# A couple of cool science videos

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-couple-of-cool-science-videos/958279>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Tags:** science-math\
**Created:** [January 23, 2022, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-couple-of-cool-science-videos/958279 "2022-01-23T18:07:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2022, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-couple-of-cool-science-videos/958279/1 "2022-01-23T18:07:31Z")

</div>

I came across these totally by accident, but thought I would share because I found them quite interesting.

**[The first](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hVmeOCJjOU)** is a talk given at the Royal Institution in London by Sean Carroll on quantum mechanics. Carroll is more or less the successor of Richard Feynman at Caltech, and is a renowned educator as well as theoretical physicist.

**[The second](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ9VBLLprpo)** is about things we’ve learned about the inner planets of the solar system, notably Mercury, Venus, and Mars. Lots of things I didn’t know, like the hypothesis that Mercury’s disproportionately enormous iron core and other anomalies suggest that the planet was once larger and in a much further orbit, but collided with a massive body that stripped away much of its material and kicked it into its present orbit, more elliptical than any other planet.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiendish_astronaut/32/3295_2.png) [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2022, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-couple-of-cool-science-videos/958279/2 "2022-01-23T18:17:45Z")

</div>

Love the Royal Institution lectures. They do a series Christmas lectures to school kids every year which are excellent.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\
**Post date:** [January 24, 2022, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-couple-of-cool-science-videos/958279/3 "2022-01-24T14:39:33Z")

</div>

Having watched more videos and now starting to read his latest book, _Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime_, Sean Carroll impresses the hell out of me – extremely bright, very personable, and a tremendous educator and theoretical physicist. He has a series of podcasts called **[Mindscape](https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/)** that I’m going to start watching. Typically of Carroll, he has said that he has no problem bringing on people with whom he disagrees, but has absolutely zero tolerance for morons (though he put it more kindly, I don’t remember the exact words).

My first encounter with Carroll in informal conversation, as opposed to giving presentations, was **[this interview with Lex Fridman](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNqqOLscOBY)**. Very impressive performance. Fridman’s speaking style is a bit overly reserved but he poses some very good questions in what turns out to be quite a wide-ranging interview.