3TB Shorts 17: The Shortest Wars, Non-expiring Honey and Things that Happen in 3s

[00:00:00] So we are back this time with another set of shots and it is getting increasingly difficult

[00:00:19] to think of new things to say.

[00:00:21] So I thought I'll take some time out and you know like all great thinkers sit back and

[00:00:26] ponder and I started pondering about 3 Techies Banter and the number 3 and then I realized

[00:00:32] lot of thing happened, lots of things happened in threes.

[00:00:35] You know there are the 3 Musketeers, there are the 3 little pigs, 3 wise monkeys and strangely

[00:00:42] enough Nilesh would like to know that even of course in maths also you know that 3 is

[00:00:46] the prime number and 3 is the only number which occurs twice in the Fibonacci series.

[00:00:54] So if you know the Fibonacci it's 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5 so basically you have to add 3

[00:01:00] So like 3, so then I realized oh no wonder we called ourselves 3 Techies Banter.

[00:01:05] Anyway, yeah, anyway.

[00:01:08] And as I kept thinking and thinking I came upon of course you know I'm a big fan of

[00:01:13] this 3-body problem so I said let me dig a little deeper and see whether there is

[00:01:18] any truth in this.

[00:01:19] So lo and behold somebody has actually done this experiment okay in 2009 two researchers

[00:01:26] ran this simulation of the solar system and they ran 2000 simulations of planetary positions.

[00:01:35] So they took the planets positions today and said where will these planets be 5 billion

[00:01:41] years from now okay and in each of the permutations calculation they varied the

[00:01:49] distance of the sun to Mercury by less than 1 millimeter okay.

[00:01:55] So every time in the 2000s they changed that.

[00:01:58] So this is really interesting so what happened was at the end of the 2000 simulations in

[00:02:02] 1% of the calculations Mercury actually goes and crashes into the sun or it crashes

[00:02:08] into Venus and in one calculation just because of this movement the whole solar

[00:02:14] system actually goes into disarray which means just by this 1 millimeter variation

[00:02:19] of Mercury to Sun the whole solar system goes dispersed.

[00:02:23] So then I started reading up this history of this 3-body problem so apparently this

[00:02:27] is a scientific fact that you can only estimate the gravitational force of two bodies.

[00:02:35] The moment you introduce a third body apparently there are so many variables that you can't

[00:02:40] even estimate it so that's why my thinking really ended because I thought you know

[00:02:44] let me not go any further than this and drive myself nuts.

[00:02:51] So somebody's actually done a whole TED talk on this that you know what would happen

[00:02:55] if Alpha Centuries strayed into the path of our Sun and this but then finally the

[00:03:01] video concluded that we are safe for the next 100 million years.

[00:03:05] I said woof thank God and that's how it ended.

[00:03:09] So your thinking and thinking reminded me I'm a big fan of Vinny the Poong right

[00:03:17] and I love him because he does everything that I would never do which is sit in one

[00:03:22] place and wonder, do nothing, eat, be happy.

[00:03:26] Vinny the Poong must have been a Bengali.

[00:03:30] So Vinny the Poong would not say things he would say I thunk and I thunk and I

[00:03:34] thunk and I think that's what you did.

[00:03:37] That's what it was.

[00:03:38] But my worry is that when I think I found that other people have thought of this

[00:03:45] before which is even more worth it.

[00:03:47] So you just thunk about it don't think.

[00:03:50] So after a very contextual fun fact around the number three I thought of something

[00:03:59] different in terms of you know I thought let me look up wars and if there were some

[00:04:05] wars that were kind of won by chance or by some miracle or accident two, three

[00:04:12] So multiple came up I mean so I'll talk about probably two.

[00:04:16] One so first one is quite interesting actually so it's called miracle of Empel.

[00:04:22] So this was during the 80 year war and the 80 year war was fought for 80 years

[00:04:28] apparently 1568 to 1648 and this war was between the Dutch rebels and the Spanish

[00:04:35] government.

[00:04:36] Again the Catholic protestant stuff against reform reformation centralization

[00:04:42] taxation stuff like that.

[00:04:44] So during this war and winter of 1585 you know some of the Spanish tertios the

[00:04:53] regiment and they were led by commanded by a person called Francisco Bobadilla and

[00:04:58] they were stationed in north of the cold area north of Netherlands and they were

[00:05:05] completely surrounded by Dutch rebels you know they on ship and they had

[00:05:10] infantry so they were surrounded and the Dutch guys offered these Spanish

[00:05:16] guys surrender right and it seems that the Spanish I won't be able to say it

[00:05:22] in Spanish but the immortal words were spoken that Spanish soldiers

[00:05:26] prefer death to dishonor we'll talk about surrender after death and all

[00:05:30] that stuff.

[00:05:31] So the siege began and you know the rebels were doing everything perfect you

[00:05:35] know the Dutch rebels they had bigger numbers and they were surrounded

[00:05:39] Spanish these guys were completely doomed I mean the Spanish guys led by

[00:05:43] Bobadilla so he knew they are going to lose and he told the guys to do

[00:05:50] the last bit of digging a trench creating some kind of at least delay

[00:05:54] the Dutch advances.

[00:05:58] So one of the soldiers while digging found a picture of Mary of the

[00:06:04] immaculate conception you know and suddenly the morale was boosted you

[00:06:08] know they said no this is a sign of God and they were happy they said no

[00:06:13] I think we are not doomed and all that stuff so the overall morale went

[00:06:18] up as the night fell you know the temperature kept dropping you know and

[00:06:24] it dropped to the extent that the waters around this place that the fort

[00:06:30] where Spanish were hiding it was completely frozen and the Dutch

[00:06:35] rebel naval army was completely trapped in frozen waters these guys

[00:06:39] walked over the frozen lake and one of the very few cases where

[00:06:43] infantry defeated Navy you know the Spaniards literally walked over

[00:06:50] ice and and butchered the Dutch rebels won the war and I mean it was very

[00:06:57] interesting that one of the Dutch admirals later on said that I think

[00:07:01] the God is Spanish because this was like this is known as the miracle of

[00:07:06] MPL and and that the territory was won by the Spaniards so that was

[00:07:11] It seems yeah that Mary of the immaculate conception became the the

[00:07:19] saint of that town and they worship her till now and all that stuff so this was

[00:07:25] one the second one is very interesting at this war right this is

[00:07:28] World War two it's it's right in your domain Samir and this is a war where

[00:07:33] I'll tell you so a US naval destroyer you know accidentally came very close

[00:07:41] in close proximity to Japanese ship and it was not planned and they saw oh

[00:07:45] Japanese ship so they were frantically trying to mount weapons this US naval

[00:07:51] destroyer trying to mount weapons and you know start attacking so someone

[00:07:57] decided you know in this panic that let me throw potatoes at the Spanish

[00:08:03] ship okay and actually it worked so Japanese were stunned they thought

[00:08:08] these are grenades and they started throwing potatoes back which were

[00:08:11] thrown here so it was a small potato fight that happened which gave the

[00:08:16] destroyer time to mount the weapons and actually you know win that small

[00:08:24] skirmish I'll say so these are potato wars for you.

[00:08:30] This is very strange actually so you know so this is not as funny but

[00:08:37] when there was this battle of Constantinople and this Mahmud was

[00:08:41] fighting whatever you know the last Christian member so you know there

[00:08:45] was this whole gulf at concert and there was a big chain that guarded it

[00:08:48] and the Ottoman Empire Navy was on the other side so this Mahmud

[00:08:53] apparently I mean it's a historical fact that he cut all the trees and

[00:08:56] he hauled the ships over some mountains and he got the ships and

[00:09:01] landed it inside this bay so suddenly it was on this side of the chain and this is a

[00:09:08] fact I mean it's crazy military strategy potatoes and anything can

[00:09:12] happen. You know just to add to your war fits and don't ask me the details

[00:09:18] but I remember reading somewhere that the shortest war lasted for some 38 minutes

[00:09:25] okay it was between Britain and Zanzibar and I think I'm not sure

[00:09:30] of the dates but I'm assuming in the 1800s sometimes and sometime it was

[00:09:34] there where imagine putting up a token resistance to British army just 38 minutes

[00:09:45] okay the movie wasn't even made. 38 minutes is the shortest war.

[00:09:53] Maybe the Zanzibar folks went on a coffee break or something they said

[00:09:58] Okay, see you at the time or something.

[00:10:00] It's not going to be like that. God only knows. I don't remember the details but I just remember it being the shortest war.

[00:10:07] Anyway so just kind of within this conversation a bit I came up with a very banal

[00:10:14] shorts and being the Gujarati that I am sweet is something that we all love

[00:10:20] right so with high tomoche but nowadays sugar and all of that shit so I was reading up on honey

[00:10:27] and then I figured that if you naturally preserve honey then it has no expiry date

[00:10:34] so I don't know if anything happens to honey when you have a clear bomb

[00:10:40] but I suppose it will be nothing happens to me.

[00:10:45] So I mean I think honeys and cockroaches will kind of just be like living together.

[00:10:49] The cockroaches will have the honey they will have some food to eat

[00:10:54] so it's quite funny and I keep thinking you know people take sugar and all of that but

[00:11:02] honey has sugar content and it has a very low pH and also the bees make honey in a certain way

[00:11:09] so because of that organisms don't survive in honey so if you have pure honey of course

[00:11:16] you'll take this beauty stuff with sugar in it it's not going to help but if you have pure honey

[00:11:22] which you make sure that it cannot be contaminated which means it's in sealed bottles or cans or

[00:11:28] whatever then it can live forever. In fact they found honey in Egyptian tombs and they found it

[00:11:36] in that. So in the interest of getting some sponsorship I have to tell you that Pondagad

[00:11:42] honey which is available in Mayim is very good maybe somebody will listen and sponsor

[00:11:49] us. So on that sweet and happy note and some sponsorship appeals we end this another

[00:11:59] funny edition of Shorts I hope you like our Shorts.