A Problem Squared

📺 How long would it take to watch all of YouTube?
🪧 How can you make an interesting public display board without damaging the walls?
🏖️ And we have Any Other Beachness (it’s a bit windy and a bit crabby)

Head to our BlueSky/Twitter/Instagram to see Matt and Bec’s differing experiences of the solar eclipse.

Here’s Count Binface and Matt the Count Binface Count Agent getting papped in Clacton: https://tinyurl.com/2h7apka7 
And here's Matt's Stand-Up Maths video - Can Count Binface win? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zn1pGRgEoo
If you like the sound of David Elms Describes A Room, you can find out more here: ⁠https://www.davidelmsdescribesaroom.com/⁠ 

Here are the places to go for a deep dive into YouTube Stats:
https://tubestats.org/ 
Counting YouTube Videos via Random Prefix Sampling: https://dl.acm.org/doi/epdf/10.1145/2068816.2068851 
A Transparent, Replicable, and Large-Scale Census of YouTube Channels and their Subscriber Counts Over Time https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.06999 

Do you have a problem for Bec and Matt to solve? Tell us about it: https://www.aproblemsquared.com/ 

Matt has extended his tour - and he’s filming the show in London in October - all the dates, venues and tickets can be found here: http://standupmaths.com/shows 

Join us on Patreon for early releases and our monthly bonus podcast I’m A Wizard!
If you’re already on Patreon and have a creative Wizard offer to give Bec and Matt, please comment on our pinned post!   
If you want to (we’re not forcing anyone) please do leave us a review, share the podcast with a friend, or give us a rating! Please do that. It really helps. 
Finally, if you want even more from A Problem Squared you can connect with us and other listeners on BlueSky, Twitter, Instagram, and on Discord.

👬 How do you know if a work-friend is a real-friend?
⭕ What would happen if Pi was 4?
😴 And we have Any Other Boring-Stories…

Head to our BlueSky/Twitter/Instagram to see Bec’s selfies with The Stars of Space (real and fictional), and the cute-faced Rivian Car.

Why not try Hyperbolic Crochet?!
https://startcrochet.com/ultimate-beginners-guide-to-hyperbolic-crochet/

Why not try a checked 25x25 grid crossword from Sweden?!
https://fatherben.se/wordpress/digitalt-korsord-i-sydsvenskan/ 

Robert Llewelyn’s YouTube channel - Everything Electric CARS 

If you’re at the Edinburgh Fringe and would like to see Bec’s Work In Progress show, tickets are available here: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/bec-hill-s-work-in-progress 

Matt has extended his tour - and he’s filming the show in London in October - all the dates, venues and tickets can be found here: http://standupmaths.com/shows 

Want to pose a problem for Bec and Matt to solve? Head over to https://www.aproblemsquared.com/ 

Join us on Patreon for early releases and our monthly bonus podcast I’m A Wizard!
If you’re already on Patreon and have a creative Wizard offer to give Bec and Matt, please comment on our pinned post!   

If you want to (we’re not forcing anyone) please do leave us a review, share the podcast with a friend, or give us a rating! Please do that. It really helps. 

Finally, if you want even more from A Problem Squared you can connect with us and other listeners on BlueSky, Twitter, Instagram, and on Discord.

⚽ What’s the fairest way to pick teams?
🤖 How do you discourage colleagues from using AI to write everything?
🚗 And this road trip is jeopardised by playing ‘Accelerator or Break?’

Thanks to all of you who sent in answers to “what are you doing while you’re listening to A Problem Squared?” - we go through as many as we possibly can in this episode!

Here is kram1032’s post on Maths Stack Exchange that helped Matt with his problem solving:
https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/2078609/whats-the-fairest-turn-sequence-for-n-players 

Here’s more info on Open Sauce: https://www.opensauce.com/
And here’s a kind stranger’s Insta reel of the Ratatouille robot: https://www.instagram.com/reels/DbGwSh4vHQq/ 

And here’s more info on UKIE: https://ukie.org.uk/ 
And the stream of Bec hosting the event: https://www.youtube.com/live/4lw_ypXroa4 

Head to our BlueSky/Twitter/Instagram to see the U-Haul-Truck-Camera photo of Matt. 

If you’re at the Edinburgh Fringe and would like to see Bec’s Work In Progress show, tickets are available here: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/bec-hill-s-work-in-progress 

Matt has extended his tour - and he’s filming the show in London in October - all the dates, venues and tickets can be found here: http://standupmaths.com/shows 

Want to pose a problem for Bec and Matt to solve? Head over to https://www.aproblemsquared.com/ 

Join us on Patreon for early releases and our monthly bonus podcast I’m A Wizard!
If you’re already on Patreon and have a creative Wizard offer to give Bec and Matt, please comment on our pinned post!   
If you want to (we’re not forcing anyone) please do leave us a review, share the podcast with a friend, or give us a rating! Please do that. It really helps. 
Finally, if you want even more from A Problem Squared you can connect with us and other listeners on BlueSky, Twitter, Instagram, and on Discord.

There's no new episode of A Problem Squared this week - sorry everyone - but we will be back with your scheduled Episode 140 on MONDAY 10TH AUGUST 2026, and our normal twokly service will be resumed from MONDAY 17TH AUGUST 2026.

We're delaying one episode by one week due to general busyness and time-zone clashes but rest assured you will be getting your full quota of August episodes of A Problem Squared.

Thank you for your patience!

🎺 What would standard instruments sound like if they were played under water?

🎯 What would be the average score of one randomly thrown dart?

📂 And there’s some Any Other Business.AOB.zip

On THIS episode of A Problem Squared we’re joined by a special guest! The musical (and regularly quite wet) musical maestro Steve Pretty tells us all about playing music underwater - illustrated with some very bubbly examples. You can hear more from Steve on his podcast Origin Of The Pieces: https://www.originofthepieces.com/ and hear more from Steve playing shells here: https://www.shellectronica.com/ 

This is the episode of Steve Pretty’s Origin of the Pieces with Richard Sabin, whale expert and lead curator of mammals at the Natural History Museum, who shares sonic insights from the deep. https://www.originofthepieces.com/episodes/episode-31-earwax-echoes-and-entropy

To find out more about Aquasonic, the ethereal underwater quintet, head here: https://www.betweenmusic.dk/aquasonic 

Here is the full Hermeto Pascoal video in all its glory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZbfNtDCHdM 

And here’s the video of a hydraulophone https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgU0OZkGhGI 

World Darts Federation Playing and Tournament Rules for all the specifications used in Matt’s working out: https://dartswdf.com/storage/uploads/fb05b306-c92c-4f08-b512-affb092a1b3d/2018-02-28_WDF_Playing_and_Tournament_Rules_rev20.pdf 

The fabulously detailed Data Genetics blog post on where to aim on a dart board to maximise point-scoring - A Geek Plays Darts: http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/january12012/index.html 

Here’s more about the (excellent) book that Bec shouted out: Gemma Correll - Anxietyland https://www.gemmacorrell.com/ 

If you’d like to see Bec’s Work In Progress shows, her upcoming gigs can be found here: https://www.bechillcomedian.com/tour-gigs

Matt has extended his tour - and he’s filming the show in London in October - all the dates, venues and tickets can be found here:
http://standupmaths.com/shows 

Join us on Patreon for early releases and our monthly bonus podcast I’m A Wizard!
If you’re already on Patreon and have a creative Wizard offer to give Bec and Matt, please comment on our pinned post!  
If you want to (we’re not forcing anyone) please do leave us a review, share the podcast with a friend, or give us a rating! Please do that. It really helps. 
Finally, if you want even more from A Problem Squared you can connect with us and other listeners on BlueSky, Twitter, Instagram, and on Discord.