Do People Understand The Scale Of The Universe?
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- Опубліковано 14 січ 2024
- People don’t understand the scale of the Universe. There’s a data driven way to read the news: go to ground.news/veritasium to get 30% off the Vantage plan and see through sensationalized reporting.
If you’re looking for a molecular modeling kit, try Snatoms - a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - ve42.co/SnatomsV
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A huge thank you to Dr. Ashmeet Singh for his expert feedback on this video.
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References:
Fun video by RealLifeLore about the scale of the Universe - • How the Universe is Wa...
Moon Facts via NASA - ve42.co/NASAMoon
Titan Facts via NASA - ve42.co/Titan
Mercury Facts via NASA - ve42.co/Mercury
Why Pluto is no Longer a Planet, BBC News via UA-cam - • Why is Pluto not a pla...
Pluto, Wikipedia - ve42.co/WikiPluto
Eris, Wikipedia - ve42.co/WikiEris
Brown, M. E., & Schaller, E. L. (2007). The mass of dwarf planet Eris. Science, 316(5831), 1585-1585. - ve42.co/Brown2007
Trans-Neptunian object, Wikipedia - ve42.co/WikiTNO
IAU 2006 General Assembly Press Release, via IAU - ve42.co/IAU2006
Solar System Moons via NASA - ve42.co/NASAMoons
Solar System Asteroids via NASA - ve42.co/Asteroids
Solar System, Wikipedia - ve42.co/WikiSolarSystem
How many stars are in the Universe via ESA - ve42.co/ESAStars
Catalog of Exoplanets via exoplanet - ve42.co/ExoplanetCatalog
Crowther, T. W., Glick, H. B., Covey, K. R., Bettigole, C., Maynard, D. S., Thomas, S. M., ... & Bradford, M. A. (2015). Mapping tree density at a global scale. Nature, 525(7568), 201-205. - ve42.co/Crowther2015
Galaxy, Wikipedia - ve42.co/WikiGalaxy
Counting Galaxies with the Hubble Space Telescope via NASA - ve42.co/CountingGalaxies
Conselice, C. J., Wilkinson, A., Duncan, K., & Mortlock, A. (2016). The evolution of galaxy number density at z8 and its implications. The Astrophysical Journal, 830(2), 83. - ve42.co/Conselice2016
Sagan, C., & Druyan, A. (2011). Pale blue dot: A vision of the human future in space. Ballantine books.
Images & Video:
Clip of Titan’s Surface, NASA via UA-cam - • Dragonfly: NASA's New ...
Clips of Pluto Had it Coming, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert via UA-cam - • 'Pluto Had It Coming' ...
Image of Solar System Objects - ve42.co/SolarSystemObjects
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Directed by Casper Mebius
Written by Casper Mebius and Derek Muller
Additional research & fact checking by Gregor Čavlović
Edited by Peter Nelson
Animated by Ivy Tello and Alondra Vitae
Filmed by Derek Muller, Raquel Nuno and Zyan Treadwell
Produced by Derek Muller, Casper Mebius and Han Evans
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There’s a data driven way to read the news: go to ground.news/veritasium to get 30% off the Vantage plan and see through sensationalized reporting.
God created earth for us and rest are bunch of lifeless planets. People should care more about the judgment day than universe.
ppl are dumb
Chipi chipi
@@MrUssy101no
Chapa chapa@@shridharjadhav3465
I don't expect the general public to know specific details but college students not understanding the difference between a planet and a star is very worrisome
Bro thinks the sun is smaller than the earth. That isn’t even schools fault.
@@RicoHelms Yes, I thought some stuff was just common knowledge from a young age but apparently I was wrong
@@RicoHelms I would argue, yes, it is. Like, imagine there was no schools, no education. Of course you would think the sun is smaller than the virtually infinite planet you're standing on. Same way a remarkable amount of antique civilizations considered the sun some kind of (large) object carried/drawn by some deity, usually with the implication that the deity would fit onto the planet in a human-observeable size scale, thus implying the sun had to be smaller than the planet.
It's exactly only education (or generally available educative information), thus usually school, that teaches people things beyond the stuff we can observe on first glance. I would never expect somebody to know the precise distance to, or the size of, the sun, because that's not exactly information pertaining to your everyday life, thus nobody should be expected to just look it up for no reason. Hence the only thing a random non-astronomer would know is exactly that a class or two might have shown him (often wildly mis-proportioned) depictions of the solar system.
So if people somehow forget about that, or never understood it, the educative system meant to teach them has failed.
This is pretty typical of these productions to cherry pick the biggest ingnoramus' out of the crowd. For everyone of the people that made it into the video, there could have been hundreds who had no problems. Without showing honest statistics of how many people got it right vs didn't all this video does is show that a few very poor students were still able to get through the vetting process of UNLV.
The only person who can be forgiven for this mistake is a child or a peasant from the 15th century, because everyone should at least know that the moon is smaller than the sun.
I'm a highschool dropout and have spent most of my life working in construction, but I feel like Einstein after listening to these people.
Same minus the construction part
@@igetsnipedalot7784nah cuz when the girl said "stars are the smallest" I actually lost some Faith in humanity like I'm not smart in fact I'm dumb but bro come on
It’s terrifying that these are college students
Literally same except I'm a mechanic
Too busy studying sociology and critical race theory
"is the sun bigger than the moon?" i just gasped
bro you listen to kpop you probably gasp just walking on a daily basis when your not sitting on a chair
@@saltyninja5534 do people gasp when they realize you can't use basic grammar 😭
I mean if they have only ever seen the sun and moon on earth with their own eyes. They look roughly the same size.
I mean just look at it, duh
@@linamariaorozcouribe5291 i learned that the sun was bigger than the moon in 4th grade... how do people just not get taught basic astronomy
A few years ago, I asked 24 friends and acquaintances here in Canada, most with post-secondary education, and aged between 25 and 50, how long it takes the Earth to make one orbit around the Sun. I made it crystal clear, often with a sketch. Out of 24, 16 got it wrong.
........... What the
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I mean, if they heard the question wrong, they prolly said 24 hours, but their second guest is surely 365 days
So hard to like this post. It's depressing. These people get to vote!? That's terrifying
@@brussailpook8213how can someone misheard questions about how long is one year to be how long is one day? Just asking ok
“We are not astrology majors.” Education officially failed them.
@@metaknecht *Australian
💀
Or they failed education.
ASTROLOGY 😂😂😂
No do this is Europe.
I couldn’t even imagine that basic knowledge about our universe is so limited by so many people
ikr? This isn't complicated or subtle. This is about knowing some basic language. "What is a galaxy?" Collection of solar systems. So galaxy bigger than star or moon, right? Wow.
[EDIT - Some people have misconstrued my point. I'm not being superior or precise or grandiose. I'm trying to convey that a basic, approximate sense of how it vaguely works (solar systems go in galaxies, for example) is fine for most people. We don't all need to be experts in everything. General Knowledge is just that. General.]
Right! It just seems so odd. I guess I assumed everyone knows the basics at least.
My mind was blown when I found out my stepmom had no idea of the basics of our existence/reality. I thought she was the dumbest person on earth, but I guess there are people even dumber out there.
I also had to teach her when i was 7 that there's different types of metal. She thought metal was metal and it's own thing and that copper wasn't metal but it's own thing, and that steel wasn't metal but it's own thing, that brass wasn't metal but it's own thing, and so on. I literally asked her if she was the other word for special at the dinner table and got yelled at for asking her that. I'm pretty sure I made her cry that night because I made her feel so stupid.
@@mLyonJE there are those people, but i'm pretty sure he asked a lot of strangers and just picked the once that struggled more, cause there's nothing to learn if someone just comes up and knows everything
Yeah this is really surprising to me. I thought everyone got taught about basic astronomy in elementary school.
Moons orbit planets, planets orbit stars, stars have solar systems, solar systems make up galaxies, galaxies make up the universe. This takes like 1 day to teach, and it's generally mind-blowing for kids, so it's usually a fun lesson that they'll remember for the rest of their lives.
He is keeping such a straight face through all those interviews, I would not be able to keep my composure. It is baffling to me that people could confuse the size of a star and the moon.
We have multiples moons and stars which is the problem
Earth has one moon. The problem is people can’t or don’t try to grasp the concept of perspective. Nor do they remember one second of the solar system model they learned in elementary school
it's incredible someone made a video like this without being an annoying jerk. it was nice how respectful and educational you were. most of these vids the host comes off as so unpleasant.
jesus, the amount of times astrology was used instead of Astronomy, hurt me both physically and mentally.
Ow! My neurons!
But at least astrology does have something to do with space
@@callangb7652🤨
everyone in this comment section getting on these ppl for saying astrology when really its the long co-opted etymologically correct term for science/study of the stars, its what we know as astronomy today SHOULD be called, but we got stuck with their etymological definition instead (-nomy referring to rule/law). for an astronomer, the psychic damage exists at a base level at all times for having to call themselves astronomers because some schmucks who think the movement of the planets affects your fortune and personal compatibility with other people decided to take the word that means science (no actual offense meant towards astrologers but can we please switch words)
because they used share same ancestor name before both terms separated
Came to the comments for this. I cringed so hard. I'm just an electrician with a love of sci-fi since I was a kid, and knew the answers to all the questions he asked since before I was in high school,, except for the galaxies question, which I thought was infinite, not 100 billion - 2 trillion.
I like the way Derek doesn't mock people for ignorance and instead encourages learning.
Only bards can cast vicious mockery. He's a wizard.
He just went in with a different goal
If I was going to do it I would only want the information
He wants to know more after the interaction so he is nice.
Or he’s just nicer than us in general, or me any ways… that’s probably more likely
I dislike the way people dont mock him for holding a lav mic like that. aka the "Clueless Logan"
@@tgc517i think he's nice but he's also lot gonna post a video just mocking ppl for a channel like his he's gonna have to stay professional
I notice all the religious answers were cut from the video, so we can't know if he laughed at those. No flat earthers either?
I am so glad that he was so kind and educational with these students. I personally can't imagine not knowing these things, but watching this makes me even more grateful for the life I've lived, even though currently life is pretty difficult for me. When I get overwhelmed thinking about the vastness of the universe actually helps me not take everything so seriously.
On another note, I am just imagining how these people would react to learn that not only are they made of stardust, but also Big Bang stuff. 🤯 (Thanks Crash Course! 😊)
For me, knowing the scale of the universe was probably the most important thing I learned as it kind of brought some peace to me as it made me realise that we are truly not alone in this universe. If there hundreds of billions of stars in a galaxy and hundreds of billions of galaxies within the observable universe then there has got to be life somewhere out there, if it can happens once here then it must of occured again on some of those solar systems. Somewhere out there there is likely someone going through life with their own hardships and who knows, maybe they're also learning about the universe from their viewpoint
as someone who was obsessed with astronomy as a kid, them repeatedly calling it astrology really hurt. but i also appreciate how he was able to go about it without mocking them
I just laughed when I heard that. Watching university students get stuff wrong which 5 year old me could have nailed is quite painful to watch.
yeah I'm curious how much people's confusion with that has led to pseudoscientific thinking in the general public.
I am not American but most of us learned these basic things in primary/elementary school. We went to the local planetarium and science museum for field trips, and heard scientists talk. I'm curious how it's done in the US.
@@pssurvivor From what I know, American education is not the best. I am Italian and here, education is pretty good. People here tend to be auite cultured, but there are exceptions obviously.
Here as well, most people know that a star is huge. You can expect a pre school teacher saying to a child that "stars are veeeeeryyy big!"
I aspire to this level of patience
The fact that Derek can not laugh every time they say “astrology”…
That’s talent
It’s an honest mistake. I’ve done it a few times aswell.
@@Jose.AFT.SaddulMy mnemonic is to think of a big "log" of poo.
@@andyjohnson4907I'm sure psychologists would have something to say about that
Lmao
@@vedritmathias9193 A scatologist would agree
Honestly, I think it is great that someone like him are out to educate people. He doesn't criticise them for being stupid or ignorant. In fact, this method could probably get them interested to learn more.
Everyone is so interactive and talkative i love ittt
gay
@@realjohanngoethe …ok 😭???
@@realjohanngoethe😂😂
that dosent help them being illiterate
At first I was thinking “well no one can really comprehend the size of the universe, since our minds aren’t built that way.” But then I realized it was way worse than that.
For me it’s not even the size, but the sheer amount of nothingness. think of how everything is built out of atoms and those things are basically 99.99% (probably even more) nothingness. The earth with everything on it, for which Carl Sagan had this long ass quote, is still mostly empty space.
@@LuffyTwoYears The quote is actually an excerpt from the book "Pale Blue Dot" he wrote, which would explain why it's such a long one 😅
@LuffyTwoYears I know that's the fact that is repeated a lot and on surface it sounds right to us intuitively because the size of nucleus of atom is incredibly small and the next atom is so far away (while electron is also small and "orbits" the nucleus), this "99.999%" figure SEEMS right. But I think the more modern version is that this emptiness is actually filled with an electron cloud. And yes, it's really hard to process what an electron cloud actually is because when we measure electrons they appear to be a point-like. But I'm not sure it's correct to imagine that space as "empty" exactly.
I still can’t grasp the concept of sooo many other galaxies existing beside our own one
I always think about the vastness of the universe. It's amazing and simultaneously utterly depressing. This is why I'm not allowed idle time.
Being a science student I just assumed this was common knowledge. We need more work like this, nobody should die without knowing the scale of the universe.
I learnt about this from kids tv shows when I was younger
Absolutely. There should be a law that before anyone m*rders anyone they must first teach them the scale of astronomical bodies.
This is why I can't vote Republican ever again. The fact that so many of them think the Earth is only around 6000 years old while we have proof how old stuff in the Universe is, is just mind blowing. And even if you try to teach them, they just plug their ears.
It is commin knowledge before education got hijacked and now they only learn unnecessary stupid stuff
It should be.
Best comment "it makes me less stressed... (we're) just a blip in the system... nothing is that deep" :-)
Having just finished your "Luck vs Hard Work" video, I find myself appreciating my life even more. The thought of being the only inhabitants in this vast universe is truly humbling. Life is too previous. ❤
As a lawyer, who’s definitely not an astronomy major…I was absolutely baffled at how people were even considering putting the moon above planets and stars 💀. Also when that one person said stars are the smallest I was dead 😂.
fun fact, in terms of size moons can be larger than planets, however never larger than the planet it orbits. Ganymede, one of many of Jupiter's moons, is larger than Mercury for example. Similarly, some red dwarf stars are smaller than the largest planets. Centauri (AB) b being the largest known planet 10x the size of Jupiter, and EBLM J0555-57Ab which is the smallest red dwarf star at 118.000km smaller than Saturn at 120.536km in diameter
On the positive side college kids can now name every one of the 57 genders and have invented many new and useful pronouns
@@StitchSprites I mean I'm sure there are moons/planets bigger than stars(small stars like red dwarfs) but we're talking about the average ones and it's a logical thing to think that a moon will not be bigger than a planet since it needs to orbit it.
You'll be surprised but the moon is larger than most known plants 😂
(it's my lame attempt to make fun of a typo that was funny to me, sorry)
@@shauryapratapsinhbarhat2545 I mean yea, It was just a fun fact.
As a space nerd, I find it very weird watching people struggle on the easiest question.
I'm not a "space nerd", I'm just a guy who went to a Russian school and received a Russian education. You know, we often say that education in America is disgusting, and no one seems to argue with this But not as much! I don’t presume to say that we are such geniuses, but the question “which is bigger, the Moon or the Sun” causes not only hysterical, but rather panicky laughter
@@Slevaizum You-have-an-education-system-designed-to-educate...You-cannot-even-compare-that-to-what-we-have-here-in-America-because-the-purpose-of-our-system-is-the-complete-opposite...Hopefully-this-changes-in-the-future-though-now-that-so-many-people-here-in-America-are-taking-notice-for-the-first-time.
@@Slevaizum Don't say "Russian" as it's something good. 35% of Russians believe that Sun goes around Earth - data from the Russian state agency for public researches in 2022.
@@Tina-mt9cl In fact, although our education system provides much more knowledge, it is also terrible. Yes, for us, what is shown in the video is the most basic knowledge, but it is not limited to this. Children in post-Soviet countries are obliged not to “study”, but to “know”. It's a big difference. This is a real mockery of children, because we are forced to cram something that will not be useful in life in principle. Of course, this develops neural connections, and this would be the case if we were instilled with the DESIRE to learn, and not just forced to do it.
@@Tina-mt9cl Sorry for GTranslate, but this is the fastest way for me to formulate a thought while concentrating only on what I want to say
I’ve always been a curious person and it genuinely baffles me watching these kinds of vids cuz how do people live their whole lives being perfectly okay with not knowing anything about life or where they live or how things work??????????
We only even made it to the moon less than 100 years ago.
Billions of lives have ended without even knowing hearing how space was even described, knowing that there’s more out there..
It’s way more important to have life experiences than memorizing facts that will not make you any happier, any closer (for most of us) to achieving your goals.. really, put it in perspective
It’s very much possible to be content without knowing about things like this, that’s how we’ve lived for thousands of years
@@Zahaveronbut if the information is there why not learn it???
The tree question hit me the hardest. I was thinking... the amount of surface area on the Earth that contains trees is ASTRONOMICALLY smaller than the space in the galaxy that could contain stars. If it was a multiple choice question I'd have gotten it wrong. I still can't believe there are that many trees on Earth.
The exact same for me, I guessed there were tens of billions, but trillions is incomprehensible
Most question of that nature, comparing numbers of big things up there to small things down here, there's more small things down here. The things up there are very low density. The things down here are very high density.
I wasn't sure either. I was like "there's about 150M km^2 of land on Earth... so that's about 1000 trees per km^2 for there to be about as many as stars in the galaxy... that's a tree for every 1000 m^2... that's about a tree in every 30mx30m area... that's a lot less dense than a forest, but how much of the Earth is forest? Large stretches of it don't even have trees. Hmm....
I decided on trees, but yeah, they're only about an order of magnitude apart (which btw, means there's about 1 tree for every 100 m^2 of Earth, or every 10m x 10m area)
i actually got it pretty easily, but not because i actually managed to grasp the scale, just simple math.
if on average a galaxy has 100 bil stars and there are about 8 bil humans, and i think there are probably at least a hundred trees to one human then it easily surpasses the average amount of stars in a galaxy
I felt it from my sense of Earth's nature scale, but I didn't trust myself and picked stars
As an astrphysics major, a part of me died within the first 5 minutes of this video but the rest of it revived me and filled me with a sense of hope because there's people like Derek who'll keep educating the general public about things the education system failed to.
i got very triggered at that part
As someone who had a pretty good basic education, same 😂
I do not know a lot, I though I knew nothing until this video to be honest… but yeah, last half of the video is really nice. I admire people that keep pushing for people to learn.
Fun fact college educated people support democrats
Good job on getting that Astrophysics major! That’s amazing!
Yeah, in that part I was like "a 14 year old can answer that"
Thinking moon bigger than stars is absolutely crazy
You are a good person ❤ thank you for sharing your heart and thoughtfulness with us 💞
While I commend the students' eagerness to learn, the fact this isn't already largely known is kinda mind blowing to me considering basic astronomy is part of my compulsory curriculum
In elementary school?
I know, I asked my 5yo and he got it right, he only messed up when I asked him to compare the sun and the stars
@@mariacamilaserranomelo6307 comparing the sun and the stars doesnt really make sense icl
@@Khal-E1 Why not? I just checked a textbook for 4th grade (9-10 years old), and it has a few chapters about astronomy.
It was part of theirs too; they've just forgotten (or more likely never actually learned) it since them.
My favourite part of this video is that he actually educates the people interviewed. And doesn't just put them down.
Yeah, he doesn’t leave them in ignorance. I love that.
I would have such a hard time not putting people down. The dude in the video has willpower.
I mean for the most part it can't be their fault that they don't know this stuff. Has to be their education system or just society that's to blame.
You know deep inside he's thinking wtf?
Well the comment section here alone is doing a good job of putting them down
that picture has been my device's background since i stumbled upon it a couple of years back. it puts everything in perspective. :3
You know, this really puts into perspective what we consider "common knowledge". The Bell Curve is surreal.
A nice showcase for why science literacy is important.
Marvel is to blame. Earth deals with a UNIVERSAL crisis every movie which is extremely narcissistic. WRITERS think the universe is the size of a solar system.
Edit: The multiverse contains multiple solar systems. Thinking we're the only one is also narcissistic. :)
They're too busy learning about how women and bIack people are oppressed and how white men invented bigotry and slavery....
To answer random questions from a stranger in a sandwich board? I don't see how that's important.
how does this showcase it? none of these people knew the answers and they seem like theyre doing fine.
@@dangerfly Hm... "a" solar system? Surely you meant "the" because solar refers to our star sol hence there is only one solar system. Others are called star systems (simplified).
Good on him for trying to educate people, but it’s shocking to me that so many people struggle with these topics that should be common knowledge.
Now imagine most rich people are far below intelligence of the average people. You didn't know THAT, right?
@@tilmerkan3882 Where are you getting that stat from?
In my anecdotal experience, most of the rich people I've met are at least smarter than average. But it's certainly true you don't need to be a genius to be rich. In fact, it may even hamper wealth creation through traditional means because smart people tend to overthink things.
i would probably snap and call them idiots
Maybe not so shocking? what happens among the stars currently has very little bearing on what happens down here on earth. you could live your whole life never knowing what our own star is, let alone anything beyond, with few if any negative consequences. for most people... knowing about space doesn't matter. it's a novelty.
I happen to think space is really cool. I like learning about stuff up there, but it's ok if someone else doesn't. people like different things, and it's not like we're any better or worse off for it.
It's the U.S. It's expected.
All of the questions are easy for me to answer not because i learned it from school but because I watch and read a lot of science related topics. Which is why we should always stay curious
theres no way, this has to be scripted
This topic typically leads to feelings of existential crisis, but the way you're explaining it turns the video into something very wholesome. Love it.
hai, bang. big fan!
ga kaget liat kokbisa juga nontonin veritasium, keep up the great work you guys!!
Depending on perspective, but when I think of the vastness of our universe and how small we are to scale, I realize how insignificant we are. Which oddly increases the feeling of significance. It definitely forces an out-of-body thought for a second. It makes big problems in our life seem trivial, and yet, makes small acts of kindness mean that much more. Sounds cheesy I guess, but damn if it doesn't make me think.
Kobi!!!
@@MA-ts3xsMA, My forever home is in heaven with Jesus.
The relative sizes of bodies is literally kindergarten level science. The fact that anyone can not know this is concerning.
Much of American education rests on the belief that the universe revolves around the USA.
Americans do have a strong stereotype of not being smart. These youngsters don't do the country any favors.
@dbznappa Not so much anymore. Now it rests on the individual as the center of the universe. "YOU are special. YOU are unique. YOU are whatever you say YOU are, and if anyone tells you different, that is violence against YOU...And that concludes math class. Thank you, everyone! See you tomorrow! And remember, after our pledge to the pride flag, we will have a pop quiz on pronouns! All 5,892,634,051 of them!"
@@Malhaloc Oh look, another poor conservative that permanently thinks they are a victim. You poor, poor, sensitive snowflake, it must be so hard being so upset all the time.
Imagine if you ACTUALLY had something worth caring about.
@@MalhalocI thought everyone agreed that individuals are important. The U.S. was founded on personal rights. I think there are issues with this, socially, but you are just making sht up. Pronouns have always been taught, but not the 'modern ones.' They are needed in language, and totally made up. If anything, more popular pronouns besides the main ones should be taught, so students know about them. You know, education.
Mind blown! I assumed that the number of stars in our galaxy would easily trump the number of trees on earth. Realizing that the opposite is true, and that we are already doing so much damage, just brings into view how precious each one truly is.
Some of it might be due to their previous education but i feel like this is something everyone should learn whether it’s inside school or not.
I am really shocked at the lack of understanding. Great for being so kind to these folks to keep them open to learning.
It's incredible how lacking it was
Really? When those same people are lecturing you about the 32 different genders, you're shocked they are ignorant of the real world? Really? 🙄
i feel like my 6yr old would do better than some of these people. It would also be interesting to see these questions asked of different age groups, cities and even countries and we might have an idea why things like 'flat earth' come back when we just know better :-)
I really thought these knowledge are common after the age of like 10, guess I'm wrong..
I suspect Derek only included the truly clueless people he interviewed to make this video. I cannot - nay - choose not to believe that this is representative.
This was very eye opening. Never knew it’s possible to go through the education system and still not know the difference in size of the moon and sun.
Seeing this was super dissapointing.
It's as if they were thinking from eye perspective looking at the sky. The sun and the moon are roughly the same size (like during an eclipse) But since the universe is included in the responses, it shows they aren't capable of thinking from an outer perspective.
i'm astounded. i never went to college and i know more than a lot of the people i see in these kinds of videos. it's insane that they even graduated highschool.
When there's no need for it u forget
I once met a guy in school that thought the planets in our solar system where stacked vertically on top of each other and that they didn’t take that long to get to. It was fun explaining to him how long to took it get to each planet. The look on his face was priceless
Damn, i didn't know that much people didn't know this. It's more like a documentary of society than science video. But hope it'll get more attention of people and increase the average knowledge of community. I'm so proud of what you're doing doc, keep the world spinning, and thank you for making it a better place
I hope at least someone answered the question of "How many galaxies are there in the universe" with "All of them".
I’m a big fan of how you interacted with the students. Anytime they degraded themselves for not knowing, you encouraged them. Neat to see these interactions.
That is one of my favorite things about this channel. Derek has always been the type of person to encourage growth. His journeys have always been entertaining and educational.
That’s literally how the channel started!
The original format of Veritasium didn't work very well.
Student: "I think that the stars are the smallest because they're just little white dots"
Derek: "Really? Hahahahahahahahahahahaaha...."
Yep, as much as I like watching "dumb American geography" or "flat earth debunking" videos for the shock value, ultimately this way of encouragement is one we should all aim for, then we wouldn't even need to create those shock value videos
I'm sorry but.. you maybe should feel a tiny bit bad about not knowing the answer to this question.
As a casual fan of astronomy, this was hard to watch at first but I appreciated it! Great video
Real, why cant I be on these videos. Would have had 100% right
I expected it to be hard to watch, but instead it was kind of nice. Like a completely smooth road to the point where I realize I don't know how many stars are in the galaxy, and then I'm right there with the people in the video.
yeah I'm struggling to watch right now
you mean astrology, right? xD
@@raphaelefranco1123 If this is a joke It's way too unclear
I love asking people “what’s the closest star to earth” 1/10 people get it right. That might be generous tbh. It blows my mind.
The problem is some are all of stars, moons and planets vastly differ in size.
That last one summed it up perfectly -- "people are worried about making mistakes, but you can't learn without making mistakes." Good on her and the rest of the students for being willing to learn something no matter how trivial it may seem to others. Future's looking bright for them.
Making mistakes is one thing, not learning from them is another. Theres a trend in the recent years of the latter.
thats true but how do they think stars are planets
@@moon-pw1bi Because theyre Americans
But you can.
You can absolutely learn without making mistakes.
Honestly this confuses me so much to know that somewhere out there people think the moon is bigger than the sun
Edit: hold up, how are there 55 comments, i thought there was just one, none of my comments have ever been so popular and in such a short amount of time how is this possible.
Edit 2: 1.6k likes?!!?!? I have never even gotten past 100 thank you all so much
I beg to differ, everything now makes more sense.
People are literally brain dead?@@hovnocuc4551
the idea of perspective is known as a child, how do these people not know
And that's probably the genesis of flat Earth theories...
Looks bigger to me. You’re overthinking it.
What this video has taught me is that it doesnt matter how much you know, or if what you know is right or wrong. The universe simply dont get a flying F and keeps going and expanding.
Our world is fascinating, we are incredibly intelligents at our scale on our Earth but at the same time we are so small and know almost nothing about the rest around us... It's so deep
This was painful at the start but I'm glad I stuck with it. This is an amazing example of good science communication: Not laughing at people for their ignorance but using it as a starting point for getting people excited about the universe.
These people aren't excited about it as it doesn't affect their lives (which is how our specialized society operates). He also obviously didn't include the interviews where the interviewee knew everything because that would be boring to watch. For example, I'd have gotten all these instantly except for the trillions of trees on earth because I could care less about the number of trees on earth, but my specialization is in a related STEM field to astronomy.
@@timp6834live "i could care less" reaction. WRONG. INCORRECT. CLEARLY you meant that you "couldn't care less" because, right now, you're displaying an AWFUL high potential of caring less about the amount of trees on earth, which indicates that you care an AWFUL lot about the amount of trees on earth. Checkmate "timp6834".
@@jfan3049Do you feel better now? 😂
@@jfan3049 This is a weird American English thing. They say 'could care less' where British English says 'couldn't care less'. The British version makes rather more sense if you stop to think about it for a mo. But the US version, whilst perverse, isn't really 'wrong' - that is the accepted usage there SFAIK (it may be regional?). Sadly language is very much as we find it, even when it's annoyingly nonsensical.
I almost stopped watching before the 2 minute mark. I'm right there with you.
The number of people who did not know that a star is very large and only looks small because it is far away was shocking to me, among other things! I am glad they were all able and willing to learn. Lovely video.
90% sure he just didn’t include the ones who knew and only included the ones who didn’t
obviously but its still outstanding the amount who didnt know. or they are just people told to act like that.@@ChatterBoxBran
@@ChatterBoxBran yeah, at a college campus in a 1st world, well developed country every single student should know the answer
@@MisterKazooAmerica is different from most developed countries. For-profit medicine, debilitating medical debt, mass shootings almost daily (usually several on weekend days), and a sad number of people who don’t know basic knowledge.
@@soph7230 name one first world country that is perfect please :)
and mass shootings are not weekly tf you mean 😭
To anyone interested about the topic of Pluto loosing it's status of planet, I can highly recommend the (audio) book *How I killed Pluto and why it had it coming* by Michael E. Brown.
It's written by the astrophysicist who discovered a whole number of other potential "planets" and how he advocated to demoting Pluto and his discoveries to dwarf planets. It's written amazingly and great to listen to, too.
I do have an idea for one of your next videos.
'Echoes of Stardust: Past, present, and Future from Earth to Universe'
Explores how our perception of the universe is fundamentally delayed. We observe stars and celestial events as they appeared millions of years ago, not as they are present. This time lag means that major cosmic events or distant civilizations might exist unbeknownst to us until far into the future, challenging our understanding of reality and time.
- Even the sunset is 8 minutes delayed.
- If Univers had collapsed today, we would not know until millions of years from now.
- If another civilization lived, lives or will live, even the coincidence in time existence would make us almost impossible to find it out. Even, maybe they live in a different time reference.
"We are not astrology majors" had me cracking up. Kudos to you for not losing it, Derek.
Such a Gemini comment
I don't believe in astrology. I'm a sagittarius and we're skeptical.
I came here to say the same thing. Crazy sentence
Stop being an Aquarius
If there's an astrology major in there, I'm really afraid to ask what else people can major in
I think it’s always crazy seeing these types of video, and seeing just how many people wander around who have never been curious about things like “hmm how big is the sun?” Or “what is our moon?”
Insane
It's unacceptable.
Honestly it's absolutely wild that we live in a time where people aren't curious anymore and are often punished by society for being curious
Why? It has no effect in your life to have this information @@guy9360
I honestly think a massive amount of this has to do with the fact these interviews are done in LA, or he only shows the clips in which people don't know much. I refuse to believe the average American doesn't have high school level physics. But I'm not american so I have no idea
What are they thinking with their time?
What are they doing so as to avoid this information when it is everywhere?
You could literally spend all of your time laughing at memes on the internet and STILL come across this information.
When you put the numbers into context, I always find it so fascinating because it really makes you think about the Fermi Paradox, and I cannot possibly imagine a scenario where in the vastness of the universe, we are the only intelligent life. We're not even the only interlligent life on this planet :')
It's a matter of comparing infinites. Sure, the universe is incomprehensibly large, but the processes involved in the emergence of life are also incomprehensibly complex. We don't even know all the elements that factor into the equation for life.
It really hinges on what one believes.
The guy that pointed out that you can be small but still significant had the right attitude.
One significant thing to always appreciate about Derek is that although some of these concepts may be simple or so, he does not dare bash any of those that he interviews for not knowing answers to his questions. He guides them through this journey of gaining a new perspective on misconceptions or something that most do not think about on the daily. He really lives up to his channel name!
On the other hand, he publishes this ignorance to the public here on UA-cam.
And that comes across as a denunciation.
Times New Roman
He's stronger than I am, for sure
@@HerbertHeyducklol, I'm sure he gets them to sign a legal disclaimer. so they know. some ppl don't care and still want to be seen
@@HerbertHeyduck But who is being denounced? IMO, it's the system that was supposed to be teaching people all this stuff.
Can you be faulted for dealing with your life and not learning something you'll likely never use in your daily matters?
As Einstein once said: “I believe there are two infinities, the universe, and human stupidity. And I’m not sure about the universe.”
wow that makes you now as smart as einstein.
My favourite quote
It does, bow before me @@KikujiroChan
Depends on how you define stupidity. The people in this video were just uneducated on the topic, possibly even lacking a previous curiosity on the topic, and therefore willfully uneducated. Be it the basics, or specifics. Yet, they all appeared humble in their lack of knowledge, and grateful to learn. That, to me, indicates anything BUT stupidity.
it's unlikely he actually said that.
At first I thought "come on, that's just silly" looking at the initial task of sorting stuff by size. Bacause I find it ridiculously hard to believe that anyone who is older then 12 y/o and not brain dead (in the most literal sense) would be capable of making a mistake putting those in the right order... other then on purpose. That's just common knowledge levels of "2x2", I said to myself. But then I thought: "hey, that's actually a somewhat tricky question since some planets (and perhaps even moons?) are actually way bigger then our sun, and some dwarf stars can probably be relatively small..." And then you went for the actual numbers and THAT was some fine guesswork. Well done!
I still feel significant even though i know the mind boggling size if the universe. As Carl Sagan said, “This is the only home ever known.” This gives me hope, that i am the smallest speck of dust and the biggest breakthrough simultaneously
the universe is shockingly giant but i thought people would at least know the sun is bigger that the moon
I mean you can literally see both of them from earth and one is clearly bigger
I thought he would also ask them about which galaxy is bigger, but it was just basic stuff. Still the video was good.
@@donothesitate1198you should also know one is tremendously closer to us so put one and one together to realise the sun behind dwarfs the moon. You’re comparing a pebble to Everest.
@@donothesitate1198 They actually look about the same size from earth, because the moon is about 400 times closer than the sun, but its diameter is 400 times smaller than the suns.
@@donothesitate1198that's just plain wrong. neither of them is clearly bigger when seen from earth. they actually look about the exact same size as evidenced by solar eclipses where the sun is perfectly hidden behind the moon.
As soon as I heard "I'd say a star is the smallest" I wasn't sure if I could watch this video
I stopped and started looking at the comments instead. Because the things these students said just hurt.
From a certain standpoint I can understand what's happening, since they seem to simply judge things off of how they look to us - the further away they are, the smaller they are. But even from that point of view, it is weird when people say the moon is bigger than a planet. So yeah, I think I'll pass on watching this.
@@jorghelfrich8884But they aren’t astrology majors
I mean, the moon is big enough to walk on, but you can't walk on a star. Draw your own conclusions.
@@TheCerealArsonist there is no excuse for thinking a star is smaller than a moon.
There are dwarf stars smaller than earth. Question incomplete and too vaguely worded
And yet despite how far out into space we’ve looked we’ve yet to find any evidence of intelligent life. That’s how special we are. We are truly one in a krillion
Thank you for the informative content
I think I take my general understanding for granted. A lot of this to me seems like general information that everyone would know...and I'm just a music major. It just goes to show that we can't take our skills, knowledge, or gifts for granted. There's someone out there who would love to be where you are.
wow, that put things into perspective. i have a weird urge to teach someone something
Dude they just don’t apply themselves or have a low IQ, whatever.
Apparently billions of them.........SMH
Is it a failure in curiosity?. I feel the same way you do and I know teaching people and they always enjoy and are fascinated by it. It just seems there are many more, easily accessible thing that consume their curiosity (social media, etc)
This is just wild. Im a welder myself and i had the correct answer in like 3 seconds. Also all the questions in my mind to spesify what planets or moons are we talking about. It just shows what a great basic education can do to people.
I appreciate that he's not doing this to judge, but to educate.
Oh but they should be judged 😭 this is not even funny it's concerning
Some of them should be blamed for not paying attention, but the truth is the public school system is garbage in a great many places.
@@joshuawillingham6363the basic knowledge asked at the start of this video should be known to everyone regardless of how good their elementary school budgets were.
There are no excuses for being this ignorant. I expect all of them know the names of top TikTok influencers...
@@pxprimary3790 When would you encounter this information outside of a formal education setting? Unless they have a particular interest in space there's no reason to look it up, and public school does a great job of beating any joy to be found in learning out of people.
@@joshuawillingham6363 scifi movies. Documentaries. Comic books. TV shows. Novels and general literature.
There is almost no way you can go through life and not understand the basic size differences between planets, moons, stars, solar systems, galaxies, etc.
You don't have to know exactly how big they are.... But you should know relatively speaking.
And then you can do the same exercise with time. We aren't just a small dot in space, we're also a small dot in the scale of time. Just like you did by starting from planner earth to give reference and grow towards the universe, start from the 100 years you live and zoom out to the 4 million years we had been breaking rocks in the forest, 14 billion years ago the big bang, and before that ?
There's the observable universe and the observable time. Beyond those limits we can't see. Yet within those intervals we are a small dot, both in space and time.
I feel like in vids like this they just interview a whole lot of people and only include the worst of the worst cause there's no way this is where the average person is when it comes to knowledge of our universe
Honestly, huge props for being so patient and approachable. It says a lot to be able to teach something that one might think should be common knowledge in a way that doesn't come off as condescending or disparaging. Good education should encourage people to learn more rather than making them feel bad for not knowing. Content like this is so important for keeping people in touch with reality and for seeing the bigger picture rather than getting overly hung up on comparatively petty arguments. Well done! 👏
Thank you! So many people in the comments are talking down to these people. We can't know their background or what kind of education they got. Being wrong should be exciting cause you get to learn, it shouldn't be a negative thing
Very well said. I don't have that patience. Oh, I will explain away at the slightest invitation, but I get discouraged quickly when people struggle to get stuff.
It helps that on this subject in particular it's just impossible to have the right answer intuitively - unless you're an astronomer you literally cannot know without being told.
@@ethanstong1564 "Being wrong should be exciting cause you get to learn, it shouldn't be a negative thing" completely agree, but that starts falling off when full adults dont know kinder garden level stuff.
Don't read my name.
On one hand, I'm terrified how "simple knowledge" (at least in my frame of reference) isn't that known. On the other hand, I do enjoy the fact that these same people are curious and that they feel safe enough to learn like that.
Schools are failing these kids. It's sad.
@@arandomanvil5989and the proof is how they were willing to stay and learn, instead of just leaving when they got it wrong
it hurts so bad to watch this
@@arandomanvil5989 I doubt it. They were probably taught this stuff in school, I know I was. But the fact is most people simply don't care about this sort of thing and their brain forgets it. It's nothing beyond a fun fact and has zero effect on everyday life. I remember when I was 6 or 7 years old reading all sorts of books about the planets and space, I couldn't get enough of it. But sad truth is 99% of people don't care about it at all and don't look up. 80% of people in the US live in an urban area and have never even seen stars or galaxies.
Dont we learn this in schools? So two do most of them not know?
if you were to have shown me this video when i was a little kid i would have cried
"i'd say star is the smallest" WHAT 😭😭😭😭😭
They literally made me worried about saying how a galaxy could have billions of stars... like just their uneducation dragged me down to their level of thinking
At first I was sad to see such basic questions being failed, but what got me was how everyone seemed eager to learn and understand and seemed genuinely happy to learn something new. They're not stupid, they've just never really thought about it much before. Maybe there's hope yet.
The school system failed them and never bothered to teach them. That's truly sad.
@@maxxcarver5502 no, they just forgot. Like i bet you did with 90% of what you learned in school too
@@mitchhudson3972 Those are like basics of the world and things around us, how can you forget that.
@@mitchhudson3972complex math is one thing,now basic knowledge stuff is something else
@@dantalien6591Don't forget they are also being asked to recall their knowledge on the spot. Hindsight is 20/20, I'm sure if they were relaxed behind a screen that they'd be able to remember better.
"The thing is that people are worried about making mistakes, but you can't learn without making mistakes a lot of times." -The woman at the end.
This is such an important piece of wisdom that everyone would benefit from by taking to heart. It's okay to make mistakes, and we should be gracious with those who make mistakes as well.
crazy its so old too
Yeah ... And You're taught this as a child*
What about those "not astrology majors" ladies though? They didn't seem too worried about making mistakes.. Imagine people like these making important policy decisions in the government. So maybe making mistakes is ok but if adults are still making mistakes like kids from elementary school maybe they should go back to school.
As trite as it comes
@@kyjo72682I mean to be fair how often does needing to know what's larger in terms of planets and moons matter in politics, not often.(I want to change that)
I thought I was ignorant for considering the idea that mathematics alone isn’t enough as a abstract/concrete conceptualization and philosophy to comprehend the universe (or multiverse if you find that theory convincing, and assuming that mathematics is considered the golden law that encapsulates said universe/multiverse, as well as the possible scale of “small” we can truly observe/measure.) but I’m glad at the very least I recognize that stars are larger than moons.
I didnt have a single astronomy lesson, but i know the right order. My knowlege is from soviet children book about nature and cosmos.
“Idk where they come from, can you tell me?” Amazing response! More people need to be like her
It's so easy to laugh at people for not knowing things, but yeah, let's give some credit to people saying "let's take this opportunity to learn" instead!
@coryman125 I hate this videos sometimes because of the comment section,they will act like they know everything specially boomers.But if this guys ask the same question to them I am sure they wont able to answer.
eh...It's the bare minimum. I find it hard to forgive someone who puts stars as being smaller than planets.
Yeah, for me that's a huge marker of potential - those that (when they don't know) ask a question.
@@contra7631 boomers would know this stuff, because they went to school at a time when they were expected to actually learn, and education wasn’t considered lame. Today school is just daycare for teenagers. That how you can have a substantial number of high school graduates that can’t point to the usa on a map without labels, or point to South America when asked where Africa is. A majority don’t know the three branches of government or what year the Declaration of Independence was signed.
9:48 im glad he said "that we know of" because we dont see them all
Beginning of the video blew my mind, I didn't know people didn't know these things.
American education system is showing
Exactly it's not even funny watching people think this stuff through, it's more concerning than anything else. I dont wanna know your other opinions on the world if you dont know if the moon is bigger than the SUN
The tiktok generation.
79% of Americans believe that the Earth orbits the sun, so ehhhhh
@@SharmV haha America is bad
Watching stuff like this always leaves me flabbergasted. How do people get through school and go about their lives without picking up even the most elementary knowledge about things? "The moon is bigger than stars" - I wonder if their brains melt when they realize that a tiny, tiny car they see far away in the distance isn't actually tiny?
As someone whos interested in science and astronomy, I can't even force myself to watch the whole video. It pisses me off way too much. Its astonishing how many people just arent interested in how our universe and reality works
The truly scary thing is not the size of the universe, but the fact that Derek was likely on (or near) a college campus, speaking to people who made it into that college. The average person on the streets probably knows even less.
Came here to say exactly this.
Well let's be judicial here. It's not UCLA or Harvard, It's UNLV (University of Nevada, Las Vegas) with an 80%+ acceptance rate and 44% graduation rate, so do with that what you will.
UNLV sounds more like a community college / vocational school than a university.
Sheesh. I'm a bit nerdy and probably overestimate the knowledge of the people around me, but I'm fairly sure here in Australia most people are at least educated enough to correctly place the ordering of what's bigger than what.
@@dustyoldhat... Wow.
Man I love your patience. You never mock or poke, you just let people learn. Keep it up.
So, instead he posts this video online so the whole world can see how embarrassingly ignorant these people are. If he was really being good, he wouldn't have done that in the first place.
I think it’s important to show that people don’t know things and it’s OK to not know things! These people seem kind and open hearted and willing to listen. It might be embarrassing to not know but it’s more embarrassing to not learn. The whole point of this channel is learning. I was cringing at people not knowing things at the beginning but when it came to the size and scale of things I was also ignorant. And it’s ok! We laugh at our ignorance, we learn, and we move on.
I quite like the like ratio between you and the other commenter.@@MatthewTheWanderer
This is beyond sad. These are answers a 13 year old should know. Straight up. That's not an over exaggeration
He should have asked them about Kardashians
This video raised my self confidence by 200%
I really like that this video doesn't make fun of the folks who don't know.
I've always hated the trend of going up to strangers and asking them trivia just to prove how "stupid" people are but this is so nice. Same basic premise but approached with care and a willingness to educate. Enriching instead of degrading, love it.
Stupidity is sadly not something that can be cured.
@@Zorro9129it can be cured by open-mindedness and the will to learn.
@@Zorro9129 Why would you consider people not knowing trivia stupidity? There could be loads of reasons why these people do not know this information. They could have not gone to a school that taught this information. They could have lost this knowledge in favor of spending time learning other facts which are more pertinent to their every day lives. They could have known the information and their mind just blanked on the subject while they were being put on the spot.
@@zikli9249 Brilliant mindset here. Not "knowing" some throwaway facts doesn't make one stupid. The information presented, in my opinion, shows a gap in education related to astronomical objects. But, for most people on Earth, astronomical objects are as insignificant as quantum objects. Quantum objects and astronomical objects have almost 0 relevance to everyday life.
@isakleo4706 Agreed. Trivia is fun, but entirely non-indicative of actual human knowledge. Derek manages to walk that line between "trivia to prove people are stupid" and "genuinely caring about people's knowledge" in a way that seems to me to be someone who truly cares about people.
I was amazed at how little some of them knew.
I always think of Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy when I think of the vastness of space: "Space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mindboggingly big it is. I mean you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist, but that’s just peanuts to space."
I just started reading that series and I love it so much! Funny to see i’m not the only one who thought about it while watching this 😂
I was looking for this comment🤣
I always think of the Total Perspective Vortex, and on a microscopic dot within a microscopic dot are the words, "You are here."
Space is massive and also empty, you could hop in a spaceship and blindly fly around for a century and you'd likely not hit anything
@@k1llsh0t_87you actually would probably hit the asteroid belt before you got too far and that would probably kill you. If you got past it though I think it is vast and empty until you reach another solar system, I’m not sure.
I'm absolutely flabbergasted that people don't have the knowledge of such common things, like that's where you live 🤯
Two days ago, I was reflecting on how scientists describe the moments just before the Big Bang, when all the mass of the universe was condensed to approximately the size of a pinhead. I’m curious about how they reached this conclusion, especially considering the massive scale of our known universe... It sounds like impossible.
This is an old school Veritasium video, back to the roots. Love to see you PhD put to use! Educating without judging, inciting curiosity. Love it.
without *openly judging. some of them are 20+ and never ever watched a single clip about the universe and thats a bit sad
@@oqulus6880 Or remember some basics about the solar system from primary schools.
U don't need a PhD for this
@@oqulus6880 or people just find interest in different things. I'm sure these people know things you don't that to them are quite elementary.
@@orshabaal8990exactly, the comment section is brutal. Its a given that a veritasium viewer would know all these "basic" stuff. Im sure these people know things we dont know
As someone with a degree in Astronomy, this was painful... We need to get better at spreading this info around! Great vid!
Most of this stuff is honestly elementary level knowledge. The size differences, the difference between moon and planet, the names of the major planets (for god's sake, we're at a point where we're giving kudos for being able to name all of them). The only thing I wouldn't expect the average layman to know are the sheer quantities of things at the upper scope and scale.
Its probably a combination of
Pressure because you are filmed in such a situation (without much experience for such situations)
Many people simply not cwring about things outside their life in general. Many dont care about the bigger picture (even if it would help e.g. in a job).
As someone with a brain, this made me regret having one
Heh, in the US, you only need to ask people questions about a state 2 or 3 states away to flabbergast them and come up with blank stares
Astrology* Which is consequently one of the many tools of the devil.
Reminds me the quote of H.P. Lovecraft: "We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far."
I like how he isn't making fun of them and instead just helping them learn and making things engaging for them
Videos like this are one reason Derek has nearly 15m subscribers. It was hard to watch at times but he actually educated people and didn’t make them feel stupid. Great job.
He shouldn't make them feel stupid, but they should feel stupid on their own. The problem is that they don't. And they'll be the ones in charge someday abolishing private property and throwing you into a gulag.
Deruk must have sorted through hundreds of people find the dumbest 10 people in america to make a shocking video.
Thats why he gets the views. He makes shocking videos. Hopefully this doesnt become the norm, I used to like his videos (the hypothetical long cable/electricity video left a bad taste). But seeing the view count here, I am afraid this format will become the norm.
@@carlsagan7638I think it’s more likely that most people in America are that stupid
i still think he has 12million even though its been like 3 years
They were not stupid: hardly anyone is. But they WERE very ignorant! These are things that everyone SHOULD know. This level of ignorance is hard to comprehend.
As someone who knows all of this stuff and assumed it was pretty common knowledge, it's kind of hard to imagine "most" people not knowing it.
I guess that happens though. When you know a lot about a topic, you underestimate your own knowledge on the topic by overestimating the knowledge of others (assuming that the gap between what you know and what everybody else knows is not so big).
Unfortunately it doesn't seem like veritasium is cherry picking results either. 25% of americans think the sun orbits around the earth for example
@imnotnotgameiacmaniac5327 Really? That's actually insane to think about. That would be one person in every immediate family, on average. Possibly two or three in a larger family. That means possibly some of my friends would even think that way, though I like to think my friends are intelligent people. I have had to explain to people, including my own parents, that the sun is a star, and that every star you see in the sky is also a sun, some billions of times bigger than ours. But my parents grew up poor, and with less education, they were never willfully ignorant.
@@ShizuruNakatsuI think when it comes to topics that people lack interest in and where only taught as a child people can look dumber and less educated then they actually are especially sense a lot of people are just kinda doing their own thing and lack curiosity. But still, this kind of stuff is ridiculous and shouldn't be happening in the 21th century though with the same survey finding things like half of Americans not knowing antibiotics don't work on viruses i think human stupidity still plays a large part.
@imnotnotgameiacmaniac5327 Yeah, that's one of the things that makes me very different. I've always had a natural curiosity, loved to learn, and wanted to know as much I could. I pretty much always retain information, whether it's from school, my own research, or even watching quiz shows for entertainment. I don't just let the knowledge flow out of my brain like that, because I want to know and remember things. I know a majority of humans are just caught up in their own little bubble, and don't really care about anything that happens outside of it, but I'll never really understand that mindset.
@@ShizuruNakatsu i envy you lol i also like to do research but i forget information all the time. im often left with the correct conclusion but i can't remember how i got there even with irl stuff i stuggle to remember things clearly that where more than a month ago
I love your content but i couldn’t get through a minute of this and the point that someone said the Sun goes around well that was it for me
It makes me sad that people haven’t got such a basic grasp on this
I remember doing a project on the moon in year 2 (7yo) at primary school in the UK, i understood better then