When 4,000 guests were banned
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- Опубликовано: 3 окт 2024
- Ruth Amos and Shawn Brown ('Kids Invent Stuff') and Daniel Peake face a question about some party poopers.
LATERAL is a weekly podcast about interesting questions and even more interesting answers, hosted by Tom Scott. For business enquiries, contestant appearances or question submissions, visit www.lateralcas...
GUESTS:
Ruth Amos: @KidsInventStuff, / ruthamos
Shawn Brown: @KidsInventStuff, / shawnmakes
Daniel Peake: / quizzydan
HOST: Tom Scott.
QUESTION PRODUCER: David Bodycombe.
RECORDED AT: The Podcast Studios, Dublin.
EDITED BY: Julie Hassett.
GRAPHICS: Chris Hanel at Support Class. Assistant: Dillon Pentz.
MUSIC: Karl-Ola Kjellholm ('Private Detective'/'Agrumes', courtesy of epidemicsound.com).
FORMAT: Pad 26 Limited/Labyrinth Games Ltd.
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: David Bodycombe and Tom Scott.
© Pad 26 Limited (www.pad26.com) / Labyrinth Games Ltd. 2024. 
Развлечения
"The only winning move is not to play."
"Sometimes the only way to defeat evil is to deny it battle."
- Some kid on Stargate SG-1
@@1TakoyakiStore Shifu, apparently.
A better winning move is to recognize this, ban it from being for private profit, and make it serve the people that feeds it (their victims). Why are clear private gambling scams (exploitation) still allowed in so many places if it's really "by the will of, and for, the people"?
When I've heard 'April 1986 physicists' I was sure it is related to Chernobyl disaster somehow
“You physicists aren’t welcome here! The last time you came, you caused a nuclear meltdown in the Ukraine!”
I was born in February 1986, so that's always my first thought
I was thinking the challenger disaster
I though that until they said Vegas. The big conference about Chernobyl was in Vienna.
I was thinking that too
Ok that News Headline the following day was brilliant as it makes it look like the physicists knew how to win at gambling.
The only way to win is not to play.
The problem (for the hotels) is that physicists go to these meetings for the physics, not for the shenanigans. If they didn't gamble, it was because they were busy attending or giving talks, not only that they knew better than to gamble.
I'd say a bit of both played a role here.
Well, presumably the expectation for other professional conventions is that they will partake in the nightlife after all the talks are over for the day or in between talks.
Anyone who's ever been to a professional conference or convention in vegas knows that plenty of people still gamble after hours.
Hah! Most days, after the talks, its off to the bars, restaurants, local whatever (and then we proceed to talk physics there).
I knew this because Brandon Sanderson recently talked about going to Vegas with his extended family. They gave him a massive discount on the presidential suite thinking they'd gamble, but they're all LDS members.
Which episode was this on?
What's LDS?
@@berandomisme latter day saints, also known as mormons
At a certain point I had assumed that the physicists had conspired to invent some ingenious way to absolutely clean out the casino coffers using math. I'm sad I was wrong, because that would have been enormously funny.
Reminds me of a book I had as a child. It was based on that Nickelodeon show "The Secret World of Alex Mack", about a girl who's exposed to experimental chemicals and gains the superpower of being able to turn into a mobile, sentient puddle of mercury at will.
But the relevant part is, in the book I had, her father (a mathematician) gets kidnapped for discovering a formula that can accurately predict the outcome of seemingly random events. I forget who kidnapped him, but they wanted to use his formula to win at roulette and make bank.
I feel like that would have been a major issue with the organizers.
Around the same time there were American families that realized that those hotels are dirt cheap (for what they are) and the desert is really nice spot for a family outing looking at nature.
But the casinos has since changed the rules and they only give room discounts to returning addicts that they know will spend too much money in the casino instead of having a great holiday in the beautiful Nevada desert.
oh yeah, you only get your room 'comped' if you're a 'player'.
It's sort of like peanuts at the pub. They used to be free, to entice people to drink more. Then the pubs realised people will happily pay for the peanuts, so there's no need to give them away. Similar concept with hotel rooms, they used to be cheap to entice people to visit and gamble, then they realised people will happily pay through the nose to visit Vegas, so there's no need for the rooms to be cheap.
@@JoelMatton Used to give you free parking at casinos, not any more. Gone are the cheap, yet acceptable quality, buffets too. Also the original scam was the room safe fee they'd tack onto your room, even if you had no idea there was a safe in the room, more lately that has morphed into a "resort fee" just to tack a bit extra per night to your stay. Mind you none of these are specific to Las Vegas, but more the hotel industry as a whole.
There was a very famous illegal brothel owner in Edinburgh (early 2000s I think) who said that the time that they were busiest was when the Church of Scotland had its annual assembly / convention!
I’m pretty sure that it was also the time of the Edinburgh festival, but it’s an interesting “fact”.
"Said the strumpet to the bishop" indeed.
"Look, they keep telling me not to do it every other day of the year; I may as well party *now* while we're all here!"
"The year was 1986"
Me, immediately: oh, right, so it was just after the Chernobyl incident that they gathered up to discuss the damages, but then that area became unhabitable and no one could hold conventions there anymore. That was easy.
*Proceeds to be the most wrong I've been my whole life*
As soon as they said Vegas my thought was "Nevada test site, there was some presentation on damage in the area and it bummed out/panicked all the regular guests." That was wrong too.
The physicists I knew in college partied pretty hard. I also have one inside story from the Manhattan Project. A friend of mine was the son of Robert Serber and got stories from him. Apparently, one night they were all drunk and decided to prove once and for all that the light in the fridge turns off when you close the door.
They took everything out of the fridge and put a world renown physicist inside (I don't know which one). He confirmed that the light did, in fact, turn off.
If he fits in a high school locker, he certainly would fit in a refrigerator.
These days someone would just start recording video on their phone and put it in the fridge to check. Advantage of not needing to empty the fridge, disadvantage of being a lame story.
@@myladycasagrande863 They had already invented enough new things I think. This was a nice simple puzzle.
If you look through the gap really well, you can see the light turning off as the door is shut.
@@shambhav9534 But you need to not be seeing double for that solution :)
I'm on the board of directors for a convention held in a casino hotel. This is absolutely true. They have restrictions on when we can have an event there because our attendees don't gamble enough.
As soon as they said Vegas ....
I was actually expecting exactly the opposite. That so many of them would be good card counters that they're asked not to return.
@@JimCullen Yea, kind of the same. That they were so good at predicting Roulette results and stuff that the casinos basically told them to never come back.
My mind made a stop at card counting, and possibly a panel on how to use physics to cheat.
I got this as soon as Tom said convention cities.
Figured it out from this clue. Took me a few minutes though.
I think I heard the story before at some point.
I know some people who gamble fairly regularly, and they all pride themselves on how little they lose each time... not how much they win.
Thing about Rube Goldberg machines, they rarely work. Even Goldberg's own machines had to be restarted multiple times during filming.
Goldberg was a cartoonist and had never built his machines; he only drew them in the 1920-30s and has thus become their namesake. His designs were impractical to build, as they contained live animals (including a severely scaled down live blue whale), a sharp sickle launched in the air with pyrotechnics to cut a cord and other funny but entirely unfeasible stuff. You're probably conflating his name and a number of films and TV series where the rube-goldberg machines were in fact featured.
There are a few more or less annual competitions, one of them organised by no less than the Rube Goldberg Institute (in particular, their assigned goal for this year competition was to squeeze toothpaste on the brush). “Rarely” is perhaps true of single-use props constructed for filming, but oh boy don't they work when built competitively!
Okay, where can one see *that* Rube Goldberg machine that's been discussed?
ruclips.net/video/D-JQ9ZpbZh0/видео.html
a "Rube-Goldberg Machine" is a mechanism or appliance either designed by the cartoonist in question, or in his style. It would be an enormous, overly-complicated mechanical device that performs a relatively minor task; like say a house-sized bird's nest of gears, pulleys, steam boilers, treadmills, gantries and struts, moving and working in a cacophony of noise and motion, all to stir your tea for you as you add milk and sugar. NOT to *add* the milk and sugar itself, but only to stir the tea for you so it's mixed evenly; and it's actuated by your hand-movements; actuators would be strapped to your arms, to trigger the machine.
Often there'd be completely unrelated components worked into it - like the aforementioned tea-stirrer, it might have a sub-machine might be activated by something else of lifting a glass cover from a piece of fragrant cheese, thereby attracting a mouse trapped inside a 'hamster ball' on a track, and as the mouse rolls the ball toward the cheese to get at it, a switch on the track would be flipped, which would release a paper airplane - the reason for this is a steam kettle was lit the same time as the mouse-cheese device, and once the mouse has moved to actuate the paper airplane, the current of hot air coming out of the kettle would lift the paper airplane in its path to allow it to strike another switch, which would...etc. etc.
I hope you get the idea behind it; humorously unnecessary complexity in a supposed 'labor-saving device'.
@@empath69dummy. He's asking about the specific BBC one
"ONE SHOW demonstration of Rube Goldberg machine" here on YT is the one I think.
@@FiXato Seems that's the one, thanks! :)
Now if only one could post a link to a different, *five year old* RUclips video here without RUclips shadowbanning it - I know, what a concept...
That's interesting, because last year's American Physical Society's (March) Meeting was again held in Vegas...
That’s odd
They probably didn't get any discounts this time though
Casino's in Vegas don't comp the rooms much anymore like they used to, resort fees are still stupid high even if you get cheap rooms, and right now Vegas will do ANYTHING to get people visiting the city.
There's a proper Convention Center now, so probably there are hotels around it that aren't (primarily) casinos.
The idea of gambling on whether or not a given Rube Goldberg machine works after the first, second, or third time it's set is actually kind of brilliant! It would certainly get the physicists gambling. Because they would know that it _should_ work, from what they can see of the workings. But there's also Murphy's Law, quantum mechanics, and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle at play. :P
They should count themselves lucky. That number of specialists in electromagnetics could have driven the pit bosses potty.
It's like mechanical def con
@@valentinabell4263 As Shakespeare put it, "rude mechanicals".
So... the obvious thought is, are there any conclusions you can draw about groups that do keep getting invited back to Vegas, the ones that hotels are delighted to see return?
I instantly remembered Neil talking about it on the Dropouts Podcast
Which also tells gamblers something. Love it
I’d bet a lot to say they’ve definitely done a city-wide Rube Goldberg machine somewhere in the Netherlands
This episode caused me to find out Wilf Lunn passed away last December. I looked him up because he had a period of being Britain's top creator of Rube Goldberg machines
I'm 63 and I've lived in Vegas all my life. My father worked at the MGM from as Technical Director from conception design until it became Bally's in 1986 !!! When the sale was going through in 1985, he continued in design and he helped, once again, to build the new MGM. This was such a non story, I don't even remember it. And now we have casinoless and this would Never happen again. Plenty of people come here for concerts, sports, and big shows and never gamble. 38 years later, I'll contact our mayor to make sure they get an invite. Between the Mayor Goodman and her husband the former Mayor Goodman, they have been Mayor for 25 years and she is up to her term limit.
That 5-in-one opener looks like it would be great for older people or anyone with mobility issues.
And here I was thinking it had something to do with Chernobyl.
Challenger, for me. Though, that was earlier in the year
Botched opportunities by that hotel, just make them bet on which theory is correct and stuff, much more likely to get them going that way.
That is the most reality show-esque thing to have happened in real life 😂
Is Ruth's chair covered in
LEgo
I don't know about Ruth's chair, but Shawn's seems to be.
Brits talking about "Rube Goldberg machines" is disappointing when "Heath Robinson" is right there!
Was about to comment the same
before I forget, for the Chris question: he wasn't flying, he was falling!
I would have had to sit out of that one as I already knew it.
I was thinking it surely had something to do with the challenger disaster
If you rule out physics, you rule out everything.
I did wonder if they turned the city's ring-road into a particle collider.
I was expecting an ending of "the cleared the bank those friggin nerds" :P
love the format ❤ love you guys ❤
As a member of APS, I knew immidiately what this story was, even though it happened before I was born. It's infamous within the physics community. Although recently APS went back to Vegas for one of their big meetings.
I used to attend The Amazing Meeting (a skeptics conference) in Las Vegas some years back. Gambling tends to somewhat rare among skeptics so I'm sure they lost money on us.
I've had a stats professor tell me a story very similar to this. If you know all the probabilities, gambling is actually really boring.
When I get Tom's newsletter each week, I look down it and think, 'seen that, seen that, seen that...Tom inhabits much the same slice of internet that I do, so like Tom I knew this one.
They should consider themselves lucky they didn't host a Mathematicians' convention. Those guys would find a way to clear all their Blackjack tables.
Lesson learned: never allow people into a casino who actually understand probability 😂
Yeah, I knew about this one too. Brilliant. 😄
After 2021, the MGM Grand should have let the physicists come back, as they weren't the worst thing to happen to that venue.
I was thinking it might be to do with Chernobyl, because that meltdown was in April 1986
Honestly I’m proud. My kinda crowd, even though I’m not an academic nor math whizz.
I suspect a convention of Tom Scott fans would yield a similar result.
A major cyber security conference had to relocate this year for similar reasons.
I was thinking it was a April 1 joke.
I bet a society of mathematicians wouldn’t be welcomed either…
As soon as i saw the date in the question 😂
"Physicists in Town, Lowest Casino Take Ever." There can be two reasons for a low take, maybe they won too much. Card counting, dice manipulation, sleight of hand/magnets with roulette???
Once again, a clip i'd love to find is 2:43. Sounds fascinating!
It's linked on a few of the other comments.
Dear Ruth,
You built a Heath-Robinson machine.
Sincerely,
Britain.
Dear Britain,
Lol.
Sincerely,
Europe
Yeah I knew this one too. Very enjoyable though. One of those things that make you think.
Never tell me the odds
See, my guess was a large number did still gamble, but knew the statistical math, resulting in the casinos being slammed by like 50-60 card counters at a time for the entire duration of the convention.
They lifted the "ban" last year.
0:14 *Potential spoiler alert*
I think I know this story - its where a bunch of physicists went to a hotel in Las Vegas for a conference. The hotel hoped to make a load of money from them gambling during the event, but no-one did because all of the physicists understood probability theory because of their job (thus realising that gambling would just lost them money), meaning that the hotel made a massive loss from the lack of income and asked the physicists to not come back.
EDIT - I was absolutely correct - go me!
Can I put in a plea for the memory of Heath Robinson?
what happens in vegas is supposed to stay in vegas, but they broke that rule by sharing their research and going back home to spread the knowledge!
Back then gambling paid for everything. Food was cheap so was gas , drinks ect. Now that almost every state has gambling Vegas is a tourist trap.
This is an urban legend with no supporting evidence.
Details of the newspaper headline in first source:
web.archive.org/web/20180307215557/www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/199908/knowledge.cfm
qz.com/work/1249513/was-a-convention-of-physicists-really-banned-from-las-vegas
web.archive.org/web/20180304110139/physicsbuzz.physicscentral.com/2015/09/one-winning-move.html
Ruth got stuck making jokes and forgot to attempt the game 😅
Am I the only one who's never heard of a Rube Goldberg machine? I was so confused for the entire first half of the video!
2:43 WE DOING IT LIVE
If they gambled could been card counting
I knew this instantly
APS went back to Vegas in 2023 btw
This feels familiar, is this the one where they went to las vegas and nobody gambled I wonder?
Tom is airbrushed on that promo pic to a Hello magazine standard.
Initial thoughts: because "American" refers to the whole continent, and not only the United Statians of America. So the real APS had legal pressure coming from the conflict with the USAPS? Perhaps because it was held on USA ground?
Once the city was found, the reason was obvious :)
Oh. Pripyat?
I think I know the answer. I think it has to do with the knowledge of probability. Bingo !
Tom: please pin a comment without spoilers! The top comment is almost always about the answer.
We've tried that before, and unfortunately it only works on certain platforms. -- David
I just watch the video first and read the comments afterwards.
Unfortunately on mobile which I watch on, they cycle through different comments in the preview
@@jetkirbythat is new and i hate it and no setting to turn that of as far as i can see
You can make a lot of money gambling in Vegas. Just build a casino.
Sure I remember a clip of Neil deGrasse Tyson talking about this
As a good scientist, I decided to google this just to confirm if it was true, and was able to find records that showed that at least since 1994, Las Vegas had never hosted an APS meeting UNTIL 2023 when the March meeting (but not the annual meeting) was in fact held there.
I'm guessing this unofficial ban may very well have been true at one point but was eventually forgotten with anybody involved in the decision having died or retired since.
Now lets see if their memories have been jogged and track how long until the next meeting that will be held in Sin City! 🤑
Yeah, I ran some searches as well and couldn't find anything that said more than "funny story, not sure it actually happened though"
Details of the newspaper headline are here: web.archive.org/web/20180307215557/www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/199908/knowledge.cfm
Spoiler.
.
.
.
I'm disappointed. 1986? APRIL 1986?! And no Chernobyl connection?
Why was buffalo ny used for the thumbnail?
Misdirection
Because "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo"
Buffalo (Wyoming) has a population of about 4000, and there's a big NOT sign next to it, the question is about about 4000 people not from there.
I know this because Neil DeGrasse Tyson mentioned this in an interview
☝️
Chernobyl?
I figured they didn't want 4000 card counters...
My suspicion was that they did gamble... and being physicists, broke the system.
The games are set up so that the house always wins. Believe that is called the "house edge" in some games.
@@jamesphillips2285 The games are set up so that the law of big numbers means the house wins more than it loses against regular players. There are also legit or less legit ways to beat the system, and using them will result in you banned from the casino (or even all the casinos). Card counting, camera streaming to a computer in roulette (it's nowhere near to 100% successful but it improves your odds just enough to cancel the house advantage), and more. Not outright illegal but casino reserves the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason and they will ban you if you start winning too much.
@@jamesphillips2285 I think you're falling for the reverse of 'either you win or you lose, so the chances are 50-50'. The house edge varies between a couple percent in card games, dice, roulette up to something like 20% in slot machines. That's per game of course so the longer you play the worse your chances, but if you can shift the chance by even a little bit (more than the house edge), you start winning more than losing.
But even if you don't have a 'system', there's nothing stopping you from walking into a casino, getting $100 worth of chips, betting it all at once on red in roulette - and in 47.4% cases doubling your $100, cashing it out and never going back. You won $100, the house lost $100. Of course it will win much more and lose much less from other players over the course of the evening, but individually you vs them, you won $100.
Ruth ❤❤❤