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thanks I was also confused, most of the videos until now I was able to follow but this is the first where Im lost. But I think this is also due to the fact that there is no easy entry in this topic. It was instantly going from 0 to 100. Hope Veritasium will figure out that most poeple need an easy intro where the problem itself is described more easily and then building up on that. This was missing here completely.
@PoisonNuke yeah i haven't been able to watch these videos for the past few years. everything is just ridiculous. i dislike every video not because i dont enjoy it but because there is 0 explanation whatsoever.
I want to live in scientifically exciting times, not geopolitically exciting times. Edit: People have misunderstood me because I didn't say it properly. I don't mean that we don't live in scientifically/technologically exciting times, but that I don't like the geopolitics clouding it and potentially threatening it. Edit: Yes I understand there is a strong correlation but I was expressing desire for the ideal. No practical reason why it can't happen. The closer we move to the ideal the better.
@NameNik223 Indeed, there will be huge advances in military and subsequently civilian engineering. Much like the speed at which things advanced during the cold war. After the cold war it was largely computing technology that advanced, but now we are going to see huge advances in air, sea, undersea travel, healthcare, and weaponry the likes of which we saw during the cold war. Its both an exciting and terrifying time to be alive.
I've been thinking that the concept of infinite paths implies non-locality for a while...or rather, we are only capable of observing 1 path of many, so the effects of those invisible paths will always lead to behavior that appears non-local. No? Isn't "non-local behavior" just our way of saying "we can't see how these things are actually connected, so we believe they aren't"? The very concept of locality implies influence. Why don't we call these things equivalent? "If things are influencing each other, they are inherently local." We just don't always know the nature of such influences because we're thinking meat. They're probably quite local from a different perspective. My conclusion from this was that Casper is actually in camp 2. Yes, it's non-local, but only by appearance, because nothing is truly non-local (according to this new definition of locality). Casper's reference to the infinite paths of particles would then qualify as a description of a perspective that explains the apparent non-locality, rather than a refutation of camp 2. At the same time, this would mean that camp 2 is not claiming non-locality, but rather, classifying our current understanding as incapable of spotting where the locality is.
Honestly I feel like the implications of the wave functions "exploring" every path is really far-reaching, I hope videos like these inspire new discoveries in physics
@Hextator I am probably misunderstanding both concepts as a whole, but in regards to the non-locality; the concepts in the video (& the one he references his theory on) and the equations & simplifications made to get them are ways of us taking these 3 dimensional problems and simplifying them into the 2nd dimension to better visualize & understand them. Now in the sense of particles exploring 'other & all' options what is the potential relation of THOSE simplifications being us trying to simply influence happening potentially in a higher 4th+ dimensional space that we inherently cant observer affecting our 3rd dimensional observations in our 2nd dimension simplifications? Once again I'm probably inherently misunderstanding something but just a thought.
@Hextator "not claiming non-locality, but rather, classifying our current understanding as incapable of spotting where the locality is." That is how I feel. Couldn't have worded it better. Well written.
Hahaha and I just kept re-reading your comment and checking the title back and forth, going "wait, WHAT? It's not 'we still don't understand _magnetism'"._ I moved onto "don't understand"; that maybe the title was about _understanding_ or _how we came to understand_ magnetism. Not the negative form of the title as I originally thought. And, finally... that ✨️ *magnesium* ✨️ hit, revealing that one line from a particular actor "NEVER go full retard". As I just had. That line loops as I analyze what a spectator with the context I missed in the moment might perceive haha. Have a good one, yo!
A mathematical trick, used to simplify physics problems, unexpectedly reveals a deeper truth about reality. The video explores the history of potentials, from Lagrange to Aharonov-Bohm, challenging long-held beliefs about fundamental forces. This journey through physics history culminates in a surprising experiment.
@captain_splabberz7799 Try to stay on the boundary; that’s where you’re most likely to find the interesting stuff. The good news: you’ll be orthogonal to almost everything. The bad news: you’re still cursed by dimensionality.
0:41 "This experiment split physics community in two". I started to wonder wheatear the community behaved more like a particle or more like a wave after that split?
@narrowisthegate4790I love the fact this question is far more important than intended because I honestly think about light in the same way as this question obviously the physics community isn’t a wave or a particle but it can act like both so why can’t light be something besides a wave or a particle but act like both
@mustangthekitten7765well, essentially that has been proven about light, for the most part. It is indeed a particle, as observed in its photons,in behavior it is a wave... This has an implication that light is a physical entity, though no mass can be shown... We still have a long way on many things.
@flatmap that would be cool! I had a call with them a while ago to help with some math for one of their videos. That was a cool experience, even though it was behind the scenes. I’d definitely be open to collaborate. Veritasium is great.
I believe we observe things in a way that SEEMS like they're all exploring all possible "paths" at once, however we just still don't know what is acting upon them to explain the differences in their average paths. Once we know everything that that interacts with particles, we'll be able to predict those paths very well every time. I believe there's still a lot we don't know about quantum mechanics, from how fields interact with eachother, possibly to possible fields we don't even know about.
I like how the way this is filmed makes it seem like Derek forgot to record his talking head part of the script, and then had to frantically do it at 11:30 p.m. in his backyard 😂
I love this shift to making videos that cater more towards technical physics, I think the magnitude to which things are simplified in your videos strike a great balance.
A mathematical trick, used to simplify physics problems, unexpectedly reveals a deeper truth about reality. The video explores the history of potentials, from Lagrange to Aharonov-Bohm, challenging long-held beliefs about fundamental forces. This journey through physics history culminates in a surprising experiment.
Completely disagree. These videos have become virtually incomprehensible for the layman, which is not good for views. I'm starting to consider unsubbing
@user-uq4gr5nl5o Veritasium is growing, so they can publish more frequently. This way, they can produce accessible videos at the same old rate while also throwing in some technical ones. They're also utilizing their powerful animation crew who can visualize math concepts that would be even less comprehensible with only hand gestures or spinning basketballs alone.
Hello Derek, you probably won't see this comment, I'm one of your loyal viewers from Morocco. Thank you for making science accessible to people from all walks of Earth, you are a very hard working man, and so is your team which also deserves a lot of credit. I have enjoyed watching this channel grow from home physics to National Geographics levels of production. We understand the struggle of balancing work and life, so I was pleasantly surprised seeing your face in this video. I really hope this comment somehow reaches you, because you matter more than you could possibly know. You did teach me an invaluable lesson: If you don't know the answer to a question, it's okay to say we don't know, YET. Thank you for all you have done, you are the best ambassador to science, may you live a prosperous life, and as Michael from Vsauce used to say, you don't die until your name is muttered one last time, I make sure to share your videos with anyone with a willing ear. Much love from a stranger from a far away land.
Oh man, you should go watch Jon Bois's recent documentary series on the telegraph network. Not only is it phenomenal, but the way Kelvin is portrayed as a character in that story - similarly without revealing him as Lord Kelvin until later - it's just glorious. And you also learn to despise Samuel Morse, which is a good thing.
@zachjordan6846 because it is the difference between saying e=mc2 is obvious vs actually understanding the dynamics that goes into each of the terms and why it interacts the way it does. Everybody understands things differently, and your comment comes across as a bit rude.
Yeah, but not as common as you may think. Didn't Euler basically involve himself in everything almost? He's bound to statistically fail at numerous problems even if they aren't that hard.
@c.jishnu378 No, the stuff (well, the math stuff) that Euler failed at is pretty consistently hard. It's not all literally impossible (that would be an exaggeration), but it's pretty much all difficult problems. A fair amount of the stuff he solved was pretty tricky too, probably because if it was trivial or obvious, he usually didn't bother remarking on it. His reputation *might* be a little overblown, but if so, it's because he lived in a particularly critical time for mathematics, when the ongoing research was still relatively foundational, but was opening up a lot of new areas per unit time. Too much earlier, and not enough was yet known to let you get into as wide a variety of interesting branches of math. Too much later, and the foundations of most of those interesting branches of math had been laid already.
@jonadabtheunsightly Euler's contribution is anything but overblown. They literally had to start naming formulas after the _second_ person that discovered them because everything was just named after Euler. If you don't know who discovered something, it's _statistically_ likely either Euler or one of the Bernoulli's discovered it. If he didn't discover it, he was at least furthering the field. Like, literally, there is a statistically not insignificant chance that if you answer "Euler" to "Who discovered this" that you are ACTUALLY right. Still, there are famous problems that got solved later after him like Fermat's last theorem. He tried to solve it but failed and it was indeed really hard, but solvable. Euler was not just in a mathematically interesting time, he was in a COMPLETELY different universe when it came to mathematics. Some of his most difficult problems were tackled by him in his later years when he had gone completely blind - meaning he was solving complex integrals in his head without even having a way to note anything down - and it still turned out correct. That time is where a majority of his literary output came from.
@jonadabtheunsightly I meant that the problems he couldn't solve weren't that much harder or sometimes even easier than the ones he did. Also he ain't overblown, like Gaus.
A mathematical trick, used to simplify physics problems, unexpectedly reveals a deeper truth about reality. The video explores the history of potentials, from Lagrange to Aharonov-Bohm, challenging long-held beliefs about fundamental forces. This journey through physics history culminates in a surprising experiment.
This video is one of my favourites! It would have been so easy to simply “remind” viewers what electric potential is and move on. But instead, as always, you dove into the history…who first planted the seeds of the idea and what motivated them in the first place. I’ve taught electric potential many times, but I had never once stopped to think about its origins. That historical perspective completely set the stage for everything that followed. Truly inspired by the writing.
Casper: "I maybe have a third interpretation" Prof. Kaiser with no hesitation whatsoever: "Good!" This interaction is invaluable. Science is this: open minds with no fear of new ideas.
Not to mention melodysheep, Branch Education, History of (the Earth, the Universe, Humankind), 3Blue1Brown, The Efficient Engineer, Quanta Magazine, just to name a couple
@arooobine I think you might be ON TO SOMETHING! A metaphor of the potential in the real world. It's kind of a want or lack of something, that influences actions/occurrences. Exactly like the Bohm-Aharonov effect. A field would actually exert a force. But a potential signifies FEASIBILITY. Maybe THAT is enough for change, starting from the quantum level- the spooky effect at a distance (NON-LOCAL 🤯)!!
I started watching veritasium when I was in middle school, now I am in my 4th year of studying electrical engineering where I learned about the topics such as euler-lagrange equations and field theory. I love how the channel evolved into discussing more advanced topics about physics as my education level advanced too.
Except that he was wrong. An electromagnetic field is not a physical object. It is an emergent phenomenon. Emergent phenomena are complex, large-scale properties or behaviors that arise from the collective interactions of simple parts, which those individual parts do not possess on their own. The foundational force of the universe is NOT gravity It is electromagnetism. (Einstein was re-reading Velikovsky's "worlds in collision" when he passed btw)
@edword3457 That's all nice and very charming, even though you know that you're being pedantic - I enjoy the laugh. You know what I mean, and what Einstein meant - that mathematical objects actually correspond to physical manifestations, whether we speak of matter, fields or any other emergent phenomena. The point that I am making - and that Einstein made - is that the interlocking fit of mathematical expressions that we rely on to make coherent sense of physics and the universe, are not accounting niceties, some sort of mathematical sleight of hand - that they have actual import in the physical world, they they correspond to real things that, if they are amenable to measurement, we can measure. "The foundational force of the universe is NOT gravity" - nobody knows why are you introducing that idea - who said that? Only you brought it in. Very interesting if it's really true that he was reading Velikovsky when he passed. Attribution? Thanks for your note and reading mine, in any case. I know what you mean, and if you drop the perhaps a little bit too much pedantic approach, I bet you know what I mean; if you can't flex that far, no problem either. The basic correspondence of math and universe, and Einstein's perceptivity are magnificent. no matter what.
@johal5908 As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. ~Albert Einstein My pedantic assertion was in jest on a superficial level, yet in terms of our deeper non-understanding of magnetism I believe we both understand the importance of intensely scrutinizing scientific inquiry. In brief- magnetism cannot ever be understood in context alone. It can only be framed in concert with electricity. Thus- electromagnetism must be taken in total, so the very title of this Veritasium is misleading at best, and wholly deceptive at worse. My further assertion that electromagnetism being the foundational force of the universe should be clear in that it encompasses the "four foundational" forces of the universe into one neat package and places gravity in its true place as in infinitesimally weak force incapable of keeping planets and galaxies in order at such great distances. Einstein was aware of the shortcomings of generally and special relatively, yet he has been erroneously defied by the modern priests of scientism as infallible. I really appreciate your response and the opportunity to frame my thoughts in this discussion. Lastly- for your consideration, When Albert Einstein passed away on April 18, 1955, a German translation of Immanuel Velikovsky’s controversial book, Worlds in Collision, was found open on his desk. Einstein had been studying Velikovsky's theories-which proposed that Venus was ejected from Jupiter and caused ancient cosmic catastrophes-and found them to be thought-provoking, despite the book being heavily criticized by mainstream scientists. The New York Times Key Details Regarding the Discovery: Context: The book was on his desk at Princeton on the day he died, highlighting his interest in alternative cosmological theories, even as he was working on his own unified field theory. Annotations: Einstein's annotations on the text indicated that he believed some of Velikovsky's assertions were worthy of consideration or at least provocative. Relationship: Velikovsky and Einstein were friends and Jewish emigres in Princeton, and Velikovsky had previously asked Einstein to review his research. Content of the Book: Worlds in Collision suggests that Venus was once a comet, which caused immense damage by shifting Earth's orbit, a premise that clashed with conventional physics
@Bondrewd_The_Sovereign_Of_Drip The books were so good. The show can never live up unfortunately. The first season was good, but it's never gonna be as good as the books.
my brain accepted that "potentials" were a maths trick... then the video did a 180 and told me these were NOT maths tricks. now my brain is confused about what the actual heck "potentials" are after all.
That feeling, where you can almost feel your brain rewiring itself to accept that what was impossible is suddenly obvious, is one of my favorite things about studying physics.
"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it" - Max Planck
LMFAO. Bit of obvious trivia these days, though, is that Israel is pretty SECULAR, despite all of the religious lore. But it's still waiting for Europe to give the green flag for another crusade instead of tying one of its hands behind its back.
If I was intelligent I would never go to Israel!! Bruh I don't understand why He would ever go there!! There is so many other places of Seldom for Scientists!! Like Rome(Italy) or France, United Kingdom, Russia (altho 5 decades ago I would think Russians are Natzi as heck not trusting foreigners) So Why Israel? Why a Jewish country I am really confused so many countries around the world prosecute faithful nations!! Same thing about Brazil.. There is nothing in Brazil it's a respectable country and respectable Race of humans but I don't feel any obsession coming from Brazil that has the essence of "Timeless contribution to humanity" it's just a outpost of the Living!!
Maybe Go to Asian country but Asians are no better they are Natzi too they dislike foreigners 5 decades ago 😅 Singapore, Bangladesh are probably "Timeless and rich" now but what about 80+ years ago, Going to a Arab Emirates or any Arab country is probably even worse cuz I bet half the population grows up with mindset of a bandit.. heck 80% of the world's Children **grow up with the mindset of a Bandit** without good education.😢😢 Improvement of Education and Poverty helps but does not grant Human nature itself true wisdom! Improvement of Upbringing is Key to Higher Quality Able Minded Humans first and foremost!!
I feel like often professional scientists can get tunnelled in their own specialty or field, so that someone a bit more general, who is exposed to more fields, can see a different perspective
We debated a fair bit whether to include this in the video or not. But in the end, we made the decision it's fun to include some personal takes. Even if we're not 100% sure. (We just wanted to make sure it was clear that it's just an hypothesis!)
An infinitely long solenoid might have no "theoretical magnetic field outside of the coil", but it still has current progressing along the axis of the coil which produces a magnetic field outside of the coil.
now im imagining a gang of kidnappers (balaclavas, dark leather outfits, the works) tying Derek up and throwing him into the back of an SUV...half an hour of driving later, and they stop in an empty field and dump him out... ...then they throw their college thesis at him and tell him to read it, on-camera...
I was fortunate enough to hear Bohm speak on the Aharonov-Bohm Effect in Cambridge when I was a physics undergraduate - in 1986. What undeserved riches I've had in my life.
Don't mind me guys, I'm just pretending to watch something smart in front of my girl. Now im also typing like I'm adding something to the conversation. I have no idea whats going on lol
14:35 this interview made me realize just how recent most of our technological advancements are. We're basically living in ancient history for what is about to come in the future.
1000% We are simultaneously lucky and unlucky to be riding the steep tangent part of the 'human exponential'. For hundreds of thousands of years it would've all been the same until BAM, five or six centuries ago with the science and technology feedback loop (but it _really_ kicked off with farming six or so millenia ago, but progress was sloooow)
We haven't even put to use many of the interesting effects that scientists have discovered in the past 100 years (Aharanov-Bohm effect being one of them). For example most discovered particles are not technologically used: we use mostly the electron, photon (light and radio waves) and complete atoms, but we don't use neutrinos, muons, etc. We do use the free neutron occasionally. Of the four fundamental forces we (gravity, electromagentism, weak nuclear and strong nuclear force) we only use the first two. Also many of the chemical elements are not used (although I heard semicon experts say that modern semicon manufacturing uses half the periodic table). So there is quite a lot of "material" to be exploited technologically, waiting for an opportunity.
Relativity is illogical by definition, so don't worry about it. Everything is measured against the lab frame in real life. Stationary Earth lab frame, in all practical applications, is what is used. In Everything from laser interferometry to Newton’s bucket, even solving the Faraday paradox, an absolute Lab frame fluid aether model will give you the right answer. Their abandonment of this paradigm is philosophical, because a stationary Earth has implications. Especially in the light of the cosmic microwave background, pun intended, I digress.
Basically they are saying they found, and proved existence of, a hitherto undetectable, natural field. This field is something of a ghost because it contains no forces but can still influence electron beam distributions -- among many other more abstract measurements.
It's some field theory, so if you're not familiar with it, you can have a very hard time. It basically shows that you can express gravitational, electric, and magnetic force fields with a new concept called potential. Gravitational potential is the easiest to understand, because you can map the potential in space, and tell that things tend to go from the places of higher potential (far from a planet's surface) to places of lower potential (a planet's surface). The point is that outside a coil with a current, the magnetic force field cancels out, but that doesn't mean that the potential is zero, because the force is caused by the variation of potential, not by the value of the potential itself. In many cases we can't give a use to the value of the potential field itself, we can only use the variation for our calculations, so in this experiment, they tried to create a magnetic potential field without it creating a magnetic force field, so they could measure the influence of the potential and not the force itself. It's actually hard to explain if you haven't used potentials to calculate fields. This is something you learn by playing with the equations and using them
There used to be a high level TV math course back in the 1980's which I'd listen to as a pre-teen half asleep in the morning before school and this brought back that memory. I didn't understand much about it. And the older I get the less I feel I can follow spacetime concepts.
I love that veritasium has 20.1 million subscribers and still pump out high effort, high intelectual videos. It gives me hope that there are still many smart people out there and love math and physics.
Did I misunderstand the 2nd option? Isnt this the "non locality". But I imagine that his idea is a way to mathematically describe the non locality. Ignore the potential, and pass the electron through the field, and see if it shifts the phase the expected amount.
That video and experiment about particles exploring all possible path is in my opinion the best work of veritasium till now, even one of the best video in youtube history
@Phoenix-vz7qj It might be, but the concept is energy-wasting and see Curt Jurmungal video re all paths for a photon. Paths it seems to me are sorted into most probable or can you imagine the time and energy required?? Ridiculous.
@mienaikoe that's the exact opposite of what he meant lmao, it's because he didn't have the idea that potentials are negligible cemented as fact that he was seriously considering the question, someone who thinks they know everything will always know less than someone who wants to know more than they already do.
Well now I finally know what Penny was talking about when schooling Leonard about the "electric analog of the Aharanov-Bohm quantum interference effect"
Clarification: At 4:00 the plot shown here is not the combined gravitational potential but rather the "effective" potential of a two body system. The effective potential is the sum of the two gravitational potentials plus the centrifugal potential (which is why the surface curves down again when moving further from the sun)
Awesome, thanks for the clarification. I was wondering what was going on there. I was expecting it to be approaching a flat plane, not fall off like that.
Yes, right. And that's just one of the serious misleading pieces of information in this video. If I were to continue, if I ignore the somewhat vague use of the term "field" (it would be better to even just give a basic explanation of the terms field intensity and field potential), then for example: can there really be zero field intensity somewhere where there is non-zero potential? (isn't just a little bit of mathematics enough to refute this?). Then also: is it simply not clear enough after a little thought that even though a ferromagnetic core will draw in almost all the magnetic field, the difference between "almost all" and "completely all" will always be what matters. And finally, if the given effect were confirmed after all (why wouldn't it be confirmed, if there is a potential, there will also be a field), it would still be true that I still need a force to change the electron's path and good old physics still applies. And changing the phase of the probability wave of the particle's occurrence will only have interference effects, exactly as implied by the Schödinger equation, good to remember, but nothing so revolutionary.
@dannichols5010 not exactly. Its the experiment where you can know a bomb is live without exploding it even if any interaction with a live bomb explodes it. Yea, sounds insane.
Really clear explanation. What I love about this view is that it lines up with how modern quantum mechanics actually treats the wave function: ψ isn’t a little physical wave moving through space-it’s the architecture of potential. The measurable thing is the footprint left after interaction, not a particle traveling a definite trajectory. That’s why |ψ|² gives the probability pattern we see on the screen, exactly as educational sources describe it. Once you understand ψ this way-as a map of admissible outcomes-the whole “mystery” disappears. The wave function simply encodes the conditions under which different results become expressible, just like shown in videos calculating potential from the wave function itself. The ‘particle’ is just the trace left behind when one possibility is selected.
Physicist here. The key idea behind the Aharonov-Bohm effect is sorting out what is truly measurable in quantum physics. In quantum field theory, only gauge-invariant (independent of unphysical shifts of the potential) quantities can be observed. For a long time, we thought those were only local things like electric and magnetic fields. Aharonov and Bohm showed something deeper: there are also global, loop-based quantities that are perfectly physical. When an electron can go left or right around a solenoid, the measurable quantity isn’t what happens at a single point - it’s the whole loop formed by both paths. This loop quantity (called a Wilson loop) produces the famous phase shift. That’s why the effect feels “nonlocal”: it depends on the entire trajectory, not a single interaction. In that sense, it’s a topological effect. But here’s the twist: there is also a fully local explanation. In quantum field theory, this global phase can be understood as arising from an enormous number of tiny local interactions - an ongoing exchange of extremely low-energy (“soft”) virtual photons between the electron and the solenoid. Add them all up, and you recover the same phase. So the Aharonov-Bohm effect is both global in outcome and local in mechanism - two complementary views of the same physics.
I'm a mathematician with interest in holistic constructive foundation, due to exposure to Bohm's philosophy very early in the life. The "local" explanation suggested makes a constructive mathematician cringe. Way, way too much like "ghosts of departing magnitudes", and any case the computation power demanded from Cosmic computation slaps the Least Action Principle in the phace way, way too hard and ugly, beyond any reasonable slapstick. :) Instead of vector potential and gauge theory as currently formulated, the correct explanatory is to be found where the original motivation and prediction came from: Bohmian quantum potential Q aka active information from whole to parts. The "node problem" of 0/0 of the Q amplitude fraction becomes very lucid and productive in the operator language version of Stern-Brocot type quantum metric (replacing reductionistic "epistemic" probability theory with ontologically holistic theory of number- and measurement theory). In the operator language formalism, O/O is just the numerical value for the annihilation operator > and > < are the first mediant concatenations, mark time-symmetric motion outwards and inwards, as the arrows are visually pointing. As it happens, with simple tally algorithm we get 2-sided Stern-Brocot metric from the frame < >, and in > < the >< start to concatenate with their environment so that they start to generate fractions with values a/(b-1) relative to the Stern-Brocot coprime fractions a/b. The first "inwards deformation" relative to outwards motion is from 0/1 to 0/0. I can't go much further into details in the comment space (same foundational approach to Fractional Quantum Hall Effect is also beautifully illuminative), but any case Process Platonic ontology of the implicate order is ancient, valid and continuously productive explanatory theory in Natural Philosophy. Most importantly, it offers a coherent ontology, which is the a priori requirement of any coherent explanatory theory. Same can't be said about "epistemic theories" based on unscientific coordinate system dependent and/or point-reductionstic theory of mathematics, which is admittedly unscientific also according to Formalists, because it is actually ontologically impossible Zeno-paradox in any possible empirical world. To conclude: yes, something like "virtual particle" concatenation is involved, but the computational cosmic power required from the reductionistic direction is prohibitive in extremis and qualifies such explanation as nonsensical. On the other hand, the holistic top down perspective can perform the required computational interactions according to the Least Action Principle... and offers a holistic constructive theory of mathematics coherently with the holism of quantum phenomenology.
5:05 TIL potential energy doesn’t mean the energy that could happen, it means the energy of a separate thing called the potential. That actually makes a bunch of things make more sense now
I think it kind of works both ways. The potential energy of some system IS the energy that "could" be released to some other form. I think that's why they chose the word Potential to describe that quantity.
Potential Energy is stored energy. If you have a spring that you compress, there is energy stored in that spring that will become kinetic energy when the spring is allowed to release it.
I remember when I was a 2nd year student 13 years ago, and we were told about magnetic potential and that it seems to be just a mathematical trick, I was very suspicious and asked our professor about it. Then I was told about Aharonov-Bohm's effect and it sounded like a white spot on a scientific map of the nature laws. I even thought about an investigation in that field but then holography got my attention.. I couldn't even think about I would hear about this effect 13 years later, and would even see one of original investigation's authors. Thanks!
opened comments just to understand what the hell he was saying, the sudden change in manner of speech made it sound like those Winston Churchill speech memes
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2 hours ago on a 27 second old video?
Hi
😮
Bib
Legit this is such an important cause.
I admire Veritasium’s commitment to high level physics that I can’t follow.
hahaha, same here
Most of this goes over my head at warp speed. Still i watch... 😅
@ppark1229quantum speed!
thanks I was also confused, most of the videos until now I was able to follow but this is the first where Im lost. But I think this is also due to the fact that there is no easy entry in this topic. It was instantly going from 0 to 100. Hope Veritasium will figure out that most poeple need an easy intro where the problem itself is described more easily and then building up on that. This was missing here completely.
@PoisonNuke yeah i haven't been able to watch these videos for the past few years. everything is just ridiculous. i dislike every video not because i dont enjoy it but because there is 0 explanation whatsoever.
I want to live in scientifically exciting times, not geopolitically exciting times.
Edit: People have misunderstood me because I didn't say it properly. I don't mean that we don't live in scientifically/technologically exciting times, but that I don't like the geopolitics clouding it and potentially threatening it.
Edit: Yes I understand there is a strong correlation but I was expressing desire for the ideal. No practical reason why it can't happen. The closer we move to the ideal the better.
Well, fortunately or unfortunately, those two things heavily influence each other
The geopolitics are not exciting. They just amass and arouse fear while impeding the potential of science
@NameNik223 Indeed, there will be huge advances in military and subsequently civilian engineering. Much like the speed at which things advanced during the cold war. After the cold war it was largely computing technology that advanced, but now we are going to see huge advances in air, sea, undersea travel, healthcare, and weaponry the likes of which we saw during the cold war. Its both an exciting and terrifying time to be alive.
well the most scientifically exciting times were also the most geopolitically exciting times
You are living in scientifically exciting times,
Physics casually showing that even nothing can mess with your life.
Becasue "nothing" is something and nothing is not existent.
@EbefrenRevo brilliant answer
Read "wife", was confused.
I have nothing on my bank account right now. It messes with my happiness. You're completely correct.
When doing nothing is actually doing something.
"The first reaction is that its wrong. The second is that its obvious" is one of the most underrated quotes i've ever seen. Pure genius
It's kind of a riff on Schopenhauer's "First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
You got me rock hard; thank you, Brother!
The titles don't change, they are in a superposition until someone observes them.
Schroedingers title
and thumnail too.
Outer Wilds
Well, funnily enough, you not that far from the truth lol, it's called A/B testing. It's working not just for thumbnails but titles too
I observed the other one.. Greetings from a parallel universe!
Seeing Euler and hearing "failed" at the same time is kinda bizarre
Like Captain America losing the 1v1 against Thanos
Only to have it turn out that the problem was impossible. Lol. Classic Euler.
He also failed to prove the sine product formula, so his solution to the Basel problem was incomplete technically
Oiler
Euler's Bizarre Adventures
I was here before Casper got a Nobel for his idea at the end of the video.
lmao same
but yeah crazy idea by him
I've been thinking that the concept of infinite paths implies non-locality for a while...or rather, we are only capable of observing 1 path of many, so the effects of those invisible paths will always lead to behavior that appears non-local. No? Isn't "non-local behavior" just our way of saying "we can't see how these things are actually connected, so we believe they aren't"?
The very concept of locality implies influence. Why don't we call these things equivalent? "If things are influencing each other, they are inherently local." We just don't always know the nature of such influences because we're thinking meat. They're probably quite local from a different perspective.
My conclusion from this was that Casper is actually in camp 2. Yes, it's non-local, but only by appearance, because nothing is truly non-local (according to this new definition of locality). Casper's reference to the infinite paths of particles would then qualify as a description of a perspective that explains the apparent non-locality, rather than a refutation of camp 2. At the same time, this would mean that camp 2 is not claiming non-locality, but rather, classifying our current understanding as incapable of spotting where the locality is.
Honestly I feel like the implications of the wave functions "exploring" every path is really far-reaching, I hope videos like these inspire new discoveries in physics
@Hextator I am probably misunderstanding both concepts as a whole, but in regards to the non-locality; the concepts in the video (& the one he references his theory on) and the equations & simplifications made to get them are ways of us taking these 3 dimensional problems and simplifying them into the 2nd dimension to better visualize & understand them. Now in the sense of particles exploring 'other & all' options what is the potential relation of THOSE simplifications being us trying to simply influence happening potentially in a higher 4th+ dimensional space that we inherently cant observer affecting our 3rd dimensional observations in our 2nd dimension simplifications? Once again I'm probably inherently misunderstanding something but just a thought.
@Hextator "not claiming non-locality, but rather, classifying our current understanding as incapable of spotting where the locality is." That is how I feel. Couldn't have worded it better. Well written.
I clicked for 'Tiny Donut', boy was I in over my head.
same lol.. stil, no ragerts
Not even one letter?
That brings to mind a very disturbing image of being over one’s head in a doughnut fryer! 😬
I misread this title as “we still don’t understand magnesium” and got about 11 minutes in before I realized “I don’t think this is about magnesium”
Haahahahah 😂❤ made me laugh a lot, thx
Hahaha and I just kept re-reading your comment and checking the title back and forth, going "wait, WHAT? It's not 'we still don't understand _magnetism'"._ I moved onto "don't understand"; that maybe the title was about _understanding_ or _how we came to understand_ magnetism. Not the negative form of the title as I originally thought. And, finally... that ✨️ *magnesium* ✨️ hit, revealing that one line from a particular actor "NEVER go full retard". As I just had.
That line loops as I analyze what a spectator with the context I missed in the moment might perceive haha. Have a good one, yo!
That's a funny idea. We understand every element to a deep degree, but magnesium is the one we just can't crack. Just magnesium
It was about rubidium for a minute there
I thought it was a Dexter episode
I don't know why, but seeing Oppenheimer in a non-oppenheimer veritasium video felt like some sort of MCU cameo 😅
the way they did the hat thing too before saying his name, that's totally on purpose
Imagining physicists as MCU universe is wild. Those are the superheroes we need and something I'd be willing to watch 😀
@mariowanka8457 "No ! It can't be... ! is-is that J. Robert Oppenheimer ?"
@ImRezaF Naruhodo, Bohm-kun
True 😂😂😂😂
Very special to get Aharonov on the video. The man is a living legend and I hope we get to keep hearing him for a little bit longer
A mathematical trick, used to simplify physics problems, unexpectedly reveals a deeper truth about reality. The video explores the history of potentials, from Lagrange to Aharonov-Bohm, challenging long-held beliefs about fundamental forces. This journey through physics history culminates in a surprising experiment.
@karma6628bot
@karma6628holy dead internet theory
@karma6628 AI type beat
@karma6628 Thanks, ChatGPT
"sometimes it's good to not know too much" so very true.
Ignorance is bliss
Veritasium: 'It’s actually quite easy to get a feel for.'
Me: Cries in scalar potential while questioning reality.
Yeah, no. No no no no no no no. No way am I going to even remotely grasp this from this video lol
Don't be so 1-dimensional. It's sometimes best to explore altenative paths. :)
@RaoBlackWellizedArman aight, imma explore ℝⁿ then
@captain_splabberz7799 Try to stay on the boundary; that’s where you’re most likely to find the interesting stuff.
The good news: you’ll be orthogonal to almost everything.
The bad news: you’re still cursed by dimensionality.
As a phd physicist and educator, I am adamantly against ever using the word "easy", especially when you get as deep as quantum.
0:41 "This experiment split physics community in two". I started to wonder wheatear the community behaved more like a particle or more like a wave after that split?
😂
Both a particle and a wave, on occasion interchangeable
@narrowisthegate4790I love the fact this question is far more important than intended because I honestly think about light in the same way as this question obviously the physics community isn’t a wave or a particle but it can act like both so why can’t light be something besides a wave or a particle but act like both
@mustangthekitten7765well, essentially that has been proven about light, for the most part. It is indeed a particle, as observed in its photons,in behavior it is a wave...
This has an implication that light is a physical entity, though no mass can be shown...
We still have a long way on many things.
The Constants used in Psychology are Irrational.
15:50 thanks for the shoutout! :)
You're the man Rich!!! Would love to see Veritasium collab with you!!!
DAAAAYUMM
I love your work richard. Please keep making videos.
Great idea. And glad they were able to execute it
@flatmap that would be cool! I had a call with them a while ago to help with some math for one of their videos. That was a cool experience, even though it was behind the scenes. I’d definitely be open to collaborate. Veritasium is great.
The whiplash from Casper in that living room set to Derek out in the woods in the middle of the night keeps cracking me up
Bro rambling to the camera in his backyard after dark like a madman. lol
I was thinking, imagine being his neighbor and just hearing your neighbor ramble at full volume in the dark about obscure science
@im9550 Looks like he is going for that Wolverine beard look too. Not quite sinister looking yet, but slowly getting there 😂
😂
@raifsevrence Yeah that beard tuft was killing me every time they went back to that shot. Great video though!
@im9550he would become my new best friend
"The first reaction to this work is that it's wrong. The second is that it's obvious." is such a physicist thing to say.
"[It]is realer - whatever that means" is such a quantum physicist to say 😛
I believe we observe things in a way that SEEMS like they're all exploring all possible "paths" at once, however we just still don't know what is acting upon them to explain the differences in their average paths.
Once we know everything that that interacts with particles, we'll be able to predict those paths very well every time.
I believe there's still a lot we don't know about quantum mechanics, from how fields interact with eachother, possibly to possible fields we don't even know about.
I was like that's a bar😭🥀
😭😭💯💯
"A is as real as B - realer" is the more crazy one! 😭🙏
I like how the way this is filmed makes it seem like Derek forgot to record his talking head part of the script, and then had to frantically do it at 11:30 p.m. in his backyard 😂
I thought the same! 😂
How do we know that isn't what actually happened? 😂😂
is Derek the Narrator who looks like he's turning into Wolverine? 🤔😁
The kids are asleep, it's time to film!
Those parts weren’t recorded a week or so ago when they shared an early version of this video on their Patreon, so you might not be wrong 😂
His ending words "sometimes it's good not to know to much" could also be stated sometimes it's good not to BELIEVE to much.
I love this shift to making videos that cater more towards technical physics, I think the magnitude to which things are simplified in your videos strike a great balance.
Agree
A mathematical trick, used to simplify physics problems, unexpectedly reveals a deeper truth about reality. The video explores the history of potentials, from Lagrange to Aharonov-Bohm, challenging long-held beliefs about fundamental forces. This journey through physics history culminates in a surprising experiment.
Na they've gone a bit too mathy on this one
Completely disagree. These videos have become virtually incomprehensible for the layman, which is not good for views. I'm starting to consider unsubbing
@user-uq4gr5nl5o Veritasium is growing, so they can publish more frequently. This way, they can produce accessible videos at the same old rate while also throwing in some technical ones. They're also utilizing their powerful animation crew who can visualize math concepts that would be even less comprehensible with only hand gestures or spinning basketballs alone.
Hello Derek, you probably won't see this comment, I'm one of your loyal viewers from Morocco.
Thank you for making science accessible to people from all walks of Earth, you are a very hard working man, and so is your team which also deserves a lot of credit.
I have enjoyed watching this channel grow from home physics to National Geographics levels of production.
We understand the struggle of balancing work and life, so I was pleasantly surprised seeing your face in this video.
I really hope this comment somehow reaches you, because you matter more than you could possibly know.
You did teach me an invaluable lesson: If you don't know the answer to a question, it's okay to say we don't know, YET.
Thank you for all you have done, you are the best ambassador to science, may you live a prosperous life, and as Michael from Vsauce used to say, you don't die until your name is muttered one last time, I make sure to share your videos with anyone with a willing ear.
Much love from a stranger from a far away land.
Love this comment, Im also from Morocco man!
Commenting to boost
Replying so hopefully Veritasium will see your comment.
Nadiii 🇲🇦
Sorry buddy he doesn’t own this channel anymore
"Oh nice, Will Thomson, an undergrad developing new calculation methods for electrical fields" >Photo of him old "LORD KELVIN?"
PERRY the Platypus?
Nobody expects Lord Kelvin!
Oh man, you should go watch Jon Bois's recent documentary series on the telegraph network. Not only is it phenomenal, but the way Kelvin is portrayed as a character in that story - similarly without revealing him as Lord Kelvin until later - it's just glorious.
And you also learn to despise Samuel Morse, which is a good thing.
@seanbrannon9327 Lord Kelvin was cool.. in fact, he was absolutely cool!
@acasualviewer5861 good one!
So basically the three body problem is a love triange and trying to solve it is basically every soap opera.
Yes - equally unsolvable 😊
This is the first time I have ever understood why Lagrange points work
That illustration was awesome!
No one ever mentions the Trojans and the Greeks, the asteroids that hang out around the Lagrange points of the Sun-Jupiter system.
Really? How is the simple description of it being where the gravitational forces cancel out not obvious?
@zachjordan6846 because it is the difference between saying e=mc2 is obvious vs actually understanding the dynamics that goes into each of the terms and why it interacts the way it does. Everybody understands things differently, and your comment comes across as a bit rude.
same! i don't know why physics textbooks can't be as clear about it as this video was, an it's not often i give praise like this
2:12 When I see a problem, I see Euler failed as well. I'm like, yeah, that's probably impossible to solve.
Yeah, but not as common as you may think. Didn't Euler basically involve himself in everything almost? He's bound to statistically fail at numerous problems even if they aren't that hard.
@c.jishnu378 No, the stuff (well, the math stuff) that Euler failed at is pretty consistently hard. It's not all literally impossible (that would be an exaggeration), but it's pretty much all difficult problems.
A fair amount of the stuff he solved was pretty tricky too, probably because if it was trivial or obvious, he usually didn't bother remarking on it.
His reputation *might* be a little overblown, but if so, it's because he lived in a particularly critical time for mathematics, when the ongoing research was still relatively foundational, but was opening up a lot of new areas per unit time. Too much earlier, and not enough was yet known to let you get into as wide a variety of interesting branches of math. Too much later, and the foundations of most of those interesting branches of math had been laid already.
@jonadabtheunsightly Euler's contribution is anything but overblown. They literally had to start naming formulas after the _second_ person that discovered them because everything was just named after Euler. If you don't know who discovered something, it's _statistically_ likely either Euler or one of the Bernoulli's discovered it. If he didn't discover it, he was at least furthering the field. Like, literally, there is a statistically not insignificant chance that if you answer "Euler" to "Who discovered this" that you are ACTUALLY right.
Still, there are famous problems that got solved later after him like Fermat's last theorem. He tried to solve it but failed and it was indeed really hard, but solvable. Euler was not just in a mathematically interesting time, he was in a COMPLETELY different universe when it came to mathematics. Some of his most difficult problems were tackled by him in his later years when he had gone completely blind - meaning he was solving complex integrals in his head without even having a way to note anything down - and it still turned out correct. That time is where a majority of his literary output came from.
@jonadabtheunsightly I meant that the problems he couldn't solve weren't that much harder or sometimes even easier than the ones he did.
Also he ain't overblown, like Gaus.
Congratulations, you were correct
The fact that a donut-shaped magnet and a piece of iron 500 times thinner than a hair settled a 50-year debate is peak science
A mathematical trick, used to simplify physics problems, unexpectedly reveals a deeper truth about reality. The video explores the history of potentials, from Lagrange to Aharonov-Bohm, challenging long-held beliefs about fundamental forces. This journey through physics history culminates in a surprising experiment.
My title is: When a math trick turns out to be real
@karma6628 AI comment
@oathmus that just keeps happening in physics!
@thewhitefalcon8539 The API you are trying to reach has been rate-limited. Please try again later.
The Donut Experiment should have been done without the coating first.
This video is one of my favourites! It would have been so easy to simply “remind” viewers what electric potential is and move on. But instead, as always, you dove into the history…who first planted the seeds of the idea and what motivated them in the first place. I’ve taught electric potential many times, but I had never once stopped to think about its origins. That historical perspective completely set the stage for everything that followed. Truly inspired by the writing.
Oh hey
Didn't expect you here :-)
Big fan
floatheadphysics the goat himself
Kind of like your video, ain't it? Delving into rules,origins and making learning fun for me and to 630K people
Yooooooooooooo
Love your videos 🥹
You got something on your nose there
Casper: "I maybe have a third interpretation"
Prof. Kaiser with no hesitation whatsoever: "Good!"
This interaction is invaluable. Science is this: open minds with no fear of new ideas.
I second what you just said!
😊
It is the very basis with which I built EPEMC
If it was Gordon Ramsay: "You are an idiot sandwich!"
Add to that “I’m pretty sure this is not the complete answer but one thing that would be cool is…
… if someone gets inspire…” Science
Magnets- how do they work?🎶🕺💃🎶
They didn't want to hear from no scientist though
People used to laugh at me when I said that it was a good question
the music note and dancing emoji suggest you know ICPs song.
@MobiusHexx🛎️🛎️🛎️ding ding ding
they were right all along
Veritasium and Kurzgesagt - In a Nutshell are the best two reasons to watch YT.
Don't forget PBS spacetime!
Add Mathologer, Number file and Mentour Pilot. Another good one is Lang Focus.
Not to mention melodysheep, Branch Education, History of (the Earth, the Universe, Humankind), 3Blue1Brown, The Efficient Engineer, Quanta Magazine, just to name a couple
Rating this down for not being uploaded 13 years ago when I would have needed it most in university … I’m genuinely mad
Don’t get mad, buddy. Just enjoy the part that how it happened to you
😄
So you're saying... even though the video didn't exist, the potential for this video is affecting you?
@arooobine hahaa suits soo well 😂💯
@arooobine I think you might be ON TO SOMETHING! A metaphor of the potential in the real world. It's kind of a want or lack of something, that influences actions/occurrences. Exactly like the Bohm-Aharonov effect.
A field would actually exert a force. But a potential signifies FEASIBILITY. Maybe THAT is enough for change, starting from the quantum level- the spooky effect at a distance (NON-LOCAL 🤯)!!
I started watching veritasium when I was in middle school, now I am in my 4th year of studying electrical engineering where I learned about the topics such as euler-lagrange equations and field theory.
I love how the channel evolved into discussing more advanced topics about physics as my education level advanced too.
Legit what a blessing
If you want another channel that’s a perfect mix of advanced and explaining I love PBS SpaceTime
me too, except I still have no clue about mathematics and physics since I'm in agriculture lmao
@naufalap
Same lol, I'm like running through my physics II knowledge from undergrad and it isn't cutting it
same, graduated a semester early in civil. Inspires me to want to learn more even now when im out of school.
Here whilst the title is “This Tiny Donut (Almost) Broke Physics in 1986“
Now it's "When a math trick turns out to be real"
the correct title
I'm seeing "The Time We Learned Particles Can Be Affected By Nothing "
And now it's "The Time We Learned Particles Can Be Affected By Nothing"
@juliasophical Why is it changing?
Einstein said it so well - every significant mathematical object, is actually also a physical object. One of the best Veritasiums ever, thank you!
Except that he was wrong. An electromagnetic field is not a physical object. It is an emergent phenomenon.
Emergent phenomena are complex, large-scale properties or behaviors that arise from the collective interactions of simple parts, which those individual parts do not possess on their own.
The foundational force of the universe is NOT gravity
It is electromagnetism.
(Einstein was re-reading Velikovsky's "worlds in collision" when he passed btw)
@edword3457 That's all nice and very charming, even though you know that you're being pedantic - I enjoy the laugh. You know what I mean, and what Einstein meant - that mathematical objects actually correspond to physical manifestations, whether we speak of matter, fields or any other emergent phenomena. The point that I am making - and that Einstein made - is that the interlocking fit of mathematical expressions that we rely on to make coherent sense of physics and the universe, are not accounting niceties, some sort of mathematical sleight of hand - that they have actual import in the physical world, they they correspond to real things that, if they are amenable to measurement, we can measure.
"The foundational force of the universe is NOT gravity" - nobody knows why are you introducing that idea - who said that? Only you brought it in.
Very interesting if it's really true that he was reading Velikovsky when he passed. Attribution?
Thanks for your note and reading mine, in any case. I know what you mean, and if you drop the perhaps a little bit too much pedantic approach, I bet you know what I mean; if you can't flex that far, no problem either. The basic correspondence of math and universe, and Einstein's perceptivity are magnificent. no matter what.
@johal5908
As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.
~Albert Einstein
My pedantic assertion was in jest on a superficial level, yet in terms of our deeper non-understanding of magnetism I believe we both understand the importance of intensely scrutinizing scientific inquiry.
In brief- magnetism cannot ever be understood in context alone.
It can only be framed in concert with electricity. Thus- electromagnetism must be taken in total, so the very title of this Veritasium is misleading at best, and wholly deceptive at worse.
My further assertion that electromagnetism being the foundational force of the universe should be clear in that it encompasses the "four foundational" forces of the universe into one neat package and places gravity in its true place as in infinitesimally weak force incapable of keeping planets and galaxies in order at such great distances.
Einstein was aware of the shortcomings of generally and special relatively, yet he has been erroneously defied by the modern priests of scientism as infallible.
I really appreciate your response and the opportunity to frame my thoughts in this discussion.
Lastly- for your consideration, When Albert Einstein passed away on April 18, 1955, a German translation of Immanuel Velikovsky’s controversial book, Worlds in Collision, was found open on his desk.
Einstein had been studying Velikovsky's theories-which proposed that Venus was ejected from Jupiter and caused ancient cosmic catastrophes-and found them to be thought-provoking, despite the book being heavily criticized by mainstream scientists.
The New York Times
Key Details Regarding the Discovery:
Context: The book was on his desk at Princeton on the day he died, highlighting his interest in alternative cosmological theories, even as he was working on his own unified field theory.
Annotations: Einstein's annotations on the text indicated that he believed some of Velikovsky's assertions were worthy of consideration or at least provocative.
Relationship: Velikovsky and Einstein were friends and Jewish emigres in Princeton, and Velikovsky had previously asked Einstein to review his research.
Content of the Book: Worlds in Collision suggests that Venus was once a comet, which caused immense damage by shifting Earth's orbit, a premise that clashed with conventional physics
I gotta write this down before I dehydrate
Finally a reference to the three body problem books
use yellow calibration chart to monitor your hydration!
gng what
@Bondrewd_The_Sovereign_Of_Drip The books were so good. The show can never live up unfortunately. The first season was good, but it's never gonna be as good as the books.
@LeonGerity watch the chinese version of the show. not the netflix adaption
After 0:20, I couldn’t understand a single sentence, yet somehow these kinds of videos are so addictive to watch.
He is really good at convincing us we understand more than we do. Lol. The math behind this stuff is absolutely ridiculous.
Same here. Watched till the end anyway. 😊
my brain accepted that "potentials" were a maths trick... then the video did a 180 and told me these were NOT maths tricks. now my brain is confused about what the actual heck "potentials" are after all.
@alveolate if it makes you feel better, it seems like the physics community also is confused on what exactly potentials are
@richhobo1216 that... is somehow worse? xD
The first reaction to this is that it's 'wrong.' The second is that it's 'obvious.' :)
🥲🥲🥲
Wrong enough to be correct. That's flexibility...😊
That's a little how I felt about Casper's interpretation.
That feeling, where you can almost feel your brain rewiring itself to accept that what was impossible is suddenly obvious, is one of my favorite things about studying physics.
"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it" - Max Planck
I didn't understand any of it but was fascinated by all of it.
14:05 Missed opportunity to say “he saw potential in his theory about potentials”
His potentials definitely had potential!
Potentially
A😊uch😂
"he moved to Israel but everyone thought his ideas were unorthodox" is kinda accidentally hilarious.
Excellent Jewish humour, intentional or not.
LMFAO.
Bit of obvious trivia these days, though, is that Israel is pretty SECULAR, despite all of the religious lore.
But it's still waiting for Europe to give the green flag for another crusade instead of tying one of its hands behind its back.
If I was intelligent I would never go to Israel!! Bruh I don't understand why He would ever go there!! There is so many other places of Seldom for Scientists!! Like Rome(Italy) or France, United Kingdom, Russia (altho 5 decades ago I would think Russians are Natzi as heck not trusting foreigners)
So Why Israel? Why a Jewish country I am really confused so many countries around the world prosecute faithful nations!! Same thing about Brazil.. There is nothing in Brazil it's a respectable country and respectable Race of humans but I don't feel any obsession coming from Brazil that has the essence of "Timeless contribution to humanity" it's just a outpost of the Living!!
Maybe Go to Asian country but Asians are no better they are Natzi too they dislike foreigners 5 decades ago 😅 Singapore, Bangladesh are probably "Timeless and rich" now but what about 80+ years ago, Going to a Arab Emirates or any Arab country is probably even worse cuz I bet half the population grows up with mindset of a bandit.. heck 80% of the world's Children **grow up with the mindset of a Bandit** without good education.😢😢 Improvement of Education and Poverty helps but does not grant Human nature itself true wisdom! Improvement of Upbringing is Key to Higher Quality Able Minded Humans first and foremost!!
His ideas were promised to him to be unorthodox 4000 years ago.
Watching a 30-minute video to understand why a "tiny donut" is gaslighting the physics community. :)
I didn’t understand much, but the scientists seemed in agreement to findings. I’ll listen again. Thank you.
"Sometimes is good not to know too much", brilliant sentence from a genius. I love this videos where knowledge is pushed to the limit.
“Sometimes it’s good not to know too much”. That’s my life’s motto. And it’s working great!
"Ignorance: there is no authority in the world like it." - Orson Welles
if you know that''' you already know too much...
careful, if you know too much, you might become omniscient, and that would just bore you to death.
Casper casually presenting an explanatory theory on a Zoom call is so heartwarming! So smart
I feel like often professional scientists can get tunnelled in their own specialty or field, so that someone a bit more general, who is exposed to more fields, can see a different perspective
@narvuntien yes that is how a lot of major discoveries happend
@narvuntien So... even if someone isn't within the field, they still have potential and can affect results?
@arooobinesure, but they should do so humbly and with caution. Too many climate denying physicsts
We debated a fair bit whether to include this in the video or not. But in the end, we made the decision it's fun to include some personal takes. Even if we're not 100% sure. (We just wanted to make sure it was clear that it's just an hypothesis!)
An infinitely long solenoid might have no "theoretical magnetic field outside of the coil", but it still has current progressing along the axis of the coil which produces a magnetic field outside of the coil.
My first reaction - that I could understand this video - was wrong; my second reaction - that I could NOT understand this video - was obvious.
DEREK WHO IS FORCING YOU TO STAND OUT INFRONT OF A SPOTLIGHT?!
now im imagining a gang of kidnappers (balaclavas, dark leather outfits, the works) tying Derek up and throwing him into the back of an SUV...half an hour of driving later, and they stop in an empty field and dump him out...
...then they throw their college thesis at him and tell him to read it, on-camera...
Today's newspaper!
He's talking in codes, i think they're holding him hostage near a Dunking Donuts...
@rtyuik7empty field you say...
@naufalapwell, yknow, not some busy city intersection; not next to a babbling brook or droopy-vined trees...
6:30 Bro is wolverine
was looking for this comment, had the same thought😂
Derek is influenced by Heinrich (the physicist he introduces)!
@bluesque9687 yeah was going to say that but forgot to write
tring to at least, but well, it's meh
@XaruSvensson why your profile pic is of an insect
A brilliant mind says, sometimes it is good not to know too much LOL.
33:06 crazy dopamine hit
Anyone else seeing a countdown in their field of vision recently?
I appreciate the reference
I skip ahead multiples of 10 seconds until the video resumes. Yeah, I don’t get the reference..
No, but my bedroom turned into a painting this morning and it's growing.
@thickfingersw.1730Shit. How long do I have to live?
@SimonBrisbane3 body problem
I was fortunate enough to hear Bohm speak on the Aharonov-Bohm Effect in Cambridge when I was a physics undergraduate - in 1986. What undeserved riches I've had in my life.
nah, you didn't get to live through the entire sixties. (I think)
Don't mind me guys, I'm just pretending to watch something smart in front of my girl. Now im also typing like I'm adding something to the conversation. I have no idea whats going on lol
Honestly... Same
I didn't understand most of this but I nodded along
1:43 the real reason valve hasn't released hl3 yet
14:35 this interview made me realize just how recent most of our technological advancements are. We're basically living in ancient history for what is about to come in the future.
I think about this too. We have only very recently discovered everything that we know
1000% We are simultaneously lucky and unlucky to be riding the steep tangent part of the 'human exponential'. For hundreds of thousands of years it would've all been the same until BAM, five or six centuries ago with the science and technology feedback loop (but it _really_ kicked off with farming six or so millenia ago, but progress was sloooow)
Yeah, if we don't fork it up
@ariadnavezuvian8458 let me give you a quick rundown of news in the past week,
We forked up
We haven't even put to use many of the interesting effects that scientists have discovered in the past 100 years (Aharanov-Bohm effect being one of them). For example most discovered particles are not technologically used: we use mostly the electron, photon (light and radio waves) and complete atoms, but we don't use neutrinos, muons, etc. We do use the free neutron occasionally. Of the four fundamental forces we (gravity, electromagentism, weak nuclear and strong nuclear force) we only use the first two.
Also many of the chemical elements are not used (although I heard semicon experts say that modern semicon manufacturing uses half the periodic table).
So there is quite a lot of "material" to be exploited technologically, waiting for an opportunity.
One of the biggest complements Feynman could give was probably, "why didn't I think of that?"
I watch a lot of this channel. I often don’t understand what’s being explained. This is the most lost I’ve been by a video on this channel by a mile.
Relativity is illogical by definition, so don't worry about it. Everything is measured against the lab frame in real life. Stationary Earth lab frame, in all practical applications, is what is used. In Everything from laser interferometry to Newton’s bucket, even solving the Faraday paradox, an absolute Lab frame fluid aether model will give you the right answer. Their abandonment of this paradigm is philosophical, because a stationary Earth has implications. Especially in the light of the cosmic microwave background, pun intended, I digress.
Basically they are saying they found, and proved existence of, a hitherto undetectable, natural field. This field is something of a ghost because it contains no forces but can still influence electron beam distributions -- among many other more abstract measurements.
same
It's some field theory, so if you're not familiar with it, you can have a very hard time. It basically shows that you can express gravitational, electric, and magnetic force fields with a new concept called potential. Gravitational potential is the easiest to understand, because you can map the potential in space, and tell that things tend to go from the places of higher potential (far from a planet's surface) to places of lower potential (a planet's surface). The point is that outside a coil with a current, the magnetic force field cancels out, but that doesn't mean that the potential is zero, because the force is caused by the variation of potential, not by the value of the potential itself. In many cases we can't give a use to the value of the potential field itself, we can only use the variation for our calculations, so in this experiment, they tried to create a magnetic potential field without it creating a magnetic force field, so they could measure the influence of the potential and not the force itself. It's actually hard to explain if you haven't used potentials to calculate fields. This is something you learn by playing with the equations and using them
There used to be a high level TV math course back in the 1980's which I'd listen to as a pre-teen half asleep in the morning before school and this brought back that memory. I didn't understand much about it. And the older I get the less I feel I can follow spacetime concepts.
I love that veritasium has 20.1 million subscribers and still pump out high effort, high intelectual videos. It gives me hope that there are still many smart people out there and love math and physics.
I don't love it. I just need it.
Wow, Casper. That's a really clever third option. I feel like when there are debates over possibilities, and a third option ends up being the answer.
Dont forget about multiverse and superdeterministic interpretations. Veritasium have already made a bunch of videos about the same matter
Did I misunderstand the 2nd option? Isnt this the "non locality".
But I imagine that his idea is a way to mathematically describe the non locality.
Ignore the potential, and pass the electron through the field, and see if it shifts the phase the expected amount.
That video and experiment about particles exploring all possible path is in my opinion the best work of veritasium till now, even one of the best video in youtube history
Wtf, someone else basically has the same comment as you...
@Phoenix-vz7qj It might be, but the concept is energy-wasting and see Curt Jurmungal video re all paths for a photon. Paths it seems to me are sorted into most probable or can you imagine the time and energy required?? Ridiculous.
The explanation is really very simple. It's magic.
The video title is in superposition
Here whilst the title is When a math trick turns out to be real 😂
Well now the title is "The Time We Learned Particles Can Be Affected By Nothing"
Now it's "This Tiny Donut (Almost) Broke Physics in 1986"
Now it's "We still don't understand magnetism"
Thats a perfect way to end a video, "Sometimes its good not to know too much..."
Bro is not getting smarter everyday
There is wisdom in knowing nothing-potential is everywhere. Always. ❤
@mienaikoe that's the exact opposite of what he meant lmao, it's because he didn't have the idea that potentials are negligible cemented as fact that he was seriously considering the question, someone who thinks they know everything will always know less than someone who wants to know more than they already do.
14:47 that subtle atmospheric music is soo good❤❤
32:55 Very important self-correction! The wave function "explores" all possible paths, NOT the particle!
What is the particle if not the wave function?
@michaelsommers2356its definitely not the wave function.
So thatd be a good start.
That's because the particle can only exist once it's been observed and that 'collapses' the wave function.
@russellbailey8250That "collapse" is a model shorthand, not reality.
The professor was being so nice to him. 😂
Well now I finally know what Penny was talking about when schooling Leonard about the "electric analog of the Aharanov-Bohm quantum interference effect"
Gregor and Casper explaining things together is great
agreed!
I was seeing this got 171K views and thought "wow, theres a lot of smart people out there". Then I realized "I" was watching it.
When they said it was infinite length, I wondered why they didn't just make it a closed loop torus instead
that's a very rare insight!
Clarification: At 4:00 the plot shown here is not the combined gravitational potential but rather the "effective" potential of a two body system. The effective potential is the sum of the two gravitational potentials plus the centrifugal potential (which is why the surface curves down again when moving further from the sun)
For more info, one ahould look up Roche Potentials.
Awesome, thanks for the clarification. I was wondering what was going on there. I was expecting it to be approaching a flat plane, not fall off like that.
Thanks, that helped ma a lot
Yes, right. And that's just one of the serious misleading pieces of information in this video. If I were to continue, if I ignore the somewhat vague use of the term "field" (it would be better to even just give a basic explanation of the terms field intensity and field potential), then for example: can there really be zero field intensity somewhere where there is non-zero potential? (isn't just a little bit of mathematics enough to refute this?). Then also: is it simply not clear enough after a little thought that even though a ferromagnetic core will draw in almost all the magnetic field, the difference between "almost all" and "completely all" will always be what matters. And finally, if the given effect were confirmed after all (why wouldn't it be confirmed, if there is a potential, there will also be a field), it would still be true that I still need a force to change the electron's path and good old physics still applies. And changing the phase of the probability wave of the particle's occurrence will only have interference effects, exactly as implied by the Schödinger equation, good to remember, but nothing so revolutionary.
So awesome getting Strogatz for an interview
Wonderful physics talk. Thanks all!
I'm very happy that my professor for vector analysis mentioned the aharonov bohm effect
Next weird topic: Elitzur-Vaidman bomb tester
It's that the quantum bomb hypothetical that would imply information travels back in time?
@dannichols5010 not exactly. Its the experiment where you can know a bomb is live without exploding it even if any interaction with a live bomb explodes it.
Yea, sounds insane.
That midroll ad is one i feel inclined not to skip. So cool!
"Sometimes its good not to know too much" ....wonderful close.....
Seems like I won't be going to sleep for the next 35 minutes
Late night core
and now it's 2am
Lol same
Really clear explanation. What I love about this view is that it lines up with how modern quantum mechanics actually treats the wave function: ψ isn’t a little physical wave moving through space-it’s the architecture of potential. The measurable thing is the footprint left after interaction, not a particle traveling a definite trajectory. That’s why |ψ|² gives the probability pattern we see on the screen, exactly as educational sources describe it.
Once you understand ψ this way-as a map of admissible outcomes-the whole “mystery” disappears. The wave function simply encodes the conditions under which different results become expressible, just like shown in videos calculating potential from the wave function itself. The ‘particle’ is just the trace left behind when one possibility is selected.
Physicist here. The key idea behind the Aharonov-Bohm effect is sorting out what is truly measurable in quantum physics.
In quantum field theory, only gauge-invariant (independent of unphysical shifts of the potential) quantities can be observed. For a long time, we thought those were only local things like electric and magnetic fields.
Aharonov and Bohm showed something deeper: there are also global, loop-based quantities that are perfectly physical. When an electron can go left or right around a solenoid, the measurable quantity isn’t what happens at a single point - it’s the whole loop formed by both paths. This loop quantity (called a Wilson loop) produces the famous phase shift.
That’s why the effect feels “nonlocal”: it depends on the entire trajectory, not a single interaction. In that sense, it’s a topological effect.
But here’s the twist: there is also a fully local explanation. In quantum field theory, this global phase can be understood as arising from an enormous number of tiny local interactions - an ongoing exchange of extremely low-energy (“soft”) virtual photons between the electron and the solenoid. Add them all up, and you recover the same phase.
So the Aharonov-Bohm effect is both global in outcome and local in mechanism - two complementary views of the same physics.
I'm a mathematician with interest in holistic constructive foundation, due to exposure to Bohm's philosophy very early in the life. The "local" explanation suggested makes a constructive mathematician cringe. Way, way too much like "ghosts of departing magnitudes", and any case the computation power demanded from Cosmic computation slaps the Least Action Principle in the phace way, way too hard and ugly, beyond any reasonable slapstick. :)
Instead of vector potential and gauge theory as currently formulated, the correct explanatory is to be found where the original motivation and prediction came from: Bohmian quantum potential Q aka active information from whole to parts. The "node problem" of 0/0 of the Q amplitude fraction becomes very lucid and productive in the operator language version of Stern-Brocot type quantum metric (replacing reductionistic "epistemic" probability theory with ontologically holistic theory of number- and measurement theory).
In the operator language formalism, O/O is just the numerical value for the annihilation operator > and > < are the first mediant concatenations, mark time-symmetric motion outwards and inwards, as the arrows are visually pointing.
As it happens, with simple tally algorithm we get 2-sided Stern-Brocot metric from the frame < >, and in > < the >< start to concatenate with their environment so that they start to generate fractions with values a/(b-1) relative to the Stern-Brocot coprime fractions a/b. The first "inwards deformation" relative to outwards motion is from 0/1 to 0/0.
I can't go much further into details in the comment space (same foundational approach to Fractional Quantum Hall Effect is also beautifully illuminative), but any case Process Platonic ontology of the implicate order is ancient, valid and continuously productive explanatory theory in Natural Philosophy. Most importantly, it offers a coherent ontology, which is the a priori requirement of any coherent explanatory theory. Same can't be said about "epistemic theories" based on unscientific coordinate system dependent and/or point-reductionstic theory of mathematics, which is admittedly unscientific also according to Formalists, because it is actually ontologically impossible Zeno-paradox in any possible empirical world.
To conclude: yes, something like "virtual particle" concatenation is involved, but the computational cosmic power required from the reductionistic direction is prohibitive in extremis and qualifies such explanation as nonsensical. On the other hand, the holistic top down perspective can perform the required computational interactions according to the Least Action Principle... and offers a holistic constructive theory of mathematics coherently with the holism of quantum phenomenology.
@santerisatama5409meh.
Yay I love reading yt comments that are real people! I’m a nerd myself
What you are saying sounds almost understandable :))
Thank you.
Electrical engineer here... :P
That's why I love QFT
This was very informative, appreciate it.
Lagrange is one of the most underrated mathematicians of all time!
+1 I definitely second this!
Lot of space science would not be done without his famous point
In his time he seems to have enjoyed full recognition. Well and now, Lagrangian is like rhe holy Grail of Physics.
I’m pretty sure that “underrated” is not the right word here. Maybe you just wish he was more popular in the pop science culture?
he's been mentioned by Ed Witten, more than once, that says somthing
29:22 "If I pull up" ....... moments later ..... "as one does" lmao ..... jeeee yoh ,scientists too are like that Yoh!! ....
I'm gonna need a 5th calculus class to keep understanding this stuff
And to think a person in charge of over 5,000 nuclear warheads…
You don't need calculus to know geopolitics
@Whydoineedahandleonythe prefers a faceless malevolent shadow government that hides behind a dementia ridden puppet.
The math in this video only goes up to multivariable which is 3rd or 4th semester calculus.
As usually your videos are mind blowing
Well thanks, now in addition to not understanding Space Time videos I can also not understand Veritassium videos!
5:05 TIL potential energy doesn’t mean the energy that could happen, it means the energy of a separate thing called the potential. That actually makes a bunch of things make more sense now
It's the energy it takes to bring something to where it is. The reverse of the energy that could happen.
❤
I think it kind of works both ways. The potential energy of some system IS the energy that "could" be released to some other form. I think that's why they chose the word Potential to describe that quantity.
Potential Energy is stored energy. If you have a spring that you compress, there is energy stored in that spring that will become kinetic energy when the spring is allowed to release it.
@LoganLovell isnt it already kinetic but you are opposing it with a force keeping it the other way? If so then the force normal is kinetic
3:37 yeah you really sidestepped the 3D vector case there
Mind opening video, thank you Wolverine!
I remember when I was a 2nd year student 13 years ago, and we were told about magnetic potential and that it seems to be just a mathematical trick, I was very suspicious and asked our professor about it. Then I was told about Aharonov-Bohm's effect and it sounded like a white spot on a scientific map of the nature laws. I even thought about an investigation in that field but then holography got my attention.. I couldn't even think about I would hear about this effect 13 years later, and would even see one of original investigation's authors. Thanks!
"This Tiny Donut (Almost) Broke Physics in 1986"
Im going to watch the rest of this rn cuz lunch break is boring
Lol ig you are in USA 😂. It's night currently where I am
Absolutely fascinating episode!!!
The E-L equations at 5:35 have a small typo. It is a partial derivative…
the 3 body problem was a pretty cool show
New season coming soon
Read the book, it’s even better
@Fezzezal I didn’t know there was a book!!! Who wrote it? I’m gonna check it out
@bekyves it's actually a triolgy by Liu Cixin called "Remembrance of Earth's Past"
@bekyvesLiu Cixin
12:06 Immediately thought of oppenheimer due to the sick animation
iconic hat though
opened comments just to understand what the hell he was saying, the sudden change in manner of speech made it sound like those Winston Churchill speech memes
@mironsamokhvalov9323 literally me rn