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

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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