Additional Facts & Corrections! 👇 🌲The reason why trees are so helpful is because the inner "heartwood" of a tree is basically... already dead! Only the outer layers of a tree are growing and changing, which means as they're made, each ring of a tree locks in the carbon 14 from the year it grew!! The rings of a tree are records of not only years, but the Carbon 14 from that year!!! TREES ARE AMAZING (thanks to chemical engineer/paper scientist @allenstockburger8664) ☀While Solar Cosmic Rays and Solar Wind are correlated, it's actually Solar WINDS that cause the aurora! (thanks to solar physicist @thenefariousnerd7910) 🫵 And YOU are an all star for checking these additional notes, here's your gold star! ⭐
Hi Tom, solar physicist here. Great video! One minor correction: solar cosmic rays (which we usually call solar energetic particles or SEPs) are not the cause of our aurorae. It’s true that the two can be correlated, but we have the solar wind, coronal mass ejections, and Earth’s magnetosphere to thank, not SEPs, for aurora borealis. It’s all just particles coming from the sun, of course, but SEPs are “non-thermal”, much higher-energy than ambient solar wind particles, and don’t play a significant role in deforming the magnetosphere. The basic idea is that when its speed kicks up, the solar wind can sort of “burrow” into the magnetosphere, triggering a process known as magnetic reconnection which “breaks” magnetic field lines and accelerates particles already found within the atmosphere, which then are channeled along the magnetic field toward the poles where they crash down into the atmosphere and excite atomic emissions. All that to say… you steam a good ham.
@@__nog642 Solar wind is energetic particles, but so are you. Regular solar particles are high energy compared to us, but the ones that can actually make it through the atmosphere are another step up in high energy or very lucky lower energy particles.
I only expected it because they mentioned it on Let's Learn Everything! and I only heard that because I JUST caught up to the most recent episodes like last week?
When dating RU-vid videos by levels of Tom you can see a clear dark period when Tom Scott stopped followed by a return to light when Tom Lum started. The background noise is erratic levels of TomSka.
The amount of absolutely *on-point* bits this otherwise very well made and interesting video has is phenomenal. The only thing that's missing is philosophytube's "dictionary defines as..."
I can very proudly say that I work in the only museum I have ever seen that doesn’t have a single artefact whose age was determined through carbon dating. Sure, it’s a private museum dedicated to three specific people who lived in the recent past, and all of our stuff is from the Victorian era barring a few pieces from the Enlightenment and the War of the Roses, but it all has providence to three families, who have owned all of the artefacts since their creation. Nothing was dug up because it was all in someone’s attic for a century or three. I have never seen another museum with a collection like this.
@@bobthegamingtaco6073 I'd be curious to know, too :) The War of the Roses¹ makes me think it's somewhere in England, but there are approximately ∞ Victorian-era museums so a Web search doesn't get me very far 🤷♀️ ----- ¹ A topic with weird prominence and questionable utility in England's secondary school history curriculum (c.2000), given it happened more than 500 years ago and has little relevance to modern life, as far as I'm aware. I'm not opposed to teaching stuff like that, and I don't know how much the curriculum has changed in the 20 years since I left school, but I'd personally like to see better coverage of some of England's/Britain's/the UK's more problematic and more recent history - colonialism, Empire, etc. - stuff that still affects millions/billions of people today…
This is the _exact_ brand of funny science I am here for! Those edits were genuinely fantastic, and not to mention how well this vid's script is rounded out!
I LOVE the energy of this video. I love long video essays, I love science videos, and I LOVE the "telling my other STEM friends excitedly about this cool thing we found out about and then got hyperfixiated on" vibes. I came from the Let's Learn Everything podcast and am more than thrilled to find out this energy translates from making an audio show with several people to a solo video. Thank you Tom, I will go yell at my STEM bestie to watch this now :)
Thanks for making this incredible video, it's like an audiovisual version of an LLE main topic, well researched and presented in a way that keeps you entertained while not losing focus on the facts :)
I hope this video does well so we get more content like this, and because you deserve it. There is just something about someone sharing knowlage about something they are passionate about
Tom is the perfect combination of comedy, timing, science, & social to come together as the perfect nerd. All of the jokes & editing & info is perfectly put together. Great job Tom!
Man, I needed this video. Tom's genuine energy and enthusiasm is like soup on a cold day. Funny, well-researched, well-written, just fantastic all around!
I LOVED THIS VIDEO!!! I’m majoring in biology and I thought it was weird that I also needed to take physics, inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, Calculus 1-3, statistics, and linear algebra as requirements for my degree. But things like Carbon Dating are exactly why we need to take all those classes. All the fields in STEM overlap in the craziest and most interesting ways!
(lol - i hit 'play' again to watch from the beginning while i left my comment :D Lucid explanations + amazing comic timing + science-geek infectious enthusiasm? utterly irresistible! WE'RE MADE OF TINY HOURGLASSES)
Carl Sagan said, "If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." Guess the same applies to seeing how old something is.
So radiocarbon dating is like all my favorite Magic the Gathering decks. An assemblage of wonky cards with one-off effects which really shouldn't be related, but when put together become an engine doing things which shouldn't be possible.
Fascinating video! Thanks for putting all of this together. Three comments I’d like to make. 1. That is a lovely graph, well done. 2. I’m quilting as I listen, and often had to rewind a few seconds to catch something I missed the first time (it was always worthwhile) and 3. I’m going to have better conversations with my high school students the next time I teach radioactive dating.
I absolutely love this format. Good length to get into each segment, each building to a fully comprehensive message. And funny as hell to boot. You're absolutely one of my favorite science communicators, and one of the few people I have alerts for since I never want to miss video. Thanks so much for putting so much thought love and care into this work. It shows. Please take as much time as you need, cause I'd rather get one bang ass episode, then a rushed video put out every Tuesday. I will note however, that since you're so good at segmenting your arguments and explanations, they could become individual episodes in a series, which may work on a semi-regular basis, at least for the algorithm's sake.
The first time I learned about carbon dating it was from someone trying to prove the earth was 6000years old. I am very glad to have moved beyond that mindset.
GutsickGibbon is a great channel for content about why the earth isn't 6k years old. Also, Forrest Valkai. I realize you already know the earth is not 6k years old, but I also know that and still like watching them debunk the idea, so maybe you will, too 😋
It's not often I comment on videos, but I want to say that your passion for science is really infectious, and I very much enjoyed the video and the effort put into it (congrats on making that super awesome graph). The video really gave me a sense of how interconnected all of us are to the earth, universe, and moments in time, even if they’re decades, centuries, or millennia apart. If you see this, I hope this comment motivates you to keep doing whatever it is you want :)
This was fantastic!! I haven’t been in school for a quarter century, so a lot has leaked out. You made this easy to understand & so funny! I hope so much that you’re able to do more of these.
1. your music for the video is great! 2. loove all the references in the background of your shots. Katamari, bunch of Pokémon, and sooo much Adventure Time. you are after my own heart 3. the ADR joke was amazing. counting on the fact that I'm attuned to discrepancies between quality of audio and the fact that something is recorded outside only to pull the rug out on me... genius level joke, genuinely. 4. in general, the flow of the jokes was impeccable and did not feel like interrupting the science, which was great. compared to the Let's Learn Everything podcast, you get the added benefit of perfect timing and editing which makes the humor even better ("Comedy.") thanks for the video! I'm excited to see more whenever!
4 mins in and it salready some of the funiest vids related to science i have ever had the pleasure of watching, please keep doing what you love cuz it realy makes me smile :] ❤
Came here from a shout-out in the vlogbrothers video uploaded one hour ago, where John Green mentioned your video. It's nice! I liked it! I've subscribed. : >
very nice video tom I think the joke you write is funny but deliver doesn't have the chaotic energy from your shorts cadence is a bit slow, so it doesn't overwhelm my brain make me burst into laughter hope this helps look forward to your next long form video
I am not a science person, AT ALL. Space info always hurts my brain and I check out. However, this was so engaging, I actually followed you through the whole thing and understand something new. THANK YOU!!
You had me passionate and laughing to tears. Absolutely loved that type of content. Wish you best of luck with this format, I will be looking forward for more :)
I come back every other week ever since I discovered this video to check if it picked up in the algorithm because I'm pumped at the idea of you seeing it succeed as much as I believe it should. I'm a bit disappointed it hasn't yet, but in an odd way, I'm still happy it was crossed my path anyway. I rarely rewatch "educational" videos because they usually don't bring any new value, yours is the exception in this sense because your excitement about science and the delivery on it is just peak and I look forward to the day you bless us with more. cheers Tom, good luck!
Been watching you on Lateral with Tom Scott. Got recommended your stuff and I'm really glad I clicked! Super interesting and love the jokes! Well done, sir!
This is maybe the best video I've ever watched on RU-vid. Thoroughly researched, carefully paced, perfectly timed humor, and so much joy and reverence for the staggering accomplishments of curious people throughout history. I am heartened and inspired - what a masterpiece.
You are fun and contagious in it. Keep up, this is great work and in the divulgative community we need people that put their good hearts in the field. Nothings transmits more passion than that, good people making the effort and having good times while at it. Thank you so much. P.D.: I knew this would be good becouse I recognized you from the bat swing favourite (half)sine graf.
Tom Lum(person) has got to be one of my favorite modern science communicators and honestly this video as a debut video essay has me STARVING for even more content. I can't wait to show this to any friends that gives me permission to cast during a party.
I've always wondered this, I understood the general idea behind it but couldn't explain it or derive the steps myself (despite being a physics major). Great video that's both informative and funny (and 10 bonus points for Maryland)
This is amazing. Going into this, I knew next to nothing about carbon dating. I'd heard the term of half life in this context, but that and carbon were the extent of my knowledge. After the video I now know more about the process, and the history. Additionally the video was entertaining, and funny. The jokes were always well written. I've seen a decent chunk of tom lum shorts in the past, and this was like that, but better. 👍 Hope everyone has a good day or night.
me: "I'm not going to watch all of this video, it's too long, but I'll watch a little while." said at 38 minutes in. You are funny, a good researcher, a terrible dresser, a smiling nerd, and many others human things. What you are not, is boring. Please keep up the good work.
This was a really cool video, I shall await more vidoe. I sort of just assumed that some cosmic rays come from the Laniakea Supercluster and things like The Great Attractor. We have no idea where they could be coming from, but that could be a major source. Who knows?
i know this took SO LONG to edit but you can see clearly how much fun you had doing so! this video was everything a video should be to me: informative, interesting, funny and very very well produced and edited. even though i viewed the video in a half screen while editing a video of my own😅 i still couldnt keep myself from smiling throughout the whole video, from the super detailed assets that appear for 2 seconds (and the graph that for the amount of time that went to creating i assume was equivalent to lasting 2 seconds), to the funny recurring gags and also picking a very interesting subject. i cant support your pateron as i am still not a legal adult but trust me that you are going to the top of my patreon future list!😁 I literally cant wait to see your channel become the next veritasium and your full time job (if u want to of course) and until then just know, ill be watching every single video you make ❤❤❤❤❤
Thank you, Tom. After all the regents exams and life just being life, this was the exactly the energy I needed at nearly four in the morning. Thanks for the care, dedication, and passion you put into your videos. Thanks. -An artist who totally was just glancing down every now and then and listening to the video I just watched while drawing
Usually I would be an artist watching this in a half screen but this is actually the first 40 minute long video in ages that’s got my full attention. So glad Hank and John sent me over here
the amount of work you put in to this is amazing and it shows. would be really cool if you show how you tackled researching and writing for your videos. your writing process i mean.
