- 21 minutes ago
First broadcast 21st October 2011.
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Sue Perkins
Ross Noble
Brian Cox
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Sue Perkins
Ross Noble
Brian Cox
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00CHEERING
00:05And welcome to QI where tonight's show is completely and utterly incomprehensible
00:13Venturing into the unknown with me tonight are, what's-his-name?
00:21And, oh, you know...
00:31And, oh, wait, wait, no, don't tell me.
00:39And finally, no, I've never seen him before in my life.
00:51Our buzzers tonight are no less perplexing than our questions.
00:55Sue goes,
00:56Who did you, Dada?
01:00There were seven types of wrong just there.
01:02Brian goes...
01:06Or do the Roscoe's...
01:13Alan goes...
01:14Plasma.
01:14Close eyes, dreadingly, and I'll be on a square mile.
01:17I'm in a dirty old bag.
01:21Is that your internal dialogue?
01:23I think so.
01:24Now they've got that.
01:26Now, don't forget, in this series, we have the Nobody Knows Joker.
01:31Nobody Knows.
01:32There are some questions to which no one knows the answer, and if you think the question
01:36I ask has no known authoritative answer, then play your Nobody Knows Joker and you'll get
01:42extra points.
01:42Now, let's start with something that's not even in the same language.
01:47Listen to this, and tell me what it means.
01:53Oh, that's a rodent.
01:56Yeah, that's...
01:56It's a rodent.
01:57It's good.
01:58Can you narrow it down?
01:59Is that the squeaky door to his little rodent house?
02:01No.
02:02He's off keepers of oil.
02:03The astonishing thing is we do know what that means, in fact.
02:06I can vouch for this.
02:08There are people who study this.
02:09My director on one of my documentaries got a PhD from Oxford studying frog communication.
02:16And he sat there for three years.
02:17He was a professor of French.
02:18Yeah.
02:19Hey, no.
02:20Sorry.
02:21He sat there for three years in the outback somewhere in Australia and he discerned about
02:27three words.
02:28Which I think were...
02:29Which was rivet.
02:31Yeah.
02:32But, you know, you are absolutely right, Brian, of course.
02:34There are zoologists who spend their life trying to understand communications of the various
02:39species.
02:39Do you know what this species is?
02:41The gopher.
02:42It is a gopher.
02:43A prairie dog.
02:44A prairie dog.
02:45A prairie dog.
02:45A prairie dog.
02:45It's also known as a ground squirrel.
02:47It's a type of squirrel.
02:49Isn't ground squirrel a condiment?
03:00I'll tell you what, he's only making that face because he's got Philip Schofield's
03:04hand up his bone.
03:06Oh, that takes me back a bit.
03:09Is that what the squeaking noise is, is it?
03:12No, when I say that takes me back, I don't mean there was a time.
03:20It's all gone wrong.
03:24Anyway, there is a scientist, Professor Kon Slobobchikov of Northern Arizona University,
03:29who spent 30 years studying the language of these prairie dogs.
03:34Do they warn one another of predators?
03:37Yes.
03:38Is that one of his words?
03:39He's used computer analysis and they are able to distinguish between different types of
03:43predator.
03:44Humans, badgers, various other animals.
03:47Not only that, different geometric shapes, right?
03:51And they have a different sound.
03:53Different coloured shirts that humans are wearing.
03:56Badger.
03:56Badger.
03:56Badger.
03:56Human.
03:57Human.
03:57Human.
03:58Human.
03:59Human.
03:59Human.
04:00Human.
04:02Human.
04:02Human.
04:02Human.
04:03Human.
04:03Human.
04:04Human.
04:04Wearing a yellow shirt.
04:08I know that sounds almost inconceivable.
04:10Well, it is.
04:11But what's interesting is they can't distinguish between different genders of human, but they
04:15can in different height.
04:16So, if a tall human approaches in a yellow shirt, the leader who's on the lookout will make
04:21a series of squeaks.
04:22And under computer analysis, you can differentiate between a tall human approaching in a red shirt,
04:29and a short human in a red shirt, and a tall human in a yellow shirt, and a short one,
04:34and
04:34so on.
04:35Apparently, if a transvestite in tartan approaches, they explode.
04:38Yes.
04:39LAUGHTER
04:41Here's a similar clip, but translated into English.
04:46Alan!
04:47Alan!
04:48Alan!
04:48Alan!
04:50Alan!
04:51Alan!
04:52Alan!
04:54Alan!
04:57Alan!
04:58Oh, it's not Alan.
04:59That's Steve.
05:01Steve!
05:02Steve!
05:02Steve!
05:03Steve!
05:05Steve!
05:05Steve!
05:06Steve!
05:06Steve!
05:07Steve!
05:08What's up forever, can't we?
05:09I don't know.
05:10No serious.
05:17Now it's time for some interplanetary incomprehension.
05:22What did the Pope's librarian say when he first saw the rings around the planet Saturn?
05:31They initially thought the planet had ears.
05:35Ah, yes.
05:35That was Galileo.
05:36I don't think he actually thought it had ears, because Galileo was a genius.
05:40No, he thought like a jug.
05:42Yeah.
05:42He is in the sense of a jug ears, wasn't it?
05:44No, that's Galileo, who was sensible.
05:46They are remarkable.
05:46I'm talking about the librarian of the Pope.
05:49Do you know...
05:50LAUGHTER
05:51He genuinely believed that it was possible that after Christ's ascension into heaven,
05:57the rings of Saturn were where he put his foreskin.
06:02Ah, yes.
06:03Oh, no.
06:04Now you may think, oh, I'm trying to mock the church.
06:07This is all nonsense.
06:08But Christ, of course, was a Jewish boy, and like all Jewish boys, on the eighth day of his birth,
06:13he was circumcised.
06:13They were 50,000 miles across.
06:16Imagine the size.
06:18LAUGHTER
06:18They weren't aware of that.
06:19And your parents are having this massive foreskin on.
06:22I've got a new respect for Jesus.
06:23That's some girl.
06:25Yeah.
06:25His name was Leo Alatius, and his essay was called, De Priputio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Diatriba.
06:33A diatribe, a discussion concerning the prepuce foreskin of our Lord Jesus Christ.
06:38This is how to interest teenagers in astronomy.
06:42LAUGHTER
06:42This is how, this is how, this is how I've created I've been missing.
06:45Is it out there as a relic?
06:47Well, like all the relics, there are 18 places who claim to have the one true holy foreskin of Christ
06:54yesterday.
06:55Catherine of Siena was one of the weirder of the saints.
06:59She, she believed that Christ gave her his foreskin as a wedding ring in their mystical marriage.
07:09After her death, her hand was cut off and became a relic with its invisible foreskin on it as a
07:15ring.
07:16She was an extreme anorexic, a peculiar woman.
07:19She also actively sought out degrading experiences.
07:22She once drank a cup full of cancerous pus from a woman who had abused her.
07:29So, naturally, she was...
07:29I actually appeared on Mock the Week.
07:39But, now, more importantly, more significantly, how were the rings around Saturn actually formed?
07:47I'm going to play the card there.
07:50You are right!
07:52You're a true scientist.
07:53The fact is, nobody does really know, do they?
07:56There are two sort of major...
07:59Well done.
08:01Well done.
08:09There's a Socratic acceptance of the limits of one's own knowledge and there's ignorance.
08:14I'm not saying which is which.
08:17No, no, quite right.
08:19There are two major theories.
08:21I think there are two major theories.
08:23Is that right?
08:23Yeah, it's thought there could be a moon that was either disrupted, so something hit it and fragmented it.
08:29Yeah.
08:30Although they are almost pure water ice, which, come to think of it now, sat here, makes the moon theory
08:36a bit unlikely, doesn't it?
08:38Because moons are made of rock.
08:39Yeah, exactly.
08:41So actually...
08:41So the other theory would be that it would be something to do with the formation of the planet itself.
08:45Yeah.
08:45That something spun off it in some way and then achieved a stable orbit around and then formed these...
08:52Yeah.
08:52And they don't coalesce together.
08:54They're held.
08:55The structures are held by the other moons.
08:57There are over 60 moons of Saturn.
08:58Are they part of the rings or entirely separate from the rings?
09:00Some of them are inside.
09:01Small moons called shepherd moons, which go around and you get rings in between those moons.
09:07And then it's got moons outside the rings, which affect the structure of the rings.
09:11So they orbit outside and affect it.
09:13So it's a very complex...
09:15Life-carrying moons?
09:16Well, there's a moon called Enceladus, which is about as big as Britain.
09:19It's a very small moon, but it has fountains of ice rising up out of the surface.
09:24And it's thought that means that there may well be liquid water beneath the surface.
09:27So pockets of liquid water.
09:28Everywhere on Earth that you find water, you find life.
09:31Of all these moons, like this is the one thing I wanted to ask you.
09:35Of all these moons, which one's most likely to be the home to Ewoks?
09:41Would be Titan.
09:45Titan, yeah.
09:45Has got a thicker atmosphere than the Earth.
09:47Oh.
09:48So you'd need to be furry.
09:53Good.
09:54Aren't you, sir?
10:02We just have to destroy the one that has Jar Jar Binks on it, though.
10:06Very important when you're learning to study to know which notes to take, not just to take any of them.
10:11Exactly.
10:12I saw that.
10:12Intelligence at work.
10:14Now, while we're up in space, how do you imagine spacemen follow penguins about?
10:22Why would they want to?
10:24How would they do it?
10:24To track, well, is it supposed to track colonies?
10:26Yes, you're absolutely right.
10:28And they used to try and use little bands around their flippers.
10:31But they found that actually, unfortunately, there was a 44% increase in mortality amongst penguins that had these things
10:37attached.
10:37So they thought, we've got to find a way of observing penguin populations.
10:41And they found they could do it through space.
10:43But what's interesting is the activity of the penguin that is most revealing is...
10:49Why is it they're dropping?
10:50It's how they poo.
10:51They poo a German scientist from Bremen.
10:55How do they poo?
10:55Straight up.
10:57Into the atmosphere.
10:59Quite the reverse.
10:59They wandered out the way.
11:00He discovered they squeeze four times harder than a human.
11:04They fire it.
11:04Yeah, they do.
11:06It's a bit like tooth pierced.
11:07And when you get lots of them together, they spell out, piss off, pierce man.
11:13They do, it's a boof.
11:14It's a streak.
11:16They leave a streak of faeces behind.
11:17So a spatter gun of guano that's visible from...
11:21Like that.
11:22Oh, no.
11:22Don't tell me it's sat in the middle of it.
11:25Well, no, it's not.
11:26That's the point.
11:26It squirted it out.
11:2830 centimetres away from its body, it goes.
11:30Somebody took that photo.
11:31But they've still got to walk through it.
11:33Surely they should just squirt it out the side.
11:36Sent over.
11:37That's like painting yourself into a corner, isn't it?
11:39Yeah.
11:40Actually, that just looks like somebody's just...
11:43It just looks like somebody's just run over that one in a landfill.
11:47Someone's in a teller, up in space,
11:50looking down for emperor penguin poo.
11:53No, they're looking for how they're flocking together,
11:56how they're living, and through an examination of their faeces,
11:59which are very clearly visible because of the trails and the streaks
12:02they leave behind and the colours of them,
12:04they're able to predict population rises and falls.
12:07I think it's rather wonderful.
12:08I think it's a fantastic way of being able to observe animals
12:10without interfering with them, without them even knowing they're being watched,
12:13and being able to gauge their diets and the health of their system.
12:16Now then, still in space, what's the main use for the second commonest gas in the universe?
12:24Oh, er, second commonest.
12:26Yes, what might be the second most abundant gas in the universe?
12:29Hydrogen.
12:30Is it hydrogen?
12:30Hydrogen, I think, is the most common.
12:32I believe is the most abundant in the universe.
12:34It also...
12:34Natrogen.
12:35No.
12:35Helium.
12:36Helium is the right answer.
12:37Helium filling balloons!
12:38I was going to say filling balloons!
12:40Squeaky voices!
12:41Ah, filling balloons is not the reason...
12:43Squeaky voices!
12:43Squeaky voices!
12:44Squeaky voices!
12:45Yeah, no.
12:45The reason is...
12:46What?
12:48The question is...
12:51The point is, there is a shortage on Earth, not in the universe, of helium.
12:56The demand for it has gone up in the last 10, 15 years.
12:59And it's not...
13:00It's because balloons are getting bigger.
13:00Not because party entertainment has become a bigger thing.
13:04It is actually for something else.
13:06I mean, we use it for refrigeration.
13:09Refrigeration?
13:10And there's a diagnostic device, an extremely expensive but highly effective diagnostic device,
13:15that needs cooling.
13:16Oh, the MRI.
13:16MRI is the right answer.
13:18The superconducting, you know, the coils of these...
13:21And they have to be that heavy, otherwise they just float off.
13:25That's it.
13:26Nightmare.
13:26They came from particle physics technology, which is one of the interesting things,
13:30because you often get criticised because exploring the universe is not seen as a useful thing to do.
13:36Yeah.
13:36For some reason in our society.
13:38But actually, the offshoots are completely unpredictable.
13:40And one of the offshoots of exploring particle physics, the world of the atoms, quantum mechanics,
13:45was the MRI scanner.
13:46And in fact, we use helium to cool down the LHC.
13:49Oh, do you?
13:49So the Large Hadron Collider, 27 kilometers in circumference.
13:52What was unfortunately misprinted is the Large Hardon Collider.
13:56My spell check, it does that. Large Hardon Collider.
14:02It runs at minus 271 degrees, so 1.9 degrees above absolute zero.
14:09And that's because you need these magnets, the superconducting magnets that you mentioned,
14:13that are in MRI scanners.
14:17Yes.
14:17So you can put a big current through it and have a massive magnetic field.
14:20But helium is the only substance that is liquid, that is temperature.
14:25And our information is, and I don't know what you guys at CERN have, is that it's perfectly possible
14:29that on Earth we will run out of helium by 2035.
14:32Yeah.
14:33Which is not that far away.
14:34So are we going to make funny voices then?
14:35Exactly.
14:36And with the collider there, with all those magnets in a circle underground, on the hills
14:42and everything, those Swiss cowbells on the cows, when you turn it on, do they all run
14:47in a big circle?
14:50Getting dragged around.
14:51We've got 99.99999% the speed of light around the, so they go around 27 kilometers
14:5711,000 times a second, and the cows would weigh if we did that 7,000 times more than they
15:01do when they stood still.
15:03Wow!
15:07It's giving me an erection as I speak.
15:09What, the LHC?
15:11I've become a large hard-on colluder.
15:14Exactly.
15:16That's it.
15:17Exploration.
15:18Isn't it?
15:18That's the value of exploration.
15:19It really is.
15:19And it's exploration at the smallest level, at a human level, and at a cosmic level, and
15:23at a minute particle level.
15:25That's the beauty of it.
15:26It's the range.
15:27Oh, gosh.
15:28Anyway, I must beat it down and we must carry on.
15:31So, I'm glad you're all excited because it is good.
15:40Now, this sounds very existential.
15:41When is the present?
15:45Oh, I'm not going to fall into that crap.
15:48Who's going to say it?
15:49Well, it's not really a trap.
15:50It is a genuinely interesting question.
15:52I mean, there are different ways of trying to describe what the present might be, but
15:56let's talk about the present in terms of archaeology.
16:00Why are there acorns on the sign?
16:03Is that connected?
16:04I don't know.
16:04It's the squirrels.
16:05It's the sign for squirrels.
16:06Acorns in the future.
16:08Acorns in the past.
16:09Did you not know that squirrels still have the?
16:12Squirrels have the capacity to time travel.
16:14Time travel.
16:14Yeah.
16:15They're the only ones who can do that.
16:16Yeah, exactly, but they keep it very quiet because the nuts are better in the past.
16:22Archaeologists actually have an acronym, BP, which means before present, and they can date
16:27the present.
16:28It's an exact date, January the 1st, 1950.
16:31That's the present?
16:32For archaeologists, and there's a very good reason for this, and you might be able to
16:36work it out.
16:36If you did, I'd be very impressed.
16:38Is it plastics?
16:39Not quite that.
16:40Vehicleite?
16:41No, when archaeologists are interested in the distant past, and recently, in the last
16:48hundred or so years, certain techniques have enabled us to discover, I say us, I mean
16:53carbon dating.
16:54Carbon dating has allowed us to discover how old things are.
16:57Now, in the 1950s, basically they decided by January the 1st, 1950, we had so screwed
17:05up the atmosphere with nuclear testing, that no carbon dating could be trusted after January
17:13the 1st, 1950.
17:14So that is known as the present.
17:16See, these archaeologists need to learn a bit of physics, though.
17:19According to Einstein's theory of space and time, which is our best theory of space and
17:23time, there's no such thing as a present moment which spans the universe, or indeed even
17:29the Earth.
17:30Or, in fact, even two people moving relative to each other.
17:32It is absurd to think of an event that might be happening now in a galaxy, and me doing
17:39this as being simultaneous.
17:41Yeah.
17:41That has no meaning cosmically, does it?
17:44You can swap the order of them.
17:45Yes.
17:45As long as they're not causally connected.
17:48So as long as, you know, if I throw a glass...
17:51No.
17:51Right.
17:52Okay.
17:53How is it to throw a glass over there and it smashes on the ground?
17:57Then, obviously, I caused it to smash by throwing it.
18:00So you can't have the smash before I throw it.
18:02However, if you look, let's say the sun and the Earth.
18:05And the sun is eight light minutes away.
18:07So if the sun exploded now, then we wouldn't notice for eight minutes.
18:12So, for eight minutes, anything that I do here, I talk and I talk and four minutes later,
18:18I'm still talking and we...
18:20Yeah.
18:20Yes, and everyone...
18:21So you can swap the order of those things around until the point at which they become
18:26causally connected.
18:27So in that case, until the explosion destroys the Earth.
18:30At a quantum level, time can appear to go forwards and backwards and follow exact rules
18:35in whichever way it's going, doesn't it?
18:38Richard Feynman had a theory, which was a legitimate theory, that there's only one electron
18:42electron, only one electron, in the universe.
18:44So we're all made of electrons.
18:46So we're all made of electrons.
18:48Slowly, slowly.
18:48We are all made of one?
18:49Do you listen, this is good.
18:51I'll just put electron.
18:54The sun has exploded.
18:57We have eight minutes to live.
19:01Is it a wine glass or more of a tumbler?
19:08So Richard Feynman, the great physicist, your Nobel Prize, he said that...
19:12See, all electrons are exactly the same.
19:14So he said, well, I think, perhaps, there's only one in the universe, and it keeps moving
19:20backwards and forwards through time, and every time it crosses now, this kind of sheet that
19:25we call now, then you see an electron, electron, electron, electron.
19:28So there's only one electron.
19:29So all the electrons in my hand, the billions and billions of them, are the same as the electrons
19:33in your hand, and it's just one of them, wandering backwards and forwards in time.
19:36And that was a legitimate view.
19:38I've got a feeling that when you're late for a meeting, you're an absolute nightmare.
19:44You may not be here eight minutes ago.
19:47Well, actually, first of all, you're doing it again.
19:54A man called Arthur Eddington came up with a phrase that has often been used to describe
19:59this nature of time as we perceive it, which is time's arrow.
20:03Think of it as going in that direction.
20:05And there are limitations to that, is really what you're saying, as a theory.
20:09Yeah, I mean, we don't know how time works at a very fundamental level, actually.
20:13But time's arrow, I mean, I actually got my head around that a bit.
20:15Yeah.
20:16Because you don't need, you don't need maths if you said that everything's going forward
20:19and as it does, it decays.
20:20Yes.
20:21So then you understand entropy.
20:23Yes.
20:23I just look, for instance, you need to, all you need is an analogy to make the, that's
20:26pertinent to you.
20:27So in my case, all relationships.
20:29And then you realise, of course.
20:31Yes.
20:32You have that perfect 18 months, and then they're dead.
20:34The second law, the second law of sexual dynamics.
20:38Yes, that's how I, according to me, that's how I, that's how I extrapolate.
20:42To make it statistically significant, though, you have to have an awful lot of relationships.
20:45Oh, I do.
20:48And they really do all suffer the law of entropy.
20:51That's very well put.
20:52Now, who fancies an ingenious interlude?
20:55I have some exciting props that I'm really thrilled about.
20:58I love doing this.
21:00Here.
21:01Candles.
21:02See?
21:02Candles.
21:04I can light these candles here.
21:07Red, white and blue.
21:09Is that from the Ikea black mask kit?
21:12Right.
21:13Is this, is this the point where we all have to knee down in prayer to Jesus' foreskin?
21:18No.
21:18I promise you.
21:20I'm going to extinguish these candles, right?
21:23I have a jug here.
21:25And I'm going to extinguish them using an invisible gas.
21:28Not by liquid, using the invisible gas.
21:30I just want you to tell me.
21:32I'm going to let Brian off, because he will know.
21:33This to him is like, so book one, page one of Boy's Wonder Book of Science.
21:38But that's the, that's the level I'm at, I'm afraid.
21:40I'm going to put this powder in first.
21:42Do we know what the powder is?
21:44And I put in this liquid.
21:45Custard.
21:46It's not custard.
21:47There we go.
21:48Oh, it's good.
21:48I'm going to cover it up here.
21:49Now, now, now watch.
21:50Okay.
21:50I'm not going to pour the liquid onto it.
21:52I'm just going to pour the gas onto it here.
21:55And out go the candles.
21:57Oh, I like that.
22:02I've got a feeling.
22:04Do another one.
22:04Do something else.
22:06I should be presenting the Royal Institution Christmas Lecture, shouldn't I?
22:10Yes.
22:11So, can one of you who isn't a professor at Manchester, and a fellow of the Royal Society,
22:15tell me what was going on there?
22:17Is it magic?
22:18It's not.
22:21I think it's carbon dioxide.
22:24Yes.
22:25I took sodium bicarbonate, a very common, you know, household thing you might use,
22:29either for indigestion or for cleaning purposes.
22:32And vinegar.
22:32And I put them together, and they precipitated CO2.
22:35Which is?
22:36Heavier than air.
22:37Heavier than air.
22:38And simply pouring it there, just snuffed out the candles.
22:41I've never seen anyone pour a gas before.
22:43I know.
22:43You don't think of gas as being a pourable thing.
22:45But anyway, I can't tell you how relieved I am that it worked.
22:50Anyway, well done everybody, especially me.
22:55Have you ever, have you ever tempted to carry liquid nitrogen in a lift?
23:00No.
23:00Which actually, in physics departments, you often know.
23:01Liquid nitrogen is very, very, very, very cold, isn't it?
23:03It is cold, but they don't let you carry it in lifts.
23:06Because if you spill it, then you get nitrogen gas.
23:08And that's heavier than air, and it pushes all the oxygen to the top of the lift.
23:11Oh, people suffocate?
23:13Yes.
23:13Even though it's nitrogen, which the air is...
23:16Oh, well done.
23:17You need the mixture.
23:18Yeah, yeah.
23:18Every Al-Qaeda cell watching this.
23:21Oh, no.
23:22You're not right.
23:23We're running around with those big viewers of nitrogen.
23:25I remember, I remember chemistry last in school, and it still, to me, was one of the most beautiful things
23:28I'd ever seen.
23:30So, chemistry master came in, someone had prepared in the, you know, some liquid nitrogen.
23:35We didn't quite know what it was, and he came with this beautiful rose he'd just picked from the garden.
23:39And he just put the, just dipped the rose in like that for a second, and then smashed it on
23:44the table.
23:44And it shattered like glass into a thousand pieces.
23:47You may say, oh, how destructive.
23:48And yet, it was somehow staggeringly beautiful.
23:51The idea that you could alter the state of something at such speed that you could, it could suddenly become,
23:56from being the softest, you know, most malleable thing.
23:59Isn't that lovely?
24:00Don't you think that's gorgeous?
24:00Beautiful.
24:01It is.
24:03I think you're humoring me.
24:06You want me to go back to foreskins?
24:07No.
24:08No.
24:08I think it's a hilarious Valentine's Day a prank.
24:12There you go.
24:13That's not for you!
24:16Can you imagine the surface of Saturn's moon Titan?
24:20That's so cold that it's got liquid methane.
24:22I know a Titan.
24:23Titan's the one where the Ewoks live.
24:25Titan, yes.
24:26Come on.
24:27Yeah!
24:27That's right.
24:28Come on.
24:29You see?
24:30That's okay.
24:31So, hang on.
24:31I've got it.
24:32I've got it.
24:32So basically, you're saying you can shatter an Ewok.
24:36Yes.
24:37Because he's got lakes of liquid methane.
24:39Wow.
24:39Because it's so cold.
24:40And the methane behaves exactly like water on Earth.
24:43So you get rain, methane rain, you get methane snow, methane ice, and lakes of methane.
24:48There's a lake there which is as large as Lake Superior.
24:52Methane, which is essentially a fart.
24:54Liquid fart.
24:54Yes.
24:55Exactly.
24:56I don't know there.
24:57Strike it off right now.
24:58You know what?
24:58If I could stand on a planet and throw an Ewok into a lake of farts, that'd just be...
25:06That'd be like...
25:07Smash it into a fart.
25:07But you couldn't.
25:08Because it'd shatter.
25:09So you wouldn't...
25:10Even better!
25:12So...
25:13Right.
25:14So I could be tossing Ewoks into a lake of farts.
25:17Yeah.
25:18That's your heaven.
25:19Everyone has their own heaven.
25:20That's yours.
25:22When you say...
25:23When you say tossing Ewoks into a lake of farts.
25:26Yes.
25:26Steady.
25:27No.
25:28That's exactly what I meant.
25:30Oh!
25:30No!
25:31You know what?
25:32After this show finishes, I'm off.
25:34I don't care.
25:35You'll never see me again.
25:37Where is he?
25:37He's off tossing Ewoks again.
25:40Into his lake of farts.
25:41On a...
25:43On a pedal or made of smoke.
25:45Is liquid methane flammable in the same way that methane gas...
25:52Er...
25:53No.
25:53This could be one of the great questions on this show.
25:55No.
25:56But why?
25:57On Titan.
25:59Why not?
26:00Do say.
26:00Is there no oxygen?
26:02No oxygen.
26:03There's no oxygen.
26:04So just farts.
26:05If there was oxygen...
26:07Yeah.
26:07Yes.
26:08It would be.
26:08All you're thinking of is things to do in the...
26:11Has that ruined it?
26:12That's ruined it.
26:13It's not the image of him tossing an Ewoks.
26:16You don't want to go there because you can't light your farts.
26:19The great...
26:23The great Sidney Smith said heaven was eating foie gras to the sound of trumpets.
26:28You have redefined it as tossing Ewoks on lakes of methane.
26:33It's not things to do in heaven.
26:34It's just things to do on Titan.
26:35All right, Titan.
26:36Exactly.
26:37That's in the guidebook.
26:38The things to do in Titan.
26:40The top ten in the front of the guidebook.
26:43If you only have access to a Wookiee, you will need a bigger leg.
26:49That's just basic science.
26:51I could tell you that.
26:53Test now of your nautical knowledge.
26:57What variety of lettuce did they serve on board the Titanic?
27:01Iceberg.
27:02Oh!
27:10Well, bless you for...
27:11I took one for the team, as it were.
27:13You did take one for the team, no.
27:14The Iceberg lettuce had been developed in Pennsylvania, but it was not available in Europe until many, many years later.
27:21The answer is, we don't know.
27:24Oh, God.
27:24We do know there were 700 heads of lettuce on board.
27:28Make them sound like heads of state.
27:29I know, doesn't it?
27:30The most grand of all the lettuce, the head of lettuce.
27:32How did they only have 700 lettuce?
27:35Because how many people were on the Titanic?
27:37I don't know, maybe.
27:37Either they'd already eaten that much, and that's how much was saved, or they just didn't order them.
27:42Well, they saved the lettuce, but not the people.
27:45Fifteen hundred people died on that ship.
27:47Sorry.
27:47Get the lettuce for crying out loud.
27:50The only thing I misread my card, it was, it was, hold the front page, 7,000 heads of lettuce.
27:56I wonder the bloody thing sunk then, it was full of lettuce.
27:58That will even start.
28:01Lettuce is close.
28:02But, there are...
28:03Why did it sink then?
28:05What is wrong with these people?
28:09Where do you think the most valuable icebergs are?
28:12Valuable?
28:12Valuable.
28:13You mean lettuce icebergs or icebergs?
28:14Iceberg icebergs.
28:16Not necessarily on Earth, but in our solar system.
28:19Oh.
28:19I'm thinking of Neptune or Uranus.
28:22Um, no.
28:23No.
28:25No.
28:25No.
28:25No.
28:26No.
28:26It's thought that the crushing pressure might create oceans of liquid diamond filled with
28:31solid diamond icebergs.
28:32Mmm.
28:33I don't know who thinks this?
28:36Mariah Carey.
28:37I know.
28:38She was, she was the one that thought of that.
28:42How heavy are they?
28:43I'll be there.
28:46Does it seem to you to have any value or is it...
28:49Well, yes, it could in principle.
28:53It could.
28:53There is a lot of pressure there.
28:54Huge pressures deep down.
28:56Yeah.
28:56Now, you're on the bridge of the Titanic, alright?
28:59You see that iceberg up ahead.
29:01It's slightly to your right.
29:03What order do you give the helmsman if you want him to turn sharply left?
29:09I think that's port.
29:11It's port.
29:12It's port.
29:12And left is port.
29:13Oh, no!
29:14Yeah.
29:15The odd thing is, right up until 1933, you gave the opposite command because a wheel like
29:22that is only one form of steering a ship.
29:24There were tillers.
29:25And if you wanted to turn left, you would push the tiller right.
29:31It's the same.
29:31You're pushing it to starboard.
29:32Much the same as when you're on a pedala.
29:34Yes, exactly.
29:35So, because there were at least five different forms of steering on different kinds of ship,
29:39it was a customary to say, if you wanted to go hard port, you'd shout, hard starboard,
29:44and then we'd go left.
29:45But on a jet ski, you turn left and right.
29:48So, they must have rudders that go opposition.
29:50Yeah, but they have a jet, don't they?
29:52Not a rudder.
29:53It's a jet ski.
29:54The...
29:56It's not called a rudder ski, is it?
29:58Is that how it turns, though?
29:59Is that...
30:00The jet...
30:01The jet moves.
30:01I think the jet moves, does it?
30:03I don't.
30:03I think so.
30:04Yeah.
30:04Brian, do you know?
30:07So far you've known everything.
30:08You don't have a rudder, do you?
30:09Have you ever seen a jet ski with a rudder?
30:10I don't think they have rudders, no.
30:12No.
30:12No.
30:12So, I think in that case...
30:13They have a jet?
30:13They have a jet?
30:14Yes.
30:15It's a jet ski!
30:16What do we want to get in?
30:18We have a jet...
30:19Sorry.
30:20All right.
30:23I'd like you to fill in the gaps in these slogans for various places or institutions.
30:28We start with County Donegal's slogan.
30:32Okay.
30:33Up here, it's...
30:34Windy.
30:36Green.
30:37It really is windy there.
30:38Different.
30:38Different.
30:39It's different.
30:39Up here, it's different.
30:41That's Donegal's slogan.
30:43Be pleased to know.
30:44Northumbria Police, however.
30:47Total...
30:49Shite.
30:50Long shite.
30:51Total arrest.
30:53Total...
30:54Policing.
30:55I'm sorry to say.
30:56Total...
30:56Brutality.
30:58Total...
30:58Total policing.
30:59Total policing.
31:00Total policing.
31:01Welcome to Northamptonshire.
31:03Let yourself...
31:04Down.
31:07Leave.
31:09Let yourself...
31:09Leave.
31:09Let yourself...
31:10Let yourself...
31:11Let yourself...
31:13Exit.
31:15Poor Northamptonshire.
31:16Charming place.
31:17Let yourself...
31:18Breathe.
31:19Relax.
31:20Breathe is good.
31:20Relax is good.
31:21Let yourself free.
31:22Go is not bad.
31:23Grow.
31:23Grow.
31:24Grow.
31:25Grow.
31:27Let yourself go.
31:29Selfish.
31:29And a large...
31:30Yes.
31:31This is an optimistic one here.
31:34Welcome to Tower Hamlets.
31:35Let's make it...
31:36As we're weak.
31:37Out alive.
31:40Make it out alive.
31:44Let's...
31:45Let's...
31:45Let's...
31:47Let's...
31:49Let's make it happen.
31:50Let's make it happen.
31:51Let's make it happen.
31:52Let's make it happen.
31:52It's now eight times happen.
31:53Well, let's make it happen.
31:54Let's make it happen.
31:54And then there was another slogan which said,
31:56It did happen on Friday the 17th.
31:59Yes.
31:59If you witnessed it.
32:06Oh dear.
32:08Um...
32:08In 2007, the Scottish Parliament and the Tourist Board Scotland spent £125,000 on launching
32:17a new slogan and I want you to find the word they came up with.
32:20They paid some very expensive people.
32:22Welcome to...
32:23The heart attack capital of Europe.
32:24It's got to be Scotland.
32:25Welcome to...
32:26Scotland.
32:26Scotland is the right answer.
32:29What genius!
32:30I mean, God!
32:31That was the very best one I've ever seen.
32:34Because all American states, of course, have their mottos as well.
32:37And Kentucky decided they'd spend money on a new phrase for Kentucky.
32:41Now, there are two things, basically, that most Americans know Kentucky for.
32:45Horse racing, Kentucky Derby.
32:47Right.
32:47No, they don't really know for that.
32:49But Kentucky...
32:49It's finger-licking good, wouldn't it?
32:51The Kentucky...
32:51The Kentucky Derby is one.
32:53And the other is bourbon whiskey.
32:54And they came up with a two-word phrase that embraced both racing and whiskey.
33:00And I just think it is genuinely genius.
33:02Grunk horses.
33:03No.
33:04Every time across the state line, you see it and you think,
33:06actually, they were worth their money.
33:08It just says, unbridled spirit.
33:11That is a bit cool.
33:13I think that's very good.
33:14I think that's class.
33:15Right, yeah.
33:15You know?
33:16It's not finger-licking good, though, is it?
33:17No, it isn't.
33:19Though, I would have you know, and one doesn't like to boast,
33:22and they're just going to anyway, but I am actually Kentucky Colonel.
33:26The governor appoints certain people to be Kentucky Colonels.
33:30And, in theory, I could be called up in defence of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, as it calls itself.
33:35I know.
33:36It's unlikely to happen.
33:40It's so...
33:40Oh, bothering blast, I can't get them.
33:43I shall throw a family thrift bucket at them.
33:47I did this documentary where I visited all the states of America.
33:50And, of course, I'd always go, which is your favourite state?
33:52And it's very, very hard to answer.
33:54But, as it happened, about the best time I had, about five days, was in Kentucky.
33:58I thought, well, I'll stick to that as my answer.
34:00So, I said Kentucky, and about three months later, I got a letter from the governor of Kentucky, with a
34:05certificate,
34:06and, of course, with a baseball cap and various other objects, saying that I had been made a Colonel in
34:11the Army of Kentucky.
34:12So, there you are.
34:13You shall call me Colonel Fry from now on.
34:15I have the key to the city of Port Pirie.
34:18Do you?
34:19Wonderful.
34:20Yeah, I was doing a gig, and I was talking to a bloke.
34:23It turned out he was the mayor.
34:24So, I went, can I have the key to the city?
34:27And he went, yeah, all right, then.
34:30So, I said, all right, then.
34:32Well, I didn't want him to back out.
34:34I said, where's your offices?
34:35On the high street.
34:36I'll be down there tomorrow.
34:37So, I turned up, right.
34:39He got a shed key and a ribbon and went, there you go.
34:43So, there wasn't much Latin spoken or anything like that?
34:45No, there wasn't a ceremony.
34:47I just turned up to the office.
34:48What did he put it on a cushion?
34:49It was just a shed key in a bag.
34:53You'll like this story about driving in America.
34:55I got a sat-nav and we drove from Atlantic City
34:58and the car hire place was just off Lexington Avenue in Manhattan.
35:03So, I put Lexington Avenue in the sat-nav
35:06and it took me to Lexington Avenue on Staten Island.
35:09Oh, no.
35:10After about an hour, I was thinking, this isn't feeling quite right.
35:14Oh.
35:15And then it turned, took me down a kind of residential street,
35:19off the freeway, and then it just said,
35:21you have reached your destination.
35:23No, that says someone's house.
35:26I was expecting, you know, yellow traps and skyscrapers.
35:29I've just done voice for them, so that if you have Tom, Tom or Garmin...
35:34You drive along and it goes...
35:36Turn left.
35:36Now, the interesting thing...
35:37No, do me...
35:41No, no, no, you do.
35:45You do.
35:46You do.
35:46You do.
35:47It's the most nasty thing.
35:48You would not believe it, but...
35:49Did you do it as if you were talking to me?
35:51That's the worry.
35:53I'm trying to...
35:53You left, you moron.
35:56If you take a wrong turn, instead of go, make a U-turn, does the hooter come on?
36:01I put my voice on Katie's.
36:03When she drives, it's me.
36:05Oh, well, that's nice, because you can put your own voice on.
36:06I mean, you can do it, yeah.
36:07You can record it.
36:08Left, left, left, left!
36:12It was funny the first couple of times.
36:15Yes, that's the problem.
36:16I had a sat-nav, and after Port Pirie, and the Nullarbor plane in Australia, the big, long...
36:23That goes on between Adelaide and Perth.
36:24Yeah, the longest straight road in the world.
36:27And I turned me...
36:28I saw my bike, turned it on, and it said, it said, drive forward for two days.
36:35To the rest of it, and it went, then turn left.
36:45It was stupid as it was.
36:47It was such a long road, I missed the left-handed road.
36:51You know that sat-nav uses relativity?
36:54Do you know that?
36:54Oh, no, tell us.
36:56Tell, tell, tell.
36:57No, do tell.
36:58Is this right?
36:59That because of the gravitational pull, the...
37:04I do know, that up in space, if they weren't regulated,
37:08it would be a year out?
37:09Is that...
37:10Is that the thing?
37:11It'd be...
37:11It'd be 38,000 nanoseconds per day.
37:16A year, a year out.
37:17The reason I say it like that is because the rule of thumb...
37:20...which is light travels almost precisely one foot in one nanosecond.
37:25So a foot is one light nanosecond.
37:29Right.
37:29So 38,000 nanoseconds a day is 38,000 feet a day.
37:33So that's how much it'd drift if you didn't take account of the fact that time passes...
37:36Because of the gravitational field.
37:38So the point is that the maths built into the processes in these geostationary satellites...
37:44...have to take into account Einsteinian physics.
37:46Yes.
37:47And I was told that I visited the GPS headquarters.
37:50It's in Colorado.
37:51I bet that's easy to find.
37:52I did.
37:53And actually, this is honestly true.
37:55We typed it into the sat-nav and it took us into a field.
37:59It didn't take us there.
38:00But yeah, when they launched it, the US Air Force was very suspicious of this, you know, Swiss bloke...
38:07...and his relativity nonsense.
38:09And had the option of not correcting because they could not believe that time passes a different rate in orbit
38:15than it does on the ground.
38:16So if you took a sat-nav, like a normal domestic sat-nav, right, and put it in a space
38:22rocket...
38:22...and went up into space towards the satellite, what would happen?
38:28It's very good.
38:29That is exactly the kind of thought experiment that Einstein liked to do, isn't it?
38:32Yeah, I'd meet an Einstein like that.
38:35Anyway, listen, we could go on like this forever, but we're simply not going to.
38:39So we stumble now into the gaping maw of general ignorance.
38:43Fingers on buzzers, quick as you can.
38:44What's the definition of a galaxy?
38:47I'm going to make it...
38:49Yes!
38:50Nobody knows.
38:51You're right.
38:52Essentially, there is no absolutely official decision.
38:55But there are scientists trying to work out precisely what a galaxy might be.
39:01It's Duncan Forbes of Swinburne University in Australia and Pavel Kruper of the University of Bonn in Germany.
39:07And they've launched an online survey, and we have been allowed at QI to be the first people to see
39:11the results of the poll so far.
39:13But based on that, there is already one new galaxy that fits former globular cluster Omega Centuri.
39:20It seems to qualify, according to those criteria, as a galaxy.
39:24In that image, the Hubble Deep Field image, this year the most distant galaxy ever discovered was found in that
39:30photograph.
39:30And it's 13.2 billion light years away.
39:35Do you think, I mean, the Earth's been here for, what, five billion years?
39:38Yeah.
39:38So for most of the journey of the light, from those galaxies you can see in that image, the Earth
39:43wasn't even here.
39:44It wasn't formed.
39:45It formed when they were almost halfway.
39:48The further away you look, the further towards the birth of the universe you're looking.
39:51Yeah.
39:52But how do we know which direction to look?
39:54Did it begin over there, or did it begin over there?
39:55Oh.
39:56Or are we on the surface of a balloon?
39:57I mean, is it...
39:58No, it began here.
39:58So the Big Bang happened here and every point in space.
40:02Because the picture is that space and time began at that point.
40:05And it's been stretching ever since.
40:07So all of space and all of time, in some sense, were there at the Big Bang.
40:12So the Big Bang happened everywhere.
40:14So there's no centre.
40:15So you can look back in any direction.
40:16Can't really see it, because blacks are very slim in colour.
40:20It's true.
40:21I just think it's all beautiful and wonderful and amazing.
40:23So, name an insect that spins a web.
40:27Yes, Sue.
40:29Uh, spiders.
40:32It's an arachnid.
40:34It's an arachnid, Susan.
40:37What's the difference?
40:38It's got such a legs and a trunk.
40:40Insects have how many legs?
40:43Um, two, four, six, eight.
40:45Spiders have eight.
40:47And insects have six.
40:48So it was particularly an insect that spins a web I was after.
40:52The difference is the pedantry of biologists.
40:54It is, you're right.
40:55Is there a six-legged spider?
40:57There is no six-legged spider, as far as I know.
40:59Does a moth spin?
41:00Yes.
41:01There's a very famous moth whose larva is responsible for this tie, certainly.
41:05A silkworm.
41:06The bombics, the silkworm, is the larva of a moth.
41:09But it's not really a web.
41:10But there are insects that spin webs.
41:13These are cocoon-type things for them to pupate inside.
41:16Goats, also.
41:17Now, goats obviously aren't insects.
41:19But this does sound really like science fiction of the worst possible kind.
41:22Spin?
41:23Goats, yes.
41:24Scientists have implanted the silk-producing gene from spiders into goats.
41:30When the goats lactate, their milk contains silk, which can be harvested, dried, and spun into fibres.
41:38And it's a nightmare if you've ever been caught in a goat web.
41:43I've been there for years, sometimes.
41:44So there's a lot you can get out of goats.
41:46You can get cheese, you can get wool, you can get sex.
41:49You can say you can get, um, where that came from.
41:52Anyway, basically, they keep giving goats.
41:56Just put the back legs in your wellies.
41:58Yeah, oh, I don't know.
42:01Anyway, the point is, several insects do spin webs, of which the best known are the web spinners.
42:07Spiders, however, are not insects.
42:09And finally, the scores, which are as baffling as always.
42:14It's fascinating, it's remarkable, it's wonderful, it's exciting.
42:17In last place, despite an extraordinary performance and remarkable knowledge in many areas, I'm afraid it's Sue Perkins with minus
42:2417.
42:28A highly creditable third place with minus six, Ross Noble.
42:37But surely putting himself in contention for a Nobel Prize sometime in the next few years, on plus two, Alan
42:44Davis.
42:49And it can come as no surprise that the mop top from Oldham is our winner.
42:54On plus five, it's Professor Brian Koch.
43:04So, it only remains for me to thank Brian Sue, Ross and Alan, and to leave you with this observation
43:10from Will Rogers.
43:11An ignorant person is one who doesn't know what you have only just found out.
43:18Good night.
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