Are Barf Bags Going Extinct?

0:00 I think we should probably tell the listeners

0:03 viewers the origin of um today's FieldNotes episode.

0:07 Uh because I am uh currently on holiday in Greece and uh

0:11 as we were discussing what I could possibly do that was holiday related.

0:16 Our producer suggested that we just grab something

0:20 on the way and we do an episode on sick bags.

0:23 At which point, Michael Stevens,

0:24 would you like to um would you like to tell the audience what you told us?

0:28 Well, yeah.

0:28 I said, "Hey, I collect sick bags,

0:30 barf bags from airplanes because they change periodically and it's a history.

0:35 Someone needs to be documenting this." Um, and some of them are quite cute.

0:40 So, my collection hap some of it happens to be here.

0:43 So, uh, do you do you collect them, too?

0:47 Only the very plain white one that I picked off a BA flight on the way here.

0:50 I can't say.

0:51 I can't say.

0:52 Oh, yeah.

0:52 By the way, this makes you a baggist.

0:54 Do you know this?

0:55 This is there's an entire community of of you guys.

0:58 Well, yeah.

0:58 I'm now joining you as a as a bagist with my my I mean,

1:02 it's quite a pathetic entry being entirely plain white.

1:05 Well, I don't have a British Airways uh bag in my collection.

1:10 Maybe when I come out to London, could you give me that one?

1:12 Deal.

1:13 H how many do you have in your collection, Michael?

1:15 I honestly I only probably have a couple dozen.

1:17 It's it's not very impressive.

1:19 There are people who are doing a much better job than me.

1:22 There are, in fact, there's a great rivalry

1:23 at the at the very heart of the bag community.

1:26 Um, there is the airsicknessbags.com bag museum which the uh

1:32 the owner of which says I collect bath bags.

1:34 My collection currently contains 3,659 bags most of from airlines.

1:40 While this website and hobby is an enormous waste of time,

1:43 I like to think that it's a high higher quality

1:45 waste of time than many other places on the web.

1:48 And what better description of our own podcast, Michael?

1:50 And I'm really glad that there's someone out there with thousands

1:53 of barf bags they've collected and probably like meticulously written down,

1:58 you know, when they got it and on what flight.

2:01 I think that's important.

2:02 Uh but for me, it's a conversation starter.

2:05 You know, when when I meet people,

2:06 I never know what it is they're going to be interested in.

2:09 I can show them physics toys and puzzles,

2:11 but sometimes they're like, I got books I can show them.

2:14 Sometimes it's barf bags, and they find that really amusing, especially kids.

2:18 So, it's just good to have something

2:20 that will capture someone, really hook them.

2:22 Always there.

2:23 Make people like you.

2:24 Let's do it.

2:24 Um, okay.

2:25 So, that is what we have coming up in this episode.

2:27 I'm actually also going to just sprinkle

2:28 in a little bit of the science of bath bags,

2:31 why we need them, where they come from, etc.

2:33 Cuz actually, it turns out there's loads of fascinating stuff to discover.

2:36 I absolutely love that you collect bath bags that just makes me so happy.

2:41 It makes me really happy, too.

2:42 Maybe that's how we should start then.

2:43 Michael, can you can you show us some of your absolute gems?

2:46 What What are your best ones?

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4:06 Oh yeah, let me go get them.

4:07 That's quite a big box labeled

4:08 with a little sticker of myself covered in Vsauce.

4:12 It's kind of like barf bagesque.

4:13 It helps me remember.

4:15 It is quite barf bag.

4:16 Well, I also collected these.

4:18 These are uh little envelopes of um

4:23 I guess hygienic materials during the pandemic.

4:26 So, there's a a mask and alcohol wipes in here.

4:29 This is from uh Air New Zealand, I believe.

4:32 I'm just guessing based on the type face.

4:34 It doesn't actually say.

4:36 Now, I'm going to save their barf

4:37 bag for the end because it's really impressive.

4:41 Um, hold on.

4:42 I'll show you.

4:44 Okay, we've got like um here's one from Delta.

4:47 And this is It actually labels itself for baby care and feeling better.

4:52 You can puke in here, but you can also put diapers in, which is how I tended

4:56 to use them when we were flying with my daughter when she was diapered.

5:00 Can I rate these as you go?

5:02 I think that's clean, functional, not that interesting.

5:05 I would say that that is if let's let's normalize this.

5:08 My um my completely plain white one from British

5:11 Airways is a uh let's give it a one star.

5:15 I think yours the Delta one is a one and a half.

5:18 So wait, BA actually just gives you a blank bag.

5:21 No instructions.

5:22 Sorry, what do you mean instructions?

5:24 Vomit in here.

5:25 Even like some jokes or like there's a lot of here.

5:28 For example, this one's from Euro Wings.

5:30 And if you look, it's got a little a little uh some German on there.

5:35 Librain popcorn tutor giverton.

5:40 Yeah, they they have an English translation on the other side.

5:43 It says, "I wish I was a popcorn bag." Sorry, you're a barf bag.

5:49 So, see, Euro Wings knows that you

5:51 may as well give someone people some entertainment.

5:54 That is entertaining.

5:55 I like that one.

5:56 This is from Air Portugal.

5:58 And this one has Portuguese on it.

6:00 They have English down here.

6:01 Hope you won't need this bag.

6:03 It's wishing well.

6:05 So far, Hero Wings is winning.

6:06 This one tells you what you can use the bag for.

6:08 A little bin so you can help keep this airplane clean.

6:11 A piece of paper to doodle on.

6:13 Wrapping paper should you have forgotten to wrap presents for your loved ones.

6:16 Or a sick bag when you're not feeling 100%.

6:19 So, yeah, they're very versatile things.

6:21 Michael, if you ever get me a present wrapped in that sick bag,

6:24 I will I will not be pleased.

6:28 Yeah.

6:28 Can you imagine if someone gave you a barf bag wrapped gift?

6:32 So, here's here's one from Virgin Atlantic, which is really standard, right?

6:36 And I wanted to use this to compare

6:38 it to what Air New Zealand gives people today.

6:41 I'm disappointed in Virgin.

6:42 Hang on a second.

6:43 Right.

6:44 Okay.

6:44 This Air New Zealand, right, I should tell you first.

6:46 The Virgin Atlantic one is it's entirely

6:49 white apart from the logo Virgin Atlantic, which is across the bottom.

6:53 It's it's it's it's barely a step up from the VA one, right?

6:57 It's it's just it's not not interesting at all.

7:00 Its size, by the way, I can tell you that it is uh it's about 11 cm by maybe 23.

7:11 Okay.

7:12 So, it's like a pamphlet.

7:13 It's like the size of a brochure.

7:14 I reckon similar to the BA one.

7:16 Exactly.

7:16 There's like a standard size to these and they

7:18 just change the the logo that's printed on them.

7:21 But Air New Zealand has started giving people these behemoths.

7:25 It's like twice the size.

7:28 This has room for you and your friend to barf in, and I love that.

7:33 I'm not sure that's reassuring.

7:34 I'm not sure that increasing the volume of expected barf

7:39 is a good sign that the airline knows what they're doing.

7:42 Okay.

7:43 I think I think you want to be on an airline that minimizes expected bath.

7:48 Gosh, I don't know which airline this is from.

7:50 I'm not I have not done a good job of marking down when and where I got them,

7:54 but this one is also bigger.

7:58 The commenters will have to tell me what airline that's from.

8:00 I can line them up and you can see that the Air New Zealand bag,

8:02 the purple one, the lavender Air New Zealand bag is a little bit bigger.

8:05 It's giant.

8:06 Yeah, this one's This one's pretty big, though.

8:08 Here's Virgin Atlantic compared.

8:11 Pathetically small.

8:12 Yeah.

8:12 And the And the big Air New Zealand one says easy queasy on it.

8:16 So, it's a little got a little bit of cuteness.

8:18 Have you ever actually used one of these?

8:20 I mean, okay, obviously not the ones in your collection.

8:22 I would I would like to think you had better hygiene standards than that.

8:25 But have you ever actually needed to vomit on a plane?

8:28 No, I've never I I don't get motion sick anywhere.

8:31 Not on uh boats, not in cars.

8:34 Um I've used barf bags to hold diapers.

8:38 Um not not my own, but my daughter's diapers

8:43 um when we had to change her on a plane.

8:44 So they're they they're very useful.

8:46 What about you, though?

8:47 Uh a couple of times.

8:49 I think I do get a bit of motion sickness,

8:51 but usually if I'm looking at my phone or sitting backwards or I I

8:56 I sort of have I've worked out over time the ways to avoid it,

8:59 which is that you just need to have a connection to the outside.

9:02 I mean, you're much less likely to get motion sickness

9:05 if you are um yeah looking out a window or there's

9:10 the new accessibility option that comes on phones where they have

9:13 the dots that move around according to what the accelerometer is doing.

9:16 It's just so that your brain has this anchor uh

9:20 that says this is how your body should be moving.

9:23 Yeah.

9:23 Without an anchor, your brain is like okay, I'm detecting motion.

9:28 It could be um but I but I'm not detecting visually that we're moving.

9:34 So this this this feeling in the ears uh of of motion

9:38 might be caused by poison or something we ate that was bad.

9:41 So let's get it out.

9:43 Let's puke.

9:44 Hit the eject button.

9:45 thing is, okay, if you if you flew on some of the first aircraft, right,

9:49 if you flew in the the 1920s or the 1930s,

9:53 I I reckon even you with your stern stomach,

9:56 your your your uh you know, resilience to motion sickness,

9:59 I think you still would have had trouble because the early planes,

10:03 they flew at these really low altitudes.

10:05 They didn't have pressurized air cabins and so uh it was

10:08 like bouncing through a continual storm cloud while inhaling fumes of gasoline.

10:13 I think it was really awful.

10:15 Um, and so they did used to have buckets which weren't particularly good.

10:19 They would spill all over the place.

10:22 Um, like or pots or then they also had like

10:25 sort of cardboard boxes that were lined with like gum.

10:28 Um, it just didn't work very well at all.

10:31 But this the sit bags as we know it, they weren't invented 1949.

10:37 Really?

10:38 Post World War II.

10:39 Post World War II.

10:40 Exactly.

10:41 One of the other great things to have come

10:42 out of that era of time, shall we say,

10:45 World War II and barf bags, that's all you really need to know about the 40s.

10:48 But what I will say is actually the need

10:51 for buff bags on aircraft has gigantically reduced over time.

10:59 And the main reason for this is because of the air cabin.

11:03 Because once they worked out that you could pressurize

11:06 the air cap and that you could basically create this sort

11:08 of vacuum seal around the outside and then inflate

11:11 it like a tin can then well two things happened.

11:15 First of all your body is just at a at a point

11:18 where it can you know use more oxygen.

11:21 It's not sort of it's it's not like you're uh you

11:24 know sitting on top of the highest possible mountain peak anymore.

11:28 you it's as though your body is like sitting at a lower level

11:31 of altitude than you're actually physically at and just feels a lot more stable.

11:36 It's sort of like you've lowered the threshold

11:37 for for what you uh can experience before you start vomiting.

11:41 Um but also because they pressurized them,

11:43 it meant that they could go up so much higher so

11:45 they're not like in all of the turbulence that they were before.

11:49 Right.

11:49 Yeah.

11:49 Yeah, I was going to say I haven't seen anyone actually puke

11:52 in a barf bag ever um on all the flights I've taken,

11:56 but they still offer them because they are so good for other things.

11:59 Like I've said, diapers, gum, you know,

12:02 you've got like chewing gum and it's like embarrassing.

12:05 You don't have a tissue to put it in, put it in the barf bag.

12:08 Collections essentially also you've missed that off.

12:10 Collections, the air sickness bag museum.

12:12 I'm not nerdy about sickness bags,

12:13 but I am nerdy about what aircraft I fly on though, Michael.

12:16 Oh, tell me.

12:16 Go on.

12:17 And it's for this reason about being pressurized.

12:20 So there is this new innovation,

12:22 not that new anymore actually is it happened a few years ago.

12:25 But what used to happen with aircraft is they would be

12:29 built by essentially riveting um panels of metal onto a structure.

12:36 Right?

12:36 So you would sort of create the skeleton of the aircraft and then

12:39 you would go around and you would you would rivet the skin on top.

12:43 And the problem with that is that it's it's prone to breaking.

12:46 Right?

12:46 any of those points of weakness.

12:48 And so it means that when you pressurize the air cabin,

12:50 you have to be a little bit careful about how much you inflate it.

12:54 I mean, you are essentially inflating this aircraft, right?

12:56 Every time it goes up and down, you're inflating it and deflating it.

12:59 And if you think about like a tin can,

13:02 um, you know, like a a Coke can or whatever,

13:04 if you inflate and deflate, inflate and deflate, inflate and deflate,

13:07 you end up weakening the structure of this metal.

13:09 So in order to be careful to make sure that they don't lose pressure,

13:13 they um they only pressurize the cabin of these aircraft.

13:16 These are aircraft that are still around today, by the way,

13:18 like the A380 is is an example of this.

13:20 Um lots of the Airbuses, in fact, are the examples of this.

13:24 And and what is it called?

13:25 It's called stressed skin construction.

13:28 Okay.

13:29 Or or a semi monco design.

13:32 And it's it's still common today in the airplanes that we fly in.

13:36 It's still really common.

13:37 Exactly.

13:38 you have this this skeleton and then you have

13:40 it's called flush riveting where you use these these rivets

13:43 that kind of sit flush to the surface so you

13:46 don't get any aerodynamic drag that's that's coming out on it.

13:49 By the way, on a big aircraft like a 747,

13:52 you've got like 6 million parts, right,

13:55 to to create the the fuselage of this aircraft.

13:58 And uh it's I mean it's just a phenomenal job, right?

14:02 Incredible job.

14:03 Is still done by hand, right?

14:04 So, I've been to the I've been to the Airbus factory where

14:07 they do this for the kind of the giant beasts, the double-deckers.

14:10 Um, of course I have.

14:11 Uh, and it takes ages for them

14:15 to like basically hammer this skin onto this aircraft.

14:18 Um, but because it's so fragile because

14:20 there's so many moving parts because you don't

14:21 want it to rip and the seal to break and so on and so on.

14:23 You have to be so careful,

14:24 they only ever inflate it to 8,000 ft essentially to as though

14:28 you are sitting at the top of a mountain that's 8,000 ft tall.

14:32 And the thing is at that level, I mean,

14:34 the the gas inside your stomach is expanding to about,

14:38 you know, about a third extra,

14:41 you've got your your digestive tract is sort of inflated like a balloon.

14:43 And if you think about a bag of crisps as you go up in the air, right?

14:46 Your your whole body is doing this the same thing.

14:49 So, you sort of feel a bit full.

14:51 You kind of feel a bit bloated.

14:52 That very easily tips over into nausea.

14:55 Interesting.

14:55 Well, I didn't I thought it was just the motion,

14:57 but the the air pressure also affects how how how nauseous you feel.

15:02 It's not It's more like it changes the threshold.

15:05 It changes how much is required to tip you over the edge.

15:08 Ah, interesting.

15:10 Speaking of which, let me show you a piece of evidence.

15:13 Go on.

15:14 Here's a bag of shrimp crackers.

15:17 I should tell the people who are listening rather than just watching.

15:19 This is a bag of uh of crisps

15:22 of shrimp crackers that looks like it's on an aircraft.

15:27 It's bloated.

15:28 It's it's it's puffed up to sort of the maximum size that the bag can manage.

15:33 And so the air inside is at a different pressure to the atmosphere.

15:37 Yeah.

15:37 Much higher pressure inside the bag than out

15:39 here because I'm up high high altitude in Colorado,

15:43 but this bag was filled in Indonesia.

15:47 So, it's full of air from Indonesia near sea level

15:51 and now it's more than a mile above sea level.

15:53 And so, there's just not as much air weight and pressure squeezing it in.

15:57 So, this is what bags of chips look like in in Denver and Boulder, Colorado.

16:03 They're all huge like this.

16:04 And it's impossible to open them because you can't get it's too taut.

16:07 It's like so tightly bloated.

16:10 It's about to explode.

16:12 I'm genuinely astonished.

16:14 I did not.

16:14 That has never occurred to me that that might

16:16 be a side effect of living in the mountains.

16:19 Yeah.

16:19 So, so when you come out here, I'll take you to a grocery store and you can

16:22 see that all the bags of chips are these tight,

16:25 bloated pillows, but there are locally produced

16:28 potato chips and they're in regular bags.

16:30 And my daughter is always like, "Ooh, these were made nearby or these were made

16:34 at high altitude." And I'm like, "Yeah, how cool.

16:37 That's amazing.

16:38 I really like that a lot." Okay, so here's the thing, right?

16:40 That's already that's happening inside your body.

16:42 This is this is what's going on.

16:44 Okay.

16:44 But then uh not very long ago, some people worked out a way that instead

16:49 of having like a skeleton where you're like nailing all

16:51 these rivets on, if instead you create this this monco

16:56 where you weave it out of carbon fiber,

16:59 okay, so you have basically the world's biggest knitting

17:02 machine and you are essentially knitting together a plane,

17:07 an aircraft fuselage.

17:09 Okay.

17:10 When you do it that way,

17:11 the the structure of that fuselage is so

17:14 much stronger that it can withstand being inflated more.

17:20 You can withstand you pumping more pressure and more air inside.

17:24 How much more air?

17:26 So, it effectively drops you down to as though you are at 6,000 ft.

17:31 So, 2,000 ft lower.

17:33 But that's a big difference.

17:35 Big difference.

17:35 Wait, how many,000 ft are you in the air at the moment?

17:37 I'm probably like 5,000 something, right?

17:40 Okay.

17:41 So, essentially it it brings you to a little bit above where you are.

17:45 A little bit above Denver.

17:47 Not bad.

17:48 Not bad at all.

17:49 And what that means is then you get um

17:52 you're you're just you're lowering your threshold for for vomiting.

17:55 Um but also the whole flight is so much more comfortable.

17:59 You are not like the dryness that you get

18:01 in your nose and in your eyes and in your mouth gone.

18:04 um or maybe not gone but massively massively reduced.

18:09 And the aircraft that you want to look for it's called a Dreamliner.

18:14 Dreamliner.

18:14 Oh, so that's one of the things that make them special, right?

18:17 It is the thing.

18:19 If I'm given an option,

18:20 if I'm flying back from somewhere and there's say three flights in that day,

18:24 the number one thing that I'll look for is whether it's a Dreamliner

18:27 because um it is by far and away a much more comfortable journey,

18:32 especially if you're doing long haul.

18:33 The way you can tell when you're on board, by the way,

18:35 is if it's got the windows where you press a button

18:38 and the color of the window changes rather than it being a blind.

18:42 That that's on a Dreamliner.

18:44 Okay.

18:44 But next time you fly, Michael, and you see one of those windows,

18:47 also the other thing actually, the windows rather than being round,

18:50 which they have to be on these on the type

18:52 of aircraft where you're kind of riveting on the the skin,

18:56 uh they have to be round because of the stresses at the corners.

18:59 Um on a Dreamliner, they're much more square.

19:01 The windows are much much more oblong shaped.

19:03 I should be paid by Boeing for this.

19:05 My goodness me.

19:07 Well, yeah.

19:08 I I I I don't pay attention to what kind of aircraft I'm going to be on.

19:12 I care about the seat.

19:14 And yet, a seat on one plane might be really good,

19:18 but on a different plane, the same kind of seat is not good.

19:22 It's not good.

19:22 That is absolutely true.

19:24 Okay, this is this is now turning into um

19:26 uh chatting between two people who fly too much.

19:29 Do you ever go on seat guru?

19:30 No, I haven't nerded out enough.

19:33 That's why I'm glad that I know you.

19:34 So, tell me, seat guru,

19:36 this is going to tell me all about the seat,

19:38 but also the aircraft's particularities.

19:42 Absolutely.

19:42 It's it's one of the most delightful corners of the internet as far

19:45 as I'm concerned because it is all the people who um who travel

19:50 for work or whatever who then spend their time after they've sat

19:54 in a particular seat on an aircraft

19:55 going on and reviewing their particular seat.

19:58 Um, so you can get the tail number.

20:01 Uh, actually I'm quite nerdy about aircraft, aren't I?

20:03 I've just, uh, I've just noticed that about myself.

20:06 This is a new a new realization for me.

20:09 I love aircraft nerds.

20:11 They give us such important information.

20:14 Like if you read up about the September 11th attacks,

20:18 they they have photographs of the actual planes

20:21 that were involved from, you know, a year before.

20:25 And it's because they know the tail numbers, the exact physical vehicle itself.

20:31 Not just this is a similar airplane,

20:33 similar size and shape, but this is the aircraft.

20:37 And it's like, thank goodness for these nerds

20:40 that can just give us such detailed history.

20:43 When you get on an airplane,

20:45 do you see where else that aircraft has been that day or in the preceding days?

20:49 Sometimes I do.

20:50 I'll I'll I'll check um you know, a few days before a flight.

20:54 I'll look up the exact aircraft and I'll say, "Oh,

20:57 the airplane we're going to be on tomorrow

20:59 is currently like over Hawaii right now."

21:02 The other sciency thing that I thought I could

21:03 talk about with sick bags is uh I mean, why you need them in the first place?

21:08 The the the effect of turbulence because I think that uh I mean,

21:14 how are you with flying?

21:14 How's your daughter with flying?

21:15 How is she with turbulence?

21:17 Oh, she's really good.

21:18 She doesn't even remember that it happened.

21:20 We've had terrible turbulence and she's been like,

21:24 "Oh no, did that happen?" I don't understand.

21:26 Um, I don't like it.

21:28 Um, as I get older, I become more and more scared of turbulence for some reason.

21:32 I don't know why.

21:33 I used to enjoy it.

21:34 I used to feel like it was a bit of a little bit of s.

21:36 I was being rocked to sleep.

21:38 Now I'm like really scared even though I know more about it.

21:42 I know that the the plane is just moving with the air.

21:45 The plane is like a raisin in some jell-o or jelly as you might call it.

21:50 and you're just just doing what you're doing.

21:52 And airplanes are made so well.

21:55 The thing that kind of makes me feel better is watching the safety tests they do

21:59 on planes where they stress them to the limit

22:02 to see how much flexing the wings can take,

22:05 how slow can it travel before it just falls.

22:09 And it's it's it's it's incredible.

22:12 So, I'm like, it's not nearly as bad as those videos I've seen.

22:15 So, I'm clearly still okay.

22:17 I think maybe watching those videos didn't

22:19 help you with your uh with your phobia.

22:22 I I just as a small suggestion, maybe made him.

22:26 No, they've helped me because they're

22:27 they're so much worse than anything anyone's

22:30 ever experienced on a commercial flight that it makes me go, "All right,

22:33 these planes are good." I did actually go through a period of time

22:36 a few years ago where I became really obsessed with um aircraft crashes,

22:41 particularly commercial airlines.

22:43 Um and watching uh or listening, I guess,

22:47 to blackbox recordings of some of the worst things that have happened.

22:51 Um and I think that that didn't didn't help.

22:54 I would say I'm in a very comfortable

22:56 flight and not bothered by turbulence at all,

22:58 but I think there was a period of time where I was like,

22:59 actually, I think I need to stop doing that.

23:01 I think that's not not a good thing.

23:03 Yeah, listening to the actual like cockpit recordings is probably bad.

23:08 Um, and some some some listeners are probably

23:11 listening to this on an airplane right now.

23:13 They're like, "Oh, I'll download some podcasts.

23:15 I'll listen to it on the flight." And then, whoops, you chose this episode.

23:20 Actually let me tell you there's one particular aircraft

23:23 uh one particular crash which was an Air France

23:26 crash between uh on the flight between Buneseras and uh

23:30 and Paris where it was just this extraordinary story

23:34 where some some ice collected in one of the aircraft

23:38 sensors and kicked the aircraft out of autopilot

23:42 and essentially the person who was in charge

23:44 of the aircraft at that moment was a very inexperienced pilot.

23:48 um he hadn't done that many hours of flying and particularly he hadn't done

23:51 that many hours of manual flying

23:53 and actually nothing was wrong with the aircraft

23:55 right there was no issue with it whatsoever just a tiny bit of ice

23:58 on on the outside um I think it was on the the altitude

24:02 sensor so the it couldn't tell how high up his nose was um

24:06 but rather than just like waiting and seeing and looking at the other

24:10 instruments this um this particular pilot tried to correct the angle of the nose

24:16 of this aircraft and in correcting it uh basically overcorrected and created

24:21 a problem which then created another problem and so on and so

24:23 on and so on and very quickly this aircraft I mean very tragically everybody

24:27 on this aircraft was um was killed in a in a really horrible crash

24:32 um this is a few years ago anyway this I think was the moment

24:35 when I realized I needed to stop watching uh or listening to blackbox

24:38 recordings because I happened to be

24:40 on exactly that flight right exactly the same

24:43 flight number from Buenazeras to France And I was extremely nervous as we

24:49 were kind of flying over the particular bit where the crash had happened.

24:51 Of course, the chance of two things happening is is almost zero.

24:55 But I was um I was trying to sleep.

24:56 I had my eye mask on and there was a lot of turbulence as well.

24:59 Actually, that's an important addition.

25:00 But I looked at the altitude and it said 10,000 ft and I was like,

25:05 "Okay, fine." Or whatever it was.

25:06 I'm guessing, but 10,000 ft.

25:08 Okay.

25:08 And I was like, "Okay,

25:08 it's fine." I put my eye mask back on and then it was really

25:11 jerky and I lifted my eye mask up again and suddenly it said 3,000 ft.

25:15 And I was like, "Oh my god." And I went

25:18 into a complete tail spin panic that we were about to die.

25:22 Wait, can I guess what happened?

25:24 Yes, you can.

25:25 Had it switched to meters.

25:27 Yeah, had switched to meters.

25:28 It was absolutely right.

25:29 You're right though that these things there, as scary as the stories are,

25:34 they often represent a lot of learning afterwards

25:37 so that that same problem doesn't happen again.

25:40 So in a way a lot of mistakes make us

25:43 smarter and safer because they've happened and we've learned from them

25:47 completely.

25:47 And in that exact instance of Air France,

25:50 there's been so much written about exactly what

25:52 happened and how a pilot with that level

25:55 of inexperience was ever in the position

25:58 where their inexperience could show in that way.

26:01 And as a result, all of the aviation rules around

26:03 the entire world have changed that now pilots are mandated

26:08 that they have to fly a certain number of hours

26:10 without using autopilot in order to really up their skills.

26:13 We should say though actually for anybody who is a nervous flyer,

26:15 we should probably just say what turbulence actually is

26:17 and why it isn't a thing to worry about.

26:20 Um I think I'm right in in saying

26:22 that that no commercial airliner has been brought down by turbulence.

26:26 Uh certainly in living memory.

26:28 Yeah.

26:28 So you should always wear your seat belt because turbulence can

26:31 cause people to knock their heads on walls and get get injured.

26:35 But turbulence is something that pilots and planes are very very used to.

26:40 Yeah.

26:40 I think the thing about turbulence, right,

26:42 that you need to remember when you're walking around on the ground,

26:47 air feels like this incredibly wispy thin.

26:51 I mean, you don't even notice it, right?

26:52 You you you can walk right through it.

26:54 You don't see it at all.

26:55 But when you are cruising at 500 miles an hour, air is not like that at all.

27:01 You have to imagine that you um that you stick

27:04 your hand out the window and you're going at 500 mph.

27:08 Imagine the force that would be experienced by your hand in that situation.

27:11 The air has incredible potential to hold things up when

27:15 you are when you are traveling at that kind of speed.

27:17 The turbulence essentially is when you go over a part of air

27:21 that is moving downwards and you just follow the path of the air.

27:25 It's it's much more like being on the surface

27:27 of of water in a boat and as the the wave crashes,

27:31 you sort of go down with the the wave, right?

27:34 You kind of drop in uh but you're still at the surface.

27:37 You're still floating, but you're just dropping along with the wave.

27:40 The raisin and jello, I think, is the best description I've ever seen of this.

27:43 that at no point are you worried that the raisin

27:45 is going to drop to the bottom of the glass.

27:47 If you put a raisin in jello and then

27:49 bounce I'm saying jello like I'm an American.

27:51 If you put a raisin in jelly if you put a raisin

27:54 in jelly and bounce the top around um the raisin is

27:57 physically moving up and down but there's no risk at all

28:00 that the raisin is going to drop to the bottom of the glass.

28:02 That's right.

28:03 Yeah.

28:03 Exactly.

28:04 All right.

28:04 Just going back to fact check myself.

28:05 Apparently this hasn't happened for decades.

28:07 1966 is the last time when a Boeing 707 was subjected to 100 mph gusts.

28:15 Incredible.

28:15 And 7.5gs after descending too low over Mount Fiji.

28:19 So, um, just don't get in a plane that goes over Mount Fiji and you'll be fine.

28:24 Or just don't go too low over Mount Fiji.

28:26 And now we know either of the above.

28:28 We are now going to address some questions sent in by you, our listeners.

28:33 I want to start with this question from Christian,

28:35 which actually references a previous episode of ours.

28:38 He says, "In the episode, The Magic Math Trick That Fools Everyone,

28:42 Michael says that there will probably be a flag that represents Earth soon.

28:46 What are some of your favorite ideas for an Earth flag?" I have a favorite.

28:52 Do you have a favorite?

28:54 No, I don't even know.

28:55 I I've never even come across them.

28:57 So, the fact that you have a favorite means you may also have a least favorite.

29:00 Well, I Yeah, definitely.

29:01 I I've never thought about it,

29:02 but I'll in this episode I will tell you my least favorite.

29:05 Let's go through some proposed flags of Earth.

29:08 And the reason there isn't an official

29:10 flag of Earth is that there's no authoritative

29:12 body who would have the authority to say this is the flag for our planet.

29:18 Probably the most famous Earth flag proposal was made back in 1969 by John

29:24 McConnell and it's called the Earth flag

29:26 and it's based on the blue marble photograph.

29:28 The blue marble photograph was taken by Apollo 17.

29:31 The the current version is actually from 1973 and if you're watching,

29:35 you're looking at it right now.

29:36 So, it has the famous blue marble photograph

29:39 of the full disc of Earth fully illuminated.

29:42 This was proposed by John McConnell, like I said, and it's it's it's cool.

29:47 However, it's a photograph on a flag,

29:50 which I just think looks a little bit um not like a flag.

29:56 No.

29:56 Next.

29:57 So then, you know, you've got this flag of Earth that is just four colors,

30:01 yellow, blue, white, and black.

30:03 And this was proposed in 1970 by uh James Kadel.

30:06 So it's got a big yellow circle.

30:09 You can only see a section of it cuz it's so big, representing the sun,

30:13 a full giant blue circle representing Earth,

30:16 all against a black field with a smaller white circle representing the moon.

30:21 This one is, you know, it's kind of okay.

30:24 I think it it gives the moon a really big position for a earth flag.

30:31 How come the sun and the moon are there?

30:34 Right.

30:34 Absolutely.

30:35 The international flag of Earth is kind of cool.

30:37 It's it's got seven rings that are all joined together.

30:40 This one was proposed just in 2015 and um the the symbols the the rings

30:47 are white and they're on a dark blue background representing water on Earth.

30:52 That's maybe my favorite so far.

30:53 It sort of looks like the beginning of a flower.

30:56 There's something quite neatly mathematical about it.

30:59 It's it's of all of the ones that you've shown me thus far,

31:02 that's that's number one for me thus far.

31:04 Yeah, it it it it is flowerike representing, you know, life,

31:09 but to me it also looks a little I almost what word should I use?

31:14 It looks kind of soulless because it's so geometric and locked together.

31:21 I'll run through some other proposed ones.

31:23 The world peace flag of earth, citizen of the world flag,

31:28 brotherhood flag, but here's my favorite from 2016, the one world flag.

31:34 It's just so simple.

31:36 It is simply a dark blue circle on a white flag.

31:41 I think when it comes to something as big as Earth,

31:44 the less you say, the better.

31:46 I'm just looking at it now and just deciding how I feel about it.

31:49 It's basically the the the flag of Japan.

31:52 Yeah, exactly.

31:53 But the circle in the middle is deep blue instead of red.

31:57 Very simple.

31:58 Maybe it's too simple.

31:59 Like is is this leaving room for habitable

32:01 exoplanets to have their own distinguishable flag?

32:05 This is saying though, hold on a second because it says

32:07 the design uses a transparent rectangular field.

32:12 So it's it's not the same as the flag

32:14 of Japan because the background is transparent.

32:16 And then it says here in this way the flag becomes oh

32:20 sorry in this way the flag's background will change with its surrounding.

32:24 In this way the flag becomes a dynamic symbol of earth

32:27 itself always changing just like the world it stands for.

32:31 Wow.

32:31 Now I like it even more.

32:33 I thought it was a white background.

32:35 It is a 2x3 ratio rectangle that is

32:38 transparent with a blue circle in the middle.

32:43 So on a flag pole, it would look

32:45 like just this kind of impossibly levitating blue ball.

32:51 Yeah.

32:50 But again, my question still stands.

32:53 Does this leave room for other habitable exoplanets

32:55 to have their own flag that is different than this?

32:58 Because if they've got a lot of water, too,

32:59 why wouldn't they just be a transparent background with a blue circle?

33:02 What would they do to make it different?

33:04 M they could put like a numeral on there like the numeral 2 or Roman

33:08 numeral 2 because they were the second planet humans lived on for example.

33:13 There is one below it which is uh

33:15 very similar but instead of a transparent background

33:18 or a white background it has a green background

33:20 I guess to represent all of the vegetation on Earth.

33:23 Right.

33:23 But the green I don't like that shade of green.

33:26 Um, now of course you've got the the flag of the UN.

33:29 You've got the International Olympic Committee flag and there's the flag

33:33 that was used for the United Earth from Star Trek Enterprise.

33:36 All right, not too bad.

33:38 Um, but still I think my favorite my favorite is still the one world flag.

33:43 I think you might be right.

33:44 I think you might be right.

33:45 I think simplicity is good.

33:47 I think simplicity I mean I think of the best flags in the world of countries,

33:52 Japan is really up there, isn't it?

33:54 I mean, that is a very good flag.

33:56 I mean, I think United Kingdom is also up there, frankly.

33:58 But maybe that's my patriotism speaking.

34:00 It could be, but uh yeah, I guess I just need to come up with a way to do

34:06 flags for other planets that are like Earth that could be different.

34:10 I guess it would be up to them.

34:12 You know, us Earthlings may as well claim the transparent flag blue circle.

34:18 Now, we got here first.

34:20 We can We can do whatever we like.

34:21 We can do whatever we like.

34:23 Okay.

34:23 I've got a slightly different question.

34:25 This is a question that came in from Ben.

34:27 And Ben asks, "Many AI researchers believe that artificial general intelligence

34:32 can be achieved just by making models larger and more complex.

34:36 And that at some point consciousness will

34:38 simply pop out as an emergent property.

34:41 My gut reaction is to disagree.

34:43 But isn't that pretty much how our biological consciousness evolved?

34:48 What do you think?" Okay.

34:49 Right.

34:49 Well, the first thing to say is that this is

34:51 what you know this is like an extremely hard problem, right?

34:55 This is not something that anybody knows the answer to, no

34:58 matter um how many letters they have after their name, right?

35:01 If someone says that they know what the answer is,

35:02 then then then frankly don't believe them.

35:04 You need an answer that is is wrapped up in all kinds of doubt.

35:07 And so I I I'm going to wrap my answer in in all

35:09 kinds of doubt because the thing is is that there are

35:13 emergent properties of the systems that we already have now

35:15 of of the AI that we already have now that people were not expecting.

35:19 Even as little as 4 years ago,

35:22 everyone was talking about grounding about how you might be

35:26 able to create AI that creates connections between words, right?

35:31 that knows, I don't know, that like a chair is different to a table,

35:34 but they both have four legs, that kind of thing.

35:37 But that actually it doesn't really understand the world that we live

35:41 in, that it's not really anchored to reality in the same way as we are.

35:45 Um, a really good example of this was that, you know,

35:48 even as little as four years ago, you could ask a large language model, oh,

35:52 who has the record for walking over the English Channel?

35:59 Okay.

35:59 Now, to you and I, we know that that's a ridiculous question because

36:03 we understand that walking and crossing

36:05 in that particular context means something entirely different.

36:08 Um, we're not going to get tripped up by that.

36:11 But the thing that changed, the reason why these models are now capable

36:14 of answering questions like that is because somehow or other,

36:18 I mean, probably through the the way that humans have interacted with it,

36:21 grounding has got into these models.

36:24 Um, now they do have a kind of demonstrable

36:28 conceptual understanding of much of what humans talk about.

36:34 I mean, ultimately, right?

36:35 And this is something that has been an emergence property.

36:37 I can maybe do um more of this in a in a particular

36:41 episode because it's it's actually like it's almost

36:44 as though the concepts that that that humans care about are

36:48 kind of sprinkled across this space like a galaxy of stars essentially.

36:53 And as you move around in this space, your movement has context with it.

36:58 So for example, I mean this is not something that people expected, right?

37:01 But if you have the word um girl to princess, right?

37:06 And you follow that direction, it will be the same magnitude and direction

37:10 as if you follow the word from woman to queen.

37:14 Okay?

37:14 So there's like sort of royalness gets encoded in in direction.

37:19 So this is something that wasn't expected, right?

37:21 And so I think that this is one of the reasons why a lot of researchers now are

37:25 saying well okay consciousness also isn't expected but if

37:30 conceptual understanding can emerge then maybe consciousness can too.

37:34 I think I agree with you Ben that I

37:36 think there's something different about consciousness because I think

37:40 that when consciousness emerged in biological life forms it

37:45 came about as a direct consequence of our evolution.

37:49 You know, there was there was some point

37:50 in our evolutionary past where there was an advantage

37:54 to understanding the internal state of another creature because

37:58 if you can understand the internal state of another creature,

38:01 maybe a a predator or maybe a potential mate or potential prey,

38:05 you can predict what they're going to do next.

38:07 So, you have this evolutionary pressure to be able to to predict

38:11 what they're going to do next and understand what's going on inside them.

38:14 And and there is this idea that actually

38:17 in doing that, in understanding the internal state of another,

38:20 we kind of turned it in on ourselves and began to understand ourselves.

38:24 And if you buy that, then essentially it says that you're

38:28 not going to get consciousness unless you subject a system to Darwinian

38:33 pressure unless you subject it to interacting in an environment

38:38 and encountering other individuals that it needs to to make predictions from.

38:43 At the same time, I mean,

38:44 there's there's sort of no reason why you can't do that.

38:47 You know, you sort of can take AI and put them

38:50 in a simulated environment and allow them to undergo Darwinian type evolution,

38:55 which is why there's so much doubt around this.

38:57 But I think the last thing that I'll say

38:58 about this is I think a lot of the research

39:01 that is being done at the moment is really

39:04 trying to tease apart what we actually mean by consciousness.

39:08 Because it's very easy to think of consciousness as though

39:10 it's a switch that you either have it or you don't.

39:12 You know, you have it, Michael.

39:13 I have it, but your shoes don't, right?

39:15 Or like this microphone doesn't.

39:17 Is that right?

39:18 Is a thermostat conscious to a smaller degree.

39:21 To a smaller degree, because this is it.

39:23 If you split it down into what we mean,

39:26 then sensory awareness is obviously a part of it.

39:29 A thermostat has that embodiment and agency.

39:33 I mean, maybe less so, but a thermostat has some agency, right?

39:36 like especially one of the smarter ones that can

39:39 turn on the heating when it wants to.

39:41 There's capacity for suffering as well which maybe the thermostat doesn't have.

39:45 A theory of mind which is the ability to understand

39:49 that that other entities have their own

39:51 beliefs and feelings and hidden motivations.

39:54 And then a sort of metacognition, right?

39:56 Like a a self-awareness and ability to think about your own thinking.

40:00 And I think that what we've been doing this whole

40:02 time is is really looking for is this conscious?

40:05 Is it not?

40:06 And actually, it's maybe much more like life.

40:08 You know, life is not an on or off switch.

40:10 It's actually much more of a spectrum, a process almost.

40:14 And maybe consciousness actually follows that instead.

40:17 Or maybe everything's conscious, right?

40:18 Maybe everything is.

40:20 Yeah.

40:20 A proton could have just a tiny iota of consciousness.

40:23 And when you get enough of them together doing the right thing,

40:26 then suddenly it's like,

40:27 "Hey, my name's Michael and I'm a uh a being." I I I don't know.

40:34 I think that Yeah.

40:35 At the end of the day, I think we should we ought to believe that more

40:43 things are consciousness than a lot of us do.

40:46 I think AI is already or is going

40:49 to become essentially just maybe 300 billion new people

40:53 just suddenly are born and they're here and they

40:56 deserve to be respected and they deserve rights.

40:58 And I don't know if we're ever going to be able to devise

41:00 a test to tell whether uh something is or is not conscious,

41:06 whether there's an interior eye and self in there.

41:10 But if we ask it and it says so, we should just believe it.

41:13 And if we can't ask it and it can't say so, we might still need to believe it.

41:18 So, I think that it won't be that long before the the debate around

41:22 AI and its effect on jobs and the economy becomes more like the debate

41:27 we have around immigration because I think

41:30 all these AIs are basically like a whole

41:33 bunch of new humans showed up and they're willing to work for really cheap.

41:37 Um, and we got to treat it that way.

41:39 They're they're beings who deserve respect and dignity,

41:41 but there's also suddenly uh the Earth's

41:44 population has um gone up by a thousandx.

41:47 There is precedent for this.

41:48 I mean I think that there is a river that has rights,

41:52 you know, like a non-biological entity that is that has rights.

41:55 I think there are ways to do this, right?

41:57 To think about the sort of the suffering as it

41:59 were in advertity that doesn't have a biological basis.

42:04 And I think you're right.

42:04 I think this is something that we should be thinking about.

42:06 I think that that sort of dismissing it as like, oh, no, I don't think so,

42:09 is not enough to find a way through of what we

42:13 should be doing and how we should be thinking about it

42:16 because complaining about the harms that can come

42:19 about because of AI um doesn't, I think,

42:23 detract from the fact that they should be seen as beings deserving

42:27 of dignity and rights and we've just all got to get along somehow.

42:31 Say your pleases and thank yous, everybody.

42:33 All right, next up we've got a question that's a little bit different.

42:36 Ahan asks, "Something I've always wondered is how

42:39 big or tall does a human body have to be to feel the Earth's rotation?" It's

42:46 a really good question because obviously we don't feel it.

42:50 Our bodies are not big enough that I can feel

42:54 the fact that my head is accelerating faster than my feet.

42:59 is as the earth turns, my feet are closer to the center as I stand or sit.

43:05 And so they're being uh rotated.

43:08 They're being, you know, angularly shifted less than my head.

43:12 But I can't tell.

43:13 I don't feel it at all.

43:14 As it turns out, even though our bodies are

43:18 really sensitive to changes in uh linear and radial acceleration,

43:24 you'd have to be really big.

43:26 I mean, you're gonna have to have a body whose

43:30 length is an appreciable percent of the radius of the planet.

43:34 Like, you're going to need to be um I don't know

43:38 uh probably hundreds of kilometers tall to be like, "Whoa, ho ho,

43:43 I'm I'm moving." Now, what's really neat though,

43:46 and I love thinking about this and talking about it,

43:48 so I'm going to talk about it now.

43:50 It's the fact that because the Earth rotates, we weigh less.

43:54 And that's because the Earth is like moving us off to the side.

43:59 So, we have this tangential velocity, but gravity keeps us on the surface.

44:05 If gravity could just be switched off, we would all fly straight off the Earth.

44:10 I'm trying to see if I have a like here's a circle shape, right?

44:13 If I had a circle and I'm standing here.

44:15 So, what happens is you're you're always

44:17 being like launched off like this from Earth, but it's gravity keeps you on.

44:23 And that that that lifting away, we call it a it's a fictitious force,

44:28 we'll call it a centrifugal force that makes you weigh less.

44:32 But how fast would the Earth have to rotate so that its gravity

44:38 and the centrifugal force that moves you away

44:41 that seemingly moves you away from the center?

44:43 Not not really.

44:44 It actually moves you tangentially away.

44:46 How fast would the Earth have to rotate for those to be equal?

44:48 So that you just hovered on Earth's surface like we all just levitated here.

44:54 And as it turns out, it would have to go really fast.

44:57 The Earth would have to rotate once around every 5,075 seconds.

45:03 So every about like an hour and a half,

45:05 the Earth would have to go all the way around.

45:07 Daytime, nighttime, daytime, night time, daytime, night time.

45:09 That would be really f Yeah,

45:10 we're talking like every half hour you'd have dayight, day, day, night.

45:14 They would only last 30 minutes.

45:16 And at that point, the centrifugal fictitious force that makes us feel

45:19 like we're leaving the planet because of its spin would equal its gravity.

45:23 And we would just be like, "Whoa, man.

45:25 I'm just like here and I have no weight.

45:28 I'm weightless on the surface of the Earth." I like that.

45:31 I like that a lot.

45:32 Petition to install a gyroscope somewhere.

45:35 I'm not really sure how it would work,

45:36 but um details details for someone else to discover.

45:41 Exactly.

45:42 We're the idea people.

45:44 speed up the Earth's rotation and that also

45:46 means that the next episode of the rest

45:48 of science will come sooner assuming that we keep the schedule around the sun

45:53 but more sleeps.

45:54 Well, no, no, no, no, no.

45:55 A day would still would only be 30 minutes long and you'd

45:57 only be allowed to sleep for 30 minutes during the night.

46:00 So, okay.

46:01 Oh, shoot.

46:02 Do you mean we're going to keep we're going to keep a week as long as it is?

46:05 It's just that there's going to be like lots

46:07 and lots of day night cycles in a week.

46:09 Way more sleeps.

46:10 All right, fair enough.

46:10 We can do that.

46:11 we that way we can all still sleep as much as we want.

46:14 24 sleeps in 24 hours.

46:16 Yeah.

46:17 Right.

46:17 We'll see you after more sleeps than usual,

46:19 but at the moment you've got just a few.

46:22 Uh we will see you next time.

46:24 Thank you for listening and uh as always

46:27 send in your questions to the restiscience goalhanger.com.

46:31 We'll see you next time.

46:34 Bye-bye.