Is the Select Comfort air mattress good for sex? A PoS experiment

Summary: If you're eagerly anticipating part 2 of Sex and Sensibility, we'll have that for you next week. In the meantime, we decided to send two of our writers, Buzz Skyline and Martica, into the field to do an experiment inspired by a portion of the Physics of Sex post Sexual Rhythms. Specifically, we wanted them to see what physics could tell us about the Select Comfort brand adjustable bed. We hoped they would learn enough to help you determine if it's the best bed for your love life. You can listen to roboreader Heather interviewing Martica and Buzz in our latest podcast, or read the transcript below, to find out what (if anything) the Sleep Number bed has to offer for sex. Skip to the tip in this week's post, if you're in a rush. In any case, please take part in The Great Physics of Sex Bed Test. We want you to test out your bed and send us the data so that we can figure out, once and for all, what type of bed is best for sex. But don't do it for us. Do it for yourself. Do for the world. Do it for science. TRANSCRIPT OF THE SELECT COMFORT BED TEST INTERVIEW Heather: Welcome to the Physics of Sex podcast. My name is Heather. If you've been listening to our past episodes, you know we usually give a little lecture about a fascinating aspect of physics, as it applies to your love life. But this week, we decided to try something different. We sent two of our writers into the field to do a few experiments on an unusual kind of bed, in order to find out how it might affect your sex life. Here to report on what they found out about the Select Comfort sleep number bed, are Martica. . . Martica: Hi Heather. Heather: . . . and Buzz Skyline. Buzz: Hi Heather. Heather: So guys, you ventured out to test a bed. Did you do what I think you must have done? How'd you keep from being arrested? Martica: Well, we didn’t actually do anything that's not appropriate in a mattress store. We actually just went and jumped on the bed. Buzz: Well, we sat and bounced on the bed. Martica: Exactly. Buzz: We didn’t stand on the bed. Heather: OK, well tell us about the bed. Martica: It’s a Select Comfort Sleep Number bed, which [allows you to] change the firmness of the mattress. Buzz: You can change the amount of air inside the mattress. Martica: Right. Buzz: And they call it the firmness. Martica: It’s a big air mattress with a pump and a little remote control which you can use to pump the air in or let the air out and that changes the firmness, what they call the firmness, of the mattress. Buzz: And it basically is just inflating this bladder that’s inside the bed instead of springs. Heather: So this is the bed Lindsay Wagner promotes on TV. Great. How did you do the experiment? Martica: We sat on the bed and bounced up and down. Buzz: At different numbers. We set it for different numbers and we took turns bouncing on it. Martica bounced on it a few times at different settings and I bounced on it at a few different settings, a few different sleep number settings, and the last time . . . Martica: We sat next to each other and bounced up and down at the same time, which is actually really hard – but fun. (laughs) Heather: What sort of results did you expect? Buzz: So, what we thought would happen was we assumed the sleep number really was what you call firmness, which on a spring would basically be the spring constant. It would tell how strong the springs are. And that means that as you turned it up it should increase your resonance frequency- the frequency that you bounce on the bed. And as you turn it down, it should decrease your resonance frequency. And so we started out with Martica on the bed, and what we found was no matter what sleep number we chose, she bounced at about the same rate. Martica: I was trying! (laughs) Buzz: It wasn’t her fault. It was obviously the physics. And so we thought there must be something wrong. So I sat on the bed and tried it for several numbers and I also bounced at almost exactly the same rate every time. Martica: But a litt