Veritasium

Something is jamming GPS over Europe. Here's what we found

Jun 5, 2026

Something is disrupting GPS signals across Europe. Sponsored by Ground News. Go to https://ground.news/Ve for 40% off the unlimited Vantage plan. If you’re looking for a molecular modelling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - https://ve42.co/SnatomsV Sign up for the Veritasium newsletter for weekly science updates - https://ve42.co/Newsletter ▀▀▀ 0:00 What is jamming Europe’s GPS? 4:43 How does GPS work? 10:46 How easy is it to jam GPS? 12:18 The Hunt To Find The Jammer 17:12 Who are the possible culprits? 20:06 The Investigation Goes Public 23:00 Narrowing In On The Jammer 25:15 Cosmos 2546 28:25 A Secret Messaging Service? 29:19 What happens if we lose GPS? ▀▀▀ Special thanks to the experts and collaborators who made this video possible: Professor Todd Humphreys and Dr Zach Clements at the University of Texas at Austin, whose research this story is based on - thank you for sharing your data, your time, and the inside story of the hunt. Ramsey Faragher, for the brilliant interview, feedback and stories that helped to shape this video. Richard D. Easton, for helping us understand the history of GPS. Dana Goward, President of the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation, for providing context on interference and alternative systems. Richard Bowden and Luis Enrique Aguado from GMV for sharing their independent work tracing the source of the interference. Ben Watts, for sharing his first-hand experience of GPS jamming and spoofing from the cockpit. KeepTrack (https://keeptrack.space/) for generously giving us access to their satellite-tracking software, which we used to visualise the search through 15,000 satellites for the culprit. And to GPSWise (https://gpswise.aero/) for kindly providing their software which we used to visualise GPS jamming and spoofing. Bartosz Ciechanowski, whose interactive GPS explainer (https://ciechanow.ski/gps/) was a great resource for research and the basis for one of our technical animations. Thank you for allowing us to build on your work. ▀▀▀ References: Clements, Z. L., Kriezis, A., & Humphreys, T. E. (2026). Chasing Lightning: Detecting, Characterizing, and Identifying a Powerful Space-Based GNSS Interference - https://ve42.co/GNSSInterference The rest here: https://ve42.co/GPSJammingRefs ▀▀▀ Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, André Powell, Anton Ragin, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Bryan Ackermann, Chris Brewer, Data Don, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, EJ Alexandra, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, Hayden Christensen, Hong Thai Le, Ibby Hadeed, Jeromy Johnson, Jesse Brandsoy, Juan Benet, Kelcey Steele, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Mark Heising, Martin Paull, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Krugman, Moebiusol - Cristian, Orlando Bassotto, Parsee Health, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Robson, Sam Lutfi, Shalva Bukia, Sinan Taifour, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures, Vahe Andonians, wolfee ▀▀▀ Writer, Producer & Director: Emilia Gyles Presenters: Derek Muller & Gregor Čavlović Editor: Peter Nelson Asst. Editor & Sound Designer: James Stuart Animators: Domonkos Józsa, Emma Wright, Alex Drakoulis & Andrew Neet Illustrators: Jakub Misiek & Maria Gusakovich Stop Motion: Sulli Yost Researchers: Aakash Singh Bagga, Sophia Rose & Callum Cuttle Thumbnail Designers: Abdallah Rabah, Ren Hurley, Ben Powell & Daniel Ellacott Production Team: Jess Bishop-Laggett, Matthew Cavanagh & Anna Milkovic Executive Producers: Casper Mebius, Derek Muller & Gregor Čavlović Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images and Storyblocks Music from Epidemic Sound

Google Maps is unreasonably fast. Let me explain

May 30, 2026

The math behind Google Maps. Sponsored by boot.dev - Click this link https://boot.dev/?promo=VERITASIUM and use our code VERITASIUM to get 25% off your first payment for boot.dev. If you’re looking for a molecular modelling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - https://ve42.co/SnatomsV Sign up for the Veritasium newsletter for weekly science updates - https://ve42.co/Newsletter For those curious about the path-count estimate: we estimated the non-backtracking paths NYC→SF, using a sparse spatial network model with mean degree ≈ 2.5 and characteristic length ≈ √N. ▀▀▀ 0:00 What is a ‘shortest path algorithm’? 3:30 Dijkstra’s 20 Minute Algorithm 6:30 The First Route Planner 10:31 A* Search Algorithm 12:40 Shortest Doesn’t Mean Fastest 15:08 Road Network Hierarchy 18:29 Mapping North America - Nested Dissection 25:17 How do map apps work? 28:04 Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability ▀▀▀ Check out @twoswap's channel for some fantastic videos! A big thank you to Ben Strasser and Julian Dibbelt who were incredibly gracious with their time and feedback. Thank you to all the experts we interviewed for this video: Aaron Bernstein, Tim Roughgarden, Tomas Rokicki, Jon Kleinberg, Virginia Vassilevska Williams, Peter Sanders, and the team behind the SSSP Barrier Paper: Xinkai Shu, Ran Duan, Xiao Mao, Longhui Yin, Jiayi Mao For more information on how you choose A*'s heuristic, check out Polylog's video: https://youtu.be/A60q6dcoCjw?si=5LHOmZ8ZKvR_kLcx If you'd like more information on Minecraft's A*, check out RedLogic's video: https://youtu.be/Zg0Cxn8AVZA?si=DyECX4wmeuSb4c1n ▀▀▀ References: https://ve42.co/DijkstraRefs ▀▀▀ Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, André Powell, Anton Ragin, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Bryan Ackermann, Chris Brewer, Data Don, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, EJ Alexandra, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, Hayden Christensen, Hong Thai Le, Ibby Hadeed, Jeromy Johnson, Jesse Brandsoy, Juan Benet, Kelcey Steele, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Mark Heising, Martin Paull, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Krugman, Moebiusol - Cristian, Orlando Bassotto, Parsee Health, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Robson, Sam Lutfi, Shalva Bukia, Sinan Taifour, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures, Vahe Andonians, wolfee ▀▀▀ Writers: Sulli Yost Producer & Director: Sulli Yost Presenter: Henry van Dyck & Derek Muller Editor: Jonny Lennard and Trenton Oliver Additional Editor: James Stuart Camera Operators: Sulli Yost & Henry van Dyck Illustrators: Jakub Misiek & Maria Gusakovich Animators: @twoswap, Andrew Neet, Jonny Lennard, Alex Drakoulis & Fabio Albertelli Researchers: Aakash Singh Bagga & Callum Cuttle Thumbnail Designers: Abdallah Rabah, Ren Hurley, Ben Powell & Daniel Ellacott Production Team: Jess Bishop-Laggett, Glen Griffiths, Matthew Cavanagh & Anna Milkovic Executive Producers: Casper Mebius, Gregor Čavlović & Derek Muller Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the Open Database License: https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images and Pond5 Music from Epidemic Sound

The CIA's new tech doesn't make sense

May 3, 2026

Is the CIA’s Ghost Murmur technology real? Sponsored by Ground News. Go to https://ground.news/Ve for 40% off the unlimited Vantage plan. If you’re looking for a molecular modelling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - https://ve42.co/SnatomsV Sign up for the Veritasium newsletter for weekly science updates - https://ve42.co/Newsletter ▀▀▀ A huge thanks to Patrick Maletinsky at the University of Basel and Jan Jeske at the Fraunhofer Institute for their insights into NV magnetometry. Likewise, thank you to Brad Roth at Oakland University, John Wikswo at Vanderbilt University, and Bob Fagaly at the IEEE for their input on the history and constraints of magnetometry. Thank you to Douglas London, CIA Senior Operations Officer (Rtd), for his input on the story. His book, The Recruiter, can be found here - https://ve42.co/Recruiter A big thanks to Herbert Lin at Stanford University and Emma Briant at the University of Notre Dame for their knowledge on deception and propaganda tactics. ▀▀▀ References Exclusive | 'Ghost Murmur' via the New York Post Exclusive | Trump confirms CIA 'Ghost Murmur' tool via the New York Post Béchard, D. E. (2026). Scientists question CIA’s claim of long-range heartbeat detection. Scientific American. Roth, B. J. (2023). Biomagnetism: The First Sixty Years. Sensors Doherty, M. W. et al. (2013). The nitrogen-vacancy colour centre in diamond. Physics Reports. "Quantum Diamond Sensing: The Surprising Power of NV Centers | Ron Walsworth" by 632nm Podcast on YouTube "Ronald Walsworth - “Quantum Diamond Sensors" by Stanford Physics on YouTube Arai, K. et al. (2022). Millimetre-scale magnetocardiography of living rats with thoracotomy. Communications Physics. Additional sources available here: Ghost Murmur Video - https://ve42.co/ReferencesGhost Images & Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmXuaHX3QeY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkmHh6eZoZs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrRJimixWEc ▀▀▀ Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, André Powell, Anton Ragin, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Bryan Ackermann, Cartier, Chris Brewer, Daniel Martins, Data Don, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, EJ Alexandra, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, Hayden Christensen, Hong Thai Le, Ibby Hadeed, Jeromy Johnson, Jesse Brandsoy, Juan Benet, Kelcey Steele, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Mark Heising, Martin Paull, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Krugman, Orlando Bassotto, Parsee Health, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Robson, Sam Lutfi, Shalva Bukia, Sinan Taifour, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures, Vahe Andonians, William Yoon, wolfee ▀▀▀ Writer: Gregor Čavlović Producer and Director: Gregor Čavlović Presenter: Gregor Čavlović Editors: Jack Saxon and James Stuart Additional Editor: James Horsley Animators: Emma Wright, Fabio Albertelli, and Domonkos Józsa Researchers: Aakash Singh Bagga Production Team: Jess Bishop-Laggett, Glen Griffiths, Matthew Cavanagh & Anna Milkovic Executive producer: Casper Mebius Thumbnail contributions by Abdallah Rabah, Ren Hurley, and Ben Powell Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images and Pond5 Music from Epidemic Sound

The Crystal That Could Destroy All Medicine

Apr 29, 2026

The crystals that wiped out an HIV medication, almost overnight. Thanks to SoFi for sponsoring the video! Click here to sign-up for SoFi Checking and Savings: https://sofi.com/ve If you’re looking for a molecular modelling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - https://ve42.co/SnatomsV Sign up for the Veritasium newsletter for weekly science updates - https://ve42.co/Newsletter ▀▀▀ Check out the excellent video by Reactions here: https://youtu.be/PccOwGEbtQU?si=NOpmaulDcoq6Kif- This video was a huge collaborative effort! Special thanks to… Dr Andreas Kafizas for all his help with the Silver and Tin demonstrations, and staying up for those 14 hours with us monitoring the timelapse! As well as Conrad Duncan and the team at Imperial College London. @ChrisYoungCooks for teaching Casper how to temper chocolate and @jameshoffmann and the team for letting us take over their studio; we had a great day! Many thanks to Professor Adam Matzger, Professor Katharina Fromm and Professor Mike Zaworotko for taking the time to talk to us. Also thank you to Dr. William McVicker and the British Institute of Organ Studies and Chris at Luciteria Science for helping us source our grey and white tin samples. Correction: 11:45 should say carbon-nitrogen triple bond not double bond ▀▀▀ 0:00 The Disease Infecting Miracle Medicine 4:20 An Explosive Feud 10:05 How The Same Compound Can Behave Two Different Ways 13:18 Polymorphs Of Chocolate 19:51 Why Ritonavir Stopped Working 22:57 The Tin Pest 27:28 Disappearing Polymorphs 30:20 Is Everything Polymorphic? ▀▀▀ References can be found here - https://ve42.co/PolymorphRefs ▀▀▀ Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, André Powell, Anton Ragin, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Bryan Ackermann, Cartier, Chris Brewer, Daniel Martins, Data Don, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, EJ Alexandra, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, Hayden Christensen, Hong Thai Le, Ibby Hadeed, Jeromy Johnson, Jesse Brandsoy, Juan Benet, Kelcey Steele, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Mark Heising, Martin Paull, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Krugman, Orlando Bassotto, Parsee Health, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Robson, Sam Lutfi, Shalva Bukia, Sinan Taifour, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures, Vahe Andonians, William Yoon, wolfee ▀▀▀ Writers: Gabe Strong & Casper Mebius Producer and Director: Gabe Strong Presenters: Derek Muller & Casper Mebius Editor: Trenton Oliver Assistant Editor: James Stuart Art Director: Mathias Hawk Illustrators: Jakub Misiek, Emma Wright, Maria Gusakovich & Raphael Aubry Animators: Fabio Albertelli, Andrew Neet, Emma Wright & Alex Drakoulis Researcher: Sophia Rose Additional Research: Callum Cuttle Camera Operators: Rob Newman, Casper Mebius, Gabe Strong, Callum Cuttle & Derek Muller Voice-over Artist: Gregor Čavlović Thumbnail Designers: Abdallah Rabah, Ren Hurley & Ben Powell Production Team: Jess Bishop-Laggett, Glen Griffiths, Mathew Cavanagh & Anna Milkovic Executive Producers: Derek Muller, Casper Mebius & Gregor Čavlović Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images & Storyblocks Music from Epidemic Sound

How easy is it to steal $10,000 from a locked phone?

Apr 15, 2026

How we hacked MKBHD! Sponsored by Incogni - Use code veritasium at https://incogni.com/veritasium to get an exclusive 60% off. If you’re looking for a molecular modelling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - https://ve42.co/SnatomsV Sign up for the Veritasium newsletter for weekly science updates - https://ve42.co/Newsletter ▀▀▀ 0:00 Stealing $10,000 From MKBHD 4:04 How The Hack Works 8:29 High Value vs Low Value Transactions 10:18 Tricking The Card Reader 14:20 Transit Mode 15:22 Why does this hack only work with Visa? 17:10 How does RSA encryption work? 20:13 How can you prevent this hack? 21:59 What are Visa doing about it? ▀▀▀ A huge thank you to professors Ioana Boureanu from the University of Surrey and Tom Chothia from the University of Birmingham, for supporting us with the execution and the explanation of the hack. This video would not have been possible without their support. A big thanks, too, to the University of Surrey for hosting us. And a shout out to Dr Andreea-Ina Radu who, as a researcher at the University of Birmingham on the “TimeTrust project" (2019-2023), actually went to the London Underground to collect the initial data that made this hack possible in the first place! And a massive thank you to @mkbhd and his team for agreeing to be our victim for this hack, and for being such a good sport! ▀▀▀ References: https://ve42.co/MKBHDHackRefs ▀▀▀ Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, André Powell, Anton Ragin, armedtoe, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Cartier, Charles Ian Norman Venn, Chris Brewer, Daniel Martins, Data Don, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, EJ Alexandra, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, Hayden Christensen, Hong Thai Le, Ibby Hadeed, Jeromy Johnson, Jesse Brandsoy, Juan Benet, Kelcey Steele, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Mark Heising, Martin Paull, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Krugman, Moebiusol - Cristian, Orlando Bassotto, Parsee Health, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Robson, Sam Lutfi, Shalva Bukia, Sinan Taifour, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures, Vahe Andonians, William Yoon, wolfee ▀▀▀ Writers: James Moore, Henry van Dyck & Gregor Čavlović Producer & Director: James Moore Presenter: Henry van Dyck Editor: Peter Nelson Animators: Emma Wright, Domonkos Józsa, Fabio Albertelli & Andrew Neet Assistant Editor and Sound Designer: James Stuart Researchers: Aakash Singh Bagga & Sophia Rose Camera Operators: Andrew Abballe, Henry van Dyck & Andy Perez Thumbnail Designers: Abdallah Rabah, Ren Hurley & Ben Powell Production Team: Jess Bishop-Laggett, Matthew Cavanagh, Anna Milkovic & Sulli Yost Executive Producers: Derek Muller, Gregor Čavlović & Casper Mebius Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images & Storyblocks Music from Epidemic Sound

What happens if you drop 0.125 grams of antimatter?

Apr 5, 2026

The factory that makes the world's most volatile substance. Sponsored by SoFi - Join SoFi Plus today and get more for your money! Visit https://sofi.com/veritasium If you’re looking for a molecular modelling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - https://ve42.co/SnatomsV Sign up for the Veritasium newsletter for weekly science updates - https://ve42.co/Newsletter ▀▀▀ 0:00 The Problem Of Antimatter Storage 2:18 What is particle annihilation? 6:13 The Matter-Antimatter Asymmetry 12:44 CPT Symmetry 16:28 The Wu Experiment 22:13 The Antimatter Factory 25:35 How To Make Antimatter 32:05 How do you store antimatter? 33:55 Creating Anti-Atoms 44:44 Does antimatter fall up or down? 50:18 The Portable Antimatter Trap 53:34 Antimatter Bombs ▀▀▀ Antimatter Simulator: To save our servers try downloading it first here - https://ve42.co/TotalAnnihilatorDWNLD But you can also run it on our website - https://ve42.co/TotalAnnihilator Happy Annihilating! ▀▀▀ A sincere thank you to those who helped us understand understand and fact check different parts of this topic -- Prof. David I Kaiser, Prof, Chris Parkes, Prof. Matt Strassler, Prof. Yuval Grossman, Prof. Stephen Barr. Another huge thank you to those at CERN who showed us the antimatter facility and aided this video -- Dr. Ruggero Caravita, Prof. Patrice Pérez, Prof. Stefan Ulmer. To Dr. Piotr Traczyk from CERN - Thank you for giving us access to the 3D models used throughout this documentary and your expertise. ▀▀▀ References: https://ve42.co/AntimatterRefs ▀▀▀ Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, André Powell, Anton Ragin, armedtoe, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Charles Ian Norman Venn, Chris Brewer, Daniel Martins, Data Don, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, EJ Alexandra, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, Hayden Christensen, Hong Thai Le, Ibby Hadeed, Jeromy Johnson, Jesse Brandsoy, Jose Garcia Soria, Juan Benet, Kelcey Steele, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Mark Heising, Martin Paull, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Krugman, Orlando Bassotto, Parsee Health, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Robson, Sam Lutfi, Shalva Bukia, Sinan Taifour, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures, Vahe Andonians, William, wolfee ▀▀▀ Writers: Lily Shepherd, Casper Mebius & Derek Muller Producers and Directors: Lily Shepherd & Casper Mebius Presenter: Casper Mebius Editors: Spencer Wright, Jack Saxon, Peter Nelson and Trenton Oliver Animators: Emma Wright, Fabio Albertelli, Andrew Neet, Alex Drakoulis & Damonkos Jozsa Illustrators: Jakub Misiek & Maria Gusakovich Additional Writing: Sophia Rose Assistant Editor & Sound Designer: James Stuart Researchers: Sophia Rose, Gabe Strong, Naomi Dinmore, Darius Garewal & Callum Cuttle Simulations: Sophia Rose and Jakub Misiek Camera Operators: Jonathan Moy de Vitry, Lily Shepherd, Naomi Dinmore & Casper Mebius Thumbnail Designers: Abdallah Ranah, Ren Hurley & Ben Powell Production Team: Jess Bishop-Laggett, Matthew Cavanagh, Anna Milkovik, Katy Southwood & Josh Pitt Executive Producers: Derek Muller, Casper Mebius & Gregor Cavlovic Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images & Storyblocks Music from Epidemic Sound

The Secret Spy Tech Inside Every Credit Card

Mar 26, 2026

How safe are the cards we use? Sponsored by Saily - Prepare for your next destination today! Download the Saily app now or go to https://saily.com/veritasium and use code ‘veritasium’ for 15% off. Share your referral code with friends and family to collect more credit for your next trip. If you’re looking for a molecular modelling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - https://ve42.co/SnatomsV Sign up for the Veritasium newsletter for weekly science updates - https://ve42.co/Newsletter ▀▀▀ 0:00 Dissolving A Card In Acetone 1:32 The Soviets’ Powerless Bug 6:24 The First Credit Card 8:21 Magnetic Stripe Credit Cards 11:51 How To Clone A Credit Card 13:50 Chip and Pin 18:03 Operation Easy Chair 19:58 How does a contactless card work? 23:39 Digital Pickpocketing ▀▀▀ We’d love to thank some of the experts who helped us on this video. Firstly, a huge thank you to Neil Smith for sharing his technical and historical knowledge of “The Thing” and operation Easy Chair. These devices are crazy complicated! And Neil (given that he’s actually built a working replica of “The Thing!”) gave invaluable insight into how it works, and detailed feedback on early versions of the video. You can see even a more detailed explanation of “The Thing” from Neil here – "Leon Theremin Changed Spying FOREVER with this 1940s invention!", on his channel: @MachiningandMicrowaves Thanks to R. Paul Wilson for a comprehensive overview of the potential ways that credit cards and contactless payments can be compromised, and for connecting us with Christopher Forte. A big thank you to Christopher for his technical advice on different attack vectors for NFC transactions, his insights into the “cat and mouse game” between hackers and security providers, and feedback on different parts of the video. Thanks to Pavel Zhovner, CEO of Flipper Devices, for talking us through the various security layers in NFC transactions, showing us round the Flipper HQ, and even giving us several Flippers to experiment and film with! Thanks as well to Tony Sales, for his candid – and thoroughly entertaining(!) – recounts of credit card vulnerabilities, and explaining the work he does today in testing them. Thanks to @mkbhd and his team for filming all the different demo’s with us – and of course, putting himself forward for the hack we’ll cover in part 2 of this video! And last but definitely not least, a big thank you to professors Tom Chothia and Ioana Boureanu, for their technical support on the video, and of course, talking us through in great detail and even lending us the equipment for the hack we’ll be attempting in part 2! ▀▀▀ References: https://ve42.co/Spies&CardsRefs ▀▀▀ Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, André Powell, Anton Ragin, armedtoe, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Charles Ian Norman Venn, Daniel Martins, Data Don, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, EJ Alexandra, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, Hayden Christensen, Hong Thai Le, Ibby Hadeed, Jeromy Johnson, Jesse Brandsoy, Jon Jamison, Juan Benet, Kelcey Steele, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Mark Heising, Martin Paull, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Krugman, Moebiusol - Cristian, Orlando Bassotto, Parsee Health, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Robson, Sam Lutfi, Shalva Bukia, Sinan Taifour, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures, Vahe Andonians, wolfee ▀▀▀ Writers: James Moore, Casper Mebius & Henry van Dyck Producer & Director: James Moore Presenters: Derek Muller & Henry van Dyck Editor: Peter Nelson Animators: Andrew Neet, Domonkos Józsa, Alex Drakoulis & Ulugbek Islamov Illustrator: Jakub Misiek Assistant Writers: Aakash Singh Bagga & Darius Garewal Assistant Editor: James Stuart Researchers: Aakash Singh Bagga, Darius Garewal & Callum Cuttle Camera Operators: Andrew Abballe, Henry van Dyck, Gregor Čavlović & Andy Perez Thumbnail Designers: Abdallah Rabah, Ren Hurley & Ben Powell Production Team: Jess Bishop-Laggett, Matthew Cavanagh, Anna Milkovic & Sulli Yost Executive Producers: Derek Muller & Casper Mebius Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images & Storyblocks Music from Epidemic Sound

Making A Giant Zipper To Explain How They Work

Mar 19, 2026

How do zippers work? Sponsored by Hostinger. Host OpenClaw on a Hostinger VPS plan: https://www.hostinger.com/veritasiumopenclaw - and use code 'veritasium' for an extra discount. If you’re looking for a molecular modelling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - https://ve42.co/SnatomsV Sign up for the Veritasium newsletter for weekly science updates - https://ve42.co/Newsletter ▀▀▀ A huge thank you to Prof. Robert Friedel for his invaluable expertise and contributions to this video. Check out Friedel’s book here - http://ve42.co/friedel-zipper Massive thanks to IPFL for fabricating our giant zipper - https://ve42.co/ipfl-fabrication A huge thank you to Emily Zhang for her advice on how to best structure this story. Check out her new channel here: @rabbithole The giant zipper was adapted from an original design by LoboCNC - https://ve42.co/fidget-zipper We’d also like to thank everyone at YKK who helped organise our call, especially Sophia Seco, Engin Ertugrul, Christelle Malot and Matthew Rawstron. Finally, a big thank you to Christopher Anderson, Anna Oros and Pressley Stevens of the Allegheny College Library for sending us footage of Whitcomb Judson’s original fastener in action. ▀▀▀ 0:00 The First Zipper 2:51 Who invented the zipper? 4:20 How does a zipper work? 5:51 The Zipper Maker Machine 7:46 Why is it called a zipper? 9:32 The Novelty Of A Zipper 12:57 The Most Popular Zipper Doesn’t Have Teeth 14:08 Zippers Have A Lock 15:31 Why do zippers have YKK on them? 18:39 How To Fix A Zipper ▀▀▀ References and Visuals can be found here - http://ve42.co/ZippersRefs ▀▀▀ Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, André Powell, Anton Ragin, armedtoe, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Charles Ian Norman Venn, Daniel Martins, Data Don, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, EJ Alexandra, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, Hayden Christensen, Hong Thai Le, Ibby Hadeed, Jeromy Johnson, Jesse Brandsoy, Jon Jamison, Juan Benet, Kelcey Steele, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Mark Heising, Martin Paull, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Krugman, Moebiusol - Cristian, Orlando Bassotto, Parsee Health, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Robson, Sam Lutfi, Shalva Bukia, Sinan Taifour, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures, Vahe Andonians, wolfee ▀▀▀ Writers: Daniel Leonard & Gregor Čavlović Producer & Director: Daniel Leonard Presenter: Gregor Čavlović Editor: Trenton Oliver Animators: Domonkos Józsa, Fabio Albertelli & Andrew Neet Illustrators: Jakub Misiek & Emma Wright Additional Editor: James Stuart Researchers: Callum Cuttle & Sophia Rose Camera Operators: Gregor Čavlović & Henry van Dyck Thumbnail Designers: Abdallah Rabah, Ren Hurley & Ben Powell Production Team: Josh Pitt, Matthew Cavanagh, Anna Milkovic, Katy Southwood, Glen Griffiths & Jess Bishop-Laggett Executive Producers: Derek Muller, Gregor Čavlović & Casper Mebius Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images & Storyblocks Music from Epidemic Sound

This Paradox Splits Smart People 50/50

Mar 9, 2026

Two boxes, one choice, and $1,000,000. Sponsored by Brilliant - To learn for free on Brilliant for a full 30 days, go to https://brilliant.org/veritasium. Our viewers also get 20% off an annual Premium subscription, which gives you unlimited daily access to everything on Brilliant. If you’re looking for a molecular modelling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - https://ve42.co/SnatomsV Sign up for the Veritasium newsletter for weekly science updates - https://ve42.co/Newsletter ▀▀▀ A huge thank you to Dr. Arif Ahmed, Dr. Adam Elga, Dr. Kenny Easwaran, Dr. Peter Slezak, Dr. David Wolpert, Dr. Scott Aaronson & Dr. Michael Huemer for their invaluable expertise and contributions to this video on Newcomb’s Paradox. The causal expected utility calculation was based on a post by Professor Huemer here - https://ve42.co/Huemer ▀▀▀ 0:00 What is Newcomb’s Paradox? 3:24 Pick 1 Box! 5:24 Pick Both! 6:38 What is decision theory? 11:27 What does Newcomb’s Paradox say about free will? 13:25 What does it mean to be rational? 16:49 Mutually Assured Destruction 20:02 Precommitment Is The Ultimate Strategy ▀▀▀ References can be found here - https://ve42.co/NewcombRefs ▀▀▀ Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Albert Wenger, Sam Lutfi, Michael Krugman, Sinan Taifour, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Lee Redden, Richard Sundvall, Ubiquity Ventures, David Johnston, Juan Benet, Paul Peijzel, Meekay, Evgeny Skvortsov, Blake Byers, Dave Kircher, Gnare, Anton Ragin, KeyWestr, meg noah, Tj Steyn, Orlando Bassotto, Adam Foreman, Balkrishna Heroor, Jesse Brandsoy, Garrett Mueller, Kyi, Ibby Hadeed, Bertrand Serlet, wolfee, David Tseng, Bruce, Alexander Tamas, Alex Porter, Jon Jamison, Charles Ian Norman Venn, armedtoe, Jeromy Johnson, Hayden Christensen, Robson, EJ Alexandra, Daniel Martins, Shalva Bukia, Moebiusol - Cristian, Martin Paull, Data Don, Vahe Andonians, Mark Heising, Hong Thai Le, Parsee Health, Kelcey Steele ▀▀▀ Writers: Sulli Yost & Casper Mebius Producer & Director: Sulli Yost Editor: Jack Saxon Additional Editing: Peter Nelson Camera Operators: Lukas Guderjahn, Danijela Čavlović, Casper Mebius, Gregor Čavlović & Derek Muller Presenters: Casper Mebius, Gregor Čavlović, Henry van Dyck & Derek Muller Animators: Emma Wright, Andrew Neet, Alex Drakoulis, Domonkos Józsa & Fabio Albertelli Assistant Editor: James Stuart Researcher: Darius Garewal & Gabe Strong Thumbnail Designers: Abdallah Rabah, Ren Hurley & Ben Powell Production Team: Jess Bishop-Laggett, Matthew Cavanagh, Anna Milkovich & Josh Pitt Executive Producers: Casper Mebius & Derek Muller Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images & Storyblocks Music from Epidemic Sound

The Internet Was Weeks Away From Disaster and No One Knew

Feb 25, 2026

How a single hack infected the world’s most important operating system. Sponsored by NordVPN - Get exclusive NordVPN deal here: https://NordVPN.com/veritasium It’s risk free with Nord’s 30 day money-back guarantee! If you’re looking for a molecular modelling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - https://ve42.co/SnatomsV Sign up for the Veritasium newsletter for weekly science updates - https://ve42.co/Newsletter ▀▀▀ 0:00 The Free Software Foundation 5:03 Why is Linux so popular? 9:57 The XZ Weakness 12:07 End To End Encryption - SSH 18:40 How To Compress Data 23:47 How The .XZ Hack Worked 34:24 A Bug In Jia’s Code 38:27 Henry Hacks Derek 43:16 The Back Door Is Exposed 47:16 Who is Jia Tan? 50:33 Open Vs Closed Source ▀▀▀ A huge thank you to everyone who made this possible: Rich Jones for his openness throughout this project. Denzel Farmer for his incredible breakdown - https://youtu.be/Q6ovtLdSbEA?si=qlbcg6skR-BoS5z1 Karsten Nohl @hackingmatters, Yannis Hofmann, and Matthias Marx at SRLabs for their help throughout this project. Fabian Fäßler @LiveOverflow Alex Schlögl and the rest of the Cure53 team for their technical insights on the project. Tom Scott, and Computerphile for their excellent videos on compression. Josh at @breakfastserial for the filming inspiration. Planet Money for a podcast that helped inform our research and @fern-tv for inspiration. Thomas Roccia for his technical feedback on the video. And Ed at @LowLevelTV for helping out early on! ▀▀▀ References: https://ve42.co/XZHackRefs ▀▀▀ Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, Anton Ragin, armedtoe, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Charles Ian Norman Venn, Daniel Martins, Data Don, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, EJ Alexandra, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, Hayden Christensen, Hong Thai Le, Ibby Hadeed, Jeromy Johnson, Jesse Brandsoy, Jon Jamison, Juan Benet, Kelcey Steele, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Mark Heising, Martin Paull, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Krugman, Moebiusol - Cristian, Orlando Bassotto, Parsee Health, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Robson, Sam Lutfi, Shalva Bukia, Sinan Taifour, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures, Vahe Andonians, wolfee ▀▀▀ Writer, Director & Producer: Henry van Dyck Presenters: Derek Muller & Henry van Dyck Editor: Trenton Oliver Animators: Fabio Albertelli, Domonkos Józsa, Andrew Neet, Alex Drakoulis & Emma Wright Illustrators: Jakub Misiek & Nataly Zhuk Researchers: Aakash Singh Bagga & Sophia Rose Additional Editing: James Stuart & Peter Nelson Thumbnail Designers: Abdallah Rabah, Ren Hurley, Ben Powell & Henry van Dyck Production Team: Josh Pitt, Matthew Cavanagh, Anna Milkovic, Katy Southwood & Jess Bishop-Laggett Executive Producers: Derek Muller & Casper Mebius Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images & Storyblocks Music from Epidemic Sound

The Miracle Material That Killed Millions

Feb 17, 2026

How asbestos ended up everywhere, and why we’re still using it today. Sponsored by Ground News - Go to https://ground.news/Ve for 40% off the unlimited Vantage plan, to catch how major public health stories are covered across the political spectrum and spot media bias for yourself. If you’re looking for a molecular modelling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - https://ve42.co/SnatomsV Sign up for the Veritasium newsletter for weekly science updates - https://ve42.co/Newsletter ▀▀▀ Further resources and information about asbestos can be found here - https://ve42.co/AsbestosResources Nevada state regulatory guidance on assessing asbestos-related risk in soils - ve42.co/NDEPguidance ▀▀▀ 0:00 A Weavable Rock 9:41 The Asbestos Boom 13:06 What Does Asbestos Do To Humans? 16:57 The Doctor Who Exposed Asbestos 21:59 The Asbestosis Cover-Up 28:36 Where Is Asbestos Found? 33:18 How Did Asbestos Get Everywhere? 39:55 What Counts As Asbestos? 42:30 Asbestos Surrounds Las Vegas 47:56 When Was Asbestos Banned? 51:54 Should You Be Worried? ▀▀▀ A huge thanks to Sean Fitzgerald, Brenda Buck and Rodney Metcalfe for lending so much of their time and expertise to this video, and for all their work raising public awareness. And to Jean Pfau, Michael Bowker, Barry Castleman and Jonathan Bennion for their invaluable insight and guidance, helping us ensure we told this story accurately. Check out Jonathan Bennion’s videos from the Human Anatomy Institute here. Look out for his upcoming video on Asbestos - youtube.com/@theanatomylab Michael Bowker’s book was a great resource - https://ve42.co/BowkerFatalDeception Graham Gould and Ross Fielding from Thermal Recycling provided valuable feedback on the mineralogy of asbestos. Find out more about how they’re tackling legacy asbestos here - https://ve42.co/ThermalRecycling John Richards from Thames Laboratories really helped us to understand the actual risks of asbestos in existing buildings - https://ve42.co/ThamesLabs We’re very grateful to many researchers who also lent us their time and helped us to understand the core science behind asbestos, including Guillermo Rein, Ashley Howkins, and Brooke Johnson, whose YouTube channel can be found here - youtube.com/@geologyjohnson7700 ▀▀▀ Research and visual references can be found here - https://ve42.co/AsbestosRefs ▀▀▀ Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, Anton Ragin, armedtoe, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Charles Ian Norman Venn, Daniel Martins, Data Don, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, EJ Alexandra, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, Hayden Christensen, Hong Thai Le, Ibby Hadeed, Jeromy Johnson, Jesse Brandsoy, Jon Jamison, Juan Benet, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Mark Heising, Martin Paull, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Krugman, Moebiusol - Cristian, Orlando Bassotto, Parsee Health, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Robson, Sam Lutfi, Shalva Bukia, Sinan Taifour, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures, Vahe Andonians, wolfee ▀▀▀ Writers: Emilia Gyles, Gregor Čavlović, Casper Mebius & Derek Muller Producer & Director: Emilia Gyles Editor: Jonny Lennard Camera Operators: Tyler Stefanelli, Denver Dan, Emilia Gyles & Gregor Čavlović Drone Operator: Raf Willems Producer on Location: Sarah Houlton Animators: Emma Wright, Andrew Neet, Saif Javed & Fabio Albertelli Illustrators: Nataly Zhuk, Maria Gusakovich, Grace Nemanic, Isaac McRee & Jakub Misiek Assistant Editors: James Stuart and James Horsley Researcher: Callum Cuttle Thumbnail Designers: Abdallah Rabah, Ren Hurley & Ben Powell Production Team: Josh Pitt, Matthew Cavanagh, Anna Milkovic, Katy Southwood & Jess Bishop-Laggett Executive Producers: Derek Muller, Casper Mebius & Gregor Čavlović Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images & Storyblocks Music from Epidemic Sound

Why Cold Drinks Were Deadly Before 1914

Feb 3, 2026

The rise and fall of a forgotten frozen empire. Sponsored by Brilliant. To learn for free on Brilliant for a full 30 days, go to https://brilliant.org/Veritasium/. Our viewers also get 20% off an annual Premium subscription, which gives you unlimited daily access to everything on Brilliant. If you’re looking for a molecular modelling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - https://ve42.co/SnatomsV Sign up for the Veritasium newsletter for weekly science updates - https://ve42.co/Newsletter ▀▀▀ A huge thank you to Amy Brady and Tom Jackson for their invaluable expertise and contributions to this video. Check out Amy Brady’s book here - https://ve42.co/BradyIce Check out Tom Jackson’s book here - https://ve42.co/JacksonChilled ▀▀▀ 0:00 The Frozen Monopoly 4:40 How To Stop Ice From Melting 8:06 An Icy Welcome 10:52 The Rise Of The Ice King 14:32 How Ice Transformed Cities 18:29 The First Ice Machine 23:22 Why is the back of the fridge hot? 25:45 Natural Ice Is Deadly 27:14 Would the world be different without refrigeration? ▀▀▀ References can be found here - https://ve42.co/IceRefs Image and video references can be found here - https://ve42.co/IceVisuals ▀▀▀ Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, Anton Ragin, armedtoe, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Data Don, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, EJ Alexandra, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, Hayden Christensen, Hong Thai Le, Ibby Hadeed, Jeromy Johnson, Jesse Brandsoy, Jon Jamison, Juan Benet, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Mark Heising, Martin Paull, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Bush, Michael Krugman, Orlando Bassotto, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Robson, Sam Lutfi, Shalva Bukia, Sinan Taifour, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures, Vahe Andonians, wolfee ▀▀▀ Writers: Darius Garewal & Casper Mebius Producer & Director: Darius Garewal Presenters: Derek Muller & Gregor Čavlović Editor: Peter Nelson Animators: Andrew Neet, Ulugbek Islamov & Fabio Albertelli Illustrators: Nataly Zhuk, Maria Gusakovich, Grace Nemanic, Isaac McRee & Jakub Misiek Assistant Editor: James Stuart Additional Editors: James Horsley & James Stuart Researcher: Callum Cuttle Thumbnail Designers: Abdallah Rabah, Ren Hurley & Ben Powell Production Team: Josh Pitt, Matthew Cavanagh, Anna Milkovic, Katy Southwood & Jess Bishop-Laggett Executive Producers: Derek Muller, Zoe Heron, Casper Mebius & Gregor Čavlović Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images & Storyblocks Music from Epidemic Sound

The Tiny Donut That Proved We Still Don't Understand Magnetism

Jan 29, 2026

What this strange quantum effect reveals about potentials. Sponsored by Planet Wild. Want to restore the planet’s ecosystems and see your impact in monthly videos? The first 150 people to join Planet Wild will get the first month for free at: https://planetwild.com/r/veritasium/join If you want to get to know them better first, check out their project stopping plastic waste before it reaches the ocean: https://planetwild.com/r/veritasium/m34 If you’re looking for a molecular modelling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - https://ve42.co/SnatomsV Sign up for the Veritasium newsletter for weekly science updates - https://ve42.co/Newsletter ▀▀▀ Chapters: 0:00 The 3 Body Problem 4:16 Potential Energies 7:09 What is the curl in mathematics? 11:59 Bohm and Oppenheimer 14:36 Potentials in the Schrödinger Equation 18:40 The Aharonov-Bohm Effect 25:29 The Donut Experiment 27:49 Can potentials affect reality? 33:51 The Gravitational Aharonov-Bohm Effect ▀▀▀ A special thank you to Prof. Yakir Aharonov for discussing your own original research with us. And a huge thank you to Prof. David Kaiser, Prof. Steven Strogatz, Dr Peter Asenbaum, Prof. Olival Freire Jr., and Prof. Yuval Gefen for your invaluable expertise and contributions to this video. ▀▀▀ References - https://ve42.co/ABRefs Image refs - https://ve42.co/Ty Thumbnail image: Based on work by Perosello (CC BY-SA 4.0)  commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:5_4_800_36_downscaled.gif ▀▀▀ Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, Anton Ragin, Armedtoe, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Data Don, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, EJ Alexandra, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, Hayden Christensen, Ibby Hadeed, Jeromy Johnson, Jesse Brandsoy, Jon Jamison, Juan Benet, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Mark Heising, Martin Paull, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Bush, Orlando Bassotto, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Robson, Sam Lutfi, Shalva Bukia, Sinan Taifour, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures, Vahe Andonians, wolfee ▀▀▀ Writers: Daniel Leonard, Casper Mebius & Derek Muller Producer and Director: Daniel Leonard Presenters: Derek Muller, Casper Mebius & Gregor Čavlović Editor: Jack Saxon Additional Editor: James Stuart Animators: Emma Wright, Fabio Abertelli, Andrew Neet & Ivy Trello Illustrators: Jakub Misiek, Grace Nemanic & Isaac McRee Researchers: Gabe Strong & Callum Cuttle Thumbnail designers: Abdallah Rabah, Ren Hurley & Ben Powell Production Team: Josh Pitt, Matthew Cavanagh, Anna Milkovic, Katy Southwood & Jess Bishop-Laggett Executive Producers: Derek Muller, Casper Mebius & Gregor Čavlović Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images and Pond5 Music from Epidemic Sound

What Happens If You Keep Slowing Down?

Jan 19, 2026

What happens if you keep slowing down time? Sponsored by Hostinger - Make today your Day One and visit https://ve42.co/VE10. Use code VERITASIUM for an additional discount. If you’re looking for a molecular modelling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - https://ve42.co/SnatomsV Sign up for the Veritasium newsletter for weekly science updates - https://ve42.co/Newsletter ▀▀▀ 0:00 How does a strobe work? 3:28 The Man Who Stopped Time 8:43 Spatial vs Temporal Resolution 13:09 1 Trillion FPS 16:56 Watching Light Move 19:04 The Straightest Building in the World 24:19 How to get 1 Quadrillion FPS 28:25 Seeing Electrons ▀▀▀ A huge thank you to Jim Bales, Kim Vandiver, Jamie Chelel and everyone at the MIT Edgerton Center for walking us through Edgerton’s demos - https://ve42.co/EdgertonC Thank you to Tech Imaging for letting us use their Photron Nova S16 high-speed video camera - https://ve42.co/TechImg A massive thank you Nikhil Behari, Ramesh Raskar and MIT’s Camera Culture Group for having us over - https://ve42.co/CameraCulture Check out Prof Raskar’s original trillion FPS coke bottle video here - https://youtu.be/EtsXgODHMWk A big thank you to Anagh Malik and the University of Toronto Computational Imaging Group. Check out Anagh’s work here - https://ve42.co/Malik2024 Finally, a huge thank you to Aaron Groff, James Cryan and everyone at SLAC for letting us visit their electron accelerator - https://ve42.co/SLAC The paper on the final charge density simulation is available here - https://ve42.co/Grell2023 Check out the AlphaPhoenix billion FPS camera here - https://youtu.be/IaXdSGkh8Ww ▀▀▀ References: https://ve42.co/StoppingTimeRefs Visual References: Charge density simulation video by Gilbert Grell, Alicia Palacios, and Fernando Martín, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid Edgerton images courtesy of © 2010 MIT. Courtesy of MIT Museum - https://ve42.co/MITMus Bullet Shadowgram available via CC-BY-SA-3.0 on Wikipedia - https://ve42.co/Shadowgram Various SLAC shots via - https://www.youtube.com/@SLAC ▀▀▀ Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, Anton Ragin, armedtoe, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Data Don, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, EJ Alexandra, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, Hayden Christensen, Ibby Hadeed, Jeromy Johnson, Jesse Brandson, Jon Jamison, Juan Benet, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Mark Heising, Marti Paull, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Bush, Michael Krugman, Moebiusol - Cristian, Orlando Bassotto, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Robson, Sam Lufti, Shalva Bukia, Sinan Taifour, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures, Vahe Andonians, wolfee ▀▀▀ Writers: Gregor Čavlović, Casper Mebius & Derek Muller Producer & Director: Gregor Čavlović Presenter: Gregor Čavlović Editors: Jack Saxon, Peter Nelson & Trenton Oliver Additional Editors: James Stuart & James Horsley Animators: Mike Radjabov, Fabio Albertelli, Andrew Neet, Emma Wright & Rokas Viksraitis Illustrators: Jakub Misiek, Kathryn Chan, Grace Nemanic, Nataly Zhuk & Isaac McRee Camera Operators: Michael Cimpher, Jesse Chandler & Gregor Čavlović Researcher: Aakash Singh Bagga & Gabe Strong Thumbnail Designers: Abdallah Rabah, Ren Hurley & Ben Powell Production Team: Josh Pitt, Matthew Cavanagh, Anna Milkovic, Gabe Strong, Sulli Yost & Katy Southwood Executive Producers: Casper Mebius & Derek Muller Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images, Storyblocks Music from Epidemic Sound

The World's Most Important Machine

Dec 31, 2025

The insane machines that make the most advanced computer chips. Sponsored by Brilliant - To learn for free for a full 30 days, go to https://brilliant.org/veritasium and get started. Plus, our viewers get 20% off an annual Premium subscription for unlimited daily access to all Brilliant courses. If you’re looking for a molecular modelling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - https://ve42.co/SnatomsV Sign up for the Veritasium newsletter for weekly science updates - https://ve42.co/Newsletter ▀▀▀ 0:00 The Machine That Saved Moore’s Law 3:12 How are microchips made? 9:11 What is extreme ultraviolet lithography? 15:04 Nuclear Fusion To The Rescue 21:59 How ASML Conquered The Chip World 35:35 Who are ASML’s biggest customers? 37:40 The Most Important Tech Company In The World 41:25 Inside ASML ▀▀▀ A big thank you to Marc Assinck, Jos Benschop, Jan van Schoot, and Jayson Stewart and the rest of the team at ASML. We are also incredibly grateful to Vivek Bakshi, Andy Hawryluk, Marc Hijink, Asianometry & Claude Montcalm for their time and expertise. If you want to learn more about ASML and how they developed EUV, check out Marc Hijnk's book “Focus: The ASML way” - https://focus-dewereldvanasml.nl/ Explore the Asianometry channel (including a wealth of EUV videos) here - https://www.youtube.com/@Asianometry See Jayson Stewart’s article on the EUV light source and supernovas here - https://spectrum.ieee.org/euv-light-source The photo at 0:16 is used with the kind permission of Piotr Krzemiński - check out his channel @nanopirate ▀▀▀ References: https://ve42.co/ASMLRefs ▀▀▀ Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, Anton Ragin, armedtoe, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Damien, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, EJ Alexandra, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, Hayden Christensen, Ibby Hadeed, Jeromy Johnson, Jon Jamison, Juan Benet, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Matthias Wrobel, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Bush, Michael Krugman, Orlando Bassotto, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Robert Oliveira, Sam Lutfi, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures, wolfee ▀▀▀ Writers: Sulli Yost, Casper Mebius & Derek Muller Producer and Director: Sulli Yost Presenters: Derek Muller & Casper Mebius Editor: Trenton Oliver Additional Editors: Spencer Wright, James Stuart & Peter Nelson Additional Writer: Vibhor Pandey Animators: Andrew Neet, Emma Wright, Fabio Albertelli, & Mike Radjabov Illustrators: Jakub Misiek, Maria Gusakovich, Veronika Pasynkova, Grace Nemanic, Isaac McRee, Nataly Zhuk & Hollisstudioo Camera Operators: Sulli Yost, Richard van Rijn, Derek Muller & Casper Mebius Researchers: Gabe Strong, Callum Cuttle & Aakash Singh Bagga Thumbnail Designers: Ren Hurley, Ben Powell & Abdallah Rabah Production Team: Josh Pitt, Matthew Cavanagh, Anna Milkovic & Katy Southwood Executive Producers: Casper Mebius & Derek Muller Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images, Storyblocks Music from Epidemic Sound

The Future of Veritasium

Dec 24, 2025

Am I retiring? ▀▀▀ References: https://ve42.co/AnnouncementRefs ▀▀▀ Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, Anton Ragin, armedtoe, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Damien, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, EJ Alexandra, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, Hayden Christensen, Ibby Hadeed, Jeromy Johnson, Jon Jamison, Juan Benet, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Matthias Wrobel, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Bush, Michael Krugman, Orlando Bassotto, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Robert Oliveira, Sam Lutfi, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures, wolfee ▀▀▀ Writer and Director: Derek Muller Editor: Trenton Oliver Additional Photography: James Horsley, Callum Cuttle, and Miguel Duarte Researcher: Aakash Singh Bagga Animator: Peter Nelson Production Team: Katy Southwood, Josh Pitt & Matthew Cavanagh Executive Producer: Derek Muller Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images, Storyblocks Music from Epidemic Sound and Jonny Hyman ▀▀▀ Elements of Truth Game: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/elements-of-truth/elements-of-truth-by-veritasium/description Snatoms: https://snatoms.com/ VeMail: https://veritasium.kit.com/posts

There Is Something Faster Than Light

Dec 19, 2025

How an argument between Einstein and Bohr changed quantum mechanics forever. Sponsored by NordVPN - 🌏 Get exclusive NordVPN deal here: https://NordVPN.com/veritasium It’s risk free with Nord’s 30 day money-back guarantee!✌ If you’re looking for a molecular modelling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - https://ve42.co/SnatomsV Sign up for the Veritasium newsletter for weekly science updates - https://ve42.co/Newsletter ▀▀▀ Thank you to Dr Adam Becker for his help with this video - check out his book here https://ve42.co/WhatReal And special thanks to Thierry Avignon, Benjamin Vest, and Lionel Jacubowiez of the Institut d'Optique Graduate School - Laboratoire d'Enseignement Expérimental (LEnsE) Correction: 30:53 Electrons and Positrons not Protons ▀▀▀ 0:00 The Speed of Gravity 3:07 Spooky Action at a Distance 5:21 The Copenhagen Interpretation 9:12 The EPR Paradox and Hidden Variables 17:25 Einstein vs Bohr 20:51 John Bell and Entanglement 22:14 Bell’s Theorem 29:30 The Bell Inequality Test 33:41 The Most Misunderstood Experiment in Physics 35:06 The Locality Problem 40:37 The Many-Worlds Interpretation ▀▀▀ References: Adam Becker (2018). What is Real?. Basic Civitas Books - ve42.co/WhatReal Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox via Wikipedia - ve42.co/EPRWiki Einstein, A. et al. (1935). Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete?. American Physical Society (APS) - ve42.co/EPR Solvay Conference via Wikipedia - ve42.co/SolvayConf Owen Willans Richardson Photo Galley via nobelprize.org - ve42.co/SolvayPhoto Bohr-Einstein debates via Wikipedia - ve42.co/BohrEinDeb Bacciagaluppi, G and Valentini, A (2009). Quantum Theory at the Crossroads. Cambridge University Press - ve42.co/Crossroads Bohr, N. (1935). Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality be Considered Complete?. American Physical Society (APS) - ve42.co/BohrResp The Solvay Conference via rarehistoricalphotos.com - ve42.co/SolvayImg Kragh, H. (2022). Chemists Without Knowing It?. Firenze University Press - ve42.co/BhorsConferenceImg Einstein Attacks Quantum Theory. The New York Times via nytimes.com - ve42.co/EinsteinAttackQT Oral History Interviews via repository.aip.org - ve42.co/BohrInterview Images & Video: Image and video references can be found here - https://ve42.co/BellsImRefs ▀▀▀ Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, Anton Ragin, armedtoe, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Damien, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, EJ Alexandra, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, Hayden Christensen, Ibby Hadeed, Jeromy Johnson, Jon Jamison, Juan Benet, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Matthias Wrobel, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Bush, Michael Krugman, Orlando Bassotto, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Robert Oliveira, Sam Lutfi, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures, wolfee ▀▀▀ Writers: Mithuna Yoganathan, Casper Mebius & Derek Muller Producer & Director: Mithuna Yoganathan Editor: Spencer Wright Camera Operators: Mithuna Yoganathan, Derek Muller and Maxime Beauquesne Animators: Alex Drakoulis, Fabio Albertelli, Emma Wright, Andrew Neet and Peter Nelson Illustrators: Jakub Misiek, Katheryn Chan, Grace Nemanic, Isaac McCree and Natalky Zhuk Assistant Editor: James Stuart Researchers: Gabe Strong and Sophia Long Thumbnail Designers: Abdallah Rabah, Ren Hurley & Ben Powell Production Team: Katy Southwood, Josh Pitt, Anna Milkovic and Matthew Cavanagh Executive Producers: Derek Muller & Casper Mebius Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images, Storyblocks Music from Epidemic Sound Notes *When we show the Stern Gerlach experiment we’ve chosen to flip the polarity of the machine when measuring a positron. This is because both its spin and charge should oppose the electron’s. This would mean both would bend in the same direction! We’re interested in seeing the difference in the spins so we flip the machine to make this clearer. **We show curved spacetime using Flamm’s Parabaloid, which we discovered is controversial, more notes on that here - https://ve42.co/HBDFlamm

Weird Things Happen When Energy Goes Negative

Dec 5, 2025

How Paul Dirac uncovered the anti-universe. Sponsored by Hostinger - visit https://ve42.co/hostinger and use the code VERITASIUM to get an extra discount on top of the sale prices. Get your exclusive edition of Veritasium’s first tabletop game - join 8,000+ backers - https://ve42.co/did If you’re looking for a molecular modelling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - https://ve42.co/SnatomsV Sign up for the Veritasium newsletter for weekly science updates - https://ve42.co/Newsletter ▀▀▀ A huge thank you to Graham Farmelo and Cumrun Vafa for their invaluable expertise and contributions to this video. If you want to hear more about Dirac's life we've posted an extended interview with biographer Graham over on our patreon here - https://ve42.co/patreonbonus A special thanks to Matteo Arfini for his help with this video. Check out Graham Farmelo’s books here - https://grahamfarmelo.com/ Explore Cumrun Vafa’s research here - https://www.cumrunvafa.org/ Thank you also to Florida State University and Caltech for their fantastic archives. You can find the digitized materials from the FSU’s Paul A. M. Dirac Collection here - https://ve42.co/FSUdirac - and more about the discovery of the positron here - https://ve42.co/CalispherePositron ▀▀▀ 0:00 Can Negative Energy Exist? 3:27 The Schrödinger Equation Is Wrong 8:33 The Strangest Man In Physics 11:01 Dirac and the Klein-Gordon equation 17:27 Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle 20:54 The Dirac Equation 24:21 The Saddest Chapter in Modern Physics 26:35 The Anti-Electron 29:57 Antiparticles Travel Backwards In Time 31:24 The Anti-World ▀▀▀ References can be found here - https://ve42.co/DiracRefs Image and video references can be found here - https://ve42.co/DiracVisuals ▀▀▀ Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, Anton Ragin, Anupam Banerjee, armedtoe, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, Hayden Christensen, Ibby Hadeed, Jeromy Johnson, Jon Jamison, Juan Benet, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Matthias Wrobel, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Bush, Michael Krugman, Orlando Bassotto, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Robert Oliveira, Sam Lutfi, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures, wolfee ▀▀▀ Writers: Lily Shepherd, Casper Mebius & Derek Muller Producer & Director: Lily Shepherd Editors: Jonny Lennard Camera Operators: Casper Mebius Animators: Andrew Neet, Emma Wright, Fabio Albertelli & Peter Nelson Illustrators: Jakub Misiek & Nataly Zhuk Assistant Editors: James Horsley & James Stuart Researchers: Callum Cuttle & Sophia Rose Thumbnail Designers: Abdallah Rabah, Ren Hurley & Ben Powell Production Team: Katy Southwood & Josh Pitt Executive Producers: Derek Muller & Casper Mebius Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images, Storyblocks Music from Epidemic Sound

You've (Likely) Been Playing The Game of Life Wrong

Nov 26, 2025

The world is not Normal. Sponsored by NordVPN. 🌏 Get exclusive NordVPN deal here ➵ https://NordVPN.com/veritasium It’s risk free with Nord’s 30 day money-back guarantee!✌ Get your exclusive edition of Veritasium’s first tabletop game - join 6,000+ backers - https://ve42.co/pld To play around with the simulations in the video, you can follow these links: Sandpiles - https://www.veritasium.com/simulation3 Ising model (magnetism) - https://www.veritasium.com/simulation4 Forest fires - https://www.veritasium.com/simulation5 If you’re looking for a molecular modelling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - https://ve42.co/SnatomsV Sign up for the Veritasium newsletter for weekly science updates - https://ve42.co/Newsletter ▀▀▀ A huge thanks to Steven Strogatz, Mark Buchanan and Mark Newman for their time and expertise. ▀▀▀ CHAPTERS: 0:00 What is a power law? 4:31 Expected Values 8:49 The St. Petersburg Paradox 11:37 Outliers Dominate Averages 15:23 Fractals and Power Laws 19:28 Self-Organized Criticality 24:08 Why do we light controlled forest fires? 26:40 How We Can Predict Earthquakes 32:11 Critical Systems and Universality 36:31 How Some Businesses Are Built On Power Laws 39:30 What game are you playing? Normal or power? ▀▀▀ References: https://ve42.co/PowerLawsRefs ▀▀▀ Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, Anton Ragin, Anupam Banerjee, armedtoe, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, Hayden Christensen, Ibby Hadeed, Jeromy Johnson, Jon Jamison, Juan Benet, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Matthias Wrobel, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Bush, Michael Krugman, Orlando Bassotto, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Robert Oliveira, Sam Lutfi, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures & wolfee ▀▀▀ Writers - James Moore, Casper Mebius & Derek Muller Producer & Director - James Moore Presenters - Derek Muller & Casper Mebius Editors - Jack Saxon & Peter Nelson Animators - Fabio Albertelli, Emma Wright, Saif Javed & Andrew Neet Additional Editor - James Stuart Researchers - Aakash Singh Bagga & Callum Cuttle Simulations - Aakash Singh Bagga Thumbnail Designers - Abdallah Rabah, Ren Hurley & Ben Powell Production Team - Josh Pitt, Matthew Cavanagh, Anna Milkovic & Katy Southwood Executive Producers - Derek Muller & Casper Mebius Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images, Storyblocks Music from Epidemic Sound

The Ridiculous Engineering of Jet Engines

Nov 17, 2025

How does a jet engine not melt? Sponsored by KiwiCo - Use code VERITASIUM to get 50% off your first monthly KiwiCo Crate! https://www.kiwico.com/VERITASIUM Want to start your own crystal garden? https://www.kiwico.com/crystalchemistry Our friends at Science Alert are doing a sweepstakes where you can win a 5-day space themed vacation for two. The itinerary includes a trip to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for astronaut training and a meet and greet with a NASA astronaut. If you’d like to be entered in the draw, just subscribe to their free science newsletter Spark. No purchase necessary. Open to US residents only. Enter here: https://www.sciencealert.com/spark-into-space-comp?utm_source=veritasium We have a tabletop game launching! Check it out here! - https://ve42.co/kickstarterdje If you’re looking for a molecular modelling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - https://ve42.co/SnatomsV Sign up for the Veritasium newsletter for weekly science updates - https://ve42.co/Newsletter ▀▀▀ 0:00 How a jet engine works 3:18 Why are jet engines so big? 5:17 The Inside of a Jet Engine 8:49 Edge Dislocation 11:11 The First Jet Engine 12:48 Inside the Rolls-Royce Precision Casting Facility 17:07 Nickel Superalloys - Gamma Prime 23:58 Crystal Structure 25:38 Making a Turbine Blade 32:22 Why don’t turbine blades melt? 35:30 Throwing Sand Into a Jet Engine ▀▀▀ A big thanks to Ben Todd, James Banks, Ben Fifoot, Doug Smith, Stefan Wagner, Rumaanah Hoosen and the rest of the team at Rolls-Royce. A huge thanks also to Professor Howard Stone and Dr George Wise from the University of Cambridge. We’re also incredibly grateful to Professor Jaafar A. El-Awady, Dr Karen A Thole, Professor Cathie Rae, Professor Paul Withey, Professor Pedro Patrício, Professor José Tavares and Ryan Moreman for their time and expertise. Thanks to Institute for Materials, Ruhr University Bochum, SFB Transregio 103 for the animation showing the microstructure of the nickel superalloy. Full youtube video here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYHch5QIWTQ Thanks to Professor Hongbiao Dong for the animation showing the grain selection in a single crystal turbine blade. Full youtube video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=br9iaeYYxSM References: https://ve42.co/JetEngineRefs ▀▀▀ Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, Anton Ragin, Anupam Banerjee, armedtoe, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, Hayden Christensen, Ibby Hadeed, Jeromy Johnson, Jon Jamison, Juan Benet, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Matthias Wrobel, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Bush, Michael Krugman, Orlando Bassotto, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Robert Oliveira, Sam Lutfi, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures & wolfee ▀▀▀ Writers - Emilia Gyles, Casper Mebius & Derek Muller Producer & Director - Emilia Gyles Presenters - Derek Muller & Henry Van Dyck Editor - Trenton Oliver Camera Operators - Jack Coathupe, Justin Wood, Emilia Gyles, Henry Van Dyck & Derek Muller Animators - Mike Radjabov, Emma Wright & Fabio Albertelli Additional Editors - James Stuart & Peter Nelson Researcher - Aakash Singh Bagga Thumbnail Designers - Ren Hurley, Ben Powell & Abdallah Rabah Production Team - Josh Pitt, Matthew Cavanagh, Anna Milkovic & Katy Southwood Executive Producers - Casper Mebius & Derek Muller Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images, Storyblocks Music from Epidemic Sound

Why People Are So Confident When They're Wrong

Nov 12, 2025

The problem with overconfidence. To help correct your overconfidence we have a tabletop game launching. Pledge your support now on kickstarter! - https://ve42.co/ocdsc If you’re looking for a molecular modelling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - https://ve42.co/SnatomsV Sign up to the Veritasium newsletter for weekly science updates - https://ve42.co/Newsletter ▀▀▀ CHAPTERS: 0:00 The Most Dangerous Cognitive Bias 3:01 How confident are you that you are right? 7:40 Why are people overconfident? 8:53 The Real Dunning-Kruger Effect Graph 10:22 How Your Brain Takes Shortcuts 14:02 How overconfidence is good for you 15:55 Nick Leeson Rogue Trader 17:17 The Importance of Feedback 18:45 How One of England's Oldest Banks Collapsed 20:41 How To Correct Overconfidence ▀▀▀ A big thanks to Professor Moore and Professor Fischhoff Thank you to everyone who played the game with us @hankschannel, @fryrsquared, @NileRed , @astrumspace, @MinutePhysics and @LookingGlassUniverse ▀▀▀ References: https://ve42.co/OverconfidenceRefs ▀▀▀ Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, Anton Ragin, armedtoe, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, Hayden Christensen, Ibby Hadeed, Jeromy Johnson, Jon Jamison, Juan Benet, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Matthias Wrobel, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Bush, Michael Krugman, Orlando Bassotto, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Robert Oliveira, Sam Lutfi, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures & wolfee ▀▀▀ Writers: Gabe Strong & Derek Muller Producer & Director: Gabe Strong Editor: Max Tobin Additional Editors: James Stuart, Peter Nelson and Jack Saxon Camera Operator: Casper Mebius and Gabe Strong Animators: Alex Drakoulis & Fabio Albertelli Illustrator: Jakub Misiek Researchers: Naomi Dinmore Additional researchers: Callum Cuttle Thumbnail Designers: Abdallah Rabah, Ren Hurley & Ben Powell Production Team: Josh Pitt, Matthew Cavanagh & Anna Milkovic Executive Producers: Derek Muller & Zoe Heron Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images, Storyblocks Music from Epidemic Sound

The Most Controversial Idea in Biology

Oct 31, 2025

Most people don’t fully understand evolution. Sponsored by Hostinger - visit https://ve42.co/hostingern8n and use the code VERITASIUM to get an extra discount on top of the sale prices. If you’re looking for a molecular modelling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - https://ve42.co/SnatomsV Sign up for the Veritasium newsletter for weekly science updates - https://ve42.co/Newsletter We have a tabletop game launching! Pledge your support now - https://ve42.co/KickStarterD ▀▀▀ 0:00 Why does poop smell bad? 2:51 The Beginning Life 7:15 What is gene mutation? 8:01 Simulating Evolution 13:25 How natural selection works 16:39 What do we pass on? 19:40 Kin Selection 22:04 The Selfish Gene 25:35 It’s all a simulation ▀▀▀ A big thanks to Dr. Jack Szostak at the University of Chicago, Dr. John Sutherland at Cambridge University, Dr. Joanna Masel at the University of Arizona & Dr. Gerald Joyce at the Salk Institute for their expertise and help with the video. And a huge thank you to Joe Hanson from @besmart for his help! Check out @PrimerBlobs here! Check out Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene here - https://ve42.co/SGRD ▀▀▀ References: https://ve42.co/SelfishGeneRefs Images & Video: Emperor Penguins Chicks via National Geographic - https://ve42.co/NatGeoPenguin Child in bed - https://ve42.co/FeverChild Photo of G.C. Williams - https://ve42.co/GCWilliams Photo of J. M. Smith - https://ve42.co/JMSmith Photo of Bob Trivers - https://ve42.co/RTrivers ▀▀▀ Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, Anton Ragin, Anupam Banerjee, armedtoe, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, Ibby Hadeed, Jeromy Johnson, Jon Jamison, Juan Benet, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Matthias Wrobel, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Bush, Michael Krugman, Orlando Bassotto, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Robert Oliveira, Sam Lutfi, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures, wolfee ▀▀▀ Writers: Gregor Čavlović, Casper Mebius, Daniel Leonard & Derek Muller Producer & Director: Gregor Čavlović Editor: Peter Nelson Camera Operator: Andrew Abballe Animators: Fabio Albertelli, Andrew Neet, Emma Wright & Peter Nelson Illustrator: Jakub Misiek Simulations: Callum Cuttle Researchers: Aakash Singh Bagga & Callum Cuttle Thumbnail Designers: Abdallah Rabah, Ren Hurley & Ben Powell Production Team: Josh Pitt, Matthew Cavanagh, Anna Milkovic & Zoe Heron Executive Producers: Derek Muller & Casper Mebius Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images, Storyblocks Music from Epidemic Sound

Can you really reach anyone in 6 steps?

Sep 30, 2025

The beautiful math behind six degrees of separation. Sponsored by Incogni - use code veritasium at https://incogni.com/veritasium to get an exclusive 60% off. If you’re looking for a molecular modelling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - https://ve42.co/SnatomsV Sign up to the Veritasium newsletter for weekly science updates - https://ve42.co/Newsletter To play around with the simulations in the video, you can follow these links: Disease spreading - https://www.veritasium.com/simulation2 Preferential attachment - https://ve42.co/barabasiAlbertSim ▀▀▀ A huge thank you to: Duncan Watts, for creating the small-world model that inspired this video and expanding on his further work; Steve Strogatz, for telling the story with such clarity & humour; Albert-László Barabási, for revealing the the inevitability and impact of hubs; Mark Buchanan, for his insightful takeaways that pulled it all together. Check out Duncan Watts’ books here - https://www.amazon.com/Six-Degrees-Science-Connected-Age/dp/0393325423 Check out Mark Buchanan’s book here - https://ve42.co/bookNexusWorlds ▀▀▀ Chapters: 0:00 What is six degrees of separation? 4:23 Network Shortcuts 7:11 The Strength of Weak Ties 8:20 Proving it’s a small world 10:39 How quickly can disease spread? 12:36 Strogatz goes viral 16:59 What is a network hub? 18:23 Preferential Attachment 23:38 The Prisoner’s Dilemma 28:22 Your behavior can change the world’s ▀▀▀ References can be found here - https://ve42.co/networksRefs Image and video references can be found here - https://ve42.co/networksVisuals ▀▀▀ Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, Anton Ragin, Anupam Banerjee, Gnare, Ibby Hadeed, Jon Jamison, Juan Benet, Lee Redden, Meekay, Orlando Bassotto, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Sam Lutfi, Ubiquity Ventures, Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, armedtoe, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, gpoly, Jeromy Johnson, KeyWestr, Kyi, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Matthias Wrobel, meg noah, Michael Bush, Michael Krugman, Robert Oliveira, Tj Steyn & wolfee ▀▀▀ Writers: James Moore, Casper Mebius & Derek Muller Producer & Director: James Moore Editors: Peter Nelson & Jack Saxon Camera Operators: Derek Muller & Casper Mebius Animators: Andrew Neet, Emma Wright, Fabio Albertelli & Ivy Tello Illustrators: Jakub Misiek Assistant Editor: James Stuart Researchers: Callum Cuttle, Aakash Singh Bagga & Gabe Strong Simulations: Callum Cuttle, Gabe Strong & Ivy Tello Sound Designers: Pavle Peric & James Stuart Thumbnail Designers: Abdallah Rabah, Ren Hurley & Ben Powell Production Team: Josh Pitt, Nicola Griffiths & Rob Beasley Spence Executive Producers: Derek Muller & Casper Mebius Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images, Storyblocks Music from Epidemic Sound

The Man Who Fooled The World

Sep 21, 2025

Discover the explosive story of Alfred Nobel. Sponsored by Opera - Upgrade your browsing experience with Opera today. Download it right here: https://opr.as/Opera-browser-veritasium If you’re looking for a molecular modelling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - https://ve42.co/SnatomsV Sign up to the Veritasium newsletter for weekly science updates - https://ve42.co/Newsletter We have a tabletop game launching! Pledge your support now - https://ve42.co/KickStarterD CORRECTIONS: 30:36 The molecular chain we showed here when talking about cellulose was actually starch, the glycosidic bonds should be bent (beta) not straight (alpha) bonds - Thank you to someriversong1793 for spotting this 37:38 The animation shows the casing flying away with the bullet, this is incorrect, only the bullet accelerates down the barrel like that - Thank you to kettusnuhveli for pointing this out ▀▀▀ A huge thank you to Jesse Taylor for making the demonstrations possible and sharing his experience with us! And a big thanks to Dr. Katharine Tibbets, Dr. Julien Glorian & Sabrina DePiero for their expertise and participation in this video. Also thanks to Steven Johnson, author of The Infernal Machine (as featured on 99% Invisible) and to Jonah Sachs and professor Terry Reynolds for their help on the project ▀▀▀ 0:00 The Nobel Armament Factory 4:18 Gunpowder vs Nitroglycerine 10:58 How safe is nitroglycerin? 14:50 Blast Caps 19:09 Why does nitroglycerin explode on impact? 22:19 The invention of dynamite 26:56 Dynamite vs TNT 27:53 Explosive Cotton - Gelignite 32:43 The Merchant of Death 35:42 Smokeless Guns 38:04 The Birth of Terror 42:08 Why did Nobel start the prize? 43:11 What happened to Nobel? ▀▀▀ References: https://ve42.co/NobelRefs Images & Video: https://ve42.co/NobelImRefs ▀▀▀ Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, Anton Ragin, Anupam Banerjee, armedtoe, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, Ibby Hadeed, Jeromy Johnson, Jon Jamison, Juan Benet, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Matthias Wrobel, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Bush, Michael Krugman, Orlando Bassotto, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Robert Oliveira, Sam Lutfi, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures, wolfee ▀▀▀ Writer, Director & Producer: Henry van Dyck Presenters: Derek Muller & Henry van Dyck Editor: Trenton Oliver Camera Operators: Wesley Wright, Prescott McCarthy, Joel Schöppe & Henry van Dyck Animators: Andrew Neet, Fabio Albertelli, Emma Wright, Rokas Viksraitis, Saif Javed & Ivy Tello Illustrators: Jakub Misiek, Maria Gusakovich, Nataly Zhuk, Isaac McRee, Grace Nemanic, Sofia Constantini & Veronika Pasynkova Additional Editors: James Stuart, Peter Nelson & Spencer Wright Researchers: Aakash Singh Bagga & Gabe Strong Thumbnail Designers: Abdallah Rabah, Ren Hurley, Ben Powell & Henry van Dyck Production Team: Josh Pitt, Nicola Griffiths, Rob Beasley Spence, Matthew Cavanagh, Anna Milkovic & Zoe Heron Executive Producers: Casper Mebius & Derek Muller Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images, The David Rumsey Historical Map Collection, Pond5 & StoryBlocks Music from Epidemic Sound

Why Do Escalator Steps Have Teeth?

Sep 11, 2025

The surprising science of escalators. Sponsored by Brilliant - check out https://brilliant.org/veritasium to start learning for free. Plus, our viewers get 20% off an annual Premium subscription for unlimited daily access to all Brilliant courses. If you’re looking for a molecular modelling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - https://ve42.co/SnatomsV ▀▀▀ A massive thank you to Emily Zhang for suggesting this idea and helping shape it. A huge thanks to the team at OTIS, especially Ed Jacovino, Gregory Sefcik and Dirk Winkelhake, for their time and expertise. Thank you also to Professor Gero Gschwendtner, Professor Michael Fu, and Dr. Peter Kauffmann for all their help on the project. ▀▀▀ 0:00 When escalators go wrong 2:43 The first escalator 5:01 How does an escalator work? 8:35 Why do escalators have grooves? 10:05 Why do escalators have brushes? 10:21 The hand rail moves faster than the steps 12:05 You generate electricity on escalators 14:09 How does an escalator break? 18:47 How safe are escalators really? ▀▀▀ References: https://ve42.co/EscalatorRefs Images & Video: https://ve42.co/EscalatorImgRefs ▀▀▀ Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, Anton Ragin, Anupam Banerjee, Gnare, Ibby Hadeed, Jon Jamison, Juan Benet, Lee Redden, Meekay, Orlando Bassotto, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Sam Lutfi, Ubiquity Ventures, Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, armedtoe, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, gpoly, Jeromy Johnson, JT, Justin Waters, KeyWestr, Kyi, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Matthias Wrobel, meg noah, Michael Bush, Michael Krugman, Robert Oliveira, Tj Steyn, wolfee. ▀▀▀ Writers - Darius Garewal, Casper Mebius, Emily Zhang & Derek Muller Presenters - Derek Muller & Latif Nasser Producer & Director - Darius Garewal Editor - Spencer Wright Camera Operators - Derek Muller, Darius Garewal & Gregory Sefcik Animators - Mike Radjabov, Fabio Albertelli, Saif Javed, Andrew Neet & Rokas Viksraitis Illustrators - Jakub Misiek & Nataly Zhuk Additional Editors - James Stuart, James Horsley, Peter Nelson & Kyle Rossiter Researchers - HyoJeong Choi, Callum Cuttle & Gabe Strong Thumbnail Designers - Ren Hurley, Ben Powell & Abdallah Rabah Production Team - Nicola Griffiths, Josh Pitt, Rob Beasley Spence & Casper Mebius Executive Producers - Casper Mebius & Derek Muller Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images, Pond5 & StoryBlocks Music from Epidemic Sound

Exposing Why Farmers Can't Legally Replant Their Own Seeds

Aug 31, 2025

This is the history of Monsanto’s herbicides… Sponsored by Incogni - Use code veritasium at https://incogni.com/veritasium to get an exclusive 60% off. If you’re looking for a molecular modelling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - https://ve42.co/SnatomsV Sign up to the Veritasium newsletter for weekly science updates - https://ve42.co/Newsletter We have a tabletop game launching! Pledge your support now - https://ve42.co/KickStarterD ▀▀▀ A huge thank you to Carey Gillam at the New Lede, Nathan Donley at the Center for Biological Diversity, and Bart Elmore at Ohio State University for their time and expertise on the topic. A very special thank you to Prof. Dr. András Székács at the Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences Check out Carey Gillam’s books here — https://ve42.co/Gillam Check out Bart Elmore’s book here — https://ve42.co/SeedMoney The opening music track “Another Offering” is from https://audiomachine.com/ ▀▀▀ 0:00 An Unusual Enemy 5:18 Monsanto’s Secret Poison Problem 11:17 Vietnam and Agent Orange 14:08 Roundup 19:31 How Monsanto Controls Seeds 26:06 The Crop Mafia 31:10 The Monsanto Papers 41:18 How dangerous is Roundup really? ▀▀▀ References: References can be found here - https://ve42.co/MonsantoReferences Images & Video: Image and video references can be found here - https://ve42.co/MonsantoVisuals ▀▀▀ Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, Anton Ragin, armedtoe, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, Ibby Hadeed, Jeromy Johnson, Jon Jamison, JT, Juan Benet, Justin Waters, Keith England, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Matthias Wrobel, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Bush, Michael Krugman, Orlando Bassotto, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Robert Oliveira, Sam Lutfi, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures and wolfee ▀▀▀ Writers: Gregor Čavlović, Casper Mebius & Derek Muller Producer & Director: Gregor Čavlović Editor: Spencer Wright & Peter Nelson Camera Operators: Gregor Čavlović, Henry van Dyck & Casper Mebius Animators: Allama Nandi, Andrew Neet, Emma Wright, Fabio Albertelli, Ivy Tello, Rokas Viksraitis & Saif Javed Illustrators: Jakub Misiek, Maria Gusakovich, Veronika Pasynkova, Grace Nemanic, Isaac McRee, Nataly Zhuk & Hollisstudioo Assistant Editor: James Stuart & Fabio Albertelli Assistant Writer: Daniel Leonard Sound Designer: Pavle Peric Researchers: Callum Cuttle, Aakash Singh Bagga, Gabe Strong & HyoJeong Choi Thumbnail Designers: Abdallah Rabah, Ren Hurley & Ben Powell Production Team: Josh Pitt, Nicola Griffiths, Matthew Cavanagh, Rob Beasley Spence & Zoe Heron Executive Producers: Derek Muller & Casper Mebius Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images, Storyblocks Music from Epidemic Sound

This is the natural disaster to worry about

Aug 22, 2025

The strange natural material that reshaped the world. Sponsored by Ground News - Go to https://groundnews.com/Ve to see through media misconceptions and get all sides of every story. Subscribe to save 40% off the unlimited Vantage Plan through our link. If you’re looking for a molecular modelling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - https://ve42.co/SnatomsV ▀▀▀ A huge thanks to Professor James Busfield, Dr. Katrina Cornish, and Dr. Judit Puskas We’re incredibly grateful to Toby Samples and the team at ARDL for their time and expertise. Thanks also to Joe Jackson, Dr. Kevin Krause, Dr. Peter Polyak, Donald Shultz, Professor Robert Weiss for all their help on the project. ▀▀▀ 0:00 Where does rubber come from? 2:59 What is rubber? 5:10 Why is rubber so stretchy? 6:29 The problem with natural rubber 9:02 Cured Rubber 15:23 Vulcanisation 18:41 What rubber is used in tires? 22:54 How fungi could destroy the world economy 29:17 Synthetic rubber vs natural rubber 38:20 Why are some people allergic to latex? ▀▀▀ References: https://ve42.co/RubberRefs Images & Video: https://ve42.co/RubberImgRefs ▀▀▀ Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, Anton Ragin, armedtoe, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, Ibby Hadeed, Jeromy Johnson, Jon Jamison, JT, Juan Benet, Keith England, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Matthias Wrobel, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Bush, Michael Krugman, Orlando Bassotto, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Robert Oliveira, Sam Lutfi, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures, Walter Flinn, and wolfee. ▀▀▀ Writers - Sulli Yost & Casper Mebius Producer & Director - Sulli Yost Editors - Jack Saxon & Peter Nelson Camera Operators - Adam Bonomo, Jacob Ruocchio-Cole, Henry van Dyck, Thomas Matheis, Derek Muller & Sulli Yost Animators - Allama Nandi, Andrew Neet, Emma Wright, Ivy Tello, Fabio Albertelli & Rokas Viksraitis Illustrators - Jakub Misiek & Maria Gusakovich Assistant Editor - James Stuart Researchers - HyoJeong Choi, Callum Cuttle & Gabe Strong Thumbnail Designers - Ren Hurley, Ben Powell & Abdallah Rabah Production Team - Zoe Heron, Casper Mebius, Josh Pitt, Rob Beasley Spence, Henry van Dyck & Sulli Yost Executive Producers - Casper Mebius & Derek Muller Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images, Pond5 Music from Epidemic Sound

The Perfect Battery Material Is Dangerous

Aug 7, 2025

High-energy rechargeable batteries seemed impossible, until we made them. Sponsored by CodeRabbit. Cut code review time and bugs in half. Try CodeRabbit at https://coderabbit.link/veritasium If you’re looking for a molecular modelling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - https://ve42.co/SnatomsV ▀▀▀ 0:00 What’s inside a battery? 4:11 How does a battery work? 7:15 How did we increase battery power? 11:13 The first rechargeable lithium battery 13:29 The Tiny Needles That Kill Batteries 16:06 Goodenough? We can do better 20:07 The birth of the lithium-ion battery 27:10 Why do batteries explode? 29:31 Blowing up a battery ▀▀▀ A massive thank you to Dr Billy Wu, Dr Sam Cooper, Dr Derek Sui, Professor Magda Titirici, Dr Jingyu Feng, Dr Monica Marinescu, Li Ren Thow, Genlin Liu and Sam Riley; and to Professor Guillermo Rein, Dr Harry Mitchell, Hanna Berry, and Dr Nick Kalogeropoulos at Imperial College London for their invaluable contributions to this video. And a big thank you to Conrad Duncan for all his help in pulling everything together. We’re incredibly grateful to Kurt Kelty and the team at General Motors for their time and expertise. Thanks also go to Dr Yuzhang Li and Prof Jay Morton Turner for all their help on the project. ▀▀▀ References: https://ve42.co/RefsBatteries Image References: https://ve42.co/ImgRefsBatt ▀▀▀ Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, Anton Ragin, armedtoe, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, Ibby Hadeed, JT, Jeromy Johnson, Jon Jamison, Juan Benet, Keith England, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Matthias Wrobel, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Bush, Michael Krugman, Orlando Bassotto, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Robert Oliveira, Sam Lutfi, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures, Walter Flinn, wolfee ▀▀▀ Writers: Emilia Gyles, Casper Mebius, Gregor Čavlović & Derek Muller Producer & Director: Emilia Gyles Editor: Trenton Oliver Camera Operators: Tas Underwood, Emilia Gyles, Gregor Čavlović & Derek Muller Animators: Andrew Neet, Emma Wright, Fabio Albertelli, Mike Radjabov & Rokas Viksraitis Illustrators: Jakub Misiek, Maria Gusakovich, Isaac McRee, Nataly Zhuk & Kaitlyn Chille Assistant Editor: James Stuart Researchers: HyoJeong Choi, Aakash Singh Bagga & Gabe Strong Thumbnail Designers: Ren Hurley, Ben Powell & Abdallah Rabah Production Team: Rob Beasley Spence & Josh Pitt Executive Producers: Derek Muller & Casper Mebius Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images, Pond5 Music from Epidemic Sound

The Strange Math That Predicts (Almost) Anything

Jul 25, 2025

How a feud in Russia led to modern prediction algorithms. 👉 To try everything Brilliant has to offer for free for a full 30 days, visit https://brilliant.org/veritasium. You’ll also get 20% off an annual premium subscription. If you’re looking for a molecular modeling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - https://ve42.co/SnatomsV Sign up to the Veritasium newsletter for weekly science updates - https://ve42.co/Newsletter ▀▀▀ A huge thank you to Brian Hayes, David Aldous, Geoff Engelstein, Jeffrey Rosenthal, Jimmy He, Mark Priestley, Michael Choi, Peter Norvig, Sam Power, and Thomas Haigh for their invaluable expertise and contributions to this video. And a special thank you to Madeline Johnson for her excellent fact-checking. ▀▀▀ 0:00 The Law of Large Numbers 4:37 What is a Markov Chain? 9:43 Ulam and Solitaire 12:21 Nuclear Fission 15:46 The Monte Carlo Method 16:32 The first search engines 19:07 Google is born 25:16 How does predictive text work? 27:10 Are Markov chains memoryless? 29:41 How to perfectly shuffle a deck of cards ▀▀▀ References: https://ve42.co/RefsMarkov Images & Video: https://ve42.co/7Z ▀▀▀ Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, Anton Ragin, armedtoe, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, Ibby Hadeed, JT, Jeromy Johnson, Jon Jamison, Juan Benet, Keith England, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Meekay, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Matthias Wrobel, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Bush, Michael Krugman, Orlando Bassotto, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Robert Oliveira, Sam Lutfi, TTST, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures, wolfee ▀▀▀ Writers: Kaela Albert, Casper Mebius & Derek Muller Producer & Director: Kaela Albert Editors: Peter Nelson & Jack Saxon Camera Operators: Gabe Strong, Gregor Cavlovic & Derek Muller Animator: Andrew neet, Emma Wright, Fabio Albertelli & Ivy Trello Illustrator: Caine Esperanzo, Jakub Misiek & Maria Gustanovich Assistant Editor: James Stuart Researchers: Darius Garewal, Gabe Strong & Emilia Gyles Thumbnail Designers: Ren Hurley & Ben Powell Production Team: Rob Beasley Spence, Casper Mebius, Sulli Yost and Henry Van Dyck Executive Producers: Derek Muller & Casper Mebius Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images, Pond5 and Storyblocks Music from Epidemic Sound

This mechanism shrinks when pulled

Jun 30, 2025

How an unlikely physics paradox controls these counterintuitive structures. Sponsored by Incogni - Use code veritasium at https://incogni.com/veritasium to get an exclusive 60% off. If you’re looking for a molecular modeling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - https://ve42.co/SnatomsV Sign up to the Veritasium newsletter for weekly science updates - https://ve42.co/Newsletter ▀▀▀ A huge thank you to Paul Ducarme and Bas Overvelde at AMOLF for showing us around. Check out their research on counter-snapping structures here - https://ve42.co/CounterSnapping For more on Braess’s Paradox, check out these great videos by Up and Atom (https://youtu.be/cALezV_Fwi0) and Steve Mould (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cg73j3QYRJc) ▀▀▀ 0:00 What happens if you cut this rope? 1:41 The Spring Paradox 4:59 New York’s Perplexing Discovery 6:29 Road Networks and Traffic Flow 8:40 Braess’s Paradox 14:29 Snapping 17:16 This object shrinks when you stretch it ▀▀▀ References: Ducarme, P., Weber, B., Hecke, M. van, & Johannes. (2025). Exotic mechanical properties enabled by countersnapping instabilities. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - https://ve42.co/CounterSnapping Braess's Paradox via Wikipedia - https://ve42.co/BraessWiki Braess, D., Nagurney, A., & Wakolbinger, T. (2005). On a Paradox of Traffic Planning. Transportation Science - https://ve42.co/Braess2005 Schäfer, B., Pesch, T., Manik, D., Gollenstede, J., Lin, G., Beck, H.-P., … Timme, M. (2022). Understanding Braess’ Paradox in power grids. Nature Communications - https://ve42.co/Schafer2022 Kolata, G. (1990). What if They Closed 42d Street and Nobody Noticed? New York Times - https://ve42.co/Kolata1990 Youn, H., Gastner, M. T., & Jeong, H. (2008). Price of Anarchy in Transportation Networks: Efficiency and Optimality Control. Physical Review Letters - https://ve42.co/Youn2008 Nicolaou, Z. G., & Motter, A. E. (2012). Mechanical metamaterials with negative compressibility transitions. Nature Materials - https://ve42.co/Nicolaou2012 Counter-Snapping replication package - https://ve42.co/CSPackage Images & Video: Earth Day Festivities via VHS Music Rarities - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0awPgHjn2nY Earth Day Speeches - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMDI3kXpeQ8 1990s New York via NYC Nostalgia - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YaFxTw0VqM 42nd Street Closure via Trainluvr - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gELde63Fzio 42nd Street Traffic Operator - https://ve42.co/NYCTraffic Dietrich Braess via opc.mfo.de - https://ve42.co/BraessOPC Dietrich Braess via Wikipedia - https://ve42.co/BraessWikiPic Belt Buckle via Mingda Hardware - https://ve42.co/BeltBuckle ▀▀▀ Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, Anton Ragin, armedtoe, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Charles Ian Norman Venn, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, Jeromy Johnson, Jon Jamison, JT, Juan Benet, Keith England, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Matthias Wrobel, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Krugman, Orlando Bassotto, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Robert Oliveira, Sam Lutfi, Tj Steyn, TTST, Ubiquity Ventures, and wolfee ▀▀▀ Writers: Gregor Čavlović & Derek Muller Producer & Director: Gregor Čavlović Editors: James Stuart & Trenton Oliver Camera Operators: Sander Mook, Dylan Meanwell, Fabio Albertelli, Casper Mebius & Gregor Čavlović Animator: Fabio Albertelli Illustrator: Jakub Misiek Additional Editor: Peter Nelson & James Horsley Researchers: Darius Garewal & Gabe Strong Thumbnail Designers: Ren Hurley & Ben Powell Production Team: Rob Beasley Spence, Tori Brittain & Matthew Cavanagh Executive Producers: Derek Muller & Casper Mebius Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images, Pond5. Music from Epidemic Sound