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The Best Test of General Relativity (by 2 Misplaced Satellites)

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The Best Test of General Relativity (by 2 Misplaced Satellites)

Title: The Best Test of General Relativity (by 2 Misplaced Satellites)
Date posted: 7 years ago
Description: A launch mishap led to the best experimental confirmation of gravitational redshift. Get a free audiobook with a 30-day trial of Audible: http://audible.com/VERITASIUM or text VERITASIUM to 500500

Huge thanks to
Dr. Pacome Delva: https://ve42.co/pacome
Dr. Sven Herrmann: https://ve42.co/sven
Gravitational Redshift Test Using Eccentric Galileo Satellites: https://ve42.co/GRtest

Disclaimer: It is arguable what is THE best test of general relativity because there are different ways to test the theory. This is the best confirmation of gravitational redshift, which is one of the three original tests proposed by Einstein.

Special thanks to Patreon supporters:
Donal Botkin, James M Nicholson, Michael Krugman, Nathan Hansen, Ron Neal, Stan Presolski, Terrance Shepherd

Animations and editing by Alan Chamberlain

Music from http://epidemicsound.com "Subtle Substitutes 2" "A sound Foundation 1" "Cell Research ...

How Ultrasound Can Deactivate Parts of the Brain

Title: How Ultrasound Can Deactivate Parts of the Brain
Date posted: 8 years ago
Description: Scientists have combined ultrasound, viruses and synthetic drugs to control regions of the brain.
Check out Skillshare: https://skl.sh/veritasium (first 500 get 2 months free)

Special thanks to Prof. Mikhail Shapiro and Dr. Jerzy Szablowski:
http://shapirolab.caltech.edu

Human brains are complicated - the most complicated thing in the known universe, many people say. So far we understand little - just that certain regions of the brain appear to be involved in certain activities and certain disorders. In extreme cases this has led to the practice of removing sections of the brain, or using electrodes or optical fibers to control activation rates. What is unique about this approach is it offers a way to turn on and off specific brain regions without invasive surgery. It has promise because it combines existing technologies: micro-bubbles, ultrasound, synthetic viruses, and synthetic drugs to achieve this goal.

Special thanks to Patreon s...

Five Firsts for Mars InSight

Title: Five Firsts for Mars InSight
Date posted: 8 years ago
Description: Mars InSight will be the first to detect seismic activity on Mars’ surface, first to measure rate of heat transmitted from interior, first to dig nearly 5m down, first to measure magnetic fields on Mars’ surface, and first to use a robotic arm to place instruments on the surface of Mars (assuming it lands of course…)

If you want to watch the InSight landing “live” (with 4-minute speed of light time delay), go to: https://ve42.co/insight

Special thanks to Patreon supporters:
Donal Botkin, James M Nicholson, Michael Krugman, Nathan Hansen, Ron Neal, Stan Presolski, Terrance Shepherd

Animations courtesy of NASA

Script and Filming with Raquel Nuno

Editing and graphics by Ignat Berbeci

The kg is dead, long live the kg

Title: The kg is dead, long live the kg
Date posted: 8 years ago
Description: The kilogram, mole, kelvin, and ampere will be redefined by physical constants. For a limited time, get 3 months of Audible for just $6.95 a month: http://audible.com/VERITASIUM or text VERITASIUM to 500500

Will this be the last video I make about SI units? Quite possibly. There's something about being so precise and defining the systems within which science works. When we can more accurately and routinely measure a kilogram, a mole, a kelvin and an ampere, then we can make better observations, we can better detect anomalies and improve our theories. That is why this is so important to me.

Special thanks to Patreon supporters:
Donal Botkin, Michael Krugman, Ron Neal, Nathan Hansen, James M Nicholson, Terrance Shepherd, Stan Presolski

Special thanks to NIST: http://nist.gov

Additional graphics by Ignat Berbeci

Music from http://epidemicsound.com "Experimental1"

Drinking in ZERO-G! (and other challenges of a trip to Mars)

Title: Drinking in ZERO-G! (and other challenges of a trip to Mars)
Date posted: 8 years ago
Description: A trip to #Mars involves radiation, muscle and bone loss, intermediate axis theorem and liquids.
Check out Mars on National Geographic, Monday Nov 12 at 9/8c
#sponsored

When I got offered the chance to fly in another #zeroG plane, I jumped at the chance. Do you know how hard it is when you are thrust into low-gravity, like the 37% of Earth's gravity of Mars, and you have to remember what you were going to say in a 30 second window as blood floods your head? It's pretty hard. It would be even harder to actually travel to Mars. It would take about 8 months in microgravity during which time your muscles and bones would weaken substantially, even if you exercise for hours a day like the astronauts on the space station. And your heart is a muscle too so it weakens as well. Before I contemplated these rates of muscle and bone loss, I thought the major challenge with a round trip journey to Mars would be the logistics of spacecraft and having enough fuel to get back. ...

What Actually Causes Dandruff?

Title: What Actually Causes Dandruff?
Date posted: 8 years ago
Description: This fungus lives on your scalp and may affect the genes you express.
Check out Head & Shoulders research on getting rid of dandruff: https://ve42.co/HS

Animation by Pindex: https://ve42.co/pindex

When I started this project, I wasn't sure what caused dandruff and I also didn't think much science would go into making a shampoo like Head & Shoulders. So what I learned really surprised me:

There are hundreds of scientists working on this shampoo. They run crazy-sounding experiments like hanging hair near Tokyo highways to understand how real-world environments deposit dirt on hair. They use sophisticated scientific techniques like electron microscopes, nuclear magnetic resonance and gene sequencing to study dandruff on the molecular level.

In fact they sequenced the entire genome of Malassezia globosa in 2002, one year after the human genome project. Their findings are published in international refereed journals. What they have f...

Why Boredom is Good For You

Title: Why Boredom is Good For You
Date posted: 8 years ago
Description: Boredom makes you more creative, altruistic, introspective, and helps with autobiographical planning.
This video was sponsored by LastPass: http://bit.ly/2wAsdUu

I feel like this video might come across as condescending but the person I'm really talking to is myself. Despite the fact that I know how useful it can be to be bored, I still find myself trying to fill every last moment with stimulus. Boredom is unpleasant - the open, unstructured thinking that can take place can also feel pointless. But now I'm made this video to remind myself how important boredom is so hopefully I'll make more time to be bored.

More resources:

The boredom leads people to shock themselves study:
Just Think: The challenges of the disengaged mind
https://wjh-www.harvard.edu/~dtg/WILSON%20ET%20AL%202014.pdf

Boredom leads people to consider their future and set goals study:
Back to the future: Autobiographical planning and the function...

This Toy Can Open Any Garage

Title: This Toy Can Open Any Garage
Date posted: 8 years ago
Description: Or almost any garage - it's particularly good with fixed code gates and garages. Samy proposes other weaknesses with rolling codes.
This video was sponsored by LastPass: http://bit.ly/2oscAe9

I don't condone malicious hacking of gates, garages or other property. The point of this video was to discuss how it could be done using fairly basic technology like this toy that was originally intended as an instant messaging device. I learned a lot in making this video about how codes are sent and received, how they are encrypted or not encrypted. I found out how hard it is to execute in practice something which in principle doesn't seem that difficult.

Special thanks to Samy! His original videos on using the IM ME to open radio frequency garages and gates can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/user/s4myk
He's got a really cool channel so be sure to subscribe if you're interested in this stuff.

Music from http://epidemicsound.com "Critical ...

How UV Causes Cancer and Aging

Title: How UV Causes Cancer and Aging
Date posted: 8 years ago
Description: UV at ground level is non-ionizing but it damages DNA and causes photoaging - how?
Also, it turns out glass doesn't block all UV (specifically UVA passes through). This is something I learned filming with the UV camera inside.

Special thanks to Dr. Hayley Golbach, @hayleysgold on twitter
https://twitter.com/hayleysgold

Ultraviolet light causes damage to DNA, leads to cancer and photoaging: age spots and wrinkles. I was curious about this because UV is technically non-ionizing. A photon of UV doesn't have enough energy to strip an electron off atoms or molecules. However it does have enough energy to trigger photo-chemical reactions. For example, it causes pyrimidine dimers - the unauthorized covalent bonding of adjacent thymine or cytosine bases in our DNA. If these spots are not properly repaired, they may lead to mutations and cancer. Photoaging is typically the result of degradation of collagen and elastin fibers - scaffolding that supports the ...

Is Our Food Becoming Less Nutritious?

Title: Is Our Food Becoming Less Nutritious?
Date posted: 8 years ago
Description: The nutrient content of food is declining. Is it because of soil depletion, selective breeding, or... something else?
Watch my new documentary, VITAMANIA: http://ve42.co/vita

I came across this story as I was making the film Vitamania. When you ask sellers of vitamins why you should take vitamin supplements even if you eat a healthy diet, they will say because our food doesn't contain all the nutrients it once did. This is supposedly due to soil depletion, cold storage, food ripening off the vine, and global transport of out-of-season foods. And to an extent this is true. Foods contain the greatest amount of nutrients if they are eaten soon after they are harvested. An unexpected source of nutrient decline is the increasing amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It causes plants to grow faster and bulk up on carbs but at the expense of other nutrients, so in percentage terms the amount of nutrients are actually declining. For now this decline is modest so supple...

Can You Overdose on Vitamins?

Title: Can You Overdose on Vitamins?
Date posted: 8 years ago
Description: Vitamins are 13 molecules essential for life that our bodies can't make themselves.
Watch Vitamania here: https://ve42.co/vita

Now available worldwide, except France and Germany where it will be broadcast on ARTE soon. Subscribe on the Vitamania website for updates.

Use #vitamania to join the conversation on Twitter and Facebook.

Vitamania is a Genepool Productions feature documentary for SBS Australia, CuriosityStream, and ARTE France. Principal production investment from Screen Australia, in association with Film Victoria.

What if you could only see the world in UV?

Title: What if you could only see the world in UV?
Date posted: 8 years ago
Description: UV cameras expose a hidden world and reveal the incompleteness of our perception
The Physics Girl looks at sunscreen: https://youtu.be/GRD-xvlhGMc
How to make sunscreen from scratch: https://youtu.be/lMXAY5F28L0

In summary, ultraviolet light interacts differently with matter for a number of reasons:
1. Some pigments selectively absorb UV so they may appear white in the visible but dark in the UV. The pigments usually dissipate the UV energy as heat, though the breaking of bonds can also occur.
2. Fluorescent molecules absorb UV light and re-radiate that energy as visible light. This makes them look dark in the UV but glowing under black light.
3. Ultraviolet light scatters more than visible light because the wavelength is shorter and Raleigh scattering is proportional to the reciprocal of wavelength to the power of four.

Special thanks to HHMI BioInteractive for their awesome animations of melanocytes and how the melanin in melano...

Spinning Sphere of Molten Sodium

Title: Spinning Sphere of Molten Sodium
Date posted: 8 years ago
Description: An experiment on how turbulent convection in Earth's core makes a magnetic field
Get a free audiobook with a free 30 day trial at http://www.audible.com/Veritasium or text Veritasium to 500-500

Huge thanks to Prof. Dan Lathrop and team: http://ve42.co/Lathrop

Companion video to explain Earth's magnetic fields in more detail:
https://youtu.be/lWHxmJf6U3M

Australians! I'm on my way. I'll be doing live shows in Perth, Sydney and Melbourne. Details and tickets here: http://ve42.co/tour

Find out more about the film Vitamania: http://ve42.co/VITA

Special thanks to Brady Haran and Periodic Videos for sodium vs water footage. Original clip is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzEOL-N2cbw

Special thanks to Patreon supporters:
Donal Botkin, Michael Krugman, Jeff Straathof, Zach Mueller, Ron Neal, Nathan Hansen, Yildiz Kabaran, Terrance Snow, Stan Presolski

I learned a lot in m...

Title: My Life Story
Date posted: 8 years ago
Description: The truth, with photons.
I hope I've articulated everything clearly in this video. If not, I'll clarify in comments. Thanks to everyone who appears in this video and thanks to everyone who watches this video!

Veritasium is of course a combination of the latin 'veritas' meaning truth, and the common element ending 'ium'. I guess this is my version of the 'draw my life' craze that rolled through YouTube many years ago. Except I wanted to tell my story with the actual moments, the photons, the stored magnetic states. There's something about that which is so important to me (because I think the alternative involves fooling yourself) which is why I'm so fascinated by film and video.

One of my inspirations for the name Veritasium came from the end of the poem Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats, in which he writes:
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

Special thanks t...

Why Einstein Thought Nuclear Weapons Were Impossible

Title: Why Einstein Thought Nuclear Weapons Were Impossible
Date posted: 8 years ago
Description: Without neutrons, harnessing nuclear energy would be impossible.
Try Audible free for 30 days: http://audible.com/veritasium

I have a new documentary coming out in a few months - sign up here to be notified and see a sneak preview: http://vitamaniathemovie.com

Special thanks to Patreon supporters:
Tony Fadell, Donal Botkin, Michael Krugman, Jeff Straathof, Zach Mueller, Ron Neal, Nathan Hansen, Yildiz Kabaran,
Terrance Snow

A few years ago I made a documentary about uranium, radioactivity and radiation. I always thought of the characters in our story as the scientists and maybe the uranium nucleus itself. It was only through making the documentary that I realized the real hero of the story is the neutron. Without a neutral nuclear particle, it would be virtually impossible to release the energy from the nucleus. But with it, and the idea of a chain reaction, nuclear energy went from science fiction to reality. That is something ...

The Threat of AI Weapons

Title: The Threat of AI Weapons
Date posted: 8 years ago
Description: Will artificial intelligence weapons cause World War III? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiJTq11kqdw
This animated clip is from my friends at http://ve42.co/pindex2
New series! http://vrv.co/paradigms

I'm not sure how alarmed to be about artificial intelligence. Personally I think it's really hard to predict when we'll create a machine that essentially has consciousness. That's because we don't know what consciousness is, how it works, what's required to create it etc. So It might be technologically around the corner or a hundred years away.

What I do think is more predictable is the development of autonomous weapons that use AI to be the most effective killing machines of all time. That is scary. As outline by people like Musk and Hawking, this threat is clear and present so we should address it. I would like to see us agree as a species not to develop these sorts of weapons because if any one state does develop them, they would be very hard to s...

Why Mosquitoes Bite Some People More Than Others

Title: Why Mosquitoes Bite Some People More Than Others
Date posted: 8 years ago
Description: Mosquitoes are attracted to me and it's likely due to my genes.
This video is sponsored by 23andMe https://23andme.com/veritasium
Huge thanks to Prof. Immo Hansen and team: http://ve42.co/hansen

References:
Genome Wide Association Study for self-reported mosquito attractiveness:
http://ve42.co/MossieGWAS

The twin study showing correlated attractiveness is stronger for identical twins:
http://ve42.co/MossieTwins

Some things we know make mosquitoes more attracted to you:
Exercising, higher metabolism, higher body temperature, more body odor, being pregnant, type O blood, infrequent bathing, lactic acid, ammonia, acetone.

There are a number of folk remedies people believe protect them from mosquito bites like drinking alcohol, eating garlic, or taking vitamin B. These do not appear to provide any benefit in lab studies and in fact drinking alcohol is associated with increased mosquito activity because ...

This Particle Breaks Time Symmetry

Title: This Particle Breaks Time Symmetry
Date posted: 9 years ago
Description: Increasing entropy is NOT the only process that's asymmetric in time.
Check out the book: http://WeHaveNoIdea.com
This video was co-written by Daniel Whiteson and Jorge Cham
You can also check out PhD Comics: http://phdcomics.com

Special thanks to Patreon supporters:
Tony Fadell, Donal Botkin, Michael Krugman, Jeff Straathof, Zach Mueller, Ron Neal, Nathan Hansen, Joshua Abenir

Support Veritasium on Patreon: http://ve42.co/patreon

Original paper on parity violation by the weak force by Lee and Yang:
http://www.physics.utah.edu/~belz/phys5110/PhysRev.104.254.pdf

More on B-meson oscillations and time reversal violation:
Physics World Article: http://ve42.co/TimeReversal
Original paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1410.1742.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B_meson

Physics consultant: Prof. Stephen Bartlett

Studio filming by Raquel Nuno

World's First Car!

Title: World's First Car!
Date posted: 9 years ago
Description: I got to drive the world's first car (replica), patented by Benz in 1886
Check out the series on new safety features: http://ve42.co/MB
This video is sponsored by Mercedes-Benz, who invited me to come to Stuttgart to see their latest cars, crash test facilities and experience the innovations they are working on.

Physics is something that is directly applicable to car safety. Cars go fast, but they also sometimes collide with obstacles, which brings them to a sudden stop, subjecting the car and occupants to very high accelerations, which can cause injury or death. So the major idea to improve car safety is to reduce these accelerations and there are a number of ways to do this:

Passive safety:

Seat belts: keep passengers in the vehicle, preventing them from continuing with constant velocity, flying through the windshield and suffering a worse deceleration when they make contact with the road.

Crumple zones: increase the dis...

Your Body's Molecular Machines

Title: Your Body's Molecular Machines
Date posted: 9 years ago
Description: These are the molecular machines inside your body that make cell division possible. Animation by Drew Berry at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research. http://wehi.tv

Special thanks to Patreon supporters:
Joshua Abenir, Tony Fadell, Donal Botkin, Jeff Straathof, Zach Mueller, Ron Neal, Nathan Hansen

Support Veritasium on Patreon: http://ve42.co/patreon

Every day in an adult human roughly 50-70 billion of your cells die. They may be damaged, stressed, or just plain old - this is normal, in fact it’s called programmed cell death.

To make up for that loss, right now, inside your body, billions of cells are dividing, creating new cells.

And cell division, also called mitosis, requires an army of tiny molecular machines.DNA is a good place to start - the double helix molecule that we always talk about.

This is a scientifically accurate depiction of DNA. If you unwind the two strands you can...

Neutron Star Merger Gravitational Waves and Gamma Rays

Title: Neutron Star Merger Gravitational Waves and Gamma Rays
Date posted: 9 years ago
Description: The merging of two neutron stars was detected by gravitational waves and then by telescopes in all parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. This is a historic detection as it demonstrates:
- the first gravitational waves detected from inspiraling neutron stars
- the first joint observation by gravitational wave and electromagnetic wave astronomy
- identification of a gamma ray burst in conjunction with merging neutron stars
- how gravitational waves and gamma rays can be used together to locate their source

All evidence so far indicates that the data support General Relativity.

Special thanks to Patreon supporters:
Tony Fadell, Donal Botkin, Curational, Jeff Straathof, Zach Mueller, Ron Neal, Nathan Hansen, Corvi

Support Veritasium on Patreon: http://ve42.co/patreon

Graphics from:
Jets and Debris from a Neutron Star Collision
This animation captures phenomena observed over the course of nine day...

Schlieren Imaging in Color!

Title: Schlieren Imaging in Color!
Date posted: 9 years ago
Description: How Schlieren imaging works in color, black and white and slow-mo.
Get a free audiobook with a 30 day free trial at http://www.audible.com/veritasium

Special thanks to Patreon supporters:
Tony Fadell, Donal Botkin, Curational, Jeff Straathof, Zach Mueller, Ron Neal, Nathan Hansen, Corvi

Support Veritasium on Patreon: http://ve42.co/patreon

Filming by Raquel Nuno
Sound Effects by A Shell in the Pit

What it’s like to watch a Total Solar Eclipse

Title: What it’s like to watch a Total Solar Eclipse
Date posted: 9 years ago
Description: The total solar eclipse from Madras, Oregon on August 21, 2017. As the moon passed in front of the sun turning day to night and revealing the sun's corona, apparently all I could think to say was 'Oh my goodness!'

This awe-inspiring phenomenon returned to the US on April 8, 2024, when total solar eclipse crossed North America, passing over Mexico, the United States, and Canada.

Special thanks to our Patreon supporters! Join the community to help us keep our videos free, forever: https://ve42.co/PatreonDE

Everyone says not to photograph your first solar eclipse and I think they might be right. I was focused on getting the exposure right for Bailey's beads and the diamond ring, plus making sure to get the corona and solar flares. This was a bit stressful but I'm delighted with the results.

This video originally included more info but since I'm uploading from Madras where the internet is sluggish, I cut out three minutes so the upload wo...

How We're Redefining the kg

Title: How We're Redefining the kg
Date posted: 9 years ago
Description: In 2018 the kg will be defined by Planck's constant, not a hunk of metal.
Try a free book from Audible for 30 days http://ve42.co/audible
Special thanks to the staff at NIST who made this possible: Darine Haddad, Jon Pratt, Stephan Schlamminger, and Ben Stein.

Additional footage and animations by Sean Kelley, Jennifer Lauren Lee, and Frank Seifert.

I have been obsessed with measurement for a long time and I'm not sure quite how it happened. The world's roundest object played a role in this. I guess I'm just fascinated by how difficult it is to pin down a quantity like a kilogram. A physical object seemed like a good idea until the mass of the international prototype kilogram wasn't as constant as expected. These methods of the Kibble balance and silicon sphere have shown better precision than 20 parts per billion, making them superior to the old method. The agreement between Avogadro approaches

Special thanks to Patreon Supporters:

Hydrodynamic Levitation!

Title: Hydrodynamic Levitation!
Date posted: 9 years ago
Description: On a stream of water you can levitate light balls of all sizes and even disks and cylinders. The mechanism is not the Bernoulli effect...
Want to make this at home? https://youtu.be/BppcHF2EdAY

My friend Blake from InnoVinci emailed me with a cool idea for a video and footage of levitating balls in water streams. Initially it was tough to explain the physics of what was going on. The standard Bernoulli effect relies on the object being completely immersed in the upward-flowing fluid. But in this case the water seems to form a single stream around the object and it's deflected away and down from the stream. By Newton's third law, the force on the water by the ball is equal and opposite to the force of the water back on the ball, pushing it up into the stream. There is a stable equilibrium position because if the ball moves into the stream, it "cuts off" the water going over the ball so it drifts out. If it drifts out too far, then lots of water passes over the ball, p...

How To See Air Currents

Title: How To See Air Currents
Date posted: 9 years ago
Description: This is what the world would look like if you could see invisible air currents, temperature gradients, and differences in pressure or composition of the air.
Support Veritasium on Patreon: http://ve42.co/patreon

Special thanks to Patreon Supporters:
Tony Fadell, Donal Botkin, Jeff Straathof, Zach Mueller, Ron Neal, Nathan Hansen

I first saw a Schlieren imaging setup around ten years ago in Melbourne. I was immediately fascinated by the way I could see the warm air coming off my hand. I hadn't expected the currents to be moving that fast or to be so visible. This was a tricky setup to get right because alignment is very important and here I'm just working with what I had lying around the house mostly (plus the mirror). For the best Schlieren photography, making sure the mirror is stable is essential. I want to improve my setup so the mirror doesn't wobble back and forth too much creating the pulsing light and dark sections of this video.

Sandwich Bag Fire Starter

Title: Sandwich Bag Fire Starter
Date posted: 9 years ago
Description: Grant Thompson - the King of Random - teaches me how to start a fire with a Sandwich bag. And we tried to melt glass in my backyard: https://goo.gl/zb0uE0
Check out his channel: http://ve42.co/KoR

The intensity of sunlight on Earth is about 1300 Watts per square meter. When you focus the sun's rays using a magnifying glass (or in this case sphere of water) you can increase the intensity roughly ten thousand fold. This increases the temperature of wood to its autoignition point starting the reaction with oxygen in the atmosphere. By protecting the hot embers and adding more energy and fuel, you can get these hot coals to start a roaring fire.

Special thanks to Patreon Supporters:
Tony Fadell, Donal Botkin, Jeff Straathof, Zach Mueller, Ron Neal, Nathan Hansen

Support Veritasium on Patreon: http://ve42.co/patreon

NEW Gravitational Wave Discovery!

Title: NEW Gravitational Wave Discovery!
Date posted: 9 years ago
Description: Scientists have JUST published this new observation. On January 4th, 2017 they detected the merger of two black holes 3 billion light-years away. This marks the furthest detection they've been able to make and increases confidence that these events will be seen with increasing frequency as the LIGO interferometers become more sensitive to low amplitude gravitational waves (as sources of noise are eliminated).

Special thanks to:
Prof. Rana Adhikari
Prof. David Reitze

Resources by:
Binary Neutron Star merger: Relastro @ ITP - Goethe University, Frankfurt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOTXC4FG9gU
Numerical simulation of black hole merger:
S. Ossokine/A. Buonanno/T. Dietrich (MPI for Gravitational Physics)/R. Haas (NCSA)/SXS project
Artist's impression of merger and chart: LIGO/Caltech/MIT/Sonoma State (Aurore Simonnet)
Simulation of black hole merger: SXS Collaboration

Special thanks to Patreon Supporters:<...

World's Heaviest Weight

Title: World's Heaviest Weight
Date posted: 9 years ago
Description: How do you measure big forces accurately? By calibrating your force transducer on the world's biggest weight - 1,000,000 pounds of force. This machine ensures planes don't break apart, jets provide required thrust, and rockets make it to their destination.

Thanks to the people at NIST for showing me around: Rick Seifarth and Ben Stein. Animations here are by Sean Kelley and additional footage by Jennifer Lauren Lee.

Special thanks to Patreon Supporters:
Tony Fadell, Donal Botkin, Jeff Straathof, Zach Mueller, Ron Neal, Nathan Hansen

Support Veritasium on Patreon: http://ve42.co/patreon

Before visiting NIST in Washington DC I had no idea machines like this existed. Surely there's an accurate way to measure forces without creating such a huge known force?! Nope. This appears to be the best way, with a stack of 20 x 50,000 lb masses creating a maximum force of 4.45 MN or 1,000,000 pounds of force. I also wouldn't have thought about...

Mars 2020: Nasa's Next Mission To Mars

Title: Mars 2020: Nasa's Next Mission To Mars
Date posted: 9 years ago
Description: The Perseverance Rover and helicopter Ingenuity have landed safely on Mars. A few years back I got to visit NASA JPL to interview the scientists to find out their goals for the mission. I made this clip as a correspondent for Bill Nye Saves the World on Netflix.

Touring the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) in Pasadena was an awesome experience. I didn't think we were going to get into the control room but we got lucky. Some of the greatest moments in the history of space exploration have taken place there. They have a giant vacuum chamber where they can take the rover down to the atmospheric pressure on Mars (roughly .01x Earth's atmosphere) and test all of the devices to make sure there are no electrical discharges due to the reduced pressure. I also enjoyed seeing how the rocks will be cored and stored in tubes and deposited on the Martian surface awaiting pickup by the following mission.

Images courtesy of NASA.

Filmed by Raquel Nuno from 3:30 onwards....

Is America Actually Metric?

Title: Is America Actually Metric?
Date posted: 9 years ago
Description: The US signed the metre convention and bases all customary units on SI standards. As an aside, the Utah constitution from 1895 required the metric system to be taught in schools. This requirement was repealed in 1987. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Huge thanks to NIST, Ben Stein and Patrick Abbott.
https://www.nist.gov/
https://www.nist.gov/pml/weights-and-measures/si-units-mass

Special thanks to Patreon Supporters:
Tony Fadell, Donal Botkin, Jeff Straathof, Zach Mueller, Ron Neal, Nathan Hansen

Back in 1875 The US signed the Metre Convention, which basically committed the country to use the metric system. In return, French scientists sent two platinum-iridium cylinders that weigh 1kg to the US in 1889 (known by their designations K4 and K20 from a set of 40 identical objects that were produced and sent around the world). So even though everything you see and buy in the US is usually reported in pounds, all weights are traceable back to the K20 k...

Fire in ZERO-G!!

Title: Fire in ZERO-G!!
Date posted: 9 years ago
Description: In a zero-g plane I experimented with flames and slinkies with surprising results.
Check out e-penser's video: http://ve42.co/EPzeroG
Check out Physicsgirl's video: http://ve42.co/PGzeroG

Thanks to Novespace: http://ve42.co/novespace

Special thanks to Patreon Supporters:
Tony Fadell, Donal Botkin, Nick Luchsinger, Jeff Straathof, Zach Mueller, Ron Neal, Nathan Hansen

The zero-g plane allows for a lot of experiments to be conducted without the expense of getting equipment into orbit. Apparently 80% of microgravity research can be performed in a zero-gravity plane, which is much cheaper than going to space. The flame from the lighter seemed much lazier in zero-g because without weight there is no buoyant force and therefore no convection. This makes the process of combustion more challenging because it's difficult for oxygen to reach the fuel.

Music from the Epidemic Sound: http://ve42.co/epidemic
"Serene Story 2...

The Sun Sneeze Gene

Title: The Sun Sneeze Gene
Date posted: 9 years ago
Description: I have the photic sneeze reflex so I sneeze when I look at bright light.
Check out 23andMe: http://ve42.co/23andme
*So technically the single nucleotide swap (C instead of T) is not actually in a gene per se but in an intergenic region on chromosome 2. It's also not clear exactly how this affects physiology or causes the sun sneeze but there is correlative evidence that every copy of this single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) is associated with a 1.3x increase in likelihood of having the photic sneeze reflex.

I have wanted to make a video about sun-sneezing for a long time. It is something I've experienced my whole life. When I go from a dark room indoors into full sunlight I invariably sneeze. I thought everyone did it. So my original question was why do people sneeze when they see bright light? That led me to consider what possible evolutionary advantages there could be to sneezing in sunlight. The obvious advantage to me is that sunlight kills pathogens of wh...

4 Revolutionary Riddles Resolved!

Title: 4 Revolutionary Riddles Resolved!
Date posted: 9 years ago
Description: The solution to 4 rotation-related riddles, including the mystery cylinder, bike pedal pulling puzzle, track problem, and train part going backwards. Thank you to everyone who responded, liked, shared, or made a video response.
Please fill out this short survey for research: http://ve42.co/Rresearch

Special thanks to:
Mathematician George Hart: http://georgehart.com/
For allowing me to use excerpts from his pedal pulling puzzle solution: http://ve42.co/ppp

Petr Lebedev for combing through thousands of comments and providing the stats I gave in this video.

Video responses I used in this video (or watched):
everWonder? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ub2Cuclh1M
A Random Nerdy Channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9RB9TrZGps
The Physics DoJo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pns0LCGLu9k
Oblivious Jim https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12WZIMEPi1A
Armchair Explorers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1yX_LT...

4 Revolutionary Riddles

Title: 4 Revolutionary Riddles
Date posted: 9 years ago
Description: Can you solve these four rotation-related riddles?
Support Veritasium on Patreon: http://ve42.co/patreon
Test yourself playlist: http://ve42.co/testurself

Huge thanks to Patreon supporters:
Jeff Straathof, Zach Mueller, Ron Neal, Nathan Hansen

I came across these four physics puzzles over the years in discussions with Neil deGrasse Tyson (riddle 4: which part(s) of a moving train are going backwards with respect to the ground?), Simon Pampena (riddle 2: run around a track twice, the first time slowly, the second time much faster so that the average for the two laps is twice the speed of the first lap). Someone tweeted me a video of the mystery cylinder rolling down the ramp in riddle 1 (sorry I'm not sure who it was). Riddle three about a bicycle going forward or backward when it's bottom peddle is pulled back was brought to me by a number of people and I appreciate all of their help!

Filmed by Raquel Nuno.
Thanks to everyo...

The Bayesian Trap

Title: The Bayesian Trap
Date posted: 9 years ago
Description: Bayes' theorem explained with examples and implications for life.
Check out Audible: http://ve42.co/audible
Support Veritasium on Patreon: http://ve42.co/patreon

I didn't say it explicitly in the video, but in my view the Bayesian trap is interpreting events that happen repeatedly as events that happen inevitably. They may be inevitable OR they may simply be the outcome of a series of steps, which likely depend on our behaviour. Yet our expectation of a certain outcome often leads us to behave just as we always have which only ensures that outcome. To escape the Bayesian trap, we must be willing to experiment.

Special thanks to Patreon supporters:
Tony Fadell, Jeff Straathof, Donal Botkin, Zach Mueller, Ron Neal, Nathan Hansen, Saeed Alghamdi

Useful references:
The Signal and the Noise, Nate Silver
The Theory That Would Not Die: How Bayes’ Rule Cracked the Enigma Code, Hunted Down Russian Submarines, and Emerged Tri...

Does Water Swirl the Other Way in the Southern Hemisphere?

Title: Does Water Swirl the Other Way in the Southern Hemisphere?
Date posted: 9 years ago
Description: The definitive answer about the direction water swirls in two hemispheres
Sync the videos yourself: http://toiletswirl.com

For the record Destin and I repeated the experiment 3-4 times each in each hemisphere and got the same results every time.

The idea that water going down a drain or flushed down a toilet swirls in opposite directions in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres has a long history. But few have ever done the experiment. Destin from Smarter Every Day and I performed identical experiments in the Northern and Southern hemispheres. What we found is the direction of water swirl in a toilet, sink, or bathtub is determined by other sources of angular momentum. However if the body of water is big enough, e.g. a kiddy pool, and left still for long enough (at least 24 hours), then the Coriolis effect is observable with water swirling counterclockwise in the Northern hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern hemisphere.

Veritasium on Ins...

The Science of Thinking

Title: The Science of Thinking
Date posted: 9 years ago
Description: How the brain works, how we learn, and why we sometimes make stupid mistakes.
Submit ideas: http://ve42.co/GotIdeas
Apply to work with me: http://ve42.co/JoinUs

Thanks to Patreon supporters:
Nathan Hansen, Donal Botkin, Tony Fadell, Zach Mueller, Ron Neal

Support Veritasium on Patreon: http://bit.ly/VePatreon

This video was inspired by the book Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

Harpist: Lara Somogyi http://ve42.co/Lara
Animator: Jesse Agar http://ve42.co/ThisPlace
Filmed by Raquel Nuno

Music by Kevin MacLeod, http://incompetech.com "Sneaky Adventure" "Harlequin"

3 Sources of Water on the Moon

Title: 3 Sources of Water on the Moon
Date posted: 9 years ago
Description: NEW CHANNEL! http://youtube.com/sciencium

For a long time we thought the Moon was completely dry, but it turns out there are actually three sources of lunar water.
Thanks to Google Making and Science for supporting the new channel! http://youtube.com/makingscience

Thanks to Patreon supporters:
Nathan Hansen, Donal Botkin, Tony Fadell, Zach Mueller, Ron Neal

Support Veritasium on Patreon: http://bit.ly/VePatreon

References:
Great history of water on the moon: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1205.5597.pdf

Filmed by Raquel Nuno

Music from http://epidemicsound.com "Serene Story 2"

Electromagnetic Levitation Quadcopter

Title: Electromagnetic Levitation Quadcopter
Date posted: 9 years ago
Description: Spinning magnets near copper sheets create levitation!
Try Audible free for 30 days: http://bit.ly/AudibleVe
Special thanks to Hyperloop One for showing me around.

Thanks to Patreon supporters:
Nathan Hansen, Donal Botkin, Tony Fadell, Saeed Alghamdi, Zach Mueller, Ron Neal, Perry cl, Bryan Baker
Support Veritasium on Patreon: http://bit.ly/VePatreon

Filmed by Raquel Nuno, Edited by Trevor Carlee

Obviously this "quadcopter" is a demonstration device, showing how moving magnets over a conducting surface can generate levitation. It has not been optimized to minimize losses or be an efficient mode of transport. I still think it's pretty cool. I'm used to seeing light things levitated by induced currents but not a 100+ lb machine.

For more on Hyperloop One: https://hyperloop-one.com/

The Real Moral Dilemma of Self-Driving Cars

Title: The Real Moral Dilemma of Self-Driving Cars
Date posted: 9 years ago
Description: We talk about all the potentially challenging situations autonomous cars could get into but not about how human drivers are not very good. Tens of thousands die on the roads every year in collisions, most of which could be prevented by autonomous vehicles.
Sponsored by BMW

I wanted to make a video about autonomous cars for some time but I hadn't had the opportunity. The self-driving technology is already at a state where it can save lives if only it were more widely implemented.

Links to original clips:
TED-Ed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixIoDYVfKA0
BBC Newsnight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FypPSJfCRFk&t=172s

Music from http://www.epidemicsound.com "Ambient Electronic Groove," "Pet Animals 2," "The Long Ride."
Filmed by Raquel Nuno
Edited by Trevor Carlee

The Absurdity of Detecting Gravitational Waves

Title: The Absurdity of Detecting Gravitational Waves
Date posted: 9 years ago
Description: A head-vaporizing laser with a perfect wavelength detecting sub-proton space-time ripples.
Huge thanks to Prof Rana Adhikari and LIGO: http://ligo.org
Here's how he felt when he learned about the first ever detection: https://youtu.be/ViMnGgn87dg

Thanks to Patreon supporters:
Nathan Hansen, Donal Botkin, Tony Fadell, Saeed Alghamdi, Zach Mueller, Ron Neal
Support Veritasium on Patreon: http://bit.ly/VePatreon

A lot of videos have covered the general overview of the discovery of gravitational waves, what they are, the history of the search, when they were found but I wanted to delve into the absurd science that made the detection possible.

When scientists want one megawatt of laser power, it's not just for fun (though I'm sure it's that too), it's because the fluctuations in the number of photons is proportional to their square root, making more powerful beams less noisy (as a fraction of their total). The smoothest mirrors ...

Post-Truth: Why Facts Don't Matter Anymore

Title: Post-Truth: Why Facts Don't Matter Anymore
Date posted: 10 years ago
Description: Why we can't seem to agree on what's true when it's easier than ever to check.
Videos like this are usually on 2Veritasium: http://bit.ly/2Veritasium
Support Veritasium on Patreon: http://bit.ly/VePatreon

This video was filmed at a meetup in Stockholm, Sweden on Dec. 9, 2016. Huge thanks to everyone who attended - I had a great time. Sorry to those of you I missed, especially Lund and Gothenburg.

Thanks to Patreon supporters (but this is a non-paid post):
Meshal Alshammari, Nathan Hansen, Bryan Baker, Donal Botkin, Tony Fadell, Saeed Alghamdi, Ron Neal

Indestructible Coating?!

Title: Indestructible Coating?!
Date posted: 10 years ago
Description: Used in everything from bullet-proof vests to the walls of the Pentagon, polyurea's strength comes from its long-chain molecules.
Check out How Ridiculous: http://bit.ly/VeHowRidiculous
Snatoms magnetic molecules: http://bit.ly/VeSnatoms
Veritasium on Patreon: http://bit.ly/VePatreon

Special thanks to South Bay Line-X: http://southbaylinex.com/

Thanks to Patreon supporters:
Nathan Hansen, Bryan Baker, Donal Botkin, Tony Fadell, Saeed Alghamdi

Filmed by Prashanth Venkataramanujam

SFX by A Shell in the Pit

What the Fahrenheit?!

Title: What the Fahrenheit?!
Date posted: 10 years ago
Description: The crazy story of the arbitrary temperature scale used in a tiny minority of countries.
Check out Audible: http://bit.ly/AudibleVe
Snatoms are available again! http://www.snatoms.com
Support Veritasium on Patreon: http://bit.ly/VePatreon

Celsius didn't invent Celsius: http://bit.ly/VeCelsius

Video animated by Marcello Ascani: http://bit.ly/VeMarcello

Thanks to Patreon supporters:
Nathan Hansen, Bryan Baker, Donal Botkin, Tony Fadell, Saeed Alghamdi

Music by Kevin MacLeod: http://incompetech.com "Modern Piano Zeta - Improbable" "Ice Demon" "Divertimento K131" "Sneaky Adventure" "Sheep May Safely Graze" "Professor and the Plant"

References:
A History of the Thermometer and its uses in Meteorology by W. E. Knowles Middleton

Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold by Tom Shachtman

The Science of Measurement, A Historical Survey by Herbert Arthur Klein

Lehrbu...

Is This What Quantum Mechanics Looks Like?

Title: Is This What Quantum Mechanics Looks Like?
Date posted: 10 years ago
Description: Silicone oil droplets provide a physical realization of pilot wave theories.
Check out Smarter Every Day: http://bit.ly/VeSmarter
Support Veritasium on Patreon: http://bit.ly/VePatreon

Huge thanks to:
Dr. Stephane Perrard, Dr Matthieu Labousse, Pr Emmanuel Fort, Pr Yves Couder and their group site http://dualwalkers.com/
Prof. John Bush: http://math.mit.edu/~bush/
Dr. Daniel Harris
Prof. Stephen Bartlett
Looking Glass Universe: http://bit.ly/LGUVe
Workgroup Bohemian Mechanics: http://www.mathematik.uni-muenchen.de/~bohmmech/
Filmed by Raquel Nuno

Thanks to Patreon supporters:
Nathan Hansen, Bryan Baker, Donal Botkin, Tony Fadell, Saeed Alghamdi

Thanks to Google Making and Science for helping me pursue my #sciencegoals. If you want to try this experiment, instructions are here: link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12650-016-0383-5

The standard theory of quantum mechanics leaves ...

Why Metals Spontaneously Fuse Together In Space

Title: Why Metals Spontaneously Fuse Together In Space
Date posted: 10 years ago
Description: In space, metals can weld together without heat or melting.
Check out Audible: http://bit.ly/AudibleVe
Support Veritasium on Patreon: http://bit.ly/VePatreon

Written by Joh Howes and Derek Muller

Yes, it's pronounced Gemini (ee not eye) because that's the way everyone pronounced this mission.

Thanks to Patreon supporters:
Bryan Baker, Donal Botkin, Tony Fadell, Saeed Alghamdi

References:
Gemini IV transcripts: http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/mission_trans/gemini4.htm

Gemini IV recordings:
https://archive.org/details/Gemini4 (relevant clip is 1297 at about 2:00)

ESA cold welding recommendations:
esmat.esa.int/Publications/Published_papers/STM-279.pdf

Cold welding gold nanowire:
http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/v5/n3/full/nnano.2010.4.html

Music by Kevin MacLeod "Intrepid" http://www.incompetech.com

How the Quantum Vacuum Gave Rise to Galaxies

Title: How the Quantum Vacuum Gave Rise to Galaxies
Date posted: 10 years ago
Description: All the large-scale structure in the universe may owe its existence to nothing.
Sponsored by the Dyson 360 Eye Robot #ad: http://bit.ly/2cGqBRV
Support Veritasium on Patreon: http://bit.ly/VePatreon

Thanks to Patreon supporters:
Bryan Baker, Donal Botkin, Tony Fadell, Saeed Alghamdi

Let's see how clearly I can explain this. We think of empty space as, well... empty, the epitome of nothingness. But as our understanding of physics has evolved we have realized that it's not truly empty. Space is filled with fields. There is a field for every subatomic particle. One for electrons, up quarks, down quarks, neutrinos and so on. In empty space these fields are basically zero, flat, nil. But it's impossible to make them perfectly zero so there are always some quantum fluctuations in the fields, even in a perfect vacuum. These are sometimes called virtual particles but they should really just be thought of as little disturbances in the field. Vacuum fl...

The Best and Worst Prediction in Science

Title: The Best and Worst Prediction in Science
Date posted: 10 years ago
Description: The best and worst predictions in science are both based on the same underlying physics
Check out the Great Courses Plus: http://ow.ly/cePe303oKDM
Support Veritasium on Patreon: http://bit.ly/VePatreon

Special thanks to:
Prof. Sean Carroll
Prof. Brian Schmidt
Prof. Stephen Bartlett
Prof. Geraint Lewis

More on this topic: http://wke.lt/w/s/XDkwi

Patreon supporters:
Bryan Baker, Donal Botkin, Tony Fadell, Jason Buster, Saeed Alghamdi, Nathan Hansen

Virtual particles are a way of talking about fields and their interactions as though particles are doing all the work. This is why there is some controversy around using the term 'virtual particles'. Some people think the term is useful, especially since in calculating with Feynman diagrams you draw all the particle interactions that are possible (and then do the calculations to get the right answer). While others feel this terminology is misleading b...

Is Most Published Research Wrong?

Title: Is Most Published Research Wrong?
Date posted: 10 years ago
Description: Mounting evidence suggests a lot of published research is false.
Check out Audible: http://bit.ly/AudibleVe
Support Veritasium on Patreon: http://bit.ly/VePatreon

Patreon supporters:
Bryan Baker, Donal Botkin, Tony Fadell, Jason Buster, Saeed Alghamdi

More information on this topic: http://wke.lt/w/s/z0wmO

The Preregistration Challenge: https://cos.io/prereg/

Resources used in the making of this video:

Why Most Published Research Findings Are False:
http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124

Trouble at the Lab:
http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21588057-scientists-think-science-self-correcting-alarming-degree-it-not-trouble

Science isn't broken:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/science-isnt-broken/#part1

Visual effects by Gustavo Rosa

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