Veritasium
consistently worth watching
Based on 50 recent long-form videos · updated as YouTLDR reads more
What we read
The Man Who Took LSD and Changed The World
Kary Mullis invented the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a DNA amplification technique, partly inspired by his LSD use. This invention revolutionized molecular biology, enabling widespread DNA testing, forensics, and diagnostics, and earned him a Nobel Prize.
Why Super Glue Is Perfect For Gluing Skin
moisture and proteins. Super glue bonds skin because its monomers react with moisture and proteins on the skin's surface, forming strong polymer chains that integrate with your skin. This reaction is triggered by water molecules and the negative regions of collagen proteins.
You've (Likely) Been Playing The Game Of Life Wrong
Most systems don't follow normal distributions; they follow power laws. This means extreme events are far more common than expected. You need to adapt your strategy for power law systems, focusing on repeated bets rather than consistency.
Something is jamming GPS over Europe. Here's what we found
A Russian military satellite, Cosmos 2546, is likely disrupting GPS over Europe. It's either testing jamming capabilities or sending covert communications. This could have massive global implications if fully deployed.
How easy is it to steal $10,000 from a locked phone?
They used a contactless payment hack. It tricks terminals into thinking a transaction is complete. This works on Visa cards in transit mode.
The Scariest Chart In Electrical Engineering
The Smith Chart maps infinite electrical impedance onto a finite circle. It visualizes how to match transmission lines to eliminate signal reflections, crucial for radio engineering.
We've Been Using The Wrong Science In Court For 50 years
Forensic science is unreliable. Forensic science has been unreliable for decades. Many methods, including hair analysis, bite marks, and even fingerprints, have been proven inaccurate or unscientific, leading to wrongful convictions. DNA is powerful but also susceptible to contamination and interpretation errors.
We're 99.9% sure this pattern is true, but no one can prove it
still unproven. The twin prime conjecture is still unproven. Yitang Zhang proved primes can be no more than 246 apart, a huge step. James Maynard later reduced this to 246, but the ultimate proof remains elusive.
Google Maps is unreasonably fast. Let me explain
contraction hierarchy. Google Maps uses a customizable contraction hierarchy. It pre-processes road networks to rank intersections by importance, then uses a bidirectional search up this hierarchy for speed. This is 35,000x faster than Dijkstra's algorithm for long routes.
The CIA's new tech doesn't make sense
No. The CIA's 'Ghost Murmur' tech to detect heartbeats from kilometers away is likely fiction. Current quantum magnetometers are millions of times too weak, requiring 18 orders of magnitude more sensitivity.
The Crystal That Could Destroy All Medicine
A rare chemical phenomenon called polymorphism caused the drug ritonavir to spontaneously change into a more stable, undissolvable crystal form. This "tin pest"-like transformation spread uncontrollably, rendering the drug useless and forcing a switch to an older liquid formulation.
What happens if you drop 0.125 grams of antimatter?
vaporize Vatican City. Dropping 0.125 grams of antimatter would vaporize Vatican City and release energy equivalent to 36% of the Hiroshima blast. However, CERN produces only a trillionth of a gram annually, making such an event impossible.
The Secret Spy Tech Inside Every Credit Card
NFC contactless transmission. Contactless cards use NFC to transmit encrypted payment data wirelessly. They work by using a small antenna and chip that communicate with a reader when held close, typically within 4cm.
Making A Giant Zipper To Explain How They Work
Gideon Sundback's 1914 design. Gideon Sundback's 1914 design is still the standard. His invention was so good, it has barely changed in over a century. The key is a Y-shaped cavity in the slider that precisely guides teeth together, and a wedge that separates them.
This Paradox Splits Smart People 50/50
one box or both boxes. Choose one box if you believe the supercomputer's prediction is more important than your ability to influence the past. Choose both boxes if you believe your current actions are the only thing that matters. The paradox highlights the tension between evidential and causal decision theory.
The Internet Was Weeks Away From Disaster And No One Knew
XZ backdoor discovered. A sophisticated backdoor was hidden in the XZ compression utility. It was designed to grant attackers remote access to Linux systems. It was discovered by chance due to performance slowdowns, narrowly avoiding a widespread disaster.
The asbestos problem is worse than we thought
ongoing contamination. Asbestos is still a problem because regulations are weak and it's naturally occurring in many places. The US ban is incomplete, and many countries still import it, leading to millions of deaths. It's found in unexpected places like makeup and children's toys due to contamination from mining.
Why Cold Drinks Were Deadly Before 1914
Before 1914, cold drinks were deadly because ice was harvested from polluted water. Artificial ice production, pioneered by John Gorrie and perfected by James Harrison, made safe, clean ice widely available. Refrigeration then revolutionized food preservation and countless other industries.
The Tiny Donut That Proved We Still Don't Understand Magnetism
Potentials influence reality. Potentials can influence reality even when fields are zero. The Aharonov-Bohm effect shows electrons' wave functions shift due to magnetic potentials, not just fields, proving potentials have physical significance.
What Happens If You Keep Slowing Down?
attosecond X-ray pulses. They can capture electrons moving around molecules. This is done by using attosecond X-ray pulses to probe electron densities after a laser triggers molecular dynamics.
The World's Most Important Machine
ASML EUV machines. ASML's EUV machines cost $400M and use a laser to hit tiny tin droplets 50,000 times per second. This creates extreme ultraviolet light, essential for printing the smallest microchip transistors.
The Future of Veritasium
He is not retiring, but will be less visible. He sold a stake in Veritasium to Electrify to reduce his workload and spend more time with family.
There Is Something Faster Than Light
non-locality. Quantum mechanics allows influences that appear faster than light, violating relativity's spirit. Bell's theorem proves any correct theory must be non-local, but the 'many-worlds' interpretation offers a way out by ditching wave function collapse entirely.
Weird Things Happen When Energy Goes Negative
antimatter. Dirac's equation predicted antimatter. It arose from a mathematical necessity for negative energy solutions, which were initially dismissed as absurd but later experimentally confirmed with the discovery of the positron.
The Ridiculous Engineering Of Jet Engines
Jet engine turbine blades are made of nickel superalloys, cast as single crystals, and actively cooled with air. This allows them to withstand temperatures far exceeding their melting point, enabling extreme engine efficiency and performance.
Why People Are So Confident When They're Wrong
overconfidence is a bias. Overconfidence is a cognitive bias where people overestimate their abilities. It's not just arrogance; it's often a mental shortcut when brains are overwhelmed by complex information or limited processing capacity.
The Most Controversial Idea In Biology
Genes are the fundamental unit of natural selection, not individuals or species. They are 'selfish' replicators that use organisms as survival machines to propagate themselves.
Can you really reach anyone in 6 steps?
shortcuts and hubs. The world is small because of 'shortcuts' or 'hubs' in social networks. A few random connections drastically reduce the steps needed to reach anyone, making the world feel smaller than its actual size.
Alfred Nobel: The Man Who Fooled The World
Nobel Prizes. Alfred Nobel invented dynamite to make explosives safer, but it became a tool for mass destruction. He later established the Nobel Prizes to redeem his legacy.
Why Do Escalator Steps Have Teeth?
Escalator steps have teeth to interlock with a comb plate at the top and bottom. This prevents items from getting caught and allows for a smoother transition off the moving stairs.
Exposing Why Farmers Can't Legally Replant Their Own Seeds
patented seeds. Farmers can't legally replant their own seeds because Monsanto's Roundup Ready seeds are patented. Farmers sign agreements that prohibit saving, cleaning, or supplying seeds for replanting, and Monsanto actively enforces this through surveillance and lawsuits.
This is the natural disaster to worry about
South American leaf blight. The natural disaster to worry about is the South American leaf blight (SALB). If it reaches Southeast Asia's rubber plantations, it could cause global societal meltdown.
The Perfect Battery Material Is Dangerous
Internal combustion. Lithium-ion batteries are dangerous because they contain their own fuel, oxidizer, and heat source. A failure triggers a chain reaction, causing fires or explosions.
The Strange Math That Predicts (Almost) Anything
memoryless prediction. Markov chains predict future states based only on the current state, ignoring past history. This 'memoryless' property simplifies complex systems like weather, disease spread, or even Google's PageRank algorithm.
This mechanism shrinks when pulled
Braess's paradox. It's a reversible case of Braess's paradox. Adding components to a network can sometimes make it worse, causing it to shrink when pulled instead of stretch.
The Obviously True Theorem No One Can Prove
The strong Goldbach conjecture, stating every even integer greater than 2 is the sum of two primes, remains unproven. While verified up to 4 quintillion, a new mathematical technique is needed for a proof.
The Biggest Misconception in Football (ft. Tom Brady)
Wobble is essential. A football's wobble is essential for stability and accuracy. It's not a flaw, but a physics phenomenon that keeps the ball aligned with its path, minimizing drag and drift.
How One Company Secretly Poisoned The Planet
They've contaminated the planet with PFAS, 'forever chemicals' that don't break down. These chemicals, used in products like Teflon and Scotchgard, are now in nearly everyone's blood and linked to serious health issues.
How a Student's Question Saved This NYC Skyscraper
Tuned mass dampers. A student's question about wind load revealed the Citicorp building's design flaw. The building's diagonal supports were too weak to withstand quartering winds, a problem fixed with tuned mass dampers.
The Biggest Misconception in Physics
Energy is not conserved in our universe because the expansion of space breaks time symmetry. Photons and objects lose energy as space expands, and this energy doesn't go anywhere; it just disappears from our frame of reference.
The Most Controversial Idea In Math
The Axiom of Choice is controversial because it allows for paradoxical outcomes like creating two spheres from one, or sets with no measurable length. It's a foundational assumption that can't be proven or disproven from other axioms, so mathematicians choose whether to include it.
How this helicopter survived 1004 days on Mars, then disappeared...
Ingenuity helicopter was not destroyed, but its rotors snapped due to precession torques during a hard landing on a dune. It's now acting as a weather station.
Something Strange Happens When You Trust Quantum Mechanics
Everything explores all possible paths simultaneously. We only perceive one path because the 'action' of nearby paths cancels out through destructive interference, leaving only the path of least action visible.
The Blender Question Everyone Gets Wrong
jump out. You can jump out. Physics shows that at nickel size, your strength-to-weight ratio is so high you could leap 40cm, enough to clear the blender walls. However, biological realities like breathing and heart function would likely kill you first.
AlphaFold - The Most Useful Thing AI Has Ever Done
AI solved protein folding, predicting 200 million structures in years instead of decades. This breakthrough accelerates drug discovery, vaccine development, and solutions for climate change and disease.
Can You Keep Zooming In Infinitely?
Aberration correction technology. They can't see atoms with visible light because atoms are over 3000 times smaller than light's wavelength. Electrons, with much shorter wavelengths, are used instead. Aberration correction technology now allows direct imaging of single atoms.
Why Is MIT Making Robot Insects?
robot insects for dangerous tasks. MIT is making robot insects to perform tasks too small or dangerous for humans. They can fly, swim, jump on water, and inspect engines, with future applications in search and rescue and exploration.
Why Don’t Railroads Need Expansion Joints?
mechanical stress counteracts thermal expansion. Railroads don't need expansion joints because mechanical stress from sleepers and ballast counteracts thermal expansion. This allows for faster, smoother rides with less maintenance.
This Is the Oldest, Weirdest Instrument On Earth
Great Stalacpipe Organ. It's the Great Stalacpipe Organ, a massive instrument in Luray Caverns, Virginia, that uses tuned stalactites as its sound source. Electromechanical mallets strike the stalactites, which are amplified via electric guitar pickups and steel bolts, creating unique musical tones.
I got buried in concrete to explain how it works
cement, aggregate, water. Concrete is made of cement, aggregate (sand and gravel), and water. Cement is the binder, made from limestone heated with silica-rich materials like clay or volcanic ash. The water causes a chemical reaction called hydration, which hardens the mixture into a strong, durable material.