In 1965, the co-founder of Intel Gordon Moore made an observation about the trajectory of technological innovation. Tagged in popular culture as "Moore's Law," it stated that the number of transistors on a microchip doubles about every two years. While there is some agreement among experts that we may be bumping up against some physical limits to continuing on this path, for nearly 60 years it has more or less turned out to be accurate.
While Moore's focus was on silicon, more recently this same construct could be applied to another area as well. This particular standard, which was set in 2016, was bested in January of 2021 by 25%, then bumped up again in December of last year. And just recently, it was pushed up once more, nearly doubling the original mark in under 16 months. Not transistors this time: rather, the world has seen dramatic growth in how many M&M's can be stacked one on top of the other.
In your idle moments you might have been playing around in this arena, and can appreciate how hard a task it is. But while most of us watched our towers topple and just ate the debris, others saw it as a challenge, and aimed for notoriety as defined by the Guinness Book of World Records. Those arbiters of all that is strange have stringent criteria for the marker. To be official the stack must be "completely free-standing and able to stand for a minimum of 10 seconds once completed. Flavored M&M's such as peanut and mint are not permitted; only plain chocolate ones can be used." Technicalities like that rule out using a Skittle ringer.
The candies themselves have a worldwide following, and the pursuit of this mark does as well. Building on Silvio Sabba's achievement of a tower of four in Italy, Britain's Will Cutbill's moved the crown across the Channel, and increased the record to five. Then in October Australia's own Brendan Kelbie did what no one had done before, and aimed six at the sky. And now comes word that the Middle East has seized the trophy, as 29-year-old Ibrahim Sadeq grabbed the title for Tallest Stack of M&M's by stacking seven of the small circular discs in Nasiriyha, Iraq.
Not that it makes much of a difference, but it is interesting to note that pushing the envelope has become the province of experts. While Cutbill was an amateur who embarked on the quest out of boredom during a pandemic lockdown, both Kelbie and Sadeq are professionals of a sort. In addition to this new mark, Sadeq shares the world record for most eggs balanced on the back of the hand (18). And Kelbie actually tied Sabba's original record and held the crown jointly until Cutbill broke it. He also holds a baker's dozen of other records, including most drumstick flips in one minute (98), longest duration spinning a basketball on a pair of spectacles (29.67 seconds) and fastest time to build a 10 toilet roll pyramid (3.49 seconds).
While it looks deceptively easy, the achievement requires certain skills and attributes. Sadeq told Guinness that while people think of it as a gravity defying act it is all about control. He discovered his particular skill in balancing after being fascinated by a clip he saw of a man stacking rocks on top of each other in nature: "It was amazing to watch. I started balancing stuff around me and discovered that I was really good at it. After a while, I became even faster in balancing than the people I watched online." And as to how he can do what others cannot? "I can't easily describe the secret behind the art of balancing, but what I can say is that it needs a lot of patience, focus and a sense of calmness. You also need to be able to handle your breathing [as it] might affect the success of your attempt."
Our quest for taking things one step further never stops. They're rolling out 5G to connect us all, they're perfecting the next generation of mRNA vaccines, they even figured out a way to change the clothes on your memoji. And chocolate construction is no different. You can bet that right now someone somewhere is searching for eight slightly flatter M&M's, and is shooting for the stars.
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Marc Wollin of Bedford prefers the peanut variety to eat, not stack. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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