The Rocket & String Paradox

The first 200 people to go to http://brilliant.org/minutephysics get 20% off a premium subscription to Brilliant. This video is about Bell's Spaceship Paradox of Special Relativity, wherein a pair of rockets (or spacecraft) connected by a weak thread accelerate with uniform acceleration, maintaining the same separation, and the question is: does...

Aug 2021

A Better Way To Picture Atoms

Thanks to Google for sponsoring a portion of this video! Support MinutePhysics on Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/minutephysics This video is about using Bohmian trajectories to visualize the wavefunctions of hydrogen orbitals, rendered in 3D using custom python code in Blender. REFERENCES A Suggested Interpretation of the Quantum Theory in...

May 2021

How Much Wind Should a Windmill Mill?

Watch the bonus material cut from this video and get 26% off an annual subscription to CuriosityStream and Nebula at https://www.curiositystream.com/minutephysics 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...

Apr 2021

Why Do Boats Make This Pattern?

Go to https://curiositystream.com/minutephysics to get access to CuriosityStream AND Nebula (where you can watch the extended version of this video), plus you'll get a 26% discount on an annual subscription. This video is about the "Kelvin wake" shape of water wakes behind boats - we talk about mach angle, dispersion, superposition of many waves,...

Mar 2021

The Physics of Windmill Design

This video was created in partnership with Bill Gates, inspired by his new book “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.” Find out more here: https://gatesnot.es/3u7UUVU This video is about how physics dictates the design of modern windmills - why they are so big, have so few blades, and have such skinny blades. REFERENCES H. Glauert: Aerodynamic Theory,...

Mar 2021

General Relativity Explained in 7 Levels of Difficulty

Go to https://curiositystream.com/minutephysics get access to CuriosityStream AND Nebula (where you can watch the extended version of this video), plus you'll get a 26% discount on an annual subscription. This video covers the General theory of Relativity, developed by Albert Einstein, from basic simple levels (it's gravity, curved space) through...

Feb 2021

The Case for LESS Sensitive COVID Tests

Thanks to Brilliant for sponsoring this video - the first 200 people to click on https://www.brilliant.org/MinutePhysics will get 20% off a Premium subscription to Brilliant. This video written & produced in collaboration with Aatish Bhatia, https://www.aatishb.com This video is about how cheap, fast, and LESS sensitive rapid antigen tests...

Jan 2021

Join Me in Voting! (If you can vote in the US)

Go to http://www.vote.org or https://www.ballotready.org for information about voting in your area. To all my non-US-voting viewers... thanks for your support, and I bet you know someone in the US who can vote :) Created by Henry Reich

Nov 2020

Why Masks Work BETTER Than You'd Think

Thanks to the Heising-Simons foundation for their support: https://www.hsfoundation.org (their COVID-19 grants: https://www.hsfoundation.org/grants/covid-19-response-grants/ ) Check out https://aatishb.com/maskmath to explore and for references. This video is about how masks (whether surgical, or N95, or cloth) are counterintuitive and actually...

Sep 2020

The Astounding Physics of N95 Masks

Head to https://brilliant.org/MinutePhysics to sign up for free and get 20% off a Premium subscription to Brilliant! This video was written in collaboration with Aatish Bhatia - https://aatishb.com To learn more about using & decontaminating N95 masks: https://www.n95decon.org Thanks to Manu Prakash for useful discussion and feedback (Manu...

Jun 2020