WEBVTT - Tetris Syndrome: A Mind Made of Blocks 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:05.920 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stop 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:14.600 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:16.840 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:18.279 before we get go in here, I just want to 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:21.120 shot up a quick reminder to everybody. Go on over 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:22.560 to Stuff with All your Mind dot com if you 0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:23.960 want to learn more about the show, you want to 0:00:24.000 --> 0:00:27.320 find old episodes, you want to explore our blog content, 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:29.840 our video content, or linked out the various social media 0:00:29.840 --> 0:00:33.440 accounts of just Facebook, Twitter, and tumbling. And also, hey, 0:00:33.440 --> 0:00:36.520 if you listen to us through iTunes through the Apple System, 0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:38.239 what did you head on over there and give us 0:00:38.240 --> 0:00:40.760 a little love on the review there. It'll help out 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:43.519 the algorithm for our show and it's a good way 0:00:43.560 --> 0:00:45.519 to give back and ensure that we get to keep 0:00:45.560 --> 0:00:47.919 putting out this kind of content for you. So this 0:00:48.000 --> 0:00:51.120 episode today is going to be about Tetris, and it's 0:00:51.120 --> 0:00:53.240 going to be part one of a two part series 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:57.560 that we're doing on the science of Tetris, the ancient 0:00:57.600 --> 0:00:59.960 mystery puzzle of the universe. Yeah, so the first live 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:02.520 is mostly dealing with the power of Tetris and the 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:05.480 history of Tetris. Second part is going to dive into 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:09.520 some possible uses for that power and knowledge. So, Robert, 0:01:09.520 --> 0:01:13.080 I have a perhaps pretty weird question for you. Alright, 0:01:13.160 --> 0:01:15.080 hit me with a pretty weird question. If there were 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:21.360 no thinking beings in the universe, would numbers exist? Oh, 0:01:21.400 --> 0:01:24.919 this is a great question. Our numbers a human discovery 0:01:25.080 --> 0:01:27.720 or humans are are numbers of human invention? Right? Like 0:01:27.760 --> 0:01:31.000 the number seven? Is that an inherent feature of the 0:01:31.120 --> 0:01:33.399 universe or is that just sort of like an idea 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:36.399 we've come up with to describe what happens when there 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:39.800 are seven of something. I tend to see it as 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:42.080 kind of a mix of the two. Like, yes, there 0:01:42.200 --> 0:01:45.640 is there is an inherent number sense to the universe, 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:48.960 but obviously there's a there's a human ordering system layered 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:50.760 on top of that so that we can interact with 0:01:50.760 --> 0:01:52.960 it and understand it. Yeah, I think that's a sensible 0:01:52.960 --> 0:01:55.240 way of looking at it. But there are certainly people 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:58.440 who I think would be called platonists in this sense 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:02.160 that their platonic in the sense that they believe in 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:06.920 the real existence of abstract objects that are inherent to 0:02:06.920 --> 0:02:11.920 the universe, like numbers, mathematical objects, the theorems that those 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:15.800 things actually do exist as objects in some sense, even 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:20.920 though they don't have physical matter in any way. And 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:23.760 I sort of feel the same way the Platonists feel 0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:29.639 about numbers. I feel that way about Tetris. So tell 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:33.760 me your personal Tetris history. Well, I think it is 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:38.680 ideal that this episode is publishing during December, because for me, 0:02:38.720 --> 0:02:42.280 there's always something kind of Christmas e about Tetris because 0:02:42.560 --> 0:02:46.000 I got it back in the day on old school Nintendo. 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:48.560 I think I got it for Christmas, so it arrived 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:51.280 in the Christmas season, and some of the wonderful music 0:02:51.560 --> 0:02:54.919 um that was on that game included um, I believe 0:02:55.040 --> 0:02:57.959 danced the sugar plumb Ferries from The Nutcracker, which of 0:02:58.040 --> 0:03:02.240 course is a Christmas themed ballet, a ballet that I 0:03:02.320 --> 0:03:04.920 had to set through or or got to sit through, 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:07.240 however you want to look at it many many times, 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:10.200 as I had two sisters who were both involved in dance. Oh, 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:12.079 it wasn't one of those things where your school took 0:03:12.120 --> 0:03:14.360 you to The Nutcracker every year. No, I had to, 0:03:14.520 --> 0:03:16.760 I think, go every year to see one of my 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:19.880 two sisters of performing it. And and the Nutcracker is 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:22.360 an interesting thing to have to sit through because the 0:03:22.400 --> 0:03:25.120 first is totally front loaded. The first half has a 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:29.160 rat king, it has battles, it has a fabulous candyland discovery, 0:03:29.240 --> 0:03:32.680 weird uncles with an eye patch, and then the second 0:03:32.680 --> 0:03:38.440 half is just just a slumber fest of various dances 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:41.200 that are performed for the victors like they've already won. 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:44.960 It's just all complete. Afterthought, huh, that's interesting. Yeah, it 0:03:45.000 --> 0:03:47.680 does have a lot of great hallucinatory imagery. I recalled though. 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:50.200 I remember that there's a lady with a huge dress 0:03:50.320 --> 0:03:54.560 and a bunch of creatures come out from under her dress. Yes, yeah, 0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:57.280 but anyway, Yeah, the dance of the sugar Plum Ferry 0:03:57.320 --> 0:04:00.240 was on the any S version I played of the 0:04:00.240 --> 0:04:03.640 game Boy version, And I also associate this with Christmas. 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:07.440 I think maybe because I associate most video games I 0:04:07.480 --> 0:04:09.640 played as a child with Christmas, because that, you know, 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:12.080 Christmas is when you get the game and then you 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:15.640 have that huge allotment of time and to vote to 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:19.880 the game. You can just completely meld your brain to 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:22.640 this game, play at nine hours a day because there's 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:24.800 no school and your you know, your parents don't want 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:27.920 to deal with you during Uh So, yeah, I I 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:30.719 totally had that. I had a couple other games for 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:32.960 the game Boy too. Back in the early nineties, when 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:35.000 I was a kid, I had Tetris, but also had 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:37.440 Super Mario Land. I don't know if you played that 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:40.800 on the Game Boy. It involves weird it kind of 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:46.040 like ancient Egyptian themes that are it's sort of unique 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:48.520 Mario game. And then I also had a video game 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:53.600 called Altered Space, which involved isometric movements. It was very 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:56.480 hard to control h and mostly you would just fall 0:04:56.520 --> 0:04:58.560 on spikes and run out of air and die. You 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:02.320 play a little astronaut who has minute because I was 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:05.240 initially imagining some sort of Timothy Leary themed game that, 0:05:05.400 --> 0:05:07.640 oh no, that would have been wonderful. Like as a kid, 0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:10.920 I had the game version of the William Hurt movie 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:15.080 where it takes ayahuasca and gets in the sensory deprivation tank. 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:17.400 You know another thing about about having it. I wonder 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:19.400 if this is the case with you as well. I 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:24.320 had some horrible Nintendo games, like I had Mission Impossible, 0:05:24.440 --> 0:05:28.279 which was an impossibly difficult game, and then a few 0:05:28.279 --> 0:05:31.440 other games that really had limited appeal even to me. 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:34.640 But Tetris was a game that I played like crazy. 0:05:34.760 --> 0:05:37.000 My sister my sister, who was old enough to play 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:39.880 the played like crazy, and even my my dad got 0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:41.800 in on the act and was playing Tetris, and it 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:44.680 just ensnaring all to all of us. Yeah, it does 0:05:44.720 --> 0:05:48.359 have this very universal appeal which has been chalked up 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:51.680 to several different factors from people were gonna talk about 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:54.479 later in this episode. But the reason I mentioned those 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:56.480 other games I had on the game Boy was going 0:05:56.520 --> 0:05:58.760 back to this very first thing I said, which is 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:01.520 that I sensed, even as a child, that there was 0:06:01.640 --> 0:06:06.360 something very very different between Tetris and these other games, 0:06:06.360 --> 0:06:08.760 even popular games like you know, the Mario game. I 0:06:08.800 --> 0:06:10.719 mean like it didn't have to be a bad game. 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:15.599 Other games to me felt like human artifacts. They felt 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:19.520 invented in the sense that you know that that a 0:06:20.360 --> 0:06:26.520 wheelbarrow is invented. Tetris to me felt like a fundamental, 0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:33.080 inherent aspect of the universe that was an ancient, secret mystery, 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:36.200 and it just seemed to me impossible to believe there 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:40.480 was ever a time when there wasn't Tetris woven into 0:06:40.480 --> 0:06:44.839 the fabric of physics and mathematics. So you're you're basically 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:49.000 imagining a scenario where the the hominids in two thousand 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:50.960 and one of Space Odyssey are looking up. Instead of 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:56.960 seeing a complete um monolith, they're seeing the long bar. Yah, 0:06:57.160 --> 0:07:00.440 seeing the Tetris shapes fall inform the monolith. Yeah, and 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:02.360 it's got to be the long bar, because that's the 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:06.200 most coveted piece among avid Tetris players, as long as 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:11.880 you've prepared yourself for its insertion. Yeah, exactly, how true 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:14.080 that is? No, I see, I see what you're saying. 0:07:14.080 --> 0:07:19.160 Exactly this Uh, it feels perfectly natural, like playing Tetris 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:23.440 is like coming home on some level. Um. I definitely 0:07:23.440 --> 0:07:26.600 remember playing it and being obsessed with it, and and 0:07:26.640 --> 0:07:29.000 it was just startled to realize this was a new 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:31.880 thing in the world. I couldn't believe. I mean, this 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:35.080 is a game that was invented in Ur, but it 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:39.040 didn't feel that way. I even even old old games 0:07:39.120 --> 0:07:42.760 like go and checkers and chess, I mean, these old 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:46.080 board games still felt like artifacts. They still felt invented 0:07:46.080 --> 0:07:49.440 by humans in a way that Tetris didn't. Tetris felt 0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:52.280 like an ancient mystery. And I'm still not quite sure 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:54.960 exactly why that is. But I think throughout these couple 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:57.320 of episodes, we're going to do on the science of Tetris. 0:07:58.000 --> 0:08:01.280 We we may have some leads about why it feels 0:08:01.320 --> 0:08:03.120 that way to me at least and I think to 0:08:03.120 --> 0:08:06.680 to some other people too, or simply the case it 0:08:06.720 --> 0:08:09.680 could just be the case that God itself is the 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:14.400 long bar or or some sort of multidimensional um shape 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:17.560 that we can't quite understand, but that fits into all 0:08:17.640 --> 0:08:21.520 possible Tetris scenarios. But indeed, as we explore here, we're 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:24.760 also going to get into some of the recreational mathematical 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:28.120 roots of Tetris, and even those don't go back tremendously 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:30.880 far h that they only go back into the early 0:08:31.200 --> 0:08:35.360 twentieth century. Nevertheless, I insist there is an ancient mystery 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:37.560 at the secret of this journey, and maybe by the 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:40.640 end will unlock it. But I think we should actually 0:08:40.679 --> 0:08:43.440 look at the game Tetris now it's history and where 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:46.120 it comes from. And the first thing I've got to 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:49.840 start with is uh, sort of incidental to the game 0:08:49.880 --> 0:08:53.800 of Tetris itself. But did you know that the famous 0:08:53.840 --> 0:09:09.959 Tetris music, that theme right there is based on a 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:12.920 Russian folk song that actually has lyrics. I do not 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:15.800 know this. The Tetris theme with lyrics. I love it 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:19.319 so much. I looked it up. This is the Wikipedia translation, 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:21.400 so this may not be the most accurate, but but 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:24.880 the first verses, oh my crate is so full, I've 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:28.080 got chintz and brocade. Take pity o, sweetie, of this 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:32.080 lad's shoulder seems kind of appropriate for the game where 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:37.720 you're you're stacking the blocks forever. My great, it overflows all. 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:40.760 That is a revelation for me. Yeah, but surely Tetris 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:43.960 didn't just appear out of thin air. I mean, obviously 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:49.360 it grew out of some kind of puzzle tradition. Yes, yes, 0:09:49.400 --> 0:09:52.679 and so I mean certainly you can if you want to, 0:09:52.679 --> 0:09:55.120 to take the roots of Tetris and extend them back 0:09:55.520 --> 0:09:58.320 just completely geometrically. Yes, you can get back into the 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:01.600 history of geometry itself. But for the most part, we 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:06.120 can begin the birth of Tetris with something that was 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:10.120 called a pin tomino. This is an arrangement of five 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:14.320 unit squares or cubes, all joined along their edges. Um 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:21.719 they're twelve free pintomenos. They're shaped roughly like the letters vt, W, X, U, z, F, 0:10:21.920 --> 0:10:25.400 P I, N Y L. There, that's funny. I looked 0:10:25.480 --> 0:10:28.160 up some of these designations of like the letter to 0:10:28.280 --> 0:10:30.440 the pentomeno, and some of them makes sense, like the 0:10:30.640 --> 0:10:34.679 W pintomeno looks like a W, the Y pintomeno looks 0:10:34.720 --> 0:10:37.200 like a long bar with a lump on the side. Yeah. Yeah. 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:40.120 Some of them are a little little more abstract. They're 0:10:40.160 --> 0:10:44.760 eighteen one sided pentomenos and sixty three fixed pintomenos. Okay, 0:10:44.800 --> 0:10:48.080 So essentially, though, the pentomeno is if you take some 0:10:48.200 --> 0:10:51.520 squares and you line them up so that the sides 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:54.200 are touching in one way or another, how many different 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:57.079 shapes can you make out of five squares? And that's 0:10:57.160 --> 0:10:59.880 what it is. Yeah, And then you you had pent 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:03.319 amino puzzles that were all about arranging them together into 0:11:03.360 --> 0:11:07.640 a shape, usually something you know, a rectangle, something fairly simple. Now. 0:11:07.679 --> 0:11:11.520 The first published pentomino puzzle of this nature, even though 0:11:11.520 --> 0:11:15.120 it was not named as such, appeared in Henry Dadeny's 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:19.280 The Canterbury Puzzles in nineteen o seven. That a companion 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:22.320 to the Canterbury Tales. Um, if anything, it would be 0:11:22.320 --> 0:11:24.880 the section in the back with a crossroad puzzle too, 0:11:25.000 --> 0:11:29.920 I guess um No. This was basically a puzzle publication, 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:33.720 uh and in this particular one that Dundinny put together, 0:11:33.800 --> 0:11:36.920 you had to fit twelve pentomino shapes together with one 0:11:37.040 --> 0:11:40.720 square te traumino, and I'll explain the terminology here in 0:11:40.760 --> 0:11:44.439 a minute. That's four squares as you encounter in tetris 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:46.559 later on. You had to join these together on an 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:49.280 eight by eight checkerboard. Okay, so you've got like a 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:52.679 puzzle space. That's the board, and the problem is you've 0:11:52.720 --> 0:11:55.680 got all these pieces that you've got to fit into 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:58.240 the space so that they're not you know, poking out 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:00.800 the sides or something right, And like any good game, um, 0:12:01.240 --> 0:12:03.640 there's a part of it is the mechanics which have described, 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:05.679 but the other part was the fluff. And the fluff 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:10.200 here was that William the Conqueror had, out of rage, 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:12.600 broken a chess board and you had to have to 0:12:12.640 --> 0:12:16.280 reassemble the chessboard that these each of these shapes is 0:12:16.320 --> 0:12:19.520 a piece of the shattered board. The story behind the game. Yeah, 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:21.559 I kind of love that when there's a game that's 0:12:21.600 --> 0:12:24.439 not like an adventure action game with characters, but it's 0:12:24.440 --> 0:12:27.600 a puzzle game, and yet it has a back story. Yeah, yeah, 0:12:27.600 --> 0:12:29.240 I mean I think that's essential. I don't want to 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:33.079 play a game that's just pure abstract mathematics and mechanics. 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:35.080 I want some cool fluff in there. That's how I 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:39.120 get engaged with it. Of course, the exception would be Tetris, exactly, yes, 0:12:39.200 --> 0:12:42.080 because there is well we'll discuss some that have some 0:12:42.120 --> 0:12:44.280 fluff added on, and sometimes the fluff is delightful, but 0:12:44.320 --> 0:12:47.559 for the most part, tetris is the exception to the rule. Okay, 0:12:47.559 --> 0:12:50.400 but so William the conqueror gets a chessboard, smashes it 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:52.920 into a bunch of pentominoes, and you've got to fit 0:12:52.960 --> 0:12:55.200 them back together, right though, of course they're not called 0:12:55.200 --> 0:12:59.680 pentominoes at the time. It's not until three that American 0:12:59.720 --> 0:13:03.800 profess their Solomon W. Golam, actually coins the term. So 0:13:03.840 --> 0:13:07.600 what he did is he took the word domino, which, 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:09.839 of course we know is a little a little block 0:13:09.960 --> 0:13:12.120 that you line up a play dominoes, whether you do 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:15.200 cascading dominot guy who makes the pizza, yeah, exactly, that 0:13:15.400 --> 0:13:17.319 that sort of domino. So he took the word domino, 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:19.680 and then he and it. He treated it kind of 0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:23.000 whimsically as if it was die domino, as if omino 0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:26.000 were a shape and Die referred to the number of 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:29.360 squares cubes making it up because there are two squares 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:31.440 and a domino exactly, So he said, what if there 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:35.960 were other omino's, So in this case, a pent domino 0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:41.479 is penta or five plus omino. Likewise, we already mentioned tetromino, 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:46.920 which would be tetra four plus domino, right, um and uh. 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:50.839 And he also threw out just a general polyominos, a 0:13:51.080 --> 0:13:54.840 term for these various constructions depending on how many different 0:13:54.880 --> 0:13:57.160 square que elements are making them up. So there could 0:13:57.200 --> 0:14:00.320 be like sex dominoes or sept dominoes exactly. Though. I 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:03.040 imagine as you go higher and higher up the list 0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:07.520 of cardinal numbers there, the number of possible shapes just explodes, right, 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:10.720 because as you add more squares to move around in 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:14.439 different positions, you could probably make an ultimately infinite number 0:14:14.440 --> 0:14:16.320 of shapes. Yeah, Like I mean, the bigger ones are 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:20.480 going to resemble full blown levels from video games or 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:24.120 or dungeoning adventures from Dungeons and Dragons with each of 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:28.440 the cubes, right. Um. Now, all of this comes to 0:14:28.800 --> 0:14:33.400 a head publicly with his nineteen article Checkerboards and Polyominos 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:37.160 in American Mathematical monthly and this this really came out. 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:41.160 This kick started a lot of interest in these shapes 0:14:41.200 --> 0:14:43.880 and the kind of puzzles you could have with them. Okay, 0:14:44.440 --> 0:14:48.160 so pentomino puzzles good stuff, big business. Yeah, well, and 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:50.320 I mean his big business is you're gonna have in 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:53.600 recreational mathematics in the mid twentieth century. But but it's 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:56.320 certainly we're not talking about Marl Borrows here, right, But 0:14:56.440 --> 0:14:58.520 it's still it's catching on. It's it already has an 0:14:58.520 --> 0:15:01.920 addictive property to it. In then in Night it actually 0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:05.400 launches off the pen and paper, off the table and 0:15:05.440 --> 0:15:08.120 into the world of computers. Because at this point we 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:10.960 end up with a computer program that generates solutions for 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:16.840 an eight by eight polyomino puzzle. So we're already obsolete. Yeah, yeah, 0:15:16.840 --> 0:15:18.960 we're already getting the human element out of it, and 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:22.200 we're already seeing it take off into the world of 0:15:22.240 --> 0:15:25.360 computer programming in a very early stage. So I imagine, 0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:28.920 if you're just trying to cram pieces together into a checkerboard, 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:30.960 and you've got a fixed number of pieces and a 0:15:31.040 --> 0:15:35.760 fixed board size, there are a limited number of solutions, right. Yeah. 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:39.200 According to the University of Victoria Department of computer sciences. 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:41.920 It's now known that there are two thousand, three hundred 0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:45.040 and thirty nine solutions for the six by ten rectangle, 0:15:45.400 --> 0:15:48.520 a thousand and ten solutions for the five by twelve rectangle, 0:15:48.600 --> 0:15:50.680 three hundred and sixty eight solutions for the four by 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:55.040 fifteen rectangle, and two solutions for the three by twenty rectangle. 0:15:56.040 --> 0:15:59.120 So so yeah, this is you see this, this idea, 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:02.600 this new type of shape puzzle just taking off in 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:06.040 the world of recreational mathematics. Uh, finding a warm, warm 0:16:06.120 --> 0:16:09.840 home there, and that's the sort of sort of soil 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:13.880 from which this maddening Tetris vine emerges and you can 0:16:14.000 --> 0:16:16.000 The interesting thing here is you can even factor in 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:19.360 some some interesting non Tetris stuff here. For instance, John 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:24.720 Horton Conway's seventy Game of Life cellular automaton simulation. What 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:27.800 is that? Oh? I think we may have mentioned it 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:29.960 on here in some past episodes, and we should probably 0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:32.960 discover it in more depth later on. But it's essentially 0:16:32.960 --> 0:16:38.040 a very simple um geometric based simulation. Many of you 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:40.480 may have seen images from this where it basically looks 0:16:40.520 --> 0:16:44.560 like crazy little Tetris shapes moving around and changing form 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:47.920 on a screen sort of one of those uh cell 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:52.720 evolutions simulators. Yeah, the big one really, um and uh yeah, 0:16:52.760 --> 0:16:54.560 it's it's a fascinating topic on to its own, so 0:16:54.560 --> 0:16:55.760 we may have to come back on on that one 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:57.840 at a later day. Okay, well, you have laid the 0:16:57.920 --> 0:17:00.400 soil out of which you, as you say, the vines 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:02.800 of Tetris grow. But I think we should turn to 0:17:02.840 --> 0:17:06.919 the vines themselves, because what fascinating vines they are, a 0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:09.439 lot of people might not have guessed this, so some 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:13.720 people probably already know the story. Uh. The creation of Tetris, 0:17:13.760 --> 0:17:19.560 strangely enough, takes place in a nineteen eighties Soviet computing 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:25.040 lab in Moscow with a slightly board artificial intelligence researcher 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:29.680 discovering the ancient secret of Tetris under the ruse of 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:34.919 testing computer hardware capabilities um so. The the creator of 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:39.080 Tetris is named Alexei Petnov, and he was a computer 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:43.320 programmer and artificial intelligence researcher working for the Academy of 0:17:43.400 --> 0:17:47.320 Science of the USSR SO the Soviet Union Zone Academy 0:17:47.359 --> 0:17:51.040 of Science. And he was working in a lab that 0:17:51.040 --> 0:17:54.800 would occasionally be sent a new piece of computer hardware, 0:17:54.840 --> 0:17:57.159 and in this case, in the case of Tetris, they 0:17:57.200 --> 0:18:02.040 were sent this thing called the Electronica sixty. It sounds fancy, yeah, wonderful, 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:05.040 And a part of paget knobs duties would be to 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:08.679 create software to run on the new computers of the 0:18:08.680 --> 0:18:11.600 new hardware they're being sent in order to test what 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:14.240 it was capable of, so to say like, oh, okay, yeah, 0:18:14.280 --> 0:18:17.080 this this computer is fine because it can run this 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:21.119 demanding piece of software. A okay. So in in paget 0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:25.360 Knov's own words, this became his quote excuse for making games, 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:28.880 which I mean, that's gonna be a pretty cool job 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:32.440 comparatively in the Soviet Union. In oh yeah, I mean, 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:35.960 that's a pretty great situation anywhere where you find the 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:39.760 way to make your job even more engaging, or make 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:43.640 it engaging to begin with, without actually just completely knocking 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:46.639 off and doing your own thing. Right. So, paget Knobs 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:50.160 in this lab testing the electronic of sixty, and what 0:18:50.240 --> 0:18:54.760 he comes up with to test it is Tetris. Tetris 0:18:54.840 --> 0:18:58.480 is one of these games he creates. And I don't 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:01.560 know to what extent we really try to describe Tetris, 0:19:01.640 --> 0:19:04.560 because I feel like almost everybody who's going to be 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:07.399 listening to this has seen Tetris. If you haven't, you 0:19:07.400 --> 0:19:10.760 should go watch a video of somebody playing Tetris on YouTube. 0:19:10.800 --> 0:19:14.760 Any number of official Tetris or Tetris knockoff versions that 0:19:14.800 --> 0:19:17.760 you can just play online. Yeah, I found a free website. 0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:19.919 I don't know if this is legal, it's probably not, actually, 0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:22.200 but I found a website that has an emulator that 0:19:22.240 --> 0:19:26.120 will emulate the any S version of Tetris that's in browser. 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:29.000 And it's pretty great at the any S version. I 0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:32.040 really like the graphics. Yeah, yeah, it was a great 0:19:32.160 --> 0:19:36.080 use of the you know, simple graphics to deliver the 0:19:36.160 --> 0:19:38.760 Tetris experience. Though I do still prefer the music from 0:19:38.760 --> 0:19:41.680 the game Boy version, but danswer the sugar plumb Ferry 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:44.200 is good to either way. You should you should play 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:47.480 Tetris a little get in the mood for this episode. Uh, 0:19:47.560 --> 0:19:49.280 you can pause right here and go do that and 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:52.840 come back if you like otherwise we will continue. But basically, 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:56.959 what Tetris is is you've got seven blocks of different 0:19:56.960 --> 0:19:59.280 shapes and these are the tetrominos that we were talking 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:01.439 about earlier, and they fall from the top of the 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:04.160 screen towards the bottom of the screen on a little 0:20:04.200 --> 0:20:07.320 playing area, and the player can move the blocks around 0:20:07.440 --> 0:20:10.080 left to right and can rotate them in increments of 0:20:10.160 --> 0:20:12.560 ninety degrees, so you can flip the piece and you 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:14.840 can move it side to side. But what you can't 0:20:14.880 --> 0:20:18.600 do is stop it from falling. There's the inexorable creep 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:21.639 towards the bottom of the screen. And so what the 0:20:21.680 --> 0:20:25.119 player does is arranged the blocks to form and then 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:30.280 clear solid horizontal lines. Oh yeah, that's satisfying moment where 0:20:30.400 --> 0:20:32.680 you have blocks all the way across a single line 0:20:32.720 --> 0:20:35.760 and then that that line just vanishes. Yeah, And so 0:20:35.800 --> 0:20:37.320 if the blocks stack up all the way to the 0:20:37.359 --> 0:20:40.280 top of the screen, the game is over. Interestingly enough, 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:43.879 Paget and have said that originally the lines did not 0:20:44.080 --> 0:20:45.960 clear in the version of the game he was making, 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:49.240 that you would just try to stack them, but he 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:51.479 found that the screen filled up too quick. You know, 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:54.800 you'd make these stacked rows and eventually it reached the 0:20:54.800 --> 0:20:56.359 top of the screen. So then he came up with 0:20:56.400 --> 0:20:59.040 the idea of every time you created a solid row, 0:20:59.200 --> 0:21:02.000 having it van ish and and just turn into magical 0:21:02.040 --> 0:21:06.080 abstract points. Then I think that's interesting because it you 0:21:06.119 --> 0:21:10.840 can see the roots of the recreational mathematical puzzle there, right, 0:21:11.160 --> 0:21:14.600 because you wouldn't have um that much space if you 0:21:14.640 --> 0:21:16.600 were just throwing this out on a sheet of paper. 0:21:16.840 --> 0:21:19.719 Yeah yeah. So if if the blocks stack up all 0:21:19.720 --> 0:21:21.359 the way to the top of the screen, of course 0:21:21.400 --> 0:21:24.800 games over that that's your death in the game terms. 0:21:25.400 --> 0:21:27.480 And as the game goes on, the blocks begin to 0:21:27.520 --> 0:21:31.159 fall faster and faster, which of course makes it harder 0:21:31.200 --> 0:21:34.080 to fit them in as time goes on, and eventually 0:21:34.280 --> 0:21:37.080 in most versions of the game, you get to something 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:39.800 that the players would call a kill screen or a 0:21:39.960 --> 0:21:43.000 death screen, which is in the any S version at 0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:46.760 least level twenty nine, or the transition between level twenty 0:21:46.840 --> 0:21:49.639 nine and thirty, where the blocks just fall so fast 0:21:49.800 --> 0:21:54.080 it's impossible to play anymore. You cannot continue though. Actually, 0:21:54.119 --> 0:21:57.159 before we did this episode, I watched a documentary called 0:21:57.240 --> 0:22:01.000 The Ecstasy of Order about tetris Cha ampiends that, which 0:22:01.080 --> 0:22:03.040 I recommend if if you'll at home, want to watch 0:22:03.080 --> 0:22:05.359 it. It It was really interesting and there are a couple 0:22:05.359 --> 0:22:07.639 of players who do manage to get to level thirty. 0:22:07.680 --> 0:22:11.280 In it, it's a very brief, fleeting victory. Does it 0:22:11.480 --> 0:22:13.800 so that the game itself does not stop and say, hey, 0:22:13.840 --> 0:22:16.240