PickVidsBest Fundamental physics Videos
The 164 Fundamental physics videos here were recommended by different people across different months. Choose by who it is for: 12 introductory, 23 intermediate, 122 for a general viewer, and 7 for someone who wants the harder derivation. Most of them are an explainer. What they share is that one picture or analogy is used to supply a missing concept. Channels you will keep seeing include Veritasium, PBS Space Time, Christopher Sykes.
I bought 1000 meters of wire to settle a physics debate
AlphaPhoenix builds a scaled-down version of the Veritasium electricity thought experiment using about a kilometer of wire and an oscilloscope.
The Speed of Light is NOT About Light
PBS Space Time argues that the speed of light is better understood as the speed of causality, the universal limit on how fast cause and effect propagate.
Why No One Has Measured The Speed Of Light
Veritasium explains why the one-way speed of light has never been measured, only the round-trip speed, since measuring it requires synchronized clocks that assume the answer.
Richard Feynman - The.Character of Physical Law - Part 1 The Law of Gravitation (full version)
The first of Richard Feynman's 1964 Cornell Messenger Lectures, The Character of Physical Law, focusing on the law of gravitation.
HD Feynman: FUN TO IMAGINE complete (with optional Chinese subtitles)
A restored HD upload of the 1983 BBC series Fun to Imagine, in which Richard Feynman talks informally about everyday science.
A new way to visualize General Relativity
ScienceClic explains why the rubber sheet analogy for general relativity is misleading and offers a new visualization that includes the curvature of time and shows gravity as motion through curved spacetime.
Quantum Fields: The Real Building Blocks of the Universe - with David Tong
David Tong, a Cambridge theoretical physicist, explains at the Royal Institution that the fundamental building blocks of nature are quantum fields rather than particles.
The Physics and Philosophy of Time - with Carlo Rovelli
Physicist Carlo Rovelli gives a public lecture at the Royal Institution on how our understanding of time has changed, from Boltzmann and Einstein to quantum theory and loop quantum gravity.
How Special Relativity Makes Magnets Work
Veritasium explains magnetism as a consequence of special relativity.
The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Introduction
Sean Carroll introduces his video series on the biggest ideas in physics, such as symmetry, space and matter, as informal discussions with follow-up Q&A videos.
The Biggest Misconception About Electricity
Veritasium argues that electric energy is carried by fields around the wires rather than by electrons moving through them, using a thought experiment with a large circuit.
Watch electricity hit a fork in the road at half a billion frames per second
AlphaPhoenix uses a custom high-speed measurement setup to watch voltage waves travel down wires and split at a fork.
Feynman: Magnets (and Why?) FUN TO IMAGINE 4/ higher quality version!
A 1983 BBC interview in which Richard Feynman is asked how magnets work and explains why 'why' questions are hard to answer in everyday terms.
string theory lied to us and now science communication is hard
Physicist Angela Collier's roughly hour-long video on how string theory was hyped to the public and what that did to science communication.
How Trees Bend the Laws of Physics
Veritasium explains how trees lift water from roots to the top of tall trunks, using transpiration pull and the negative pressure that liquid water can sustain.
But why would light "slow down"? | Visualizing Feynman's lecture on the refractive index
3Blue1Brown visualizes Feynman's lecture on the refractive index, explaining why light appears to slow down in glass and why the effect depends on color.
What Everyone Gets Wrong About Gravity
Veritasium explains, with expert input, that in general relativity gravity is not a force and objects follow straight paths through curved spacetime, including why standing on the ground means you are accelerating.
Noether's Theorem and The Symmetries of Reality
PBS Space Time explains Noether's theorem: conservation laws such as energy and momentum are consequences of deeper symmetries.
Richard Feynman. Why.
A short clip of Richard Feynman answering an interviewer's question about why magnets repel, explaining that a 'why' question depends on a shared framework of understanding.
Richard Feynman talks about light
A PBS clip in which Richard Feynman explains the strange nature of light and electromagnetic radiation.
World's Roundest Object!
Veritasium explains the effort to redefine the kilogram, which was still defined by a physical artifact, and how a near-perfect silicon sphere from the Avogadro project helps.
Feynman: What things really are like FUN TO IMAGINE 1
A clip from the 1983 BBC series Fun to Imagine in which Richard Feynman explains heat as the jiggling of atoms and how we perceive it as hot and cold.
Nuclear 101: How Nuclear Bombs Work Part 1/2
Harvard Belfer Center lecture by Matthew Bunn explaining how nuclear bombs work, including fission and fusion weapons and which parts of bomb-making are hard.
Most People Don't Know How Bikes Work
Veritasium explains why bicycles are stable, arguing that gyroscopic effects are not the answer.