December 14, 2017 • 42 mins
The Globe of Death – el Globo de la Muerte to our Spanish-speaking friends – is perhaps the greatest of all the circus arts. It requires no smoke, no mirrors, only motorcycles, a giant sphere and fearless riders with the will to bend physics.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you live in San Francisco, you better come and
see It's at the Castro. That was horrid, but really nice.
I appreciate that. Yeah, So we are going to be,
as the song says, at the Castro Theater on January
four for San Francisco Sketch Fest. Chuck, that's right. We
(00:22):
go there just about every year now and it's a
lot of fun and San Francisco you always treat us
so well. So I recommend a stocking stuffer or two
in the way of stuff you should Know life tickets
and there's an extra stocking stuff where they can get
featuring just Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Right, Oh that's right.
I'm doing my very first ever movie Crush live at
(00:42):
the punch Line, and I am having as my guests
Mr Tony Hale of Beep and Arrested Development, Mr Buster
Blues himself and I know right, and we're gonna be
talking about the movie Punch Drunk Love, and uh it
is at one PM, so you could double dip that
day see me at one the stuff you should Know
at night and I am even gonna be doing a
(01:02):
little meat and greet before and after. Fantastic Chuck, this
is why they call you the hardest working man in
show business. That's right. And you can get tickets for
Movie Crush Live at bit dot Lee slash Movie Crush yep.
And you can get tickets for our sketch Fish show
at s y s K live dot com. And there's
still a few tickets left for Seattle the following day
on January, so s y s K live dot com
(01:25):
and bit dot Lee Slash Movie Crush Chuck. That's right.
We'll see you guys in January. Welcome to Stuff you
should know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and
welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w
(01:46):
Chuck Bryant, and Jerry. The three of us were just
the bottomized, so we're feeling just fine. Globe of Death,
that's right, or or because it's huge down in South America.
Al Globo day lab wear, which I think I prefer
that one. Globo de lamuerte, Globo de lamerte. Jerry, she said, Man,
(02:13):
I think she did it better than anybody. Well, Jerry
actually speak Spanish. That's right. She's not a a faker
like us. Uh No, she's not. I'm so mad at
it and learned Spanish, are you? Oh yeah, you did German.
I did French, just so dumb, like, how helpful would
it be to know Spanish? Now? It would be pretty helpful.
I would love to chat it up with Spanish speaking
(02:35):
people I see every day in my life. Uh yeah,
well you it's never too late to learn, chuck, and
know what they're saying about me, right exactly? Yeah, it's
too late, it's over. No it's not. I'm saying it's
not too late. No, no, no, it's too late. I'm
not learning a new language. I think that's it. I'm
going to go learn Spanish just to show you, and
(02:55):
so you can talk about me in Spanish, Mama, Jerry can.
Uh so, Chuck, We're not talking about learning Spanish or
whether it's too late to learn a language, because it is.
It's not. We are talking about, like you said, the
globe of death also known as the globe of steel. Yeah,
(03:16):
apparently that was a Wringling Brothers marketing department invention or
PR department invention, because we can't have like a globe
of death at our circus. We don't want anybody to
see our elephants and start thinking about death, about sphere
of fear. That's a good one too. What about the
(03:37):
three hundred and sixty degree circle of intimidation? I just
came up with that. Why it's not that great? Huh?
We should know it was terrible. We should tell people
what we're talking about, because I can sense the frustration
weeks from now brewing with angry listeners already. So the
globe of death. What we're talking about is if you've
(03:57):
ever been to a circus or a fair fair and
by the way, this is we thought we would never
add to the circus arts suite, and here it is.
There's still more to come. What county fairs, state fairs
sometimes like um, like, if you have like a pretty
good music festival, they might have something maybe a Jane's
(04:19):
Addiction show. Who knows, Yeah, what what's the uh? The
World's Fair? Remember those? Oh man, they still have them,
but they're just not the same any longer. I think
the US pulled out of them a decade or two back.
I think the internet killed it. As a matter of fact,
You're absolutely right, that's what I read because I just
the other day I was thinking, like, um, whatever happened
(04:41):
to the World's Fair? And it turns out they're still there.
They're called like International Expose or something now, um, and
yeah they are, just they're just not as interesting. It's um,
it's not about like the future. And they specifically said
that it's just the internet. Now you can go on
the internet and find all that stuff without leaving your
home in its roun so much. That's when we're looking
(05:03):
at so globe of death what we're talking about, or
we could beat around the bush round their ten minutes.
Uh is if you've ever been to this circus for
those places, they might have this attraction where in there
is a uh steel sphere mesh steel mesh, so you
can see through it. Yeah, you can see through it,
(05:25):
but you can still see it's there. It's not invisible. Yes,
that would be amazingly cool. Yeah. Uh, wherein there are one,
but usually more than one, motorcycle riders riding inside of
a of a globe around and around horizontally vertically doing
a loop to loop, like all the way from the
(05:47):
top to the bottom and over and over again. And yeah,
when you like just one person doing this, this article
says it's kind of boring. I wholeheartedly disagree, and I
would like to see the author try to do it right. Well, yeah, sure,
but compared to like when you got four or five
people in there and then a lady standing in the
middle of smoking a cigar, that's another right, struggling babies,
(06:07):
that's pretty amazing. Yeah. Um, and I think the record
that I saw somebody was trying to break seven and
and do eight motorcyclists in a sphere at once. Um,
I didn't see anyone had actually done it. There's been
a lot of talk about it, but I didn't see
anyone had done it. Um. Seven is the most that
(06:27):
I've seen, although I've seen with my own eyes on video. Um,
I just oh no, I'm sorry. Seven is the most
I saw with my own eyes on video. But it is.
It's amazing because you know, they'll they'll follow one another
in a circle, which is pretty cool, but then one
will like break off and start doing something perpendicular to
the other circle, and they'll just like just miss each
(06:49):
other every time. And it's just an amazing feat of
of um, machine and mind coming together in this. Yeah. Yeah,
which we'll get to. I think think, think, think I
might have it figured out. Physics wise, this is kind
of a rehash of the Sun episode is as hard
(07:09):
as it is to understand. Oh, I thought I didn't
think this was that bad. Oh, well then you take it. No, No,
I'm not taking it. No, you take it. But I
just saw like a few basic principles and bing bang boom.
Well my brain broke trying to figure it out, and
I think I got it. But I also may have
gone insane and come up with a completely entirely different
interpretation of reality. Well you're on a podcast, right, your
(07:30):
name is Josh Clark, so I must be not you
want I want to see one of these things? Is
a motorcycle with a sidecar with a small child or
a monkey? That even better? Yeah? A cigar smoking, wouldn't
it be fun? Yeah? The monkeys just like what is
going on? Yeah, because that's what monkeys were put on
earth for for to do, to smoke cigars and sidecars
(07:51):
while we move them around globes at death. All right,
Should we go into some history here? Yes, because I
was very surprised to learn that the globe of death
was invented and patented in four Yeah, I saw it
was invented even before then, Probably that it was sometime
in the nineties in Europe, somebody came up with this act.
(08:13):
But yeah, it is surprising. You think this would be
like seventies Daredevil era kind of stuff, right, But now,
the nineteenth century is when it was first invented. And
here's the here's the gas of the whole thing. The
original ones, the original Globe of Death was ridden in
on bicycles pedal fast, sir, and unicycles pedals super fast sir. Yeah, yeah,
(08:36):
I don't I don't know. I don't see how that
worked because, as we will learn later in the physics
in the post ad break physics section, Uh, it's all
about speed. It is very much about speed. How did
they do this on a bicycle. Well, I don't think
they did the loop de loop. I think that came
later after Well okay, so they just did sort of
horizontal is circles, yeah, which which I'm sure if it
(08:59):
was the nineties would be like Wow, I'm I'm impressed.
Yeah sure. I live in Wisconsin and I'm preoccupied with
death and horrible nous. So this is a real relief
for me. So Grand Repids, Michigan, where it was where
the first one was patented by a man bicycle stuntman
named Arthur Rosenthal and uh he had a stage name
Arthur Rose. He had a partner, Mr Frank Lemon. I
(09:21):
know that's a lemon Rose. I love that word together,
lemon rose. That sounds very nice, doesn't doesn't it It's pleasant.
Um it's no cellar door, but no, but it's close.
It's in a different direction. It should be like a
type of gum, sugar free gum, sugar free lemon rose. Yeah.
I don't even chew gum, and I chew that. Uh.
So they would do like these little, you know, ten
(09:43):
fifteen minute routines. Uh here's a quote from one of
the state fairs. Uh, routines of skill and nerve, guaranteed
to deliver laughs and roars. And but again that they
were on bikes bicycles. Yeah, so I guess around nineteen tens,
the motorcycle started to become a little more ubiquitous, a
(10:05):
little more affordable. And the first thing that people did
with them was put him in the globe of death.
They cast their bikes aside and said, I've got plans
for you, motorcycle. Where have you been all my life?
So they started riding these things, and um, it just
spread like further and further a field. I guess I
(10:26):
started in Europe made its way to America because the
Arthur Rosenthal was from Grand Rapids, Michigan, right, um, and
it moved down to South America in pretty short order.
So I think by nineteen twelve there was a guy
named Jose Urias UM who had built his own Globe
of Death um back then and was riding in it
(10:49):
as well down in Brazil. And his family is actually
still around and still performing the Urias Brothers Globe of
Death act. Yeah. Remember our Circus Family's podcast. Oh were
they were in that? Huh? I think they were either
in it or it's you know. I was just pointing
out generally, like you do something like this and your
kid's gonna probably grow up and do something like this, right,
(11:11):
It's a family trade. Yeah. Now the other up to
the great grandsons are the ones who are UM performing
in the show. And what I read was that Jose
Urias is nineteen twelve, Globe of Death is still in
use by them. They have other globes as well, but
it's still in usable condition. That's the true globe of Death.
It's right, you could actually die right right exactly? Um?
(11:34):
You may have noticed earlier I said something about the
word patent from Arthur Rosenthal. He did get a patent
on May third, nineteen o four. And you also heard
us mention things like South America in Germany, and you
may be thinking, well, that's great. Art Rosenthal was getting
bank from all these globes of death everywhere. Sadly that
did not happen. Uh, he had a patent, but I
(11:58):
guess it was just one of those things where early
nineteen hundreds, you're gonna have a hard time chasing these
people down around the world saying I own the patent.
Did that give me a hundred dollars? Right? Well, I mean,
I think even though they their paths must have crossed,
they can't imagine the globe of death community, even around
the world was like a big group, you know. So
(12:18):
I'm sure he was keenly aware of it, but I
don't know. Maybe he just didn't pursue it because there
was international who knows. Well, I just think at the
time it's just so hard to successfully do that internationally,
you know. Yeah, I think you're right, man. So at
any rate, we got numerous globes of death all around
the world, A lot of the writers, Um, where did
you get this history section? I can't even tell you.
(12:40):
I don't remember. All right, Well, they mentioned quite a
few speedies, Speedy Wilson, Speedy McNish who I like, Speedy McNish, uh,
and Louis Louis Speedy, Babs and uh it says Babs
on one line, then Babbus and another, so I'm not
sure which it is we're going with Babs. I like Babs.
But um. He was notable because he was the very
(13:02):
first person to do a loop to loop and not
just merely ride horizontally right, which is very impressive for
what nineteen Yeah it was, I think his was third
four or no? He said the he said a world record.
This guy was a globe of death. Amazed balls guy. Um,
(13:23):
he said a world record after being the first to
do the loop to loop. He said, a world record
of a thousand and three loops inside of a globe.
They should call these amazed balls. I think it's still
they should. It's a great name, amazed balls of death,
amazed balls de lamarte. Um. But I think his record
is still unbroken of a thousand and three. It's got
(13:46):
to just be because somebody's like I don't feel like
spending around that many times. Yeah, there's just people are
too busy that would take ours. I have a family,
but like you said, there are many families all over
the world that have been doing this for many, many decades,
and it seems very much to a state in the
family biz. Uh. And one of the ones in article
they talked about a lot or the are they the
(14:08):
urias is. Yeah, so there was a heyday of the
Globe of Death between World War One and World War two. UM.
That may have actually been its original golden age, but
it also like spread around the world around that time.
Then to um, there's another one like in the seventies
of the sixties and seventies, there were some innovations that
we'll talk about UM. And then it kind of became
(14:30):
like almost legit in the early two thousands when like
long established circuses started to pick up the acts like
the Urias is. I believe we're hired by Wringling Brothers,
Barnum and Bailey. Um. The Universal Circus picked up the
Willie family UM, and so like like they kind of
(14:53):
went from I think like UM, these kind of scratching
out in existence, like having to hustle to to basically
like corporate spa answorship. Like finally the big circus has
got hip to this idea in the early two thousand's.
So we take a break. Yeah, let's all right, let's
take a break and we'll come back and well we'll
talk about the globe of death, all right, man, So
(15:39):
we're back, and as you said, we're talking about the
globe of death. That's right. Yeah, So these things. Here's
the deal with these is they vary in size generally speaking.
Unless you're pulling off some pretty amazing tricks with lots
of writers are trying to set some big record, you're
probably looking at at about a sixteen footage in diameter,
(16:02):
uh sphere, and they need to go. And it's amazing
that they were doing this in the thirties and forties
when motorcycles were so heavy. Well, the glove of Death
got its name from killing some people for sure, for real.
Oh yeah, there have been many, many, many injuries. But yes,
you're right, especially early on, it was exceedingly dangerous. Yeah,
(16:25):
So these motorcycles are a lot more powerful and lighter now.
So if you're going to be in the Globe of
death business, now it's a good time to do it.
Um you're going around generally forty fifty maybe sixty miles
an hour at the most, uh three and a half
to four and a half g's and that is g
force on your body, and that's what's generally happening. You're
(16:48):
you're on a trajectory that you have pre planned, but
you are not on a track. And it doesn't use magnets.
It's literally just physics at work. Yeah, Apparently a lot
of people think that there's a tricker and allusion to it,
and there actually is not. And again we're not We're
not to the physics yet. We gotta hang on, but
we're going to talk about it eventually. So, like you said,
(17:10):
the globes themselves have kind of a universal size, although
it changes, but there are also other things that the
globes do it. So it's amazing enough that there's people
like riding around these things and on motorcycles. But I
think one of the first um families to use a
split globe was the urias Is. I saw a picture
that they credited to the sixties where the globe hydraulically
(17:34):
splits in half and the top part lifts up and
guests which side or which part the riders moving in
at the time, right the upper part, So they are
actually in the top half of the globe. And now
there's like no bottom. The bottom is well below and
there's a big gap between the top half and the
(17:54):
bottom half of the globe of death and the riders
just circling around the top. How big is that up? Uh?
In the picture it looked to be a good five
to six seven feet. Oh, I misread this whole move then,
Oh dude, it is not like because it's it's like
they can very easily just go flying out if they
if they got too close to the edge. That's their toasts. See,
(18:17):
here's what I thought happened during a split globe trick,
is that they they split it by about eight inches
and then would just continue to span that split. That'd
be pretty cool vertically. But no, this is yours, not yours.
You didn't invent it, but well I presented it. Yours
is way better. Yeah, no, I agreed, And to see
(18:39):
it is actually pretty amazing, um because it just it
just brings home the whole the whole thing before. Yes,
they have a bottom, but it's still it's a really
scary sphere of death, right, but now there's nothing, there's
just the top. It's it's it's incredible, it's an incredible
thing to see. Everyone basically should go to YouTube and
(18:59):
check it out right now. Split globe. Um, there's also
a family. I believe it's the Torres family who um
were the first to introduce a triple split globe. So
there's a top, a middle, and a bottom. And so
I think the one I saw was that they were
um circling the middle part, the middle band. So it's
(19:23):
really just this narrow little um band of steel that
they have to like stay on track with or else
go a little higher, a little lower again your toast right. Uh.
And you think that, um, the dangerous part would be
sticking to the globe with that motorcycle. That is not
(19:46):
the case because once we explain the physics, which we're
still not gonna do yet, not yet, not yet, um,
Like physics takes care of that. So it's it's pretty easy,
like there's a formula that you figure out how fast
you need to be going, and it's constant, like you
don't have to worry about anything else. It's really those
g forces once you get in there these one of
these Urias dudes said, when they go upside down, he said,
(20:10):
our heads are at gray out like a right, they
come close to passing out in this thing from the
g force. And there's one trick they do with uh
is it one of their wives that they put in there.
And she she's an aeroist, so she hangs from the
center while they ride around her. And they said, when
there's a certain point in that show where she can't
see us and we can't see her, and you just
(20:32):
have to trust that it is mapped out and timed
and practiced. It's pretty awesome mapped out in time too,
before you even practiced, right, yeah, um, and it is.
It's basically all timing from what I understand. But they
have all that like just ticked off in their heads
just from experience. Um. One of the other things that
(20:53):
really comes into play are the bikes that they use. Right.
So for this how Stuff Works article, I think they
actually interviewed the one of the Uriah's brothers and he
was saying that like all the bikes they use are
modified dirt bikes, so they they're powerful, but they're also lightweight.
But then they modify them and change them from like
a hundred and twenty five cubic centimeter engine to about
(21:16):
a hundred and fifty cubic centimeter engine. But it's still
on that same light dirt bike, right, So it's got
a lot of power. But there's only a certain amount
of speed you're gonna get to anyway, because as we'll
see in the physics, which we're not getting to yet. Um,
if you speed up too quickly, you're going to increase
the G force too much and you're going to black out,
(21:37):
and that's a terrible thing to have happened to you
while you're in the globe of death. Right. So there's
only a certain amount of speed you need. So horsepower,
which is the quality in the engine that you want
to hit high top end speeds. The quality the quality
of that engine. That's thanks for pointing that out, because
I think I would have gotten it past a few
(21:58):
people as you not said anything. Hang on, man, I'm
here on my fingernails. Just so, Um, horsepower is not important.
What is important is torque. Torque is that thing where
you know when you hear like, oh, this car can
go from zero to sixty and like five seconds or whatever.
That's all torque. That's a that's an expression of torque,
(22:18):
and torque is um the power that it takes to
spin something on its axis, like a rotational power, right,
and so you know, like you're spinning an axis when
you're making a tire move. And the faster you can
make that tire move from a dead stop, the quicker
(22:39):
you can go in the shorter amount of time, that's torque.
And that's what really counts on the bikes in the
Globe of Death, because you want to be able to
just take off and be spinning around, um like from
a dead standstill in in no time at all. Well
at rock back and forth a little bit to get
get the timing right even better, but they still want
(23:01):
really high torque, and so that's the that's what they're
looking for with these bikes UM as far as as
the big modification goes as as much torque as you
can possibly have. Can I tell you a torque story?
Oh you have a torque story. A torque story, let's
hear it. So uh vacation this year I love Palms
where I famously lost another tooth on a Christini on
(23:22):
a Christini. This was pre no. I think this is
after I lost a tooth regardless. We went out to
dinner one night at Isle of Palms as opposed to
just cooking up tons and tons of seafood at the house,
which is what I like to do, and we got
a car ride to the restaurant. I had a great time.
(23:44):
I had quite a bit to drink, big celebratory I
think it was a final night dinner. And then afterward
we call a car to pick us up and a
dude shows up in a Tesla. Uh a Tesla car,
Like this is a ride sharing app? Yeah, yeah, So
he shows up in Tesla and I was like, oh,
well this is great. We're all excited. Uh a little buzz.
(24:05):
No one had ever written in a Tesla and he
got us in this thing and he was he was
sort of telling us, it's very cool guy. Uh, college
student paying for his Tesla and school through driving it
for people, and um, he was just telling us all
about it. You know, people get a sense that Tesla
owners like to show off their Tesla's because they're so neat,
(24:28):
and uh, it really was cool. And I'm not a
car guy. I'm knocked out, not knocked out by much
in a car, but I was like this is pretty great.
So I'm sitting in the backseat and uh, my friend
Justin's in the front, and his girlfriend and Emily and
I are all three in the back, and he was
talking about the torque and the zero to sixty capabilities,
the qualities of that engine and uh, and he was like, yeah,
(24:50):
you know, there's no combustion, so there's like zero lag,
like you hit the gas and you go, like even
your highest performance combustion sports car engine, well you know
there's a little bit of that lag at first when
you punch it while everything's firing, but not so with
the Tesla. And so when justin score for Melissa's like,
can you do it? Can you? Can you show us?
(25:10):
He was like all right. So he makes a couple
of turns and goes to this area, this long straight
road where it's pretty desolate, and he knows he can
do it, and he stopped and he's like, all right,
everyone hold on, and we kind of laughed, you don't
necessariously hold on. And he punched it, dude, And it
was faster than any roller coaster, like even the ones
that hydraulically launch you. Faster than anything I've ever experienced.
(25:34):
That quickly in my life. Yeah, I've heard that about Tesla's.
Actually it pushed us back into the seat, physically push
my head back against the head rest, and the only
thing we could all do was like laugh and smile,
and I think Melissa screamed like a scream of delight.
We were like four children, and it was like that
was one of the coolest things. And of course I
(25:55):
gave him this huge tip, which I think that's always
paid for that Tesla. He was giving people joy rides
like I guess I can. Anyway, it was great. That
is not a prolonged ad for Tesla, as I wish
I could afford one those things, but it was very sweet. Well,
they have like, uh the I guess more affordable comparatively speaking.
Was it the Model three? Yeah, but I don't think
(26:16):
that's the one that does what this one does. I
think all of them do though, because they don't have
that lag. Yeah, but they don't don't have that huge engine.
Yeah that's true, Like, surely they don't all go this fast, right,
I don't know, let's find out. We'll go look it
up later. And I asked him, like a dummy, you know,
how did you buy this thing? And he went I
went to a Tesla dealership. Oh, he was thinking, Dad, gotcha.
(26:42):
Should we take another break after that Tesla story? We
need to recuperate. Yeah, I feel like I derailed this.
So no, no, no, I've got to I've got to
digest that whole thing. All Right, we'll come back and
we'll finally talk about physics. All right, we are back
(27:22):
and it's time. It's time for the dreaded physics, which
Chuck is feeling pretty good about. So Chuck, why don't
you take a crack at it and then I'll take
a crack at it. Well, I mean, I'm not gonna
explain it all and have you re explain it? So okay,
because that's no fun for anybody. Well, you go ahead,
but we can we can tag team this thing. The
(27:43):
way I understand it is there are a few forces
at work here that make this all possible, one of
which is, uh, oh, mancye is it centrifical or centripetal.
I've I've seen that if you are a physicist, there's
no such thing as centrifugal center a pidal all right,
So that's the one of the main forces at work.
(28:04):
And if you are traveling on a on a just
a regular street. Uh, you don't. It's a pretty easy
calculation if you're talking about the maths of some triple force.
It just gets complicated when you're talking about a globe
of death, because you're not on a flat surface and
(28:25):
you're not just traveling horizontally on a round surface. You're
going all over the place. So that's when it gets
a little more complicated, right, keep going, wellson, triple forces
directed towards the center of a path, of a circular path. Uh,
you've also got the forces, and this is just the overview.
We'll get more detailed. There's also also the force of gravity,
(28:47):
of course, at work when you're in one of these things,
because when you're going upside down, as everyone knows, gravity
is always directed straight down. Yeah, Or when you're like
you know, perpendicular to the ground or paralleled to the ground,
like riding around in the circle right on the middle
of the globe, it's still pushing you downward. Gravity is
always pushing you downward. And then finally we have the
(29:10):
normal force, which, um everyone's always heard the saying that
every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If you
go and press on something that's not movable, like a
five thousand pound rock, and that rock doesn't move. It
is that the normal force is that rock exerting its
force back on you. It's in an equal and opposite amount, right,
(29:34):
that's right. And if it if it wasn't there, and
it's not always there, then you would push the rock
and it would move right. Yeah, well done, But that's
that's not all man Like, what was how do these
all work together? Here's so here's what's been messing me up.
And I think this this helped my breakthrough. Um, the
(29:54):
force of gravity and G forces are not the same thing.
This is what was messing me up. I'm like, if
G forces make it feel like you're being pressed up
against something, right, So like do you you remember did
you ever go on that like steel drum carnival machine.
I would just just spin right and you get pressed
up against the inside and they lower the floor and
(30:17):
you're just you're just hanging there. But you're like, of
course you're being pressed up against the edge. Apparently, and
this is why people think physicists are all crazy. But
apparently that's an illusion. That doesn't that's not You're not
actually being pressed up against the edge of it. You're
being pressed towards the center by the drum. Okay, that
(30:38):
centripetal force. And there's another way to think about this, Man,
I can do this, Chuck. If you took a key, um,
and you put it on a string and you started
swinging it over your head in a circle. Right, So
it's being on an axis, and the axis is where
you're The string is being old in the grip of
(31:01):
your hand. That's the axis of the circle. What's happening
is that key at any given time, it just wants
to go straight. That's all it wants, Man, Just let
me go straight. Um, That's the direction of its velocity
is straight. At any given point. The problem is attached
to the string, and the string is exerting the centripetal force,
(31:22):
pulling the key towards the center. And so rather than
being allowed to go straight, it's being forced into a
circular path around the center. That is what centripetal force does. Okay,
that's all well and good when it's a key on
a string, But when you're talking about the globe of death,
the string is actually the globe. The globe is the
(31:43):
thing that exerts the centripetal force against the person on
the bike. Right, there's no string pulling them towards the center.
They're not being pulled towards the center by the string.
They're being pushed towards the center by the external force
of the globe of death. Okay. And as long as
that globe is strong enough to take the g forces
(32:04):
which we'll talk about in a second, that increased weight
against it and push it back in an equal amount,
then it will just keep directing that person along that
circular path around the center, which is in the middle.
It's invisible point in the middle of the globe of death. Right.
If it's not strong enough, then it's gonna break and
that person is going to go off in that straight
(32:26):
direction that they've been wanting to go in the whole time,
but of being been directed into a circle instead. Right. So,
in terms of an equation in this case, and tripleal
force is equal to the force of the gravity on
the motorcycle and the dude or a lady. They have
ladies that do this, now, yeah, they do. They have
a whole um, whole female team which I'll tell you
(32:46):
in a second once I find the name. So it's
that force force of gravity plus that normal force that
I was talking about on the motorcycle and the rider
by the globe pushing back on that. So once like
you can figure that out, like I said earlier, with
a mathic asian about how fast you need to go
as long as you know how big everything is, uh
that is the globe. But once that, once you go
(33:07):
below that speed and you start to fall, that that
normal force goes to zero. Right, So it takes a
bit of friction, um to keep the tire gripped to
the globe. As long as you have that friction, that
that um normal force can press against you uh much
(33:27):
more easily. R Okay, so I think, so here's the thing.
So this is the difference between the force of gravity
and g forces. G forces are just a measure of
how much gravity is pushing down on you at any
given point. Like if you jump up in the air,
that's one G that you're you're um with no wind
resistance that you normally experience. And we call it weight,
(33:50):
right that your weight is the force of gravity acting
on the mass of your body. But if you speed
up really really quick, especially say at like um a
circular velocity, right, and you you're being you. You are
actually increasing your own weight, which you feel is G force.
It's like pressing down on you. You feel heavy and
(34:11):
you can't move. And in in real physiological terms, like
the blood is being pressed away from its normal locations,
which is why you can black out right because some
of the blood is no longer in some parts of
your brain, and your brain needs the blood to operate.
But as far as the physics goes, gravity is always
pushing downward on you. Remember that, and the G force
(34:34):
is pushing you and making you feel like you're being
pushed outward, when really it's the the combination of your
circular velocity and the radius, the distance between the edge
of the circle in the center of the circle at
any given point. And the more the more you increase
your speed or the less of the radius, the stronger
(34:58):
the G force or the higher than the G forces
against you. So if you have a small little um
globe of death, or you're traveling really really fast in
the globe of death, you're going to very quickly reach
a G force to where like you're not only black out,
but you you can die from that as well. Right,
(35:18):
So they actually, like you said, before the the timing
is what they have in their heads. But they can
sit down and and mathematically calculate what they need to,
what speed they need to hit at, what bike, what
like the weight that they need to be at and
their bike needs to be at, so that they can
know as long as I hit the speed, I'm always
going to be able to go anywhere i want to
(35:39):
on the globe of Death. I think we did a chunk. Yeah,
And so as far as G force goes like what
you can what you can handle as a human um
is what like about seven g s is about the
tops that you want to go right as as a person.
I don't remember what James bond, Uh, which one was that?
(36:02):
Was that octopusy? I don't know. I don't think I've
seen that one. Yeah, he got in a in a
in a G force machine which was basically a big
it was like a centrifuge, big round room with a
pod on an arm connected in the center and it
would just spun him around. And of course he was like,
(36:23):
give me, give me all you got, uh, And then
they gave him kind of a little ride and then
the bad guy came in the baddy and started cranking
it even further and even further. And I just remember
being a kid and seeing Roger Moore's face like they
must have just had some powerful wind blower on him
because his cheeks were rippling. I was like, oh my god,
(36:45):
he's really in that thing, right. But I think, I mean,
I'm sure that they did not get the physics right
and they probably pushed him to like eleven so they them.
That really rings a bell what you're describing. I guess
I have seen all those movies in you. I've seen
most of them. That's the Roger Moore one, so I
would think I have seen it, but um, and I
(37:07):
just that that comes to mind. But um, yeah, because
I can see Roger Moore's face going like yeah, and
that only happened once, right, exactly right, p Roger Moore?
Yeah for real? But you remember Colonel um John Paul Stapp,
the guy who gave us seatbelts and crash test dummies.
How could I forget? Remember his eyes used to like
(37:28):
burst blood vessels because of the amount of gees that
he was being pushed to. Yeah, but I think so
you mentioned the seven gees that was um what a
guy named Guy Martin who is a motorcyclist who actually
set the world record for the fastest anyone's um hit
a wall of death with which is basically like a
globe of death, but without the top and the bottom.
It's more like a barrel. Yeah, exactly. Um, and that's
(37:53):
just riding horizontally super fast. In his case, I think
what he had seventy eight miles, yes, and the Guinness
people said we're here and you've got two chances to
get to sixty miles per hour, and he did like
seventy two I think the first time, and then seventy
eight the second time. I just seen that. That was
probably it probably looked like Roger Moore. And I think
(38:13):
that was a moonraker. I don't. I don't think I
see moonrakers either. Well, Moonraker was the one that was.
It was for James Bond. It was very futuristic. I
had to deal with outer space and stuff like that.
Doesn't he like do it in zero gravity with the
Bond girl? Of course he does. Um. What was the
(38:33):
one where he's got that lotus that turns into a submarine. Man.
I want to say the spy he loved me? Or
I think he might be right I don't know. I
know that geez somewhere Matt Gorley is spinning in his
chair and Los Angeles, I can't remember. I can't either. Yeah.
I love my bond, but I just don't have them
(38:54):
all like mapped out in memorized. If you do want
to see that, um guy Martin break that world record.
Apparently the Channel four over in the UK UM sponsored it,
so I'm sure they have it somewhere. Yah. Yeah. And lastly, Chuck,
I have to give a huge, huge shout out to
UM PBS Digital Studios, Crash Course Physics for helping break
(39:20):
my brain into understanding of the centriple force thing that
you didn't go to, Uh, Nickelodeon Science. They didn't have it.
They didn't have what I was looking for. Yeah, we
said this at live shows. I don't know if we've
ever said on the air, but uh, children's science websites
are great, great places to understand complex science if you
don't get it. UM, we go there a lot, and
(39:42):
that's we don't only go there, but a lot of times.
That's a great starting point for breaking things down in
an easy way. So we highly recommend it. Agreed, there's
no shame, no not at all. Uh, you got anything else?
I got nothing else. Well. Uh, if you want to
know more about the globe of death, just go start
why Global Death videos. They're pretty awesome. Uh. And in
(40:02):
the meantime, you can check out this article on how
stuff works dot com. Since I said that it's time
for listening mail, I'm gonna call this flu epidemic. Hey guys,
I'm a Master's of Public Health candidate in Atlanta at
Emory and we spend a good amount of time discussing
the flu. I remember you mentioning the Spanish flu and
(40:24):
wondered if such an epidemic could happen again. Bad news is,
it can and it probably will. According to public health scholars.
That is, the culprit is our meat industry, which keeps
an overbundance of foul and pigs in tight, unsanitary quarters
because of the way this industry is growing, and some
might argue due to its lack of regulation. Uh, these
(40:45):
unsafe conditions lend to the rapid mutation of the virus. This,
coupled with the ever decreasing CDC budget, makes it harder
and harder for vaccine scientists to create accurate vaccines. On
top of all that, the fluescine is a low threat
by most of our society, rendering us ill equipped and underprepared.
Most people are scared of ebola or other difficult to
(41:05):
catch viruses. However, influenza is a rapidly mutating and highly
aggressive virus that is easily transmittable and is right here
on our doorstep. Scientists predict the flu might be the
next most deadly epidemic if we're not careful. My recommendation
to our congress people stop cutting the CDC budget. Prevention
is key. I know will probably sound like a quack
(41:26):
not to me for real, but just wanted to spread
a little knowledge and say hey to my favorite podcasters,
thanks for putting on such amazing show. And that is
from Jasmine. Thanks a lot, Jasmine. Hello over there, Demori.
That's right. I love your Rice. What Jasmine Rice? Okay?
(41:47):
Uh weird. If you want to get in touch with
us like Jasmine did, you can tweet to us at
s Y s K podcast or Josham Clark. You can
hang out with me on my website Are You Serious
Clark dot com. You can hang out with Chuck on
Facebook at Facebook dot com, slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant.
There's also Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know.
(42:09):
You can send us all an email, including Jerry to
stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com and has
always joined us at our home on the web. Stuff
you Should Know dot com. For more on this and
thousands of other topics, is it how stuff Works dot
com
If you live in San Francisco, you better come and
see It's at the Castro. That was horrid, but really nice.
I appreciate that. Yeah, So we are going to be,
as the song says, at the Castro Theater on January
four for San Francisco Sketch Fest. Chuck, that's right. We
(00:22):
go there just about every year now and it's a
lot of fun and San Francisco you always treat us
so well. So I recommend a stocking stuffer or two
in the way of stuff you should Know life tickets
and there's an extra stocking stuff where they can get
featuring just Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Right, Oh that's right.
I'm doing my very first ever movie Crush live at
(00:42):
the punch Line, and I am having as my guests
Mr Tony Hale of Beep and Arrested Development, Mr Buster
Blues himself and I know right, and we're gonna be
talking about the movie Punch Drunk Love, and uh it
is at one PM, so you could double dip that
day see me at one the stuff you should Know
at night and I am even gonna be doing a
(01:02):
little meat and greet before and after. Fantastic Chuck, this
is why they call you the hardest working man in
show business. That's right. And you can get tickets for
Movie Crush Live at bit dot Lee slash Movie Crush yep.
And you can get tickets for our sketch Fish show
at s y s K live dot com. And there's
still a few tickets left for Seattle the following day
on January, so s y s K live dot com
(01:25):
and bit dot Lee Slash Movie Crush Chuck. That's right.
We'll see you guys in January. Welcome to Stuff you
should know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and
welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w
(01:46):
Chuck Bryant, and Jerry. The three of us were just
the bottomized, so we're feeling just fine. Globe of Death,
that's right, or or because it's huge down in South America.
Al Globo day lab wear, which I think I prefer
that one. Globo de lamuerte, Globo de lamerte. Jerry, she said, Man,
(02:13):
I think she did it better than anybody. Well, Jerry
actually speak Spanish. That's right. She's not a a faker
like us. Uh No, she's not. I'm so mad at
it and learned Spanish, are you? Oh yeah, you did German.
I did French, just so dumb, like, how helpful would
it be to know Spanish? Now? It would be pretty helpful.
I would love to chat it up with Spanish speaking
(02:35):
people I see every day in my life. Uh yeah,
well you it's never too late to learn, chuck, and
know what they're saying about me, right exactly? Yeah, it's
too late, it's over. No it's not. I'm saying it's
not too late. No, no, no, it's too late. I'm
not learning a new language. I think that's it. I'm
going to go learn Spanish just to show you, and
(02:55):
so you can talk about me in Spanish, Mama, Jerry can.
Uh so, Chuck, We're not talking about learning Spanish or
whether it's too late to learn a language, because it is.
It's not. We are talking about, like you said, the
globe of death also known as the globe of steel. Yeah,
(03:16):
apparently that was a Wringling Brothers marketing department invention or
PR department invention, because we can't have like a globe
of death at our circus. We don't want anybody to
see our elephants and start thinking about death, about sphere
of fear. That's a good one too. What about the
(03:37):
three hundred and sixty degree circle of intimidation? I just
came up with that. Why it's not that great? Huh?
We should know it was terrible. We should tell people
what we're talking about, because I can sense the frustration
weeks from now brewing with angry listeners already. So the
globe of death. What we're talking about is if you've
(03:57):
ever been to a circus or a fair fair and
by the way, this is we thought we would never
add to the circus arts suite, and here it is.
There's still more to come. What county fairs, state fairs
sometimes like um, like, if you have like a pretty
good music festival, they might have something maybe a Jane's
(04:19):
Addiction show. Who knows, Yeah, what what's the uh? The
World's Fair? Remember those? Oh man, they still have them,
but they're just not the same any longer. I think
the US pulled out of them a decade or two back.
I think the internet killed it. As a matter of fact,
You're absolutely right, that's what I read because I just
the other day I was thinking, like, um, whatever happened
(04:41):
to the World's Fair? And it turns out they're still there.
They're called like International Expose or something now, um, and
yeah they are, just they're just not as interesting. It's um,
it's not about like the future. And they specifically said
that it's just the internet. Now you can go on
the internet and find all that stuff without leaving your
home in its roun so much. That's when we're looking
(05:03):
at so globe of death what we're talking about, or
we could beat around the bush round their ten minutes.
Uh is if you've ever been to this circus for
those places, they might have this attraction where in there
is a uh steel sphere mesh steel mesh, so you
can see through it. Yeah, you can see through it,
(05:25):
but you can still see it's there. It's not invisible. Yes,
that would be amazingly cool. Yeah. Uh, wherein there are one,
but usually more than one, motorcycle riders riding inside of
a of a globe around and around horizontally vertically doing
a loop to loop, like all the way from the
(05:47):
top to the bottom and over and over again. And yeah,
when you like just one person doing this, this article
says it's kind of boring. I wholeheartedly disagree, and I
would like to see the author try to do it right. Well, yeah, sure,
but compared to like when you got four or five
people in there and then a lady standing in the
middle of smoking a cigar, that's another right, struggling babies,
(06:07):
that's pretty amazing. Yeah. Um, and I think the record
that I saw somebody was trying to break seven and
and do eight motorcyclists in a sphere at once. Um,
I didn't see anyone had actually done it. There's been
a lot of talk about it, but I didn't see
anyone had done it. Um. Seven is the most that
(06:27):
I've seen, although I've seen with my own eyes on video. Um,
I just oh no, I'm sorry. Seven is the most
I saw with my own eyes on video. But it is.
It's amazing because you know, they'll they'll follow one another
in a circle, which is pretty cool, but then one
will like break off and start doing something perpendicular to
the other circle, and they'll just like just miss each
(06:49):
other every time. And it's just an amazing feat of
of um, machine and mind coming together in this. Yeah. Yeah,
which we'll get to. I think think, think, think I
might have it figured out. Physics wise, this is kind
of a rehash of the Sun episode is as hard
(07:09):
as it is to understand. Oh, I thought I didn't
think this was that bad. Oh, well then you take it. No, No,
I'm not taking it. No, you take it. But I
just saw like a few basic principles and bing bang boom.
Well my brain broke trying to figure it out, and
I think I got it. But I also may have
gone insane and come up with a completely entirely different
interpretation of reality. Well you're on a podcast, right, your
(07:30):
name is Josh Clark, so I must be not you
want I want to see one of these things? Is
a motorcycle with a sidecar with a small child or
a monkey? That even better? Yeah? A cigar smoking, wouldn't
it be fun? Yeah? The monkeys just like what is
going on? Yeah, because that's what monkeys were put on
earth for for to do, to smoke cigars and sidecars
(07:51):
while we move them around globes at death. All right,
Should we go into some history here? Yes, because I
was very surprised to learn that the globe of death
was invented and patented in four Yeah, I saw it
was invented even before then, Probably that it was sometime
in the nineties in Europe, somebody came up with this act.
(08:13):
But yeah, it is surprising. You think this would be
like seventies Daredevil era kind of stuff, right, But now,
the nineteenth century is when it was first invented. And
here's the here's the gas of the whole thing. The
original ones, the original Globe of Death was ridden in
on bicycles pedal fast, sir, and unicycles pedals super fast sir. Yeah, yeah,
(08:36):
I don't I don't know. I don't see how that
worked because, as we will learn later in the physics
in the post ad break physics section, Uh, it's all
about speed. It is very much about speed. How did
they do this on a bicycle. Well, I don't think
they did the loop de loop. I think that came
later after Well okay, so they just did sort of
horizontal is circles, yeah, which which I'm sure if it
(08:59):
was the nineties would be like Wow, I'm I'm impressed.
Yeah sure. I live in Wisconsin and I'm preoccupied with
death and horrible nous. So this is a real relief
for me. So Grand Repids, Michigan, where it was where
the first one was patented by a man bicycle stuntman
named Arthur Rosenthal and uh he had a stage name
Arthur Rose. He had a partner, Mr Frank Lemon. I
(09:21):
know that's a lemon Rose. I love that word together,
lemon rose. That sounds very nice, doesn't doesn't it It's pleasant.
Um it's no cellar door, but no, but it's close.
It's in a different direction. It should be like a
type of gum, sugar free gum, sugar free lemon rose. Yeah.
I don't even chew gum, and I chew that. Uh.
So they would do like these little, you know, ten
(09:43):
fifteen minute routines. Uh here's a quote from one of
the state fairs. Uh, routines of skill and nerve, guaranteed
to deliver laughs and roars. And but again that they
were on bikes bicycles. Yeah, so I guess around nineteen tens,
the motorcycle started to become a little more ubiquitous, a
(10:05):
little more affordable. And the first thing that people did
with them was put him in the globe of death.
They cast their bikes aside and said, I've got plans
for you, motorcycle. Where have you been all my life?
So they started riding these things, and um, it just
spread like further and further a field. I guess I
(10:26):
started in Europe made its way to America because the
Arthur Rosenthal was from Grand Rapids, Michigan, right, um, and
it moved down to South America in pretty short order.
So I think by nineteen twelve there was a guy
named Jose Urias UM who had built his own Globe
of Death um back then and was riding in it
(10:49):
as well down in Brazil. And his family is actually
still around and still performing the Urias Brothers Globe of
Death act. Yeah. Remember our Circus Family's podcast. Oh were
they were in that? Huh? I think they were either
in it or it's you know. I was just pointing
out generally, like you do something like this and your
kid's gonna probably grow up and do something like this, right,
(11:11):
It's a family trade. Yeah. Now the other up to
the great grandsons are the ones who are UM performing
in the show. And what I read was that Jose
Urias is nineteen twelve, Globe of Death is still in
use by them. They have other globes as well, but
it's still in usable condition. That's the true globe of Death.
It's right, you could actually die right right exactly? Um?
(11:34):
You may have noticed earlier I said something about the
word patent from Arthur Rosenthal. He did get a patent
on May third, nineteen o four. And you also heard
us mention things like South America in Germany, and you
may be thinking, well, that's great. Art Rosenthal was getting
bank from all these globes of death everywhere. Sadly that
did not happen. Uh, he had a patent, but I
(11:58):
guess it was just one of those things where early
nineteen hundreds, you're gonna have a hard time chasing these
people down around the world saying I own the patent.
Did that give me a hundred dollars? Right? Well, I mean,
I think even though they their paths must have crossed,
they can't imagine the globe of death community, even around
the world was like a big group, you know. So
(12:18):
I'm sure he was keenly aware of it, but I
don't know. Maybe he just didn't pursue it because there
was international who knows. Well, I just think at the
time it's just so hard to successfully do that internationally,
you know. Yeah, I think you're right, man. So at
any rate, we got numerous globes of death all around
the world, A lot of the writers, Um, where did
you get this history section? I can't even tell you.
(12:40):
I don't remember. All right, Well, they mentioned quite a
few speedies, Speedy Wilson, Speedy McNish who I like, Speedy McNish, uh,
and Louis Louis Speedy, Babs and uh it says Babs
on one line, then Babbus and another, so I'm not
sure which it is we're going with Babs. I like Babs.
But um. He was notable because he was the very
(13:02):
first person to do a loop to loop and not
just merely ride horizontally right, which is very impressive for
what nineteen Yeah it was, I think his was third
four or no? He said the he said a world record.
This guy was a globe of death. Amazed balls guy. Um,
(13:23):
he said a world record after being the first to
do the loop to loop. He said, a world record
of a thousand and three loops inside of a globe.
They should call these amazed balls. I think it's still
they should. It's a great name, amazed balls of death,
amazed balls de lamarte. Um. But I think his record
is still unbroken of a thousand and three. It's got
(13:46):
to just be because somebody's like I don't feel like
spending around that many times. Yeah, there's just people are
too busy that would take ours. I have a family,
but like you said, there are many families all over
the world that have been doing this for many, many decades,
and it seems very much to a state in the
family biz. Uh. And one of the ones in article
they talked about a lot or the are they the
(14:08):
urias is. Yeah, so there was a heyday of the
Globe of Death between World War One and World War two. UM.
That may have actually been its original golden age, but
it also like spread around the world around that time.
Then to um, there's another one like in the seventies
of the sixties and seventies, there were some innovations that
we'll talk about UM. And then it kind of became
(14:30):
like almost legit in the early two thousands when like
long established circuses started to pick up the acts like
the Urias is. I believe we're hired by Wringling Brothers,
Barnum and Bailey. Um. The Universal Circus picked up the
Willie family UM, and so like like they kind of
(14:53):
went from I think like UM, these kind of scratching
out in existence, like having to hustle to to basically
like corporate spa answorship. Like finally the big circus has
got hip to this idea in the early two thousand's.
So we take a break. Yeah, let's all right, let's
take a break and we'll come back and well we'll
talk about the globe of death, all right, man, So
(15:39):
we're back, and as you said, we're talking about the
globe of death. That's right. Yeah, So these things. Here's
the deal with these is they vary in size generally speaking.
Unless you're pulling off some pretty amazing tricks with lots
of writers are trying to set some big record, you're
probably looking at at about a sixteen footage in diameter,
(16:02):
uh sphere, and they need to go. And it's amazing
that they were doing this in the thirties and forties
when motorcycles were so heavy. Well, the glove of Death
got its name from killing some people for sure, for real.
Oh yeah, there have been many, many, many injuries. But yes,
you're right, especially early on, it was exceedingly dangerous. Yeah,
(16:25):
So these motorcycles are a lot more powerful and lighter now.
So if you're going to be in the Globe of
death business, now it's a good time to do it.
Um you're going around generally forty fifty maybe sixty miles
an hour at the most, uh three and a half
to four and a half g's and that is g
force on your body, and that's what's generally happening. You're
(16:48):
you're on a trajectory that you have pre planned, but
you are not on a track. And it doesn't use magnets.
It's literally just physics at work. Yeah, Apparently a lot
of people think that there's a tricker and allusion to it,
and there actually is not. And again we're not We're
not to the physics yet. We gotta hang on, but
we're going to talk about it eventually. So, like you said,
(17:10):
the globes themselves have kind of a universal size, although
it changes, but there are also other things that the
globes do it. So it's amazing enough that there's people
like riding around these things and on motorcycles. But I
think one of the first um families to use a
split globe was the urias Is. I saw a picture
that they credited to the sixties where the globe hydraulically
(17:34):
splits in half and the top part lifts up and
guests which side or which part the riders moving in
at the time, right the upper part, So they are
actually in the top half of the globe. And now
there's like no bottom. The bottom is well below and
there's a big gap between the top half and the
(17:54):
bottom half of the globe of death and the riders
just circling around the top. How big is that up? Uh?
In the picture it looked to be a good five
to six seven feet. Oh, I misread this whole move then,
Oh dude, it is not like because it's it's like
they can very easily just go flying out if they
if they got too close to the edge. That's their toasts. See,
(18:17):
here's what I thought happened during a split globe trick,
is that they they split it by about eight inches
and then would just continue to span that split. That'd
be pretty cool vertically. But no, this is yours, not yours.
You didn't invent it, but well I presented it. Yours
is way better. Yeah, no, I agreed, And to see
(18:39):
it is actually pretty amazing, um because it just it
just brings home the whole the whole thing before. Yes,
they have a bottom, but it's still it's a really
scary sphere of death, right, but now there's nothing, there's
just the top. It's it's it's incredible, it's an incredible
thing to see. Everyone basically should go to YouTube and
(18:59):
check it out right now. Split globe. Um, there's also
a family. I believe it's the Torres family who um
were the first to introduce a triple split globe. So
there's a top, a middle, and a bottom. And so
I think the one I saw was that they were
um circling the middle part, the middle band. So it's
(19:23):
really just this narrow little um band of steel that
they have to like stay on track with or else
go a little higher, a little lower again your toast right. Uh.
And you think that, um, the dangerous part would be
sticking to the globe with that motorcycle. That is not
(19:46):
the case because once we explain the physics, which we're
still not gonna do yet, not yet, not yet, um,
Like physics takes care of that. So it's it's pretty easy,
like there's a formula that you figure out how fast
you need to be going, and it's constant, like you
don't have to worry about anything else. It's really those
g forces once you get in there these one of
these Urias dudes said, when they go upside down, he said,
(20:10):
our heads are at gray out like a right, they
come close to passing out in this thing from the
g force. And there's one trick they do with uh
is it one of their wives that they put in there.
And she she's an aeroist, so she hangs from the
center while they ride around her. And they said, when
there's a certain point in that show where she can't
see us and we can't see her, and you just
(20:32):
have to trust that it is mapped out and timed
and practiced. It's pretty awesome mapped out in time too,
before you even practiced, right, yeah, um, and it is.
It's basically all timing from what I understand. But they
have all that like just ticked off in their heads
just from experience. Um. One of the other things that
(20:53):
really comes into play are the bikes that they use. Right.
So for this how Stuff Works article, I think they
actually interviewed the one of the Uriah's brothers and he
was saying that like all the bikes they use are
modified dirt bikes, so they they're powerful, but they're also lightweight.
But then they modify them and change them from like
a hundred and twenty five cubic centimeter engine to about
(21:16):
a hundred and fifty cubic centimeter engine. But it's still
on that same light dirt bike, right, So it's got
a lot of power. But there's only a certain amount
of speed you're gonna get to anyway, because as we'll
see in the physics, which we're not getting to yet. Um,
if you speed up too quickly, you're going to increase
the G force too much and you're going to black out,
(21:37):
and that's a terrible thing to have happened to you
while you're in the globe of death. Right. So there's
only a certain amount of speed you need. So horsepower,
which is the quality in the engine that you want
to hit high top end speeds. The quality the quality
of that engine. That's thanks for pointing that out, because
I think I would have gotten it past a few
(21:58):
people as you not said anything. Hang on, man, I'm
here on my fingernails. Just so, Um, horsepower is not important.
What is important is torque. Torque is that thing where
you know when you hear like, oh, this car can
go from zero to sixty and like five seconds or whatever.
That's all torque. That's a that's an expression of torque,
(22:18):
and torque is um the power that it takes to
spin something on its axis, like a rotational power, right,
and so you know, like you're spinning an axis when
you're making a tire move. And the faster you can
make that tire move from a dead stop, the quicker
(22:39):
you can go in the shorter amount of time, that's torque.
And that's what really counts on the bikes in the
Globe of Death, because you want to be able to
just take off and be spinning around, um like from
a dead standstill in in no time at all. Well
at rock back and forth a little bit to get
get the timing right even better, but they still want
(23:01):
really high torque, and so that's the that's what they're
looking for with these bikes UM as far as as
the big modification goes as as much torque as you
can possibly have. Can I tell you a torque story?
Oh you have a torque story. A torque story, let's
hear it. So uh vacation this year I love Palms
where I famously lost another tooth on a Christini on
(23:22):
a Christini. This was pre no. I think this is
after I lost a tooth regardless. We went out to
dinner one night at Isle of Palms as opposed to
just cooking up tons and tons of seafood at the house,
which is what I like to do, and we got
a car ride to the restaurant. I had a great time.
(23:44):
I had quite a bit to drink, big celebratory I
think it was a final night dinner. And then afterward
we call a car to pick us up and a
dude shows up in a Tesla. Uh a Tesla car,
Like this is a ride sharing app? Yeah, yeah, So
he shows up in Tesla and I was like, oh,
well this is great. We're all excited. Uh a little buzz.
(24:05):
No one had ever written in a Tesla and he
got us in this thing and he was he was
sort of telling us, it's very cool guy. Uh, college
student paying for his Tesla and school through driving it
for people, and um, he was just telling us all
about it. You know, people get a sense that Tesla
owners like to show off their Tesla's because they're so neat,
(24:28):
and uh, it really was cool. And I'm not a
car guy. I'm knocked out, not knocked out by much
in a car, but I was like this is pretty great.
So I'm sitting in the backseat and uh, my friend
Justin's in the front, and his girlfriend and Emily and
I are all three in the back, and he was
talking about the torque and the zero to sixty capabilities,
the qualities of that engine and uh, and he was like, yeah,
(24:50):
you know, there's no combustion, so there's like zero lag,
like you hit the gas and you go, like even
your highest performance combustion sports car engine, well you know
there's a little bit of that lag at first when
you punch it while everything's firing, but not so with
the Tesla. And so when justin score for Melissa's like,
can you do it? Can you? Can you show us?
(25:10):
He was like all right. So he makes a couple
of turns and goes to this area, this long straight
road where it's pretty desolate, and he knows he can
do it, and he stopped and he's like, all right,
everyone hold on, and we kind of laughed, you don't
necessariously hold on. And he punched it, dude, And it
was faster than any roller coaster, like even the ones
that hydraulically launch you. Faster than anything I've ever experienced.
(25:34):
That quickly in my life. Yeah, I've heard that about Tesla's.
Actually it pushed us back into the seat, physically push
my head back against the head rest, and the only
thing we could all do was like laugh and smile,
and I think Melissa screamed like a scream of delight.
We were like four children, and it was like that
was one of the coolest things. And of course I
(25:55):
gave him this huge tip, which I think that's always
paid for that Tesla. He was giving people joy rides
like I guess I can. Anyway, it was great. That
is not a prolonged ad for Tesla, as I wish
I could afford one those things, but it was very sweet. Well,
they have like, uh the I guess more affordable comparatively speaking.
Was it the Model three? Yeah, but I don't think
(26:16):
that's the one that does what this one does. I
think all of them do though, because they don't have
that lag. Yeah, but they don't don't have that huge engine.
Yeah that's true, Like, surely they don't all go this fast, right,
I don't know, let's find out. We'll go look it
up later. And I asked him, like a dummy, you know,
how did you buy this thing? And he went I
went to a Tesla dealership. Oh, he was thinking, Dad, gotcha.
(26:42):
Should we take another break after that Tesla story? We
need to recuperate. Yeah, I feel like I derailed this.
So no, no, no, I've got to I've got to
digest that whole thing. All Right, we'll come back and
we'll finally talk about physics. All right, we are back
(27:22):
and it's time. It's time for the dreaded physics, which
Chuck is feeling pretty good about. So Chuck, why don't
you take a crack at it and then I'll take
a crack at it. Well, I mean, I'm not gonna
explain it all and have you re explain it? So okay,
because that's no fun for anybody. Well, you go ahead,
but we can we can tag team this thing. The
(27:43):
way I understand it is there are a few forces
at work here that make this all possible, one of
which is, uh, oh, mancye is it centrifical or centripetal.
I've I've seen that if you are a physicist, there's
no such thing as centrifugal center a pidal all right,
So that's the one of the main forces at work.
(28:04):
And if you are traveling on a on a just
a regular street. Uh, you don't. It's a pretty easy
calculation if you're talking about the maths of some triple force.
It just gets complicated when you're talking about a globe
of death, because you're not on a flat surface and
(28:25):
you're not just traveling horizontally on a round surface. You're
going all over the place. So that's when it gets
a little more complicated, right, keep going, wellson, triple forces
directed towards the center of a path, of a circular path. Uh,
you've also got the forces, and this is just the overview.
We'll get more detailed. There's also also the force of gravity,
(28:47):
of course, at work when you're in one of these things,
because when you're going upside down, as everyone knows, gravity
is always directed straight down. Yeah, Or when you're like
you know, perpendicular to the ground or paralleled to the ground,
like riding around in the circle right on the middle
of the globe, it's still pushing you downward. Gravity is
always pushing you downward. And then finally we have the
(29:10):
normal force, which, um everyone's always heard the saying that
every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If you
go and press on something that's not movable, like a
five thousand pound rock, and that rock doesn't move. It
is that the normal force is that rock exerting its
force back on you. It's in an equal and opposite amount, right,
(29:34):
that's right. And if it if it wasn't there, and
it's not always there, then you would push the rock
and it would move right. Yeah, well done, But that's
that's not all man Like, what was how do these
all work together? Here's so here's what's been messing me up.
And I think this this helped my breakthrough. Um, the
(29:54):
force of gravity and G forces are not the same thing.
This is what was messing me up. I'm like, if
G forces make it feel like you're being pressed up
against something, right, So like do you you remember did
you ever go on that like steel drum carnival machine.
I would just just spin right and you get pressed
up against the inside and they lower the floor and
(30:17):
you're just you're just hanging there. But you're like, of
course you're being pressed up against the edge. Apparently, and
this is why people think physicists are all crazy. But
apparently that's an illusion. That doesn't that's not You're not
actually being pressed up against the edge of it. You're
being pressed towards the center by the drum. Okay, that
(30:38):
centripetal force. And there's another way to think about this, Man,
I can do this, Chuck. If you took a key, um,
and you put it on a string and you started
swinging it over your head in a circle. Right, So
it's being on an axis, and the axis is where
you're The string is being old in the grip of
(31:01):
your hand. That's the axis of the circle. What's happening
is that key at any given time, it just wants
to go straight. That's all it wants, Man, Just let
me go straight. Um, That's the direction of its velocity
is straight. At any given point. The problem is attached
to the string, and the string is exerting the centripetal force,
(31:22):
pulling the key towards the center. And so rather than
being allowed to go straight, it's being forced into a
circular path around the center. That is what centripetal force does. Okay,
that's all well and good when it's a key on
a string, But when you're talking about the globe of death,
the string is actually the globe. The globe is the
(31:43):
thing that exerts the centripetal force against the person on
the bike. Right, there's no string pulling them towards the center.
They're not being pulled towards the center by the string.
They're being pushed towards the center by the external force
of the globe of death. Okay. And as long as
that globe is strong enough to take the g forces
(32:04):
which we'll talk about in a second, that increased weight
against it and push it back in an equal amount,
then it will just keep directing that person along that
circular path around the center, which is in the middle.
It's invisible point in the middle of the globe of death. Right.
If it's not strong enough, then it's gonna break and
that person is going to go off in that straight
(32:26):
direction that they've been wanting to go in the whole time,
but of being been directed into a circle instead. Right. So,
in terms of an equation in this case, and tripleal
force is equal to the force of the gravity on
the motorcycle and the dude or a lady. They have
ladies that do this, now, yeah, they do. They have
a whole um, whole female team which I'll tell you
(32:46):
in a second once I find the name. So it's
that force force of gravity plus that normal force that
I was talking about on the motorcycle and the rider
by the globe pushing back on that. So once like
you can figure that out, like I said earlier, with
a mathic asian about how fast you need to go
as long as you know how big everything is, uh
that is the globe. But once that, once you go
(33:07):
below that speed and you start to fall, that that
normal force goes to zero. Right, So it takes a
bit of friction, um to keep the tire gripped to
the globe. As long as you have that friction, that
that um normal force can press against you uh much
(33:27):
more easily. R Okay, so I think, so here's the thing.
So this is the difference between the force of gravity
and g forces. G forces are just a measure of
how much gravity is pushing down on you at any
given point. Like if you jump up in the air,
that's one G that you're you're um with no wind
resistance that you normally experience. And we call it weight,
(33:50):
right that your weight is the force of gravity acting
on the mass of your body. But if you speed
up really really quick, especially say at like um a
circular velocity, right, and you you're being you. You are
actually increasing your own weight, which you feel is G force.
It's like pressing down on you. You feel heavy and
(34:11):
you can't move. And in in real physiological terms, like
the blood is being pressed away from its normal locations,
which is why you can black out right because some
of the blood is no longer in some parts of
your brain, and your brain needs the blood to operate.
But as far as the physics goes, gravity is always
pushing downward on you. Remember that, and the G force
(34:34):
is pushing you and making you feel like you're being
pushed outward, when really it's the the combination of your
circular velocity and the radius, the distance between the edge
of the circle in the center of the circle at
any given point. And the more the more you increase
your speed or the less of the radius, the stronger
(34:58):
the G force or the higher than the G forces
against you. So if you have a small little um
globe of death, or you're traveling really really fast in
the globe of death, you're going to very quickly reach
a G force to where like you're not only black out,
but you you can die from that as well. Right,
(35:18):
So they actually, like you said, before the the timing
is what they have in their heads. But they can
sit down and and mathematically calculate what they need to,
what speed they need to hit at, what bike, what
like the weight that they need to be at and
their bike needs to be at, so that they can
know as long as I hit the speed, I'm always
going to be able to go anywhere i want to
(35:39):
on the globe of Death. I think we did a chunk. Yeah,
And so as far as G force goes like what
you can what you can handle as a human um
is what like about seven g s is about the
tops that you want to go right as as a person.
I don't remember what James bond, Uh, which one was that?
(36:02):
Was that octopusy? I don't know. I don't think I've
seen that one. Yeah, he got in a in a
in a G force machine which was basically a big
it was like a centrifuge, big round room with a
pod on an arm connected in the center and it
would just spun him around. And of course he was like,
(36:23):
give me, give me all you got, uh, And then
they gave him kind of a little ride and then
the bad guy came in the baddy and started cranking
it even further and even further. And I just remember
being a kid and seeing Roger Moore's face like they
must have just had some powerful wind blower on him
because his cheeks were rippling. I was like, oh my god,
(36:45):
he's really in that thing, right. But I think, I mean,
I'm sure that they did not get the physics right
and they probably pushed him to like eleven so they them.
That really rings a bell what you're describing. I guess
I have seen all those movies in you. I've seen
most of them. That's the Roger Moore one, so I
would think I have seen it, but um, and I
(37:07):
just that that comes to mind. But um, yeah, because
I can see Roger Moore's face going like yeah, and
that only happened once, right, exactly right, p Roger Moore?
Yeah for real? But you remember Colonel um John Paul Stapp,
the guy who gave us seatbelts and crash test dummies.
How could I forget? Remember his eyes used to like
(37:28):
burst blood vessels because of the amount of gees that
he was being pushed to. Yeah, but I think so
you mentioned the seven gees that was um what a
guy named Guy Martin who is a motorcyclist who actually
set the world record for the fastest anyone's um hit
a wall of death with which is basically like a
globe of death, but without the top and the bottom.
It's more like a barrel. Yeah, exactly. Um, and that's
(37:53):
just riding horizontally super fast. In his case, I think
what he had seventy eight miles, yes, and the Guinness
people said we're here and you've got two chances to
get to sixty miles per hour, and he did like
seventy two I think the first time, and then seventy
eight the second time. I just seen that. That was
probably it probably looked like Roger Moore. And I think
(38:13):
that was a moonraker. I don't. I don't think I
see moonrakers either. Well, Moonraker was the one that was.
It was for James Bond. It was very futuristic. I
had to deal with outer space and stuff like that.
Doesn't he like do it in zero gravity with the
Bond girl? Of course he does. Um. What was the
(38:33):
one where he's got that lotus that turns into a submarine. Man.
I want to say the spy he loved me? Or
I think he might be right I don't know. I
know that geez somewhere Matt Gorley is spinning in his
chair and Los Angeles, I can't remember. I can't either. Yeah.
I love my bond, but I just don't have them
(38:54):
all like mapped out in memorized. If you do want
to see that, um guy Martin break that world record.
Apparently the Channel four over in the UK UM sponsored it,
so I'm sure they have it somewhere. Yah. Yeah. And lastly, Chuck,
I have to give a huge, huge shout out to
UM PBS Digital Studios, Crash Course Physics for helping break
(39:20):
my brain into understanding of the centriple force thing that
you didn't go to, Uh, Nickelodeon Science. They didn't have it.
They didn't have what I was looking for. Yeah, we
said this at live shows. I don't know if we've
ever said on the air, but uh, children's science websites
are great, great places to understand complex science if you
don't get it. UM, we go there a lot, and
(39:42):
that's we don't only go there, but a lot of times.
That's a great starting point for breaking things down in
an easy way. So we highly recommend it. Agreed, there's
no shame, no not at all. Uh, you got anything else?
I got nothing else. Well. Uh, if you want to
know more about the globe of death, just go start
why Global Death videos. They're pretty awesome. Uh. And in
(40:02):
the meantime, you can check out this article on how
stuff works dot com. Since I said that it's time
for listening mail, I'm gonna call this flu epidemic. Hey guys,
I'm a Master's of Public Health candidate in Atlanta at
Emory and we spend a good amount of time discussing
the flu. I remember you mentioning the Spanish flu and
(40:24):
wondered if such an epidemic could happen again. Bad news is,
it can and it probably will. According to public health scholars.
That is, the culprit is our meat industry, which keeps
an overbundance of foul and pigs in tight, unsanitary quarters
because of the way this industry is growing, and some
might argue due to its lack of regulation. Uh, these
(40:45):
unsafe conditions lend to the rapid mutation of the virus. This,
coupled with the ever decreasing CDC budget, makes it harder
and harder for vaccine scientists to create accurate vaccines. On
top of all that, the fluescine is a low threat
by most of our society, rendering us ill equipped and underprepared.
Most people are scared of ebola or other difficult to
(41:05):
catch viruses. However, influenza is a rapidly mutating and highly
aggressive virus that is easily transmittable and is right here
on our doorstep. Scientists predict the flu might be the
next most deadly epidemic if we're not careful. My recommendation
to our congress people stop cutting the CDC budget. Prevention
is key. I know will probably sound like a quack
(41:26):
not to me for real, but just wanted to spread
a little knowledge and say hey to my favorite podcasters,
thanks for putting on such amazing show. And that is
from Jasmine. Thanks a lot, Jasmine. Hello over there, Demori.
That's right. I love your Rice. What Jasmine Rice? Okay?
(41:47):
Uh weird. If you want to get in touch with
us like Jasmine did, you can tweet to us at
s Y s K podcast or Josham Clark. You can
hang out with me on my website Are You Serious
Clark dot com. You can hang out with Chuck on
Facebook at Facebook dot com, slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant.
There's also Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know.
(42:09):
You can send us all an email, including Jerry to
stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com and has
always joined us at our home on the web. Stuff
you Should Know dot com. For more on this and
thousands of other topics, is it how stuff Works dot
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