To everyone saying this sounds weird, remember this 8-minute-long video is a summary of several thousand-page-long books.

E

Yusuf Jamal And some people complain about commenters.

...The people complaining in the comments who complain about comment complainers which are in turn a consequence of thousands of hours of complaints which are physical and metaphysical/hypothetical which were in turn a consequence of...

Xylok hundreds of thousands of years of calculations?!

You’re right, but i’m still gonna make a little comeback. A picture say more than a thousand words and this is a video, sooo it says more than several thousand page books. This was just a fun comeback, please don’t get mad, because his comment is right

I love it how Physics has so many "We are 99% sure that the value is x, and 98% sure the value is y, the only problem is they are very different values, both calculated with high accuracy"

I love how in physics you feel so good when you understand a subject, but then someone just says “hey by the way, you know electrons can just pop into existence for no reason?”

@Oerlikon20mm you shouldnt forget that they also pop out of existence. Its called quantum fluctuations. If you wanna look it up.

It's almost as if the universes is so uniquely and accurately programmed that it would suggest that it was programmed by a being of unfathomable intelligence and it wasn't just so random accident or happenstance.

@King David no proof

@King David in case you're connecting it to religion: a being of unfathomable intelligence existing outside our spacetime would not even recognise humans as "important" or "alive" in the sense we do.

I aint no scientist but I have some time off work next week and I've decided to solve all these problems, so fingers crossed.

He burnt his brain xD

do u even know what quantum physics is??

@sanchit kabra If you think you know about it, you literally don't know about it. -_ Idk Idc

Are u there

When I first saw this video I was still in highschool and I thought this is a fascinating effect I never really learn more about. Now I'm studying physics and in three days I'll have my first exam on quantum mechanics.

Proud of you for following your intution

how are you doing now ? how was your exam ? I know I'm a year late but I'm too interested in this field and want to pursue it

@Khepri lol, I actually passed it with a good grade.

@Jan Andres Lötsch Are you gonna specialize in research? Of what field? I bet it must be exciting. If only I was younger I wish I could've been a researcher, like my father was.

Man, its really hard to think of the universe as just overlays of fields. It feels and looks so physical and 3 dimensional.

So does a dream.

@Chromo No, it really doesn't...

@DivideByZero During the dream, it does seem real. When you leave the dream, it is only then you realize it was in your mind. If it helps, use the analogy of a very realistic computer simulation instead.

Well who knows, this is our point of view from a human being. A few hundred years ago (like ~200) us humans believed all matter were blocks, since how could matter be so complete and so perfect from our point of view and yet be so imperfect and riddled with holes if they were what we all know to be true today, that they are (more or less) spherical atoms?

You never know what biases we hold, some we know of, some we may never know of, at least in our lifetimes

6:36 I love how absurd the calculation of 10^112 ergs is. That’s about 5*10^35 (500 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000) times the estimated mass-energy equivalent of the universe.

Just wondering, how much has the exponent changed in over two years?

@Sznakey None, and it won't change until we can figure out another theory that explains matter and energy and that is more precise than the QFT that we currently have. And the problem that we have is that we think that we need a quantum gravitationnal theory, and in order to test this kind of theory, we need to conduct experiments billions of billions times bigger than the LHC

wow, this entire universe in a cm^3

I don't know what erg is why is it a constant and how did they calculate all the energy

@Gekkkoin croe Try asking Google or Wikipedia?

Wait... I think I know a solution: Rather than there being separate fields for things like electrons and positrons, what if instead those were just bumps in opposite directions in the same field? Like an electron is a bump up, and a positron is a bump down? That would explain the excess energy from our calculations, and also explains why when they meet they annihilate. Like how when the crest of one wave meets the trough of another and they cancel out.

Great video! One minor critique I would have: I really feel like you should have brought up the Casimir effect in regards to virtual particles. I realize its a bit of a lengthy explanation to break down the experimental apparatus and whatnot, but I've always felt that it does the best job of helping get a real-world "feel" of virtual particles existing.

Macroworld: Theory doesn't always match up because of friction Nanoworld: Ok, so friction is out of the game but now you gotta deal with virtual particles Thanks universe

There is hypothesis that everytime we come close to figuring out the universe it gets more complicated

@Tomas Mickus Did you comment this multiple times? You didn't even have a reason to comment it, it's a stupid hypothesis because there is no way to ever even attempt to disprove it.

Hi Saitama!

johnnytheprick nah, even if there are other phenomena that distrupt the accuracy of our theories, they are still pretty accurate

Idk how I just realized its virtual not vertical

It's amazing that year by year, you post things about more deeper fundamental concepts. This just keeps me excited. Thank you very much. Keep up the great work!

I need more Sean Carroll. He's one of my favorite science orators by FAR.

Derek, I just found your Veritasium videos very recently here in 2019. I (48 yrs old ) was an engineering student myself and so much of your life story is relatable. I'm so inspired by both the chances you took to make your Veritasium channel and your success in doing so. I really enjoy your videos, your hard work is very appreciated! PS did you use a friggin shadeball for your black hole in your black hole video? ROTFLMAO

omg, that vibration in a field graphic is by far one of the clearest and most mind blowing things I've seen in a long time... thanks guys.

I'm liking the way this channel is going, being more about the scientific method itself than any single subject. It's a subject not many have done and even less done well.

I'm glad there are people like you around making it easier for those like me to expand my ideas of the world I live in. I appreciated it. Please keep doing it!

This is amazing! I've been thinking about this lately but I never got past high school so everything is a bit sketchy but I thought the universe was made of fields the exact same way they explained it, I just didn't have a fancy name for it x) Glad to know I was on a good line of thought ^^

Thanks Derek! What a great video. I'm in physical chemistry now (the chemist's version of quantum mechanics) and I'm loving it! This brings a totally new perspective to me.

As a chem major, I understood 99% of this. Great video!

I would love it if you'd be willing to describe that a bit? (It's not what I'd have expected to hear?)

Absolutely love this video in terms of style and content, much more like this please!

In addition, it would be nice to sometimes see an in-depth companion video!

"Science changes the way we think" ~ a very common line There is so much to learn about this universe Thanks to you for letting my curiosity still alive ❤

I really appreciate you talking these conceptual clashes publically. Thank you for this. Keep going.

This explained so much. Thank you. After watching the video about the quantum experiments with the slits i was thinking about a concept like this. The discrepancys probably will be found when zooming out, and better understanding.I would not be surprised we forgot something like the amount of energy that is being diverted to connect all the black holes to each other on a sub time level.

One of the best Veritasium videos to date! More like these, from the front lines please.

This topic is quite amazing. It's great that science has reached up to this close to understand our life and universe but i think we'll never find the answer to this puzzle. Anyway great video!

As much as I love physics, sometimes I think we are too deep to see the meaning of things. Like a picture make out of pixels if you look at one pixel to try to understand the meaning of the picture it will be impossible. Sometimes is better to step back to see the whole picture. I love Veritasium keep the great work.

No. We want to understand a pixel is just a byte stored somewhere, no what the picture represent. That's our everyday life

This is where deduction and induction breaks down I guess. Learning the bits to understand the whole has become too unwieldy.

This channel have done a very good job on explaining so many complicated scientific jargon into the simplest word it could be.

The more complex the problem is, I imagine the more we'll be able to do with it once we master it, so I guess that's a positive thing in the long run.

5:46 I commend and applaud you for making this visualization, since i first understood fields, this was what i envisioned - thank you for making this graphical interpretation.

Man.. your videos always end with me want more. Always! I am like.. whaaat... we were just getting into things and its already over, even when it's a 20 minute video. I guess on the plus side, it means your content is super engaging and on the downside, I guess I am hoping you'd create deeper dive content as well that would go on for like two hours or something.

I think it's high time we dedicate an SI unit for energy instead of using ergs. That joule guy was pretty awesome, we could name it after him

well an erg is just 10⁻⁷ joules so the same thing basically

We should really develop a quantum unit of measurement that represents the minimum amount of energy anything can have and use that when referencing quantum energy levels. I call it... quenergy.

@Chris Manuel i love it

@Chris Manuel There’s no minimum energy level for all systems.

@Matthias Görgens There’s gotta be something, right? Like, it sounds crazy to say there’s a minimum amount of distance or time, but the Plank Length and Plank Time exist. Couldn’t there be some equivalent for energy?

"not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it's stranger than we can imagine."

This is one of my favorite quotes ever.

The universe is too weird for us to even begin scratching the surface of what reality truly is... until the next newton or einstein comes around anyways, then they make something that get us closer yet further away from the truth

@Judgment we are always getting closer to the truth. We simply reach the next set of questions to be answered each time we get closer.

@bigsmall246 but still we aren't going to know everything about the universe.. some things will be left unanswered and the best we could do is assume and believe

@It's Zain why do we need to assume or believe anything that we do not know? Can't we just accept that we do not know it yet, which is why we investigate it in the first place?

It is always a treat to listen to Sean Carroll talk.

I honestly think these guys don't get enough attention , all their videos are awesome

Very good video! I loved the direction it took and the topics discussed!

I really enjoyed this video because sometimes I get discouraged with my dream of becoming a mathematician physicist computer scientist because I feel like everything has already been discovered before I got the chance to, but these kind of things remind me that there is still plenty stuff that nobody has figured out yet.

Thank you so much for uploading this video. It is helping me get through the pandemic!

"My electrons move funny because a ghost comes and shakes them...." Virtual particles in a nutshell...

virtual particles are like an earthquake on-going everywhere in the universe. it's kind of confusing that they are called "virtual particles" at all, because they aren't really particles, they just behave like them.

@jan isn't virtual kinda the opposite of real though?

@shubham i didnt say calling them virtual is wrong, the confusing part is calling them "particles"

@jan And that's why they are called "VIRTUAL particles". You do understand that prefix and suffix together make up the meaning of the name? For example, pseudo-science.

Like when you live in virtue, you're not really living.

This is the reason I love this channel, I know I'm getting smarter and learning things that are important for the future, yet I can watch it for an hour straight, and still have to idea what's going on.

I quite liked your illustration of the various quantum fields (electron, top quark etc.). Do you maybe have a video on that, or do you plan on making one on that topic?

It's amazing how Professor Carroll can explain that like I explain algebra as a math teacher. He knows it well enough to teach it, incredible

Having Sean Carroll as the guest on your show is legendary

Virtual is synonymous with conjectural, virtually. Besides, it’s always interesting hearing scientist (per se) employing psych terminology supporting their descriptive assessment(s). Keep it up... good times.

I did my MS in Physics. I was sad that my degree is of no use. Now I'm happy that I understood the video because I was taught all these in college! XD

I hope you find a use in the future.

how could a master in physics be of no use? I thought this type of hard science was in demand ._. pls explain?

The insight and understanding you have of the physical world has got to be worth something to you.

@FranktheDachshund It makes your weed highs really intense.

@Nielen Emhof 😅

3:20 Could you compare this idea to the decimal places of PI ? The more complicated you make the diagram, the further down you would be in the decimal of PI. For example, you could have a diagram that had 1,000 vertices that would be equivalent to finding the thousandth decimal of PI, and calculating a circle to the thousandth of PI, is a little much.

It could mean that, either there's a far larger multiverse out there and we're just a small part of it, or that there is an underlining energy we've yet to tap into.

I just love the fact that they use HL cgs in the quantum field theories (why else would the state the predictions in erg per cm^3?) while my students start worrying whenever they have to use non-MKSA SI units for exercise. Like Dalton, Gauß, Torr or Debye which is 100 Piko-Franklin-Ångström. Still metric tho.

Thank you Dr Müller, for building and maintaining Veritasium. Its a brilliant concept, and your implementation has been genius. Bravo, and well dome, sir.

Opps, done not dome. Autocorrect is my friend. ;-)

What if virtual particles don't just pop into existence and then disappear, moving very randomly and they actually move alongside 4 dimensions, not just 3, in an organized way?

I'm surprised to see no mention of the casimir effect in this video - isn't that rather good evidence for the existence rod virtual particles? Also, please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Hawking radiation and the evaporation of black holes caused by virtual particles manifesting on the edge of their event horizons?

I believe you are correct my good human, but he did not bring it up. It is pretty heavy but interesting nonetheless

Hawking radiation is still theoretical. The Casimir effect is evidence for virtual particles (But there are other explanations.) but it doesn't let you measure the particles themselves. Like the energy levels it's indirect.

He said In the video that the virtual particles are electron/positron pairs but this is plain wrong I wrote a really long comment about it

This has to relate somehow to Kerbal Space Program...

You can send a microwave in a vaccuum with virtual particles and generate a Standing wave. Then increase the Amplitude to tear the particle and its anti particle away from eachother so that no comnon field exists in their spacial domains, and voila you created 2 new particles. You could also put a polarized electic field through the vaccuum and tear the virtual electrons from its positron Counterpart to make them real and not virtual anymore. You Need a light source though providing the virtual particles.

Fun to see this video. A few years ago I met Derek at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical physics and he told me that he was working on a video on virtual particles and we discussed it for some time. Didn't notice this video till now.

I am watching this, I guess 7th time after studying a lot about dark energy and QFT and I feel good that I am able to understand it every word by word.Thanks to PBS Space Time .😊

I think in science should be a distinction between “We don't know” and “We know that we don't know”. This is the latter case, the exciting one in science. It means we know what the problem is and can try to come up with ideas how to solve it.

We actually learn more when our initial hypothesis is wrong than when it's right the first time.

Thank you for this information, I really really love to learn about physics, even though I am not that smart.

I'm not really in this field of study, but I was wondering if String Theory can help resolve this. I know that String Theory gives an explanation as to why gravity seems so weak compared to the other forces, and I thought well, why can't the same principles be applied to the fields in QFT?

Interesting that quantum mechanics and counting cards have something in common. Feynman diagrams show that more and more complex diagrams lead to diminishing returns in terms of prediction. It’s the same for more and more accurate card counting methods- the most complex systems only for e you a light edge over the simplest red seven count. Good stuff.

I'm excited to (maybe be able to) see in the future what the corrected/updated diagrams that explain this look like

I finally feel as though I am getting a grasp on quantum mechanics. Also the field diagram was very helpful too.

Any sane person who thinks they understand quantum mechanics doesn't understand quantum mechanics

when I listen to modern physicist sometimes I think I am listening to some kind of mythologist. I love this subject in science, it is so exciting to get to know all this stuff

Now I know how my QA team feels when I give them the demo about the things I did in my current sprint.

Love your videos! Please keep em coming!

The real question is how can space even be empty ? I have been wondering about this since past few days and I am working on it too.

Do these virtual particles also form the basis of magnetism? I learnt that magnetising a metal strip meant aligning its tiny magnets in one direction to give an overall north/south pole. What remains a question is what determines the effect size of these tiny magnets (how far can they influence their neighbours, if at all? If not, why not?

I discovered this channel few weeks ago....Absolutely love it...I mean really....I am watching all the episodes one by one....💜💜

Could these virtual particles be part of a much much much finer particle field, one that is undiscovered because it's not quite seen yet?

It's simple. You see Prof. Sean Carroll in a video, you hit 'like'. Such a brilliant gentleman.

It's always good to say you don't know. Love it. Great video. Great explanation of what we don't know. Thanks.

Could You observe the virtual particles indirectly somehow? Sort of like the way they did with black holes

We now are much closer. One of the very best explanations about the quantum fields and whats going on deep inside really.

My guess is that this extra energy is wrapping up the other dimensions in intricate ways so we can't see them, and we're just living in the dimensions least effected by it

We usually say "virtual particles" but we shouldn't call them particles at all. They are just a very useful way to express how fields interact but this objects have very weird properties.

Wait! What?! 10^112 erg is 10^105 joules, right? It's not even possible to describe just how much energy this is! Where can I find more on this topic?

FREE ENERGY FROM VACUUM. Now I'll have to fix my BS sensor again....

Go to the nearest physics professor

@Some Dude It's not. To extract energy, an energy gradient is requierd, and regardless of how much there actually is, the zero point energy is the absolute lowest energy point. You can't excract it without breaking the laws of thermodynamics, and if you can do that you don't need to bother with the zero point energy, as you can just extract it from anything and everything.

@Marik Zilberman OK... why are you telling me about that?

@Some Dude it is relevant to what you said . He told you that free vacuum energy is not possible . You however made it look like the commenter or scientists in the video implied that it's possible . It was a straw man from your part.

excellent! publish more videos like this, where you go more deeper into the subject. nice job. keep it up.

I love this video because it starts off with "hey, let me use super smart words and theories and make you feel dumb" but ends with, "well, we're probably wrong and we have no idea why!"

Nicely done! But I thought that the prediction of the muon g-2 value (related to the muon's magnetic momentum) was the best one in science (spectacularly confirmed by experiments), not the Lamb shift.

I love Sean Carroll, he is brilliant. Read his books when you have a chance.

Is there a reason that all various fields which produce the particles are actually the same one? If so would that compensate for the discrepancy in the calculations vs. measurement with regards to empty space?

Keep up the mind boggling stuff! I like a video I have to watch several times before getting.

this channel really helps me see the magic of our reality

My favourite scientific paradox, captured so nicely. Thankyou.

Thanks for the videos. They help me get that science is in no way the truth as we are led to believe in school, rather a series of attempts at explanation which approximate reality!

I thought that virtual particles could be detected in the mass that comes off of a black hole. A virtual pair gets created, one goes across the event horizon the other does not. So virtual particles are the reason that black holes give off mass.

Once we understand the universe indefinitely, the thought experiments can can becoming reality.

QFT is so interesting, but I just can't wrap my head around these equations, at least currently...

mastapima agreed. I am not a physicist. In fact I struggle with algebra. But based the information I have read, fields seem to be just are. Which by itself isn't an easy thing to grasp especially if you're stuck in a hard philosophical sense of causality....but I digress. So what I tell people instead, there are many things that we don't understand all of the way down to their most minute quantities, but accepting their utility because they work well with what we have, is good enough for now.

I had a maths professor who told us that he had once asked his professor how to think about the wave-particle duality, because he couldn't make any intuitive sense of it. The professor had replied that you shouldn't try to think about it intuitively but rather think of it in terms of equations. I was going to say that this shows how limited our understanding is, but it's probably more like the difference between the micro and the macro world. There are so many intricate details to the universe which don't have a very noticable effect on a larger scale. Shit's pretty bonkers.

this comment chain i find very interesting because i look at these equations in completely the opposite way, i find the equations irrelevant and the intuitive understanding much more important. the hardest part i have had to wrap my head around was the concept of higher dimensions other than our own and how they interact with us. if you want me to try and explain it in full reply and i would be happy to discuss it with anyone

Not yet.

Read Feynman.

This was an extremely interesting video. I saw videos by vsauce, the game theorists, and Ted talks, but I didn't think I saw a clear answer of what these do and what they are. Thank you for this detailed video.

All of those creators I did mention though did have good videos, but they weren't fully focusing on virtual particles.

Could you use virtual particles as an antimatter harvester? If the positron is positively charged you could use an inconceivably strong negatively charged magnet to attempt to rip the positron away from it's electron counterpart? Or would this break many laws of physics?

What if they made a video game where the quadrantes would randomly move a very small amount, now this would have to be server side as client pc couldn't have enough power to draw polygons and randomly shift the location of each of the corners a slight amount but it would be so cool!

This is my theory: We can not predict the movement or the velocity of the particles of an atom because they jump their orbitals, just because they tele-transport, making it really difficult to predict the movements. Just a creasy theory, what could happen if we can determine the position of the particles and were they can be.

Without these virtual particles, black holes would not radiate energy and would be around forever. Stephen Hawking discovered this and it is now known as hawking radiation. That just blew me away!

You didn't mention the Casimir effect which provides evidence for virtual particles.

I was thinking the same.

Me 2

i wasnt

*me, an intellectual*: **knowingly nods head** schrodinger's cat.

yeah, but the casimir effect shows that there must be virtual particles and we all agree on that, but as he said you can't measure the individual virtual particle e.g. just like you do with the spherical charge distribution of an electron

What I got from this video is that "I feel a disturbance in the Force," is something that is feasible and makes sense given our current understanding of the universe. Also some other things about quantum physics but those aren't really important.

Veritasium, how exactly do virtual particles pop into existence? What are the processes behind them appearing and then annihilating each other?

Virtual = Invisible = Dark = Opposite Charge = Spin If you need the underlying fluid (fabric) to see the picture (hologram = whole) then look to CERN for the experimental data in the recent report of the quark-gluon plasma. The math at that level has already been done by another of our contemporaries named Thad Roberts. It's beautiful and scary (at first anyway), but there and real. Enjoy 😉

Wow! With such extreme divergence there is stuff to be discovered—this is where the next generation of scientists and mathematicians will make their names and the next breakthroughs.

So in other words, force might be particles of opposite charge spitting out of empty space, with charges pointing in a certain direction? Then the question is, why do they split?

Hmmm, yes, I understand some of these words.

I think I understood some of the pictures too.

hahaha.

I didn't realise this wasn't clear. What was the mystifying part? I may be able to help if you want.

+NotAsian As you offer... My previous understanding was that virtual particles are those which exist only briefly for interactions such as EM repulsion/w boson in beta decay etc. Why are other examples such as the electron posotron pair in nuclei undetectable and why do they exist?

I think the reason quantum is so hard to understand is that there is an immense amount of reasoning behind the postulates of quantum which is pretty much required knowledge in order to fully grasp it's concepts and these reasonings are not particularly intuitive and often fly in the face of the common high school curriculum. Having a very rudimentary understanding of particle and quantum physics (from specialisation in those subjects in high school) I could just follow this video but obviously I didn't gleam any real knowledge it was just interesting how they intend to calculate the energy in "empty" space.

I understood so much! thank you for this video, i will never see the universe the way i did before :O

If dark matter is what makes the bed rock of the universe, then could virtual particles be the ripple in the dark matter created by a particle?