On a stream of water you can levitate light balls of all sizes and even disks and cylinders. The mechanism is not the Bernoulli effect…
Want to make this at home? https://youtu.be/BppcHF2EdAY

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

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

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

Filmed by Raquel Nuno
Slow motion by Hollywood Special Ops http://hollywoodspecialops.com

Music from Epidemic Sound http://epidemicsound.com “Colored Spirals 3” “Magnified X 3” “In Orbit 2” “ExperiMental 1”

Grant Thompson – the King of Random – teaches me how to start a fire with a Sandwich bag. And we tried to melt glass in my backyard: https://goo.gl/zb0uE0
Check out his channel: http://ve42.co/KoR

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

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

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

In a zero-g plane I experimented with flames and slinkies with surprising results.
Check out e-penser’s video: http://ve42.co/EPzeroG
Check out Physicsgirl’s video: http://ve42.co/PGzeroG

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

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

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

Music from the Epidemic Sound: http://ve42.co/epidemic
“Serene Story 2” “In Orbit 2”

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

I have wanted to make a video about sun-sneezing for a long time. It is something I’ve experienced my whole life. When I go from a dark room indoors into full sunlight I invariably sneeze. I thought everyone did it. So my original question was why do people sneeze when they see bright light? That led me to consider what possible evolutionary advantages there could be to sneezing in sunlight. The obvious advantage to me is that sunlight kills pathogens of which there may be many in your snot or mucus. So sneezing in sunshine is a much better idea than sneezing inside a dark, damp cave where you may be living.

For more info, check out:
Web-Based, Participant-Driven Studies Yield Novel Genetic Associations for Common Traits
http://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1000993

Filmed by Raquel Nuno

Bayes’ theorem explained with examples and implications for life.
Check out Audible: http://ve42.co/audible
Support Veritasium on Patreon: http://ve42.co/patreon

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

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

Useful references:
The Signal and the Noise, Nate Silver
The Theory That Would Not Die: How Bayes’ Rule Cracked the Enigma Code, Hunted Down Russian Submarines, and Emerged Triumphant from Two Centuries of Controversy, by Sharon Bertsch McGrayne

Bayes’ theorem or rule (there are many different versions of the same concept) has fascinated me for a long time due to its uses both in mathematics and statistics, and to solve real world problems. Bayesian inference has been used to crack the Enigma Code and to filter spam email. Bayes has also been used to locate the wreckage from plane crashes deep beneath the sea.

Music from http://epidemicsound.com “Flourishing Views 3”

The definitive answer about the direction water swirls in two hemispheres
Sync the videos yourself: http://toiletswirl.com

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

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

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Gordon McGladdery did all of the sound design for the video. We used two songs from other artists (licensed of course). Derek split the first one up so it fades from video to video, and Gordon split the instruments up on the second one. There are violins on one video and percussion on the other for example. It’s really neat.

The neat earth animation at the beginning and the synchronizing timer was made by http://eisenfeuer.com/. He also made still images of the earth from the top and the bottom.

Thanks to Vanessa for filming in Sydney: http://youtube.com/braincraftvideo

MORE INFO:

There was a study performed at MIT years ago (http://web.mit.edu/hml/ncfmf/09VOR.pdf) that explained the physics involved. We repeated some of these demonstrations, but on opposite sides of the globe…and in a way that can be easily understood.
This site is a great resource on the Coriolis effect and ways people have gotten it wrong:
http://www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/Bad/Ba…

Spinning magnets near copper sheets create levitation!
Try Audible free for 30 days: http://bit.ly/AudibleVe
Special thanks to Hyperloop One for showing me around.

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

Filmed by Raquel Nuno, Edited by Trevor Carlee

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

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

A head-vaporizing laser with a perfect wavelength detecting sub-proton space-time ripples.
Huge thanks to Prof Rana Adhikari and LIGO: http://ligo.org
Here’s how he felt when he learned about the first ever detection: https://youtu.be/ViMnGgn87dg

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

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

When scientists want one megawatt of laser power, it’s not just for fun (though I’m sure it’s that too), it’s because the fluctuations in the number of photons is proportional to their square root, making more powerful beams less noisy (as a fraction of their total). The smoothest mirrors were created not for aesthetic joy but because when you’re trying to measure wiggles that are a fraction the width of a proton, a rough mirror surface simply won’t do.

Filmed by Daniel Joseph Files

Music by Kevin MacLeod, http://www.incompetech.com “Black Vortex” (appropriately named)

Music licensed from Epidemic Sound http://epidemicsound.com “Observations 2” (also appropriately named)

Why we can’t seem to agree on what’s true when it’s easier than ever to check.
Videos like this are usually on 2Veritasium: http://bit.ly/2Veritasium
Support Veritasium on Patreon: http://bit.ly/VePatreon

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

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

Used in everything from bullet-proof vests to the walls of the Pentagon, polyurea’s strength comes from its long-chain molecules.
Check out How Ridiculous: http://bit.ly/VeHowRidiculous
Snatoms magnetic molecules: http://bit.ly/VeSnatoms
Veritasium on Patreon: http://bit.ly/VePatreon

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

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

Filmed by Prashanth Venkataramanujam

SFX by A Shell in the Pit