them there.
26:49This is from the air.
26:50And because Kansas, which is one of the most rectangular shapes of any of the states, almost perfectly so, you
26:56can actually calculate how many it is.
26:58And it's 3,474,386,388 cricket pitches would fit in there, in fact.
27:06That's quite different to the answer I had in mind.
27:08Is it?
27:09How about...
27:10You can save it by telling me the...
27:12What's the capital of Kansas?
27:13What city is the capital of Kansas?
27:15No, that's another state.
27:16I need a...
27:17The name of that.
27:18It's...
27:19Kansas City.
27:20Oh!
27:21It's not...
27:22Oh!
27:22All those sevens, you have to...
27:25Squirrels all your sevens away.
27:27It's Topeka, if that's the name.
27:29Topeka, Kansas?
27:29I've never even heard of Topeka.
27:31Topeka, Kansas?
27:32Well, um...
27:33Topeka Mockingbird?
27:34Topeka Mockingbird.
27:39Little gurgle.
27:40But actually, surprisingly, in terms of real cricket pitches, of actually, for playing cricket
27:45on, there are seven that we can find in Kansas.
27:47There's seven?
27:48Seven, which is more than you might expect.
27:49But that's...
27:50Not in a space of that size.
27:51That's hardly any.
27:52Not really.
27:52For America...
27:53They've got room for more than three billion more.
27:56Yeah, we know they've got room for more, but...
27:57Wow.
27:58There you are.
27:58Is that you or Mike Gatting?
28:00I can't...
28:01There you are.
28:02Of course, if you talk about that area, I mean, Elvis would be one of the most famous citizens.
28:07Now, where was Elvis born?
28:08Does anybody know that?
28:09Tupelo.
28:10Tupelo, Mississippi.
28:12Yeah.
28:12Of course, then he moved to Memphis in a different state, Tennessee.
28:16Yeah.
28:16And that was where he became very, very famous and started off in 1955 with That's Alright Mama.
28:22He was with the Sun Records label at that point in Memphis.
28:25Then he signed with RCA Victor Records in New York.
28:29Now, with them, of course, he did Heartbreak Hotel right the way through the movie years.
28:34He turned his back on Sam Phillips and that was...
28:35Well, no, because Sam came to his opening 19 Vegas in 1969.
28:39And Elvis can be heard saying, Sam, this one is for you.
28:41And I think Sam, with the greatest respect to him, and it's more my area than yours,
28:45um, is not something I ever thought I'd get a chance to say.
28:49Um, he, he then went on until his untimely death in 1977.
28:54Is this...
28:55I haven't said anything for a while.
28:56Well, yeah, I haven't said anything for a while.
28:59August 16th, 1977.
29:03It's a slight radiant, too, in the middle of the night.
29:06Yeah.
29:08He has come out with such bilge!
29:12And just sit there like we're in Rain Man, loving it!
29:17I've come out with something factual!
29:19I guess there are a lot of Elvis fans out there who would have been loving that!
29:23Why are they all catching?
29:25Why is nobody actually playing in the middle?
29:27Why is nobody explaining cricket to them?
29:28They are, but they're behind that bloke!
29:32I assume he's waiting to go in.
29:34Nothing to see!
29:36Anyway, after that bombshell, and I do love you, Rob,
29:40and I want you to know that.
29:41I really, really, really do.
29:42Yeah, but don't say it while you're reading something else.
29:44I like...
29:44No, it's...
29:48That's what my dad always did on my birthday.
29:50Of course I love you.
29:51I'm reading it here.
29:52It's what your mother wrote.
29:54Tell me...
29:55Tell me the oldest international sporting fixture on Earth.
29:59England v Australia at cricket.
30:00No.
30:01It is cricket, though.
30:02England v Scotland.
30:03No, it's America v Canada at cricket.
30:06But we're going to take a bird's eye view now.
30:08What's the best place to go to look into the future?
30:12If you want to look into the future, where should you go?
30:14A sci-fi convention.
30:16A sci-fi convention?
30:17Yeah.
30:18Yeah.
30:18Right, okay.
30:19Let's see...
30:20Maybe.
30:21Any other...
30:22When you see the stars and the sun and all that light, that's old light.
30:26I was looking into the past, yeah.
30:27So do you have to go past that?
30:29You look backwards because history teaches us the future.
30:34Because from history, we learn patterns.
30:38And as Dr. Phil says time and time again, the greatest indicator of future behaviour is past behaviour.
30:46Hmm.
30:46When are you going to realise he's not interested?
30:49I'm sure.
30:50I don't know.
30:51He isn't.
30:54He's very interested.
30:55He's very interested in that.
30:56That's a very, very good answer.
30:58Unlike when you speak, he's not frightened.
31:03There is, just to return briefly, just to pull the reins in, if I may, a little.
31:07There is, of course, a very good answer.
31:09But there is a place where physically you can, as it were, look into the future.
31:12Of course you're not literally looking into the future.
31:14Is it, like, by the international dateline?
31:16The international dateline, exactly.
31:19Does it have the magic hill where you're going up even though you...
31:21Oh, no, it's not that.
31:23No, it's not that.
31:23No, this is literally the dateline.
31:25See, that was stupid.
31:26No, it wasn't.
31:27He entertained me.
31:27No, it wasn't stupid.
31:29I knew that was wrong.
31:30And I'm like, no, of course it's not, Johnny.
31:32But with you, he just don't like you.
31:33And this...
31:35This divides the...
31:36Thanks, Stephen.
31:38Oh, come on.
31:39So that if you're on...
31:40Well, looking at it, we'd say the left-hand side of that red line, right, is in time ahead
31:47of the right-hand side.
31:48So if you were to fly from Los Angeles, in America, on the coast there, to Sydney, Australia,
31:53you would lose a day, as I did, in fact, just a few months ago.
31:56If I stood perfectly on that line...
31:58Hmm.
31:59You'd drown.
32:00Unless you're safe.
32:05Unless you're still on the very spot.
32:08If I stood on that line...
32:09Yeah.
32:10...and there's an accident...
32:11Look, you'd jump over the line, and stop yourself from doing it.
32:28Yeah.
32:58No, obviously, it can't literally do that.
32:59You're a 60-year-old man.
33:00What did he achieve?
33:00Nothing.
33:01You'd have a lot of airlines.
33:03Would you struggle to hold down a job?
33:06Yes.
33:07Yeah, you would.
33:08In terms of a pension.
33:09But you might be able to do it if you lived on the Diomede Islands, the lesser and the
33:13greater Diomede, which are up there at the very top.
33:15What's that area of water called between Russia and...
33:17Bering Strait.
33:17The Bering Strait.
33:19Exactly.
33:19And we can zoom in there, and you can see there's the international date line, and there
33:23is big Diomede and small Diomede, the greater and the lesser Diomede.
33:27All right.
33:27So if you were stood with your child, and he had a pet rabbit, and it died...
33:31Right.
33:32...could you jump over that timeline with the rabbit?
33:36It would come back to life, still be very ill and bad.
33:39And then jump back with it.
33:39Oh.
33:41I'm going to ask you what your opinion is.
33:42What do you think?
33:45I think, me personally, but I'm selfish, what I would do, I'd get a jet ski and stay
33:52on the line and go around the world.
33:54Right.
33:54Yes.
33:55And stay at my perfect weight and this age for the rest of my life.
34:00And I would just go around the world continually following that line, shouting advice and
34:05being mistaken for God.
34:07LAUGHTER
34:08And if you did follow the line all the way over the pole, where would you end up?
34:13So the line doesn't go all the way around?
34:15Well, of course, yes it does.
34:16The other side of the pole...
34:18You'd end up in Greenwich, eventually.
34:19Yeah, it's the Greenwich Meridian on that side.
34:21In the meantime, people would go, he's not going to be certain.
34:23No.
34:25The point is, the line is arbitrary.
34:27The line is...
34:27Fill your boots.
34:28We decided to draw lines.
34:30Somewhere we had to, you know, divide the world up for maps and for navigation.
34:35How did we do that?
34:36And lines of longitude and like...
34:36Well, we decided that where the naval base...
34:39We didn't.
34:39Yes, we did.
34:40Literally in Britain we did.
34:40Yeah, but we didn't.
34:41No, no, our culture did some hundred years ago.
34:44We nominated Greenwich to be a line.
34:47So why can't...
34:47When we discovered the earth was round and we discovered how these things would best be
34:51parceled out, we said, well, we've got to have, let's have a Meridian line about which
34:55the rest will go and we decided to put it through Greenwich where the naval colleges were.
34:59So a line is straight because it's straight, but I can't be got on a jet ski.
35:02That's about right.
35:04That seems to be the sum of today's lesson.
35:05I wouldn't be surprised now if my parents came in and had a quiet word with you and asked if
35:09Johnny could be taken to another class because they feel Rod is flurring.
35:19That's exceptionally well expressed.
35:23But hang on then, the international dateline is wiggly.
35:26Yes.
35:26The Greenwich Meridian isn't.
35:27No, you're right.
35:28It passes round territories and island groups for various reasons.
35:31So basically it's two houses on the same street aren't on two different days.
35:35Well, in fact it tries to avoid going through land as part of the...
35:37It only goes through water.
35:38The closest it gets is there.
35:40There it's...
35:40Ooh, there it's whittles.
35:41Do small Diomedes look at Big Diomedes and watch people get all the faster?
35:45Yes, exactly.
35:45You can look.
35:46So if you're standing on Big Diomedes, you are looking at the past.
35:50If you stand at Little One, you're looking...
35:52So it's a Friday and you're on Big Diomedes, you see them on Thursday.
35:56And you're already drunk.
35:58And vice versa.
35:58Yeah, you're already hung over.
36:01Well, I think we're...
36:02Are you ready to move on?
36:03Yes.
36:04Good.
36:05So the best place to see into tomorrow is...
36:06I'm tired of being God.
36:08Oh, bless.
36:09The best place to see into tomorrow is the Diomedes Islands, which are on the opposite
36:13sides of the international dateline.
36:15It's a paradox, but now try this one.
36:17Where does the extra square in this diagram come from?
36:20Those two are the same size, aren't they?
36:22And they're all made up of elements that are the same size.
36:24You can actually see...
36:25Can you see there's a white square there of bits missing?
36:27Oh, yeah.
36:28How can that be?
36:30Because...
36:30Because some of the triangles...
36:32Have a look at it actually happening.
36:35Because whoop, that one goes there, that one goes there, that goes there.
36:38Whoa, like so, like so, like so.
36:43So now there's more space in there.
36:44Yeah.
36:45And that can't be possible.
36:47Can't you?
36:47And yet my eyes tell me it is.
36:50Yes.
36:50It's not even longer.
36:52No.
36:53It's the same, isn't it?
36:54There it is.
36:55It is a cheat.
36:57That's witchcraft.
36:58Yeah, it is.
36:59It is rather, isn't it?
37:00It's funny, I'll be rather appropriate.
37:01It was a magician who discovered this.
37:03It's five blocks high.
37:05The same number of blocks long by the look of it.
37:07It's a very small, subtle cheat.
37:10The hypotenuse in the top one and in the bottom one seems to be the same.
37:13But they are curved, they're not straight.
37:15The red triangle has a ratio of five to two, the blue triangle has a ratio of eight to three.
37:19So the two triangles are not similar.
37:22So it's going like that and like that.
37:24Yeah, exactly.
37:24It's a bigger area.
37:26Exactly.
37:26One of them has a slightly dip line, the other has a slightly up line.
37:29The eye assumes they're straight and it's puzzled by that gap.
37:33Anyway, we thought you'd like that.
37:35It's quite interesting, isn't it?
37:36It's going like that?
37:37Yeah.
37:38Yeah.
37:38So it's Curry's Paradox.
37:40It's simply a trick.
37:41The gap appears because the hypotenuse is imperceptibly bent.
37:45All of them...
37:45Curry's Paradox.
37:47Yeah, it's nice there, isn't it?
37:48Should you buy the insurance?
37:52Or just risk it.
37:55All of which brings us squarely up against our old friend, general ignorance, so fingers on buzzers if you would.
38:00What's the best place to punch a shark?
38:04In a pub.
38:07In a pub after loads of pork scratchings when he's really dehydrated.
38:12And then you look really hard and people who aren't sharks go, don't want to mess with him.
38:20In the eye?
38:21In the eye is the right answer, yes.
38:23Yeah.
38:23A lot of people, for some reason, seem to think the nose, they may be confusing with dogs.
38:27But the eye is the best place.
38:28Or the gill.
38:29The eye of the gill.
38:30It so happens that more people in the world are bitten by New Yorkers every year than they are by
38:34sharks.
38:36But not in the water, though.
38:37I think, though, you have to take into account the relative seriousness of that event.
38:41Well, no, actually.
38:4481% of victims attacked and bitten by sharks suffered minor injuries.
38:48Okay, how many New Yorkers a year bite someone's leg off?
38:53I don't know, but they may well cause rabies and other hideous diseases.
38:56Ah, well.
38:57And certainly more people are killed in America by lavatory accidents than sharks.
39:01But what saddens me is 120 million sharks every year are killed by us human beings.
39:07For their fins?
39:08Just for their bloody fins.
39:10Just for what, sorry?
39:11And it's fins.
39:12Often the rest of the body is thrown in the water.
39:14It's a tasteless thing, a shark fin, there's no taste of anything.
39:17A chicken stock has to be added to it to give it flavour.
39:19But I hate sharks.
39:21Well, why would you?
39:22They're beautiful and extraordinary.
39:24They don't harm anybody.
39:25What, because you find them ugly?
39:27Well, I think they're scary.
39:28They're incredibly scary.
39:30Every, every cell in my body, when I see that, says, it is the enemy.
39:36They've got far more reason to be scared of a human than a human has as well.
39:39The majority of mammals see human beings in exactly...
39:41Ah, I would say they would.
39:42Look at the miracle of their teeth.
39:44That's extraordinary.
39:45They have rows of teeth.
39:46No, no, listen.
39:47Their teeth go backwards.
39:49And they bite, and then they fall out, and the next one literally comes forward.
39:52Like they've got a conveyor belt of rows of teeth going all the way back in there.
39:56More impressive than that, Stephen, is how she's managed to do her lipstick underwater.
40:02It is right, isn't it?
40:03Very pretty and charming.
40:05Now your talk of razor-sharp teeth on a conveyor belt is making them sound quite sweet.
40:11So, anyway, a shark's nose is a shade too close to its mouth to go jabbing around there,
40:15so your best bet is to go for the gills or the eyes.
40:17How many legs does an octopus have?
40:20Oh, I mean...
40:23The clue is in octo.
40:25Does it vary, depending on the breed?
40:27Two legs is the right answer.
40:30I saw one in panto.
40:31Yay!
40:35That's to say, when octopuses move around on the bottom of the ocean,
40:39they use two of their tentacles for a kind of ambulatory gait,
40:43as you can see behind there,
40:44and the other four they use for holding food and so on.
40:46So they could be said to have two legs and six arms.
40:49How much of the moon can you see from the earth?
40:57Wow.
41:00You can see one side of it.
41:03Yes.
41:04There is this strange thing called libration,
41:07which is like vibration beginning with an L.
41:09It's a thing that was noted by quite a few of the early astronomers, which is...
41:14Can I say, sorry Stephen, but if that's an acceptable way of defining a word...
41:19What?
41:20Libration.
41:20It's like vibration but beginning with an L.
41:24Just so that you can picture it in your heads, is that bad?
41:26I was with you already, just with libration.
41:28Well, I thought you might have heard it as libation or something like that, that's all.
41:32What does it mean?
41:34Well, I was about to tell you and then somebody came and said...
41:39What does it mean?
41:40No, I'll tell you.
41:40You get this kind of jiggling effect.
41:42Basically what it comes down to is you can see about 59% of the surface...
41:46At one time?
41:47From earth.
41:48Obviously when it's a new moon or whatever, then you see it's a lot less,
41:50but you can see 59% of the surface rather than just 50, that's all.
41:54And that cosmic wobble brings us to the end of another QI show.
41:59So it's time to check the form and see what sort of scores we're dealing with.
42:03My word, it's absolutely fascinating.
42:05It couldn't be fascinatinger.
42:08We have a tie, would you believe it, for third place.
42:12Rob and Johnny on plus two.
42:21Well, in second place, of course, with four points, is David Mitchell.
42:30So you've got a feeling this is divisible by seven and it's 21 points for Alan Davis.
42:36Hello!
42:43And that's all from this geometrical edition of QI.
42:47So it's goodnight from Johnny, Rob, David, Alan and me.
42:50Goodnight.
42:50Good night.
42:51Thank you very much.
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