Latest / Stuff You Should Know / The Stuff You Should Know Doin’ Science Playlist: Elastics: Where God and Science Smooch

Transcript

The Stuff You Should Know Doin’ Science Playlist: Elastics: Where God and Science Smooch · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Hey there, it's Josh and it's my turn finally, and
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: I hope you're enjoying our doing science playlists so far.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Up next, we have our twenty seventeen episode on elastics.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: It's one of those episodes like Ballpoint, pens or Zippers,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: where the topic sounds super boring but it actually turns
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: out to be super interesting, And this episode, as a bonus,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: has a surprising amount of discussion on pirates for a
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: show on things that snap back.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: When you pull them.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Enjoy feeling your brain in large.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: Welcome to you Stuff you Should Know from HowStuffWorks dot com.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Charles W. Chuck Bryant, There's Jerry. This is Stuff you
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Should Know. The Sick Edition, the annual sick Edition. You
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: aren't well, friend, No, And it really stinks too, Chuck,
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: because like I like to think that I take pretty
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: good care of myself. So to be able to be
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: felled not once, but twice in just a few months
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: by some stupid bug, it's irritating to me.
• 1:14
  Speaker 4: I know, you get mad every time you get sick, though,
• 1:17
  Speaker 4: just so you know I do.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: I hadn't noticed that Actually.
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: My wife is the same way. Well it's not fun,
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: I know, but she gets like kind of yeah, you
• 1:27
  Speaker 4: both get a little angry like why did this happen
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: to me? I get more pitiful, like, oh somebody helped me.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Oh I've got that going on too.
• 1:36
  Speaker 4: Listen to this. So does that mean people have the
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: next like eight episodes to look forward to?
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: This? Or no? No, man, no way, this is it.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: This is it right here. I think actually, yesterday might
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: have been the worst day.
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: Oh well good, yeah.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: I mean today was a close second, but we'll find out. Yeah,
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: it is bad. I gotta be a pro, man, I
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: gotta I gotta get.
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: Well, the show must go on.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: So today, Chuck Charles, we're talking elastic. Yeah, did you
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: know much about this? No?
• 2:15
  Speaker 4: I thought this is actually super interesting. And it also
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: contained two uh, what we like to call dinner party
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: factoids that people can bust out.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: We need a jingle that says that so we can
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: play it when when it comes up.
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean there's lots of cool stuff in here.
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: And please don't correct us on factoid because.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, man, that's so two thousand and nine, Yeah,
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: and eleven maybe.
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: Exactly, but yeah, two really cool facts in here that
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: I think people can just keep in their hip pocket.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Okay, are you good? So until we get a jingle made,
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: I'll bet Noel will make one for us. But until
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: we do, maybe you should you want to practice one.
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: Geez, what's a good dinner party jingle? It should it
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: should be like wine glasses and plates and forks and
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: things clinking.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: Right, and then maybe like this Orwellian voice going duner
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: party factor.
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, here we are eight years in, still evolving.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a work in progress. Okay, so we're talking
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: elastic chuck. Uh huh. I didn't know that much about
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: it either. In this article written by one William Harris,
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: good one, Yeah it is. It makes a pretty good
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: point that it's just one of those things and specifically, say,
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: like a rubber band, you just kind of think it's
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: always been around, and you know you've always you just think,
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: like you know, elastic waistbands have been around for eons.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: It was basically the second thing discovered after fire, is
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: what I've always thought, Yes.
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: Today, since Adam first popped eaves bra strap.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: Right, it's been around. Yeah, you'd think that's actually not
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: the case at all. It's elastic itself and elastic, we
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: should say is basically any rubber, natural or synthetic thread
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: woven with another kind of fabric usually like say cotton
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: or nylon or whatever that produces a stretchy fabric that's elastic, right.
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Like I think a lot of people don't even
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: realize if they took their underwear waistband. Don't do this
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: because then you ruined it. But maybe if you have
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: an old pair, if you just kind of cut it,
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: you would see these these little elastic threads. It's all
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: it is. Yes, sure, little rubber bands.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Or or you could go to like a thrift store
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: or something, buy a pair and then cut those.
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: If you're buying a thrift store underwear, then I don't know,
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: I wouldn't recommend that. Yeah, I don't think they even
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: slid Actually they do what really? Yep used underwear?
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: Yes?
• 4:45
  Speaker 4: Wow, so ten percent skid free.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: That's probably. That's gotta be one of the more difficult tasks.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: It's like getting those things just prepared for resale, you know. Yeah,
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: I don't want to be unprepared for resale duty today. Anyway,
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: when you do, if you cut it open, if you
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: look very closely, have you ever done this. Have you
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: ever seen like an elastic waistband come come loose? Sure
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: as you've got. If you look really closely, you can
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: be like going to like the little threads that are
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: sticking out, because some just hang limp and loose. That's cotton.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: Nobody cares about that. But the ones that are just
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: kind of still sticking out a little bit and you
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: can throw them though, that's the that's the rubber or
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: natural or synthetic rubber that that gives that elastic its stretchiness.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: And again, this is a fairly recent invention, especially if
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: you're talking about waistbands for underpants.
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and especially if you're talking about elastic. That really
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: kind of worked. There were two sort of dives into
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: making elastic, and one quite a long time ago, and
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: then one more recently that obviously worked much better. And
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: basically the reason it worked much more better more recently
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: is better techniques to making rubber and then better techniques
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: changing that rubber into something that you could actually use,
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: like in a waistband.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: Right exactly. But we've known about rubber for a very
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: long time since well, I should say those of us
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: in the West have known about it for a very
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: long time. Those indigenous peoples of the Amazon have known
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: about it even longer.
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: But I interrupted. You were talking about waistbands.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: Oh okay, so yeah, so with underwear, waistbands in particular, right, Yes,
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: apparently humans have felt shame for thousands of years because
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: the oldest pair of underwear, identifiable underwear are seven thousand
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: years old.
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: And he bought them at Goodwill right last week.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so these this underwear. Originally, well even before that,
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: I should say, there was something called breechcloth, and that
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: was just basically strips of leather that just kind of
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: hung down and covered you junk, maybe kept the gnats
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: out that kind of thing, right.
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: Or kept them in.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was your thing. Probably catch some and those
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: are even older than the first underwear, which would be
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: considered a loin cloth, yeah, of course, which is basically that.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: And there are loin cloths that are at least five
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: thousand years or seven thousand years old, and they are
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: basically in a linen diaper that is folded in a
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: certain way, worn by grown ups, including very famously most recently,
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: Gandhi used to wear a loin cloth everywhere. It was
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: called a dati. But it's a loin cloth, no matter
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: what you call it, that's right. So those stuck around
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: for quite a while in the West, and it wasn't
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: until basically the Middle Ages that someone said we can
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: do better than this.
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and they brought around these things that are that
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: were much longer than a loin cloth, most of them.
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: Kind of for my research, these braids b r ai
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: e s went below the knee even.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah. They were like a cross between a loincloth and jams.
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, sort of. It says here that they were lace
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: to the waist and legs, but there may be lace
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: under the waist, but they're also generally kind of rolled
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: over many times at the waist, right, I think, to
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: probably tighten it up a bit.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and everyone said, great, this is work.
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: For a while, I'm happy with this, and you know,
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: then it went a different way. We should do an
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: entire episode just on corsets. I know, there's a good
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: article on the site on it. But after Braisee, the
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: what's called the union suit was invented.
• 8:38
  Speaker 4: What dinner party fact.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: Okay, there you go, that's good.
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: I never knew. I thought it was called a union
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: suit because it had something somewhere along the line to
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: do with unions, but no. In fact, the word union suit.
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: Now we know them as long John's. Even though long
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: John's are generally two piece. The one piece union suit
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: is called that because it is one piece. It is
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: the union of a top and a bottom undergarment.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: Yep, that's right. It's a one piece long John with
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: a flap in the bottom. Uh. They usually button all
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: the way up front, from the growing up to the neck.
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: Do you have any of these?
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: I'm wearing a couple of pair right now. Obviously you
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: just can't see him because they're under my clothes.
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: Do you really have some?
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: No? I have Long John's. I've got these one called
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: the Silkies that work really well. Oh yeah, But I
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: don't have a union suit. No, do you? No?
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: I don't.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: Neymore.
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: My brother still Scott squares by the union suit. I
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: think he has the classic red. And then, of course
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: they famously have like you said, the it's either called
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: an access hatch. I've also seen them called a drop
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: seat or a fireman's flap.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw that too. Where you can see.
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: That, yeah, where you can unbutton your you know, because
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: generally you're wearing this out in the cold so you
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: don't want to strip down to the naked if you
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: want to go peepee or poo poo. Right, so you
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: just open the old access hatch in there you have it.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, now that see that to me makes sense in
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: the nineteenth century when the union suit was invented. Today, though,
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: it's like, I guess Scott just likes to add a
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: little panic to when he has to tinkle, like having
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: to get that flap open.
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: I think he's just a classicist, not classicist, a who's
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: someone who's into the classic things.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: Classicist.
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: Oh okay, that sounds like he doesn't like poor people.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: That's a classist. Oh okay, that extra makes a big difference.
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: Okay, he's a classicist.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: Then, yeah, yeah, okay, so you should tell him this.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: Here's another little sub dinner party factoid. Union suits were
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: originally invented for women from what I understand, all right,
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: and they were invented in response to the corset craze
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: because apparently courses were so out of hand. It was
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: basically like remember our footbinding episode.
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, so that's.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: Basically what women in Europe and the United States, in
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: the western country were doing with corsets. They were engaging
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: in what was amounted to footbinding, but with their waists right.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: They were literally deforming themselves right, using corsets. And there
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: was a Reformation movement against the corset and against that
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: look and what it's fall and ultimately was the union suit,
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: which were so great that mem were like these are
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: ours now, right.
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we should do one corsets. I assume that they
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: did this because men were like, no more of an
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: hour glass?
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, And I think that's where the Reformation came
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: out of, like, just shut up, men, do you have
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: any like we're disfigured now thanks to you idiots?
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: Well, I hate to pack another dinner party fact right
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: next to the other one, but that's kind of where
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: we are. So my second factoid that you should bring
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: up next time you're among friends, or next time you
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: see an injured friend perhaps is if they're using an
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: ace bandage, ask them what it stands for, and they'll say, uh, well,
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: what do you mean? But it, in fact is in
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: an acronym. Correct, yes it is, And what does it
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: stand for?
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: All cotton elastic ace ban.
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: All caught an elastic bandage. I never knew that until today.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: And it's been around since nineteen eighteen apparently that the
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: three M company introduced it. Amazing and so so, okay,
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: you've got an ACE bandage, which is essentially an elastic
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: waistband used to keep Shack's elbow in place.
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: Right, Shaquille O'Neill, Yeah, all right, what your one think?
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: This is? What's what's crazy is this is nineteen eighteen
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: that that three AM introduced the ACE and it took
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: until the forties before somebody thought, why don't we just
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: like attach like underpants a loincloth to that and as
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: we pull it up, snap it in place and be like,
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: oh baby, modell.
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: I guess because I mean the only thing I can
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: think of is because they were tying them and they disfigured,
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: well that works pretty well for now.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess, you know. I mean, that's what that's
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: what William Harris says. He says it was basically a
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: sort of fashion inertia. That's everything was fine, like you
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: could use buttons or ties or something like that and
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: keep it in place, so who cares. But it's just
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: so much easier to pull up your underpants, snap them
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: in place, and go, oh baby.
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: That's right. But regardless of what you're talking about here.
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: These fabrics, including elastic, are made with a loom. And
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: if you've ever seen a loom at work.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: Or at work, yeah, it's amazing to want to come
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: into work. You're like, what the hell is this loom
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: doing here?
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: Well, not at your job, but you know.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: I know, to me, sure that was just being a wise.
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: Have you ever seen a loom doing its thing? It's
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: pretty impressive. And what I mean it's really not that
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: complicated either. Basic. All it's doing is allowing these lengthwise
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: threads to be interlaced with with with wise.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: Threads the warp in the weft.
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, which is not a bad band name, by the way.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: No, it's not especially like like proto folk.
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well that's exactly what it would be.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: Mm hm.
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: That would be at least three guys wearing vests in
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: that band for sure. That may have been woven with illum.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah right, you know, and maybe uh pocket watches with
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: the chains.
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: Oh totally.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: But that's all illom does. It goes, you know, it
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: allows this interlacing to take place, and that's what's happening
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: with elastic. It just takes the place of the yarn
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: and it's it's uh.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: Well part of the yarn, half of the yarn, or
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: a portion of the yarn.
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: Well, yeah, because in the in the case of a
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: waste band, you're obviously introducing other fabrics as well, like
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: cotton probably or something else.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's the case with any elastic. Elastic is
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: again it's it's a type of fiber woven together with
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: some sort of rubber and to create this new, stretchy,
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: resilient fabric that's elastic.
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: You want to take a nose blow break.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: I die here, Thank you, Charles, Sure, all right, we're back.
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: You good.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I should say also, like I keep hammering home
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: what the definition of elastic is. Then we're talking about
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: elastic waistbands, and that's what you think of typically. But again,
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: any fabric with fiber of one type and rubber woven
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: to the other is elastic, and that has tons and
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: tons of uses. Oh sure, Like bungee cords are elastic, right, Uh,
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: you know everything else that's like that, it's like elastic.
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: Well, you know in your socks a lot of times
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: that they'll be I mean, there's elastic and you know,
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: we'll get to spandex later, but that that stuff is
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: in many, many, many garments that you wear today. You
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: mayn't realize that you have the stuff in your clothing, right,
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: everything from the the neck of your shirt perhaps too,
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: maybe the tongue of your shoes sometimes. Yeah, fancy shoes
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: will have elastic in them.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: Those jeans that you wear to Thanksgiving dinner, they have
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: an elastic waste.
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: Oh, I know what your jeans you're talking about. I
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: don't wear those.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: They're pleated jeans, which is just weird looking to.
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: Just wear buttonflies.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so you just go, pop.
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: Yep, pop a couple out. You're all set.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: That's right. You can stuff a lot a lot of
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: extra bits in there.
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: All right, So let's should we get in the way
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: back machine a bit and go back to the eighteenth
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: then I guess the nineteenth and eighteenth centuries. Huh, yeah,
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: all right, we're pirates.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: Oh man, I'm glad you brought that up. I read
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: this really interesting article. I found it on I think
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: on long form, but it's from the National Endowment for
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: the Humanities like magazine website. And this guy wrote an
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: article about how just thoroughly we misunderstand pirates and how
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: our conception of pirates took place basically in one decade
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: between seventeen I think twenty six and thirty six, and
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: everything we think of as pirates is crammed into that
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: ten years. Everything before and after is totally different from
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: our conception of pirates, and that they were actually very
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: frequently they were just sailors who would go attack like
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: a vessel in the Indian Ocean for one big haul
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: and then flee to the colonies and buy a bunch
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: of pigs and set up a farm and live as
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: like upstanding citizens from that point on. And some of
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: them were like lieutenant governors. It was a really interesting
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: article that I recommend tremendously.
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: Obviously, did we not cover that in our Pirates episode
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: eighteen years ago?
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: No, we wouldn't have known that. This is a brand
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: new article. I'm sure we just totally fell for everything, right,
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: And apparently that's it's not we like, that's not our
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: fault that this guy's article and idea is pretty new.
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: It's just one of these things historically everyone kind of
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: bought in on. Interesting. Yep, to me, that way, you
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: got it, all right. So we're talking pirates here, and
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: not just pirates, but sailors explorers basically anyone who got
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: on a ship in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds, early
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: eighteen hundreds and went exploring. Yeah, and they you know
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: what they did was they would go off and find
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: things that they didn't have in their home country. Say,
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: oh my god, what is this? Let me bring it back.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and cinnamon remember cinnamon episode.
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, that's a great example. But one of the
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: things they found in Central and South America was what
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: the French called kouchuok nice and it's an Indian term
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: meaning weeping wood, and it's basically what they're talking about.
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: Are is it an actual rubber tree?
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: Yep? Hey via brazilansis the rubber tree which literally oozes
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: milky latex?
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, naturally.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And the earliest sailors that encountered the indigenous natives
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: of the Amazon were like, what's that stuff you're like
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: putting out on your outerwear and it's keeping the rain out?
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: Or what's that weird flexible bottle you're using? And they
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: explained it to them and those guys said, awesome, you
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: know who love this, my fellow Europeans. So they took
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: it back with them.
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: And then they said, and what are those awesome drugs
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: that you give us in liquid form every night after dinner.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: They said, oh, yeah, Huska.
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and they went, we'll take some of that home.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: Too, Yeah, can we get it to go bag of
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: that stuff?
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: So, yeah, they they were already using the stuff because
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: they found out when when it was dried out, basically
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: you could use it for a lot of things, like
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: you said, bottles, shoes, just like this, you know, flexible
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: rubbery material.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right, so everything's hunky door. This is a brand
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: new thing. Europe's starting to go crazy for it. But
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: what they figured out pretty quickly was that you you
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: couldn't do a lot with it. Right. As we'll find
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: out later, rubber has an unusual natural chemistry, and it
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: just so happens that in the normal range of temperatures
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: outside of the tropics, it can tend to fall apart
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: pretty easily. Yeah, it has a narrow range of temperatures
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: that that allow its usefulness. Right, So once you take
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: it up to above the equator to say, like Europe
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: or the United States or whatever, and they did, they
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: thought it was great. They thought it was terrific. People
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: went crazy for it. Joseph Priestley actually came up with
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: a dinner party factoid that I'm sure you'd love to share.
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: Uh oh which one?
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: Oh you didn't, This wasn't one of them.
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: No, I blew mine on the two.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: Joseph Priestley, who was very famous chemist, Jason Priestley's triple
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: great uncle. We'll say we.
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: Made that same joke in the anesthesia episode.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: I'll bet we did, because yeah, that's where he popped up.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: That's right, thanks for that. Oh and the nitrous oxide one. Yeah, yeah,
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: so he got his hands on some of this because
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: everybody's like, he's the only chemist alive, right now, give
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: it to him. And he's like, you know what, this
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: is amazing. I'm writing in pencil and then I'm rubbing
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: this this late text Khachuk, and it's rubbing out the
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: pencil marks. And that gave rise to the term rubber.
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: Oh that's how the name, yeah came around.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: Yep, from rubbing, from rubbing out pencil marks, erasing rubber.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: Interesting because remember the British loved to change everything with
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: an error on the end, Like soccer is actually shortened
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: association football, like a soccer became soccer right there? You rubber.
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: That's pretty interesting. I don't know how I screwed it
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: past that one.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: I love that one.
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: So it became a big deal, and everyone you know
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: that had a little money to invest thought, hey, we
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: can make a lot of dough with this stuff. We
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: can transform that into something useful, like, let's say, in
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: a garment. But like you said, they had this problem
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: that it was a very narrow range of temperatures where
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: they could find it useful. So a couple of dudes
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: started working on it. We've talked about mister Charles Goodyear before.
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: We talk about him and I don't know, but I
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: mean definitely the Goodyear Blumps episode. But it seems like,
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: do we not do one in vulcanization.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: I don't remember. I was looking up rubber or something
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: because some of the stuff in the extra source that
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: I sent you was kind of like talked about this before.
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we haven't done this entire episode, have we?
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: No? Definitely not? Okay? If so, then I really am
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: just totally out of my mind.
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: So Goodyear was one. He was working in the US,
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: and then another guy named Thomas Hancock, an English inventor,
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: partnered with a dude named Charles McIntosh and they started
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: making raincoats basically, yeah, the Macintosh, the classic McIntosh.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And so Charles Thomas Hancock was already pretty well
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: situated to he was already working on it, right, Yeah,
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: But Charles Goodyear had that breakthrough first. And it was
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: actually a really big deal that he had this breakthrough
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: because in the early eighteen thirties, Charles Goodyear became obsessed
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: with cracking the rubber coat. He just knew it could
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: be used to be made into something useful, right, Yeah,
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: and he became so personally committed to it. He all
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: of his investors went away. He went into Debtor's prisons
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: so regularly he referred to it as his hotel. Six
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: of his twelve children didn't make it to adulthood. They
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: were just that poor oh man. They had to sell
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: their dinnerware. So he made plates for him out of rubber.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: It was really, really rough. So the idea that he
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: had this breakthrough was just enormously rewarding for him, right. Unfortunately,
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: as he was shopping this stuff around, this vulcanization process
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: or the vulcanized rubber, some of it fell into the
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: hands of Thomas Hancock and he reverse engineered it.
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and what he basically discovered was if you slow
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: cooked latex with sulfur, it could it could basically transform
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: rubber into a very durable material that it hardy under
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: all kinds of temperature ranges. It would always snap back yep,
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: well not always and forever, which we'll get to later too.
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: As you know, that waistband will sometimes leave you disappointed eventually,
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: that's why you end up buying new underwear. Well, one
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: of a couple of reasons you buy.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: New underwear, We take it to the thrift store.
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, But yeah, that is what vulcanization is. And
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: Hancock and Macintosh what they were doing. They didn't crack
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: that code first, but they they developed called something called
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: the masticator. Basically, they had been making elastic threads by
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: slicing it from rubber bottles and raw rubber, but there
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: was just so much waste. They developed this machine called
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: a masticator and it would basically chew up this rubber
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: and make it into meld it together and make it
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: into a big single sheet of material, which was really helpful. Yeah,
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: but they still had that temperature problem until a Goodyear
• 25:59
  Speaker 4: hit it.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: Right, and again they reverse engineered Goodyear's process went and
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: filed a patent on vulcanization.
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah, they could rip him off, like yes, yes, wow.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: Fully And apparently it was one of those ones like
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: the phone where Goodyear went to go file a patent
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: and found out that someone else had that Hancock had
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: just a few weeks earlier, so he took him to court.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: In order to settle, Hancock offered good Year fifty percent
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: of the patent to drop the lawsuit, and Goodyear said no,
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: and he lost the case and he died broke. Oh man,
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: But he was able to He was able to generate
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: enough royalties so that his kids were able to live
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: the good life thanks to him. But he Yeah, he
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: got ripped off for sure. And one other thing about
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: the about Charles Goodyear, the Goodyear Rubber or Tyre and
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: Rubber Company, he had nothing to do with it. They
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: named it after him in honor of him. Oh wow, Yeah,
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: I thought that was pretty cool.
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: You don't watch the TV show Shark Tank, do you?
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: I do not.
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: I think I've asked you that before. I you know,
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: the whole concept, right, is these people pitch their businesses
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: to them.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, surrounded by sharks swimming.
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: Well that's it now, they pitch them to the sharks,
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: and they either investor they don't. Everyone kind of knows
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: the show, but you I guess. But uh, I'm always
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: at home just yelling at these people when you know,
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: they'll offer up like twenty percent of their company and
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: then they'll get offered an investment from a shark for
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: you know, and say, but they want like forty percent,
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: and some of these people like turn around and walk away, which,
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: on one hand, I kind of respect that they don't
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: want to give away that much of their company. M hm.
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: But like I'm always just thinking, wouldn't you rather own
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: sixty percent of a twenty million dollar company than eighty
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: percent of a three million dollar company?
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: Like sometimes I think pride gets in the way with
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: these people. Sure, yeah, and they don't think about just
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: how big these people can make their company.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: Who's that company though, that that turned down a billion
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: dollars from either Google or Facebook and just kept at
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: it And now it's MySpace. No, I can't. It's one
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: of the big social media brands that you know of
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: that that now is just worth gobs more money than
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: oh really yeah.
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, you know, there's no recipe, like, sometimes
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: it is better to hold on to more of your
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: own company because if it gets big, then you own
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: that much more of it.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: But that's right.
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: I'm always kind of like, man, take the money now.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: And run, as Steve Miller suggested. Is you just Steve
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: Miller's a scientologist?
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: Is he really?
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Boy?
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: He went off on the Rock and Roll Hall of
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: Fame this year.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: Why did they not vote for nominating him?
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: No? No, no, he got inducted and like basically trash
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: them on his way in and out the door. Why oh,
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: you'll just have to read it. It's kind of too long
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: to get into. But they were none too happy. I
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: think he came across as just a really crabby old guy.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: Oh he didn't have like a point or anything.
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: No, he had points, but yeah, you'll just have to
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: check it out. I will. We're already getting sidetracked here.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: Oh we've been sidetracked baby. So when regardless of who
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: came up with it, even though it was Charles Goodyear,
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: once vulcanization was introduced to the world, all of a sudden,
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: all of these dreams of what you could do with
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: a flexible, durable material that can withstand tremendous pressure and
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: force and heat and cold too, which was a big one.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: All of a sudden, the whole world just opened up.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: And what was interesting, Chuck, was because it also dovetailed
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: with the Industrial Revolution, Brazil, which was the rubber tree
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: capital at the time, went from just being like this
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: kind of old world colony to basically being one of
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: the most important countries on the planet. And it all
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: like virtually within a year or so.
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And that was true, jeez for a long time
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: until about the mid to late about eighteen seventy six,
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: when these British businessmen said, I'm gonna sneak these rubber
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: tree seeds out, take them back to England, and we're
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: going to see if these things grow in Southeast Asia,
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: where we have a lot of British colonies. And it
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: turns out it did, and just about thirty five years later,
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: the center of the global rubber market shifted to Malaysia,
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: Singapore and Sri Lanka. As British are thieves in this one,
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: so they kind of like totally ripped that off. Yeah,
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: and Southeast Asia was the dominating rubber capital of the world.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: Which was way better for the Brits and the Americans
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: because we're friends with the Brits, because that meant that
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: these were British colonies, which meant that the access to
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: this rubber was basically unfettered. Yeah, there were no trade deals.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: You didn't have to whine and dine a prince or
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: a king or anything like that. You could just be like,
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: we need more rubber please, yeah, which is I think
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: how they would order probably. So, so everything's going hunky
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: dory at least as far as the British and Americans
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: are concerned. The rubber supplies being fulfilled thanks to Malaysia, Singapore,
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: Sri Lanka. And it came at no too soon a
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: time too, because the automobile was introduced around this time,
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: the mass produced automobile, we should say, and those needed
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: four good tires made of rubber.
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah. And then World War Two really really increased the
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: need for rubber. I think here it says that in total,
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: the Pentagon said that they needed thirty two pounds of
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: rubber for every single ground troop in one way or another. Right,
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: That's amazing.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's why it was such a big deal
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: that the Japanese invaded the Pacific because the Pacific theater
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: featured those countries that were the rubber producing capital of
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: the world that had been under British control, and now
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: all of a sudden, no rubber supply was either cut
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: off or in danger. So the United States, led by FDR, said, Hey,
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: four biggest rubber companies, we're gonna get together and we
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: need to come up with a synthetic rubber too sweet,
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: So let's get on it. We're all gonna split the
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: patent evenly, and let's get to work. And in eighteen
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: months they had come up with a synthetic rubber.
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: Amazing yep. And we'll get to synthetics a bit more
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: in a minute. But jumping back to the mid eighteen hundreds,
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: the story of the rubber band is pretty interesting. These
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: two chaps, Stephen Perry and Thomas Barnabas Daft great name TBD,
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: actually invented the rubber band, the modern what we know
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: is the rubber band because they started slicing these They
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: had a rubber tube and started slicing these narrow rings
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: from a vulcanized rubber tube and they were like, here
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: you go. It's called a rubber band. You can put
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: it around your asparagus. Yeah, and everyone was super psyched.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: Except people who hate us fergus. That was a good one, man. Uh.
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: And today they still kind of do it in the
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: same way. Rubber band wise, they create this. They mix
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: us latex together with all these chemicals. It depends on,
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: you know, what kind of rubber band you're making. And
• 33:16
  Speaker 4: they get this raw rubber compound into a long hollow tube,
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: slip it over a round pipe called the mandrel, expose
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: that to high heat and pressure to vulcanize it. It
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: cures it, and then they slice that up into rubber bands. Yep,
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: pretty neat.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: It is pretty neat. You want to take a break
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: and then talk some more about how it's made.
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, right after this, all right, So we've been talking
• 34:11
  Speaker 4: about rubber in its most natural form and how they
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: transformed that into usable rubbers. Pretty remarkable. But immediately after
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: World War Two, like we were talking about, this creation
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: of synthetic rubber was probably the second biggest invention of
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: all time. Well maybe not of all time, it's up
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: there though, Yeah, but when it comes to stretchy things
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: for sure.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And apparently the World War two research and development
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: produced not just one, but three different types of easily
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: manufactured synthetic rubbers.
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: One was a beteddyinge rubber. Another was a styrene butted
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: diyinge rubber, and that was the one that the government
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: went with for World War two, and it was actually
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: ripped off from a German from the Germans, which they'd
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: come up with something similar previously. And then there's an
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: ethylene propylene monomer, and all three of those make up
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: most of today's synthetic rubbers.
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and they found that this stuff worked really really well,
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: just as good as natural rubber had all that flex resistance,
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: it didn't deteriorate eventually it would again I keep teasing
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: like we're going to get to that, which we will.
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: But they found it was really well suited to replace rubber.
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: Well in most applications like an industrial application like a
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: tire or a fan bell or something like that. But
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: it didn't have that resilience that natural rubber has, so
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: there was an issue still, there was a kink that
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: needed to be worked out.
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: Well. Yeah, as far as using it in textiles for.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: Sure, exactly. And they actually overcame it in nineteen fifty
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: nine by day, I mean DuPont Corporation, who employed two
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: chemists that got to work trying to crack this code,
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: the final code of synthetic rubber, how to make it
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: flexible and resilient. Right, that's right. And they started by
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: using a polymer, a polyurethane. Right. So well, we'll talk
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: about polymers in a little bit, but basically, they took
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: a polymer, a eurethane based polymer, and watered it down
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: and forced it through a plate with tiny little holes
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: in it. And what came on the outside were these
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: tiny little threads.
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: And those tiny little threads were a magical creation known
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: as Spandex, the trade name of which originally is Lycra.
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's amazing. And Spandex, they found, had a lot
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: of great applications. Namely, it could accept dyes, so it
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: wasn't just this sort of dull white color. You could
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: make it any color you wanted to, and you could
• 36:51
  Speaker 4: wash it. It didn't absorb a lot of moisture, and it
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: remained really stable when it was washed and dried, you know,
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: kind of normal moderate temperatures. So hey, you can make this,
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: weave it into clothing, throw it in the washer, diet
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: whatever color you want, and you're good to go.
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: And most importantly, chuck, it would snap back, it would
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: retain its original shape. That's right after being stretched. So, yes,
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: Spandex changed everything. I didn't realize it was from the
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: fifties Italy. Yeah, and William Harris makes a pretty good point.
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: He says that Spandex might be considered the modern elastic.
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: Like it is, it's basically the base of anything stretchy
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: that you use today.
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and it said here, we said it's in all
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: kinds of stuff. They said, it's in about eighty percent
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: of all clothing bought by Americans. So even if you
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: don't think Spandex is in something, it may have a
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: little Spandex in there.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: It's in eighty percent of all clothing bought by Americans.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: One hundred percent of all Spandex pants bought by Americans.
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: Think about that stat for a little while.
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's amazing.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, including jaggings, he points out, he calls them pajama jeans,
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: but I've always called them jaggings.
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: Oh is that the same thing?
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: I believe?
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: So yeah, interesting, we can hope. So Emily, when we
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: put them on her daughter, she calls him jazzy pants.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's a good one too.
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: But that's usually I think, usually due to the pattern
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: more than the snap back.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: Gotcha.
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: So we can sit here and procrastinate for several more
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: minutes if you want, but ultimately we're gonna end up
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: on the chemistry part, you realize.
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: Yes, And because I don't understand chemistry at all, take
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: it away.
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: We'll get you for this, chuck.
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: I'll throw in some words here and there.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: So I don't really know chemistry either, but I know
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: both of us crammed on this. Yeah, so forgive us,
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: all you chemists out there. If we get something wrong,
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: let us know. But from what we understand, it's magic. Yeah.
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: There you go the end. So, rubber, whether it's natural
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: or synthetic, is a polymer, yes, right, And it's a
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: specific kind of polymer called an elastomer. It's an elastic polymer.
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: It has stretchiness and resilience, it's flexible, And any kind
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: of polymer is basically if you look at the molecular
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: structure of it, it's made up of these long repeating
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: chains of the same unit over and over again, and
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: the units are called monomers, and depending on what the
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: monomer is, that leads to different kinds of polymers. And
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: with elastomers in particular. If you look at some polymers,
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: the structure is bulky and big and compact, and it's
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: rigid and heavy and not flexible at all. Still, other
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: kind of polymers, say like a plastic or a resin,
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: are crystalline and structure and they fit so well together.
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: They're also rigid and not very flexible either. Then you
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: have elastomers, which are a kind of polymer, and because
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: of their molecular structure, they are super flexible and they
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: snap back into place.
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and normally they're I mean they liken it to
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: this article like a coiled like a big mass of snakes. Yeah,
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: but they have this really neat quality, these elastomers. When
• 40:12
  Speaker 4: you apply force to it, the molecules actually straightened out
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: in the direction that you're pulling it, and that's sort
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: of the snapback you're talking about. But as soon as
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: you release it, it goes back to that coiled up arrangement.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: Right when you pull it, when you apply force, they
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: line up basically like those snakes head to tail in
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: one single long line.
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: It's a scary snake.
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And then when you release it, it goes back
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: into its original form of that coiled mass, right, perfect, Okay.
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: One of the reasons why any kind of rubber, natural
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: or synthetic, is flexible a flexible polymer is because it's
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: glass transition temperature is actually pretty low.
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, this is where i'd kind of just got foggy.
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: So this is it's as simple as this, chuck a
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: glass transition temperature. It's not a melting point. A melting
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: point is where the substance actually basically just turns into
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: a liquid state, a disordered liquid state. The glass transition
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: temperature doesn't affect the molecular makeup of the substance. Instead,
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: it basically applies this property, the flexibility or rigidity. It's
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: as simple as that, right, And so anything that has
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: a low glass transition temperature relative to what we have
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: is normal temperatures outside in the world or in our
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: homes or whatever, is going to be flexible and floppy.
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: Anything with a high glass transition transition temperature is going
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: to be rigid and hard and not flexible. So it's
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: just suffice to say anything rubber, whether it's natural or synthetic,
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: has a low glass transition temperature, so it's flexible under
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: normal temperatures. But even if you took a piece of rubber,
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: natural rubber, and you applied you apply the temperature of
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: negative seventy degrees celsius or negative ninety four degrees fairy height,
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: it would crystallize. It's below the glass transition temperature, so
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: it would just basically turn rigid and crystallize and ultimately
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: would break apart. And that was part of the problem
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: with those early pre vulcanized rubbers. They would fall apart
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: because the glass transition temperature is not like an exact
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: moment where the where the thing converts from flexible to rigid.
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: It's the median of a large thermal window where it
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: starts to get crystalline and rigid and then is completely
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: crystalline and rigid on the other end. So of course
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: you would think, you know, if you get down to
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: say twenty degrees like it would in Boston or New
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: York in the nineteenth century, and you're walking around with
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: rubber soled shoes, they're going to crystallize and break off, right,
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: That's what's going on, and all has to do with
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: the glass transition temperature.
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: Okay, So during vulcanization, they heat that up with sulfur
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: and that makes those polymer chains linked together with sulfur atoms.
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: I guess that's like almost like a glue.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Like it's like a molecular glue from what I understand.
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, it makes a lot of sense.
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so even when you apply intense heat or extreme cold,
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: it will maintain its molecular shape. Yeah.
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: But here's the thing I've been talking about why your
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: elastic band doesn't last forever and why your socks will
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: eventually be around your ankles. This elastic Eventually you will
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: lose that snapback due to ox oxidization. Oxidization oxidation, I
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: like oxidization natural rubber. This oxygen and in particular ozone
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: is going to start breaking those bonds within just days.
• 43:46
  Speaker 4: So it happens pretty quickly, and that's why we heat
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: and treat rubber like we do. But even still over
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: time that ozone and combine that with light UV radiation,
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: it's another culprit that's what's going to cause that to
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: eventually break down over time.
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: That would make sense because with vulcanization, what you're doing
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: is adding sulfur to the polymer, right, Yeah, and if
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: it would, it would make sense then that either UV
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: radiation or something else could break those bonds between the
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: sulfur and the other the other ingredients, and then they
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: would be replaced by oxygen, so oxidation would take place, right.
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so it's pretty much ozone UV radiation and then
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: cold actually does make a difference. It's not gonna hold
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: up quite as well on cold weather. Like if you
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: take if you take a pair of underwear out and
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: like you know, negative twenty degrees in Minnesota and you
• 44:42
  Speaker 4: start really stretching it out a lot, it's gonna it's
• 44:45
  Speaker 4: gonna lose its elasticity really fast.
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, anybody from Minnesota can tell you that.
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I mean, who know, they may have to buy
• 44:54
  Speaker 4: more underwear than like Hawaii. I have no idea.
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: They all wear Union suits up there.
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: Now, that's true.
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: So do you want to finish with Pat Benatar?
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: Oh? Man, let's bring her out.
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: Okay, he's gonna do an acoustic set.
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: Man, how great would that be.
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: So we did a little digging and we were trying
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: to figure out who basically started the eighties spandex rocker trend.
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: Ye spandex trend.
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: She was the first thing that came to my mind.
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: Oh really, Yeah, I just didn't know exactly how I
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: would have guessed.
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: It went back beyond Pat Benatar, And then I found
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: out that Pat Benatar has been a musician for much
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: longer than I realized. But apparently the whole thing happened
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: on Halloween of nineteen seventy seven. Awesome, And by this
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: time Pat Benatar was already like a pretty regular fixture
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: on the New York City club circuit. And so she
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: dressed up as a character from Catwomen of the Moon.
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: Have you seen that movie? H No, I haven't either,
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: but apparently cat Women on the Moon is a cult
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: classic sci fi movie, Okay, and I guess they wear
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: a lot of spandex. So she dressed up in some
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: a spandex get up and decided to play a show
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: that night at Catch a Rising Star, which is basically
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: her house club. You're in there? No, I haven't either.
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: Is it still around? I don't know, is it?
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: I think I know of it from like Comedy Central
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: in the nineties.
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that was the name of a show.
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: But I think it was from that club.
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: Oh was it filmed there?
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I think so. I could be wrong, but anyway,
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: she was used to playing shows there, but she played
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: the show in this get up, the spandex get up,
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: and noticed that the crowd was like into it a
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: lot more than usual.
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: Then they said wowie, wow, what's she wearing?
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: Pretty much, it was about as simple as that. She
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: she was like, Okay, let me try this. I want
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: to do a little experiment and I'm going to do
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: this again, but not on Halloween. I'm going to dress
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: up again and do the same show. And she didn't
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: got another response like way better than usual response. So
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: she's like, that's it. I'm doing Bandix from now on.
• 47:01
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: And then that was that. Nineteen seventy seven, Pat Benatar
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: starts the eighties Bandix rocker trend.
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: I would count that as the fourth dinner party factoid.
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say so too.
• 47:14
  Speaker 4: And if you want a fifth catch a Rising Star
• 47:16
  Speaker 4: is a chain of comedy clubs and was also a
• 47:19
  Speaker 4: TV series in Canada.
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: To Now you got anything else? Uh no, Well that's
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: it for Elastic everybody. If you want to know more
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: about it, type that word into the search bar HowStuffWorks
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: dot com and who knows what amazing things will come up?
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: That's right, And since I said search bar, it's time
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: for listener mate.
• 47:43
  Speaker 4: Uh yeah, I'm gonna call this short but kind of funny. Hey, guys,
• 47:48
  Speaker 4: quick and trivial email from a fan in Pittsburgh. I
• 47:51
  Speaker 4: too appreciated in your uh's the episode on body Snatching,
• 47:57
  Speaker 4: a live episode on Grave Robbie, I too appreciated how
• 48:01
  Speaker 4: cool Charlie Chaplin's Body robbers partner's name was Gancho Geneff.
• 48:07
  Speaker 4: And I tell you we did that show a few times,
• 48:10
  Speaker 4: and you and I never ceased to not crack up
• 48:12
  Speaker 4: at the words Gancho Ganeff. Sure it's still happening. Being Jewish,
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: I thought a little Hebrew Yiddish languages were involved, and
• 48:21
  Speaker 4: Ganev in fact does mean thief. Oh really, And then
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: he stretches it a bit. Then he says, guancho for
• 48:29
  Speaker 4: that matter, seems to be Spanish for hook like dance moves.
• 48:34
  Speaker 4: And he said Charlie Chaplin was a dancer. He said, so,
• 48:37
  Speaker 4: maybe that's a stretch on the second part, but it
• 48:39
  Speaker 4: seems as though Gancho Ganev was born just the old
• 48:41
  Speaker 4: Charlie Chaplin's body Wow. I'll give you props on the
• 48:46
  Speaker 4: Ganef part at least, And that is from B. D. Wahlberg,
• 48:50
  Speaker 4: And he said, ps, you might remember me from Pittsburgh
• 48:53
  Speaker 4: at your live show. I asked a question in the
• 48:57
  Speaker 4: Q and A about how you find new ways to
• 48:59
  Speaker 4: rip on the post office, and I still remember I
• 49:03
  Speaker 4: gave my Trader Joe's bag to somebody in the audience,
• 49:07
  Speaker 4: and that was BD. He still still have Chuck's Trader
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: Joe's bag hanging in my kitchen.
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: Nice man. Well, thanks a lot, b D. We appreciate it.
• 49:15
  Speaker 4: That was.
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: It would have been even more ironic had he been
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: referencing the DV Cooper episode.
• 49:21
  Speaker 4: Oh did you hear about the new info?
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: I did, and it actually makes a lot of sense
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: to me.
• 49:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, So for anyone that hasn't seen, they found some
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: actual new science that seems to indicate they found these
• 49:34
  Speaker 4: four elements in the tie that b dB Cooper wore.
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: And apparently these elements are very specific to work being
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: done by the Boeing company.
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: So it gives a lot of credence to the theory
• 49:48
  Speaker 4: that he was a Boeing employee.
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: And even more specifically because it was on his tie,
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: if he were like working the actual machines that were
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: manufacturing this thing, he would have been wearing like cover
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: all something, not a tie. So it indicates that if
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: he worked for Boeing, he would have been like an
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: engineer or a manager who would have been wearing a
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: tie on the floor while he was out there.
• 50:09
  Speaker 4: Like, I think this is like the biggest lead they've
• 50:11
  Speaker 4: ever had. I think so too, pretty amazing.
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know who's excited about it? Secret?
• 50:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah? Boy?
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: If you want to know what we're talking about, we
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: did a DV Cooper episode and this popped in. That's
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: right up.
• 50:24
  Speaker 4: It's a live episode that we hope will be available
• 50:28
  Speaker 4: to you.
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: So what else?
• 50:31
  Speaker 4: Oh? And actually, wow, boy, this is exciting. We just
• 50:34
  Speaker 4: got literally an email reply from BD because I said
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: we were going to be reading this and I think
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: this bears mentioning. What a day maker. Guys, if you
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: use a pronoun for me, I go by they and
• 50:47
  Speaker 4: them rather than.
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: He or she.
• 50:49
  Speaker 4: I know you're talking about because I am a non
• 50:52
  Speaker 4: binary listener. What up?
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: What up? B D. Thank you. It's good to hear from.
• 50:56
  Speaker 4: You, and I'd love to surprise my BFF Carlisle with
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: a great big audio high five.
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: Well I think that just happened.
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: Wow. All right, this is like real time correction slash
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: back and forth with BD.
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: Let's just see what happened. Email Obama real quick. We'll
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: sit here, Let's see what happens next. We're just gonna
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: take this for We're gonna take this ride.
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: All right. Well, thank you, b D.
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks a lot, b D. Good to hear from you.
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: All right, Well, if you want to get in touch
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: with us, you can tweet to us. I'm at Josh
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: Underscore Underscore Clark. You can also hit me up at
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: the official s y SK podcast handle. You can hang
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: out with Chuck on Facebook at Charles W. Chuck Bryant
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: and at stuff you Should Know. You can send us
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: both an email to stuff Podcast at HowStuffWorks dot com
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: and has always joined us at our home own the web,
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: stuff youshould Know dot com.
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: HowStuffWorks dot com