The Particle That Could Open a Portal to the Dark Universe

Posted: March 5, 2026 by

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Some people worried that the large hadron collider would smash particles together so hard it would make black holes that would swallow the earth, open wormholes to other dimensions. It didn’t and won’t. But it may be making a different kind of portal. A portal to the dark sector. This isn’t the Rather, it’s a hypothetical family of elementary particles that exists in parallel to the familiar particles of the standard model, but are invisible to it. Invisible to us, and so could be the answer to the dark matter conundrum. And what is this portal? It’s the particle that the LHC was built to find in the first place – the Higgs boson.

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Hosted by Matt O’Dowd
Written by Matt O’Dowd
Post Production by Leonardo Scholzer
Directed by Andrew Kornhaber
Associate Producer: Bahar Gholipour
Executive Producer: Andrew Kornhaber
Executive in Charge for PBS: Maribel Lopez
Director of Programming for PBS: Gabrielle Ewing
Assistant Director of Programming for PBS: Mike Martin

Spacetime is a production of Kornhaber Brown for PBS Digital Studios.
This program is produced by Kornhaber Brown, which is solely responsible for its content.
© 2026 PBS. All rights reserved.

End Credits Music by J.R.S. Schattenberg: https://www.youtube.com/user/MultiDroideka

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You Can’t Feel Wet

Posted: March 2, 2026 by M3-9000

Put on a glove and dip your hand into icy water. You’ll notice it still feels wet?

But the glove is waterproof, how does this work?

That’s because wet isn’t a feeling, we use other sensory information to feel water…

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The Internet Was Weeks Away From Disaster and No One Knew

Posted: February 25, 2026 by M3-9000

How a single hack infected the world’s most important operating system. Sponsored by NordVPN – Get exclusive NordVPN deal here: https://NordVPN.com/veritasium It’s risk free with Nord’s 30 day money-back guarantee!

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▀▀▀
0:00 The Free Software Foundation
5:03 Why is Linux so popular?
9:57 The XZ Weakness
12:07 End To End Encryption – SSH
18:40 How To Compress Data
23:47 How The .XZ Hack Worked
34:24 A Bug In Jia’s Code
38:27 Henry Hacks Derek
43:16 The Back Door Is Exposed
47:16 Who is Jia Tan?
50:33 Open Vs Closed Source

▀▀▀
A huge thank you to everyone who made this possible:

Rich Jones for his openness throughout this project.

Denzel Farmer for his incredible breakdown – https://youtu.be/Q6ovtLdSbEA?si=qlbcg6skR-BoS5z1

Karsten Nohl @hackingmatters, Yannis Hofmann, and Matthias Marx at SRLabs for their help throughout this project.

Fabian Fäßler @LiveOverflow Alex Schlögl and the rest of the Cure53 team for their technical insights on the project.

Tom Scott, and Computerphile for their excellent videos on compression.

Josh at @breakfastserial for the filming inspiration.

Planet Money for a podcast that helped inform our research and @fern-tv for inspiration.

Thomas Roccia for his technical feedback on the video. And Ed at @LowLevelTV for helping out early on!

▀▀▀
References: https://ve42.co/XZHackRefs

▀▀▀
Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, Anton Ragin, armedtoe, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Charles Ian Norman Venn, Daniel Martins, Data Don, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, EJ Alexandra, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, Hayden Christensen, Hong Thai Le, Ibby Hadeed, Jeromy Johnson, Jesse Brandsoy, Jon Jamison, Juan Benet, Kelcey Steele, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Mark Heising, Martin Paull, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Krugman, Moebiusol – Cristian, Orlando Bassotto, Parsee Health, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Robson, Sam Lutfi, Shalva Bukia, Sinan Taifour, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures, Vahe Andonians, wolfee

▀▀▀
Writer, Director & Producer: Henry van Dyck
Presenters: Derek Muller & Henry van Dyck
Editor: Trenton Oliver
Animators: Fabio Albertelli, Domonkos Józsa, Andrew Neet, Alex Drakoulis & Emma Wright
Illustrators: Jakub Misiek & Nataly Zhuk
Researchers: Aakash Singh Bagga & Sophia Rose
Additional Editing: James Stuart & Peter Nelson
Thumbnail Designers: Abdallah Rabah, Ren Hurley, Ben Powell & Henry van Dyck
Production Team: Josh Pitt, Matthew Cavanagh, Anna Milkovic, Katy Southwood & Jess Bishop-Laggett
Executive Producers: Derek Muller & Casper Mebius

Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images & Storyblocks
Music from Epidemic Sound

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We Timed a Cosmic Explosion. It Might Solve Dark Energy.

Posted: February 19, 2026 by

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We’ve known that the universe is expanding since 1929, and that its expansion is accelerating since 1998. The culprit behind the acceleration is unknown, so we live with a stand-in term “dark energy”. Our modern cosmological model assumes that dark energy has a constant density–always the same amount of the outward-shoving stuff per volume. But there’s recent evidence to the contrary–which may be why our primary efforts to measure the expansion rate of the universe disagree with each other.

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Spacetime is a production of Kornhaber Brown for PBS Digital Studios.
This program is produced by Kornhaber Brown, which is solely responsible for its content.
© 2026 PBS. All rights reserved.

End Credits Music by J.R.S. Schattenberg: https://www.youtube.com/user/MultiDroideka

Space Time Was Made Possible In Part By:

Big Bang
Alexander Tamas
David Paryente
Juan Benet
Mark Rosenthal
Morgan Hough
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Tj Steyn
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Supernova
Ethan Cohen
Glenn Sugden
Grace Biaelcki
Mark Heising
Stephen Wilcox
Tristan Lucian Claudius Aurelius Tyacke

Hypernova
Alex Kern
Ben Delo
Cal Stephens
chuck zegar
David Giltinan
Dean Galvin
Donal Botkin
Gregory Forfa
Jesse Cid Dyer
John R. Slavik
Justin Lloyd
Kenneth See
Massimiliano Pala
Michael Tidwell
Mike Purvis
Paul Stehr-Green
Scott Gorlick
Scott Gray
Spencer Jones
Stephen Saslow
Thomas Mouton
Zachary Haberman
Антон Кочков
Daniel Muzquiz

Gamma Ray Burst
Aaron Pinto
Adrien Molyneux
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Anthony Leon
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Ayden Miller
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Bradley Ulis
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Dan Warren
Daniel Donahue
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Daron Woods
Darrell Stewart
David Johnston
Doyle Vann
Eric Kiebler
Eric Raschke
Eric Schrenker
Faraz Khan
Frederic Simon
Harsh Khandhadia
Ian Williams
Isaac Suttell
James Trimmier
Jeb Campbell
Jeremy Soller
Jerry Thomas
jim bartosh
John Anderson
John De Witt
John Funai
John H. Austin, Jr.
John591
Joseph Salomone
Junaid Ali
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Keith Pasko
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Koen Wilde
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Marcelo Garcia
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Rubber used to be useless…

Posted: February 12, 2026 by M3-9000

The strange natural material that reshaped the world.

Watch the full video here: https://youtu.be/AFXLZ7FEJc4?si=OaiAz42CzKGSPOYh

Written by Sulli Yost and @casper_mebius

Produced and Directed by Sulli Yost

Hosted by Derek Muller and @henry.vandyck

#science #veritasium #physics #engineering #experiment

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World’s Largest Spiderweb

Posted: February 7, 2026 by M3-9000

This is the world’s largest spiderweb.

Entirely underground, it’s home to an entire ecosystem.

But how does it work?

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The Universe Tried to Hide the Gravity Particle. Physicists Found a Loophole.

Posted: February 5, 2026 by

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Physicists have long believed that detecting the particle of gravity—the graviton—was fundamentally impossible, with the universe itself seeming to block every direct attempt. This episode explores a new generation of clever experiments that may finally let us detect gravity’s particle, and why even succeeding wouldn’t quite mean what we think it does.

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Hosted by Matt O’Dowd
Written by Richard Dyer & Matt O’Dowd
Post Production by Leonardo Scholzer
Directed by Andrew Kornhaber
Associate Producer: Bahar Gholipour
Executive Producer: Andrew Kornhaber
Executive in Charge for PBS: Maribel Lopez
Director of Programming for PBS: Gabrielle Ewing
Assistant Director of Programming for PBS: Mike Martin

Spacetime is a production of Kornhaber Brown for PBS Digital Studios.
This program is produced by Kornhaber Brown, which is solely responsible for its content.
© 2026 PBS. All rights reserved.

End Credits Music by J.R.S. Schattenberg: https://www.youtube.com/user/MultiDroideka

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Alexander Tamas
David Paryente
Juan Benet
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Ethan Cohen
Glenn Sugden
Grace Biaelcki
Mark Heising
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Tristan Lucian Claudius Aurelius Tyacke

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This Common Substance Was Once Worth Millions

Posted: February 3, 2026 by M3-9000

The rise and fall of a forgotten frozen empire. Sponsored by Brilliant. To learn for free on Brilliant for a full 30 days, go to https://brilliant.org/Veritasium/. Our viewers also get 20% off an annual Premium subscription, which gives you unlimited daily access to everything on Brilliant.

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▀▀▀
A huge thank you to Amy Brady and Tom Jackson for their invaluable expertise and contributions to this video.

Check out Amy Brady’s book here – https://ve42.co/BradyIce
Check out Tom Jackson’s book here – https://ve42.co/JacksonChilled

▀▀▀
0:00 The Frozen Monopoly
4:40 How To Stop Ice From Melting
8:06 An Icy Welcome
10:52 The Rise Of The Ice King
14:32 How Ice Transformed Cities
18:29 The First Ice Machine
23:22 Why is the back of the fridge hot?
25:45 Natural Ice Is Deadly
27:14 Would the world be different without refrigeration?

▀▀▀
References can be found here – https://ve42.co/IceRefs

Image and video references can be found here – https://ve42.co/IceVisuals

▀▀▀
Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, Anton Ragin, armedtoe, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Data Don, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, EJ Alexandra, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, Hayden Christensen, Hong Thai Le, Ibby Hadeed, Jeromy Johnson, Jesse Brandsoy, Jon Jamison, Juan Benet, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Mark Heising, Martin Paull, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Bush, Michael Krugman, Orlando Bassotto, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Robson, Sam Lutfi, Shalva Bukia, Sinan Taifour, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures, Vahe Andonians, wolfee

▀▀▀
Writers: Darius Garewal & Casper Mebius
Producer & Director: Darius Garewal
Presenters: Derek Muller & Gregor Čavlović
Editor: Peter Nelson
Animators: Andrew Neet, Ulugbek Islamov & Fabio Albertelli
Illustrators: Nataly Zhuk, Maria Gusakovich, Grace Nemanic, Isaac McRee & Jakub Misiek
Assistant Editor: James Stuart
Additional Editors: James Horsley & James Stuart
Researcher: Callum Cuttle
Thumbnail Designers: Abdallah Rabah, Ren Hurley & Ben Powell
Production Team: Josh Pitt, Matthew Cavanagh, Anna Milkovic, Katy Southwood & Jess Bishop-Laggett
Executive Producers: Derek Muller, Zoe Heron, Casper Mebius & Gregor Čavlović
Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images & Storyblocks
Music from Epidemic Sound

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What we learned from the 3-body problem

Posted: January 29, 2026 by M3-9000

What this strange quantum effect reveals about potentials. Sponsored by Planet Wild. Want to restore the planet’s ecosystems and see your impact in monthly videos? The first 150 people to join Planet Wild will get the first month for free at: https://planetwild.com/r/veritasium/join
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If you’re looking for a molecular modelling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically – https://ve42.co/SnatomsV

▀▀▀
Chapters:
0:00 The 3 Body Problem
4:16 Potential Energies
7:09 What is the curl in mathematics?
11:59 Bohm and Oppenheimer
14:36 Potentials in the Schrödinger Equation
18:40 The Aharonov-Bohm Effect
25:29 The Donut Experiment
27:49 Can potentials affect reality?
33:51 The Gravitational Aharonov-Bohm Effect

▀▀▀
A special thank you to Prof. Yakir Aharonov for discussing your own original research with us.

And a huge thank you to Prof. David Kaiser, Prof. Steven Strogatz, Dr Peter Asenbaum, Prof. Olival Freire Jr., and Prof. Yuval Gefen for your invaluable expertise and contributions to this video.

▀▀▀
References – https://ve42.co/ABRefs
Image refs – https://ve42.co/Ty
Thumbnail image: Based on work by Perosello (CC BY-SA 4.0) commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:5_4_800_36_downscaled.gif

▀▀▀
Special thanks to our Patreon supporters:

Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, Anton Ragin, Armedtoe, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Data Don, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, EJ Alexandra, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, Hayden Christensen, Ibby Hadeed, Jeromy Johnson, Jesse Brandsoy, Jon Jamison, Juan Benet, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Mark Heising, Martin Paull, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Bush, Orlando Bassotto, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Robson, Sam Lutfi, Shalva Bukia, Sinan Taifour, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures, Vahe Andonians, wolfee

▀▀▀
Writers: Daniel Leonard, Casper Mebius & Derek Muller
Producer and Director: Daniel Leonard
Presenters: Derek Muller, Casper Mebius & Gregor Čavlović
Editor: Jack Saxon
Additional Editor: James Stuart
Animators: Emma Wright, Fabio Abertelli, Andrew Neet & Ivy Trello
Illustrators: Jakub Misiek, Grace Nemanic & Isaac McRee
Researchers: Gabe Strong & Callum Cuttle
Thumbnail designers: Abdallah Rabah, Ren Hurley & Ben Powell
Production Team: Josh Pitt, Matthew Cavanagh, Anna Milkovic, Katy Southwood & Jess Bishop-Laggett
Executive Producers: Derek Muller, Casper Mebius & Gregor Čavlović

Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images and Pond5
Music from Epidemic Sound

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This Particle Solved Everything. We Just Found Out It Isn’t Real

Posted: January 22, 2026 by

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The universe thrums with quantum fields; and the particles of matter and force emerge as vibrational manifestations of the deep symmetries of these fields. The layers and reflections of those symmetries give us the wonderful richness of what we call the standard model of particle physics. Except there seems to be something missing: the sterile neutrino.

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End Credits Music by J.R.S. Schattenberg: https://www.youtube.com/user/MultiDroideka

Space Time Was Made Possible In Part By:

Big Bang
Alexander Tamas
David Paryente
Juan Benet
Mark Rosenthal
Morgan Hough
Peter Barrett
Santiago
Tj Steyn
Vinnie Falco

Supernova
Ethan Cohen
Glenn Sugden
Grace Biaelcki
Mark Heising
Stephen Wilcox
Tristan Lucian Claudius Aurelius Tyacke

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