Learn about microvacations, a trick for actually using your vacation days even when you’re super busy; the science behind why darkness is actually faster than the speed of light; and why sand is one of the most valuable resources in human civilization — and why we’re running out of it — with some help from Vince Beiser, author of “The World in a Grain: The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization.” In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com — and learn about sand from author Vince Beiser — to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes: To Stay Sane at Work, Try Taking Microvacations — https://curiosity.im/2MqE5mN Darkness Is Faster Than the Speed of Light — https://curiosity.im/2MxkfGF Pick up Vince Beiser’s book, “The World in a Grain: The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization,” on Amazon: https://amazon.com If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get exclusive episodes and access to our archives as soon as you become a Patron! https://www.patreon.com/curiositydotcom Learn about these topics and more on Curiosity.com, and download our 5-star app for Android and iOS. Then, join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Plus: Amazon smart speaker users, enable our Alexa Flash Briefing to learn something new in just a few minutes every day!
Learn about microvacations, a trick for actually using your vacation days even when you’re super busy; the science behind why darkness is actually faster than the speed of light; and why sand is one of the most valuable resources in human civilization — and why we’re running out of it — with some help from Vince Beiser, author of “The World in a Grain: The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization.”
In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com — and learn about sand from author Vince Beiser — to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes:
Pick up Vince Beiser’s book, “The World in a Grain: The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization,” on Amazon: https://amazon.com
If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get exclusive episodes and access to our archives as soon as you become a Patron! https://www.patreon.com/curiositydotcom
Learn about these topics and more on Curiosity.com, and download our 5-star app for Android and iOS. Then, join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Plus: Amazon smart speaker users, enable our Alexa Flash Briefing to learn something new in just a few minutes every day!
Full episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/beating-procrastination-sand-science-w-vince-beiser-and-how-to-use-your-vacation-days
CODY GOUGH: Hi. We've got three of your favorite Curiosity Daily stories of all time to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Today, you'll learn a trick for actually using your vacation days, even when you're super busy. And the science behind white darkness is actually faster than the speed of light.
CODY GOUGH: We'll also learn about the hidden science of sand in a clip from the most popular interview we've done in the last year. Let's satisfy some curiosity.
ASHLEY HAMER: Did you manage to get away from the office this summer? Because it's healthy to take a vacation from work. Don't feel like you missed your chance though because we've got some advice from a time management coach that might help you use up those vacation days and stay sane at work.
CODY GOUGH: I like it.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yes. I feel like I need to take this advice.
CODY GOUGH: I feel like you do too, Ashley. Not that I don't like seeing you around the office.
ASHLEY HAMER: Sure. In 2017, 52% of American workers with paid vacation days left some of them unused. That added up to a whopping 705 million unused vacation days overall or 2 million years, which is about how long it's been since humans appeared on Earth. And working too much has been linked with heart problems, mental health issues, and a decrease in work quality in general.
But a recent study by Glassdoor found that worries about job security are the main reasons people don't take vacations. So what can you do? In an article for Harvard Business Review, business owner and time management coach Elizabeth Grace Saunders advocates something that's brilliant in its simplicity. Microvacations. That's when you get out of the office, but you use a day or less of vacation time.
And even just one day comes with a lot of benefits. You won't have to find a replacement to handle your work. You won't come back to a mountain of emails. And you can do a microvacation once every couple of weeks. Nobody said you can only go on one big vacation every year. You might want to avoid taking a Monday microvacation since a lot of people send important emails on Mondays, and you don't want to come back to a zillion messages in your inbox. But how does the three-day weekend sound? Take off a Friday once in a while.
And another big thing is that microvacations can be free. You don't have to spend time making a vacation itinerary or spend money on plane tickets. If your job allows it, you could even take a half day to take a long lunch with a friend or catch a matinee of a movie you've been wanting to see. Whatever you do, don't lose your vacation days. You need a vacation. Trust us.
CODY GOUGH: The best employees take the most vacation days.
ASHLEY HAMER: That's true. You keep saying that to me. I don't understand why.
CODY GOUGH: I'm not going to say anything. Sand is one of the most important materials in human civilization. And we're running out of it. If you don't believe me, that's OK. We've got an expert who might be able to convince you. We recently had the chance to talk to Vince Beiser, author of The World in a Grain: The Story of Sand and How it Transformed Civilization. Here's what he told us.
VINCE BEISER: So we consume more sand than any other natural resource in the world, except for water and air. That's how important it is. I mean, I say in the book, it's the literal foundation of modern civilization. And that's no exaggeration because as you say, I mean, you toss off concrete and glass. But really, if you stop and think about concrete and glass, that's basically what our cities are completely made of. Every shopping mall, apartment block, every building in the modern world that gets built is made out of concrete. And that's an enormous amount. So we use about, all in, we are using about 50 billion tons of sand every year. That's enough to cover the entire state of California about 2 inches deep every single year.
CODY GOUGH: That's quite a bit.
VINCE BEISER: That's quite a bit.
CODY GOUGH: I've got a giant world map on my wall in my bedroom. And right in the middle, I'm sure you know what's there. It's Africa. And right in the northern part of Africa, there's a big, old desert. So how can there be a shortage if the Sahara exists?
VINCE BEISER: That's a really good question. And the answer is because that desert sand is basically useless to us. And the reason for that is the grains are the wrong shape. So desert sand has been eroded by wind over thousands or millions of years, tumbling, and tumbling, and tumbling, and tumbling. And that has made those grains kind of rounded.
As opposed to the kind of sand that you find in riverbeds, or in lake beds, floodplains, even the bottom of the ocean, that sand tends to be more angular. It's got a lot more angles and corners to it, so it locks together the way that you need it to to form a stable structure. So by far the most thing that we use sand for the most is concrete.
And to make concrete, you need those sand grains to lock together. And desert sand just is too round to do that. It's like the difference between trying to build something out of a stack of marbles as opposed to building something out of a stack of little tiny bricks. So all that desert sand, totally useless.
CODY GOUGH: In case you're new to Curiosity, you might not know that when we first launched our podcast, it was a weekly show where we interviewed scientists and authors from around the world. Well, back by popular demand, we've been producing brand new feature length podcast interviews for our supporters on our Patreon page.
Before we get to our last story, I want to give a special shout out to some of our patrons. Thank you, Genevieve Moffatt, Kim Braun, and Deus Bencomo for supporting our show on Patreon. We really appreciate it.
ASHLEY HAMER: If you love our show and you want to support Curiosity Daily, then visit patreon.com/curiosity.com, all spelled out. Any amount helps, and we try to give back by offering cool incentives, like bonus episodes, uncut interviews, and fun conversations on Discord. One more time. That's patreon.com/curiosity.com.
CODY GOUGH: Hey. Want to know what's faster than the speed of light? The speed of dark. No, really. It's a thing. Let's have a fun little physics lesson. And we'll preface this by saying, please don't get mad at us. We promise it's true, even if it's kind of hard to wrap your head around.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yes. This is the second time we run this article, and we got a lot of emails about it before. And I have done my due diligence. This is absolutely for sure true.
CODY GOUGH: All right. Here's how it works. Even though nothing can move faster than the speed of light, shadows can still move faster than the speed of light. Imagine you have a light that's powerful enough to reach the planet Jupiter. OK? Got that? Now imagine that it casts a beam in a cone that's broad enough to cover the entire diameter of the planet.
When you pass your finger over that light, the shadow will cross the entire diameter of the planet. That's a distance of more than 86,000 miles. The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second. So if it takes you less than half a second to move your hand that distance, then that shadow will have broken the speed of light.
Remember how we said that nothing can move faster than the speed of light? Well, that's the key. Shadows are nothing. A shadow is a not thing. Shadows are the absence of something, specifically photons or particles of light. Since there's nothing that's actually traveling the distance, the only thing that's moving is an area where photons aren't.
There's no information that's being transmitted faster than light, only a blockage or lack of information. That means your interplanetary shadow puppet show doesn't break any physical laws, which means we're right. And we hope you're not upset with us for this brainteaser. But we promise it's true.
ASHLEY HAMER: Another way to think about it is that the shadow only has the illusion of moving. It's actually the region that has light and has no light that is changing.
CODY GOUGH: Right.
ASHLEY HAMER: So it's not physically moving across the planet.
CODY GOUGH: Right.
ASHLEY HAMER: It just looks like it is.
CODY GOUGH: Right. You love this article but you kind of hate it too.
ASHLEY HAMER: Oh, yeah. Oh, definitely. It's a love-hate relationship.
CODY GOUGH: You can read about today's stories and more on curiosity.com.
ASHLEY HAMER: Join us again tomorrow with the award-winning Curiosity Daily and learn something new in just a few minutes. I'm Ashley Hamer.
CODY GOUGH: And I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: Stay curious.
ANNOUNCER: On the Westwood One Podcast Network.