SYSK's 12 Days of Christmas… Toys: How Yo-Yos Work

Summary

“SYSK’s 12 Days of Christmas… Toys: How Yo-Yos Work”

Podcast: Stuff You Should Know
Hosts: Josh Clark & Charles W. “Chuck” Bryant
Date: December 12, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this festive episode, Josh and Chuck dive deep into the history, physics, and cultural significance of the yo-yo. With their trademark blend of humor and curiosity, they unravel how yo-yos work and explore the toy’s surprising depth—from ancient origins to modern engineering twists. Expect nerdy enthusiasm for physics, tales of yo-yo pop culture, and plenty of classic SYSK banter.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins and Etymology of “Yo-Yo”

• The word “yo-yo” is traced back to the Filipino language, where it means “come, come” or “come back” (06:23).
  • Josh: “The word yo yo as it stands means come, come, or come back.”
• The modern usage of “yo” as an interjection predates the 20th century, but its slang incarnation postdates World War II in Philadelphia (05:54).

2. Yo-Yo’s Ancient Roots and Historical Development

• Yo-yos originated in the Philippines in the form we know now, but similar toys existed in Ancient Greece and possibly China more than 2,500 years ago (06:49–07:14).
• The yo-yo is considered the world’s oldest toy after the doll (07:26).
• Alternative historical names include lemigret, bandalore (British), and the quiz (08:27).
• Napoleon reportedly used a yo-yo for stress relief (09:07).

3. Evolution of Yo-Yo Design

• Early designs (Greek/Chinese/European) had a string tied tightly to the axle, leading to immediate return—no “sleep” possible (07:57–08:19).
• Filipino design innovation: string loosely looped around the axle, allowing the yo-yo to “sleep” (spin in place at the end of the string) (09:29–09:51).
• This innovation unlocked yo-yo tricks and modern playability.

4. The Birth of Modern Yo-Yos and the Duncan Era

• Pedro Flores, a Filipino immigrant, started the first U.S. yo-yo company in the 1920s; Donald Duncan later bought and popularized it (11:11–11:32).
• “Yo-yo” became a generic trademark in 1965, leading to the original Duncan company’s bankruptcy (12:06–12:23).
• At their manufacturing peak: “3600 yo-yos an hour… a million board feet of maple wood every year… sold 45 million yo-yos in 1962—more than the number of kids in the US!” (12:43; 12:52).
  • Chuck: “A chicken in every pot and a yo yo in every other hand.” (13:17)
• June 6th is National Yo-Yo Day (Donald Duncan’s birthday) (13:41–13:47).

5. Yo-Yo Physics: How It Works

• Linear Momentum: Classic up-and-down motion, as with the ancient/European model (17:24–17:45).
• Angular Momentum: Modern design allows spinning at the string’s end (“sleep”), key to tricks (17:46–18:16).
• Gyroscopic Stability: Keeps yo-yo balanced while spinning, resisting axis change (like a football or frisbee) (18:30–19:25).
  • Josh: “A spinning object will resist change to its axis of rotation.” (18:57)
• Waking Up: A tug increases friction, letting the yo-yo rewind up the string (20:11–20:23).
• Moment of Inertia: Designs distributing more mass away from the axis (“butterfly” yo-yos) sleep longer (21:34–23:00).
  • Chuck: “That allows things to sleep a lot longer. … One of the breakthroughs in yoyo design.” (23:00)

6. Modern Engineering Tweaks & Controversies

• Ball Bearing Axle: Allows even longer sleep times—controversially called out as “cheating” by the hosts (23:50–24:06; 25:01–25:47).
  • Chuck: “Let’s just call them modifications… for, sorry, kids who don’t know how to yo yo.” (24:05–24:09)
• YoYo With a Brain (Clutch System): Spins automatically returns when spinning slows, further distancing from classic technique (26:10–27:28).
  • Josh: “You could be in a vegetative state and do this yo-yo.” (26:15)
• Notable innovators: Tom Kuhn (No Jive 3-in-1 yoyo), Michael Caffrey (YoMega “Brain”) (27:51–28:15).

7. Yo-Yo Pop Culture and Trivia

• Abbie Hoffman: Used “walk the dog” yo-yo trick during his contempt of Congress hearing in 1968 (32:25–32:59).
• Richard Nixon: Famously (and ungracefully) yo-yoed at the Grand Ole Opry, 1974 (33:11–33:48).
• In Space: NASA tested yo-yos in microgravity (Toys in Space Project, 1985), finding they “move gracefully but never sleep” (33:54–34:24).

8. Yo-Yo in Education

• Teachers use yo-yos to explain angular momentum, gyroscopic stability, and moment of inertia in physics lessons (31:39–32:07).
  • Josh: “I have to tell you, I understand angular momentum far better now.” (31:57)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Yo-Yo’s True Purpose:
  • Chuck: “Sleep. That is why people yoyo. I think it is all about the tricks.” (09:51)
• On Modern Tweaks:
  • Josh: “Even as a kid… ball bearings and clutches… they just seem like cheating.” (10:04–10:13)
• On Design Innovations:
  • Josh: “The Filipino design led to the modern yoyo… The huge distinction is that the string is just looped around the axle kind of loosely, which has the added benefit of allowing the yoyo itself to spin once it reaches the end of the string.” (09:29–09:51)
• On Gyroscopic Stability:
  • Josh: “So if you have a yoyo that is sleeping and you push down on top… it’ll just keep spinning as long as it is spinning fast enough. Gyroscopic stability.” (18:30–18:57)
• On The Yo-Yo Space Mission:
  • Josh: “They found that, like, letting it drop did nothing because they were testing it in microgravity. But if you throw… it will still spin. And it moves kind of just… gracefully along the string… but it’ll never sleep.” (34:01–34:24)
• On Search Techniques:
  • Josh: “So you just put the minus sign.”
  • Chuck: “Minus and then the next letter. No space.”
  • Josh: “You literally just improved my life.” (35:40–35:52)

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Segment Timestamps

• Intro/Banter: 02:41–03:40
• Origin/History of the Word & Toy: 04:08–13:47
• Physics Primer: 17:18–25:54
• Modern Developments and Tweaks: 25:59–28:28
• Trivia and Pop Culture: 32:24–34:56

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Tone, Style, and Notable Dynamics

• Conversational, playful, and irreverent—Josh and Chuck riff on toys, history, and physics, with a sense of childlike wonder.
• Slightly nerdy affection for both traditional and modern yo-yo designs.
• Occasional skepticism toward “cheating” engineering advancements (e.g., ball bearings, clutches), favoring simplicity and skill.
• Offbeat pop culture tangents and a dose of SYSK nostalgia.

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Brief Takeaway

This episode is a delightfully thorough and surprisingly nerdy journey into the world of yo-yos. It moves from ancient innovations to physics class, through legal drama and space missions—all spinning around a toy that’s simple, but “far out.” Whether you’re a yo-yo master, a physics teacher, or just a curious listener, you’ll leave knowing exactly how a yo-yo works (and maybe wanting to try a “walk the dog” yourself).

Transcript

[Josh Clark]

This is an iHeart podcast.

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[Chuck Bryant]

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[Chuck Bryant]

Happy continuing holidays everybody. Chuck here to tee up our next episode on our 12 Days of Christmas Toys Play 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 yo yos. It's how yo yos work. Hope you like it.

[Josh Clark]

Welcome to stuff you should know from howstuffworks.com.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's me.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Same as ever.

[Chuck Bryant]

Scratching the old back.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, just got a little itch there.

[Chuck Bryant]

You ever use one of those little dealies? The little creepy hand? The little monkey paw on the end of the stick?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I have before.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I don't like to do that. It hurts. Oh, yeah. I guess you could call it painful sensation.

[Chuck Bryant]

I get up against the wall sometimes and do the baloo the bear.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That'll do sometimes too. But it's weird. Like, I only have back hitches 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 curiously.

[Chuck Bryant]

This is going to be the most interesting part of this show.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That is not true. Chuck, man. So, Chuck.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

This is going to be a great one.

[Audible Ad Speaker]

Okay.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I have a feeling this is going to be one of those ones where it is like, wow, that turned out to be really good. It is physics heavy out the yin yang.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, everyone loves that.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

But the fact is, when we finish this, you are going to know how yoyo works. This is probably the most truly titled, truest titled episode we've ever done.

[Chuck Bryant]

You think?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yep.

[Chuck Bryant]

I don't know.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

All right, well, we'll find out.

[Chuck Bryant]

I think it should be called physics through the eye of a Yo yo.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So listen, have you ever seen the movie Harlem Nights Parts? Dude, that is. Go back and watch it again.

[Chuck Bryant]

Like, watch the whole thing.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, you're crazy. It's one of the best movies ever. Eddie Murphy, Redd Fox, Richard Pryor, great cast. And like everybody else in it too, I think Bernie Mac's in there.

[Chuck Bryant]

Awesome cast, Terrible script.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I don't think the script was terrible. I thought it was great. There's one thing about that movie that bugged me to no end. It's set in like the 20s, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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 did it. Drives me crazy that the director wasn't like. You can't say yo. This is like 1920s New York. Yo wasn't around.

[Chuck Bryant]

I don't know that they were going for historical accuracy in that one.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

They were wearing spats. Yeah, well, so Jerry liked that one. So I went back and did a little digging, Chuck. And it turns out that yo was, in fact, around in the 1920s, but Eddie Murphy was still wrong for using it in that capacity. Okay, okay. So yo goes back at least to, like, the 15th century as, like, a hunting cry, Right? When somebody was like, somebody else might go, yo, and you go chase a fox. That was kind of the first wave of yo as far back as 1859, we know that there were sailors that were using it yo ho ho. Yo ho ho. Or also it was a response for Roll Call. Like, yo. Like, somebody called your name, you would say yo a key. It wasn't until after World War II, though, that the modern incarnation comes. And it came out of the Italian quarters of Philadelphia.

[Chuck Bryant]

Of course it did.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So that's where they think yo came from after World War II. Hence, Eddie Murphy was wrong in using yo especially frequently in the movie Harlem Nights. So I did all that research, or I could have just looked into Google, Translate from English to Filipino or vice versa, and find that it just means come.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, but I don't think that's what it means here, does it?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

It does now. Okay, so the word yo yo as it stands means come, come, or come back.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that makes sense.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Did you know that I did you want to talk a little bit about the history of yoyos? Did you know before reading this fantastic article that that yo yos originated, as we understand them now, originated in the Philippines in the 1920s?

[Chuck Bryant]

I didn't know that. I did know that it was around for a long time before that, though, in, you know, other forms.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Well, pretty much the same form. There were, like, two forms of yo yos in history.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And one came out of the new. One came out of the Philippines. The other one. Yeah, it was pretty old.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, ancient Chinese, or at least ancient Greeks, more than 2500 years ago. But they think the Chinese had something similar to that.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I'm starting to strongly suspect that the Chinese are the origin of human civilization. Yeah. They came up with beer. Yeah, well, they came up with beer. There you have it. They win right there.

[Chuck Bryant]

And it is the oldest toy on the planet, except the doll, the dolly.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I thought that was pretty interesting, too. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Of course.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Chuck Bryant]

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 had the string tied tight to the little axis there.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

We'll call it the Greek design.

[Chuck Bryant]

The Greek design?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

No, we'll call it the Chinese design.

[Chuck Bryant]

Or the European design. Well, not design, but it was popular in Europe.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And that obviously if you ever used an old yoyo like that or redesigned yours to where it's tight around the axle, it'll pop up. As soon as you throw it down, it'll pop back up because it's tied to the axle. Makes a lot of sense.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Exactly right. You said it was popular in Europe. There were other words for it, other names for the yo yo before it was a yo yo.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

There was the lemigret, the bandalore.

[Chuck Bryant]

The bandalore was British, I believe.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

The quiz.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I didn't get a country of origin.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

For that, but it was very popular in Europe. There's a painting of I think Louis xviii. Is he the boy king?

[Audible Ad Speaker]

I don't know.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Whichever. Louis was the boy king of him holding like a yo yo. Like a royal painting of him with a yo yo or the.

[Chuck Bryant]

What was the little hoop on a stick?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I think that's what it was called.

[Chuck Bryant]

That was an awesome game.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

The hoop on a stick. Woo hoo. And then I don't think you can compare the yo yo to the hoop on a stick.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, I'm not comparing it. I'm just saying. I just never toy.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, okay. Well here's another one for you. Napoleon was well known for carrying and using a yo yo apparently for stress relief.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh yeah?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Didn't work too well.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

He was a stressed out dude.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

He needed the yo yo. But as you said, 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right. So the Filipino design led to the modern yoyo as we understand it now. And the huge distinction is that the string is just looped around the axle kind of loosely, which has the added benefit of allowing the yoyo itself to spin once it reaches the end of the string. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Sleep. That is why people yoyo. I think it is all about the tricks. I mean it is sort of fun for a minute just to go up and down. But it's really all about the tricks.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right. It's just a stress reliever if it just goes up and down.

[Chuck Bryant]

Did you yo yo when you were a kid?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, here or 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

I agree. Let's not even talk about them. It's not even a real Yo Yo.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So, Chuck, you want to talk about a little bit about physics?

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, let's finish the history first, shall we?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, okay. Well, I have plenty of that.

[Chuck Bryant]

It was originally in the Philippines. They think it was a hunting weapon for, like, 400 years. 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.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

They were like the size of a Yugo.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And I guess the benefit there is you could get it back after you threw it at somebody.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right. The string was almost just useless, though. You could just throw it and run after it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, really? Okay. It was actually heavy rope. And they used it for hunting, too, right?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Well, at some point down the line. Well, yeah, you would think. Anything used in hunting, you know, does double duty in war.

[Chuck Bryant]

Exactly.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Anything you're trying to kill.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

At some point, though, they became smaller and became toys. And in the 20s, a Filipino immigrant to the US named Pedro Flores started a company, the first modern yo yo company in the United States and did pretty well for himself. And then in 1929, he sold out to a man named Duncan. Right? Donald Duncan.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes, Donald Duncan.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Or Duncan.

[Chuck Bryant]

Or Duncan. And, you know, florist is in Santa Barbara and, like you said, was selling these things like hotcakes enough that Duncan said, hey, let me buy that. I'm gonna keep the name yo yo because it's catchy. I'm going to trademark it, and now I own it. And through the years, he had competitors that made similar devices with different names, and they were like, dude, everyone's calling this thing a 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 1965 says, you know what? That's generic enough now where you don't own it any longer.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

They're all Yo Yos.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Well, those legal challenges to their trademark, the name yo yo was one of the things that bled the company dry. It eventually went bankrupt. The Duncan company went bankrupt?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, the same year they ruled against them.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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 Dunkin Company was. So they moved in the 40s to Luck, Wisconsin, which very quickly became known as the yo yo capital of the world. And at their Peak, they were making 3600 yo yos an hour.

[Chuck Bryant]

Wow.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Mostly out of wood at first. Maple. They were using a million board feet of maple wood every year.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that's a lot.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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 1962, Chuck, they managed to sell 45 million yo yos. And in that same year, there were only 40 million kids in the U.S. wow. That's pretty astounding.

[Chuck Bryant]

A chicken in every pot and a yo yo in every other hand.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

At least. Yeah, sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

I guess some kids were yo yoing with both hands up.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

They were rich kids.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

But like I said, the company ended up going bankrupt anyway. But yo yo enthusiasts still look very fondly on the Duncan name. And I think June 6th. Yes, June 6th is national yo yo day. Which happens to be the same day as Donald Duncan's birthday. Yeah, yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, and the Duncan name lives on, obviously. You still see Duncan yo yos. They. They sold out. They didn't just shut down.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Well, they went bankrupt and sold out.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right, yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

So who was it? The Flam Flambell Flamingo Plastics Company. Yeah, they said we'll keep the name Duncan because it's synonymous with yo yo's.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it's not generic yet.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, no.

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[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

There's a little Yoyo history for you. Yeah, I got a little more. I'm going to save to the end. I think you'll like. Okay, I'm going to tease you with it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Now. Let's talk about physics.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Well, I think this is very interesting.

[Chuck Bryant]

Good.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So there's two. Okay, you mentioned with the string tied to the classic Chinese design Yoyo, you have one kind of energy going on, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And that is linear momentum, the ability of it to go up and down. Or I should say down and up, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Okay, so you got Two things going on. Like you said, when the yoyo hits the end of the line 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. It actually increases as it goes down, which is the key to keeping it spinning. It gets faster as it falls.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

There is another pretty cool trait to a yoyo. Who knew they were so complex? I didn't. Did you?

[Chuck Bryant]

I did not.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Okay, so they also have gyroscopic stability. Chuck.

[Chuck Bryant]

They do.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Okay. So if you have a yoyo that is sleeping and you push down on top of. Goes down and then back up. That's because of its gyroscopic stability. That point that you push down on the yoyo is transferred from the front and spun around to the back. So that's evened out. So the yoyo will just keep spinning as long as it is spinning fast enough. Gyroscopic stability.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes. That means a spinning object will resist change to its axis of rotation. If you have ever thrown a football, it is the same thing.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Or if you have ever thrown a football poorly. What do they call that?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Wobbler? A turkey?

[Chuck Bryant]

Wounded duck.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Brick.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's why wounded duck doesn't go very far, because it doesn't have that tight spin.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

So it falls off its axis and won't travel as far.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Exactly.

[Chuck Bryant]

Same as a frisbee.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And then the whole team's mad at you.

[Chuck Bryant]

Basically anything that spins.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Frisbees, footballs. There's. There's got to be a baseball. We could liken it to a baseball somehow.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Let's say a curveball. Knuckleball slider.

[Chuck Bryant]

Definitely not a knuckleball slider. Than spin at all.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Really? What is it, like a shot put?

[Chuck Bryant]

No, the knuckleball. The whole key is it doesn't move. It travels like this, and that's why it moves all around.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Crazy.

[Chuck Bryant]

Isn't that nutty?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So you've got your yoyo sleeping. You're totally aware of its gyroscopic stability, and you understand that its angular 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. Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Little tug on the old finger.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And the reason why is because the loop. Right. There's less friction with the loop around the axle.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

When you tug it you increase that friction and you allow it to rewind.

[Chuck Bryant]

It just grabs ahold of its buddy and says, let's go back up to the palm.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And like I said, sleeping is the key to do any kind of trick. Like walking the dog, which I was pretty good at. I used to do a few yoyo tricks.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Really?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I could walk the dog and I could do the deal where you make a triangle and then TikTok through the triangle.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Something like a cradle or probably the cat's in the cradle.

[Chuck Bryant]

Let's call it a cat's cradle. And then I could do the around the world.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Wow.

[Chuck Bryant]

Around the world trailer.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I couldn't do any of those.

[Chuck Bryant]

This inspired me to get a new yoyo.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

By the way, I like the vintage Duncan ones, specifically the yellow ones with the butterfly, like the gold butterfly.

[Chuck Bryant]

The inverted ones.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

No, it's the butterfly on the.

[Chuck Bryant]

Because they had those that looked like a butterfly that were.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I know what you're talking about.

[Chuck Bryant]

Inverted. And I think that actually plays a part in the increasing the moment of inertia section.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

I think that's why they flipped it out to put more weight on the outside.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Okay. You want to talk about that?

[Chuck Bryant]

Why not?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So do you remember when we did the Murphy's law podcast?

[Chuck Bryant]

How could I forget?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Remember one of the books that he wrote was for your moments of inertia?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I didn't realize it was a terrible, terrible engineering pun until I read this article.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Kind of made me hate John Paul Stapp a little bit.

[Chuck Bryant]

Nah, we love that guy.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So, Chuck, a moment of inertia is basically a way of describing a spinning object's resistance to changes in that rotation. Basically being slowed down.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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, you're going to increase its moment of inertia.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And that increases the amount of time it's just sleeping. Right?

[Chuck Bryant]

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 gotta be because they were wider at the outside and then curved in, which had to be less mass.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

It was less stuff, less wood. So I'm gonna go on record as saying that's why they did that, but.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I Think you want more mass further away to increase its moment of inertia. Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So there was more mass on the outside, further away from the axis, Right? Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So that allows things to sleep a lot longer. And that was, I guess you could say, one of the breakthroughs in yoyo design. I think in the 60s, they started adding mass to the outside and extending the axle a little bit. Bam. The yoyo has been improved. Think about this, right? 2500, maybe even longer than that. Years ago, somebody invented the yo yo does not change until the Philippines in the early 20th century.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, I thought it said it did change. We just don't know. Said there were changes in design over the years.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

No, not that. I took. I took it like there was one way, and then there was the Filipino way, and that was it.

[Chuck Bryant]

We got a correction to make then.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And then the 20th century hits, and then there's all these great improvements on these designs.

[Chuck Bryant]

Indeed.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

One of the improvements, Chuck, was adding ball bearings. Right. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

See you. And I don't think these are improvements, or at least I don't.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Okay. That's absolutely true. That's a good caveat. I think that the Filipinos perfected the yoyo.

[Chuck Bryant]

Let's just call them modifications.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

For, sorry, kids who don't know how to yo yo.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Rich kids. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

That makes it easier, I think.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Isn't that the whole point of both of these things? Yeah, I guess it makes it easier to sleep and.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And I guess they're like, well, if you just enjoying sleeping and waking your yo yo, then why make it tough.

[Chuck Bryant]

If you want to have fun with your toy? Right. I can't believe they made it easier for kids to have fun. How dare they?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So the ball bearing design, I think, is kind of clever. Basically, the. This modification takes the axle and splits it in two.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Into two races, which are basically little courses for ball bearings to spin around. Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Now, does that split the axle? These are just around the axle.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So one is connected to the axle.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That's the inner race. One is connected to the string. That's the outer race. And then in between the two are ball bearings.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Okay. They're not connected in any way except maybe via the context with the ball bearings.

[Audible Ad Speaker]

Right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So when you release your yoyo toward the ground, and it is 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 are spinning, and then as they straighten out, they're not connected anymore. So that the string no longer has any effect on whether the yoyo spins or not, because it is just the inner race connected to the axle that is spinning. So your yoyo can sleep far, far longer.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. The outer race spins the inner race, which spins the axle.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right. It is like a transfer of angular momentum.

[Chuck Bryant]

Exactly.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And then the string is just like. You just let me know when you are done, and we will wind back up.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, it will give a little tug. Will do the same thing with that style.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right, Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Or you can just completely take yourself out of the equation altogether. Except for a snap of the wrist. The initial release is all you need to do with what's called the yoyo with the brain.

[Chuck Bryant]

These are really fake yoyos.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

I want to get one, though. It's kind of cool.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

You could be in a vegetative state and do this yoyo.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. This was in the 90s. A company called Yo Makea released these, and they called it the yoyo with a brain, when, in fact, they should have called it the yoyo 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, 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, which makes the whole thing spin faster on the axis.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Chuck Bryant]

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 back up.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right back up.

[Chuck Bryant]

I wish we had one of those. I want to see what it's like.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So basically, the two modifications are based on separating the string from the axle.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

By creating two different kinds of, I guess, axles or spindles or whatever, which.

[Chuck Bryant]

Are really just sort of taking the Filipino design a step further. Because although it made contact with the axle, it wasn't, quote, connected to the axle.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Or I guess it was, but it wasn't tight.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right. And a guy named Michael caffrey is the one who came up with the yo yo with the brain and yomega. Started selling him in 1990, but he came up with it in 1980, two years after a man named Tom Kuhn created the no jive 3 in 1 yoyo that you could take apart and replace the axle and do all sorts of modifications with. Oh really big, big time for changes in Yo Yo Design.

[Chuck Bryant]

So did he rip this dude off? Is that what you're saying?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

No.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

No. I'm just saying like the two, these two big steps in Yo Yo Design.

[Chuck Bryant]

The way you said two years after was sinister.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Well, you're a very suspicious person.

[Chuck Bryant]

I am when it comes to Yo Yo Design.

[Public Ad Sponsor]

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[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Chuck, that's pretty much the physics of yo yo. So did you know that we just explained how yoyos work?

[Chuck Bryant]

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 yo yos to describe these whatever four to six properties that we described.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I have to tell you, I understand angular momentum far better now.

[Chuck Bryant]

I understand. Although it went through the yo yos, through the football, I understand the moment of inertia.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, wait, was that moment of inertia?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

No, that's angular momentum. Angular momentum spinning on an axis.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, you were talking about the gyroscopic stability.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, there you go.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That's what it was.

[Chuck Bryant]

See, I get confused.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I do, too. Chuck. It's physics, man. Don't feel bad. You want to know a couple more pieces of yo yo trivia?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, let's hear it.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

In 1968, one Abbie Hoffman of the Chicago Seven.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Was indicted or. No, charged with contempt of Congress when he started doing the walk the dog during a House UN American Activities Committee session that was investigating him.

[Chuck Bryant]

So he was like, I'm just so over this. I'm gonna. Yo yo.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Well, apparently, the way I read it is that he was trying to entertain, lighten everything up. Like, here, watch me, yo yo. And he was walking the dog, and.

[Chuck Bryant]

The HUAC said, no, not fun.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So that's how yo yos are connected to McCarthyism. If you ever take an SYSK quiz? And that comes up.

[Chuck Bryant]

Plus, yo yos were huge back then.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Totally.

[Chuck Bryant]

That was like the heyday. I think this was the 60s.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Nixon. Have you seen Nixon try to yo yo? No, 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 1974. What's the main guy like? The whole cast of Hee Haws behind Nixon. And then the mate, Roy Acuff.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

He presents Nixon with a Yo yo. And, like, has to put it on Nixon's finger. And Nixon looks like, 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Wow.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And he just has this sullen, like, look on his face like, I don't like yo yos.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

He looks kind of like you did at the beginning of this episode.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, me and Nick, Tricky Dick. Who knew?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And then they took a Yo yo in space. Chuck.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I saw that. And it still worked.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

It did work. They found that, like, letting it drop did nothing because they were testing it in microgravity. But if you throw will. It will go slowly. You can do. 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, thank God NASA did that.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Back in 1985.

[Chuck Bryant]

Those are all the videos you see, though they do much more than that.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That was back when NASA was like, we have so much money, we don't know what to do with it. Let's launch something. And let's say the Toys in Space Project.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And they did.

[Chuck Bryant]

Now, this was just for Yo Yos. That was the only thing they did on that flight?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Well, no. The Toys in Space project encompassed 60 shuttle missions, one for each toy that they tested out.

[Chuck Bryant]

Wow.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Jax was one of the best. One.

[Chuck Bryant]

The bolo paddle.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So that's. That's Yo Yos. Frankly, I'm pretty happy with this one.

[Chuck Bryant]

I thought you were gonna lead in with something on Yo Yo Ma or some.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

No, man. Try to look up Yo Yos in the news and not get Yo Yo Ma.

[Chuck Bryant]

Jeez.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Can't do it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Stupid.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Searched yo yo minus ma, minus knee, minus Gaba to finally get some stuff.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, Yo Gabba Gabba. Sure.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, what was the other one? Yo Mama.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Neo.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yo. MTV Raps.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That came up too.

[Chuck Bryant]

Did it?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I stopped searching before I minused MTV too.

[Chuck Bryant]

I didn't know you could minus.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I was in the. Yeah, and it'll root out all the search. All the results that have that in it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Really? So you just put the minus sign.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Minus and then the next letter. No space.

[Chuck Bryant]

Had no idea.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And you can do a bunch of different ones. No commas, no nothing. Just like minus gaba, minus yo.

[Public Ad Sponsor]

Really?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Minus ma, minus ni.

[Chuck Bryant]

You literally just improved my life.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Well, good. Or my research for like eight times a day.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

All right. Well, that's it.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yo Yos. I was in a jewelry store once and Neo came in. Seemed nice.

[Chuck Bryant]

Who's Neo?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

He's this rapper. He's from Atlanta.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, I thought you were talking about the Matrix. No, that's like his real name is Keanu Reese.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

This is Neo, this is Ne Yo.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh yeah, I've heard of him.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, him. Well, if you want to learn more about Yo Yos, including some really top notch illustrations, this is one of those ones that you will see why we have staff illustrators here at HOW printed these out actually in color. Yes, I saw you want to type in yo yo at the. In the handy search [e-mail] 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Josh, this is one of our oldest and 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 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. In 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 honored to do our part to re raise awareness when the label releasing this compilation approached us to contribute a track. So, you know, she's right. You hear about these tragedies that happen and then six months later you kind of forget about it.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

It's the curse of the news cycle.

[Chuck Bryant]

Exactly. 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.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh that's great.

[Chuck Bryant]

So continued help is always needed. There's a CD that's gonna 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 37 tracks by 37 artists on the website morehopeforjapan.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, ambient and basically pretty melodic guitar based tunes should dig it. So check it out. That's Anna's band, New century classics.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Cool.

[Chuck Bryant]

Morehopeforjapan.com Very cool.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Thanks a lot Anna. Appreciate that. Thanks for letting us know. Thanks for doing what you do and.

[Chuck Bryant]

Thanks for listening for like years. She's been around forever.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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 syskpodcast or you can shoot us a Facebook something facebook.com stuffyou should know. And as always, you can get really personal and send us an email, a real live email to stuffpodcastowstuffworks.com.

[Josh Clark]

For more on this and thousands of other topics. Visit howstuffworks.com to learn more about the podcast. Click on the podcast icon in the upper right corner of our homepage. The HowStuffWorks iPhone app has arrived. Download it today on itunes.

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[Chuck Bryant]

I'm Kalpin.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I'm Ed Helms.

[Chuck Bryant]

Ed and I are inviting you to join the best sounding book club you've.

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[Chuck Bryant]

Mmm.

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[Josh Clark]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.