WEBVTT - From the Vault: Tetris Syndrome 0:00:05.800 --> 0:00:07.720 Hey, you welcome to Stuff to blow your mind. My 0:00:07.800 --> 0:00:10.639 name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. 0:00:10.760 --> 0:00:13.320 You know what that means. The vault door hangs open, 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:17.040 the void is within, Will you walk in? Well, of 0:00:17.120 --> 0:00:19.000 course we're going to walk into the void. The question 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:21.040 is what are we gonna find this week? Well, this 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:25.439 week we're going to revisit an episode from Tuesday, December one, 0:00:25.680 --> 0:00:27.720 So this is a couple of years old. Now, this 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:30.080 is the first part of a two part episode. So 0:00:30.080 --> 0:00:33.640 the first part is gonna rerun today and then the 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:36.120 next part is going to rerun next Saturday. So if 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:38.320 you want to hear part two of this older episode, 0:00:38.560 --> 0:00:41.120 you can go back in the catalog and and and 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:42.879 get the old episode, or you can just wait till 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:44.760 next Saturday and we'll put it back up for you. 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:49.520 But this episode is called Tetris Syndrome, A Mind Made 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:52.720 of Blocks. It's fun that this episode came out around 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:56.200 Christmas time because I realized every Christmas I think back 0:00:56.240 --> 0:00:58.960 to Tetris because it was a game that I received 0:00:59.000 --> 0:01:02.760 as a Christmas gift and it had that wonderful chip 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:05.680 tune version of the dance of the sugar plum Ferry. Dude, 0:01:05.720 --> 0:01:08.280 we talk about this in the episode. Don't spoil everything, Okay, Well, 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:11.000 I'm just throwing it out there. If it's the perfect 0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:13.560 post Christmas listen as well well, even if you are 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:16.800 not interested in puzzle games or video games or anything 0:01:16.840 --> 0:01:19.479 like that. I think this was actually a really interesting topic. 0:01:20.160 --> 0:01:22.240 We had a lot of fun exploring it, so we 0:01:22.319 --> 0:01:30.120 hope you enjoy the Tetras Syndrome episode. Welcome to Stuff 0:01:30.160 --> 0:01:39.120 to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey, you, 0:01:39.200 --> 0:01:41.040 welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:43.640 Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. Before we get going here, 0:01:43.640 --> 0:01:45.959 I just want to shot up quick reminder to everybody. 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:48.120 Go on over to stuff of All your Mind dot 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:49.560 com if you want to learn more about the show, 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:52.320 You want to find old episodes, you want to explore 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:54.880 our blog content, our video content, or links out the 0:01:54.960 --> 0:01:58.000 various social media accounts of just Facebook, Twitter, and tumbling. 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:01.200 And also, hey, if you listen to us through items 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:03.840 through the Apple system, what did you head on over there? 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:06.240 Give us a little love on the review there. It'll 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:09.040 help out the algorithm for our show and it's a 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:11.119 good way to give back and ensure that we get 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:13.200 to keep putting out this kind of content for you. 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:16.480 So this episode today is going to be about Tetris, 0:02:16.639 --> 0:02:18.520 and it's going to be part one of a two 0:02:18.520 --> 0:02:22.880 part series that we're doing on the science of Tetris, 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:25.520 the ancient mystery puzzle of the universe. Yeah, so the 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:27.880 first life is a mostly dealing with the power of 0:02:27.919 --> 0:02:30.480 Tetris and the history of Tetris. Second part is going 0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:35.400 to dive into some possible uses for that power and knowledge. So, Robert, 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:38.960 I have a perhaps pretty weird question for you. All Right, 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:41.000 hit me with a pretty weird question. If there were 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:47.280 no thinking beings in the universe, would numbers exist? Oh, 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:49.840 this is a great question. Yea, Our numbers a human 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:53.480 discovery or human or are numbers of human invention? Right? 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:56.800 Like the number seven? Is that an inherent feature of 0:02:56.840 --> 0:02:58.800 the universe or is that just sort of like an 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:02.080 idea we've come up with to describe what happens when 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:05.560 there are seven of something. I tend to see it 0:03:05.600 --> 0:03:07.720 as kind of a mix of the two. Like, yes, 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:11.560 there is there is an inherent number sense to the universe, 0:03:12.160 --> 0:03:14.880 but obviously there's a there's a human ordering system layered 0:03:14.880 --> 0:03:16.640 on top of that so that we can interact with 0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:18.840 it and understand it. Yeah, I think that's a sensible 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:21.120 way of looking at it. But there are certainly people 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:24.359 who I think would be called Platonists in this sense 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:28.080 that they're Platonic in the sense that they believe in 0:03:28.120 --> 0:03:32.799 the real existence of abstract objects that are inherent to 0:03:32.840 --> 0:03:37.840 the universe, like numbers, mathematical objects, the theorems that those 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:41.680 things actually do exist as objects in some sense, even 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:46.840 though they don't have physical matter in any way. And 0:03:47.080 --> 0:03:49.680 I sort of feel the same way the Platonists feel 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:55.560 about numbers. I feel that way about Tetris. So tell 0:03:55.600 --> 0:03:59.640 me your personal Tetris history. Well, I think it is. 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:04.320 I deal that this episode is publishing during December because 0:04:04.320 --> 0:04:07.000 for me, there's always something kind of Christmas e about 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:10.000 Tetris because I got it back in the day on 0:04:10.640 --> 0:04:13.680 old school Nintendo. I think I got it for Christmas, 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:16.279 so it arrived in the Christmas season, and some of 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:19.720 the wonderful music um that was on that game included 0:04:20.200 --> 0:04:22.760 UM I believe danced with the sugar plumb ferries from 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:26.359 the Nutcracker, which of course is a Christmas themed ballet. 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:30.280 Ballet that I had to set through or or got 0:04:30.320 --> 0:04:31.919 to sit through. However you want to look at it 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:34.560 many many times, as I had two sisters who were 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:36.920 both involved in dance. Oh, it wasn't one of those 0:04:36.920 --> 0:04:39.720 things where your school took you to the Nutcracker every year. No, 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:41.760 I had to, I think, go every year to see 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:45.080 one of my two sisters performing it. And it and 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:47.719 the Nutcracker is an interesting thing to have to sit 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:50.400 through because the first is totally front loaded. The first 0:04:50.400 --> 0:04:52.880 half has a rat king, it has battles, it has 0:04:52.880 --> 0:04:57.480 a fabulous candy Land discovery, weird uncles with an eye patch, 0:04:57.680 --> 0:05:02.040 and then the second half is just just a slumber fest, 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:06.560 various dances that are performed for the victors like they've 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:10.800 already won. It's just all complete. Afterthought, that's interesting. Yeah, 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:13.039 it does have a lot of great hallucinatory imagery. I 0:05:13.080 --> 0:05:15.320 recalled though. I remember that there's a lady with a 0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:18.240 huge dress and a bunch of creatures come out from 0:05:18.320 --> 0:05:22.240 under her dresses. Yeah, but anyway, Yeah, the dance of 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:24.680 the sugar Plum Ferry was on the any S version. 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:28.640 I played the game Boy version, and I also associate 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:32.360 this with Christmas. I think maybe because I associate most 0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:35.160 video games I played as a child with Christmas, because 0:05:35.400 --> 0:05:37.719 you know, Christmas is when you get the game and 0:05:37.760 --> 0:05:40.919 then you have that huge allotment of time and to 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:45.279 vote to the game. You can just completely mild your 0:05:45.320 --> 0:05:47.839 brain to this game play at nine hours a day 0:05:47.960 --> 0:05:50.360 because there's no school and your you know, your parents 0:05:50.360 --> 0:05:53.360 don't want to deal with you during Uh So, yeah, 0:05:53.520 --> 0:05:56.159 I I totally had that. I had a couple other 0:05:56.200 --> 0:05:58.200 games for the Game Boy two back in the early 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:00.479 nineties when I was a kid. I had Tetris, but 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:02.920 also had Super Mario Land. I don't know if you 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:06.240 played that on the game Boy. It involves weird it 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:10.279 kind of like ancient Egyptian themes that are it wasn't 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:12.719 like I played that one. It's sort of unique Mario game. 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:15.960 And then I also had a video game called Altered Space, 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:20.320 which involved isometric movements that was very hard to control, 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:23.120 uh and mostly you would just fall on spikes and 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:24.960 run out of air and die. You played a little 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:29.159 astronaut who has limited care. Because that was initially imagining 0:06:29.200 --> 0:06:31.720 some sort of Timothy Leary tamed game. Oh no, that 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:33.960 would have been wonderful, like as a kid, I had 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:37.480 the game version of the William Hurt movie where he 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:41.279 takes ayahuasca and gets in the sensory deprivation tank. You 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:43.480 know another thing about about having it, I wonder if 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:45.520 this is the case with you as well. I had 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:50.200 some horrible Nintendo games on myf like I had Mission Impossible, 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:54.200 which was an impossibly difficult game, and then a few 0:06:54.200 --> 0:06:57.320 other games that really had limited appeal even to me. 0:06:57.640 --> 0:07:00.560 But Tetris was a game that I played like crazy. 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:02.760 My sister, I am sister who was old enough to 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:05.240 play the other played like crazy, and even my my 0:07:05.320 --> 0:07:07.400 dad got in on the act and was playing Tetris 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:10.240 and it just ensnared all to all of us. Yeah, 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:13.600 it does have this very universal appeal, which has been 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:16.760 chalked up to several different factors from people we're gonna 0:07:17.000 --> 0:07:19.760 talk about later in this episode. But the reason I 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:21.840 mentioned those other games I had on the game Boy 0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:24.239 was going back to this very first thing I said, 0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:27.120 which is that I sensed, even as a child, that 0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:31.760 there was something very very different between Tetris and these 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:34.560 other games, even popular games like you know, the Mario game. 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:36.640 I mean, like it didn't have to be a bad game. 0:07:37.160 --> 0:07:41.480 Other games to me, felt like human artifacts. They felt 0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:45.400 invented in the sense that you know that that a 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:52.400 wheelbarrow is invented. Tetris to me felt like a fundamental, 0:07:52.640 --> 0:07:59.000 inherent aspect of the universe that was an ancient, secret mystery, 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:02.080 and it just seemed to me impossible to believe there 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:06.400 was ever a time when there wasn't Tetris woven into 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:10.720 the fabric of physics and mathematics. So you're you're basically 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:14.880 imagining a scenario where the the Hominids in two thousand 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:16.840 and one of Space Odyssey are looking up instead of 0:08:16.880 --> 0:08:21.480 seeing a complete um monolith, they're seeing the long bar 0:08:22.960 --> 0:08:26.240 of seeing the Tetris shapes fall and form the monolith. Yeah, 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:28.120 and it's got to be the long bar, because that's 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:31.960 the most coveted piece among avid Tetris players as long 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:37.440 as you've prepared yourself for it's insertion. Yeah, exactly, how 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:39.560 true that is. No, I see what I see what 0:08:39.559 --> 0:08:43.880 you're saying. Exactly this, Uh, it feels perfectly natural, like 0:08:43.920 --> 0:08:48.160 playing Tetris is like coming home on some level. Um. 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:51.360 I definitely remember playing it and being obsessed with it, 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:54.480 and and it was just startled to realize this was 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:57.679 a new thing in the world. I couldn't believe. I mean, 0:08:57.679 --> 0:09:00.240 this is a game that was invented in nineteen eighty four, 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:04.199 but it didn't feel that way. I even even old 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:07.679 old games like go and checkers and chess, I mean, 0:09:07.880 --> 0:09:11.200 these old board games still felt like artifacts. They still 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:14.000 felt invented by humans in a way that Tetris didn't. 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:17.640 Tetris felt like an ancient mystery. And I'm still not 0:09:17.720 --> 0:09:20.280 quite sure exactly why that is. But I think throughout 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:22.600 these couple of episodes we're gonna do on the science 0:09:22.600 --> 0:09:26.600 of Tetris, we we may have some leads about why 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:28.480 it feels that way to me at least, and I 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:32.520 think to to some other people too, Or simply the case, 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:35.440 it could just be the case that God itself is 0:09:35.520 --> 0:09:39.000 the long bar or or some sort of multidimensional um 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:43.120 shape that we can't quite understand, but that fits into 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:47.280 all possible Tetris scenarios. But indeed, as we explore here, 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:50.679 we're also gonna get into some of the recreational mathematical 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:54.000 roots of Tetris, and even those don't go back tremendously 0:09:54.040 --> 0:09:58.800 far that they only go back into the early twentieth century. Nevertheless, 0:09:58.840 --> 0:10:01.960 I insist there is an ancient mystery at the secret 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:04.600 of this journey, and maybe by the end will unlock it. 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:07.200 But I think we should actually look at the game 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:11.000 Tetris now, it's history and where it comes from. And 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:14.160 the first thing I've got to start with is uh, 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:16.800 sort of incidental to the game of Tetris itself. But 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:34.040 did you know that the famous Tetris music, that theme 0:10:34.120 --> 0:10:37.040 right there is based on a Russian folk song that 0:10:37.120 --> 0:10:40.560 actually has lyrics. I do not know the Tetris theme 0:10:40.600 --> 0:10:42.800 with lyrics. I love it so much I looked it up. 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:46.080 This is the Wikipedia translation, so this may not be 0:10:46.160 --> 0:10:49.120 the most accurate. But but the first verses, oh my 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:53.040 crate is so full, I've got chintz and brocade take pity, 0:10:53.120 --> 0:10:56.760 Oh sweetie, of this lad's shoulder nice seems kind of 0:10:56.760 --> 0:10:59.080 appropriate for the game where you're you're stacking the blocks 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:05.360 drever my great, it overflows. That is a revelation for me. Yeah, 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:09.120 but surely Tetris didn't just appear out of thin air. 0:11:09.160 --> 0:11:12.480 I mean, obviously it grew out of some kind of 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:17.280 puzzle tradition. Yes, yes, and so I mean certainly you 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:19.760 can if you want to to take the roots of 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:23.560 tetris and extend them back just completely geometrically. Yes, you 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:26.079 can get back into the history of geometry itself, but 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:29.920 for the most part, we can begin the birth of 0:11:29.960 --> 0:11:34.560 tetris with something that was called a pin tomino. This 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:37.840 is an arrangement of five unit squares or cubes, all 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:43.160 joined along their edges. Um they're twelve free pin tominoes. 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:46.880 They're shaped roughly like the letters VT, W, x, U, 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:51.000 z F, P I, N y L. That's funny. I 0:11:51.040 --> 0:11:53.800 looked up some of these designations of like the letter 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:56.240 to the pintomeno, and some of them makes sense, Like 0:11:56.280 --> 0:11:59.640 the W pintomeno looks like a W, the Y pin 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:01.719 tom you know, looks like a long bar with a 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:03.560 lump on the side. Yeah. Yeah. Some of them are 0:12:03.559 --> 0:12:07.080 a little a little more abstract. They're eighteen one sided 0:12:07.200 --> 0:12:11.880 pentomenos in sixty three fixed pintomenos. Okay, So essentially, though, 0:12:11.920 --> 0:12:15.559 the pentomeno is if you take some squares and you 0:12:15.720 --> 0:12:18.240 line them up so that the sides are touching in 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:20.800 one way or another, how many different shapes can you 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:23.920 make out of five squares? And that's what it is. Yeah, 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:27.160 And then you you had pintomeno puzzles that were all 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:31.079 about arranging them together into a shape, usually something that 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:34.080 you know, a rectangle, something fairly simple. Now, the first 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:37.679 published pentomeno puzzle of this nature, even though it was 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:42.080 not named as such, appeared in Henry Dadeny's The Canterbury 0:12:42.160 --> 0:12:45.400 Puzzles in nineteen o seven. That a companion to the 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:49.040 Canterbury Tales. Um, if anything, it would be the section 0:12:49.080 --> 0:12:51.280 in the back with a crossroad puzzles too, I guess 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:56.440 um no. This is basically a puzzle publication. Uh. And 0:12:56.640 --> 0:12:59.920 in this particular one that Dandenny put together, you had 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:04.920 fit twelve pentomino shapes together with one square traumino. And 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:07.520 I'll explain the terminology here in a minute. That's four 0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:11.160 squares as you know encounter in tetris later on. You 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:14.160 have to join these together on an eight by eight checkerboard. Okay, 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:17.200 So you've got like a puzzle space. That's the board, 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:19.880 and the problem is you've got all these pieces that 0:13:19.960 --> 0:13:23.080 you've got to fit into the space so that they're 0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:25.360 not you know, poking out the sides or something right. 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:27.920 And like any good game, um, there's a there's part 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:29.720 of it is the mechanics, which I've described, but the 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:32.520 other part was the fluff. And the fluff here was 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:36.520 that William the Conqueror had, out of rage, broken a 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:39.079 chess up board, and you had to have to reassemble 0:13:39.160 --> 0:13:42.360 the chessboard. That these each of these shapes is a 0:13:42.360 --> 0:13:45.360 piece of the shattered board. O the story behind the game. Yeah, 0:13:45.480 --> 0:13:47.480 I kind of love that when there's a game that's 0:13:47.520 --> 0:13:50.320 not like an adventure action game with characters, but it's 0:13:50.360 --> 0:13:53.480 a puzzle game, and yet it has a backstory. Yeah, yeah, 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:55.160 I mean I think that's essential. I don't want to 0:13:55.160 --> 0:13:58.880 play a game that's just pure abstract mathematics and mechanics. 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:00.959 I want some cool off in there. That's how I 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:05.079 get engaged with. Of course, the exception would be Tetris exactly, yes, 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:08.000 because there is well we'll discuss some that have some 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:10.200 fluff added on, and sometimes the fluff is delightful, but 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:13.439 for the most part, Tetris is the exception to the rule. Okay, 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:16.320 but so William the Conqueror gets a chessboard, smashes it 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:18.800 into a bunch of pentominoes, and you've got to fit 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:21.120 them back together, right though of course they're not called 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:25.120 pentominoes at the time. It's not until nine three that 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:29.720 American professor Solomon W. Golam actually coins the term. So 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:33.480 what he did is he took the word domino, which, 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:35.760 of course we know is a little a little block 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:38.040 that you line up a play dominoes, whether you do 0:14:38.120 --> 0:14:40.800 cascading domino, the guy who makes the pizza, yeah, exactly, 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:43.240 that that sort of domino. So he took the word domino, 0:14:43.480 --> 0:14:45.600 and then he and it. He treated it kind of 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:48.920 whimsically as if it was die domino, as if omino 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:51.880 were a shape, and die referred to the number of 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:55.280 squares cubes making it up, because there are two squares 0:14:55.320 --> 0:14:57.320 in a domino exactly, So he said, what if there 0:14:57.360 --> 0:15:01.840 were other omino's, So in this case, a pent domino 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:07.400 is penta or five plus domino. Likewise, we already mentioned tetromino, 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:12.840 which would be tetra for plus domino, right, um and uh. 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:16.800 And he also threw out just a general polyominos, a 0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:20.760 term for these various constructions depending on how many different 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:23.120 square cute elements are making them up. So there could 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:26.240 be like sex dominoes or sept dominoes exactly, though I 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:28.960 imagine as you go higher and higher up the list 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:33.440 of cardinal numbers. There, the number of possible shapes just explodes, right, 0:15:33.560 --> 0:15:36.640 because as you add more squares to move around in 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:40.320 different positions, you could probably make an ultimately infinite number 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:42.240 of shapes. Yeah, Like, I mean, the bigger ones are 0:15:42.240 --> 0:15:46.360 going to resemble full blown levels from video games or 0:15:46.880 --> 0:15:50.040 or dungeoning adventures from Dungeons and Dragons with each of 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:54.320 the cubes, right. Um. Now, all of this comes to 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:59.160 a head publicly with his nine article Checkerboards and Polyominos 0:15:59.320 --> 0:16:03.080 in Ameri Ken Mathematical Monthly. And this this really came out. 0:16:03.120 --> 0:16:07.080 This kick started a lot of interest in these shapes 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:10.280 and the kind of puzzles you could have with them. 0:16:10.320 --> 0:16:14.200 So Pentomino puzzles good stuff, big business. Yeah, well, I 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:16.960 mean its big business is you're gonna have in recreational 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:19.840 mathematics in the mid twentieth century. But but it's certainly 0:16:19.840 --> 0:16:22.480 we're not talking about Marl Borrows here, right, But it's 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:24.880 still it's catching on. It's it already has an addictive 0:16:24.880 --> 0:16:28.360 property to it. And then in night it actually launches 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:31.560 off the pin and paper off the table and into 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:34.000 the world world of computers. Because at this point, we 0:16:34.080 --> 0:16:36.840 end up with a computer program that generates solutions for 0:16:36.920 --> 0:16:42.760 an eight by eight polyomino puzzle. So we're all already obsolete. Yeah, yeah, 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:44.880 we're already getting the human element out of it, and 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:48.120 we're already seeing it take off into the world of 0:16:48.120 --> 0:16:51.280 computer programming in a very early stage. So I imagine 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:54.800 if you're just trying to cram pieces together into a checkerboard, 0:16:54.840 --> 0:16:56.880 and you've got a fixed number of pieces and a 0:16:56.960 --> 0:17:00.680 fixed board size, there are a limited number of solutions, 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:04.119 right Yeah. According to the University of Victoria Department of 0:17:04.160 --> 0:17:07.240 Computer Sciences, it's now known that there are two thousand, 0:17:07.320 --> 0:17:10.040 three hundred and thirty nine solutions for the six by 0:17:10.119 --> 0:17:13.400 ten rectangle, a thousand and ten solutions for the five 0:17:13.440 --> 0:17:16.080 by twelve rectangle, three hundred and sixty eight solutions for 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:19.000 the four by fifteen rectangle, and two solutions for the 0:17:19.080 --> 0:17:23.919 three by twenty rectangle. So so yeah, this is you 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:27.439 see this, this idea, this new um type of shape 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:30.680 puzzle just taking off in the world of recreational mathematics. Uh, 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:34.840 finding a warrant warm home there, and that's the sort 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:38.439 of sort of soil from which this maddening tetris vine 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:40.879 emerges and you can. The interesting thing here is you 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:44.040 can even factor in some uh, some interesting non Tetris 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:47.679 stuff here. For instance, John Horton Conway's seventy Game of 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:52.920 Life cellular automaton simulation. Is that. Oh um. I think 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:55.080 we may have mentioned it on here in some past episodes, 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:57.840 and we should probably discover it in more depth later on. 0:17:58.000 --> 0:18:03.240 But it's essentially a very simple, uh, geometric based simulation. 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:05.560 Many of you may have seen images from this where 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:09.480 it basically looks like crazy little Tetris shapes moving around 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:12.639 and changing form on a screen, sort of one of 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:16.520 those uh cell evolution simulators along those lines. Yeah, the 0:18:16.520 --> 0:18:19.520 big one really um and uh yeah, it's a fascinating 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:20.840 topic on to its own, so we may have to 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:22.880 come back on on that one at a later date. Okay, well, 0:18:22.920 --> 0:18:25.440 you have laid the soil out of which you, as 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:27.920 you say, the vines of Tetris grow. But I think 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:31.320 we should turn to the vines themselves, because what fascinating 0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:34.399 vines they are, a lot of people might not have 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:37.479 guessed this, so some people probably already know the story. Uh. 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:42.600 The creation of Tetris, strangely enough, takes place in a 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:48.720 nineteen eighties Soviet computing lab in Moscow with a slightly 0:18:48.760 --> 0:18:53.879 board artificial intelligence researcher discovering the ancient secret of Tetris 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:59.080 under the ruse of testing computer hardware capabilities um SO. 0:18:59.320 --> 0:19:04.199 The the creator of Tetris is named Alexei Petknov, and 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:08.080 he was a computer programmer and artificial intelligence researcher working 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:10.960 for the Academy of Science of the u S sr SO, 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:15.560 the Soviet Union Zone Academy of Science. And he was 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:18.600 working in a lab that would occasionally be sent a 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:21.800 new piece of computer hardware, and in this case, in 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:24.040 the case of Tetris, they were sent this thing called 0:19:24.080 --> 0:19:28.720 the Electronica sixty. It sounds fancy, yeah, wonderful. And a 0:19:28.840 --> 0:19:32.360 part of paget Knov's duties would be to create software 0:19:32.680 --> 0:19:35.240 to run on the new computers of the new hardware 0:19:35.240 --> 0:19:37.879 they're being sent in order to test what it was 0:19:37.920 --> 0:19:40.880 capable of, so to say like, oh, okay, yeah, this 0:19:40.880 --> 0:19:43.560 this computer is fine because it can run this demanding 0:19:43.560 --> 0:19:47.439 piece of software a okay. So in in paget Knov's 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:51.240 own words, this became his quote excuse for making games, 0:19:52.040 --> 0:19:54.800 which I mean, that's gonna be a pretty cool job. 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:58.360 Comparatively in the Soviet Union in Oh yeah. I mean 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:01.879 that's a pretty great situation anywhere where you find the 0:20:01.920 --> 0:20:05.680 way to make your job even more engaging, or make 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:09.560 it engaging to begin with, without actually just completely knocking 0:20:09.560 --> 0:20:12.560 off and doing your own thing. Right. So, Paget knobs 0:20:12.560 --> 0:20:16.240 in this lab testing the Electronica sixty, and what he 0:20:16.359 --> 0:20:20.800 comes up with to test it is Tetris. Tetris is 0:20:20.840 --> 0:20:24.479 one of these games he creates. And I don't know 0:20:24.560 --> 0:20:27.480 to what extent we really should try to describe Tetris, 0:20:27.560 --> 0:20:30.480 because I feel like almost everybody who's going to be 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:33.280 listening to this has seen Tetris. If you haven't, you 0:20:33.320 --> 0:20:35.879 should go watch a video of somebody playing Tetris on you. 0:20:36.680 --> 0:20:40.680 Any number of official Tetris or Tetris knockoff versions that 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:43.680 you can just play online. I found a free website. 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:45.800 I don't know if this is legal, it's probably not, actually, 0:20:45.800 --> 0:20:48.119 but I found a website that has an emulator that 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:52.040 will emulate the any S version of Tetris that's in browser. 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:54.919 And it's pretty great that the any S version. I 0:20:54.960 --> 0:20:57.960 really like the graphics. Yeah, yeah, it was a great 0:20:58.040 --> 0:21:02.040 use of the you know, simple graphics to deliver the 0:21:02.080 --> 0:21:04.680 Tetris experience, though I do still prefer the music from 0:21:04.680 --> 0:21:07.320 the game Boy version, but Dance of the Sugar Plumb 0:21:07.359 --> 0:21:09.880 Ferry is good to either way. You should you should 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:13.359 play Tetris a little get in the mood for this episode. Uh, 0:21:13.440 --> 0:21:15.199 you can pause right here and go do that and 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:18.720 come back if you like, otherwise we will continue. But basically, 0:21:18.760 --> 0:21:22.879 what Tetris is is you've got seven blocks of different 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:25.160 shapes and these are the tetrominos that we were talking 0:21:25.200 --> 0:21:27.320 about earlier, and they fall from the top of the 0:21:27.359 --> 0:21:30.080 screen towards the bottom of the screen on a little 0:21:30.119 --> 0:21:33.280 playing area, and the player can move the blocks around 0:21:33.359 --> 0:21:36.000 left to right and can rotate them in increments of 0:21:36.080 --> 0:21:38.480 ninety degrees, so you can flip the piece and you 0:21:38.480 --> 0:21:40.720 can move it side to side, but what you can't 0:21:40.760 --> 0:21:44.520 do is stop it from falling. There's the inexorable creep 0:21:44.720 --> 0:21:47.560 towards the bottom of the screen. And so what the 0:21:47.560 --> 0:21:51.000 player does is arrange the blocks to form and then 0:21:51.040 --> 0:21:56.160 clear solid horizontal lines. Oh yeah, that's satisfying moment where 0:21:56.320 --> 0:21:58.600 you have blocks all the way across a single line 0:21:58.640 --> 0:22:01.639 and then that that line just anishes. Yeah. And so 0:22:01.680 --> 0:22:03.240 if the blocks stack up all the way to the 0:22:03.280 --> 0:22:06.200 top of the screen the game is over. Interestingly enough, 0:22:06.240 --> 0:22:09.800 Paget and Nov said that originally the lines did not 0:22:09.960 --> 0:22:11.879