June 24, 2010 • 25 mins
In many films, hapless characters meet their untimely demise in a lethal pit of quicksand. It's a gruesome, undignified end -- but is it realistic? Josh and Chuck tackle the properties of quicksand -- and how to escape it -- in this episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Bryant. Chuck Bryant.
(00:20):
You pointed at me as if I was supposed to
say hey, and welcome to the podcast. Almost did. I
was like, the trick is to point and start talking
almost the same time. There needs to be like a
maybe eight or ten millisecond delay. All right, all you
journalism school students broadcasting tips from Johns. Was everybody off
(00:42):
of their game? It's good point, Like, you know what
I just did. I just assumed domination of this podcast,
the whole thing when you did that every time. That's
not true. So, Chuck, have you ever seen Gilligan's Island? Yeah,
A bunch of bunch of times. Did you know that?
By my estimate, Gilligan's Island holds the record four most
(01:04):
number of episodes used by a television show featuring quicksand
as a device. I've got five five, Yeah, me too.
Gilligan Got caught, Skipper got caught. Mr Howell faked his death.
Remember that one? No, what did you just put the
hat on top of some Quicksand that's exactly what he did.
I do remember that he changed his will to include
(01:25):
the castaways, and he thought they were trying to kill him,
so he ran away and faked his death. But they
were really just planning a party for him, I'll bet.
And then uh, botanist Lord Beasley, who was one of
their random guests that they had. I don't remember him,
and Ginger Marian apparently got caught one night. Huh some
sexy quicksand yeah, so um, I don't think there's anybody
(01:47):
out there who's unfamiliar with Quicksand it's just such a
great little throat to anytime there's a jungle scene or
something and things are getting boring and you're a writer
and it's nineteen fifty seven or ninety eight or nineteen
eighty five, you say quicksand yeah. You don't see a
lot lately in films and TV. Though we've gotten slightly
more sophisticated. I think people realize some point not really
(02:10):
a big thing. I don't think it's just with quicksand
I think we have gotten generally more sophisticated. Um, in
the eighties, who were pretty much throughout the whole decade
the biggest box office straws oh Arnold Schwarzenegger maybe, um
so yeah um John Claude Van Damn. Not a very
(02:32):
thinking decade, right, yeah, good point. Then you move into
the nineties and you have more guys like Edward Norton
r DJ whoever that is, right, yeah, who I am
very hardened to see is making quite a comeback. He's
gotten off of the black tar and into uh life
and into box office cold. Yeah. Have you seen Sherlock Holmes?
(02:56):
I have seen that movie like eight times. We ever
got to talk about quicksand so quicksand Chuck can it
kill you? Uh? I saw a thing that said theoretically,
if you were stuck over your head and you couldn't
get out, obviously you could drown in it. But I
believe you have a scientific study to refute that. There
was a study. And we found from researching, reading an
(03:19):
article on the site and just kind of looking around
there's a very finite amount of information out there on
quicksand because there's just a finite amount to know about
quicksand it's not as exciting as it is in the movie,
So I'll say that, which explains my Robert Downey Junior tirade. Right. Um,
there was a two thousand five study that pretty much
put the period on the sentence about quicksand. It said,
(03:43):
it's physically impossible for human being too to sink into
a pit of quicksand and die. Okay, I think this.
What I suppose was if you were like dropped on
your head into the quicksand. But it's usually not even
so deep as to be taller than a human So no,
there there. If if you're just just a guy, if
(04:05):
it's just you or I and we you go into
a you fall into a pit of quicksand that is
say seven ft deep, which is exceedingly rare. Right, most
of the time it's much shallower than that, so you
just stand up, all right, Um, we are less dense
than quicksand are. The density of the human body is
(04:28):
about one gram per cubic centimeter or about one gram
permilli leader of water. All right, Quicksand is about twice that.
So if you just sit there, you become buoyant. You
float on water, and quicksand is denser than water, so
you'll definitely float on quicksand exactly, so you can't. We
(04:48):
we could be um. But let's talk about sand and
the properties of quicksand, which, by the way, is falls
under the purview of a field of science called reology.
It's the study of um. Basically, it's the study of
the flow and deformation of unusual things like mayonnaise or
silly putty or quicksand seriously um. So reology studies quicksand
(05:13):
foam things like that. Um things that like mayonnaise. When
you carve some mayonnaise out with a knife, it doesn't
go back to a flat surface. It should, but it's
still liquid. Technically it should have flow. It doesn't. Yeah, reology,
I love Mayo, Mayo Man, Josh quicksand is if we
(05:35):
want to define it, it's solid ground. Actually, it's not
like the oatmeal. I tried to find out what they
used in movies, and the closest I could find was
Fuller's earth, like mixed with water. You ever heard of
Fuller's Earth. It's just really really powdery dirt, light brown,
and use it a lot on film sets for all
sorts of stuff. But that's what I think it is. Anyway,
it looks like oatmeal to me. But in reality, it's
(05:57):
solid ground and it's just liquefied solid earth because it's
been super saturated. Yeah uh. And there's generally two ways
that it can occur, right, Um. There is the upward
movement of water, say from a spring or um an
earthquake can kind of loosen it. And then you couple
that with the introduction of water bam, quicksand not too
(06:21):
far from a sinkhole in some ways, No, not too
far at all. Frankly, we've been on a geology kick lately. Now.
I was thinking that we're kind of completing in Earth
Sciences module here where this is our elementary school science
project exactly. Yeah. Um, so that's pretty much the two
ways that quicksand can form. Um and especially with one
say where you have um a an upward movement. All right,
(06:45):
let's talk about sand in general. Dry sand. Yes, you're
walking along the beach, you're getting a friction from the ground,
which is why you're not falling down right. Um. The
sand has a something that's called the friction chain, I believe,
and that means that the the force that you're putting
(07:06):
on it is distributed across the particles, so it forms
the solid layer. Solid resistance right, Um, with quicksand the
water molecules have been introduced and enough, um they're agitated. Right. Well, no,
you don't even need to agitate it. You can get
water in there, say through a spring floating upward. Um,
(07:28):
the water molecules are forming basically little pockets around the sand.
Particles are not they're not connected by friction any longer. Right,
so they're they're not solid, they're not stable. And then
if you add, um, some sort of movement, say an
earthquake or somebody's foot for the force of somebody's foot
going on it, then it just that that whole um,
(07:51):
whatever friction there is that keeps it stable is lost.
So like you've been to the beach, right, remember when
you were a kid and you've never been to the beach. Yeah, uh,
I've been in the beach with you, my friend San Diego.
That's not although we didn't you know, frolic or anything. No,
it's kind of cold. There's no time December, no time
for frolicking unfortunately. Um. But you remember, like when you
(08:14):
were a kid, Let's say you would walk into where
the water is coming up and then receding and you
would start to sink a little bit, and then your
feet would kind of you know, if you let yourself go,
your feet would become stuck. And I remember being a
kid and thinking, wow, that's kind of frightening because they
would really become locked in if you get up to
let's say your ankle. And that's kind of just the
same principle, right, right, that's the exact same principle. It's
(08:36):
the same thing with like a wet concrete too. When
you when your foot, say your foot or your leg
goes in there and it is occupying space, you're creating
this density, right, which I guess creates some sort of
suction force like a vacuum vacuum, which makes it very
difficult to pull out. Um. That two thousand five study
in Nature concluded that to pull your foot out of
(08:58):
quicksand at a rate of one centimeter a second, which
is fairly moderate, I think I can do that. That
looks like one centimeter a second, isn't that um To
do that when it's stuck in quicksand requires the equivalent
amount of force that it would take to lift a
medium sized car. So like only Chuck Norris could probably
(09:19):
do that. Chuck Norris and only Chuck Norris definitely not
John claud Band. That's crazy, right. So you don't want
to try to move your feet at um, you know,
a centimeter a second. You want to slowly move them,
and you want to wriggle them. From what I understand, wriggle.
You want to wriggle actually, because what you're doing is
(09:39):
you're very slowly creating um space pockets around your legs
which are stuck. That allows the water to come in,
which allows it to break up the sand sediment. Right,
So are you talking about how to actually get out
of quicksand it feels like that's what we just moved into. Yeah,
I mean it. That's the one part that I've found
is similar to the movies. Everything else is kind of
(10:02):
really just a movie type of type of thing, but
it is true. They say if you the more you
move and struggle, the more you'll sink, right, just like
a regular water. Though if you were drowning. They say
the same thing. If you were drowning and you actually
calm down, you could you would float, But you're constant
thrashing about will pull you under, right, and it it
(10:22):
creates a stronger vacuum. Basically the more you move right. Um.
Have you seen that Man versus Wild segment where he's
in quicksand See the guy gets into um a thing
of quicksand real life quicksand and shows you how to
get out and it's have your cameraman and your rope.
(10:46):
That was another thing too from that study in nature. Again,
this thing is like the you know you don't need
to do it's been done. No, no other study needs
to be done in quicksand. Um, but they they said,
one of the authors said, don't um ask your friends
to pull you out, say with the vine or that's
what they always do in the movies. I know it
(11:06):
could consumably pull you in half. Yeah. Yeah, one of
the authors of that that study, that rheology study said,
you don't want to do that. What bears? He slowly
wriggled his way out right. And the weird thing is
he's It's just the oddest thing. I would recommend everybody like, uh,
I'm sure Discovery has it. We probably have it not
(11:29):
I'm sure you can find it on YouTube. But you know,
bear and quicksand or something like that. Um, he's in
this it looks like a beach. You know, the how
how the beach looks at like, um, kind of medium
tied or something. So it's like there's the sand, but
then there's a thin layer of water over it, just
kind of floating on the top. Um. He's in that,
(11:51):
and he's up to about his waist in in quicksand,
and he's pulling himself out. So he's got his elbow
up on the very quicksand that the rest of his
body is in, but it's resting on top of it.
It looks really odd. I might have seen that. Actually
it's pretty cool. Um. But he slowly pulls out. And
what you want to do is get into a soup
(12:13):
pine position on your back because you're just gonna float
because again, you're less dense than quicksand. Good point. Obviously,
you're gonna find quicksand, and you can find it anywhere
if the conditions are right, but generally you're gonna find
it more around like marshes and rivers, oceans, uh, where
there's ground water. Yeah, that kind of thing. And uh,
(12:34):
if you are hapless enough to get caught in quicksand,
um in like a along a beach on the shore,
you're gonna want to get out of there very slowly.
But surely, because eventually the tide's going to come in.
You're in big trouble, especially if you've seen Creep Show. Yeah,
you know what happens to Ted Danson. Yeah, buried up
(12:56):
to his head, wasn't he? By Leslie Nielsen's right? And
that was no naked gun joke. That was the real deal.
It really was. What else we got? Uh? Well, dry
quicksand you send that article to me? Yeah, that article
was written by our buddy Alan Bellows. We've actually never
met and don't know, but I have a tremendous amount
of respect for he's over it. Damn interesting. I think
(13:18):
he's the founder. Yeah, um, and he wrote an article
on quicksand and was talking about, like you said, dry quicksand, right, yeah,
and this is not, um anything that they've observed in nature,
but they have created this in a lab right where, Um,
I think the sand is sort of like a house
of cards. It's so loose that, um it's it barely
(13:39):
can hold its own weight. Right, It's like kind of
I think it is. So you had sand kicked up
by a dust storm and then when it's deposited again,
if it's deposited theoretically, because like you said, it doesn't.
It's it's never been proven to exist outside the lab.
But theoretically, if it was deep enough, it could look
like it was solid and for all intensive purpose says
(14:00):
it was stable until you walk on it. The problem
is is if it's deeper than you are tall, there's nothing,
there's no water to make you buoyant. You're you're gone.
It will kill you. It will swallow you whole. Uh.
And and yeah, it's like so when you go down
it puffs up some sand. Yeah, I think so, like
the movie Dune or something like, you would be swallowed
(14:21):
into the very sand. Frank Herbert quite a visionary. Yeah,
but that's a folklore as far as you know, although
it has been, like you said, done in the lap
and there's a cool Um, there's a cool like series
of photos. Um. It looks like an apple on top
of some dry quicksand thunder. And if you look at
(14:41):
the time, it's like seven hundreds of a second or
maybe seven tenths of a second, almost like a sinkhole.
Yes again, geology special, Yes, what should we do next?
Like crystals? Okay, well crystal skull caves and crystal skulls. Uh,
should we talk a little bit more about the movies
and TV. I think we should, Um, again, you got
(15:04):
anything else not a lot about quicksand it. Ah, it
sounds conciliatory, like I'm sorry we did this one, Josh
Blazing Saddles. Of course, I always mentioned one of my
favorite films had a quick scene quicksand scene early on,
very funny. Um, there was a movie in nineteen sixty seven.
Actually we should point out we got all these from
quicksand Movies dot net, and they, I think literally have
(15:27):
every reference of quicksand ever in film and TV history.
It's your one stop shop for quicksand movie reference. So
I just plucked a few interesting ones that were relevant
to us. Um. Well, actually this one isn't relevant to us,
but the rest are. There was one movie called The
Acid Eaters a k a. The Acid People from nineteen
sixty seven. Four average middle class couples become weekend hippies,
(15:48):
riding motorcycles, frolicking nude and having a climactic I can't
say that word. Um adult party on a large white
pyramid of LSD. During a topless cat a woman is
thrown into the quicksand up to her bare chest as
several bad actors stand around and watch. The next shot
is just her arm above the surface, giving everyone in
(16:09):
the finger. That sounds like a classic. Uh. We talked
a little bit about TV. It's been in one episode
of mcgiver, yeah, three episodes of Benny Hill, Yeah, I
saw that too, three g I Joe cartoons, three episodes
of Dynasty, four episodes of Fantasy Island. Of course, I
knew that would have been a little higher. I love
(16:30):
this one. Four episodes of General Hospital. Yeah, let's just hope.
She just said in a hospital had four quicksand incidents. No,
I think I saw one um back in like eighty
one or eighty two, and Luke and Laura were trapped
on some island or something. Yeah. There there's always like
an island scenario in a soap opera, and there's always
quicksand when there's an island. Of course, magna p I
(16:51):
you want to talk about this one? I want you to. Uh.
The show was called Operations Silent Night from nineteen eighty.
The guys were stranded on a bar an island at
Christmas because the helicopter broke. Not just a barren island,
a barren island. That's being used for naval bombing exercises.
It's very tense. And while gathering palm fronds, Rick walks
(17:12):
into a mud bog thinks it's quicksand and he sinks
up to his chin before the guys tell him to
stand up and get out. Yeah, and if you ever
do fall into quick sand, keep your keep calm. If
you're with your friends, make sure that you've hit the bottom.
I've actually done this before. And what you're just describing
happen to Rick, happen to me. And it's terrifying. I'm
not kidding. It's terrifying. I was screeching like help give
(17:34):
me out right, and I realized that my feet were
on solid ground. Right, I'm not kidding. This really happened.
I believe it. Okay, thank you, um and uh. It's
very scary, but once you realize you have your footing,
it's very relieving. But if you can kind of keep
the fainting afterwards, you just stop, hold out your hands
and go to and hippie Rob will say, oh man,
(17:55):
that was a close one. Actually wasn't Hippie Rob. It
was another hippie friend, Justin, who was Yeah, he can
attest to it. I guess we'll close out with three
episodes of The Simpsons. Let's moleman was in quicksand at
one point the cat of the Simpsons. I think there
was a water leak or something, and then the litter
acted as quicksand and suck the cat into it. I
don't remember that. And then of course the scene where
(18:18):
the episode or margin Homer went to a spa. Homer
is getting the massage by the woman and she's walking
on his back and she starts sinking into his back
fath He tells her not to struggle. Yeah, he'll only
sink faster. So there you go. It's it. That is quicksand,
done and done. If you want to see a pretty
cool flash animation of some guy in of sleeveless T
(18:41):
shirt sinking in quicksand. And if you want to read
the only article on how stuff works that explicitly cites
the worst case Scenario handbook, just type quicksand one word
into the handy search bar how stuff works dot com Again,
check out damn interesting article. It's very cool. And if
you can find anything about reology, check it out. It's
(19:04):
pretty interesting stuff. Right. You know, I knew a guy
in l A that knew the dude that wrote those books,
the worst case scenario books. We have a fan who
wrote a I'm sure who wrote a zombie survival handbook?
Did you ever read that? It is excellent? It is
way excellent. I love that book. I read it from
(19:25):
cover to cover, Chuck, really, first time ever? So um,
go ahead? Oh yeah, which means it's time for listener mail.
I acted like I couldn't go forward. Actually, Josh and
Lou listen to mail this week. This is gonna be
fun today on Facebook with your permission, I said, you
know what, listener mails getting a little dry, So why
don't we just take some questions from the Facebook fans
(19:48):
and we'll answer like ten quick ones on the air
and uh highlight some for you. And we got like
a hundred and eighty questions inside an hour. Are we
just doing like what's it that many? And climbing? I
had to cut it off. Did we are we just
reading their first names or first and Lance? I would
say just first? But what about the privacy settings on Facebook?
(20:12):
Renee says, do you discuss what points you'll cover ahead
of time? Or does it happen more organically? And as
most people know, we we kind of don't prep that
much with each other at all. We just do our
research and then we come in and we have our
first conversation right here. That's right. Um, today we broke
protocol with me sending Chuck that damn interesting article. That's
(20:33):
about as close as we come to really sharing information.
We're very Um. We jealously guard our own research, don't we.
If it feels spontaneous and conversational, it's because it is.
Okay you ready? Yeah, I got one. This is from Nick.
If one of you couldn't make a recording and the
oat Hare had to choose a replacement, Dash, who would
(20:54):
be your fantasy recording partner? Yeah, I can never record
with anyone else. But yeah, that was very sweet. I'll
say the same thing though there. Uh Nicholas says, how
does Josh get prepared when he writes an article? And
how do you managed to remember all the names when
you're recording? That's for you, all the all the names
when we're recording. What do you mean? Well, how do
(21:15):
how do you get prepared when you write an article?
And how do you remember all this junk that we say? Oh? Um,
I have found that my brain is a lot more
sponge like than I ever realized before. Sometimes you've seen it. Um,
I'll just be sitting there spouting stuff off, and I'll
like give you this look, like, can you believe that
I'm not looking at a piece of paper right now?
It's awesome to get prepared. I um drink two raw
(21:40):
eggs out of a glass rocky style, Uh huh, And then, um,
I find that I podcast best. I'm at my most
relaxed when i'm pantsless, as I am right now. Tony
to Jerry. If Josh and Chuck were trapped in a
burning building and you only had time to save one
of them before it collapsed and kill the other, who
would you save? And here's Jerry's response to that. Oh Jerry,
(22:04):
that was so nice. Thank you for saying that I
have one. This one's from Anna. Where did you each
go to college? And what were your majors? Chuck? I
know where you went to college. We went to the
same college we did. You a University of Georgia. Yes,
go dogs. How are we looking this year? We're gonna
have a decent football team. You can never tell fingers crossed?
(22:24):
Uh English major? Here? I think you were to write
no history and I'm minored an anthropology. I knew that
when you saying it. So there you have it. Jessica Crouch,
h Facebook fan and a looker. She says, what's what's
our biggest pet peeve? I think mine is the cell
phone loud cell phone talkers in public. I'm not into
that biggest pet peeve. Um. I would say, jeez, I
(22:49):
don't have so many of them. I'll just grab one
out of thin air people who um misspelled there depending
on the context. Good one. But that's just so dumb.
But I guess I'll pet he's aer dumb, aren't they? Yeah? Yeah,
a couple of more. Sure. Nikki says, any podcasts that
you're both itching to do but haven't plucked up the
courage to do yet? Yes, Furries and Paraphelia's chuck. Uh
(23:12):
scientology nice. I don't want to get rubbed out. Where
did Joshua to high school from Bob the Toledo dude? Uh?
I actually went to Sprayberry High School and Beautiful Marriotta, Georgia.
But I went to Junior High School and Toledo at
Burndale Junior High Again. The Bulldogs. I have a bulldogs
theme going through my educational history. Becca says, think of
(23:35):
someone close to you who has passed away if you
had a chance to spend one more hour with them,
But it would cost you a year of your life,
would you? And who? And I would absolutely shave a
year off of my old life to hang out with
my granddad, like as an adult, because he's a cool dude.
And he died when I was like fourteen, so I
didn't get a chance to like talk to him about
good adult stuff. Very neat, Chuck, Um, I have them
(23:58):
for you. Matt Ramsey has a question for you, Chuck.
I imagine it's not for me because I don't I
have a well, you don't want to be in my basement.
Too many too many horrible accident committed down there. Can
my band come open up for your band in your basement? Chuff? Yeah,
it'd be awesome. Matt. You send an email the Stuff
podcast at how Stuff works dot com. I'll give you
(24:18):
directions the Chuck House. My dog will be very excited
to have someone else down there playing. I've got another one, alright,
Noel says, what is the difference between a cream soup
and a chowder? Can I answer this one? So, Chuck
it's really actually all geography, that's what I hear. The
French word for pot evolved into chao dare should drowne
(24:40):
show drawn or cauldron maybe maybe later? Yeah, and uh,
that's the only difference. There's no um cooking difference. There's
no ingredient difference, That's what I've heard. It's all just
if you're dye, if you're elsewhere, it's cream soup. Yep.
All right, that's it for those. But we got another
batch coming on the next podcas us the next one, Yeah,
(25:02):
the one we record right after this one. Oh really
do we okay? All right, well, thank you everybody for
asking your questions. If you want to pose as a
question or say hi or whatever you want to do,
join us on Facebook. You can find us at uh
facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know, I believe um.
You can search for us Stuff you Should Know and
(25:23):
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(25:44):
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reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Bryant. Chuck Bryant.
(00:20):
You pointed at me as if I was supposed to
say hey, and welcome to the podcast. Almost did. I
was like, the trick is to point and start talking
almost the same time. There needs to be like a
maybe eight or ten millisecond delay. All right, all you
journalism school students broadcasting tips from Johns. Was everybody off
(00:42):
of their game? It's good point, Like, you know what
I just did. I just assumed domination of this podcast,
the whole thing when you did that every time. That's
not true. So, Chuck, have you ever seen Gilligan's Island? Yeah,
A bunch of bunch of times. Did you know that?
By my estimate, Gilligan's Island holds the record four most
(01:04):
number of episodes used by a television show featuring quicksand
as a device. I've got five five, Yeah, me too.
Gilligan Got caught, Skipper got caught. Mr Howell faked his death.
Remember that one? No, what did you just put the
hat on top of some Quicksand that's exactly what he did.
I do remember that he changed his will to include
(01:25):
the castaways, and he thought they were trying to kill him,
so he ran away and faked his death. But they
were really just planning a party for him, I'll bet.
And then uh, botanist Lord Beasley, who was one of
their random guests that they had. I don't remember him,
and Ginger Marian apparently got caught one night. Huh some
sexy quicksand yeah, so um, I don't think there's anybody
(01:47):
out there who's unfamiliar with Quicksand it's just such a
great little throat to anytime there's a jungle scene or
something and things are getting boring and you're a writer
and it's nineteen fifty seven or ninety eight or nineteen
eighty five, you say quicksand yeah. You don't see a
lot lately in films and TV. Though we've gotten slightly
more sophisticated. I think people realize some point not really
(02:10):
a big thing. I don't think it's just with quicksand
I think we have gotten generally more sophisticated. Um, in
the eighties, who were pretty much throughout the whole decade
the biggest box office straws oh Arnold Schwarzenegger maybe, um
so yeah um John Claude Van Damn. Not a very
(02:32):
thinking decade, right, yeah, good point. Then you move into
the nineties and you have more guys like Edward Norton
r DJ whoever that is, right, yeah, who I am
very hardened to see is making quite a comeback. He's
gotten off of the black tar and into uh life
and into box office cold. Yeah. Have you seen Sherlock Holmes?
(02:56):
I have seen that movie like eight times. We ever
got to talk about quicksand so quicksand Chuck can it
kill you? Uh? I saw a thing that said theoretically,
if you were stuck over your head and you couldn't
get out, obviously you could drown in it. But I
believe you have a scientific study to refute that. There
was a study. And we found from researching, reading an
(03:19):
article on the site and just kind of looking around
there's a very finite amount of information out there on
quicksand because there's just a finite amount to know about
quicksand it's not as exciting as it is in the movie,
So I'll say that, which explains my Robert Downey Junior tirade. Right. Um,
there was a two thousand five study that pretty much
put the period on the sentence about quicksand. It said,
(03:43):
it's physically impossible for human being too to sink into
a pit of quicksand and die. Okay, I think this.
What I suppose was if you were like dropped on
your head into the quicksand. But it's usually not even
so deep as to be taller than a human So no,
there there. If if you're just just a guy, if
(04:05):
it's just you or I and we you go into
a you fall into a pit of quicksand that is
say seven ft deep, which is exceedingly rare. Right, most
of the time it's much shallower than that, so you
just stand up, all right, Um, we are less dense
than quicksand are. The density of the human body is
(04:28):
about one gram per cubic centimeter or about one gram
permilli leader of water. All right, Quicksand is about twice that.
So if you just sit there, you become buoyant. You
float on water, and quicksand is denser than water, so
you'll definitely float on quicksand exactly, so you can't. We
(04:48):
we could be um. But let's talk about sand and
the properties of quicksand, which, by the way, is falls
under the purview of a field of science called reology.
It's the study of um. Basically, it's the study of
the flow and deformation of unusual things like mayonnaise or
silly putty or quicksand seriously um. So reology studies quicksand
(05:13):
foam things like that. Um things that like mayonnaise. When
you carve some mayonnaise out with a knife, it doesn't
go back to a flat surface. It should, but it's
still liquid. Technically it should have flow. It doesn't. Yeah, reology,
I love Mayo, Mayo Man, Josh quicksand is if we
(05:35):
want to define it, it's solid ground. Actually, it's not
like the oatmeal. I tried to find out what they
used in movies, and the closest I could find was
Fuller's earth, like mixed with water. You ever heard of
Fuller's Earth. It's just really really powdery dirt, light brown,
and use it a lot on film sets for all
sorts of stuff. But that's what I think it is. Anyway,
it looks like oatmeal to me. But in reality, it's
(05:57):
solid ground and it's just liquefied solid earth because it's
been super saturated. Yeah uh. And there's generally two ways
that it can occur, right, Um. There is the upward
movement of water, say from a spring or um an
earthquake can kind of loosen it. And then you couple
that with the introduction of water bam, quicksand not too
(06:21):
far from a sinkhole in some ways, No, not too
far at all. Frankly, we've been on a geology kick lately. Now.
I was thinking that we're kind of completing in Earth
Sciences module here where this is our elementary school science
project exactly. Yeah. Um, so that's pretty much the two
ways that quicksand can form. Um and especially with one
say where you have um a an upward movement. All right,
(06:45):
let's talk about sand in general. Dry sand. Yes, you're
walking along the beach, you're getting a friction from the ground,
which is why you're not falling down right. Um. The
sand has a something that's called the friction chain, I believe,
and that means that the the force that you're putting
(07:06):
on it is distributed across the particles, so it forms
the solid layer. Solid resistance right, Um, with quicksand the
water molecules have been introduced and enough, um they're agitated. Right. Well, no,
you don't even need to agitate it. You can get
water in there, say through a spring floating upward. Um,
(07:28):
the water molecules are forming basically little pockets around the sand.
Particles are not they're not connected by friction any longer. Right,
so they're they're not solid, they're not stable. And then
if you add, um, some sort of movement, say an
earthquake or somebody's foot for the force of somebody's foot
going on it, then it just that that whole um,
(07:51):
whatever friction there is that keeps it stable is lost.
So like you've been to the beach, right, remember when
you were a kid and you've never been to the beach. Yeah, uh,
I've been in the beach with you, my friend San Diego.
That's not although we didn't you know, frolic or anything. No,
it's kind of cold. There's no time December, no time
for frolicking unfortunately. Um. But you remember, like when you
(08:14):
were a kid, Let's say you would walk into where
the water is coming up and then receding and you
would start to sink a little bit, and then your
feet would kind of you know, if you let yourself go,
your feet would become stuck. And I remember being a
kid and thinking, wow, that's kind of frightening because they
would really become locked in if you get up to
let's say your ankle. And that's kind of just the
same principle, right, right, that's the exact same principle. It's
(08:36):
the same thing with like a wet concrete too. When
you when your foot, say your foot or your leg
goes in there and it is occupying space, you're creating
this density, right, which I guess creates some sort of
suction force like a vacuum vacuum, which makes it very
difficult to pull out. Um. That two thousand five study
in Nature concluded that to pull your foot out of
(08:58):
quicksand at a rate of one centimeter a second, which
is fairly moderate, I think I can do that. That
looks like one centimeter a second, isn't that um To
do that when it's stuck in quicksand requires the equivalent
amount of force that it would take to lift a
medium sized car. So like only Chuck Norris could probably
(09:19):
do that. Chuck Norris and only Chuck Norris definitely not
John claud Band. That's crazy, right. So you don't want
to try to move your feet at um, you know,
a centimeter a second. You want to slowly move them,
and you want to wriggle them. From what I understand, wriggle.
You want to wriggle actually, because what you're doing is
(09:39):
you're very slowly creating um space pockets around your legs
which are stuck. That allows the water to come in,
which allows it to break up the sand sediment. Right,
So are you talking about how to actually get out
of quicksand it feels like that's what we just moved into. Yeah,
I mean it. That's the one part that I've found
is similar to the movies. Everything else is kind of
(10:02):
really just a movie type of type of thing, but
it is true. They say if you the more you
move and struggle, the more you'll sink, right, just like
a regular water. Though if you were drowning. They say
the same thing. If you were drowning and you actually
calm down, you could you would float, But you're constant
thrashing about will pull you under, right, and it it
(10:22):
creates a stronger vacuum. Basically the more you move right. Um.
Have you seen that Man versus Wild segment where he's
in quicksand See the guy gets into um a thing
of quicksand real life quicksand and shows you how to
get out and it's have your cameraman and your rope.
(10:46):
That was another thing too from that study in nature. Again,
this thing is like the you know you don't need
to do it's been done. No, no other study needs
to be done in quicksand. Um, but they they said,
one of the authors said, don't um ask your friends
to pull you out, say with the vine or that's
what they always do in the movies. I know it
(11:06):
could consumably pull you in half. Yeah. Yeah, one of
the authors of that that study, that rheology study said,
you don't want to do that. What bears? He slowly
wriggled his way out right. And the weird thing is
he's It's just the oddest thing. I would recommend everybody like, uh,
I'm sure Discovery has it. We probably have it not
(11:29):
I'm sure you can find it on YouTube. But you know,
bear and quicksand or something like that. Um, he's in
this it looks like a beach. You know, the how
how the beach looks at like, um, kind of medium
tied or something. So it's like there's the sand, but
then there's a thin layer of water over it, just
kind of floating on the top. Um. He's in that,
(11:51):
and he's up to about his waist in in quicksand,
and he's pulling himself out. So he's got his elbow
up on the very quicksand that the rest of his
body is in, but it's resting on top of it.
It looks really odd. I might have seen that. Actually
it's pretty cool. Um. But he slowly pulls out. And
what you want to do is get into a soup
(12:13):
pine position on your back because you're just gonna float
because again, you're less dense than quicksand. Good point. Obviously,
you're gonna find quicksand, and you can find it anywhere
if the conditions are right, but generally you're gonna find
it more around like marshes and rivers, oceans, uh, where
there's ground water. Yeah, that kind of thing. And uh,
(12:34):
if you are hapless enough to get caught in quicksand,
um in like a along a beach on the shore,
you're gonna want to get out of there very slowly.
But surely, because eventually the tide's going to come in.
You're in big trouble, especially if you've seen Creep Show. Yeah,
you know what happens to Ted Danson. Yeah, buried up
(12:56):
to his head, wasn't he? By Leslie Nielsen's right? And
that was no naked gun joke. That was the real deal.
It really was. What else we got? Uh? Well, dry
quicksand you send that article to me? Yeah, that article
was written by our buddy Alan Bellows. We've actually never
met and don't know, but I have a tremendous amount
of respect for he's over it. Damn interesting. I think
(13:18):
he's the founder. Yeah, um, and he wrote an article
on quicksand and was talking about, like you said, dry quicksand, right, yeah,
and this is not, um anything that they've observed in nature,
but they have created this in a lab right where, Um,
I think the sand is sort of like a house
of cards. It's so loose that, um it's it barely
(13:39):
can hold its own weight. Right, It's like kind of
I think it is. So you had sand kicked up
by a dust storm and then when it's deposited again,
if it's deposited theoretically, because like you said, it doesn't.
It's it's never been proven to exist outside the lab.
But theoretically, if it was deep enough, it could look
like it was solid and for all intensive purpose says
(14:00):
it was stable until you walk on it. The problem
is is if it's deeper than you are tall, there's nothing,
there's no water to make you buoyant. You're you're gone.
It will kill you. It will swallow you whole. Uh.
And and yeah, it's like so when you go down
it puffs up some sand. Yeah, I think so, like
the movie Dune or something like, you would be swallowed
(14:21):
into the very sand. Frank Herbert quite a visionary. Yeah,
but that's a folklore as far as you know, although
it has been, like you said, done in the lap
and there's a cool Um, there's a cool like series
of photos. Um. It looks like an apple on top
of some dry quicksand thunder. And if you look at
(14:41):
the time, it's like seven hundreds of a second or
maybe seven tenths of a second, almost like a sinkhole.
Yes again, geology special, Yes, what should we do next?
Like crystals? Okay, well crystal skull caves and crystal skulls. Uh,
should we talk a little bit more about the movies
and TV. I think we should, Um, again, you got
(15:04):
anything else not a lot about quicksand it. Ah, it
sounds conciliatory, like I'm sorry we did this one, Josh
Blazing Saddles. Of course, I always mentioned one of my
favorite films had a quick scene quicksand scene early on,
very funny. Um, there was a movie in nineteen sixty seven.
Actually we should point out we got all these from
quicksand Movies dot net, and they, I think literally have
(15:27):
every reference of quicksand ever in film and TV history.
It's your one stop shop for quicksand movie reference. So
I just plucked a few interesting ones that were relevant
to us. Um. Well, actually this one isn't relevant to us,
but the rest are. There was one movie called The
Acid Eaters a k a. The Acid People from nineteen
sixty seven. Four average middle class couples become weekend hippies,
(15:48):
riding motorcycles, frolicking nude and having a climactic I can't
say that word. Um adult party on a large white
pyramid of LSD. During a topless cat a woman is
thrown into the quicksand up to her bare chest as
several bad actors stand around and watch. The next shot
is just her arm above the surface, giving everyone in
(16:09):
the finger. That sounds like a classic. Uh. We talked
a little bit about TV. It's been in one episode
of mcgiver, yeah, three episodes of Benny Hill, Yeah, I
saw that too, three g I Joe cartoons, three episodes
of Dynasty, four episodes of Fantasy Island. Of course, I
knew that would have been a little higher. I love
(16:30):
this one. Four episodes of General Hospital. Yeah, let's just hope.
She just said in a hospital had four quicksand incidents. No,
I think I saw one um back in like eighty
one or eighty two, and Luke and Laura were trapped
on some island or something. Yeah. There there's always like
an island scenario in a soap opera, and there's always
quicksand when there's an island. Of course, magna p I
(16:51):
you want to talk about this one? I want you to. Uh.
The show was called Operations Silent Night from nineteen eighty.
The guys were stranded on a bar an island at
Christmas because the helicopter broke. Not just a barren island,
a barren island. That's being used for naval bombing exercises.
It's very tense. And while gathering palm fronds, Rick walks
(17:12):
into a mud bog thinks it's quicksand and he sinks
up to his chin before the guys tell him to
stand up and get out. Yeah, and if you ever
do fall into quick sand, keep your keep calm. If
you're with your friends, make sure that you've hit the bottom.
I've actually done this before. And what you're just describing
happen to Rick, happen to me. And it's terrifying. I'm
not kidding. It's terrifying. I was screeching like help give
(17:34):
me out right, and I realized that my feet were
on solid ground. Right, I'm not kidding. This really happened.
I believe it. Okay, thank you, um and uh. It's
very scary, but once you realize you have your footing,
it's very relieving. But if you can kind of keep
the fainting afterwards, you just stop, hold out your hands
and go to and hippie Rob will say, oh man,
(17:55):
that was a close one. Actually wasn't Hippie Rob. It
was another hippie friend, Justin, who was Yeah, he can
attest to it. I guess we'll close out with three
episodes of The Simpsons. Let's moleman was in quicksand at
one point the cat of the Simpsons. I think there
was a water leak or something, and then the litter
acted as quicksand and suck the cat into it. I
don't remember that. And then of course the scene where
(18:18):
the episode or margin Homer went to a spa. Homer
is getting the massage by the woman and she's walking
on his back and she starts sinking into his back
fath He tells her not to struggle. Yeah, he'll only
sink faster. So there you go. It's it. That is quicksand,
done and done. If you want to see a pretty
cool flash animation of some guy in of sleeveless T
(18:41):
shirt sinking in quicksand. And if you want to read
the only article on how stuff works that explicitly cites
the worst case Scenario handbook, just type quicksand one word
into the handy search bar how stuff works dot com Again,
check out damn interesting article. It's very cool. And if
you can find anything about reology, check it out. It's
(19:04):
pretty interesting stuff. Right. You know, I knew a guy
in l A that knew the dude that wrote those books,
the worst case scenario books. We have a fan who
wrote a I'm sure who wrote a zombie survival handbook?
Did you ever read that? It is excellent? It is
way excellent. I love that book. I read it from
(19:25):
cover to cover, Chuck, really, first time ever? So um,
go ahead? Oh yeah, which means it's time for listener mail.
I acted like I couldn't go forward. Actually, Josh and
Lou listen to mail this week. This is gonna be
fun today on Facebook with your permission, I said, you
know what, listener mails getting a little dry, So why
don't we just take some questions from the Facebook fans
(19:48):
and we'll answer like ten quick ones on the air
and uh highlight some for you. And we got like
a hundred and eighty questions inside an hour. Are we
just doing like what's it that many? And climbing? I
had to cut it off. Did we are we just
reading their first names or first and Lance? I would
say just first? But what about the privacy settings on Facebook?
(20:12):
Renee says, do you discuss what points you'll cover ahead
of time? Or does it happen more organically? And as
most people know, we we kind of don't prep that
much with each other at all. We just do our
research and then we come in and we have our
first conversation right here. That's right. Um, today we broke
protocol with me sending Chuck that damn interesting article. That's
(20:33):
about as close as we come to really sharing information.
We're very Um. We jealously guard our own research, don't we.
If it feels spontaneous and conversational, it's because it is.
Okay you ready? Yeah, I got one. This is from Nick.
If one of you couldn't make a recording and the
oat Hare had to choose a replacement, Dash, who would
(20:54):
be your fantasy recording partner? Yeah, I can never record
with anyone else. But yeah, that was very sweet. I'll
say the same thing though there. Uh Nicholas says, how
does Josh get prepared when he writes an article? And
how do you managed to remember all the names when
you're recording? That's for you, all the all the names
when we're recording. What do you mean? Well, how do
(21:15):
how do you get prepared when you write an article?
And how do you remember all this junk that we say? Oh? Um,
I have found that my brain is a lot more
sponge like than I ever realized before. Sometimes you've seen it. Um,
I'll just be sitting there spouting stuff off, and I'll
like give you this look, like, can you believe that
I'm not looking at a piece of paper right now?
It's awesome to get prepared. I um drink two raw
(21:40):
eggs out of a glass rocky style, Uh huh, And then, um,
I find that I podcast best. I'm at my most
relaxed when i'm pantsless, as I am right now. Tony
to Jerry. If Josh and Chuck were trapped in a
burning building and you only had time to save one
of them before it collapsed and kill the other, who
would you save? And here's Jerry's response to that. Oh Jerry,
(22:04):
that was so nice. Thank you for saying that I
have one. This one's from Anna. Where did you each
go to college? And what were your majors? Chuck? I
know where you went to college. We went to the
same college we did. You a University of Georgia. Yes,
go dogs. How are we looking this year? We're gonna
have a decent football team. You can never tell fingers crossed?
(22:24):
Uh English major? Here? I think you were to write
no history and I'm minored an anthropology. I knew that
when you saying it. So there you have it. Jessica Crouch,
h Facebook fan and a looker. She says, what's what's
our biggest pet peeve? I think mine is the cell
phone loud cell phone talkers in public. I'm not into
that biggest pet peeve. Um. I would say, jeez, I
(22:49):
don't have so many of them. I'll just grab one
out of thin air people who um misspelled there depending
on the context. Good one. But that's just so dumb.
But I guess I'll pet he's aer dumb, aren't they? Yeah? Yeah,
a couple of more. Sure. Nikki says, any podcasts that
you're both itching to do but haven't plucked up the
courage to do yet? Yes, Furries and Paraphelia's chuck. Uh
(23:12):
scientology nice. I don't want to get rubbed out. Where
did Joshua to high school from Bob the Toledo dude? Uh?
I actually went to Sprayberry High School and Beautiful Marriotta, Georgia.
But I went to Junior High School and Toledo at
Burndale Junior High Again. The Bulldogs. I have a bulldogs
theme going through my educational history. Becca says, think of
(23:35):
someone close to you who has passed away if you
had a chance to spend one more hour with them,
But it would cost you a year of your life,
would you? And who? And I would absolutely shave a
year off of my old life to hang out with
my granddad, like as an adult, because he's a cool dude.
And he died when I was like fourteen, so I
didn't get a chance to like talk to him about
good adult stuff. Very neat, Chuck, Um, I have them
(23:58):
for you. Matt Ramsey has a question for you, Chuck.
I imagine it's not for me because I don't I
have a well, you don't want to be in my basement.
Too many too many horrible accident committed down there. Can
my band come open up for your band in your basement? Chuff? Yeah,
it'd be awesome. Matt. You send an email the Stuff
podcast at how Stuff works dot com. I'll give you
(24:18):
directions the Chuck House. My dog will be very excited
to have someone else down there playing. I've got another one, alright,
Noel says, what is the difference between a cream soup
and a chowder? Can I answer this one? So, Chuck
it's really actually all geography, that's what I hear. The
French word for pot evolved into chao dare should drowne
(24:40):
show drawn or cauldron maybe maybe later? Yeah, and uh,
that's the only difference. There's no um cooking difference. There's
no ingredient difference, That's what I've heard. It's all just
if you're dye, if you're elsewhere, it's cream soup. Yep.
All right, that's it for those. But we got another
batch coming on the next podcas us the next one, Yeah,
(25:02):
the one we record right after this one. Oh really
do we okay? All right, well, thank you everybody for
asking your questions. If you want to pose as a
question or say hi or whatever you want to do,
join us on Facebook. You can find us at uh
facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know, I believe um.
You can search for us Stuff you Should Know and
(25:23):
then website in parentheses. Were also on Twitter, follow us
their s Y s K podcast, and you can email
us as always at stuff podcast at how stuff works
dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics.
Is that how stuff works dot com. Want more how
(25:44):
stuff works, check out our blogs on the house, Stuff
works dot com home page, brought to you by the
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