A general solution to the cubic equation was long considered impossible, until we gave up the requirement that math reflect reality. This video is sponsored by Brilliant. The first 200 people to sign up via https://brilliant.org/veritasium get 20% off a yearly subscription. Thanks to Dr Amir Alexander, Dr Alexander Kontorovich, Dr Chris Ferrie, and Dr Adam Becker for the helpful advice and feedback on the earlier versions of the script. ▀▀▀ References: Some great videos about the cubic: 500 years of not teaching the cubic formula. -- https://youtu.be/N-KXStupwsc Imaginary Numbers are Real -- https://youtu.be/T647CGsuOVU Dunham, W. (1990). Journey through genius: The great theorems of mathematics. New York. -- https://ve42.co/Dunham90 Toscano, F. (2020). The Secret Formula. Princeton University Press. -- https://ve42.co/Toscano2020 Bochner, S. (1963). The significance of some basic mathematical conceptions for physics. Isis, 54(2), 179-205. -- https://ve42.co/Bochner63 Muroi, K. (2019). Cubic equation

The story of a controversial physics question on the qualifying exam for the 2014 US Physics Olympiad team. How does a uniform cable beneath a helicopter hang? Visit https://SimpliSafe.com/veritasium to learn more and to get at least 30% off your SimpliSafe security system! Thanks to SimpliSafe for sponsoring a portion of this video. Thanks to Scott Smith and the Perris Valley Airport for hosting us. You can follow their social media @skydive_perris and learn more about them at https://skydiveperris.com/ Thanks to Craig Hosking for being our expert helicopter pilot. Thanks to Professor Paul Stanley for the interview and for writing such an interesting question. ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ References: The Exam — https://ve42.co/AAPT2014Exam The Solution — https://ve42.co/AAPT2014Solutions ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ Special thanks to Patreon supporters: S S, Andrew, Benedikt Heinen, Diffbot, Micah Mangione, MJP, Gnare, Dave Kircher, Edward Larsen, Burt Humburg, Blake Byers, Dumky, Evgeny Skvortsov, Meekay,

This is a #robot that walks, flies, #skateboards, #slacklines, and might do much more one day. A portion of this video was sponsored by Bluehost. Start building a website with Bluehost today. Use my link to receive more than 65% off: https://bluehost.com/track/veritasium #Bluehost #BHcreator Thanks to Prof. Soon-Jo Chung and everyone at the Aerospace Robotics and Control Lab at Caltech for the tour! https://aerospacerobotics.caltech.edu/ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ References: Kim, K., Spieler, P., Lupu, S., Ramezani, A., Chung, S. (2021). A bipedal walking robot that can fly, slackline, and skateboard. Science Robotics. — https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scirobotics.abf8136 ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ Special thanks to Patreon supporters: S S, Andrew, Benedikt Heinen, Diffbot, Micah Mangione, MJP, Gnare, Dave Kircher, Edward Larsen, Burt Humburg, Blake Byers, Dumky, Evgeny Skvortsov, Meekay, Bill Linder, Paul Peijzel, Mac Malkawi, Michael Schneider, Big Badaboom, Ludovic Robillard, jim buckmaster, Ju

Your genetic code is probably already in a database, without you ever giving a sample or permission. This video is sponsored by Brilliant. The first 200 people to sign up via https://brilliant.org/veritasium get 20% off a yearly subscription. ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ A huge thanks to Paul Holes, Billy Jensen, Brett Williams, Dr Connie Bormans and Dr Doc Edge for being part of this video. Thanks to Verogen and Family Tree DNA for giving me access to film. Thanks to Sonya Pemberton, Joe Hanson, Raquel Nuno, CGP Grey, and numerous Patreon supporters for helpful feedback on an earlier version of this video. ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ References: Phillips, C. (2018). The Golden State Killer investigation and the nascent field of forensic genealogy. Forensic Science International: Genetics, 36, 186-188. -- https://ve42.co/Phillips2018 Guerrini, C. J., Robinson, J. O., Petersen, D., & McGuire, A. L. (2018). Should police have access to genetic genealogy databases? Capturing the Golden State Killer and other

Bowling has been reinvented many times over the past seven thousand years but especially in the last 30. This is the fascinating physics of balls, oil, lane and pins. A portion of this video was sponsored by Salesforce. Go to https://salesforce.com/veritasium to learn more. Huge thanks to Steve Kloempken and all of Storm Bowling for letting us visit and get a glimpse into the crazy world of bowling. Huge thanks to legends Chris Barnes and Pete Weber for taking the time to bowl with us. Thanks to Ron Hatfield and James Freeman for their help with research. Check out their great book, Bowling Beyond the Basics: https://ve42.co/HatfieldFreeman Thanks to the United States Bowling Congress (USBC) and Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) for their help with accessing archival data and footage. Thanks to Bill Guszczo for giving us the idea to make this video in the first place. ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ References: Freeman, James, and Ron Hatfield. Bowling beyond the Basics: What's Really Happening o

Under UV light, almost all species of scorpions glow a bright green color, but why? Thanks to Capital One Shopping for sponsoring a portion of this video! Avoid Paying Full Price. Get Capital One Shopping for free using this link: https://capitaloneshopping.com/veritasium A huge thanks to Prof. Carl Kloock for the interview and taking us scorpion hunting at the Panorama Vista Preserve. https://panoramavista.org/ ▀▀▀ References: Zwicky, K. T. (1968). A light response in the tail of Urodacus, a scorpion. Life Sciences, 7(6), 257-262. --https://ve42.co/Zwicky1968 Kloock, C. T. (2005). Aerial insects avoid fluorescing scorpions. Euscorpius, 2005(21), 1-7. -- https://ve42.co/Kloock2005 Gaffin, D. D., Bumm, L. A., Taylor, M. S., Popokina, N. V., & Mann, S. (2012). Scorpion fluorescence and reaction to light. Animal Behaviour, 83(2), 429-436. -- https://ve42.co/Gaffin2012 Kloock, C. T., Kubli, A., & Reynolds, R. (2010). Ultraviolet light detection: a function of scorpion fluorescence. The Journal of Arachnology

Tiny particles from distant galaxies have caused plane accidents, election interference and game glitches. This video is sponsored by Brilliant. The first 200 people to sign up via https://brilliant.org/veritasium get 20% off a yearly subscription. This video was inspired by the RadioLab Podcast "Bit Flip" https://ve42.co/BF -- they're brilliant science storytellers. A Huge thanks to Dr Leif Scheick, Calla Cofield and the JPL Media Relations Team. Thanks to Col Chris Hadfield. Check out his book: https://chrishadfield.ca/books/ ▀▀▀ References: J. F. Ziegler, "Terrestrial cosmic rays," in IBM Journal of Research and Development, vol. 40, no. 1, pp. 19-39, Jan. 1996, doi: 10.1147/rd.401.0019. -- https://ve42.co/Ziegler1996 D. Binder, E. C. Smith and A. B. Holman, "Satellite Anomalies from Galactic Cosmic Rays," in IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, vol. 22, no. 6, pp. 2675-2680, Dec. 1975, doi: 10.1109/TNS.1975.4328188 https://ve42.co/Binder1975 Ziegler, J. F., & Lanford, W. A. (1979). Effect of cosmic

The title and thumbnail play a huge role in a video's success or failure. Check out http://kiwico.com/Veritasium50 for 50% off your first month of any subscription! ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ Special thanks to Patreon supporters: Alvaro Naranjo, Burt Humburg, Blake Byers, Dumky, Mike Tung, Evgeny Skvortsov, Meekay, Ismail Öncü Usta, Paul Peijzel, Crated Comments, Anna, Mac Malkawi, Michael Schneider, Oleksii Leonov, Jim Osmun, Tyson McDowell, Ludovic Robillard, Jim buckmaster, fanime96, Juan Benet, Ruslan Khroma, Robert Blum, Richard Sundvall, Lee Redden, Vincent, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Alfred Wallace, Arjun Chakroborty, Joar Wandborg, Clayton Greenwell, Pindex, Michael Krugman, Cy 'kkm' K'Nelson, Sam Lutfi, Ron Neal ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ Written by Derek Muller Animation by Iván Tello Filmed by Derek Muller and Emily Zhang Additional video supplied by Getty Images Produced by Derek Muller, Emily Zhang and Petr Lebedev

3D printed rockets save on up front tooling, enable rapid iteration, decrease part count, and facilitate radically new designs. For your chance to win 2 seats on one of the first Virgin Galactic flights to Space and support a great cause, go to https://www.omaze.com/veritasium Thanks to Tim Ellis and everyone at Relativity Space for the tour! https://www.relativityspace.com/ https://youtube.com/c/RelativitySpace Special thanks to Scott Manley for the interview and advising on aerospace engineering. Check out his channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/szyzyg ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ References: Benson, T. (2021). Rocket Parts. NASA. — https://ve42.co/RocketParts Boen, B. (2009). Winter Wonder: Rocket Icicles. NASA. — https://ve42.co/EngineIcicles Hall, N. (2021). Rocket Thrust Equation. NASA. — https://ve42.co/RocketEqn Benson, T. (2021). Rocket Thrust. NASA. — https://ve42.co/RocketThrust Regenerative Cooling — https://ve42.co/RegenCooling How A Gold Bullet Almost Destroyed A Space Shuttle by Scott

The Collatz Conjecture is the simplest math problem no one can solve — it is easy enough for almost anyone to understand but notoriously difficult to solve. This video is sponsored by Brilliant. The first 200 people to sign up via https://brilliant.org/veritasium get 20% off a yearly subscription. Special thanks to Prof. Alex Kontorovich for introducing us to this topic, filming the interview, and consulting on the script and earlier drafts of this video. ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ References: Lagarias, J. C. (2006). The 3x+ 1 problem: An annotated bibliography, II (2000-2009). arXiv preprint math/0608208. — https://ve42.co/Lagarias2006 Lagarias, J. C. (2003). The 3x+ 1 problem: An annotated bibliography (1963–1999). The ultimate challenge: the 3x, 1, 267-341. — https://ve42.co/Lagarias2003 Tao, T (2020). The Notorious Collatz Conjecture — https://ve42.co/Tao2020 A. Kontorovich and Y. Sinai, Structure Theorem for (d,g,h)-Maps, Bulletin of the Brazilian Mathematical Society, New Series 33(2), 2002, pp. 2

How close are we to having fully autonomous vehicles on the roads? Are they safe? In Chandler, Arizona a fleet of Waymo vehicles are already in operation. Waymo sponsored this video and provided access to their technology and personnel. Check out their safety report here: https://waymo.com/safety/ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ References: Waymo Safety Reports — https://waymo.com/safety/ Driving Statistics — https://ve42.co/DrivingStats The Real Moral Dilemma of Self-Driving Cars https://ve42.co/SelfDriving ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ Special thanks to Patreon supporters: Alvaro naranjo, Burt Humburg, Blake Byers, Dumky, Mike Tung, Evgeny Skvortsov, Meekay, Ismail Öncü Usta, Paul Peijzel, Crated Comments, Anna, Mac Malkawi, Michael Schneider, Oleksii Leonov, Jim Osmun, Tyson McDowell, Ludovic Robillard, Jim buckmaster, fanime96, Juan Benet, Ruslan Khroma, Robert Blum, Richard Sundvall, Lee Redden, Vincent, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Alfred Wallace, Arjun Chakroborty, Joar Wandborg, Clayton Greenwell, Pindex, Mic

This is not just true of slinkies - if you release a steel rod from the top, the top really starts falling before the bottom. If you hit a tennis ball with a racket, a wave has to travel from the strings to your hand before you feel it - and the ball is well on its way to the net by this time. If you hit a golf ball, the ball is well on its way to the hole before you can feel it. Rigid bodies aren't truly rigid and understanding this is essential to understanding the way the world works

You are not a visual learner — learning styles are a stubborn myth. Part of this video is sponsored by Google Search. Special thanks to Prof. Daniel Willingham for the interview and being part of this video. Special thanks to Dr Helen Georigou for reviewing the script and helping with the scientific literature. Special thanks to Jennifer Borgioli Binis for consulting on the script. MinutePhysics video on a better way to picture atoms -- https://ve42.co/Atom ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ References: Pashler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., & Bjork, R. (2008). Learning styles: Concepts and evidence. Psychological science in the public interest, 9(3), 105-119. — https://ve42.co/Pashler2008 Willingham, D. T., Hughes, E. M., & Dobolyi, D. G. (2015). The scientific status of learning styles theories. Teaching of Psychology, 42(3), 266-271. — https://ve42.co/Willingham Massa, L. J., & Mayer, R. E. (2006). Testing the ATI hypothesis: Should multimedia instruction accommodate verbalizer-visualizer cognitive style?. L

A UCLA Physics Professor bet me $10,000 that my video about going downwind faster than the wind was wrong. This video is sponsored by Brilliant. The first 200 people to sign up via https://brilliant.org/veritasium get 20% off a yearly subscription. For more information about the Veritasium Science Communication Contest check out -- https://ve42.co/contest ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ The wager agreement: https://ve42.co/wager Prof. Kusenko's slides: https://ve42.co/Kusenko My rebuttal: https://ve42.co/rebuttal ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ Huge thanks to Xyla Foxlin for building the model cart, and making the instructions so accessible to the public. Check out Xyla's video -- https://youtu.be/VUgajGv4Aok A massive thanks to Bill Nye, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and Sean Carroll for witnessing the signing of the wager. A huge thanks to Prof. Alexander Kusenko for being a man of honour -- it's a difficult thing to change your mind, especially in a public forum. A huge thanks to Prof. Mark Drela for the intervie

If you ran evolution all over again, would you get humans? How repeatable is #evolution? This video is sponsored by @BountyBrand. #biology #science #QPU #HygieneBeginswithBounty #BountyPartner Special thanks to Prof. Richard Lenski and team for showing me around the lab — it is an honor to be able to witness and document such a historic science experiment. Thanks to Dr Zachary Blount for the help with research and setting up the competition time-lapse, Dr Nkrumah Grant for microscope images of the long-term line cells @NkrumahGrant Devin Lake, Kate Bellgowan, and Dr. Minako Izutsu for being part of this video. Long Live the LTEE! LTEE website — http://myxo.css.msu.edu/ecoli/index.html Intro footage courtesy of the Kishony Lab — https://kishony.technion.ac.il ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ References: Lenski, R. E., & Travisano, M. (1994). Dynamics of adaptation and diversification: a 10,000-generation experiment with bacterial populations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 91(15), 6808-6814. —

Everyone will say this craft breaks the laws of physics. This video is sponsored by Kiwico, For 50% off your first month of any subscription crate from KiwiCo (available in 40 countries!) head to https://www.kiwico.com/Veritasium50 ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ A HUGE thanks to Rick and Neil for letting me drive Blackbird. Check out Rick's YouTube Channel for more in depth videos and explanations on going faster than the wind downwind -- https://ve42.co/Rick Gene Nagata made the shoot possible. If you’re a video nerd like me, check out his channel, Potato Jet: https://www.youtube.com/c/PotatoJet/featured. Xyla Foxlin for made the model cart used in this video. Xyla builds amazing things like rockets and canoes, check it out! https://www.youtube.com/c/xylafoxlin/ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ References Jack Goodman's YouTube video -- https://ve42.co/Goodman Rick's treadmill footage -- https://ve42.co/Treadmill Rick's multiple explanations of how Blackbird works -- https://ve42.co/DDWFTTW Forum discussion

Not everything that is true can be proven. This discovery transformed infinity, changed the course of a world war and led to the modern computer. This video is sponsored by Brilliant. The first 200 people to sign up via https://brilliant.org/veritasium get 20% off a yearly subscription. Special thanks to Prof. Asaf Karagila for consultation on set theory and specific rewrites, to Prof. Alex Kontorovich for reviews of earlier drafts, Prof. Toby ‘Qubit’ Cubitt for the help with the spectral gap, to Henry Reich for the helpful feedback and comments on the video. ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ References: Dunham, W. (2013, July). A Note on the Origin of the Twin Prime Conjecture. In Notices of the International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians (Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 63-65). International Press of Boston. — https://ve42.co/Dunham2013 Conway, J. (1970). The game of life. Scientific American, 223(4), 4. — https://ve42.co/Conway1970 Churchill, A., Biderman, S., Herrick, A. (2019). Magic: The Gathering is Turing C

If there's a hotel with infinite rooms, could it ever be completely full? Could you run out of space to put everyone? The surprising answer is yes -- this is important to know if you're the manager of the Hilbert Hotel. ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ References: Ewald, W., & Sieg, W. (2013). David Hilbert's Lectures on the Foundations of Arithmetic and Logic 1917-1933. Springer Berlin Heidelberg. -- https://ve42.co/Ewald2013 Gamow, G. (1988). One, two, three--infinity: facts and speculations of science. Courier Corporation. -- https://ve42.co/Gamow1947 ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ Special thanks to Patreon supporters: Paul Peijzel, Crated Comments, Anna, Mac Malkawi, Michael Schneider, Oleksii Leonov, Jim Osmun, Tyson McDowell, Ludovic Robillard, jim buckmaster, fanime96, Juan Benet, Ruslan Khroma, Robert Blum, Richard Sundvall, Lee Redden, Vincent, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Alfred Wallace, Arjun Chakroborty, Joar Wandborg, Clayton Greenwell, Pindex, Michael Krugman, Cy 'kkm' K'Nelson, Sam Lutfi, Ron Neal ▀▀▀

This robot has applications to archaeology, space exploration, and search and rescue — with a simple elegant design inspired by a plant. Sign up to Morning Brew for free today: https://ve42.co/mb Make your own Vine Robot! — https://www.vinerobots.org Special thanks to A/Prof. Elliot Hawkes, Nicholas Naclerio, Margaret Coad, David Haggerty for appearing in this video and showing off your amazing robots. For more info on vine (and other types of) robots check out https://ve42.co/HawkesLab, and https://ve42.co/CHARM B-roll footage of robots from the supplementary materials of (Hawkes et al., 2017) https://ve42.co/VineVideos, and from Stanford University https://ve42.co/StanfordVideo Additional info on the intubation vine robot here: https://www.wardenchem.com/vine References: Hawkes, E. W., Blumenschein, L. H., Greer, J. D., & Okamura, A. M. (2017). A soft robot that navigates its environment through growth. Science Robotics, 2(8). — https://ve42.co/Hawkes2017 Coad, M. M., Blumenschein, L. H., Cutler, S., Z

How does order spontaneously arise out of chaos? This video is sponsored by Kiwico — go to https://www.kiwico.com/Veritasium50 for 50% off your first month of any crate. An enormous thanks to Prof. Steven Strogatz — this video would not have been possible without him. Much of the script-writing was inspired and informed by his wonderful book Sync, and his 2004 TED talk. He is a giant in this field, and has literally written the book on chaos, complexity, and synchronization. It was hard to find a paper in this field that Steven (or one of his students) didn't contribute to. His Podcast "The Joy of X" is wonderful — please listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts https://www.quantamagazine.org/tag/the-joy-of-x Nicky Case's Amazing Firefly Interactive — https://ncase.me/fireflies Great Kuramoto Model Interactive — https://www.complexity-explorables.org/explorables/ride-my-kuramotocycle References: Strogatz, S. H. (2012). Sync: How order emerges from chaos in the universe, nature, and daily life

This video is about stuff: light bulbs, printers, phones and why they aren't better. Go to https://NordVPN.com/veritasium and use code VERITASIUM to get a 2-year plan plus 1 additional month with a huge discount. It’s risk free with Nord’s 30 day money-back guarantee! References: The Man in the White Suit — https://ve42.co/Suit London, B. (1932). Ending the depression through planned obsolescence. — https://ve42.co/London32 Slade, G. (2009). Made to break: Technology and obsolescence in America. Harvard University Press — https://ve42.co/madetobreak Krajewski, M. (2014). The great lightbulb conspiracy. IEEE spectrum, 51(10), 56-61. — https://ve42.co/Phoebus Planet Money, The Phoebus Cartel - https://ve42.co/PMobs The Light Bulb Conspiracy - https://youtu.be/e9xmn228HM0 Special thanks to Patreon supporters: Mac Malkawi, Oleksii Leonov, Michael Schneider, Jim Osmun, Tyson McDowell, Ludovic Robillard, jim buckmaster, fanime96, Juan Benet, Ruslan Khroma, Robert Blum, Richard Sundvall, Lee Redden, Vincent,

For thousands of years, mathematicians were calculating Pi the obvious but numerically inefficient way. Then Newton came along and changed the game. This video is sponsored by Brilliant. The first 314 people to sign up via https://brilliant.org/veritasium get 20% off a yearly subscription. Happy Pi Day! (for a few days ago...) References: Arndt, J., & Haenel, C. (2001). Pi-unleashed. Springer Science & Business Media — https://ve42.co/Arndt2001 Dunham, W. (1990). Journey through genius: The great theorems of mathematics. Wiley — https://ve42.co/Dunham1990 Borwein, J. M. (2014). The Life of π: From Archimedes to ENIAC and Beyond. In From Alexandria, Through Baghdad (pp. 531-561). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg — https://ve42.co/Borwein2012 Special thanks to Alex Kontorovich, Professor of Mathematics at Rutgers University, and Distinguished Visiting Professor for the Public Dissemination of Mathematics National Museum of Mathematics MoMath for being part of this Pi Day video. Special thanks to Patreon sup

Robots of the future may be softer, squishier and bendier than robots today. This could make them ideal for space exploration. Check out http://kiwico.com/Veritasium50 for 50% off your first month of any subscription! On Thursday February 18th, 2021 the NASA Perseverance Rover will land on Mars. It is a wonderful robot, made out of steel and wire — but will future robots look like Perseverance? There is an emerging field of research on "soft robots", where the machines are flexible. These soft robots have many advantages over traditional robots — they're safer, lighter, more flexible and can change their shape and size. NASA is investigating the use of soft robots for space missions. For future visits to Enceladus or Europa, a lander could cut a hole in the ice and then insert a compliant robot through the hole. This robot could then grow and change shape on the other side. References: N. S. Usevitch, Z. M. Hammond, M. Schwager, A. M. Okamura, E. W. Hawkes, S. Follmer, An untethered isoperimetric soft rob

I got the chance to interview Bill Gates so I asked him: Will Covid-19 be the last pandemic? How does he deal with misinformation and conspiracy theories? And what is the next disaster? The Foundation Letter is here: https://ve42.co/BG21 Special thanks to Patreon supporters: Ludovic Robillard, jim buckmaster, Robert, fanime96, Marc Forand, Juan Benet, Robert Blum, Grace O'Maille KRON x Arc iOS, Richard Sundvall, Lee Redden, Vincent, Lyvann Ferrusca, Alfred Wallace, Arjun Chakroborty, Joar Wandborg, Clayton Greenwell, Pindex , Michael Krugman, Cy 'kkm' K'Nelson, Sam Lutfi, Ron Neal Thanks to Petr Lebedev for early edits and Jonny Hyman for feedback

What are these electric blue ponds in the middle of the Utah desert? And why do they keep changing color? Join Derek Muller (Veritasium) as he looks into the weird, bizarre, and seemingly inexplicable images found on Google Earth to discover what on Earth they actually are. It’s a travel vlog, documentary, and science show wrapped into one. It’s Pindrop.

Thank you so much for an amazing 10 years! The giveaway is now closed. Spanish channel: https://ve42.co/VeEs Arabic channel: https://ve42.co/VeAr Thanks to Vorso for the spinning tops https://www.vorsospin.com Huge Thanks to Patreon Supporters: Ludovic Robillard, John Bauer, james, jim buckmaster, Robert, fanime96, Marc Forand, Juan Benet, Ruslan Khroma, Robert Blum, Grace O'Maille KRON x Arc iOS, Richard Sundvall, Lee Redden, Vincent, Lyvann Ferrusca, Alfred Wallace, Arjun Chakroborty, Joar Wandborg, Clayton Greenwell, Laura Sanborn, Pindex , Michael Krugman, Cy 'kkm' K'Nelson, Sam Lutfi, Ron Neal I also want to say a massive thanks to all my EDUtuber colleagues. Meeting and making great friends over the last decade has been one of the best things about this career.

Ames window illusion illustrates how we don't directly perceive external reality. Special Holiday deal! Go to https://NordVPN.com/veritasium and use code VERITASIUM to get 68% off a 2 year plan plus 4 additional months free. It’s risk free with Nord’s 30 day money-back guarantee! Special thanks to: Prof. Phil Kellman from UCLA Psychology https://kellmanlab.psych.ucla.edu Museum of Illusions in Los Angeles for the use of their Ames Room https://laillusions.com Curiosity Show - Video on Ames Illusion: https://youtu.be/DkVOIJAaWO0 References: Ames, A., Jr. (1951). Visual perception and the rotating trapezoidal window. Psychological Monographs: General and Applied, 65(7), i–32. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0093600 Marcel de Heer & Thomas V. Papathomas (2017) The Ames Window Illusion and Its Variations DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199794607.003.0014 Oross, Stephen, Francis, Ellie, Mauk, Deborah & Fox, Robert. (1987). The Ames Window Illusion: Perception of Illusory Motion by Human Infants. Journal of Experimental Ps

Stephen Hawking thought an asteroid impact posed the greatest threat to life on Earth. Thanks to Kiwico for sponsoring this video. For 50% off your first month of any crate, go to https://kiwico.com/veritasium50 For other potential world ending catastrophes, check out Domain of Science: https://ve42.co/DoS Special thanks to: Prof. Dave Jewitt from UCLA Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences Prof. Mark Boslough from Sandia National Labs Scott Manley: https://www.youtube.com/user/szyzyg Ryan Wyatt at Morrison Planetarium Prof. Amy Mainzer Alexandr Ivanov for the opening shot of Chelyabinsk Meteor Maps of Asteroid Impacts —https://ve42.co/Map Time passing animation from Universe Sandbox - http://universesandbox.com/ Opposition Effect — https://ve42.co/Belskaya2000 Belskaya, I. N., & Shevchenko, V. G. (2000). Opposition effect of asteroids. Icarus, 147(1), 94-105. Potentially Hazardous Asteroids — https://ve42.co/Perna2013 Perna, D., Barucci, M. A., & Fulchignoni, M. (2013). The near-Earth objects and their po

Physics students learn the speed of light, c, is the same for all inertial observers but no one has ever actually measured it in one direction. Thanks to Kiwico for sponsoring this video. For 50% off your first month of any crate, go to https://kiwico.com/veritasium50 Huge thanks to Destin from Smarter Every Day for always being open and willing to engage in new ideas. If you haven't subscribed already, what are you waiting for: https://ve42.co/SED For an overview of the one-way speed of light check out the wiki page: https://ve42.co/wiki1way The script was written in consultation with subject matter experts: Prof. Geraint Lewis, University of Sydney https://ve42.co/gfl Prof. Emeritus Allen Janis, University of Pittsburgh Prof. Clifford M. Will, University of Florida https://ve42.co/cmw The stuff that's correct is theirs. Any errors are mine. References: Einstein, A. (1905). On the electrodynamics of moving bodies. Annalen der physik, 17(10), 891-921. (English) https://ve42.co/E1905 (German) https://ve42.

As the universe expands, #expanding #space is said to "stretch" photons. But if it stretches photons, does it also stretch molecules, galaxies and you? A portion of this video was sponsored by Salesforce. Go to https://salesforce.com/veritasium to learn more. Special thanks to Geraint Lewis - this video was based on his paper "On the relativity of redshifts" https://arxiv.org/abs/1605.08634 Check out his YouTube channel: https://ve42.co/gfl and books: https://ve42.co/GFLbooks References: Expanding Space: the Root of all Evil? Matthew J. Francis, Luke A. Barnes, J. Berian James, Geraint F. Lewis https://arxiv.org/abs/0707.0380 Editing and VFX by Trenton Oliver Thumbnail by Ignat Berbeci Music from https://epidemicsound.com #SMB #smallbiz #startups #SalesforceEssentials

In 2015 astronomers successfully predicted the appearance of a supernova within a couple weeks. How did they do it? Win your Ultimate Tech Bundle by entering Fasthosts’ Techie Test here: https://fasthosts.com/veritasium (Competition now closed) This video was sponsored by Fasthosts. Special thanks to Geraint Lewis for consulting on gravitational lensing. Check out his YouTube channel: https://ve42.co/gfl and books: https://ve42.co/GFLbooks The supernova image in the thumbnail is from my documentary, Uranium: Twisting The Dragon's Tail. Check it out here: https://genepoolproductions.com/uranium-project References: DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN: THE REAPPEARANCE OF SUPERNOVA REFSDAL P. L. Kelly et al. https://arxiv.org/abs/1512.04654 Predicted properties of multiple images of the strongly lensed supernova SN Refsdal Masamune Oguri. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, Volume 449, Issue 1, 01 May 2015, Pages L86–L89, https://arxiv.org/abs/1411.6443 Multiple Images of a Highly Magnified Supe

The General Theory of Relativity tells us gravity is not a force, gravitational fields don't exist. Objects tend to move on straight paths through curved spacetime. Thanks to Caséta by Lutron for sponsoring this video. Find out more at: https://www.lutron.com/veritasium Huge thanks to Prof. Geraint Lewis for hours of consulting on this video so I could get these ideas straight in my own brain. Check out his YouTube channel: https://ve42.co/gfl or his books: https://ve42.co/GFLbooks Amazing VFX, compositing, and editing by Jonny Hyman 2D animations by Ivàn Tello Filmed by Steven Warren and Raquel Nuno Special thanks to Petr Lebedev for reviews and script consultation Music by Jonny Hyman and from Epidemic Sound https://epidemicsound.com Rocket made by Goodnight and Co. Screen images in rocket by Geoff Barrett Slow motion rocket exhaust footage from Joe Barnard at BPS.Space https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCILl8ozWuxnFYXIe2svjHhg

Simples rules of geometry meant that 5-fold symmetry was impossible as were crystals without a periodic structure. This turns out to be wrong. Thanks to LastPass for sponsoring a portion of this video. Click here to start using LastPass: https://ve42.co/LPs Huge thanks to Prof. Paul Steinhardt for the interview on this topic. Check out his book ‘The Second Kind of Impossible’ If you'd like to learn more about Penrose tilings, go check out "Penrose Tiles to Trapdoor Ciphers" by Martin Gardener, which helped my research for this video. Filmed by Gene Nagata (Potato Jet on YouTube) Animations by Iván Tello and Jonny Hyman Editing, Coloring, Music & Audio mastering by Jonny Hyman Prague scenes filmed in 2012. Special thanks to Raquel Nuno for helping with the tilings! Additional Music from Epidemic Sound

In a competitive world, tiny advantages can make all the difference. Get 10% off Snatoms with code 'giveluck' in the US: https://ve42.co/USA or International: https://snatoms.com If you would like to receive Snatoms, submit the form here: https://ve42.co/getluck Snatoms are also available on Amazon Prime in the US but with no discount code: https://ve42.co/Asnatoms Huge thanks to Gene and Sam from Potato Jet for filming with me: https://ve42.co/potatojet This video was inspired by and draws examples from the book "Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy" by Robert H. Frank Special thanks to Patreon supporters (and to everyone who commented on an earlier version of this video): Marc Forand, Robert Dickerson, Christian Stauffer, LoadTooSlow, Vincent, Lyvann Ferrusca, DALE HORNE, Alfred Wallace, Kevin Beavers, Arjun Chakroborty, Joar Wandborg, Clayton Greenwell, Michael Krugman, Ron Neal, Donal Botkin Animations by Iván Tello

Half of the ordinary baryonic matter has been tough to find but Fast Radio Bursts made it possible to detect the WHIM. Thanks to Kiwico for sponsoring this video! For 20% off go to https://kiwico.com/veritasium or use code VERITASIUM at checkout. Special thanks to Prof. Geraint Lewis https://ve42.co/gfl Nature paper: A census of baryons in the Universe from localized fast radio bursts https://ve42.co/whim Research and Writing by Max Levy, Derek Muller and Jonny Hyman Editing, Animations, Audio Mix & Mastering by Jonny Hyman Filmed by Raquel Nuno Thumbnail by Ignat Berbeci Music from Epidemic Sound https://epidemicsound.com

Everyone loves laminar flow but turbulent flow is the real MVP. A portion of this video was sponsored by Cottonelle. Purchase Cottonelle Flushable Wipes and try them for yourself: https://bit.ly/2WJm9Hq Special thanks to: Prof. Beverley McKeon and team https://www.mckeon.caltech.edu Destin from Smarter Every Day https://www.youtube.com/smartereveryday Nicole Sharp from FYFD https://ve42.co/fyfd Pavol Dobryakov turbulent simulations: https://paveldogreat.github.io/WebGL-Fluid-Simulation/ I got into turbulent flow via chaos. The transition to turbulence sometimes involves a period doubling. Turbulence itself is chaotic motion, it is unpredictable and sensitively dependent on initial conditions. What surprised me is all the ways turbulent flow is useful to us. It is diffusive, meaning it causes mixing. This is useful in jet engines or rocket nozzles (which Destin studies) and is important to achieve in microfluidic devices, which are so small that turbulent flow is actually difficult to achieve. Turbulent flo

Common pitfalls of New Year's resolutions and how I plan to avoid them. Thanks Audible! Start listening with a 30-day trial and your first audiobook plus two Audible Originals free when you go to https://audible.com/veritasium or text veritasium to 500500. Thanks to Simone Giertz for sending me and Every Day Calendar! Get notified when they're available to order here: http://www.simonegiertz.com/every-day-calendar Special thanks to Patreon Supporters: Alfred Wallace, Arjun Chakroborty, Chuck Lauer Vose, Dale Horne, Jasper Xin, Joar Wandborg, Kevin Beavers, Leah Howard, Lyvann Ferrusca, Michael Krugman, Noel Braganza, Ron Neal, Tige Thorman

Scientists like Prof Sinclair have evidence of speeding up, slowing, and even reversing aging. Thanks to LastPass for sponsoring this video. Click here to start using LastPass: https://ve42.co/VeLP What causes aging? According to Professor David Sinclair, it is a loss of information in our epigenome, the system of proteins like histones and chemical markers like methylation that turn on and off genes. Epigenetics allow different cell types to perform their specific functions - they are what differentiate a brain cell from a skin cell. Our DNA is constantly getting broken, by cosmic rays, UV radiation, free radicals, x-rays and regular cell division etc. When our cells repair that damage, the epigenome is not perfectly reset. And hence over time, noise accumulates in our epigenome. Our cells no longer perform their functions well. To counter this decline, we can activate the body's own defenses against aging by stressing the body. Eat less, eat less protein, engage in intense exercise, experience uncomfort

Chaos theory means deterministic systems can be unpredictable. Thanks to LastPass for sponsoring this video. Click here to start using LastPass: https://ve42.co/VeLP Animations by Prof. Robert Ghrist: https://ve42.co/Ghrist Want to know more about chaos theory and non-linear dynamical systems? Check out: https://ve42.co/chaos-math Butterfly footage courtesy of Phil Torres and The Jungle Diaries: https://ve42.co/monarch Solar system, 3-body and printout animations by Jonny Hyman Some animations made with Universe Sandbox: https://universesandbox.com/ Special thanks to Prof. Mason Porter at UCLA who I interviewed for this video. I have long wanted to make a video about chaos, ever since reading James Gleick's fantastic book, Chaos. I hope this video gives an idea of phase space - a picture of dynamical systems in which each point completely represents the state of the system. For a pendulum, phase space is only 2-dimensional and you can get orbits (in the case of an undamped pendulum) or an inward spiral (i

Spinning objects have strange instabilities known as The Dzhanibekov Effect or Tennis Racket Theorem - this video offers an intuitive explanation. Part of this video was sponsored by LastPass, click here to find out more: https://ve42.co/LP References: Prof. Terry Tao's Math Overflow Explanation: https://ve42.co/Tao The Twisting Tennis Racket Ashbaugh, M.S., Chicone, C.C. & Cushman, R.H. J Dyn Diff Equat (1991) 3: 67. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01049489 Janibekov’s effect and the laws of mechanics Petrov, A.G. & Volodin, S.E. Dokl. Phys. (2013) 58: 349. https://doi.org/10.1134/S1028335813080041 Tumbling Asteroids Prave et al. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2004.07.021 The Exact Computation of the Free Rigid Body Motion and Its Use in Splitting Methods SIAM J. Sci. Comput., 30(4), 2084–2112 E. Celledoni, F. Fassò, N. Säfström, and A. Zanna https://doi.org/10.1137/070704393 Animations by Iván Tello and Isaac Frame Special thanks to people who discussed this video with me: Astronaut Don Pettit Henry Reic

A planet has been predicted to orbit the sun with a period of 10,000 years, a mass 5x that of Earth on a highly elliptical and inclined orbit. What evidence supports the existence of such a strange object at the edge of our solar system? Huge thanks to: Prof. Konstantin Batygin, Caltech Prof. David Jewitt, UCLA I had heard about Planet 9 for a long time but I wondered what sort of evidence could support the bold claim: a planet at the very limits of our ability to detect one, so far out that its period is over 60 times that of Neptune. The planet 9 hypothesis helps explain clustering of orbits of distant Kuiper belt objects. It also explains how some of these objects have highly inclined orbits - up to 90 degrees relative to the plane of the solar system. Some are orbiting in reverse. Plus their orbits are removed from the orbit of Neptune, the logical option for a body that could have ejected them out so far. The fact that the perihelion is so far out suggests another source of gravity was essential for th

I used a nitrogen membrane and Stirling cryocooler to liquefy nitrogen out of the air. For this video I partnered with Starbucks to celebrate their Nitro Cold Brew. Order one here: https://starbucks.app.link/derekmuller Making liquid nitrogen is hard - in fact up until 150 years ago scientists doubted whether it was even possible to liquefy nitrogen. In 1823, At the royal institution in London, Michael Faraday first produced liquid chlorine, kind of accidentally by putting it under high pressure. He similarly liquefied ammonia. Borrowing a mixture from Thilorier in France, a combination of dry ice, snow and ether, he reached a temperature of -110C. By 1845 he used this mixture plus a hand pump to pressurize gases to liquefy all the known gases except six, which included oxygen and nitrogen. These became known as the “permanent” gases. A French Physicist Aimé compressed oxygen and nitrogen in tanks and then lowered them into the ocean over 1.6km deep, where the pressure got up to 200 atmospheres. Still the

The Mars Helicopter aims to make the first powered flight on another planet when it takes off on Mars as part of the Mars 2020 mission. I learned a lot getting to visit the drone right before it was mounted on the rover. How do you fly in 1% of Earth's atmosphere: Have large rotors (they are 1.2m in diameter) and spin them very fast, around 2500 RPM (5x the speed of a helicopter on Earth). Plus the aircraft has to be light: The Mars helicopter weighs in at 1.8kg or around the same as a laptop. Every piece had to be stripped down for weight. Instead of using aerogel for insulation, the craft makes use of CO2 gaps between components. Even aerogel was too heavy! One of the major challenges is surviving the Martian night: Temperatures plunge to -80C to -100C so two thirds of the craft's power is actually used to keep its electronics warm. Only one third is used for flying. The estimated flight time is 90 seconds. The craft can't be driven remotely, it will have to fly autonomously, using its own sensor suite

Electric cars are now ready to take over thanks to advances in battery technology and their inherent benefits: torque, handling, maintenance. This video was sponsored by BMW: https://www.bmwusa.com/ Full disclosure: I drive an #electric #car. I think electric cars are the future, not mainly because they're better for the environment (which they are if you drive the car for any reasonable length of time) but because they are just better cars. The have better torque and acceleration, better handling, they're more efficient, quieter, they don't smell, they're cheaper to run and best of all you never have to visit a gas station - this appeals to me. I never have to worry about being low on gas because every morning my car is charged and ready to go - just like my phone and laptop. And if you're worried about range, don't. Almost all trips can already be done in an electric car with modest battery pack. And fast chargers along the way make it possible to do longer road trips if necessary. You have to make rest st

Apollo astronauts trained in nuclear bomb craters at the Nevada National Security Site. But why?Thanks Audible! Start listening with a 30-day trial and your first audiobook plus two Audible Originals free when you go to http://audible.com/veritasium or text veritasium to 500500 I found this story fascinating because in a way a nuclear bomb crater is more like a meteorite impact site than an impact site itself. Consider: Barringer Crater was claimed to be a meteorite impact site but geologists dismissed it as a volcanic formation. It was only after studying nuclear bomb craters and the minerals found there that geologists concluded the energy and pressures that created Barringer Crater were too high to be from volcanic activity and therefore must have formed from a meteorite impact. Special Thanks to: Nevada National Security Site The National Atomic Testing Museum Jonny Hyman and Verse: https://youtu.be/7bUUGzi-AAY Active Galactic for footage of craters in Arizona: https://youtu.be/yhoooBpndog Special than

The Vikings suffered many hardships living in the north of Europe: long, cold winters and importantly a lack of sunlight. Luckily, they had cod. Check out Vitamania: https://ve42.co/cod When making a video about vitamins I thought the story would mainly be about supplement pills, whether we should or shouldn't take them and how they're made. But what I found out is vitamins have a remarkable story that affects many more aspects of our lives. For example the Vikings needed a source of vitamin D to last the dark winter months and for their children to develop strong, healthy bones, avoiding rickets. Special thanks to Patreon supporters: a human, Albert Jachowicz-Brzeziński, Alfred Wallace, Arjun Chakroborty, Brent Stewart, Chris Vargas, Chuck Lauer Vose, Clip Tree, Coale Shifflett, Colin Bellmore, DALE HORNE, Eric Velazquez, Fedor Indutny, Fran Rodriguez, James Wong, Jasper Xin, Joar Wandborg, Johnny, Jorge Angel Sandoval, June Kang, Kevin Beavers, Kishore Tipirneni, Levan Ferr, Listen Money Matters, Manuel Z

Aerogel has extraordinary properties but it can be tough to work with. This video looks at modifying aerogels to take advantage of their unique characteristics. Subscribe to Veritasium: https://ve42.co/sub Huge thanks to Dr. Stephen Steiner and the crew at Aerogel Technologies. To find out more or buy your own aerogel sample, check out: http://www.aerogeltechnologies.com/ Thanks to Dr. Steven Jones and Dr. Mihail Petkov at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory And thanks to FLIR for loaning us the awesome high definition thermal camera. The footage is amazing! https://www.flir.com Aerogel’s extraordinary properties are due in large part to its structure. Aerogel is a solid but on the nanoscale it has a mesh or sponge-like structure. The struts of this structure are nanoscale, as are the pores at around 20nm across. This makes silica aerogel incredibly light (it was once the lightest solid but has now been superseded by graphene aerogel), transparent and adsorbent. An ice-cube sized piece of aerogel has an in

I bought 10,000 shade balls and tried to swim in them. They appear to act like a non-Newtonian fluid: rigid under high shear stress, but they flow like a liquid under low shear. Get a signed shade ball by supporting Veritasium: https://ve42.co/patreon Receiving a shade ball: 1. Support Veritasium on any Patreon tier and enter your address https://ve42.co/patreon 2. In about a month I will send out signed shade balls 3. I will cover all shipping costs but if things get really crazy I will prioritize existing Patreon supporters and higher tiers My sense was that swimming in shade balls would be difficult but still doable. This was roughly true for the single layer of shade balls. The shade balls slide past each other so they act like a liquid, albeit a viscous one owing to their significant inertia. It's much more intense exercise and it's also annoying to be bombarded with shade balls on all sides of your body, particularly your head. With multi-layer shade balls (as exists on much of LA reservoir) things ge

Aerogels are the world's lightest (least dense) solids. They are also excellent thermal insulators and have been used in numerous Mars missions and the Stardust comet particle-return mission. The focus of this video is silica aerogels, though graphene aerogels are now technically the lightest. At one point Dr. Steven Jones literally held the Guinness World Record for making the lightest aerogel and therefore lightest solid. If you're interested in learning more about aerogels, let me know in the comments as there is a potential trilogy in the works... Huge thanks to Dr. Stephen Steiner and the crew at Aerogel Technologies. To find out more or buy your own aerogel sample, check out: http://www.aerogeltechnologies.com/ Thanks to Dr. Steven Jones and Dr. Mihail Petkov at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory And thanks to FLIR for loaning us the awesome high definition thermal camera. The footage is amazing! https://www.flir.com Special thanks to Patreon supporters: Donal Botkin, Michael Krugman, Ron Neal, Stan