Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Happy continuing holidays, everybody. Chuck here to tee up our next episode on our 12 Days of Christmas Toys playlist. And I am super excited because you're about to listen to one of our older episodes from this list about an older toy. It's all about yo-yos. It's how yo-yos work. Hope you like it.
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Chapter 2: How did yo-yos originate and evolve over time?
It's physics heavy out the union. Yeah, everyone loves that. But the fact is, when we finish this, you're going to know how Yo-Yo works. This is probably the most truly titled, truest titled episode we've ever done. You think? Yep. I don't know. All right, well, we'll find out. I think it should be called Physics Through the Eye of a Yo-Yo. So, listen, have you ever seen the movie Harlem Nights?
Uh, parts. Dude, that is, go back and watch it again.
Like, watch the whole thing.
Oh, you're crazy. It's one of the best movies ever. Eddie Murphy, Redd Foxx, Richard Pryor. Great cast. And, like, everybody else in it, too. I think Bernie Mac's in there. Awesome cast. Terrible script. 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? Yeah.
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. It drives me crazy. Like it drives me crazy that he did it. 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. I don't know that they were going for historical accuracy in that one.
They were wearing spats. Yeah, well. So, Jerry, you like 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. Aki. It wasn't until after World War II, though, that the modern incarnation comes. And it came out of the Italian corridors of Philadelphia.
Of course it did. 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. Yeah, but I don't think that's what it means here, does it? It does now.
Okay. So the word yo-yo, as it stands, means come, come or come back. Yeah, that makes sense.
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Chapter 3: What are the physics principles behind how a yo-yo works?
Did you know that? I did. All right. You want to talk a little bit about the history of yo-yos? Did you know before reading this fantastic article that yo-yos originated, as we understand them now, originated in the Philippines in the 1920s? I didn't know that. I did know that it was around for a long time before that, though, in other forms. Well, pretty much the same form.
There were like two forms of yo-yos in history. Yeah. And the new one came out of the Philippines.
That's right.
The other one, yeah, it's pretty old. Well, ancient Chinese or at least ancient Greeks. Right. More than 2,500 years ago. But they think the Chinese had something similar to that. Yeah, I'm starting to strongly suspect that the Chinese are the origin of human civilization. You think? Yeah. They came up with beer. Yeah. Well, they came up with beer.
Yeah.
There you have it. They win right there. And it is the oldest toy on the planet except the doll, the dolly. I thought that was pretty interesting, too. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. 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.
Hmm.
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. We'll call it the Greek design. The Greek design? No, we'll call it the Chinese design. Or the European design. Well, not design, but it was popular in Europe. Yeah.
And that, obviously, if you ever used an old yo-yo like that or redesigned yours to where it's tied around the axle, it'll pop up. As soon as you throw it down, it'll pop back up. Yeah. Because it's tied to the axle.
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Chapter 4: What are the differences between traditional and modern yo-yo designs?
Is he the boy king? I don't know. Whichever Louis was the boy king of him holding like a yo-yo. Like a royal painting of him with a yo-yo. Or what was the little hoop on a stick? I think that's what it was called. That was an awesome game. 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. No, I'm not comparing it.
I'm just saying I just never got that toy. Oh, okay. Well, here's another one for you. Napoleon was well-known for carrying and using a yo-yo, apparently for stress relief. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Didn't work too well. He was a stressed-out dude. Yeah. He needed the yo-yo.
But as you said, that's the European-favored or Chinese design where, like, the string's tied really tight to the axle, and it just basically goes up and down. Yeah. Right? So the Filipino design led to the modern yo-yo 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 yo-yo itself to spin once it reaches the end of the string. Yeah. Sleep. That's why people yo-yo, I think. It's all about the tricks. I mean, it's sort of fun for a minute just to go up and down, but it's really all about the tricks. Right.
It's just a stress reliever if it just goes up and down. Did you yo-yo when you were a kid? Yeah, here or there. But even as a kid, I could sense that these new modern ones that we'll talk about, like ball bearings and clutches, they just seem like cheating. I agree. Let's not even talk about them. It's not even a real yo-yo. So, Chuck, you want to talk a little bit about physics?
Well, let's finish the history first, shall we? Oh, okay. Well, I have plenty of that. 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 spikes coming off of it. They were like the size of a Yugo.
Yeah, and I guess the benefit there is you could get it back after you threw it at somebody. Right. The string was almost just useless, though.
Well, it was rope.
Like, you'd just throw it and run after it. Oh, really? Okay. It was actually heavy rope, and they used it for hunting, too. Right. Well, at some point down the line... And in war.
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Chapter 5: How do yo-yo tricks utilize the concept of sleeping and waking?
Well, yeah, you would think anything used in hunting, you know, does double duty in war. Exactly. Anything you're trying to kill... At some point, though, they became smaller and became toys. And in the 20s, a Filipino immigrant to the U.S. 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? Yes, Donald Duncan. Or Duncan. Or Duncan. Properly. And, you know, Flores 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 going to keep the name Yo-Yo because it's catchy. Yeah. 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. They're all yo-yos.
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. Yeah, the same year they ruled against them. 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 Duncan 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 3,600 yo-yos an hour. Wow. Mostly out of wood at first, maple. They were using a million board feet of maple wood every year. Yeah? That's a lot.
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.
A chicken in every pot and a yo-yo in every other hand at least. Yeah. Sure. I guess some kids were yo-yoing with both hands up. They're rich kids. 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. Well, and the Duncan name lives on. Obviously, you still see Duncan Yo-Yos. They sold out. They didn't just shut down. Well, they went bankrupt and sold out, right? Yeah. Yeah.
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Chapter 6: What is the significance of moment of inertia in yo-yo performance?
So, who was it? The Flambelle Plastics Company? Yeah. They said, we'll keep the name Duncan because it's synonymous with Yo-Yos. Yeah. It's not generic yet.
No. No.
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Chapter 7: How have advancements in yo-yo technology changed play styles?
Okay? So you've got two things going on. And like you said, when the yo-yo hits the end of the line of its linear momentum, it can still, it's built up since it's wound around the spool. Yeah. It's built up a lot of angular momentum, so it can just sit there and spin or sleep as you called it. Yeah, it actually increases as it goes down, which is the key to keeping it spinning. Right.
It gets faster as it falls. There's another pretty cool trait to a yo-yo. Who knew they were so complex? I didn't. Did you? I did not. Okay, so they also have gyroscopic stability, Chuck. They do. Okay, so if you have a yo-yo that's sleeping, and you push down on top of it, it goes down and then back up. Right. That's because of its gyroscopic stability.
That point that you push down on the yo-yo is transferred from the front and spun around to the back, so that's evened out, so the yo-yo will just keep spinning as long as it's spinning fast enough. Gyroscopic stability. Yes. That means a spinning object will resist change to its axis of rotation, and... If you've ever thrown a football, it's the same thing. Yeah.
Or if you've ever thrown a football poorly, what do they call that? A wobbler? A turkey? Wounded duck? Brick? That's why a wounded duck doesn't go very far. Because it doesn't have that tight spin. Yeah. So it falls off its axis and won't travel as far. Exactly. Same as a frisbee. And then the whole team's mad at you. Basically anything that spins. Yeah. Frisbees, footballs.
There's got to be a baseball. We could liken it to a baseball somehow. Let's say a curveball. Knuckleball. Slider. Definitely not a knuckleball. Slider. Because it doesn't spin at all. Really?
Yeah.
Is it like a shot putt? No, the knuckleball, the whole key is it doesn't move. It travels like this, and that's why it moves all around. Crazy. Isn't that nutty? Yeah. So you've got your yo-yo 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.
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Chapter 8: What interesting trivia connects yo-yos to historical events?
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? A little tug on the old finger. Yeah, and the reason why is because the loop, right, there's less friction with the loop around the axle. Yeah. When you tug it, you increase that friction, and you allow it to rewind.
It just grabs a hold of its buddy and says, let's go back up to the palm. Yeah, it's pretty cool. I like yo-yo physics a lot. So we basically just talked about the two hardest parts, right? Sleeping and waking. 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 yo-yo tricks. Really?
Yeah, I could walk the dog and I could do... I could do the deal where you make a triangle and then tick-tock through the triangle. Something like a cradle or probably the cats in the cradle. Let's call it a cat's cradle. And then I could do the around the world. Wow. Yeah, I couldn't do any of those. This inspired me to get a new yo-yo, by the way.
I like the vintage Duncan ones, specifically the yellow ones with the butterfly, like the gold butterfly. The inverted ones?
Yeah.
No, it just had a butterfly on the label. Because they had those that looked like a butterfly that were inverted, and I think that actually plays a part in increasing the moment of inertia section. I think that's why they flipped it out, to put more weight on the outside. Yeah, okay, you want to talk about that? Why not? So do you remember when we did the Murphy's Law podcast? How could I forget?
Remember one of the books that he wrote was for your moments of inertia? Yeah. Yeah, I didn't realize it was a terrible, terrible engineering pun until I read this article. Yeah. Kind of made me hate John Paul Stapp a little bit. Nah, we love that guy.
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. Yeah. Right? And what smarter people than us have figured out is that if you increase the mass... Mm-hmm. and distribute it slightly further away from the axis, you're going to increase its moment of inertia. Right.
And that increases the amount of time it's just sleeping, right? 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 got to be. Because they were wider at the outside and then curved in, which had to be less mass. Yeah. It was less stuff, less wood. Right.
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