I went exploring beneath Alaska's Mendenhall Glacier to learn the physics behind one of nature's most beautiful blues. I came, I thaw, I learned some ❄️cool❄️ science. Let me know what you thought of this week's video!
What do you mean by this being the only example of colour coming from vibrations? The colour of all objects made from matter comes from the absorption of some part of the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum, which causes the molecules to vibrate, and the wavelength which isn't absorbed corresponds to the colour you see. There's also fluorescent light bulbs which work by the gas molecules in the bulb absorbing a high frequency of light, causing the molecule to vibrate which makes it unstable, the molecule then de-excites by releasing the energy in the form of lower frequency light which we can see. The glaciers are far from the only example of this...
X Blocky it’s the earths natural cycle get over it. 20,000 years ago the planet was covered in ice and in another 10,000 years it will be due for an ice age.
After 4 years of working as a glacier guide in Iceland and doing my own research (and a quasi background in physics) this is still the absolute best explanation of why glacier ice is blue. I share this video a lot with fellow guides.
That's amazing! Glaciers are beautiful and fascinating! Someday, I want to see a glacier too. Also, can you please explain to me what does Joe mean by "water molecules vibrating at a certain frequency" or "the wavelength of red light matches with water molecule's vibration frequency"? I am really confused. And since you are a scientist who worked with glaciers, I thought maybe you can help.
@@pigeonfun1771 I'm a year late, but I'm a biochem and physics student, so maybe I can help. So like Joe said, water molecules vibrate at a certain frequency. It's kind of link how different stations on a car radio have different numbers to represent the frequency of waves it's receiving from the radio station. Light is also sent in waves that has different frequency that affect different light. Visible light (the rainbow) has a frequency of 400 terahertz to 800, with 400 being around red, and 800 being around violet. All objects absorb different frequency of light, and the color we see is what light is reflect (for black, all light is absorbed, and for white, all is reflected). In this case, the red light is kind of being masked by the water molecules because their frequencies match, so it is not being reflected (along with colors near it), so instead of seeing white, we see blue. I hope that helps a bit
Best. Video. Ever. It's got physics, chemistry, geology, music, light, vibrations, ecology, and just enough humor to not be cheesy over the top. Very well done!
I have had this cave as my desktop background for months now based solely on the fact it looked cool. I knew it looked familiar when I saw the thumbnail!
Great explaination. The way the information was presented made it easy to understand. I'm a visual learner and concepts like this can be difficult without a clear visual analogy. Thank you for the great content!!
Hey Joe, We really love the content you are creating. It is very entertaining and educational. Thanks for all that you do. We for sure will keep watching. Thanks from the Homeschool Squad.
The negative of red is not blue, it is cyan, which is what that color is called, roughly. Cyan is the color we perceive when the blue and green cones in our eyes are equally triggered, but not the red cones.
He's right, seeing it on your phone or in a magazine doesn't come close to how amazing glaciers are unless you're there. I lived in Alaska for a few years and seeing glaciers up close are kinda mesmerizing in a way.
Vibrations are the same reason that gold nanoparticles appear dark burgundy in colour. The green frequencies of light (~520 nm wavelength) get absorbed by the conduction electrons in the tiny metal particle, and the remaining light looks dark red/purple :)
AWESOME!!! Love science. Never knew color could come from frequency. I knew about pigment and structure but not frequency. I did a helicopter trip to a glacier in Alaska. If you can do it before its all gone make it happen. So magical. Thanks!
I’ve hiked by many, many glaciers in both Washington, Canada, and Oregon. I’ve even stepped 50 feet from the base of one in the Canadian Rockies. Outside of Alaska, Washington is the most glaciated state in the United States. If you want the best glacial experience in the lower 48, then you MUST hike or visit Mount Rainier National Park, North Cascades National Park, or Olympic National Park in Washington. In fact, practically all of Washington’s mountains north of Mount Rainier is heavily glaciated. If you’re from Portland, like me, then you can hike on Mount Adams, Mount Hood, or Mount Rainier to see glaciers up close.
As a photographer, who constantly deals with colours and the comparissons between them, I can assure you that snow is definately blue (actually cyan to be precise), and that it's a HUGE pain while colour-balancing
This just made me feel like when I was little and I wanted to explore and know everything, and everything looked magical and amazing. This is what people should feel when they learn something. nICE video I'm sorry
That's a good question, because while he talked about how part of the reason it gets to doing what it does is due to the air getting squished out of it that causes most ice to reflect back white. So, would the pressure of deep ocean waters do that too, or does the amount of air still in the water prevent the same purity of blue? Maybe it would... if the light made it far enough down to where enough air is squished out.
Very well described. Does this mean the light that gets absorbed adds heat to the ice so it will be melting? But because it's so thick it just absorbs the energy without any temperature affect.
Pay attention, and this color can be seen in freshly fallen snow. It is easiest seen in bright sunlight, in narrow crevices where the snow has slumped a bit. Not intense, but distinct; a mysterious faint blue-aqua hue where at first impression there is only white.
Rayleigh scattering is still an important part of the color because the absorbed colors are pretty specific and not all the hues ofred light is absorbed
Rayleigh scattering is due to certain wavelengths of light bouncing of of very small (molecule-sized) suspended particles. It does not apply to blue glacier ice, just the sky. Cool phenomenon though!
This is amazing??? Why does this not have more comments or thumbs up? :D thanks for capturing this on film for those of us who are at home and wouldn’t never be able to see this in person :)
For large enough values of "deep", sure. But for small enough values, everything is blue -- to my memory, the same blue, and plausibly for the same reason.
No, surface of water is simply reflecting the sky. Deep water is practically black. The color you see of videos and pictures of deep water is due to our own lights reflection. This video is explaining that something different is happening on the color spectrum.
Anyways I was being a smartass but I believe what the video explains is the reason water is blue and not because of sscattering like the sky. It is not reflecting the sky because indoor swimming pools are bluish (no the tiles are not blue they're white).
(Before watching the video) Probably the same reason why water appears blue. Oh and snow also can produce that tone of blue, if it’s compressed and frozen over and over with cracks in a huge pile, those cracks in that snowpile will be filled with that very same blue shimmer.
I just had to listen to an interview of you in english class and was curious to watch some of your videos. I really like your content and you have got a new subscriber :) Love from a german biology student (who is totally not procrastinating right now :D ) :)
As a photographer, I'd call that cyan. The opposite of Red is Cyan. The opposite of Blue is Yellow. Cyan is similar to Magenta in that it's not a color in of itself, it's a lack of another color in white light. Magenta or commonly "Pink" isn't really a color, it's a lack of green. Cyan is a lack of Red. It's what happens when you only have Frequencies like Blue and Green, but not Red.
That’s nice, but there are ice cubes in that bay that are also blue. Although by ice cubes I mean tiny icebergs (about the size of a house in total). Also the surface of the glacier is also blue, and I’ve even seen blue ice occur in CT during one particularly cold winter. The springs that flow out of the cliff faces along the highway near my house froze blue. So blue ice isn’t exclusive to glacial caves. Though I don’t doubt that it’s all the same principle.
I went exploring beneath Alaska's Mendenhall Glacier to learn the physics behind one of nature's most beautiful blues.
I came, I thaw, I learned some ❄️cool❄️ science.
Let me know what you thought of this week's video!
Cool
It's Okay To Be Smart
Wow!
#Nature at its best!
Can you make a video explaining
HOW WAS INITIAL SOURCE OF ENERGY CREATED?
WHAT WAS BEOFRE BIG BANG OF UNIVERSE?
What do you mean by this being the only example of colour coming from vibrations? The colour of all objects made from matter comes from the absorption of some part of the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum, which causes the molecules to vibrate, and the wavelength which isn't absorbed corresponds to the colour you see. There's also fluorescent light bulbs which work by the gas molecules in the bulb absorbing a high frequency of light, causing the molecule to vibrate which makes it unstable, the molecule then de-excites by releasing the energy in the form of lower frequency light which we can see. The glaciers are far from the only example of this...
I'ce what you did there
Oh , I though it because of minerals. And disappearing Ice is really really sad
Dont worry, my freezer has ice in it, it can even make it!
they're minerals, marie!
Glaciers always melt, they are always sliding around.
X Blocky it’s the earths natural cycle get over it. 20,000 years ago the planet was covered in ice and in another 10,000 years it will be due for an ice age.
@X Blocky
Ice *is* a mineral
This is a very cool video with some chillin' facts.
binky2819 ay some cool puns nice work!
binky2819 K-ON!
+Tanaya Dehadrai K-ON RULES!!
These are some very *_ice_* puns.
@@SodiumChloride_NaCl
Not everybody can be gifted like my boy binky.
After 4 years of working as a glacier guide in Iceland and doing my own research (and a quasi background in physics) this is still the absolute best explanation of why glacier ice is blue. I share this video a lot with fellow guides.
That's amazing! Glaciers are beautiful and fascinating! Someday, I want to see a glacier too.
Also, can you please explain to me what does Joe mean by "water molecules vibrating at a certain frequency" or "the wavelength of red light matches with water molecule's vibration frequency"? I am really confused. And since you are a scientist who worked with glaciers, I thought maybe you can help.
@@pigeonfun1771 I'm a year late, but I'm a biochem and physics student, so maybe I can help. So like Joe said, water molecules vibrate at a certain frequency. It's kind of link how different stations on a car radio have different numbers to represent the frequency of waves it's receiving from the radio station. Light is also sent in waves that has different frequency that affect different light. Visible light (the rainbow) has a frequency of 400 terahertz to 800, with 400 being around red, and 800 being around violet. All objects absorb different frequency of light, and the color we see is what light is reflect (for black, all light is absorbed, and for white, all is reflected). In this case, the red light is kind of being masked by the water molecules because their frequencies match, so it is not being reflected (along with colors near it), so instead of seeing white, we see blue. I hope that helps a bit
I would've never thought what I've learned about overtones in music would explain the color of glaciers. Absolutely amazing!
Amazing isn't it!!
Best. Video. Ever.
It's got physics, chemistry, geology, music, light, vibrations, ecology, and just enough humor to not be cheesy over the top. Very well done!
This BLUE me away...
;)
Now *_THAT_* is a good pun
*cyanide & happiness’ fans chops your head off*
Enthusiastic Agnostic u get a A+
You win the comment section! :)
Did you drink the water?
Of course! It was the most refreshing water I've ever had.
It's Okay To Be Smart Lol
It's Okay To Be Smart
I would've brought some home then.
Maybe a dog pee'd in the ice 100 years ago and the water you drink now is the piss that has passed slowly through the layers throughout 100 years
It's Okay To Be Smart was it very cold
That explanation of how the absorption of light waves works was really cool! I never quite understood how that works before.
Hey, go and check out the 360 ice cave.
Family LDR yes I saw that
Family LDR how do u have so many subs without any content bro
you feeling salty bro I don’t have any subs.
I guess you can say that. This cave is. Cool...
Yes, I have arranged my therapy appointment.
Senpai
LordPeanutz what?
DematerializedMinion notice me senpai!
Get a job.
Can i come along
i love how you explain things - wish you were my teacher when i was a kid lol
Have to go to bed in a few minutes and said to myself NO MORE VIDEOS, but then I saw this one, and I *caved in* :-(
Sebastian Elytron haha caved. I get it
@@ferddoesweirdthingsinlife1040 zero fucks were given
The colors are truly... vibrant
#SaveTheGlaciers
I agree!
Yes
exploring places like this is my life goal aint even gonna lie
Girl same
Tight tight tight! Blue, yellow, pink.. whatever. Just bring me more of this stuff!
Dror Bazer I see what you did there Tuco 😂
i was just imagining walter white explaining this and saw this comment lol
Jessie… we need to learn about glaciers, Jessie, GLACIERS!
Did your studio camera shoot in interlaced? I see quite a bit of interlace artifacts...
I noticed it too. Ugly.
I have to say, this is one of the very few, VERY well written videos. Whoever did the score in the background should get a raise
I have had this cave as my desktop background for months now based solely on the fact it looked cool. I knew it looked familiar when I saw the thumbnail!
That's a nice cave
Get it? a nice cave... an ice cave haha
🤣
🤣
🤣
Great explaination. The way the information was presented made it easy to understand. I'm a visual learner and concepts like this can be difficult without a clear visual analogy. Thank you for the great content!!
Hey Joe, We really love the content you are creating. It is very entertaining and educational. Thanks for all that you do. We for sure will keep watching. Thanks from the Homeschool Squad.
Wow! Light, sound, and water!
2:38 The best interpretation of frequency I've ever seen! Thanks Joe!
I love glaciers, they’re so beautiful.
So far the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen!
Have you ever seen a mirror before? You'll be surprised
+Joseph Lmao smooth, dude
@@josephd.4615 Aww aren't you sweet
such a beautiful color
The negative of red is not blue, it is cyan, which is what that color is called, roughly. Cyan is the color we perceive when the blue and green cones in our eyes are equally triggered, but not the red cones.
He's right, seeing it on your phone or in a magazine doesn't come close to how amazing glaciers are unless you're there. I lived in Alaska for a few years and seeing glaciers up close are kinda mesmerizing in a way.
All these puns about cool and blue are giving me the chills.
Is it Cyan blue?
Vibrations are the same reason that gold nanoparticles appear dark burgundy in colour. The green frequencies of light (~520 nm wavelength) get absorbed by the conduction electrons in the tiny metal particle, and the remaining light looks dark red/purple :)
0:54 I went there in Alaska a few years ago...the water was really cold lmao
The ice was pretty though
It’s so beautiful! Oh my gods, the ice looks so incredible, fantastic!!!
Yep chucking that on my bucket list
This was so beautifully made
AWESOME!!! Love science. Never knew color could come from frequency. I knew about pigment and structure but not frequency. I did a helicopter trip to a glacier in Alaska. If you can do it before its all gone make it happen. So magical. Thanks!
Amazing video!!! The blue color is so beautiful
The coolest video of its ok to be smart !
More of a blue-green. Beautiful!
Man that blue is the most beautiful blue i have ever seen.
I’ve hiked by many, many glaciers in both Washington, Canada, and Oregon. I’ve even stepped 50 feet from the base of one in the Canadian Rockies.
Outside of Alaska, Washington is the most glaciated state in the United States. If you want the best glacial experience in the lower 48, then you MUST hike or visit Mount Rainier National Park, North Cascades National Park, or Olympic National Park in Washington. In fact, practically all of Washington’s mountains north of Mount Rainier is heavily glaciated.
If you’re from Portland, like me, then you can hike on Mount Adams, Mount Hood, or Mount Rainier to see glaciers up close.
That is such a COOL colour!!
As a photographer, who constantly deals with colours and the comparissons between them, I can assure you that snow is definately blue (actually cyan to be precise), and that it's a HUGE pain while colour-balancing
That was beautiful, and thanks for the sad (blue) ending.
Very positive and upbeat video with beautiful visuals! Thanks for dropping a science on us! Love these videos!
I’ve always been a fan of this channel and always will be
Beautiful and magical beyond words, the blue Planet and some blue eyes =)
Wicked video.
I thought that was where they got blue gatorade from.
At first I heard this:
"That's it! White light minus red orange light leaves us with piss"
This just made me feel like when I was little and I wanted to explore and know everything, and everything looked magical and amazing. This is what people should feel when they learn something.
nICE video
I'm sorry
You can get EL-wire that glows this color. It's mesmerizing.
This made blue my favourite colour
So does this mean that you can find the same color in the depths of the ocean?
That's a good question, because while he talked about how part of the reason it gets to doing what it does is due to the air getting squished out of it that causes most ice to reflect back white. So, would the pressure of deep ocean waters do that too, or does the amount of air still in the water prevent the same purity of blue? Maybe it would... if the light made it far enough down to where enough air is squished out.
@@Farellemoon Water doesn't have many air bubbles, so it is blue. That's why the ocean is blue.
This was SOOOO COOL!!!
Very well described. Does this mean the light that gets absorbed adds heat to the ice so it will be melting? But because it's so thick it just absorbs the energy without any temperature affect.
i dont want to mock my teacher in my school but i learn more stuff here.
the explation is clearer and shorter
massive respect
I added a new place to my Must visit list thanks :D
I was wondering how you'd get overtones, but of course the vibrations in a molecule aren't harmonic, which explains where overtones come from.
Pay attention, and this color can be seen in freshly fallen snow. It is easiest seen in bright sunlight, in narrow crevices where the snow has slumped a bit. Not intense, but distinct; a mysterious faint blue-aqua hue where at first impression there is only white.
Rayleigh scattering is still an important part of the color because the absorbed colors are pretty specific and not all the hues ofred light is absorbed
Rayleigh scattering is due to certain wavelengths of light bouncing of of very small (molecule-sized) suspended particles. It does not apply to blue glacier ice, just the sky. Cool phenomenon though!
it also happens in any substance with a gradient of refraction index
Nature's beauty is always here, it's our job to protect it
Majestic Ice, Wonderful Video
THIS VIDEOOO IS AMAZING AHH POST MORE NATURE VIDEOSS
Heyyy! I'm from Juneau! It's so cool to see my hometown featured in your channel :D Cool place to be!!
wonderful presentation. thanks!
This is a straight up videogame level tier place.
I came here excepting an ice cave adventure and let just as satisfied with a physics lesson
Juneau!! I Love Glaciers!!
This is amazing??? Why does this not have more comments or thumbs up? :D thanks for capturing this on film for those of us who are at home and wouldn’t never be able to see this in person :)
I wonder how it tastes? I love it!
Wow... You must love your job.... This is an amazing experience through a video... I can only imagine how good it must be in person...
Awesome video, I need to go visit an ice cave before they're gone!
Is this not just the same blue that you see deep underwater, for the same reason?
You don't see ANYTHING deep underwater....
For large enough values of "deep", sure. But for small enough values, everything is blue -- to my memory, the same blue, and plausibly for the same reason.
No, surface of water is simply reflecting the sky. Deep water is practically black. The color you see of videos and pictures of deep water is due to our own lights reflection. This video is explaining that something different is happening on the color spectrum.
Enough pure water, even underground will be blue, consider the water they use for neutrino detectors... also blue.
Anyways I was being a smartass but I believe what the video explains is the reason water is blue and not because of sscattering like the sky. It is not reflecting the sky because indoor swimming pools are bluish (no the tiles are not blue they're white).
The thing is - because the H2O is so good at absorbing red light AND getting excited by it, it is a really potent greenhouse gas.
It's cool to know more about blue. 🧊😎
This video is GORGEOUS!! Adore it
Anyone else notice that Joe was a bit blurry at times, like he was vibrating? Either that was deliberate or my internet connection sucks.
It's interlaced video - somebody messed up.
+MalachiTheBowlingGod Thank you. That's what I meant to say but I forgot the term.
I had the chance of being inside a glacier once and that blue is breathtaking.
I love these videos so much! I got to get to Alaska and check this out! :)
Awesome Explanation!!
(Before watching the video)
Probably the same reason why water appears blue.
Oh and snow also can produce that tone of blue, if it’s compressed and frozen over and over with cracks in a huge pile, those cracks in that snowpile will be filled with that very same blue shimmer.
"Snow is definitely not blue... but though can be yellow" LOL
at first I was like yeah yellow cus of the sunset, then I got it
The density of puns in the last minute or so
I appreciate the choice of a red and blue striped shirt.
Wow this was so *cool*
I just had to listen to an interview of you in english class and was curious to watch some of your videos.
I really like your content and you have got a new subscriber :)
Love from a german biology student (who is totally not procrastinating right now :D ) :)
Should it be called Cyan Glacier instead ?
good point
Chris Pi cyan is a shade of blue
It is mostly all color minus red, aka green+blue ^^
Sounds like a Pokemon move...
"Lapras, use Cyan Glacier!"
@@chrispi314 yeah but I’d still say it’s distinctly different
Beautiful pictures and really interesting physic facts.
Big life!
*but the blue color - no breaking bad reference haha
It looks so cool!
Really well done.
I once ate part of the Knik glacier up here in Alaska.
It's so beautifull, that it can easily be used as an microsoft walpaper.
As a photographer, I'd call that cyan. The opposite of Red is Cyan. The opposite of Blue is Yellow. Cyan is similar to Magenta in that it's not a color in of itself, it's a lack of another color in white light. Magenta or commonly "Pink" isn't really a color, it's a lack of green. Cyan is a lack of Red. It's what happens when you only have Frequencies like Blue and Green, but not Red.
Think about a merge proposal inside a cave like that 😊
That’s nice, but there are ice cubes in that bay that are also blue. Although by ice cubes I mean tiny icebergs (about the size of a house in total).
Also the surface of the glacier is also blue, and I’ve even seen blue ice occur in CT during one particularly cold winter. The springs that flow out of the cliff faces along the highway near my house froze blue.
So blue ice isn’t exclusive to glacial caves.
Though I don’t doubt that it’s all the same principle.
nicely explained!!
1:04 joe looks so funny lol
BRAVO! Very well done