low-power computing

IBM's Dr. Talia Gershon explains quantum computing to five people of increasing expertise: a child, teen, college student, grad student and professional. The WIRED series format moves from simple analogies to technical detail.

Practical Engineering explains what a black start is: restarting a power grid after total collapse. It shows why most plants need outside power to start and why rebuilding a synchronized grid is delicate and high-stakes.

The Slow Mo Guys film a TV and screens with a high-speed camera to show how displays build an image. The footage includes CRT-style scanning and how pixels light up over time.

Practical Engineering's explanation of the February 2021 Texas winter storm and the resulting power grid outage. It lays out the facts about ERCOT, the grid's isolation, and how generation across fuel types failed in the cold.

Destin of Smarter Every Day films a cat falling in high-speed slow motion to show how cats right themselves in midair, and introduces the physics behind it.

Illumina's 3D animation of its sequencing-by-synthesis workflow, from sample preparation and cluster generation to sequencing on a flow cell and data analysis.

A short animated explanation of the power split device in Toyota-style hybrids, a planetary gearset that works as an eCVT. It shows how engine and motor power are combined.

A Just Have a Think video on the proposed 16 billion pound Xlinks project to build solar, wind and battery capacity in southern Morocco. It would send around 3.6GW to the UK by subsea HVDC cable as near-baseload power.

Fermilab's Don Lincoln explains why light travels slower in water and glass. He knocks down common wrong explanations such as absorption and re-emission, then gives the wave-mechanics reason tied to refractive index.

Smarter Every Day uses high-speed and Schlieren photography to show how a whip crack is a supersonic shockwave formed at the tip. It references academic papers on whip physics.

An Asianometry explainer on why the Soviet Union, once a leading computing power, fell far behind the US in computers by the 1980s. It traces the gap from the 1960s onward despite strong state support for science.

CGP Grey's animated adaptation of The Dictator's Handbook, explaining how rulers stay in power by keeping a small group of key supporters happy rather than ruling fairly. It lays out selectorate theory and how resources shape regimes.

Sabine Hossenfelder explains how close nuclear fusion really is to break-even, and why headlines about ITER and lab milestones are misleading. She distinguishes plasma gain (Q plasma) from whole-system gain (Q total) and shows the latter is still far below one.

CGP Grey compares airplane boarding methods, based on an arXiv paper, and shows why the intuitive back-to-front approach is slow while random or outside-in boarding does better.

3Blue1Brown presents the Triangle of Power, an alternate notation that unifies powers, logarithms and roots in a single triangular symbol. The video shows how the inverse operations relate and how the notation could help.

Mick West analyzes the Navy "Go Fast" UFO footage and shows with simple trigonometry and the data overlay that the object is slow and high up, consistent with a balloon. He explains how parallax makes it look fast and argues the original TV claims were wrong.

Real Engineering looks at why Africa's abundant solar potential is hard to turn into usable power, especially for Europe. It covers the transmission, infrastructure and economic obstacles, and the pivot from concentrated solar to photovoltaics.

CGP Grey, adapting The Dictator's Handbook, explains how rulers keep power and why succession causes trouble when they die. It is the sequel to his video on the rules for rulers.

PBS Infinite Series explains how Shor's algorithm lets a quantum computer break RSA encryption, building on earlier episodes about cryptography and the math of quantum computers. It works through the idea step by step.

A BBC Earth clip from Super Powered Owls in which the team uses sensitive sound equipment to compare owl flight with other birds. It shows why owls fly almost silently.

A short Harvard animation narrated by Professor Rob Lue introducing mitochondria as the cell's powerhouses and how cells turn food and oxygen into energy.

Professor Mike Merrifield of Nottingham explains in a mostly uncut conversation why light travels slower in glass. He treats light as a wave and describes how the material's electrons produce secondary waves that combine to slow it.

A Veritasium explainer on how the brain works and how we learn. It is inspired by Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow and covers System 1 and System 2 thinking and why harder learning builds skill.

Tom Scott visits IEX, a stock exchange that slows down trading with a long coil of fiber. The coil removes the speed advantage of high-frequency traders.

CGP Grey explains that the City of London is a tiny, separate entity with its own governance, history and privileges, distinct from the city called London. He covers its financial role and how it is run.

Veritasium examines the role of luck in success, with simulations and examples showing how small advantages and chance can compound. It argues that top outcomes are disproportionately luck-driven while still crediting effort.

CGP Grey explains the Single Transferable Vote, a proportional ranked-ballot system, and why politicians have little incentive to adopt it. It is a short animated explainer of how multi-winner ranked voting works.

Huygens Optics explains the Fourier transform and shows how a lens performs one optically. A DLP projector is used as a Fourier filter to do simple pattern recognition on lithographic character patterns.

CGP Grey explains how traffic jams come from human driving behavior such as tailgating and reaction delays, and how leaving gaps and smoothing speed would reduce congestion. It also touches on self-driving cars.

The first episode of a Cities: Skylines series on urban politics and planning, focused on parking. It uses the game to show how parking minimums shape cities, drawing on Donald Shoup's book The High Cost of Free Parking.

Practical Engineering explains pumped storage hydropower, which makes up most grid-scale electricity storage. It covers how it works and why it fits only certain geographies.

A PBS Infinite Series episode explaining the mathematics of quantum computers, including how qubits store complex numbers and how quantum computation differs from classical computation. Hosted by Kelsey Houston-Edwards.

George Monbiot narrates how reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone after about 70 years set off a trophic cascade. The wolves changed deer behavior, vegetation recovered, and rivers changed course.

Andrew Huang explains the harmonic series, which he calls the foundation of almost all music. He builds the idea up step by step, with demonstrations of overtones and how harmonies derive from them.

A short narrated video describing how reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone triggered a trophic cascade that changed wildlife, vegetation and even river courses. This is a remastered HD version of George Monbiot's viral piece.

A Wendover Productions explainer on how budget airlines can sell tickets for under 10 euros. It covers the costs airlines face and how low-cost carriers structure their business.

Kyle Hill explains what nuclear waste actually is and how it is stored, arguing that the problem was effectively solved decades ago. It covers solid shielded waste and deep geological storage.

An RSA Animate illustrating a lecture by psychologist Philip Zimbardo on how people's perspectives on time (past, present, future) shape work, health and well-being.

An animated adaptation of Captain David Marquet's talk on greatness, based on his book Turn the Ship Around!. It argues for pushing decision-making down to the people doing the work instead of controlling everything from the top.

Real Engineering looks at why nuclear power plants are expensive and how their economics compare with fossil and renewable alternatives. It is based on a video from the Illinois Energy Professors.