23: Plastic's Past, Imperfect Pitch, and the Dumb History of Generation Naming

What is the history of plastic, and what could the future hold?  Why is perfect pitch, not so perfect, and do any animals have it?  And how on Earth did we end up with these meaningless names for generations?Support us on Maximum Fun!Join our Discord!Catch Sidney Gish on Tour!We also learn about: what is plastic? plastics are an invasive species, natural plastics, explosions are at the root of a lot of science, guncotton, oops we made it explosive, should have bought those 666 horses, patent drama, ella slumdog millionaires celloid tennis balls, flammable films, pronouncing bakelite, carrier bags vs plastic bags, the great pacific garbage patch, plastic quiz, all plastics made still exist, the future of plastics, testing our perfect pitch, Tom interviews Sidney Gish, being able to tell home depot paint swatches doesn’t make you a master architect, my brain is wet wet mud, the 1 in 10,000 number is bogus, guessing sine waves vs pianos, the Levitan Effect, more people have pitch memory than perfect pitch, perfect pitch in animals, dolphin octave mirroring, mosquitos matching pitch to mate, let’s bone doooooown, playing happy birthday for rats, describing happy birthday like an alien, perfect pitch RAMPANT among birds, birds understand spectal vocoder music, what is a generation? the origins of generation names, Strauss-Howe generational theory, retrofitting a logical system from a random idea, backfilling generations to arthurian times, THEY WERE PLAYWRIGHTS, there should never just be One center for research, a london doctor once said…, generational character archetypes, social theory shouldn’t sound like a D&D campaign, millennial and their avocado toast, why don’t millennials like Blue’s Clues anymore? people have always been complaining about “lewd wicked children”, scientists vs the pew research center.Sources:The Science Museum: The Age of PlasticEssentials of Polymer Science and EngineeringUN: From Birth to Ban: A History of the Plastic Shopping BagNat Geo: Great Pacific Garbage PatchThe Ocean Clean Up: The Great Pacific Garbage PatchPlastic Bag StatisticsEarth Day: Fact Sheet- Single Use PlasticsClimate Foresight: The Future of Plastics is UncertainUniversity of Birmingham: The Fate and Sustainable Future of Plastic---Carden & Cline's Excellent Review of the Myth's of Perfect PitchMarisa Hoeschele's Amazing Review of Animal Pitch PerceptionGuessing Sine Waves vs Piano Notes ExperimentPitch Memory TV Theme ExperimentThe Levitin EffectMating Mosquitos HamonizeSinging Happy Birthday to RatsSongbird Hearing AnatomyStarling Spectral Shape Experiment---Pew Research: The Whys and Hows of Generations ResearchMillennial Means NothingOpen Letter to the Pew Research Center on Generation LabelsThe Avocado Toast ArticleBBC History on Complaining about the Youths Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinlearn