Scientists Discover How Many Actual Licks It Takes To Get To The Center Of A Tootsie Pop

By: Evan Jankens
@kingofthekc

When I first saw the headline on Time.com I was hooked. And I was thinking, "Please don't be an Internet scam ... Please be real!"

And then it was.

It's finally here: The answer to the age-old question "how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?"

That little owl in the commercial that made this question famous really used to aggravate me. How could he just go and eat that kid's Tootsie Pop?

I'll get off my soap box and tell the facts.

A study was done at NYU's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and Florida State University to see how many actual licks it would take to get to the center.

By formulating a theory for how flows cause dissolving and shrinking, the researchers calculated an estimate of about 1,000 licks.

Let's be real for a moment though. I love candy, it's a slight obsession of mine. Who could honestly sit there and lick the Tootsie Pop 1,000 times?