How Wrong Is VERITASIUM? A Lamp and Power Line Story

Thank you for making this video! While in hindsight I can clearly see that I should have gone into more detail with the explanation, I have really enjoyed watching all the response videos. For the record I was not suggesting the lightbulb lights at ANY current value but at some small but significant current value. I tested my LED bulb rated for 12V and found it turns on dimly when I apply 2V. There may yet be a follow up video coming. So thank you for this commentary - I'll incorporate it into any further work I do on this topic.

Thanks for the shout-out, Mehdi! This was a thorough and nuanced response to Derek's video. It's important to remember that, while the energy is transferred by the fields, the current is still in control. The lightbulb isn't going to do anything if there isn't a current through it. During a recent live Q&A (for supporters only), I talked about Derek's question a little. My guess was that a real-life bulb wouldn't immediately turn on, but would slowly/gradually brighten over a few seconds. It sounds like you agree, which is validating.

I've begun my journey into electrical engineering as a hobby thanks to creators like you. I began watching because you were purely entertaining, and now I'm accumulating tools and measuring current and actually sat down and measured hundreds of resistors the other day and was actually excited as I thought about how it all works. I'm slowly beginning to understand more and more about how electrons move and how various components can manipulate them into doing all kinds of cool stuff. This video helped me better understand that movement. Thanks for making such great videos!

It doesn't happen very often, but sometimes I am hit with a strong sense of "man, this guy really knows what he's talking about"', thanks Mehdi

I am truly amazed that how YouTube science community holds arguments. Like a true gentleman, Mehdi.

The Veritasium video feels analogous to saying "In a hydraulic system It's the pressure waves which transmit force, not the water molecules" which is technically true but you can't have water pressure without, you know, the water molecules. Granted a hydraulic system is far less complicated than an electrical one (there's no induction for one) but I still feel that is a fair comparison.

Great video - one of the best ElectroBoom made so far - balancing his critical and humorous views with a nice technical information. A pleasure to watch, as always, even more informative and educative than most. Thank you!

Thanks. A. Million! At 13:05 into the video I suddenly fully understood coaxial cable impedance! You know; 75 or 50 ohms normally. Just great! 😁

Finally an engineer that combines both the engineering and physic models without outright dismissing one or the other. A very insightful video that perfectly complements Derek’s video and add some much needed realism to it. If I could subscribe twice I would!

Thought to mention, even the 1 second round trip delay is not fully accurate as the LC circuit imposes its own propagation delay on top of light speed. Like I said the current flattens out traveling through the network and that slows down voltage step transitions, as you also see in the simulations at the end of video. Sorry, too much technical details!!

This is a perfect example of the value and importance of readily accessible rebuttals to all content online. Rebuttals add value to the discussion and people are better off when they get critical responses from other people who add nuance and further context to issues. We need 'The Socratic Web'...

I always love it when you make response videos. I always down I'm gonna get a more detailed commentary of information! Love it!

Comprehensive and briliant. Derek deserved this :-P

Dude, that whiteboard action was impressive, well done!

loved watching this , so glad I found it. Great video, knowledgeable, and entertaining. Great job!

I remember an experiment I did during my masters thesis. I was attempting to make a lidar based on Time of Flight and had acquired a chip (which I don't know the name of right now) that could measure time extremely precisely (we're talking down to sub 100 ps). I had a microcontroller generating a start and a stop pulse (at some frequency I don't remember, but it was on the order of magnitude of 1Hz), then I measured the difference between the propagation time of the signals. I don't remember exactly what the input into the timer IC looked like, but I assume it's some sort of MOSFET gate. Anyway, I tried with different lengths of wire and could indeed measure the lengths with the propagation time (cool!). I also happened to have a 100m roll of wire I just bought, so I tried connecting it to see if they really did provide me with the correct length. I was very surprised when the propagation time was way less than what would be expected from that 100m wire. My thoughts was that either I found a waay to send information faster than light and should clearly be awarded with a Nobel Prize... or that there was some other effect I didn't fully understand. Most likely this was some combination of infuctance and capacitance in the wire (since it was basically a coil). We could also change the propagation time by moving our hands closer to the wire coil. So yeah, Veritasium is right that currents don't flow ONLY in wires, but the matter is more complex. Thanks for the good explanation, Mehdi!

This was the exact reaction I got from my father who is an electrical engineer. The point of the video was really just to show that energy doesn't just flow like water in a pipe, but the question posed in the beginning really was quite a misleading

What really bugs me is that Derek calls other models "Lies".. i think that violates a very important principle of science, that all models that are supported by experiment are equally correct. It's like calling one of the many theories of quantum mechanics "lies".. it's just a different way of thinking about the same phenomenon

This actually reminds me of the days when I was twisting my head around RF circuits :D All of this is known and I really appreciate you pointing out the workable models to think about this.

Thank you for your analysis. I find your argument compelling. Conceptually modeling the power line as a transmission line of linked inductors and capacitors is genius! Well done! I guess I can now cancel my order for 1 light-year of 16 gauge copper wire from Amazon. They were estimating 16,000 years to fulfill the order anyway!