A History Of Squatting

In many parts of the world, people rest in a deep squat every day. In others, most adults can barely get down there. So what’s going on? Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens dig into the history of squatting and why the ability to squat differs so much between cultures. Plus, your questions: What happens to the air pressure inside a car when it goes round a bend? Why do some burps come out higher than others? And why do tautologies sound like wisdom?-------------------For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit https://cancerresearchuk.org/restisscience Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales (4325234) and the Isle of Man (5713F). Registered address: 2 Redman Place, London, E20 1JQ. ------------------- Find The Rest Is Science all over the internet by ⁠⁠clicking here.⁠⁠ ------------------- Video Producer: Adam Thornton + Oli Oakley + Jack Meek Animator: Sam Benson Video & Social: Bex Tyrrell Producer: Simona Rata + Lucy Lipscombe Senior Producer: Lauren Armstrong-Carter Chief Digital Officer: Samuel Oakley Exec Producer: Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Hello and welcome to The Rest Is Science. I'm Michael Stevens.

• 0:04Speaker 01

  And I'm Hannah Fry. And this is an episode of Field Notes. It's a sort of grown up game of show and tell between me and Michael. And delightfully, we get to do the show and tell in person.

• 0:13Speaker 00

  Yes. And before we started rolling, you said that this is going to involve physical activity.

• 0:20Speaker 01

  Well, actually, I think it's going to involve resting states.

• 0:26Speaker 00

  Oh, now you're speaking my language.

• 0:28Speaker 01

  Yes, resting states, but but some of them are more physical than others.

• 0:31Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 0:32Speaker 01

  We've got right to the heart of it already. This is this is what I've brought for you today.

• 0:35Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 0:36Speaker 01

  Do you know what that is?

• 0:37Speaker 00

  No, but I'm gonna guess.

• 0:38Speaker 01

  Come on.

• 0:39Speaker 00

  I'm gonna guess that it's a kind of chair.

• 0:41Speaker 01

  It is a kind of chair.

• 0:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 0:43Speaker 01

  Okay, so I got this. I got to go and film near Lake Tukana up in Kenya, really, really, really, really, really rural part of Kenya. And the people there are still largely nomadic. They'll still move around. And the men in particular, they have goats that they will take to different pastures.

• 1:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03Speaker 01

  And as they travel around, they have two things that they they carry with them for sure. One is a cane, and one is this thing here.

• 1:10Speaker 00

  What do they call it?

• 1:11Speaker 01

  This thing here is called an ekhi halong. I imagine I have not pronounced that correctly. But, you know, you can tell me in the comments.

• 1:17Speaker 00

  Okay, it's a stool. I called it a kind of chair.

• 1:19Speaker 01

  It's a

• 1:20Speaker 00

  Interestingly, what's the difference? Whether it has a back?

• 1:23Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:23Speaker 00

  Because it doesn't have a back.

• 1:24Speaker 01

  It doesn't have a back.

• 1:25Speaker 00

  But it'll support a body.

• 1:27Speaker 01

  Yes, it could also be used as a headrest.

• 1:29Speaker 00

  Oh, interesting. Yeah.

• 1:30Speaker 01

  So if you want to lie on the ground, then you can use that instead.

• 1:32Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:33Speaker 01

  Basically, I want to do the history of squats. The thing about these is they're like really, it's one per person, right?

• 1:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, I figured.

• 1:41Speaker 01

  It is molded over the years to your butt cheek.

• 1:44Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 1:44Speaker 01

  Not my butt cheek.

• 1:46Speaker 00

  Who's butt cheeks?

• 1:47Speaker 01

  Uh, I don't know.

• 1:49Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:49Speaker 01

  I bought it off a tribesman. I think it's either somebody

• 1:53Speaker 00

  So you're saying it's been used?

• 1:54Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Can you not see the the black stripe in the middle?

• 1:57Speaker 00

  Well, I can now.

• 1:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, this has been used. This is perfectly crafted to it.

• 2:01Speaker 00

  Now, how did you get it? You didn't take it from someone who now has to sit on the ground?

• 2:04Speaker 01

  We went to go and visit the tribe, and as we were leaving, they were like, they have like lots of beads as well.

• 2:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:09Speaker 01

  And so they were like, you know, we were doing like some trading. It was awesome.

• 2:13Speaker 00

  That's cool.

• 2:14Speaker 01

  Okay, would you like to sit on it?

• 2:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, I would love to. Wait, let me sit on it and just I'm gonna guess how it works.

• 2:19Speaker 01

  Okay, go on.

• 2:27Speaker 01

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• 2:29Speaker 00

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• 5:33Speaker 01

  What I will say is the thing that you you didn't see is that we we just moved the table.

• 5:38Speaker 00

  So I'm gonna try it long ways. And I'm just gonna bend my knees like this.

• 5:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 5:46Speaker 00

  I'm not doing like a squat or anything.

• 5:48Speaker 01

  No. How does it feel?

• 5:50Speaker 00

  This feels the best with this acute angle here.

• 5:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 5:53Speaker 00

  So I'm putting a lot of weight on this.

• 5:55Speaker 01

  So the angle of your knees, your thighs to your knees, it's slightly unfortunately below the, we should just do the episode like this. So Michael, what do you think?

• 6:09Speaker 01

  If you were there.

• 6:11Speaker 00

  If I go back here.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, go on.

• 6:13Speaker 00

  Then maybe you can see better that I've got.

• 6:16Speaker 01

  There we go. Now you can see it.

• 6:18Speaker 00

  Okay, so this is

• 6:20Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 6:20Speaker 00

  This is how it's actually pretty comfortable.

• 6:22Speaker 01

  You look really comfortable.

• 6:24Speaker 00

  A lot of weight on this, and my legs are only here for the balance.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:27Speaker 00

  There's like almost no pressure on my feet.

• 6:30Speaker 01

  Exactly. Do you feel that since sort of you could chill there all day, can you?

• 6:34Speaker 00

  I I could for a long time. Eventually, I would switch it up. But

• 6:40Speaker 01

  Okay, now I want you to try something else.

• 6:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:43Speaker 01

  Can you do a resting squat?

• 6:45Speaker 00

  Oh, you mean like the like the Serbian squat?

• 6:47Speaker 01

  Like an old school, how people used to get into a resting position. Can you do one of those? So

• 6:55Speaker 00

  Take that.

• 6:55Speaker 01

  I want you to basically, I want you to to feel this stool as an upgrade. That's what I want you to

• 7:00Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  want you to do.

• 7:01Speaker 00

  So like, now, should my feet be flat on the ground?

• 7:05Speaker 01

  Yes, your heels should be on the ground.

• 7:06Speaker 00

  Not sure.

• 7:08Speaker 01

  Oh, you know what? That's pretty good.

• 7:09Speaker 00

  I can get into it, but I don't feel very balanced. I think I need to lean forward more.

• 7:14Speaker 01

  Do you think this is what school teachers feel like when they're like, now children?

• 7:19Speaker 00

  Hold on.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  That's pretty good, you know? I think that's better than I can do.

• 7:24Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. When are you gonna try?

• 7:26Speaker 01

  Off camera. That's what I'm gonna try. Okay, how does that feel in comparison?

• 7:30Speaker 00

  Not as good.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  Right. Why? Can you tell me why?

• 7:34Speaker 00

  I am wondering why. Hold on, let me think it through. So my legs have to be a lot more crunched up.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 7:42Speaker 00

  When my butt is lower.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  Yes, the angle of your of your knee.

• 7:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  In this, you can get to about, let's say, you know, 40 or so, like maybe 35.

• 7:52Speaker 00

  But it was way bigger than when I was squatting, in which case they were basically closed at the knee as much as I could.

• 8:00Speaker 01

  Exactly. And at which point, you've got nerves, really big nerves, and you've got big arteries and veins that are running around the back of your knee.

• 8:06Speaker 00

  Right.

• 8:07Speaker 01

  And they get kind of compressed really hard.

• 8:09Speaker 00

  Ah.

• 8:09Speaker 01

  And that can end up giving you basically pins and needles in your legs.

• 8:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:13Speaker 01

  Um, I think there's another reason why it feels horrible, though, other than the fact your net, your knee's really crunched.

• 8:17Speaker 00

  Why?

• 8:18Speaker 01

  I mean, there's, there's, there's a few. One of them is that when you're in the squat position, all of your weight is essentially going through your ankle.

• 8:26Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 8:27Speaker 01

  Whereas when you're on this, your weight is on your sit bones.

• 8:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  Like in your

• 8:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, and my soft gluteus maximus and the fat and all that. Yeah.

• 8:35Speaker 01

  Exactly. So your legs are just carrying much less tension through them and are just able to, as you said, they're there to stabilize you rather than necessarily hold you in position.

• 8:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  But the other thing, the main thing about this is the angle that you are making with your foot and your shin is much greater, is much bigger. Because when you're in the squat position, you are basically at a real, you know, this is extremely small, this angle between the two.

• 9:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:03Speaker 01

  That angle, by the way, that is the reason why a lot of people cannot get down into that squat position. That squat position, by the way, every toddler on earth can do it.

• 9:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:13Speaker 01

  Can do it really easily. And there are places all around the world where actually adults, you know, even sort of grannies, basically, can very comfortably rest in that squat position.

• 9:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:26Speaker 01

  However, this is like a you use it or you lose it situation. And if you do not practice changing the angle between your foot and your shin to make it smaller and smaller and smaller, essentially, what happens is your your tendons on the back of your ankle, your Achilles and so on, they shorten, then they can't be lengthened into that position. And you are locked. You can no longer

• 9:48Speaker 00

  Yep. That's what I was feeling. That's why when I first squatted like that, I was on my tiptoes.

• 9:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:53Speaker 00

  To keep the angle between the top of my foot and my shin big.

• 9:56Speaker 01

  If you're doing this all the time, it's it's extremely comfortable. There's been lots of studies looking at parts of the world where people are just squatting all the time. And actually, people can spend as much time squatting as we spend sitting in a chair.

• 10:08Speaker 00

  Oh, interesting.

• 10:10Speaker 01

  Just not doing the same thing.

• 10:11Speaker 00

  Now, let's say you are a squatter.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 10:14Speaker 00

  Are chairs less comfortable?

• 10:17Speaker 01

  Well, no, chairs are in the same way as this is a luxurious upgrade.

• 10:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:22Speaker 01

  You know, you get to switch off your, you get to switch off your shins, you get to relax your ankle joint, you're just basically going for for gravity on your sit bones instead. You're kind of, it's not like you're holding yourself in that position.

• 10:34Speaker 00

  It's really passive. Yeah.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  A chair is even more passive still. Chairs is just like a, an absolute step up from anything you've had before.

• 10:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:42Speaker 01

  Let me come on to chairs in a second.

• 10:43Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  Because the thing is, is that if you are a habitual squatter, right? Makes it sound like a bad thing somehow. There is a clue that gets left in your skeleton that you

• 10:54Speaker 00

  Oh, great. So we can look at historical bone records and tell how squatty

• 11:00Speaker 01

  How squatty people were, exactly. It is called a squatting facet. Right? And it's basically a shiny bit of bone that you get between sort of right at the base of your of your shin, just at the top of your foot. And essentially, what what's happening is this is I really wish I'd worn better socks today.

• 11:21Speaker 00

  What's wrong with your socks?

• 11:22Speaker 01

  I mean, they're fine. They're just not my best pair.

• 11:24Speaker 00

  Oh, they're fun. What is that like coral or flowers?

• 11:27Speaker 01

  They almost always have swear words on the micro because people

• 11:29Speaker 00

  Oh, no.

• 11:30Speaker 01

  And they know that away from this podcast, I have the voice of a sailor. Okay.

• 11:37Speaker 00

  Says boobs?

• 11:39Speaker 01

  It says, I don't actually know where it's.

• 11:42Speaker 00

  It says corals.

• 11:43Speaker 01

  Oh, fine. Corals.

• 11:44Speaker 00

  It says corals. I could tell that they were little corals in the shape of letters. I'm the ultimate sock identifier. I can't squat for shoot, but I can read a sock.

• 11:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, the ones I was wearing yesterday said, I hate people.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  So.

• 12:00Speaker 00

  Now, is that you saying that or do your socks feel that way?

• 12:04Speaker 01

  Maybe it's both.

• 12:05Speaker 00

  Maybe it's both.

• 12:06Speaker 01

  I mean, mate, a sock would definitely hate people if it was in a squat position all the time.

• 12:10Speaker 00

  They were born to be used in the way that they're used.

• 12:14Speaker 01

  Right, but if you were in a squat position, then you're like rubbing this bit all the time. Okay. I mean, you basically, you want to think of this as a as a as a triangle, right?

• 12:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:24Speaker 01

  Or like you're thinking very much about the angle of your foot and your shin. And the more and more and more you close this angle, right? The more that your shin is rubbing on your ankle bone. And this is where you get

• 12:35Speaker 00

  The two bones rubbed together.

• 12:37Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 12:38Speaker 00

  Ah.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  Exactly. And this is where you get this polished patch on on the shins.

• 12:44Speaker 01

  Now, one thing that's worth saying is it doesn't necessarily mean you're definitely squatting, because it can be that you're kneeling a lot. So if you kneel, you can make that if you're sort of on your knees, you can make that make that angle with your foot and your shin. Or if you're climbing uphill a lot.

• 13:00Speaker 00

  Oh, okay.

• 13:01Speaker 01

  Right. So like, I think you probably find them in Sherpas, for example.

• 13:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, right. Because either way, whether you're kneeling on your knees with your foot back.

• 13:09Speaker 01

  Look at that angle. That's that's genuinely impressive.

• 13:12Speaker 00

  Is it?

• 13:12Speaker 01

  That's genuinely impressive. Mine's, do you know what? The other thing is I actually worked on this a lot in Pilates for years and I really struggled with it. I really struggled getting getting a good angle, but yours is good. Yours is really good.

• 13:24Speaker 00

  I've also got pretty big feet for how short I am.

• 13:27Speaker 01

  Do you know what you do? What size are your feet?

• 13:28Speaker 00

  Ten and a half.

• 13:29Speaker 01

  Hey, hey.

• 13:30Speaker 00

  America, I don't know. What's what's that in UK?

• 13:32Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 13:33Speaker 00

  Two blubber blubberboards or something?

• 13:35Speaker 01

  Exactly. Seven barnicorns.

• 13:38Speaker 00

  But I sometimes I can wear elevens.

• 13:41Speaker 01

  When you got thick socks on.

• 13:42Speaker 00

  Enough about me.

• 13:44Speaker 01

  Okay, so here's the thing. What this means is that you can look back at skeletons of different types of people that lived across the centuries and millennia. And you can work out whether they were squatters. So there's one study from the 1970s by an academic called Eric Trinkhaus, who was looking at the shins of Neanderthals and demonstrated that they have this same shiny little facet on on their shin bones. So Neanderthals were squatters.

• 14:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, they were squatting because they probably weren't like walking uphill more than usual. Have we looked at other hominids of the time? Like, can we find contemporaneous Homo sapiens skeletons and see if they squatted more or less?

• 14:30Speaker 01

  Yes. We also know Homo sapiens, absolute squatters. Love a good squat.

• 14:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:35Speaker 01

  All the way through history, all the way through sort of the ancient world, all the way up until the medieval period, at which point squatting started to decline, which just so happened to coincide with the proliferation of the chair.

• 14:55Speaker 00

  The chair.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  The chair.

• 14:57Speaker 00

  Don't always think about chairs as inventions.

• 15:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 15:00Speaker 00

  But they were and they proliferated. And there's a lot of natural chairs.

• 15:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:04Speaker 00

  You can find a a tree, a rock formation, but one that you could bring into your home. Expect to have.

• 15:13Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 15:14Speaker 00

  It's like not, we haven't always had them.

• 15:16Speaker 01

  You are sitting in a luxury right now. Okay. This is, you don't, you do not know how lucky your body is to be in this particular position.

• 15:24Speaker 00

  I don't. I take it for granted.

• 15:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I take it for granted, too. So chairs, by the way, were invented as as like an object that was created that you could sit in, were created a really long time ago. There's like evidence for them going back thousands of years. However, even up until like the 1600s in in in Europe, if you had a chair, it was only for the important person, right? This is why you have

• 15:49Speaker 00

  Oh, wow.

• 15:50Speaker 01

  A chairman.

• 15:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, right.

• 15:52Speaker 01

  The chairman would be the important person that would get to sit and luxuriate in the chair. And everyone else was on the floor.

• 15:58Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  Or maybe on a bench.

• 16:00Speaker 00

  This is making me appreciate in a whole deeper way that bit in, I think it's the Borat movie, where he goes into a hotel room and it has a bed and a chair. And he's like, I have a chair. I'm and he sits in it and he goes, king in the castle, I have a chair. And it's like, it's so bizarre that he thinks a chair is neat. And yet, historically, yes.

• 16:21Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 16:21Speaker 00

  It was an important person's rare device.

• 16:24Speaker 01

  Yes, completely rare device. You were literally the king in the castle.

• 16:28Speaker 00

  Do we know why, though? Because obviously, the idea of a chair is ancient. But what people just, their their bones and muscles and tendons were different enough that they didn't find having a back that important?

• 16:41Speaker 01

  Well, I don't know, really. I mean, because it's not, this is not universal around the world. China kind of sticks out here as different to what was going on in Europe. In Europe, they're just people just weren't really bothering with chairs. But in China, actually, from like the second century onwards, people were having chairs. By around about 1500, you know, when chairs were just beginning to be used more commonly in Europe, in China, it was expected that if you were a posh person, right, you would be sitting at a table, eating, eating your dinner while sitting in a chair.

• 17:12Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 17:13Speaker 01

  And China sticks out, you know, around the rest of Asia in particular. Because in Japan, I mean, they were very late to adopt chairs. You can still, there are many restaurants you can go into in Japan where you are sitting. You're sitting on a bench or sitting sort of really on the floor. And that actually wasn't until after the end of the Second World War that people were like, okay, look, guys, we need to modernize. We need to get American here.

• 17:33Speaker 00

  We're gonna get chairs.

• 17:34Speaker 01

  We're gonna, we're gonna do this with chairs. But what's interesting, what I really like about this is that in Europe, we know that the chair started to become more and more commonplace in people's homes. Because when there were documents of people's wills, when you were emptying emptying people's houses when they died, initially, no chairs anywhere, and then start being like,

• 17:57Speaker 00

  Who's gonna get my chair?

• 17:58Speaker 01

  Died with a chair.

• 17:59Speaker 00

  Died with a chair.

• 18:01Speaker 01

  Died with a chair.

• 18:01Speaker 00

  King in the castle.

• 18:03Speaker 01

  Castle.

• 18:04Speaker 00

  Nice.

• 18:04Speaker 01

  And then more and more and more and more and more, there would be chairs all over the place. So you can, you can, and I just love these kind of stories because it's like you take two different distinct historical records. You take the things that we are writing down and you take the marks on our bones.

• 18:20Speaker 00

  And they match.

• 18:21Speaker 01

  And they line up.

• 18:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:22Speaker 01

  They match up with one another. I think that's so amazing. I want to go back to this stool though, right?

• 18:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:26Speaker 01

  And and I want to do a trade off, a comparison, a direct chair versus stool situation.

• 18:33Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 18:34Speaker 01

  Because I'm not convinced that we've ended up with better instrument here.

• 18:37Speaker 00

  Okay, tell me why.

• 18:37Speaker 01

  Okay, so when you were sitting on the little stool, yeah, you could relax there. You can chill out, but your muscles are still actively working, right? You're still doing these adjustments. You're you're still holding yourself up. You're still you're still supporting your torso with muscles.

• 18:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:54Speaker 01

  When you sit in a chair, you're not doing any of that.

• 18:57Speaker 00

  No.

• 18:57Speaker 01

  Which is part of the reason why they can feel so comfortable.

• 18:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:00Speaker 01

  Every single one of your muscles is just like, ah, I get to just completely switch off.

• 19:04Speaker 00

  I know. Something I think about a lot because I mean, you may have noticed when I sit in chairs, I often really, really

• 19:13Speaker 01

  You do.

• 19:14Speaker 00

  Don't, I just, I wish it was a bed. And I'm like, look, it's a bed with a lot of pillows.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  I want to do less and less and less.

• 19:21Speaker 00

  This is how I normally am sitting because I find this, and this worries me. When I sit like this, I'm like, what is this, exercise? Give me a break because I'm having to use muscles

• 19:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:33Speaker 00

  more than when I'm just lying down. Have you watched the TV show Succession?

• 19:39Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 19:40Speaker 00

  Okay, so the Colkin guy, what's his name?

• 19:43Speaker 01

  Oh, Roman.

• 19:44Speaker 00

  In that show, he sits like I do. And I felt so seen by media. He's always like, like a liquid poured into a, not even a chair, but any kind of piece of furniture. He's just like, no muscles being used at all. And I'm like, yes, there's at least two of us.

• 20:04Speaker 01

  Yes, I think in that show, I mean, I think there's many people, Michael, who would be like, wow, I just really feel like I can identify with the most abhorrent character in the most abhorrent family.

• 20:16Speaker 00

  I'm only identifying with one feature of Roman.

• 20:20Speaker 01

  Okay, so here is the thing, right? Because you are switching off completely. Because, I mean, let's, let's, let's, let's go with your extended version of just pouring yourself into it. But even when you're just using a chair that has a back to support you, you're no longer holding yourself up with muscles. You're just, you're basically like hanging off. From your ligaments.

• 20:41Speaker 00

  Yeah. It's like literally the poly exclusion principle is why I'm still above the ground.

• 20:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 20:46Speaker 00

  Can't go through this matter and so I'm supported.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  And so therefore I'm supported. And so here's the thing, you know, within like a really short space of time, the twitches in your muscles just completely switch off. Your, your muscles are completely sedentary. But that then has this knock on effect. It changes the amount of fat and sugar that is in your bloodstream. Also, your pelvis, the way your pelvis is tilted when you're sitting.

• 21:08Speaker 00

  Right.

• 21:08Speaker 01

  Is different to how it would be when you're standing up, right? So if you kind of imagine, I like to think of like your pelvis as though it's like a, a ball that can be like rotated up or rotated back. When you're sitting, you're tilting it in this way, right?

• 21:22Speaker 00

  Right.

• 21:22Speaker 01

  Especially when you're kind of like a bit slumped.

• 21:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:25Speaker 01

  So your, your, your, like your buttocks, right? Your, your gluteus maximus are not switched on in the same way. And then you're, especially when you start slouching forwards as well. So the top of your shoulders is going this way. You're kind of curling your whole body in like this. Um, it's just like not good, basically. All of your, your muscles start shortening in the wrong places. And this is the reason why people end up with so many back problems. Because there, your, your, the human body is not supposed to be in that position of rest. When you're on the stool, on the other hand, because you're making these micro adjustments all the time, like it does feel a tiny bit more effortful than just being like, pour me into a chair.

• 22:08Speaker 01

  But it's just for your, for your body, it's just way, way better.

• 22:13Speaker 00

  I mean, I think sitting on like those exercise balls is a much more active kind of sitting. It's using and requiring a lot more muscle action.

• 22:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 22:22Speaker 00

  So.

• 22:23Speaker 01

  But even on that though, your thighs.

• 22:25Speaker 00

  They aren't getting.

• 22:25Speaker 01

  They're pretty relaxed. Yeah. They're not getting much at all.

• 22:28Speaker 00

  Depends, I guess, on how you use it and how you balance.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  Bouncy you are.

• 22:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, how bouncy you are.

• 22:33Speaker 01

  Did you ever do that? Did you ever try and sit on one of them balls?

• 22:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, I did. Cause we got one when my wife was, you know, due very soon, you know? And I was like, oh, I kind of like this. But after like five minutes, I'd be like, oh, cramping up the muscles.

• 22:48Speaker 01

  Not strong enough.

• 22:49Speaker 00

  Too much. Too much.

• 22:50Speaker 01

  Too much.

• 22:51Speaker 00

  Pour me into a chair bed.

• 22:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 22:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. So anyway, that's, uh, that's what I've decided. I've decided we're getting rid of these. Uh, we're going to get two of the stools. Um, we're going to get two of these and we're going to do, we're going to do the rest of our podcasting, just sitting on one of these little stools. Sounds all right?

• 23:08Speaker 00

  I think that's fine. I mean, we could go further and each get a treadmill and we could be actually actively sprinting for the whole.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  Full pout.

• 23:18Speaker 00

  Forty, 50 minutes. Yeah.

• 23:20Speaker 01

  Full pout. I mean, hey, look, why not? I think people would like to see it. Why not?

• 23:23Speaker 00

  Maybe for our 200th episode.

• 23:24Speaker 01

  Okay, deal, deal, deal, deal. All right. Shall we go to break?

• 23:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:27Speaker 01

  Come back with your questions in a minute.

• 23:38Speaker 04

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• 24:01Speaker 05

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• 24:39Speaker 00

  All right. Welcome back. We are now going to take a look at some questions that came from you guys.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  We are indeed. Okay. This came in from Heavenality from Reddit, uh, who asks, when driving on the road and I go around a curve, which spot on my car receives the most air pressure other than the front?

• 24:59Speaker 00

  I love this question because I, I, I know, I know some pretty cool videos have been made about it, but I want to first give the like, not the answer. Heavenality wants.

• 25:10Speaker 01

  Deal.

• 25:10Speaker 00

  Which is that as you're turning in your car around a curve and you wonder where's the air pressure higher on the inside of the curve or the outside? The answer is.

• 25:21Speaker 01

  We're talking about outside of the car here or the inside of the car?

• 25:24Speaker 00

  Inside the car.

• 25:25Speaker 01

  Right.

• 25:25Speaker 00

  In, inside the car, you've got this air and it's sloshing around. As you turn, the greatest air pressure in the whole vehicle is in the pistons in the engine.

• 25:39Speaker 00

  Because I mean, that's huge, right? I found this cool website called performance trends.com and they analyze the pressure in your engine. It gets up to like 800 or more than a thousand PSI inside that cylinder when it explodes, when the spark plug like shoots off.

• 25:54Speaker 01

  And think about what PSI is. That is pounds per square inch.

• 25:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  So 800 PSI, wait, I'll do a metric conversion for me, Willie. It's like 2.2 pounds to a kilo. Is that right?

• 26:05Speaker 00

  Uh, yeah.

• 26:06Speaker 01

  So 800 PSI is something like 362 kilos per square inch.

• 26:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:14Speaker 01

  So that's like, imagine getting 362 kilos and putting it on a space that's like that big.

• 26:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:22Speaker 01

  That's wild.

• 26:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:23Speaker 01

  Wild.

• 26:24Speaker 00

  That's enough to turn a drive shaft and move your car. The next highest air pressure is going to be like in your tires. But I think what the question is asking about is inside the car where the people are, what's happening to the air? And the air really is sloshing around in there. So when you make a turn, all that air wants to continue on in a tangential direction. So, so straight ahead, tangent to that curve that you're taking, which means it all gets crushed up against the far side of the car away from the turn. So the air pressure is greater there than it is on the other side of the car that's closer to the, um, the axis of your, your rotation. And you can see this by putting a helium balloon in a car.

• 27:09Speaker 00

  Because you get, uh, the opposite from the helium balloon that you get from the people in the car. So when you're in the car and let's say you take a right turn, the humans are all doing what the air does. They're all going, I'm going straight ahead. Now the car is moved and I appear, I feel this fictitious, this fictitious force pushing me this way. And we all move away from the center of the curve, but the air does that too. A helium balloon floats because the air pressure below it is greater than the air pressure above it. That's why they float up. And because they're so darn light that the air can actually accomplish the movement of the balloon. But when the air, usually the air pressure is greater, the lower down you go, because the air is all piled on top of itself under earth's gravity.

• 27:54Speaker 00

  When you turn in the car, the air on the far side, let's say on the left side of the car gets, uh, denser. And so this has higher pressure and that balloon is now being more pushed by air on the left than by air on the right. And it will move towards the center of the curve. So when you, you know, turn your car really fast, everyone inside goes like this. The helium balloon goes like this.

• 28:18Speaker 01

  That's amazing.

• 28:19Speaker 00

  It's really counterintuitive and it's so funny to watch. Same goes for, uh, accelerating. Well, I mean, turning is also a kind of acceleration for all of you physics listeners out there. But if you, if you accelerate forward or brake, um, the balloon will also do what you don't expect. So if you break really fast, the humans all go forward, but the helium balloon flies to the back.

• 28:40Speaker 01

  That's amazing.

• 28:41Speaker 00

  Yeah. Cause the air in the, the air all crowds up in the front. It has so much higher pressure up here. The balloon's like, whoa, I'm being pushed more by the stuff now in the front. And, and vice versa. You speed up in a car, people get thrown back, the helium balloon comes forward. Yeah, it comes forward. So it looks like it's alive, like it's making these, these decisions that are counter to nature, but it's pretty neat.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  That is so fun. I absolutely want to do that.

• 29:05Speaker 00

  You gotta do it.

• 29:05Speaker 01

  I really, I want to try and do that. Hopefully the balloon, you know, going forward to the window, just, just careful acceleration, basically. So that it doesn't block your view.

• 29:14Speaker 00

  I think the same thing happens with anything that's floating in a liquid. Like if you, if you tied a ping pong ball to the bottom of a jar and filled it with water, it would also have that kind of opposite of what you would expect motion.

• 29:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. That's amazing. I like that so much. Okay. Next question. This is from Jacob Ewing from Reddit. Who says, does the gas in my stomach affect the pitch of my burp? So the answer is sort of yes. And sort of, no, there's more to it than that. But I, but I believe, I believe that when you're drinking soda, you get lower, deeper pitch for burps.

• 29:51Speaker 00

  Because it's carbon dioxide as opposed to lighter gases like nitrogen?

• 29:56Speaker 01

  So for example, when you, helium's featured quite a lot in this episode, but, but when you take helium, that is what's happening. As you say, that the helium gas is much lighter and so it changes the resonance that's going on inside of your throat. So your, your voice box is still working in exactly the same way. You're, you're still like making the vibrations, the flaps are opening and closing in exactly the same way. But because it's filled with a gas of a different density, the resonance is different. Right, exactly. It moves much faster.

• 30:24Speaker 00

  Higher pitch.

• 30:24Speaker 01

  Higher pitch and then therefore you sound really squeaky. So it is true. If you had lots of, of carbon dioxide, which is denser, that you would get it lower pitch. But actually, I think what's really happening here is that when you drink a can of soda, the amount of gas that you're producing is so much greater than it does when you just swallow a little, little mouthful of air. And for that, it's a bit like, if you imagine you're taking a balloon and you do like a really small little escape of gas, you get a really high pitched squeak. Whereas if you just let it go and it's like, blah, blah, blah.

• 31:01Speaker 00

  Much lower than.

• 31:02Speaker 01

  Right. So that's essentially, I think, what is happening here. You've got the soda in your, in your stomach, which can produce, like a can of soda can produce like as much as a litre of carbon dioxide.

• 31:12Speaker 00

  Oh, wow.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  Your stomach is not designed to hold a litre of gas. So when it comes out, it's like, bleh.

• 31:18Speaker 00

  It really opens everything up.

• 31:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's exactly like the balloon.

• 31:22Speaker 00

  So what we've got to do is put a litre of helium in someone's gut and see what that burp sounds like.

• 31:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:29Speaker 00

  I bet it would be a bit higher, but I think you're right. When it, when you're comparing swallowed air versus a soda burp.

• 31:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're talking about a balloon going, and a balloon going.

• 31:40Speaker 01

  Right, totally, totally, exactly. All right, last question. This is from Quick Hurry Up Slow Down from Reddit, obviously with that, with that name. Okay. It is what it is. Why do tautologies sound like wisdom? Are they hitting some sweet spot between ambiguity and relevance? Why do some like business is business, boys will be boys, feel like an nefarious attempt to stop us thinking critically? Whereas what is done is done, wherever you go, there you are, feels like either acceptance or a platitude. What a great question.

• 32:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think that's totally right. They are, I go, a really poetic example of a, a thought terminating cliche. Where you're just supposed to stop thinking now because I've said something that is so fundamental, that's so, it's not, it's not, it's not even like axiomatic, it's just straight up a tautology. I just said the same thing twice. There's nothing else to say. But why do we have to do this? Look, it is the way it is. There's no why there. There's nothing else to describe.

• 32:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 32:45Speaker 00

  There's no more questions to be asked or thoughts to be had. It's all terminated. And.

• 32:49Speaker 01

  Why don't you get that with it is?

• 32:51Speaker 00

  You do. I mean, it is, is, is like a very, you know, deep way of saying like, but why, why is this here? Because it is.

• 33:03Speaker 01

  Hmm, you're right.

• 33:04Speaker 00

  I know it's more poetic if I say it's here because it is. But either way, it is interesting that we don't always catch tautologies. We instead feel really comfortable with them. A tautology is like a, a redundant phrase. It's something that is just.

• 33:24Speaker 01

  You're saying the same thing twice, essentially.

• 33:25Speaker 00

  You're saying the same thing twice.

• 33:27Speaker 01

  You already said that.

• 33:27Speaker 00

  So I don't know why psychologically we don't catch them better because I rarely catch them. And then I'll read, you know, the next sentence in the book and they're like, but that's a tautology. And I'm like, what?

• 33:37Speaker 01

  Was it?

• 33:38Speaker 00

  Oh, it was. I just thought it was smart. I mean, not, not that tautologies can't be smart. But yeah, we feel very comforted by them. It's like, look, it's been put into words and it's done. That's not to say they're always satisfying. I think boys will be boys is a real like, yeah, you're right. But there are other things that can describe that need more said.

• 34:04Speaker 01

  Because though, in a way, boys will be boys is the same as it is what it is. It's just you're applying it to a specific circumstance, which comes with its own like heavy history and cultural and societal, I mean.

• 34:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, it is what it is. Que sera sera. That is telling us just chill out, you can't do anything about it. We're not going to do anything about it and just accept it. And when it comes to, oh, why must love be so difficult? Que sera sera, you know? But sometimes we don't want to be told, look, that's just a thing that happens. We go, no, but it doesn't have to be.

• 34:44Speaker 01

  Right, of course.

• 34:45Speaker 00

  So I guess tautologies don't always satisfy us. The problem with explanation in general is that it never ends. You can always ask why. You can say, well, they did that because of this psychological phenomenon known as, known as blank. Yeah, but why? Well, because of the neurotransmitters in the brain that are a product of natural selection. But why? Well, because in this universe, you know, logical contradiction means an impossibility. But why? Well, I don't know if God comes first or logic, but it could be, why? Whereas if I just say it is what it is, whatever will be, will be, there literally isn't anything else.

• 35:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're right.

• 35:21Speaker 00

  It's the end of the discussion and we can move on.

• 35:23Speaker 01

  I do also think though, so sometimes I deliberately create tautologies, especially when I'm writing, not so much for like scripts or, or whatever. But when I'm writing, I deliberately create them because I think sometimes your brain just needs a moment to like settle on one particular idea before you're ready to move on.

• 35:47Speaker 00

  Right.

• 35:47Speaker 01

  Because I think that if you, I don't know, like it is, doesn't feel as satisfying to me as it is what it is.

• 35:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:56Speaker 01

  And I, I wonder whether there is part of that that's like, actually I just need it said twice sometimes.

• 36:01Speaker 00

  Yep. Now I bet you're right. As a rhetorical device, yeah, it's a great way to pause without pausing.

• 36:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:09Speaker 00

  You've added more, but it's actually a reflection on the same thought.

• 36:13Speaker 01

  You, you can use it really well to highlight what the important thoughts are as well.

• 36:18Speaker 00

  Yes, you can. And sometimes what might be technically a tautology isn't because you've rephrased it. And saying it and hearing it in two different ways can help a lot. And even if you're not rephrasing it, it is what it is. You're, you're highlighting, you're emphasizing what you've said. It's like you yelled it or underlined it. You repeated it.

• 36:42Speaker 01

  Right. Sometimes you just need a bit of repetition. Well, it is what it is and this is what this was.

• 36:48Speaker 00

  Ooh.

• 36:48Speaker 01

  Thank you so much. As ever, with Bill Notes, you can send us in your questions, the rest is science at gohanger.com.

• 36:54Speaker 00

  Or leave them on our subreddit, The Rest Is Science.

• 36:57Speaker 01

  Or leave it as a comment wherever you are watching slash listening to this.

• 37:00Speaker 00

  And I hope that you're already following us wherever it is that you are.

• 37:03Speaker 01

  And if you're not, ask yourself, why not are you? Why not?

• 37:09Speaker 00

  I don't know. Is it, is it a tautology to say either you are or you aren't?

• 37:13Speaker 01

  Turns out these are harder to come up with on the fly than they appear.

• 37:16Speaker 00

  Follow us so that you're following us. We'll see you when we see you.

• 37:21Speaker 01

  We'll see you when we see you. There you go.

• 37:42Speaker 06

  There we are, getting a statement from Number Ten. On that flight, with 350 passengers on board.

• 37:51Speaker 07

  The Great Game: Strategic Struggle Between Britain and Russia.

• 37:58Speaker 02

  We assess, Prime Minister, with high confidence it was Russian. Holding the Russians accountable is World War III.

• 38:07Speaker 03

  They took down a British passenger jet containing 350 people.

• 38:10Speaker 07

  Man in the Kremlin is playing, Alex. Got to ask yourself: Do you want to play, or not?

• 38:16Speaker 02

  You're the Prime Minister! You've done nothing!

• 38:23Speaker 02

  We would need to understand the policy context.

• 38:25Speaker 01

  All the relevant context will be structured as a framework today. Disseminated into an operation order, or FRAGO. A FRAGO that says to kill the President of Russia? Yes.

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