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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My

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Speaker 2: name is Robert Lamb, and I am Joe McCormick, and

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Speaker 2: we're back with another Invention themed episode. Some of you

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Speaker 2: may notice Joe and I were just chatting about this.

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Speaker 2: We were doing an episode here on ice skating. It is,

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Speaker 2: of course the very beginning of summer.

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Speaker 3: Most of the articles you find about this come out

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Speaker 3: in December, so actually you might be much more familiar

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Speaker 3: with the seasonal mismatch if you live in the Southern Hemisphere.

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Speaker 3: But yeah, I guess for the majority of readers in

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Speaker 3: the Northern hemisphere reading, I guess they're only going to

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Speaker 3: click on an article about ice skating in December. I

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Speaker 3: don't know. I'm against that kind of thing. I believe

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Speaker 3: in anti seasonal topicality.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, plus, people are ice skating somewhere year around.

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Speaker 2: There are of course indoor ice skating rinks. And I

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Speaker 2: should also mention that the way we're getting to ice

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Speaker 2: skating is because my initial inspiration here was to do

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Speaker 2: an episode on roller skating. This is of course, the

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Speaker 2: past time that initially boomed during the so called Golden

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Speaker 2: Age of roller skating, This is roughly nineteen thirty seven

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Speaker 2: through nineteen fifty nine. I think there's a lot of

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Speaker 2: you know, escaping from the darkness of the world in

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Speaker 2: that period and finding a little lightheartedness on the roller

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Speaker 2: skates in the skating rink. But you know, it's something

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Speaker 2: that's never completely gone out of fashion either, and it's

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Speaker 2: experienced sustained popularity in various parts of the world and

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Speaker 2: saw a major boost during the global pandemic.

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Speaker 3: Can I ask a question to older listeners if you

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Speaker 3: watch movies about the fifties, you often see people roller

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Speaker 3: skating down the hallway in high school or in another

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Speaker 3: setting that's not a dedicated roller skating environment like a

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Speaker 3: rink or something, and people just roller skating on the

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Speaker 3: sidewalk at school going from class to class. Is that

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Speaker 3: a thing people?

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Speaker 2: Actually, I don't know they're doing it now because roller

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Speaker 2: skating is not only going strong, but it's I think

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Speaker 2: it's getting stronger. We may get into this in a

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Speaker 2: in another episode, but there are a lot of like

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Speaker 2: financial I saw some financial papers talking about how the

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Speaker 2: roller skating industry is just going to continue to grow

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Speaker 2: over the next decade or.

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Speaker 3: So I do think we should bring back the roller

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Speaker 3: skate mounted server at the drive in restaurants, because that's interesting.

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Speaker 3: It adds an element of danger and theatrical athleticism to

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Speaker 3: the dining out experience that you don't usually get.

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Speaker 2: Well, I don't know how dangerous it is, but yes

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Speaker 2: it is. There is kind of a neat charm to it.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, I've been seeing a lot of roller skaters recently.

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Speaker 2: My kid is involved in a local vibrant skating club,

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Speaker 2: and it really made me reconsider what I thought I

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Speaker 2: knew about skating and skating culture. So I figured, hey,

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Speaker 2: well let's let's do a nice summer episode about roller skating.

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Speaker 2: But the thing is, before you can even begin to

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Speaker 2: cover the invention of roller skates, you have to explore

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Speaker 2: their cold weather predecessor. You have to talk about ice skates.

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Speaker 3: I assume there's no disputing this at all, which came first.

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Speaker 3: The ice skate is definitely older than the roller.

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Speaker 2: Skate, definitely, definitely by a considerable margin. Yeah, nobody's even

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Speaker 2: making the case, even if you were getting into potential

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Speaker 2: possible examples of somebody designing something like a roller skate

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Speaker 2: that just wasn't usable. Anywhere, because maybe you lacked the

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Speaker 2: places for I've I've seen no arguments that this is

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Speaker 2: the case. If anyone out there is aware of even

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Speaker 2: any just unhinged theories about the roller skate coming before

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Speaker 2: the ice skate, send it our way and we will evaluate.

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Speaker 2: But as far as I can tell, nobody's making this case,

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Speaker 2: and so we're going to stick to what seems to

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Speaker 2: be the established lower here. We're going to talk about

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Speaker 2: ice skating now, and then I think maybe an episode

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Speaker 2: later in June, we'll come back and discuss roller skating

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Speaker 2: in more detail. Fair enough, Okay, So, as is generally

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Speaker 2: the case when we're talking about an invention, we like

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Speaker 2: to talk about what comes before, so we can appreciate

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Speaker 2: the invention. What came before skating on the ice using

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Speaker 2: some sort of an ice skate. Well to properly consider

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Speaker 2: ice skates. Oh wait, you already have an answer. Let's

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Speaker 2: have it.

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Speaker 3: No, I was going to slipping on the ice, slipping

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Speaker 3: and falling game first.

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Speaker 2: Well, it always does in ice skating, doesn't it. You

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Speaker 2: could and you could make an argument that skating on

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Speaker 2: the ice one way or another is slipping in style.

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Speaker 2: It is a controlled slip.

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Speaker 3: Exactly controlled slipping.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the most important thing that I quickly

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Speaker 2: realized looking at the history of the ice skate is

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Speaker 2: we think of ice skating more as novelty, or perhaps

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Speaker 2: you think of it as part of sport, but we

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Speaker 2: really have to view ice skates not as an item

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Speaker 2: of recreation, but as a mean of conveyance, of moving

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Speaker 2: the human body from one point to another. And so

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Speaker 2: before humans skated across ice as a means of conserving

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Speaker 2: energy and maximizing speed, they did a few different varied

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Speaker 2: things on ice, including slipping and falling down. Of course,

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Speaker 2: walking across the ice is of course the oldest forerunner,

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Speaker 2: obviously requiring no technology, but certainly benefiting from a variety

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Speaker 2: of innovations that would occur over human history, including the

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Speaker 2: leather shoe I believe, the oldest surviving example being a

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Speaker 2: some five five hundred year old arny one shoe from

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Speaker 2: Armenia or what is now Armenia. But obviously such footwear

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Speaker 2: was biodegradable by its very nature, so who knows what

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Speaker 2: we lost though?

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Speaker 3: Of course, when we think about ice skates, these are

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Speaker 3: obviously tools designed to decrease friction on the ice and

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Speaker 3: allow you to glide more easily. I would tend to

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Speaker 3: think that the earliest ice traversal technologies were exactly the opposite.

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Speaker 3: They would be things disa to help you better grip

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Speaker 3: the ice to avoid slipping and falling while you walked.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, which brings our mind to things like spiked cleats.

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Speaker 2: I was looking around. Let's say there's some examples that

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Speaker 2: survive from the first and second millennium CE, But again

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Speaker 2: there's no telling what was lost as well in our

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Speaker 2: ability to figure out how to make grippier footwear for

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Speaker 2: walking around on the ice. And then, on top of this,

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Speaker 2: we should also point out that a certain understanding of

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Speaker 2: the different types of ice and how it responds to

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Speaker 2: your weight would also have been important for moving across

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Speaker 2: the ice. The examples of the oldest surviving cleats that

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Speaker 2: I was finding my research were things from the Viking era,

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Speaker 2: So it's very possible there are older examples of this

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Speaker 2: that didn't survive, and possibly something that didn't come up

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Speaker 2: with my research. So as always, if anyone knows of

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Speaker 2: an earlier example of some sort of grippy footwear technology,

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Speaker 2: send it our way. Furthermore, before humans turn to ice skating,

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Speaker 2: proper they make use of sleds, a variation of the sledge,

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Speaker 2: which itself is a predecessor to the cart. And these

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Speaker 2: of course are ancient and widespread innovations which, depending on

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Speaker 2: the environment and you know where they were constructed, they

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Speaker 2: might have entailed bone, ivory or wood. So we can

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Speaker 2: easily imagine that the idea for the ice skate perhaps

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Speaker 2: comes together from ruminations on existing sled technology, you know,

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Speaker 2: like what if ice strapped a sled to my foot,

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Speaker 2: as well as experiences walking, sliding, slipping on ice covered lakes, rivers,

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Speaker 2: and so forth. Couple that with a need for such

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Speaker 2: skates for a conveyance, such as areas where human communities

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Speaker 2: are separated by expansive frozen over bodies of water. And

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Speaker 2: it's only a matter of time till someone tries to

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Speaker 2: miniaturize the whole affair and place it on a boot.

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Speaker 2: Those will discuss the physicality and indeed physics of ice

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Speaker 2: skating differs significantly from either of these pre existing technologies.

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Speaker 2: So here in a bit we're going to go back

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Speaker 2: and look at the most ancient known examples of ice skates,

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Speaker 2: how they worked and didn't work, and how they evolved.

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Speaker 2: But let's go ahead and move towards our current understanding

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Speaker 2: of the ice skate and just talk about how it works.

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Speaker 3: As in, what physics principles does the ice skate take

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Speaker 3: advantage of?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, because we can all sort of have innate understanding

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Speaker 2: of out works. But yeah, let's get into the physics. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: So this is one of those things that seems like

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Speaker 3: a question that would have a fairly simple, well understood,

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Speaker 3: well agreed upon answer, But surprisingly, no, the physics of

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Speaker 3: ice skating are quite complicated. The issue is still being investigated.

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Speaker 3: Some explanations that you see all over the place and appearing,

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Speaker 3: I think even in fairly recent physics textbooks are actually

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Speaker 3: disputed by experts, and from what I can see, new

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Speaker 3: papers on the physics of ice skating still appear regularly

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Speaker 3: in scientific journals, at least as of a couple of

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Speaker 3: years ago.

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Speaker 2: That's crazy. It's not settled science yet.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, there is a lot we do know now, but

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Speaker 3: a lot of that was established rather recently, and then

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Speaker 3: there are still a bunch of questions that we don't

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Speaker 3: have answers to yet. But I always think it's interesting

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Speaker 3: when you come across something like this, one of those

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Speaker 3: things that you assume would have a short, simple, non controversial,

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Speaker 3: one paragraph answer in the physics textbook, and actually it's

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Speaker 3: like a super complicated unsolved question. But anyway, so the

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Speaker 3: main thing that we need to explain when looking at

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Speaker 3: the physics of ice skating is why can an ice

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Speaker 3: skater glide with such low friction? That's the main physics question.

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Speaker 3: To illustrate this, you can quite well imagine the scenario.

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Speaker 3: You don't really need to do the experiment. We know

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Speaker 3: well enough from walking on various services how this would work.

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Speaker 3: Imagine you put on a pair of ice skates, you

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Speaker 3: stand on a flat stretch of parking lot, and you

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Speaker 3: get somebody to stand behind you and give you a push.

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Speaker 3: Is that gonna work? Are you going to glide? No,

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Speaker 3: that's all right. The blades will not glide smoothly over

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Speaker 3: the surface of the pavement the way they would over

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Speaker 3: the ice. They will know, I wrote here on my

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Speaker 3: notes that they will I was gonna say, grind to

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Speaker 3: a stop, but they probably won't even grind to a stop.

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Speaker 3: They're just not going to move at all. They will

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Speaker 3: be clamped to the ground where you are standing, and

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Speaker 3: any forward momentum you had from the push somebody gave

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Speaker 3: you will cause you to fall in your face because

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Speaker 3: the blades are not going to go anywhere. They will

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Speaker 3: grip the ground and the top half of your body

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Speaker 3: will go forward. The friction defeats the momentum, so the

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Speaker 3: friction is the problem. The physical principles that make low

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Speaker 3: friction skating possible on ice are still under investigation. That said,

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Speaker 3: the best and most up to date core research that

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Speaker 3: I could find on this was summarized in a December

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Speaker 3: twenty nineteen there's December again. December twenty nineteen review article

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Speaker 3: in the journal Nature by Daniel Bond called the Physics

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Speaker 3: of Ice Skating and a bit of background on the

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Speaker 3: author here. Daniel Bond is a physicist affiliated with the

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Speaker 3: Institute of Physics at the University of Amsterdam. Bond specializes

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Speaker 3: in fluid mechanics, among other things, so you'll see him

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Speaker 3: writing articles on these kinds of topics, sometimes aimed at

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Speaker 3: a more popular audience. But a couple of notable achievements

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Speaker 3: that I wanted to mention of his because they're kind

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Speaker 3: of indirectly connected to this topic. This will take us

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Speaker 3: a little bit of field, but I think it's an

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Speaker 3: interesting parallel. Bond was involved in research you might remember

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Speaker 3: from roughly a decade ago, building on some earlier research

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Speaker 3: about how the massive stone blocks that were used to

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Speaker 3: build the pyramids were probably transported across the ground to

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Speaker 3: the building site. Of course, this was a serious question

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Speaker 3: because each stone piece is enormous. The amount of force

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Speaker 3: required to move it across the ground, it's hard to

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Speaker 3: imagine you would have had tons and tons of workers pulling.

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Speaker 3: They were probably mounted on these sledges and moved along

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Speaker 3: with great difficulty. But Bond and colleagues discovered that you

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Speaker 3: could greatly decrease the friction between the sandy ground and

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Speaker 3: a sledge used to transport a stone block by slightly

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Speaker 3: wetting the sand in front of the sledge. They found

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Speaker 3: that you want to add something like two to five

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Speaker 3: percent water per unit of sand by volume, and this

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Speaker 3: can reduce roughly by half the amount of force and

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Speaker 3: thus the number of workers needed to pull the stone

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Speaker 3: along the ground. Now why would the water do that? Essentially,

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Speaker 3: the water here helps the sand grains stick together rather

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Speaker 3: than flow, so the sand functions more like a solid,

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Speaker 3: flat surface when you wet it this way dry sand

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Speaker 3: when you're pushing something really heavy through it, it tends

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Speaker 3: to get kind of pushed out in front of the load,

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Speaker 3: forming this mound that then takes more force to pull past.

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Speaker 3: You can kind of imagine this. It's like as you're dragging,

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Speaker 3: you're constantly like building a little mountain in front of

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Speaker 3: where you're trying to go.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

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Speaker 3: But when you wet the sand, it doesn't do that

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Speaker 3: as much. It forms more of a solid flat surface

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Speaker 3: and you can drag it over the top more easily.

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Speaker 3: Bond compared the benefits of wet sand here to the

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Speaker 3: reason that you want to use wet sand to build

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Speaker 3: a sand castle. It sticks together and holds its shape better.

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Speaker 3: Another cool at side about that discovery about the wet

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Speaker 3: sand is that this process of pouring out water on

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Speaker 3: the sand in front of a stone work during transport

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Speaker 3: was actually depicted in ancient Egyptian art. So this is

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Speaker 3: not really even a hypothetical process. It was instead investigating

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Speaker 3: the physics principles of a process that ancient Egyptians depicted

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Speaker 3: themselves doing. So there's like one example here is there's

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Speaker 3: a tomb from the Middle Kingdom twelfth dynasty about nineteen

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Speaker 3: hundred BCE. Belonging to a governor called Jehudi Hotap. That

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Speaker 3: shows teams of workers sporting this big statue and they're

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Speaker 3: pulling it with ropes as it's mounted on a sledge,

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Speaker 3: and then it shows workers pouring water out of jars

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Speaker 3: on the ground right in front of the load. This

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Speaker 3: was previously interpreted as a libation, like a ceremonial pouring

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Speaker 3: out of liquid as an offering to the gods, but

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Speaker 3: this discovery completely reframes that pouring out of liquid as

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Speaker 3: something that was very likely functional in nature, whether or

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Speaker 3: not it had ritual significance, which it might also have had.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you can very well imagine it having both, and yeah,

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Speaker 2: then it makes the ritual even more potent by knowing

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Speaker 2: that you can see the results right away.

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Speaker 3: Yes, so Bond was involved in that research. But one

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Speaker 3: more funny thing about him. He was part of the

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Speaker 3: team that won the twenty twenty four Igno Bell Prize

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Speaker 3: for chemistry. We didn't talk about the chemistry prize in

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Speaker 3: our in our last episodes.

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Speaker 2: Did we?

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Speaker 3: But this was quote for using chromatography to separate drunk

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Speaker 3: and sober worms. I feel kind of sad we didn't

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Speaker 3: cover this anyway. I looked it up to figure out

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Speaker 3: what this was about. The issue is it was not

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Speaker 3: really about worms. Instead, the worms were being used as

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Speaker 3: a model to test different methods, different methods of sorting

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Speaker 3: different kinds of polymers. So the sober worms represented what

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Speaker 3: are called active polymers that can move around, and the

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Speaker 3: drunk worms were non active polymers because they just kind

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Speaker 3: of chill anyway. All that was an aside on Bond's

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Speaker 3: previous work. Here Bond is writing an article reviewing recent

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Speaker 3: ice skating research. It's a short review in the journal Nature,

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Speaker 3: summarizing both the previous state of research on ice skating,

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Speaker 3: as well as especially a new paper published in the

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Speaker 3: journal Physical Review X by Canali at All from that

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Speaker 3: same year, from twenty nineteen. So Bond begins by talking

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Speaker 3: about the explanation that has long been given sort of

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Speaker 3: the older textbook explanation for why ice skating works, and

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Speaker 3: that is that at the interface between the blade and

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Speaker 3: the surface of the ice, there is a thin layer

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Speaker 3: not of ice, but of liquid water, and this thin

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Speaker 3: layer of water lubricates the contact between the two solid objects,

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Speaker 3: between the blade and the ice. Now, why would that happen,

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Speaker 3: Why would that liquid water be there. There are several

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Speaker 3: different explanations that have been offered throughout the years. One

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Speaker 3: is the idea of surface melting. This is the concept

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Speaker 3: that there's sort of a quasi liquid layer of water

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Speaker 3: that exists on the surface of ice, generally primarily at

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Speaker 3: higher temperatures, though still below freezing, and this is sometimes

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Speaker 3: called pre melt. Another idea, this is commonly sighted but

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Speaker 3: now disputed by Bond and by many others. And I'll

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Speaker 3: get to the reason why in a second. But this

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Speaker 3: idea is pressure melting at the contact point. So under

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Speaker 3: this hypothesis, like the weight of a human body distributed

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Speaker 3: over the small surface area of the bottom edge of

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Speaker 3: a skate blade creates so much pressure at that contact

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Speaker 3: point that it causes the ice crystals to melt and

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Speaker 3: become water. And thus you get your lubricating layer of water.

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Speaker 3: And then the final possible explanation for that layer is

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Speaker 3: frictional heating. So we know what frictional heating is. When

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Speaker 3: you rub things together, the friction generates heat. This idea

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Speaker 3: here says that this kind of frictional heating happens between

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Speaker 3: the skate and the ice. The heat melts the ice

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Speaker 3: and the thin layer of slippery melt water is formed.

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Speaker 3: I've come across sources, especially older ones, that favor the

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Speaker 3: explanation based on pressure melt melting, but Bond says this

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Speaker 3: is now widely thought to be incorrect because apparently this

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Speaker 3: would not work at temperatures below negative twenty degrees celsius.

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Speaker 3: And we can see that ice skating regularly works well

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Speaker 3: at temperatures lower than that, So just the observation of

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Speaker 3: ice skating does not match that explanation. So then maybe

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Speaker 3: is it surface melting that pre melt the quasi liquid

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Speaker 3: layer on the outside, or is it frictional melting leading

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Speaker 3: to a liquid layer on top of the ice. Strangely,

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Speaker 3: Bond says, neither of those seem to fully explain what's

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Speaker 3: going on either, especially not in the idea that they

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Speaker 3: could just create a layer of liquid water, because, for

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Speaker 3: one thing, these mechanisms would be equally present at the

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Speaker 3: surface of other various solids that you cannot skate on.

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Speaker 3: So there must be something else at place, something special

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Speaker 3: about water ice compared to other solids. Another interesting question,

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Speaker 3: what exactly are the mechanical properties of this lubricating layer

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Speaker 3: of water. Bond points out some things that are not

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Speaker 3: really consistent with the idea that water lubricates the interface

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Speaker 3: between the skate and the solid surface. For one thing,

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Speaker 3: you can't skate on a flat, solid surface covered in water.

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Speaker 3: You think about this like imagine a flat basketball cort

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Speaker 3: or something. You drench the floor with a thin layer

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00:19:27,080 --> 00:19:29,159
Speaker 3: of water, put on some ice skates and try to

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Speaker 3: skate on it. That does not work.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Your only hope is if the heat the

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Speaker 2: floor that is being covered by the water is ice. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so there's something special about ice. It's not enough

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Speaker 3: to just have liquid water underneath your skate blade. Another

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Speaker 3: interesting thing he mentions water is generally not a great lubricant,

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Speaker 3: in part because it is too thin. When it gets

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Speaker 3: pressed between two solids, water is easily squeezed out of

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Speaker 3: the space between them like a grippier. Stickier fluid like

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Speaker 3: oil or grease, makes a better lubricant because it clings

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Speaker 3: to the space between the solids and doesn't get pressed

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Speaker 3: out as easily. So curious questions confounding observations here.

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Speaker 2: So you would see oil skating would be more likely

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Speaker 2: to take off than this water skating.

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Speaker 3: I mean, I would imagine if you coat a floor

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Speaker 3: with oil. You can probably do some good slipping and

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Speaker 3: sliding on it. I don't know exactly what the skate

355
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Speaker 3: blade but maybe but anyway, so whatever the mechanism, the

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Speaker 3: idea has long been that ice skating is possible because

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Speaker 3: instead of skating on solid ice crystals, you are actually

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Speaker 3: gliding over a microscopic, invisible layer of liquid. What Kanali

359
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Speaker 3: and co authors found in their paper is that this

360
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Speaker 3: is half true. When you skate over the ice, there

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Speaker 3: is a lubricating layer of something, but it's not simply

362
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Speaker 3: liquid water. It's actually a unique water based substance that

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Speaker 3: has some properties of liquid water and some properties of

364
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Speaker 3: solid ice. So to show this, the authors of this paper,

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Speaker 3: Canali and co authors created an experiment where they were

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Speaker 3: able to measure the coefficient of friction of both the

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Speaker 3: ice and the lubricating layer on top of the ice

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Speaker 3: at the same time. And they did this with a

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Speaker 3: device that Bond compares to a tuning fork. Here I'm

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Speaker 3: going to quote from Bond's description of their experiment. Quote.

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Speaker 3: The fork was made to vibrate so that a millimeter

372
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Speaker 3: scale glass bead attached to one of its prongs oscillated

373
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Speaker 3: across an ice surface. The bead thus functioned as a

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Speaker 3: tiny ice skate, gliding for distances of the order of

375
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Speaker 3: tens of micrometers across the same region of ice. An

376
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Speaker 3: accelerometer attached to the same prong of the fork as

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Speaker 3: the bead measured the amplitude of the bead's oscillations parallel

378
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Speaker 3: to the surface and compared them with the amplitude of

379
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Speaker 3: the driving force. Canali at all use the difference in

380
00:22:01,320 --> 00:22:05,040
Speaker 3: amplitude to calculate the friction force between the bead and

381
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Speaker 3: the ice, So they did that, and then at the

382
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Speaker 3: same time also they were measuring the oscillation of the

383
00:22:12,800 --> 00:22:16,600
Speaker 3: bead perpendicular to the ice surface. Essentially that would be

384
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Speaker 3: sort of how it was bouncing up and down to

385
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Speaker 3: learn things about the lubricating layer underneath the bead. And

386
00:22:23,119 --> 00:22:26,399
Speaker 3: then by comparing these two different measurements based on the

387
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Speaker 3: parallel oscillations and the perpendicular oscillations, the authors could figure

388
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Speaker 3: out the friction coefficient between the bead and the ice

389
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Speaker 3: and could figure out flow properties of the lubricating layer

390
00:22:37,600 --> 00:22:41,399
Speaker 3: in between them. And what they found was weird and interesting.

391
00:22:42,160 --> 00:22:47,040
Speaker 3: The lubricating layer has some viscous properties, so like a thicker,

392
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Speaker 3: stickier fluid compared to regular water, and it also had

393
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Speaker 3: elastic behavior, meaning it can have its shape squeezed or

394
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Speaker 3: stretched and then bounce back to its original shape like

395
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Speaker 3: a rubber ball. It behaved neither like water nor like ice,

396
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Speaker 3: but like a hybrid of the two.

397
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Speaker 2: Quote.

398
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Speaker 3: The author suggests that repeated sliding over the same spot

399
00:23:09,280 --> 00:23:13,000
Speaker 3: generates a mixture of ice and water, which displays both

400
00:23:13,080 --> 00:23:17,280
Speaker 3: elastic behavior from the ice and viscous behavior from the water.

401
00:23:17,720 --> 00:23:20,960
Speaker 3: In response to a load. The resulting layer of material

402
00:23:21,040 --> 00:23:23,600
Speaker 3: would be more difficult to squeeze out of gaps than

403
00:23:23,760 --> 00:23:27,040
Speaker 3: ordinary water. This could, at least in part explain the

404
00:23:27,080 --> 00:23:32,840
Speaker 3: layer's excellent lubrication properties. So it has something to do

405
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Speaker 3: with the special characteristics of the outer layers of water. Ice.

406
00:23:37,800 --> 00:23:43,080
Speaker 3: In particular, other melting solids would not necessarily behave this way,

407
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Speaker 3: and as we observe, many other melting solids do not

408
00:23:45,920 --> 00:23:48,800
Speaker 3: behave this way. There's something special about H two zero

409
00:23:49,560 --> 00:23:54,800
Speaker 3: bond rights quote. Few materials can form a viscoelastic liquid

410
00:23:54,920 --> 00:23:58,639
Speaker 3: solid third body in response to friction and wear. That's

411
00:23:58,800 --> 00:24:03,399
Speaker 3: something that makes water special. Also, Bond mentions at the

412
00:24:03,480 --> 00:24:06,240
Speaker 3: end of this review that there are plenty of questions

413
00:24:06,240 --> 00:24:08,560
Speaker 3: about the physics of ice skating that remain. The lots

414
00:24:08,600 --> 00:24:11,160
Speaker 3: of things we still don't know, For example, like why

415
00:24:11,200 --> 00:24:15,080
Speaker 3: does the ideal temperature for reduced friction on the ice

416
00:24:15,640 --> 00:24:19,320
Speaker 3: seem to be like negative seven degrees celsius. That that's

417
00:24:19,320 --> 00:24:22,479
Speaker 3: a finding, but we don't know why that temperature. And

418
00:24:22,560 --> 00:24:25,840
Speaker 3: another thing he points out which I hadn't quite considered,

419
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Speaker 3: but I think is worth the certainly worth understanding. Having

420
00:24:29,480 --> 00:24:32,879
Speaker 3: a complete science of lubrication is not just trivia. This

421
00:24:32,960 --> 00:24:35,320
Speaker 3: is not just like, you know, somebody goes ice skating

422
00:24:35,359 --> 00:24:37,480
Speaker 3: and wonder how does this work. It's not just to

423
00:24:37,520 --> 00:24:43,320
Speaker 3: satisfy our curiosity. Understanding lubrication is hugely important to human

424
00:24:43,400 --> 00:24:47,960
Speaker 3: economics and technology. Bond Site's an estimate that something like

425
00:24:48,240 --> 00:24:52,959
Speaker 3: twenty percent of the world's total energy consumption is lost

426
00:24:53,080 --> 00:24:56,679
Speaker 3: to friction, meaning it's turned into heat and wear on

427
00:24:56,800 --> 00:25:00,439
Speaker 3: components from things rubbing together. Generally that that is not

428
00:25:00,880 --> 00:25:04,080
Speaker 3: useful to us as a type of energy. Thus, better

429
00:25:04,160 --> 00:25:09,280
Speaker 3: lubrication technologies could represent big improvements in energy efficiency and

430
00:25:09,480 --> 00:25:11,840
Speaker 3: in the performance and durability of our machines.

431
00:25:12,680 --> 00:25:14,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great point, I thought so too.

432
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Speaker 3: So let no one, Let no one snicker at the

433
00:25:17,359 --> 00:25:21,520
Speaker 3: idea of lubrication science is it is serious business. But

434
00:25:21,600 --> 00:25:24,639
Speaker 3: anyway to bring it back around, I would summarize what

435
00:25:24,680 --> 00:25:28,400
Speaker 3: I've read on this subject by saying that it seems

436
00:25:28,560 --> 00:25:34,280
Speaker 3: ice skating works because the surface of regular ice, regular

437
00:25:34,359 --> 00:25:39,720
Speaker 3: hexagonal crystal and ice can and usually does, become coated

438
00:25:40,040 --> 00:25:44,120
Speaker 3: in a quasi liquid layer of H two oz made

439
00:25:44,119 --> 00:25:48,840
Speaker 3: of some interesting mixture of liquid melt and tiny ice crystals.

440
00:25:49,400 --> 00:25:53,240
Speaker 3: And this quasi liquid layer does not act like regular

441
00:25:53,320 --> 00:25:59,119
Speaker 3: liquid water, but instead has a sticky bouncy quality or

442
00:25:59,320 --> 00:26:02,879
Speaker 3: what are called in the paper visco elastic qualities, and

443
00:26:02,920 --> 00:26:07,639
Speaker 3: these qualities make it an amazing lubricant between solids. This

444
00:26:07,720 --> 00:26:11,840
Speaker 3: lubricating layer is not primarily created by pressure from the

445
00:26:11,880 --> 00:26:15,720
Speaker 3: skater's body weight as physics as people used to say,

446
00:26:15,920 --> 00:26:19,320
Speaker 3: especially a long time ago, though pressure could play some

447
00:26:19,440 --> 00:26:23,359
Speaker 3: small role, it seems frictional heating between the blade and

448
00:26:23,400 --> 00:26:27,000
Speaker 3: the ice probably does play some role, maybe a major one,

449
00:26:27,560 --> 00:26:31,400
Speaker 3: though some of this quasi liquid layer is already naturally

450
00:26:31,480 --> 00:26:34,399
Speaker 3: there on the ice within the normal temperature range for

451
00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:37,719
Speaker 3: ice skating, and then beyond that, of course, you have

452
00:26:37,800 --> 00:26:41,440
Speaker 3: to think about the physical characteristics of the blades themselves.

453
00:26:41,520 --> 00:26:45,359
Speaker 3: The smooth blades of the skates allow the skater to

454
00:26:45,520 --> 00:26:49,640
Speaker 3: further decrease friction, more so than say the relatively rough

455
00:26:49,680 --> 00:26:52,760
Speaker 3: and grippy soles of shoes or of the bottoms of

456
00:26:52,760 --> 00:26:56,439
Speaker 3: your bare feet, and the blades also allow the skater

457
00:26:56,600 --> 00:27:01,280
Speaker 3: to control movement. There's greater control because they allow you

458
00:27:01,359 --> 00:27:04,159
Speaker 3: to both do a pushing motion when applied to the

459
00:27:04,200 --> 00:27:07,000
Speaker 3: ice one way, and a gliding motion when applied in

460
00:27:07,040 --> 00:27:08,040
Speaker 3: a different way.

461
00:27:08,760 --> 00:27:10,760
Speaker 2: Which of course is the great that's part of the

462
00:27:10,760 --> 00:27:14,960
Speaker 2: great fun of ice skating, this gliding sensation, the pumping

463
00:27:14,960 --> 00:27:16,960
Speaker 2: your legs side to side. I don't get out and

464
00:27:17,040 --> 00:27:19,640
Speaker 2: ice skate all that often. Generally, like once a year,

465
00:27:20,000 --> 00:27:22,800
Speaker 2: I'll go ice skating. Oh and it's cold enough here

466
00:27:22,800 --> 00:27:25,800
Speaker 2: in Atlanta, and they have some outdoor ice skating rinks.

467
00:27:26,520 --> 00:27:29,280
Speaker 2: But generally I spend at least half the time i'm

468
00:27:29,320 --> 00:27:32,000
Speaker 2: there relearning how to ice skate and getting my balance,

469
00:27:32,520 --> 00:27:34,919
Speaker 2: and then it gets pretty fun. You know.

470
00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:37,680
Speaker 3: I haven't done it since I was a kid. There

471
00:27:37,800 --> 00:27:39,680
Speaker 3: was an ice skating rink in town when I was

472
00:27:39,720 --> 00:27:41,679
Speaker 3: a kid, and we would go a number of times.

473
00:27:41,720 --> 00:27:45,760
Speaker 3: It's one of those things where I think I only

474
00:27:45,880 --> 00:27:49,320
Speaker 3: ever did it enough to just get to the edge

475
00:27:49,359 --> 00:27:54,120
Speaker 3: of not being terrible at it, and then never proceeded

476
00:27:54,320 --> 00:27:56,560
Speaker 3: to go into like being able to do it.

477
00:27:57,160 --> 00:27:59,720
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, like I say, I always have

478
00:27:59,800 --> 00:28:02,720
Speaker 2: to relearn. At least half the time, I'm just getting

479
00:28:02,760 --> 00:28:05,320
Speaker 2: my balance right and figuring out how I'm supposed to

480
00:28:05,359 --> 00:28:09,400
Speaker 2: do this, allowing my confidence to build up enough, and

481
00:28:09,440 --> 00:28:11,560
Speaker 2: then I'm finally in a place where I can dodge

482
00:28:11,560 --> 00:28:14,440
Speaker 2: all the children out there on the rink and make

483
00:28:14,480 --> 00:28:16,320
Speaker 2: a few laps that feel pretty satisfied.

484
00:28:16,880 --> 00:28:19,720
Speaker 3: This is a tangent, but this makes me think I

485
00:28:19,720 --> 00:28:21,800
Speaker 3: don't know if there's a name for this phenomenon, but

486
00:28:22,280 --> 00:28:24,320
Speaker 3: I would be interested in doing something on the show

487
00:28:24,359 --> 00:28:27,679
Speaker 3: about these kinds of endeavors where you get stuck in

488
00:28:27,720 --> 00:28:32,080
Speaker 3: the perpetual beginner zone, where you're always just like retreading

489
00:28:32,160 --> 00:28:35,240
Speaker 3: or reviewing the beginner material and you never break out

490
00:28:35,280 --> 00:28:37,000
Speaker 3: into actual competence of it.

491
00:28:38,920 --> 00:28:41,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are probably a lot of things like that, though,

492
00:28:41,880 --> 00:28:44,080
Speaker 2: of course, one of the great things about hobbies is

493
00:28:44,080 --> 00:28:46,440
Speaker 2: you don't actually have to be good or even competent

494
00:28:46,520 --> 00:28:50,040
Speaker 2: at them. They are your hobbies, after all. But yeah,

495
00:28:51,120 --> 00:28:52,320
Speaker 2: I think there are a lot of things like this

496
00:28:52,720 --> 00:28:54,960
Speaker 2: where we can look to our own experiences and say, well,

497
00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:57,160
Speaker 2: I almost did that, I almost served once.

498
00:28:57,960 --> 00:29:00,360
Speaker 3: Well, I feel like there are some hobbies that are

499
00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:02,880
Speaker 3: more fun to spend time in the beginner zone in

500
00:29:02,960 --> 00:29:07,360
Speaker 3: than others. Like with ice skating, you know, you can

501
00:29:07,520 --> 00:29:10,600
Speaker 3: imagine that you'd be having more fun once you were

502
00:29:10,640 --> 00:29:14,400
Speaker 3: able to feel some amount of mastery over it, whereas

503
00:29:14,440 --> 00:29:16,800
Speaker 3: other things you can just be messing around in the

504
00:29:16,840 --> 00:29:19,440
Speaker 3: you know, total beginner zone and it's already pretty fun

505
00:29:19,480 --> 00:29:28,080
Speaker 3: to be right there.

506
00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:33,240
Speaker 2: All right, well, let's get back into the history of

507
00:29:33,560 --> 00:29:36,880
Speaker 2: ice skating, and again we'll stress the caveat that the

508
00:29:37,200 --> 00:29:40,520
Speaker 2: earliest examples of any given technology don't always survive or

509
00:29:40,520 --> 00:29:43,719
Speaker 2: have yet to be found, especially if their biodegradable materials

510
00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:47,400
Speaker 2: bound up in their production. But the oldest ice skates

511
00:29:47,440 --> 00:29:50,520
Speaker 2: that I think we know of date back to roughly

512
00:29:51,360 --> 00:29:56,960
Speaker 2: eighteen hundred BCE in Scandinavia, where the ancient Scandinavians seemingly

513
00:29:56,960 --> 00:30:00,880
Speaker 2: invented the technology. Some three thousand years ago, I was

514
00:30:00,920 --> 00:30:05,960
Speaker 2: reading a paper by Frederico Formenti and Alberto E. Minetti.

515
00:30:06,800 --> 00:30:12,600
Speaker 2: Formenti in particular has written numerous papers dealing with recreating

516
00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:17,520
Speaker 2: old examples of ice skates and comparing them to other models.

517
00:30:18,120 --> 00:30:21,160
Speaker 2: This particular two thousand and seven paper was titled human

518
00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:24,120
Speaker 2: locomotion on ice and it was published in the Journal

519
00:30:24,160 --> 00:30:27,880
Speaker 2: of Experimental Biology, and he mentioned that there's also a

520
00:30:27,920 --> 00:30:31,240
Speaker 2: case to be made for Bronze Age invention of skates

521
00:30:31,240 --> 00:30:36,520
Speaker 2: in what is now Northern Russia. And I also am

522
00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:38,800
Speaker 2: going to come back around to some arguments here in

523
00:30:38,840 --> 00:30:42,480
Speaker 2: a bit that also point to parts of modern day

524
00:30:42,560 --> 00:30:45,920
Speaker 2: China where we have some evidence of ice skating, and

525
00:30:45,920 --> 00:30:48,000
Speaker 2: then also some things like ice skating I'll get into,

526
00:30:48,880 --> 00:30:53,040
Speaker 2: but it seems like universally, the earliest skates that we

527
00:30:53,160 --> 00:30:56,200
Speaker 2: know of they were not made of metal. They were

528
00:30:56,200 --> 00:30:59,320
Speaker 2: not even made of wood entirely. They were made of bone,

529
00:31:00,120 --> 00:31:02,720
Speaker 2: which makes a lot of sense. Bone is a dense,

530
00:31:02,760 --> 00:31:07,440
Speaker 2: dependable construction material for human tool use. And yeah, you

531
00:31:07,480 --> 00:31:10,400
Speaker 2: can look up some images of this. In particular, I

532
00:31:10,440 --> 00:31:13,160
Speaker 2: would say that Science Friday has a really good article

533
00:31:13,280 --> 00:31:16,040
Speaker 2: about the paper in question here that I'm referencing, and

534
00:31:16,080 --> 00:31:21,480
Speaker 2: it has some nice color images of for Minty's reconstructed

535
00:31:21,520 --> 00:31:23,800
Speaker 2: ancient skates that you can look at. They're the same

536
00:31:23,800 --> 00:31:26,160
Speaker 2: images in the original paper, except in this case they're

537
00:31:26,200 --> 00:31:29,120
Speaker 2: in color, and so I included one here for you, Joe,

538
00:31:29,160 --> 00:31:34,040
Speaker 2: of reconstruction of an ancient bone ice skate, and it's

539
00:31:34,040 --> 00:31:34,720
Speaker 2: pretty simple.

540
00:31:35,320 --> 00:31:38,200
Speaker 3: It looks like a bone with two belts looped through it.

541
00:31:38,920 --> 00:31:42,960
Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah, this would be a bone from a

542
00:31:43,040 --> 00:31:47,440
Speaker 2: horse or a cow. Generally the metatarsal bone strapped to

543
00:31:47,520 --> 00:31:50,240
Speaker 2: a boot via leather straps that are worked through slits

544
00:31:50,600 --> 00:31:54,000
Speaker 2: in the bone. Oh, I meant to mention that. Formenti

545
00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:57,760
Speaker 2: also notes that the ancient Scandinavian sagas suggest that the

546
00:31:57,760 --> 00:32:00,280
Speaker 2: first ice skates were made of wood, but this is

547
00:32:00,320 --> 00:32:04,080
Speaker 2: something that is present in textual evidence, but there's no

548
00:32:04,240 --> 00:32:07,160
Speaker 2: archaeological findings to support this currently, so as far as

549
00:32:07,160 --> 00:32:10,720
Speaker 2: we can tell, it was bone all the way back.

550
00:32:11,040 --> 00:32:13,640
Speaker 3: This reminds me of our Bone Punk episodes where we

551
00:32:13,640 --> 00:32:17,120
Speaker 3: were talking about those Ice age dwellings with the huts

552
00:32:17,120 --> 00:32:18,520
Speaker 3: made out of mammoth bones.

553
00:32:19,120 --> 00:32:19,400
Speaker 2: Yeah.

554
00:32:19,480 --> 00:32:22,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, I believe part of the idea there was that

555
00:32:22,400 --> 00:32:25,560
Speaker 3: those were in places where wood was actually in quite

556
00:32:25,720 --> 00:32:28,760
Speaker 3: short supply or would have been precious for other reasons,

557
00:32:28,840 --> 00:32:32,840
Speaker 3: and thus the bone was like it made sense economic

558
00:32:32,880 --> 00:32:35,640
Speaker 3: sense to use mammoth bones as a building material. I

559
00:32:35,680 --> 00:32:37,360
Speaker 3: don't know if there was a similar thing in here.

560
00:32:37,400 --> 00:32:39,520
Speaker 3: It might just be that the bone had properties that

561
00:32:39,560 --> 00:32:41,160
Speaker 3: you would prefer for skating.

562
00:32:41,680 --> 00:32:45,560
Speaker 2: I think a lot of it comes down to those properties. Yeah,

563
00:32:45,560 --> 00:32:48,800
Speaker 2: So it's thought that these would have been the first

564
00:32:48,840 --> 00:32:51,920
Speaker 2: variety of ice skates that humans used. And the crazy

565
00:32:51,920 --> 00:32:55,400
Speaker 2: thing is these remained in use up into the eighteenth

566
00:32:55,440 --> 00:33:00,000
Speaker 2: century CE, so until fairly recently folks were still known

567
00:33:00,200 --> 00:33:04,160
Speaker 2: to strap some bones to their feet and hit the ice. Now,

568
00:33:04,320 --> 00:33:08,320
Speaker 2: the authors here note that these ice skates lacked the

569
00:33:08,480 --> 00:33:11,560
Speaker 2: edge that you find on modern metal skates, so you

570
00:33:11,600 --> 00:33:14,600
Speaker 2: couldn't just pump along on these with your legs. That

571
00:33:14,680 --> 00:33:17,000
Speaker 2: kind of that sliding and gliding motion that we were

572
00:33:17,000 --> 00:33:19,520
Speaker 2: just talking about being so fulfilling. You would not be

573
00:33:19,680 --> 00:33:22,280
Speaker 2: doing that on these ice skates. You wouldn't be doing

574
00:33:22,280 --> 00:33:25,400
Speaker 2: a lot of tricks I'm guessing either, and whirls and

575
00:33:25,600 --> 00:33:30,360
Speaker 2: whirls and so forth, because your locomotion depended pretty much

576
00:33:30,480 --> 00:33:34,240
Speaker 2: entirely on your upper limbs working a pair of poles

577
00:33:34,600 --> 00:33:38,440
Speaker 2: to push you along. Oh interesting, Okay, So in that

578
00:33:38,600 --> 00:33:41,840
Speaker 2: it has more in common I would imagine with skiing,

579
00:33:41,960 --> 00:33:45,200
Speaker 2: which we're not really getting into today. It's going to

580
00:33:45,200 --> 00:33:48,800
Speaker 2: be a separate episode at some point. Now. From and

581
00:33:48,840 --> 00:33:51,000
Speaker 2: his co author point out that skates such as these

582
00:33:51,040 --> 00:33:54,880
Speaker 2: would have been used for accompanying animal driven sleds or sledges.

583
00:33:55,240 --> 00:33:57,280
Speaker 2: They would have been used in ice fishing or fishing

584
00:33:57,360 --> 00:34:00,600
Speaker 2: from positions further out on the ice, but especially among

585
00:34:00,680 --> 00:34:04,600
Speaker 2: the Dutch people, the technology soon became essential for winter

586
00:34:04,680 --> 00:34:10,080
Speaker 2: transportation via frozen rivers, lakes, and eventually canals. So think

587
00:34:10,120 --> 00:34:13,080
Speaker 2: of a region where you know, where you have a

588
00:34:13,120 --> 00:34:16,680
Speaker 2: bunch of frozen over rivers and or canals that are

589
00:34:16,760 --> 00:34:20,680
Speaker 2: ultimately connecting different human populations, or situations where you have

590
00:34:20,719 --> 00:34:24,160
Speaker 2: a completely frozen lake and you have human populations at

591
00:34:24,200 --> 00:34:28,600
Speaker 2: different points across from each other across said lake. It's

592
00:34:28,680 --> 00:34:32,480
Speaker 2: ultimately faster and more energy efficient to use some sort

593
00:34:32,480 --> 00:34:36,600
Speaker 2: of skating technology. And yeah, for Menty stresses that it

594
00:34:36,640 --> 00:34:40,160
Speaker 2: was highly efficient. This was no mere novelty. They weren't

595
00:34:40,200 --> 00:34:43,480
Speaker 2: doing this. You know, maybe it was fun, but they

596
00:34:43,480 --> 00:34:46,920
Speaker 2: weren't doing it because it was fun, He writes, quote

597
00:34:46,960 --> 00:34:50,120
Speaker 2: from its very conception, skating on ice was a form

598
00:34:50,160 --> 00:34:54,240
Speaker 2: of human powered locomotion that was simple and effective, very cheap,

599
00:34:54,320 --> 00:34:56,440
Speaker 2: and thus accessible to a large part of the population,

600
00:34:56,840 --> 00:34:59,680
Speaker 2: and allowed people to reach more distant destinations than they

601
00:34:59,680 --> 00:35:03,439
Speaker 2: could do by walking or running. In fact, unless more

602
00:35:03,520 --> 00:35:07,960
Speaker 2: expensive means of transport such as horses or later trains

603
00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:12,040
Speaker 2: were used, ice skates were probably the most convenient locomotion

604
00:35:12,200 --> 00:35:14,840
Speaker 2: tool until bicycles were built. That would have been the

605
00:35:14,880 --> 00:35:18,920
Speaker 2: nineteenth century, the latter probably not being very safe on

606
00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:20,280
Speaker 2: slippery roads in winter.

607
00:35:20,719 --> 00:35:23,160
Speaker 3: That's interesting, Well, I would not have thought about it

608
00:35:23,200 --> 00:35:23,560
Speaker 3: that way.

609
00:35:23,880 --> 00:35:28,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, so not everywhere and certainly not year round, but

610
00:35:29,120 --> 00:35:33,040
Speaker 2: that there would be places where this was just highly efficient.

611
00:35:33,120 --> 00:35:36,400
Speaker 2: It was just the most the most sensible way to

612
00:35:36,480 --> 00:35:39,560
Speaker 2: move from point A to point B if conditions were

613
00:35:39,560 --> 00:35:43,880
Speaker 2: just right. Now, while again bone skates were ultimately a

614
00:35:43,920 --> 00:35:47,759
Speaker 2: long lasting technology against superior to mere wood, it would

615
00:35:47,760 --> 00:35:52,120
Speaker 2: seem by the thirteenth century CE in the Netherlands, skaters

616
00:35:52,400 --> 00:35:55,600
Speaker 2: returned to wood to make use of metal in their skating,

617
00:35:55,719 --> 00:35:59,640
Speaker 2: constructing wooden skates that had metal blades. Now, these were

618
00:35:59,640 --> 00:36:01,520
Speaker 2: still things that you would strap to the bottom of

619
00:36:01,560 --> 00:36:03,920
Speaker 2: your shoes, and I included an image of one of

620
00:36:03,960 --> 00:36:07,840
Speaker 2: these for you here, Joe. It is also not very fancy.

621
00:36:07,880 --> 00:36:09,520
Speaker 2: If you didn't know you were looking at an ice skate,

622
00:36:09,560 --> 00:36:11,720
Speaker 2: you might not know you were looking at an ice skate.

623
00:36:12,440 --> 00:36:15,200
Speaker 2: It's like a imagine a wooden skate but with a

624
00:36:15,320 --> 00:36:18,799
Speaker 2: thin metal blade, and then it is strapped or tied

625
00:36:18,840 --> 00:36:19,480
Speaker 2: to your shoes.

626
00:36:19,960 --> 00:36:21,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it looks It looks like the wooden bottom

627
00:36:21,760 --> 00:36:23,520
Speaker 3: of a boat, or like a boat keel with a

628
00:36:23,560 --> 00:36:26,640
Speaker 3: tiny little strip of metal blades sticking out of the bottom.

629
00:36:26,880 --> 00:36:29,960
Speaker 2: Yeah. And so for Mantiene's co author point out that

630
00:36:30,320 --> 00:36:32,080
Speaker 2: the wood here would have been easy to work, the

631
00:36:32,120 --> 00:36:37,120
Speaker 2: metal that they use was very durable. An interesting thing

632
00:36:37,120 --> 00:36:40,520
Speaker 2: here is that these skates would apparently according to their

633
00:36:40,520 --> 00:36:43,880
Speaker 2: reconstructions and their tests, would have suffered from greater friction

634
00:36:44,040 --> 00:36:47,560
Speaker 2: compared to bone skates. But their big advantage was that

635
00:36:47,600 --> 00:36:50,960
Speaker 2: they allowed the user to finally propel themselves with their

636
00:36:51,080 --> 00:36:55,120
Speaker 2: lower limbs, so you could seemingly throw away the poles,

637
00:36:55,480 --> 00:36:59,280
Speaker 2: free up your arms, and depend almost entirely on leg power.

638
00:36:59,760 --> 00:37:02,520
Speaker 2: And as such, this is really when we begin to

639
00:37:02,520 --> 00:37:06,160
Speaker 2: see skating as we know it today entering the world,

640
00:37:06,680 --> 00:37:08,440
Speaker 2: Because if you go to any ice skating rink, and

641
00:37:08,480 --> 00:37:12,040
Speaker 2: certainly if you go to a roller skating rink, you're

642
00:37:12,080 --> 00:37:14,759
Speaker 2: not going to see people pushing around on poles. I mean,

643
00:37:14,800 --> 00:37:16,920
Speaker 2: maybe there's some sort of scenario where you use poles

644
00:37:16,960 --> 00:37:19,640
Speaker 2: to get your feet underneath you. But I've never seen

645
00:37:19,640 --> 00:37:20,480
Speaker 2: anything like that.

646
00:37:20,880 --> 00:37:24,200
Speaker 3: Right, So I imagine it's like the thinness of the

647
00:37:24,239 --> 00:37:27,000
Speaker 3: blade that allows you to just use your legs because

648
00:37:27,040 --> 00:37:30,120
Speaker 3: of the way that you can angle the foot to

649
00:37:30,239 --> 00:37:33,000
Speaker 3: push versus gliding, and you can't really do that with

650
00:37:33,080 --> 00:37:34,640
Speaker 3: the more rounded edge of a bone.

651
00:37:35,080 --> 00:37:38,080
Speaker 2: Yes, that's my understanding. So at this point, yeah, we're

652
00:37:38,160 --> 00:37:41,880
Speaker 2: kind of off to the races. We're really not purely

653
00:37:41,880 --> 00:37:44,880
Speaker 2: inventing something new, but we've innovated to a very interesting

654
00:37:44,960 --> 00:37:48,160
Speaker 2: place in the development of the ice skate. And during

655
00:37:48,200 --> 00:37:51,680
Speaker 2: the fifteenth and eighteenth century ice skates they retain their

656
00:37:51,719 --> 00:37:55,160
Speaker 2: metal wood construction, but they became about thirty percent lighter.

657
00:37:55,520 --> 00:37:59,200
Speaker 2: According for Mente, Dutch skates of the time were shorter

658
00:37:59,280 --> 00:38:02,400
Speaker 2: compared to modern skates and therefore more difficult to balance

659
00:38:02,440 --> 00:38:04,839
Speaker 2: on compared to what we have today, but they would

660
00:38:04,880 --> 00:38:08,000
Speaker 2: have proven especially useful to them during the Little Ice

661
00:38:08,040 --> 00:38:11,920
Speaker 2: Age of the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries, during which the

662
00:38:11,960 --> 00:38:16,640
Speaker 2: system of rivers and canals would have proven ideal skate

663
00:38:16,719 --> 00:38:22,919
Speaker 2: routes connecting different populations and different different destinations. And then

664
00:38:23,040 --> 00:38:26,480
Speaker 2: during the eighteenth century, skates on the whole became longer

665
00:38:26,760 --> 00:38:31,840
Speaker 2: and enabled easier balance and resulted in lower resistance the

666
00:38:31,880 --> 00:38:36,480
Speaker 2: weight spread out across longer blades. And I've included another

667
00:38:36,520 --> 00:38:40,799
Speaker 2: photo Formenti's work here reconstruction. This is still something you

668
00:38:40,840 --> 00:38:44,480
Speaker 2: strapped your existing footwear, but it is even more identifiable,

669
00:38:44,760 --> 00:38:45,920
Speaker 2: I think as an ice skate.

670
00:38:46,160 --> 00:38:47,080
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, totally.

671
00:38:47,480 --> 00:38:50,319
Speaker 2: And then during the nineteenth century we finally ended up

672
00:38:50,360 --> 00:38:54,799
Speaker 2: with specialized ice skates, with the skates permanently affixed to

673
00:38:54,840 --> 00:38:58,160
Speaker 2: a boot of some sort screwed into place, an ice

674
00:38:58,160 --> 00:39:02,200
Speaker 2: skate that has shoe ices so forth, like you would

675
00:39:02,200 --> 00:39:04,560
Speaker 2: identify now when you go in like rent ice skates

676
00:39:04,800 --> 00:39:08,600
Speaker 2: to go ice skating. And the blades were even longer,

677
00:39:09,440 --> 00:39:12,280
Speaker 2: apparently up to twice the length of the old thirteenth

678
00:39:12,280 --> 00:39:17,120
Speaker 2: century skates, enabling even greater balance and maneuverability. And then

679
00:39:17,160 --> 00:39:19,640
Speaker 2: a whole host of additional innovations have been made and

680
00:39:19,680 --> 00:39:24,920
Speaker 2: continue to be made, producing skates that are ever more ergonomic, speedy,

681
00:39:25,280 --> 00:39:33,080
Speaker 2: and effective. Different breaking mechanics were added, blades that ultimately

682
00:39:33,200 --> 00:39:36,080
Speaker 2: like have a mechanical aspect to them and can shift

683
00:39:36,600 --> 00:39:41,320
Speaker 2: and so forth. Saw a Fermente quoted in an article

684
00:39:41,480 --> 00:39:45,359
Speaker 2: I believe it's the Science Friday, where he basically says

685
00:39:45,400 --> 00:39:48,600
Speaker 2: that we probably haven't seen as long of a skate

686
00:39:48,719 --> 00:39:51,239
Speaker 2: as is ideal, like, skates are probably going to keep

687
00:39:51,480 --> 00:39:54,360
Speaker 2: They're going to keep evolving. They're still evolving, They're becoming

688
00:39:54,360 --> 00:39:57,160
Speaker 2: more and more efficient, and they may get longer. We

689
00:39:57,239 --> 00:39:59,800
Speaker 2: have not reached peak ice skate length yet.

690
00:40:00,040 --> 00:40:03,400
Speaker 3: Wait, does he have a specific peak length in mind?

691
00:40:04,560 --> 00:40:08,480
Speaker 2: Now he's just saying that we're still like fine tuning everything.

692
00:40:08,960 --> 00:40:11,160
Speaker 2: And I guess the other interesting thing here is that

693
00:40:11,840 --> 00:40:14,520
Speaker 2: there's not just one purpose for ice skates. There are

694
00:40:14,520 --> 00:40:17,719
Speaker 2: a lot of highly specialized purposes for ice skates. So

695
00:40:18,040 --> 00:40:20,360
Speaker 2: you know, we have a whole host of skate based

696
00:40:20,400 --> 00:40:23,640
Speaker 2: sporting activities and they range from figure skating to ice hockey.

697
00:40:23,840 --> 00:40:26,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was reading about that too, And an interesting

698
00:40:26,440 --> 00:40:30,120
Speaker 3: thing there is that apparently different ice temperatures are preferred

699
00:40:31,160 --> 00:40:33,120
Speaker 3: for the different sports. I think the way I was

700
00:40:33,120 --> 00:40:36,680
Speaker 3: reading it is that usually they want the temperature a

701
00:40:36,680 --> 00:40:40,600
Speaker 3: little bit higher for figure skating because figure skaters, I

702
00:40:40,640 --> 00:40:46,000
Speaker 3: think a softer ice gives them more control over precise movements,

703
00:40:46,239 --> 00:40:50,120
Speaker 3: whereas with ice hockey, I think they like a slightly

704
00:40:50,160 --> 00:40:53,120
Speaker 3: colder ice because that allows them to achieve like a

705
00:40:53,160 --> 00:40:53,960
Speaker 3: higher top.

706
00:40:53,760 --> 00:40:57,600
Speaker 2: Speed okay, interesting, Okay, So with hockey it's more about speed,

707
00:40:57,800 --> 00:41:00,879
Speaker 2: and with figure skating it's maneuverability, which makes it now

708
00:41:00,960 --> 00:41:03,839
Speaker 2: Fomenty and his co author in the aforementioned paper, they

709
00:41:03,840 --> 00:41:07,440
Speaker 2: compare the effectiveness of the four main eras of ice skates,

710
00:41:08,200 --> 00:41:12,160
Speaker 2: and the results illustrate this continual improvement process that we're

711
00:41:12,280 --> 00:41:14,120
Speaker 2: looking at here. I'm not going to roll through the

712
00:41:14,239 --> 00:41:16,600
Speaker 2: entire chart. You can find it in the original paper,

713
00:41:17,360 --> 00:41:20,880
Speaker 2: but you can see here he breaks things out by speed,

714
00:41:21,360 --> 00:41:26,680
Speaker 2: stride frequency, stride length, and so forth, and Fermenty points

715
00:41:26,680 --> 00:41:30,319
Speaker 2: out that with the same metabolic power, skaters today have

716
00:41:30,400 --> 00:41:34,640
Speaker 2: a speed four times that of our ancestors, and again

717
00:41:34,680 --> 00:41:37,240
Speaker 2: it's only increasing as we find tune our skate design.

718
00:41:38,160 --> 00:41:40,040
Speaker 3: This might not actually be an issue, but I just

719
00:41:40,120 --> 00:41:46,000
Speaker 3: had the thought. Do skaters on rink ice have higher

720
00:41:46,040 --> 00:41:49,560
Speaker 3: speeds as well, just because they can feel safe to

721
00:41:49,640 --> 00:41:52,080
Speaker 3: go at higher speeds, whereas if you're on a natural

722
00:41:52,120 --> 00:41:54,960
Speaker 3: body of water you might be more I don't know,

723
00:41:55,080 --> 00:41:58,240
Speaker 3: cautious about like straying into an area of thin ice

724
00:41:58,360 --> 00:42:00,160
Speaker 3: or something like that.

725
00:42:00,160 --> 00:42:03,600
Speaker 2: That's a good point. I mean, I guess the other

726
00:42:03,680 --> 00:42:05,520
Speaker 2: number of factors that might come into play, right, if

727
00:42:05,520 --> 00:42:09,080
Speaker 2: you're dealing with like natural ice versus zambonid ice, right.

728
00:42:09,200 --> 00:42:12,719
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I know that the zambonid ice, like the

729
00:42:13,040 --> 00:42:15,479
Speaker 3: rink ice, is laid down one layer at a time

730
00:42:15,560 --> 00:42:17,560
Speaker 3: to give it special properties, to kind of make it

731
00:42:17,600 --> 00:42:21,360
Speaker 3: perfect for skating, whereas, of course natural ice on a

732
00:42:21,360 --> 00:42:23,600
Speaker 3: body of water, I mean, it might be great for skating,

733
00:42:23,640 --> 00:42:26,480
Speaker 3: but it doesn't have whatever refined quality they're looking for

734
00:42:26,520 --> 00:42:27,360
Speaker 3: on that rink ice.

735
00:42:28,760 --> 00:42:31,000
Speaker 2: Now, I want to come back to ice skating in

736
00:42:31,080 --> 00:42:35,719
Speaker 2: China because as I was hitting like the core data here,

737
00:42:35,840 --> 00:42:40,839
Speaker 2: I kept finding various references to Chinese ice skating, and

738
00:42:40,920 --> 00:42:43,480
Speaker 2: I'd read that ice skating in China might date back

739
00:42:43,480 --> 00:42:47,200
Speaker 2: to the Song dynasty, so nine sixty to twelve seventy nine.

740
00:42:47,360 --> 00:42:50,840
Speaker 2: See that is, of course in addition to possibly connected

741
00:42:50,920 --> 00:42:53,480
Speaker 2: or independent developments in the north of Russia as I

742
00:42:53,640 --> 00:42:57,080
Speaker 2: referenced earlier. But certainly I looked into this a little

743
00:42:57,080 --> 00:43:01,680
Speaker 2: bit more, and you have these ice festivals the Bingshe,

744
00:43:02,600 --> 00:43:05,759
Speaker 2: which I think means ice amusement festivals that seem to

745
00:43:05,800 --> 00:43:08,640
Speaker 2: date back to the Song dynasty in China and consisted

746
00:43:08,680 --> 00:43:13,400
Speaker 2: of various winter sports and performances. Among the many festivities

747
00:43:13,440 --> 00:43:16,719
Speaker 2: there was a downhill skating event that involved kind of

748
00:43:16,760 --> 00:43:19,960
Speaker 2: a leather ice skate. I wasn't able to find any

749
00:43:20,000 --> 00:43:22,440
Speaker 2: images of reproduction of this, but I found some various

750
00:43:23,000 --> 00:43:27,279
Speaker 2: modern illustrations of what these might have consisted of. And

751
00:43:28,200 --> 00:43:33,080
Speaker 2: these these are kind of like curved leather shoes that

752
00:43:33,280 --> 00:43:38,320
Speaker 2: seem to have been made expressly for sliding across the

753
00:43:38,480 --> 00:43:39,560
Speaker 2: ice and or snow.

754
00:43:40,080 --> 00:43:42,480
Speaker 3: If this is what's depicted in the illustration you put

755
00:43:42,480 --> 00:43:44,239
Speaker 3: in our outline that kind of curled up at the

756
00:43:44,320 --> 00:43:45,360
Speaker 3: toe like elf shoes.

757
00:43:45,560 --> 00:43:49,880
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, think like leather elf shoes designed for sliding

758
00:43:49,920 --> 00:43:53,440
Speaker 2: around on ice. It's not skating in the sense that

759
00:43:53,520 --> 00:43:56,719
Speaker 2: we've been talking about skating, I think from the physics standpoint,

760
00:43:57,960 --> 00:43:59,520
Speaker 2: But these would have been things that would have been

761
00:43:59,520 --> 00:44:03,320
Speaker 2: you would have worn for like this downhill skating competition

762
00:44:03,640 --> 00:44:06,800
Speaker 2: or something that I've seen translated as ice football, in

763
00:44:06,880 --> 00:44:09,759
Speaker 2: which people were skating around on the ice in these

764
00:44:09,840 --> 00:44:13,080
Speaker 2: leather shoes throwing some sort of a ball back and forth.

765
00:44:14,160 --> 00:44:16,280
Speaker 2: The illustration here that I found is from the Beijing

766
00:44:16,360 --> 00:44:20,360
Speaker 2: based World of the World of Chinese website, So my

767
00:44:20,560 --> 00:44:23,760
Speaker 2: understanding is like these are similar but a little bit different.

768
00:44:23,920 --> 00:44:26,160
Speaker 2: These would have also the examples we're looking at here

769
00:44:26,200 --> 00:44:29,000
Speaker 2: would have definitely been novelty based skates. These were not

770
00:44:29,960 --> 00:44:35,200
Speaker 2: about locomotion, These were about amusement. However, in other parts

771
00:44:35,520 --> 00:44:40,360
Speaker 2: of modern China you do find ancient examples of bone skates.

772
00:44:41,320 --> 00:44:45,320
Speaker 2: I was reading that in twenty twenty three, Chinese archaeologists

773
00:44:45,360 --> 00:44:48,000
Speaker 2: found an example of a bone ice skate in a

774
00:44:48,080 --> 00:44:52,000
Speaker 2: Bronze Age tomb from roughly three thy five hundred years ago,

775
00:44:52,640 --> 00:44:57,160
Speaker 2: possibly of the Andronova culture of cattle herders that lived

776
00:44:57,600 --> 00:45:03,480
Speaker 2: in China's western Shijang Weaker Autonomous Region. These would have

777
00:45:03,560 --> 00:45:05,520
Speaker 2: been very much akin to what we were talking about,

778
00:45:06,239 --> 00:45:10,840
Speaker 2: like the bones scrapped to a boot or to a

779
00:45:10,920 --> 00:45:14,760
Speaker 2: shoe that enabled one to move across naturally frozen bodies

780
00:45:14,800 --> 00:45:18,440
Speaker 2: of water. But again, it does seem to come back

781
00:45:18,480 --> 00:45:20,800
Speaker 2: to bones. It comes back to horse and cow bones

782
00:45:21,320 --> 00:45:24,160
Speaker 2: strapped to the bottom of your feet, enabling you to

783
00:45:24,600 --> 00:45:28,040
Speaker 2: at least push yourself across the ice with a big

784
00:45:28,200 --> 00:45:29,600
Speaker 2: with a pair of poles or sticks.

785
00:45:29,920 --> 00:45:32,279
Speaker 3: Well, Rob, you've talked me into it. If I if

786
00:45:32,320 --> 00:45:34,960
Speaker 3: I take my child ice skating this year, I'm gonna

787
00:45:35,080 --> 00:45:37,160
Speaker 3: I'm gonna have to get some bone skating to try

788
00:45:37,200 --> 00:45:38,560
Speaker 3: out see how they do.

789
00:45:39,080 --> 00:45:41,480
Speaker 2: You know, I don't think it would be a good idea.

790
00:45:41,560 --> 00:45:44,120
Speaker 2: I think this would not in the long run, this

791
00:45:44,160 --> 00:45:46,959
Speaker 2: would be a failure. But I could imagine someone trying

792
00:45:47,000 --> 00:45:51,120
Speaker 2: to market this. You know, why settle for ice skating

793
00:45:51,239 --> 00:45:53,880
Speaker 2: when this year when you could do primal ice skating,

794
00:45:55,080 --> 00:45:57,759
Speaker 2: bone ice skating, and people would be like, yeah, you know,

795
00:45:58,160 --> 00:46:00,759
Speaker 2: I'm kind of a little over three own axes at

796
00:46:00,760 --> 00:46:03,759
Speaker 2: the local acts throwing range. I want to try something

797
00:46:03,800 --> 00:46:06,560
Speaker 2: else that has this kind of like, you know, ancient

798
00:46:06,760 --> 00:46:09,080
Speaker 2: vibe to it. Let's strap on some bones and see

799
00:46:09,120 --> 00:46:11,439
Speaker 2: how it goes. I think you would find it. Would

800
00:46:11,680 --> 00:46:13,719
Speaker 2: it would? It would be harder. It sounds like every

801
00:46:13,840 --> 00:46:15,320
Speaker 2: everything I've read about it, it would have been a

802
00:46:15,440 --> 00:46:18,919
Speaker 2: much harder and clumsier thing to do. We're much better

803
00:46:19,000 --> 00:46:20,759
Speaker 2: off with modern ice skates, but for.

804
00:46:20,960 --> 00:46:23,840
Speaker 3: The metal of it, maybe you use the non metal.

805
00:46:24,440 --> 00:46:28,040
Speaker 2: Yes, bone ice skates are very metal. We'll definitely say that.

806
00:46:28,480 --> 00:46:28,839
Speaker 3: All right.

807
00:46:29,040 --> 00:46:30,880
Speaker 2: Should we wrap up there, Yeah, We're going to go

808
00:46:30,880 --> 00:46:34,359
Speaker 2: ahead and close out this episode. However, again, definitely tune

809
00:46:34,400 --> 00:46:36,560
Speaker 2: in later in June when we come back and talk

810
00:46:36,600 --> 00:46:41,640
Speaker 2: about roller skating on its own again directly connected to

811
00:46:42,200 --> 00:46:44,879
Speaker 2: the invention of ice skating, but very much its own

812
00:46:44,920 --> 00:46:47,759
Speaker 2: thing as well. In the meantime, would of course love

813
00:46:47,800 --> 00:46:50,280
Speaker 2: to hear from everyone out there. Do you have experiences

814
00:46:50,400 --> 00:46:54,000
Speaker 2: or thoughts related to ice skating? Is there anyone out

815
00:46:54,040 --> 00:46:57,239
Speaker 2: there who has tried a more archaic version of the

816
00:46:57,360 --> 00:47:00,440
Speaker 2: ice skate? If so, definitely right into it because we

817
00:47:00,480 --> 00:47:02,800
Speaker 2: would love to have your feedback. As always, we'd like

818
00:47:02,840 --> 00:47:04,120
Speaker 2: to remind you that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is

819
00:47:04,160 --> 00:47:06,600
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820
00:47:06,640 --> 00:47:10,040
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821
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824
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825
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826
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828
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830
00:47:32,120 --> 00:47:36,080
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831
00:47:36,440 --> 00:47:38,040
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832
00:47:38,080 --> 00:47:40,800
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833
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834
00:47:43,040 --> 00:47:44,880
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835
00:47:45,000 --> 00:47:47,920
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836
00:47:56,080 --> 00:47:58,960
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837
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