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Hey, Wowzer fans, Mindy here.
And before we start the show, I gotta let you know that this November, with a special new episode featuring our friends at Circle Round and Terrestrials on Radiolab for Kids,
And don't miss when Elmo from Sesame Street stops by Wow in the World to make us all belly laugh on November 24th.
Oh, but that's not all, Reg.
On December 1st, we are sharing our 250th episode of Wow in the World with all of you.
We think this one is going to be music to your ears.
Literally.
Did I mention it's a musical?
And if you're a member of the World Organization of Wowzers...
Oh boy, do I have a surprise for you.
You can listen to our 250th episode early with me and other members from around the world on Saturday, November 22nd, at 7 pm.
Eastern.
That's right, we are throwing another listening party.
Join us as we dance along to our new songs.
React to the episode with other members in the chat and more.
Grownups.
If you want your wowzer to join this members-only listening party, you can sign up to become a member today at Tinkercastcom.
Slash wow.
Already a member?
Well, you can find the link and password to join the event when you sign in at Tinkercastcom.
Slash wow.
That's it.
It's going to be a November to remember.
But for now, let's get on with the show.
Woo!
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We wow on the weekend.
We wow on the weekend.
We wow on the weekend.
Because this is what we do on the weekend.
Oh, wait, no, I said laughing twice.
Uh, whatever.
Wee-wow on the weekend.
Yeah!
Wee-wow on the weekend.
Clap, clap!
Wee-wow on the weekend.
Because this is what we do on the weekend.
Greetings and salutations, devoted listeners.
It is I, Dennis, your humble host, your master of ceremonies, your commander of commemoration.
Rajay!
I was just trying something, sheesh.
Okay, fine, take two.
Welcome to Wee Wow on the Weekend with me, Dennis.
And Reggie.
We're here in my basement doing weekend stuff, like hanging out in our pajamas, even though it's well past noon.
And today we've got a very special gift.
Boy, are you going to introduce me or not?
Grandma G-Force, I was just getting to you.
I was going to introduce you with a song.
Oh, well, that sounds nice.
Do it.
Okay.
Guest segment, the segment with the guest.
A guest comes on the show and just like the title suggests, we bring them out again.
Oh, no.
That's enough singing, boy.
We're all very impressed.
All right, all right, all right.
Welcome to Wee Wow on the Weekend, Grandma G-Force.
I don't know what that is.
Oh well, it's a very, very cool new show.
That's very cool where Reggie and I hang out on the weekends.
Okay.
And we talk about our favorite Tinkercast shows and interview celebrities like yourself.
And we, uh... Oh, right.
Thanks, Reggie.
And we answer questions from our adoring listeners.
Okay, I want to do that.
What?
I want to answer questions.
Hit me.
Oh, okay.
And now it's suddenly time for the Q&A segment.
The Q&A segment time.
Boy, don't you never stop saying.
All right, let's just get the old answering machine pulled up here.
Okay, here we go.
Hi, you've reached Dennis from WeWow on the weekend.
Is that you?
Do you have a question?
Well, I do too.
Lots of them.
And who's going to answer all my questions?
You?
Probably not.
But I guess I can answer yours.
Leave me a message.
Hi, Dennis.
My name is Miles, and my question is, where does water come from?
Where does water come from?
Good question, Miles.
Now, the answer is a little complicated.
Firstly, the water cycle can be... Get out of here.
It's not complicated.
Everybody knows water comes from the sink.
Oh well, I suppose that's true.
But And the toilet and the hose and those overpriced plastic bottles and the sprinklers when it's hot out?
Sometimes I drink out of them.
Huh.
That's, uh... Next question!
Hi, Dennis.
My name is Kate, and I'm from Virginia Beach, Virginia.
My question is, why is tree bark brown?
Why is tree bark brown?
Good question!
Grandma G-Force, do you know?
Well, Kate, First of all, I don't know why anything is anything.
That's very true.
Why are oranges orange?
Why are trucks loud?
Why are always frogs looking at me weird?
Oh, my.
Also, tree bark ain't always brown.
It ain't?
I mean, it isn't?
No, you got a tree in your backyard that's white.
I seen it with my own eyes.
Oh, yeah.
My birch tree.
Good snooping, Granny G. And in the park, there's a bunch of trees with green bark.
What?
Green bark?
You heard me.
Oh, you mean they're covered in moss so they look green.
Yeah, that's what I said.
Green bark.
Right.
Okay.
Thanks for calling, Kate.
Next question.
Hi, I'm Kenley from Fayetteville, Arkansas.
In my Good question.
And yes, Mindy always asks me to watch her sleigh cats.
My favorite is Miss Dixon.
Grandma G-Force, do you have a favorite sleigh cat?
No, those cats don't get along with my cats.
You have cats?
Yeah, Mr. Fluffy Pants is my cat.
Oh, cute.
And, of course, there's Mr. Colonel Toots Thunderpaw.
He's my cat and my landlord.
Oh, that's interesting.
Can I meet Colonel Toots Thunderpaw?
No.
All right, well, thanks for your calls, everyone.
If you've got a question for me...
Call and leave me a message.
The number is 1-888-7-WOW-WOW.
I just might answer your question on Wee Wow on the weekend.
Okay, that takes care of that.
Can I go now?
Yes, you can go.
And you're going to put my check in the mail?
What?
No, Grandma G-Force, there's no money.
What?
No money?
That's it, I want my money back.
No, I should have never.
I think that went pretty well.
And now it's time for Inside Tinkercast Studios.
Inside Tinkercast Studios.
This is the part where we revisit an episode of one of my favorite Tinkercast shows.
Today, we're revisiting a story from Wow in the World Season 1 called Your Shoelaces on G-Force.
Yes, Reggie.
That's why we had Grandma G-Force on today.
No, I don't think it's about Granny G's shoelaces.
Well, I think it's about everyone's shoelaces.
Yes, even your shoelaces.
I mean, that is when you wear shoes.
Oh, you're right.
This is a shoe-focused weekend.
Seriously, I think this makes us sneaker influencers now.
Should we change this show to be all about sneakers?
We could name it like...
We sneak on the weekend.
Oh, no, you're right.
That sounds like another snooping podcast idea.
Okay, let's listen to Your Shoelaces on J-Force.
Here we go.
And play.
Wow in the World will be right back.
Grownups, this message is for you.
Hey, grownups.
It's Mindy and Guy Raz here from Wow in the World.
Mindy and I have some problems.
Brand new WoW in the World toys out in the world, just in time for the holidays.
Made for the kids who love science and for the ones who don't.
From our 100 experiments, that wow kit to the telescope and astronomy kit.
Our wow in the world toys help your wowzer learn about their world through play.
Plus, you can hear exclusive audio content from me and Guy Raz to help your wowzer discover even more wows.
Grownups.
Give the gift of wow and wonder this holiday season with our latest wow in the world toys designed with your curiosity curious, wowzer in mind.
You can shop our Wow in the World toys at Tinkercast.com slash toys.
That's Tinkercast.com slash toys.
That's it.
Back to the show.
Wow in the World.
Two, three, four.
Uh, Guy Raz, why are you running in?
Mindy, I'm just going for a jog here, just trying out my new running shoes.
Yeah, I can see that.
It looks like you got yourself a pair of those five-toed heels.
Kind of make your feet look like foot fingers.
Why don't you just stick with regular shoes?
You know Mindy, I was wearing regular running shoes, but my shoelaces kept getting untied and I would have to stop and tie my laces again.
So
You know, I thought, well, I could just slip into these shoes with no laces.
Or, life hack, you can just tie them tighter like everyone else.
I'll even do it for you.
Well, surprisingly Mindy, over time it doesn't matter how tight you tie those shoelaces, because if you run in them they will eventually become undone.
Man, how does that happen?
Well Mindy, that was the very same question.
A team of mechanical engineers at the University of California in Berkeley asked
And they wanted to know why shoelaces become untied.
Time out!
So just to be clear, a mechanical engineer is the type of engineer that works with machines, not the type that operates a train.
Right,
Yes, exactly.
A mechanical engineer is a scientist that works on designing and creating and operating engineering and understanding how machines work.
So how did these engineers even begin to investigate how our shoes come untied?
Well, they started Mindy, by asking one of their colleagues, who's also a mechanical engineer, to start running.
Okay, so let me just make sure I've got this picture in my head.
So their colleague is running in circles around the science lab and the engineers are cheering her on and staring at her shoelaces.
Well...
Basically, yeah, but they also used a high-speed camera.
High speed?
Wait a minute, the camera was running too?
Uh, well, no.
It was just taking pictures?
Yeah, except this was a special camera, Mindy.
The kind of camera that takes more than 250 photos every second.
You're telling me that there's a camera that could take that many photos every single second?
Yeah, so every second I speak is like...
Man, that's a lot of pictures.
I mean, just think about it.
If you printed out every single one of those one-second photos, you could fill an entire swimming pool with your own selfies.
Well, possibly even more photos than that, Mindy.
But the good news is these were digital photographs, so they just live on a computer.
And by taking so many photos, the engineers were able to watch every single movement of the other engineers' photos feet and shoelaces as she ran.
Sounds riveting.
So what happened?
Well, over time they started to see in these photos that the knots on her laces were slowly getting looser.
But why?
Well, because every time the runner's foot hit the ground, it created such a powerful force, a force greater than seven times the force of gravity.
Ooh, time out, Guy Raz.
Let's imagine this in slow motion.
Nobody's got time to wait for that other shoe to drop.
So, Guy Raz, you were saying something about force of gravity seven times?
Yeah, it's a concept called G-Force.
That's my grandma's wrestling name.
Go ahead, give me your best shot.
I eat dentures for breakfast.
Yeah, different G-Force.
So, can you explain?
Well, would you be willing to come with me for a ride on a roller coaster?
What?
Where did this roller coaster come from?
Okay, are you ready?
Yeah, but do I have to wear this seatbelt?
Welcome to the G4 Super Extreme Accelerator Extreme.
Please keep your arms and legs inside the ride at all times, and thank you for choosing G4.
Okay, you buckled in?
It's a little late to ask me that question.
Okay, so right now, as this roller coaster starts going up, it's not that fast, right?
Uh...
You feel this ride getting a little faster and faster.
And we're going to go down this giant.
And here comes the loop Mindy, and this is where you're going to feel the G-force.
I feel good back to my seat.
I can't move my head.
This is G-force, Mindy.
It's the feeling that there's a weight pressing against our body.
Acceleration of the ride.
The faster it goes into these loops, the more we have the perception or the feeling like we're being held back.
Super extreme.
Please take your personal belongings and all bodily fluids with you as you leave and have a great rest of your day.
Are you okay, Mindy?
Yeah, I'm good now, Guy Raz.
You can have your tissue back.
Anywho, that was a wild ride, and I don't know about you, Guy Raz, but somehow I felt heavier while we were on it.
Well, That's the power of G-forces, Mindy.
Did you notice the force was so powerful that you couldn't even move your head?
Yeah, and that's just because all of a sudden we started to speed up when we were going around the curve.
Yeah, that's the basic principle.
And so what we just experienced on that roller coaster...
Well, that's kind of like what our shoelaces go through every time we walk or run.
Man, those poor little shoelaces.
And Mindy, what we just felt was actually less intense than what our shoelaces go through.
So you're saying our shoes are taken on a wild roller coaster ride every time we walk?
Yep.
And that force starts to loosen the knots in our shoes.
And what does that have to do with gravity?
Well, g-force and gravity aren't actually the same thing.
To you, me and pretty much everything else, they feel the same.
So using what we know about gravity can actually help us understand what our shoelaces go through.
How so?
Well, Mindy, gravity is an invisible force all around us here on planet Earth.
And it's why we don't just float up into space.
And it's why when you throw a ball up into the air, it falls back down.
But do all of the other planets also have gravity?
Yes.
In fact, gravity exists everywhere in our universe, because without it, everything would just fly apart.
Well, how does gravity work here on Earth?
Well, the basic way to measure it is in meters.
So, for example, if you throw something up in the air, eventually it will fall back to Earth at a rate of about 98 meters per second.
Per per second.
9.8 meters.
So let's see, that's just like a little bit shorter than a school bus, right?
Yeah, exactly.
So the gravitational force on Earth is so powerful that when you throw something up into the air, it races back down to the ground at a length of almost one entire school bus per second.
Per second.
Uh, Guy Raz, why do you keep saying per second twice?
I got it the first time.
Oh well, what I mean by that Mindy, is that let's say you jumped out of an airplane flying high up in the sky.
Been there, done that.
Well, as you fell, you would speed up.
And each second that passed, you'd speed up by 98 more meters per second until you reached what's called terminal velocity.
And that's Basically, the fastest speed a falling human would reach.
And how fast is that?
Well, eventually a human jumping out of an airplane without a parachute will reach a terminal velocity speed of about 53 meters per second.
So that's really fast.
I know, right?
It's about as fast as the fastest roller coaster in America, Mindy.
So what is the fastest roller coaster in America?
Well, I looked it up and it's called Kingda Ka and that's a roller coaster in New Jersey.
Are we riding it right now?
We just got off a roller coaster and you kind of, you know.
Let's not talk about it.
So what's gravity like on other planets?
Well, on large planets like Jupiter, gravity is much stronger than it is here on Earth.
And on smaller planets like Mercury, it's much weaker.
And while we humans haven't, of course, been to another planet in person to test gravity out, we have been able to test gravity on the moon.
And on the moon, things fall at a much slower rate than they do here on Earth.
Is that why things look like they float on the moon?
Yes, exactly. because on the moon, it takes a lot longer for things to come back down to the ground.
And you can actually see videos of this on the internet, Mindy videos of astronauts bouncing up and down on the moon, almost like a Like in a moon bounce.
Or a bouncy castle, exactly.
Okay, so you're saying that every time we run it's like the force of gravity on Earth, but seven times that force?
Yeah, basically.
Basically, it's kind of like walking with six Mindys stacked on top of you.
So seven Mindys stacked up, but just one pair of shoes.
My shoes!
My shoes!
My shoes!
My shoes!
That's some powerful G-forces hitting those shoelaces.
And Mindy, that is why our shoelaces become undone.
Because they are constantly being rattled and loosened and eventually, in what What seems like a flash, the knot just opens up.
And the laces get untied.
And we now know that, thanks to the incredible research by those mechanical engineers at UC Berkeley.
Well, I guess I'm just going to have to superglue my laces down if I want to defy gravity.
Here we go.
Ready?
It doesn't actually work that way.
There is no defying gravity.
And besides, you're going to mess up your... These are your foot finger shoes, Guy Raz.
I'm off to the races.
Here I go!
G4 Super Extreme Accelerator Extreme.
Let's go right now.
Get your shoes on.
I'll wrap this up.
Thanks, everyone, for listening to this episode of Wee Wow on the Weekend.
Be sure to give our phone lines a call to ask me, Dennis, a question.
The number is 1-888-7-WOW-WOW.
That's 1-888-7-WOW-WOW.
I just might answer your question on Wee Wow on the Weekend.
Okay, are you ready?
Great, let's go.
Reggie!
Ew!
No!
I'm sure they already cleaned up Mindy's vomit from the roller coaster.
Because it was years and years ago that Mindy and Guy went on that roller coaster.
Thanks for joining us for this edition of WeWow on the Weekend.
Our show is written by Ruth Morrison and Jed Anderson.
Original sound design and production is done by Henry Moskal and Marion Lozano, with help from Jed Anderson and Tyler Thull.
Original music for WeWow on the Weekend is composed and performed by Tyler Thull.
Special thanks to Steph Sosa, Rebecca Caban, and all of the other tinkerers at Tinkercast HQ.
There's still time to share your WeWow Crafternoon challenges with us.
Grownups, you can upload pictures and videos of your projects to us at Tinkercast.com slash share or call us at 1-888-7WOWOW.
Our website is Tinkercast.com.
There you can learn more about becoming an official member of the World Organization of Wowzers.
Learn about upcoming events, shop our shop and pick up a copy of the latest edition of our number one New York Times bestselling book series.
Wow in the Wild.
Thanks again for thinking, tinkering, experimenting, and exploring with us this week.
Meet us back here on Monday for Wow in the World.
And remember, who wows?
We wow!
Wow in the World was made by Tinkercast and sent to you by Wondery.
