Elastics: Where God and Science Smooch

I know, you get mad every time he gets sick, though, just so you know I do. I hadn't noticed that. Actually, uh my wife is the same way. Well it's not fun, I know, but she gets like kind of yeah. You both get a little angry, like why did this happen to me? I get more pitiful, like, oh, somebody helped me. Oh I've got going on too. So does that mean people have the next like eight episodes to look forward to? This or no? No, man, no way, this is it.

This is it right here. I think actually yesterday might have been the worst day. Oh well good, yeah, I mean today was a close second. But we'll find out. Yeah, it is spad. I gotta be a pro man, I gotta I gotta get well, the show must go on as so today, Chuck Charles, we're talking elastic. Yeah, did you know much about this? No? I thought this is actually super interesting and it also contained to uh, what we like to call um dinner party factoids that people

can bust out. We need a jingle that says that so we can play it when when it comes up. Yeah, I mean there's lots of cool stuff in here, and please don't correct us on factoid because oh yeah, man, that's so two thousand, nine eleven. Maybe, but yeah, two really cool facts in here that I think people can just keep in their hip pocket. Okay, are you good? So until we get a jingle made, I'll bet NOL will make one for us. But until we do, maybe you should you want to practice one? Um, jeez, what's

a good dinner party jingle? It should It should be like wine glasses and plates and forks and things clinking right, and then maybe like this Orwellian voice going dinner party fact toward. Yeah. Here we are eight years in, still evolving. Yeah, it's a work in progress. Okay, So we're talking elastic Chuck. I didn't know that much about it either. In this

article written by one William Harris, yeah it is. It makes a pretty good point um that it's just one of those things, and specifically say, like a rubber band, you just kind of think it's always been around, and you know you've always you just think, like you know, elastic waistbands have been around for eons. It's basically the second thing discovered after fire, is what I've always thought until today, since Adam first popped Eve's bra strap, it's

been around. Yeah, you'd think that's actually not the case at all. It's a elastic itself. And elastic, we should say, is basically any rubber, natural or synthetic, uh thread woven with another kind of fabric usually like say cotton or nylon or whatever that produces a stretchy fabric that's elastic. Right. Yeah, Like I think a lot of people don't even realize if they took their underwear waistband, don't do this because

then you ruined it. But maybe if you have an old pair, if you just kind of cut it, you would see these these little elastic threads. It's all it is, Yes, you little rubber bands or or you could go to like a thrift store or something by a pair and then cut those If you're buying a thrift store underwear, then I don't know, I wouldn't recommend that. Yeah, I don't think they even sell it. Actually they do. We're really ye used underwear. Yes, wow, so skid free, that's probably.

That's gotta be one of the more difficult tasks. It's like getting those things just prepared for resale, you know, yeah, I don't want to be unprepared for resale duty to day anyway, when you do, if you cut it open, if you look very closely, have you ever done this? Have you ever seen like an elastic waistband come come loose as you've got If you look really closely, you can be like going to like the little threads that are sticking out, because some just hang limp and loose.

That's cotton. Nobody cares about that. But the ones that are just kind of still sticking out a little bit and you can throw them though. That's the that's the rubber or um natural or synthetic rubber that that gives that elastic it's stretchiness. And again it's a fairly recent invention, especially if you're talking about, um, waste bands for underpants. Yeah, and especially if you're talking about elastic that really kind

of worked. There were two sort of dives into making elastic, and one quite a long time ago and then one

more recently that obviously worked much better. And basically the reason it worked much more better more recently is better techniques to making rubber and then better techniques changing that rubber into something that you could actually use, like in a wasteband right exactly, but we've known about rubber for a very long time since well I should say those of us in the West have known about it for a very long time. Those indigenous peoples of the Amazon

have known about it even longer. But I interrupted. You were talking about waste bands. Oh okay, so yeah, so with with underwear waste bands in particular, right, Yes, Um, apparently humans have felt shame uh for thousands of years because the oldest pair of underwear, identifiable underwear are seven thousand years old and he bought him at Goodwill right

last week. So the these this underwear originally, well, even before that, I should say, um, there was something called breech cloth and that was just basically strips of leather that just kind of hung down and coverage junk maybe kept the gnats out that kind of thing, right, or kept them in. Yeah, that was your things probably catch the um. And those are even older than the first underwear, which would be considered a loin cloth, of course, which

is basically that. And there are loincloths that are at least five thousand years or seven thousand years old, and um, they are basically in uh linen diaper that is folded in a certain way, worn by grown ups, including very famously, most recently Gandhi used to wear a loincloth everywhere. It was called the dati um. But it's a loincloth, no

matter what you call it, that's right. So those stuck around for quite a while in the West, and it wasn't until basically the Middle Ages that someone said we can do better than this, Yeah, and they brought around these things that are that were much longer than a loincloth. Um, most of them kind of for my research, these braids be r A I E s went below the knee even. Yeah,

they were like a cross between a loincloth and jams. Yeah, sort of, Um, it says here that they were laced to the waist and legs, but um, there may be lace under the waist, but they're also generally kind of rolled over many times at the waist, I think to probably tighten it up a bit. Yeah, and everyone said, great,

this is work. Yeah for a while, I'm happy with this, and um, you know, then it went a different way and we should do an entire episode just on course it's I know, there's a good article on the site on it, but um, after Braise, the the called the union suit was invented? What dinner party fact? Okay, there you go. I never knew. I thought it was called the union suit because it had something somewhere along the line to do with unions, but no, in fact, the

word union suit. Now we know them as long John's, even though long Johns are generally two piece. The one piece union suit is called that because it is one piece. It is the union of a top and a bottom undergarment. Yep, that's right. It's a one piece long John with a flap in the bottom. They usually button all the way up front from the growing up to the neck. Do you have any of these? I'm wearing a couple of pair, right, now obviously you just can't see him because they're under

my clothes. Do you really have some? No? I have Long John's. I've got this one called the Silkies that work really well. Yeah. Um, but I don't have a union suit. No, do you know I don't anymore? My brothers still Scott swears by the union suit. Um. I think he has the classic red and then of course they famously have like you said, the it's either called an access hatch. I've also seen them called a drop seat or a fireman's flap. Yeah, I saw that too.

Where you can see that, Yeah, where you can unbutton your you know, because generally you're wearing this out in the cold, so you don't want to stripped down to the naked if you want to go pp or poopoo, right, so you just open the old access hatch and there you have it. Yeah. Now that see that to me makes sense, um in the nineteenth century when the union

suit was invented. Today, though, it's like, I guess Scott just likes to add a little panic too when he has to tinkle, like having to get that flap open. I think he's just a classicist, not classicist, a who's someone who's into the classic things. Classicist. Okay, that sounds like he doesn't like poor people. That's a classist. Okay, that extra makes a big difference. Okay, he's a classicist then yeah, yeah, okay, so you should tell him this.

Here's another little sub dinner party factoid. Union suits were originally invented for women from what I understand, all right, and they were invented in response to the corset craze because apparently courses were so out of hand. It was basically like remember our footbinding episode. So but that's basically what women in Europe and the United States, in the western countries were doing with corsets. They were engaging in what was amounted to footbinding, but with their waists, they

were they were literally deforming themselves, uh, using corsets. And and there was a Reformation movement against the corset and against that look and what it's fall and ultimately was the union suit, which were so great that men were like, these are ours, now, yeah, we should do one. Of course, it's I assume that they did this because men were like, no more of an hour glass. Yeah and yeah, and I think that's where the Reformation came out of like,

shut up, man, do you have any like? We're disfigured now thanks to you idiots. Uh well, I hate to pack another dinner party fact right next to the other one, but that's kind of where we are. So my second factoid that you should bring up next time you're among friends or next time you see an injured friend perhaps is if they're using an AS bandage, ask them what it stands for and they'll say, uh, what do you mean? But it, in fact is an an acronym. Correct, yes

it is, And what does it stand for? All cotton, elastic, ace, all shot an elastic bandage. I never knew that until today and it's been around since en apparently that the three M company introduced it. Amazing um. And so so okay, you've got an ACE bandage, which is essentially, uh, an elastic waste band used to to keep Shack's elbow in place? Right Seaquille O'Neil? Yeah, all right, um, what you do

you think? This is? What's what's crazy is uh? This is eighteen that that three M introduced the ACE, and it took until the forties before somebody thought, why don't we just like attach like underpants a lowincloth to that and as we pull it up, snap it in place and be like, oh baby, modal. I guess because I mean the only thing I can think of is because they were tying them and they disfigured. Well, that works pretty well for now, Yeah, I guess, you know. I mean,

that's what That's what William Harris says. He says it was basically a sort of fashion inertia. That's everything was fine, Like you could use buttons or ties or something like that and keep it in play, so who cares. But it's just so much easier to pull up your underpants, snap them in place, and go, oh baby, that's right. But regardless of um, what you're talking about here, these fabrics,

including elastic, are made with a loom. And if you've ever seen a loom at work, uh, or a at work, yeah, it's amazing to watch into like, what the hell is this loom doing here? Well, not at your job, but you know, I know what you mean. Sure, have you ever seen a loom doing its thing? It's pretty impressive. Um, And what I mean it's really not that complicated either. Basically, all it's doing is allowing these lengthwise threads to be

interlaced with with with wise threads the warp in the weft. Yeah, which is not a bad band name, by the way. No, it's not especially like like um proto folk. Yeah, well, that's exactly what it would be. That would be at least three guys wearing vests in that band. Uh that may have been woven with a loom, yeah right, you know, and maybe uh pocket watches with the chains totally, but that's all loom does. It goes you know, it allows

this interlacing place, and that's what's happening with elastic. It just takes the place of the yarn, and it's it's uh, well part of the yarn, half of the yarn, or a portion of the yarn. Well, yeah, because in the in the case of a waist band, you're obviously introducing other fabrics as well, like cotton probably or something else. Yeah,

And that's the case with any elastic. Elastic is again it's it's a it's a type of fiber woven together with some sort of rubber and to create this new stretchy, resilient fabric that's elastic. You want to take a nose blow break? Thank you, char All right, we're back. You're good. Yeah, I should say also, like I keep hammering home what the definition of elastic is. Then we're talking about elastic waistbands,

and that's what you think of typically. But again, any fabric with fiber of one type and rubber woven together is elastic, and that has tons and tons of uses. Like bungee cords are elastic, right, um uh, you know everything else that's like that is like elastic. Well, you know, in your socks a lot of times they will be I mean there's elastic, and you know we'll get to spandex later. Um, but that that stuff is in many, many,

many garments that you wear today. You may realize that you have the stuff in your clothing, right, everything from the the neck of your shirt perhaps two um, maybe the tongue of your shoes. Sometimes. Yeah, fancy shoes will have elastic in them. Those jeans that you wear to Thanksgiving dinner, they have an elastic waste. Oh I know what jeans you're talking about. I don't wear those. They're pleaded jeans, which is just weird looking. I just wear button flies. Oh yeah, so you just go pop yep,

pop a couple out. You're all set that's right. You can stuff a lot of extra bits in there. All right, So let's um, should we get in the way back machine a bit and go back to uh the than uh I guess the nineteenth and eighteenth centuries. Huh, all right, we're pirates. Oh man, I'm glad you brought that up.

I read this really interesting article. I found it on I think on long form, but it's from the National Endowment for the Humanities like magazine website, and this guy wrote an article about how just thoroughly we misunderstand pirates and how our conception of pirates took place basically in one decade between seventeen I think twenty six and thirty six, and everything we think of as pirates is crammed into

that ten years. Everything before and after it's totally different from our conception of pirates, and that they were actually very frequently they were just sailors who would go attack like a vessel in the Indian Ocean for one big haul and then flee to the colonies and buy a bunch of pigs and set up a farm and live as like upstanding citizens from that point on. And some of them were like lieutenant governors. Um. It was a

really interesting article that I recommend tremendously. Obviously, did we not cover that in our Pirates episode eighteen years ago? No, we wouldn't have known that this is a brand new article. I'm sure we just totally fell for everything. And apparently that's it's not we like, that's not our fault that the guy's article and idea is is pretty new, which is one of these things that historically everyone kind of bought in on. Interesting to me that way, you got it?

All right, So we're talking pirates here, and not just pirates but sailors explorers basically anyone who got on a ship in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds, early eighteen hundreds and went exploring. Yeah, and uh they you know what they did was they would go off and find things that they didn't have in their home country. Say, oh my god, what is this? Let me bring it back Cinnamon member Cinnamon episode. Yeah, absolutely, that's a great example.

But one of the things they found in Central and South America was what the French called uh cowchook and uh it's an Indian term meaning weeping wood. And it's basically what they're talking about are now, is it an actual rubber tree, ye behavior brazilansus the rubber tree which literally oozes milky latex. Yeah naturally. Yeah, and the the earliest sailors that encountered, um, the indigenous natives of the Amazon. We're like, what's that stuff you're like putting out on

your outerwear and it's keeping the rain out? Or what's that weird flexible bottle you're you're using? And they explained it to him, and those guys said, awesome, you know who love this, my fellow Europeans. So they took it back with them and then they said, and what are those awesome drugs that you give us in liquid for him every night after dinner. They said, oh yeah, husky Yeah, and they went, we'll take some of that hump too. Yeah. Can we get it to go back of that stuff?

Uh so yeah, they um, they were already used in the stuff because they found out when um, when it was dried out. Basically you could use it for a lot of things, like you said, bottles, shoes. It's just like this, you know, flexible rubbery material. Yeah right, so everything's hunky dory. This is a brand new thing. Europe starting to go crazy for it. But what they figured out pretty quickly was that you you couldn't do a

lot with it, right, As we'll find out later. Um, rubber has a an unusual natural chemistry, and it just so happens that in the normal range of temperatures outside of the tropics, UM, it can tend to fall apart pretty easily. Uh. It has a narrow range of temperatures that that allow its usefulness. Right, So once you take it up to above the equator to say, like um, Europe or the United States or whatever. Uh, And they did. Um. They thought it was great. They thought it was terrific.

People went crazy for it. Joseph Priestley actually came up with a dinner party factoy that I'm sure you'd love to share. Uh, which one, Oh you didn't. This wasn't one of them, now, I blew mine on the two. Joseph Priestley, who was very famous chemist, Jason Priestley's triple great uncle. We made that same joke in the nst episode. I'll bet we did, because yeah, that's where he popped up.

That's right, Thanks for that. Oh and the nitrous oxide one. Yeah, so he got his hands on some of this because everybody's like he's the only chemist alive, right now, give it to him and he's like, you know what, this is amazing. I'm writing a pencil and then I'm rubbing this this latextkachuk um and it's it's rubbing out the pencil marks. And that gave rise to the term rubber. Oh that's how the name yeah came around. Yea, from rubbing,

from rubbing out pencil marks, erasing ubber. Because remember the British love to change everything with an error on the end, like soccer is actually shortened association, uh football, like a soccer became soccer. There you go, rubber. That's pretty interesting. I don't know how I screwed it past that one. I love that one. So it became a big deal, and everyone, um you know that had a little money to invest thought, hey, we can make a lot of

dough with this stuff. We can transform that into something useful, like let's say in a garment. Um. But like you said, they had this problem that it was a very narrow range of temperatures where they could find it useful. So a couple of dudes uh started working on it. We've talked about Mr Charles Goodyear before we talked about him and I don't know, but I mean, definitely the good Year Blimps episode. But um, it seems like, do we

not do one in vulcanization. I don't remember. I was looking up rubber or something because some of the stuff in the extra source that I said. She was kind of like talked about this before. Yeah, we haven't done this entire episode, have we? No? Definitely not. Okay, If so, then I really am just totally out of my mind. So good Year was one. He was working in the US, and then another guy named Thomas Hancock, an English inventor, partnered with a dude named Charles McIntosh and they started

making raincoats basically, yeah, the Macintosh, the classic Macintosh. Yeah. And so Charles Thomas Hancock was already pretty well situated too, he was already working on it, right, But Charles Goodyear um had that breakthrough first. And it was actually a really big deal that he had this breakthrough because in the early eighteen thirties, Charles Goodyear basically became obsessed with cracking the rubber coat. He just knew it could be used to be made into something useful, right, And he

became so personally committed to it. He all of his investors went away. He went into Debtor's prison so regularly he referred to it as his hotel. Um. Six of his twelve children didn't make it to adulthood. They were just that poor. They they had to sell their dinner wear. So he made plates for him out of rubber. Um. It was really really rough. So the idea that he

had this breakthrough um was just enormously rewarding for him. Right. Unfortunately, as he was shopping this stuff around, this vulcanization process or the vulcanized rubber, some of it fell into the hands of Tamas Hancock and he reverse engineered it. Yeah, and what he basically discovered was if you slow cooked latex with sulfur, it could it could basically transform rubber into a very durable material that uh, it was hardy under all kinds of temperature ranges. It would always snap back.

Um well, not always and forever, which we'll get too later too. As you know, that waistband will sometimes leave you disappointed eventually, that's why you end up buying new underwear. Um well, one of a couple of reasons you buy new one awear, take it to the thrift store. Yeah exactly, but yeah, he that is what vulcanization is. And um, Handcock and McIntosh what they were doing. Uh, they didn't crack that code first, but they they developed called something

called the masticator. Basically, they had been been making elastic threads by slicing it from rubber bottles and raw rubber, but there was just so much waste. They developed this machine called a masticator and it would basically chew up this rubber and make it into meld it together and make it into a big single sheet of material, which was really helpful. But they still had that temperature problem until good Year hit it right and and again they

were verse engineered. Goodyear's process went and file the patent on vulcanization and they rip him off like fully, yes, fully, and um apparently it was one of those ones like the phone where good Year when to go file a patent and found out that someone else had that Handcock had just a few weeks earlier, so he took him

to court. Um in order to settle Hancock offered good Year of the patent to drop the lawsuit, and good Year said no, and he lost the case and he died broken but he was able to, Um, he was able to generate enough royalties so that his kids were able to uh to live the good like thanks to him. Um, but he uh yeah, he got ripped off for sure. And and one other thing about the about Charles good Year, the Goodyear Rubber or Tyre and Rubber company, he he had nothing to do with it. They named it after

him in honor of him. Oh wow, Yeah, I thought that was pretty cool. Uh. You don't watch the TV show Shark Tank, do you? I do not. I think I've asked you that before. I you know, the whole concept, right as these people pitch their businesses to them. Yeah, well surrounded by sharks swimming now, they pitched them to

the sharks, and they either investor they don't. Everyone kind of knows the show, but you I guess, um, but uh, I'm always at home just yelling at these people when you know, they'll offer up like of their company and then they'll get offered an investment from a shark for you know, and say, but they want like and some of these people like turn around and walk away, which, on one hand, I kind of respect that they don't

want to give away that much of their company. But like, I'm always just thinking, wouldn't you rather own of a twenty million dollar company than of a three million dollar company? Like sometimes I think pride gets in the way with these people. Sure, and they don't think about just how big these people can make their company. Yeah. I don't know who's that company though? That that UM turned down a billion dollars from either Google or Facebook and just

kept at it and now it's my Space. No I can't. It's one of like the big social media brains that you know of UM that that now was just worth gobs more money? Really? Yeah? Yeah, I mean you know, there's no recipe, Like sometimes it is better to hold onto more of your own company because if it gets big, then you own that much more of it. But it's right, I'm always kind of like, man, take the money now. And is Steve Miller suggested? Is you just Steve Miller's

a science pologist? Is he really? Yeah? Boy? He went off on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year. Why did they not um vote phenomenating? No? No, no, he got inducted in like basically trash them on his way in and out the door. Oh, you'll just have to read it's kind of too long to get into. But they were none too happy. I think he came across as just a really crabby old guy. Oh he didn't have like a point or anything. No, he had points. But um, yeah, you'll you'll just have to check it out,

I will. We're already getting sidetracked here. Oh we've been side checked baby so um. When regardless of who came up with it, even though it was Charles Goodyear, once vulcanization was introduced to the world, all of a sudden, all of these dreams of what you could do with a flexible, durable material that can withstand tremendous pressure and force and heat, um and cold too, which was a big one. Uh, all of a sudden, the whole world just opened up. And what was interesting, Chuck, was because

it also dovetailed with the Industrial Revolution. Brazil, which was the the rubber tree capital at the time, went from just being like this kind of old world quality to basically being one of the most important countries on the

planet and like virtually within a year or so. Yeah, And that was true, uh geez for a long time until about the mid too late, about eighteen seventy six, when these British businessmen said, I'm gonna sneak these rubber tree seeds out, uh taken back to England and uh, we're gonna see if these things grow in Southeast Asia, where we have a lot of British colonies. And it turns out it did, and just about thirty five years later the center of the global rubber market shifted to Malaysia,

Singapore and Sri Lanka. As British are thieves in this one, so they kind of like totally ripped that off. Yeah, and Southeast Asia was the dominating rubber capital of the world. It was way better for the Brits and the Americans because we're friends with the Brits. Um. Because that meant that these were these were British colonies, um, which meant that the access to this rubber was basically unfettered. There

were no trade deals. You didn't have to wine and dine a prince or a king or anything like that. You could just be like, we need more rubber please, um, which is I think how they would order it probably. So, so everything's going hunky dorry, at least as far as the British and Americans are concerned. The rubber supplies being

fulfilled thanks to Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka and um. It came it no too soon a time too, because the automobile was introduced around this time, the mass produced automobile, we should say, and those needed for good tires made of rubber. Yeah. And then World War Two really really increase the need for rubber. Um. I think here it says that in total, the Pentagon said that they needed thirty two pounds of rubber for every single ground troop

in one way or another. That's amazing. Yeah, and that's why it was such a big deal that the Japanese invaded the Pacific, because that the Pacific theater featured those countries that were the rubber producing capital of the world that have been under British control. And um, now all of a sudden a rubber supply was either cut off

or in danger. So the United States, led by FDR, said, hey, uh, four biggest rubber companies, we're gonna get together and we need to come up with a synthetic rubber too, suite. Let's get on it. We're all gonna split the patent evenly, and let's get to work. And in eighteen months they had come up with a synthetic rubber amazing yep. Uh. And we'll get to synthetics a bit more in a minute. But jumping back to the mid eighteen hundreds, the story

of the rubber band is pretty interesting. These two chaps, Stephen Perry and Thomas barn of Us daft great name uh T b D actually uh invented the rubber band, the modern what we know is the rubber band because they started slicing these Uh. They had a rubber tube and started slicing these narrow rings from a vulcanized rubber tube. And they were like, here you go. It's called a

rubber band. You can put it around your asparagus. Yeah, and everyone was super psyched except people who hate asparagus. That was a good one man. Uh. And today they still kind of do it in the same way. Um, rubber band wise, they create this, They make this latex together um with all these chemicals. It depends on, you know,

what kind of rubber band you're making. And they get this raw rubber compound uh into a long hollow tube, slip it over a round pipe called the mandrill, expose that to high heat and pressure to vulcanize it, it cures it, and then they slice that up into rubber bands. Yep, pretty neat. It is pretty neat. You want to take a We can then talk some more about how it's made. Yeah, right after this. All right, so we've been talking about rubber um and its most natural form, and uh, how

they transformed that into usable rubber is pretty remarkable. But immediately after World War Two, like we were talking about, this creation of synthetic rubber was probably the second biggest invention of all time. Well maybe not of all time. It's up there though, Yeah, but when it comes to stretchy things for sure. Yeah. And apparently the the World War two research and development produced not just one, but three different types of um easily manufactured synthetic rubbers. YEA.

One was a beauty dyne rubber. Another was a styrene beauty dyne rubber, and that was the one that the government went with for World War two. Uh, and it was actually ripped off from a German from the Germans, which they had come up with something similar previously. And then there's an ethylene propylene monomer and all three of those make up most of today's synthetic rubbers. Yeah, and they found that this stuff worked really, really well, just

as good as natural rubber had all that flex resistance. Um, it didn't deteriorate. Uh, eventually it would. Again I keep teasing like we're gonna get to that, which we will. But they found it was really well suited to replace rubber well in most applications, like an industrial application like a tire or a fan bell or some thing like that. But it didn't have that resilience that that natural rubber has. So there was an issue still, there was a kink

that needed to be worked out. Well, yeah, as far as using adding textiles for sure, exactly, And they actually overcame it in nineteen fifty nine by day, I mean DuPont Corporation, who employed two chemists that got to work trying to crack this code, the final code of synthetic rubber, how to make it flexible and resilient, right, that's right.

And they they started by using um a polymer, a polyurethane right, so, um, Well, we'll talk about polymers in a little bit, but basically they took a polymer, a eurothane based polymer, and watered it down and forced it through a plate with tiny little holes in it. And what came on the outside where these tiny little threads, and those tiny little threads were a magical creation known as Spandex, the trade name of which originally is micro. Yeah,

it's amazing. And Spandex, they found had a lot of great applications. Namely, it could accept dies, so it wasn't just the sort of dull white color. You could make it any color you wanted to. Uh, and you could wash it. It It didn't absorb a lot of moisture, and it remained really stable when it was washed and dried, you know, kind of normal moderate temperatures. So hey, you can make this, weave it into clothing, throw it in the washer, diet whatever color you want, and you're good

to go. And and most importantly, took it would snap back. It would retain its original shape after being stretched. So yes, spandex changed everything. I didn't realize it was from the fifties. Um. And William Harris makes a pretty good point. He he says that Spandex might be considered the modern elastic. Like it is, it's basically the base of of anything stretchy that you used today. Yeah, and it's said here, we said it's in all kinds of stuff. They said, it's

in about of all clothing bought by Americans. So even if you don't think Spandex is in something, it may have a little Spandex in there. It's in of all clothing bought by Americans, of all spandex pants bought by Americans. Think about that staff for a little while. Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, including Jagging's. He points out he calls them pajama jeans, but I've always called him Jagging's. Oh is that the same thing? I believe? So yeah, interesting, we can hope.

So Emily, when we put him on her daughter, she calls him jazzy pants. Oh yeah, that's a good one too. But that's just I think usually due to the pattern more than the snap back got you. Yeah, so we can sit here and procrastinate for several more minutes if you want, but ultimately we're gonna end up on the chemistry part. You realize, Yes, And because I uh don't understand chemistry at all, take it away. I'll get you for this, chuck. I'll throw in some words here and there.

So I don't really know chemistry either, but I know both of us crammed on this, So forgive us all you chemists out there. If we get something wrong, let us know. But from what we understand, it's magic. Yeah, there you go the end. So, rubber, whether it's natural or synthetic, is a polymer, right, And it's a specific kind of polymer called an elastomer. It's an elastic polymer as stretchiness and resilience, it's flexible, right, And any kind

of poll polymer is uh. Basically, if you look at the molecular structure of it, it's made up of these long repeating chains of the same unit over and over again. The units are called monitors, and depending on what the monitor is UM that leads to different kinds of polymers. And with elastomers in particular, if you look at some polymers, the structure is bulky and big and compact and and

it's rigid and heavy and not flexible at all. Still, other kind of polymers, say like a plastic or a resin, are crystalline and structure and they fit so well together. They're also rigid and not very flexible either. Then you have elastomers, which are a kind of polymer, and because of their molecular structure, um, they are super flexible, super stretchy and they snap back into place. Yeah, and normally they're uh, I mean they liken it to this article

like a coiled like a big massive snakes. But they have this really neat quality, these elastomers. When you apply force to it, the molecules actually straightened out in the direction that you're pulling it, and that's sort of the snap back you're talking about. But as soon as you release it, it goes back to that coiled up arrangement. Right when you pull it, when you apply force, they line up basically like those snakes, head to tail in

one single long line. That's a scary snake. Yeah, And then when you release it, it goes back into its original form of that that coiled mass right. Perfect. Okay. One of the reasons why any kind of rubber, natural or synthetic is flexible. A flexible polymer is because it's um glass transition temperature is actually pretty low. Yeah, this is where I kind of just got foggy. So this is it's as simple as this, chuck. A glass transition temperature.

It's not a melting point. A melting point is where the substance actually basically just turns into a liquid state. A disordered liquid state. The glass transition temperature doesn't affect the um, the the molecular makeup of the substance. Instead,

it basically applies this property flexibility or rigidity. It's it's as simple as that, right, And so anything that has a low UM glass transition temperature relative to what we have is normal temperatures outside in in the world or in our homes or whatever, is going to be flexible and floppy. Anything with a high glass transition transition temperature UM is going to be rigid and and um hard

and not flexible. So it's just suffice to say anything rubber, whether it's satural or synthetic, has a low glass transition temperature, so it's flexible under normal temperatures. But even if you if you took a UM a piece of rubber, natural rubber, and you applied, uh, you applied the temperature of negative seventy degrees celsius or negative ninety four degrees fair hight,

it would crystallize. It's below the glass transition temperature, so it would just basically turn rigid and crystallize and ultimately would break apart. And that was part of the problem with those early pre vulcanized rubbers, they would fall apart. Because the glass transition temperature is not like an exact moment where the where the thing converts from flexible to rigid. It's it's the median of a large thermal window where it starts to get get crystalline and rigid, and then

it's completely crystalline and rigid on the other end. So of course you would think, you know, if you get down to say twenty degrees like it would in Boston or New York in the nineteenth century, and you're walking around with rubber soled shoes, they're going to crystallize and break off. That's what's going on. It all has to do with the glass transition temperature. Okay, So during valkanization, they heat that up with sulfur, and that makes those

polymer chains linked together with sulfur atoms. I guess that's like almost like a glue. Yeah, Like it's like a molecular glue from what I understand. Yeah, okay, that makes a lot of sense. Yea. So so even when you apply intense heat um or extreme cold, it will um maintain its molecular shape. Yeah. But here's the thing I've been talking about why your elastic band doesn't last forever and why your socks will eventually be around your ankles.

Um this elastic eventually will lose that snap back due to oxid oxidization, oxidization oxidation, I like oxidization uh natural rubber. This oxygen and in particular ozone is going to start breaking those bonds within just days. So it happens pretty quickly, and that's why we heat and treat rubber like we do. But even still over time, uh that ozone and combine that with light uh uv radiation, it's another culprit. That's what's gonna cause that to eventually break down over time.

That would make sense because with vulcanization, what you're doing is adding sulfur to the polymer, right yeah, And if it would it would make sense then that either um uv radiation or something else could break those bonds between the sulfur and the other the other ingredients and then they would be replaced by oxygen, so oxidation would take place, right yeah. So it's pretty much ozone UV radiation and then cold actually does make a difference. It's not gonna

hold up quite as well in cold weather. Like if you take if you take a pair of underwear out and like, you know, negative twenty degrees in Minnesota and you start really stretching it out a lot, it's gonna, uh, it's gonna lose its elasticity really fast. Anybody from Minnesota can tell you that. Yeah, I mean, who know, they may have to buy more underwear than like Hawaii. I have no idea they all wear Union suits up there. Now that's true. So, um, do you want to finish

with Pat Benatar? Oh? Man, let's bring her out? Okay, come on, Bat, It's gonna do an acoustic set that Man, how great would that be? So? Um, we did a little digging and we were trying to figure out who basically started the eighties spandex rocker trend, the rocker spandex trend. She was the first thing that came to my mind. Yeah, I just didn't know exactly how I I would have guessed it went back beyond Pat Benatar. And then I found out that Pat Benatar has been a musician for

much longer than I realized. But um, apparently the whole thing happened on Halloween of nine seven, and by this time Pat Benatar was already like a pretty regular fixture on the New York City club circuit, and so she dressed up as a character from Catwomen of the Moon. Have you seen that movie? I haven't either, but apparently cat Women on the Moon is a cult classic sci fi movie, and I guess they wear a lot of spandex.

So she dressed up in some spandex get up and decided to play a show that night at Catch a Rising Star, which is basically her house club in there. No, I haven't either. Is it still around? I don't know, is it? I think I know of it from like Comedy Central in the nineties. Yeah, I think that was the name of a show, but I think it was

from that club. Yeah, I think so. I could be wrong, but anyway, she she was used to playing shows there, but she played the show in this get up, the spandex get up, and noticed that the crowd was like into it lot more than usual, and then they said, wow, we wow, what's she wearing? Pretty much, it was about as simple as that. She um. She was like, Okay, let's let me try this. I want to do a little experiment, and um, I'm gonna do this again, but not on Halloween. I'm gonna dress up again and do

the same show, and she didn't. Got another response like way better than usual response, and she's like, that's it. I'm doing spandex from now on. And that was that. Seven Pat Benatar starts the eighties bandex Rocker trend. I would count that as the fourth dinner party factoid. Yeah, I would say so too. And if you want a fifth Catachizing Star is a chain of comedy clubs and was also a TV series in Canada. To now you got anything else? Uh no, let's say for elastic everybody.

If you want to know more about it, type that word into the search bar how stuff works dot com and who knows, amazing things will come up. That's right. And since I said search far as time for a listener mate, Ah yeah, I'm gonna call this um short, but it's kind of funny. Hey guys, quick and trivial email from a fan in Pittsburgh. I too appreciated. Uh in your U is the episode on Body Snatching, live episode on Grave Robbing. I to appreciate it. How cool.

Charlie Chaplin's Body Robbers partner's name was Gancho Genev And I tell you we did that shoke a few times, and you and I never ceased to not crack up at the words gantcho Ganev. It's still happening being Jewish. I thought a little Hebrew Yiddish languages were involved, and Genev in fact does mean thief. Oh really and uh. Then he stretches it a bit. Then he says, Gancho for that matter, seems to be Spanish for hook like dance moves. And he said, Charlie Chaplin was a d answer.

He said, so, maybe that's a stretch on the second part, but it seems as though Gancho Genev was born just the old Charlie Chaplin's body. I'll give you props on the u Genev part at least, and that is from B. D. Wahlberg, and he said, ps, you might remember me from Pittsburgh at your live show. I asked a question in the Q and A about how you find new ways to

rip on the post office. And I still remember I gave my Trader Joe's bag to somebody in the audience and that was b D. He still still have Chuck's Trader Joe's bag hanging in my kitchen. Nice man, Well, thanks a lot, b d we appreciate it. That was it would have been even more ironic had he been referencing the DV Cooper episode. Oh did you hear about the new info? I did, and it actually makes a lot of sense to me. Yeah, So for anyone that hasn't seen they found some actual new science that uh

seems to indicate. They found these four elements in the tie that B D D B Cooper war. And apparently these elements are very specific to work being done by the Boeing company yea, So it gives a lot of credence to the theory that he was a Boeing employee and and even more specifically because it was on his tie, if he were like working the actual machines that were manufacturing was this thing he would he would have been

wearing like coveralls or something, not a tie. So it indicates that he if he worked for Bowing, he would have been like an engineer or a manager who would have been wearing a tie on the floor while he was out there. Like, I think this is like the biggest lead they've ever had. I think so too, pretty amazing. Yeah, you know who's excited about it? Secret boy? Uh, if

you want to know we're talking about. We did a DV Cooper episode and this popped in right, it's a live episode that we hope will be uh available to you soon. What else? Oh? And actually, wow, boy, this is exciting. We just got literally an email reply from b D because I said we were gonna be reading this and I think this bears mentioning. What a daymaker. Guys, if you use a pronoun for me, I go by

they and them rather than he or she. I know you're talking about because I am non by non binary listener. What up? What up? B D? Thank you. It's good to hear from you, and I'd love to surprise my BFF Carlyle with a great big audio high five. Well I think that just happened. Wow, all right, this is like real time correction slash back and forth with BED. Let's just see what happened email obamba, real quick. We'll sit here, let's see what happens next. We're just gonna

take this for for We're gonna take this ride, all right. Well, thank you, b D. Yeah, thanks a lot. Be good to hear from you. All right, Well, if you want to get in touch with us, you can tweet to us I'm at Josh Underscore, UM Underscore Clark UH. You can also hit me up at the official s y

s K podcast handle. You can hang out with Chuck on Facebook at Charles W. Chuck and at stuff you Should Know U. You can send us both an email to stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot com and has always joined us out our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff Works dot com