hey everybody today I pose to you a
simple question that turns out to be not
so simple now I'm drinking out of a
straw here the question is does a straw
have one or two holes it seems like an
easy answer but it turns out it's not so
easy so this all started a few weeks ago
when somebody commented to me they said
they had an argument with their wife
about whether a straw has one or two
holes and so I asked my wife what she
thought and then I said what I thought
and we both have different answers and
then I opened it up to all of you guys
in the community tab and I got over a
hundred thousand responses on my pull
over whether a straw has one or two
holes and it turns out the answer was
not clear so right then I knew I had to
do a video on this and this turns out to
be an extremely interesting question
does a straw have one or two holes and
what is a hole now I think the reason
this question becomes so difficult and
the reason why so many people disagree
on this is the psychology behind what a
hole is so in regular use we talk about
holes as if they were objects for
example we talked about the holes in
Swiss cheese there are as many holes in
Swiss cheese as there are cookies on a
plate so it seems as though their
material objects and we often assign
causes to them for example the water in
the bucket flowed out because of a hole
in the bucket so it's as though the hole
is some material object because if you
think about it a hole is kind of like a
material object it has a definite
location it has a size it has a
beginning it has an end so it's just
like some other object except it's not
another object it's nothing but the
different thing about a hole rather than
a material object is that the hole needs
a host so a hole cannot exist by itself
there has to be something around it so
the hole needs a host and it can even
have a guest for example if you have a
doughnut the doughnut itself is the host
and the guest would be maybe the filling
in the hole so the hole can have
something in it and it's still called a
hole so that would be called the guest
the host would be the doughnut around
but here's the interesting part if
perception is founded upon causation
meaning that we need some cause in order
to perceive something then it seems like
we shouldn't even be able to perceive
holes because holes are nothing so how
is that nothing causing us to perceive
them but you may say that sounds dumb
it's easy to perceive a hole because
we're picturing there should have been
something there and now it's not there
so that is the hole so really what we're
still perceiving is the object that is
there but really it's an imaginary sense
of what we thought should have been
there so that means that a hole in and
of itself doesn't really have a
definition for example it becomes
increasingly difficult to define a hole
just by defining what's around it so for
example if I punch a hole in this paper
we could agree that we have one hole in
the paper but what about if I punch
another one do I have two holes here
well what if I say I actually still have
one hole but the hole just loops because
the hole is nothing anyways so why can I
define it as a looping hole that it's
looping from the bottom and going back
up to the top so I still have one hole
here now in order to try to answer
whether or not a straw has one or two
holes it seems that we would have to
agree that a hole actually exists in the
first place but I have some evidence to
show you that a hole doesn't even exist
at all for example I have a ring here
now inside of the ring is a hole we
could all agree that there's a hole in
this and if I'm spinning the ring we
would also say that the hole is spinning
inside of the ring so the hole is
spinning this direction and I could also
take a smaller ring like my ring here
and it has a hole in it
so there's a hole inside of this ring
and I can spin this ring the opposite
direction and we would say that the hole
inside of it is also spinning the
opposite direction but what if I put
this smaller spinning hole inside of
this bigger spinning hole like this I'm
going to spin the inner ring one way and
the outer ring the opposite way
well now the smaller spinning hole is
actually part of the bigger spinning
hole but they're spinning opposite
directions so how could we call the hole
something that actually exists and say
that the hole that's inside of the
smaller ring is spinning both clockwise
and counterclockwise at the same time so
philosophically a hole doesn't exist
because we cannot logically say that
something is moving opposite directions
bolt at the same time but forget about
philosophy let's talk about mathematics
and science so to say that something has
a hole mathematically it means that if
we were to shrink that object down more
and more and more that object could
never get down to a single point so for
example if I took this ring here and I
shrunk it down that means that this ring
would never get down to a single point
because these two sides would always be
separate from each other because there's
something in the middle topologically
that's keeping them separate and that's
called a hole so for example a circle
has a hole in it because you can't
shrink it down to a single point but a
disk does not have a hole in it because
you could shrink it down to a single
point there would be nothing having to
separate the two sides from meeting each
other in a single point also in physics
and chemistry we talk about holes in
terms of LEDs or semiconductors in that
sense we talk about holes in lattices so
basically where an electron would
normally be when it's not there we call
it a hole and we actually assign it a
positive charge and we talk about these
holes as actually physical objects as if
they're physical objects moving through
the material when actually they're just
the absence of electrons and then
finally we have the definition of a hole
in engineering so for an engineering you
can have a blind hole and a blind hole
just means that you didn't drill all the
way through the object so you have a
hole that didn't go all the way through
it's a blind hole if you go all the way
through it it's called a through hole
and you could also have an interrupted
hole so the interrupted hole is a hole
that's gone through and another hall
interrupts it from the side so now that
we've defined what all of these types of
holes are now we can start to tackle
whether or not a straw has one or two
holes in it so first let's start
mathematically well mathematically we
would say a hole only has one hole in it
because if we tried to shrink the straw
down to a single point we couldn't do it
because there would always be a
separation between the sides of the
straw because topologically they're
separated and so no matter how small you
got the straw it couldn't be a single
point so we say that there's one hole in
it there's a hole in the straw now in
engineering we would also define it as
the straw just having one hole if we
pinch the end of it it's a blind hole if
it's opened up it's a through hole in
both cases there's still one single hole
through the straw so in both cases both
mathematically and engineering-wise we
would describe a straw as having only
one hole in it but the counter-argument
I heard from everybody in terms of the
straw having two holes is that they say
well a cup has one hole in it one hole
in the top so if we make a hole in the
bottom it now has two holes in it and
for example we talked about a shirt as
having four holes two arm holes a head
hole and the bottom of it for one more
hole but actually since we can't define
what a hole is that means that we can't
disregard the hole as being something
that's twisting and bending around for
example if I have a cup that has a hole
in it and then I poke more holes in the
side there's nothing to stop me from
saying that there's still only one hole
in it except that that hole is going
through the cup and twisting and bending
around going through all different
portions of the cup no matter how many
holes I poked in it it still only has
one hole but you can see just in saying
that sentence that doesn't make any
sense because I just said that I poked
more holes in it implying that I put
more holes but then I'm saying that I
only have one hole in it so talking
about holes in and of themselves is
actually pretty difficult and it
actually is a hard philosophical
question to define what a hole actually
even is
now it may be that this doesn't really
have an answer it may be a subjective
answer depending on your experience or
how you specifically define a whole
because there's no good way to define a
real whole in real life now I may or may
not have convinced you that a straw has
one hole so I'm gonna leave a pull-up
here let's take a pull and see whether
you think now whether a straw has one or
two holes I'd like to get as many
thoughts on this as I can
so if you think that a straw has one
hole then share this video with somebody
else and see if they also think that
this straw has one hole now at this
point I should share the results of my
poll that I gave to all of you so so far
a hundred and two thousand people have
voted which is pretty amazing so I asked
the question does a straw have one or
two holes and then also I wanted to
check if boys and girls think
differently
kind of had to do with my wife and I
thinking differently I don't know I was
just checking if there is any difference
between the two sexes so I asked as a
straw have one or two holes and 74
percent of everybody that voted said a
straw has one hole 26 percent said a
straw has two holes and then there were
2.4 thousand comments of people fighting
about it in the comment section hey
everybody thanks for watching another
episode of the action lab I hope you
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