Latest / Stuff You Should Know / How Yo-Yos Work

Transcript

How Yo-Yos Work · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: from House stof works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. This is Charles W. Chuck Bryant.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: That's me, same as ever, scratching the old back. Yeah,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: I just got a little itch there. You ever use
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: one of those little dealies, the little creepy hand, the
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: little monkey powk on the end of the stick I
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: have before, Um, I don't like to do that. It hurts. Yeah,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: I guess you could call it. It's a painful sensation.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: I get up against the wall sometimes and do the
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  Speaker 1: blue the bear. That'll do sometimes too, But it's weird,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: like I only have backaches in about the same place,
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  Speaker 1: and that would be on my left shoulder blade on
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: the western side of it, depending on which direction I'm facing. Curiously,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: this is going to be the most interesting this show.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: That is not a treat Chuck Man, So, Chuck, this
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  Speaker 1: is going to be a great one. I have a
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  Speaker 1: feeling that's gonna be one of those ones where it's like, wow,
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  Speaker 1: that turned out to be really good. It's physics heavy,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: out the Yeah, everyone loves that. But the fact is,
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  Speaker 1: when we finished this, you're gonna know how yo yo works.
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  Speaker 1: This is probably the most truly titled, truest titled episode
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  Speaker 1: well we've ever done. Do you think yep? I don't know.
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  Speaker 1: All right, well we'll find out. I think it should
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: be called physics through the eye of a yo yo.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: So listen, have you ever seen the movie Harlem Nights?
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Uh parts dude? That is go back and watch it again.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Oh you're crazy. It's one of the best movies ever.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Eddie Murphy, Red Fox, Richard Pryor, and like everybody else
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: in it too. I think Bernie Max in there terrible script.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: I don't think the script is terro. I thought it
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  Speaker 1: was great. Um. There's one thing about that movie that
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: bugged me to know it. It's setting like the twenties, right,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: and throughout the movie Eddie Murphy uses the word yo
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  Speaker 1: yo was obviously a modern term, and it just sticks
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: out like a sore thumb every time he does. It
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  Speaker 1: drives me crazy, Like it drives me crazy that he
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: did it drives me crazy that the director wasn't like,
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  Speaker 1: you can't say yo. This is like nineteen twenties New York.
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  Speaker 1: Yo wasn't around. I don't know that they were going
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  Speaker 1: for a historical accuracy in that one. They were wearing spats,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: so um Jerry like that one. So I went back
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: to the little digging Chuck and it turns out that
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  Speaker 1: yo was in fact around in the nineteen twenties. But
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  Speaker 1: Eddie Murphy was still wrong for using it in that capacity. Okay,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: so um yo goes back at least to like the
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  Speaker 1: fifteenth century, as like a hunting cry, right when somebody
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: was like somebody else might go yo and you go
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  Speaker 1: chase fox. Um. That was kind of the first wave
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  Speaker 1: of yo um. As far back as eighteen fifty nine.
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  Speaker 1: We know that there were sailors that were using yet
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  Speaker 1: yo ho Yo ho ho or also um. It was
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  Speaker 1: a response for roll call like yo, like somebody called
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  Speaker 1: your name, you would say yo. It wasn't until after
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  Speaker 1: World War two, though, that the modern incarnation comes and
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  Speaker 1: it came out of the Italian quarters of Philadelphia. So
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  Speaker 1: that's where they think yo came from after World War two.
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  Speaker 1: Hence Eddie Murphy was wrong in using yo, especially frequently
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  Speaker 1: in the movie Harlem Nights. So I did all that research,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: or I could have just looked into Google Translate from
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  Speaker 1: English too, uh Filipino or vice versa, and find that
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  Speaker 1: it just means come. Yeah, but I don't think that's
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  Speaker 1: what it means here, does it? It does now, So
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  Speaker 1: the word yo yo as it stands, it means come,
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  Speaker 1: come or come back. Yeah, that makes sense. Did you
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  Speaker 1: know that? I did? You want to talk a little
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: bit about the history of yo yos? Did you know
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  Speaker 1: before reading this fantastic article that yo yo's originated as
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  Speaker 1: we understand them now, originated in the Philippines in the
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  Speaker 1: nineteen twenties. I didn't know that. I did know that
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  Speaker 1: it was around for a long time before that though,
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  Speaker 1: And you know other forms, well, pretty much the same form.
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  Speaker 1: They were like two forms of yo yo's in history,
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  Speaker 1: and one came out of the new one came out
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  Speaker 1: of the Philippines. The other one that's pretty old, well
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  Speaker 1: ancient Chinese or at least ancient Greeks years ago. But
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  Speaker 1: they think the Chinese had something similar to that. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I'm starting to strongly suspect that the Chinese or the
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: origin of human civilization. Yeah, they came up with beer. Well,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: they came up with beer, you have it. They went
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  Speaker 1: right there. Uh, and it is the oldest toy on
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  Speaker 1: the planet except the doll. The dolly. I thought that
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  Speaker 1: was pretty interesting too, Yeah, yeah, of course, although I
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: wonder if they're kind of diminishing any kind of ancient
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  Speaker 1: rituals or rights by saying like, look at that's cute doll,
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  Speaker 1: when really it's you know, some sort of fetish m hmm.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know. You never know. So it's been around
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  Speaker 1: long time. They've designed it in different ways over the years. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: The original design was had the string tied tight to
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  Speaker 1: the little access there. We'll call it the Greek design,
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  Speaker 1: the Greek design. Now we'll call it the Chinese design
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  Speaker 1: or the European design. Well, not designed, but it was
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  Speaker 1: popular in Europe. And that obviously if if you ever
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: used an old yo yo like that or redesign yours
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  Speaker 1: to where it's tied around the axle, it'll pop up,
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  Speaker 1: you know, as soon as you throw it down, it'll
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  Speaker 1: pop back up because it's tied to the axle. Um,
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  Speaker 1: And you said it was popular in Europe. There were
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  Speaker 1: other words for other names for the yo yo before
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: it was a yo yo, that's right. There was the lemigret,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: the Bendalora. The Bendalora was British, I believe the quiz. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't get a country of origin for that,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: but it was very popular in Europe. There's a painting
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: of I think Louis is he the boy King? I
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: don't know whichever Louis was the boy king of him
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  Speaker 1: holding like a yoyo, like a royal painting of him
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  Speaker 1: with a yoyo or the what was a little hoop
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  Speaker 1: on and a stick? I think that's what it's called.
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  Speaker 1: That was an awesome game hoop on a stick? Who uh?
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  Speaker 1: And then um, I don't think you can compare the
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  Speaker 1: yo yo to the hoop on a stick. No, I'm
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: not comparing. I'm just saying I just never got that
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  Speaker 1: to Oh okay, well here's another one for you. Napoleon
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  Speaker 1: was well known for carrying and using a yo yo,
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  Speaker 1: apparently for stress relief. Oh yeah, it didn't work too well.
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  Speaker 1: Here's a stressed out dude. He needed the yo yo.
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  Speaker 1: But as as you said that, that's the the European
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  Speaker 1: favored or Chinese design, where like the strings tied really
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  Speaker 1: tight to the axel and it just basically goes up
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  Speaker 1: and down right. So the Filipino design led to the
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  Speaker 1: modern yo yo as we understand it now, and the
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  Speaker 1: huge distinction is that the the string is just looped
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  Speaker 1: around the axle kind of loosely, which has the added
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  Speaker 1: benefit of allowing the yo yo itself to spin once
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  Speaker 1: it reaches the end of the string. Sleep. That's what
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: the that's why people yo yo I think. Yeah, it's
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: all about the tricks. I mean, it's sort of fun
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  Speaker 1: for a minute just to go up and down, but
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  Speaker 1: it's really all about the tricks. It's just a stress
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  Speaker 1: reliever if it just goes up and down. Did you
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  Speaker 1: yo yo when you were a kid? Uh? Yeah, here there.
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  Speaker 1: But even as a kid like I could sense that,
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  Speaker 1: like these these new modern ones that we'll talk about
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  Speaker 1: with like ball bearings and clutches, they just seem like cheating.
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  Speaker 1: I agree, let's not even talk about them. It's not
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  Speaker 1: even a real yo yo. So, Chuck, you want to
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  Speaker 1: talk about a little bit about physics, Well, let's finish
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  Speaker 1: the history for shall we. Okay, Well, I have plenty
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  Speaker 1: of that. Uh. It was originally in the Philippines. They
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  Speaker 1: think it was a hunting weapon for like four years, so,
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  Speaker 1: but not like a little tiny yo yo. They were
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  Speaker 1: really big and it was basically a big spindle attached
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  Speaker 1: to a rope with like spikes coming off of it.
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  Speaker 1: They were like the size of a ugo. Yeah, and
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  Speaker 1: I guess the just the benefit there is you could
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  Speaker 1: get it back after you threw it at somebody. Right.
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  Speaker 1: The stream was almost just useless though, Well you can
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  Speaker 1: just throw it and run after it. Oh really okay,
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  Speaker 1: it was actually heavy rope in the US for hunting too, right. Well,
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  Speaker 1: at some point down the line, well, yeah, you would
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  Speaker 1: think anything used in hunting, you know, does double duty
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  Speaker 1: and more exactly anything you're trying to kill. Yeah. Um.
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  Speaker 1: The At some point though, they became smaller and became
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  Speaker 1: toys and uh. In the twenties, a Filipino immigrant to
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  Speaker 1: the US named Pedro Floris Um started a company, the
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  Speaker 1: first modern yoyo company in the United States, and did
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  Speaker 1: pretty well for himself, uh, and then sold out to
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  Speaker 1: a man named Duncan. Right, Donald Duncan, Yes, Donald Ducan
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  Speaker 1: and Duncan Duncan and uh, you know Florest's and Santa
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  Speaker 1: Barbara and like you said, was selling these things like
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  Speaker 1: hotcakes enough that Duncan said, hey, let me buy that
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  Speaker 1: I'm gonna keep the name yo yo because it's catchy.
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  Speaker 1: I'm gonna trade market and now I own it. And uh.
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  Speaker 1: Through the years he had competitors that made similar devices
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  Speaker 1: with different names, and they were like, dude, everyone's calling
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: the sing of yo yo. We want to be able
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  Speaker 1: to call it a yo yo two. And he said, no, no,
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  Speaker 1: I own it. Then the federal courts in the nineteen
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  Speaker 1: six five says, you know what, that's generic enough now
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  Speaker 1: where you don't own it any longer. They're all yo yo's.
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  Speaker 1: Well what these legal challenges to their trademark? The name
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  Speaker 1: yo yo um was one of the things that bled
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  Speaker 1: the company dry. It eventually went bankrupt. Duncan, the Duncan
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  Speaker 1: Company went bankrupt in the same year they ruled yeah
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  Speaker 1: against them. They were like, well, that's it for us,
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  Speaker 1: But they also had other money troubles. They were they
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  Speaker 1: were actually victims of their own success, the Duncan Company was.
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  Speaker 1: So they moved in the forties to luck wiscon In,
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  Speaker 1: which very quickly became known as the yo yo capital
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  Speaker 1: of the world, and at their peak they were making
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  Speaker 1: thirty six d yoyos an hour, mostly out of would
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: At first maple They're using a million board feet of
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  Speaker 1: maple wood every year. Yeah. And they actually, in addition
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  Speaker 1: to their legal challenges, like the money going to fight
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: their legal battles, um, they were paying tons of money
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: in overtime to advertising. Um. And as a matter of fact,
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  Speaker 1: I think in nineteen sixty two, Chuck, they managed to
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  Speaker 1: sell forty five million yo yos and in that same
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  Speaker 1: year there were only forty million kids in the US.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: That's pretty astounding. A chicken in every pot and a
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: yo yo and every exact other hand at sure, un,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: I guess some kids were yo yo with both hands.
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  Speaker 1: They're rich kids. Um. But like I said, they they
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: the company ended up going bankrupt anyway, but yo yo
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: enthusiasts still look very fondly on the Duncan name. And um,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: I think June sixth, Yes, June sixth is National Yoyo Day,
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  Speaker 1: which happens to be the same day as Donald Duncan's birthday. Yeah. Well,
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  Speaker 1: and the Duncan name lives on. Obviously, you still see
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: Duncan yoyo's. They sold out, They didn't just shut down, well,
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: they went bankrupts and sold all right. Yeah, so who
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: was the flam flam Bail plastics company. They said, we'll
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  Speaker 1: keep the name Duncan because it's synonymous with yoyos. It's
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  Speaker 1: not generic yet. There's a little yoyo history for you.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: I got a little more. I'm going to stay to
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  Speaker 1: the end. I think you'll like. Okay, we didn't tease
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: you with it that. Let's talk about physics. Well, I
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: think this is very interesting. Good. So there's a two Okay.
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  Speaker 1: You mentioned with the string tied to the classic Chinese
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  Speaker 1: design yoyo, you have one kind of um energy going on, right, yes,
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  Speaker 1: and that is linear momentum, the ability of it to
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  Speaker 1: go up and down or I should say down and up. Right,
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  Speaker 1: that's right with the Filipino design, the modern design and
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  Speaker 1: has two kinds of potential energy. It has that same
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  Speaker 1: linear momentum to go up and down, but it also
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  Speaker 1: has angular momentum. And angular momentum is um its ability
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  Speaker 1: to spin on an axle. Okay, so you've got two
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  Speaker 1: things going on. And like you said, when the yo
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  Speaker 1: yo hits the end of the line of its linear momentum,
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  Speaker 1: it can still it's built up since it's wound around
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  Speaker 1: the school. It's built up a lot of angular momentum,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: so we can just sit there and spin or sleep
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  Speaker 1: as you called it. It actually increases as it goes down,
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  Speaker 1: which is the key to keeping it spinning right. It
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: gets faster as it falls. There's another pretty cool trait
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: to yoyo. Who knew they were so complex? I didn't?
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: Did you? I did not? Okay? So um. They also
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: have gyroscopic stability, chuck, they do, okay. So if you
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: if you have a yoyo that's sleeping and you witch
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: down on top of it, like it goes down and
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  Speaker 1: then back up, that's because of its gyroscopic stability. That
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: point that you push down on the yo yo is
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  Speaker 1: transferred from the front and spun around to the back.
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  Speaker 1: So that's even now, So the yo yo just keep
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  Speaker 1: spinning as long as it's spinning fast enough. Gyroscopic stability, yes,
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  Speaker 1: that means a spinning object object will resist change to
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: its axis of rotation. And have you ever thrown a
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: football it's the same thing. Yeah, Or if you've ever
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: thrown a football poorly, what do they call that? Wibbler turkey,
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: wounded duck brick. That's why wounded duck doesn't go very
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: far because it doesn't have that tight spin, so it
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: falls off its axis and won't travel as far, the
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: same as a prison And then the whole team's man. Basically,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: anything that spins frisbees, footballs, there's there's gotta be a baseball.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: We could liken it to a baseball somehow. Let's say
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: a curveball, knuckleball slider. Definitely not a knuckleball slider than spin.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: It all really like a shot put. No, the knuckleball.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: You the whole key is it doesn't move. It travels
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: like this, and that's why it moves all around crazy. Um.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: So you've got your you've got your yoyo sleeping. You're
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: you're totally aware of its gyroscopic stability um and you
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: understand that it's angular momentum is just awesome. It's far
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: out right, it's far out but you want to wake
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: it up. And that's when you bring it out of
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: its sleep and rewind it back up the spool. Right,
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: we'll tug on the old finger. Yeah, And the reason
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: why it's because the loop, right, there's less friction with
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: the loop around the axle. When you tug it, you
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: increase that friction and you allow it to rewind. It
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: just grabs ahold of its buddy and just let's go
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: back up to the palm. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Yeah.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: I like yoyo physics a lot. So we basically just
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: talked about the two hardest parts, right, sleeping and waking. Yeah,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: And like I said, sleeping is the key to do
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: any kind of trick like walking the dog, which I
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: was pretty good. I used to. Could do a few
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Yeo tricks. Yeah, I could walk the dog, and I
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: could do uh, I could do the deal where you
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: you make a triangle and then TikTok through the triangle
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: something like a cradle or probably the cats and the cradle,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: let's call a cat's cradle, and then I could I
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: could do the around the world. Wow, around the world. Yeah,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: I couldn't do any of those. I'm gonna this inspired
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: me to get a new yo yo. By the way,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: I like the vintage Duncan ones, specifically the yellow ones
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: with the butterfly, like the gold the gold butterfly, the
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: inverted ones, because they had those that were that looked
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: like a butterfly that were inverted, and I think that
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: actually plays apart and the uh increasing the moment of
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: inertia section. Yeah, I think that's why they flipped it
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: out to put more weight on the outside. Yeah, okay,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: what you want to talk about that? So do you
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: remember when we did the Um Murphy's Law podcast? I could,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: I forget remember one of the books that he wrote
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: was for Your Moments of Inertia. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: realize it was a terrible, terrible engineering pun until I
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: read this article Paul staff a little bit. We love
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: that guy, so, Chuck. A moment of inertia is basically
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: a way of describing as spinning objects resistance two changes
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: in that rotation, basically um being slowed down right, Um.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: And what what smarter people than us have figured out
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: is that if you increased the mass and distribute it
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: slightly further away from the axis, you're going to increase
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: its moment of inertia and that increases the amount of
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: time is just sleeping right. Yeah. And like I said,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: I don't know this, but I just remember when I
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: was a kid, they had those inverted yo yos, and
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: I bet you anything that's why they did that. It's
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: got to be because were wider at the outside and
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: then curved in, which had to be less mass. Yeah,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: it was less stuff. That's would So I'm gonna go
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: on record as saying that's why they did that. But
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: I think you want more mass further away to increase
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: its moment of in nurture. Right. Yeah, so it was
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: there was more mass on the outside further away from
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: the axis. Yeah, so that allows things to sleep a
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: lot longer. And um, that was a I guess you
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: could say one of the breakthroughs in yoyo design. I
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: think in the sixties they started adding mass to the
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: outside and um, extending the axle a little bit. Bam,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: yoyo has been improved. Think about this, right, maybe even
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: longer than that. Years ago, somebody invented the yo yo
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: does not change until the Philippines in the early twentieth century.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Well I thought it said it did change, We just
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: don't know. Said there were changes in designs over the years. No,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: not that I took. I took it like there was
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: one way and then there was the Filipino way and
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: that was it. We got a correction to make them
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: and then the twenty century hits and then there's all
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: these great improvements on these designs. Indeed, one of the
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: improvements Chuck was adding bald bearings. Right, yeah, well you
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: and I don't think these are improvements, or at least
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: I don't. Okay, that's absolutely true. That's a good caveat.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: I think that the Filipinos perfected the yo yo. Let's
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: just call them modifications for sorry kids who don't know
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: how to yo yo rich kids. Yeah, that makes it easier,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: I think. Didn't that the whole point of both of
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: these things. Yeah, I guess makes it easier to sleep.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: And yeah, and I guess they're like, well, if you're
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: just enjoying sleeping and waking your yo yo, then why
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: make it tough if you want to have fun with
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: your toy. I can't believe they made it easier for
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: kids to have fun. So the bald bearing design I
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: think is kind of clever. Um. Basically, the this modified
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: asition takes the axle and splits it into into two races,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: which are basically little courses for ball bearings to spin around.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: Right now, does that split the axle? These are just
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: around the axle. So one is connected to the axle
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: that's the inter race, one is connected to the string
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: that's the outer race, and then in between the two
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: are ball bearings. They're not connected in any way, um
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: except maybe via the context with the ball bearings. So
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: when you when you release your yo yo towards the
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: ground and it's linear and angular momentum really build up.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: When it hits the inter race can tilt a little
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: bit and um connect with the outer race via the
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: ball bearings. So they're they're spinning, right, and then as
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: they straighten out the um they they're they're not connected anymore,
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: so that the string no longer has any effect on
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: whether the yo yo spins or not, because it's just
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: the interrace connected to the axle that's spinning. So your
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: yo yo can sleep far, far longer. Yeah, the outer
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: race spens the interrace, which spens the axle. Right, it's
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: like a transfer of angular momentum exactly, and then the
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: strings just like you just let me know when you're done,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: and we'll wind back up. Well, it'll get a little tuggle.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: Do the same thing with that style, right, or you
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: can just completely take yourself out of the equation altogether
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: except for a snap of the risk. The initial release
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: is all you need to do with what's called the
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: yo yo with the brain. These are really fake yoyo's.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: I want to get one though. It's kind of cool,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: like you could be in a vegetative state and do
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: this yo yo. Yeah, this was in the nineties. Company
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: called Yomega release these and they called it the yo
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Yo with the brain, when in fact they should have
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: called it the yo Yo with the clutch. And Uh.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: The deal here is you've got these two clutch arms,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: uh weighted ball on one side, and it's not attached
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: on the other side, and they're spring loaded. The spindle
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: is not attached to the axle, but the clutch arms
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: are attached to the spindle. So when you throw this
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: thing down, it's gonna spin slower at first than the
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: and the clutch is engaged. As it gets faster, all
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: of a sudden it's enough inertia to pop the clutch
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: essentially against the edges, and it releases the spindle, which
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: makes the whole thing spin faster. On the axis right,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: the centrifugal force um pushes down the weight, which pushes
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: down the arm under the spring, which releases the two
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: which allows it to spin. And it only spends for
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: a certain amount of time. It's not like the kind
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: that you tug back up. It'll spin til it slows
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: down and then the clutch locks back down and boom
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: it shoots back up, right back up. I wanna, I
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: wanna wish we had one of those. I want to
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: see what it's like. So basically, the big to the
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: two modifications are based on separating the string from the
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: axle by by creating two different kinds of I guess
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: axles are mendles or whatever, which are really just sort
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: of taking the Philippine Filipino design a step further because
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: although it made contact with the axle, it wasn't quote
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: connected to the axle. Yeah, I guess it was, but
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: it wasn't tight. And a guy named Michael Caffrey is
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: the one who came up with the yo yo with
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: the brain Andy Omega started telling him in n but
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: he came up with in two years after a man
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: named Tom cun created the no jive three and one
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: yo yo that you could take a part and replace
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: the axle and do all sorts of modifications with no
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: really big big time for changes in yo yo design.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: So did he rip this dude off? Is that what
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: you're saying? Okay, No, I'm just saying, like the two
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: these two big steps in umsign he said two years
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: after it was sinister. Well, you're a very suspicious person
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: I am when it comes to yo yo design. Um, chuck,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: that's pretty much the physics of yo yos. Did you
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: know that we just explained how yo yo's work. You know,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: I looked online at videos and stuff to make it
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: a little easier, because this is a very visual thing,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: and they do have videos. But what I found out
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: is that a lot of teachers, physics teachers, use yo
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: yo's to describe these whatever four to six properties that
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: we described. I have to tell you, I understand angular
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: momentum far better now. I understand and although it went
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: through the yo yos, through the football, I understand the
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: moment of inertia. Okay, all wait is that moment of inertia? No,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: that's angular momentum, angular moments spinning on an axis. Yeah, oh,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: you're talking about the gyroscopic stability. That's what it was. See,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: I get confused. I need to chuck. It's physics, man,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: don't feel bad. Um, you want to know a couple
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: more pieces of yo yo trivia? Yeah. In one, Abby
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: Hoffman of the Chicago seven was um indicted uh or no,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: charged with contempt of Congress when he um started doing
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: the walk the dog. Uh and during a House on
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: American Activities Committee session that was investigating him. So he
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: was like, I'm just so over this, I'm gonna yoyo. Well, apparently,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: the way I read it is that he was trying
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: to entertain, lighting everything up. It's like, here, watch me yoyo,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: and he was walking the dog and the sid. So
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: that's how yoyo's are connected to McCarthy is m if
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: you want to take an S Y S K quiz
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: and that comes up. Plus, yoyos were huge back then.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: That was like the heyday. I think it was the sixties. Yeah, um, Nixon,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: have you seen Nixon try to yo yo? Man? If
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: you don't like Nixon, this will just make you hate
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: him even more. The night that they opened the Grand
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Old Opry and I think sometime in nineteen four, Um,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: what's the main guy, like the whole cast of hehaus
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: behind Nixon and then the main roy acoff. He presents
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: Nixon with a yoyo and like has to put it
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: on Nixon's finger and Nixon looks like what's going on?
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: You know? And um, and then he tries to do
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: it once and it just kind of like lops down
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: and makes like a sad trombone noise, and he just
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: has this sullen like look on his face, like I
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: don't like yo Yo's He looks kind of like you did.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: At the beginning of this episode, me and Tricky did um.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: And then they took a yo yo in space Chuck, Yeah,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: I saw that and it still work. It did work.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: They found that like letting it drop did nothing because
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: they were testing it in microgravity. But if um, it
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: will it will go slowly. You can, you can do
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: it slowly, but it will still spin. Um. And it
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: moves kind of um, just kind of gracefully along the
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: string like in just mid air horizontally and um, but
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: it will never sleep. Well, thank god NASA did that.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: Those are all the videos you see that. They do
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: much more than that. That was back when NASA was like,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: we have so much money, we don't know what to do.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: Let's launch something and let's say the Toys and Space Project, right,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: and they did. Now, this was just where yo yos.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: That was the only thing they did on that flight. Well, no,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: the Toys and Space Project in company or encompassed to
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: sixty Shuttle missions one for each toy that they tested out.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: Jack's was one of the best ones, the Belo paddle.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: So that's uh, that's Yo yos. Frankly, I'm pretty happy
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: with this one. I thought you were going to lead
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: in with something on Yo yo Ma. No man, try
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: to look up Yo Yo's in the news and not
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: at Yo yo Ma. Cheez, can't do it, stupid. I
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: searched yo yo minus ma minus knee minus gabba to
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: finally get some stuff out. Oh what was the other
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: one here, Mama neo yo MTV raps that came up
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: to did it? Yeah? I stopped searching before I minus
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: MTV two. You know you could minus, I was, yeah,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: and it'll it'll route out all the search, all this,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: all the results that have that. Really, so you just
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: put the minus sign minus and then the next letter.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: No space, had no idea, and you can do a
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: bunch of different ones, no commas, no nothing, just like
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: minus gabba minus yo minus mom minus knee. You literally
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: just improved my life. Oh good, or my research for
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: like eight times to day. Yeah, all right, well that's it,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: all right, yo Yo's. I was in a jewelry store
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: once and Neo came in it seemed nice. Who's Neo?
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: He's this rapper. He's from Atlanta. I thought you're talking
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: about the matrix. No, that's like Neo. This is Knee Yo.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I part of him. Yeah. Well, if you
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: want to learn more about Yo Yo's including some really
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: top notch illustrations, this is one of those ones that
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: you will see why we have staff illustrators here in color. No. Um,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: you want to type in Yo Yo at the in
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: the handy search bar how stuff works dot Com, that
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: will bring up that really cool article. Um And I
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: said handy search bar. So now it's time for Chuck
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: to shine with another edition of Listener Mail. Uh, Josh,
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: this is uh one of our oldest than not by age,
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: but one of our most loyal fans and its spies.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: She has a band and they put together. Uh well,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: let me just read it. This is coming out shortly
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: after Christmas, and she said it was still great to
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: read this. Hi, guys and Jerry. Since we're firmly in
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: the festive, greedy little griff of the holiday season, I
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: was wondering if you could give a shout out to
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: a project I'm involved in or my band is at least.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: It's a charity album to raise funds for the continued
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: fallout from the Japanese earthquake and nuclear disaster and the
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: light of everything that's happened since, and it's been put
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: on the backbrunner of most people's charitable contributions, which is
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: why we were thrilled and honored to our part to
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: re raise awareness when the label releasing this compilation approached
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: us to contribute a track. So you know, she's right.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: You hear about these tragedies appen, and then six months
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: later you kind of forget about it. It's the curse
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: of the news cycle exactly. But luckily there's a lot
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: of people that, uh, my friend Dave is one of
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: them that's still working, like on the tsunami from five
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: or six years ago, so continued help is always needed. Uh,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: there's a CD. It's gonna be out in mid December,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: so by this by the time this comes out, it'll
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: already be out. You can stream the entire album, which
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: is thirty seven tracks by thirty seven artists on the
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: website More Hope for Japan dot Com and her band
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: New Century Classics wrote and recorded a brand new song
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: just for this compilation and she's quite proud of it,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: and I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: but I'm gonna. And she says there's a lot of
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: far better known artists on there. Uh and anyone who
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: likes instrumental music, post rock, ambient and basically pretty melodic
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: guitar based and should dig it. So check it out.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: That's Anna's uh Anna's band, New Century Classics, More Hope
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: for Japan dot com. Very cool, Thanks a lot and
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: appreciate that. Thanks for letting us know, thanks for doing
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: what you do, and thanks for listening for like years,
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: She's been around forever. Yeah. Yeah, I guess if you're
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: working on something that you feel like everybody's forgotten and
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: shouldn't have, let us know and we'll try to help
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: your re raise awareness too. Yeah. Send us a tweet
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: to s y s K podcast or you can shoot
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: us Facebook something uh Facebook dot com slash stuff you
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: should know and as always, you can get really personal
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: and send us an email a real live email to
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com for moral
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics. VI is it how
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. To learn more about the podcast,
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: click on the podcast icon in the upper right corner
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: of our homepage. The House Stuff Works iPhone app has
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: arrived down at it today on iTunes, brought you by
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: the reinvented two thousand twelve cameray. It's ready, are you