This Light Lets You See The Strength Of An Object 

“How to see failure” Me: looks in the mirror

I wonder if this would show my stress points. Man would I light up like a Christmas tree haha.

Could you put a Prince Rupert's drop? Where should the stress location be? in the tip? or tail? Because you mentioned the stress point marks the weak spots, but I think the area with the highest stress would be in the tip.

Using this sheet we can finally see failure in materials. Parents: Look what they need to mimic a fraction of our power.

Explains why my car's rear windshield looks like a mess of rainbow spots when I look at it wearing my sunglasses

The way my mom sees failure is by looking at my report card lol

Glass artists will also use this method to see if there are stresses in the pieces they make that will cause the piece to eventually fail. This is especially important for anyone doing fusing, as glass has tight tolerances with their Coefficient of Expansion (COE). Glass artists that do slumping and fusing will typically work with glass that has a COE of either 90 or 96, but they RARELY ever mix the two. Because COE 90 and COE 96 glass expands at different rates, this difference will eventually rip the piece apart of you mix the two glass. I have some samples I can send of mostly COE 96 glass, with one sample piece made with a mix of clear COE 96 and White COE 90. (There was a mixup at the shop where I bought the glass, so we ran some test samples. I also bought a pane of COE 96 White to be safe. Yes, the test revealed I received COE 90 in my order. I can send you the test samples.

This channel is a gold mine, this guy has been putting so many videos for so much time and he isn't getting as attention as he really deserves! I learn something amazing from every single video, he has now become like a mad scientist in my mind and every video I'm like "oh mah gad what is he up to this time?" XD

Rupert drops (glass) look really cool! We can see why they “explode” when the tail is broken.

Damn, the title of this video had me hoping that there was a light I could shine on myself to see if I'm a failure...

I see failure everytime I look at a mirror lmfao

When I was an optician, we would determine and try to minimize the stress levels in eyeglass lenses in frames by shaving small amounts of material off the lenses or slightly adjusting the frames to fit the lenses better.

At this rate I won’t be surprised if he renames his channel from ‘The Action lab’ to ‘The Awesome lab’

Mirrors a great way for me to see a failure

This is quickly becoming my favorite channel 👍

I've noticed this just looking at reflections of my screen in transparent plastic obdjects, there are rainbow colours in the reflection.

This technique is useful for checking the quality of glass vessels as well. For example, a 5 gallon brewing jug. You can spot the cheap knock offs immediately, and it really, really matters. Lots of people have had the bottoms just fall out of them lately.

*Much better and intuitive than those boring black board classes* 👍

"How to see failure" opens front camera on phone

"How to see a failure" Me: **Accidentally does this whole thing to myself** as expected

Just wanted to say, you do a great job. I love your videos. It's awesome that you are able to make this type of content as your job. American dream! Keep it up.

Finally a flashlight that my parents can use to find me.

Action lab: how to see failure Steven he’s dad: I’ll take your entire stock

Matrix boy: "There is no spoon" Action Lab: "Hold my polarizer"

You always have such interesting material!!! And unique) Thank you!

Nice to watch in real time. We used to use FEA, Finite element Analysis to find the stress points in any element.

I saw this before and I understood how this technique could be used to interrogate the internal stress levels in materials. But seeing the the spoon example was brilliant and revealing. I’m showing this to my kids right now. Thanks James, fine work your are doing there.

This was a certified" hOOd" classic

Steven's dad : "FAILURE!"

Thank you for yet another fantastic video! Can't beat a bit of stress!

So many “looking in the mirror to see a failure” comments… Guys pls be a little more original XD

The thumbnail "How to see failure" I immediately thought I can just look into a mirror.

“How to see failure” Asian parents: look what they need to mimic a fraction of our power

"Let's" is "Let us" "Lets" is what you're looking for here :) EDIT: Looks like it's all fixed, and my pedantry is satisfied haha VERY cool video, by the way! I think I could entertain myself for hours breaking plastic spoons and being amazed at how it broke in the "stress spot" every time!

Very interesting to use light and polarization to find weaknesses in materials. Great video

I worked as an engineer at a dvd/blue ray/game disk manufacturer for many years, this is also how we checked the moulded stress in the disk substrates , not for potential breakage points but because the moulded in stress changes the laser path in an optical drive and can make the disks "warp" over time as they try to release the locked in stress....did you know there are many classes of blue ray ranging from AA to D depending on the data quality after moulding and lacquer deposition imprinting processes... If you have a disk that only plays in "good" players it's probably a lower tier disk and the player has to reassemble the data from the reference/sub frames.

@The Action Lab 2:00 And if you think about it, that actually explains why the order of colors in the materials are the *same* as the order you get in thin film interference! As the thickness varies, you get a variation in the relevant phase between light rays of differing wavelengths, just like in thin films. This is so cool, and helped me understand the colors from polarizers better, thanks!

im interested in the uses of this in relation to 3d printing, of different materials, and even different settings and where it changes the stress to such objects... any chance of a video on that?

Not only does Mr. Action Lab guy explain so well what's happening with his experiments, but also the products his sponsors are selling. His hands-on demo of that submersible what-cha-ma-call-it was excellent! I suspect that company saw a bit of a spike in sales very soon after this video was posted.

I don’t be knowing what this man be talking about. But I like watching it.

I remember using this form of stress analysis in high school physics, back in the 1970s. As for the sponsor, Micro Center, I use to visit one near my job, when I worked in Irvine, California. Its good to see them thriving, as their competition Fry's, just called it quits, in early 2021, and have been spiraling downwards, since the mid 20-teens. Another competitor, Computer City, bought it, nearly 20 years ago. Computer City, was a chain owned by Radio Shack, who also hit hard times.

Seriously I enjoy your content so much.

I have SO many questions and ideas about how this could help us understand our planet. Very cool!

"How to see failure" Steven He: perfect, just what I needed to see my son's failures

Thanks for this amazing channel !! Over the top of my ignorance I'd ask, isn't some (or all) of the color changing happening because the change in angle of subject surface, consequently changing polarization degree ?

"how to see failure" Ask an Asian parent

thanks so much for making this vid. I suggested it a while ago, although it might be coincidence. I knew you'd do an awesome job explaining it though. I wish my teachers had been as competent as you because I never did understand how this phenomena actually works until now

As a polarized light source you can just use your computer monitor. Most monitors nowadays are LCDs which use the polarization of light and nematic liquid crystals to swich (sub-)pixes on or off. Really fascinating technology. The color bands you see in plastics are also used in research on granular matter like sand or corn grains. There you use round disks of plastic in 2D, put some weight on them and then see in the polarized light color bands in the plastic where they press on top of each other and how the force of the weight is distributed through the disks/grains. You then observe these force arcs.

As always, an excellent video.

I had a summer job in a glass factory back in 1969. We inspected CRT face plates using this method. If the stress lines showed up as certain colors or size, we would scrap the parts. As in your tests, if you dropped a scrapped piece of glass, it would break right on the stress lines. Great video.

Being able to predict the breaking point on the spoon was I think one of the coolest parts of any video you've ever done.

You make me fall in love with science everyday. Thank you so much for that!

0:15 - I saw the short on this and immediately came to find the full video. not sure if you realized what you had here, but that's a Sun Stone. how you can navigate when its grey and overcast and you can't see the sun. the technique covered 1/2 of the stone with a leather strap, that's exactly why it worked. have a sub for showing that!

Great Video.This channel is gold.

One of the coolest vids on the channel. At least lately

Really insightful 👍

I remember an exhibit in the Deutsches Museum in Munich, consisting of an acrylic(?) wrench on a bolt head inside such an optical array. The end of the wrench was accessible so if you pulled on the wrench you could see the changes in stress in the contact points with the bolts head.

This is a m a z ing !! Thank you so much for showing and teaching me/us so many things! Thank you!

Very cool! I always enjoy your videos. I do miss our old collabs with Steve, A.K.A. Rimstarorg, Grant, James Hobbs, and all the old kats but, I hope you have been enjoying your journeys, throughout the scientific spectrum, which it would seem that you have been. Just saying that I pretty much miss you guys! 👊

Nice! I was hoping your interference colors video would lead into this subject. Now next time you see rainbow colors in a reflection of a plastic item you can understand that it is birefringence.

When I worked in thermoforming, we would do this all the time to see how the forming of plastic. When the stress was high we needed more heat and when the stress was to low, less heat.

Was waiting for him to break the spoon, for a sec was not sure if he was going to do it but was very satisfying when he did. Great video did not disappoint.

I'd like to know more about why the orientation changes the colour patterns. Is it related to the orientation of the stress forces in the material? Like we're look at one "slice" of a coloired 3D graph with radians on one axis and the colour patterns on the plane on the other 2? Or are the colour patterns just based on the random imperfections of the plastic's lattice and we infer stress from that?

I actually saw this technique when watching someone explaining why cheap carboys easily break at the bottom and that Italian made one doesn't have such weaknesses because of proper annealing process.

Watching this while stoned was bloody amazing bro

Wow..thank you so much for your work ,time,efforts and interests.you have been a outstanding asset to my research and I simply can't thank you enough..your understanding of light has been a invaluable asset to my understandings of reality...I know you are probably a crazy busy man but if or when you have time ,would you cover a segment about television pernel lensing and it's attributes? I saw a stone and metal melted and infused together into a glass substance using a large pernel lense and sun light...is this truly possible? I understand some pernel lenses have Stronger effects then others...anyhow...your the man...excuse my language but ..fucking outstanding...

Sweet deal on the free storage stuff... luckily, I have a Microcenter about 30 minutes away. I love that place! Cool video, too, by the way. My preschooler loves color spectrums (okay, so do I) and now I know an easy way to show him something cool. Thanks!

This is awesome!!!!!!

Amazing as always

That was incredible!

I've got a question for the action lab, You've always used the pressure chamber for decreasing pressure, but have you increased pressure before?

Great video! Funny Micro Center story - I was graphics card shopping at Frys (RIP) and then I went to Micro Center. When I got the to graphics card area, I see the SAME dude... Confused I ask him.... Do you work at Frys?!?! Nope it was his TWIN BROTHER

One of my favorite videos ever😍

I really like this video thank for making it

This is why you can't wear polarized sunglasses when flying a small airplane; you can see all of the stresses in the windshield! Very annoying.

"How to SEE failure" Well, you'll need an appointment to see mee,

Have no idea if you'll read this or get it or respond to it or whatever. But I just really want to thank you for what you do. This video specifically was very awesome. Really opens your mind and gets you thinking of how you can apply these things that hasn't been already thought of. It really gets people like myself thinking outside the box your experiments show that there's more to your world than meets your eyes and these components need to be applied in those ways.

Need to use this method on different types of metals _and_ alloys

Wonderful repurposing of single use cutlery. So cool!

I learned this ages ago but didn't know what it was called. Cool

this is fascinating

Congratulations. You’ve actually created mace windu’s shatterpoint ability in real life. I wish there was a way to easily do this on anything at a moments notice.

This is really interesting because one time this happened to me when I was watching tv and putted a plastic Tupperware in top of my glass table, and a rainbow pattern appeared on the plastic. At the time I wondered what was it, and this video finally answered!

This channel feels like an infinity source of forbidden knowledge 😁 Keep the content coming my dude :)

Asian parents: *i'm 4 parallel universes ahead of you*

Goshhhh... You are from another world. 👌👌👌

Reminds me of the Japanese anime 空の境界。The "death line" actually exists! The main character's eyes can discern the stress points of everything. Maybe in reality, we can wear polarised goggles to see these stress points, it can be quite useful. Magical 👍🤩

This is very cool. You only demonstrated with clear or translucent materials. Can you use this technique with an opaque item like a bridge beam?

so weird seeing micro center advertising still. been going there for so long feeling like a secret club

This is great video 🔥

Every time I watch your videos I get amazed 😇

HEY, nifty video as always but can you slowly heat that plastic spoon to relieve the stress and show that with the polarizers?

Love your vids

That was so cool. 👍

I am a chemist and understand this stuff but always learn something new

The Action Lab that was interesting and actually easy way to experiment at home. Thumb up from me

Reminds me of a Physics Girl video from a few years ago, where Dianna showed these polarisation patterns too.

This is incredibly cool

I wonder if you could change or relieve the stress patterns in plastic by heat treatment like you do with metal?

well done, man