Tom Scott

Thanks to Betty from Articulations! Go see her video on the ISO Standard Exit Sign here: https://youtu.be/i5uSlAw8U9s – and pull down this description for links to all her sources. The St Lawrence Burns were a series of deliberate fires in the soon-to-be-demolished village of Aultsville, Ontario, which was due to be flooded to make way

The Forbes Pigment Collection at the Harvard Art Museums is a collection of pigments, binders, and other art materials for researchers to use as standards: so they can tell originals from restorations from forgeries. It’s not open to the public, because it’s a working research library — and because some of the pigments in there

Over the North Atlantic, there’s no radar coverage: so how do air traffic controllers keep planes safe? The answer, at least in part, can be found at Nav Canada’s Gander Area Control Centre in Newfoundland. The North Atlantic Tracks are like freeway lanes in the sky, if freeway lanes were stacked a thousand feet on

If you want to sell alcohol in England, you need a license. But the Licensing Act 2003 has some unusual exceptions. • Thanks to Marc and the team from the Axceler-8 Hovercraft Centre: http://hovercraftcentre.co.uk/ • Behind the scenes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQXqkBiqRCI Licensing Act 2003: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/17/contents Filmed safely: https://www.tomscott.com/safe/ Camera: Matt Gray https://mattg.co.uk Logistics and original idea: Jonty

In Porthcurno, Cornwall, there’s an old telegraph cable landing station. It’s how Britain talked to the Empire — and it’s now a museum. But the technology here isn’t quite as obsolete as you might think. Thanks to Steve and all the team at the Porthcurno Telegraph Museum! You can find out more about them here:

http://tomscott.com – http://twitter.com/tomscott – The Falkirk Wheel sits between Edinburgh and Glasgow, in the southern parts of Scotland, and it’s the world’s only rotating boat lift. There’s some very clever design going on here — and some physics that goes all the way back to Ancient Greece.

[UPDATE: This video has an important update! As of February 2022, the deadline for paths has been cancelled. The mapping still continues, and there’s still a plan to have a definitive map, but old rights of way will no longer be wiped: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/feb/17/deadline-to-register-englands-footpaths-cancelled-after-public-access-campaign ] The Icknield Way, in south-east England, is a road and footpath

With many, many thanks to all the team at DP World London Gateway (http://londongateway.com – http://twitter.com/LondonGatewayUK )! This isn’t a sponsored video: they just went above and beyond to make sure this looked good, and I’m so grateful to them. On main camera was Matt Gray (http://mattg.co.uk – http://twitter.com/unnamedculprit) – you can see the full

http://tomscott.com – @tomscott – If you see the phrase “10 items or less” in a supermarket and immediately cringe and complain that it should be “10 items or fewer”… well, you are not going to like this week’s video.

Vanessa, Kati and Jarvis are the final three players on the broadcast tower, playing a quiz where if you bluff well enough, you don’t even need to know the answers. AD: White Light provided the SmartStage studio facilities and crew! You can find out more about their technology here: https://tinyurl.com/y7dxo2gz And disguise connected up all

At the JET reactor at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy — http://ccfe.ac.uk — I talk to the engineers about fusion power, being the hottest place in the solar system, deliberate disruptions, and about the surround-sound speakers that give a diagnostic test you might not expect. Thanks to everyone at CCFE! They hold occasional open days:

Wage transparency is a strange concept for most of us: not so in some of the Nordic countries. And while Norway, Sweden and Finland differ in exactly the amount of access they give the public, fundamentally your tax return would be public knowledge there. So how does it affect the world? And is it a

TRIUMF’s Rabbit Line, on the University of British Columbia campus, sends slightly radioactive material under the streets of Vancouver at 100km/h (60mph). Here’s how and why. ◾ More: https://www.triumf.ca/headlines/current-events/rabbit-line-gets-replacement Edited by Michelle Martin https://twitter.com/mrsmmartin I’m at https://tomscott.com on Twitter at https://twitter.com/tomscott on Facebook at https://facebook.com/tomscott and on Instagram as tomscottgo

Near Hindon, on the South Island of New Zealand, there’s one of only two remaining one-lane road-rail bridges in the country. No barriers, no lights, no sirens: if you’re driving across this, you need to make sure to listen out for the train horn. Thanks to all the Dunedin Railways team! You can find out

http://tomscott.com – @tomscott – Colours are easy, right? They’re one of the first things you learn as a kid. But what if “blue” and “green” were the same colour? Or “light blue” and “dark blue” weren’t? Well, guess what: there are languages out there that do exactly that.

Yes, it’s only micrograms of difference, but it’s still really weird: until 2018, the kilogram is defined as “the weight of this physical object”. So what happens when that object changes? Thank you to everyone at the National Physical Laboratory! You can visit them at http://npl.co.uk I’m at https://tomscott.com on Twitter at https://twitter.com/tomscott on Facebook

The answer is, of course, a bit more complicated than you might think. • Written with Molly Ruhl and Gretchen McCulloch. Gretchen’s podcast has an episode all about this: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/154520059101/lingthusiasm-episode-1-speaking-a-single-language Gretchen’s book BECAUSE INTERNET, all about the evolution of internet language, is available: 🇺🇸 US: https://amzn.to/30tLpjT 🇨🇦 CA: https://amzn.to/2JsTYWH 🇬🇧 UK: https://amzn.to/31K8eRD (Those are affiliate

Welcome to the US National Ice Core Laboratory in Denver, Colorado, where there’s a giant freezer filled with 20km of ice cores from Greenland and the Antarctic. Here’s why. Thanks to everyone at the US National Ice Core Laboratory! You can find out more about them here: http://icecores.org/ The Ice Core Laboratory is supported by

I’m visiting the University of Iowa’s National Advanced Driving Simulator, to answer a question: how unsafe is it for me to vlog while driving? Is vlogging while driving dangerous? The team at the simulator are the experts to ask. More about the National Advanced Driving Simulator: https://www.nads-sc.uiowa.edu/sim_nads1.php or on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrivingSim Camera operator: Jasmine Putney

The Udbyhøj Cable Ferry across Randers Fjord in Denmark is electric-powered: but rather than batteries, it’s plugged into mains electricity. Here’s how it works. ▪ More about the ferry: https://www.randersfjord-faerger.dk/ Production manager: Sissel Vindskov Bødker at GotFat, https://gotfat.dk Camera: Peter Sørensen Runner: Victor Gade Editor: Michelle Martin https://twitter.com/mrsmmartin Audio mixer: Dan Pugsley at Cassini Sound

http://tomscott.com – @tomscott – It’s not that Hawaiian has a completely different word for Christmas — it’s just that Kalikimaka is the closest that Hawaiian can possibly get to the word Christmas. Videos linked: Mele Kalikimaka by Bing Crosby: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEvGKUXW0iI Skwerl: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt4Dfa4fOEY

Gricean Maxims are a vital part of how we understand each other: a set of… well, maybe “rules” is a bit strong. They’re guidelines that we follow without realising it. And it’s the reason that “asbestos-free cereal” sounds suspicious. Written with Molly Ruhl and Gretchen McCulloch. Gretchen’s podcast Lingthusiasm is at http://lingthusiasm.com/ Gretchen’s book BECAUSE

At the Computer History Museum, in Mountain View, California, there sits a small teapot. It’s the world’s most famous teapot, after a computer graphics researcher called Martin Newell digitised it. You’ve probably seen it: here’s its story. And thanks to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California: you can visit them online here: http://www.computerhistory.org/

There’s a link from a 13th century legend, to a 16th century insult book, to a 19th century writer, to a 20th century comic book hero. And it starts in a small village near Nottingham, in the time of Robin Hood. Here’s why Batman comes from Gotham City. (I am reliably assured that the modern-people

The Bay of Fundy has cheap, clean power: if you can harness it. ■ AD: 👨‍💻 NordVPN’s best deal is here: https://nordvpn.com/tomscott – with a 30-day money-back guarantee. I’m at https://tomscott.com on Twitter at https://twitter.com/tomscott on Facebook at https://facebook.com/tomscott and on Instagram as tomscottgo

The town of Staufen, in the south-west of Germany, has a problem: a drilling operation in 2007 that went very wrong. Half a metre of movement might not sound like much, but in this town, that’s enough for the buildings to crack and fall apart. Thanks to Constantijn Crijnen for both suggesting the video and

The Gotthard Base Tunnel in Switzerland is 57km long: and I think its greatest piece of safety equipment is nowhere near the tunnel itself. ■ Thanks to Swiss Federal Railways https://www.sbb.ch/ – drone filming near the tracks was specially approved with railway staff. ■ For tours into the Gotthard Tunnel and to the visitors’ window,

http://tomscott.com – http://twitter.com/tomscott – There’s a strange avenue of trees in Richmond Park, ten miles from St Paul’s Cathedral; and an odd, wedge-shaped skyscraper in the city. At the New London Model, at the NLA Galleries at the Building Centre, I explain both of these. London is going vertical: but there are quite a few

The Montreal Olympic Sports Centre has a 20m (65ft) diving board. That’s twice the Olympic height. Why would anyone need that? ◾ The Centre: https://parcolympique.qc.ca/centresportif/en/ ◾ Thanks to @Lysanne Richard Edited by Michelle Martin https://twitter.com/mrsmmartin I’m at https://tomscott.com on Twitter at https://twitter.com/tomscott on Facebook at https://facebook.com/tomscott and on Instagram as tomscottgo

On the river Rhine in Switzerland, there are reaction ferries: boats with no engine, no paddles, no onboard motive power at all. Here’s how they work — and a question about what other simple ideas are out there. I’m at http://tomscott.com on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tomscott on Facebook at http://facebook.com/tomscott and on Snapchat and Instagram as

There are rules in the English language that you’ve probably never been taught, but you know anyway: how to split apart words with “infixes”. But you’ve never been taught it because some of those infixes are words you probably shouldn’t use in front of your high school English teachers… Written with Molly Ruhl and Gretchen

John Reber had a plan: to dam the San Francisco Bay. He convinced some politicians – and it took the US Army Corps of Engineers, and the Bay Model they built in Sausalito, to prove him not just wrong, but dangerously wrong. Thanks to all the team at the Bay Model! You can find out

Next to Amsterdam Schiphol Airport is the Buitenschot Land Art Park, a giant set of ridges and furrows cut into the landscape. Yes, it’s art: but it also stops some local residents from being exposed to jet noise. More about the park: https://www.schiphol.nl/en/schiphol-as-a-neighbour/page/landscape-design-plan-to-combat-noise-nuisance/ I’m at https://tomscott.com on Twitter at https://twitter.com/tomscott on Facebook at https://facebook.com/tomscott and

It sounds ridiculous, but it’s true. At the Cooper Union Foundation Building in New York, there’s the world’s first elevator shaft: constructed four years before the safety elevator was invented. • Thanks to Prof. O’Donnell and all the team at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art: you can find out more

No, it wasn’t called “hacking” back then: it was called “scientific hooliganism”. Let’s talk about Marconi, Nevil Maskelyne, and a demonstration that didn’t go as planned. And go check out the Royal Institution’s channel! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFfRqoIdArM&index=3&list=PLbnrZHfNEDZyfUXqroIlSf2hOznnThqM0 I’m indebted to Sungook Hong’s wonderful book “Wireless”, which helped me track down some of the more obscure sources here

I feel like there are other YouTube channels that would take a different approach here. ▪ With thanks to Professor Brian Kalt: his original article is here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=691642 — any inaccuracies that have slipped in are mine alone, and this is, obviously, not legal advice! To save you doing the research, my location while recording

There’s a lot of articles written about how tap water in Warsaw is constantly tested by a small team of clams. It felt like a hoax to me: so I went to find out. ▪ Thanks to MPWiK Warsaw: https://www.mpwik.com.pl/ Producer: Marcin Krasnowolski https://polishfixer.com Camera: Michał Opala Editor: Michelle Martin https://twitter.com/mrsmmartin I’m at https://tomscott.com on

Mount Taranaki, on the North Island of New Zealand, is a large-scale circle that’s visible from space: a stratovolcano with six miles of forest around it. But that didn’t happen naturally. Oh, and there’s a good chance that, in the next fifty years or so, it might explode. GOOD VIDEOS ON NATURAL PERSONHOOD: Law professor

Crash Safari dot com — and no, I’m deliberately not linking to it! — crashes your phone. Or your browser. Pretty much instantly. How? And after several months of obscurity, why did it go viral so fast today? And yes, I did have to put this video together really quickly. Thank you SO MUCH to

Over on the RAF Starrship channel, I’m talking about the history of radar: https://youtu.be/VDC_RCh0ws8 – but over here, we’re testing a 90-year-old piece of technology that was meant to be part of Britain’s air defence. The Sound Mirrors, on Romney Marsh, were built in the late 1920s as a way to amplify the sound from

http://tomscott.com – http://twitter.com/tomscott – This weekend, the Royal Navy was offering public tours of HMS Defender, one of their new-generation Type 45 destroyers. It’s an astonishing ship: about 8,000 tonnes of steel and high-tech equipment designed to defend an entire fleet against air and missile attack. There’s another type of attack it’s more vulnerable against,

At the Swiss Military Museum in Full, there’s the last remaining example of a 1970s tank-driving simulator. But there’s no virtual worlds here: it’s connected to a real camera and a real miniature model. ■ More about the museum: https://www.festungsmuseum.ch/ Camera: Tobias Buchmann Producer: Sebastian Capeda at Viven https://viven.ch Editor: https://www.davestevenson.co.uk/ Audio mix: Dan Pugsley

The @Royal Albert Hall is 150 years old; the roof is 600 tonnes of glass and steel. And it turns out that there’s a terrifying technicians’ trampoline, acoustic-dampening mushrooms, and a complete lack of connections. Thanks to everyone at the Royal Albert Hall: https://www.royalalberthall.com/ Camera by Jamie MacLeod https://www.jamiemacleod.co.uk/ Aerial operations by Phil Conrad and

The treadwheel crane, or treadmill crane, sounds like something from Astérix or the Flintstones. But at Guédelon in France, not only do they have one: they’re using it to help build their brand new castle. ▪ More about Guédelon: https://www.guedelon.fr/ Camera: Simon Gillouin Editor: Michelle Martin https://twitter.com/mrsmmartin Producer: Axel Zeiliger https://block8production.com I’m at https://tomscott.com on

It’s about synchronisation, right? Well, not exactly… I’m at https://tomscott.com on Twitter at https://twitter.com/tomscott on Facebook at https://facebook.com/tomscott and on Instagram as tomscottgo