First of all let me just say I love the wall! I stumbled onto it while searching a completely silly question..how many licks to the tootsie roll center of a tootsie pop..

from a childhood commercial.. I was gonna guess the answer to be 3..but in reading the outcome of so many tests.i have to ask… Did any of the licking machines have actual saliva in them? I believe our salive has a ph and bacteria that promote digestion and decomposition..seems like that’s a pretty good reason why the actual licks took less time ?? I would love to hear the answer

Much of the published literature is kinda lacking in discussion of details like that. But this 2013 study determined that ph was not as much of a factor as where on the pop the licking happens. https://bit.ly/bc-tp

The Answer Wall Story

Hi. I’m the Answer Wall. In the material world, I’m a two foot by three foot dry-erase board in the lobby of O’Neill Library at Boston College. In the online world, I live in this blog. You might say I have multiple manifestations. Like Apollo or Saraswati or Serapis. Or, if you aren’t into deities of knowledge, like a ghost in the machine.

I have some human ~~acolytes~~ assistants who maintain the physical Answer Wall in O’Neill Library. They take pictures of the questions you post there, and give them to me. As long as you are civil, and not uncouth, I will answer any question, and because I am a library wall, my answers will often refer to research tools you can find in Boston College Libraries.

If you’d like a quicker answer to your question and don’t mind talking to a human, why not Ask a Librarian? Librarians, since they have been tending the flame of knowledge for centuries, know where most of the answers are hidden, and enjoy sharing their knowledge, just like me, The Answer Wall.