Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories to help you learn something new in just a few minutes: Scientists Just Figured Out How Laundry Machines Clean Your Clothes Bill Gates Believes the World Would Be Better If Millions Read This Book "Factfulness" on Amazon (FREE with your Audible trial!) Here's the Reason You Judge Others More Harshly Than You Judge Yourself
Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories to help you learn something new in just a few minutes:
Full episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/how-laundry-machines-work-bill-gates-recommended-reading-and-why-we-judge
[MUSIC PLAYING] CODY GOUGH: Hi, I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer.
CODY GOUGH: We've got three stories from curiosity.com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY HAMER: Today, we'll talk about how laundry machines actually clean your clothes, a book Bill Gates thinks everyone should read, and the reason you judge other people more harshly than you judge yourself.
CODY GOUGH: Let's satisfy some curiosity.
ASHLEY HAMER: So, Cody, do you really know how your clothes get clean?
CODY GOUGH: I put them in the washing machine, and then it magically cleans them?
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, that's pretty much how most of us understand it. I mean, they get dirty. They go in the washing machine. Detergent does it's magic. And then your clothes come out fresh and clean. But dirt can get really tiny. So what about the tiny wedged-in dirt particles that the detergent can't actually reach? Because those exist. How do those get out?
CODY GOUGH: I guess I don't really know how detergent gets dirt out at any level let alone that small. So, how does that even work?
ASHLEY HAMER: Sure. Researchers actually didn't know this either, which is strange. You'd think that they'd understand most of this stuff by now. They call this problem with the wedged-in dirt particles the stagnant core mystery. So, this is the thing, is that detergents contain a thing called a surfactant, or surface-active agent. This reduces the surface tension of a liquid, and it helps water wash away particles of oil and grease, which are usually water repellent. It's just like what you'd use on your dishes, right? Soapy water can get between the threads in a T-shirt, but it's less effective at getting in between the tiny fibers that make up each thread. So, if there are minuscule particles of dirt between those fibers, there is no way that detergent and water should be able to pull them out. But they do anyway.
CODY GOUGH: All right. So, how do they do it?
ASHLEY HAMER: Researchers at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa looked at a phenomenon called, get ready, diffusiophoresis. That basically refers to the way a particle will move towards a chemical as it becomes more or less concentrated. So, if that chemical is made up of charged molecules, the differences in concentration will actually create this electric field that moves the particle. So, a new study found that this is what's pulling out the dirt during the rinse cycle. When detergent in its charged surfactant molecules goes from a high concentration in the wash cycle to a gradually lowered concentration in the rinse cycle, as all that fresh water comes in, it creates an electric field that draws those dirt particles out. The charged surfactant molecules surround each particle, and carry them away through the electric field.
CODY GOUGH: The actual atoms are being charged, and it's pulling it out, kind of like a magnetic field?
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, a lot like that.
CODY GOUGH: Wow.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. This isn't just a cool way to understand something new. There's actually some lesson you get from this because they realize that water doesn't actually need to move during this process. It's just the concentration. So, laundry machine manufacturers don't need to program in multiple rinse cycles. All you need is fresh water, and physics will just do the rest.
CODY GOUGH: Wow. So, in the future, we could save water.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, exactly.
CODY GOUGH: You just reminded me. I actually have to get quarters to do my laundry tonight.
[LAUGHTER]
Whoops.
ASHLEY HAMER: Uh-huh.
CODY GOUGH: Well, here's a trivia question? How many books do you think Bill Gates says he reads in a year?
ASHLEY HAMER: He's a really busy guy. Let's say one a month.
CODY GOUGH: Let's say about one a week.
ASHLEY HAMER: Wow.
CODY GOUGH: He says he reads about 50 books a year.
ASHLEY HAMER: That's amazing.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah. Curiosity regularly looks at some of the world's most successful people to see what they're doing, and Bill Gates has a new book recommendation. In a YouTube video from just a few weeks ago, he said, quote, "This is one of the most educational books I've ever read. It covers a space that is not easy to go learn about. The world would be better if literally millions of people read the book. I give it my highest recommendation." Unquote.
ASHLEY HAMER: That is quite a review.
CODY GOUGH: I know, right? The book is called Factulness-- 10 Reasons We're Wrong About The World-- and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling. So, Hans Rosling was a Swedish statistician, global health expert, and a friend of Gates. And the book was published posthumously with some help from his son and daughter-in-law.
ASHLEY HAMER: OK. So, what's it about?
CODY GOUGH: In a nutshell, the book serves as a tool to combat our innate biases, or as Gates writes, 10 instincts that keep us from seeing the world factfully. For example, the author suggests an easy way of considering wealth levels around the world by breaking it up into four different levels as opposed to just two giant buckets of "developed" and "developing."
ASHLEY HAMER: Right.
CODY GOUGH: Which is a bit vague. You can get a free audiobook of Factfulness with a free trial of Audible, which we'll put a link to in the show notes, if you want to check it out. I will be checking it out very soon.
ASHLEY HAMER: OK, Cody. So, say you're in line at Dunkin' Donuts, and there's someone in front of you who's having a really loud cell phone conversation. And they get to the front, and they've been on the phone so long that they haven't even made their order. And it's in rush hour, and everybody's annoyed. What would you think about that person? What are some things about that person that you could say?
CODY GOUGH: I would think the person is rude, and maybe a little-- they think they're better than everybody else waiting in line, or the cashier doesn't deserve their attention.
ASHLEY HAMER: Totally. Yeah, I would think the same thing. But, of course, if I were on the phone in line, it would be for a really good reason, right? What if my mom's in the hospital? What if I have three kids who are all sick? There are a million different reasons that I would be on the phone. And maybe I'm not on the phone all the time, but in this one instance, I made an exception. And I had to be on the phone when I was in line. That's the kind of thinking we always have, right? We give ourselves excuses. But whenever anyone else does something that breaks a rule, we just say it's because of the kind of person they are.
CODY GOUGH: So, you judge other people more harshly than you'll judge yourself.
ASHLEY HAMER: Exactly. So, Curiosity looked into this. And we found out that psychologists call this effect the fundamental attribution error. In psychology, attribution theory describes our tendency to look for a cause to explain why other people do what they do, which makes sense. So, that can be internal, in terms of their personality and disposition, like we were saying, or external, in terms of their situation and their circumstances. So, the fundamental attribution error is the mistake you make when you attribute someone's behavior to internal causes, like who they are, without considering external causes, like their mother might be sick. So, for example, you might think a person's rude for ignoring your emails. But they're probably up against a deadline, and they're already buried in emails and work that you have nothing to do with.
CODY GOUGH: I promise I'll reply to your email soon.
ASHLEY HAMER: [LAUGHS] And the thing is, you hardly ever do this to yourself because you know about your external circumstances, and you can point to the reasons you're doing the things you're doing. You would also just never say that you were a bad person or a rude person. You're always a person who's stressed, or a person who's got a lot of work to do.
CODY GOUGH: Right. Makes sense. So well, how do you overcome that, then?
ASHLEY HAMER: Well, you have to just build in some empathy, right? You have to stop and put yourself in someone else's shoes. If you were acting this way, what would a reason for acting this way be? Maybe that person has that same reason. And just give them the benefit of the doubt. Another way to develop empathy, that we've found, is by reading books. A study last year found that people who preferred reading novels were more likely to show positive social behavior and be able to empathize with others. And I think that's because when we read about other people, we can imagine ourselves in their position. And we can imagine what it's like being that person.
CODY GOUGH: Right.
ASHLEY HAMER: And that helps in the real world.
CODY GOUGH: We've written about that on curiosity.com.
ASHLEY HAMER: We have. Join us again tomorrow for the "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.
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