james may

Real Engineering explains the engineering behind the James Webb Space Telescope, including its folding mirror, sunshield, orbit and cooling systems, and why deployment was so difficult.

James Hoffmann explains how decaf coffee is made, how the decaffeination processes differ, and why decaf is roasted and stales differently. He also discusses decaf quality and health questions.

CGP Grey explains the City of London's unusual governance, including the Lord Mayor, guilds, and how it differs from the rest of London.

Tom Scott investigates the claim that the microwave was invented to heat hamsters, and interviews James Lovelock about freezing and microwave-thawing hamsters in the 1950s. It traces early magnetron uses beyond radar.

Practical Engineering explains what a 100-year flood actually means, combining statistics, hydrology and how society treats risk. Grady walks through local drainage infrastructure and the caveats in estimating flood probability.

James Hoffmann runs caffeine analyzer tests comparing filter versus espresso, extraction over time, steep time, instant coffee and light versus dark roast.

A two-minute demonstration of the loudness war, showing how heavy dynamic range compression in CD mastering makes music louder while degrading sound quality. It uses audio examples so you can hear the distortion.

A rap battle in which John Maynard Keynes and F. A. Hayek debate the causes of boom and bust, stimulus, and bailouts. It was produced by Econstories to teach the two schools of thought.

Veritasium explains why a large share of published research findings may be false, covering p-values, p-hacking, publication bias and low replication rates. It draws on John Ioannidis's well-known paper and describes reforms such as preregistration.

Veritasium explains why analog computing may suit AI workloads, covering old analog computers, The Analog Thing and Mythic's analog chips that use flash memory for neural network inference. It argues digital hardware is hitting limits.

Numberphile's James Grime explains Cantor's result that some infinities are bigger than others, including why the reals outnumber the integers. It is a short, accessible introduction to countable and uncountable infinity.

Numberphile's Dr James Grime explains the flaw in the Enigma machine, namely that a letter could never be encrypted to itself, and how that helped the Allies break the code. It touches on the Bombe and Alan Turing.

Joseph Everett argues, drawing on the book The Salt Fix, that most people benefit from more rather than less salt, and reviews studies on sodium, potassium and blood pressure.

Numberphile's James Grime introduces quaternions, a type of number beyond the complex numbers, building up from real and complex numbers and explaining why they are useful.

Breaking Taps explains how the cryogenic mirror actuators on the James Webb Space Telescope achieve nanometer precision using flexures. It shows a 3D-printed replica and how one motor handles both coarse and fine motion.

Ivor Cummins gives an 82-minute presentation on the history and science of vitamin D and human health. He draws on expert interviews to argue that sun exposure and vitamin D status are linked to many chronic diseases.

Isaac Arthur examines the Dark Forest theory, Cixin Liu's proposed solution to the Fermi Paradox in which civilizations stay silent and may destroy any that reveal themselves. He tests the theory's underlying assumptions and arguments.

A three-minute animated video that explains sexual consent through the analogy of offering someone a cup of tea. It is based on a blog post by Emmeline May.

A PBS Space Time episode explaining the holographic principle: the idea that our 3+1 dimensional universe may be described by information on a lower-dimensional boundary. It walks through black hole entropy and the AdS/CFT correspondence.

Sabine Hossenfelder explains why she thinks faster-than-light travel may not be ruled out. She argues that the standard objections from special relativity are inconclusive.

PBS Space Time episode on the black hole information paradox, covering how black holes seem to destroy information, the no-hair conjecture and the proposed role of the event horizon. It is part of a series on black holes.

Engineering Explained examines new research suggesting corn ethanol in US gasoline may emit as much or more carbon than gasoline. It covers the Renewable Fuel Standard and why ethanol was assumed to be a green fuel.

PBS Space Time, together with It's Okay to be Smart and PBS Eons, asks how a universe drifting toward disorder produced something as complex as life. It presents the idea that the laws of physics, through thermodynamics, may actually favor the emergence of life.

CGP Grey's short explainer arguing that caffeine addiction is mostly harmless and may even be beneficial. It covers what caffeine does in the body.

A Numberphile video with Dr James Grime on Sloane's Gap, the observation that integers in the OEIS are not evenly represented and some numbers are underrepresented. It explains the clusters of 'interesting' numbers.

Numberphile's James Grime discusses highly composite numbers, nicknamed anti-primes, which have more factors than any smaller number, using 5040 as the central example. It touches on Plato and Ramanujan.

Sabine Hossenfelder explains climate sensitivity and why recent observations suggest climate models may have underestimated warming. She says this changed her view on how worried to be.

Numberphile explains the long and short scales for naming large numbers, covering millions, billions, trillions, milliards and the Greek myriad, with James Grime and Tony Padilla.

A Kurzgesagt animation on longtermism, arguing that because the future could hold trillions of people, our actions' effect on future generations may be what matters most.

Numberphile's James Grime makes the case for base 12 (dozenal) over base 10, showing how twelve's many divisors make arithmetic and everyday fractions easier.

Veritasium explains the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, drawing heavily on Sean Carroll's book. It walks through the Schrodinger equation and why wave collapse may be unnecessary if the universe keeps splitting.

Harvard professor Arthur Brooks explains why boredom is useful rather than something to avoid. He describes how a wandering mind engages the brain's default mode network, which supports creativity and curiosity, and suggests it may protect against depression.

Not Just Bikes visits Paris to see how Mayor Anne Hidalgo's policies are turning it into a '100% cyclable' city. It looks at the changes that took space from cars for bikes and people.

Ben Felix examines whether the well-known 4% retirement withdrawal rule holds up, drawing on academic papers. He argues that a safe rate may be closer to 2.7%, especially for early retirees.

Veritasium explores what general relativity says about black holes, white holes and wormholes, with help from physicists Geraint Lewis and Juan Maldacena. It introduces Penrose diagrams and the idea that other universes may be implied.

Oh The Urbanity! tests the theory that banning housing investors would fix affordability, using Rotterdam's ban as a case study. The video finds mixed results.

Kurzgesagt animated explainer on the Dark Forest answer to the Fermi Paradox. It argues that if advanced civilizations exist, staying silent may be the safest strategy because revealing yourself invites a first strike.