Science of Stupid (2014) s08e06 Episode Script

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DALLAS (off-screen): This
is the Science of Stupid.
DALLAS (off-screen):
Yes, this is the show that explores scientific
theory through
practical stupidity.
Witness as people around
the world push the boundaries of science and fall flat
on their faces, or rather worse.
We'll reveal what went wrong
and why with the help of scientific principles such
as impact force,
thrust,
and that cold-hearted
little terror gravity.
This is the school of hard
knocks, so watch out for the Science of Stupid.
DALLAS (off-screen): In this
episode we'll be exploring how linear momentum becomes
angular, revealing the
power of hydrodynamic drag
and we'll be getting
our claws into ornithology.
MAN: Back off, bird.
DALLAS (off-screen):
But first this.
DALLAS: We'll never know
exactly where the game of tug of war originated.
It's evident in millennia
old rituals across the world, from the Middle East to
South East Asia but what I'm
fairly sure of is that they didn't do it like this.
DALLAS (off-screen): Yup, that
is two monster trucks playing tug of war and you know what?
That's a terrible idea.
DALLAS: Alas, vehicle
tug of war is more common than you might expect.
It's also dangerous,
not to be copied but scientifically informative.
Torque is a twisting force
often referred to as the pulling power of a car but
the secret weapon in this
war isn't grunt, it's grip.
DALLAS (off-screen):
A powerful engine can generate a large amount of
torque giving a vehicle a lot of
pulling power from the get go
but he won't be getting
anywhere without friction.
The greater the coefficient
of friction, or grippiness
between wheels and ground,
and the greater the weight of
his vehicle the more friction
he has to push against.
Exceed the friction
force of his opponent and
static friction becomes
kinetic friction.
Wheels spin and
it's game over.
DALLAS: Okay, let's
start by selecting some suitable vehicles.
DALLAS (off-screen): Oh.
MAN: We've got lots
of weight up here
for extra traction
for both vehicles.
DALLAS (off-screen):
Okay, well that is a start.
(laughing).
MAN: Nice!
DALLAS (off-screen): But no
one is going anywhere because your cable is attached at
different heights, your
seating modifications have messed up weight distribution
and thus your vehicle's torque
and friction forces cannot be effectively harnessed.
Result, engines
rev, cars bounce.
MAN: That's hilarious!
DALLAS (off-screen): Well,
whatever makes you happy.
Okay, these trucks do look
relatively better suited, so who's gonna win?
White or silver?
Very good, silver.
Can we have our
white truck back now?
DALLAS (off-screen): No?
Okay, well, it was a foregone
conclusion anyway because since the coefficient of
kinetic friction is
less than the coefficient of static friction,
once our white truck
wheel's slip it's game over.
And finally, he's
brought it back, and almost in one piece.
Right, let's mix it up.
Snowmobile versus ATV.
Tracks versus chunky tires.
Round one to chunky and that's
because his big grippy tires were designed for providing
friction on soil, so it too is
a foregone, oh, he's pulled the momentum card.
Okay, let's up
the weight class.
It's dump truck versus
children's school bus.
MAN: The bus mightno,
no, the truck is gonna win it.
DALLAS (off-screen): Well,
the bus's overhang adds more weight over the rear wheels,
increasing the friction and
the truck is empty so it has less weight over the back
wheels and less friction and,
as we all know, grunt's no good without grip.
MAN: It broke the bumper!
DALLAS (off-screen):
Yes, it did.
Can we please go
to school now?
DALLAS: And now we go from
poking the finger at the ridiculous to clapping
our hands at the extraordinary.
A trip to the Portuguese
fishing village of Nazaré brings many delights visiting
the historic fought,
riding the vernacular or simply going for a paddle.
DALLAS (off-screen):
In some of the biggest breaking waves in the world.
This monster is 80 feet
tall, no surfer had ever ridden anything so big
until Rodrigo Koxa came along.
That's him there.
It's like being chased
by a seven-story building and that is a world record.
The biggest
wave ever surfed.
DALLAS: Thinking of packing
your board and mounting your own record attempt?
Well, think again
because massive waves
(screams).
DALLAS (off-screen):
Aren't the only things that can hit you.
DALLAS: Big wave surfing is
dangerous but particularly so at Nazaré whose
epic waves are formed over
a long journey across the Atlantic before being funneled
into supersize giants
by a vast undersea canyon.
To ride those requires a
mastery of velocity and hydrodynamic drag.
DALLAS (off-screen): To catch
a wave a surfer paddles to closely match its velocity.
The bigger the wave the faster
it travels, which for an 80 footer could be 35 miles an
hour, so jet skis
are used at Nazaré.
Once up our surfer keeps his
board carefully balanced because if the nose digs into
the water the sudden
increase in hydrodynamic drag will slow his board
but not his body.
DALLAS: It's also worth
considering that the density of water gives it a colossal
weight of over 8 pounds
per gallon, not something you want smashing into you
but these troubles can be eased
by minimizing hydrodynamic drag, for example.
DALLAS (off-screen): Heading
out our wannabe record breaker will duck dive cleanly
through the wave
or do the opposite.
Do that and you'll find that
as you offer the wave literally the largest surface
area possible, like this,
it'll gladly reciprocate with all the drag it can.
Like that.
Our next potential record
breaker is learning to closely match the velocity
of oncoming waves.
WOMAN: Oh my God.
DALLAS (off-screen):
And still learning.
Here she's happily padding and
needs to speed up a bit but here she stops paddling.
Oh, look, the sun's gone in.
Once up our hopefuls
must avoid digging their noses into the water.
Or that might happen.
That's more like it.
Good balance,
not too much drag.
Keeping that nose
out of the, duck.
Never mind.
His board was
well-balanced, decreasing drag but his head got in
the way and increased it.
I don't think we'll be
breaking any records today.
MAN: This should be fun!
DALLAS (off-screen): If it's
sitting in a puddle probably not but can you guess which
scientific principle
he's about to demonstrate?
MAN: This should be fun!
DALLAS (off-screen): Now then,
did you work out the science he's about to show us?
Oh dear.
That didn't look
fun but the scientific principle was acceleration
and oh so much more.
The slope is not only steep
but lubricated with water which allows gravity to
accelerate into a high
velocity until he experiences impact force,
then angular velocity and
then a bit more impact.
Too much science for one man.
MAN: That hurt!
DALLAS (off-screen):
Don't try that yourselves.
DALLAS: And now for a
biological seminar on toes of the avian kind.
Now, to you and I, toes
are predominantly for aiding balance and thrust while
walking but to the
arm-lacking bird they are multi-tools designed
for just about everything.
DALLAS (off-screen):
From defending the realm.
MAN: I'm a vegan man, back off!
DALLAS (off-screen): To
simply making good friends.
Who's a pretty Polly?
DALLAS: And bird's toes are
not only handy, so to speak, but surprisingly diverse.
DALLAS (off-screen):
Anisodactyl feet as modeled by our lightweight songbird
friend have three spindly
toes pointing forwards and one back,
designed simply for perching.
The zygodactyl feet of parrots
with two toes forwards and two back are adapted for
dexterous work like climbing.
Whilst the powerful claws of
such as raptors, have special ratchet-like tendons that lock
in place to grip
struggling prey.
DALLAS: So, you see
bird toes are highly specialized to lifestyle,
whatever you fancy
there's a set of toes evolved just for you.
DALLAS (off-screen):
Take Clive, connoisseur for the fruit and insect salad,
he's no need for
gripping large prey.
His Anisodactyl feet
have evolved to grip branches,
not laptops.
Considering
rescuing that osprey?
Well, bear in mind that
not only do they have curved hook-like talons
designed for catching fish
WOMAN: Ow! Ow!
MAN: It's on your fingers.
DALLAS (off-screen):
But they're raptors too, so they have that
tendon locking mechanism.
MAN: Are you okay?
There you go.
DALLAS (off-screen):
But don't worry, a minute later off he goes.
Hopefully
without Mum's finger.
These burrowing owls use
their raptor claws to dig howls and catch mice.
Yeah, pretty clever but
what else can you do?
Oh, one leg.
Yeah, it is quite good.
So, with bird toes
it's not all about grip.
WOMAN: Dan, what do I do?
DALLAS (off-screen):
Excellent question.
You see, that is a cassowary,
mainly a fruit eater so no locking death grip to worry
about but it does have a
5 inch inner claw of bone sheathed in keratin designed
to stab anything that might
pass as a threat, so
WOMAN: Help!
DALLAS (off-screen):
Quite but when it comes to sharp claws even a cassowary
comes second best to our
zygodactyl friend, Buddy.
WOMAN: Good job Buddy,
file your nails.
DALLAS (off-screen): Oh, Buddy.
You've changed.
DALLAS: People often say
to me, 'Dallas, I do like a pedal around town but is
there any way of making
it more scientific?' Well, there's good news.
In three words.
DALLAS (off-screen):
Urban downhill cycling.
Bombing down specially
made urban courses often through hillside towns,
it's a gravity assisted crash
course in weight distribution, velocity and momentum
and the people are
ever so friendly.
Hiya. Hiya.
Ola, hello. Hi.
See ya later, see ya later.
But there is one minor issue.
It really hurts
when you fall off.
Oh, stupid gravity.
DALLAS: Urban downhill
cycling is a dangerous sport, best left to the experts
but of all the terrifying
obstacles to be encountered,
perhaps the most troublesome
are the steps and the jumps.
Thankfully no obstacle is
a match for a comprehensive understanding of physics.
As our cyclist rides down the
steps the center of mass is closer to the front wheel so
he leans back to keep it
safely inside the base of support and stay balanced.
Too far forward and any abrupt
change in angle can cause his
linear momentum to become
angular momentum.
Then come the jumps where
he'll need all the velocity gained from the slope to
overcome gravity and make
it to the landing ramp, unlike his friend.
DALLAS: Okay, let's break
down our analysis, starting
DALLAS (off-screen): With
the steps and a beautiful demonstration of weight
distribution, keeping
their centers of mass well back on those stairs
and now for an example
of how to do the opposite.
He's just too far forward so
when he hits the flat linear momentum becomes angular
momentum and then back
to linear before gravity finishes the job.
Luckily these courses
actually do have devices to reduce momentum.
MAN: Ah.
DALLAS (off-screen):
They're called walls.
Make a sudden change of
direction, end up at too tight of an angle and even that
padded wall isn't going to
take all of your momentum,
which is why he ended up there.
Now, onto ramps, harnessing
gravity to build plenty of velocity for a perfect launch.
Alright, not much of
a slope here but still just enough velocity.
I miscalculated.
You see, on a shallow gradient
with little help from gravity you need to pedal harder for
velocity otherwise gravity
will kind of get you down.
DALLAS: True strength is
not so much about brute force as control,
which is why you don't have to
be big to master the ab wheel.
Regard.
DALLAS (off-screen):
One, two, three, come on.
Four, nice work kid.
Now you, sir.
WOMAN: Oh.
MAN: I did it twice!
DALLAS (off-screen):
Oh, congratulations.
DALLAS: To be
fair, this isn't easy.
I mean, there's a lot
of muscle contractions and extensions,
center of mass stuff
and an annoying turning effect to deal with.
To maintain control of the
wheel he must move slowly, extending and contracting
his core muscles as a group.
This gets harder as he pushes
out as gravity acting on his center of mass generates more
of a turning effect
pulling him down.
As he slowly pulls the wheel
back under him his base of support gets smaller,
meaning his muscles
have to work even harder to
keep his center of mass
within it and remain stable.
DALLAS: Tricky stuff and to
pull it off safely you need strong back muscles,
powerful hip
flexes, steel abs
DALLAS (off-screen):
And an iron face.
Remember push out and you
have a large base of support,
pull back under not so large
and don't forget thanks to that
toning effect your abs work
just as hard pushing out.
Still too easy?
Just add a bit
of extra weight.
MAN: You don't want
to keep your head up.
MAN: Keep your head down.
MAN 2: Alright,
keep my head down?
DALLAS (off-screen): Yeah,
not that far down but you've nailed the turning effect.
So, let's go next level
with the standing ab roll.
MAN: Stand up
and all the way up.
(laughter).
DALLAS (off-screen):
Steady on.
Yeah, if you're still
struggling to go easy on that reduced base of support,
like he is, there are
other ways of toning your abs without hitting
your head on the floor.
See, didn't hit the floor.
DALLAS: Allow me to
introduce to you my good friend, the egg.
Simple, mundane even or the
astonishing work of millions of years of evolution.
DALLAS (off-screen):
Surprisingly strong in some ways,
unsurprisingly weak in others,
which makes them fascinating to scientists.
(laughter).
DALLAS
(off-screen): And to him.
DALLAS: A chicken egg shell is
predominantly a layer of calcium carbonate,
less than a hundredth
of an inch thick.
It doesn't stream strength
until you take a closer look at that shape.
DALLAS (off-screen):
The curvature of an arch gives its strength,
so whilst the shell's
flatter sides are relatively easy to squish
the more curved top and bottom
are much better at
distributing compressive force
so it takes a lot
to squish it.
But the thin shell is brittle,
so tap an egg with a spoon
and the impact force
will easily crack it.
Delicious if you'd
bothered to cook it.
DALLAS: So, that
curvature gives our egg a surprising amount
of compressive strength.
DALLAS (off-screen): Which
means it takes a lot of force to squeeze the top and bottom
but not the sides and since he
applied that compressive force to this side of the egg,
well, where else
was it gonna go?
That's why we tend to tap them
more typically with a spoon.
Her egg strikes Dad
with a stronger more curved top and doesn't break,
on his forehead at least.
Okay, let's do a test.
MAN: So you have an egg in here?
GIRL: Yes.
MAN: It's supposed to
not break when you drop it?
GIRL: Yes.
DALLAS (off-screen):
But which is better?
Human ingenuity
or hen-gineering.
That's a joke.
Yes, it's hen.
Her contraption offered some
protection from compression but it was overcomplicated
and weakly held together.
The egg, however, survived
the fall but while the shape may be strong
MAN: Dutch!
DALLAS (off-screen): The shell
needs to be brittle enough for birds to peck out of.
MAN: Is it broken?
(screams).
DALLAS (off-screen):
For dogs to peck into.
MAN: Very large egg.
DALLAS (off-screen): Oh, look
at the curvature and yet a little impact force is all it
takes to reveal, what the?
Wha?
MAN: Wow.
MAN 2: (laughs). Wow.
MAN: An egg inside an egg.
DALLAS (off-screen): You see,
eggs, so simple, so remarkable,
we really should celebrate
the geniuses behind them
but maybe just stick to
laying eggs, ladies.
DALLAS: In 1915 when Einstein
published his theory on general relativity his
notion that massive objects in
space cause a warping of space
time encouraged us all to ponder
the possibility of time travel
but could we go back to the
past to right previous wrongs?
Well, unfortunately
for this lot not yet.
(music plays through credits)
MAN: I'm a vegan man,
back off.
Captioned by Cotter
Captioning Services.