MinutePhysics
Why the Solar System Can Exist
If gravity is so attractive, why doesn't the earth just crash into the sun? Or the moon into the earth? The answer: Stable Orbits
MinutePhysics
Why Are Airplane Engines So Big?
The answer to this question has everything to do with drag & kinetic energy vs momentum change (thrust) ie, a bigger engine fan allows for a larger air mass to be accelerated a smaller amount to give the same thrust as you'd get from a...
MinutePhysics
Relativistic Addition of Velocity | Special Relativity Ch. 6
This video is chapter 6 in my series on special relativity, and it covers the topic of relativistic addition of velocity: aka, how things that are moving relative to one inertial reference frame, which is moving relative to another...
MinutePhysics
Immovable Object vs. Unstoppable Force - Which Wins
Immovable Object vs. Unstoppable Force - Which Wins
SciShow
How to Move a Mountain
Almost 50 million years ago, the biggest landslide in Earth's history occurred in Wyoming. An entire mountain slid 45 kilometers at one-third the speed of sound. But how could this happen when the slope was only 2 degrees?
SciShow
Photonic Propulsion: Mars in 3 Days?
We can get to Mars in 3 days, . . .sort of, maybe. In this episode of SciShow Space Reid Reimers explains the possibilities of photonic propulsion in use with space travel.
MinutePhysics
How Do We Know The Universe Is Accelerating?
The universe is expanding – this we know from looking at red shifts of distant galaxies – but the acceleration of the universe's expansion is harder to measure. It requires measuring the change of recession velocity over time, and it's...
SciShow
Mercury Shouldn't Be Liquid. But It Is.
Mercury, a.k.a. quicksilver, is famous for being a liquid at room temperature...and also below room temperature. But you can't use a high school chem class to explain why. Instead, we need a little help from Einstein.
SciShow
The Spacecraft That Wasn't Designed To Land, But Did
Many space missions take billions of dollars and decades of work to get develop, but 25 years ago this spacecraft delivered stunning results on a shoestring budget and a minimal development timeline.
SciShow
The Particle So Extreme Scientists Called it OMG
In 1991, a subatomic particle smashed into Earth's atmosphere traveling faster than anything humans can replicate. It's the most energetic particle detected to date, and maybe even the fastest (except light itself). Astronomers call it...
SciShow
How to Make a Dark Matter Planet
Dark Matter is the most abundant form of matter in the known universe, so what's keeping it from forming into planets?
SciShow
Life on an 8-Hour Planet
Even if we find an earth-sized exoplanet, how can we be so sure that we're looking at earth 2.0? It might come down to how fast it's spinning.
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
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 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
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
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
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
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.
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...