Veritasium

This video documents Monsanto's history from inventing herbicides like 2,4-D and glyphosate to creating a monopoly through Roundup Ready GMO seeds, while simultaneously suppressing evidence that glyphosate may cause cancer and using aggressive legal tactics against farmers who saved seeds.

Engineer Bill LeMessurier discovered a fatal flaw in the newly completed Citicorp Center skyscraper in 1978: quartering winds could cause catastrophic failure, with a 1-in-16 annual probability of collapse. He made the ethical decision to reveal the problem and conduct emergency repairs before hurricane season, saving thousands of lives.

This documentary explores how a single mathematical equation from physics transformed finance, creating four trillion-dollar derivatives industries. It traces the journey from Louis Bachelier's early work on random walks in 1900 to the Black-Scholes-Merton equation that revolutionized options pricing, and examines how physicists and mathematicians like Jim Simons used mathematical models to beat the market.

This video explores the history, science, and limitations of IQ testing, from Spearman's g-factor theory to modern debates about cultural bias and genetic determinism. The host takes an official IQ test after practicing, scoring 134 overall. The video argues for a moderate view: IQ measures something real and useful, but is not a definitive measure of human worth or potential.

Derek Muller investigates the feasibility of 'Rods from God,' a theoretical space weapon concept involving tungsten rods dropped from orbit at hypersonic speeds. Through helicopter drop tests in the desert, he demonstrates the challenges of aiming kinetic projectiles and explains why this weapon concept, despite appearing in fiction, remains impractical due to astronomical costs, targeting difficulties, and orbital mechanics.

The video debunks the common misconception that electrons carry electrical energy from power plants to homes, revealing instead that electromagnetic fields around wires transmit energy according to Poynting's vector. Using Maxwell's equations and a thought experiment with a giant circuit, it demonstrates that energy flows through space around conductors at nearly the speed of light, not through the movement of electrons within wires.

The video argues that the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is more logical than the traditional Copenhagen interpretation. Instead of wave function collapse during measurement, the universe continuously branches into parallel worlds where all quantum outcomes occur simultaneously.