PBS
Is Interstellar Travel Impossible?
Space is pretty deadly. But is it so deadly that we’re effectively imprisoned in our solar system forever? Many have said so, but a few have actually figured it out.
PBS
How Does Gravity Affect Light?
We know that gravity exerts its pull on light, and we have an explanation for why. Actually, we have multiple explanations that all predict the same thing. And at first glance, these explanations seem to describe completely different...
PBS
The NEW Warp Drive Possibilities
That Einstein guy was a real bummer for our hopes of a star-hopping, science-fiction-y future. His whole “nothing travels faster than light” rule seems to ensure that exploration of even the local part of our galaxy will be an...
PBS
How Luminiferous Aether Led to Relativity
As the 19th century came to a close, physicists were feeling pretty satisfied with the state of their science. The great edifice of physical theory seemed complete. A few minor experiments remained to verify everything. Little did those...
PBS
How Far Beyond Earth Could Humanity Spread?
We humans have always been explorers. The great civilizations that have arisen across the world are owed to our restless ancestors. These days, there’s not much of Earth left to explore. But if we look up, there’s a whole universe out...
PBS
Does Time Cause Gravity?
We know that gravity must cause clocks to run slow on the basis of logical consistency. And we know that gravity DOES cause clocks to run slow based on many brilliant experiments. But I never explained WHY or HOW gravity causes the flow...
PBS
The Trebuchet Challenge | Space Time
Kinetic and potential energy are defined as combinations of more basic quantities: position, velocity and mass. These combinations are chosen so that their sum is conserved. It’s actually remarkable that there’s any such combination of...
SciShow
You Suck at Skipping Rocks
Most of us are stoked if we can get a stone to skip more than 3 or 4 times. The world record holder at skipping stones has 88 skips. Here's why science says that number is way too low.
SciShow
Why Are Craters Always Round?
If you take a look at all the impact craters in our solar system, the vast majority are nice, neat circles. But why? Meteorites and asteroids strike planets and moons at all sorts of angles. Where are all the elliptical craters?
SciShow
Fentanyl is Very Deadly… Here's Why
Fentanyl has become a primary cause of the opioid overdose epidemic in the past decade. But what is it about this drug that's so dangerous? There's more to the story than meets the eye. If you’re ever in the position where you think...
SciShow
We’re Wrong About How Mountains Form
We think we know how mountains form. Plate tectonics causes rock to be pushed up at fault boundaries. Except that model is hard to prove, and a new study suggests it might actually be a lot more complicated.
MinutePhysics
Another Portal Paradox
What happens if you extend a piston through a portal? Or try to sandwich a cube between two portals? That's right, it's time to explore more portal paradoxes!
MinutePhysics
Windmills Are NOT Like Dams
The Solution to the Windmill Paradox. This video is about the tradeoff of Windmills: the fact that the more kinetic energy you extract from the wind the slower the wind goes, the less wind you have to extract energy from, etc. How much...
MinutePhysics
Why Do Boats Make This Shape?
This video is about the "Kelvin wake" shape of water wakes behind boats - we talk about mach angle, dispersion, superposition of many waves, and how these all lead to the pattern of a wake. We don't get into Froude number though...
SciShow
This Problem Could Break Cryptography
What if, no matter how strong your password was, a hacker could crack it just as easily as you can type it? In fact, what if all sorts of puzzles we thought were hard turned out to be easy? Mathematicians call this problem P vs. NP, it...
SciShow
These Smart Roads Could Change the Future of Driving
From self-healing asphalt to electrified roads, technology is steering the future of driving along some exciting new paths!
SciShow
Do We Need a Negative Leap Second?
Did you know that last year we had 28 of the fastest days ever recorded? Earth's rotation can be affected by a number of things, and scientists think we might someday need an unprecedented adjustment: deleting a second!
SciShow
Slingshot Spiders Put Fighter Pilots to Shame
There are all kinds of ways that a spider can catch its prey, but few species are as extreme as the slingshot spider!
SciShow
Why Aren't Commercial Jets Getting Faster?
Airplanes are one of the quickest ways to get anywhere, but commercial jets haven't gotten much fast since the 1950's. Why is that?
SciShow
What is Wind?
We all know that warm air rises, but how does this scientific fact influence our weather and create those flows of air molecules that we know of as wind? In this episode of SciShow, Hank explains where wind comes from, what factors...
SciShow
Can It Be Too Hot To Fly?
How does heat affect airplanes? Turns out heat, speed and density connect to create dangerous situations.
SciShow
A Surprisingly Simple Secret to Supersonic Flight
Making a faster plane takes more than building better engines and structures. To go supersonic, engineers had to solve hundreds of problems -- including ditching one of the biggest assumptions in aerodynamics!
SciShow
These Fish Eat Scales
Most of us don’t really give fish scales a second thought, but for some fish, the scales of others can make for a tasty snack.