#ICYMI - Tennis: Inside the Royal Game

Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly serve up some of the surprising science surrounding the sport of tennis, with a little help from astrophysicist Charles Liu, professional tennis player Jared Donaldson, and Ron Rocchi, the Advanced Innovation Manager at Wilson. Don’t miss an episode of Playing with Science. Subscribe to our channels on: Apple Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/playing-with-science/id1198280360?mt=2 GooglePlay Music: https://play.google.com/music/listen?u=0#/ps/Iimke5bwpoh2nb25swchmw6kzjq SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/startalk_playing-with-science Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/startalk/playing-with-science TuneIn: http://www.tunein.com/playingwithscience NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch/listen to this entire episode commercial-free. Find out more at https://www.startalkradio.net/startalk-all-access/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:11Gary O'Reilly?

  I'm Gary O'Reilly

• 0:12Chuck Nice?

  And I'm Chuck Nice

• 0:13Gary O'Reilly?

  And this is Playing with Science Today we are going to smash it, ace it, chip it and lob it And remember, when it's out, it's out! Unless of course Hawkeye says otherwise

• 0:25Chuck Nice?

  We are certainly talking about tennis A sport that has its origins in the 12th century And patronised by none other than King Henry VIII back in the 15th century When he wasn't getting married and chopping off heads, you know

• 0:39Gary O'Reilly?

  Busy man

• 0:39Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, busy man Back then it was actually called "real tennis" as in "real" or "royal"

• 0:44Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, for sure And helping us keep it "real" is a rising star of US men's tennis Jared Donaldson And breaking down the physics is our good friend astrophysicist Charles Lue

• 0:55Chuck Nice?

  Yes, and we're also going to be getting the lowdown on the evolution of the tennis racket Did you like that?

• 1:02Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, I did

• 1:03Chuck Nice?

  Evolution

• 1:04Gary O'Reilly?

  I know, I like that, thank you

• 1:05Chuck Nice?

  That's right, yeah But that's for later Right now, why don't we welcome in our first two guests Jared Donaldson and astrophysicist Chuck Lue Guys, how are you?

• 1:14Speaker 02

  Great, doing good How about everyone else?

• 1:17Gary O'Reilly?

  That's cool!

• 1:18Chuck Nice?

  It's very good Great to have you Why don't we jump into... We'll start with Jared You are nationally ranked You are... I've seen you play And you're known as, perhaps, the answer to the vacuum left by Radek Does that put pressure on you, man?

• 1:43Speaker 02

  Well, I would say I'm considered one of the answers, not the only one There's a lot of great, young US men's tennis players out there And obviously a lot of very good established men's tennis players out there as well But, you know, I get asked that question quite a lot, as I'm sure other players do And for me personally, obviously it's really, it's obviously really special that I'm thought of in

• 2:10Speaker 02

  In those terms, but for me, I didn't start playing tennis um because I you know there was a hole in in American tennis, you know, obviously, when I was when I first started, Roddick was the best uh American tennis player. So I I started playing tennis because I really enjoyed it. I loved it and I wanted to which wanted to be a great tennis player. So um obviously, it's cool to be thought of in those terms, but that's not uh my priority.

• 2:34Gary O'Reilly?

  What got you into the sport? Because you know, there's a lot of other sports out there to get into. You were a guy, what, you're six foot two, you're well built, so you could have taken a choice of other sports, but why tennis?

• 2:44Speaker 02

  Um, you know, that's a great question. I actually got myself started in tennis. My mom, my mom uh brought me and my little sister up to the country club every morning in Rhode Island. I wandered over to the tennis courts one day and um and obviously, yeah, so that's kind of how I got my start in tennis. But uh I played almost every single sport you could think of. And um you know, tennis kind of gra- I gravitated towards tennis just for the simple fact that it was an individual sport. And I guess selfishly, I liked when I got the credit. And also, I liked when I got the blame. But not I didn't want to get the blame for losing, but you know, because it was all on me. I didn't have to rely on

• 3:26Speaker 02

  teammates or anything like that. I wanted to rely only on myself. So that's kind of and the competitive nature of one on one really attracted me to tennis.

• 3:34Gary O'Reilly?

  Do you know where I've heard that story before?

• 3:35Chuck Nice?

  Well, go ahead.

• 3:36Gary O'Reilly?

  Roger Federer. Roger Federer was a talented young soccer player, and he didn't like it when his team lost because it wasn't down to him. So he went to tennis because when it lost, it was him. When it won, it was him. Exact same words out of this young man's mouth. It's what it's about. I control my destiny. We're going to try and go through different compartments of a player's game and where better to start with the serve.

• 4:01Chuck Nice?

  So Jared, now, uh one of the things that I noticed is the mechanics of the serve looks pretty much the same for every tennis player. I might be wrong because I'm not like a coach and that. But the actual mechanics, you see every single player, male or female, regardless of height, they Kind of go through the same mechanics. So can you break down the mechanics of a serve? And and why, why is it? Why are those the mechanics that you see every single player uh kind of serve in the same way?

• 4:32Speaker 02

  Tennis is a very technical sport. Um, so, and I think that kind of, you know, you see everyone play similar on TV and there's a reason for that.

• 4:40Chuck Nice?

  Mm hmm.

• 4:40Speaker 02

  Um, obviously you see slight differences, maybe in in certain ways, people take the racket back. Uh, on the serve, some, some people bring the foot up. Uh, to get their feet closer together, some people such as myself stay back with their foot.

• 4:55Chuck Nice?

  Alright.

• 4:56Speaker 02

  Uh, but there are certain things in a serve that every great or or good server ha- has to do in order to hit a good serve. And that's from contact, uh, just before contact point to after contact point, which is really important. Obviously for a serve, you need a good ball toss, not too far out in front of you. I've, I've always, uh, a coach told me, uh, right above your eyes, which makes sense. I think that's a, that's a really good, uh, uh, tool. Um, in terms of, in terms of where to place it. Uh, you don't want it too far out in front, because then you have to lean forward. You want it right above your eyes, so you can go up after and get it and hit and hit down on the ball with spin. Um, so I think that's the most important of how you can hit the ball.

• 5:37Speaker 02

  Um, at contact point, because everybody hits, every great player hits the ball a- at contact point the same way. For take backs, obviously there are slightly different variations. Roddick obviously had a very short motion. Um, I have a little bit of a longer motion. But, um, uh, honestly, it's, it's where it's right before contact and right after contact. Because you need to get the spin to quickly bring the ball down into the court.

• 6:00Chuck Nice?

  Chuck Luke, can you break down the physics of what, um, we just heard?

• 6:06Charles Liu?

  So many fun things to talk about. Fundamentally, what you're doing is using every joint you can to provide as much of a flip, a lever.

• 6:16Charles Liu?

  And hinge in order to send as much force as you can to the ball through the racket. So your wrists have something to do with it, your elbow, your shoulder, even down low, your legs, depending on how you kick off the ground with your toes or with your feet or your knees, every little extra hinge you can pop in there gives a little more force to the ball. I often think of Pete Sampras as the person, a great American tennis player, that sort of made the serve a devastating weapon beyond what anybody else had seen up to that point. His economy of motion, the way that he was able to leverage power from the rest of his body into the ball through the racket was just a beautiful sight to

• 7:00Charles Liu?

  see. And here's a piece of reference you can use. If you think about in baseball, a 100 mile an hour fastball is so fast, the batter has to almost start swinging before the ball leaves the pitcher's hand, right? Now, these days, serves in tennis will reach 150 miles an hour.

• 7:23Chuck Nice?

  Yep.

• 7:23Charles Liu?

  Which means that, yeah, for a person reacting to a tennis serve, it's as if the person receiving was looking at 120 mile an hour fastball. You just don't have any time to react, not to mention that the strike zone isn't just the width of the plate, it's 13 feet wide. So your ability to react to a devastating, powerful serve is really, really limited. And so you are counting on that serve as a way to really set dominance on any given point when you're playing tennis.

• 7:57Chuck Nice?

  I never, I did not know that. So Jared, how do you, when you're going up against what Chuck just said, somebody who has like this devastatingly, you know, high velocity serve, what is your mindset when you're on the receiving end of a great serve? And how do you react to it? What's going through your mind as a player?

• 8:18Speaker 02

  Chuck definitely brings up a good point when he talks about the speed, which is very difficult to handle. But I think for any- Any professional tennis player, when you're talking about serve, as obviously as Chuck just said, when they hit the ball 130, 140, or even some of the guys 150 and they hit their spot, it's almost impossible to return it. It just is. Unless you're guessing and at that point, you're going to be 50-50 anyways probably unless you have some sort of read on the serve. But most guys now, they toss the ball in the same spot to hit every serve. So that's difficult. But honestly, it's a lot about location. No matter how fat, obviously

• 9:03Speaker 02

  if you can serve, if you can hit a serve very fast and have great location, I mean, it's, those are the best servers in the world. And it also depends on how tall your opponent is. So as Chuck pointed out, Sampras, Sampras wasn't a guy who was 6'10", 6'8", 6'6". He was my height, 6'2", maybe 6'1", a little bit shorter than me. So he had a great serve without the added advantage of being so tall. And you combine power and accuracy, I mean, that's when you're talking about one of the best serves in the game. And as a returner, what you really have to try to do is think about what your opponent's best serve is.

• 9:45Speaker 02

  And at least for me, I try to take that away from them and make them beat me in other spots. And it's difficult, but I think that the more matches you play against better servers, the more used to it you get.

• 9:55Gary O'Reilly?

  Who's got the best boxer tricks when it comes to serving? Because we know the guys can slam them down there and get a speeding fine having done so. But there's the spin, there's all sorts of different things. Who's got the best array of serves for you?

• 10:09Speaker 02

  I mean, there's so many guys out there now that have great serves. I mean, it's almost kind of a, you almost kind of need it now in today's game. Well, you need to be able to hold, right?

• 10:20Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 10:21Speaker 02

  So, so most guys have great serves out there. For me...

• 10:27Speaker 02

  Obviously, the best serve out there is probably John Isner, but I don't, you know, he's got an amazing serve. I don't like to use him as an example too often, just because he has an advantage that not everybody has, right? He's 6'10".

• 10:39Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 10:40Speaker 02

  You know, so there, just by um, his angle that he's gonna get on the serve is just too much. For me, I like to use Federer. I mean, I think he's got probably, for a guy my height, the best serve out there, um, in my opinion. I mean, Roddick, Roddick obviously when he was playing also, but I think for Federer, I mean, he just, he hits every location, his serve percentages in the 60s, 70% every match.

• 11:05Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:05Speaker 02

  And that's when you're thinking that, when you're saying that, you know, I mean, he's winning like 80% of his first serve points, and on top of that, he's serving 70% first serve, uh, that's tough to beat.

• 11:16Chuck Nice?

  Wow, that's, that is tough to beat. That's pretty cool.

• 11:18Gary O'Reilly?

  So, it's been Chuck back in.

• 11:20Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 11:20Gary O'Reilly?

  Chuck, so we got Isner there at 6'10", just how much, and don't forget, he's throwing that ball up, just how much an advantage has he got in terms of force that he can apply to a ball from that altitude?

• 11:32Chuck Nice?

  And, and why? Why is it so much of an advantage when you have these taller players doing that?

• 11:37Charles Liu?

  If you are trying to hit a ball into the court in a legal serve,

• 11:43Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:44Charles Liu?

  you have to get it downward.

• 11:45Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 11:46Charles Liu?

  Right? You can whack it at some arbitrary speed, but if it doesn't land in the little box, then it doesn't count. So, having the height allows someone like John to bring it down, and your force going down gives you that extra advantage, because now you are leveraging this way. Compared with, say, a 6'1", 6'2" player like Jared, right? John's got a 6'10", that's eight extra inches, uh, in the head, but that translates usually to some level in the arms as well. And so, you're able to bring it down further, you snap harder, you get a longer lever arm, and you can transfer more force, and it's more likely to go downward. So, uh...

• 12:30Speaker 02

  Conservatively, if you're talking physics, you might get anywhere from a 5% to a 15% advantage in the power that you'll be able to get on your serves.

• 12:39Chuck Nice?

  So it's about generating more power. You're able to generate more force and therefore more velocity, which is, that's pretty cool.

• 12:47Speaker 02

  But remember that Jared said too, it's also a matter of location, right? Where exactly you hit it, and also the spin, which is something we haven't talked about yet, but is probably almost if not just.

• 12:59Chuck Nice?

  Well, let's talk about spin.

• 13:00Gary O'Reilly?

  Let's put a little bit of spin on the subject.

• 13:02Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, why not? So Jared, you know, spin and placement, can you talk about those two things in a volley? How you're using top spin, backspin, and how you're actually placement of the ball on the court?

• 13:20Speaker 02

  Slice is kind of less of a factor in today's game, I would say, than it was maybe 30 years ago. Just because this technology is different, I'm sure Chuck can point to this also, the strings are a lot different, they grip the ball a lot more, you know, the modern day string. So we're able, players today are able to put a lot more spin on the ball. Just being that this is a science show, I know that Sampras in his day, when you talk about revolutions per minute, I think Sampras' forehand had 1800 when he played. And today, today guys are getting, I know, I think Federer's is like 3700 RPMs.

• 14:03Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 14:04Speaker 02

  And Nadal's up to 4200.

• 14:06Gary O'Reilly?

  And that's all down to the strings? Because I'm guessing technically they're quite equivalent.

• 14:10Speaker 02

  So the strings help, yes, and I think it's also a fact of when you grow up with something, you kind of know, you're used to it better. So guys got used to the new strings and were able to then use those strings and put more spin on the ball and hit the ball with more spin. Grips got a little bit different. Obviously 30 years ago, you're talking about an eastern grip, which is almost holding it like a hammer.

• 14:36Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 14:37Speaker 02

  Picking up a racket like a hammer. Now we hold it a little bit. With the face a little bit closed, semi-western or even western, I would say most guys are probably in between semi-western and western. So, that, and it just allows you to hit the ball harder, but also give yourself more margin. Because you can then have the ability for the ball to clear the net by three feet and then bring it down. Where back, back thirty years ago, you hit the ball a lot lower, the ball stayed a lot low. And, and you came to net, which is, you know, putting back, when you volley, put backspin on the ball. And, and today's, and a lot, and the reason why guys don't come to net as much anymore.

• 15:20Speaker 02

  Is because players have the ability to maneuver the ball around players, so put spin on the ball and get it low. Or kind of whip it around them. So it's a lot, it's a lot different now. It's more about spin than power, to be honest.

• 15:33Gary O'Reilly?

  More about spin than power. Oh, let's get Chuck back in, because that sounds a lot, I mean, Jared's just discussed basically a curveball. Yeah, it's amazing. So that's, we're just, so we've got to find out from Chuck. Chuck, what is happening? Just how are the strings imparting so much spin onto this little fluffy ball?

• 15:50Charles Liu?

  Well, let's just start with the ball itself.

• 15:52Gary O'Reilly?

  Right.

• 15:53Charles Liu?

  It's a little bit more than two ounces heavy. It's made of a kind of flexible material and it's hollow.

• 15:58Gary O'Reilly?

  Right.

• 15:59Charles Liu?

  It also has this fuzzy stuff around the outside.

• 16:02Gary O'Reilly?

  Yep.

• 16:02Charles Liu?

  Right. And so the result is when you hit it, as long as you're not hitting it directly dead on. There's going to be some rotation of the ball. That's just a natural occurrence of transfer of what we call angular momentum. As Jared is saying, depending on how the strings are, how the grip is, and the power to the deformation of the ball. As it is being hit by the racket.

• 16:25Gary O'Reilly?

  Alright, so it's compression of the shape of the ball itself?

• 16:27Charles Liu?

  Yes. All of the things that remove. Spherical shape cause additional spin. All the extra fuzzy stuff around the outside, like the, say, the laces on a ball in baseball or something, causes additional interaction with the air.

• 16:42Gary O'Reilly?

  Right.

• 16:43Charles Liu?

  Creating more spin. And then the power that we were talking about, that's much greater nowadays. Jared is 100% right when he says the slice is much less effective than it used to be. Realize that when he's talking about the professionals of the day now, getting the ball to be able to spin at 3,000, 4,000 RPM, that's a car engine. Okay? So you've got your tennis moving, spinning as fast as a car engine spinning in the inside.

• 17:12Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 17:13Charles Liu?

  With it moving towards you. And then you just add all these things together. It is essentially unpredictable, to some extent, where the ball's going to go when it's spinning at that rate. It's really amazing.

• 17:30Gary O'Reilly?

  If you're facing something that's coming, because the harder you hit it, the more spin you can impart upon the ball. And if you know, and as Jared said, it's going to come over and it's just absolutely going to dive rapidly. How is a player mentally starting to vector their position across the court to deal with that? Because, as you said, the reaction time is particularly limited.

• 17:53Charles Liu?

  That's right. The human brain is still the greatest physics calculator yet on land, or at sea for that matter, here on Earth. So really, when people like Jared are practicing, and Jared, you should respond to this directly if I'm wrong, or right. When you're practicing, a lot of practice isn't just about hitting the ball. It's about seeing how the ball comes towards you. And you file that away into your neural net, called your brain, and over time, over dozens, hundreds, thousands of repetitions, if you have good enough eyesight to see where the ball is coming off the racket and it's coming in your direction, you can see the spin to some extent. You can't calculate exactly how many RPM there are in the ball, but you can certainly

• 18:38Charles Liu?

  calculate that it's heading in this direction. That way and then your body automatically moves in that direction faster than you can actually consciously calculate. Cause you know now your neural net has been stored with enough information, the learning set, we call it, right? In artificial intelligence studies to know where to go and give yourself that little extra fraction of a second. To be able to react physically when the ball actually does hit the ground and come back up towards you.

• 19:04Chuck Nice?

  That's amazing. So Jared.

• 19:05Gary O'Reilly?

  Jared, return of serve here.

• 19:06Chuck Nice?

  Are you actually, are you actually able to see spin or have you trained that way?

• 19:12Speaker 02

  Um, yeah, I mean Chuck's absolutely right. Like when, when I, I mean, I'm practicing. Three, four hours a day for tennis and then obviously doing off court stuff and fitness. So, um, for me, I, you still need to follow the ball. Uh, for me, that's obviously natural because I've done it since I was four and a half years old. But I think if you get a guy out onto the court who's never played tennis before. The thing that, that trips them up the most is a second serve. Uh, I mean, they just look foolish because they think that the ball will come to them. But it actually goes away from them. Much, much like a curve ball or a curve ball, but think of it if it's going the opposite direction.

• 19:56Speaker 02

  So it hit for and then explode up instead of going right to them. They've never seen it before. So, but for me, I've obviously seen this countless times. So I'm able to, um, to, I know what, what to expect, but obviously if I don't see the ball come off the racket very well. I don't know what type of spin is going to be on it. Um, I don't know. Uh, there's a lot of things that I don't know and I still make mistakes where I misread a ball or, or whatever, and that causes me to miss. So you, you, Chuck's absolutely right that you have to be spot on with, with just looking at the ball. I mean, that's why you have, you look at the ball through contact or most players look at the ball through contact. Just so they can really see the ball and feel where it's going to go and how it's coming off your opponent's racket.

• 20:39Speaker 02

  You know, if it's a mishit, if not what type and I mean, you have to follow the ball. It's, it's imperative in tennis.

• 20:45Gary O'Reilly?

  It's interesting, Jared, because some of the things when we've discussed with baseball players, particularly the batter.

• 20:51Chuck Nice?

  They train to identify certain types of ball and that's a cognitive skill development. Do you do you practice because like you said, you spend time on the court, you spend time off the court, you've got your conditioning, your nutritionings and you've got game tape. Have you gone through that cognitive skill development with learning to read shots, learning to read spin?

• 21:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's interesting you bring up baseball. I remember I used to have a video on baseball players and and Mark McGuire used to, I'm pretty sure it was Mark McGuire, used to have someone throw him tennis balls and they would write little digits on the on the ball and he would have to tell the batting coach which number was on the ball. Was it a four, five, six, seven? So it's obviously a skill that you have to practice. In tennis, we do, I would say when I train off court, I do neurological adaptation, right? But that has to do a lot with moving because in baseball, you're standing still to hit the ball and tennis, you have

• 21:51Speaker 02

  to move. So your movement has to be, you know, connected to your hand-eye coordination. So we do, I do a little bit of that. Well, I do a lot of that, actually. And obviously, you're getting so much of that already when you're practicing, right? Because you have to move, see the ball and hit the ball. So there's a lot that's going on and it's going extremely fast.

• 22:15Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Let's, let's switch courts, if I say. Yeah. Jared, let me ask you, what is your favorite surface to play on and why?

• 22:27Speaker 02

  Um, you know, I think I play, I think my game translates pretty well to all surfaces. My favorite surface is hard court. Playing, that's a surface I've played the most on. But I'm also, I mean, so that's the game, that's what I'm most comfortable on, I would say. But I play well on clay. I spent two and a half years in Argentina playing, you know, almost exclusively on red clay.

• 22:54Chuck Nice?

  Wow, yeah.

• 22:55Speaker 02

  I can, I can play, I'm very good on clay. Hard court's my best surface. I don't have the most experience on grass, but right now, before Wimbledon, I'm happy with my preparations. But hard court's my favorite surface.

• 23:07Chuck Nice?

  And Chuck, does, what, what does that do to, to the sport? Like when you change the surface? What's the chief difference of playing on these different surfaces, clay, hard court, grass?

• 23:20Charles Liu?

  Imagine playing basketball on your backyard as opposed to on a court, right? It's as big a difference as that.

• 23:28Chuck Nice?

  Uh huh.

• 23:28Charles Liu?

  Clay, grass, and hard, they all have different ways of absorbing the amount of energy that the ball hits with, and it imparts its own spin as well as it comes off, right? Depending on the texture of the surface and the hardness of the surface.

• 23:45Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 23:46Charles Liu?

  So you can hit exactly the same serve at the French Open, Roland Garros, which is clay, or Wimbledon, which is grass, or at the US Open, which is hardcore, and the way it comes back up will be completely different. You really do have to adjust, which is kind of... The Grand Slam is such a special thing.

• 24:04Gary O'Reilly?

  Which is why Jared's gonna attest to this. When the guys win multiple majors.

• 24:08Charles Liu?

  Mm hmm.

• 24:09Gary O'Reilly?

  On all different... So you win Roland Garros, you win Wimbledon, you win the US Open.

• 24:14Charles Liu?

  Right.

• 24:14Gary O'Reilly?

  Three different surfaces and the same person walks away with all three trophies, that's a game that is ultimate.

• 24:21Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 24:22Gary O'Reilly?

  Not just for one surface only.

• 24:24Charles Liu?

  It's as if you're a basketball player and you could both go in for the slam dunk and hit the three pointer and do perfect free throws and play great defense all at the same time.

• 24:33Chuck Nice?

  Oh, well, you just described my game. You just described my game. Well, thanks.

• 24:37Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 24:38Chuck Nice?

  Thank you, Chuck. Clearly, you've been watching me play basketball.

• 24:41Charles Liu?

  Oh, yeah.

• 24:42Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. Hey, Jared, let me just ask you this. So our friend John McEnroe.

• 24:46Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 24:47Chuck Nice?

  Made some comments and...

• 24:48Gary O'Reilly?

  Doesn't he have a book coming out?

• 24:50Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, and he never has anything controversial to say, which is what I love about him. But, um, you know, I'm not gonna get into his whole thing about Serena. But Jared, I wanna ask you, do you think you could take Serena in a three-set match?

• 25:04Charles Liu?

  Uh, if I didn't, um, I could never face my, my, my peers ever again.

• 25:12Chuck Nice?

  Good answer. I like that. That's a nice diplomatic answer. All right.

• 25:18Gary O'Reilly?

  Jared, do you have a question for Chuck Lou? Is anything that's bouncing around that you want to ask him?

• 25:24Speaker 02

  You know, I would say one of the biggest things that I think is quite interesting is just the reaction time in relation to the serve. So obviously, the serve is getting... Is there a limit to how fast the brain can process information? Does it get more receptive if the ball is going faster? So for example, if it's going 150 miles an hour, if you see that more, could your brain get trained to react quicker to that? And if so, by how much? And if not, is there a kind of a restraint on how fast the brain can pick up information, read it, and then react to it?

• 26:08Gary O'Reilly?

  Good question.

• 26:08Charles Liu?

  Neuroscience continues to advance at a breakneck pace. So the answer that I give now may not be accurate tomorrow. But the answer about the physics of the neuron is indeed that conscious thought at this moment does have an upper limit. And that upper limit doesn't seem like it can be pushed more than a few percent in the coming period of time. But what can be pushed forward, Jared, is that training that's unconscious, right? The thought that reacts directly from their muscles and your eyes, which don't have to go through the thinking process, the rational thought, prefrontal cortex, but actually wires directly to the rest of your brain that gets your body into

• 26:51Charles Liu?

  motion. So that part can be trained. And the thing is, we don't really know yet how that part is optimally trained. The things that you described, just looking at serves hours and hours a day and moving to them and reacting to them and other kinds of things, they seem to help, but the exact amount is still uncertain. And so that next breakthrough of neuroscience will get us to that next point. But the bottom line really is that nowadays, as you said, with just even one or two break opportunities per match sometimes, right, you just have to get lucky enough or get, not even lucky, but train that tiny, tiny little bit which can make a big difference in the overall course of Wow.

• 27:33Chuck Nice?

  Very cool.

• 27:33Gary O'Reilly?

  So there's hope.

• 27:34Chuck Nice?

  There's hope.

• 27:35Gary O'Reilly?

  There's hope. You don't have to be a Jedi. You could actually do all this yourself.

• 27:39Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 27:40Gary O'Reilly?

  So that's cool.

• 27:40Chuck Nice?

  It's a great question, Jared.

• 27:41Gary O'Reilly?

  It is.

• 27:42Chuck Nice?

  Um, fabulous. We're up against the break, right?

• 27:44Gary O'Reilly?

  We are, we are up against the break. We're sorry to lose you, but we wish you the very best of luck with your career, young man.

• 27:49Chuck Nice?

  Yes, uh, we'll. We'll be watching and rooting for you, Jared, man.

• 27:53Gary O'Reilly?

  Sure.

• 27:54Chuck Nice?

  Keep it up, brother.

• 27:55Charles Liu?

  I appreciate it.

• 27:56Gary O'Reilly?

  All right. Practicing.

• 27:57Chuck Nice?

  Thanks for joining us and hopefully, uh, we'll be able to have you on the show again. Okay, man?

• 28:01Charles Liu?

  Sounds great. I look forward to being back.

• 28:03Chuck Nice?

  All right. Take care.

• 28:04Gary O'Reilly?

  Thank you. And to Charles Lu, as always, a superstar.

• 28:08Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 28:09Gary O'Reilly?

  Yep.

• 28:09Chuck Nice?

  This guy's a.

• 28:11Gary O'Reilly?

  The man in the Hawaiian shirt. We are so lucky.

• 28:14Chuck Nice?

  Signs of Superman. There you go.

• 28:16Charles Liu?

  Always land, gentlemen. Have a great day.

• 28:19Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 28:19Gary O'Reilly?

  There you go. That's how nice these people are. So we are going to take that break. Um, if you've enjoyed Jared and Charles, stick around because we will be taking a look at the evolution of the tennis racket and there has been plenty.

• 28:32Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 28:33Gary O'Reilly?

  So, uh, stay tuned. We'll be back shortly.

• 28:38Gary O'Reilly?

  I'm Gary O'Reilly. I'm Chuck Nice. And this, of course, is playing with science and we're talking about the physics of tennis and we're actually having a really good time, which is no surprise. No, it isn't. It is, yeah. Joining us now by video call is Ron Rocchi, Advanced Innovation Manager at Wilson. Ron, great for joining us. Thank you.

• 28:56Speaker 04

  Oh, thanks for having me, guys.

• 28:57Chuck Nice?

  Such a pleasure.

• 28:58Gary O'Reilly?

  All right, let's, let's get on to the rackets. I mean, being a man of a certain vintage, uh, rackets were made of wood and that goes back quite some time. What was the step up from coming away from wooden rackets and, and what did it actually bring to the game?

• 29:15Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:16Speaker 04

  Well, you know, you, you're right. Rackets historically have been made of wood. Um, but somewhere around the late 60s, uh, the, the leap was made to steel.

• 29:27Speaker 04

  And what's and what steel gave us was the ability to get rid of some of the weight. So they got a little bit lighter, but the downside, and I have one right here. The downside is that the head of the racket still remained very small. So it was about the same size as a wooden racket. So players got a little benefit. It got a little lighter, but it wasn't a huge leap forward.

• 29:53Gary O'Reilly?

  With the steel frames, you get a little bit more strength and therefore is it right that you can get tighter strings and that then affects the type of game that you can play with that particular racket?

• 30:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's true, but the the main benefit of the steel was that the racket got a little lighter and a little stiffer. And so by getting stiffer, players got a little more power with an easier way to get it.

• 30:20Chuck Nice?

  Mm hmm. So now what are most rackets made of now? Is it more is it more like some kind of composite or is it more carbon fiber or what is it?

• 30:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, so you actually missed one. So we had the steel.

• 30:32Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 30:33Speaker 04

  Um, which which was a, you know, a step forward. And then shortly thereafter, we got into an era where we got aluminum rackets.

• 30:41Chuck Nice?

  Ah, I remember that.

• 30:42Gary O'Reilly?

  Ah, that wonderful thing aluminum.

• 30:44Chuck Nice?

  Aluminium, you mean?

• 30:46Gary O'Reilly?

  Aluminium, yes. Don't forget I'm British, Ron.

• 30:48Chuck Nice?

  He's British, so it's.

• 30:49Gary O'Reilly?

  But that's a bigger head. I mean, our listeners can't see this, but Ron is holding up a an aluminum, thank you, framed racket and it's a larger head on the racket. Is that right?

• 31:00Speaker 04

  Right. So going from steel to aluminum, you're cutting a lot of weight out, which then enabled the racket designers to create these larger head sizes. That was really a big leap forward because now the average player can get this larger headed racket and actually have some success on the tennis court.

• 31:20Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 31:21Gary O'Reilly?

  Does that make the sweet spot that we've heard so much about that much bigger on the racket?

• 31:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, for sure. It creates a larger, more powerful sweet spot. And that really contributed to the tennis boom in the early seventies.

• 31:36Chuck Nice?

  Ooh, okay, that makes sense. Yeah.

• 31:39Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, it it. There was controversy at the time when the larger head came out because the devotee of the the smaller head racket said it was akin to cheating. But it has been fully embraced right now, hasn't it?

• 31:51Speaker 04

  Absolutely. There's no question.

• 31:53Gary O'Reilly?

  So where are we now? Chuck was saying we've got the the graphite, uh, carbon fiber rackets. But am I am I wrong in thinking it's not just one thing? It's a composite of several different elements or materials?

• 32:08Speaker 04

  Yes, so the the next major leap forward was to the composite rackets or carbon fiber or what a lot of people just call graphite rackets.

• 32:18Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 32:18Speaker 04

  And so this again took a lot of weight out, got the rackets very stiff and put the rackets in a very lightweight category. So if you're just playing tennis, this is so easy to play compared to the rackets of yesterday.

• 32:36Chuck Nice?

  And so while we're still in the construction of the racket, I remember when, and I don't know if this was just a wives tale or something where people would say like, oh, yeah, tennis strings are made of cat guts. So.

• 32:49Gary O'Reilly?

  No, that's right.

• 32:49Chuck Nice?

  One, is that true? And two, what are they made of now? And three, are there any cats like strays wandering around Wilson right now that are missing?

• 33:00Gary O'Reilly?

  You went there, didn't you? You went there.

• 33:02Speaker 04

  Wow, that's, yeah, okay. Let me clear this up once and for all.

• 33:07Chuck Nice?

  Please.

• 33:07Speaker 04

  That isn't, that is a myth.

• 33:10Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 33:10Speaker 04

  Cat cats were never used to produce tennis string.

• 33:15Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 33:16Speaker 04

  In in fact, the string that you're referring to is called natural gut, which I have a set here.

• 33:22Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 33:22Speaker 04

  Uh, this particular string is made from the intestine, the intestine lining of cows.

• 33:30Chuck Nice?

  Ah, well, that's so much better than cats because cows are delicious.

• 33:38Speaker 04

  Nothing goes to waste.

• 33:39Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 33:40Speaker 04

  Now, here's a very little known fact. This one set of string that I'm holding, this one set that goes into a tennis racket. It takes three cows to make this one set of string.

• 33:54Chuck Nice?

  Now, why is that? Because uh.

• 33:56Gary O'Reilly?

  They're not very good with their hooves. Don't start.

• 34:01Chuck Nice?

  Excellent.

• 34:05Chuck Nice?

  So, so what does that do to hitting the ball? But the difference between the the cow intestine and the synthetic material that's used now?

• 34:18Speaker 04

  Well, they're both still very popular.

• 34:20Chuck Nice?

  Oh, really?

• 34:20Speaker 04

  In fact, a lot of players put both in the same racket.

• 34:25Chuck Nice?

  Interesting.

• 34:25Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, what? One going the main string and one the cross string?

• 34:29Speaker 04

  Correct.

• 34:30Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, how interesting.

• 34:32Speaker 04

  So that's called a hybrid. And you get sort of the benefits of both products. A natural gut component and a monofilament component in the same racket.

• 34:44Chuck Nice?

  Well, and now, why is that? Does that? Is there some kind of tempered quality that one of these strings has that will offer balance instead of using both? Or is it just some kind of like, um, like, I don't know, superstition? Like, I gotta have guts and synthetic, or I can't win. Like, what what would make you do that?

• 35:05Speaker 04

  Well, it's really a performance benefit. So the natural gut feels great when you impact the ball. It provides a lot of feel and a lot of power.

• 35:14Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 35:15Speaker 04

  But the downside is it loses tension pretty quickly and it's susceptible to moisture. So if you're playing on a humid day, it's going to lose tension pretty quickly.

• 35:25Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 35:25Speaker 04

  The monofilament string, on the other hand, doesn't have a lot of feel, but it doesn't lose tension.

• 35:34Speaker 04

  So when you combine the two, you sort of get this magic combination of pretty good feel. And I keep the same tension for a longer period of time.

• 35:42Gary O'Reilly?

  Does it actually depend on an individual's player's game? The style of game that they bring that will depend on the nature of the strings? Whether they're 100% synthetic or they become, as you said, a hybrid racket?

• 35:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, there's, there's thousands of strings on the market and some are engineered towards certain styles of play. So whatever your normal swing or your natural swing is like, um, there's going to be sort of products geared towards you. So it's, you know, one thing is difficult to find the right tennis racket to play.

• 36:17Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 36:17Speaker 04

  But even when you do that, now you gotta go to the next step and you gotta find the right string to put in that tennis racket.

• 36:24Chuck Nice?

  Right. So let me ask you this. Um, I've seen, uh, I don't play, but my brother is just a huge, I mean, I can't tell you, uh, uh, just an avid player. And when I'm out on the courts just watching these guys play, I see these different shaped heads. Some are more oval, some are slightly squared at the top. I mean, they all seem to have the same shaft and all that. But what is up with the shape of the head and what allows you on a professional level? Are there any restrictions to how the tennis racket can be constructed?

• 37:03Speaker 04

  Well, that's a lot in that question.

• 37:05Chuck Nice?

  Oh, I'm sorry.

• 37:06Speaker 04

  So.

• 37:06Chuck Nice?

  I didn't realize. I was, I was really just being curious. I didn't realize.

• 37:10Gary O'Reilly?

  What he wants to do is beat his brother at tennis.

• 37:12Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 37:12Gary O'Reilly?

  And he's looking for any angle he can get.

• 37:14Chuck Nice?

  And that's the part I didn't put in, like, and how can I beat my brother at tennis, which will never happen, but.

• 37:20Speaker 04

  So, so my question is, how long is the show?

• 37:22Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. Oh, wow. So it's that, it's that involved, huh?

• 37:26Gary O'Reilly?

  What have you got? Bring it on.

• 37:27Speaker 04

  All right. So the, you know, generally speaking at the professional level, everybody uses about the same head size. They're all right around a hundred square inches.

• 37:38Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 37:39Speaker 04

  Um, some are, you know, a few players are a little bigger, a few players a little smaller, but generally speaking, they're all about the same size head. Uh, that size is very much below the actual limit it could be. So they're at a hundred square inches. Uh, the I T F, our governing body, sort of limits the head size to a hundred and thirty-four square inches.

• 38:02Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 38:02Speaker 04

  So no one's ever gonna play that big of a racket professionally. So it, the rule doesn't really come into play that much.

• 38:09Gary O'Reilly?

  Why wouldn't they play a racket that size? Just to clear that up. Why wouldn't you go to a larger racket head?

• 38:16Speaker 04

  It would be too powerful for them.

• 38:18Gary O'Reilly?

  Ah, okay.

• 38:19Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 38:20Gary O'Reilly?

  Interesting.

• 38:21Chuck Nice?

  So do you lose control? Is that the deal? You lose control when you have that larger head? Is that it?

• 38:28Speaker 04

  Well, again, a professional player who swings very aggressively at the ball, that racket's just gonna give them so much power. Yes, they will lose all the control of directing the ball.

• 38:39Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha, gotcha, okay.

• 38:40Gary O'Reilly?

  This sounds like the game Chuck wants to watch.

• 38:42Chuck Nice?

  That, now by the way, so part of what we do on this show is, uh, no matter who we talk to, athlete or expert, I figure out a way to change that sport.

• 38:53Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 38:53Chuck Nice?

  So it can be more to my liking. And I have to tell you, Ron, what you just said, my new rule is that every player must play with a hundred and thirty-four square inch head so that I can watch balls fly into the stands and hit people in the forehead. That to me is a much better sport. I wanna see that at Wimbledon on NBC.

• 39:18Gary O'Reilly?

  This is what I have to work with. We've had, Ron, so as you know, we've had no brakes NASCAR, right?

• 39:23Chuck Nice?

  No brake NASCAR, come on, Ron. Tell me that's not a, tell me you don't wanna watch no brake NASCAR.

• 39:29Gary O'Reilly?

  And he wants to see cyborgs play golf so as he can see six hundred yard drives. It's, this is what I deal with.

• 39:35Chuck Nice?

  I think my ideas are awesome, okay? And by the way, we, uh, we spoke to, um, our friend who's a physicist for, uh, Eric Goff, who does modeling for the Tour de France. I found out that they have brakes. I'm like, take the brakes off the Tour de France so that when they're coming down the mountain, I mean, that's the part I wanna watch.

• 39:54Gary O'Reilly?

  Yep.

• 39:54Chuck Nice?

  So I'm telling you right now, one hundred and thirty-four square inch racket heads on all, that's, and, and then you get Federer making a line drive, breaking a camera lens, we'll be back, technical difficulties, I'm staying tuned.

• 40:09Gary O'Reilly?

  Really, it's just as well Chuck's brother plays and not Chuck.

• 40:12Chuck Nice?

  All right, anyway.

• 40:12Gary O'Reilly?

  All right, anyway.

• 40:13Chuck Nice?

  Enough of that silliness.

• 40:14Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay, so Ron, here we go.

• 40:17Gary O'Reilly?

  You've got a racket right now where you have, okay, you have played with the alignment of the strings in the sense that you have the same amount of main strings that are going from shaft to the racket, through the racket head, but you've diminished the number of cross strings. Now that must be for some really good scientific reasons. Could you explain?

• 40:43Speaker 04

  Yes, that's called spin effect technology.

• 40:47Chuck Nice?

  Alright.

• 40:48Speaker 04

  And it's a technology where uh you can actually use again your normal swing that you play tennis with.

• 40:55Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 40:56Speaker 04

  But because of the string configuration and the spaces between them, you will get up to 22% more spin on the ball.

• 41:04Chuck Nice?

  Oh, wow.

• 41:05Gary O'Reilly?

  Wow.

• 41:06Speaker 04

  Spin is critical, guys. Spin's big.

• 41:08Chuck Nice?

  It's everything.

• 41:09Speaker 04

  When you, when you spin the ball, it stays in the court. You can control much better what your shot's gonna do.

• 41:15Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely, yeah. That makes sense. And I know how important spin is. I used to work in the White House.

• 41:21Gary O'Reilly?

  No, you didn't. Didn't believe a word. So, when, because you have a stable of such elite, top-end tennis professionals, is this the sort of thing they've come back to you as a racket supplier, manufacturer, and said, "I need something that gives me X amount of more spin." And have they colluded with you to develop this kind of uh product, this kind of racket?

• 41:46Chuck Nice?

  Great question. How much do you use your talent to develop your technology?

• 41:51Speaker 04

  We work with our players very closely to develop technologies. Uh, in fact, uh, Grigor Dimitrov, who unfortunately lost to Roger Federer the other day, uh, yay Roger, uh, he actually plays spin effect technology.

• 42:08Speaker 04

  So it was on court at Wimbledon on display. Yeah, so to answer the question, of course, you know, we're, we're constantly working uh with our players. One of the players that we work the most with is Serena Williams. Uh, she and I have a standing-

• 42:22Chuck Nice?

  I'm sorry, can you tell me who that is?

• 42:24Gary O'Reilly?

  Ignore him.

• 42:25Speaker 04

  It's a little-known player from the US. You might not have heard of her.

• 42:29Chuck Nice?

  Alright, good.

• 42:29Speaker 04

  I, I think she won a challenger event somewhere along the line.

• 42:33Chuck Nice?

  Well, I'm glad that you guys are developing new talent.

• 42:37Speaker 04

  We hope it pays off in her case.

• 42:39Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 42:39Speaker 04

  She can be good.

• 42:40Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes, yes, we do hope so.

• 42:42Chuck Nice?

  It's always good to take a gamble on people, Ron.

• 42:45Gary O'Reilly?

  So, okay, is there anything you can tell us that might be arriving to a tennis racket sometime soon?

• 42:53Speaker 04

  Uh, hold on one second. I'm looking off camera here.

• 42:56Chuck Nice?

  That's a big no, you know it.

• 42:58Speaker 04

  Hold on, hold on.

• 42:59Gary O'Reilly?

  What can I tell them? What can I tell them?

• 43:00Speaker 04

  Uh, I'm, I'm getting a lot of corporate speak. Uh, well, I can tell you this, there are, uh, I, you know, I've been doing this a long time at Wilson and there are some interesting things on the horizon that are really going to make players excited about new technology in tennis rackets.

• 43:17Chuck Nice?

  Now who works in the White House?

• 43:19Gary O'Reilly?

  Ron.

• 43:20Chuck Nice?

  Talk about spin.

• 43:21Gary O'Reilly?

  Absolutely, I respect that. See, what it means now is if, if our listeners are interested in tennis and they like the idea of spin effect that your configuration of the racket head brings them, they've only got to stay tuned and keep a weather eye out on tennis courts to see what your, what your team of technicians are going to bring forward next. So that's, that's the sort of thing that we like here on this show. The way that science, the way that technology is being applied to the benefit of not just elite athletes, but to being rolled out down to just guys who play tennis for fun at the weekend.

• 43:57Gary O'Reilly?

  It's, uh, it's just wonderful the way that sport gets a chance to benefit from all of these ideas and knowledge and, and how it kind of evolves together in a lovely symbiosis. There you go. My word for the day.

• 44:10Speaker 04

  So before you cut me off, can I, uh, I'll, I'll mention a technology that, uh, your listeners might find interesting.

• 44:17Gary O'Reilly?

  Please do.

• 44:17Speaker 04

  So after spin effect technology, we sort of rolled out a material technology in some of our products, uh, which was actually from a, uh, Department of Defense contractor that we partnered with.

• 44:31Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 44:31Speaker 04

  And the material, the material is called Counter Veil. One word, Counter Veil.

• 44:37Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay.

• 44:37Speaker 04

  And this is as close to a magic material that I've seen in a very long time. Um, this is geared towards any player, whether you're just the average Joe or playing on tour. Uh, this material in a very friendly way helps your body.

• 44:57Speaker 04

  With the impacts and the shocks and the vibration of playing tennis. Um, it's consider it more of like a, a Gatorade for your racket, if you will, an energy bar. Where it's gonna help you absorb all those impacts and shocks and you can actually play longer and with less discomfort, uh, in your, in your life.

• 45:19Chuck Nice?

  You know, that makes, that makes perfect sense because there is a new technology that takes the opposite of what you just said to fatigue your muscles quicker. So for instance, consider doing an exercise while standing on a vibrating plate.

• 45:35Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 45:36Chuck Nice?

  It fatigues your muscles like by a significant percentage more. So what you're saying is reducing that vibration actually does the opposite. So instead of fatiguing your muscles, which we know in certain workouts, that, that actually, uh, vibration fatigues your muscles even more. By reducing that, you give the player more longevity.

• 45:58Speaker 04

  That's absolutely right.

• 46:00Chuck Nice?

  That's awesome, isn't it?

• 46:01Speaker 04

  And we noticed this with, uh, a lot of the younger players.

• 46:06Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 46:06Speaker 04

  Uh, at the, at the academies, the 12 and 14 year olds. There was this concept of overtraining. These young players were just getting injured and couldn't play tennis because they were hitting so many balls and playing so many hours. And that really led us to sort of find a material that could help in that, in those cases.

• 46:28Chuck Nice?

  Interesting. That's great stuff.

• 46:30Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, that is because they obviously hadn't thought about it, but baseball hitters, guys who play tennis, the vibration through the racket, if you're not hitting it perfectly each time on that point of percussion, that sweet spot, you are gonna suffer from that and the, the muscle strength must diminish accordingly. So I applaud you for, for being able to partner with someone like that and bring it forward. Ron, we're gonna have to let you go and I'm, I'm really quite sad because, uh.

• 46:54Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, it's good stuff.

• 46:55Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah. Fabulous. We must bring you back. So would you do that?

• 46:59Speaker 04

  I would, I'd be happy to anytime.

• 47:00Chuck Nice?

  Oh man, that's great.

• 47:01Gary O'Reilly?

  We'll take you up. Been a pleasure. Thank you to Ron Rocchi from Wilson Tennis. Been an absolute pleasure. I learned a lot. Countervail. I was thinking some point there was a cloak of invisibility, but it wasn't that, was it? It was something more practical.

• 47:15Chuck Nice?

  No, that's Harry Potter. I know you're British, but calm down.

• 47:18Gary O'Reilly?

  No, I'm calm. I'm there. I'm back in the room.

• 47:22Chuck Nice?

  No, that's, that really is good stuff and I love that. That makes sense. I'm gonna have to buy my brother a racket that does just the opposite and then I'll play him.

• 47:30Gary O'Reilly?

  And then Jared Donaldson, a player who got a real chance of emerging as a, well, he's already an up and coming men's player in the US tennis. So great to have him on board.

• 47:42Chuck Nice?

  Unfortunately, at the time that people will hear this, he will have lost in Wimbledon.

• 47:46Gary O'Reilly?

  But there we go. That's it for now. Well, that's our show.

• 47:49Chuck Nice?

  That is our show.

• 47:50Gary O'Reilly?

  I hope you've enjoyed it. A brief look, an all too brief look at the wonderful game of tennis and the physics therein. So from me, Gary O'Reilly.

• 47:58Chuck Nice?

  And me, Chuck Nice.

• 47:59Gary O'Reilly?

  It's goodbye from Playing with Science. We'll see you all soon.