WEBVTT - SYSK Selects: How Silly Putty Works 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:03.560 M Hey everybody, it's me Josh and for this week's 0:00:03.560 --> 0:00:07.440 Saturday Select Stuff you Should Know, I'm choosing how Silly 0:00:07.440 --> 0:00:11.200 Putty Works. It originally ran in October two thousand and eleven, 0:00:11.520 --> 0:00:14.320 and as I say in this episode, it has it all. 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:17.439 It has all six pillars of a great Stuff you 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:21.520 should Know episode five maybe I don't quite remember. Either way, 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:25.800 you'll find out what they are in this thrilling enjoy. 0:00:35.000 --> 0:00:38.480 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house Stuff Works 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:47.440 dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:52.279 There's Charles W Chuck Bryant uh with me as always 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:56.640 looking good. I am, yeah, thank you, Josh um that 0:00:56.680 --> 0:00:58.840 makes the Stuff you Should Know, and you were looking 0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:02.080 good as well. Sort said in is your No, I'm not, 0:01:02.680 --> 0:01:06.360 it's I don't less than six months old. I guess 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:10.160 it's kind of new, all right. I'm trying to think 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:13.759 it was pouring way I could start a show pretty 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:16.040 high up there. Josh is wearing a lovely stripe blue 0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:18.640 button up as he has one to do, and I'm 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:21.200 wearing a Everything is Bigger in Texas green T shirt. 0:01:22.000 --> 0:01:24.920 We're both in jeans. I have on my last chance 0:01:24.920 --> 0:01:28.520 garage hat, yep, anything else I want to I want 0:01:28.520 --> 0:01:31.639 to set the scene for once. I've got a beard. 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:37.000 Now you've had a beard. I'm clean shaven, clean shaven. Yeah, 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:39.600 I've started to do the clean shaven thing more than scruffy. 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:43.360 I was doing scruffy for a while. Are you which 0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:46.200 way do you like? I hope for you? Yeah, I 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:48.800 think whatever you mean likes, which is clearly not scruffy. 0:01:49.040 --> 0:01:51.560 She likes it both ways. Oh yeah, yeah, all right, 0:01:53.080 --> 0:01:55.160 that's that's that is the most boring way to ever 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:57.520 start a show. We should all go to sleep. Now. 0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:00.200 I've got a story for you, all right, all right, 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:02.640 and you know some of this so you don't have 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:07.560 to pretend like you're surprised. Back in eighteen thirty nine, 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:11.240 there is a man named Charles Goodyear, and Charles Goodyear 0:02:11.240 --> 0:02:14.280 whose last name you might recognize for good reason, Uh, 0:02:14.400 --> 0:02:19.200 figured out a way to make rubber, natural rubber tougher 0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:24.360 than leather. It's called vulcanization. Yes, okay, So this process 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:28.320 of vulcanization took rubber, which is naturally um kind of 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:34.160 stickier gooey at warmer temperatures and um rigid at cooler temperatures. 0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:37.600 And made it much more appliable, much more, much more flexible, 0:02:37.600 --> 0:02:40.960 but able to stand up to really punishing conditions like heat, 0:02:41.400 --> 0:02:45.200 lots of pressure and force, which made it perfect for 0:02:45.440 --> 0:02:50.360 car tires, hoses, fan belts, all of the stuff that 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:53.560 we use rubber for today. This guy is the reason 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:57.240 we're able to write the reason that's tough enough. Yes. Now, 0:02:57.280 --> 0:02:59.720 the fact that this came at nine means that this 0:02:59.800 --> 0:03:03.280 in ovation came during the Industrial Revolution, which means that 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:05.440 all that stuff that the rubber could be used for 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:09.400 could be mass produced, which means that we needed a 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:12.959 vast source of rubber as a raw material for this 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:17.400 volcanization process. And luckily, I guess you could say, at 0:03:17.440 --> 0:03:20.839 least for the Westerners, uh, we knew where to get 0:03:20.919 --> 0:03:23.880 vast stores of rubber, the Amazon, which is where this 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:27.520 very specific type of rubber tree is indigenous and is 0:03:27.560 --> 0:03:31.720 found in vast supply, right, all right, you with me 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:33.840 so far? So we went down on the Amazon, and 0:03:33.880 --> 0:03:36.120 as a result, these parts of Brazil that were just 0:03:36.160 --> 0:03:40.040 totally impoverished were suddenly suddenly found themselves at the center 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:45.560 of a global rubber boom and just became decadently wealthy, 0:03:45.640 --> 0:03:49.400 like almost overnight, Brazil and the Amazon was the center 0:03:49.440 --> 0:03:55.920 of this global trade and rubber for decades until these 0:03:55.960 --> 0:03:59.600 British guys snuck some rubber tree seeds out of the 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:04.560 Amazon on and took them to the botanical gardens in London, Okay, 0:04:05.040 --> 0:04:07.960 and they started to work on forming a hybrid that 0:04:08.040 --> 0:04:10.560 was even better than the ones in Brazil. A hybrid plant, 0:04:10.640 --> 0:04:15.040 a hybrid rubber tree that could coincidentally thrive in British 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:20.320 colonies in Southeast Asia. Perfect, it was perfect for the British. 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:26.520 By the Brazilian stranglehold on the rubber um trade was 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:29.640 being challenged and was in real trouble by countries like 0:04:29.680 --> 0:04:36.039 Malaysia and Sri Lanka, Um and Thailand, and by nineteen 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:40.960 twenty the Far East held the basically the monopoly on 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:44.240 the rubber market. All right, that's a good background. Thanks, 0:04:44.520 --> 0:04:50.120 I'm almost done. So about the time the Southeast Asia 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:52.840 started to dominate rubber, we needed it even more than 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:57.640 when Brazil dominated rubber because cars were being mass produced 0:04:57.680 --> 0:05:01.120 in each of those required four rubber tires. Right, So 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:04.680 Southeast Asia's hold on rubber was even stronger than than 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:07.200 the one that Brazil had, plus one in the trunk. Yeah, 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:11.360 that's right, five um. And by the time World War 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:14.159 Two rolled around, we come to rely on rubber so 0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:17.960 much that it was calculated the US military the Pentagon 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:20.440 needed thirty two pounds of rubber for every troop on 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:23.560 the ground for things like tires, boots, anything you need 0:05:23.640 --> 0:05:26.720 rubber for right every soldier, which makes it a It 0:05:26.800 --> 0:05:30.360 was a very very, very big deal. When the Japanese 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:34.640 successfully invaded the Pacific theater, including Malaysia, including Sri Lanka, 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:38.240 including all these rubber producing places and cut off the 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:42.600 rubber supply to the US and We're like, we need rubber, yeah, 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:45.040 we need it bad. And they were like, well we've 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:47.839 got it, yes, And by the way, let's go. When 0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:51.080 you win, there's going to be stragglers on these islands. 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:57.120 You will one day podcast about them. Hero So what happened, Chuck, well, Josh. 0:05:57.279 --> 0:06:02.080 Because the US is industrious and bright and has it 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:05.240 never say die attitude, they said, you know what, why 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:10.080 don't we commission some labs and academic institutions to develop 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:13.440 a synthetic rubber. So they put out the call because 0:06:13.440 --> 0:06:16.360 they needed this for the wartime demand, and uh, all 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:20.240 these chemists got to work on it, and uh, invented 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:25.159 something called g R dash S, which is Government rubber styrene, 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:28.760 and it turned out to be a great replacement for rubber. 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:33.520 And by n we were producing twice the amount of 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:38.320 all the world's rubber combined, the synthetic rubber and synthetic 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:41.279 rubber in the US. So this is like one of 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:44.400 the most this is one of the biggest chemical chemical 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:49.880 engineering accomplishments ever created undertaken right, um So g R 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:53.560 S huge still in use today. Right, Yes, it's like 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:58.080 the standard for synthetic rubber. Um it changed everything like 0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:00.520 that was it was like bye bye, Malaysia, Sorry about 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:04.480 your your rubber monopoly falling apart. You shouldn't have let 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:07.119 you pain invade. Well, I'm sure they still had plenty 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:09.520 of customers. I'm sure they still did. They weren't like, oh, 0:07:09.600 --> 0:07:11.840 we got all this rubber, right, what are we gonna do? 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:16.080 We we we chose the wrong team. Uh So, this, 0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:20.760 this synthetic rubber, this triumph of chemical engineering, was not 0:07:20.840 --> 0:07:25.000 without setbacks though, Right well, no, anytime you're trying to 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:27.280 synthesize something like that, it's gonna there's gonna be some 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:29.760 ups and downs. And this was a nationwide challenge by 0:07:29.760 --> 0:07:31.880 the War Production Board. It wasn't just like hey, you 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:35.360 five guys over here. It was like, attention, all chemical engineers, 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:38.320 all chemists, anybody who has anything to do with chemistry. 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:42.160 We need a synthetic rubber, and we needed an abundant supply. 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:45.320 So there were a lot of people working on this. Yes, 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:48.480 and one of those guys was James Wright of General 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:53.400 Electric GE. He mixed bork acid with silicon oil and 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:55.240 uh said, you know what, this is gonna be a 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:59.920 great synthetic rubber. Unfortunately, it wasn't a great synthetic rubber. 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:03.520 His quote unquote bouncing putty is what he called it. 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:07.880 But Gee thought I had some promise. Gee thought I 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:12.480 had some promise. But it did pretty much wallow away 0:08:12.480 --> 0:08:16.320 in obscurity at first, right for um, almost a decade. 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:18.800 It just kind of made the rounds to other places, like, hey, 0:08:18.840 --> 0:08:21.080 can your guys do anything like with this, We'll share 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:24.920 the patent, whatever, just just figure out what we can 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:28.840 do with this. Yeah, and apparently Gee got this. Uh. 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:31.920 It was so widespread that it made its way to 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:35.520 a party that a guy named Peter Hodgson, who owned 0:08:35.559 --> 0:08:39.600 an ad agency in New Haven, Connecticut, attended a cocktail party. 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:42.160 Remember spam. That's where spam came from a cocktail party 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:44.000 on New Year's Eve. Great things happen when you get 0:08:44.040 --> 0:08:46.600 together and drink. Uh. This guy was at a at 0:08:46.640 --> 0:08:49.640 a cocktail party and saw some people playing with this 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:53.000 um bouncing putty that James as James Wright called it, 0:08:53.040 --> 0:08:56.160 and said, you know what, these adults seem fascinated by this. 0:08:56.720 --> 0:09:00.480 I just happened to be working on a cattle dog 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:02.840 for a toy store, and I think this would make 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:06.200 a great adult novelty. So he approached the lady who 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:09.760 owned the Block toy store, right yeah, and I got 0:09:10.200 --> 0:09:12.520 there's varying accounts of this story. I think it's one 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:15.320 of those deals where because I saw somewhere where she 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:19.200 was the one that saw it and contacted him and said, hey, 0:09:19.280 --> 0:09:22.319 can you put this in my catalog? So either way, 0:09:22.600 --> 0:09:26.960 Peter Hodgson and Ruth fall Gadder, who owned the Block 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:31.719 Shop toy store, they they decided to put it on 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:35.800 the pages of their their catalog to sell as a toy, right, 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:40.640 and it was two dollars, not chump change. No, that's 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:44.319 definitely not um. And it was an adult novelty, as 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:50.240 they reckoned. Right, Sorry, you just say adult novelty, and 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:53.520 a lot of things come to mind, Spencer Gifts. I know, 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:57.640 I know. It wasn't that kind of an adult worldly Okay, 0:09:57.880 --> 0:10:01.640 uh no, it was an adult diversion. It became a 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:04.360 big seller, is what it became. Yeah. So yeah, it 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:07.240 was the blockshops biggest seller, one of them. Um. And 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:10.280 then this this I found a little hazy for reasons 0:10:10.320 --> 0:10:13.480 that remain unclear. Did you find anything out about why 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:17.280 fall got her stopped backing the product? I couldn't find 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:19.079 anything on that. But I guess even though it's sold 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:21.680 big for her, she was just like whatever. Maybe she 0:10:21.760 --> 0:10:23.559 just had her thing going and she's like, why don't 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:25.640 I want to start a new product. I'm a toy 0:10:25.679 --> 0:10:28.079 store owner? Yeah, why do I want to be a millionaire? 0:10:28.480 --> 0:10:32.319 Money is the root of all evil for her, Rubic, 0:10:32.400 --> 0:10:36.520 I have no no plans for this exactly. So. Uh So, 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:40.000 the whole, the whole, the whole drive, the whole push 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:43.120 to make this into something big, what we now know 0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:46.560 as Silly Putty fell completely to Hodgson, and he turned 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:50.960 into a whirling dervish. Between nineteen fifty, he borrowed a 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:53.960 hundred and forty seven dollars and bought another batch from 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:58.840 ge hired a Yale student to roll them into twenty 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:03.400 eight Graham one ounce balls, packaged them in plastic Easter eggs, 0:11:04.440 --> 0:11:08.640 and sold them to Double Day book shops and Neiman 0:11:08.679 --> 0:11:13.560 Marcus along the way. He also um took them to 0:11:13.640 --> 0:11:17.240 some chemical engineers in Schenectady, right yeah, and said, hey, 0:11:17.240 --> 0:11:20.800 copy that reverse engineering. Yeah, it's like that website that 0:11:20.840 --> 0:11:23.480 has like all of your favorite recipes from like Applebee's 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:26.839 and Kentucky Fried Chicken. Reverse engineering. First, get chicken from 0:11:26.840 --> 0:11:30.400 a sealed bag that's pretty sauced exactly and put it 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:32.960 in a pan. Yes, they're like, do you have Cisco's 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:36.040 phone number? So that's what he did, and you're right, 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:38.640 he did make pretty quick work of it, um, because 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:41.920 after he opened a manufacturing plant. Yes, all this is 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:45.760 in a year he first encountered this stuff. In this 0:11:45.800 --> 0:11:49.640 is he believed in this what would be? Actually he's 0:11:49.720 --> 0:11:52.360 he had already settled on Silly Putty as the name. Yeah, well, 0:11:52.400 --> 0:11:54.960 he was an ad agency guy, so should brainstoring some names? 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:58.000 Evaluated fifteen of them was like, this is the one 0:11:57.400 --> 0:11:59.920 that he trademarked. It was Nutty Putty one I think 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:01.520 was one of them. I think that would have sold 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:04.079 to so he had the Silly Putty name. At this 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:08.160 point opened the manufacturing plant in Connecticut, and soon after 0:12:08.200 --> 0:12:11.960 that landed Neemon Marcus and Double Day bookshops as customers, 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:14.920 which was huge, it was, but it became even huger 0:12:15.440 --> 0:12:17.960 when um, some writers from the New Yorker went to 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:21.439 Double Day and they encountered, do you want to read 0:12:21.480 --> 0:12:24.719 this part? You're I'm not gonna read and read this 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:27.000 one all right. It was in the Talk of the 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:30.679 Town section in ninety in the New Yorker. We went 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:32.880 into the Double Day bookshop at Fifth Avenue and fifty 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:35.560 two Street the other day, intending in our innocence to 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:38.120 buy a book, and found all the clerks busy selling 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:43.640 silly putty, a gooey, pinkish, repellent looking commodity. The commodity 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:46.960 I love that that comes in plastic containers the size 0:12:47.000 --> 0:12:49.920 and shape of eggs. We sought out Mr Lee Weber, 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:52.600 the manager of the bookshop, to ascertain the mysterious link 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:54.720 between it and Double Day. He told us that silly 0:12:54.720 --> 0:12:57.920 putty is the most terrific item and that Double Day 0:12:57.920 --> 0:13:02.120 shops have been privileged to handle it since forever, Amber, Yeah, 0:13:02.640 --> 0:13:04.679 forever Amber. I looked it up. It was a bestseller 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:08.079 from the forties. It was about a woman in restoration, 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:11.720 England's late seventeenth century England who, through her sexy wit, 0:13:12.160 --> 0:13:14.520 went from rags to riches and became like the favorite 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:18.240 mistress of Charles the second I was banned in Boston. Yeah. 0:13:18.600 --> 0:13:23.079 So because of this um pretentious bit of cynical whimsy 0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:28.160 that appeared in the New Yorker, Um, the sales overnight, 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:33.640 uh for Silly Putty just exploded. He got Hodgson got 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:40.200 UM three hundred, seven hundred and fifty thousand orders. Two hundred. Man, 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:42.440 why did I quarter of a mill? You're probably thinking 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:44.839 three quarters? Yeah I was. I was thinking about the 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:48.040 orders that weren't there, exactly. He got a quarter of 0:13:48.040 --> 0:13:50.600 a mill in three days, a quarter of a million orders, 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:54.240 and at two bucks a pop, that's a lot of money, 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:58.880 especially considering that he only a million dollars. Yeah, yeah, 0:13:58.960 --> 0:14:01.240 that's well, I was thinking about the half a million 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:38.680 he didn't right. Uh So it was like basically an 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:41.560 overnight success thanks to Neiman Markets, Double Day Books and 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:45.240 the New Yorker and G. E. And the Japanese. But 0:14:45.320 --> 0:14:47.520 I mean, again, this is all happening in a year 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:50.880 that's pretty speedy. This is a whirlwind year for this guy. 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:54.080 I'm happy for him. Just just looking back on this story, 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:55.920 I hope he was a good guy and he didn't 0:14:55.960 --> 0:14:58.239 like beat up little kids on his way to work. 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:01.680 He passed away nine seven six. I hope before then 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:04.520 he didn't do bad things. But he saw it become 0:15:04.560 --> 0:15:07.800 a huge success because when he died in nineteen seventy six, 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:11.920 Silly Putty was in twenty two countries plus the United States, 0:15:12.240 --> 0:15:14.560 with sales exceeding five million a year. And that was 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:16.920 in seventy six. Yeah, which I looked it up. That's 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:22.680 nineteen million today dollars, I think. But um, it's it's 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:26.440 pretty it's pretty good. Yeah, uh yeah, they seem to, 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:29.400 they seem to. Yeah, well he's set up um Arnold 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:32.600 Clark Inc. And I never found out who Arnold Clark kiss. 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:36.440 Maybe that was an alias of his, who knows, um, 0:15:36.480 --> 0:15:41.600 but yeah, apparently owns Silly Putty. Now, now we've just 0:15:41.640 --> 0:15:45.360 described the history of Silly Putty. That should be enough. Um, 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:48.680 But I mean, surely there's no one out there who 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:52.400 hasn't played the Silly Putty before. I used to play 0:15:52.440 --> 0:15:53.760 with it like crazy when I was a kid. And 0:15:53.760 --> 0:15:56.320 one thing I would do, which is something that they 0:15:56.360 --> 0:15:58.720 found out, you know, it was originally intended for adults, 0:15:58.760 --> 0:16:00.920 and they were kind of surprised learned that kids were 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:03.520 into it, and it didn't take long for the kids 0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:08.880 sales to dwarf that of adults. It was sales overtook 0:16:08.920 --> 0:16:12.280 it initially, he said. He's like, you know, this is 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:14.960 great for adults because you can come home and unwind 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:17.560 at the end of the day by squeezing it and 0:16:17.640 --> 0:16:21.200 just blowing off steam. By copying newsprint with it, may I, 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:23.520 And that's what I did with it, was was copied 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:26.600 comic books. So in that New Yorker article they interviewed 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:29.480 Hodgson and he had he had a quote, it means 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:33.000 five minutes of escape from neurosis. It means not having 0:16:33.000 --> 0:16:36.480 to worry about Korea or family difficulties, and it appeals 0:16:36.560 --> 0:16:39.920 to people that supure intellect. The inherent ridiculousness of the 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:42.880 material acts as an emotional release to hard press adults. 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:46.840 So it obviously worked because we're not in Korea any longer. 0:16:47.560 --> 0:16:50.440 It's interesting though, that he was wrong. I think it's 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:52.400 funny how somebody can be wrong on something and still 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:55.560 be right, you know what I mean, Like all the 0:16:55.680 --> 0:16:59.520 uses in the intent was he was completely wrong, but 0:16:59.600 --> 0:17:02.440 it's still skyrocket and he's like, oh, well, it's for kids. 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:04.320 Then he kind of cast a wide net on the 0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:09.360 patent license. It was for um stress relief, hand therapy 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:12.160 for people who needed it. Um it could be used 0:17:12.160 --> 0:17:15.359 to block out low frequency noises. Yeah, they still claim 0:17:15.440 --> 0:17:17.200 you can do all this stuff today, like it's good 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:21.760 for therapy and for like guming up holes and cleaning 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:25.640 typewriter keys, which is a huge use these days. Well 0:17:25.680 --> 0:17:27.680 computer keys. Oh yeah, that's right. I forgot about this, 0:17:28.880 --> 0:17:31.280 um but yeah. So the guy was very much focused 0:17:31.320 --> 0:17:35.360 on it being uh um for adults, but kids kind 0:17:35.359 --> 0:17:38.280 of took it for themselves, mainly because you could. One 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:40.679 of the great properties of silly putty is you can 0:17:40.720 --> 0:17:44.040 stretch it out, push it down on newsprint, and you 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:46.120 have a mirror image of it. That's what I said. 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:47.960 That's what he used to do. Oh you did say that, Yeah, 0:17:48.000 --> 0:17:50.639 comics comics, and you can't. It's harder to it's harder 0:17:50.680 --> 0:17:52.880 to do that these days because the print they use, 0:17:53.960 --> 0:17:58.520 Like you literally have to find like a newspaper in 0:17:58.600 --> 0:18:01.719 order to do that. Yeah, you can't do it on 0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:05.800 the internet or a magazine. Yeah, you can't do it 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:07.920 on a kindle. You could do it on a magazine. 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:11.160 H No, I think you can know, dude, it's got 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:13.560 to pick up the ink. I know I can't do 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:15.919 it on a magazine. I can tell you from reading 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:18.760 Harper's by the Pool that that's stuff smears. And if 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:23.600 it's smears, I guarantee you can get it on silly putty. Uh. 0:18:23.720 --> 0:18:25.919 Lucky for him, though, it was non toxic, so when 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:28.800 kids started playing with it and inevitably putting it in 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:31.479 their mouth, there were no issues with that. Right, so 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:33.720 you should not eat it. We should say that. Yeah, 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:36.560 don't eat anything that's not food or anything that has 0:18:36.600 --> 0:18:40.840 the name silly in it or putty, silly string, silly anything. Um. 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:45.320 So Hodgson made mention of its um inherent ridiculousness of 0:18:45.359 --> 0:18:49.280 the material. Right, Um, it has some really strange properties. Uh. 0:18:49.320 --> 0:18:52.240 He originally called it so he described it as a 0:18:52.320 --> 0:18:57.199 solid liquid right when you um, when you stretch it, 0:18:57.200 --> 0:19:02.359 it's like taffy. It stretches, right. Uh. If you pull it, 0:19:02.359 --> 0:19:07.200 it just snaps apart quickly and with a lot of force. Um. 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:11.800 If you stick it to like, say, um bookcase, you 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:13.920 come back a few days later, it will have very 0:19:13.920 --> 0:19:18.480 slowly moved down, very slowly, very which means it flows, 0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:21.440 which is weird, but we'll get to that in a minute. Um. 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:22.800 And when you roll it up into a ball, it 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:26.399 bounces higher than rubber. Yeah, they did a test. They 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:28.719 rolled it into like a perfect little ball, and they 0:19:28.840 --> 0:19:31.639 dropped it with no force from three ft and it 0:19:31.680 --> 0:19:35.080 bounce bounces back two and a half feet. Supposedly. That 0:19:35.240 --> 0:19:38.200 is dynamite. Not bad. And if you throw it down 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:39.960 real hard, you know you got yourself a super ball 0:19:40.000 --> 0:19:44.399 in your hands. So what is the stuff? Well, what 0:19:44.480 --> 0:19:47.200 are the the what's the science of silly putty chuck? 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:50.760 The science of so? Well, before we get there, can 0:19:50.800 --> 0:19:53.640 I say about the egg? There are several varying accounts 0:19:53.680 --> 0:19:56.480 on why it was put in an egg. Some people 0:19:56.520 --> 0:19:59.960 say it was because his first batch went out before 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:02.560 Easter and then he just said, hey, it's actually a 0:20:02.560 --> 0:20:04.280 pretty good idea, let's just keep it in the egg. 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:08.000 Other people say he got the inspiration while eating eggs 0:20:08.000 --> 0:20:10.800 one morning. Eggs are good for you, And still other 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:16.160 people say that he couldn't find another container in abundance, 0:20:16.480 --> 0:20:19.119 and he had like a line on these plastic eggs, 0:20:19.640 --> 0:20:21.439 and I was like, I'll just use this because this 0:20:21.520 --> 0:20:23.199 is a pretty good way to put it in there. 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:26.560 It's about an ounce, so let's just do that either way. 0:20:26.680 --> 0:20:31.240 That became the signature that's still used today, silly putty 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:35.040 full of eggs, the egg full of silly puddy, I 0:20:35.080 --> 0:20:37.960 feel silly. You could probably get silly putty full of 0:20:37.960 --> 0:20:42.639 egg but you don't have to do it yourself at home. Um. Alright, 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:46.879 so back to what this stuff is, um, josh, it 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:55.560 is a polymer, right, Yeah, it's a visco elastic polymer. Basically, 0:20:55.560 --> 0:20:59.080 it's subject to the science of fluid chemistry, right, And 0:20:59.160 --> 0:21:02.639 fluids are not necessarily liquids. Liquids are fluids, but not 0:21:02.720 --> 0:21:06.880 all fluids or liquids. Gas can be a fluid, some 0:21:07.200 --> 0:21:11.159 semi solid substances can be fluid. Basically, a fluid is 0:21:11.200 --> 0:21:16.600 anything that yields to slight pressure and has no definite shape. 0:21:17.280 --> 0:21:24.040 So fluid your your gut is at least okay. Um, 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:27.960 So so that's uh, that's the science. That's the part 0:21:27.960 --> 0:21:31.280 of chemistry and physics that we're looking as fluid chemistry UM, 0:21:31.320 --> 0:21:36.000 and the ruling principle of that of fluid chemistry is viscosity. 0:21:36.760 --> 0:21:38.400 Where do we talk about this? I know we've talked 0:21:38.440 --> 0:21:43.480 about viscosity. We talked about viscosity in um quicksand right, 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:48.840 shear maynaise this visquosity, Josh. Viscosity is uh. It measures 0:21:48.840 --> 0:21:51.440 how much a fluid resists flow at a certain temperature. 0:21:51.480 --> 0:21:54.840 So so viscosity is resistant resistance to flow. If you're 0:21:54.880 --> 0:21:58.199 like me and you can never remember what's viscosity, what's viscous, 0:21:58.240 --> 0:22:01.920 or what's high or low viscous, viscosity is resistance to flow. 0:22:02.160 --> 0:22:04.640 Actually the easiest way to remember is water is low. 0:22:05.800 --> 0:22:07.920 That pretty much says it all, just so it's easy. 0:22:07.960 --> 0:22:10.440 Like peanut butter would have a high viscosity, water would 0:22:10.480 --> 0:22:13.639 have a low viscosity. That's pretty easy way to it 0:22:13.680 --> 0:22:17.119 has a high resistance to flow or low resistance to 0:22:17.160 --> 0:22:21.760 flow like honey or molasses and um. Viscosity is often 0:22:21.840 --> 0:22:26.320 measured in pascal seconds, not so much anymore now it's 0:22:26.359 --> 0:22:30.760 measured by dying seconds per square centimeter, also called poise 0:22:31.040 --> 0:22:35.320 and tien. Poise equals one pascal second. What that means 0:22:35.880 --> 0:22:39.600 I cannot. I couldn't rant my mind around before then. Yeah, 0:22:39.960 --> 0:22:42.160 every site that I saw it took it for granted 0:22:42.240 --> 0:22:46.960 that I understood what what that measures. But it measures 0:22:47.119 --> 0:22:50.000 viscosity or flow. As far as I understand. What I 0:22:50.040 --> 0:22:54.000 love is that someone somewhere said, uh, tascal seconds just 0:22:54.040 --> 0:22:57.360 said and cutting it right. The guy whose last name 0:22:57.359 --> 0:23:00.639 was Poise or poisel, I believe that's what happ came 0:23:00.720 --> 0:23:04.800 up with poise um. But yeah, so that's how viscosity 0:23:04.840 --> 0:23:09.000 is measured UM. And the more Pascal seconds are, the 0:23:09.040 --> 0:23:14.160 more poise there are, the more the higher the viscosity 0:23:14.200 --> 0:23:20.760 is UM. But the thing about viscous fluids, they all well, 0:23:20.800 --> 0:23:25.080 I should say, most of them are subject to um temperature. 0:23:25.720 --> 0:23:29.159 That's what affects their viscosity. If you if you have 0:23:29.240 --> 0:23:31.919 cold honey that you're trying to get out of the bottle, 0:23:32.640 --> 0:23:34.840 it doesn't flow very well. But if it's a room 0:23:34.880 --> 0:23:37.640 temperature or if it's warm, it flows. It's it's much 0:23:37.720 --> 0:23:41.440 less viscous, right, it flows much more easily because it's 0:23:41.440 --> 0:23:45.360 subject just to temperature. That makes it a Newtonian fluid. 0:23:45.520 --> 0:23:48.240 That's also a pet peeve. When you go to a 0:23:48.280 --> 0:23:50.440 place and get pancakes or waffles or French dose and 0:23:50.480 --> 0:23:55.080 they have the heated syrup. Oh I like that, you do? Yeah? 0:23:55.119 --> 0:23:58.280 I like my syrup thick, okay um, you like it 0:23:58.280 --> 0:24:01.680 thin and water you like that as long as it's warm. 0:24:01.680 --> 0:24:06.240 It's watery because it's low and viscosity and it's warm. Um. 0:24:06.280 --> 0:24:08.760 But that's but it's just temperature there had it has 0:24:08.800 --> 0:24:10.720 nothing to do with force or pressure or anything like that. 0:24:11.080 --> 0:24:14.600 If a fluid is subject to not only temperature but 0:24:14.720 --> 0:24:38.080