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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. This is

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Speaker 1: Robert Lamb. It is Saturday. We have a vault episode

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Speaker 1: for you. This is going to be the Invention of

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Speaker 1: ice Skating. It originally published five twenty nine, twenty twenty five.

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Speaker 1: It's a standalone, but it is also the first of

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Speaker 1: two episodes, with the second episode exploring roller skates. But

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Speaker 1: we had to do ice skating first. So if you

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Speaker 1: finished this episode and you absolutely have to have roller

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Speaker 1: skating right away, well just you know, go back look

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Speaker 1: around this time last year and you'll find that older episode. Otherwise,

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Speaker 1: just wait a few weeks and we'll put out the

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Speaker 1: other episode as well as a vault. Hope you enjoy.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 3: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My

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Speaker 3: name is Robert.

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Speaker 4: Lamb and I am Joe McCormick.

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Speaker 1: And we're back with another Invention themed episode. Some of

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Speaker 1: you may notice Joe and I were just chatting about this.

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Speaker 1: We were doing an episode here on ice skating. It is,

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Speaker 1: of course the very beginning of summer.

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Speaker 5: Most of the articles you find about this come out

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Speaker 5: in December, so actually you might be much more familiar

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Speaker 5: with the seasonal mismatch if you live in the Southern Hemisphere.

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Speaker 5: But yeah, I guess for the majority of readers in

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Speaker 5: the Northern hemisphere reading, I guess they're only going to

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Speaker 5: click on an article about ice skating in December.

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Speaker 4: I don't know.

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Speaker 5: I'm against that kind of thing. I believe in anti

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Speaker 5: seasonal topicality.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, plus people are ice skating somewhere year round.

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Speaker 1: There are of course indoor ice skating rinks. And I

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Speaker 1: should also mention that the way we're getting to ice

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Speaker 1: skating is because my initial inspiration here was to do

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Speaker 1: an episode on roller skating. This is, of course, the

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Speaker 1: past time that initially boomed during the so called Golden

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Speaker 1: Age of roller skating, this is roughly nineteen thirty seven

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Speaker 1: through nineteen fifty nine. I think there's a lot of

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Speaker 1: you know, escaping from the darkness of the world in

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Speaker 1: that period and finding a little lightheartedness on the roller

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Speaker 1: skates in the skating rink. But you know, it's something

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Speaker 1: that's never completely gone out of fashion either, and it's

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Speaker 1: experienced sustained popularity in various parts of the world and

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Speaker 1: saw a major boost during the global pandemic.

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Speaker 5: Can I ask a question to older listeners. If you

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Speaker 5: watch movies about the fifties, you often see people roller

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Speaker 5: skating down the hallway in high school or in another

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Speaker 5: setting that's not a dedicated roller skating environment like a

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Speaker 5: rink or something, and people just roller skating on the

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Speaker 5: sidewalk at school going from class to class.

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Speaker 4: Is that a thing people actually did?

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Speaker 1: I don't know they're doing it now, because roller skating

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Speaker 1: is not only going strong, but it's I think it's

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Speaker 1: getting stronger. We may get into this in another episode,

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Speaker 1: but there are a lot of like financial I saw

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Speaker 1: some financial papers talking about how the road skating industry

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Speaker 1: is just going to continue to grow over the next

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Speaker 1: decade or so.

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Speaker 5: I do think we should bring back the roller skate

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Speaker 5: mounted server at the drive in restaurants, because that's interesting.

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Speaker 5: It adds an element of danger and theatrical athleticism to

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Speaker 5: the dining out experience that you don't usually get.

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Speaker 3: Well.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know how dangerous it is, but

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Speaker 1: yes it is. There is kind of a neat charm

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Speaker 1: to it. But yeah, I've been seeing a lot of

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Speaker 1: roller skaters recently. My kid is involved in a local

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Speaker 1: vibrant skating club. And it really made me reconsider what

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Speaker 1: I thought I knew about skating and skating culture. So

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Speaker 1: I figured, hey, well let's let's do a nice summer

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Speaker 1: episode about roller skating. But the thing is, before you

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Speaker 1: can even begin to cover the invention of roller skates,

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Speaker 1: you have to explore their cold weather predecessor. You have

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Speaker 1: to talk about ice skates.

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Speaker 5: I assume there's no disputing this at all, which came first.

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Speaker 5: The ice skate is definitely older than the roller.

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Speaker 1: Skate, definitely, definitely by by a considerable margin. Yeah, nobody's

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Speaker 1: even making the case, even if you were getting into

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Speaker 1: potential possible examples of somebody designing something like a roller

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Speaker 1: skate that just wasn't usable anywhere because maybe you lacked

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Speaker 1: the places for I've I've seen no arguments that this

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Speaker 1: is the case. If anyone out there is aware of

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Speaker 1: even any just unhinged theories about the roller skate coming

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Speaker 1: before the ice skate, send it our way and we

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Speaker 1: will evaluate. But as far as I can tell, nobody's

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Speaker 1: making this case. So we're going to stick to what

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Speaker 1: seems to be the established lawyer here. We're going to

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Speaker 1: talk about ice skating now, and then I think maybe

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Speaker 1: an episode later in June, we'll come back and discuss

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Speaker 1: roller skating in more detail. Fair enough, okay, So, as

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Speaker 1: is generally the case when we're talking about an invention,

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Speaker 1: we like to talk about what comes before, so we

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Speaker 1: can appreciate the invention. What came before skating on the

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Speaker 1: ice using some sort of an ice skate. Well, to

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Speaker 1: properly consider ice skates. Oh wait, you already have an answer,

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Speaker 1: Let's have it.

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Speaker 5: No, I was going to slipping on the ice slipping

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Speaker 5: and falling game first.

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Speaker 1: Well, it always does in ice skating, doesn't it. You could,

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Speaker 1: and you could make an argument that skating on the

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Speaker 1: ice one way or another is slipping in style.

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Speaker 5: It is a controlled slip, exactly controlled slipping.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I think the most important thing that I quickly realized

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Speaker 1: looking at the history of the ice skate is we

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Speaker 1: think of ice skating more as novelty, or perhaps you

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Speaker 1: think of it as part of sport, But we really

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Speaker 1: have to view ice skates not as an item of recreation,

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Speaker 1: but as a means of conveyance of moving the human

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Speaker 1: body from one point to another. And so before humans

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Speaker 1: skated across ice as a means of conserving energy and

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Speaker 1: maximizing speed. They did a few different varied things on ice,

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Speaker 1: including slipping and falling down. Of course, walking across the

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Speaker 1: ice is of course the oldest fore runner, obviously requiring

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Speaker 1: no technology, but certainly benefiting from a variety of innovations

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Speaker 1: that would occur over human history, including the leather shoe.

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Speaker 1: I believe, the oldest surviving example being a some five

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Speaker 1: five hundred year old arny one shoe from Armenia or

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Speaker 1: what is now Armenia. But obviously such footwear was biodegradable

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Speaker 1: by its very nature, so who knows what we lost though?

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Speaker 5: Of course, when we think about ice skates, these are

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Speaker 5: obviously tools designed to decrease friction on the ice and

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Speaker 5: allow you to glide more easily, I would tend to

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Speaker 5: think that the earliest ice traversal technologies were exactly the opposite.

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Speaker 5: They would be things designed to help you better grip

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Speaker 5: the ice to avoid slipping and falling while you walked.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, which brings our mind to things like spiked cleats.

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Speaker 1: I was looking around. Let's say there's some examples that

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Speaker 1: survive from the first and second millennium CE, But again

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Speaker 1: there's no telling what was lost as well in our

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Speaker 1: ability to figure out how to make grippier footwear for

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Speaker 1: walking around on the ice. And then on top of this,

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Speaker 1: we should also point out that a certain understanding of

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Speaker 1: the different types of ice and how it responds to

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Speaker 1: your weight would also have been important for moving across

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Speaker 1: the ice. The examples of the oldest surviving cleats that

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Speaker 1: I was finding my research were things from the Viking era,

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Speaker 1: so it's very possible there are older examples of this

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Speaker 1: that didn't survive, and possibly something that didn't come up

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Speaker 1: with my research. So as always, if anyone knows of

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Speaker 1: an earlier example of some sort of grippy footwear technology,

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Speaker 1: send it our way. Furthermore, before humans turned to ice

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Speaker 1: skating proper, they made use of sleds, a variation of

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Speaker 1: the sledge, which itself is a predecessor to the cart.

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Speaker 1: And these of course are ancient and widespread innovations which,

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Speaker 1: depending on the environment and where they were constructed, they

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Speaker 1: might have entailed bone, ivory, or wood. You can easily

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Speaker 1: imagine that the idea for the ice skate perhaps comes

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Speaker 1: together from ruminations on existing sled technology, you know, like

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Speaker 1: what if ice strapped a sled to my foot? As

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Speaker 1: well as experiences walking, sliding, slipping on ice covered lakes, rivers,

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Speaker 1: and so forth. Couple that with a need for such

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Speaker 1: skates for a conveyance such as areas where human communities

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Speaker 1: are separated by expansive frozen over bodies of water, and

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Speaker 1: it's only a matter of time till someone tries to

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Speaker 1: miniaturize the whole affair and place it on a boot.

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Speaker 1: Those will discuss the physicality and indeed physics of ice

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Speaker 1: skating differs significantly from either of these pre existing technologies.

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Speaker 3: M H.

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Speaker 1: So here in a bit, we're going to go back

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Speaker 1: and look at the most ancient known examples of ice skates,

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Speaker 1: how they worked and didn't work, and how they evolved.

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Speaker 1: But let's go ahead and move towards our current understanding

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Speaker 1: of the ice skate and just talk about how it works.

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Speaker 5: As in, what physics principles does the ice skate take

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Speaker 5: advantage of?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, because we can all sort of have innate understanding

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Speaker 1: of out works.

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Speaker 3: But yeah, let's get into the physics.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 5: So this is one of those things that seems like

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Speaker 5: a question that would have a fairly simple, well understood,

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Speaker 5: well agreed upon answer, but surprisingly no, the physics of

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Speaker 5: ice skating are quite complicated. The issue is still being investigated.

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Speaker 5: Some explanations that you see all over the place and appearing,

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Speaker 5: I think even in fairly recent physics textbooks are actually

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Speaker 5: disputed by experts, and from what I can see, new

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Speaker 5: papers on the physics of ice skating still appear regularly

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Speaker 5: in scientific journals, even at least as of a couple

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Speaker 5: of years ago.

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Speaker 3: That's crazy. It's not settled science yet.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, there is a lot we do know now, but

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Speaker 5: a lot of that was established rather recently. And then

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Speaker 5: there are still a bunch of questions that we don't

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Speaker 5: have answers to yet.

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Speaker 3: But I always I think.

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Speaker 5: It's interesting when you come across something like this, one

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Speaker 5: of those things that you assume would have a short, simple,

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Speaker 5: non controversial, one paragraph answer in the physics textbook, and

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Speaker 5: actually it's like a super complicated, unsolved question. But anyway,

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Speaker 5: so the main thing that we need to explain when

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Speaker 5: looking at the physics of ice skating is why can

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Speaker 5: an ice skater glide with such low friction? That's the

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Speaker 5: main physics question. To illustrate this, you can quite well

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Speaker 5: imagine the scenario. You don't really need to do the experiment.

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Speaker 5: We know well enough from walking on various surfaces how

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Speaker 5: this would work. Imagine you put on a pair of

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Speaker 5: ice skates, you stand on a flat stretch of parking lot,

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Speaker 5: and you get somebody to stand behind you and give

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Speaker 5: you a push.

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Speaker 4: Is that gonna work? Are you gonna glide? That's a right.

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Speaker 5: The blades will not glide smoothly over the surface of

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Speaker 5: the pavement the way they would over the ice. They will,

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Speaker 5: you know, I wrote here on my notes that they will.

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Speaker 5: I was gonna say grind to a stop, but they

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Speaker 5: probably won't even grind to a stop. They're just not

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Speaker 5: going to move at all. They will be clamped to

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Speaker 5: the ground where you are standing, and any forward momentum

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Speaker 5: you had from the push somebody gave you will cause

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Speaker 5: you to fall in your face because the blades.

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Speaker 4: Are not going to go anywhere. They will grip the

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Speaker 4: ground and.

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Speaker 5: The top half of your body will go forward. The

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Speaker 5: friction defeats the momentum. So the friction is the problem.

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Speaker 5: The physical principles that make low friction skating possible on

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Speaker 5: ice are still under investigation. That said, the best and

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Speaker 5: most up to date core research that I could find

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Speaker 5: on this was summarized in a December twenty nineteen there's

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Speaker 5: December again, December twenty nineteen review article in the journal

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Speaker 5: Nature by Daniel Bond, called the Physics of ice Skating

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Speaker 5: and a bit of background on the author here. Daniel

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Speaker 5: Bond is a physicist affiliated with the Institute of Physics

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Speaker 5: at the University of Amsterdam. Bond specializes in fluid mechanics,

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Speaker 5: among other things, so you'll see him writing article on

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Speaker 5: these kinds of topics, sometimes aimed at a more popular audience.

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Speaker 5: But a couple of notable achievements that I wanted to

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Speaker 5: mention of his because they're kind of indirectly connected.

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Speaker 4: To this topic.

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Speaker 5: This will take us a little bit of field, but

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Speaker 5: I think it's an interesting parallel. Bond was involved in

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Speaker 5: research you might remember from roughly a decade ago, building

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Speaker 5: on some earlier research about how the massive stone blocks

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Speaker 5: that were used to build the Pyramids were probably transported

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Speaker 5: across the ground to the building site. Of course, this

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Speaker 5: was a serious question because each stone piece is enormous.

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Speaker 5: You know the amount of force required to move it

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Speaker 5: across the ground. It's hard to imagine you would have

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Speaker 5: had tons and tons of workers pulling They were probably

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Speaker 5: mounted on these sledges and moved along with great difficulty.

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Speaker 5: But Bond and colleagues discovered that you could greatly decrease

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Speaker 5: the friction between the sandy ground and a sledge used

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Speaker 5: to transport a stone block by slight wetting the sand

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Speaker 5: in front of the sledge. They found that you want

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Speaker 5: to add something like two to five percent water per

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Speaker 5: unit of sand by volume, and this can reduce roughly

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Speaker 5: by half the amount of force and thus the number

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Speaker 5: of workers needed to pull the stone along the ground.

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Speaker 5: Now why would the water do that? Essentially, the water

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Speaker 5: here helps the sand grains stick together rather than flow,

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Speaker 5: so the sand functions more like a solid flat surface

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Speaker 5: when you wet it this way dry sand, when you're

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Speaker 5: pushing something really heavy through it, it tends to get

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Speaker 5: kind of pushed out in front of the load, forming

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Speaker 5: this mound that then takes more force to pull past.

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Speaker 5: You can kind of imagine this. It's like as you're dragging,

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Speaker 5: you're constantly like building a little mountain in front of

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Speaker 5: where you're trying to go.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

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Speaker 4: But when you.

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Speaker 5: Wet the sand, it doesn't do that as much. It

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Speaker 5: forms more of a solid flat surface, and you can

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Speaker 5: drag it over the top more easily bond compared the

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Speaker 5: benefits of wet sand. Here to the reason that you

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Speaker 5: want to use wet sand to build a sand castle.

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Speaker 5: It sticks together and holds its shape better. Another cool

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Speaker 5: a side about that discovery about the wet sand is

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Speaker 5: that this process of pouring out water on the sand

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Speaker 5: in front of a stone work during transport was actually

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Speaker 5: depicted in ancient Egyptian art, So this is not really

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Speaker 5: even a hypothetical process. It was instead investigating the physics

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Speaker 5: principles of a process that ancient Egyptians depicted themselves doing.

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Speaker 5: So there's like one example here is there's a tomb

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Speaker 5: from the Middle Kingdom twelfth dynasty about nineteen hundred BCE,

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Speaker 5: belonging to a governor called Jehudi Hotap that shows teams

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Speaker 5: of workers transporting this big statue and they're pulling it

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Speaker 5: with ropes as it's mounted on a sledge, and then

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Speaker 5: it shows workers pouring water out of jars on the

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Speaker 5: ground right in front of the load. This was previously

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Speaker 5: interpreted as a libation like a ceremonial pouring out of

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Speaker 5: liquid as an offering to the gods, but this discovery

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Speaker 5: completely reframes that pouring out of liquid as something that

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Speaker 5: was very likely functional in nature, whether or not it

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Speaker 5: had ritual significance, which it might also have had.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you can very well imagine it having both. And yeah,

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Speaker 1: then it makes the ritual even more potent by knowing

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Speaker 1: that you can see the results right away.

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Speaker 5: Yes, so Bond was involved in that research. But one

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Speaker 5: more funny thing about him. He was part of the

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Speaker 5: team that won the twenty twenty four ignobl Prize for chemistry.

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Speaker 5: We didn't talk about the chemistry prize in our in

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Speaker 5: our last episodes, did we? But this was quote for

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Speaker 5: using chromatography to separate drunk and sober worms. I feel

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Speaker 5: kind of sad we didn't cover this anyway. I looked

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Speaker 5: it up to figure out what this was about. The

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Speaker 5: issue is it was not really about worms. Instead, the

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Speaker 5: worms were being used as a model to test different methods,

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Speaker 5: different methods of sorting different kinds of polymers. So the

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Speaker 5: sober worms represented what are called active polymers that can

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Speaker 5: move around, and the drunk worms were non active polymers

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Speaker 5: because they just kind of chill. Anyway, all that was

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Speaker 5: in aside on Bond's previous work. Here, Bond is writing

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Speaker 5: an article reviewing recent ice skating research. It's a short

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Speaker 5: review in the journal Nature, summarizing both the previous state

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Speaker 5: of research on ice skating as well as especially a

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Speaker 5: new paper published in the journal Physical Review X by

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Speaker 5: Canali at All from that same year, from twenty nineteen.

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Speaker 5: So Bond begins by talking about the explanation that has

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Speaker 5: long been given sort of the older textbook explanation for

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Speaker 5: why ice skating works, and that is that at the

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Speaker 5: interface between the blade and the surface of the ice

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Speaker 5: there is a thin layer not of ice, but of

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Speaker 5: liquid water, and this thin layer of water lubricates the

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Speaker 5: contact between the two solid objects, between the blade and

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Speaker 5: the ice.

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Speaker 4: Now, why would that happen.

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Speaker 5: Why would that liquid water be there? There are several

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Speaker 5: different explanations that have been offered throughout the years. One

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Speaker 5: is the idea of surface melting. This is the concept

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Speaker 5: that there's sort of a quasi liquid layer of water

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Speaker 5: that exists on the surface of ice, generally primarily at

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Speaker 5: higher temperatures, though still below freezing, and this is sometimes

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Speaker 5: called pre melt. Another idea, this is commonly sighted but

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Speaker 5: now disputed by Bond and by many others. And I'll

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Speaker 5: get to the reason why in a second. But this

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Speaker 5: idea is pressure melting at the contact point. So under

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Speaker 5: this hypothesis, like the weight of a human body distributed

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Speaker 5: over the small surface area of the bottom edge of

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Speaker 5: a skate blade creates so much pressure at that contact

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Speaker 5: point that it causes the ice crystals to melt and

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Speaker 5: become water. And thus you get your lubricating layer of water.

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Speaker 5: And then the final possible explanation for that layer is

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Speaker 5: frictional heating. So we know what frictional heating is. When

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Speaker 5: you rub things together, the friction generates heat. This idea

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Speaker 5: here says that this kind of frictional heating happens between

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Speaker 5: the skate and the ice. The heat melts the ice,

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Speaker 5: and the thin layer of slippery melt water is formed.

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Speaker 5: I've come across sources, especially older ones, that favor the

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Speaker 5: explanation based on pressure melting, but Bond says this is

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Speaker 5: now widely thought to be incorrect because apparently this would

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Speaker 5: not work at temperatures below negative twenty degrees celsius. And

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Speaker 5: we can see that ice skating regularly works well at

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Speaker 5: temperatures lower than that. Just the observation of ice skating

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Speaker 5: does not match that explanation. So then maybe is it

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Speaker 5: surface melting that pre melt the quasi liquid layer on

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Speaker 5: the outside, or is it frictional melting leading to a

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Speaker 5: liquid layer on top of the ice. Strangely, Bond says,

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Speaker 5: neither of those seem to fully explain what's going on either,

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Speaker 5: especially not in the idea that they.

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Speaker 4: Could just create a.

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Speaker 5: Layer of liquid water, because, for one thing, these mechanisms

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Speaker 5: would be equally present at the surface of other various

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Speaker 5: solids that you cannot skate on, So there must be

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Speaker 5: something else at play, something special about water ice compared

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Speaker 5: to other solids. Another interesting question, what exactly are the

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Speaker 5: mechanical properties of this lubricating layer of water. Bond points

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Speaker 5: out some things that are not really consistent with the

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Speaker 5: idea that water lubricates the interface between the skate and

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Speaker 5: the solid surface. For one thing, you can't scale on

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Speaker 5: a flat, solid surface covered in water. You think about

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Speaker 5: this like, imagine a flat basketball cort or something. You

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Speaker 5: drench the floor with a thin layer of water, put

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Speaker 5: on some ice skates and try to skate on it.

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Speaker 4: That does not work.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 1: Your only hope is if the heat the floor that

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Speaker 1: is being covered by the water is ice.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, so there's something special about ice. It's not

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Speaker 5: enough to just have liquid water underneath your skate blade.

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Speaker 5: Another interesting thing, he mentions, water is generally not a

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Speaker 5: great lubricant, in part because it is too thin. When

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Speaker 5: it gets pressed between two solids, water is easily squeezed

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Speaker 5: out of the space between them like a grippier. Stickier

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Speaker 5: fluid like oil or grease, makes a better lubricant because

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Speaker 5: it clings to the space between the solids and doesn't

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Speaker 5: get pressed out as easily. So curious questions confounding observations here.

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Speaker 1: So you would see oil scate would be more likely

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Speaker 1: to take off than this water skating.

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Speaker 5: I mean, I would imagine if you coat a floor

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Speaker 5: with oil, you can probably do some good slipping and

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Speaker 5: sliding on it. I don't know exactly what the skate

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Speaker 5: blade but maybe, but anyway, so whatever the mechanism, the

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Speaker 5: idea has long been that ice skating is possible because

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Speaker 5: instead of skating on solid ice crystals, you are actually

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Speaker 5: gliding over a microscopic, invisible layer of liquid. What Kanali

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Speaker 5: and co authors found in their paper is that this

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Speaker 5: is half true. When you skate over the ice, there

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Speaker 5: is a lubricating layer of something. But it's not simply

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Speaker 5: liquid water. It's actually a unique water based substance that

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Speaker 5: has some properties of liquid water and some properties of

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Speaker 5: solid ice. So to show this, the authors of this paper,

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Speaker 5: Canali and co authors created an experiment where they were

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Speaker 5: able to measure the coefficient of friction of both the

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Speaker 5: ice and the lubricating layer on top of the ice

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Speaker 5: at the same time. And they did this with a

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Speaker 5: device that Bond compares to a tuning fork. Here I'm

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Speaker 5: going to quote from Bond's description of their experiment.

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Speaker 4: Quote.

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Speaker 5: The fork was made to vibrate so that a millimeter

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Speaker 5: scale glass bead attached to one of its prongs oscillated

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Speaker 5: across an ice surface. The bead thus functioned as a

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Speaker 5: tiny ice skate, gliding for distances of the order of

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Speaker 5: tens of micrometers across the same region of ice. An

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Speaker 5: accelerometer attached to the same prong of the fork as

403
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Speaker 5: the bead measured the amplitude of the bead's oscillations parallel

404
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Speaker 5: to the surface and compared them with the amplitude of

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Speaker 5: the driving force. Canali et al. Used the difference in

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Speaker 5: amplitude to calculate the friction force between the bead and

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Speaker 5: the ice, So they did that, and then at the

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Speaker 5: same time also they were measuring the oscillation of the

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Speaker 5: bead perpendicular to the ice surface. Essentially that would be

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Speaker 5: sort of how how it was bouncing up and down

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Speaker 5: to learn things about the lubricating layer underneath the bead.

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Speaker 5: And then by comparing these two different measurements based on

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Speaker 5: the parallel oscillations and the perpendicular oscillations, the authors could

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Speaker 5: figure out the friction coefficient between the bead and the

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Speaker 5: ice and could figure out flow properties of the lubricating

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Speaker 5: layer in between them. And what they found was weird

417
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Speaker 5: and interesting. The lubricating layer has some viscous properties, so

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Speaker 5: like a thicker, stickier fluid compared to regular water, and

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Speaker 5: it also had elastic behavior, meaning it can have its

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Speaker 5: shape squeezed or stretched and then bounce back to its

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Speaker 5: original shape like a rubber ball. It behaved neither like

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Speaker 5: water nor like ice, but like a hybrid of the two.

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Speaker 5: Quote the author suggests that repeated sliding over the same

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Speaker 5: spot generates a mixture of ice and water, which displays

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Speaker 5: both elastic behavior from the ice and viscous behavior from

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Speaker 5: the water. In response to a load, the resulting layer

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Speaker 5: of material would be more difficult to squeeze out of

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Speaker 5: gaps than ordinary water. This could at least in part

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Speaker 5: explain the layer's excellent lubrication properties. So it has something

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Speaker 5: to do with the special characteristics of the outer layers

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Speaker 5: of water. Ice in particular. Other melting solids would not

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Speaker 5: necessarily behave this way, and as we observe, many other

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Speaker 5: melting solids do not behave this way. There's something special

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Speaker 5: about H two zero, Bond writes, quote few materials can

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Speaker 5: form a viscoelastic liquid solid third body in response to

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Speaker 5: friction and wear. That's something that makes water special. Also,

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Speaker 5: Bond mentions at the end of this review that there

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Speaker 5: are plenty of questions about the physics of ice skating

439
00:24:50,640 --> 00:24:52,719
Speaker 5: that remain. The lots of things we still don't know.

440
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Speaker 5: For example, why does the ideal temperature for reduced friction

441
00:24:57,520 --> 00:25:01,280
Speaker 5: on the ice seem to be like negative so degrees celsius.

442
00:25:01,840 --> 00:25:02,480
Speaker 4: That that's a.

443
00:25:02,480 --> 00:25:05,879
Speaker 5: Finding, but we don't know why that temperature. And another

444
00:25:05,920 --> 00:25:08,960
Speaker 5: thing he points out which I hadn't quite considered, but

445
00:25:09,040 --> 00:25:12,560
Speaker 5: I think is worth the certainly worth understanding. Having a

446
00:25:12,640 --> 00:25:16,080
Speaker 5: complete science of lubrication is not just trivia. This is

447
00:25:16,119 --> 00:25:18,399
Speaker 5: not just like you know, somebody goes ice skating and

448
00:25:18,480 --> 00:25:21,000
Speaker 5: wonder how does this work. It's not just to satisfy

449
00:25:21,040 --> 00:25:27,120
Speaker 5: our curiosity. Understanding lubrication is hugely important to human economics

450
00:25:27,119 --> 00:25:31,680
Speaker 5: and technology. Bond Site's an estimate that something like twenty

451
00:25:31,800 --> 00:25:36,600
Speaker 5: percent of the world's total energy consumption is lost to friction,

452
00:25:37,320 --> 00:25:40,680
Speaker 5: meaning it's turned into heat and wear on components from

453
00:25:40,720 --> 00:25:44,760
Speaker 5: things rubbing together. Generally, that is not useful to us

454
00:25:44,800 --> 00:25:48,720
Speaker 5: as a type of energy. Thus, better lubrication technologies could

455
00:25:48,760 --> 00:25:53,359
Speaker 5: represent big improvements in energy efficiency and in the performance

456
00:25:53,359 --> 00:25:54,840
Speaker 5: and durability of our machines.

457
00:25:55,680 --> 00:25:56,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great point.

458
00:25:57,200 --> 00:25:59,399
Speaker 5: I thought so too. So let no one. Let no

459
00:25:59,440 --> 00:26:02,560
Speaker 5: one snicker at the idea of lubrication science. It is

460
00:26:02,920 --> 00:26:06,280
Speaker 5: serious business. But anyway to bring it back around, I

461
00:26:06,320 --> 00:26:09,760
Speaker 5: would summarize what I've read on this subject by saying

462
00:26:09,840 --> 00:26:15,280
Speaker 5: that it seems ice skating works because the surface of

463
00:26:15,440 --> 00:26:21,359
Speaker 5: regular ice, regular hexagonal crystalin ice can and usually does,

464
00:26:21,800 --> 00:26:26,120
Speaker 5: become coated in a quasi liquid layer of H two

465
00:26:26,119 --> 00:26:30,359
Speaker 5: oz made of some interesting mixture of liquid melt and

466
00:26:30,560 --> 00:26:35,080
Speaker 5: tiny ice crystals, and this quasi liquid layer does not

467
00:26:35,240 --> 00:26:39,080
Speaker 5: act like regular liquid water, but instead has a sticky

468
00:26:39,680 --> 00:26:44,119
Speaker 5: bouncy quality or what are called in the paper visco

469
00:26:44,160 --> 00:26:48,800
Speaker 5: elastic qualities, and these qualities make it an amazing lubricant

470
00:26:48,920 --> 00:26:53,920
Speaker 5: between solids. This lubricating layer is not primarily created by

471
00:26:53,960 --> 00:26:57,719
Speaker 5: pressure from the skater's body weight as of physics, as

472
00:26:57,760 --> 00:27:00,640
Speaker 5: people used to say, especially a long long time ago,

473
00:27:01,000 --> 00:27:04,800
Speaker 5: though pressure could play some small role, it seems frictional

474
00:27:04,880 --> 00:27:08,119
Speaker 5: heating between the blade and the ice probably does play

475
00:27:08,160 --> 00:27:11,479
Speaker 5: some role, maybe a major one, though some of this

476
00:27:11,600 --> 00:27:15,520
Speaker 5: quasi liquid layer is already naturally there on the ice

477
00:27:15,600 --> 00:27:18,160
Speaker 5: within the normal temperature range for ice skating.

478
00:27:19,119 --> 00:27:20,320
Speaker 4: And then beyond that, of.

479
00:27:20,200 --> 00:27:23,000
Speaker 5: Course, you have to think about the physical characteristics of

480
00:27:23,119 --> 00:27:27,639
Speaker 5: the blades themselves. The smooth blades of the skates allow

481
00:27:27,720 --> 00:27:30,960
Speaker 5: the skater to further decrease friction, more so than say

482
00:27:31,600 --> 00:27:35,080
Speaker 5: the relatively rough and grippy soles of choes or of

483
00:27:35,119 --> 00:27:38,399
Speaker 5: the bottoms of your bare feet, and the blades also

484
00:27:38,600 --> 00:27:43,040
Speaker 5: allow the skater to control movement. There's greater control because

485
00:27:43,680 --> 00:27:46,520
Speaker 5: they allow you to both do a pushing motion when

486
00:27:46,560 --> 00:27:49,160
Speaker 5: applied to the ice one way, and a gliding motion

487
00:27:49,320 --> 00:27:51,040
Speaker 5: when applied in a different way.

488
00:27:51,760 --> 00:27:53,760
Speaker 1: Which of course is the great that's part of the

489
00:27:53,760 --> 00:27:57,960
Speaker 1: great fun of ice skating, this gliding sensation, the pumping

490
00:27:57,960 --> 00:27:59,920
Speaker 1: your legs side to side. I don't get out in

491
00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:02,640
Speaker 1: ice skate all that often. Generally, like once a year,

492
00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:05,800
Speaker 1: I'll go ice skating. Oh and it's cold enough here

493
00:28:05,800 --> 00:28:08,800
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, and they have some outdoor ice skating rinks.

494
00:28:09,520 --> 00:28:12,280
Speaker 1: But generally I spend at least half the time I'm

495
00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:15,000
Speaker 1: there relearning how to ice skate and getting my balance,

496
00:28:15,520 --> 00:28:17,280
Speaker 1: and then it gets pretty fun.

497
00:28:17,760 --> 00:28:17,919
Speaker 4: You know.

498
00:28:18,000 --> 00:28:20,680
Speaker 5: I haven't done it since I was a kid. There

499
00:28:20,800 --> 00:28:22,680
Speaker 5: was an ice skating rink in town when I was

500
00:28:22,720 --> 00:28:24,679
Speaker 5: a kid, and we would go a number of times.

501
00:28:24,720 --> 00:28:28,760
Speaker 5: It's one of those things where I think I only

502
00:28:28,880 --> 00:28:32,320
Speaker 5: ever did it enough to just get to the edge

503
00:28:32,359 --> 00:28:37,120
Speaker 5: of not being terrible at it, and then never proceeded

504
00:28:37,320 --> 00:28:39,560
Speaker 5: to go into like being able to do it.

505
00:28:40,160 --> 00:28:40,440
Speaker 3: Yeah.

506
00:28:40,560 --> 00:28:43,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, like I say, I always have to relearn.

507
00:28:43,960 --> 00:28:46,280
Speaker 1: At least half the time, I'm just getting my balance

508
00:28:46,520 --> 00:28:48,560
Speaker 1: right and figuring out how I'm supposed to do this,

509
00:28:49,560 --> 00:28:53,040
Speaker 1: allowing my confidence to build up enough, and then I'm

510
00:28:53,080 --> 00:28:54,720
Speaker 1: finally in a place where I can dodge all the

511
00:28:54,800 --> 00:28:57,880
Speaker 1: children out there on the rink and make a few.

512
00:28:57,800 --> 00:28:59,320
Speaker 3: Laps that feel pretty satisfied.

513
00:29:00,000 --> 00:29:02,720
Speaker 5: This is a tangent, but this makes me think I

514
00:29:02,720 --> 00:29:04,800
Speaker 5: don't know if there's a name for this phenomenon, but

515
00:29:05,280 --> 00:29:07,320
Speaker 5: I would be interested in doing something on the show

516
00:29:07,360 --> 00:29:10,680
Speaker 5: about these kinds of endeavors where you get stuck in

517
00:29:10,720 --> 00:29:14,480
Speaker 5: the perpetual beginner zone, where you're always just like re

518
00:29:14,640 --> 00:29:17,920
Speaker 5: treading or reviewing the beginner material and you never break

519
00:29:17,920 --> 00:29:20,000
Speaker 5: out into actual competence of it.

520
00:29:21,920 --> 00:29:23,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, and there are probably a lot of things like

521
00:29:23,440 --> 00:29:24,560
Speaker 3: that though.

522
00:29:24,880 --> 00:29:27,080
Speaker 1: Of course, one of the great things about hobbies is

523
00:29:27,080 --> 00:29:29,440
Speaker 1: you don't actually have to be good or even competent

524
00:29:29,520 --> 00:29:29,840
Speaker 1: at them.

525
00:29:30,080 --> 00:29:32,120
Speaker 3: They are your hobbies after all.

526
00:29:32,240 --> 00:29:35,080
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think there are a lot of things

527
00:29:35,120 --> 00:29:37,440
Speaker 1: like this where we can look to our own experiences

528
00:29:37,480 --> 00:29:40,160
Speaker 1: and say, well, I almost did that, I almost served once.

529
00:29:40,960 --> 00:29:43,360
Speaker 5: Well, I feel like there are some hobbies that are

530
00:29:43,400 --> 00:29:45,880
Speaker 5: more fun to spend time in the beginner zone in

531
00:29:45,960 --> 00:29:50,360
Speaker 5: than others. Like with ice skating, you know, you can

532
00:29:50,520 --> 00:29:53,600
Speaker 5: imagine that you'd be having more fun once you were

533
00:29:53,640 --> 00:29:57,400
Speaker 5: able to feel some amount of mastery over it, whereas

534
00:29:57,440 --> 00:29:59,680
Speaker 5: other things you can just be messing around in the

535
00:29:59,800 --> 00:30:02,440
Speaker 5: you know, total beginner zone and it's already pretty fun.

536
00:30:02,480 --> 00:30:03,560
Speaker 4: To be right there.

537
00:30:13,000 --> 00:30:16,240
Speaker 1: All right, Well, let's get back into the history of

538
00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:19,880
Speaker 1: ice skating, and again we'll stress the caveat that the

539
00:30:20,200 --> 00:30:23,520
Speaker 1: earliest examples of any given technology don't always survive or

540
00:30:23,520 --> 00:30:26,719
Speaker 1: have yet to be found, especially of their biodegradable materials

541
00:30:27,000 --> 00:30:30,400
Speaker 1: bound up in their production. But the oldest ice skates

542
00:30:30,440 --> 00:30:33,520
Speaker 1: that I think we know of date back to roughly

543
00:30:34,360 --> 00:30:39,960
Speaker 1: eighteen hundred BCE in Scandinavia, where the ancient Scandinavians seemingly

544
00:30:39,960 --> 00:30:43,880
Speaker 1: invented the technology. Some three thousand years ago, I was

545
00:30:43,920 --> 00:30:48,280
Speaker 1: reading a paper by Frederico Formenti and Alberto E.

546
00:30:48,480 --> 00:30:49,000
Speaker 3: Minetti.

547
00:30:49,800 --> 00:30:55,600
Speaker 1: Formenti in particular has written numerous papers dealing with recreating

548
00:30:56,400 --> 00:31:00,520
Speaker 1: old examples of ice skates and comparing them to other models.

549
00:31:01,120 --> 00:31:04,160
Speaker 1: This particular two thousand and seven paper was titled Human

550
00:31:04,280 --> 00:31:07,120
Speaker 1: Locomotion on ice and it was published in the Journal

551
00:31:07,160 --> 00:31:10,880
Speaker 1: of Experimental Biology, and he mentioned that there's also a

552
00:31:10,920 --> 00:31:14,240
Speaker 1: case to be made for Bronze age invention of skates

553
00:31:14,240 --> 00:31:19,520
Speaker 1: in what is now Northern Russia. And I also am

554
00:31:19,560 --> 00:31:21,800
Speaker 1: going to come back around to some arguments here in

555
00:31:21,840 --> 00:31:25,480
Speaker 1: a bit that also point to parts of modern day

556
00:31:25,560 --> 00:31:28,920
Speaker 1: China where we have some evidence of ice skating, and

557
00:31:28,920 --> 00:31:30,400
Speaker 1: then also some things like ice skating.

558
00:31:30,480 --> 00:31:32,200
Speaker 3: I'll get into, but.

559
00:31:32,360 --> 00:31:36,520
Speaker 1: It seems like universally, the earliest skates that we know of,

560
00:31:37,640 --> 00:31:39,520
Speaker 1: they were not made of metal. They were not even

561
00:31:39,520 --> 00:31:43,360
Speaker 1: made of wood entirely. They were made of bone, which

562
00:31:43,400 --> 00:31:46,280
Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense. Bone is a dense, dependable

563
00:31:46,320 --> 00:31:50,640
Speaker 1: construction material for human tool use. And yeah, you can

564
00:31:50,720 --> 00:31:53,640
Speaker 1: look up some images of this. In particular, I would

565
00:31:53,680 --> 00:31:56,600
Speaker 1: say that Science Friday has a really good article about

566
00:31:56,640 --> 00:31:59,200
Speaker 1: the paper in question here that I'm referencing, and it

567
00:31:59,240 --> 00:32:04,880
Speaker 1: has some nice color images of for Minty's reconstructed ancient

568
00:32:04,920 --> 00:32:07,240
Speaker 1: skates that you can look at. They're the same images

569
00:32:07,280 --> 00:32:09,600
Speaker 1: in the original paper, except in this case they're in color.

570
00:32:10,080 --> 00:32:12,240
Speaker 1: And so I included one here for you, Joe, of

571
00:32:12,400 --> 00:32:17,720
Speaker 1: reconstruction of an ancient bone ice skate. And it's pretty simple.

572
00:32:18,320 --> 00:32:21,200
Speaker 5: It looks like a bone with two belts looped through it.

573
00:32:21,920 --> 00:32:22,560
Speaker 3: That's right.

574
00:32:22,760 --> 00:32:26,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, this would be a bone from a horse or

575
00:32:26,640 --> 00:32:30,920
Speaker 1: a cow. Generally the metatarsal bone strapped to a boot

576
00:32:31,120 --> 00:32:35,320
Speaker 1: via leather straps that are worked through slits in the bone. Oh,

577
00:32:35,600 --> 00:32:38,000
Speaker 1: I meant to mention that Formenti also notes that the

578
00:32:38,000 --> 00:32:41,680
Speaker 1: ancient Scandinavian sagas suggest that the first ice skates were

579
00:32:41,720 --> 00:32:44,520
Speaker 1: made of wood, but this is something that is present

580
00:32:44,560 --> 00:32:48,880
Speaker 1: in textual evidence, but there's no archaeological findings to support

581
00:32:48,920 --> 00:32:51,600
Speaker 1: this currently, so as far as we can tell, it

582
00:32:51,640 --> 00:32:53,720
Speaker 1: was bone all the way back.

583
00:32:54,040 --> 00:32:56,640
Speaker 5: This reminds me of our bone Punk episodes where we

584
00:32:56,640 --> 00:33:00,160
Speaker 5: were talking about those ice age dwellings with the hut.

585
00:33:00,160 --> 00:33:01,520
Speaker 4: Made out of mammoth bones.

586
00:33:02,120 --> 00:33:02,400
Speaker 3: Yeah.

587
00:33:02,480 --> 00:33:05,360
Speaker 5: Yeah, I believe part of the idea there was that

588
00:33:05,400 --> 00:33:08,560
Speaker 5: those were in places where wood was actually in quite

589
00:33:08,720 --> 00:33:11,760
Speaker 5: short supply or would have been precious for other reasons,

590
00:33:11,840 --> 00:33:15,840
Speaker 5: and thus the bone was like it made sense economic

591
00:33:15,880 --> 00:33:18,640
Speaker 5: sense to use mammoth bones as a building material. I

592
00:33:18,680 --> 00:33:20,360
Speaker 5: don't know if there was a similar thing in here.

593
00:33:20,400 --> 00:33:22,520
Speaker 5: It might just be that the bone had properties that

594
00:33:22,560 --> 00:33:24,160
Speaker 5: you would prefer for skating.

595
00:33:24,680 --> 00:33:28,560
Speaker 1: I think a lot of it comes down to those properties. Yeah.

596
00:33:28,560 --> 00:33:31,800
Speaker 1: So it's thought that these would have been the first

597
00:33:31,840 --> 00:33:34,920
Speaker 1: variety of ice skates that humans used, And the crazy

598
00:33:34,920 --> 00:33:38,400
Speaker 1: thing is these remained in use up into the eighteenth

599
00:33:38,440 --> 00:33:43,120
Speaker 1: century CE, so until fairly recently folks were still known

600
00:33:43,120 --> 00:33:47,160
Speaker 1: to strap some bones to their feet and hit the ice. Now,

601
00:33:47,320 --> 00:33:51,280
Speaker 1: the authors here note that these ice skates lacked the

602
00:33:51,480 --> 00:33:54,560
Speaker 1: edge that you find on modern metal skates, so you

603
00:33:54,600 --> 00:33:57,520
Speaker 1: couldn't just pump along on these with your legs. That

604
00:33:57,720 --> 00:33:59,880
Speaker 1: kind of that sliding and gliding motion that we were

605
00:34:00,160 --> 00:34:02,920
Speaker 1: talking about being so fulfilling. You would not be doing

606
00:34:02,960 --> 00:34:05,320
Speaker 1: that on these ice skates. You wouldn't be doing a

607
00:34:05,360 --> 00:34:09,080
Speaker 1: lot of tricks I'm guessing either, and whirls and whirls

608
00:34:09,080 --> 00:34:13,880
Speaker 1: and so forth, because your locomotion depended pretty much entirely

609
00:34:13,960 --> 00:34:17,680
Speaker 1: on your upper limbs working a pair of poles to

610
00:34:17,800 --> 00:34:18,680
Speaker 1: push you along.

611
00:34:19,160 --> 00:34:21,200
Speaker 4: Oh interesting, okay, So.

612
00:34:21,200 --> 00:34:23,720
Speaker 1: In that it has more in common I would imagine

613
00:34:23,719 --> 00:34:27,920
Speaker 1: with skiing, which we're not really getting into today. It's

614
00:34:27,960 --> 00:34:29,680
Speaker 1: going to be a separate episode at some point.

615
00:34:30,200 --> 00:34:30,399
Speaker 3: Now.

616
00:34:30,800 --> 00:34:33,680
Speaker 1: From and his co author point out that skates such

617
00:34:33,680 --> 00:34:36,760
Speaker 1: as these would have been used for accompanying animal driven

618
00:34:36,800 --> 00:34:39,400
Speaker 1: sleds or sledges. They would have been used in ice

619
00:34:39,440 --> 00:34:42,000
Speaker 1: fishing or fishing from positions further out on the ice,

620
00:34:42,600 --> 00:34:46,480
Speaker 1: but especially among the Dutch people, the technology soon became

621
00:34:46,640 --> 00:34:51,759
Speaker 1: essential for winter transportation via frozen rivers, lakes, and eventually canals.

622
00:34:52,200 --> 00:34:55,680
Speaker 1: So think of a region where you know where you

623
00:34:55,760 --> 00:34:58,960
Speaker 1: have a bunch of frozen over rivers, and or canals

624
00:34:59,360 --> 00:35:03,480
Speaker 1: that are ultimate connecting different human populations, or situations where

625
00:35:03,480 --> 00:35:06,440
Speaker 1: you have a completely frozen lake and you have human

626
00:35:06,440 --> 00:35:10,879
Speaker 1: populations at different points across from each other across said lake.

627
00:35:11,440 --> 00:35:15,239
Speaker 1: It's ultimately faster and more energy efficient to use some

628
00:35:15,280 --> 00:35:19,440
Speaker 1: sort of skating technology. And yeah, for Menty stresses that

629
00:35:19,520 --> 00:35:22,880
Speaker 1: it was highly efficient. This was no mere novelty. They

630
00:35:22,880 --> 00:35:26,319
Speaker 1: weren't doing this. You know, maybe it was fun, but

631
00:35:26,320 --> 00:35:29,560
Speaker 1: they weren't doing it because it was fun, he writes,

632
00:35:29,640 --> 00:35:32,839
Speaker 1: quote from its very conception, skating on ice was a

633
00:35:32,880 --> 00:35:36,200
Speaker 1: form of human powered locomotion that was simple and effective,

634
00:35:36,640 --> 00:35:38,840
Speaker 1: very cheap, and thus accessible to a large part of

635
00:35:38,880 --> 00:35:42,480
Speaker 1: the population, and allowed people to reach more distant destinations

636
00:35:42,480 --> 00:35:45,280
Speaker 1: than they could do by walking or running. In fact,

637
00:35:45,719 --> 00:35:50,000
Speaker 1: unless more expensive means of transport such as horses or

638
00:35:50,080 --> 00:35:53,920
Speaker 1: later trains were used, ice skates were probably the most

639
00:35:53,920 --> 00:35:57,680
Speaker 1: convenient locomotion tool until bicycles were built. That would have

640
00:35:57,680 --> 00:36:01,760
Speaker 1: been the nineteenth century, the latter not being very safe

641
00:36:01,800 --> 00:36:03,280
Speaker 1: on slippery roads in winter.

642
00:36:03,719 --> 00:36:06,160
Speaker 5: That's interesting, Well, I would not have thought about it

643
00:36:06,200 --> 00:36:06,560
Speaker 5: that way.

644
00:36:06,880 --> 00:36:11,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, So not everywhere and certainly not year round, but

645
00:36:12,120 --> 00:36:16,040
Speaker 1: that there would be places where this was just highly efficient.

646
00:36:16,120 --> 00:36:19,400
Speaker 1: It was just the most the most sensible way to

647
00:36:19,480 --> 00:36:22,560
Speaker 1: move from point A to point B if conditions were

648
00:36:22,560 --> 00:36:26,880
Speaker 1: just right. Now, while again bone skates were ultimately a

649
00:36:26,920 --> 00:36:30,759
Speaker 1: long lasting technology against superior to mere wood, it would

650
00:36:30,760 --> 00:36:35,120
Speaker 1: seem by the thirteenth century CE in the Netherlands, skaters

651
00:36:35,400 --> 00:36:38,600
Speaker 1: returned to wood to make use of metal in their skating,

652
00:36:38,719 --> 00:36:42,640
Speaker 1: constructing wooden skates that had metal blades. Now, these were

653
00:36:42,680 --> 00:36:44,520
Speaker 1: still things that you would strap to the bottom of

654
00:36:44,560 --> 00:36:46,920
Speaker 1: your shoes, and I included an image of one of

655
00:36:46,960 --> 00:36:50,840
Speaker 1: these for you here, Joe. It is also not very fancy.

656
00:36:50,880 --> 00:36:52,520
Speaker 1: If you didn't know you were looking at an ice skate,

657
00:36:52,560 --> 00:36:54,720
Speaker 1: you might not know you were looking at an ice skate.

658
00:36:55,440 --> 00:36:58,160
Speaker 1: It's like a imagine a wooden skate, but with a

659
00:36:58,320 --> 00:37:01,799
Speaker 1: thin metal blade, and then it is strapped or tied

660
00:37:01,840 --> 00:37:02,480
Speaker 1: to your shoes.

661
00:37:02,960 --> 00:37:04,760
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, it looks It looks like the wooden bottom

662
00:37:04,760 --> 00:37:06,480
Speaker 5: of a boat, or like a boat keel with a

663
00:37:06,560 --> 00:37:09,640
Speaker 5: tiny little strip of metal blades sticking out of the bottom.

664
00:37:09,880 --> 00:37:10,560
Speaker 3: Yeah.

665
00:37:10,640 --> 00:37:13,400
Speaker 1: And so for Mantiene's co author point out that the

666
00:37:13,440 --> 00:37:15,400
Speaker 1: wood here would have been easy to work. The metal

667
00:37:15,400 --> 00:37:20,279
Speaker 1: that they use was very durable. An interesting thing here

668
00:37:20,320 --> 00:37:24,280
Speaker 1: is that these skates would apparently, according to their reconstructions

669
00:37:24,280 --> 00:37:27,400
Speaker 1: and their tests, would have suffered from greater friction compared

670
00:37:27,440 --> 00:37:30,759
Speaker 1: to bone skates. But their big advantage was that they

671
00:37:30,840 --> 00:37:35,000
Speaker 1: allowed the user to finally propel themselves with their lower limbs,

672
00:37:35,480 --> 00:37:38,920
Speaker 1: so you could seemingly throw away the poles, free up

673
00:37:38,960 --> 00:37:43,080
Speaker 1: your arms, and depend almost entirely on leg power. And

674
00:37:43,360 --> 00:37:45,719
Speaker 1: as such, this is really when we begin to see

675
00:37:45,760 --> 00:37:49,960
Speaker 1: skating as we know it today entering the world, because

676
00:37:49,960 --> 00:37:51,760
Speaker 1: if you go to any ice skating rink, and certainly

677
00:37:51,760 --> 00:37:55,160
Speaker 1: if you go to a roller skating rink, you're not

678
00:37:55,200 --> 00:37:57,759
Speaker 1: going to see people pushing around on poles. I mean,

679
00:37:57,800 --> 00:37:59,880
Speaker 1: maybe there's some sort of scenario where you use poles

680
00:37:59,840 --> 00:38:02,640
Speaker 1: to get your feet underneath you, but I've never seen

681
00:38:02,640 --> 00:38:03,480
Speaker 1: anything like that.

682
00:38:03,880 --> 00:38:07,200
Speaker 5: Right, So I imagine it's like the thinness of the

683
00:38:07,239 --> 00:38:10,000
Speaker 5: blade that allows you to just use your legs because

684
00:38:10,040 --> 00:38:13,120
Speaker 5: of the way that you can angle the foot to

685
00:38:13,239 --> 00:38:16,000
Speaker 5: push versus gliding, and you can't really do that with

686
00:38:16,080 --> 00:38:17,680
Speaker 5: the more rounded edge of a bone.

687
00:38:18,080 --> 00:38:21,080
Speaker 1: Yes, that's my understanding. So at this point, yeah, we're

688
00:38:21,160 --> 00:38:24,880
Speaker 1: kind of off to the races. We're really not purely

689
00:38:24,880 --> 00:38:27,920
Speaker 1: inventing something new, but we've innovated to a very interesting

690
00:38:27,960 --> 00:38:31,160
Speaker 1: place in the development of the ice skate. And during

691
00:38:31,200 --> 00:38:34,680
Speaker 1: the fifteenth and eighteenth century ice skates, they retained their

692
00:38:34,719 --> 00:38:38,160
Speaker 1: metal wood construction, but they became about thirty percent lighter.

693
00:38:38,520 --> 00:38:42,200
Speaker 1: According for Mente, Dutch skates of the time were shorter

694
00:38:42,320 --> 00:38:45,400
Speaker 1: compared to modern skates and therefore more difficult to balance

695
00:38:45,440 --> 00:38:47,879
Speaker 1: on compared to what we have today, but they would

696
00:38:47,880 --> 00:38:51,000
Speaker 1: have proven especially useful to them during the little ice

697
00:38:51,040 --> 00:38:54,920
Speaker 1: Age of the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries, during which the

698
00:38:54,960 --> 00:39:00,160
Speaker 1: system of rivers and canals would have proven ideal skate routes,

699
00:39:00,360 --> 00:39:05,680
Speaker 1: connecting different populations and different you know, different destinations. And

700
00:39:05,719 --> 00:39:08,840
Speaker 1: then during the eighteenth century, skates on the whole became

701
00:39:09,000 --> 00:39:13,600
Speaker 1: longer and enabled easier balance and resulted in lower resistance

702
00:39:14,760 --> 00:39:19,120
Speaker 1: the weight spread out across longer blades. And I've included

703
00:39:19,200 --> 00:39:23,680
Speaker 1: another photo Formenti's work here reconstruction. This is still something

704
00:39:23,719 --> 00:39:26,560
Speaker 1: you strapped your existing footwear, but it is even more

705
00:39:26,600 --> 00:39:28,920
Speaker 1: identifiable I think as an ice skate.

706
00:39:29,160 --> 00:39:30,080
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, totally.

707
00:39:30,480 --> 00:39:33,319
Speaker 1: And then during the nineteenth century we finally ended up

708
00:39:33,360 --> 00:39:37,799
Speaker 1: with specialized ice skates, with the skates permanently affixed to

709
00:39:37,840 --> 00:39:41,160
Speaker 1: a boot of some sort screwed into place an ice

710
00:39:41,160 --> 00:39:45,640
Speaker 1: skate that has shoelaces so forth, like you would identify

711
00:39:45,719 --> 00:39:47,880
Speaker 1: now when you go in like rent ice skates to

712
00:39:47,960 --> 00:39:52,880
Speaker 1: go ice skating, and the blades were even longer, apparently

713
00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:56,160
Speaker 1: up to twice the length of the old thirteenth century skates,

714
00:39:56,640 --> 00:40:00,520
Speaker 1: enabling even greater balance and maneuverability. And then a whole

715
00:40:00,520 --> 00:40:03,200
Speaker 1: host of additional innovations have been made and continue to

716
00:40:03,239 --> 00:40:07,920
Speaker 1: be made, producing skates that are ever more ergonomic, speedy,

717
00:40:08,280 --> 00:40:16,080
Speaker 1: and effective. Different breaking mechanics were added, blades that ultimately

718
00:40:16,200 --> 00:40:19,080
Speaker 1: like have a mechanical aspect to them and can shift

719
00:40:19,600 --> 00:40:23,880
Speaker 1: and so forth. I saw a Fermente quoted in an

720
00:40:23,960 --> 00:40:28,040
Speaker 1: article I believe it's the Science Friday, where he basically

721
00:40:28,120 --> 00:40:31,200
Speaker 1: says that we probably haven't seen as long of a

722
00:40:31,280 --> 00:40:33,920
Speaker 1: skate as is ideal, Like, skates are probably going to

723
00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:36,959
Speaker 1: keep They're going to keep evolving. They're still evolving, they're

724
00:40:37,000 --> 00:40:39,600
Speaker 1: becoming more and more efficient, and they may get longer.

725
00:40:40,080 --> 00:40:42,799
Speaker 1: We have not reached peak ice skate length yet.

726
00:40:43,000 --> 00:40:46,400
Speaker 5: Wait, does he have a specific peak length in mind?

727
00:40:47,360 --> 00:40:51,520
Speaker 1: Now he's just saying that we're still like fine tuning everything.

728
00:40:51,960 --> 00:40:54,160
Speaker 1: And I guess the other interesting thing here is that

729
00:40:54,840 --> 00:40:57,520
Speaker 1: there's not just one purpose for ice skates. There are

730
00:40:57,520 --> 00:41:00,719
Speaker 1: a lot of highly specialized purposes for ice skates. So

731
00:41:01,040 --> 00:41:03,360
Speaker 1: you know, we have a whole host of skate based

732
00:41:03,400 --> 00:41:06,560
Speaker 1: sporting activities and they range from figure skating to ice hockey.

733
00:41:06,840 --> 00:41:07,040
Speaker 4: Yeah.

734
00:41:07,040 --> 00:41:09,600
Speaker 5: I was reading about that too, And an interesting thing

735
00:41:09,640 --> 00:41:14,239
Speaker 5: there is that apparently different ice temperatures are preferred for

736
00:41:14,400 --> 00:41:16,440
Speaker 5: the different sports. I think the way I was reading

737
00:41:16,440 --> 00:41:19,919
Speaker 5: it is that usually they want the temperature a little

738
00:41:19,960 --> 00:41:23,799
Speaker 5: bit higher for figure skating because figure skaters, I think

739
00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:29,000
Speaker 5: a softer ice gives them more control over precise movements,

740
00:41:29,239 --> 00:41:33,120
Speaker 5: whereas with ice hockey, I think they like a slightly

741
00:41:33,160 --> 00:41:36,120
Speaker 5: colder ice because that allows them to achieve like a

742
00:41:36,160 --> 00:41:37,160
Speaker 5: higher top speed.

743
00:41:37,560 --> 00:41:40,600
Speaker 1: Okay, interesting, Okay, So with hockey it's more about speed,

744
00:41:40,800 --> 00:41:43,879
Speaker 1: and with figure skating it's maneuverability, which makes sense now.

745
00:41:43,960 --> 00:41:46,839
Speaker 1: Formenti and his co author in the aforementioned paper, they

746
00:41:46,840 --> 00:41:50,440
Speaker 1: compare the effectiveness of the four main eras of ice skates,

747
00:41:51,200 --> 00:41:55,160
Speaker 1: and the results illustrate this continual improvement process that we're

748
00:41:55,280 --> 00:41:57,120
Speaker 1: looking at here. I'm not going to roll through the

749
00:41:57,239 --> 00:41:59,640
Speaker 1: entire chart you can find it in the original paper,

750
00:42:00,360 --> 00:42:03,840
Speaker 1: but you can see here he breaks things out by speed,

751
00:42:04,360 --> 00:42:08,560
Speaker 1: stride frequency, stride length, and so forth, and for Minty

752
00:42:09,320 --> 00:42:13,160
Speaker 1: points out that with the same metabolic power, skaters today

753
00:42:13,239 --> 00:42:16,960
Speaker 1: have a speed four times that of our ancestors, and

754
00:42:17,360 --> 00:42:20,240
Speaker 1: again it's only increasing as we fine tune our skate design.

755
00:42:21,120 --> 00:42:23,040
Speaker 5: This might not actually be an issue, but I just

756
00:42:23,120 --> 00:42:29,000
Speaker 5: had the thought, do skaters on rink ice have higher

757
00:42:29,040 --> 00:42:32,560
Speaker 5: speeds as well, just because they can feel safe to

758
00:42:32,640 --> 00:42:35,080
Speaker 5: go at higher speeds, whereas if you're on a natural

759
00:42:35,120 --> 00:42:37,960
Speaker 5: body of water, you might be more I don't know,

760
00:42:38,080 --> 00:42:41,240
Speaker 5: cautious about like straying into an area of thin ice

761
00:42:41,360 --> 00:42:42,239
Speaker 5: or something like that.

762
00:42:42,520 --> 00:42:46,400
Speaker 1: Hmm, that's a good point. I mean, I guess the

763
00:42:46,440 --> 00:42:48,319
Speaker 1: other number of factors that might come into play, right

764
00:42:48,360 --> 00:42:52,080
Speaker 1: if you're dealing with like natural ice versus zambonid ice, right.

765
00:42:52,200 --> 00:42:55,680
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I know that the zambonid ice, like the

766
00:42:56,040 --> 00:42:58,479
Speaker 5: rink ice, is laid down one layer at a time

767
00:42:58,560 --> 00:43:01,080
Speaker 5: to give it special properties kind of make it perfect

768
00:43:01,160 --> 00:43:04,640
Speaker 5: for skating, whereas, of course natural ice on a body

769
00:43:04,680 --> 00:43:06,600
Speaker 5: of water, I mean, it might be great for skating,

770
00:43:06,640 --> 00:43:09,480
Speaker 5: but it doesn't have whatever refined quality they're looking for

771
00:43:09,520 --> 00:43:10,360
Speaker 5: on that rink ice.

772
00:43:11,760 --> 00:43:14,400
Speaker 1: Now I want to come back to ice skating in China,

773
00:43:14,560 --> 00:43:18,880
Speaker 1: because as I was hitting the core data year, I

774
00:43:19,080 --> 00:43:24,160
Speaker 1: kept finding various references to Chinese ice skating, and I'd

775
00:43:24,200 --> 00:43:26,560
Speaker 1: read that ice skating in China might date back to

776
00:43:26,600 --> 00:43:30,160
Speaker 1: the Song dynasty, so nine sixty to twelve seventy nine.

777
00:43:30,360 --> 00:43:33,840
Speaker 1: See that is, of course in addition to possibly connected

778
00:43:33,920 --> 00:43:36,480
Speaker 1: or independent developments in the north of Russia, as I

779
00:43:36,640 --> 00:43:40,080
Speaker 1: referenced earlier, but certainly I looked into this a little

780
00:43:40,080 --> 00:43:44,759
Speaker 1: bit more, and you have these ice festivals, the Bingshi,

781
00:43:45,600 --> 00:43:48,759
Speaker 1: which I think means ice amusement festivals that seem to

782
00:43:48,800 --> 00:43:51,640
Speaker 1: date back to the Song dynasty in China and consisted

783
00:43:51,680 --> 00:43:56,400
Speaker 1: of various winter sports and performances. Among the many festivities,

784
00:43:56,440 --> 00:43:59,759
Speaker 1: there was a downhill skating event that involved kind of

785
00:43:59,760 --> 00:44:02,960
Speaker 1: a leather ice skate. I wasn't able to find any

786
00:44:03,000 --> 00:44:05,480
Speaker 1: images of reproduction of this, but I found some various

787
00:44:06,000 --> 00:44:10,439
Speaker 1: modern illustrations of what these might have consisted of. And

788
00:44:11,200 --> 00:44:16,120
Speaker 1: these these are kind of like curved leather shoes that

789
00:44:16,280 --> 00:44:21,440
Speaker 1: seem to have been made expressly for sliding across the

790
00:44:21,480 --> 00:44:22,600
Speaker 1: ice and or snow.

791
00:44:23,080 --> 00:44:25,480
Speaker 5: If this is what's depicted in the illustration you put

792
00:44:25,520 --> 00:44:27,279
Speaker 5: in our outline. They're kind of curled up at the

793
00:44:27,320 --> 00:44:28,400
Speaker 5: toe like elf shoes.

794
00:44:28,560 --> 00:44:32,920
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, think like leather elf shoes designed for sliding

795
00:44:32,920 --> 00:44:36,520
Speaker 1: around on ice. It's not skating in the sense that

796
00:44:36,520 --> 00:44:40,040
Speaker 1: we've been talking about skating, I think from the physics standpoint.

797
00:44:40,960 --> 00:44:42,560
Speaker 1: But these would have been things that would have been

798
00:44:42,600 --> 00:44:46,400
Speaker 1: you would have worn for like this downhill skating competition

799
00:44:46,640 --> 00:44:49,840
Speaker 1: or something that I've seen translated as ice football, in

800
00:44:49,880 --> 00:44:52,759
Speaker 1: which people were skating around on the ice and these

801
00:44:52,840 --> 00:44:56,160
Speaker 1: leather shoes throwing some sort of a ball back and forth.

802
00:44:57,160 --> 00:44:59,320
Speaker 1: The illustration here that I found is from the Beijing

803
00:44:59,360 --> 00:45:03,400
Speaker 1: based World of the World of Chinese website, So my

804
00:45:03,560 --> 00:45:06,800
Speaker 1: understanding is like these are similar but a little bit different.

805
00:45:06,920 --> 00:45:09,200
Speaker 1: These would have also the examples we're looking at here

806
00:45:09,200 --> 00:45:12,040
Speaker 1: would have definitely been novelty based skates. These were not

807
00:45:13,000 --> 00:45:18,280
Speaker 1: about locomotion. These were about amusement. However, in other parts

808
00:45:18,520 --> 00:45:23,400
Speaker 1: of modern China you do find ancient examples of bone skates.

809
00:45:24,320 --> 00:45:28,360
Speaker 1: I was reading that in twenty twenty three, Chinese archaeologists

810
00:45:28,360 --> 00:45:31,040
Speaker 1: found an example of a bone ice skate in a

811
00:45:31,080 --> 00:45:35,160
Speaker 1: Bronze Age tomb from roughly three thy five hundred years ago,

812
00:45:35,640 --> 00:45:40,440
Speaker 1: possibly of the Andronova culture of cattle herders that lived

813
00:45:40,600 --> 00:45:46,560
Speaker 1: in China's western Shixiang Weaker Autonomous Region. These would have

814
00:45:46,560 --> 00:45:48,600
Speaker 1: been very much akin to what we were talking about,

815
00:45:49,239 --> 00:45:53,880
Speaker 1: like the bones scrapped to a boot or to a

816
00:45:53,920 --> 00:45:57,800
Speaker 1: shoe that enabled one to move across naturally frozen bodies

817
00:45:57,800 --> 00:46:01,480
Speaker 1: of water. Again, and it does seem to come back

818
00:46:01,520 --> 00:46:03,840
Speaker 1: to bones. It comes back to horse and cow bones

819
00:46:04,320 --> 00:46:07,480
Speaker 1: strap to the bottom of your feet, enabling you to

820
00:46:07,640 --> 00:46:11,120
Speaker 1: at least push yourself across the ice with a big

821
00:46:11,200 --> 00:46:12,640
Speaker 1: with a pair of poles or sticks.

822
00:46:12,920 --> 00:46:14,400
Speaker 4: Well, Rob, you've talked me into it.

823
00:46:14,440 --> 00:46:17,399
Speaker 5: If I if I take my child ice skating this year,

824
00:46:17,480 --> 00:46:18,960
Speaker 5: I'm gonna I'm gonna have to get.

825
00:46:18,840 --> 00:46:21,640
Speaker 4: Some bone skating to try out. See how they do.

826
00:46:22,080 --> 00:46:23,920
Speaker 1: You know I could. I don't think it would be

827
00:46:23,960 --> 00:46:26,560
Speaker 1: a good idea. I think this would not in the

828
00:46:26,560 --> 00:46:28,839
Speaker 1: long run, This would be a failure. But I could

829
00:46:28,880 --> 00:46:33,360
Speaker 1: imagine someone trying to market this. You know, why settle

830
00:46:33,360 --> 00:46:35,640
Speaker 1: for ice skating when this year when you could do

831
00:46:35,760 --> 00:46:40,439
Speaker 1: primal ice skating bone ice skating, and people would be like, yeah,

832
00:46:40,640 --> 00:46:43,759
Speaker 1: you know, I'm kind of a little overthrowing axes at

833
00:46:43,800 --> 00:46:46,800
Speaker 1: the local axe throwing range. I want to try something

834
00:46:46,800 --> 00:46:49,600
Speaker 1: else that has this kind of like, you know, ancient

835
00:46:49,760 --> 00:46:52,120
Speaker 1: vibe to it. Let's strap on some bones and see

836
00:46:52,120 --> 00:46:54,239
Speaker 1: how it goes. I think you would find it.

837
00:46:54,239 --> 00:46:55,960
Speaker 3: Would it would? It would be harder.

838
00:46:56,000 --> 00:46:57,880
Speaker 1: It sounds like every everything I've read about it, it

839
00:46:57,920 --> 00:47:00,600
Speaker 1: would have been a much harder and clumsier thing to do.

840
00:47:01,200 --> 00:47:03,280
Speaker 1: We're much better off with modern ice skates.

841
00:47:03,480 --> 00:47:06,160
Speaker 4: But for the metal of it, maybe you use the

842
00:47:06,200 --> 00:47:06,880
Speaker 4: non metal.

843
00:47:07,440 --> 00:47:11,160
Speaker 3: Yes, both ice skates are very metal. We'll definitely say that.

844
00:47:11,520 --> 00:47:12,839
Speaker 4: All right. Should we wrap up.

845
00:47:12,800 --> 00:47:14,640
Speaker 1: There, Yeah, We're going to go ahead and close out

846
00:47:14,680 --> 00:47:18,200
Speaker 1: this episode. However, again, definitely tune in later in June

847
00:47:18,200 --> 00:47:20,920
Speaker 1: when we come back and talk about roller skating on

848
00:47:21,040 --> 00:47:26,560
Speaker 1: its own, again directly connected to the invention of ice skating,

849
00:47:27,000 --> 00:47:29,680
Speaker 1: but very much its own thing as well. In the meantime,

850
00:47:30,000 --> 00:47:31,959
Speaker 1: we'd of course love to hear from everyone out there.

851
00:47:32,040 --> 00:47:35,680
Speaker 1: Do you have experiences or thoughts related to ice skating.

852
00:47:36,320 --> 00:47:38,480
Speaker 1: Is there anyone out there who has tried a more

853
00:47:38,640 --> 00:47:42,600
Speaker 1: archaic version of the ice skate? If so, definitely right

854
00:47:42,680 --> 00:47:44,840
Speaker 1: into us because we would love to have your feedback.

855
00:47:45,080 --> 00:47:46,520
Speaker 1: As always, we'd like to remind you that the stuff

856
00:47:46,520 --> 00:47:48,800
Speaker 1: to blow your mind is primarily a science and culture podcast,

857
00:47:48,800 --> 00:47:51,960
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00:47:52,000 --> 00:47:54,200
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860
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863
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00:48:07,760 --> 00:48:09,560
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865
00:48:09,600 --> 00:48:12,040
Speaker 1: keep up, but hey, we're on Instagram. At least you

866
00:48:12,080 --> 00:48:15,160
Speaker 1: can find us there as st b y M podcast.

867
00:48:15,120 --> 00:48:19,120
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868
00:48:19,440 --> 00:48:21,080
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869
00:48:21,080 --> 00:48:23,800
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870
00:48:23,840 --> 00:48:26,000
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871
00:48:26,040 --> 00:48:27,880
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872
00:48:28,000 --> 00:48:38,560
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873
00:48:39,080 --> 00:48:42,000
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874
00:48:42,080 --> 00:48:44,879
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875
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876
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