Awesome Learning

Don’t clap, snap! For their latest Instrumentals clip, cdza provides a comprehensive and thoroughly entertaining lesson on the evolution of jazz-style piano. If nothing else, we learned that Jazz used to be spelled “Jass.”

The Smarter Every Day family presents a seemingly odd event. A balloon filled with helium is placed in a car. When the car accelerates, instead of being pushed back like most objects, the balloon is nudged forward.

…without tearing it off Hulk Hogan-style. Crazy Russian Hacker shows us how to take off t-shirts in record time, and by using just one hand at that. Or maybe this method only works on shorkhts.

Can something that doesn’t exist have copies? In an era where art can be perfectly replicated, why do we still value the original work? Also, you’re a forgery. All that and more in another thought-provoking episode of Vsauce.

You may not know it, but there are ways to celebrate birthdays that don’t involve the Applebee’s waitstaff indifferently clapping. Mental Floss’ walks us through the diverse ways that other cultures celebrate their namedays.

The Sci Show outlines the general clues that help scientists look for habitable planets, including the size of a planet, what type of galaxy it’s in and more. Being a stellar real estate agent is hard. Also quasars are more terrifying than black holes.

A primer on patent trolls by Kirby Ferguson (Everything is a Remix). These opportunistic people take advantage of antiquated laws and lax patent agencies to extort money. Do your part to help fight patent trolls here.

It happens to all of us. You get a bottle of ketchup and you can’t get it to come out at all. Then you slap the bottle hard and it pours out all over the table. TEDucator George Zaidan explains the physics behind ketchup’s bad behavior.

“Design” is often associated with fancy concepts for gadgets, clothes, cars, etc. Johnny Kelly and Scott Burnett remind us that even everyday objects, structures and surroundings need to be thoughtfully designed. Learn more here.

(Gross) ZeFrank resumes his True Facts series with an episode that’s as enlightening as it is hilarious. Watch and learn about the dangers of touching an octopus arm, how to compare the weirdness of two animals and more.

George Lucas, Mark Hamill and sound designer Ben Burtt talk about the conceptual and technical aspects of the most famous movie weapon of all time, the lightsaber. The documentary includes a lot of behind-the-scenes clips.

It’s a quest. It’s a quest for fun. You’re gonna have fun, and I’m gonna have fun… We’re all gonna have so much f-ing fun… Or at least you’ll learn a thing or two about fun places, things and pastimes in the latest clip from Mental Floss.

YouTuber spumwack uses the simple graphics and programmable physics of Minecraft to better explain some of the complicated concepts of light speed. Like any good physics video he takes time to make us feel incredibly insignificant too.

There are just 52 cards in a deck, but it’s almost impossible that the sequence you get after a shuffle would be the same as anyone has ever seen before, or will ever see again. TEDucator Yannay Khaikin explains the mindboggling math.

Cpak Studio’s documentary about the neon sign business in Hong Kong. While they still dot the busy city’s landscape, the iconic neon signs are slowly being phased out, made obsolete by the rise of LEDs. Learn more at Neonsigns.hk.

Physicist and xkcd creator Randall Munroe will soon release a book version of What If?, his funny and enlightening science Q&A series. The book features unpublished articles as well as revised versions of some of the published ones.