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Bean bags are awesome.

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But I see a few people out there
who are standing,

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we've got some over here,

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and standing takes more
work than lounging.

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Using the Live Strong
Organization's online database

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of weight loss resources,

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you can calculate

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that by the time I'm done
with this speech,

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those of you who are standing

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will have burned 7.5 more calories

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than those of you who are bean-bagging it.

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(Laughter)

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Okay, here's a question,

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speaking of weight loss,
specifically weight,

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this speech is live.

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I'm actually here in front of you guys,

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we're all here together.

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But this speech is being recorded

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and it will become a video
that people can access all over the world

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on computers, mobile devices,

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televisions.

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I weight about 190 pounds.

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How much will the video weigh?

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Asking questions like that

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is what I do every week
on my channel Vsauce.

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For the last two years,

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I have been asking really fun questions,

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mind-boggling questions,

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and approaching them
as sincerely as I can,

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celebrating scientific
concepts and scientists.

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And I research and write

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and produce and host

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and edit and upload

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and run the social media all by myself,

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but it's not lonely,

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because Vsauce has
more than 2 million subscribers,

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and every month, my videos are seen
by more than 20 million people.

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Yeah.

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(Applause)

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It's very exciting.

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I've found that asking a strange question
is a great way to get people in,

42
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not just people, but fans.

43
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And fans are different
than just viewers or an audience,

44
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because fans want to come back.

45
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They subscribe to you on YouTube

46
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and they want to watch
everything you've made

47
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and everything you plan
to make in the future

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because we are curious people

49
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and sparking curiosity is great bait.

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It's a great way to catch a human.

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And once you've caught them,

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you have this captive
audience that you can,

53
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with the goal in mind
of answering the question,

54
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accidentally teach a lot of things to.

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So, let's take a look
at some of my videos.

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Here are eight of them.

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But down here in the lower-right corner,

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"What Color is a Mirror?"

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When people see that,

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it's very difficult not to click,
because you think,

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"Come on, are you serious?

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How could you possibly
answer that question?"

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Well, so far, 7.6 million
people have watched

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this five-minute video
about what color a mirror is.

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And in that episode, I answer the question

66
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and I get a chance to explain
what would normally be kind of dry topics:

67
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optics,

68
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diffuse versus specular reflection,

69
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how light works,
how light works on the retina,

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and even the etymology of color terms

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like white and black.

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Okay, spoiler alert:

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mirrors are not clear,

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they are not silvery,

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like they're often illustrated.

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Mirrors, technically speaking,

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are just a tiny, tiny, little bit ...

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green.

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You can demonstrate this
by putting two mirrors next to each other,

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facing so they reflect
back and forth forever.

81
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Look down that infinite reflection,
and it will get dimmer,

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because some light is lost
or absorbed every time,

83
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but it will also become greener,

84
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because green light,

85
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that is light of a wavelength
that we perceive as green,

86
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is best reflected by most mirrors.

87
00:03:54,245 --> 00:03:56,363
Okay, so, how much does a video weigh?

88
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Well, when you stream
a video onto your computer,

89
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that information is temporarily stored

90
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using electrons.

91
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And the number of electrons on your device
won't actually increase or decrease.

92
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But it takes energy
to store them in one place,

93
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and, thanks to our friend Albert Einstein,

94
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we know that energy and mass are related.

95
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Okay, so here's the thing:

96
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let's say you're watching a YouTube video

97
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at a really nice resolution, 720p.

98
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Assuming a typical bit rate,

99
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we can figure that a minute
of YouTube video

100
00:04:30,190 --> 00:04:36,484
is going to need to involve
about 10 million electrons on your device.

101
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Plugging all those electrons
and the energy it takes to hold them

102
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in the correct place
for you to see the video,

103
00:04:43,378 --> 00:04:44,486
into that formula,

104
00:04:44,510 --> 00:04:47,431
we can figure out
that one minute of YouTube video

105
00:04:47,455 --> 00:04:50,770
increases the mass of your computer

106
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by about 10 to the negative 19th grams.

107
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Written out, it looks like this.

108
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(Whistle)

109
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That's like nothing.

110
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You could call that nothing,
and you wouldn't really get in trouble,

111
00:05:04,337 --> 00:05:07,489
because the best scales
we've ever invented

112
00:05:07,513 --> 00:05:10,552
that we could try to use
to actually to detect that change

113
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are only accurate to 10
to the negative 9th grams.

114
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So, we can't measure it,

115
00:05:15,036 --> 00:05:17,852
but we can, like we just did,
calculate it.

116
00:05:17,876 --> 00:05:20,271
And that's really cool
because when I was a kid,

117
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my school had two shelves
of science books.

118
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That was really cool,

119
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but I read all of them
within, like, two grades,

120
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and it was hard to get more books

121
00:05:30,735 --> 00:05:33,044
because books are heavy,
you need space for them

122
00:05:33,068 --> 00:05:35,965
and moving books around is tougher
than what we can do today.

123
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With numbers that small,

124
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I can fit thousands of books

125
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on my own little personal
electronic reader.

126
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I can stream hours and hours

127
00:05:45,234 --> 00:05:47,256
and days and days of YouTube video

128
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without my computer
ever getting measurably heavier.

129
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And as information becomes that light,

130
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it becomes a lot more democratic,

131
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meaning that more teachers

132
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and presenters and creators
and viewers than ever before

133
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can be involved.

134
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Right now, on YouTube,

135
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there is an explosion
of content like this happening.

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The three Vsauce channels
are down there in the corner.

137
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But everyone else,
all together, collectively,

138
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their views dwarf what I can do alone

139
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or with the people that I work with,

140
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and that is really, really exciting.

141
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It turns out that tapping
into people's curiosity

142
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and responsibly answering their questions

143
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is a brilliant way to build
fans and an audience

144
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and get in viewers.

145
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It's even a great way
for brands and companies

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to build trust.

147
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So, calculating the weight of a video

148
00:06:43,212 --> 00:06:45,199
is kind of a funny question,

149
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but I cannot wait to see
what we ask and answer next.

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As always, thanks for watching.

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(Applause)