February 2, 2022 • 12 mins
It’s pretty amazing to see a human walk over a bed of hot coals – until you learn the physics beneath it. Then it’s just fairly impressive.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh and
there's Chuck and this is short stuff and we're talking
about firewalking, which is interesting because you can explain how
it works and I love those I was convinced we
had done this, but we have not. No, we haven't.
I just felt I don't know, I thought it fell
into our circus arts or it does seem like a
(00:25):
two thousand and ten, two thousand eleven circus stuff you
should know episode, like a full episode, doesn't it. Yeah,
but it's not a circus arts thing at all. No,
you know, I don't. I don't think it. I mean
maybe like a gem Rose circus might do something like this,
but it is generally sort of a religious thing in
most cultures, right. Yeah. And they think that, Um, it
(00:48):
dates back at least thirty two wish hundred years. The
first mention of it is in an ancient Indian text
from around that time. Um. And either it's spread out
of there, there's I've seen some theories that it was
actually it actually predated, that it was one of the
things that the Mesopotamians and Neo Babylonians did, and then
(01:09):
it just kind of spread from there. Um. Or people
invented it independently, because it has spread all over the
world over the last couple of thousand years. Yes, these days, India, Greece, China, Spain, Japan, Bulgaria, Thailand, Tibet, Fiji.
It's all over the place, and it's almost always a
(01:31):
religious thing, like you're paying tribute to somebody who was passed,
or uh, you were commemorating your what you see as
a miracle in your area. Uh, some sort of celebration
or or parade. There might be a firewalker, but it's
usually got some sort of religious spiritual connotation. A firewalker
(01:53):
in a parade would be hilarious because that poor guy
would just have to keep running to the back of
the float and walking over it again and then running back.
That would be That'd be a long parade for that guy. Oh,
I was thinking more along the lines of there is
a the entire parade has to walk. There's one portion
that's on fire. Yeah, all the spectators have to go
down this way, come over here, and we set on fire.
(02:17):
Spoiler alert, there's never flames, it's coals, right, And we
can thank our friends at the University of London Council
for psychical research back in the nineteen thirties for figuring
that out. Um. And they did that, Chuck, by conducting
two different experiments on firewalking, in which they also participated
(02:38):
to Yeah, these are they're not mean. But what they
did was in both of these experiments in thirty five
and thirty seven, they got a couple of British scientists
and then you know, someone from a native culture like
an India or someplace, and they basically the whole point
of the study was like, see white British man did
(02:59):
it too. It's not religious or special, right, but they
were skeptical societies, I think is what they were doing. Yeah,
and I'm sure they didn't rub it in like that,
but decree fire pit uh. And then those two separate
years they basically I think they use oak and they
the whole point of it was to kind of just
(03:20):
debunk the like you have to be I don't know
about possessed. Maybe that's too strong of a word, but
guided by spirit to do so, guided by voices, that's right.
So Um. That was yeah, that and that at the
very least in the West, those two studies put that
to rest permanently. Um. And they did it so thoroughly
(03:41):
chuck that. For about I don't know, forty fifty years,
people in the West, I should say, in the United
States and Great Britain, UM, didn't think much about this
whole thing. They just were like, firewalking has been explained whatever.
And then as our friends in the New age community
kind of came along in the seventies and eighties, UM,
(04:03):
they adopted firewalking and apparently had never read the two
studies by the University of London Council for Psychical Research,
because they started attributing it to a more metaphysical explanation,
and that's when interest in debunking it kind of came
around again. That's right. Uh, And I think this is
(04:23):
a good time for a cliffhanger because we have danced
around the fire and not revealed the secret to why.
It has nothing to do with religion or spirituality. It's
pure physics and we'll explain it right after this. Welcome
(05:09):
back to pure physics. Yeah. And since we're talking about
pure physics, I want to give a shout out to
Professor David Willie, who's a physics professor. I believe it's
Willie could be wily w I L. L. E. Y Yeah,
I think it's wildly he um. Oh, I'm thinking of
Willie Ames from Charles and Charge. Uh. But Professor Wiley
(05:31):
is a physics of firewalking guy. He has dedicated a
certain portion of his career to explaining how it works
and doing firewalking himself. So thanks a lot to Dr
Willie because basically everything we're talking about is based on
his research. Dr Wiley, Yeah, that's right, So let's explain
(05:53):
how this works. There are quite a few components to
go into a successful firewalk, which is to say, one
or you don't end up with burns on your feet. Uh.
The first thing that you've got to start with is
charcoal that has lit well before you walk over it.
I sort of spoil it earlier when I said there
are no flames, but when you see a firewalker, they're
(06:15):
walking over hot coals, not a real flaming fire. And
these are embers that they're walking over, So right out
of the gate, you've got a bit of an advantage.
And that there's not in direct contact with a flame
well a huge advantage too, but also the embers themselves,
so you've got no flame. It's a big one. Just
put that in your hat. Uh, here's the second one
for your hat. Those embers themselves are actually really good insulators.
(06:40):
The type of wood that's typically used for firewalking, and
you want to use specific kinds of wood. They glow
really bright, but they actually don't conduct heat very well. Right,
And I think the top two woods or cherry or
maple for good looking coals that will get the crowd
whipped up into a friend's right exactly, but not super
(07:02):
hot no. Um. And because there's also a layer of
ash that coats them. Here's the third part for your hat. Right.
I think the uh, the investigator would say, you neverice.
You notice they don't do this during the day because
you would see that ash all over the place. But
at night that ash sort of goes away to the
(07:22):
to the eyeball and it makes for a better show.
But that ash is going to also provide a buffer
and cut down on that heat transfer. Yeah, yes, exactly.
And then the last one, and this one's pretty important too.
There's an actually really limited amount of time that your
feet is making contact with the hot embers because they
(07:43):
are hot like these fires that you're walking over. If
you hold the thermometer, um, it's gonna register something like
nine thousand degrees fahrenheit four degrees celsius. So it is hot,
but again it's not conducting that heat very well to
your eat, and then your feet aren't touching them very
long to begin with. Yeah, there's a reason it's not
(08:05):
called fire sitting. Yeah, fire standing around there may be
a thing. Who knows. Watch someone right in and say,
oh no, bro, fire sitting is totally a thing. I
work for the gym row Side show and I fire sitting.
It's firewalking. You want to walk across it at a
brisk pace. Uh, they do, say don't run. And by
the way, we're let's just go ahead and p s
(08:26):
A here and say or c o a and say
please don't try this. Thank you for doing that. Kids,
don't try and firewalk. Just don't do it. But if
you are a firewalker or you see someone doing it,
they are walking at a brisk pace. But you don't
want to run because they make the good point that
you know, you could actually dig in when you're running
more than if you're just sort of hot foot in it,
(08:47):
because it's where the word comes from exactly, and you
can end up with coals on top of your foot
or just digging down too deep. So they say you
walk less than a half a second of contact um
on a like a tend to fifteen foot firewalk. Yeah,
so it's only a few seconds. Yeah. So those four
things together basically the physics of firewalking. But even if
(09:10):
you you know, if you're if you're not well versed
in the physics of firewalking, and you hold a firewalking event,
it can go wrong. And that actually has happened from
time to time. Most recently from what I can tell,
was in two thousand twelve, We're twenty one people were
treated for burns at a Tony Robbins event. Right, he's
doing this at least in two thousand twelve. Are you
(09:34):
surprised by that? Have you seen shallow? How well? I
haven't seen shallow? How you're not missing? But um, I
don't know. I knew he's a motivational speaker. I did
not know he did stuff like this, Yes, dude, Yes,
his his whole jam is stuff I thought he's got
on the stage and just you know, made people feel good.
(09:54):
Random stuff like this is no. No, no, he's very
hands on. He had a TV show once that we
had to like cover for some reason back in the day.
Do you remember that? It came in my mind today
and all I could think of is what did we
do with Tony Robbins. Did we interview him? We we
interviewed him. I think you did. I don't think I did. Yeah,
(10:16):
but I don't remember whatever happened with the interview. But
in the TV show, in the first episode, the pilot
of this, there was a man who became paralyzed when
he jumped into his pool after his his wedding UM
the ceremony. He was so excited he jumped into pool
and landed head first and became paralyzed. Tony Robbins talks
this guy into um into skydiving, and if I remember correctly,
(10:43):
essentially like pushed him out of the plane. Tony Robbins
very hands on, motivational guy. So anyway, one of his
uh the people that a saying walked on fire. I
guess I had to get treated for burns. This made
me one to try it, and you know why I won't.
(11:03):
Why is because it's the bottom of my feet, Like
if something did go wrong, then I'm not walking for
a little while, or I'm walking in a lot of pain.
It's not like a pain on my forearm or something.
You know, is it actually worth it? No? No, no no,
That's why I said, I'm not going to do this
because I'm going camping tonight. And I was like, you know, no,
(11:24):
should I pull out all the stop? You understand the
physics of firewalking. Who are you trying to impress at
this point, Emily, No, she won't be there. All my
dumb friends from years ago, they oh, well, then yes
you should definitely fireworks. No, I'm never gonna do it, impress, dude,
you have to stop. Just remember to use some cherry
(11:45):
or what was the other one. I think you got
maple up there. No, it's a bunch of hardwoods. Yeah,
you don't want those. They'll burn off too quick or
else too too hot. You want to use cherry or maple,
like you said, And if you don't have it, don't firewalk.
My old friend Jason Jenkins jump through the fire one
time and a drunken fit late night and a camping trip.
Did he melt like Snea? No, he was fine. He
(12:07):
jumped right through it. But I remember thinking, like, dude,
if he would have tripped and landed in that fire
all of a sudden, this this trip has ruined, which
is another another problem with firewalking. If you do trip,
you're you're in trouble. Yeah, yeah, so don't don't firewalk.
I was really just joking when I was encouraging YouTube. No,
I know. Well, I think that's it for short stuff,
(12:29):
don't you. It sounds like it's out to me. Stuff
you should Know is a production of iHeart Radio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh and
there's Chuck and this is short stuff and we're talking
about firewalking, which is interesting because you can explain how
it works and I love those I was convinced we
had done this, but we have not. No, we haven't.
I just felt I don't know, I thought it fell
into our circus arts or it does seem like a
(00:25):
two thousand and ten, two thousand eleven circus stuff you
should know episode, like a full episode, doesn't it. Yeah,
but it's not a circus arts thing at all. No,
you know, I don't. I don't think it. I mean
maybe like a gem Rose circus might do something like this,
but it is generally sort of a religious thing in
most cultures, right. Yeah. And they think that, Um, it
(00:48):
dates back at least thirty two wish hundred years. The
first mention of it is in an ancient Indian text
from around that time. Um. And either it's spread out
of there, there's I've seen some theories that it was
actually it actually predated, that it was one of the
things that the Mesopotamians and Neo Babylonians did, and then
(01:09):
it just kind of spread from there. Um. Or people
invented it independently, because it has spread all over the
world over the last couple of thousand years. Yes, these days, India, Greece, China, Spain, Japan, Bulgaria, Thailand, Tibet, Fiji.
It's all over the place, and it's almost always a
(01:31):
religious thing, like you're paying tribute to somebody who was passed,
or uh, you were commemorating your what you see as
a miracle in your area. Uh, some sort of celebration
or or parade. There might be a firewalker, but it's
usually got some sort of religious spiritual connotation. A firewalker
(01:53):
in a parade would be hilarious because that poor guy
would just have to keep running to the back of
the float and walking over it again and then running back.
That would be That'd be a long parade for that guy. Oh,
I was thinking more along the lines of there is
a the entire parade has to walk. There's one portion
that's on fire. Yeah, all the spectators have to go
down this way, come over here, and we set on fire.
(02:17):
Spoiler alert, there's never flames, it's coals, right, And we
can thank our friends at the University of London Council
for psychical research back in the nineteen thirties for figuring
that out. Um. And they did that, Chuck, by conducting
two different experiments on firewalking, in which they also participated
(02:38):
to Yeah, these are they're not mean. But what they
did was in both of these experiments in thirty five
and thirty seven, they got a couple of British scientists
and then you know, someone from a native culture like
an India or someplace, and they basically the whole point
of the study was like, see white British man did
(02:59):
it too. It's not religious or special, right, but they
were skeptical societies, I think is what they were doing. Yeah,
and I'm sure they didn't rub it in like that,
but decree fire pit uh. And then those two separate
years they basically I think they use oak and they
the whole point of it was to kind of just
(03:20):
debunk the like you have to be I don't know
about possessed. Maybe that's too strong of a word, but
guided by spirit to do so, guided by voices, that's right.
So Um. That was yeah, that and that at the
very least in the West, those two studies put that
to rest permanently. Um. And they did it so thoroughly
(03:41):
chuck that. For about I don't know, forty fifty years,
people in the West, I should say, in the United
States and Great Britain, UM, didn't think much about this
whole thing. They just were like, firewalking has been explained whatever.
And then as our friends in the New age community
kind of came along in the seventies and eighties, UM,
(04:03):
they adopted firewalking and apparently had never read the two
studies by the University of London Council for Psychical Research,
because they started attributing it to a more metaphysical explanation,
and that's when interest in debunking it kind of came
around again. That's right. Uh, And I think this is
(04:23):
a good time for a cliffhanger because we have danced
around the fire and not revealed the secret to why.
It has nothing to do with religion or spirituality. It's
pure physics and we'll explain it right after this. Welcome
(05:09):
back to pure physics. Yeah. And since we're talking about
pure physics, I want to give a shout out to
Professor David Willie, who's a physics professor. I believe it's
Willie could be wily w I L. L. E. Y Yeah,
I think it's wildly he um. Oh, I'm thinking of
Willie Ames from Charles and Charge. Uh. But Professor Wiley
(05:31):
is a physics of firewalking guy. He has dedicated a
certain portion of his career to explaining how it works
and doing firewalking himself. So thanks a lot to Dr
Willie because basically everything we're talking about is based on
his research. Dr Wiley, Yeah, that's right, So let's explain
(05:53):
how this works. There are quite a few components to
go into a successful firewalk, which is to say, one
or you don't end up with burns on your feet. Uh.
The first thing that you've got to start with is
charcoal that has lit well before you walk over it.
I sort of spoil it earlier when I said there
are no flames, but when you see a firewalker, they're
(06:15):
walking over hot coals, not a real flaming fire. And
these are embers that they're walking over, So right out
of the gate, you've got a bit of an advantage.
And that there's not in direct contact with a flame
well a huge advantage too, but also the embers themselves,
so you've got no flame. It's a big one. Just
put that in your hat. Uh, here's the second one
for your hat. Those embers themselves are actually really good insulators.
(06:40):
The type of wood that's typically used for firewalking, and
you want to use specific kinds of wood. They glow
really bright, but they actually don't conduct heat very well. Right,
And I think the top two woods or cherry or
maple for good looking coals that will get the crowd
whipped up into a friend's right exactly, but not super
(07:02):
hot no. Um. And because there's also a layer of
ash that coats them. Here's the third part for your hat. Right.
I think the uh, the investigator would say, you neverice.
You notice they don't do this during the day because
you would see that ash all over the place. But
at night that ash sort of goes away to the
(07:22):
to the eyeball and it makes for a better show.
But that ash is going to also provide a buffer
and cut down on that heat transfer. Yeah, yes, exactly.
And then the last one, and this one's pretty important too.
There's an actually really limited amount of time that your
feet is making contact with the hot embers because they
(07:43):
are hot like these fires that you're walking over. If
you hold the thermometer, um, it's gonna register something like
nine thousand degrees fahrenheit four degrees celsius. So it is hot,
but again it's not conducting that heat very well to
your eat, and then your feet aren't touching them very
long to begin with. Yeah, there's a reason it's not
(08:05):
called fire sitting. Yeah, fire standing around there may be
a thing. Who knows. Watch someone right in and say,
oh no, bro, fire sitting is totally a thing. I
work for the gym row Side show and I fire sitting.
It's firewalking. You want to walk across it at a
brisk pace. Uh, they do, say don't run. And by
the way, we're let's just go ahead and p s
(08:26):
A here and say or c o a and say
please don't try this. Thank you for doing that. Kids,
don't try and firewalk. Just don't do it. But if
you are a firewalker or you see someone doing it,
they are walking at a brisk pace. But you don't
want to run because they make the good point that
you know, you could actually dig in when you're running
more than if you're just sort of hot foot in it,
(08:47):
because it's where the word comes from exactly, and you
can end up with coals on top of your foot
or just digging down too deep. So they say you
walk less than a half a second of contact um
on a like a tend to fifteen foot firewalk. Yeah,
so it's only a few seconds. Yeah. So those four
things together basically the physics of firewalking. But even if
(09:10):
you you know, if you're if you're not well versed
in the physics of firewalking, and you hold a firewalking event,
it can go wrong. And that actually has happened from
time to time. Most recently from what I can tell,
was in two thousand twelve, We're twenty one people were
treated for burns at a Tony Robbins event. Right, he's
doing this at least in two thousand twelve. Are you
(09:34):
surprised by that? Have you seen shallow? How well? I
haven't seen shallow? How you're not missing? But um, I
don't know. I knew he's a motivational speaker. I did
not know he did stuff like this, Yes, dude, Yes,
his his whole jam is stuff I thought he's got
on the stage and just you know, made people feel good.
(09:54):
Random stuff like this is no. No, no, he's very
hands on. He had a TV show once that we
had to like cover for some reason back in the day.
Do you remember that? It came in my mind today
and all I could think of is what did we
do with Tony Robbins. Did we interview him? We we
interviewed him. I think you did. I don't think I did. Yeah,
(10:16):
but I don't remember whatever happened with the interview. But
in the TV show, in the first episode, the pilot
of this, there was a man who became paralyzed when
he jumped into his pool after his his wedding UM
the ceremony. He was so excited he jumped into pool
and landed head first and became paralyzed. Tony Robbins talks
this guy into um into skydiving, and if I remember correctly,
(10:43):
essentially like pushed him out of the plane. Tony Robbins
very hands on, motivational guy. So anyway, one of his
uh the people that a saying walked on fire. I
guess I had to get treated for burns. This made
me one to try it, and you know why I won't.
(11:03):
Why is because it's the bottom of my feet, Like
if something did go wrong, then I'm not walking for
a little while, or I'm walking in a lot of pain.
It's not like a pain on my forearm or something.
You know, is it actually worth it? No? No, no no,
That's why I said, I'm not going to do this
because I'm going camping tonight. And I was like, you know, no,
(11:24):
should I pull out all the stop? You understand the
physics of firewalking. Who are you trying to impress at
this point, Emily, No, she won't be there. All my
dumb friends from years ago, they oh, well, then yes
you should definitely fireworks. No, I'm never gonna do it, impress, dude,
you have to stop. Just remember to use some cherry
(11:45):
or what was the other one. I think you got
maple up there. No, it's a bunch of hardwoods. Yeah,
you don't want those. They'll burn off too quick or
else too too hot. You want to use cherry or maple,
like you said, And if you don't have it, don't firewalk.
My old friend Jason Jenkins jump through the fire one
time and a drunken fit late night and a camping trip.
Did he melt like Snea? No, he was fine. He
(12:07):
jumped right through it. But I remember thinking, like, dude,
if he would have tripped and landed in that fire
all of a sudden, this this trip has ruined, which
is another another problem with firewalking. If you do trip,
you're you're in trouble. Yeah, yeah, so don't don't firewalk.
I was really just joking when I was encouraging YouTube. No,
I know. Well, I think that's it for short stuff,
(12:29):
don't you. It sounds like it's out to me. Stuff
you should Know is a production of iHeart Radio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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