December 12, 2025 • 31 mins
You may have played with a yo-yo before -- perhaps you've even walked the dog -- but do you know about the physics behind what makes a yo-yo sleep and wake up? Learn all about inertia, angular momentum and the history of the yo-yo in this episode of SYSK.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Happy continuing holidays. Everybody chuck here to tee up our
next episode on our twelve Days of Christmas Toys playlist.
And I am super excited because you're about to listen
to one of our older episodes from this list about
in molder toy It's all about Yoyo's. It's how Yoyo's work.
Hope you like it. Welcome to Stuff you should know
(00:27):
Fromhowstuffworks dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clarr. There's
Charles W Chuck Bryant.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
That's me, same as ever, scratching the old back.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Yeah, I just got a little itch there.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
You ever use one of those little dealies, the little
creepy hand, the little monkey pap on the end of
the stick I have.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Before, Yeah, I don't like to do that. It hurts
do Yeah, I guess you could call it that some
painful sensation.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
I get up gives the wall sometimes and do the
blue the bear.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
That'll do sometimes too. But it's weird, like I only
have backages in about the same place, and that would
be on my left shoulder blade on the western side
of it, depending on which direction I'm facing.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Curiously, this is going to be the most interesting part of.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
This show that is not a true Chuck Man, so Chuck. Yes,
this is going to be a great one.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
I have a feeling this is gonna be one of
those ones where it's like, wow, that turned out to
be really good. It's physics heavy out the y.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah, everyone loves that.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
But the fact is, when we finish this, you're gonna
know how yoyo works. This is probably the most truly titled,
truest titled episode. Well we've ever done, you think, yep?
Speaker 1 (01:46):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
All right, Well we'll find out.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
I think it should be called Physics through the Eye
of a Yo yo.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
So listen, have you ever seen the movie Harlem Knights
Parts dude? That is go back and watch it again,
the whole thing. Oh, you're crazy. It's one of the
best movies ever. Eddie Murphy, Red Fox, Richard Pryor, great
cast and like everybody else in it too. I think
Bernie Max in there.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Awesome cast, terrible script.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
I don't think the script is terrible. I thought it
was great. There's one thing about that movie that bugged
me to know it it's set in like the twenties, right, Yeah,
and Throughout the movie, Eddie Murphy uses the word yo.
Yo is obviously a modern term, and it just sticks
out like a sore thumb every time he does. It
drives me crazy, Like it drives me crazy that he
(02:31):
did it drives me crazy that the director wasn't like,
you can't say yo. This is like nineteen twenties New York.
Yo wasn't around.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
I don't know that they were going for historical accuracy
in that one.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
They were wearing spats. Yeah, so Jerry like that one.
So I went back to the little digging Chuck and
it turns out that yo was in fact around in
the nineteen twenties, but Eddie Murphy was still wrong for
using it in that capacity. Okay, okay. So yo goes
back at least to like the fifteenth cent as like
a hunting cry, right when somebody was like somebody else
(03:05):
might go yo, and you'd go chase fox. That was
kind of the first wave of yo. As far back
as eighteen fifty nine. We know that there were sailors
that were using.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
It yoho ho, yoho ho.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Or also it was a response for a roll call
like yo, like somebody called your name, you would say yo, key.
It wasn't until after World War Two, though, that the
modern incarnation comes and it came out of the Italian
quarters of Philadelphia.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Of course it did.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
So that's where they think yo came from after World
War Two. Hence Eddie Murphy was wrong in using yo
especially frequently in the movie Harlem Nins. So I did
all that research, or I could have just looked into
Google Translate from English to Filipino or vice versas, okay,
(04:04):
and find that it just means come.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Yeah, but I don't think that's what it means here.
It does it?
Speaker 2 (04:09):
It does now?
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
So the word yo yo, as it stands right means come,
come or come back.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Did you know that I did? You want to talk
a little bit about the history of yo yos? Did
you know before reading this fantastic article that yo yo's originated,
as we understand them now, originated in the Philippines in
the nineteen twenties.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
I didn't know that. I did know that it was
around for a long time before that, though, in you know,
other forms.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Well pretty much the same form. There were like two
forms of yo yo's in history. Yeah, and one came
out of the New one came out of the Philippines.
The other one, Yeah, it was pretty old.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Well, ancient Chinese or at least ancient Greeks, right more
than twenty five hundred years ago. But they think the
Chinese had something similar to that.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Yeah, I'm starting to strongly suspect that the Chinese or
the origin of human civilization. You think, yeah, they came
up with beer. Yeah, well they came up with beer.
There you have it. They went right there.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
And it is the oldest toy on the planet except
the doll. The dolly.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
I thought that was pretty interesting too. Yeah, yeah, of course,
although I wonder if they're kind of diminishing any kind
of ancient rituals or rites by saying, like, look at
this cute doll, when really it's you know, some sort
of fetish.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
I don't know, you never know. So it's been around
a long time. They've designed it in different ways over
the years. The original design was had the string tied
tight to the little axis there.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
We'll call it the Greek design, the Greek design, No,
we'll call it the Chinese design or the European design.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Well, not design, but it was popular in Europe. Yeah,
and that obviously if you ever used an old yo
yo like that, or redesign yours to where it's tied
around the axle. It'll pop up, you know, as soon
as you throw it down, it'll pop back up. Yeah,
because it's tied to the axle.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Exactly right. And you said it was popular in Europe.
There were other words for other names for the yo
yo before it was a yo yo.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
There was the limigrette, the bandolore.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
The bandolora was British, I believe the quiz. Yeah, I
didn't get a country of origin for that, but.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
It was very popular in Europe. There's a painting of
I think Louis the eighteenth is he the boy king?
I don't know whichever Louis was the boy king of
him holding like a yo yo, like a royal painting
of him with a yo yo?
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Or the what was a little hoop on in a stick?
Speaker 2 (06:36):
I think that's what it was called.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
That was an awesome game.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
The hoop on a stick. And then I don't think
you can compare the yo yo to the hoop on
a stick.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
No, I'm not comparing it. I'm just saying I just
never got that toy.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Oh oh, okay, well, here's another one for you. Napoleon
was well known for carrying and using a yo yo,
apparently for stress relief.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Oh yeah, yeah, it didn't work too.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Here's a stressed out dude. Yeah he needed the yo yo.
But as you said that, that's the European favored or
Chinese design, where like the strings tied really tight to
the axle and it just basically goes up and down.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Right, So the Filipino design led to the modern yo
yo as we understand it now, And the huge distinction
is that the string is just looped around the axle
kind of loosely, yeah, which has the added benefit of
allowing the yo yo itself to spin once it reaches
the end of the string. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Sleep, that's what the that's why people yo yo, I think. Yeah,
it's all about the tricks. I mean, it's sort of
fun for a minute just to go up and down,
but it's really all about the tricks.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Right, It's just a stress reliever if it just goes
up and down.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Did you yo yo when you were a kid?
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Uh? Yeah, here there. But even as a kid, like
I could sense that like these these new modern ones
that we'll talk about with like ball bearings and clutches.
They just seem like cheating.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
I agree, let's not even talk about them. It's not
even a real yo yo.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
So, Chuck, you want to talk about a little bit
about physics.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Well, let's finish the history first, shall we. Oh?
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Okay, well, I have plenty of that.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
It was originally in the Philippines. They think it was
a hunting weapon for like four hundred years. Uh huh so,
but not like a little tiny yo yo. They were
really big and it was basically a big spindle attached
to a rope with like spikes coming off of it.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
They were like the size of a you go, yeah,
And I guess.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
The just the benefit there is you could get it
back after you threw it at somebody.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Right. The string was almost just useless though, Well could
you just throw it and run after it?
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Oh? Really? Okay? It was actually heavy rope and they
use it for hunting too, right.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Well, at some point down the line, well, yeah, you
would think anything used in hunting, you know, does double
duty and more exactly anything you're trying to kill. Yeah.
At some point though, they became smaller and became toys,
and in the twenties a Philip you know, immigrant to
the US named Pedro Flores, started a company, the first
(09:05):
modern yoyo company in the United States, and did pretty
well for himself. And then in nineteen twenty nine he
sold out to a man named Duncan, Right, Donald.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Duncan, Yes, Donald Duncan, and Duncan Duncan, and you know
Floris's in Santa Barbara, and like you said, was selling
these things like hotcakes enough that Duncan said, hey, let
me buy that. I'm going to keep the name yo
yo because it's catchy. Yeah, I'm going to trademarkt and
now I own it. And through the years he had
(09:35):
competitors that made similar devices with different names, and they
were like, dude, everyone's calling the sing of yo yo.
We want to be able to call it a yo
yo too, And he said, no, no, I own it.
Then the federal courts in nineteen sixty five says, you
know what, that's generic enough now where you don't own
it any longer. Right, they're all yo yo's.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Well what those legal challenges to their trademark? The name
yoyo was one of the things that bled the company dry.
It eventually went bankrupt. Duncan, the Duncan Company went bankrupt.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Yeah, the same year they ruled, yeah against them.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
They were like, well, that's it for us. But they
also had other money troubles. They were actually victims of
their own success. The Duncan Company was. So they moved
in the forties to luck, Wisconsin, which very quickly became
known as the yoyo capital of the world. And at
their peak they were making thirty six hundred yoyos an hour,
mostly out of wood at first maple. They were using
(10:30):
a million board feet of maple wood every year. Yeah,
it's a lot. And they actually, in addition to their
legal challenges, like the money going to fight their legal battles,
they were paying tons of money in overtime too, advertising
And as a matter of fact, I think in nineteen
sixty two, Chuck, they managed to sell forty five million
(10:54):
yo yos and in that same year there were only
forty million kids in the US. Wow, pretty astounding.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
A chicken in every pot and a yo yo in
every other hand at least. Yeah, sure, well, lets I
guess some kids were yoyo with both hands.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
They're rich kids. Yeah, But like I said, they the
company ended up coming bankrupt anyway. But Yoyo enthusiasts still
look very fondly on the Duncan name. And I think
June sixth, Yes, June sixth is National Yo Yo Day,
which happens to be the same day as Donald Duncan's birthday.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Yeah. Yeah, well, and the Duncan name lives on obviously,
you still see Duncan Yoyo's. They they sold out. They
didn't just shut down.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Well, they went bankrupts and sold out, right, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
So who was it? The flam Flambeo Plastics company. Yeah,
they said we'll keep the name Duncan because it's synonymous
with Yo yo's.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Yeah, it's not generic yet. No, No, there's a little
(12:11):
yoyo history for you. Yeah, I got a little more.
I'm gonna say to the end. I think you'll like. Okay,
we're gonna tease you with it.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Now, let's talk about physics.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Well, I think this is very interesting.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Good.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
So there's a two Okay you mentioned with the string
tied to the classic Chinese design Yo yo, you have
one kind of energy going on, right, Yes, and that
is linear momentum, the ability of it to go up
and down I should say down and up right, that's right.
(12:45):
With the Filipino design the modern design. It has two
kinds of potential energy. It has that same linear momentum
to go up and down, but it also has angular momentum.
And angular momentum is its ability to spin on an axle. Yeah, okay,
so you've got two things going on. And like you said,
when the yo yo hits the end of the line
(13:06):
of its linear momentum, it can still It's built up
since it's wound around the spool. It's built up a
lot of angular momentum, so it can just sit there
and spin or sleep as you called it.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Yeah. It actually increases as it goes down, which is
the key to keeping it spinning.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Right.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
It gets faster as it falls.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
There's another pretty cool trait to a yo yo. Who
knew they were so complex? I didn't, did you?
Speaker 1 (13:29):
I did not?
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Okay. So they also have gyroscopic stability, chuck, they do. Okay. So,
if you have a yoyo that's sleeping and you push
down on top of it, like it goes down and
then back up right, that's because of its gyroscopic stability.
That point that you push down on the yo yo
is transferred from the front and spun around to the back.
(13:51):
So that's even now, so the yoyo will just keep
spinning as long as it's spinning fast enough.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Gyroscopic stability, Yes, that means a spinning object object will
resist change to its axis of rotation. And if you've
ever thrown a football, it's the same thing. Yeah, Or
if you've ever thrown a football poorly?
Speaker 2 (14:10):
What do they call that wobbler? A turkey wounded duck?
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Brick? That's why winded duck doesn't go very far because
it doesn't have that tight spin. Yeah, so it falls
off its axis and won't travel as.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Far, exactly same as a prison And then the whole
team's mad.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Basically anything that spins, Yeah, Frisbee's football's there's there's got
to be a baseball. We could liken it to a
baseball somehow.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Let's say a curveball, knuckleball slider.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Definitely not a knuckleball slighter doesn't spin it all, really,
is it like a shot put? No, the knuckleball, you,
the whole key is it doesn't move. It travels like this,
and that's why it moves all around. Crazy, isn't that nutty?
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Yeah, So you've got your you've got your yo yo sleeping,
You're you're totally aware of its gyroscopic stability and you
understand that it's angle momentum is just awesome. It's far
out right, it's far out but you want to wake
it up. And that's when you bring it out of
its sleep and rewind it back up the spool.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Right, a little tug on the old finger.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Yeah, And the reason why is because the loop, right,
there's less friction with the loop around the axle. Yeah,
when you tug it, you increase that friction and you
allow it to rewind.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
It just grabs a hold of its buddy and just
let's go back up to the palm.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Yep. It's pretty cool. Yeah, I like yoyo physics a lot.
So we basically just talked about the two hardest parts, right,
sleeping and waking.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Yeah, And like I said, sleeping is the key to
do any kind of trick like walking the dog, which
I was pretty good. I used to could do a
few yo yo tricks. Really, Yeah, I could walk the dog,
and I could do I could do the deal where
you make a triangle and then TikTok through the triangle,
something like.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
A cradle or probably the cats in the cradle, let's.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Call a cat's cradle, and then I could I could
do the around the world. Wow, around the world.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Yeah, I couldn't do any of those.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
I'm gonna this inspired me to get a new Yo Yo.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
By the way, I like the vintage dunk and one
specifically the yellow ones with the butterfly, like the gold
the gold butterfly.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
The inverted ones.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
No, it was the one butterfly on that okay, because
they had those that were that looked like a butterfly
that were I know what you're talking about, inverted, and
I think that actually plays a part in the uh
uh increasing the moment of inertia section. Yeah, I think
that's why they flipped it out to put more weight
on the outside. Yeah, okay, you want to talk about that?
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Why not?
Speaker 2 (16:39):
So do you remember when we did the Murphy's Law podcast?
Speaker 1 (16:44):
How could I forget?
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Remember one of the books that he wrote was for
your Moments of Inertia?
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yeah, I didn't realize it was a terrible, terrible engineering
pun until I read this article.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Kind of made me hate John Paul Stapp a little bit.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Nah, we love that guy.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
So chuck A moment of Inertia's basically a way of
describing a spinning objects resistance to changes in that rotation,
basically being slowed down. Yeah, right, And what smarter people
than us have figured out is that if you increase
the mass and distribute it slightly further away from the axis,
(17:22):
you're going to increase its moment of inertia, right, and
that increases the amount of time it's just sleeping, right.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Yeah. And like I said, I don't know this, but
I just remember when I was a kid, they had
those inverted yo yos, and I bet you anything that's
why they did that. It's got to be because they
were wider at the outside and then curved in, which
had to be less mass. Yeah, it was less stuff,
less wood, right, So I'm going to go on record
as saying that's why they did that.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
But I think you want more mass further away, yeah,
to increase its moment of inertia.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Right. Yeah, So it was there was more mass on
the outside, I guess, further away from the axis, right. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
So that allows things to sleep a lot longer. And
that was a I guess you could say one of
the breakthroughs in yoyo design. I think in the sixties,
they started adding mass to the outside and extending the
axle a little bit. Bam, the yoyo has been improved.
Think about this, right, twenty five hundred, maybe even longer
(18:21):
than that. Years ago. Yeah, somebody invented the yoyo. Does
not change until the Philippines in the early twentieth century.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Well, I thought it said it did change, We just
don't know. Said there were changes in designs over the years. No,
not that I took. I took it like there was
one way, and then there was the Filipino way.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
And that was it.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
We got a correction to make then.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
And then the twentieth century hits, and then there's all
these great improvements on these designs.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Indeed, one of the.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Improvements, Chuck was adding ball bearings. Right, yeah, well, you.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
And I don't think these are improvements, ear least I don't.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Okay, that's absolutely sure. That's a good caveat. I think
that the Filipinos perfected the yoya.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Let's just call them modifications, okay for sorry kids who
don't know how to yoyo rich kids. Yeah, that makes
it easier, I think, Yeah, and that the whole point
of both of these things. Yeah, I guess it makes
it easier sleep and yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Yeah, And I guess they're like, well, if you're just
enjoying sleeping and waking your yo yo, then why make
it tough.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
If you want to have fun with your toy?
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Right?
Speaker 1 (19:28):
I can't believe they made it easier for kids to
have fun. It's not, dare they?
Speaker 2 (19:32):
So the ball bearing design I think is kind of clever. Basically,
this modification takes the axle and splits it in two yeah,
into two races, which are basically little courses for ball
bearings to spin around.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Right, now, does it split the axle? These are just
around the axle.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
So one is connected to the axle, right, that's the
inner race. One is connected to the string. That's the
outer race. And then in between the two ball bearings right, Okay,
they're not connected in any way except maybe via the
contact with the ball bearings.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Right.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
So when you when you release your yo yo toward
the ground and it's linear and angular, momentum really build up.
When it hits the inner race can tilt a little
bit and connect with the outer race via the ball bearings.
So they're they're spinning right, right, and then as they
straighten out the they they're they're not connected anymore, so
(20:31):
that the string no longer has any effect on whether
the yo yo spins or not, because it's just the
inner race connected to the axle that's spinning. So your
yo yo can sleep far, far longer.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Yeah, the outer race spends the inner race which spins
the axle.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Right, it's like a transfer of angular momentum exactly, and
then the strings just like you just let me know
when you're done, and we'll wind back up.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Well, it'll get a little tougg'll do the same thing
with that style, right right, okay.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Or you can just completely take yourself out of the
equation altogether except for a snap of the risk. The
initial release is all you need to do with what's
called the yo yo with the brain.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
These are really fake yoyo's. Yeah, I want to get
one though. It's kind of cool.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
You could be in a vegetative state and do this
yo yo.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Yeah. This was in the nineties. Company called Yomega release these,
and they called it the yo Yo with a brain,
when in fact they should have called it the yo
Yo with a clutch. And the deal here is you've
got these two clutch arms weighted ball on one side,
and it's not attached on the other side, and they're
spring loaded. The spindle is not attached to the axle,
(21:41):
but the clutch arms are attached to the spindle. So
when you throw this thing down, it's gonna spin slower
at first, and the clutch is engaged. As it gets faster,
all of a sudden, it's enough inertia to pop the
clutch essentially against the edges, and it releases the spindle,
(22:01):
which makes the whole thing spin faster.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
On the axis right, the centrifugal force pushes down the weight,
which pushes down the arm onto the spring, which releases
the two which allows it to spin.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
And it only spins for a certain amount of time.
It's not like the kind that you tug back up.
It'll spin till it slows down and then the clutch
locks back down and boom, it shoots.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Back up right back.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
I want to I wish we had one of those.
I want to see what it's like.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
So basically, the big to the two modifications are based
on separating the string from the axle. Yeah, by creating
two different kinds of I guess axles or spindles or whatever.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Which are really just sort of taking the Philippine Filipino
design a step further because although it made contact with
the axle, it wasn't quote connected to the axle. Yeah,
I guess it was, but it wasn't tight right.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
And a guy named Michael Caffrey is the one who
came up with the yo yo with the brain, and
Yomega started telling him in nineteen ninety, but he came
up with it nineteen two years after a man named
Tom Cune created the no Jive three and one yo
Yo that you could take apart and replace the axle
and do all sorts of modifications with no really big,
(23:12):
big time for changes in yo yo design.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
So did he rip this dude off? Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 2 (23:17):
No, okay, No, I'm just saying, like the two these
two big steps in the Yoyo design.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Well you said two years after it was sinister. Well
you're a very suspicious person I am when it comes
to yo Yo's design.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Chuck, that's pretty much the physics of yo Yo's Did
you know that we just explained how Yoyo's work.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
You know, I looked online at videos and stuff to
make it a little easier because this is a very
visual thing, and they do have videos. But what I
found out is that a lot of teachers, physics teachers,
use yoyo's to describe these whatever four to six properties
that we described.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
I have to tell you, I understand angular momentum far better.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Now. I understand, and although it went through the yoyos
to the football, I understand the moment of inertia. Okay,
all right, is that moment of inertia? No, that's angular momentum,
angular momentum.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Spinning on an axis.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Yeah, Oh you were talking about the gyroscopic stability.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Yeah, there's what it was. See I get confused.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
I did too, Chuck, it's physics, man, don't feel bad.
You want to know a couple more pieces of yoyo trivia?
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Yeah, it's here.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
In nineteen sixty eight, when Abby Hoffman of the Chicago
seven Yeah, was indicted or no, charged with contempt of
Congress when he started doing the Walk the Dog during
a House on American Activities Committee. Oh really session that
was investigating him.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
So he was like, I'm just so over this. I'm
gonna yo yo.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Well, apparently the way I read it is that he
was trying to entertain lighting everything up. It's like here,
watch me yo yo And he was walking the dog.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
And the who ax said no, wrap one.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
So that's how yoyo's are connected to McCarthyism. If you
want to take a N S Y S K quizn
that comes up.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Plus yoyo's were huge back then. Totally thought that was
like the heyday. I think this is sixties.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Yeah, Nixon. Have you seen Nixon try to yo yo?
Speaker 1 (25:34):
No?
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Man, if you don't like Nixon, this will just make
you hate him even more. The night that they opened
the Grand Ole Opry and I think sometime in nineteen
seventy four, what's the main guy, like the whole cast
of hehaws behind Nixon and then the mate Roy Akeff. Yeah,
he presents Nixon with a yo yo and like has
to put it on Nixon's finger, and Nixon looks like
(25:55):
what's going on? You know? And and then he tries
to do it once and it just kind of like
flops down and makes like a sad trombone noise. Wow,
And he just has this sullen like look on his face,
like I don't like yo yo's. He looks kind of
like you did at the beginning of this episode.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Yeah, me and Tricky, Yeah you knew.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
And then they took a yo yo in space Chuck, Yeah,
I saw that and.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
It still worked.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
It did work. They found that like letting it drop
did nothing because they were testing it in microgravity. But
if you throw it, it will it will go slowly.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
You can do it.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
You can do it slowly, but it will still spin
and it moves kind of just kind of gracefully along
the string like in just mid air, horizontally, and but
it'll never sleep.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Well, thank god NASA did that.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Yeah, back in nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Those are all the videos you see, though they do
much more than that.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
That was back when NASA was like, we have so
much money, we don't know what to do. Let's launch
something and let's say the Toys in Space Project, right,
and they did.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Now this was just for Yoyo's. That was the only
thing they did on that flight.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Well, no, the Toys and Space Project in company or
encompassed sixty Shuttle missions, one for each toy that they
tested out. Wow, Jackson was one of the best ones.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
The Bolo paddle.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Yeah, so that's uh, that's yo Yo's. Frankly, I'm pretty
happy with this one.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
I thought you were going to lead in with something
on yo yo ma or something.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
No, man, try to look up yoyo's in the news
and not get yo yo ma cheese. Can't do it, stupid.
I searched a yo yo minus ma minus knee, minus
gabba to finally get some stuff on.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
O yo gabba gaba. Sure, ye oh what was the
other one yo mama neo yo MTV wraps that came
up too, did it?
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Yeah? I stopped searching before I minused MTV too. You
know you could minus I was in the jew Yeah,
and it'll it'll root out all the search, all this,
all the results that have that.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Really, so you just put the minus.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Sign minus and then the next letter. No space, had
no idea, and you can do a bunch of different ones,
no comments, no nothing, just like minus gabba minus yo
minus mom, minus knee.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
You literally just improved my life. Oh good, or my research.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
For like that eight times a day?
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (28:20):
All right, well that's it, all right, yo yosa. I
was in a jewelry store once and Neo came in.
It seemed nice.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Who's Neo?
Speaker 2 (28:28):
He's this rapper He's from Atlanta.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
I thought you were talking about the matrix. No, that's
like his real names Cana Neo.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
This is ni Yo.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Oh yeah, I've heard of him.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Yeah him. Well, if you want to learn more about
Yoyo's including some really top notch illustrations, this is one
of those ones that you will see why we have
staff illustrators here at in color.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
No.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Yes, I saw you want to type in yo Yo
at the in the handy search bar at house stuff
works dot com. That'll bring up that really cool article.
And I said handy search bar. So now it's time
for Chuck to shine with another edition of Listener Mail.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Josh, this is one of our oldest than not by age,
but one of our most loyal fans, Anna Spies. She
has a band and they put together Well, let me
just read it. This is coming out shortly after Christmas,
and she said it was still great to read this. Hi,
guys and Jerry. Since we're firmly in the festive, greedy
(29:30):
little grip of the holiday season, I was wondering if
you could give a shout out to a project I'm
involved in or my band is. At least it's a
charity album to raise funds for the continued fallout from
the Japanese earthquake and nuclear disaster, and the light of
everything that's happened since, I know, it's been put on
the back burner of most people's charitable contributions, which is
why we were thrilled and honor to our part to
(29:52):
re raise awareness when the label releasing this compilation approached
us to contribute a track. So you know, she's right
about these tragedies that happen and then six months later
you kind of forget about it.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
It's the curse of the news cycle exactly.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
But luckily there's a lot of people that my friend
Dave is one of them that's still working, like on
the tsunami from five or six years ago. Oh that's great,
so continued help is always needed. There's a CD that's
going to be out in mid December, so by this
by the time this comes out, it'll already be out.
You can stream the entire album, which is thirty seven
(30:27):
tracks by thirty seven artists on the website More Hope
for Japan dot com and her band New Century Classics
wrote and recorded a brand new song just for this compilation,
and she's quite proud of it, and I haven't had
a chance to listen to it yet, but I'm gonna,
And she says there's a lot of far better known
artists on there, and anyone who likes instrumental music, post rock,
(30:50):
ambient and basically pretty melodic guitar bassed tunes should dig it.
So check it out. That Anna's band, New Century Classics,
More Hope for Japan dot Com.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Very cool, Thanks a lot, Anna appreciate that, Thanks for
letting us know, thanks for doing what you do.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
And thanks for listening for like years, she's been around forever.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Yeah, yeah, I guess if you're working on something that
you feel like everybody's forgotten and shouldn't have, let us
know and we'll try to help you re raise awareness too.
Yeah yeah, send us a tweet to s ysk podcast,
or you can shoot us Facebook something, Facebook dot com,
slash stuff you should know, And as always, you can
(31:30):
get really personal and send us an email, a real
live email to stuff Podcast at HowStuffWorks dot com.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
HowStuffWorks dot com.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
To learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast
icon in the upper right corner of our homepage. The
house Stuffworks iPhone app has a arrived. Download it today
on iTunes,
Happy continuing holidays. Everybody chuck here to tee up our
next episode on our twelve Days of Christmas Toys playlist.
And I am super excited because you're about to listen
to one of our older episodes from this list about
in molder toy It's all about Yoyo's. It's how Yoyo's work.
Hope you like it. Welcome to Stuff you should know
(00:27):
Fromhowstuffworks dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clarr. There's
Charles W Chuck Bryant.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
That's me, same as ever, scratching the old back.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Yeah, I just got a little itch there.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
You ever use one of those little dealies, the little
creepy hand, the little monkey pap on the end of
the stick I have.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Before, Yeah, I don't like to do that. It hurts
do Yeah, I guess you could call it that some
painful sensation.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
I get up gives the wall sometimes and do the
blue the bear.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
That'll do sometimes too. But it's weird, like I only
have backages in about the same place, and that would
be on my left shoulder blade on the western side
of it, depending on which direction I'm facing.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Curiously, this is going to be the most interesting part of.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
This show that is not a true Chuck Man, so Chuck. Yes,
this is going to be a great one.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
I have a feeling this is gonna be one of
those ones where it's like, wow, that turned out to
be really good. It's physics heavy out the y.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah, everyone loves that.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
But the fact is, when we finish this, you're gonna
know how yoyo works. This is probably the most truly titled,
truest titled episode. Well we've ever done, you think, yep?
Speaker 1 (01:46):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
All right, Well we'll find out.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
I think it should be called Physics through the Eye
of a Yo yo.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
So listen, have you ever seen the movie Harlem Knights
Parts dude? That is go back and watch it again,
the whole thing. Oh, you're crazy. It's one of the
best movies ever. Eddie Murphy, Red Fox, Richard Pryor, great
cast and like everybody else in it too. I think
Bernie Max in there.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Awesome cast, terrible script.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
I don't think the script is terrible. I thought it
was great. There's one thing about that movie that bugged
me to know it it's set in like the twenties, right, Yeah,
and Throughout the movie, Eddie Murphy uses the word yo.
Yo is obviously a modern term, and it just sticks
out like a sore thumb every time he does. It
drives me crazy, Like it drives me crazy that he
(02:31):
did it drives me crazy that the director wasn't like,
you can't say yo. This is like nineteen twenties New York.
Yo wasn't around.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
I don't know that they were going for historical accuracy
in that one.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
They were wearing spats. Yeah, so Jerry like that one.
So I went back to the little digging Chuck and
it turns out that yo was in fact around in
the nineteen twenties, but Eddie Murphy was still wrong for
using it in that capacity. Okay, okay. So yo goes
back at least to like the fifteenth cent as like
a hunting cry, right when somebody was like somebody else
(03:05):
might go yo, and you'd go chase fox. That was
kind of the first wave of yo. As far back
as eighteen fifty nine. We know that there were sailors
that were using.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
It yoho ho, yoho ho.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Or also it was a response for a roll call
like yo, like somebody called your name, you would say yo, key.
It wasn't until after World War Two, though, that the
modern incarnation comes and it came out of the Italian
quarters of Philadelphia.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Of course it did.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
So that's where they think yo came from after World
War Two. Hence Eddie Murphy was wrong in using yo
especially frequently in the movie Harlem Nins. So I did
all that research, or I could have just looked into
Google Translate from English to Filipino or vice versas, okay,
(04:04):
and find that it just means come.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Yeah, but I don't think that's what it means here.
It does it?
Speaker 2 (04:09):
It does now?
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
So the word yo yo, as it stands right means come,
come or come back.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Did you know that I did? You want to talk
a little bit about the history of yo yos? Did
you know before reading this fantastic article that yo yo's originated,
as we understand them now, originated in the Philippines in
the nineteen twenties.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
I didn't know that. I did know that it was
around for a long time before that, though, in you know,
other forms.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Well pretty much the same form. There were like two
forms of yo yo's in history. Yeah, and one came
out of the New one came out of the Philippines.
The other one, Yeah, it was pretty old.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Well, ancient Chinese or at least ancient Greeks, right more
than twenty five hundred years ago. But they think the
Chinese had something similar to that.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Yeah, I'm starting to strongly suspect that the Chinese or
the origin of human civilization. You think, yeah, they came
up with beer. Yeah, well they came up with beer.
There you have it. They went right there.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
And it is the oldest toy on the planet except
the doll. The dolly.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
I thought that was pretty interesting too. Yeah, yeah, of course,
although I wonder if they're kind of diminishing any kind
of ancient rituals or rites by saying, like, look at
this cute doll, when really it's you know, some sort
of fetish.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
I don't know, you never know. So it's been around
a long time. They've designed it in different ways over
the years. The original design was had the string tied
tight to the little axis there.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
We'll call it the Greek design, the Greek design, No,
we'll call it the Chinese design or the European design.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Well, not design, but it was popular in Europe. Yeah,
and that obviously if you ever used an old yo
yo like that, or redesign yours to where it's tied
around the axle. It'll pop up, you know, as soon
as you throw it down, it'll pop back up. Yeah,
because it's tied to the axle.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Exactly right. And you said it was popular in Europe.
There were other words for other names for the yo
yo before it was a yo yo.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
There was the limigrette, the bandolore.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
The bandolora was British, I believe the quiz. Yeah, I
didn't get a country of origin for that, but.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
It was very popular in Europe. There's a painting of
I think Louis the eighteenth is he the boy king?
I don't know whichever Louis was the boy king of
him holding like a yo yo, like a royal painting
of him with a yo yo?
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Or the what was a little hoop on in a stick?
Speaker 2 (06:36):
I think that's what it was called.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
That was an awesome game.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
The hoop on a stick. And then I don't think
you can compare the yo yo to the hoop on
a stick.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
No, I'm not comparing it. I'm just saying I just
never got that toy.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Oh oh, okay, well, here's another one for you. Napoleon
was well known for carrying and using a yo yo,
apparently for stress relief.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Oh yeah, yeah, it didn't work too.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Here's a stressed out dude. Yeah he needed the yo yo.
But as you said that, that's the European favored or
Chinese design, where like the strings tied really tight to
the axle and it just basically goes up and down.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Right, So the Filipino design led to the modern yo
yo as we understand it now, And the huge distinction
is that the string is just looped around the axle
kind of loosely, yeah, which has the added benefit of
allowing the yo yo itself to spin once it reaches
the end of the string. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Sleep, that's what the that's why people yo yo, I think. Yeah,
it's all about the tricks. I mean, it's sort of
fun for a minute just to go up and down,
but it's really all about the tricks.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Right, It's just a stress reliever if it just goes
up and down.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Did you yo yo when you were a kid?
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Uh? Yeah, here there. But even as a kid, like
I could sense that like these these new modern ones
that we'll talk about with like ball bearings and clutches.
They just seem like cheating.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
I agree, let's not even talk about them. It's not
even a real yo yo.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
So, Chuck, you want to talk about a little bit
about physics.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Well, let's finish the history first, shall we. Oh?
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Okay, well, I have plenty of that.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
It was originally in the Philippines. They think it was
a hunting weapon for like four hundred years. Uh huh so,
but not like a little tiny yo yo. They were
really big and it was basically a big spindle attached
to a rope with like spikes coming off of it.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
They were like the size of a you go, yeah,
And I guess.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
The just the benefit there is you could get it
back after you threw it at somebody.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Right. The string was almost just useless though, Well could
you just throw it and run after it?
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Oh? Really? Okay? It was actually heavy rope and they
use it for hunting too, right.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Well, at some point down the line, well, yeah, you
would think anything used in hunting, you know, does double
duty and more exactly anything you're trying to kill. Yeah.
At some point though, they became smaller and became toys,
and in the twenties a Philip you know, immigrant to
the US named Pedro Flores, started a company, the first
(09:05):
modern yoyo company in the United States, and did pretty
well for himself. And then in nineteen twenty nine he
sold out to a man named Duncan, Right, Donald.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Duncan, Yes, Donald Duncan, and Duncan Duncan, and you know
Floris's in Santa Barbara, and like you said, was selling
these things like hotcakes enough that Duncan said, hey, let
me buy that. I'm going to keep the name yo
yo because it's catchy. Yeah, I'm going to trademarkt and
now I own it. And through the years he had
(09:35):
competitors that made similar devices with different names, and they
were like, dude, everyone's calling the sing of yo yo.
We want to be able to call it a yo
yo too, And he said, no, no, I own it.
Then the federal courts in nineteen sixty five says, you
know what, that's generic enough now where you don't own
it any longer. Right, they're all yo yo's.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Well what those legal challenges to their trademark? The name
yoyo was one of the things that bled the company dry.
It eventually went bankrupt. Duncan, the Duncan Company went bankrupt.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Yeah, the same year they ruled, yeah against them.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
They were like, well, that's it for us. But they
also had other money troubles. They were actually victims of
their own success. The Duncan Company was. So they moved
in the forties to luck, Wisconsin, which very quickly became
known as the yoyo capital of the world. And at
their peak they were making thirty six hundred yoyos an hour,
mostly out of wood at first maple. They were using
(10:30):
a million board feet of maple wood every year. Yeah,
it's a lot. And they actually, in addition to their
legal challenges, like the money going to fight their legal battles,
they were paying tons of money in overtime too, advertising
And as a matter of fact, I think in nineteen
sixty two, Chuck, they managed to sell forty five million
(10:54):
yo yos and in that same year there were only
forty million kids in the US. Wow, pretty astounding.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
A chicken in every pot and a yo yo in
every other hand at least. Yeah, sure, well, lets I
guess some kids were yoyo with both hands.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
They're rich kids. Yeah, But like I said, they the
company ended up coming bankrupt anyway. But Yoyo enthusiasts still
look very fondly on the Duncan name. And I think
June sixth, Yes, June sixth is National Yo Yo Day,
which happens to be the same day as Donald Duncan's birthday.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Yeah. Yeah, well, and the Duncan name lives on obviously,
you still see Duncan Yoyo's. They they sold out. They
didn't just shut down.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Well, they went bankrupts and sold out, right, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
So who was it? The flam Flambeo Plastics company. Yeah,
they said we'll keep the name Duncan because it's synonymous
with Yo yo's.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Yeah, it's not generic yet. No, No, there's a little
(12:11):
yoyo history for you. Yeah, I got a little more.
I'm gonna say to the end. I think you'll like. Okay,
we're gonna tease you with it.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Now, let's talk about physics.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Well, I think this is very interesting.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Good.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
So there's a two Okay you mentioned with the string
tied to the classic Chinese design Yo yo, you have
one kind of energy going on, right, Yes, and that
is linear momentum, the ability of it to go up
and down I should say down and up right, that's right.
(12:45):
With the Filipino design the modern design. It has two
kinds of potential energy. It has that same linear momentum
to go up and down, but it also has angular momentum.
And angular momentum is its ability to spin on an axle. Yeah, okay,
so you've got two things going on. And like you said,
when the yo yo hits the end of the line
(13:06):
of its linear momentum, it can still It's built up
since it's wound around the spool. It's built up a
lot of angular momentum, so it can just sit there
and spin or sleep as you called it.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Yeah. It actually increases as it goes down, which is
the key to keeping it spinning.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Right.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
It gets faster as it falls.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
There's another pretty cool trait to a yo yo. Who
knew they were so complex? I didn't, did you?
Speaker 1 (13:29):
I did not?
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Okay. So they also have gyroscopic stability, chuck, they do. Okay. So,
if you have a yoyo that's sleeping and you push
down on top of it, like it goes down and
then back up right, that's because of its gyroscopic stability.
That point that you push down on the yo yo
is transferred from the front and spun around to the back.
(13:51):
So that's even now, so the yoyo will just keep
spinning as long as it's spinning fast enough.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Gyroscopic stability, Yes, that means a spinning object object will
resist change to its axis of rotation. And if you've
ever thrown a football, it's the same thing. Yeah, Or
if you've ever thrown a football poorly?
Speaker 2 (14:10):
What do they call that wobbler? A turkey wounded duck?
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Brick? That's why winded duck doesn't go very far because
it doesn't have that tight spin. Yeah, so it falls
off its axis and won't travel as.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Far, exactly same as a prison And then the whole
team's mad.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Basically anything that spins, Yeah, Frisbee's football's there's there's got
to be a baseball. We could liken it to a
baseball somehow.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Let's say a curveball, knuckleball slider.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Definitely not a knuckleball slighter doesn't spin it all, really,
is it like a shot put? No, the knuckleball, you,
the whole key is it doesn't move. It travels like this,
and that's why it moves all around. Crazy, isn't that nutty?
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Yeah, So you've got your you've got your yo yo sleeping,
You're you're totally aware of its gyroscopic stability and you
understand that it's angle momentum is just awesome. It's far
out right, it's far out but you want to wake
it up. And that's when you bring it out of
its sleep and rewind it back up the spool.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Right, a little tug on the old finger.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Yeah, And the reason why is because the loop, right,
there's less friction with the loop around the axle. Yeah,
when you tug it, you increase that friction and you
allow it to rewind.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
It just grabs a hold of its buddy and just
let's go back up to the palm.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Yep. It's pretty cool. Yeah, I like yoyo physics a lot.
So we basically just talked about the two hardest parts, right,
sleeping and waking.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Yeah, And like I said, sleeping is the key to
do any kind of trick like walking the dog, which
I was pretty good. I used to could do a
few yo yo tricks. Really, Yeah, I could walk the dog,
and I could do I could do the deal where
you make a triangle and then TikTok through the triangle,
something like.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
A cradle or probably the cats in the cradle, let's.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Call a cat's cradle, and then I could I could
do the around the world. Wow, around the world.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Yeah, I couldn't do any of those.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
I'm gonna this inspired me to get a new Yo Yo.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
By the way, I like the vintage dunk and one
specifically the yellow ones with the butterfly, like the gold
the gold butterfly.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
The inverted ones.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
No, it was the one butterfly on that okay, because
they had those that were that looked like a butterfly
that were I know what you're talking about, inverted, and
I think that actually plays a part in the uh
uh increasing the moment of inertia section. Yeah, I think
that's why they flipped it out to put more weight
on the outside. Yeah, okay, you want to talk about that?
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Why not?
Speaker 2 (16:39):
So do you remember when we did the Murphy's Law podcast?
Speaker 1 (16:44):
How could I forget?
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Remember one of the books that he wrote was for
your Moments of Inertia?
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yeah, I didn't realize it was a terrible, terrible engineering
pun until I read this article.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Kind of made me hate John Paul Stapp a little bit.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Nah, we love that guy.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
So chuck A moment of Inertia's basically a way of
describing a spinning objects resistance to changes in that rotation,
basically being slowed down. Yeah, right, And what smarter people
than us have figured out is that if you increase
the mass and distribute it slightly further away from the axis,
(17:22):
you're going to increase its moment of inertia, right, and
that increases the amount of time it's just sleeping, right.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Yeah. And like I said, I don't know this, but
I just remember when I was a kid, they had
those inverted yo yos, and I bet you anything that's
why they did that. It's got to be because they
were wider at the outside and then curved in, which
had to be less mass. Yeah, it was less stuff,
less wood, right, So I'm going to go on record
as saying that's why they did that.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
But I think you want more mass further away, yeah,
to increase its moment of inertia.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Right. Yeah, So it was there was more mass on
the outside, I guess, further away from the axis, right. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
So that allows things to sleep a lot longer. And
that was a I guess you could say one of
the breakthroughs in yoyo design. I think in the sixties,
they started adding mass to the outside and extending the
axle a little bit. Bam, the yoyo has been improved.
Think about this, right, twenty five hundred, maybe even longer
(18:21):
than that. Years ago. Yeah, somebody invented the yoyo. Does
not change until the Philippines in the early twentieth century.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Well, I thought it said it did change, We just
don't know. Said there were changes in designs over the years. No,
not that I took. I took it like there was
one way, and then there was the Filipino way.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
And that was it.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
We got a correction to make then.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
And then the twentieth century hits, and then there's all
these great improvements on these designs.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Indeed, one of the.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Improvements, Chuck was adding ball bearings. Right, yeah, well, you.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
And I don't think these are improvements, ear least I don't.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Okay, that's absolutely sure. That's a good caveat. I think
that the Filipinos perfected the yoya.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Let's just call them modifications, okay for sorry kids who
don't know how to yoyo rich kids. Yeah, that makes
it easier, I think, Yeah, and that the whole point
of both of these things. Yeah, I guess it makes
it easier sleep and yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Yeah, And I guess they're like, well, if you're just
enjoying sleeping and waking your yo yo, then why make
it tough.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
If you want to have fun with your toy?
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Right?
Speaker 1 (19:28):
I can't believe they made it easier for kids to
have fun. It's not, dare they?
Speaker 2 (19:32):
So the ball bearing design I think is kind of clever. Basically,
this modification takes the axle and splits it in two yeah,
into two races, which are basically little courses for ball
bearings to spin around.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Right, now, does it split the axle? These are just
around the axle.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
So one is connected to the axle, right, that's the
inner race. One is connected to the string. That's the
outer race. And then in between the two ball bearings right, Okay,
they're not connected in any way except maybe via the
contact with the ball bearings.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Right.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
So when you when you release your yo yo toward
the ground and it's linear and angular, momentum really build up.
When it hits the inner race can tilt a little
bit and connect with the outer race via the ball bearings.
So they're they're spinning right, right, and then as they
straighten out the they they're they're not connected anymore, so
(20:31):
that the string no longer has any effect on whether
the yo yo spins or not, because it's just the
inner race connected to the axle that's spinning. So your
yo yo can sleep far, far longer.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Yeah, the outer race spends the inner race which spins
the axle.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Right, it's like a transfer of angular momentum exactly, and
then the strings just like you just let me know
when you're done, and we'll wind back up.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Well, it'll get a little tougg'll do the same thing
with that style, right right, okay.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Or you can just completely take yourself out of the
equation altogether except for a snap of the risk. The
initial release is all you need to do with what's
called the yo yo with the brain.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
These are really fake yoyo's. Yeah, I want to get
one though. It's kind of cool.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
You could be in a vegetative state and do this
yo yo.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Yeah. This was in the nineties. Company called Yomega release these,
and they called it the yo Yo with a brain,
when in fact they should have called it the yo
Yo with a clutch. And the deal here is you've
got these two clutch arms weighted ball on one side,
and it's not attached on the other side, and they're
spring loaded. The spindle is not attached to the axle,
(21:41):
but the clutch arms are attached to the spindle. So
when you throw this thing down, it's gonna spin slower
at first, and the clutch is engaged. As it gets faster,
all of a sudden, it's enough inertia to pop the
clutch essentially against the edges, and it releases the spindle,
(22:01):
which makes the whole thing spin faster.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
On the axis right, the centrifugal force pushes down the weight,
which pushes down the arm onto the spring, which releases
the two which allows it to spin.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
And it only spins for a certain amount of time.
It's not like the kind that you tug back up.
It'll spin till it slows down and then the clutch
locks back down and boom, it shoots.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Back up right back.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
I want to I wish we had one of those.
I want to see what it's like.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
So basically, the big to the two modifications are based
on separating the string from the axle. Yeah, by creating
two different kinds of I guess axles or spindles or whatever.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Which are really just sort of taking the Philippine Filipino
design a step further because although it made contact with
the axle, it wasn't quote connected to the axle. Yeah,
I guess it was, but it wasn't tight right.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
And a guy named Michael Caffrey is the one who
came up with the yo yo with the brain, and
Yomega started telling him in nineteen ninety, but he came
up with it nineteen two years after a man named
Tom Cune created the no Jive three and one yo
Yo that you could take apart and replace the axle
and do all sorts of modifications with no really big,
(23:12):
big time for changes in yo yo design.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
So did he rip this dude off? Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 2 (23:17):
No, okay, No, I'm just saying, like the two these
two big steps in the Yoyo design.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Well you said two years after it was sinister. Well
you're a very suspicious person I am when it comes
to yo Yo's design.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Chuck, that's pretty much the physics of yo Yo's Did
you know that we just explained how Yoyo's work.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
You know, I looked online at videos and stuff to
make it a little easier because this is a very
visual thing, and they do have videos. But what I
found out is that a lot of teachers, physics teachers,
use yoyo's to describe these whatever four to six properties
that we described.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
I have to tell you, I understand angular momentum far better.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Now. I understand, and although it went through the yoyos
to the football, I understand the moment of inertia. Okay,
all right, is that moment of inertia? No, that's angular momentum,
angular momentum.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Spinning on an axis.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Yeah, Oh you were talking about the gyroscopic stability.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Yeah, there's what it was. See I get confused.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
I did too, Chuck, it's physics, man, don't feel bad.
You want to know a couple more pieces of yoyo trivia?
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Yeah, it's here.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
In nineteen sixty eight, when Abby Hoffman of the Chicago
seven Yeah, was indicted or no, charged with contempt of
Congress when he started doing the Walk the Dog during
a House on American Activities Committee. Oh really session that
was investigating him.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
So he was like, I'm just so over this. I'm
gonna yo yo.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Well, apparently the way I read it is that he
was trying to entertain lighting everything up. It's like here,
watch me yo yo And he was walking the dog.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
And the who ax said no, wrap one.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
So that's how yoyo's are connected to McCarthyism. If you
want to take a N S Y S K quizn
that comes up.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Plus yoyo's were huge back then. Totally thought that was
like the heyday. I think this is sixties.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Yeah, Nixon. Have you seen Nixon try to yo yo?
Speaker 1 (25:34):
No?
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Man, if you don't like Nixon, this will just make
you hate him even more. The night that they opened
the Grand Ole Opry and I think sometime in nineteen
seventy four, what's the main guy, like the whole cast
of hehaws behind Nixon and then the mate Roy Akeff. Yeah,
he presents Nixon with a yo yo and like has
to put it on Nixon's finger, and Nixon looks like
(25:55):
what's going on? You know? And and then he tries
to do it once and it just kind of like
flops down and makes like a sad trombone noise. Wow,
And he just has this sullen like look on his face,
like I don't like yo yo's. He looks kind of
like you did at the beginning of this episode.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Yeah, me and Tricky, Yeah you knew.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
And then they took a yo yo in space Chuck, Yeah,
I saw that and.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
It still worked.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
It did work. They found that like letting it drop
did nothing because they were testing it in microgravity. But
if you throw it, it will it will go slowly.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
You can do it.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
You can do it slowly, but it will still spin
and it moves kind of just kind of gracefully along
the string like in just mid air, horizontally, and but
it'll never sleep.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Well, thank god NASA did that.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Yeah, back in nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Those are all the videos you see, though they do
much more than that.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
That was back when NASA was like, we have so
much money, we don't know what to do. Let's launch
something and let's say the Toys in Space Project, right,
and they did.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Now this was just for Yoyo's. That was the only
thing they did on that flight.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Well, no, the Toys and Space Project in company or
encompassed sixty Shuttle missions, one for each toy that they
tested out. Wow, Jackson was one of the best ones.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
The Bolo paddle.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Yeah, so that's uh, that's yo Yo's. Frankly, I'm pretty
happy with this one.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
I thought you were going to lead in with something
on yo yo ma or something.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
No, man, try to look up yoyo's in the news
and not get yo yo ma cheese. Can't do it, stupid.
I searched a yo yo minus ma minus knee, minus
gabba to finally get some stuff on.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
O yo gabba gaba. Sure, ye oh what was the
other one yo mama neo yo MTV wraps that came
up too, did it?
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Yeah? I stopped searching before I minused MTV too. You
know you could minus I was in the jew Yeah,
and it'll it'll root out all the search, all this,
all the results that have that.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Really, so you just put the minus.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Sign minus and then the next letter. No space, had
no idea, and you can do a bunch of different ones,
no comments, no nothing, just like minus gabba minus yo
minus mom, minus knee.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
You literally just improved my life. Oh good, or my research.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
For like that eight times a day?
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (28:20):
All right, well that's it, all right, yo yosa. I
was in a jewelry store once and Neo came in.
It seemed nice.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Who's Neo?
Speaker 2 (28:28):
He's this rapper He's from Atlanta.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
I thought you were talking about the matrix. No, that's
like his real names Cana Neo.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
This is ni Yo.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Oh yeah, I've heard of him.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Yeah him. Well, if you want to learn more about
Yoyo's including some really top notch illustrations, this is one
of those ones that you will see why we have
staff illustrators here at in color.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
No.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Yes, I saw you want to type in yo Yo
at the in the handy search bar at house stuff
works dot com. That'll bring up that really cool article.
And I said handy search bar. So now it's time
for Chuck to shine with another edition of Listener Mail.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Josh, this is one of our oldest than not by age,
but one of our most loyal fans, Anna Spies. She
has a band and they put together Well, let me
just read it. This is coming out shortly after Christmas,
and she said it was still great to read this. Hi,
guys and Jerry. Since we're firmly in the festive, greedy
(29:30):
little grip of the holiday season, I was wondering if
you could give a shout out to a project I'm
involved in or my band is. At least it's a
charity album to raise funds for the continued fallout from
the Japanese earthquake and nuclear disaster, and the light of
everything that's happened since, I know, it's been put on
the back burner of most people's charitable contributions, which is
why we were thrilled and honor to our part to
(29:52):
re raise awareness when the label releasing this compilation approached
us to contribute a track. So you know, she's right
about these tragedies that happen and then six months later
you kind of forget about it.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
It's the curse of the news cycle exactly.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
But luckily there's a lot of people that my friend
Dave is one of them that's still working, like on
the tsunami from five or six years ago. Oh that's great,
so continued help is always needed. There's a CD that's
going to be out in mid December, so by this
by the time this comes out, it'll already be out.
You can stream the entire album, which is thirty seven
(30:27):
tracks by thirty seven artists on the website More Hope
for Japan dot com and her band New Century Classics
wrote and recorded a brand new song just for this compilation,
and she's quite proud of it, and I haven't had
a chance to listen to it yet, but I'm gonna,
And she says there's a lot of far better known
artists on there, and anyone who likes instrumental music, post rock,
(30:50):
ambient and basically pretty melodic guitar bassed tunes should dig it.
So check it out. That Anna's band, New Century Classics,
More Hope for Japan dot Com.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Very cool, Thanks a lot, Anna appreciate that, Thanks for
letting us know, thanks for doing what you do.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
And thanks for listening for like years, she's been around forever.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Yeah, yeah, I guess if you're working on something that
you feel like everybody's forgotten and shouldn't have, let us
know and we'll try to help you re raise awareness too.
Yeah yeah, send us a tweet to s ysk podcast,
or you can shoot us Facebook something, Facebook dot com,
slash stuff you should know, And as always, you can
(31:30):
get really personal and send us an email, a real
live email to stuff Podcast at HowStuffWorks dot com.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
HowStuffWorks dot com.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
To learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast
icon in the upper right corner of our homepage. The
house Stuffworks iPhone app has a arrived. Download it today
on iTunes,
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