- Okay.
(Party Poppers Popping)
- A million subs.
- Yay!
- Steve we did it.
- Yeah, we did it!
- What a team effort. I've never been so proud!
- I want to say, I couldn't have done it without you.
This is, I got a poster of a million dots.
- Oh, is this 1 Million?
- Yeah
- There's a million! Look at that. Wow!
- It's really nice because it shows you the structure of it.
Like 10 times, 10 times, 10 times, 10 times, 10 times 10.
- This indistinguishable gray mass
is how Steve views you all.
- Q and A video in celebration of a million subscribers.
- Million subscribers.
Top question.
When will you be doing a face reveal?
- I wasn't going to do this.
I don't want to do it! Okay.
- Hey, Vsauce, Steve Mould here.
- What are some cool video ideas that you've had
that didn't make it to YouTube
and they specify cool video ideas.
- Oh. I've never had a cool video idea.
- Oh, that's true. But ya know.
- I wanted to make a video about the golden ratio, you know,
because there's a lot of stupid things said
about the golden ratio.
- Yeah. I've heard about it! We're on board!
- And yet there are some interesting places
in nature that it appears
it has been comprehensively handled in almost
exactly how I would have done it on Numberphile.
- Really?
- So I don't think.
- Don't look at me!
- No it wasn't you.
- Wasn't me!
- It was Ben Sparks!
- Oh, that guy!
- Yeah. It was very good.
- Did you ever make a video that you didn't post on YouTube?
- Do you know what?
A couple of times with Veritasium
where I've been working on a video and then.
- You got Derek'd.
- I got Derek'd! Well it didn't. I got nearly Derek'd.
- Well, you've had like two recently
where I've got like a phone call from you going,
Matt, I've gotta go change the whole schedule!
- Yeah. So I have to like, redo the intro to say, you know,
that Veritasium video I'm sure you've just seen?
- It's now a followup video to Derek's,
which is, which is great, but.
- I'd organized Helen Czerski to go on one of those
parabolic flights do a thing about angular momentum, Derek.
- I Derek'd you once didn't I?
- You Derek'd me with the levitating table on chains.
- Tensegrity?
- Tensegrity. Yeah.
I had a whole bunch of things about Tensegrity
I wanted to do and which I still plan to do.
I'm just gonna wait for your video to just Peter out.
And then I'll.
- You know, I make these full videos on one thing
and he just kind of casually drops into a much bigger video.
- I got Michael Stevens'd a couple of times that way.
- Yeah.
- I've got a whole video and he's like, by the way,
one thing not related,
but I thought I'd just ruin Matt's video.
- Yeah.
- Both lovely people by the way.
- Yes.
And you know, in fact, whenever I've emailed Derek,
he's like, can I use your footage from your videos?
Yeah. Of course.
- Yeah when I've been Derek'd he's been very kind.
Shows up in the comments and pretends he cares.
It's nice.
You've got a full can of beverage.
Its center of mass is in the middle
as you drink the beverage and it gets lower.
The center of mass moves down, but then once the cans empty,
the center of mass is back at the middle again.
And the question is, what's the lowest point
the center of mass reaches in a can
as you're drinking the beverage?
When we filmed us trying to work it out.
- Ah, that was such a long time ago.
We were in Vegas.
We were performing at a skeptics conference.
- We do, we did Vegas.
- Well, it's no big deal.
I got into a discussion with someone who, reckoned
that the center of mass just went down and down
and down and down. And then suddenly, yeah.
Which just didn't make sense.
Just like physics doesn't work like that.
Generally speaking, like if you have
a singularity like that. It doesn't.
- Are there any videos you would want to make but can't?
- I mean, there's a few where
I just don't have the answer yet.
- It doesn't hold me back. Give it a go!
- This is a remote control for like if, you know,
if you use your computer as a TV, then you might want to sit
on the sofa and it's got a full keyboard and everything.
- If you're sitting around. It's about the year 2005,
you've got your TV server rigged up and plugged in.
You've not yet learned what Plex is.
- It's in standby mode.
But when I click a lighter near it, it turns on,
I mean, it hasn't because the battery's drained,
this is a Piezoelectric lighter.
So there's a spark inside
and a spark has an EM burst associated with it.
And so there is some little bit of wire in here that acts as
an aerial for that electro magnetic burst,
and cause it's turned on, my question really
is why doesn't it happen more often?
Like, is there a thing that people do to stop that.
If it's like that. You don't register it as a click.
- Right.
- As a human button presses slower.
So there's some kind of threshold or something like that.
But I don't know.
- I can't wait for that video,
I feel like we've largely done it but.
- Yeah. So why bother?
But anyway, yeah.
So when I used to work in IT support, someone said,
I've got a problem with my keyboard.
He's got the keyboard and the phone he always had the phone
resting on the keyboard, like that.
Whenever his phone rang, it started typing gibberish
on the thing.
- That's amazing.
- It's got to be a similar thing. Where you've got this.
You know, the electromagnetic radiation from the phone.
- Yeah something is just be getting picked up.
- I thought that was really cool.
This is a tea infuser.
- Oh yeah.
- And if you run hot water over it, it sings.
(metallic singing)
The radiator in my bathroom.
It's connected to the hot water, not the central heating.
So whenever the furnace is burning to heat,
the hot water tank, it also heats the radiator
in the bathroom. And I don't know if that's a thing
or whether we just, the people that were in the house
before us just had a really bad plumber.
- Now that, make that video Steve.
- I was just hoping there would be some plumbers watching
who might know.
- Put that out and I'll beat you to 2 million!
Okay. So what did you do before YouTube?
- Ah, Okay.
- If you can remember Steve before YouTube.
- So I studied physics at university
and I started doing stand-up comedy
when I was at university as well.
Then when I graduated and moved to London,
I started doing stand-up comedy in London as well.
And I got better at doing stand-up comedy,
and I started to get paid a little bit and I was telling.
- I was there Steve!
- Oh yeah, you were there for my early stuff weren't you?
But I wasn't being paid in big gigs.
I was being paid to go to like student gigs and stuff.
- And you'd probably have to drive as well.
- Yeah, you sort of drive for two hours.
You get paid 10 pounds and you drive back,
you realize it costs 20 pounds in petrol.
And I just sort of became aware of this kind of science
communication world and thought, that's good.
Cause I kind of missed all that science stuff.
I sort of hit the ground running,
in terms of doing science shows.
And then we started doing science shows together
with Helen Arney and that really took off.
And then I just started thinking,
maybe I should put some stuff on YouTube.
Almost just, as a way of like, immortalize.
- Ah that's it. Not quite right but.
- But then I had a slight viral success
with the chain fountain and I thought,
well let's take this seriously.
- Do you do YouTube full-time or do you have other projects
or jobs on the side as well?
- Yeah, basically full-time.
So on top of that, I do live shows or at least I used to,
and I probably will again.
- One day!
- One day, and I write books.
- What we used to do for at least three quarters
of the year, a monthly comedy show in London.
- Yes!
- Back when such things were allowed.
- An Evening of Unnecessary Detail.
- I like this shirt.
- Ah, thank you!
- Are you um?
- In celebration of your million subs
I'm cosplaying Steve Mould!
- You've even done the.
- I've done the, yeah, yeah, yeah! I went all out!
- You didn't manage the?
- No, I'm cosplaying you two years from now!
When you moved house, did you specifically install
a red pipe or was there an existing pipe
that you just painted red?
- So here we are. Here's the camera.
- That's what we can see.
There's the red pipe in there, as you know,
if you've seen old videos featuring me and Matt Parker
you'll know that the red pipe is actually just CGI
it's Photoshopped in.
- Yup! Good gag.
- Yeah. I rent a studio and I've moved from a small room
to a big room. Both rooms have a red pipe!
That's it! There.
- And you didn't insist on the red pipe?
That's the, all the studios are red piped.
- No, actually some of them don't
and I was being shown round new rooms.
- And you're like nope and they're like, why?
And you're like, I don't want to get into it.
- I think some people would say what the red pipes for.
It's sprinkler system.
- What's the most interesting fact about mold that you know?
- Get a clean jar, cut up some fruit, put it in the jar,
seal the jar, put it somewhere warm.
Maybe in sunlight, it will grow mold.
And you know, wash the fruit in advance.
- Yep.
Wash everything. Put it in.
What that means is, there were spores in there.
After you washed everything!
Spores are in the air. Like every breath you take
has mold spores in it.
Every move you make.
- Oh.
- I'll be watching it or so they're saying.
- There's always potential for mold.
- Yeah. I just realize it in human form.
- Do you often find yourself forgetting
what you've learnt from older videos?
I've always wondered if this is a problem for yourself and
channels like yourself, such as Smarter Every Day.
Being destined, we call that.
He did that to me on the rolling shutter effect.
On the propeller.
- You did a follow-up didn't you?
- I turned it into a follow-up!
- Classic.
- You go so in-depth to each topic.
I feel like it's going to be tough remembering everything.
- It's like building a house of cards.
You've got the whole house of cards in your mind
when I'm filming the video. It's all in my head.
- It's all cached it's ready.
- Yeah. The house of cards is there
and I'm delivering the house of cards.
And then once the video goes live,
it's going to get knocked over,
but what's really useful is I've got video.
- Yeah. You just watch it back!
- Ice on tree just says, how are you?
- Good. Really good. Good to have a million subs feels good.
Doesn't it? Oh yeah. And I mean it does, it will feel good.
- I mean, I would've said seeing me
for the first time in 18 months.
What was your favorite Eureka moment in your career so far?
- I mean, my favorite thing
was the gravitational waves video with the two black holes.
The two wheels on a drill.
- That is amazing.
- Thank you. Cause I didn't know it would work.
I had the idea and I put it together and it worked.
It was very, very satisfying.
- I would like more behind the scenes
of your workflow and research for videos.
- Yeah. The research process is, I forget who said it,
but it's good to have a high tolerance for confusion.
So I'll start off, you know, especially with something
like the taste video that I just made.
You look at the papers and they use so much language
that you're not familiar with.
Because it's all academic language.
And so the first time I read it I'm utterly confused.
And so I pick out all the words I don't understand.
I search for those.
Then I slowly understand what those are.
And often you have to go sub, sub, sub, sub, sub
before you then can then go come back out through stages.
(aggressive boom)
It's like come in and then come back out.
Until the first paper you looked at,
you can now understand it all.
- Do you have a degree?
- Yes. Physics degree.
- Who's your favorite mathematician and why?
- Matt Parker.
- Thank you. Correct answer.
Because I'm sitting right here.
In fact, put every video that Steve has made a mistake.
Just chuck it in the comments.
Steve would love to see those.
- I actually thought I never would
and genuinely do actually.
Now you know what, don't do it in the comments.
I will start a new post on the Steve Mould sub-Reddit
where you can say, because I'd actually think
an interesting video would be every mistake
I've ever made on YouTube.
- Oh, he's right here.
- Please don't.
- When you beat Matt to a million subscribers,
will that prove that Tau is better than Pi?
- Yes.
- Would you rather fight 100 duck-sized horses
or one horse-sized duck?
- One horse-sized duck.
- And ducks are vicious.
- Yeah, well are they?
- I don't even want to scale it up.
- Yeah. I don't know, are they angry?
- I'm sure they're angry.
- I'm assuming otherwise (trails off)
- Was the duck normal sized,
up until right before the fight?
Or has it had years of being used to being horse-sized?
I dunno. I'm just thinking, because if it's like getting
10 times bigger it's going to go up as the cube of that.
So you have a thousand times as much duck.
- Yeah of course!
I mean, the duck would just collapse because the bones,
- I don't think they'll have the support!
the cross-sectional area of the bones
regarded by the square.
But the mass has gone up by the cube.
- I've changed my choice. Yeah. You've got it. Got it won.
- The horses, the small horses being suddenly smaller.
They will get very cold, very quickly.
- So maybe you've just gotta wait.
- Yeah. Are we going to do a Q and A
for your, when you get to million subscribers.
- Yeah probably we should. Yeah we'll do that.
- So you should subscribe to mine
if that's what you wanna see.
- I mean while we're here, I mean.
I want all of you to hurry up and subscribe.
I wish this nightmare would never end!
- Just do it mate.
Thanks.
- I don't understand.
- If you enjoyed this Q and A,
you might be interested in the live Q and A's that I do
every couple of months for my supporters on Patreon.
If there's a question you've been dying to ask me,
consider heading over there, to ask it
patrons get to ask their questions in advance.
And I endeavor to answer all questions
that are asked in advance.
You can also pose questions to me live during the Q and A,
and you can ask me anything you like,
whether it's about science or how I work, anything.
In the future I may make those videos public
for everyone on YouTube.
But for the moment I'm really enjoying having a small group
of people to talk to. It's much less stressful.
It's much less nerve wracking.
It's really casual and relaxed. It's really fun actually.
So if that interests you at all, the link to my Patreon page
is in the description.
If you'd like to see a brand new video with me in it
without having to wait, then check out
Matt Parker's most recent video.
I'll leave a link on the screen there for easy access,
consider subscribing to Matt's channel while you're there.
And as always, thanks for watching.