As of today, I have been making Youtube videos full-time for 10 years

So to celebrate, I am answering your questions plus I'm giving away items like this beautiful spinning top from vorso and other items from my videos

So if you want to win one of those then write down the characters that will appear randomly in the top right corner of this video

Those will be your password to the form in the description

So let's get into it

Why did you start doing youtube?

Because I always wanted to be a filmmaker

As a kid, I loved doing plays and musicals

I had the most fun of my life when I was working with creative other people

But I always thought that a career in the traditional film or tv industry was a terrible idea

And like your life was out of your control

It seemed to rely on a big break; I don't think those industries were meritocracies

So for basically my whole life until I was 28, I did the safe thing

And I studied engineering and physics

And did a PhD in physics and then I taught people physics

And I love science

But I also love just the craft of putting together a film or a video and sending it out into the world

And I think this makes a lot of sense

Because I liked learning about science, and I liked performing

And that is exactly what making Youtube videos allows me to do

You know the process of doing science is very different from the process of learning science

Uh and so I think it's not surprising that this is the thing that I love more than being a scientist

I have been on Youtube for 10 years and it was starting to show. There was so much gray in my beard

That uh i'm shaving it off to wind back the clock

I am giving away this fully specked 2017 macbook pro

I used this to make a lot of my videos

But those are all wiped off here now so it's just a nicely specced laptop

That you could use to make more videos if you wanted

Any advice you have for people coming out of high school or college and unsure how to take their first steps?

The key is just start doing it

After making my Youtube channel for a few months

I sort of snuck into a science awards in sydney and australia

And there I found sort of the executive producer of the only science show on Australian television

And I got his business card

And the very next day, I emailed him

And I sent him links to all of the videos, or you know, the videos I was most proud of anyway

And uh I didn't really expect to hear anything

But three weeks later I got an email back from him

And he was like, these are really good why don't you come in and we'll have a chat

And I think the key to that interaction was

I had stuff to show him

I didn't go to him and say, "Hey I'd love to be involved in your TV program."

You know what can I do for you? What do you need done? You know?

I came to him and I said that's what I'm capable of

And if if that's of interest to you, then great

I have literally thousands of penrose tiles that I will be sending out, if you want them, I'm giving these away.

I will send you 21 kites and then 13 darts of another color

What has been the hardest part of your Youtube journey?

I would say the beginning

You know, everything's like a snowball

It's always hardest to make the snowball when it's small

And I know that there were a number of times when I thought that I would just quit doing youtube

Because it seemed like I was getting no traction

I think the other problem with the beginning was, I wasn't very good at Youtube

I wasn't very good at presenting to a camera

I wasn't very good at picking topics

Most people know how to tell apart a a hard-boiled egg from a raw egg

Well you're gonna find out pretty quick if you uh if you break the shell

I've said it before and I'll say it again

I think I was lucky not to know how bad I was

Because otherwise I really would have stopped in the early days

I am giving away these Ames windows

All lovingly handcrafted by me

Painstakingly over hours and hours colored in beautiful

Gopro hero4 still works a little old

Do your kids watch your videos?

Some of them

Uh their favorites are the one where daddy quote "blasts off into space"

And also the one where the meteor hits the earth

I actually feel like the kids are a good barometer of what's gonna be successful

It's like if it appeals to their two and four-year-old brains

Then it will appeal to all of us in some way

I'm giving away these astronaut shoes which are size 8 US or 41 in Europe

The salt lamp from negative ions

These platonic solids there should be five of them

What was the most humbling response you got from the audience and for which video?

Uh depends on what you mean by humbling

In like Brady Haran has ruined this word for me

But if you mean like the most overwhelming positive response that I've gotten

You know, I would say I did this video on the bullet block years ago

And there were over a hundred video responses

Which just totally blew me away

The one-way speed of light video got a huge response from people

Got a huge response from people

There's over 50,000 comments on that video

Not to mention the hundreds of emails I received and the tweets

And it's incredible to have hundreds and thousands of people thinking about science and the fundamental way that the universe works

I am delighted that you guys are with me

What do you do apart from Youtube?

Well, I have three kids and they take up most of the time outside of when I'm doing Youtube videos

So that's it I'm a Youtuber and a dad

Which is pretty great

I love going to the beach

I love hiking up the hill, I love riding our bikes

I'm a pretty simple guy

And 2020 has made things even simpler

Because there was really nothing we could do

The last shade balls

All right. What would you say was the hardest part of your PhD?

Okay so the hardest part of a PhD is that it's this research degree, right?

Which maybe is stating the obvious

When I got into it I remember

Talking to someone who had recently finished their PhD and she told me

A PhD is a dark time in most people's lives

And I was like,

What did I get myself into

But I realized what she meant

Because for three or four years I was kind of on this roller coaster

The problem with research is you never quite know what you're doing

That's the point of research and you never quite know what you're gonna find

That you're gonna spend six months or a year or many years depending on your field

Working on something and only to find out that it didn't work

Or it's not gonna happen

And for me that is a very hard thing to do

I feel like my personality is not built for that kind of research

Because I need sort of to regularly achieve things

And to feel like i'm doing practical things

And having a practical impact on the world

What was the best part of it?

Getting to meet lots of academics and talk to different people

My thesis supervisor Manjula Sharma was fantastic

And I learned a ton about academia, and about research, and about writing

It was a real nice shift for me to go into a PhD that was not solely focused on math you know coming out of engineering physics

It was nice to be focused on something that involved words and writing and reading

And I realized, oh that whole area of life has been kind of shut off to me as an engineering student, so that was a nice transition

What was the most unexpected part of it?

Well I gotta say that was having more people than just my thesis reviewers which are three people read my thesis

You know, about my PhD research

And uh it's funny that a Youtube video

Is the thing that these days can get your thesis or your papers more citations and better read

In 2010 I made this short video for tedx in Sydney

And I initially shot it like talking to camera

And when I got home all the footage was corrupted and I couldn't use it

It was the night before the submission deadline

And so I drew stick figures in paint

Ask almost anyone about physics

And chances are they will tell you they don't like it, don't get it, or it's just not their thing

And I feel like that's still one of my the best things that I've done

Which is like, there are tons of times when it seems like you should be discouraged and throw in the towel

But I did not

I just made do with the crappy tools that I had

And frankly I think the video was better with the stupid stick figures than it would have been with a talking head

Okay the garage gets full of.. stuff

These are boxes of the Snatoms expansion kit

And I want to sign them and send them out to teachers

So teachers use your school emails uh in the form

And will send you one of these if you're lucky

Okay lightning round why does Veritasium have 42 mass number

Because that's the answer to the ultimate question of life the universe and everything from the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy

How are you doing?

Well

What's your favorite ice cream flavor?

Pistachio or rocky road

Do you truly love turbulent flow or do you just fake it for the internet?

Merch?

I don't have any

Would you like some?

Some did you learn any Portuguese with your wife?

Um bocadinho

She hates the way I say "bacalhau"

I find it impossible

Science or maths?

Science

Do you miss Canada?

Yes. Today especially

Favorite shrek character?

Shrek

Is a hot dog a sandwich?

How much do you love science?

To the moon and back

How many hours of sleep do you get

Not enough. Not.. Enough

If not youtube, what would you be today?

I think probably a teacher of some sort, maybe a professor

How big is your team? Because the production value of your videos has been so awesome these days

Well thank you for noticing

And yes there has been a team being built

Johnny Hyman who can animate edit write music, write programs

He's also working on a channel of his own called verse you should check it out

My wife Raquel is frequently behind the camera

I'm so incredibly appreciative of that

Thank you thank you thank you

Yvonne Tello is my animator

He's been doing lots of great work in all sorts of different styles

Peter Lebedev who's been helping me with research and writing

And doing everything that possibly needs doing

My former professor of general relativity at the university of Sydney Grant Lewis has been an advisor on many of these videos

A huge thank you to Alice

For managing everything that's happening in Chinese Veritasium

There's Veritasium dubbed in spanish in arabic, in russian,

We're working on a Veritasium hindi

And I gotta say paying people would not really be possible without the sponsors

So I gotta say thank you for being okay with it,

Because that's what allowed me to have a rocket built

Or build an eight foot tall optical illusion

Those are things I just never would have dreamed of doing in the past

Because my investment in every video was essentially only my time

And now I feel like I can try lots of different things

So this is a q&a video but the final q is for you

Which is, what do you want to see more of on this channel in 2021 and in the future?

What have you enjoyed the most in the past?

I just want to know what I can do for you

What is the thing that really adds the most value to your life

Uh that's it for me

I guess, thank you seriously thank you