Can something go faster than it’s pushed?

April 9th, 2026

A UCLA Physics Professor bet Derek $10,000 that his video about going downwind faster than the wind was wrong.

Here’s a demonstration you can do at home to see why something can move faster than the force pushing it.

Posted in Science |

What happens if you drop 0.125 grams of antimatter?

April 5th, 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

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▀▀▀
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.

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References: https://ve42.co/AntimatterRefs

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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 Rabah, Ren Hurley & Ben Powell
Production Team: Jess Bishop-Laggett, Matthew Cavanagh, Anna Milkovic, Katy Southwood & Josh Pitt
Executive Producers: Derek Muller, Casper Mebius & Gregor Cavlovic

Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images & Storyblocks
Music from Epidemic Sound

Posted in Science |

The Time Travel Paradox Hidden Inside Einstein’s Relativity

April 2nd, 2026

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Kurt Gödel discovered a solution to General Relativity that allows time travel without any exotic physics, revealing that the theory doesn’t actually guarantee a consistent chain of cause and effect . His “Gödel universe” shows that under certain conditions, the structure of spacetime itself can loop back on itself—blurring the line between past and future and exposing a deep limitation in our understanding of reality.

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Hosted by Matt O’Dowd
Written by Matt O’Dowd
Post Production by Leonardo Scholzer
Directed by Andrew Kornhaber
Associate Producer: Bahar Gholipour
Executive Producer: Andrew Kornhaber
Executive in Charge for PBS: Maribel Lopez
Director of Programming for PBS: Gabrielle Ewing
Assistant Director of Programming for PBS: Mike Martin

Spacetime is a production of Kornhaber Brown for PBS Digital Studios.
This program is produced by Kornhaber Brown, which is solely responsible for its content.
© 2026 PBS. All rights reserved.

End Credits Music by J.R.S. Schattenberg: https://www.youtube.com/user/MultiDroideka

Space Time Was Made Possible In Part By:

Big Bang

Adam Van Winkle
Alexander Tamas
David Paryente
Juan Benet
Kenneth See
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Morgan Hough
Peter Barrett
Vinnie Falco

Supernova
Ethan Cohen
Glenn Sugden
Grace Biaelcki
Justin Lloyd
Mark Heising
Stephen Wilcox
Tristan Lucian Claudius Aurelius Tyacke

Hypernova
Alex Kern
Ben Delo
Cal Stephens
chuck zegar
Dean Galvin
Donal Botkin
drollere
Gregory Forfa
jeff white
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Mike Purvis
PAUL C PEDERSEN
Santiago
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Spencer Jones
Stephen Saslow
Zachary Haberman
Антон Кочков
Daniel Muzquiz

Gamma Ray Burst
Alex Gan
aaron pinto
Almog Cohen
Anthony Leon
Arko Provo Mukherjee
Ayden Miller
Bradley Jenkins
Bradley Ulis
Brandon Lattin
Brian Cook
Chris Liao
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gmmiddleton
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Sandhya Devi
Sean Owen
Shane Calimlim
SilentGnome
Terje Vold
Thomas Dougherty
Todd J Lerner
Tybie Fitzhugh
Zac Sweers

Posted in Physics |

The Bizarre Behaviour Of Rotating Bodies

April 2nd, 2026

What you are looking at is known as the Dzhanibekov effect or the tennis racket theorem or the intermediate axis theorem.

It involves arguably the best mathematician alive, Soviet era secrets, and the end of the world.

So in 1985, cosmonaut Vladimir Dzhanibekov was tasked with saving the Soviet space station Salyut 7 which had completely shut down. The mission was so dramatic that the Russians made a movie out of it in 2017 and after rescuing the space station, Dzhanibekov unpacked supplies sent up from Earth which were locked down with a wing-nut and as the wing-nut spun off the bolt, he noticed something strange:

The wing-nut maintained its orientation for a short time, and then it flipped, 180 degrees. And as he kept watching, it flipped back a few seconds later and it continued flipping back and forth at regular intervals.

This motion wasn’t caused by forces or torques applied to the wing-nut: there were none. And yet it kept flipping. It was a strange and counterintuitive phenomenon. One that the Russians kept secret for 10 years.

Posted in Science |

The Secret Spy Tech Inside Every Credit Card

March 26th, 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.

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▀▀▀
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!

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References: https://ve42.co/Spies&CardsRefs

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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

Posted in Science |

How Pressure Can Come From Nothing

March 24th, 2026

If you went to the emptiest part of the universe and took 2 uncharged objects with you, something really strange happens…

They snap together almost by magic!

This is called the Casimir Effect and the explanation is still an ongoing debate in physics!

Posted in Science |

Martian Soil Is Deadly. And That’s Why It Might Support Life.

March 19th, 2026

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The tardigrade—capable of surviving extreme drying, freezing, heat, radiation, the vacuum of space, maybe even the asteroid impact. Who knows, maybe some have hitchhiked on impact ejecta to Mars. And according to a new study, the tardigrade can survive most of the ravages of the Martian surface. Most. When the researchers added a chemical that’s both abundant on Mars and horrifically toxic, even the tardigrade wound down. So if Earth’s most intrepid extremophile can’t handle the hostility of the red planet, can anything? Maybe, yes, even today. Let’s see where Martian life and tardigrade astronauts may still be hiding.
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Spacetime is a production of Kornhaber Brown for PBS Digital Studios.
This program is produced by Kornhaber Brown, which is solely responsible for its content.
© 2026 PBS. All rights reserved.

End Credits Music by J.R.S. Schattenberg: https://www.youtube.com/user/MultiDroideka

Space Time Was Made Possible In Part By:

Big Bang

Adam Van Winkle
Alexander Tamas
David Paryente
Juan Benet
Kenneth See
Mark Rosenthal
Morgan Hough
Peter Barrett
Vinnie Falco

Supernova
Ethan Cohen
Glenn Sugden
Grace Biaelcki
Justin Lloyd
Mark Heising
Stephen Wilcox
Tristan Lucian Claudius Aurelius Tyacke

Posted in Physics |

The Shadow Illusion

March 12th, 2026

Cut any shape hole into a piece of cardboard and hold it up to the sunlight.

When sunlight shines through this hole, it casts a circular image on the wall regardless of the shape of the hole.

Why does this happen?

The size of the hole also doesn’t affect the size of the image.

This counterintuitive demonstration shows that the hole is acting like a pinhole camera, producing an image of the sun on the wall. Therefore the size and shape of the hole have no effect on the size and shape of the image.

Posted in Science |

The Particle That Could Open a Portal to the Dark Universe

March 5th, 2026

Click this link https://boot.dev/?promo=SPACETIME and use my code SPACETIME to get 25% off your first payment for Boot.dev.

Some people worried that the large hadron collider would smash particles together so hard it would make black holes that would swallow the earth, open wormholes to other dimensions. It didn’t and won’t. But it may be making a different kind of portal. A portal to the dark sector. This isn’t the Rather, it’s a hypothetical family of elementary particles that exists in parallel to the familiar particles of the standard model, but are invisible to it. Invisible to us, and so could be the answer to the dark matter conundrum. And what is this portal? It’s the particle that the LHC was built to find in the first place – the Higgs boson.

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End Credits Music by J.R.S. Schattenberg: https://www.youtube.com/user/MultiDroideka

Space Time Was Made Possible In Part By:

Big Bang

Adam Van Winkle
Alexander Tamas
David Paryente
Juan Benet
Kenneth See
Mark Rosenthal
Morgan Hough
Peter Barrett
Vinnie Falco

Supernova
Ethan Cohen
Glenn Sugden
Grace Biaelcki
Justin Lloyd
Mark Heising
Stephen Wilcox
Tristan Lucian Claudius Aurelius Tyacke

Hypernova

Alex Kern
Ben Delo
Cal Stephens
chuck zegar
Dean Galvin
Donal Botkin
drollere
Gregory Forfa
jeff white
John R. Slavik
Massimiliano Pala
Mike Purvis
PAUL C PEDERSEN
Santiago
Scott Gorlick
Scott Gray
Spencer Jones
Stephen Saslow
Zachary Haberman
Антон Кочков
Daniel Muzquiz

Posted in Physics |

The Spanish Conquest of New Mexico: Uncensored – Historical Documentary

March 3rd, 2026

https://www.skool.com/aicinematicdirectors/about I will teach you how to make videos like this. It would be a great way to support the channel! Come interact and learn with me in my AI Cinematic Directors Community.

The Spanish Conquest of New Mexico was not just a clash of empires — it was a brutal frontier experiment that stretched from central Mexico to the plains of modern-day Kansas. In this cinematic historical documentary, we follow the path first opened by Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, whose 1540–1542 expedition pushed north in search of the mythical Seven Cities of Gold. Instead of gold, Coronado encountered vast Pueblo towns, powerful Plains tribes, and the mysterious settlement of Etzanoa along the Arkansas River in present-day Kansas.

Decades later, Juan de Oñate led settlers across the Río Grande, establishing Spain’s first permanent colony in New Mexico and laying the foundations for Santa Fe, the oldest colonial capital in the modern United States (founded 1610). From Acoma to the Great Plains, from Pueblo resistance to the legendary Quivira expedition, this film explores the rise of Spanish power in the American Southwest — and the violence, ambition, and survival that defined the conquistador frontier.

This episode covers:
Spanish Conquistadors, Coronado expedition, Juan de Oñate, Etzanoa Kansas, Quivira, Pueblo peoples, Acoma, Santa Fe 1610, New Mexico colony, Spanish Empire in North America, early American frontier history, and the origins of the American Southwest.

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Bibliography:

The Last Conquistador – Juan de Onate and the Settling of the Far Southwest by Marc Simmons

Relación de fray Francisco de Escobar sobre la expedición de Juan de Oñate a la Mar del Sur (1604-1605)

Posted in History |

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