Athair Ar Neamh combined with beautiful pictures by Kagaya

Here is another good song from Ray Lynch. Enjoy this cool laser show.

*Watch with headphones on!
Is 45 minutes really the longest anyone can stay in a perfectly silent, pitch-black room?
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Want to watch the whole hour of silence? http://youtu.be/jr1UMFC9DV0

Many stories have circulated claiming the longest anyone has stayed in an ultra-quiet anechoic chamber is 45 minutes, the reason being any longer would drive you insane. To me this sounded like unsubstantiated rubbish, like the claim the Great Wall is the only manmade structure visible from space. So I put my own psyche on the line, subjecting myself to over an hour of the most intense quiet on Earth. No, this was not THE quietest room on Earth (-9dB) but it is one of the quietest, and the truth is once you put a person inside, they are by far the loudest thing in there so the sound rating of the room is irrelevant.

I was not surprised to find that I could stay in there for as long as I liked and feel perfectly fine. What was surprising is that my heartbeat was audible. You can hear it on the sound recording. Now I wasn't consciously aware of the sound of my heart while in the room, but I was more aware of the feeling of it beating.

Huge thank you to everyone at BYU: Duane Merrell, Spencer Perry, Cameron Vongsawad, Jazz Myers, Ann Clawson, and Robert Willes.

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The kilogram, mole, kelvin, and ampere will be redefined by physical constants. For a limited time, get 3 months of Audible for just $6.95 a month: http://audible.com/VERITASIUM or text VERITASIUM to 500500

Will this be the last video I make about SI units? Quite possibly. There's something about being so precise and defining the systems within which science works. When we can more accurately and routinely measure a kilogram, a mole, a kelvin and an ampere, then we can make better observations, we can better detect anomalies and improve our theories. That is why this is so important to me.

Special thanks to Patreon supporters:
Donal Botkin, Michael Krugman, Ron Neal, Nathan Hansen, James M Nicholson, Terrance Shepherd, Stan Presolski

Special thanks to NIST: http://nist.gov

Additional graphics by Ignat Berbeci

Music from http://epidemicsound.com "Experimental1"

Um momento de PAz

A planet has been predicted to orbit the sun with a period of 10,000 years, a mass 5x that of Earth on a highly elliptical and inclined orbit. What evidence supports the existence of such a strange object at the edge of our solar system?

Huge thanks to:
Prof. Konstantin Batygin, Caltech
Prof. David Jewitt, UCLA

I had heard about Planet 9 for a long time but I wondered what sort of evidence could support the bold claim: a planet at the very limits of our ability to detect one, so far out that its period is over 60 times that of Neptune. The planet 9 hypothesis helps explain clustering of orbits of distant Kuiper belt objects. It also explains how some of these objects have highly inclined orbits - up to 90 degrees relative to the plane of the solar system. Some are orbiting in reverse. Plus their orbits are removed from the orbit of Neptune, the logical option for a body that could have ejected them out so far. The fact that the perihelion is so far out suggests another source of gravity was essential for their peculiar orbits.

Special Thanks to Patreon Supporters:
Alfred Wallace, Arjun Chakroborty, Bryan Baker, Chris Vargas, Chuck Lauer Vose, DALE HORNE, Donal Botkin, Eric Velazquez, halyoav, James Knight, Jasper Xin, Joar Wandborg, Kevin Beavers, kkm, Leah Howard, Lyvann Ferrusca, Michael Krugman, Mohammed Al Sahaf, Noel Braganza, Pindex, Ron Neal, Sam Lutfi, Stan Presolski, Tige Thorman

Music from http://epidemicsound.com "Observations - From Now On" "Magnified XY"

The US signed the metre convention and bases all customary units on SI standards. As an aside, the Utah constitution from 1895 required the metric system to be taught in schools. This requirement was repealed in 1987. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Huge thanks to NIST, Ben Stein and Patrick Abbott.
https://www.nist.gov/
https://www.nist.gov/pml/weights-and-measures/si-units-mass

Special thanks to Patreon Supporters:
Tony Fadell, Donal Botkin, Jeff Straathof, Zach Mueller, Ron Neal, Nathan Hansen

Back in 1875 The US signed the Metre Convention, which basically committed the country to use the metric system. In return, French scientists sent two platinum-iridium cylinders that weigh 1kg to the US in 1889 (known by their designations K4 and K20 from a set of 40 identical objects that were produced and sent around the world). So even though everything you see and buy in the US is usually reported in pounds, all weights are traceable back to the K20 kilogram (by applying a conversion factor to get to pounds).

When I was in DC a few weeks ago, I visited the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and got up close with K20, which is still kept there and used to calibrate all mass standards in this country. I thought it was pretty cool.

Edited by Bill Connor

Most people recognize that atoms are the fundamental building blocks of all matter around us. An atom itself is composed of protons, neutrons and electrons. The simplest atom is the hydrogen atom because it consists of only one proton and one electron. If a neutron is added to the nucleus, the atom is still hydrogen, just a more massive version. Atoms of the same element (i.e. those with the same number of protons) but different numbers of neutrons are called isotopes.

Athair ar Neamh as played in wedding of Prince Carl Philip, Duke of Värmland, and Sofia Hellqvist. The wedding took place on 13th June 2015 at Slottskyrkan, Stockholm.

The song was played when Sofia walked down the aisle to Prince Carl Philip.

Originally composed by Irish musician Enya.
Album: The Memory of Trees
Song: Athair ar Neamh

There are some clicks in the beginning of the recording. This is due to original source.

The atmosphere applies a pressure of about 100 000 N to every square metre on Earth's surface. We take this pressure for granted because we have the same amount of pressure pushing out. But what happens when the pressure of the atmosphere is applied to an object with no outward pressure? It implodes. In spectacular fashion.

Provided to YouTube by Believe SAS

Athair Ar Neamh · Abigail Cassidy

Celtic Christmas (Tribute to Enya)

℗ Beat Boutique

Released on: 2014-10-28

Music Publisher: D.R
Composer: Enya

Auto-generated by YouTube.

The Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration observed the supermassive black hole at the center of M87, finding the dark central shadow in accordance with General Relativity, further demonstrating the power of this 100 year-old theory.

To understand more about why the shadows look the way they do, check out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUyH3XhpLTo

I will continue updating this description with more links.

Event Horizon Telescope collaboration: https://ve42.co/EHT

Animations and simulations with English text:
L. R. Weih & L. Rezzolla (Goethe University Frankfurt)
https://youtu.be/jvftAadCFRI

Video of observation of M87 courtesy of:
C. M. Fromm, Y. Mizuno & L. Rezzolla (Goethe University Frankfurt)
https://youtu.be/meOKmzhTcIY

Video of observation of SgrA* courtesy of
C. M. Fromm, Y. Mizuno & L. Rezzolla (Goethe University Frankfurt)
Z. Younsi (University College London)
https://youtu.be/VnsZj9RvhFU

Video of telescopes in the array 2017:
C. M. Fromm & L. Rezzolla (Goethe University Frankfurt)
https://youtu.be/Ame7fzBuFnk

Animations and simulations (no text):
L. R. Weih & L. Rezzolla (Goethe University Frankfurt)
https://youtu.be/XmvpKFSvB7A

Special thanks to Patreon supporters:
Donal Botkin, Michael Krugman, Ron Neal, Stan Presolski, Terrance Shepherd, Penward Rhyme

Scale animation by Maria Raykova

An instrumental medley based on music by Kitaro

Celsius never devised nor used the scale that now bears his name.

Veritasium is now on Patreon: http://patreon.com/veritasium

Special thanks to Michael Stevens of Vsauce! http://youtube.com/vsauce1

More info about Celsius and temperature scales: http://wke.lt/w/s/2I6Nu

References for this video:

A History of the Thermometer and its uses in Meteorology by W. E. Knowles Middleton

Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold by Tom Shachtman

The Science of Measurement, A Historical Survey by Herbert Arthur Klein

Lehrbuch der Chemie by Jöns Jakob Berzelius

Special Thanks to the Uppsala University Museum
I filmed this in Uppsala in the summer of 2012! So I've been thinking about this idea for a very long time. I'm glad to finally have it out there in the world.