← Something You Should Know
Loading summary
Transcript114 lines
- [00:00]
Mike Carruthers
Bingo Blitz rules.
- [00:03]
Dr. Fain Fry
If your bingo has ads in it.
- [00:05]
David H. Freeman
That'S not a bingo.
- [00:06]
Dr. Fain Fry
If it doesn't have the coolest tournaments, mini games, and the most breathtaking design.
- [00:10]
David H. Freeman
Nope, not a bingo.
- [00:11]
Dr. Fain Fry
If your bingo moment makes you feel so excited that you just want to burst in joy and scream out loud, bingo.
- [00:17]
Mike Carruthers
Sorry.
- [00:18]
Dr. Fain Fry
So you're playing Bingo Blitz.
- [00:20]
David H. Freeman
Now that's a bingo step for a world of excitement. With Bingo Blitz, the number one free bingo game. Download Bingo Blitz and play for free.
- [00:29]
Dr. Fain Fry
Now that's a bingo.
- [00:33]
Mike Carruthers
Today on something you should know. Just because you're messy doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you. Then skincare. What works, what doesn't? And can a skin cream really get rid of wrinkles?
- [00:45]
David H. Freeman
In over 30 years of testing products and I don't care whether they're anti aging creams, anti wrinkle creams, eye creams, night creams, day creams, neck creams, I have never seen any one of these products get rid of a wrinkle.
- [00:58]
Mike Carruthers
Also one reliable way to spot a liar when they're telling a story and measurements. Inches, feet, kilograms, pounds. You'll hear the fascinating history of where they came from. Like, do you know why a meter is as long as it is?
- [01:13]
James Vincent
It was originally 1/10 millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the equator. The motivation for that? They wanted a unit that was going to be defined by something unchanging and something that was accessible to everyone.
- [01:28]
Mike Carruthers
All this today on Something you should know. Dell Technologies Black Friday event is live and if you've been waiting for an AI ready PC, this is their biggest sale of the year. Tech enthusiasts love this sale because it's all the newest hits plus all the greatest hits all on sale at once. Savings on Dell technologies. Most popular PCs that accelerate AI with Intel Core Ultra processors are here, like the XPS 16. So if you're ready to step up all the things you like to do, streaming, surfing, multitasking, whatever, Dell Technologies AI Ready PCs are the perfect upgrade. And for the best of Intel Core Ultra processors, look for Intel EVO Edition laptops engineered to do it all. Just visit Dell.com deals whether you're treating yourself or thinking of others, these Black Friday prices were worth the wait. But it's only for a limited time. Shop now@dell.com deals something you should know.
- [02:41]
Dr. Fain Fry
Fascinating intel, the world's top experts and practical advice you can use in your life today.
- [02:48]
Mike Carruthers
Something you should Know with Mike Carruthers hey there. Welcome to Something you should know. It's conventional wisdom that messy people should probably be a little neater. That's the accepted standard. You seldom hear calls for neat people to mess things up a little bit. But according to David H. Freeman, who wrote a book called A Perfect Mess, being neat isn't necessarily better than being sloppy. It's just different. In fact, research shows that neat people tend to be more judgmental. They not only want their lives to be neat, they want sloppy people's lives to be neat. But sloppy people don't demand that neat people get sloppier. Neat people spend a big portion of their day working on their neatness, when they could be spending time on the tasks of the day. Neat people like to categorize everything. But life isn't always easy to categorize. Life can be unorganized and ambiguous. Neatness and messiness are personality traits and they're very hard to change. The fact is, messy people will always tend to be messy. Trying to get them to be neater causes tension and frustration and is typically a waste of time. And that is something you should know. Skincare sure seems to be big business. You walk into any store that sells skincare products and there's zillions of them. Some are cheap, some are expensive, and they all promise to do something. Moisturize, reduce wrinkles, prevent damage, tighten skin. What's the real deal here? How powerful and effective are these products? Are they worth the money you spend on them? Do any of them live up to the hype? The person to answer these questions and reveal the truth about skincare products is dermatologist Dr. Fain Fry. She has been independently testing consumer skincare products and has a very good understanding of how they work. She's also author of a book called the skincare hoax. Hi Dr. Fry, thanks for coming on.
- [05:00]
David H. Freeman
Well, thank you for having me.
- [05:02]
Mike Carruthers
So there is certainly a lot of marketing, aggressive marketing of skincare products. So much so you would think that by now, I mean, nobody should have a wrinkle, we should all have beautifully moisturized, sun damage free skin. But that's not the case. So is a lot of the marketing and the promises made about these skincare products true or is it hypey or what's your take?
- [05:32]
David H. Freeman
Yes, some of the marketing is misleading. But do know the skincare industry is a fantastic industry. It does manufacture wonderful products that are truly good for your skin health. So that's the good news. The bad news is it's a blind item. Most ingredients are not known by the consumer. So it's a blind item because consumers don't understand the ingredient listing. They don't have the chemistry background to do so. And the other point is, marketing is powerful. It reinforces a definition of beauty that's unrealistic and unobtainable. So the consumer feels bad about themselves. So somebody's got to advocate for the consumer. And that was my goal.
- [06:18]
Mike Carruthers
Here's the problem that I see. I mean, you walk into a store and there's how many different moisturizers. And I wouldn't know other than price and maybe what it says on the label, I wouldn't know the difference between any of them or what they do or what they don't do. Or are they all the same? I don't know and I don't think most people know.
- [06:44]
David H. Freeman
Right. Like I said, the most important information on a skincare product is the ingredient listing. But again, because consumers don't understand the ingredient listing, they base their product selection on the front display panel. And that front display panel has what the product is and the amount as far as fluid ounces, that's required. But after that, you have a lot of marketing, real estate. In addition, how do people pick products? Right, Mike? They ask their friends or they look at a magazine ad or they listen to the media.
- [07:16]
Mike Carruthers
And so where do you find are the big points of confusion? For example, what?
- [07:22]
David H. Freeman
Well, first of all, you have to understand these products are cosmetics. And in our, in our country in 1938, we passed a law that said if you're a manufacturer and you intend to make a product and sell it, if that intention of that product is to really change the structure or the function of any organ. But in this case, we're talking about the skin. If your intent as the manufacturer is to change the structure or function, by law, it's a drug. And if it's a drug, it has to go through the FDA and it has to get pre market approval. It has to prove safety and it has to prove efficacy. If the intent of your product, Mike, is to just beautify like lipstick, just to make somebody look better or adorn, you don't have to get premarket approval. But again, the intent of that product is not really to change the structure or function of the skin. So that's why when you preface this by, you know, this all can't be true. It can't be true because these are cosmetics we're talking about, not drugs.
- [08:26]
Mike Carruthers
So with something like moisturizers, because I don't buy a lot of skincare products, but you know, I use a moisturizer. I know that there are moisturizers that are pretty cheap and some that are, you know, hundreds and hundreds of dollars. And it just seems so confusing, like, why would you pay that much? I mean, all it's doing is moisturizing. So, so what's the real truth here?
- [08:53]
David H. Freeman
So the truth is this. There's no correlation between what you pay for a moisturizer and how well it works. And I know this because I test these products in my office. I have a machine, it's called a corneometer and it actually measures skin hydration. So you'll put a product on the skin for a week, we'll test the water content before you start using the product, and a week later and I can tell you whether the product works. That's first and foremost. So we know what works and we know there's no correlation between what you pay and how well that product works. I recommend people buying products from reputable national and nationally known brands. They have the resources to make the best products. They have the resources for using ingredients. They do testing as much as testing is done and these products are available. So that's why I recommend that. I'm not sure I could give you a list of four or five ingredients that would be ideal for someone to pick based on the ingredient listing. It would be much like picking a cake. How do you pick a good cake? Well, some of it is taste, but the best cakes, it depends on the combination of ingredients and the quality of ingredients and of course, your personal preference. So it's not so easy as to just say, oh, look for these four ingredients and that's how you pick.
- [10:14]
Mike Carruthers
But if you're going to moisturize your skin, there must be some ingredients that you really need, like something with water in it or something.
- [10:24]
David H. Freeman
Well, if you want to go over the basic recipe for a good moisturizer, I'm happy to do that. A basic good moisturizer is water based and there are ingredients in it called humectants. These are ingredients that hold on to water ingredients like glycerin, like hyaluronic acid, which is a great humectant. It doesn't penetrate into the skin. When you see that marketing like, oh, this is in your skin. So put hyaluronic acid, it'll decrease your wrinkle. Well, not really. It really just sits on the skin and holds water. A great moisturizer will have occlusives in it which are ingredients that prevent water from evaporating out of the skin. The most effective one being petrolatum. And you'll see that on the back of an ingredient listing often again, and then you have ingredients that hold these water and oil combinations together. Water and oil don't mix much like your salad dressing. And so you have to have emulsifiers that hold these products together. You'll have some preservative because all these water based products will turn rancid with mold and bacteria within two weeks if they don't have a preservative. Many times we add fragrance. But good moisturizer is one that helps you prevent water loss from your skin. And there's a lot of good ones on the market.
- [11:41]
Mike Carruthers
But how do you know which one? I mean, there are some really expensive moisturizers. You would think to justify the price, that there must be something in it.
- [11:53]
David H. Freeman
No, like I said, there's no correlation. But what you pay per price for a pound, and you'll get a great product for $12 for 16 ounces. And you'll see other women are paying $500 an ounce. That's a shot glass. That's $8,000 a pound. Mike, can you think of any perishable that you'd even consider spending $8,000 a pound on?
- [12:13]
Mike Carruthers
Can these products, are there products that can actually reduce or remove wrinkles?
- [12:19]
David H. Freeman
Well, I guess that depends on what you call reduce or improve wrinkles. If it's a temporary hydration. So if you have a raisin and you pump water into it, you get a grape temporarily, I'll ask you, is that anti wrinkle?
- [12:33]
Mike Carruthers
It's anti raisin.
- [12:35]
David H. Freeman
Okay. It's a temporary improvement. So if you have dry skin, and that means there's low water content, and you put on a product that prevents water from evaporating and the water is. And water content of the skin goes up and the skin looks optimal, it's temporary. Right. Because that, that product is going to wear off and water is going to evaporate again, you can have an improvement in the appearance of the skin. In over 30 years of testing products, cosmetic moisturizers, and I don't care whether they're anti aging creams, anti wrinkle creams, eye creams, night creams, day creams, neck creams, they're all cosmetics, they're all moisturizers in my opinion. I have never seen any one of these products get rid of a wrinkle.
- [13:15]
Mike Carruthers
When a skincare product uses the term anti aging, that this product is an anti aging whatever cream, what does that mean?
- [13:28]
David H. Freeman
Anti aging, as I say, is the most brilliant marketing term in existence. We haven't discovered a single ingredient or a single product that can reverse the aging process. Now Remember, these are cosmetics which by law are not intended to actually change the structure or function of skin to begin with.
- [13:48]
Mike Carruthers
In fact, they're not allowed to.
- [13:50]
David H. Freeman
That is correct. And they're limited by what ingredients they can use as cosmetics. There are limits to the actual ingredients they can use in their formulations. So this is something the consumer has to be aware of.
- [14:04]
Mike Carruthers
What is the it would seem to me that the biggest enemy of your skin is the sun. Is it, is that a fair assessment?
- [14:13]
David H. Freeman
That's an excellent assessment. The sun. Ultraviolet rays of the sun cause more skin damage. Yes, skin cancer too. But if anyone would compare unexposed skin to exposed skin, you will see a very large difference in the tone, in the texture once, certainly once you're past the age of 40, 45 years of age.
- [14:36]
Mike Carruthers
So it would seem that the way you prevent getting skin damage from the sun is to stay out of the sun.
- [14:43]
David H. Freeman
You know, sun avoidance is number one, meaning avoid midday sun. Number two, cover up as much as you can. If you have minimal exposed skin, you don't need to apply as much sunscreen. I love sunscreen and I apply it every single day and I think everybody should apply it every single day. But some people are concerned about putting more chemicals on their skin. So my answer is put it on as little bit as you can of surface areas you can by staying covered up. You don't need to apply sunscreen under, under clothes, under, you know, skin that's covered. So sunscreen is by far, if you want to use the word anti aging, the most effective anti aging product on the market. But do keep in mind, sunscreen is regulated in this country as a drug because it does prevent disease and it claims to do so. So sunscreen is a great choice and I believe everybody should be using it every single day of the year.
- [15:38]
Mike Carruthers
We're talking about how to take care of your skin and how to save money in the process. My guest is dermatologist Dr. Fain Fry, and the name of her book is the Skincare Hoax.
- [15:52]
Eric Peterson
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game, shifting a little money here, a little there, and hoping it all works out well? With the name youe Price Tool from Progressive, you can be a better budgeter and potentially lower your insurance bill too. You tell Progressive what you want to pay for car insurance and they'll help you find options within your budget. Try it today@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates Price and coverage match limited by state law not available in all states for Many businesses, the holiday season can be both an exciting and stressful time. With so many balls in the air, one thing you definitely want to know you can rely on is how you're selling your products. And with Shopify, you can rest easy knowing it's the home of the number one checkout on the planet. Nobody does selling better than Shopify. And when it comes to successful brands like Aloe Allbirds or Skims, an often overlooked secret is all the things that go on behind the scenes that make selling and for shoppers buying simple for millions of businesses. If you take a peek behind that curtain, you'll see that Shopify is what makes it all possible. Shop pay boosts conversions up to 50%. So that's more happy customers and way more sales going. It's true all the time, but especially this time of year, your commerce platform better be ready to sell wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling on the web, in your store, in their feed, and everywhere in between. Businesses that sell more sell on Shopify. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout we use for Realm Merch with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com realm all lowercase go to shopify.com realm to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com realm.
- [17:49]
Mike Carruthers
So, Dr. Fry, is sunscreen sunscreen or are there different grades of sunscreen, or is it all the same?
- [17:57]
David H. Freeman
Again, as a drug, sunscreen is sunscreen. But to get the actual SPF on the label, it requires that the user applies enough of it. And I think the biggest problem is most people put it on so thin and that they don't get the SPF on the label. Which is why I get. The next question is always, do I really need more than 30 SPF or 15 SPF? And the answer would be yes, because most people don't put on enough. So if you don't put on enough, you're not going to get what's on the label.
- [18:26]
Mike Carruthers
Are there any ingredients that are in any of these creams, like retinol or anything that does have some sort of like, magical pixie dust? Or is it all just nothing?
- [18:41]
David H. Freeman
These are cosmetics, remember, they can't intend to change your skin. Now, all ingredients, in my opinion, in all these cosmetics, they fall into one of three categories. So these ingredients are either functional ingredients, for example, those humectants and occlusives I told you about, the ingredients that actually create a good moisturizer. These ingredients are also aesthetic. Nobody would be happy if they poured out a cream and it went into your hand, like water. So there are ingredients that add thickness and color, and we'll call those aesthetic ingredients. And then there are ingredients that I call marketing tool ingredients. Now, remember, this is a cosmetic that's not really intended to change anything, but they do make claims like anti aging. So if you're a manufacturer, you have to add a minuscule amount of some ingredient that has to be. If I was to take chromatography and make sure that there's actually this ingredient in there, they have to have enough that it could be identifiable if it's tested. They add this little marketing tool ingredient, and that satisfies the claim on the front panel, which, as I told you, is a lot of marketing. Now, does it? You asked a question. Does it have any benefit whatsoever? I've never seen any permanent benefit. And again, which is consistent with the fact this is a cosmetic.
- [20:09]
Mike Carruthers
What is retinol?
- [20:12]
David H. Freeman
Retinol is a vitamin A derivative. The parent compound is tretinoin, which is the prescription. It is very well tested in a petri dish. It definitely has an impact on gene rearrangements. It has an effect. But when it's put on the skin, the ability for retinol to actually penetrate 20 layers of dead tissue, which is what the top 20 layers of your skin are the barrier through another 60 layers of top layer of skin below a basement membrane into a second layer of skin called the dermis, where the wrinkles and the real aging changes occur. Not likely going to happen.
- [20:51]
Mike Carruthers
Sounds like it would be impossible to happen.
- [20:54]
David H. Freeman
Some people feel that it helps. It makes them feel better. I have never looked at anyone, Mike. If you ever walk down the street and you run into somebody you haven't seen in a long time, and you look at them and they say, you say, wow, you know, Susie, you look fantastic. And she says, well, that's because I'm using this magic retinol cream. It just doesn't happen. It just doesn't happen again. This is a cosmetic which is not intended to make any permanent change in anyone's skin.
- [21:20]
Mike Carruthers
What about soap for your skin? Is there a big difference between one soap and another?
- [21:27]
David H. Freeman
Well, soap, by definition is a combination of animal fat, and it's a salt of animal fat and lye. It's got a high ph. That's what soap is. The original Ivory soap was a soap, and it's. It's very effective at cleaning, but it's also very drying for the skin because the ph is so high. So companies have created some really nice lower ph 5, 6, what we call Synthetic detergent bars, Sindet bars if you will. Dove beauty bar as an example. It cleanses adequately, but it's not as drying. So people use the word soap and cleanser interchangeably. But when it gets down to science, a true soap is very different and much harsher than some of the beauty bars and liquid cleansers that are on the market.
- [22:11]
Mike Carruthers
It's interesting that many people treat the skin on their face differently than the rest of their body. That the face gets special facial cleansers and facial this and that and then you use something else for the rest of your body. Is, is that a good practice? Is there some reason for doing that?
- [22:33]
David H. Freeman
Well, it's preference. I, I personally use one cleanser for my whole body. Again, there's market share. They want you to buy a product for your face and a product for your body and a product for your eyes and a separate product for your neck. They would love you to buy an anti aging product, probably a toner, a serum, an astringent, a primer, an essence. They again market share. They it's a business. If you're a manufacturer of a skincare company, your goal is to sell. And most of these products are redundant as far as the cleanser. A mild cleanser with a synthetic detergent is all you need for your whole body. You don't need a separate facial product in a separate body product.
- [23:19]
Mike Carruthers
What about shampoo? Because there's a big price difference from the cheapest to the most expensive. And I've always had this sense that it probably doesn't make too much difference.
- [23:30]
David H. Freeman
Shampoo is fascinating if you know anybody who's older than 75 years of age, if you ask them, if you have a grandparent, ask them what shampoo they used when they were 10, 15 years of age and I can almost guarantee you what they're going to say. They're going to say I don't remember. And the reason they don't remember is because shampoo wasn't even a thing. It wasn't a part of a common household item before the late 50s, early 60s when Prel and Breck hit the market and Johnson and Johnson's baby shampoo. So before that most people used a bar of soap or they would use castile soap. These were harsh soaps that left a ring around the bathtub and shower. And of course course shampoo was born. It was a much more aesthetic product to leave the hair both clean and manageable. But again, there's no correlation between what you pay for a shampoo and its effectiveness. And Just like moisturizers, those three ingredients. You don't want to pour out a bottle of shampoo that looks like water. You'd be miserable. So we have the surfactant or the ingredient that takes the dirt away. And then we have ingredients that make it thicker and sparkly and fragrance. It smells nice. Because ultimately, that's how most people pick their product. They actually flip open the cap and smell it, make sure it smells good. And then we have those marketing tool ingredients as well.
- [24:55]
Mike Carruthers
But a lot of shampoos make claims like, you know, thickens your hair, maximum volume. It seems that shampoo really only has one task, and that's to clean your hair.
- [25:11]
David H. Freeman
That is correct. Shampoo is designed to clean. Conditioners are designed to leave the hair manageable. It's very difficult to create a product that can do both, because if your product is trying to strip things off the skin as the shampoo does, it's very difficult then to leave the hair manageable with a coating of something that leaves it pleasing to the consumer. Which is why, in my opinion, those two in one products don't work very well. If you wanted to buy a shampoo that's going to clean your hair, I would suggest a separate conditioner to help keep it manageable. And these are all cultural pleasures. You don't need any of these, really.
- [25:48]
Mike Carruthers
So since you're the expert, give us a peek as to what products you use.
- [25:53]
David H. Freeman
Well, I have hundreds of products because I'm always testing them. But if I wasn't testing them, one single product I would have on my vanity is sunscreen. And it could be a spray. You'd spray it into your hand and put it on your face and spray it on your body. It could be a lotion, it could be a stick. You can pick any form of broad spectrum SPF 30 or higher sunscreen you like, but it should be used every single day, January through December, regardless of where you live, because I'm a true believer. You get a lot of ultraviolet light just incidentally. Walk into the drugstore, walk into your mailbox, etc. And that would be the one single product that I would recommend. Everybody have moisturizer if you have dry skin. I live in the Northeast. It gets dry in the wintertime, and oftentimes moisturizer helps. Skin is optimal when the amount of water in the skin is optimal because it functions better. So a moisturizer, if you need it, is ideal. And the third product I keep on my vanity is petroleum jelly. I think it's the most versatile product on the market. It can be used for many things. Runaway eyebrows, chafed skin, protection of the lips, dry elbows and knees. So those are the three products that I recommend my patients keep in their vanity.
- [27:12]
Mike Carruthers
One thing I really like is on your website people can go and answer a few questions about the kinds of products they're looking for and then you make recommendations based on your testing and people can buy the product right there on your website through your Amazon link. But even the 4% that you make from Amazon, you donate to charity. So you truly have no skin in the game here other than to provide good information to people. And I think that's admirable. Dr. Fain Fry has been my guest. She is a dermatologist and author of the book the Skincare Hoax. There is a link to that book at Amazon in the show notes and also her website, fryface.com f r Y-F-A-E.com if you want to check that out and look for products. And there's a link to that also in the show notes. Thanks doctor. Thank you for being here, Mike.
- [28:08]
David H. Freeman
It's been an absolute pleasure speaking with you today. Thank you for having me.
- [28:13]
Danny Jordan
This episode is brought to you by US Cellular. You shouldn't have to sacrifice a great experience to get a great deal. And U.S. cellular Prepaid agrees. Which is why right now you'll get a new Samsung Galaxy A15.5G for free without any hidden fees, like the device activation fees you get with those other prepaid providers. So you can use your free phone with US Cellular's nationwide 5G coverage to stay connected to the ones you love without having to make sacrifices. Terms apply. Visit us cellular.com for details.
- [28:42]
Dr. Fain Fry
Want to shop Walmart? Black Friday deals first Walmart plus members get early access to our hottest deals. Join now and get 50% off a one year annual membership. Shop Black Friday deals first with Walmart plus see terms@walmartplus.com.
- [29:01]
Mike Carruthers
We measure things. That's what humans do. We want to know how much, how far, how long, how heavy, how many. Measurement allows us to organize everything in our lives. I mean, imagine if there were no standards of measurement. Everything would be chaos. The story of how and why we measure everything is a fascinating one. And joining me to tell it is James Vincent. He's a senior reporter for the Verge and author of a book called Beyond Measure the Hidden History of Measurement From Qubits to Quantum Constants. Hi James, welcome.
- [29:39]
James Vincent
Hi Mike. Thanks for having me.
- [29:41]
Mike Carruthers
So I was surprised to learn that even the standards of measurement change. And in fact you covered what you would call, I guess, the redefinition of what a kilogram is back in 2018. So maybe this would be a good place to start, because I would think a kilogram is a kilogram, like an inch is an inch and a pound is a pound. So why did the definition of a kilogram change?
- [30:07]
James Vincent
The big thing that they changed is that the kilogram used to be based on a physical standard. So there was such a thing as the kilogram. It was created along with the meter during, and, you know, the other units of the metric system during the French Revolution. And that eventually became what we is officially known as the System International, or the si, which has a lot of more units in it, but it's basically the metric system. And these units used to be based on physical standards. There was a kilogram, there was a meter. So everything, every unit in the world, every kilogram in the world was, technically speaking, a copy of this physical kilogram. And it was a small little weight made of platinum iridium alloy, about the size of a hen's egg. Very small because the metal is so dense, because it's meant to, you know, be unchanging over time. And they kept it in a vault, underground vault near Paris in, in Versailles. And they had two of them over the centuries. And then in the sort of the middle of the 20th century, they discovered that the most recent one, which is known as the international prototype kilogram, was losing weight. And it wasn't losing much weight, it was losing about 50 micrograms, which is about the weight of a single eyelash. But in the sort of the high precision world of scientific metrology, the science of measurement, that's pretty consequential. So what they did is that they redefined the unit so it's no longer based on a physical object, but it's based on universal constants, in this case, quantum constants. So these are sort of calculations or figures that we think are unchanging throughout reality. So, for example, the, the meter used to be based as the kilogram was on a physical standard. And eventually they found that this was too imprecise. So they moved it to this sort of definition based on the distance traveled by light. So it's essentially, it's tied to the speed of light. So this is sort of the big project of the System Internationale, of the metric system, is that over the centuries, they started off as physical standards and they've all become these standards based on universal physical constants. And the idea is that by doing that, the units become unchanging, so they're based on the speed of light, they're based on the spin of atoms. They're based on things that, you know, we think are the same throughout the universe.
- [32:29]
Mike Carruthers
We have these different standards of measure. You know, we have an inch, but then we have a foot, which is 12 inches. Is there any sense of, like, where each of these individual measurements started?
- [32:42]
James Vincent
Well, each. Each unit tends to have its own origin story. And some of them are like the metric system. We can say exactly how that came about because there's modern records of it. For things like the qubit, where we just know someone decided to base that on the length of their forearm. For the inch, for example, we know that that was a sort of common unit used throughout Europe and was usually taken to be the width of the thumb. And now that sounds like a short inch. But if you take the width of your thumb and you press it down flat on a surface and measure the exterior across the widest part of the knuckle, that will be an inch. And we had. Actually, it's a very interesting bit of law from King David of Scotland, which I think about the 13th century, where he says that if you want to define an inch, you need to take the thumbs of three men, one small, one medium, and one large. And then you take the measurements of all their thumbs, and then you add them up and you divide it by three, and that gives you the average length of the thumb. So people were aware that there was variation within body parts, and they tried to mitigate this in various ways. Some units have, you know, really, really ancient origin stories. For example, the carrot as a unit of sort of. Of gems, of precious gems. That actually comes from the carob seed, which is a seed of a tree, which is sort of spread across Arabia and was used by Arabian traders in order to measure in their scales the weight of precious metals and gems. Because the seed was so consistent in size, it was the same each time it was created. That meant that it could be a useful marker. So, yeah, some units, we have stories for some units, it's not so clear. They change over time. Each unit is sort of like its own narrative history that often goes back thousands of years.
- [34:36]
Mike Carruthers
It seems like some of these measurements are based on other measurements. Like you mentioned, that the meter has something to do with the speed of light. And. But first, you'd have to know the speed of light to know what a meter is. So help me understand that.
- [34:51]
James Vincent
Well, for. To measure the speed of light, this is the. So I mentioned earlier that the meter is the length of the Meter is defined using the speed of light. And it's the distance traveled by light over a certain, certain time period. And you go, okay, well how do you measure the time? And we measure the time because the second is based on the number of frequency changes of a certain atom, cesium 133. And it sort of. It flips back and forth between these two levels of frequency. Essentially. It's like. It's like it's flipping. It's like it's turning around, essentially. And we count the number of rotations that it makes in order to define the second. So there is, you know, there is something sort of that can be counted at the end of all that. In terms of how we measure the speed of light, though, it's an interesting one because there's always the chance that we're going to measure it with greater accuracy. And what we do have for the speed of light, we haven't agreed upon speed that we think this is as accurate as we're ever going to get. But there could always be more decimal places further down the line.
- [35:51]
Mike Carruthers
It seems that much of the world uses the metric system, but in the United States, we still tend to use inches, feet, yards, pounds, quarts, gallons. We don't use a lot of the metric measurements. And I wonder why.
- [36:08]
James Vincent
The reason why the US Never went metric, there's lots of explanations for it. One of the ones is that when the metric system was being defined, it was during the French Revolution, as I mentioned earlier, and the meter, which was the key unit of the metric system was defined as 1/10 millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the equator. So that's the meridian line. And you have to pick a specific meridian because. Because the, the surface of the Earth is not. Is not a uniform shape. So that distance differs depending on whereabouts on the earth you take it. The French very understandably decided to pick the Paris meridian. That is the meridian that runs through the center of Paris. The Americans and the British both thought this was a little too localized. They thought that it meant that the metric system was inherently foreign. And so that was something that made people reject it. You know, at the time that the metric system was being made, there was a lot of support for the metric system in America. A lot of people from Washington to Jefferson all said, you know, we're pro metric. We think it's a great system. It has all sorts of advantages. It's going to unite the world in this frictionless world of trade. We should get onto it. And you know, quite understandably, as well, you guys, you had pretty important things to get on with at that period. You know, you were. You were creating a country from scratch. So understandably, measurement was not necessarily the highest thing on the agenda.
- [37:40]
Mike Carruthers
But it seems there have been other attempts. There were attempts, I think, in the 70s to move to the metric system in the US and it seems we're just not that interested.
- [37:55]
James Vincent
It becomes a really, really difficult thing to change a country's system of measurements because it is changing people's way of life in a way. There's lots of sort of fantastic discussions from this during the 19th century where it's sort of compared to changing people's language or going into their homes and moving things about in their house without their say so. You know, it's seen as very intrusive and it becomes a cultural issue as well. The real reason, though, if we want to get down to the sort of pragmatist approach to this, the real reason that the US and the UK as well, to a degree, didn't immediately adopt the metric system is that these were two countries that were too powerful that they ever needed to. The US has this huge internal market. It had a huge manufacturing base. The UK had the same thing with the British Empire, while it had the Empire. And that meant that they had these huge markets that they could trade within. And so they were just too powerful and too rich.
- [38:52]
Mike Carruthers
But there have been other countries that have gone metric. I don't know how difficult or how much trouble it was, but it is doable.
- [39:02]
James Vincent
The really interesting thing when you look at the history of metric adoption is that it often happens right after a political revolution, which sounds like a silly comparison, but it happens in Russia, for example, after the communist revolution, they go metric. It happens in China with communist revolution again, they go metric. It happens in India when they free themselves from, you know, British imperial rule, they go metric. And it happens in South America a lot too, where you have new republics being created. One of the things they do is they adopt the metric system. And my personal read on this is that it's only in these times of huge instability where the norms of the world, the norms of how we live our life are sort of thrown up in the air. They're thrown to hazard, and we don't know where they're going to land. It's only in those moments that you can make such a monumental change.
- [39:55]
Mike Carruthers
There does seem to be this underlying belief that the metric system is better. Like that people convert to the metric system. I don't know if anyone has converted from the Metric system, that, that's kind of the gold standard of measuring systems. I wonder why.
- [40:16]
James Vincent
Yeah, I mean, the metric system, I would argue is one of our species, is sort of greatest scientific accomplishments in a way. I mean, I know that perhaps sounds like I'm overstating it, but it's such a useful tool and it has been so thoroughly adopted throughout the world and the benefits of it have been amazing. Imagine if every country today in the 21st century still used its own system of units and every time you went from one country to another, you had to find out what the new units were. Or every time you shared, you know, plans to build a car or the latest scientific research, you had to convert for each country that you went to what their units were. I mean, imagine all the mistakes and the wasted time that would entail. When the metric system was having a sort of a real surge in the 19th century, people compared it to the introduction of a single language for the world. There was this big internationalist movement where they thought if the world shared all these systems that there would be less fighting, that there would be more international, you know, collaboration and harmony. And advocates used to say, first we'll get the shared units of weight and measure, then we'll get a shared money system and then we'll get a shared language. And once we're all speaking the same language, you know, there'll be peace on earth. And obviously, you know, that I, that's, it's a pretty rose tinted view of the world. We have very good translation tools now that make it easy to translate from one language to another. I don't think it particularly stops wars, but there is something in there, in that if you're all speaking the same language, whether that language is, you know, speech and grammar or whether it is weights and lengths, that that does help reduce friction. So I have quite an idealist view of the metric system.
- [42:11]
Mike Carruthers
I guess you do. So since the metric system is such a big part of the world, here again you said a meter is determined by what it's one what of the distance.
- [42:25]
James Vincent
So it was originally one ten millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the equator. The motivation for that is that they wanted a unit that was going to be defined by something unchanging and something that was accessible to everyone. So they thought if we measure the Earth that is sort of humanity's shared heritage, that anyone would then therefore be able to recreate this measurement by taking measurements of the earth again in the future.
- [42:55]
Mike Carruthers
And so you said that there is a physical meter, you Mean, like, there's a stick.
- [43:01]
James Vincent
There was. There was. Yeah. So they. They came up with this. They made this measurement. They took these measurements by traveling across Europe, the pair of astronomers, and. And they came up with this measurement, 1/10 millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the equator. And then they realized, okay, great, we've got this, but how is everyone else gonna copy this? So they turned it into a physical meter standard. And the first meter and the first kilogram, which are known as the meter and kilogram of the Archives, were unveiled in 1799. And so for a while, every meter was a copy of that meter stick.
- [43:40]
Mike Carruthers
And is that meter stick still around?
- [43:44]
James Vincent
It is. I've seen it. I've seen it. It is in the National Archives in Paris in the Hotel de Sorbonne, if my memory is correct. Yeah, it's still there. It's a beautiful thing. It's kept in this iron vault in the center of the archive.
- [44:01]
Mike Carruthers
So we know the history or the backstory of the meter. What about the Graham, does it have a similar backstory? Who said, okay, this is our unit of measure?
- [44:14]
James Vincent
So they decided when they were making the metric system that they wanted all the units to be interconnected. So once they had the meter, they then turned that into a cube, which is a decimeter on each side. That's a tenth of a meter. And then that would be the capacity measure, that cube. And then they filled that with water, and then they made the weight of that water, the kilogram. So that's where the kilogram comes from. And then you divide that into thousands to get your grams. But again, this is something that. Okay, so that sounds like it's really easy to work out. You make the cube, you fill it with water, you weigh it. That's your kilogram. But when you look into the sort of very high precision measurements, you realize, okay, well, what type of water are you going to use? You know, because saltwater has a slightly different weight to fresh water. And where are you going to measure this? Because if you measure it at the top of a mountain, it's going to have a slightly different weight to if you measure it at the bottom, because the effect of gravity will be different on the mass. So again, they decided that rather than have this sort of definition, they would instead create a physical standard. And these were created at the same time. And again, copies were made and shared around the world.
- [45:27]
Mike Carruthers
Was there once these things were determined, like, okay, this is now the meter, and this is now the kilogram. Was there like a real campaign to sell people on it, or people or just kind of more organically became the standard.
- [45:44]
James Vincent
In France, there was a huge campaign and they saw it, as I say, as this sort of political campaign, that they were freeing people from the old system of measurement. And the big thing was that in France at the time, measurement units of measurement really divulged they were different in different towns because the authority to define them was often kept by sort of local aristocratic nobility. And they would make tweaks to it based on what they liked. And this meant that you could have a pint in one town that would be a litre or, you know, half a liter, whatever it was, and then you'd go 80 miles down the road to another town and it would have a different definition. And obviously this was incredibly confusing. It hurt trade, it was, you know, it made life difficult for people all across the country. So the metric system was really embraced to begin with. There was a campaign to sort of educate people about it, but people were really keen on it. They wanted change, they wanted standardization. Unfortunately, you know, this was happening during one of the most tumultuous, tumultuous periods in French history. And the French Revolutionaries decided that they didn't just want to remake weights and measures, they wanted to remake other things. So, for example, they got rid of the old calendar and they created a French Republican calendar, which had each month had 30 days in it, and instead of a seven day week, you had a 10 day week and there were three weeks in each month. And then they even went so far as to decimalize time. So they got rid of the 24 hour clock and they introduced a 10 hour clock where each hour has 100 minutes in it and each minute has 100 seconds in it. So they were really very ambitious about changing the world and making it more rational. But of course, there was so much change that people got sick of it. And when Napoleon took power in his coup, he got rid of most of the metric system because he thought it was just too much. It was too much. He said it was tormenting the people with trivia. He thought they didn't, they couldn't handle it.
- [47:48]
Mike Carruthers
Why is a mile as long as it is? I mean, where does the mile come from?
- [47:54]
James Vincent
So the mile was an ancient Roman unit of measurement that originally was milus passus, which meant a thousand paces. And, you know, that's it, that's it in the title, essentially, that they, they had a unit which was a pace and they thought you measure out a thousand them and it becomes a mile. Obviously that's, you know, Depending on your length of a stride, it's not really quite a mile. But what often happens in the history of measurement is that even if the value may fluctuate, sometimes the unit name stays the same because it's one that people are used to, and it just gets standardized in different ways over time.
- [48:31]
Mike Carruthers
I would imagine that in the quest to standardize units of measurement, that there have been some pretty unusual units of measurement that kind of defied standardizing. Can you talk about some of that?
- [48:46]
James Vincent
So there is a Finnish unit of length that was known as the penilkuma, and that was the distance at which a dog's bark could be heard. And there's one used by the Sami people, which is the peronkusima, which is the distance a reindeer can walk before it needs to urinate. So these are units of length that you might think, oh, well, how would you. How would you ever know that? How would you ever standardize that? And it is pretty tricky. But if you're, say, you know, part of the Sami people and you're hanging out with the reindeer all the day and you're traveling with them, it probably would be a decent rule of thumb to be like, yep, we've gone three reindeer toilet breaks, so we must be just about there.
- [49:23]
Mike Carruthers
Well, given our need to measure things and given that we use measurements every day, all the time, it's interesting to hear the story of how these units came to be and why we use the ones we use. I've been talking to James Vincent. The name of his book is Beyond Measure, and there's a link to it in the show notes for this episode. And I appreciate you being here, James. It was really interesting. The next time you hear a story that's hard to believe, pay attention to the order in which it is told. According to Pamela Meyer, a certified fraud examiner, liars tend to tell their story in chronological order, building up to the big finish. When we tell a true story for the first time, we tend to blurt out details that had a big impact on us randomly, not necessarily in the order that they happened. Liars are more likely to have it all planned out, skipping unnecessary details. Another giveaway to a phony or exaggerated experience is the end. Truth tellers tend to include an epilogue describing how they feel or how they were affected. That's difficult for a liar to do, considering they didn't actually experience those emotions, since it never really happened that way in the first place. And that is something you should know. The way our audience tends to grow is people listen. They like what they hear and they tell somebody else who likes what they hear and they tell somebody else. So if you would help keep that chain going, it helps us grow our audience. I'm Micah Ruthers. Thanks for listening today to something you should know.
- [51:07]
Dr. Fain Fry
Merry Christmas, everybody. My name is Eric Peterson. I'm here with my good buddy Danny Jordan, and we are the co hosts of the Christmas Let me try that again. I Merry Christmas, everybody. My name is Eric Peterson. I'm here with my good buddy Danny Jordan, and we are the hosts of Christmas Countdown show. We're so thrilled to be bringing the merriment to you all this holiday season.
- [51:26]
Mike Carruthers
It's going to be awesome.
- [51:27]
Dr. Fain Fry
It's going to be massively merry, gigantically jolly, fantastically festive as some people might say. Eric, we are all about alliterations and we are all about Christmas spirit. On Christmas Countdown, we love to count down Our top 10 favorite things related to the holiday season that could be food, movies, music, everything that we all love about this massively merry good time. So wherever you get your podcasts, make sure you click that subscribe button. Eric, are you ready? I am ready and we hope that you are too. Merry Christmas, everybody.
- [51:54]
Mike Carruthers
Let's go. It should be like, let's go. Ho ho ho.
- [51:58]
Dr. Fain Fry
Should be. Yeah.
- [51:59]
Megan Rinks
Hey.
- [52:00]
James Vincent
Hey.
- [52:00]
Megan Rinks
Are you ready for some real talk and some fantastic laughs? Join me, Megan Rinks and me, Melissa.
- [52:06]
Melissa D Montz
D Montz for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong.
- [52:08]
Megan Rinks
We're serving up four hilarious shows every week designed to entertain and engage and, you know, possibly enrage you and Don't Blame Me.
- [52:15]
Melissa D Montz
We dive deep into listeners questions, offering advice that's funny, relatable and real.
- [52:21]
Megan Rinks
Whether you're dealing with relationship drama or you just need a friend's perspective, we've got you.
- [52:25]
Melissa D Montz
Then switch gears with But Am I Wrong? Which is for listeners who didn't take our advice and want to know if they are the villains in the situation.
- [52:33]
Megan Rinks
Plus, we share our hot takes on current events and present situations that we might even be wrong in our lives. Spoiler alert. We are actually quite literally never wrong.
- [52:41]
Melissa D Montz
But wait, there's more. Check out See you next Tuesday, where we reveal the juicy results from our listener polls from But Am I Wrong?
- [52:49]
Megan Rinks
And don't miss Fisting Friday, where we catch up chat about pop culture, TV and movies. It's the perfect way to kick off your weekend.
- [52:55]
Melissa D Montz
So if you're looking for a podcast that feels like a chat with your best, listen to Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? On Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.