How SuperBalls Work

I thought once you had a kid, like that's the only way you got sick. Now, I don't know what it is. Man camping in the night, it was cold, That's what it is. But I don't know you got a wood fungus. I didn't treat myself like I should have on that camping trip either. Oh yeah, you know what I'm saying. No, that wasn't you know, going jogging and drinking juice. You're eating chocolate bars. No, not chocolate. I got into the whiskey, though. I didn't help things out,

I see, not on a cold night. It's been cold here recently, it's weird. I mean like cold and it's mid May. It's unusual, it's global warming. So, Chuck, have you ever heard of the NFL's Big Game? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, can we even say that? I don't think so. All right, uh so the Big Game? Actually it sounds a lot like super Ball, which is what we're talking about. There's no that's actually a thing. The reason why it is because it's named after the Super Ball. Did you know that? Yeah?

I did not, and I thought this was a little dubious, and the story still it seems fishy to me. But so a guy named Lamar Hunt, right, he founded the the Dallas Texans I think is what they originally called, but they went on to become the Kansas City Chiefs. And he founded this team because he couldn't get an NFL franchise in Dallas, so he just founded his own league as well, and he created the a f L,

the American Football League, because Dallas is such a football town. Yeah, you know, I don't think they had a problem with Dallas. I think they had just a problem maybe with this guy. Who knows. But he was not the type of just

take things lying down. Instead, he went and founded a different football league rival one right, And so as time progressed, they tried to get the NFL and the a f L uh integrated, and to smooth the transition, they decided that they would have a year end championship where the best team from the NFL would play the best team from the a f L. And they couldn't figure out what to call it, and apparently at one of the meetings, Lamar Hunt said, how about the Big Game? That's not

what he said. He said, the sbright because my kids been playing with this Super Bowl at home, and why not name a the final football game of the season after the toy that has nothing to do with it, that's right, And so all all the all the guys, we're like, well, we're ready to go to the gentleman's club and eat some steaks. So fine, we'll go with that. And apparently later on Lamar Hunt said he said in a quote, I guess it is a little corny, but it looks like we're stuck with it, so no one

really likes it. They didn't use it for the first big Game, No, that didn't they call it like the Ultimate Bowl. I think it was just the a f L NFL championship or something, and then by year three they said, uh, I guess we need to have something more catchy. But all that because of the super Ball, a little child's toy that everybody went crazy four and in nineteen I think starting in n yes, and we can just file this in the bucket with the slinky

and Silly Putty and Barbie Barbie and played. Oh did we do that one? Yes? Or did we just sit around and eat it? I think we did? Okay? Uh yeah, what were you gonna call these pop culture of the nineteen fifties and sixties? Okay, did we did the frisbee or the hula hoop? We did the hula hoop? Yeah, yeah, we did. And we did the boomerang. That's more a weapon than a toy. Uh boy, it's getting harder and

harder to remember which once we've done as old age. Yeah, well, it's it's our what's the word prolific nature, right, which is really not that much. It's just two a week over the year's adds up. Well, it's prolific, yeah, but it's not like recording twelve episodes a week or anything that's prolific. That's insane. This is just regular like taxes and death. Do you know what would happen to us if we recorded twelve episodes a week? Well, I do, I would quit. It would be the final twelve. Uh So,

all right, let's go back in time. Should we hop up in the the old way back machine? Yuh? Go back to the Cold War and the space race, which we've talked about quite a lot. Yeah, and the United States feeling like Russia got up Sputnik and or I guess it was the Soviet Union got up Sputnik, and we're in big trouble because they did this before us, and we're all scared in the United States that we're not competing like we should. Yeah, I was reading about it.

I was reading it. Just it's really hard to overstate the effect that Sputnik had on the US because post war America was all like, look at this gadet, look at this toy, make your life comfortable, get fat, and sit around in your lazy boy chair. Right, the little satellite came along and disrupted all that because like, America woke up and um. Stephen King actually said that Sputnik instilled in him the dread that informed the work for the rest of his life. It was all based on Sputnik. Yeah. Yeah,

I had a lot of really far reaching effects. But one of them was that America said, scientists, get you to work. Yeah, get off your butts. Yeah, because you're not doing anything. Yeah. Uh, you're sitting around playing pinnuckle. Uh. And so a guy named well, they did a lot of work actually, and they took it very seriously. And this one dude, his name was Norman Stingley. Um. He worked for a company called Bettis Rubber in suburban l A and Whittier, California. And um, he was a scientist.

And he said, you know what, well, we should caveat this with if you work for a company like that as a scientist, you know, going in you sign away your life rights and basically say that anything I create under your employ and even if I'm at home tinkering around in my spare time, yeah, with stuff that I like, you know, learned from work, then you well, it depends

on your contract. You either on it or your first rider refusal for it the company does, right, And I gain have the impression that UM with Bettis the company that Stingly worked for, Um, they had first rider refusal. Absolutely, So he began working on some stuff on his own for fun. Uh in the ve he compressed into a ball this uh gooey substance, and um said, hey, this is pretty neat. This little synthetic rubber ball actually bounces quite a bit more than any ball I've ever seen before.

And I might be onto something, and by Lord, is still bouncing and bouncing and bouncing unless I throw it too hard and then it just comes apart, which is not good. No. No, the earliest Um, the earliest incarnation of the super Bowl. We just disintegrate when it hit the ground too hard. And that's actually stingly said, Okay, I gotta take this to my employer. He's you know what, I'll hand it to him. I would have totally tried to, like,

you know, I would set up a shell company. I would create a false person, yeah, with the fake social Security number, like Jackie Chan. What he's like, the one person who's been out in so far in the Panama papers? Oh really, Jackie Chan? No way, what'd he do? He hid money that he taxes and offshore shell companies. I haven't been keeping up with that lately. It's been a bit of a bus But I also have the impression that a bunch more stuff is coming. Well, hey, if

they got Jackie Chan, then it was all worthwhile. But that's what they got was poor Jackie Chan. He's probably looking around like really just me? Yeah, He's like, what about Wesley Snipes? Wesley SIPs is like they already got me. I'm doing Samsung commercials now? Is he really? Yeah, there's a really great Samsung commercial. Let's got all these like random stars and he's one of them, and he's like kind of making fun of himself a little bit. Boy. I bet he would love to hear that he's random

start num before. Uh all right, So he went to Bettus and, like a good dude, said I've made this thing. Let me show it to you. Uh you first rider refusal and they said no, that thing kind of stinks. Um, it bounces and it's kind of neat, but it I threw it hard and it broke. Yeah, what what kid's gonna want this? No kid could love you and they

spit on it. I wonder what the rules are though, with Like, I wonder if you could take a cruddy version, you know a little bit of like a shell game, take a poor version and say, what do you want this and then make it better afterwards after they refuse it, you know, because it's a whole episode in defrauding your employer. Well,

I mean that's sort of what ended up happening. Of course it wasn't on purpose, but he he then took it to the people that made the most sense in the world, the chiefs at Wammo, right, and where else would he take it? I mean, these dudes dick Ner and Arthur Melan melanur mel often confused with Larry Bud Melman or spud we. Uh. Yeah, I just didn't mind to meet him when I was a kid. Bud Mom, No, it's Bud Web. I could see that. Yeah, I was.

He was a big deal back then, but I had a knack for standing in line for meet and greet autograph sessions. Uh. Brett Butler the baseball player, Bob Gibson the baseball player, Dominique okay yes um. And Cheap Trick the payer. Yeah, I went to the record bar when I was like twelve and stood in Lyne to get my album autographed. Yeah, like a twelve year old fan boy does. And congratulations to Cheap Trick, by the way, for finally being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall

of Fame this year. Uh just happened this year? Huh just happened? Crazy. It's rock and Roll's greatest tragedy that it took this long agreed, long overdue. Uh so where was I? So he took it to WAMO and these dudes had made a mint selling the hula hoop, and um were they? They were the frisbee, but not the slinky. No. I think the slinky was its own company. I think that's another one we did too. Yeah, that's a good one.

So they said, this is kind of neat, but it doesn't work so great, so get to work on it. And he did, you want to take a break and talk about it some more. That's a nice cliffhanger, all right. So you said the last thing you said was knockoff, knockoff, And that means that someone said, hey, this thing is neat. And while there's a patent on that particular process to create that particular ball, you can't stop me from creating a bouncy ball of my own. Like M d M A is illegal, but m d M A plus ZPT

there's no law against that same same principle. I don't think that's true. I think it is all right. So it's like you can just take something and and adjust to add like a covalent bond or something like that, and it's still practically the same stuff. But on paper it's not the same thing, because if you go look at the Zectron patent, you're gonna see exactly the um the chemical description for it. And if you have something that's even just slightly different from it, it technically is

not the same thing. It's like vanilla ice adding the extra bass note to under pressure. Did he add an extra note? Yeah? Under pressure is doom doom doom do do doom, Doom doom doom doom doom do doo doom doom. I've never noticed that. Yeah, that was this whole deal. That's how he tried to get out of I thought it was all like music sampling. Was music sampling. He tried to pretend like it was different by adding a beat. Yes, And I don't remember how. I don't remember the result.

If he that either got him off or people said you jerk. I think I think people said you jerked, whether he was legally on the hook or not. And we'll get three emails explaining it all to us, maybe from Vanilla Ice himself. He has like a home renovation show now whips Houses. I've seen it, have you? I'm aware of it. No, I've never watched. No, I've watched like a couple of full episodes. You well. I mean I like the home RUNO shows, which is why I watched it. Not because I was a Vanilla Ice fan.

So I was just curious and it you know, it wasn't It was kind of like all the rest. It was nothing different because it was him. So he's not like a larger than life personality or anything. It's not like a Flavor Flavor home runof he was. He was just sort of normal. And he didn't like, you know, they didn't make it super. He didn't like show up to this site and say, hey, stop collaborate and listen everyone. That would have been really cheesy. That is all I

would say if I were him. Um, but you know, he was Vanilla Ice. He like, we're gonna make this pool so fly, like you're not gonna believe it. It's gonna be dope. Uh. All right, So let's get back to the knockoffs. People started making these things obviously, it's gonna put a debt because they were a little bit cheaper. Yeah, by like yeah, and you get out of a gun

machine like super easily. And you know, back in the nineties sixties, of a parent could pay a quarter for something or a dollar for something, they would probably, you know, pick the cheaper one. Parents never changed. My parents would have parents just don't understand. Yeah, I used to where um nights of the round table clothes? Do you remember those? The Polo knockoff? Yeah, my mom would be like, you can't even tell it's a flag. I'd be like, everybody

can tell it's a flag. Instead of the club I wore this. I had the knockoff that wasn't the Eyesod alligator. It was a gecko. I remember that. Yeah, I'm just kidding. Well, you got me on that one. Maybe there was, I don't know. Yeah, there was definitely an ISA knockoff. Oh yeah there was, But I don't think it was a lizard. Well was it? Was it a dragon? I do remember. I totally remember an ISA knockoff. The dragon though, I think was its own like cool thing. Maybe all I

know is that I didn't buy those. What I would get was the the polo that the collar was sown wrong or something. Oh, so you get like the real polo. But it was like a what do they call them remnants or something like you know, there's an factory defects. Yeah, factory defects because there was a place, a store that sold them, and that's we were there a lot. I got ones. They were just fine. They were just total knockoffs,

which is better. I wonder a developed factory defected because what kid's gonna be like your callers, just slightly misstitched. I think the factory defects that right, Um, kids like Josh is poor he's wearing a Knight's T shirt Knights of the Round Table. But I could also be like, so are you None of us were wearing polo stuffinitely all wearing Knights of the Round Table, so it didn't matter.

So the super ball knockoffs, but a big dent. And uh, they were, like I said, usually a little bit smaller. The regular super ball um was one point eight seven five inches and if by comparison, you've ever held a raccketball, that's about two point two five inches. Oh yeah, okay, a little smaller than rocket. You got it. I like the plumb comparison because it was also the color of a plum. Yeah it's dark, yeah, like purple or black, right, and in said made with amazing zectron. Yeah, which was

a big you know, that was a big draw. Uh. So let's talk about how cool this thing was. It wasn't just a bouncy ball. And we keep saying was there're still around? Yeah, but I mean at the time when people were all aware of super balls, Like even Jerry was like, I don't know what that is. Do you know what it is? Yet? Is it ring a bell? She made her fingers in the shape of a circle,

a plum plump size, a little smaller than the racket ball. Uh. The cool thing about these well, there's a lot of cool things, but one thing is how high it would bounce. It had it would bounce back. They would claim a resilience of So if you just drop it from twelve inches onto something hard like a desk, it would bounce back ten inches. Then on the second bounce nine point seven to third bounce eight point seven five on down,

which is remarkable. It is it had a high coefficient of restitution, that's right, and it would conserve its elastic energy which is basically like the amount of kinetic energy that's preserved once an object is deformed and then reforms back to its original shape. Yeah, because when it hits that desk, if you took a snapshot of that or a slow motion high speed shot, you know it flat and out right. It does a little bit, sure, and

when it flattens out. The reason it doesn't have a hundred percent um coefficient of restitution or uh what was it what was it called resilience, Yeah, or why it doesn't have a d percent because when it drops, when it deforms and hits a surface, it um a little bit of heat energy is released as it deforms. Yeah, So that so it loses there's a little bit of energy loss, ten percent energy loss every time it strikes a surface. Yeah, like when we did this episode recently

on crumple zones. Like if something hits something else, there's gonna be a loss of energy. Uh. And in this case, um, it was lost as heat like you said, But because it's so elastic, it retains a lot of its kinetic energy. Like a bowling ball, when you drop it, it might

bounce a little bit. It retains a tab bit of kinetic energy but it just places it pretty quickly, so it might bounce like just you know, an inch and then now a quarter inch and then nothing like the one drunk guy at the bowling alley that throws it like fifteen ft down the lane before it hits the floor. Yeah, it'll usually bounce like one time. Right, you can also do that if you're not drunk. I can tell you, Yeah, what's the purpose there? I don't get it. I've never

got that. What slinging the bowling ball down that far? It's just totally accidental. Okay for me, it's always been accidental. I thought it was like watch this, Oh well, yeah, then you're just a drunk guy, Like, who's a jerk? You need to go home? Your thumb gets stuck, yeah, or something like that, or just you know, forget to release at the right moment, that kind of thing and it just goes up. And then, yeah, we're not good bowlers. I think that's a better way to put in. I've

had a couple of good games in my life. I actually took a bowling class in seventh grade or eighth grade. Yeah, I did too. That's when I get hooked on Starburst. Did really Yeah, there's this vending machine in it, like the Starburst just look perfect in it. And every time I would just buy Starburst and then I can go back and buy more Starburst. You would go to the bowling alley for the class. Dude, are bowling? Class was in the gym, like they would just set up bowling

pins and put tape down on the floor. Everybody's bowling in their factory defect polo shirts and eyes I knockoffs, and then you had to take turns setting up the pins by hand. No, we went to like South Wake Lanes and Woe that's crazy. Had a venue Michie was Starburst kids sneaking beer and stuff. No, they didn't. We were good kids. That's good at least at that age. Good Toledo kids Tolden's to Ladians, Toledo white ians. What, oh, Toledo owens. You're just making stuff up. Toledo pens, I

think is what they're called. They're going to take back your key to the city. I never got that guy gave up. I wonder how he's doing. There's a guy everybody, I guess we can let you in on this private conversation right right now. There's a guy who was an early fan of stuff you should know who decided that it was his mission to see to it that I

got the key to the city of Toledo. Wonderful. He really tried, Yeah, I mean yeah, he was a nice guy for sure, but he would harass the Congresswoman Marcy Captor, who was a former Toledo mayor, and like everybody could really really tried, it didn't happen. You need someone higher up on the chain to be a fan. Yeah, but hats off to that guy. He was nice. I don't

remember his name, but he was a good guy. Yeah. Alright, So should we talk a little bit about the Polly Beute tad d N me how did you say it? Polly Beuta dying polly beta dye. So those are three things. The beaute beaut four part carbon chain h E N E double bond d I too, right, So beaut beauta dyne by itself, it's just a compound for carbon chain double he looks two double bonds, right, Do people care? Really? There's some chemists guy out there's like, yeah, no, I

mean they superballs are all over science class. Oh yeah, they really are, and not just because they are amazing chemically or their need at least chemically, I don't know. I'm impressed by it, right, um, but also the physics of them, not just their co of coefficient of UM restitution and their elasticity, but also they have another UM coefficient of friction. Yeah, this is pretty cool. It's like

totally um different than their their elasticity. They have a surface that basically grips whatever surface or object that's thrown onto, and it grips it so hard that the surface can spin it a different way. So if you throw a super Bowl with some backspin at an angle, it will basically hit the ground and spin back towards you. It changes its spin because it's there. There's so much friction. Yeah.

And if you get a super Bowl and you are in a room with nothing breakable, uh, and you start spinning and bouncing that thing, you never know where it's gonna go. Never know because not only does it have a high horizontal or vertical bounce, has an equally good horizontal bounce as well. It's just a neat little thing. And that's it. That is it. I think that's it. You got anything else? Now you've seen one in physics class. If you have a fun professor, you probably bought a

Super Bowl in there and taught you things. And if you don't, there's plenty of videos on YouTube that you can watch. So hats off to Norman Stingly. Thank you Norman for the Super Bowl. Uh. If you want to know more about super Bowls, you can type that word in the search bart how stuff works dot com. And since I said search bars, time for listening. Now I'm gonna call this dark meat. Hey, guys, web the podcast. Um, you've probably got a hundred emails about this. Actually, David Hill,

we got one from you. I just finished listening to the true stories of survival cannibalism. Uh, and you guys explain the difference between dark and white meat is the amount of blood vessels. Not true. All muscles require the same blood supply for respiration and nutrition. Just so you know, the main reason for the color differences in the content of myoglobin. My globin is a richly pigmented protein that has used to store oxygen and cells. The more my globin,

the darker redder the meat will appear. Red meat is muscle fibers that are used or were used for long and durance activities and are classified as slow twitch muscle fibers. They needed constant supply boxygen to keep up their constant activity, so they have hired my I Globin concentration in white meat. White beat, on the other hand, is comprised of past which fibers. These are used for quick burst of energy followed by a moment of breast like a flapping of

a wing. Best to you, David Hill. Thanks a that, David. That's how we like our corrections, Sybil to the point, what did we get wrong? I don't remember that. That was because of more blood vessels. Okay, in the in the meat, in the muscle. I see, I have it well, Thanks David. If you want to correct us, you can send us an email. This stuff podcast at how stuffworks dot com. You can also hang out with us on social media a s y SK podcast on Twitter and

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