> emag > emag-sys > en-combien-de-temps-s-allume-une-lampe-connectée-par-un-loooooong-fil > how-wrong-is-veritasium-a-lamp-and-power-line-story-electroboom

How Wrong Is VERITASIUM? A Lamp and Power Line Story

ElectroBOOM - 2021-12-08

Veritasium’s electronic question disturbed the nation! But was he wrong?
Visit https://audible.com/electroboom or in US text electroboom to 500-500 and give yourself the gift of listening.

The references in the video:
Veritasium’s video: https://youtu.be/bHIhgxav9LY
Science Asylum’s Video: https://youtu.be/C7tQJ42nGno
Professors’ Line Analysis: https://ve42.co/bigcircuit
EEVBLOG’s Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/EevblogDave?sub_confirmation=1

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By: Mehdi Sadaghdar

0:00 Veritasium’s question and answer, was he right?
3:51 Short review of Derek’s video
5:24 Poynting Vector, direction of power flow
9:05 Detailed analysis of Derek’s question, Transmission Lines
17:37 WATCH THIS PART!

Local Forecast - Slower by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3988-local-forecast---slower
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Veritasium - 2021-12-09

Thank you for making this video! While in hindsight I can clearly see that I should have gone into more detail with the explanation, I have really enjoyed watching all the response videos. For the record I was not suggesting the lightbulb lights at ANY current value but at some small but significant current value. I tested my LED bulb rated for 12V and found it turns on dimly when I apply 2V. There may yet be a follow up video coming. So thank you for this commentary - I'll incorporate it into any further work I do on this topic.

Kelvin Clovis - 2021-12-09

There he is

DragonVision - 2021-12-09

Alright I guess I'll look forward to the follow up video.

Saransh Gautam - 2021-12-09

It's so nice to see civil and intellectual discussions between my favourite youtubers!!

nonchip - 2021-12-09

isn't any current that turns the bulb on "significant"? ;)
also i doubt that'll change the fact your wires aren't magic warp machines. as soon as your current is significant enough as to not have the lamp on all the time due to background noise, your EM coupling between the "half-loops" won't suffice, while the transmission along the loops will take its time.

Richard Brightwell - 2021-12-09

You guys all do great work! Thanks Veritasium, ElectroBOOM, and EEVblog. I enjoy all y'alls videos.

ElectroBOOM - 2021-12-08

Thought to mention, even the 1 second round trip delay is not fully accurate as the LC circuit imposes its own propagation delay on top of light speed. Like I said the current flattens out traveling through the network and that slows down voltage step transitions, as you also see in the simulations at the end of video. Sorry, too much technical details!!

More Dreams More Creams - 2021-12-08

Hi

Ancient Dew - 2021-12-08

hello boom man

SK - 2021-12-08

Is there any way to actually measure how much current would actually transmit over 1/c s to the bulb. Im just curious.

संगीतरम्य - 2021-12-08

Electroboom come to goa and plz gave me multimeter plz

Tony McGarry - 2022-01-05

Brilliant. Imagine having this guy as a teacher or lecturer. So entertaining and yet miles above my pay grade in education

Jek - 2022-02-19

he is a teacher, this medium reaches so many more minds than a traditional classroom, and with far less restrictions

EmilTorge - 2022-02-25

I'd say this is a lecture and he is in fact teaching.

bgrgrh - 2022-04-15

I don't understand a word he's saying and I still feel like I know what's going on, how that's possible I don't know.

U - 2022-05-04

But he's wrong

Skittlechute - 2022-05-07

I've begun my journey into electrical engineering as a hobby thanks to creators like you. I began watching because you were purely entertaining, and now I'm accumulating tools and measuring current and actually sat down and measured hundreds of resistors the other day and was actually excited as I thought about how it all works. I'm slowly beginning to understand more and more about how electrons move and how various components can manipulate them into doing all kinds of cool stuff. This video helped me better understand that movement. Thanks for making such great videos!

Willy Yates - 2023-01-03

You should study electrical engineering, too much fun.

EJE - 2022-01-19

Great video - one of the best ElectroBoom made so far - balancing his critical and humorous views with a nice technical information. A pleasure to watch, as always, even more informative and educative than most. Thank you!

sternis1 - 2022-02-08

I remember an experiment I did during my masters thesis. I was attempting to make a lidar based on Time of Flight and had acquired a chip (which I don't know the name of right now) that could measure time extremely precisely (we're talking down to sub 100 ps). I had a microcontroller generating a start and a stop pulse (at some frequency I don't remember, but it was on the order of magnitude of 1Hz), then I measured the difference between the propagation time of the signals. I don't remember exactly what the input into the timer IC looked like, but I assume it's some sort of MOSFET gate. Anyway, I tried with different lengths of wire and could indeed measure the lengths with the propagation time (cool!). I also happened to have a 100m roll of wire I just bought, so I tried connecting it to see if they really did provide me with the correct length. I was very surprised when the propagation time was way less than what would be expected from that 100m wire. My thoughts was that either I found a waay to send information faster than light and should clearly be awarded with a Nobel Prize... or that there was some other effect I didn't fully understand. Most likely this was some combination of infuctance and capacitance in the wire (since it was basically a coil). We could also change the propagation time by moving our hands closer to the wire coil.

So yeah, Veritasium is right that currents don't flow ONLY in wires, but the matter is more complex. Thanks for the good explanation, Mehdi!

SDX2000 - 2022-04-09

> currents don't flow ONLY in wires
Currents do only flow in wires. It's the "voltages" that can span matter / space, and induce currents in other parts of the circuit.

ElSnowman - 2022-04-30

If it’s not too much trouble, what chip did you use? I was wanting to make a TOF lidar range finder but I couldn’t find any MCUs with fast enough timers

Branson Walter - 2022-05-04

That's because many people fail to fundamentally understand their electricity and magnetism classes. Induced current is just as important (and dangerous to screw up) as the direct path current. There is a reason if you take electricity and magnetism, signal analysis, and signal transmission, you will hate the designs from most engineers.

Branson Walter - 2022-05-04

@SDX2000 it is the EMF. To quote my college electronics teacher, "in relation to what" is the most important aspect to voltages. Voltage is a massive simplification of the complex effect of EMF.

SDX2000 - 2022-05-04

@Branson Walter EMF is also a voltage. There is no need to special case it for a discussion on induced current.

Cry 'Havoc!', and let slip the dogs of war. - 2023-06-25

It doesn't happen very often, but sometimes I am hit with a strong sense of "man, this guy really knows what he's talking about"', thanks Mehdi

Cut The Crap - 2021-12-24

Omg, this is educational and entertaining at the same time. Brilliant!

Nurbolat - 2021-12-26

Оо,привет👋🏼 твои ролики не менее увлекательны👍🏼

This Guy - 2022-01-03

Ohh cut the crap! Just kidding, I agree.

Your videos look interesting 👀 sadly I don't understand Russian

HOOOPER - 2022-01-03

Do you know what else is Brilliant??!






That's right! this comment is sponsored by brilliant!

Innovation Talk - 2022-01-16

This comment is sponsored by Brilliant

Stapleman 007 - 2022-01-17

I don't know if I learned anything about electricity, but I do check my closets for lost mothers now.

Dennis Cowdrick - 2021-12-26

Thanks for your great analysis! All this wire analysis is very complicated because the environment is somewhat undefined. In college I was very happy to get to the waveguide OR coaxial models where conditions are well understood. Of course there is still the “ideal conductor” issue which you correctly addressed by using supper conductors. By The Way, just HOW does super conductivity work and is it frequency dependent which (if it is) questions the whole transmission line analysis again. Lots of fun - thanks again.

Millie H - 2022-01-01

Thank you for making this! Even though I studied this at uni, I always manage to learn something new from your videos. Also the PSpice simulation was a nice touch, nothing like a bit of experimental validation to round out an argument.

imnotdavid - 2022-01-15

He might make a good professor, but part of the fun is that he often talks way over the heads of even most of his target audience and you just sit back in awe while he rattles off his vast knowledge. You do NOT want that in a professor you're trying to learn from....and who will be testing you on all the stuff he just rattled off.

Branson Walter - 2022-05-04

Vertasium is right. EMF causes a much shorter displacement current before the conductor current occurs. You can actually further determine it by using the EMF wave propagation effects to measure the expected displacement current at light bulb depending on the material type.

My uni teacher used this problem as a proof of how much people were paying attention in class. He literally asked the same question and asked us variations by asking us to verify the difference between the start of current flow and full current flow.

Sir Dan - 2022-11-15

@imnotdavid I've never had a professor at uni that didn't talk completely over the heads of the students. Electro boom is at least funny while at it.

imnotdavid - 2022-11-15

@Sir Dan hmmm. Well I went to uni and became a lawyer so I went to uni for like 10 years, and my experience is that good professors are generally good at not talking in jargon you shouldn't already understand.

Janne Peltonen - 2023-04-24

This actually reminds me of the days when I was twisting my head around RF circuits :D All of this is known and I really appreciate you pointing out the workable models to think about this.

Conrad von Hötzendorf - 2022-04-29

As a complete layman and after seeing Veritasium's second video I think I finally understood the issue. You both came to the same conclusion, except that Mehdi clarified how the details of this thought experiment were important. Derek's description of electric fields is true but it is presented as if the fully complete circuit is inconsequential.

It is important that the completed circuit wires guide the electric field in order to have a light bulb fully light up, which takes a year for a lightyear-long wire. The "disconnected" parallel wires which are 1 meter apart will cause an "immediate" (1/C sec) voltage increase in the light bulb when it is connected to power, because a small amount of energy is transmitted across the 1 meter gap. However, whether the light actually turns on from this depends on the required voltage (e.g. an LED requires less than an incandescent bulb) which in the case of an LED will only dimly light up and you have to wait for the energy to be transmitted across the complete circuit before it fully lights up. Therefore, no laws of physics were broken because none of the energy was transmitted faster than the speed of light, so our conventional abstraction of how electricity "flows" still illustrates the important parts of how electricity behaves, even if it's not a complete picture. The impression I got from the first Veritasium video was that this model is completely flawed.

Did I get all that right?

Trevor Hall - 2022-04-30

Nice 👍

BillAnt - 2022-07-06

So in Derek's experiment the distance between the lines was set at 1 meter. What would happen is the entire 300k kilometers of wire was laid out in a perfect circle. Hmmm....

BlueFire Animations - 2022-08-07

@BillAnt It would take the circle's diameter/c to get that first small bit of current, then it would take the circle's circumference/c to get the full voltage.

Joseph Stratti - 2022-09-11

That sounds sound!

TheInterruptedLife - 2022-12-23

Thats exactly what I understood and I think Mehdi also shows the same concept in his follow up video

Ihor Karpiuk - 2022-02-17

The fact that millions of people are willingly watching these kinda videos shows that we can teach it in an interesting way and school isn't the end of the story

JerryRigEverything - 2021-12-10

I'm not smart enough for any of these videos.

ElectroBOOM - 2021-12-11

Hey you're putting an electric vehicle together, how bad can you be?!

Emmanuel Nicholas - 2021-12-11

Now what is the conclusion of this discussion?
Who is correct?

OK Computer - 2021-12-11

But you do comment on all of them

Justin Cosby - 2021-12-11

Dont feel bad man. I try my best to be but Im not either. Lol

Melwin Mathew John - 2021-12-11

Jerry - "I'm not smart enough for any of these videos."
*continues making an electric HMMWV before hummer ev comes out..

Thea Isabel - 2022-01-06

This was incredibly informative! The Veritaserum video was well done but left me with a lot of doubts as to how it ACTUALLY works in regards to current, your explanation was on point! Thank you.

Branson Walter - 2022-05-04

Veritasium is right. The key aspect of all of this is EMF. The other condition that Vertasium could have mentioned to give it away was that it was in a system where there was no transfer loss of wave propagation from the superconductors to the intermediary medium but he effectively did by saying "any current what so ever".

Displacement current is current. This is one of the major reasons high tech extremely sensitive equipment needs to operate in a Faraday cage to neutralize as much of the extraneous EMF as possible from every other source.

Another thing he could do is make a video talking about radiation and its effect on electrical circuits. Here is a tip: it is way more complex than you every would want to know. It is the same with computers when talking about the accuracy of a RTC. Here is a tip: they are also changed by radiation.

Jason Wilhelm - 2022-03-14

I liked Darek's video but it is important to understand that reality is often not the ideal. Honestly it was a good video and it helped me understand a concept I struggled with in school. Also I like this video as well as reminds us of all the factors involved.

Bixbe - 2022-05-01

I wished I had all these great videos while going to engineering school. Getting an electrical engineering degree would have been much easier and even more fun!

Wesley Franken - 2021-12-30

Even for a certified electrician this is some tough stuff. Thanks for explaining 🙏🏼

Susheel Raut - 2023-06-30

This is one of the best videos I have watched in a very long time. As an engineer, I think, this is exactly "how" and "what" we need to teach upcoming engineers. Very well done. You have a subscriber. Thank you and keep it up.

The Science Asylum - 2021-12-09

Thanks for the shout-out, Mehdi! This was a thorough and nuanced response to Derek's video. It's important to remember that, while the energy is transferred by the fields, the current is still in control. The lightbulb isn't going to do anything if there isn't a current through it. During a recent live Q&A (for supporters only), I talked about Derek's question a little. My guess was that a real-life bulb wouldn't immediately turn on, but would slowly/gradually brighten over a few seconds. It sounds like you agree, which is validating.

Hari Kishore - 2021-12-09

Hey.... I love your videos.

OrangeMan_21 - 2021-12-09

Cool

Luiz - 2021-12-09

The funny thing is that with 10m of distance, you already have a super small current from the capacitance alone. The only correct answer, the lamp is already on, so its 0s , not matter if you close the switch or not. Oh the leak current, about about the leak current...
That was my conclusion while I watched the video, baffled.
Doesn't electric fields technically go to infinity ? even thou they decrease with the square of the distance ?
All lamps are always on by veritassium definition.

Luiz - 2021-12-09

Another thing that irritates is that it was never defined what is a "turned on lamp", one would presume it would emit enough lumens, but how much ? What are you ideas on this ?

EwingTaiwan - 2021-12-09

Hay a wild crazy is here

Ian B. Lacy - 2022-07-20

Just now noticed that when you were going through the choices, the light was doing them. How did you accomplish this? Curious how complicated or simplified it was

Dean Moore - 2022-01-29

Thank you for your analysis. I find your argument compelling. Conceptually modeling the power line as a transmission line of linked inductors and capacitors is genius! Well done! I guess I can now cancel my order for 1 light-year of 16 gauge copper wire from Amazon. They were estimating 16,000 years to fulfill the order anyway!

Ralph Joseph RJM - 2022-01-07

Man you are a genius.
Not just because of what you teach but with your showmanship as well.

ALLEN PHILIPS - 2021-12-28

Thanks Medi.. excellent ; long time, no chat. Another way to check, is to see the voltage that an antennae would generate on a receiver at one meter with a 12v spike. using a fluke power detector, the wires had to be an inch apart for enough energy to be transmitted and detected on the second wire. i assumed the light could turn on instantly, but wasn't zero resistance, and needed a signal like a electronically controlled breaker. i appreciated both videos

Shane Greenup - 2022-04-14

This is a perfect example of the value and importance of readily accessible rebuttals to all content online. Rebuttals add value to the discussion and people are better off when they get critical responses from other people who add nuance and further context to issues.

We need 'The Socratic Web'...

Yumn Jame - 2021-12-08

I am truly amazed that how YouTube science community holds arguments.
Like a true gentleman, Mehdi.

SasDaGreat - 2021-12-08

If I had a coin for every time Mehdi argued with a science YouTuber...

Arn - 2021-12-08

yeah it's really nice

Shinkajo - 2021-12-09

The science part of Youtube is one of it's best parts. Most of Youtube is is either cancer or garbage.

Mihir Mutalik Desai - 2021-12-09

@SasDaGreat You'd have atleast three

Vigilant Cosmic Penguin - 2021-12-10

@SasDaGreat If I had ten thousand Canadian coins for every time...

Monish Reddy - 2022-04-29

Now that the follow up video is here, I am amazed that how much Mr. ElectroBOOM understands the concept clearly. He casually explaned the time response poynting vectors on pen and paper Aand it was exactly what we got in ANSYS simulations in Derek video

Perry Lovewhistle - 2021-12-25

I used to teach transmission lines and characteristic impedance. I wish I had this video then. You are an awesome teacher.

Chris Panagiotopoulos - 2022-01-06

I'm studying electrodynamics for the upcoming exam and this video is so interesting and fun to watch on my break !!! Well done !!!! As always awesome videos!!

DRuddful - 2022-01-31

I always love it when you make response videos. I always down I'm gonna get a more detailed commentary of information! Love it!

Michael McArthur - 2022-02-09

This makes so much more sense than the Veritasium video! I actually had the same thought about the circle wire path.

ElectroBOOM - 2021-12-13

Since youtube removed dislike count, the like/dislike ratio so far is 98.8% if anyone cares

Nicolai Manev - 2021-12-15

Let's use this ^^ comment's like button as the dislike button.

Sufiyan Adam - 2021-12-16

I care. And keep us updated about it.

85NP85 - 2021-12-16

Can add 'Return Youtube Dislike' extension to chrome for now. There needs to be a petition.

Nick Stanley - 2021-12-17

@85NP85 , assuming that YouTube actually gives a shit(which they clearly don't).

DKexpat - 2021-12-17

Not all heroes wear capes! <3

DeborahSpriggs1980 - 2022-04-22

loved watching this , so glad I found it. Great video, knowledgeable, and entertaining. Great job!

FireSwordl - 2021-12-31

Well your explanations are always much better, I understand them and I like them. Veritasium is a bit academical, and very much debateable!

Aaron - 2021-12-30

Still confused but this certainly cleared up a few things. For one, I didn't realize the wires were only a meter apart. That makes things much clearer!

tsm688 - 2021-12-31

That's what made it clickbait. He gave you a loaded question with incomplete information.

TrEdFo - 2022-01-16

That was just the next level sharing of knowledge. I love it.

Niohimself - 2021-12-09

I just love how Mehdi explains everything in such an intuitive and visual way. Mehdi doesn't showboat to look smart, you can tell he's smart by how he brings you up to his level.

Igor Daniel - 2021-12-10

Exactly. When one truly and deeply understand a subject, they can explain it to anyone.

pegasBaO23 - 2021-12-11

He reminds me of my favorite physics teacher from school

baboonaiih - 2021-12-11

Derek is also actually smart. I wouldn't say he "showboats to look smart" he just presents the information in an engaging way for general audiences. He doesn't need to look smart because he IS smart. Both creators can be good and smart, even when critiquing eachother. Especially when it comes to science.

pegasBaO23 - 2021-12-11

@baboonaiih he smartness is irrelevant when he is trying to explain something to his audience, but he fails to do so

Igor Daniel - 2021-12-11

@baboonaiih The way Derek fails to explain this matter to the general audience, being undeniably more cryptic than it should be (as shown by the electroboom explanation), gives me the impression that Veritassium didn't fully understand what he was trying to teach us. It would also explain why he was making deceptive, exaggerated, even fallacious claims in his video.

There is also another explanation: he didn't care enough about trying to create a good, informative video as he previously always did, but instead distorted the facts to create a click-bait, by making an extraordinary and extremely counterintuitive claim. He has somewhat done it in the past: https://youtu.be/CM0aohBfUTc

raytry69 - 2022-09-15

Not mentioning how well you are educating but you are so entertaining I voluntarily watched the sponsored parts of this video as well.

Heike Siegl - 2022-01-08

Great video! While watching the original i had some doubts about certain things. And you addressed them!

Kai-Made - 2022-03-31

Okay, I just love it when my fav content creators team up, compete or whatever this is...

I think these two should do more together...you know it would be good...admit it.

Simon Poulter - 2022-12-10

Thanks. A. Million! At 13:05 into the video I suddenly fully understood coaxial cable impedance! You know; 75 or 50 ohms normally. Just great! 😁

embreetl - 2023-01-26

Thanks electroboom you are the man 😁 I feel much better about the world having listened to your commentary and noticed veritasium response. You guys are pretty cool, thanks.

Darkphotons - 2021-12-09

Finally an engineer that combines both the engineering and physic models without outright dismissing one or the other.
A very insightful video that perfectly complements Derek’s video and add some much needed realism to it.
If I could subscribe twice I would!

Controversial coffe - 2021-12-09

Use another acc

Biologically AWPtimized - 2021-12-09

Idiosarchy I think the video is still complementary because it's a thought experiment designed to emphasize a specific mechanism of electricity at the exclusion of all others. Maybe he could have been more thorough with his hypothetical situation, but I don't think it's fair to say it's wrong or misleading. If it was meant to be purely realistic he wouldn't have said the wires have zero resistance or that the lightbulb would turn on at any amount of current. I guess he did sensationalize it with his choice of words, but it's Youtube, of course he did. Is this channel any different in that regard?

Tyler Durden - 2021-12-09

Idiosarchy The basic concept is not wrong. It really will take only 1/c seconds for a change in current to start happening through the light bulb.

Derek's thought experiment has some flaws (he could have been more detailed and specific). Just like Medhi's thought experiment has some flaws (which he points out).

No thought experiment is perfect, but it doesn't need to be in order to communicate the basic concept.

The basic concept is 100% correct.

Oscar - 2021-12-09

You do realize that Physics has branches and that those branches also have branches? Physics is like the tree with, for example, the branch Circuit Analysis. You can also split your Classical Mechanics into Statics and Dynamics. You can split your Fluid Mechanics into say Fluid Dynamics. Don’t even get me started with Metaphysics. Good times, haha 😂.

Biologically AWPtimized - 2021-12-09

Idiosarchy the argument obviously has flaws, I never denied that. My point is that he hilights a physical phenomenon that we can understand even if the thought experiment is imperfect. At this point we are just splitting hairs even though I think we both understand the point and intent of the message. I'd like to point out that Schrodinger's cat also probably would not actually work in real life but emphasizes the strangeness of quantum mechanics in a way that is digestible to the lay person. The point is to isolate variables, not to turn sci-fi into reality

Nicolas Seigneur - 2022-02-06

This video from Veritasium made me discover this channel. I'll always be grateful to Derek for that and his content in general!

Михайло Сєльський - 2022-12-30

This is actually quite a common phenomenon.

Many popular wide-topic blogs (sci-pop included) seem at first really comprehensive, until they hit one's specific field of knowledge, at which point one realizes they are superficial, inacurate and often misleading concerning even essential details.

Bryan Marsh - 2022-01-25

1) I love the creative and thoughtful response explanation to the Veritasium video. I was thoroughly intrigued when I initially watched it since it took my thinking out of the box. I'm sure it's hard for Derek to make videos that captivate his audience and still afford him to make a good living just talking about science without boring the masses.
2) Both videos make me wish my engineering degree had landed me a job that was more technical than modifying paperwork and instructions for a manufacturing company. I don't get to do science anymore and am actually discouraged from "turning investigations into an experiment" :(
3) I forgot how awesome @electroboom videos are! I first stumbled across your videos when making a coil gun in Physics class. My favorite is still your electric guitar.

Alex Langensiepen - 2022-03-22

I don't have a science degree yet I feel like Derick's videos are too condescending to his audience, and wish he and other science youtube personalities would drop this notion that they need to oversimplify topics in order to be palatable to a wider audience, yet when people call them out on being too overly simplistic, he gets overly pedantic in defending himself.

HackerulRoman - 2022-05-04

@Alex Langensiepen I agree with the latter half of your comment, but the oversimplification is definitely part of the success. The simpler the explanations, the wider the audience (younger people, people that don’t pay full attention to videos) — even if that means going beyond what would be needed for the average person. Alienizing a small part of the community that calls out this behavior is not as big of a deal as losing out on extra viewers.
This also depends on the type of audience one carves and wants, of course.

Internalized Happyness - 2022-11-30

Just cause you simplify it doesn’t mean people understand it!

Timothy Carter - 2021-12-26

People holding Veritasium accountable are my favorite videos.

Menon - 2022-04-15

Veritasium wasn't very wrong, a lot of things are just dumbed down for the average viewer, as with all science communication.
Kurzgesagt did a video on that "We lied to you"

Geraldo Costa - 2023-04-29

@Menon the dumbed down cant be turn in to wrong information tho, Kurzgesagt is another can of worms btw

Menon - 2023-04-29

@Geraldo Costa people are allowed to know things without studying something for years. Better we have simplified information than no information or straight up lies

TheInterruptedLife - 2022-12-23

I am just grateful to be alive in a time when we as commoners sitting anywhere in the world (mostly) can just bathe in all the knowledge around us
Thank you all the content creators giving us videos filled with knowledge and fun

As another great creator would say,
WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE!

Gavin Li - 2021-12-08

With regards to the “lies” point, I’m reminded of something my engineering professors at university would sometimes say. All models of the world and its behaviour are wrong, but some of them are still useful.

Fam Vampter - 2021-12-08

Perhaps, in many cases, "incomplete" may be more accurate than "wrong".

xponen_ - 2021-12-08

A model are accurate to a certain scale, then at another scale a different model will explain things better. eg: the Newtonian gravity is accurate at low gravity condition but not at high-gravity, while Einstein spacetime curvature is accurate at high-gravity condition. A model is functional at specific scale & conditions and it is against our common sense to even call the Newtonian gravity "wrong" just because there exist a different explanation like spacetime curvature.

Faith 'n FIre - 2021-12-08

ie. Almost all but the most detailed fluid dynamics relations. Several of the are true, but exist in simplifications that cannot exist irl. or they are simplifications that intentionally get something wrong, because the question is impossible to solve otherwise. Still the best solution we have, wherever dimensional analysis and models aren't feasible.

l4nd3r - 2021-12-08

I took it as "lies" we tell children so we could help explain better a concept without needing for the kid to do a psychics/engineering course so they can grasp at it.

Alejandro Aguirre - 2021-12-08

I'm an Electronics proffesor in a Mexican university and I agree, since I myself have used this quote. Though, in Spanish...

Arminder Singh - 2021-12-26

Veritasium and Electroboom you both are highly reputed. Thanks for making such eye openening videos.