"The world may never know." That's what the owl says in the classic commercial for Tootsie Pop after a boy goes on a quest to find out how many licks it takes to get to the center. But that owl is wrong. So wrong.

A new study published in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics [1] by researchers from NYU and Florida State University reports that it takes an approximate 1,000 licks to finish a standard lollipop. They got to that number by placing pieces of hard candy in a water tunnel with a controlled current and using time-lapse photography to measure how the water affected the candy's dissolution.

Source: Tootsie [2]

If you decide to test this out yourself (practice those jaw-strengthening exercises!) and do lick your way to the middle of a Tootsie Pop, download this legitimate Clean Stick Award and then brag about it all over social media.