Uranium is a unique element, used in research, medicine, space travel, and of course weapons.
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Documentary Dates:
US: PBS, July 28 & 29 @ 10pm ET / 9pm Central
France & Germany: ZDF/arte July 31 @ 10pm
Australia: SBS, August 6, 13, 20 @ 8:30pm EST

If you’re wondering where the title comes from…
“A number of ingenious experiments were devised to test the speed of the fission reaction, and the limit was pushed. But even so, I thought it would be very nice to go one step nearer to a real atomic explosion. Dick Feynman, who was present, started to chuckle and to say that this is just like tickling the tail of a sleeping dragon.”
Professor Otto R Frisch, January 1969 Physicist, the Manhattan Project.

Why do spikes form on ice cubes? Without them the world would be vastly different.
Awesome Jingle by Accent: http://bit.ly/AccentVe
Thanks to Prof. Stephen Morris from UofT: http://bit.ly/1GFANBE

Filmed in part by Martin Marek in Olomouc, Czech Republic

Time lapse of a growing ice spike by Lesley Hill, Russ Sampson and Edward Lozowski, with technical help by Kenny Lozowski.

Ice spike image by Dan and Lynn Wolaver: http://wolaver.org/log/09.11.29.htm

Concerned ice spike video by rocknut420: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwM0we_t94c

Earth footage courtesy of NASA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4BPOEmugtM

Ice vase image by PgunnG: http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1voeqk/so_i_walked_outside_this_morning_and_found_this/

Second ice vase image by A K Haart: http://akhaart.blogspot.com/2015_01_01_archive.html

Learned helplessness can prevent people from achieving their goals, something I’ve experienced first hand.
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More walk and talk videos: http://bit.ly/2Veritasium

Acrylic Ball: http://bit.ly/BBBacrylic
Ping-Pong Ball: http://bit.ly/BBBpingpong
Balanced: http://bit.ly/BBBbalanced

This problem has made the rounds on the internet but I felt it deserved a treatment like this.

Special thanks to Gary and the Department of Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences at UCLA, to the students for participating, to Ivy for helping me coordinate everything and to Raquel for filming.

Music by Kevin MacLeod, http://incompetech.com “Monkeys, Spinning Monkeys”

New research shows chameleons actively tune nano-crystals to change their color.
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Chameleon research in Nature Communications: http://bit.ly/1FacHO2
“Photonic Crystals Cause Active Colour Change in Chameleons”

This research was carried out by Jérémie Teyssier, Suzanne V. Saenko, Dirk van der Marel & Michel C. Milinkovitch at the University of Geneva Department of Quantum Matter Physics and the Laboratory of Artificial and Natural Evolution (LANE)

Original videos of chameleons are here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIRiCwHlUd8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdQvtP8EKrM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSH7EmXFMac
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egwueh6wj1E

Additional details available at: http://www.lanevol.org/LANE/chameleon_colour_change.html
For correspondence: Michel C. Milinkovitch, Laboratory of Artificial & Natural Evolution (LANE), Dept. of Genetics & Evolution, University of Geneva, Switzerland.

The melanin spreading out video is courtesy of Richard Wheeler:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hL0USeWjTHQ
http://www.richardwheeler.net

Special thanks to:
Harry, Jo, Daniella and Raquel for helping me produce and film this video – it looks great thanks to you!

What it’s like to see the Earth from orbit.
Special thanks to Col. Chris Hadfield for chatting with me. http://chrishadfield.ca/

Space imagery courtesy of NASA and the ESA
http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/
http://www.esa.int/spaceinvideos/Videos

Music by Kevin MacLeod “New Frontier” http://incompetech.com
And “Eureka” by Huma-Huma

Does quantum entanglement make faster-than-light communication possible?
What is NOT random? http://bit.ly/NOTrandoVe
First, I know this video is not easy to understand. Thank you for taking the time to attempt to understand it. I’ve been working on this for over six months over which time my understanding has improved. Quantum entanglement and spooky action at a distance are still debated by professors of quantum physics (I know because I discussed this topic with two of them).

Does hidden information (called hidden variables by physicists) exist? If it does, the experiment violating Bell inequalities indicates that hidden variables must update faster than light – they would be considered ‘non-local’. On the other hand if you don’t consider the spins before you make the measurement then you could simply say hidden variables don’t exist and whenever you measure spins in the same direction you always get opposite results, which makes sense since angular momentum must be conserved in the universe.

Everyone agrees that quantum entanglement does not allow information to be transmitted faster that light. There is no action either detector operator could take to signal the other one – regardless of the choice of measurement direction, the measured spins are random with 50/50 probability of up/down.

Special thanks to:
Prof. Stephen Bartlett, University of Sydney: http://bit.ly/1xSosoJ
Prof. John Preskill, Caltech: http://bit.ly/1y8mJut

Looking Glass Universe: http://bit.ly/17zZH7l
Physics Girl: http://bit.ly/PhysGirl
MinutePhysics: http://bit.ly/MinPhys
Community Channel: http://bit.ly/CommChannel
Nigel, Helen, Luke, and Simon for comments on earlier drafts of this video.

Filmed in part by Scott Lewis: http://google.com/+scottlewis

Music by Amarante “One Last Time”: http://bit.ly/VeAmarante

How much would it take for you to risk $10?
Check out Audible: http://bit.ly/AudibleVe
Can you solve this? http://bit.ly/248Ve
Regression to the mean: http://bit.ly/VeRTTM

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Psychological literature shows that we are more sensitive to small losses and than small gains, with most people valuing a loss around 1.5-2.5 times as much as a gain. This means that we often turn down reasonable opportunities for fear of the loss. However over the course of our lives we will be exposed to many risks and opportunities and this invariably means that taking every small reasonable bet will leave us better off than saying no to all of them.

NOTE: The video is not saying to accept every bet, only those with reasonable odds (preferably in your favour), and those which if you lose would not cause significant financial or other damage. In those cases it is wise to be loss averse!

Filmed by Adrian Tan

Thanks to Physics Girl for suggestions on previous versions of this video. https://www.youtube.com/physicswoman

Who on Earth is exposed to the most ionizing radiation?
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I’m filming a documentary for TV about how Uranium and radioactivity have shaped the modern world. It will be broadcast in mid-2015, details to come. The filming took me to the most radioactive places on Earth (and some places, which surprisingly aren’t as radioactive as you’d think). Chernobyl and Fukushima were incredible to see as they present post-apocalyptic landscapes. I also visited nuclear power plants, research reactors, Marie Curie’s institute, Einstein’s apartment, nuclear medicine areas of hospitals, uranium mines, nuclear bomb sites, and interviewed numerous experts.

Notes about measuring radiation:
Sieverts are a measure of ‘effective dose’ – that means they measure the biological impact of the energy transferred to tissues from radiation.

Obviously I owe a debt to the fantastic chart made by xkcd, which inspired my visual approach to this video.
https://xkcd.com/radiation/

DOSES MAY VARY
The level of radiation varies widely around the world depending mainly on altitude and geology (excluding nuclear accidents).

Estimates of particular doses also vary. All numbers reported in this video should be taken as order of magnitude only.

The most contentious claim may be that smokers receive the highest dose of ionizing radiation. This is not a whole body dose, but a dose to the lungs as specified in the video. References are here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_of_tobacco
http://www.rmeswi.com/36.html

Special thanks to:
Physics Girl: https://www.youtube.com/physicswoman
MinutePhysics: https://www.youtube.com/minutephysics
Natalie Tran: https://www.youtube.com/communitychannel
Bionerd23: https://www.youtube.com/bionerd23
Nigel and Helen for feedback on earlier drafts of this video.

Music is “Stale Mate”

Many technologies have promised to revolutionize education, but so far none has. With that in mind, what could revolutionize education?
These ideas have been percolating since I wrote my PhD in physics education: https://ve42.co/phd
I have also discussed this topic with CGP Grey, whose view of the future of education differs significantly from mine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vsCAM17O-M

I think it is instructive that each new technology has appeared to be so transformative. You can imagine, for example, that motion pictures must have seemed like a revolutionary learning technology. After all they did revolutionize entertainment, yet failed to make significant inroads into the classroom. TV and video seem like a cheaper, scaled back film, but they too failed to live up to expectations. Now there is a glut of information and video on the internet so should we expect it to revolutionize education?

My view is that it won’t, for two reasons: 1. Technology is not inherently superior, animations over static graphics, videoed presentations over live lectures etc. and 2. Learning is inherently a social activity, motivated and encouraged by interactions with others.

Filmed and edited by Pierce Cook

Supported by Screen Australia’s Skip Ahead program.

Music By Kevin MacLeod, http://www.incompetech.com “The Builder” and by Amarante Music: http://www.amarantemusic.com