EP 155: Making Science a Sheer Joy with Veritasium

Scalar Learning Podcast

School can often feel like relatively impersonal, leading to a transitively worse educational experience. But in the age of the Internet, learning is no longer confined to the cement walls of a classroom. Instead, educational resources populate the web — one of the more popular ones being YouTube videos and tutorials. Nowadays, content creators use YouTube to form connections with viewers and take education outside of just the classroom and into a world where the viewership can expand to any audience. One of the largest and most entertaining of such YouTube channels is Veritasium, a science learning channel run by Derek Muller that has videos on topics ranging from interviews with experts to demos of experiments.

Derek Muller began making YouTube videos in 2011, and in the years since, it has grown into a channel with an avid fan base of nearly 4.7 million subscribers. This number is particularly noteworthy for a channel dedicated solely to videos focused on math and science, topics that are traditionally underrepresented in the YouTube sphere. But Derek deviates from many other popular science and engineering channels in the variety of videos covered and quality of content offered.

His most popular video, “Surprising Applications of the Magnus Effect,” boasts an impressive 36 million views and begins by showing how backspin affects a basketball falling from a height of 415 meters. It’s a three-minute video complete with a visual animation of how air and the basketball interact and the forces that result. Derek then goes on to explain how this Magnus Effect works and how it can be seen and applied in other areas of life — namely, plans and ships. When the video is over, you feel like an expert on a topic you knew nothing about three minutes prior.

Most of Derek’s videos are in the same vein — succinct, educational, and most importantly, interesting. The topics aren’t traditional proofs and experiments; they are videos that explain laser hair removal, why mosquitoes are attracted to certain people, or the morality behind self-driving cars. His other YouTube channel, 2veritasium, features videos on topics that are “a little less flashy but just as enlightening.”

In the end, it’s all about increasing the world’s exposure to science, engineering, and technology in a way that remains fascinating and mind-opening. Because as Derek so concisely put it, “sometimes the simplest questions have the most amazing answers.”

To watch Derek’s videos or subscribe yourself, check out his channels here:

Veritasium – https://www.youtube.com/user/1veritasium

2Veritasium – https://www.youtube.com/user/2veritasium

If you want to check out the videos discussed by Derek on the podcast, you can find them here:

World’s roundest object! – https://youtu.be/ZMByI4s-D-Y

Why are mosquitoes attracted to me? – https://youtu.be/38gVZgE39K8

A misconception about Science – https://youtu.be/Y5kLMVgv0Xg

Surprising applications of the Magnus effect – https://youtu.be/2OSrvzNW9FE

To learn more about him and his channel, check out the full interview below!