Speaker 1: If you live in San Francisco, you better come and
Speaker 1: see It's at the Castro. That was horrid, but really nice.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. Yeah, So we are going to be,
Speaker 1: as the song says, at the Castro Theater on January
Speaker 1: four for San Francisco Sketch Fest. Chuck, that's right. We
Speaker 1: go there just about every year now and it's a
Speaker 1: lot of fun and San Francisco you always treat us
Speaker 1: so well. So I recommend a stocking stuffer or two
Speaker 1: in the way of stuff you should Know life tickets
Speaker 1: and there's an extra stocking stuff where they can get
Speaker 1: featuring just Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Right, Oh that's right.
Speaker 1: I'm doing my very first ever movie Crush live at
Speaker 1: the punch Line, and I am having as my guests
Speaker 1: Mr Tony Hale of Beep and Arrested Development, Mr Buster
Speaker 1: Blues himself and I know right, and we're gonna be
Speaker 1: talking about the movie Punch Drunk Love, and uh it
Speaker 1: is at one PM, so you could double dip that
Speaker 1: day see me at one the stuff you should Know
Speaker 1: at night and I am even gonna be doing a
Speaker 1: little meat and greet before and after. Fantastic Chuck, this
Speaker 1: is why they call you the hardest working man in
Speaker 1: show business. That's right. And you can get tickets for
Speaker 1: Movie Crush Live at bit dot Lee slash Movie Crush yep.
Speaker 1: And you can get tickets for our sketch Fish show
Speaker 1: at s y s K live dot com. And there's
Speaker 1: still a few tickets left for Seattle the following day
Speaker 1: on January, so s y s K live dot com
Speaker 1: and bit dot Lee Slash Movie Crush Chuck. That's right.
Speaker 1: We'll see you guys in January. Welcome to Stuff you
Speaker 1: should know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and
Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant, and Jerry. The three of us were just
Speaker 1: the bottomized, so we're feeling just fine. Globe of Death,
Speaker 1: that's right, or or because it's huge down in South America.
Speaker 1: Al Globo day lab wear, which I think I prefer
Speaker 1: that one. Globo de lamuerte, Globo de lamerte. Jerry, she said, Man,
Speaker 1: I think she did it better than anybody. Well, Jerry
Speaker 1: actually speak Spanish. That's right. She's not a a faker
Speaker 1: like us. Uh No, she's not. I'm so mad at
Speaker 1: it and learned Spanish, are you? Oh yeah, you did German.
Speaker 1: I did French, just so dumb, like, how helpful would
Speaker 1: it be to know Spanish? Now? It would be pretty helpful.
Speaker 1: I would love to chat it up with Spanish speaking
Speaker 1: people I see every day in my life. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: well you it's never too late to learn, chuck, and
Speaker 1: know what they're saying about me, right exactly? Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: too late, it's over. No it's not. I'm saying it's
Speaker 1: not too late. No, no, no, it's too late. I'm
Speaker 1: not learning a new language. I think that's it. I'm
Speaker 1: going to go learn Spanish just to show you, and
Speaker 1: so you can talk about me in Spanish, Mama, Jerry can.
Speaker 1: Uh so, Chuck, We're not talking about learning Spanish or
Speaker 1: whether it's too late to learn a language, because it is.
Speaker 1: It's not. We are talking about, like you said, the
Speaker 1: globe of death also known as the globe of steel. Yeah,
Speaker 1: apparently that was a Wringling Brothers marketing department invention or
Speaker 1: PR department invention, because we can't have like a globe
Speaker 1: of death at our circus. We don't want anybody to
Speaker 1: see our elephants and start thinking about death, about sphere
Speaker 1: of fear. That's a good one too. What about the
Speaker 1: three hundred and sixty degree circle of intimidation? I just
Speaker 1: came up with that. Why it's not that great? Huh?
Speaker 1: We should know it was terrible. We should tell people
Speaker 1: what we're talking about, because I can sense the frustration
Speaker 1: weeks from now brewing with angry listeners already. So the
Speaker 1: globe of death. What we're talking about is if you've
Speaker 1: ever been to a circus or a fair fair and
Speaker 1: by the way, this is we thought we would never
Speaker 1: add to the circus arts suite, and here it is.
Speaker 1: There's still more to come. What county fairs, state fairs
Speaker 1: sometimes like um, like, if you have like a pretty
Speaker 1: good music festival, they might have something maybe a Jane's
Speaker 1: Addiction show. Who knows, Yeah, what what's the uh? The
Speaker 1: World's Fair? Remember those? Oh man, they still have them,
Speaker 1: but they're just not the same any longer. I think
Speaker 1: the US pulled out of them a decade or two back.
Speaker 1: I think the internet killed it. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: You're absolutely right, that's what I read because I just
Speaker 1: the other day I was thinking, like, um, whatever happened
Speaker 1: to the World's Fair? And it turns out they're still there.
Speaker 1: They're called like International Expose or something now, um, and
Speaker 1: yeah they are, just they're just not as interesting. It's um,
Speaker 1: it's not about like the future. And they specifically said
Speaker 1: that it's just the internet. Now you can go on
Speaker 1: the internet and find all that stuff without leaving your
Speaker 1: home in its roun so much. That's when we're looking
Speaker 1: at so globe of death what we're talking about, or
Speaker 1: we could beat around the bush round their ten minutes.
Speaker 1: Uh is if you've ever been to this circus for
Speaker 1: those places, they might have this attraction where in there
Speaker 1: is a uh steel sphere mesh steel mesh, so you
Speaker 1: can see through it. Yeah, you can see through it,
Speaker 1: but you can still see it's there. It's not invisible. Yes,
Speaker 1: that would be amazingly cool. Yeah. Uh, wherein there are one,
Speaker 1: but usually more than one, motorcycle riders riding inside of
Speaker 1: a of a globe around and around horizontally vertically doing
Speaker 1: a loop to loop, like all the way from the
Speaker 1: top to the bottom and over and over again. And yeah,
Speaker 1: when you like just one person doing this, this article
Speaker 1: says it's kind of boring. I wholeheartedly disagree, and I
Speaker 1: would like to see the author try to do it right. Well, yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: but compared to like when you got four or five
Speaker 1: people in there and then a lady standing in the
Speaker 1: middle of smoking a cigar, that's another right, struggling babies,
Speaker 1: that's pretty amazing. Yeah. Um, and I think the record
Speaker 1: that I saw somebody was trying to break seven and
Speaker 1: and do eight motorcyclists in a sphere at once. Um,
Speaker 1: I didn't see anyone had actually done it. There's been
Speaker 1: a lot of talk about it, but I didn't see
Speaker 1: anyone had done it. Um. Seven is the most that
Speaker 1: I've seen, although I've seen with my own eyes on video. Um,
Speaker 1: I just oh no, I'm sorry. Seven is the most
Speaker 1: I saw with my own eyes on video. But it is.
Speaker 1: It's amazing because you know, they'll they'll follow one another
Speaker 1: in a circle, which is pretty cool, but then one
Speaker 1: will like break off and start doing something perpendicular to
Speaker 1: the other circle, and they'll just like just miss each
Speaker 1: other every time. And it's just an amazing feat of
Speaker 1: of um, machine and mind coming together in this. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which we'll get to. I think think, think, think I
Speaker 1: might have it figured out. Physics wise, this is kind
Speaker 1: of a rehash of the Sun episode is as hard
Speaker 1: as it is to understand. Oh, I thought I didn't
Speaker 1: think this was that bad. Oh, well then you take it. No, No,
Speaker 1: I'm not taking it. No, you take it. But I
Speaker 1: just saw like a few basic principles and bing bang boom.
Speaker 1: Well my brain broke trying to figure it out, and
Speaker 1: I think I got it. But I also may have
Speaker 1: gone insane and come up with a completely entirely different
Speaker 1: interpretation of reality. Well you're on a podcast, right, your
Speaker 1: name is Josh Clark, so I must be not you
Speaker 1: want I want to see one of these things? Is
Speaker 1: a motorcycle with a sidecar with a small child or
Speaker 1: a monkey? That even better? Yeah? A cigar smoking, wouldn't
Speaker 1: it be fun? Yeah? The monkeys just like what is
Speaker 1: going on? Yeah, because that's what monkeys were put on
Speaker 1: earth for for to do, to smoke cigars and sidecars
Speaker 1: while we move them around globes at death. All right,
Speaker 1: Should we go into some history here? Yes, because I
Speaker 1: was very surprised to learn that the globe of death
Speaker 1: was invented and patented in four Yeah, I saw it
Speaker 1: was invented even before then, Probably that it was sometime
Speaker 1: in the nineties in Europe, somebody came up with this act.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it is surprising. You think this would be
Speaker 1: like seventies Daredevil era kind of stuff, right, But now,
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century is when it was first invented. And
Speaker 1: here's the here's the gas of the whole thing. The
Speaker 1: original ones, the original Globe of Death was ridden in
Speaker 1: on bicycles pedal fast, sir, and unicycles pedals super fast sir. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know. I don't see how that
Speaker 1: worked because, as we will learn later in the physics
Speaker 1: in the post ad break physics section, Uh, it's all
Speaker 1: about speed. It is very much about speed. How did
Speaker 1: they do this on a bicycle. Well, I don't think
Speaker 1: they did the loop de loop. I think that came
Speaker 1: later after Well okay, so they just did sort of
Speaker 1: horizontal is circles, yeah, which which I'm sure if it
Speaker 1: was the nineties would be like Wow, I'm I'm impressed.
Speaker 1: Yeah sure. I live in Wisconsin and I'm preoccupied with
Speaker 1: death and horrible nous. So this is a real relief
Speaker 1: for me. So Grand Repids, Michigan, where it was where
Speaker 1: the first one was patented by a man bicycle stuntman
Speaker 1: named Arthur Rosenthal and uh he had a stage name
Speaker 1: Arthur Rose. He had a partner, Mr Frank Lemon. I
Speaker 1: know that's a lemon Rose. I love that word together,
Speaker 1: lemon rose. That sounds very nice, doesn't doesn't it It's pleasant.
Speaker 1: Um it's no cellar door, but no, but it's close.
Speaker 1: It's in a different direction. It should be like a
Speaker 1: type of gum, sugar free gum, sugar free lemon rose. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't even chew gum, and I chew that. Uh.
Speaker 1: So they would do like these little, you know, ten
Speaker 1: fifteen minute routines. Uh here's a quote from one of
Speaker 1: the state fairs. Uh, routines of skill and nerve, guaranteed
Speaker 1: to deliver laughs and roars. And but again that they
Speaker 1: were on bikes bicycles. Yeah, so I guess around nineteen tens,
Speaker 1: the motorcycle started to become a little more ubiquitous, a
Speaker 1: little more affordable. And the first thing that people did
Speaker 1: with them was put him in the globe of death.
Speaker 1: They cast their bikes aside and said, I've got plans
Speaker 1: for you, motorcycle. Where have you been all my life?
Speaker 1: So they started riding these things, and um, it just
Speaker 1: spread like further and further a field. I guess I
Speaker 1: started in Europe made its way to America because the
Speaker 1: Arthur Rosenthal was from Grand Rapids, Michigan, right, um, and
Speaker 1: it moved down to South America in pretty short order.
Speaker 1: So I think by nineteen twelve there was a guy
Speaker 1: named Jose Urias UM who had built his own Globe
Speaker 1: of Death um back then and was riding in it
Speaker 1: as well down in Brazil. And his family is actually
Speaker 1: still around and still performing the Urias Brothers Globe of
Speaker 1: Death act. Yeah. Remember our Circus Family's podcast. Oh were
Speaker 1: they were in that? Huh? I think they were either
Speaker 1: in it or it's you know. I was just pointing
Speaker 1: out generally, like you do something like this and your
Speaker 1: kid's gonna probably grow up and do something like this, right,
Speaker 1: It's a family trade. Yeah. Now the other up to
Speaker 1: the great grandsons are the ones who are UM performing
Speaker 1: in the show. And what I read was that Jose
Speaker 1: Urias is nineteen twelve, Globe of Death is still in
Speaker 1: use by them. They have other globes as well, but
Speaker 1: it's still in usable condition. That's the true globe of Death.
Speaker 1: It's right, you could actually die right right exactly? Um?
Speaker 1: You may have noticed earlier I said something about the
Speaker 1: word patent from Arthur Rosenthal. He did get a patent
Speaker 1: on May third, nineteen o four. And you also heard
Speaker 1: us mention things like South America in Germany, and you
Speaker 1: may be thinking, well, that's great. Art Rosenthal was getting
Speaker 1: bank from all these globes of death everywhere. Sadly that
Speaker 1: did not happen. Uh, he had a patent, but I
Speaker 1: guess it was just one of those things where early
Speaker 1: nineteen hundreds, you're gonna have a hard time chasing these
Speaker 1: people down around the world saying I own the patent.
Speaker 1: Did that give me a hundred dollars? Right? Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think even though they their paths must have crossed,
Speaker 1: they can't imagine the globe of death community, even around
Speaker 1: the world was like a big group, you know. So
Speaker 1: I'm sure he was keenly aware of it, but I
Speaker 1: don't know. Maybe he just didn't pursue it because there
Speaker 1: was international who knows. Well, I just think at the
Speaker 1: time it's just so hard to successfully do that internationally,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, I think you're right, man. So at
Speaker 1: any rate, we got numerous globes of death all around
Speaker 1: the world, A lot of the writers, Um, where did
Speaker 1: you get this history section? I can't even tell you.
Speaker 1: I don't remember. All right, Well, they mentioned quite a
Speaker 1: few speedies, Speedy Wilson, Speedy McNish who I like, Speedy McNish, uh,
Speaker 1: and Louis Louis Speedy, Babs and uh it says Babs
Speaker 1: on one line, then Babbus and another, so I'm not
Speaker 1: sure which it is we're going with Babs. I like Babs.
Speaker 1: But um. He was notable because he was the very
Speaker 1: first person to do a loop to loop and not
Speaker 1: just merely ride horizontally right, which is very impressive for
Speaker 1: what nineteen Yeah it was, I think his was third
Speaker 1: four or no? He said the he said a world record.
Speaker 1: This guy was a globe of death. Amazed balls guy. Um,
Speaker 1: he said a world record after being the first to
Speaker 1: do the loop to loop. He said, a world record
Speaker 1: of a thousand and three loops inside of a globe.
Speaker 1: They should call these amazed balls. I think it's still
Speaker 1: they should. It's a great name, amazed balls of death,
Speaker 1: amazed balls de lamarte. Um. But I think his record
Speaker 1: is still unbroken of a thousand and three. It's got
Speaker 1: to just be because somebody's like I don't feel like
Speaker 1: spending around that many times. Yeah, there's just people are
Speaker 1: too busy that would take ours. I have a family,
Speaker 1: but like you said, there are many families all over
Speaker 1: the world that have been doing this for many, many decades,
Speaker 1: and it seems very much to a state in the
Speaker 1: family biz. Uh. And one of the ones in article
Speaker 1: they talked about a lot or the are they the
Speaker 1: urias is. Yeah, so there was a heyday of the
Speaker 1: Globe of Death between World War One and World War two. UM.
Speaker 1: That may have actually been its original golden age, but
Speaker 1: it also like spread around the world around that time.
Speaker 1: Then to um, there's another one like in the seventies
Speaker 1: of the sixties and seventies, there were some innovations that
Speaker 1: we'll talk about UM. And then it kind of became
Speaker 1: like almost legit in the early two thousands when like
Speaker 1: long established circuses started to pick up the acts like
Speaker 1: the Urias is. I believe we're hired by Wringling Brothers,
Speaker 1: Barnum and Bailey. Um. The Universal Circus picked up the
Speaker 1: Willie family UM, and so like like they kind of
Speaker 1: went from I think like UM, these kind of scratching
Speaker 1: out in existence, like having to hustle to to basically
Speaker 1: like corporate spa answorship. Like finally the big circus has
Speaker 1: got hip to this idea in the early two thousand's.
Speaker 1: So we take a break. Yeah, let's all right, let's
Speaker 1: take a break and we'll come back and well we'll
Speaker 1: talk about the globe of death, all right, man, So
Speaker 1: we're back, and as you said, we're talking about the
Speaker 1: globe of death. That's right. Yeah, So these things. Here's
Speaker 1: the deal with these is they vary in size generally speaking.
Speaker 1: Unless you're pulling off some pretty amazing tricks with lots
Speaker 1: of writers are trying to set some big record, you're
Speaker 1: probably looking at at about a sixteen footage in diameter,
Speaker 1: uh sphere, and they need to go. And it's amazing
Speaker 1: that they were doing this in the thirties and forties
Speaker 1: when motorcycles were so heavy. Well, the glove of Death
Speaker 1: got its name from killing some people for sure, for real.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, there have been many, many, many injuries. But yes,
Speaker 1: you're right, especially early on, it was exceedingly dangerous. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So these motorcycles are a lot more powerful and lighter now.
Speaker 1: So if you're going to be in the Globe of
Speaker 1: death business, now it's a good time to do it.
Speaker 1: Um you're going around generally forty fifty maybe sixty miles
Speaker 1: an hour at the most, uh three and a half
Speaker 1: to four and a half g's and that is g
Speaker 1: force on your body, and that's what's generally happening. You're
Speaker 1: you're on a trajectory that you have pre planned, but
Speaker 1: you are not on a track. And it doesn't use magnets.
Speaker 1: It's literally just physics at work. Yeah, Apparently a lot
Speaker 1: of people think that there's a tricker and allusion to it,
Speaker 1: and there actually is not. And again we're not We're
Speaker 1: not to the physics yet. We gotta hang on, but
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about it eventually. So, like you said,
Speaker 1: the globes themselves have kind of a universal size, although
Speaker 1: it changes, but there are also other things that the
Speaker 1: globes do it. So it's amazing enough that there's people
Speaker 1: like riding around these things and on motorcycles. But I
Speaker 1: think one of the first um families to use a
Speaker 1: split globe was the urias Is. I saw a picture
Speaker 1: that they credited to the sixties where the globe hydraulically
Speaker 1: splits in half and the top part lifts up and
Speaker 1: guests which side or which part the riders moving in
Speaker 1: at the time, right the upper part, So they are
Speaker 1: actually in the top half of the globe. And now
Speaker 1: there's like no bottom. The bottom is well below and
Speaker 1: there's a big gap between the top half and the
Speaker 1: bottom half of the globe of death and the riders
Speaker 1: just circling around the top. How big is that up? Uh?
Speaker 1: In the picture it looked to be a good five
Speaker 1: to six seven feet. Oh, I misread this whole move then,
Speaker 1: Oh dude, it is not like because it's it's like
Speaker 1: they can very easily just go flying out if they
Speaker 1: if they got too close to the edge. That's their toasts. See,
Speaker 1: here's what I thought happened during a split globe trick,
Speaker 1: is that they they split it by about eight inches
Speaker 1: and then would just continue to span that split. That'd
Speaker 1: be pretty cool vertically. But no, this is yours, not yours.
Speaker 1: You didn't invent it, but well I presented it. Yours
Speaker 1: is way better. Yeah, no, I agreed, And to see
Speaker 1: it is actually pretty amazing, um because it just it
Speaker 1: just brings home the whole the whole thing before. Yes,
Speaker 1: they have a bottom, but it's still it's a really
Speaker 1: scary sphere of death, right, but now there's nothing, there's
Speaker 1: just the top. It's it's it's incredible, it's an incredible
Speaker 1: thing to see. Everyone basically should go to YouTube and
Speaker 1: check it out right now. Split globe. Um, there's also
Speaker 1: a family. I believe it's the Torres family who um
Speaker 1: were the first to introduce a triple split globe. So
Speaker 1: there's a top, a middle, and a bottom. And so
Speaker 1: I think the one I saw was that they were
Speaker 1: um circling the middle part, the middle band. So it's
Speaker 1: really just this narrow little um band of steel that
Speaker 1: they have to like stay on track with or else
Speaker 1: go a little higher, a little lower again your toast right. Uh.
Speaker 1: And you think that, um, the dangerous part would be
Speaker 1: sticking to the globe with that motorcycle. That is not
Speaker 1: the case because once we explain the physics, which we're
Speaker 1: still not gonna do yet, not yet, not yet, um,
Speaker 1: Like physics takes care of that. So it's it's pretty easy,
Speaker 1: like there's a formula that you figure out how fast
Speaker 1: you need to be going, and it's constant, like you
Speaker 1: don't have to worry about anything else. It's really those
Speaker 1: g forces once you get in there these one of
Speaker 1: these Urias dudes said, when they go upside down, he said,
Speaker 1: our heads are at gray out like a right, they
Speaker 1: come close to passing out in this thing from the
Speaker 1: g force. And there's one trick they do with uh
Speaker 1: is it one of their wives that they put in there.
Speaker 1: And she she's an aeroist, so she hangs from the
Speaker 1: center while they ride around her. And they said, when
Speaker 1: there's a certain point in that show where she can't
Speaker 1: see us and we can't see her, and you just
Speaker 1: have to trust that it is mapped out and timed
Speaker 1: and practiced. It's pretty awesome mapped out in time too,
Speaker 1: before you even practiced, right, yeah, um, and it is.
Speaker 1: It's basically all timing from what I understand. But they
Speaker 1: have all that like just ticked off in their heads
Speaker 1: just from experience. Um. One of the other things that
Speaker 1: really comes into play are the bikes that they use. Right.
Speaker 1: So for this how Stuff Works article, I think they
Speaker 1: actually interviewed the one of the Uriah's brothers and he
Speaker 1: was saying that like all the bikes they use are
Speaker 1: modified dirt bikes, so they they're powerful, but they're also lightweight.
Speaker 1: But then they modify them and change them from like
Speaker 1: a hundred and twenty five cubic centimeter engine to about
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty cubic centimeter engine. But it's still
Speaker 1: on that same light dirt bike, right, So it's got
Speaker 1: a lot of power. But there's only a certain amount
Speaker 1: of speed you're gonna get to anyway, because as we'll
Speaker 1: see in the physics, which we're not getting to yet. Um,
Speaker 1: if you speed up too quickly, you're going to increase
Speaker 1: the G force too much and you're going to black out,
Speaker 1: and that's a terrible thing to have happened to you
Speaker 1: while you're in the globe of death. Right. So there's
Speaker 1: only a certain amount of speed you need. So horsepower,
Speaker 1: which is the quality in the engine that you want
Speaker 1: to hit high top end speeds. The quality the quality
Speaker 1: of that engine. That's thanks for pointing that out, because
Speaker 1: I think I would have gotten it past a few
Speaker 1: people as you not said anything. Hang on, man, I'm
Speaker 1: here on my fingernails. Just so, Um, horsepower is not important.
Speaker 1: What is important is torque. Torque is that thing where
Speaker 1: you know when you hear like, oh, this car can
Speaker 1: go from zero to sixty and like five seconds or whatever.
Speaker 1: That's all torque. That's a that's an expression of torque,
Speaker 1: and torque is um the power that it takes to
Speaker 1: spin something on its axis, like a rotational power, right,
Speaker 1: and so you know, like you're spinning an axis when
Speaker 1: you're making a tire move. And the faster you can
Speaker 1: make that tire move from a dead stop, the quicker
Speaker 1: you can go in the shorter amount of time, that's torque.
Speaker 1: And that's what really counts on the bikes in the
Speaker 1: Globe of Death, because you want to be able to
Speaker 1: just take off and be spinning around, um like from
Speaker 1: a dead standstill in in no time at all. Well
Speaker 1: at rock back and forth a little bit to get
Speaker 1: get the timing right even better, but they still want
Speaker 1: really high torque, and so that's the that's what they're
Speaker 1: looking for with these bikes UM as far as as
Speaker 1: the big modification goes as as much torque as you
Speaker 1: can possibly have. Can I tell you a torque story?
Speaker 1: Oh you have a torque story. A torque story, let's
Speaker 1: hear it. So uh vacation this year I love Palms
Speaker 1: where I famously lost another tooth on a Christini on
Speaker 1: a Christini. This was pre no. I think this is
Speaker 1: after I lost a tooth regardless. We went out to
Speaker 1: dinner one night at Isle of Palms as opposed to
Speaker 1: just cooking up tons and tons of seafood at the house,
Speaker 1: which is what I like to do, and we got
Speaker 1: a car ride to the restaurant. I had a great time.
Speaker 1: I had quite a bit to drink, big celebratory I
Speaker 1: think it was a final night dinner. And then afterward
Speaker 1: we call a car to pick us up and a
Speaker 1: dude shows up in a Tesla. Uh a Tesla car,
Speaker 1: Like this is a ride sharing app? Yeah, yeah, So
Speaker 1: he shows up in Tesla and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: well this is great. We're all excited. Uh a little buzz.
Speaker 1: No one had ever written in a Tesla and he
Speaker 1: got us in this thing and he was he was
Speaker 1: sort of telling us, it's very cool guy. Uh, college
Speaker 1: student paying for his Tesla and school through driving it
Speaker 1: for people, and um, he was just telling us all
Speaker 1: about it. You know, people get a sense that Tesla
Speaker 1: owners like to show off their Tesla's because they're so neat,
Speaker 1: and uh, it really was cool. And I'm not a
Speaker 1: car guy. I'm knocked out, not knocked out by much
Speaker 1: in a car, but I was like this is pretty great.
Speaker 1: So I'm sitting in the backseat and uh, my friend
Speaker 1: Justin's in the front, and his girlfriend and Emily and
Speaker 1: I are all three in the back, and he was
Speaker 1: talking about the torque and the zero to sixty capabilities,
Speaker 1: the qualities of that engine and uh, and he was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, there's no combustion, so there's like zero lag,
Speaker 1: like you hit the gas and you go, like even
Speaker 1: your highest performance combustion sports car engine, well you know
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of that lag at first when
Speaker 1: you punch it while everything's firing, but not so with
Speaker 1: the Tesla. And so when justin score for Melissa's like,
Speaker 1: can you do it? Can you? Can you show us?
Speaker 1: He was like all right. So he makes a couple
Speaker 1: of turns and goes to this area, this long straight
Speaker 1: road where it's pretty desolate, and he knows he can
Speaker 1: do it, and he stopped and he's like, all right,
Speaker 1: everyone hold on, and we kind of laughed, you don't
Speaker 1: necessariously hold on. And he punched it, dude, And it
Speaker 1: was faster than any roller coaster, like even the ones
Speaker 1: that hydraulically launch you. Faster than anything I've ever experienced.
Speaker 1: That quickly in my life. Yeah, I've heard that about Tesla's.
Speaker 1: Actually it pushed us back into the seat, physically push
Speaker 1: my head back against the head rest, and the only
Speaker 1: thing we could all do was like laugh and smile,
Speaker 1: and I think Melissa screamed like a scream of delight.
Speaker 1: We were like four children, and it was like that
Speaker 1: was one of the coolest things. And of course I
Speaker 1: gave him this huge tip, which I think that's always
Speaker 1: paid for that Tesla. He was giving people joy rides
Speaker 1: like I guess I can. Anyway, it was great. That
Speaker 1: is not a prolonged ad for Tesla, as I wish
Speaker 1: I could afford one those things, but it was very sweet. Well,
Speaker 1: they have like, uh the I guess more affordable comparatively speaking.
Speaker 1: Was it the Model three? Yeah, but I don't think
Speaker 1: that's the one that does what this one does. I
Speaker 1: think all of them do though, because they don't have
Speaker 1: that lag. Yeah, but they don't don't have that huge engine.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's true, Like, surely they don't all go this fast, right,
Speaker 1: I don't know, let's find out. We'll go look it
Speaker 1: up later. And I asked him, like a dummy, you know,
Speaker 1: how did you buy this thing? And he went I
Speaker 1: went to a Tesla dealership. Oh, he was thinking, Dad, gotcha.
Speaker 1: Should we take another break after that Tesla story? We
Speaker 1: need to recuperate. Yeah, I feel like I derailed this.
Speaker 1: So no, no, no, I've got to I've got to
Speaker 1: digest that whole thing. All Right, we'll come back and
Speaker 1: we'll finally talk about physics. All right, we are back
Speaker 1: and it's time. It's time for the dreaded physics, which
Speaker 1: Chuck is feeling pretty good about. So Chuck, why don't
Speaker 1: you take a crack at it and then I'll take
Speaker 1: a crack at it. Well, I mean, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: explain it all and have you re explain it? So okay,
Speaker 1: because that's no fun for anybody. Well, you go ahead,
Speaker 1: but we can we can tag team this thing. The
Speaker 1: way I understand it is there are a few forces
Speaker 1: at work here that make this all possible, one of
Speaker 1: which is, uh, oh, mancye is it centrifical or centripetal.
Speaker 1: I've I've seen that if you are a physicist, there's
Speaker 1: no such thing as centrifugal center a pidal all right,
Speaker 1: So that's the one of the main forces at work.
Speaker 1: And if you are traveling on a on a just
Speaker 1: a regular street. Uh, you don't. It's a pretty easy
Speaker 1: calculation if you're talking about the maths of some triple force.
Speaker 1: It just gets complicated when you're talking about a globe
Speaker 1: of death, because you're not on a flat surface and
Speaker 1: you're not just traveling horizontally on a round surface. You're
Speaker 1: going all over the place. So that's when it gets
Speaker 1: a little more complicated, right, keep going, wellson, triple forces
Speaker 1: directed towards the center of a path, of a circular path. Uh,
Speaker 1: you've also got the forces, and this is just the overview.
Speaker 1: We'll get more detailed. There's also also the force of gravity,
Speaker 1: of course, at work when you're in one of these things,
Speaker 1: because when you're going upside down, as everyone knows, gravity
Speaker 1: is always directed straight down. Yeah, Or when you're like
Speaker 1: you know, perpendicular to the ground or paralleled to the ground,
Speaker 1: like riding around in the circle right on the middle
Speaker 1: of the globe, it's still pushing you downward. Gravity is
Speaker 1: always pushing you downward. And then finally we have the
Speaker 1: normal force, which, um everyone's always heard the saying that
Speaker 1: every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If you
Speaker 1: go and press on something that's not movable, like a
Speaker 1: five thousand pound rock, and that rock doesn't move. It
Speaker 1: is that the normal force is that rock exerting its
Speaker 1: force back on you. It's in an equal and opposite amount, right,
Speaker 1: that's right. And if it if it wasn't there, and
Speaker 1: it's not always there, then you would push the rock
Speaker 1: and it would move right. Yeah, well done, But that's
Speaker 1: that's not all man Like, what was how do these
Speaker 1: all work together? Here's so here's what's been messing me up.
Speaker 1: And I think this this helped my breakthrough. Um, the
Speaker 1: force of gravity and G forces are not the same thing.
Speaker 1: This is what was messing me up. I'm like, if
Speaker 1: G forces make it feel like you're being pressed up
Speaker 1: against something, right, So like do you you remember did
Speaker 1: you ever go on that like steel drum carnival machine.
Speaker 1: I would just just spin right and you get pressed
Speaker 1: up against the inside and they lower the floor and
Speaker 1: you're just you're just hanging there. But you're like, of
Speaker 1: course you're being pressed up against the edge. Apparently, and
Speaker 1: this is why people think physicists are all crazy. But
Speaker 1: apparently that's an illusion. That doesn't that's not You're not
Speaker 1: actually being pressed up against the edge of it. You're
Speaker 1: being pressed towards the center by the drum. Okay, that
Speaker 1: centripetal force. And there's another way to think about this, Man,
Speaker 1: I can do this, Chuck. If you took a key, um,
Speaker 1: and you put it on a string and you started
Speaker 1: swinging it over your head in a circle. Right, So
Speaker 1: it's being on an axis, and the axis is where
Speaker 1: you're The string is being old in the grip of
Speaker 1: your hand. That's the axis of the circle. What's happening
Speaker 1: is that key at any given time, it just wants
Speaker 1: to go straight. That's all it wants, Man, Just let
Speaker 1: me go straight. Um, That's the direction of its velocity
Speaker 1: is straight. At any given point. The problem is attached
Speaker 1: to the string, and the string is exerting the centripetal force,
Speaker 1: pulling the key towards the center. And so rather than
Speaker 1: being allowed to go straight, it's being forced into a
Speaker 1: circular path around the center. That is what centripetal force does. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's all well and good when it's a key on
Speaker 1: a string, But when you're talking about the globe of death,
Speaker 1: the string is actually the globe. The globe is the
Speaker 1: thing that exerts the centripetal force against the person on
Speaker 1: the bike. Right, there's no string pulling them towards the center.
Speaker 1: They're not being pulled towards the center by the string.
Speaker 1: They're being pushed towards the center by the external force
Speaker 1: of the globe of death. Okay. And as long as
Speaker 1: that globe is strong enough to take the g forces
Speaker 1: which we'll talk about in a second, that increased weight
Speaker 1: against it and push it back in an equal amount,
Speaker 1: then it will just keep directing that person along that
Speaker 1: circular path around the center, which is in the middle.
Speaker 1: It's invisible point in the middle of the globe of death. Right.
Speaker 1: If it's not strong enough, then it's gonna break and
Speaker 1: that person is going to go off in that straight
Speaker 1: direction that they've been wanting to go in the whole time,
Speaker 1: but of being been directed into a circle instead. Right. So,
Speaker 1: in terms of an equation in this case, and tripleal
Speaker 1: force is equal to the force of the gravity on
Speaker 1: the motorcycle and the dude or a lady. They have
Speaker 1: ladies that do this, now, yeah, they do. They have
Speaker 1: a whole um, whole female team which I'll tell you
Speaker 1: in a second once I find the name. So it's
Speaker 1: that force force of gravity plus that normal force that
Speaker 1: I was talking about on the motorcycle and the rider
Speaker 1: by the globe pushing back on that. So once like
Speaker 1: you can figure that out, like I said earlier, with
Speaker 1: a mathic asian about how fast you need to go
Speaker 1: as long as you know how big everything is, uh
Speaker 1: that is the globe. But once that, once you go
Speaker 1: below that speed and you start to fall, that that
Speaker 1: normal force goes to zero. Right, So it takes a
Speaker 1: bit of friction, um to keep the tire gripped to
Speaker 1: the globe. As long as you have that friction, that
Speaker 1: that um normal force can press against you uh much
Speaker 1: more easily. R Okay, so I think, so here's the thing.
Speaker 1: So this is the difference between the force of gravity
Speaker 1: and g forces. G forces are just a measure of
Speaker 1: how much gravity is pushing down on you at any
Speaker 1: given point. Like if you jump up in the air,
Speaker 1: that's one G that you're you're um with no wind
Speaker 1: resistance that you normally experience. And we call it weight,
Speaker 1: right that your weight is the force of gravity acting
Speaker 1: on the mass of your body. But if you speed
Speaker 1: up really really quick, especially say at like um a
Speaker 1: circular velocity, right, and you you're being you. You are
Speaker 1: actually increasing your own weight, which you feel is G force.
Speaker 1: It's like pressing down on you. You feel heavy and
Speaker 1: you can't move. And in in real physiological terms, like
Speaker 1: the blood is being pressed away from its normal locations,
Speaker 1: which is why you can black out right because some
Speaker 1: of the blood is no longer in some parts of
Speaker 1: your brain, and your brain needs the blood to operate.
Speaker 1: But as far as the physics goes, gravity is always
Speaker 1: pushing downward on you. Remember that, and the G force
Speaker 1: is pushing you and making you feel like you're being
Speaker 1: pushed outward, when really it's the the combination of your
Speaker 1: circular velocity and the radius, the distance between the edge
Speaker 1: of the circle in the center of the circle at
Speaker 1: any given point. And the more the more you increase
Speaker 1: your speed or the less of the radius, the stronger
Speaker 1: the G force or the higher than the G forces
Speaker 1: against you. So if you have a small little um
Speaker 1: globe of death, or you're traveling really really fast in
Speaker 1: the globe of death, you're going to very quickly reach
Speaker 1: a G force to where like you're not only black out,
Speaker 1: but you you can die from that as well. Right,
Speaker 1: So they actually, like you said, before the the timing
Speaker 1: is what they have in their heads. But they can
Speaker 1: sit down and and mathematically calculate what they need to,
Speaker 1: what speed they need to hit at, what bike, what
Speaker 1: like the weight that they need to be at and
Speaker 1: their bike needs to be at, so that they can
Speaker 1: know as long as I hit the speed, I'm always
Speaker 1: going to be able to go anywhere i want to
Speaker 1: on the globe of Death. I think we did a chunk. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so as far as G force goes like what
Speaker 1: you can what you can handle as a human um
Speaker 1: is what like about seven g s is about the
Speaker 1: tops that you want to go right as as a person.
Speaker 1: I don't remember what James bond, Uh, which one was that?
Speaker 1: Was that octopusy? I don't know. I don't think I've
Speaker 1: seen that one. Yeah, he got in a in a
Speaker 1: in a G force machine which was basically a big
Speaker 1: it was like a centrifuge, big round room with a
Speaker 1: pod on an arm connected in the center and it
Speaker 1: would just spun him around. And of course he was like,
Speaker 1: give me, give me all you got, uh, And then
Speaker 1: they gave him kind of a little ride and then
Speaker 1: the bad guy came in the baddy and started cranking
Speaker 1: it even further and even further. And I just remember
Speaker 1: being a kid and seeing Roger Moore's face like they
Speaker 1: must have just had some powerful wind blower on him
Speaker 1: because his cheeks were rippling. I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: he's really in that thing, right. But I think, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sure that they did not get the physics right
Speaker 1: and they probably pushed him to like eleven so they them.
Speaker 1: That really rings a bell what you're describing. I guess
Speaker 1: I have seen all those movies in you. I've seen
Speaker 1: most of them. That's the Roger Moore one, so I
Speaker 1: would think I have seen it, but um, and I
Speaker 1: just that that comes to mind. But um, yeah, because
Speaker 1: I can see Roger Moore's face going like yeah, and
Speaker 1: that only happened once, right, exactly right, p Roger Moore?
Speaker 1: Yeah for real? But you remember Colonel um John Paul Stapp,
Speaker 1: the guy who gave us seatbelts and crash test dummies.
Speaker 1: How could I forget? Remember his eyes used to like
Speaker 1: burst blood vessels because of the amount of gees that
Speaker 1: he was being pushed to. Yeah, but I think so
Speaker 1: you mentioned the seven gees that was um what a
Speaker 1: guy named Guy Martin who is a motorcyclist who actually
Speaker 1: set the world record for the fastest anyone's um hit
Speaker 1: a wall of death with which is basically like a
Speaker 1: globe of death, but without the top and the bottom.
Speaker 1: It's more like a barrel. Yeah, exactly. Um, and that's
Speaker 1: just riding horizontally super fast. In his case, I think
Speaker 1: what he had seventy eight miles, yes, and the Guinness
Speaker 1: people said we're here and you've got two chances to
Speaker 1: get to sixty miles per hour, and he did like
Speaker 1: seventy two I think the first time, and then seventy
Speaker 1: eight the second time. I just seen that. That was
Speaker 1: probably it probably looked like Roger Moore. And I think
Speaker 1: that was a moonraker. I don't. I don't think I
Speaker 1: see moonrakers either. Well, Moonraker was the one that was.
Speaker 1: It was for James Bond. It was very futuristic. I
Speaker 1: had to deal with outer space and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Doesn't he like do it in zero gravity with the
Speaker 1: Bond girl? Of course he does. Um. What was the
Speaker 1: one where he's got that lotus that turns into a submarine. Man.
Speaker 1: I want to say the spy he loved me? Or
Speaker 1: I think he might be right I don't know. I
Speaker 1: know that geez somewhere Matt Gorley is spinning in his
Speaker 1: chair and Los Angeles, I can't remember. I can't either. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love my bond, but I just don't have them
Speaker 1: all like mapped out in memorized. If you do want
Speaker 1: to see that, um guy Martin break that world record.
Speaker 1: Apparently the Channel four over in the UK UM sponsored it,
Speaker 1: so I'm sure they have it somewhere. Yah. Yeah. And lastly, Chuck,
Speaker 1: I have to give a huge, huge shout out to
Speaker 1: UM PBS Digital Studios, Crash Course Physics for helping break
Speaker 1: my brain into understanding of the centriple force thing that
Speaker 1: you didn't go to, Uh, Nickelodeon Science. They didn't have it.
Speaker 1: They didn't have what I was looking for. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: said this at live shows. I don't know if we've
Speaker 1: ever said on the air, but uh, children's science websites
Speaker 1: are great, great places to understand complex science if you
Speaker 1: don't get it. UM, we go there a lot, and
Speaker 1: that's we don't only go there, but a lot of times.
Speaker 1: That's a great starting point for breaking things down in
Speaker 1: an easy way. So we highly recommend it. Agreed, there's
Speaker 1: no shame, no not at all. Uh, you got anything else?
Speaker 1: I got nothing else. Well. Uh, if you want to
Speaker 1: know more about the globe of death, just go start
Speaker 1: why Global Death videos. They're pretty awesome. Uh. And in
Speaker 1: the meantime, you can check out this article on how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Since I said that it's time
Speaker 1: for listening mail, I'm gonna call this flu epidemic. Hey guys,
Speaker 1: I'm a Master's of Public Health candidate in Atlanta at
Speaker 1: Emory and we spend a good amount of time discussing
Speaker 1: the flu. I remember you mentioning the Spanish flu and
Speaker 1: wondered if such an epidemic could happen again. Bad news is,
Speaker 1: it can and it probably will. According to public health scholars.
Speaker 1: That is, the culprit is our meat industry, which keeps
Speaker 1: an overbundance of foul and pigs in tight, unsanitary quarters
Speaker 1: because of the way this industry is growing, and some
Speaker 1: might argue due to its lack of regulation. Uh, these
Speaker 1: unsafe conditions lend to the rapid mutation of the virus. This,
Speaker 1: coupled with the ever decreasing CDC budget, makes it harder
Speaker 1: and harder for vaccine scientists to create accurate vaccines. On
Speaker 1: top of all that, the fluescine is a low threat
Speaker 1: by most of our society, rendering us ill equipped and underprepared.
Speaker 1: Most people are scared of ebola or other difficult to
Speaker 1: catch viruses. However, influenza is a rapidly mutating and highly
Speaker 1: aggressive virus that is easily transmittable and is right here
Speaker 1: on our doorstep. Scientists predict the flu might be the
Speaker 1: next most deadly epidemic if we're not careful. My recommendation
Speaker 1: to our congress people stop cutting the CDC budget. Prevention
Speaker 1: is key. I know will probably sound like a quack
Speaker 1: not to me for real, but just wanted to spread
Speaker 1: a little knowledge and say hey to my favorite podcasters,
Speaker 1: thanks for putting on such amazing show. And that is
Speaker 1: from Jasmine. Thanks a lot, Jasmine. Hello over there, Demori.
Speaker 1: That's right. I love your Rice. What Jasmine Rice? Okay?
Speaker 1: Uh weird. If you want to get in touch with
Speaker 1: us like Jasmine did, you can tweet to us at
Speaker 1: s Y s K podcast or Josham Clark. You can
Speaker 1: hang out with me on my website Are You Serious
Speaker 1: Clark dot com. You can hang out with Chuck on
Speaker 1: Facebook at Facebook dot com, slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant.
Speaker 1: There's also Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know.
Speaker 1: You can send us all an email, including Jerry to
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Speaker 1: always joined us at our home on the web. Stuff
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