“Snow farming” (and why it’s surprising)

1:34:43Interesting. >> I need to look into how the physics of that works because like over the summer you're telling me it doesn't melt. >> Yeah. I'm not that one. >> That's crazy. But it's like working. It like works and people are doing it. >> If you guys want us to cover the snow farming story, let us know in the comments. Uh cuz I am also >> That doesn't make any sense. >> That doesn't make any sense. >> Like you put sawdust. Shouldn't it be warmer under the sawdust? I don't know. Um, in any case, I'm just saying that like, you know, people are going to have to come up with interesting strategies now to keep the Winter Olympics going. >> I will say I do I do find sometimes a little bit frustrating where the answer to the problem is always, oh, we'll just find a way to innovate our way out of the problem without actually giving a specific answer. Like you can't just be

1:35:23hand wavy about it. Like like how >> how >> like okay yeah, we'll just we but no like what like why does that actually work? >> Yeah. Yeah. Like fundamentally the physics- wise you can't just make snow, [laughter] >> right? That still depends on weather, >> right? And so anyway, >> all right. The next thing I want to talk about was curling. >> Yes, >> curling is an amazing sport. I >> the most electrifying sport in the Olympics. >> Yes. And all of the curling stones come from a single island. >> Wait, really? >> Which is crazy. Oh, okay. There's two places. There's a little island in Scotland called Alissa Craig. I think that's this one. And then there's the Trefer Granite Quarry in Wales. Okay. All of the curling stones come from this

1:36:03island. Each stone is 40 lb. And the reason why is because somehow these places have very specific types of granite. Okay? In a curling stone, there's two surfaces. There's the part that comes into contact with the ice, which is the running band, and then there's a part that comes into contact with other stones and like knocks them over. And that's the striking band. And you need two different types of physics for each of them. Okay? The running band, which is the thing that's on the ice, needs to be smooth. >> Yep. >> Right. Because you want you don't want like grainy texture there because it's going to be moving along the the ice and you want it to be, you know, as slippery. Low friction. Low friction.