What Is Nothing?

Поделиться
HTML-код
  • Опубликовано: 22 ноя 2021
  • Thank you to M1 Finance for Supporting PBS. For more information please go to m1finance.com/besmart
    Take the 2023 PBS Digital Studios audience survey: to.pbs.org/pbssurvey2023a1
    ↓↓↓ More info and sources below ↓↓↓
    This is a video about nothing. Hope you learn something!
    Sponsor disclaimer:
    - All investing involves risk, including the risk of losing the money you invest. Borrowing on margin can add to these risks.
    - M1 Borrow available on margin accounts with at least $5,000 invested. Not available for all account types. Rates may vary. Brokerage products and services offered by M1 Finance LLC, an SEC registered broker-dealer and Member FINRA (www.finra.org/#/) / SIPC (www.sipc.org/).
    - Terms and conditions apply www.m1finance.com/social-terms/
    - All examples shown are for informational purposes and should not be considered an offer to buy or sell certain securities. M1 does not provide investment advice.
    -----------
    Special thanks to our Brain Trust Patrons:
    Barbora Bei
    Ken Board
    T Clinger
    Attila Pix
    Burt Humburg
    DeliciousKashmiri
    Brian Chang
    Roy Lasris
    dani bowman
    David Johnston
    Salih Arslan
    Baerbel Winkler
    Robert Young
    Amy Sowada
    Eric Meer
    Dustin
    Karen Haskell
    AlecZero
    Join us on Patreon!
    / itsokaytobesmart
    Twitter
    / drjoehanson
    / okaytobesmart
    Instagram
    / drjoehanson
    / okaytobesmart
    Merch
    store.dftba.com/collections/i...
    Facebook
    / itsokaytobesmartpbs

Комментарии • 3 тыс.

  • @obmubswag2087
    @obmubswag2087 2 года назад +3355

    Joe is evolving into his Vsauce form

  • @ShortHax
    @ShortHax 2 года назад +2729

    In the parallel nothing universe: “What is something?”

  • @jaqihegland6232
    @jaqihegland6232 Год назад +111

    So if I say I learned nothing today, that doesn't mean a lack of learning. Today I learned a lot about nothing. Very educational.

  • @edweefication
    @edweefication 2 года назад +234

    What i love so much about this channel is, albeit very limited, they involve critical and philosopical thinking in almost every video. It sparks our curiosity and thus, our interest.

    • @EverythingButSorted
      @EverythingButSorted 2 года назад +2

      Me too. Been watching almost every video for years. Quality content draws back in every time. 👍

    • @raisa_cherry33
      @raisa_cherry33 2 года назад +1

      On point dear 😍❤❤ indeed the best!

    • @jericoba
      @jericoba 2 года назад +1

      Well said.

  • @livvieblair9506
    @livvieblair9506 2 года назад +1102

    "I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it". - Mark Twain.

    • @linhho8113
      @linhho8113 2 года назад +94

      "I can bear darkness unless i have seen light" - Some Interlectual
      sorry for my bad English

    • @patricknelson
      @patricknelson 2 года назад +37

      Yeah?! Well… _now_ what does he think?

    • @gotentk4
      @gotentk4 2 года назад +3

      Blah blah

    • @magicpotato1580
      @magicpotato1580 2 года назад +11

      Amogus

    • @rondoggish
      @rondoggish 2 года назад +14

      Greatest quote in all of human history

  • @Ngamotu83
    @Ngamotu83 2 года назад +970

    I had this exact discussion in my physics class at school. The teacher had shown us a vacuum tube made of glass, explaining there was nothing in there. However, one other student and myself insisted there had to be something in the tube, as light was clearly passing through it, and light is not nothing.

    • @handzofgod
      @handzofgod 2 года назад +65

      Exactly what I was thinking

    • @superchinmayplays
      @superchinmayplays 2 года назад +116

      if i said that the teacher would probably say thats not the point or something

    • @werrkowalski2985
      @werrkowalski2985 2 года назад +76

      What we refer to as "nothing" depends on context, obviously now we know that there isn't even such thing as absolute nothing in the physical world, there is always a field. So nobody really refers to absolute nothing when talking about something physical, it would make no sense.

    • @jimc.goodfellas226
      @jimc.goodfellas226 2 года назад +14

      You sure showed that teacher who's boss

    • @DavidBeckwitt
      @DavidBeckwitt 2 года назад +38

      @@jimc.goodfellas226 real cringe

  • @gemaster14
    @gemaster14 2 года назад +136

    This reminds me of when my parents argued about nothing. One time when I was a kid, during a road trip in which my little sister and I became tired and cranky and bickered near nonstop, my parents tried to teach us a lesson about how silly our arguments were and how frustrating they were to listen to, by interrupting us to have a logical argument about literal nothing. My dad argued that nothing as the absence of something made nothing something, and my mom argued that something couldn’t be nothing because by its definition nothing is where there is not something. In a case with of cookies, by eating all your cookies, you had no or nothing cookies left, but if you ate all your cookies then you also did not have cookies. Unfortunately the lesson about petty arguments my parents were trying to teach soared over my and my sister’s head. We thought the whole performance to be hilarious and the concept of debating literal nothing even more hilarious and spent the rest of the drive engaging in our own increasingly silly and illogical argument about the meaning of nothing and giggling about it. However, the memory of that event stuck with me. When I saw the title of this video, I immediately thought of that road trip and my parents’ argument about nothing. I loved this video and shared it with my sister and my parents, and we enjoyed reminiscing about that long ago silly argument and learning more about nothing. Thank you for giving my family this enjoyable reminder. 😄

    • @Lunarmemory
      @Lunarmemory Год назад +12

      That sounds like some A+ parenting though

    • @sagnikmajumder3957
      @sagnikmajumder3957 Год назад

      Hello

    • @flyingproofficial
      @flyingproofficial 11 месяцев назад +3

      Wish my parents debated about stuff like this my father is never at home my mom is doing chores my sister is to small to understand anything I say actually anyone in my family doesn't understand what I say and Joe you me all of us are turning into a sauce served in v shape

    • @meesalikeu
      @meesalikeu 3 месяца назад

      i got nothing out of that 😂🎉

  • @Phailnaught
    @Phailnaught 2 года назад +81

    The whole time I could only think of, "There's literally EVERYTHING in space, Morty!"

    • @dallaselgin2636
      @dallaselgin2636 2 года назад +4

      Watch a different show

    • @jazz6897
      @jazz6897 2 года назад

      ruclips.net/video/TYR3uCgp6nI/видео.html

    • @Isntlifefunny
      @Isntlifefunny 2 года назад +6

      @@dallaselgin2636 No, I don't think I will.

  • @soblovey520
    @soblovey520 2 года назад +436

    “Our brain analyzes past experiences so we can adjust our future behavior” Oh god is this why my brain loves to flashback to past embarrassing or cringe-worthy moments in my life the moment I relax and find some peace

    • @johnwalker1058
      @johnwalker1058 2 года назад +31

      Basically, we naturally focus on the negative more because for most of our time on this earth, we pretty much needed to do so in order to find the flaws with our methods and means of survival and thus improve our chances of survival or ability to survive things.

    • @lisarodriguez6966
      @lisarodriguez6966 2 года назад +7

      @@johnwalker1058 perhaps we'll evolve our way out of our brains being relentless with it.

    • @superchinmayplays
      @superchinmayplays 2 года назад +2

      nothing is more cringe

    • @superchinmayplays
      @superchinmayplays 2 года назад +1

      if i stop doing nothing then nothing will make me think of that

    • @dabombomar
      @dabombomar 2 года назад +4

      We’re biological robots

  • @JoseAyapan
    @JoseAyapan 2 года назад +695

    As Freddie Mercury once said: "Nothing" really matters to me.

    • @anshdeo
      @anshdeo 2 года назад +3

      is that pfp Mylo Xyloto?

    • @SofaKingShit
      @SofaKingShit 2 года назад +14

      I see a little silhouetto of nothingness.

    • @unitedarmy1484
      @unitedarmy1484 2 года назад +4

      Legendddddd

    • @skullface2694
      @skullface2694 2 года назад +2

      He also said a dragonfly trumpeter is his hero...

    • @qwertvxo
      @qwertvxo 2 года назад +1

      Hey Jose
      Watya gonna do widat comic material, MSG and Wembley stadium have reportedly have scabby inchy ring peices

  • @Afl129
    @Afl129 2 года назад +10

    I used to think about this question when I was like 8 years old, but it drove me crazy because if nothing is nothing the word nothing wouldn’t even exist so thanks for the clarification!

  • @PLUG313x
    @PLUG313x 2 года назад +1

    this is one of the best science videos I've ever seen. thoughtful and insightful. no unnecessary comedy or hyperactive editing. subscribed!

  • @SerendipitousProvidence
    @SerendipitousProvidence 2 года назад +283

    I can't believe I'm going to watch an almost 16-minute video about nothing. Here goes nothing!

    • @mr.boomguy
      @mr.boomguy 2 года назад +7

      Lol, that could be such a brain teaser of a sentence xD

    • @zjweele13
      @zjweele13 2 года назад +10

      Seinfeld made an entire show about nothing. It was quite succesfull :P

    • @odonvargas9527
      @odonvargas9527 2 года назад +3

      Lol. Same here

    • @Richard_Nickerson
      @Richard_Nickerson 2 года назад +4

      @@zjweele13
      successful*

    • @MonkeyJedi99
      @MonkeyJedi99 2 года назад

      @@Richard_Nickerson pedantic*

  • @haironscreen778
    @haironscreen778 2 года назад +365

    Joe:- "Who invented 0 and when, we don't know for sure"
    Aryabhatta :- Am I a joke to you?

  • @pablolloyd1450
    @pablolloyd1450 2 года назад +1

    I cannot tell you how deeply grateful I am that you made this video. Thank you! 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

  • @ninal309
    @ninal309 2 года назад

    Your videos are not only educational, but also aesthetic and funny, one of the best channels

  • @johncoxmastercartoonist9390
    @johncoxmastercartoonist9390 2 года назад +118

    Joe's opening dialogue about whether or not he was doing nothing reminds me of that old Sesame Street skit where Ernie refuses to help Bert with the groceries because he argues that he's not doing nothing.

  • @Confuzledish
    @Confuzledish 2 года назад +107

    I think a big take away is that we're still learning. There's things we don't know, and some things we think are fact that will one day be disproven. I also really liked how you showed how societal values can even impact our understanding of the universe. But to the point - we don't even know what SOMETHING is. The further down we go to find the base 'material' of the universe the more empty space we find. Even the smallest of subatomic particles can only be described (at this time) as basically waves.

    • @fiyum333
      @fiyum333 2 года назад +7

      maybe it's the things we don't know, or haven't remembered, or haven't perceived yet is nothingness. everything is something and nothing is something, but the something we don't know and haven't associated with everything truly is nothing and is in the aether awaiting our discovery of its existence - or, rather, somethingness.

    • @skilz8098
      @skilz8098 2 года назад +2

      @@fiyum333 Ecclesiastes 1: ...There is nothing new under the sun, it has already been of old...!

    • @ws6778
      @ws6778 Год назад +4

      ​​@@fiyum333
      The ancient philosopher Aristotle pointed out that things are not created, everything always existed all at once, but as possibilities.
      Yet, the biggest question that remains unanswered is why possibilities are possible, why they even exist? Why existence exists?

  • @Omroqurba
    @Omroqurba 2 года назад +46

    Nothing is like infinite, it doesn't exist in reality, it's just a way of expressing mathematics. It's funny how can some people say that the universe came from nothing or from infinite universes.

  • @rogersledz6793
    @rogersledz6793 2 года назад +1

    Thank you so much for uploading this video. It is helping me get through the pandemic!

  • @jackielinde7568
    @jackielinde7568 2 года назад +291

    When working with variables in programming, there is a concept of a NULL value, or a nothing value. The idea is that zero (for numeric variables) and a string variable that contains no characters (literally nothing between the quotes "") is still SOMETHING. The idea of a NULL value is that you can create a variable and not assign it anything at that point. And you can wipe the value of the variable back to a NULL state. It's useful to see if something has interacted with the variable or if someone's filled out a field on a form.
    But now we named it, doesn't that make it SOMETHING?

    • @osiris1102
      @osiris1102 2 года назад +22

      It's also the cause of notorious nullpointer exceptions

    • @jackielinde7568
      @jackielinde7568 2 года назад +14

      @@osiris1102 For that, I blame the programmer. ;)

    • @krischalkhanal2842
      @krischalkhanal2842 2 года назад +20

      NULL is empty, or none value, but it is something, and that something is a thing that represents actual nothingness. It is not nothing, but it represents nothing.

    • @christopher-si9kv
      @christopher-si9kv 2 года назад +4

      yes, in that sense it is something. it’s a value. how much value? 0. It’s still a category, which is something.

    • @graham1034
      @graham1034 2 года назад +9

      In Javascript we have initialized "empty" variables like 0, "", [], {} that have a type. Then you have initialized variables without a type, i.e. `null`. But there are also uninitialized variables that just don't exist at all, i.e. `undefined`. These are all very commonly used and have different behaviours.

  • @DrZedDrZedDrZed
    @DrZedDrZedDrZed 2 года назад +99

    Thirty spokes converge at the wheel's hub,
    to a hole that allows it to turn.
    Clay is shaped into a vessel,
    to enclose an emptiness that can be filled.
    Doors and windows are cut into walls,
    to provide access to their protection.
    Though we can only work with what is there,
    use comes from what is not there.
    -Lao Tsu

    • @kindlin
      @kindlin 2 года назад +6

      It's probably a translation thing, but I think the last stanza flows a bit better as one of the following:
      Though we can only work with what is there,
      use comes from that which is not.
      or
      Though we can only work with what there is,
      use comes from what there is not.

    • @Solipsisticdaydreams
      @Solipsisticdaydreams 2 года назад

      This is an important comment for a point made at the beginning of this video. The way math was done, this thing we often think of as infallible, was different according to different philosophies. Science and math are both philosophy. The way we look at things changes them. Take all of the candies away and you still have air and arms and lungs etc. but you’re left with nothing in regards to candy. Want a unified theory? It’s all in how you look at it.

  • @shadow_24
    @shadow_24 2 года назад +5

    I have thought over this so many times and it's a weird thing. Because when you think of nothing there is always something, but for nothing to exist there has to be something.

  • @stargazeronesixseven
    @stargazeronesixseven Год назад +2

    If Nothing is the Opposite of Everything , then Everything is related from Nothing? Wow , that's Deep! Thanks for the illumination!

  • @austinfreyrikrw6651
    @austinfreyrikrw6651 2 года назад +52

    Yup, I've learned "nothing" from watching this video today. Great job, Joe! Keep it up! Keep teaching us nothing, lol!

    • @BetterCallZeyad
      @BetterCallZeyad 2 года назад +1

      @King Pistachion lmao me too

    • @raisa_cherry33
      @raisa_cherry33 2 года назад +1

      😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

  • @CymruCreator
    @CymruCreator 2 года назад +39

    just realising, I miss vsauce videos, but then again, this channel delivers what vsauce used to.

    • @paule.2687
      @paule.2687 2 года назад +2

      Vsauce is still putting out good content

    • @evancain4906
      @evancain4906 2 года назад +2

      @@paule.2687 just not often

    • @CymruCreator
      @CymruCreator 2 года назад +2

      @@paule.2687 Maybe 2 or 3 videos a year.... (shorts don't count)

  • @gamemasteraj05
    @gamemasteraj05 Год назад +4

    I’ve zoned out enough to think about nothing. Took in visual stimuli but my brain was not processing any of it. Snapped back to reality when my dad asked me what I was thinking about and couldn’t remember the last min or 2

  • @sueelliott4793
    @sueelliott4793 12 дней назад

    I was watching this video and someone asked me what I was watching. I replied "nothing" 😊Thank you, I always enjoy your videos

  • @markinipannini
    @markinipannini 2 года назад +166

    "What is nothing?"
    **Cuts open head of whoever decided to remove RUclips dislikes**
    "Nvm, found it"

    • @Soodlenoup3781
      @Soodlenoup3781 2 года назад +4

      SERIOUSLY!!!

    • @Matityahu-the-God
      @Matityahu-the-God 2 года назад

      I don't understand why people hate the new inability to see how many dislikes there are. It was a toxic system that didn't bring any benefit. We don't lose anything by not being able to see that number. It literally has no use for you.

    • @markinipannini
      @markinipannini 2 года назад +4

      @@Matityahu-the-God are you delusional? The like/dislike ratio was the best tool to tell you if a video (like a tutorial for example) is even worth watching before you waste 10 minutes of your life for nothing. Removing it will only lead to infinitely many more scams and bad videos and by extension more unhappiness by youtube's users. And if we're being honest, the whole toxicity and hurting youtubers feelings is bullshit! They're only doing this to make big companies like late-night shows and news channels happy and besides if you can't handle a few dislikes maybe you shouldn't be a youtuber - not to mention that if anyone wanted to the option to turn them off was already there before and that even now creators are still able to see the dislikes on their own videos so it literally makes zero sense.
      This might be the worst thing that youtube has ever done and if you install that extension that still let's you see the dislikes, you will see that youtubes removing dislikes announcement video is actually quickly becoming one of most disliked videos ever posted to youtube (by ratio), so the community obviously hates it.

    • @Matityahu-the-God
      @Matityahu-the-God 2 года назад +1

      @@markinipannini the creators can still see the dislikes, so idk what the hell you're talking about. Nobody said anything about feelings of creators, you're the delusional one. Are you replying to the wrong comment or something?

    • @markinipannini
      @markinipannini 2 года назад +4

      @@Matityahu-the-God thats what I'm saying! RUclipss whole point for removing the dislikes is that youtubers get their poor little feelings hurt by dislikes, but regardless they are still able to see it! It doesn't make any sense! That's why everyone hates it!

  • @mpierre3026
    @mpierre3026 2 года назад +48

    Love this episode. Reminds me of the time in college I challenged my friends to think of nothing. We had a great laugh realising we couldn't and spawned some deep conversations

  • @captainwowei5705
    @captainwowei5705 2 года назад +1

    I actually used to start every school lesson with "ours is a decimal and positional system of calculation" back when I was in 1st grade. Same happened in middle school with: "numbers are a rapresentation of a quantity, not a quantity itself"

  • @deadsirius3531
    @deadsirius3531 2 года назад

    You said the most important thing in here at one point: "nothing can't exist".
    After years of thinking about the question of why there is something rather than nothing, I find that to be a surprisingly satisfying answer. "Nothing can't exist". It seems overly simplistic but any way you come at it you can't really get around that statement

  • @aprobaralaprimera8108
    @aprobaralaprimera8108 2 года назад +5

    0:52 As a mathematician I need to say that the opposite of nothing is "at least one" and the opposite of all is "at least one is not"

    • @percapita1239
      @percapita1239 2 года назад +2

      And nothing equals zero, it´s only natural. So the conclusion here is that i´m not a bum or a nobody, a zero. It´s plain science that dictates that, but i´m probably annoying to the net since i can treat all like buddies and usually i´m in for a surprise just there....
      And have a good day

  • @blizzbee
    @blizzbee 2 года назад +21

    This word always leads to discussion in "Philosophy" way.

  • @randomstudent1183
    @randomstudent1183 2 года назад +3

    Coincidentally, I spent about an hour 2 days ago pondering the meaning of absoluteness & nothingness, and I concluded that the only “Absolute is nothing.”

  • @dayanaafifah8259
    @dayanaafifah8259 2 года назад +1

    So this guy spend 15 minutes explaining the meaning of "nothing"... Woah the dedication is just mind-blowing bro 😭🤌

  • @rickseiden1
    @rickseiden1 2 года назад +172

    At 8:57 Joe says that there are as few as 100 particles per cubic meter in intergalactic space. A cubic meter is 1,000,000 cubic centimeters. That would mean that there are 10,000 cubic centimeters of space that contain nothing. Of course, this ignores all of the quantumness that Joe talks about immediately after this.

    • @PositiveANegative
      @PositiveANegative 2 года назад +32

      The absence of matter still doesn't mean 'nothing'. Not only quantum fields, but also regular EM field, spacetime... Any volume is still something. True nothingness wouldn't occupy any space (I guess)

    • @gert-janbonnema
      @gert-janbonnema 2 года назад +5

      Actually, the average density of the universe is one proton per cubic metre.
      But maybe he also counted in the fotons.

    • @jackforeman2742
      @jackforeman2742 2 года назад +6

      Nothing doesn’t exist. As something does, and always will have had.

    • @oreoisacat6297
      @oreoisacat6297 2 года назад +3

      @@PositiveANegative true nothingless will occupy infinite space, not any space

    • @minmuseve5567
      @minmuseve5567 2 года назад +4

      @@PositiveANegative can it even have volume if its nothing?

  • @osib999
    @osib999 2 года назад +109

    This video made me feel really weird in a good way, I have been dealing with a serious fear, almost a phobia, of death, just thinking about the world eons after I die sometimes pushes me to the edge of crying but thinking about becoming something else (and I mean only physically, I am not religious), getting the elements that ARE my body back to nature and universe to become a lot of somethings elses is really comforting, thank you for those last phrases :)

    • @karlkarlsson9126
      @karlkarlsson9126 2 года назад +25

      Life is very fascinating and sad, we as individuals being so aware and conscious of the fact of being alive and unique as individuals, so many personalities and great people we are, but don't fear death, see death as the ultimate mystery that we all someday will get an answer to when we get old, and don't forget that we have all already been dead before we were born, being dead is where we truly belong, but most importantly, don't live your life thinking about death, being alive is about living, because no matter how much you think about death you will eventually realize that it's just a waste of time and how ridiculous it is to think about it when you are living, we are not dead until we are dead, and when we are dead that's when we can start to think about it. Also, everything we are made of comes from Earth, and we will leave what we are made of on Earth. But just live now and enjoy life, try to be happy, it's the best feeling in the world, it makes you appreciate what life is, with happiness you counter death so easily, and you will appreciate every living being around you, how fantastic it for us all to share this time together, and who knows, maybe there is something afterwards which might be even better, but until then, we will try to live in heaven already! The particles that makes up us will always be around anyway, don't worry about it, we will always be here together. Live as you will live forever, the only thing that makes sense.

    • @scottslotterbeck3796
      @scottslotterbeck3796 2 года назад

      Don't worry. No one knows. Your atoms will persist.

    • @caricue
      @caricue 2 года назад +9

      @@scottslotterbeck3796 Which atoms are you referring to? The atoms that made up your body when you were a baby? The atoms of 10 year old you? If you live another decade or so, none of the atoms that are you now will be in future Scott, they may even be incorporated into someone else or be floating around in the ocean. It makes no sense to consider yourself atoms or molecules which are completely generic and interchangeable.

    • @scottslotterbeck3796
      @scottslotterbeck3796 2 года назад

      @@caricue Atoms live. Part of you will always be here.

    • @deus_ex_machina_
      @deus_ex_machina_ 2 года назад +2

      @@scottslotterbeck3796 I believe what Steve is referring to is the physiological equivalent of the 'Ship of Theseus', a thought experiment that has flummoxed philosophers for millennia. It's Okay to be Smart explored this topic in their recent video: ruclips.net/video/6EowCxpKKJ0/видео.html

  • @uSkizzik
    @uSkizzik 2 года назад +2

    Dunno about y'all but sometimes I just drift away and think about stuff like this. Sometimes I look around me and get amazed by how far humanity has come and how we started out as simple animals like the others around us.

  • @jericoba
    @jericoba 2 года назад +2

    Fantastic episode and narration/script. Thanks!

  • @whoever6458
    @whoever6458 2 года назад +16

    My favorite question to ask drunk people is, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" Then, of course, I finally got drunk enough myself to have the thought that one's notion of something had to exist before one's notion of nothing because I saw nothing as an absence of something. Now I am also thinking that, even if nothing existed in and of itself, since our perception is based on something interacting with our senses, we would have no way to be able to perceive nothing in and of itself just by virtue of the limits of our ability to perceive.

    • @simonux1226
      @simonux1226 2 года назад

      You'll love this ruclips.net/video/4TAO_NjrJ7M/видео.html

  • @iamoldteen
    @iamoldteen 2 года назад +7

    Thanks for this video. It brought back treasured memories of my dad egging on a teenage me with the argument, “…but nothing is something.” It was four decades ago but it might as well have been yesterday. You were right, dad. I sure miss you.

  • @sray118
    @sray118 2 года назад +1

    Thanks, this video helps a lot for understanding Sartre’s being and nothingness

  • @allanmonestel9635
    @allanmonestel9635 2 года назад

    I love your videos man, thanks for all the knowledge ❤️

  • @lesleyghostdragon3149
    @lesleyghostdragon3149 2 года назад +6

    Grateful for PBS and RUclips!!
    Super thankful (for) "It's Okay To Be Smart"!!!
    And a big thanks to everyone who makes quality science/educational shows/programming possible!!!!!!!

  • @unvergebeneid
    @unvergebeneid 2 года назад +194

    Today I learned that Joe is a man who swallows tacos whole.

    • @fajaradi1223
      @fajaradi1223 2 года назад +6

      Without even chew it

    • @darookmezd
      @darookmezd 2 года назад +10

      And shares all his candies

    • @darookmezd
      @darookmezd 2 года назад +4

      @@fajaradi1223 that's exactly what Penny said

    • @jimmym3352
      @jimmym3352 2 года назад +5

      You mean that's not normal?

    • @Secret_Moon
      @Secret_Moon 2 года назад

      Just like a man with culture.

  • @amitgurjar49
    @amitgurjar49 2 года назад +2

    I really liked how you pick something that seems so common to us but is quiet complicate in other ways....
    BTW at 5:20 it is pronouncec as "shunya" with an sh

  • @salmazhafirah9679
    @salmazhafirah9679 2 года назад +1

    Hey Joe love the video. Hey, can your next video be about if electricity has always been in the world, why or why not and if yes how do we not know about it before we did?

  • @jessiepapabear4272
    @jessiepapabear4272 2 года назад +15

    I love what you teach us! I'm thankful for what you teach us! I enjoy sharing what you teach us!

  • @silvermist6891
    @silvermist6891 2 года назад +4

    I was thinking about number systems today, and voila, you uploaded. Thanks Joe! Much love xx

  • @Hyrulistic
    @Hyrulistic 2 года назад

    I look forward to watching this, but my pre-coffee lazy-watching-in-bed brain just wasn't ready for that philosophical intro 😅
    TBH not sure what else I was expecting from this channel, keep up the great work! :)

  • @flightydancer
    @flightydancer Год назад

    Beautifully said! We are all immortals existing together forever!

  • @idmeghaburnwal
    @idmeghaburnwal 2 года назад +21

    3:05 hey hey hey! Aryabhatta invented zero ( from India )

    • @idmeghaburnwal
      @idmeghaburnwal 2 года назад

      Okay you mention it later

    • @rohdx
      @rohdx 2 года назад

      You mean discovered

    • @idmeghaburnwal
      @idmeghaburnwal 2 года назад

      @@rohdx I would say invented coz he did not find out something which was originally there. Like for india , vasco da gama discovered india - the country was originally there . But zero as a digit was not

    • @rohdx
      @rohdx 2 года назад

      @@idmeghaburnwal yup ok

  • @Francois_L_7933
    @Francois_L_7933 2 года назад +14

    This reminds me of a philosophy teacher I know who used to ask his students to write an essay about nought... good thing he was a good guy as he always gave some points for the effort.

    • @williamparrish5002
      @williamparrish5002 2 года назад +1

      What grade would I have received for never handing anything in and disclaiming any knowledge of the assignment's existence?

    • @RaikaTempest
      @RaikaTempest 2 года назад +1

      That would be so hard. I don't think you can describe nothing. If nothing can be described, that means its description is something. And if the description of something is something, then the thing its describing is also something and therefore not nothing.

    • @jayknowles2146
      @jayknowles2146 2 года назад +1

      *hands in a blank piece of paper*

  • @JazzMac36251
    @JazzMac36251 2 года назад +1

    Aristotle thought that if an object moved through nothing, it would move infinitely fast.
    That's kind of true if you consider the Higgs field the final "something". So good job, Aristotle!

  • @user-pr2tc8dp1g
    @user-pr2tc8dp1g 21 день назад

    This video really helped me to understand Nothingness more

  • @its2point072
    @its2point072 2 года назад +31

    Joe: what are you thinking about?
    Me with anphantasia: Everything and nothing

    • @beaconblaster33
      @beaconblaster33 2 года назад

      what were your made up stories looking like

    • @trin873
      @trin873 2 года назад +1

      same also it’s aphantasia

  • @ziasteele9332
    @ziasteele9332 2 года назад +8

    I am a big time daydreamer, and I feel like I understand myself and the way my mind works a lot better now. Thank you for that.

  • @daniel_rossy_explica
    @daniel_rossy_explica 2 года назад +2

    I can think in nothing. I do it when I want to sleep. I just concentrate on what I'm hearing (cars going by in the distance, mostly) while shutting down my internal monologe (which is hard to do when I'm anxious for example). But I can shut down my brain if it's necessary.

  • @eliseveldt
    @eliseveldt 9 месяцев назад

    i just wanna say i love your videos.

  • @DomyTheMad420
    @DomyTheMad420 2 года назад +34

    my favorite funfact about "nothing" ? The Boltzmann brain concept.
    ->due to how quantum mechanics seems to function; it is perfectly possible for say a clump of gold to randomly appear out of nowhere in the middle of empty space. it's VERY VERY VERY unlikely. but possible. any combo, any material, any structure. the larger & more comples, the LESS likely. but never zero.
    ->in an infinite universe with infinite time this would imply that at some point in time, at some place for no real reason a fully formed entity/brain/person will just randomly appear (and start living).
    >You name it.
    If it can exist in reality, it CAN appear out of thin air in empty space for no good reason.
    The chances of it happening may be 1 over 'near infinity'
    but hey, the universe is infinite and time likely is too.
    and "near infinity" is less then actual infinity
    THEREFORE logically speaking
    at some point your mom will pop up in random space, with all of her memories and thicc booty
    and wonder why you still haven't cleaned your bedroom today.
    Boltzmann brain.
    look it up!

    • @CthulhuTheory
      @CthulhuTheory 2 года назад +1

      Technically time isn't infinite, especially if theories of the eventual heat death of the universe, paired with particle decay that will empty the universe of anything measurable within, are true. At that point time, as we define it, stops and therefore has an end.

    • @rjthescholar177
      @rjthescholar177 2 года назад +4

      @@CthulhuTheory Time could be infinite, heat death is the end of thermodynamic processes, not the end of time.

    • @theace8502
      @theace8502 2 года назад

      @@rjthescholar177 true, but with absolutely nothing happening in this heat-death universe, time won't matter anyway, even IF it continues. Because there will be almost nothing there to experience it anyway

    • @anywallsocket
      @anywallsocket 2 года назад

      @@rjthescholar177 space time might continue to expand after the heat death. Time is, perhaps unsurprisingly, not a well defined quantity. It is fair to suggest time requires action, rather than the other way around, but this is conjecture, interpretation, not empirical falsifiability.

  • @oPHILOSORAPTORo
    @oPHILOSORAPTORo 2 года назад +81

    Atomists: "Nothing is real."
    Existentialists and nihilists: "Same."
    Bastion and Atreyu: "Yeah, it's definitely real."

    • @titude
      @titude 2 года назад +2

      And it got bigger. AND BIGGER.....
      -rock biter

  • @ultravoilentanomaly
    @ultravoilentanomaly 2 года назад

    This vid is immediately nostalgic to me! when I was young, I liked to think about "nothing" and I came to the conclusion that "nothing" can't exist... because things exist?... It made my head hurt. xD
    when people said they were doing nothing I would say, "NOT POSSIBLE!"

  • @Tina_99999
    @Tina_99999 2 года назад +1

    That was the question which pops in my head all the time for no reason „what is nothing“?

  • @isaacwalters747
    @isaacwalters747 2 года назад +7

    "The empty set is a subset of all sets". Nothing is everywhere!

  • @paulaner979
    @paulaner979 2 года назад +9

    Somebody: "What are you good at?"
    Me: "Nothing.".
    Somebody: "Wow, you're a genius!"

  • @charusingh2159
    @charusingh2159 2 года назад

    At 5:06 it's pronounced as shoonya.
    BTW, great video Joe, I have learnt so many things from "nothing".

  • @forestfn3595
    @forestfn3595 2 года назад +1

    The title is very clever! The title makes no sense without context so it makes you click!!! Very smart👍

  • @janj09
    @janj09 2 года назад +7

    I guess its once again time to bring back one of my favorites quotes.
    "For after all what is man in nature? A nothing in relation to infinity, all in relation to nothing, a central point between nothing and all and infinitely far from understanding either."
    BLAISE PASCAL, FRENCH PHILOSOPHER, "PASCAL'S WAGER"
    Saw this in the Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War loading screens many years ago.

  • @jml5926
    @jml5926 2 года назад +4

    It has various meanings, and it depends on the context it is being use. However, it cannot escape that the moment you define it, "something" encompasses it. It is still an information, a kind of configuration, a phenomenon.

  • @FrancisKoczur
    @FrancisKoczur 2 года назад +2

    The closest thing to 'nothing', is the classification of concepts that can't exist physically. Absolute Zero, a perfect vacuum, energy removed/destroyed from the universe, etc.
    Also since concepts can be created, but not destroyed (since the information now exists, but it can be lost/forgotten), time generally goes forward.

  • @ratatataraxia
    @ratatataraxia 2 года назад +14

    I’ve had this conversation with myself a thousand times. Interesting to hear it verbalized.

  • @benmcreynolds8581
    @benmcreynolds8581 2 года назад +22

    I've been thinking about this a lot. Differences is very important. Temperature, density, such as the ocean, then air, then space.. differences are necessary for every action in nature to occur.

    • @RaikaTempest
      @RaikaTempest 2 года назад +5

      Entropy is crazy too. If you have a bunch of "same", it doesn't do anything. But if you have a bunch of "difference", things happen until it is all "same". That's probably the easiest way I can explain how literally everything in existence works.

  • @Raktus
    @Raktus 2 года назад +59

    There was a story I once read involving a group of people getting trapped in a hypercube shaped like a house. One person looks out a window and see's nothing. The story takes a moment to explain that what they see isn't blackness or a pure white space, but nothing at all. It's a mind breaking exercise... like imagine transparency with nothing beyond it, forever...

    • @UATU.
      @UATU. 2 года назад +13

      Was it "And He Built a Crooked House” by Robert Heinlein?

    • @Richard_Nickerson
      @Richard_Nickerson 2 года назад +3

      Title please?

    • @Tashishi0
      @Tashishi0 2 года назад +6

      @@UATU. I think it might be. I read that years ago.

    • @robspiess
      @robspiess 2 года назад +7

      Nothing. Not black, like the color you see when you close your eyes. Nothing, like the color you see out of your knee.

    • @ArawnOfAnnwn
      @ArawnOfAnnwn 2 года назад +3

      Hah! I thought of this idea myself years ago. :) Another way of conceptualizing it that I came up with was to imagine the whole universe without color - and in this case white and black are also colors. Both approaches paint the same picture, except you can't actually imagine that picture!

  • @ChaoticNeutralMatt
    @ChaoticNeutralMatt Год назад

    Quintessence the Higgs field? Just love the ladder of progress which circles back around

  • @567secret
    @567secret 2 года назад +1

    The contents of the empty set.
    Zero on the other hand is a quantity that quantifies the size of the empty set.

  • @mementomori7160
    @mementomori7160 2 года назад +10

    This reminds me of one dream, a black hole was shooting through the sky and with each time it was closer and closer until it swallowed everything(me including) and I felt... noting? death? I have no way to put it in words, I was just feeling without being able to create any conscious thought

    • @fisterB
      @fisterB 2 года назад +1

      Which off course is too much something to be nothing but strange enough. Your dream ran into trouble trying to represent real nothing, but you were still there. Imagine 10^500 failed universes in the multiverse all without observers. How could they ever be said to be real? Imagine not even one universe, no observers, just nothing. I can't imagine that either.

  • @ThickUP
    @ThickUP 2 года назад +61

    "According to most models of physics, there can't be anything outside the universe, because the universe is, by definition, everything." Can someone please explain to me how this is different from the universe expanding into nothing? How is 'not being anything' different from being nothing, and what is the purpose of this distinction?

    • @LeOnIdAs162
      @LeOnIdAs162 2 года назад +10

      The universe expands on it self.

    • @kilat1791
      @kilat1791 2 года назад +7

      Something expanding into nothing is like a puddle of water spreading out to dry surface. Not being anything is more like the surface has always been wet and the somethings are the droplets sticking out of the wet surface.

    • @scottslotterbeck3796
      @scottslotterbeck3796 2 года назад +1

      Who made this definition? God? Man?

    • @GandalfTheTsaagan
      @GandalfTheTsaagan 2 года назад +18

      That's the point, nothingness doesn't exist outside of the theoretical, but we made it up imagining the antithesis of everything which is something we can attest to.
      Just like negative values and perfection aren't real in a strict sense, but you can imagine the concept and work around it.

    • @sad.platypus
      @sad.platypus 2 года назад +11

      Example to help visualise it: When we measure curvature of universe geometry it looks like its flat (no curvature, parallel lines stay parallel, angles work like you expect them to) and apparently it suggests that universe is infinite. In this scenario infinite universe expands and is well... still infinite, just distances between points in space grew larger. There can be no nothingness beyond edge of universe if no matter how far you go either direction you will never find such boundary. OFC there is possibility that universe is curved and just sooooo much larger than our observable bubble that we cannot measure curvature, but here I'm at loss about how nothingness would apply and if there could be something beyond universe if size is finite.

  • @sypeiterra7613
    @sypeiterra7613 2 года назад +1

    i zoned out on the part where you said "you cant think about nothing" and im pretty sure i went blank for a bit there

  • @mohamedbouhtout5545
    @mohamedbouhtout5545 2 года назад +1

    This video made me think more than the entire school year

  • @sherwood820
    @sherwood820 2 года назад +4

    Great video! Gotta be a pedant for a sec 🙂
    Unless I’m mistaken, pi was originally thought of, not as circumference to diameter, but as the ratio of the AREA of a circle to the area of a SQUARE with a side length equal to the radius. Hence the area formula. I remember this when I brought up tau to my history of math professor.
    Though, of course, pi was not the standard/conventional symbol until much later.

  • @besmart
    @besmart  2 года назад +91

    Me: What did you learn?
    You: Nothing
    And make sure you take the PBS Digital Studios annual viewer survey and tell them how much you love our show! to.pbs.org/2021survey

  • @joeyboikly
    @joeyboikly 2 года назад +3

    The glass is always full of something, nothing is just an idea. Zero doesn’t exist.

  • @missseaweed2462
    @missseaweed2462 8 месяцев назад +1

    I made a character a long time ago which is a manifestation of nothing, but is also representative of in-betweens. It was/is before the big bang and after the end. When there is a grim reaper presenting the hand of death, this entity takes them to their own death, because after the last living entity dies, death as a process and a concept is no more. Void is the physical, philosophical, personal, conceptual space between two people. It is the nebulous space between your screen and mine. It hovers between real, fictional, and conceptual multiverses. As nothing is a concept outside of spacetime, it is often revisiting/at the big bang, but is also omnipresent within ideas and values, connecting the "something" that it longs to be, but is not, and never will be.

  • @richardbidinger2577
    @richardbidinger2577 2 года назад +3

    I always learn something every day, and there's "nothing" wrong with that.😁👍

  • @SSJfraz
    @SSJfraz 2 года назад +7

    "Nothing" and "Something" are just words like everything else. We shape reality around the way we think, not the other way around. Reality as it exists and reality as it exists within our own minds are two separate things. Reality itself has no concept of something or nothingness, it's just the way our brains decode reality in a way that seems to make sense to us.

    • @anywallsocket
      @anywallsocket 2 года назад

      Arguably noumena can be understood as divergences and convergences of the interrelations in nature which cause our phenomenological sense of similarity and difference. Which is to say I agree, yet the two are not logically distinct, beyond a Kantian categorical sense.

    • @deepakkumarsingh2900
      @deepakkumarsingh2900 2 года назад

      Then what is the existence of brain. In brain there is movement of electric charge which creates the thought and thinking. Then at first place why does brain exist or does it exists?

    • @101Mant
      @101Mant 2 года назад

      @@deepakkumarsingh2900 the brain exists because it was an evolutionary advantage for our ancestors to have increasingly complex nervous systems that eventually resulted in brains. Brains let animals predict future behavior based on passed events with some degree of accuracy and the more sophisticated ones can learn and adapt.

    • @101Mant
      @101Mant 2 года назад +2

      That's both accurate and useless. The world is far too complex for us to deal with each thing in it so our brains mostly work in abstractions, which are categories, assign words to represent them and reason about those. If you dismiss something because it just words and categories you are dismissing basically all human though and reason. Its not a meaningful criticism or helpful observation unless we are actually talking about how people think.

  • @m.orpheus6322
    @m.orpheus6322 2 года назад

    I don’t normally leave a comment, but as the danish say: kiitos for this video!

  • @majidgr8
    @majidgr8 2 года назад

    Bakhshali Is my village , IDK about its manuscript ! good to know form you as usual 👍👍

  • @Jean-fc8ug
    @Jean-fc8ug 2 года назад +3

    Wow i love science and understand how our universe work. Thank you for sharing "nothing" with us. 😂 Always love your videos!

  • @fredoat
    @fredoat 2 года назад +3

    Thank you for trying to confuse the heck out of me!!

  • @pavanpenugonda4924
    @pavanpenugonda4924 2 года назад +3

    1:48 Do we really need that!? It hit hard on me!

  • @kriz2432
    @kriz2432 2 года назад

    I really like this guy. He's entertaining and fun. :D

  • @sofiacervantes4798
    @sofiacervantes4798 2 года назад +16

    "Well, it's when people call out at you just as you're going off to do it, 'What are you going to do, Christopher Robin?' and you say, 'Oh, Nothing,' and then you go and do it.
    It means just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering."
    "Oh!" said Pooh

  • @leonidgeorgiev9015
    @leonidgeorgiev9015 2 года назад +8

    Nothingness, or just Nothing is so powerful, that it really has the power of Absolute Infinity.

  • @aster_11
    @aster_11 2 года назад +1

    I have to say, one of my favourite things to think abt is nothing. Idek how, but I was literally speaking to my irl friend abt this literally yesterday... And now it's on my recommended lmao

  • @Fox_in_Thoughts
    @Fox_in_Thoughts 2 года назад +1

    Reminded me of a poem I wrote which was basically me wondering if nothing and something were equal or not. Thanks to past humans messing with us, now, nothing exists.

  • @NewMessage
    @NewMessage 2 года назад +23

    My Wife: "Watchya watchin'?"
    Me: "Nothing..."
    My Wife: "Fine, be that way."
    Me: "No, but.... Look it's about.."
    My Wife: * stomps off and slams the door *

  • @11er33.
    @11er33. 2 года назад +3

    I'm ngl. I have a lot of existential anxiety. About what we are, how God fits into it all, of how it all fits into His plan. About what nothing could be. If atoms are made of quarks, what are quarks made of. What is the space between atoms and electrons. It gives me nothing short of panic attacks. This actually helps a lot

  • @bretturner3413
    @bretturner3413 2 года назад

    Thank you very much for the lesson.

  • @Nona-om9kf
    @Nona-om9kf 2 года назад

    Awesome video! Loved the little Avatar reference! 🌊🪨🔥💨