Short Stuff: Firewalking

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 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 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 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 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.

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

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 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 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

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, 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 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 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 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

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

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. 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 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 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

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 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 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, 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 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

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. 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, 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, 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.

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, 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 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 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, 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.