Category Archives: Physics

Photographing the Solar Eclipse 2024

Smarter Every Day: I Accidentally Photographed Something Unknown During the Eclipse. (YouTube, 23:40min)

I’m already looking forward to finding out if someone is able to identify the satellites.

Here’s the earlier video which he did in preparation for the eclipse: April 8, 2024 Total Solar Eclipse: Here’s what you need to know. (YouTube, 22:55min) It includes a lot of information about things you can observe during the partial phases, like how shadows change or why small clouds will disappear.

There’s more information and a link to the eclipse app at Destin’s website: Smarter Every Day – Eclipse.

I haven’t experienced a total solar eclipse, only a few partial ones, but I hope to be able to see one in the future.

Testing Space Suits for the Artemis Program

Smarter Every Day: I Swam at NASA’s NBL to Observe a Lunar Spacesuit Test – It was AMAZING. (YouTube, 1 hour 18 minutes)

“This was an incredible opportunity. I decided to go all in and discuss everything in detail.”

This is quite a bit longer than Destin’s videos usually are, but worth every second. Fascinating!

Austenite and Martensite

Have you ever heard of Nitinol? That is what NASA uses to build wheels for other planets.

Veritasium: How NASA reinvented the wheel. (YouTube, 25:33min) “NASA have made a wheel capable of withstanding tough Martian terrain, but just how indestructible is it?”

The material can also be used to make bullet-proof bike tires. No more punctures!

Goggle up – science is about to happen!

Smarter Every Day Episode 285: Prince Rupert’s Drop VS MOLTEN GLASS. Destin Sandlin visits glass artist Cal Breed who snaps a Prince Rupert’s Drop inside molten glass. There also is a playlist of seven videos at Smarter Every Day if you’d like to learn more about Prince Rupert’s Drops.

What does Gauß have to do with the nuclear arms race?

Veritasium: How An Algorithm Could Have Stopped The Nuclear Arms Race. (YouTube, 26:32min)

“The Fast Fourier Transform is used everywhere but it has a fascinating origin story that could have ended the nuclear arms race. […]
Thanks to Grant Sanderson of 3Blue1Brown for his helpful feedback on the script. His great video on the Fourier Transform is here”

3Blue1Brown: But what is the Fourier Transform? A visual introduction. (YouTube, 21min)

It blew my mind that Carl Friedrich Gauß found the discrete Fourier transform – 150 years earlier that Fourier.

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