Transcript
Male 1:Good grief. You two are back at the bar again.
Male 2:Couldn’t get enough.
Gillian:We’re going to get you.
Male 1:You’ve come back to get me, have you? I’ve got a perfect bet for you. Fantastic bet. Did you study science as a child, Gillian?
Gillian:A little bit.
Male 1:A little bit? You know ‘=MC2 squared and stuff like that?
Gillian:Sure.
Male 1:And the Pythagoracy theorem and triangles, and things?
Gillian:Pythagoras, yeah.
Male 1:You know that a paperclip is unlikely to float on water?
Gillian:Right.
Male 1:However, my little frisky friend who’s here to take me for money, and that’s going to happen.
Male 2:It will.
Male 1:It’s more likely I’m going to take your woman, by the way. You do know that? Have you realized over . . .
Gillian:Boys, boys, boys.
Male 1:. . . the course of these events how she’s falling
Gillian:Go back to the paperclip.
Male 1:. . . so madly in love with me?
Male 2:I’m drawing the line here.
Male 1:She’s falling madly in love with me, again, dreaming, and going, “Oh, crikey.” Back to the paperclip. I’m going to bet you a drink, of course, that I can make a paperclip float on the surface of that water. Do you want to try one yourself? If that floats, I’ll buy you a drink.
Gillian:You want to do it, or something?
Male 2:I don’t know. Maybe it has . . .
Male 1:No, no, It has to be exactly as it is.
Male 2:Okay.
Male 1:You can’t be fiddling and . . .
Gillian:It’s got to be a trick.
Male 2:Yeah. It’s got to be something. It’s kind of floating right now.
Male 1:Yeah, but you’re still holding onto . . .
Male 2:It floated for a second.
Male 1:It was so close.
Male 2:It floated for 1 second, so that’s right.
Gillian:All right. Go ahead. Make a paperclip float.
Male 1:She’s very demanding, isn’t she?
Male 2:To business.
Male 1:Okay. Here’s the deal. You’ll do this on all of your friends tomorrow. You take 2 paperclips to make one float. What you do is you take one paperclip and you bend it into a little shape like that.
Male 2:Okay.
Male 1:Remember, I said the paperclip had to be intact, that floats. This is all about the surface tension of the water. Then you take another paperclip . . . this is a little Bill Nye science experiment guy thing. You balance it on the little T-shape there. You just plunk it into the water.
Male 2:Wow.
Gillian:Wow.
Male 1:The paperclip floats. The little bit of the paperclip won’t break the surface tension, your fingertips will, every time.
Male 2:Wow.
Male 1:That, my friends, is how you float a paperclip on a bit of water.
Male 2:And beat science.
Male 1:And beat you out of another drink.
Male 2:Again.
