How Many Licks Does It Take To Get To A Tootsie Pop's Center?

Accessibility links

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

How Many Licks Does It Take To Get To A Tootsie Pop's Center? Mathematicians at New York University have come up with an answer: 1,000. Previous studies, however, found it only took a few hundred licks to get to the chewy center.

National

How Many Licks Does It Take To Get To A Tootsie Pop's Center? February 10, 20157:28 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition

How Many Licks Does It Take To Get To A Tootsie Pop's Center?

Listen · 0:28 0:28 Transcript Toggle more options

• Download
• Embed Embed <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/385138839/385138840" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
• Transcript

Mathematicians at New York University have come up with an answer: 1,000. Previous studies, however, found it only took a few hundred licks to get to the chewy center.

Sponsor Message

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Mathematicians at New York University have helped answer that age-old question.

(SOUNDBITE OF TOOTSIE POP AD)

BUDDY FOSTER: (As Boy) How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?

MONTAGNE: One thousand. They computed the licks needed to dissolve one centimeter of hard candy using a formula for how flows cause dissolving, like saliva on a Tootsie Pop. Those with less patience can believe other studies where real students took just a few hundred licks.

Copyright © 2015 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

• Facebook
• Flipboard
• Email

Sponsor Message

Sponsor Message

Become an NPR sponsor