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Boomerangs: Magic Sticks of Physics · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to you Stuff you should Know from house Stuff
0:04
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
0:12
Speaker 1: Josh Clark. There's Charles W Chuck Bryant, and Noel Is
0:16
Speaker 1: with us today. Yes, producing, Yeah, which makes it a
0:19
Speaker 1: super special stuff you should know, a more here stute
0:22
Speaker 1: stuff you should know. Yeah, that's right. Although old to
0:25
Speaker 1: get a haircut, I know. He looks like a buddy
0:28
Speaker 1: of mine from elementary school. Your elementary school for a
0:31
Speaker 1: net a full beard. No, without he took away the
0:34
Speaker 1: beard would be like any number of my friends from
0:37
Speaker 1: elementary school. Yeah. There was always that one guy though
0:39
Speaker 1: that had the early early facial hair. My you know,
0:42
Speaker 1: jimsa Middle Eastern. He sort of had a little mustache
0:48
Speaker 1: in like the seventh grade. I had a friend named
0:51
Speaker 1: ron in Uh in elementary school. Man. He had like
0:53
Speaker 1: a deep voice and like the mustache and everything. It
0:57
Speaker 1: may have been fourth or fifth grade. Now he sells
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Speaker 1: steer is. Yeah, so obviously we're talking boomerangs, Chuck, that's right,
1:06
Speaker 1: And um, if you associate boomerangs with Australia, there's actually
1:10
Speaker 1: a pretty good reason for that. It turns out the boomerangs,
1:14
Speaker 1: what do you think of a boomerang, which is kind
1:15
Speaker 1: of like a crescent shaped stick that you throw and
1:19
Speaker 1: it just comes back to you eventually and you catch
1:22
Speaker 1: it and look at your friends and say pretty cool.
1:25
Speaker 1: Huh yeah there, Like how do you do that? That
1:28
Speaker 1: was most people think perfected in um by aborigines in Australia.
1:34
Speaker 1: That's right. If you want to go back even further, UM, well,
1:38
Speaker 1: there's a couple of types of boomerangs. Well, there's many
1:40
Speaker 1: types of boomerangs, but two main categories is one that
1:43
Speaker 1: returns to you that you play with, and the one
1:46
Speaker 1: that you go out and try and kill animals with
1:48
Speaker 1: that does not return to you. UM. I call those
1:51
Speaker 1: the sad boomerangs. Some people call him rabbit sticks rabbit
1:55
Speaker 1: Oh no, I know, isn't that mean? But if you
1:58
Speaker 1: want to learn how to make one yourself, go to
2:00
Speaker 1: um Survival Skills, the website the Hunting Boomerang. It's actually
2:05
Speaker 1: it's pretty cool. This guy does. He makes he's he
2:08
Speaker 1: shows you step by step how to make a boomerang
2:12
Speaker 1: natural skills, I'm sorry skill. He just goes out in
2:15
Speaker 1: the woods and finds like a kind of roughly boomerang
2:18
Speaker 1: shape stick and then use it into like a functioning,
2:24
Speaker 1: non returning boomerang is pretty awesome. Well, and that's what
2:28
Speaker 1: people theorize is how the boomerang came about. Um Back
2:31
Speaker 1: in Took Took's day, they would eventually learn to take
2:34
Speaker 1: a club and beat an animal on the head. And
2:37
Speaker 1: then maybe one of Took Took's rand was smart enough
2:39
Speaker 1: to say, Hey, maybe if I throw this at the
2:42
Speaker 1: animal from a distance, I won't scare them away, or
2:45
Speaker 1: that animals faster than I can run, But I can
2:48
Speaker 1: throw a stick faster than the animal can run. Let
2:51
Speaker 1: me hit it in the head with the stick. That's right.
2:53
Speaker 1: And so over time, just like with any early tool
2:57
Speaker 1: um evolution, I guess you would uh find sticks that
3:01
Speaker 1: flew better and further and further, and eventually they sort
3:05
Speaker 1: of took the shape of a boomerang because of its
3:07
Speaker 1: unique flying properties. Yeah, they figured out that like a
3:10
Speaker 1: curved stick, well, you can aim it more easily and
3:15
Speaker 1: it'll fly longer. So they started selecting for those kind
3:18
Speaker 1: of sticks, and then they started making those sticks themselves,
3:21
Speaker 1: like somebody from the Natural Skills website would. Yeah, the
3:24
Speaker 1: two the the design of the two different branches made
3:28
Speaker 1: it more stable. Yeah, and we'll get into the mind
3:31
Speaker 1: bending physics behind a boomerang. Boomerangs, frankly, are magic sticks
3:36
Speaker 1: of physics. They're almost they're almost it's almost impossible to
3:43
Speaker 1: understand them, like what's going on? But we're gonna do
3:46
Speaker 1: our best to explain it. And it's with a non
3:49
Speaker 1: returning boomerang. It's kind of straightforward. It's the returning boomerang
3:54
Speaker 1: that they say the Aboriginal Australians were the first to invent.
3:58
Speaker 1: That is really difficult to grasp the physics behind. Yeah,
4:01
Speaker 1: and the oldest non returning boomerang they found in Poland
4:05
Speaker 1: from about twenty years ago. Yeah, that's surprising to me.
4:08
Speaker 1: And what that was that far ago? Know that it
4:10
Speaker 1: was in Poland? Oh, because I think of the boomerangs
4:14
Speaker 1: exclusively associated with Oceania. Yeah not, Yeah, they were. They
4:19
Speaker 1: were found in Native American tribes too, and stuff kind
4:22
Speaker 1: of all over the world. So Australian Aborigines use something
4:25
Speaker 1: called a kylie um exclusively for hunting at first, and
4:31
Speaker 1: they think, and this is I think the netst thing,
4:33
Speaker 1: because you certainly can't, you know, like find this out factually,
4:36
Speaker 1: but they think that eventually they stumbled upon one that
4:40
Speaker 1: kind of came back and they thought it was fun,
4:44
Speaker 1: so they started throwing returning boomerangs. Yeah, because it's like
4:47
Speaker 1: just to get their kicks, just for kicks. Because returning
4:50
Speaker 1: boomerang you can't use for hunting well now, because if
4:53
Speaker 1: you if you throw returning boomerang, can hit an animal.
4:56
Speaker 1: If you hit the animal, it's not going to return
4:58
Speaker 1: back to you. That's that, it's not real. That same
5:01
Speaker 1: just cartoons everybody. So that's why there's two types. There's
5:04
Speaker 1: ones that you brain an animal with and there's another
5:07
Speaker 1: that you just throw around to impress your friends. That's right.
5:10
Speaker 1: And apparently though the Aboriginal Australians figured out how to
5:14
Speaker 1: use returning boomerangs to hunt. They would put some nets
5:19
Speaker 1: up in trees. They would throw the boomerang, the returning boomerang,
5:23
Speaker 1: and then whoever was best at making like an eagle
5:26
Speaker 1: or hawks call would make that call and it'd scare
5:30
Speaker 1: all the birds because they'd see this thing flying here
5:32
Speaker 1: a hawks call, and they fly into the nets and
5:34
Speaker 1: the Aborigines would eat them. Not a bad idea. So
5:38
Speaker 1: that's pretty much the history of boomerangs. Yeah, and they
5:41
Speaker 1: you know, no one owns a patent on the boomerang.
5:44
Speaker 1: There are many kinds of boomerangs that people have patented,
5:46
Speaker 1: of course, but the original boomerang was just hey, this
5:50
Speaker 1: was something we figured out on our own. It's like DNA,
5:54
Speaker 1: it belongs to the ages, it belongs to the universe.
5:57
Speaker 1: So you're returning boomerang is going to be a little
5:59
Speaker 1: lighter obviously, because you're not trying to kill a rabbit.
6:02
Speaker 1: It's just for showing off. Yeah, and I've even you know,
6:05
Speaker 1: they have the little uh um nerf versions for kids.
6:10
Speaker 1: I had one of those when I was a kid,
6:11
Speaker 1: the little uh three pronged boomerang, and those are kind
6:15
Speaker 1: of fun. But if you look at videos of the
6:17
Speaker 1: real deal, like large three foot wooden boomerangs, it's pretty
6:22
Speaker 1: impressive to see. Like, you know, it's it's a tough
6:24
Speaker 1: thing to do. You're not just going out there in
6:26
Speaker 1: your first try and have to fly back to you.
6:28
Speaker 1: There's actually like boomerang teams around the world. Yeah, us
6:31
Speaker 1: boomerang team. Unless you're a wonder kin of course or natural,
6:35
Speaker 1: I'm sure to do it you on your first time.
6:37
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's happened before. Maybe this maybe want to
6:39
Speaker 1: get a boomerang, By the way, did are you going to?
6:42
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe the boomerang team. What I'm hoping
6:46
Speaker 1: is a fan makes handcrafted boomerangs and since oh yeah,
6:49
Speaker 1: I hadn't thought about that, I'll bet we have at
6:51
Speaker 1: least one boomerang maker listener, So send us to Yeah nice,
6:56
Speaker 1: thanks Chuck. That way we can go out and perform
6:59
Speaker 1: a little two man boomerang. Maybe we can cross them
7:02
Speaker 1: and everything. So um the Again, the non returning boomerangs
7:08
Speaker 1: are pretty straightforward. It's the returning boomerangs that are lighter,
7:11
Speaker 1: and they're they're made to be more aerodynamic. And the
7:15
Speaker 1: proper way to throw a returning boomerang is um to
7:20
Speaker 1: hold it at a vertical angle, to hold it up
7:23
Speaker 1: and down right, which is weird because if you ever
7:26
Speaker 1: see somebody throw a boomerang, when it comes back, it's horizontal.
7:31
Speaker 1: It's horizontally oriented. Yeah, it kind of just lands very
7:34
Speaker 1: softly like a helicopter. Right. The thing is is, it
7:37
Speaker 1: goes from upright to horizontal in the midst of this
7:41
Speaker 1: path and it comes back to you. And if you
7:46
Speaker 1: stop and think about it like that makes zero sense whatsoever.
7:51
Speaker 1: A non returning boomerang certainly doesn't do either. Of those things.
7:55
Speaker 1: It's just the returning boomerang. And the whole reason behind
7:58
Speaker 1: this is because of the design of the returning boomerang.
8:02
Speaker 1: It's basically a two pronged propeller that's not attached to
8:07
Speaker 1: anything that thanks to the force you give it and
8:12
Speaker 1: it's rotation and a whole other bunch of stuff that
8:15
Speaker 1: will get into it leans to the it falls to
8:20
Speaker 1: the left, turns clockwise, and comes back to you. That's
8:23
Speaker 1: if you're a right handed thrower with the right handed boomerang.
8:26
Speaker 1: If you're a left handed person, you have to have
8:28
Speaker 1: a left handed boomerang. It's a mirror image of the
8:30
Speaker 1: right handed boomerang. If you try to throw a right
8:34
Speaker 1: handed boomerang with your left hand, it's not gonna work out.
8:36
Speaker 1: So well, I bet there's one person out there it's like, oh,
8:40
Speaker 1: I had no idea. So we're gonna muster up our
8:44
Speaker 1: courage and and get into the physics of the boomerang
8:47
Speaker 1: right after this. Alright, chuck, here we go. All right, So,
8:55
Speaker 1: I guess the first thing we should talk about is
8:57
Speaker 1: a little bit about just the physical design of the
9:00
Speaker 1: boomerang itself. The wings are slightly tilted, so it creates
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Speaker 1: what's called an airfoil, just like an airplane wing. Look
9:08
Speaker 1: out your plane window there and you're sitting on the wing.
9:11
Speaker 1: You're going to notice that the top of it is
9:14
Speaker 1: rounded and the bottom of it is flat, and that
9:17
Speaker 1: is going to give a plane lift and a boomerang lift. Right.
9:21
Speaker 1: The the air going over the top of the wing,
9:24
Speaker 1: because it's curved in like a tear drop shape. Um,
9:27
Speaker 1: it picks up speed right, so the air speed is increased,
9:32
Speaker 1: which means the air pressure is also increased. Well beneath
9:35
Speaker 1: the wing it's flat, the air is just going through
9:37
Speaker 1: like it's whatever, but the air pressure is higher, so
9:41
Speaker 1: you have lower air pressure at the top, higher pressure
9:44
Speaker 1: at the bottom. That means that you have left that
9:47
Speaker 1: believe that it's Bernoulli's principle, is it? I think? So?
9:50
Speaker 1: Show off? No, not really so. So that's that's the
9:54
Speaker 1: whole thing behind both airplane wings, like you said, and
9:57
Speaker 1: boomerang wings. Because again, if you if you really kind
10:00
Speaker 1: of want to start to understand boomerangs, um, first of all,
10:04
Speaker 1: do more research than just listening to this podcast. But secondly,
10:09
Speaker 1: you have to think of the boomerang is basically two
10:11
Speaker 1: airplane wings facing the opposite direction connected together. Okay, that's right,
10:17
Speaker 1: and that forms essentially a propeller. Yeah, and uh, a
10:20
Speaker 1: propeller is um. Well, it's it's basically, if you think
10:25
Speaker 1: about a boomerang, it has an axis, just like a
10:28
Speaker 1: propeller does, but the axis isn't there. That makes sense,
10:32
Speaker 1: it's invisible. The propeller is connected to something because it
10:34
Speaker 1: has to lift the helicopter propeller cause that's the lift
10:38
Speaker 1: the helicopter, or if it's on the front of a plane,
10:40
Speaker 1: it's gonna pull that plane forward and up. Um, which
10:44
Speaker 1: is sort of a key we'll get to in a second. Um.
10:47
Speaker 1: But it's the same principle. But a boomerang just has
10:50
Speaker 1: an invisible access let's say. Okay, so it does, and
10:53
Speaker 1: it's very important because at that axis, which you can
10:56
Speaker 1: just imagine is in the center of the boomerang where
10:59
Speaker 1: the two wings come together, that's the access of rotation
11:03
Speaker 1: that the boomerang has. It's spin. Yeah, and this article
11:06
Speaker 1: does a good job of pointing out that. You would think,
11:09
Speaker 1: then if you just turned it completely horizontally like a frisbee,
11:13
Speaker 1: it would act like a helicopter propeller and just go up, yes,
11:16
Speaker 1: straight up, or if you turned it completely vertically, which
11:19
Speaker 1: is how you're supposed to throw it, it would just
11:21
Speaker 1: go side to side. But it doesn't do either one
11:24
Speaker 1: of those things. No, and it doesn't. And the reason
11:26
Speaker 1: why is because if you turn on an air airplane
11:31
Speaker 1: propeller or a helicopter propeller rotor, it's it starts from
11:36
Speaker 1: a stationary position and just starts spinning, exactly the the
11:41
Speaker 1: boomerang doesn't start from a stationary position. It starts spinning
11:45
Speaker 1: along that central axis. And it's also thrown. Yeah, it's
11:48
Speaker 1: got that forward momentum already exactly. So it has now
11:52
Speaker 1: because you threw this thing. You threw it and it
11:55
Speaker 1: started spinning around its own axis. But you also gave
11:58
Speaker 1: it that forward momentum, which is linear momentum, which means
12:02
Speaker 1: that it's now spinning around two axes. That's right, Okay,
12:07
Speaker 1: this is is this gyroscopic procession. We're close, we're almost there,
12:13
Speaker 1: and we get there chucked because of these two axes.
12:15
Speaker 1: So consider this. So the thing is just spinning around.
12:18
Speaker 1: You've just thrown in. Its upright at a vertical it's
12:20
Speaker 1: vertically oriented to the earth, and you throw it, and
12:24
Speaker 1: when you throw it say it has a spin around
12:28
Speaker 1: that imaginary axis in the middle of the boomerang or
12:31
Speaker 1: at that point at like twenty kilometers an hour. Okay,
12:36
Speaker 1: because in Australia koter exactly well. Plus also I read
12:39
Speaker 1: a Japanese paper on this. That's what they use and
12:42
Speaker 1: it makes sense. Um, And but you threw it that
12:46
Speaker 1: that that energy your arm transferred to it when you
12:50
Speaker 1: threw the frisbee to which gave it its linear momentum.
12:53
Speaker 1: Say that's making it move through space at a hundred
12:57
Speaker 1: kilometers per hour. Okay, that's right. So as the things spinning,
13:02
Speaker 1: whatever blade is at the top of the of the
13:05
Speaker 1: spin is going in the direction that you threw it, right,
13:09
Speaker 1: and you threw it at a hundred miles an hour,
13:12
Speaker 1: and it's spinning at twenty kilometers an hour. That means
13:15
Speaker 1: that that top blade is spinning at a hundred and
13:17
Speaker 1: twenty kilometers an hour. You said miles. But yeah, we
13:20
Speaker 1: get it, Okay. I'm like, I'm just just barely hanging
13:26
Speaker 1: on here. The bottom one, though, is going in the
13:29
Speaker 1: opposite direction, so you're it's actually moving at twenty or
13:34
Speaker 1: eighty kilometers per hour. So the top is a hundred
13:37
Speaker 1: and twenty. The bottom one is working in the opposite direction,
13:42
Speaker 1: so it's going eighty kilometers per hour. But these things
13:44
Speaker 1: are attached to the same thing, so this difference actually
13:49
Speaker 1: creates a difference in air pressure to its vertical orientation,
13:55
Speaker 1: which creates torque, which tilts it. Now we've entered gyros
14:00
Speaker 1: copic procession. Yeah, and I think I precession. I think
14:04
Speaker 1: I sort of said it like procession, but it's within
14:06
Speaker 1: e Yeah, it's like what gives Earth seasons. Yeah, that wobble.
14:09
Speaker 1: The spin is another part of a very important part
14:13
Speaker 1: because when you throw it, and we'll get into exactly
14:15
Speaker 1: how to throw it here in a bit, but you
14:17
Speaker 1: want to give it a good wrist snap to give
14:19
Speaker 1: it as much spin as possible. Uh. And the spin
14:21
Speaker 1: is gonna be determined basically the rate of spin by
14:24
Speaker 1: a few things. The length to the wings, um, you know,
14:27
Speaker 1: if they're these huge wings, it's the spin isn't going
14:29
Speaker 1: to be as great, Uh, the angle that they're joined,
14:32
Speaker 1: and the amount of force applied by you the thrower.
14:36
Speaker 1: And just like a gyroscope, which if we really wanted
14:39
Speaker 1: to torture ourselves, we should do one on gyroscopes. Man,
14:42
Speaker 1: that would be melt. My brain would melt. Yeah, I
14:45
Speaker 1: just my brain didn't process that stuff well. But um,
14:47
Speaker 1: like a gyroscope, it's gonna have more stability the faster
14:50
Speaker 1: it spin. So that's why you want that good risk snap. Yeah.
14:53
Speaker 1: And the reason why it has more stabilities because so
14:55
Speaker 1: that torque, that pressure that that's being created by that
15:00
Speaker 1: difference in air pressure. Um, that forces being pushed down
15:03
Speaker 1: is actually stabilized throughout the spin of the boomerang. Right. Yeah.
15:09
Speaker 1: Like if you're going super fast on a bicycle and
15:12
Speaker 1: you take your hands off the handlebars, you're gonna keep
15:15
Speaker 1: going straight. If you're going like super slow, you're gonna
15:18
Speaker 1: start wobbling around, right exactly. Um. The thing is is
15:21
Speaker 1: that pressure, that force of torque is constant, so it
15:25
Speaker 1: eventually because I think procession is if you're throwing with
15:30
Speaker 1: your right hand, procession always comes on in a counterclockwise motion.
15:35
Speaker 1: The torque turns, It turns the boomerang to the sides,
15:39
Speaker 1: which is why it eventually comes back around to you horizontally.
15:43
Speaker 1: That's what lays it down, and it also brings it
15:46
Speaker 1: in an arc that forms a circular path that comes
15:49
Speaker 1: back to you. It's all gyroscopic precession. And it's because
15:54
Speaker 1: the boomerang, this little simple stick that's basically one crescent
15:59
Speaker 1: shaped piece of wood, turns into a gyroscope that that
16:03
Speaker 1: turns on three axis all at once. Yeah, all on
16:08
Speaker 1: one throw. And so it goes from straight it goes
16:11
Speaker 1: from stationary being straight up and down to spinning and
16:14
Speaker 1: curving around an arc back to you at a hundred
16:18
Speaker 1: kilometers an hour, all because you tossed it correctly. Yeah.
16:22
Speaker 1: And the the design, I mean, there are many, many
16:25
Speaker 1: different designs of boomerangs. Um, Like I said, they can
16:28
Speaker 1: have two wings, three four, you can look like crawl
16:32
Speaker 1: and and have blades attached to them. Because there is
16:35
Speaker 1: something called a battle boomerang. Yeah, um man, that's that
16:39
Speaker 1: seems dangerous. Yea, it seems totally dangerous. I'll bet you
16:41
Speaker 1: can find that at like a head shop somewhere next
16:43
Speaker 1: to like a dragon pewter statue or something. You're probably
16:47
Speaker 1: the deal you can bind together for cheaper. Um. Some
16:51
Speaker 1: of them do. Some of them have what's called turbulators though,
16:53
Speaker 1: which are can be a little bumps and pits on
16:55
Speaker 1: top which can increase the lift even more. And uh,
16:59
Speaker 1: I read an interview with one boomerang builder, and he
17:02
Speaker 1: was like, you can't. You know, I'm sure like NERF
17:04
Speaker 1: can with their their you know, soft ones, but like
17:07
Speaker 1: a true large three ft wooden boomerang, he said, you
17:10
Speaker 1: can't computerize these and build them like they kind of
17:13
Speaker 1: need to be handcrafted and thrown and then tweaked and
17:17
Speaker 1: then thrown so you get it just right. And I
17:20
Speaker 1: saw um one of the U S Boomerang team guys
17:23
Speaker 1: demonstrating on video and he just put like a rubber
17:26
Speaker 1: band on his two I guess adjust it. So that
17:30
Speaker 1: makes sense, yeah, because you know, like if you're if
17:32
Speaker 1: you have a ceiling fan or something like that, you
17:35
Speaker 1: can add weights or something to stabilize it. That kind
17:38
Speaker 1: of thing. Yeah, Or when you get a when you
17:40
Speaker 1: get your tires and start installed in your car, you know,
17:43
Speaker 1: they put those little on those lead weights they to
17:46
Speaker 1: uh what's it called align it? Yeah, to align it
17:49
Speaker 1: they put on that machine and if it's wobbling, they'll
17:51
Speaker 1: add the little weights. Yeah. I thought they thought there's
17:55
Speaker 1: a wizard in back. You're always in the waiting room
17:57
Speaker 1: drinking coffee and reading, browsing thelar making executer dragon statutes. No,
18:02
Speaker 1: it's kind of cool Actually, I think it's kind of cool.
18:04
Speaker 1: It's really kind of nerdy to watch your tires get aligned,
18:07
Speaker 1: to put it on the machine and spin it, and
18:09
Speaker 1: it's really kind of just like this, and they look
18:11
Speaker 1: at it and if it's if it's wabbling at all,
18:13
Speaker 1: they know exactly where to tap on these little weights,
18:16
Speaker 1: because yeah, you don't want your tires to be the gyroscope,
18:19
Speaker 1: not at all. You don't. That makes for unsafe driving.
18:22
Speaker 1: Uh So I guess we should after this message break
18:25
Speaker 1: teach you how to throw a boomerang. All right, you've
18:38
Speaker 1: got your boomerang. You're out in the field or on
18:41
Speaker 1: the beach. Beach is gonna be tough because wind is
18:44
Speaker 1: one of the forces that are going to act on
18:46
Speaker 1: that boomerang. There are five forces nervous force of gravity,
18:52
Speaker 1: the force caused by that propeller motion, the force of
18:55
Speaker 1: your throw, uh, force caused by uneven speed of the wing,
19:00
Speaker 1: and then the wind. And the guy that I watched
19:02
Speaker 1: throw on on YouTube um said that he liked to
19:06
Speaker 1: throw on with a slight breeze in his face. And
19:10
Speaker 1: he said that that Um, it depends on the angle
19:13
Speaker 1: at which you're going to release it, though, depending on
19:15
Speaker 1: how the wind, and there's a lot of trial and
19:16
Speaker 1: air involved, and it's yeah, apparently you you want wind.
19:20
Speaker 1: I couldn't figure out what the deal is with this,
19:23
Speaker 1: but um it somehow helps the boomerang move. But you
19:28
Speaker 1: have what's called an angle of attack, and that's basically
19:30
Speaker 1: how you orient yourself to the wind. The winds blowing
19:33
Speaker 1: in your face, you should turn and face. You don't
19:38
Speaker 1: want your shoulder now being hit by the wind, because
19:41
Speaker 1: that's ninety degrees. He turned a little bit to the right,
19:43
Speaker 1: so probably about like forty five degrees, and that's what
19:46
Speaker 1: you throw too, So you're throwing at an angle to
19:50
Speaker 1: the direction the wind is coming in. Yeah, but this
19:52
Speaker 1: guy kind of worked it out like he threw the um,
19:55
Speaker 1: you know, he kind of measured the wind. Uh, you know,
19:57
Speaker 1: did the old finger test. Yeah, and he said, I'm
20:00
Speaker 1: gonna angle myself a little bit to the right and
20:03
Speaker 1: I'm gonna throw it. And he said, and it should
20:05
Speaker 1: land just in front of me. It went behind him.
20:08
Speaker 1: And he was like, well, I was wrong, so I
20:10
Speaker 1: didn't have a good wind measurement, so let me angle
20:12
Speaker 1: a little bit more, and sure enough, the thing came
20:15
Speaker 1: right back to him. Nice. So it all depends on
20:18
Speaker 1: what angle against the wind that you throw that thing,
20:22
Speaker 1: Bob say, Oh man, I can't stand that guy, really,
20:27
Speaker 1: Bob Seeker. Yeah, I don't have anything against him, honestly. Yeah,
20:32
Speaker 1: that old time rock and roll song. I just turned
20:34
Speaker 1: that a song. That's his first piano keys. Yeah, I
20:36
Speaker 1: hate that song. Yeah, but overall I think Bob Seekers. Okay,
20:40
Speaker 1: he seems fine. He's a he's a working man. Yeah, yeah,
20:43
Speaker 1: turned the page baby. Oh yeah, I don't like that
20:45
Speaker 1: song either. I guess it's like against the wind, like
20:48
Speaker 1: a rock Oh. I hate that song, Hollywood Knights. That's
20:52
Speaker 1: a terrible song too. You hate Bob Seeker, No, but
20:54
Speaker 1: I don't mind against the Wind. Surely there's other Bob
20:57
Speaker 1: Seekers songs outre Bob, get in touch with us and
21:00
Speaker 1: introduced me to your catalog. That would be great if
21:04
Speaker 1: he was a listener. Actually, he's just got a single
21:06
Speaker 1: tier doing on his cheeks. All right, So where were
21:10
Speaker 1: we we are? All right? You're gonna hold the boomerang
21:13
Speaker 1: with the V with the elbow pointing towards you and
21:16
Speaker 1: the V pointing out away from you, and again up
21:18
Speaker 1: and down. It's vertically oriented. Yeah, vertically orient but at
21:22
Speaker 1: a slight tilt, like you don't want it completely straight
21:25
Speaker 1: up and down, but you're not throwing it like horizontally
21:27
Speaker 1: Like no, no, you're not gonna get very far that way. No.
21:30
Speaker 1: Actually it does go up and then comes back down
21:34
Speaker 1: in a loop. It basically does totally do something. Yeah,
21:37
Speaker 1: but interesting. Yeah, the thing is it's kind of dangerous,
21:41
Speaker 1: so you don't want to mess around with it. Yeah,
21:43
Speaker 1: I mean we should point that out. These things are
21:44
Speaker 1: you know, heavy and made of wood and they come
21:47
Speaker 1: you know you're throwing it hard. Well yeah, I mean
21:49
Speaker 1: let's cut to the chase. Apparently when you throw a
21:52
Speaker 1: frisbee or a boomerang, which are virtually interchangeable in my mind,
21:57
Speaker 1: but they're really not not at all. Um, you want
22:01
Speaker 1: to keep your eye on it at all times, and
22:03
Speaker 1: if you ever lose sight of it, you don't look
22:05
Speaker 1: around for it. You need to go take cover, cover
22:09
Speaker 1: your head and shout heads up and get everybody else
22:13
Speaker 1: to cover their heads too, because that thing can come
22:15
Speaker 1: back and collock somebody. Yeah, and that's if you haven't
22:18
Speaker 1: thrown it right. Like when I've seen the correct boomerang toss,
22:21
Speaker 1: it lands like a helicopter. Um, you know, straight up
22:25
Speaker 1: and down. So it's completely straight up and down. What
22:27
Speaker 1: what's the next step? All right, So you've got that
22:29
Speaker 1: v point pointing away from you, and you want putting
22:32
Speaker 1: at you. No, no no, no, the two the you want
22:35
Speaker 1: the point facing towards you and the be facing away
22:37
Speaker 1: from you, and you want It's super important this part
22:40
Speaker 1: is you want that flat side. Remember we talked about
22:42
Speaker 1: the airfoil. You want the flat side facing out so
22:46
Speaker 1: to your right. If you're a right handed thrower, if
22:49
Speaker 1: you don't do that right then you're you're not gonna
22:52
Speaker 1: have a good result. Yeah, you would only probably tilt
22:55
Speaker 1: it to the left of the wind if you're left handed.
22:58
Speaker 1: I would guess I don't know about that, Okay, I
23:01
Speaker 1: don't endorse that state. Okay. Um, So you're gonna hold
23:04
Speaker 1: it at the bottom of the wing, um like they
23:06
Speaker 1: say a pinch grip. The guy in the video called
23:09
Speaker 1: his a little pistol grip, like with two fingers and
23:11
Speaker 1: a thumb, and um, you want to snap your wrist
23:17
Speaker 1: when you throw it. And he didn't throw it super hard,
23:19
Speaker 1: like you don't have to really wing it. Yeah, he didn't.
23:22
Speaker 1: He didn't sound like stephie Graff when he threw it
23:24
Speaker 1: or anything. Monica Sellis You mean I thought stephie Graft
23:28
Speaker 1: did that too? Was that Monica Sellis? There's a lot
23:30
Speaker 1: of grunters, but Monica Sellis she had it. That's who
23:35
Speaker 1: I meant. Then, but she got stabbed. Look what happened
23:37
Speaker 1: to her. Oh gosh, I thought that was stephie Graff too.
23:41
Speaker 1: Did you know stephie Graff and Andre Agasi are married? Yeah?
23:44
Speaker 1: Isn't that cute? It's adorable? Okay, you would be funny
23:47
Speaker 1: as if their kids were terrible at dinnis. They just
23:51
Speaker 1: trip over their rackets whatever. Um, Bob seekers their coach,
23:55
Speaker 1: that's right, he's they're bad mitten coach. All right. So
23:59
Speaker 1: you you are snapping your wrist. You're throwing it basically
24:01
Speaker 1: like a baseball at a little slight angle, and you're
24:04
Speaker 1: gonna snap that wrist to give it the good spin. Um,
24:08
Speaker 1: you throw it vertically and hopefully it's gonna go out
24:13
Speaker 1: and up and curve around and then land back down
24:16
Speaker 1: fairly softly, somewhere close to where you are. And you
24:19
Speaker 1: don't want to try and catch it with your hand
24:21
Speaker 1: like in a cartoon. Well you can, but you want
24:23
Speaker 1: to clap your hands together on yeah, yeah, like, don't
24:28
Speaker 1: try and catch it like a frisbee. No, but I
24:30
Speaker 1: think if you are a boomerang throwing person, you are
24:33
Speaker 1: trying to catch each one. Oh yeah, yeah, but you're
24:36
Speaker 1: a one hand and it's you clap it together, you
24:39
Speaker 1: trap it in between your two hands. Yeah. And if
24:41
Speaker 1: you're catching a frisbee like that, then God help you. Yeah,
24:44
Speaker 1: you're gonna get laughed at. But it's safe to It's
24:47
Speaker 1: just you don't really have to be worried about it. Frisbee,
24:50
Speaker 1: it's super safe. Uh. I don't think I have anything else?
24:54
Speaker 1: Is that it? Well, just one other thing. Um. When
24:57
Speaker 1: I said that it's spinning around three axes. If were
25:00
Speaker 1: impressed with that, prepared to have your mind blown even more.
25:04
Speaker 1: It's spinning around three axes to lay down flat from
25:09
Speaker 1: the torque. It's also spinning around an additional three axes
25:13
Speaker 1: to follow that arc in a giant circle and come
25:16
Speaker 1: back to you. So technically a boomerang when you throw
25:20
Speaker 1: it is spinning on six different axis from the point
25:23
Speaker 1: of release to the point of landing. Wow, you're not neat.
25:27
Speaker 1: It's pretty neat. Yeah, it's neat. And like this is
25:29
Speaker 1: one of those things where people were throwing these things
25:32
Speaker 1: long before we knew anything about how they actually worked.
25:35
Speaker 1: People figured them out, and then science came along afterward
25:38
Speaker 1: and said, oh, well, this is how it works, but
25:40
Speaker 1: this stuff is so complex. Really kind of exposes that
25:45
Speaker 1: moment in science where you're like, I kind of have
25:47
Speaker 1: to have faith in this because I understand it so
25:51
Speaker 1: thinly that I just have to have faith that this
25:53
Speaker 1: is correct. And it's almost virtually the same thing as saying, well,
25:58
Speaker 1: the there's the gray wizard is the one who's moving
26:01
Speaker 1: it around in an invisible circle back to you because
26:04
Speaker 1: he wants you to prosper and not have to make
26:06
Speaker 1: a boomerang every time. Virtually the same thing at this
26:09
Speaker 1: point in my understanding. Yeah, they're a great teaching tool
26:12
Speaker 1: as well. Um, I imagine if you're trying to teach
26:14
Speaker 1: physics in gyroscopic procession, then the problem is everybody, almost
26:18
Speaker 1: everybody I saw, except for the Japanese paper I think
26:22
Speaker 1: it was titled what makes a Boomerang come Back? Um,
26:26
Speaker 1: we're just terrible at explaining it. They understood everything, but
26:29
Speaker 1: they could not explain it in anything approaching Layman's terms.
26:32
Speaker 1: You know, I read a popular science article. Um, I
26:36
Speaker 1: think it's called the Science of Boomerangs. That was pretty good.
26:39
Speaker 1: Wish you would have sent that to me because I've
26:41
Speaker 1: been agonizing over this for many, many, many, many many hours.
26:45
Speaker 1: I just figured you had your Japanese sources and we're good.
26:48
Speaker 1: It was in English too, well, of course it was,
26:51
Speaker 1: uh because gen Japanese. So good. Uh. If you want
26:56
Speaker 1: to know more about boomerangs, you can look up stuff
26:58
Speaker 1: all over the web. But why not star at our
27:01
Speaker 1: website how Stuff works dot Com. It's type that word
27:03
Speaker 1: in the search bar and it will bring it up.
27:06
Speaker 1: And since I said search bar, it's time for listener mail.
27:12
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna call this I split Atoms for a Living,
27:15
Speaker 1: So you know we're on the wrong track already. Yeah,
27:18
Speaker 1: we're going to be corrected. Uh yeah, but he's very
27:21
Speaker 1: nice about it. I split Atoms for Living at a
27:22
Speaker 1: nuclear power plant. So I was really excited that you
27:24
Speaker 1: did a podcast on nuclear science topic. Um. You guys
27:28
Speaker 1: really did a great job actually of breaking down a
27:30
Speaker 1: topic and making it accessible to a wide audience. Something
27:33
Speaker 1: I personally feel that organizations involved with new nuclear technology
27:37
Speaker 1: tend to struggle with a little bit Um anyway, I'm
27:40
Speaker 1: running in with a correction. You sayd that nuclear fission
27:43
Speaker 1: reactions involved the electromagnetic force, while nuclear fusion reactions involved
27:48
Speaker 1: the strong nuclear force. I remember saying that both of
27:52
Speaker 1: these reactions actually get their energy from the same strong
27:55
Speaker 1: nuclear force. In both cases, if you were to measure
27:57
Speaker 1: the mass of the material before the reaction compared that
28:00
Speaker 1: to the material after the reaction, you would find that
28:02
Speaker 1: there's less because some of the strong nuclear force holding
28:05
Speaker 1: the atoms together was released his energy. The difference in
28:08
Speaker 1: the energy release pretty much comes down to how much
28:11
Speaker 1: of this mass was converted divided by the mass of
28:14
Speaker 1: the atoms involved. Hey, let's see. The thing is is
28:17
Speaker 1: like that makes total and complete sense if you think
28:20
Speaker 1: about it. Sure that that makes it irritating that we
28:23
Speaker 1: got it wrong. Uh. Since adams um good for fusion
28:26
Speaker 1: are much lighter than adams good for fission, their reactions
28:29
Speaker 1: are a bit stronger. Reactions which involve the release of
28:32
Speaker 1: stored electromagnetic energy are actually all of the reactions that
28:36
Speaker 1: involve electrons, which includes chemical reactions, Since this is a
28:40
Speaker 1: much weaker force. That's why there are such a huge
28:42
Speaker 1: energy difference between burning coal and nuclear energy. As you
28:45
Speaker 1: pointed out, the podcasts millions of times more potent. So
28:49
Speaker 1: thanks again guys. Looking forward to the next one, and
28:51
Speaker 1: that is Jeffrey Hausiman from He's a reactor engineer in Zachary, Louisiana.
28:58
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. What's his name again, Jeffrey, Jeffrey.
29:01
Speaker 1: Appreciate that we love hearing from experts in the field. Uh.
29:06
Speaker 1: If you're an expert in your field and you want
29:08
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29:11
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29:20
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29:23
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