Bowling has been around in one form or another for roughly 7000 years. Veritasium explores some of the significant technological advancements that the seemingly simple sport has experienced in the last few decades, along with the physics at play in the design of bowling balls, pins, and alleys.
Derek from Veritasium visited the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory to check out the strongest magnet on Earth. With a rating of 45 Tesla, it’s 15 times more powerful than an MRI machine. Along the way, you’ll learn about the strange ways that eddy currents affect objects in such an intense magnetic field.
Geckos can climb up smooth surfaces and even walk upside-down, thanks to the microscopic structures that have evolved on their skin. Derek from Veritasium met with Stanford mechanical engineering professor Mark Cutkosky to learn about synthetic materials he’s developed which can mimic the capabilities of gecko skin.
Could a penny dropped from a skyscraper kill someone? Derek Muller from Veritasium teamed up with Adam Savage to revisit this urban myth by dropping a bucketful of pennies on Muller from a helicopter. After surviving the experiment, he explains how gravity and air resistance affect the terminal velocity of objects.
There are robots out there that can walk on two legs and drones that can fly. But Leonardo can do both, using its rotors to help it balance while walking. It can even skateboard and slackline. Veritasium takes a look at this unusual hybrid robot being developed by engineers at the Aerospace Robotics and Control Lab at Caltech.
A sailboat sailing straight downwind can only match the speed of the wind and never exceed it. But is it possible that a vehicle powered by wind could defy this limitation of physics? Derek from Veritasium risked life and limb to test just that, as he took a ride in an experimental three-wheeler called Blackbird.
If you put a bunch of metronomes on a wobbly platform, they will eventually sync up. But given the nature of the universe to tend toward disorder, why do some things seem to defy this basic law of physics? Veritasium explores the science at work when things work their way into synchronized patterns.
Anyone who watches Futurama knows that robots that bend are the best. Veritasium looks at unconventional robots made from flexible materials, including Zachary Hammond and team’s isoperimetric robot. The advantages of these “soft robots” include their light weight, enhanced safety, and shape-shifting abilities.
Derek from Veritasium uses his body to demonstrate an set of windows that appear to start rotating in one direction, slow down, then change directions, despite constantly rotating in just one direction. He then goes on to explain how the Ames window illusion messes with our brains, and why it doesn’t work for everyone.