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SYSK Selects: How Yo-Yos Work · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: M Hey there everybody, it's your old friend Josh And
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: for this week's s y s k Seles, I've chosen
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: the episode on Yo Yo's, which is great. It's like
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: a trip around the world on the end of a
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: string that draws you right back home at the end,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: which makes it great. So please enjoy. Welcome to Stuff
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: you should know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Carr. There's Charles W.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant. That's me, same as ever, scratching the old back. Yeah,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: just got a little itch there. You ever use one
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: of those little dealies, the little creepy hand, the little
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: monkey pok on the end of the stick I have before. Um,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: I don't like to do that. It hurts. Yeah, I
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: guess you could call it. It's a painful sensation. I
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: get up against the wall sometimes and do the blue
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: the bear. That'll do sometimes too, But it's weird, like
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: I only have backaches in about the same place, and
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: that would be on my left shoulder blade on the
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: western side of it, depending on which direction I'm facing. Curiously,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: this is going to be the most interesting part of
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: this show that is not a treat Chuck Man, So Chuck, Yes,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: this is going to be a great one. Okay. I
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: have a feeling this canna be one of those ones
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: where it's like, wow, that turned out to be really good.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: It's physics heavy out the Yeah, everyone loves that. But
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: the fact is, when we finished this, you're gonna know
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: how yo yo works. This is probably the most truly titled,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: truest titled episode well we've ever done. Do you think yep?
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: I don't know. All right, well we'll find out. I
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: think it should be called Physics through the Eye of
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: a yo yo. So listen, have you ever seen the
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: movie Harlem Nights? Uh parts dude? That is go back
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: and watch it again, like, oh, you're crazy. It's one
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: of the best movies ever. Eddie Murphy, Red Fox, Richard Pryor,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: and like everybody else in it too. I think Bernie
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Max in there terrible script. I don't think the script
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: is terrible. I thought it was great. Um. There's one
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: thing about that movie that bugged me to know it.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: It's setting like the twenties, right, and throughout the movie,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Eddie Murphy uses the word yo yo was obviously a
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: modern term, and it just sticks out like a sore thumb.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Every time he does it drives me crazy, Like it
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: drives me crazy that he did. It drives me crazy
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: that the director wasn't like, you can't say yo. This
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: is like nineteen twenties New York. Yo wasn't around. I
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: don't know that they were going for a historical accuracy
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: in that one. They were wearing spats, so um Jerry
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: like that one. So I went back to the little
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: digging Chuck and it turns out that yo was in
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: fact around in the nineteen twenties. But Eddie Murphy was
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: still wrong for using it in that capacity. Okay, so
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: um Yo goes back at least to like the fifteenth
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: century as like a hunting cry, right when somebody was
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: like somebody else might go yo, and you go chase
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: fox um. That was kind of the first wave of
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: yo um. As far back as eighteen fifty nine, we
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: know that there were sailors that were using it yo
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: ho Yo Ho ho, or also um. It was a
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: response for roll call like yo, like somebody called your name,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: you would say yo. It wasn't until after World War Two, though,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: that the modern incarnation comes and it came out of
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: the Italian quarters of Philadelphia, So that's where they think
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: yo came from after World War Two. Hence Eddie Murphy
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: was wrong in using yo especially frequently in the movie
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Harlem Nights. So I did all that research, or I
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: could have just looked into Google Translate from English too uh,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Filippine uh, or vice versa and find that it just
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: means come. Yeah, but I don't think that's what it
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: means here, does it? It does now? So the word
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: yo yo, as it stands right means come, come or
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: come back. Yeah, that makes sense. Did you know that
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: I did? You want to talk a little bit about
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: the history of yo yos? Did you know before reading
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: this fantastic article that yo yo's originated, as we understand
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: them now, originated in the Philippines in the nineteen twenties.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: I didn't know that. I did know that it was
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: around for a long time before that, though, And you know,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: other forms, well, pretty much the same form. There were
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: like two forms of yo yo's in history, and one
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: came out of the new one came out of the Philippines.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: The other one. Yeah, it's pretty old, well, ancient Chinese
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: or at least ancient Greeks more years ago. But they
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: think the Chinese had something similar to that. Yeah, I'm
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: starting to strongly suspect that the Chinese or the origin
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: of human civili They think, yeah, they came up with beer. Yeah,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: well they came up with beer. You have it. They
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: went right there. Uh. And it is the oldest toy
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: on the planet except the doll, the dolly. I thought
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: that was pretty interesting too. Yeah, yeah, of course, although
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: I wonder if they're kind of diminishing any kind of
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: ancient rituals or rights by saying, like, look at this
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: cute doll when really it's you know, some sort of
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: fetish m hmm. I don't know. You never know. So
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: it's been around a long time. They've designed it in
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: different ways over the years. Uh. The original design was
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: had the the string tied tight to the little axis there.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: We'll call it the Greek design, the Greek design. Now
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: we'll call it the Chinese design or the European design. Well,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: not designed, but it was popular in Europe. And that obviously,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: if if you ever used an old yo yo like that,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: or redesign yours to where it's tied around the axle,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: it'll pop up, you know, as soon as you throw
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: it down, it'll pop back up. Yeah, because it's tied
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: to the axle. Exactly right. Um, and you said it
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: was popular in Europe. There were other words for other
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: names for the yo yo before it was a yo yo.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: That's right. There was the lemigrette, the bendalora. The bendalora
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: was British, I believe the quiz. Yeah, I don't. I
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: didn't get a country of origin for that, but it
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: was very popular in Europe. There's a painting of I
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: think Louis is he the boy King? I don't know
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: whichever Louis was the boy King of him holding like
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: a yo yo, like a royal painting of him with
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: a yo yo? Or the what was a little hoop
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: on in a stick? I think that's what it was called.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: That was an awesome game, the hoop on a stick?
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: Who uh? And then, um, I don't think you can
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: compare the yo yo to the hoop on a stick. No,
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: I'm not comparing. I'm just saying I just never got
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: that toy. Oh okay, Well here's another one for you.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Napoleon was well known for carrying and using a yo yo,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: apparently for stress relief. Oh yeah, it didn't work too well.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: He was a stressed out dude. He needed the yo yo.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: But as as you said that, that's the the European
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: favored or Chinese design, where like the strings tied really
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: tight to the axel and it just basically goes up
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: and down. Right, So the Filipino design lead to the
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: modern yo yo as we understand it now. And the
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: huge distinction is that the the string is just looped
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: around the axle kind of loosely, which has the added
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: benefit of allowing the yo yo itself to spin once
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: it reaches the end of the string. Sleep. That's what
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: the that's why people yo yo, I think, Yeah, it's
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: all about the tricks. I mean, it's sort of fun
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: for a minute just to go up and down, but
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: it's really all about the tricks. It's just a stress
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: reliever if it just goes up and down. Did you
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: yo yo when you were a kid? Uh? Yeah? Here there.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: But even as a kid like I could sense that
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: like these these new modern ones that we'll talk about
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: with like ball bearings and clutches, they just seem like cheating.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: I agree, let's not even talk about them. It's not
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: even a real yo yo. So Chuck, you want to
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: talk about a little bit about physics. Well, let's finish
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: the history for shall we. Okay, well, I have plenty
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: of that. Uh. It was originally in the Philippines. They
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: think it was a hunting weapon for like four years so,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: but not like a little tiny yo yo. They were
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: really big and it was basically a big spindle attached
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: to a rope with like spikes coming off of it.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: They were like the size of a ugo. Yeah, and
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: I guess the just the benefit there is you could
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: get it back after you threw it at somebody. Right.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: The stream was almost just useless though, Well you just
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: throw it and run after it. Oh really okay, it
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: was actually heavy rope and they use it for hunting
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: to right. Well, at some point down the line, well yeah,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: you would think anything used in hunting, you know, does
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: double duty and more exactly anything you're trying to kill. Yeah. Um.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: The At some point though, they became smaller and became
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: toys and uh. In the twenties, a Filipino immigrant to
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: the US named and Drew flores Um started a company,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: the first modern yoyo company in the United States, and
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: did pretty well for himself. Uh. And then sold out
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: to a man named Duncan, Right, Donald Duncan, Yes, Donald Ducan,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: and uh Duncan Duncan and uh, you know Flores's in
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Santa Barbara and like you said, was selling these things
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: like hotcakes enough that Duncan said, hey, let me buy that.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna keep the name yo yo because it's catchy.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna trade market and now I own it. And uh.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Through the years he had competitors that made similar devices
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: with different names, and they were like, dude, everyone's calling
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: the sing of yo yo. We want to be able
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: to call it a yo yo two. And he said, no, no,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: I own it. Then the federal courts in Nive says,
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: you know what, that's generic enough now where you don't
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: own it any longer. They're all yo yo's. Well, what
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: there's legal challenges to their trademark. The name yo yo
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: um was one of the things that bled the company dry.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: It eventually went bankrupt. Duncan, the Duncan company went bankrupt
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: in the same year. They ruled yeah against them. They
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: were like, well, that's it for us, But they also
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: had other money troubles. They was they were actually victims
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: of their own success the Duncan company was, so they
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: moved um in the forties to luck Wisconsin, which very
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: quickly became known as the yo yo capital of the world.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: And at their peak they were making thirty six hundred
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: yoyos an hour, mostly out of would at first maple
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: they were using a million board feet of maple wood
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: every year. Yeah. And they actually, in addition to their
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: legal challenges like the money going to fight their legal battles, um,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: they were paying tons of money in overtime to advertising. UM.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: And as a matter of fact, I think in nineteen
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: sixty two, Chuck, they managed to sell forty five million
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: yo yos and in that same year there were only
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: forty million kids in the US. That's pretty astounding. The
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: chicken in every in a yo yo and every exact
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: other hand at least sure unless I guess some kids
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: were yoyo with both hands up. They're rich kids. Um.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: But like I said, they they the company ended up
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: coming bankrupt anyway, but yo yo enthusiasts still look very
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: fondly on the Duncan name. And UM. I think June sixth, Yes,
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: June six is National yo Yo Day, which happens to
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: be the same day as Donald Duncan's birthday. Yeah. Well,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: and the Duncan name lives on. Obviously, you still see
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: Duncan Yo Yo's. They sold out. They didn't just shut down, well,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: they went bankrupt and sold all right. Yeah, so who
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: was it? The flam Flam bail plastics company. They said,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: we'll keep the name Duncan because it's synonymous with Yo Yo's.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: It's not generic yet. There's a little yoyo history for you.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: I got a little more. I'm going to stay to
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: the end. I think you'll like. Okay, you didn't tease
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: you with it. Now let's talk about physics. Well, I
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: think this is very interesting. Good. So there's a two Okay.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: You mentioned with the string tied to the classic Chinese
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: design Yo Yo, you have one kind of um energy
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: going on, right, yes, and that is a linear momentum,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: the ability of it to go up and down or
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: I should say down and up right, that's right with
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: the Filipino design, the modern design and has two kinds
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: of potential energy. It has that same linear momentum to
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: go up and down, but it also has angular momentum
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: and angular momentum is um its ability to spin on
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: an axle. Okay, So you've got two things going on.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: And like you said, when the yo yo hits the
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: end of the line of its linear momentum, it can
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: still It's built up since it's wound around the spool,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: It's built up a lot of angular momentum. So we
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: can just sit there and spin or sleep as you
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: called it. Yeah, it actually increases as it goes down,
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: which is the key to keeping it spinning, right. It
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: gets faster as it falls. There's another pretty cool trait
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: to a yoyo. Who knew they were so complex? I didn't,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: did you? I did not? Okay? So um. They also
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: have gyroscopic stability, chuck, they do. Okay. So if you
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: if you have a yo yo that's sleeping and you
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: push down on top of it, like it goes down
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: and then back up, that's because of its gyroscopic stability.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: That point that you push down on the yo yo
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: is transferred from the front and spun around to the back.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: So that's even now, So the yo yo will just
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: keep spinning as long as it's spinning fast enough. Gyroscopic stability, yes,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: that means a spinning object object will resist change to
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: its access of rotation. And have you ever thrown a football,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: it's the same thing. Yeah, Or if you've ever thrown
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: a football poorly, what do they call that? Wibbler turkey,
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: wounded duck brick. That's why wounded duck doesn't go very
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: far because it doesn't have that tight spine, so it
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: falls off its axis and won't travel as far, same
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: as a frist and then the whole team's mad. Basically,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: anything that spins frisbees, footballs, there's there's gotta be a baseball.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: We could liken it to a baseball somehow. Let's say
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: a curveball, knuckleball slider definitely not a knuckleball slider than
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: spin at all? Really, is it like a shop put No,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: the knuckleball you the whole key is. It doesn't move.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: It travels like this, and that's why it moves all
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: around crazy. Um. It's so you've got your you've got
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: your yo yo sleeping. You're you're totally aware of its
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: gyros copic stability um and you understand that it's angular
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: momentum is just awesome. It's far out right, it's far
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: out but you want to wake it up, and that's
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: when you bring it out of its sleep and rewind
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: it back up the spool, right, little tug on the
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: old finger. Yeah, and the reason why is because the loop, right,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: there's less friction with the loop around the axle. When
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: you tug it, you increase that friction and you allow
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: it to rewind. It just grabs ahold of its buddy
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: and just let's go back up to the palm. Yeah.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: It's pretty cool. Yeah. I like Yo yo physics a lot.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: So we basically just talked about the two hardest parts, right,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: sleeping and waking. Yeah, And like I said, sleeping is
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: the key to do any kind of trick like walking
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: the dog, which I was pretty good. I used to
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: could do a few yo yo tricks. Yeah, I could
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: walk the dog, and I could do uh, I could
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: do the deal where you you make a triangle and
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: then TikTok through the triangle something like a cradle or
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: probably the cats in the cradle let's call a cat's cradle,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: And then I could I could do the around the world. Wow,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: we're on the world. Yeah, I couldn't do any of those.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna this inspired me to get a new Yoh. Yeah,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: by the way, I like the vintage Duncan ones, specifically
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: the yellow ones with the butterfly like the gold the
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: gold butterfly, the inverted ones. No one butterfly on that
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: because they had those that were that looked like a
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: butterfly that were I know what you're talking about, inverted,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: and I think that actually plays a part in the
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: uh increasing the moment of inertia section. Yeah, I think
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: that's why they flipped it out to put more weight
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: on the outside. Yeah, okay, well you want to talk
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: about that? Why not? So do you remember when we
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: did the um Murphy's Law podcast? How could I forget? Remember?
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: One of the books that he wrote was for your
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: Moments of Inertia? Yeah? Yeah, I didn't realize it was
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: a terrible, terrible engineering pun until I read this article, mate,
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: John Paul staff a little bit. Nah, we love that guy,
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: so Chuck. A moment of inertia is basically a way
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: of describing as spinning objects resistance two changes in that
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: rotation basically um being slowed down right, um. And what
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: what smarter people than us have figured out is that
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: if you increase the mass and distribute it slightly further
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: away from the axis, you're going to increase its moment
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: of inertia, right, and that increases the amount of time
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: is just sleeping, right Yeah. And like I said, I
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: don't know this, but I just remember when I was
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: a kid, they had those inverted yo yos, and I
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: bet you anything that's why they did it. Be because
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: they were wider at the outside and then curved in,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: which had to be less mass. Yeah, it was less stuff,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: less would So I'm gonna go on record as saying
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: that's why they did that. But I think you want
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: more mass further away to increase its moment of inertia, right, Yeah,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: so it was there was more mass on the outside
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: further away from the axis. Yeah, so that allows things
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: to sleep a lot longer. And um, that was a
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: I guess you could say one of the breakthroughs in
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: yo yo design. I think in the sixties they started
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: adding mass to the outside and um, extending the axle
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: a little bit. Bam, the yo yo has been improved,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: think about this, right, maybe even longer than that years ago,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: somebody invented the yo yo does not change until the
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: Philippines in the early twentieth century. Well, I thought it
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: said it did change. We just don't know, said there
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: were changes in designs over the years. No, not that
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: I took. I took it like there was one way
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: and then there was the Filipino way, and that was it.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: We got a correction to make them, and then the
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: twenty century hits and then there's all these great improvements
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: on these designs. Indeed, one of the improvements Chuck was
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: adding ball bearings. Right, yeah, well you and I don't
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: think these are improvements ear least I don't. Okay, that's
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: absolutely true. That's a good caveat. I think that the
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Filipinos perfected the yo ya. Let's just call them modifications,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: okay for sorry kids who don't know how to yo
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: yo rich kids. Yeah, that makes it easier, I think,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: And that the whole point of both of these things. Yeah,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: I guess makes it easier to sleep and yeaheah. And
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: I guess they're like, well, if you're just enjoying sleeping
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: and waking your yo yo, then why make it tough
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: if you want to have fun with your toy? Right,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: I can't believe they made it easier for kids to
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: fund they So the ball bearing design I think is
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: kind of clever. Um. Basically, the this modification takes the
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: axle and splits it into Yeah, into two races, which
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: are basically little courses for ball bearings to spin around.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: Right now, does that split the axle? These are just
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: around the axle. So one is connected to the axle,
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: that's the inner race. One is connected to the string
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: that's the outer race, and then in between the two
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: are ball bearings. Right. Okay, they're not connected in any way,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: um except maybe via the context with the ball bearings. Right,
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: So when you when you release your yo yo towards
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: the ground and it's linear and angular momentum really build
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: up when it hits the inter race can tilt a
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: little bit and um connect with the outer race via
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: the ball bearings. So they're they're spinning, right, and then
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: as they straighten out the um they they're they're not
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: connected anymore, so that the string no longer has any
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: effect on whether the yo yo spins or not, because
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: it's just the inter race connected to the axle that's spinning.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: So your yo yo can sleep far far longer. Yeah,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: the outer race spens the interrace, which spins the axle. Right,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: It's like a transfer of angular momentum, and then the
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: strings just like you just let me know when you're
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: done and we'll wind back up. Well, it'll get a
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: little tug. Will do the same thing with that style, right,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: or you can just completely take yourself out of the
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: equi Asian altogether except for a snap of the risk.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: The initial release is all you need to do with
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: what's called the yo Yo with the brain. These are
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: really fake yo yo's. I want to get one though.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: It's kind of cool, like you could be in a
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: vegetative state and do this yo yo. Yeah, this was
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: in the nineties. Company called Yo Maica release these and
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: they called it the yo Yo with the brain, when
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: in fact they should have called it the yo Yo
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: with the clutch. And Uh, the deal here is you've
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: got these two clutch arms, uh weighted ball on one
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: side and it's not attached on the other side, and
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: they're spring loaded. The spindle is not attached to the axle,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: but the clutch arms are attached to the spindle. So
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: when you throw this thing down, it's gonna spin slower
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: at first, and the and the clutch is engaged. As
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: it gets faster, all of a sudden, it's enough inertia
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: to pop the clutch. Essentially against the edges, and it
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: releases the spindle, which makes the whole thing spin faster.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: On the axis right, the centrifugal force um pushes down
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: the weight, which pushes down the arm onto the spring,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: which releases the two which allows it to spin. And
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: it only spends for a certain amount of time. It's
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: not like the kind that you tug back up. It'll
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: spin till it slows down and then the clutch locks
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: back down and boom, it shoots back up right back up.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: I wanna, I wanna, I wish we had one of those.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: I want to see what it's like. So basically, the
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: big to the two modifications are based on separating the
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: string from the axle by by creating two different kinds
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: of I guess axles or spindles or whatever, which are
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: really just sort of taking the Philippine Filipino design a
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: step further because although it made contact with the axle,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: that wasn't quote connected to the axle. Yeah, I guess
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: it was, but it wasn't tight. And a guy named
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: Michael Caffrey is the one who came up with the
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: yo yo with the brain, and you omega started telling
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: him in but he came up with two years after
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: a man named Tom Qun created the no Jive three
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: and one yo yo that you could take apart and
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: replace the axle and do all sorts of modifications with
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: no really big big time for changes in yo yo design.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: So did he rip this, dude off? Is that what
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: you're saying? Okay, No, I'm just saying, like the two
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: these two big steps in um yoyo design, he said
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: two years after it was sinister. Well, you're a very
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: suspicious person I am when it comes to yo yo design, Chuck.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: That's pretty much the physics of yo yo's. Did you
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: know that we just explained how yo yo's work. You know,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: I looked online at videos and stuff to make it
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: a little easier because this is a very visual thing,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: and they do have videos. But what I found out
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: is that a lot of teachers, physics teachers use yo
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: yos to describe these whatever four to six properties that
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: we described. I have to tell you, I understand angular
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: momentum far better now. I understand and although it went
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: through the yo yos to the football, I understand the
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: moment of inertia. Okay, are wait? Is that moment of inertia? No?
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: That's angular momentum. Angular momentum spinning on an axis. Yeah,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: oh you're talking about the gyros copic stability. Yeah, that's
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: what it was. See I get confused. I need to chuck.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: It's physics, man, don't feel bad. Um you want to
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: know A couple more pieces of yo yo trivia. In one,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: Abby Hoffman of the Chicago Seven was um indicted uh
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: or no, charged with contempt of Congress when he um
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: started doing the walk the Dog uh and during a
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: House American Activities Committee session that was investigating him. So
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: he was like, I'm just so over this, I'm gonna yoyo. Well, apparently,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: the way I read it is that he was trying
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: to entertain lighting everything up, like here, watch me yoyo,
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: and he was walking the dog and the who act said,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: so that's how yoyo's are connected to McCarthy is m
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: if you want to take a n y sk quiz
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: and that comes up. Plus, yoyos were huge back then.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: That was like the heyday. I think this is the sixties. Yeah, um, Nixon,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: have you seen Nixon try to yoyo? Man, if you
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: don't like Nixon, this will just make you hate him
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: even more the night that they opened the Grand Old
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: Opry and I think sometime in nineteen seventy four, Um,
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: what's the main guy, like the whole cast of Heehaus
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: behind Nixon and then the main roy Akoff. He presents
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Nixon with a yoyo and like has to put it
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: on Nixon's finger and Nixon looks like what's going on?
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: You know? And um, and then he tries to do
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: it once and it just kind of like flops down
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: and makes like sad trombone noise and he just has
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: this sullen like look on his face, like I don't
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: like yo yo's. He looks kind of like you did
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: at the beginning of this episode. Yeah, me and Tricky
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: did um. And then they took a yo yo in
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: space Chuck, Yeah, I saw that and it still worked.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: It did work. They found that like letting it drop
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: did nothing because they were testing it in microgravity. But
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: if you throw it, um, it will it will go slowly.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: You can you can do it slowly, but it will
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: still spin um. And it moves kind of um just
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: kind of gracefully along the string like in just mid
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: air horizontally and um. But it will never sleep well,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: thank God, NASA did that. Yeah, those are all the
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: videos you see that. They do much more than that.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: That was back when NASA was like, we have so
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: much money, we don't know what to do. Let's launch
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: something and let's say the Toys and Space Project, right,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: and they did. Now this was just where ho yos.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: That was the only thing they did on that flight. Well, No,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: the Toys and Space Project in company or encompassed to
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: sixty Shuttle missions, one for each toy that they tested out.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Jack's was one of the best ones, the Belo paddle.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: So that's uh, that's yo yos. Frankly, I'm pretty happy
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: with this one. I thought you were going to lead
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: in with something on yo yo ma. Man try to
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: look up yo yo's in the news and not get
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: yo yo ma cheez, can't do it, stupid. I searched
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: yo yo minus ma minus knee minus gabba to finally
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: get some stuff. Oh what was the other one here,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Mama neo yo MTV raps that came up to did it? Yeah?
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: I stopped searching before I minused MTV two. You know
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: how you could minus I was in Yeah, and it'll
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: it'll route out all the search all this all the
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: results that have that. So you just put the minus
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: on minus and then the next letter. No space had
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: no idea, and you can do a bunch of different ones,
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: no comms, no nothing, just like minus Gabba minus Yo
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: minus mom minus Knee. You've literally just improved my life.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: Oh good, or my research for like the eight Time
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: to Day. Yeah all right, well that's it alright yo Yo's.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: I was in a jewelry store once and Neo came in.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: It seemed nice. Who's Neo? He's this rapper. He's from Atlanta.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: I thought you're talking about the matrix. No, that's like
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: his real name is Ken Neo. This is Knee Yo.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I've heard of him. Yeah him. Well, if
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: you want to learn more about Yo Yo's, including some
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: really top notch illustrations, this is one of those ones
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: that you will see why we have staff illustrators here
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: actually in color. No. Um, you want to type in
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: yo Yo at the in the handy search bart how
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. That will bring up that really
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: cool article. Um and I said handy itch bar. So
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: now it's time for Chuck to shine with another edition
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: of Listener Mail. Josh. This is uh one of our
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: oldest than not by age, but one of our most
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: loyal fans and its spies. She has a band and
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: they put together Well, let me just read it. This
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: is coming out shortly after Christmas, and she said it
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: was still great to read this. Hi, guys and Jerry,
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: since we're firmly in the festive, greedy, little grip of
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: the holiday season, I was wondering if you could give
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: a shout out to a project I'm involved in, or
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: my band is. At least it's a charity album to
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: raise funds for the continued fallout from the Japanese earthquake
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: and nuclear disaster, and the light of everything that's happened
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: since I know, it's been put on the back burner
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: of most people's charitable contributions, which is why we were
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: thrilled and honored to our part to re raise awareness
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: when the label releasing this compilation approached us to contribute
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: a track. So you know, she's right. You hear about
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: these tragedies that happen, and then six months later you
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: kind of forget about it, the curse of the news
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: cycle exactly. But luckily there's a lot of people that, uh,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: my friend Dave is one of them that's still working,
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: like on the tsunami from five or six years ago,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: so continued help is always needed. Uh, there's a CD.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: It's gonna be out in mid December, so by this
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: by the time this comes out, it'll already be out.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: You can stream the entire album, which is thirty seven
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: tracks by thirty seven artists on the website More Hope
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: for Japan dot com and her band New Century Classics
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: wrote and recorded a brand new song just for this compilation,
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: and she's quite proud of it. And I haven't had
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: a chance to listen to it yet, but I'm gone.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: And she says there's a lot of far better known
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: artists on there. Uh and anyone who likes instrumental music,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: post rock, ambient and basically pretty melodic guitar based tunes
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: should dig it. So check it out. That's Anna's uh.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: Anna's band, New Century Classics. More Hope for Japan dot
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Very cool. Thanks a lot and appreciate that, Thanks for
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: letting us know, thanks for doing what you do, and
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: thanks for listening for like years, she's been around forever. Yeah, yeah,
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: I guess if you're working on something that you feel
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: like everybody has forgotten and shouldn't have. Let us know,
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: and we'll try to help your re raise awareness too.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah ye, send us a tweet to s y s
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: K podcast, or you can shoot us Facebook something uh
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: Facebook dot com, slash stuff you should know, and as always,
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: you can get really personal and send us an email
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: and real live email to stuff podcast at how stuff
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: works dot com. For moral on this and thousands of
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. To learn
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: more about the podcast, click on the podcast icon in
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: the upper right corner of our homepage. The how Stuff
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: Works iPhone app has arrived. Download it today on iTunes.