How much does a video weigh? - Michael Stevens of Vsauce
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0:14 - 0:18Bean bags are awesome.
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0:19 - 0:22But I see a few people out there
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0:22 - 0:23who are standing,
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0:23 - 0:25we've got some over here,
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0:25 - 0:29and standing takes more work than lounging.
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0:29 - 0:33Using the Live Strong Organization's online database
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0:33 - 0:35of weight loss resources,
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0:35 - 0:36you can calculate
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0:36 - 0:39that by the time I'm done with this speech,
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0:39 - 0:40those of you who are standing
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0:40 - 0:44will have burned 7.5 more calories
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0:44 - 0:47than those of you who are bean-bagging it.
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0:48 - 0:51Okay, here's a question,
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0:51 - 0:54speaking of weight loss, specifically weight,
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0:54 - 0:55this speech is live.
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0:55 - 0:57I'm actually here in front of you guys,
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0:57 - 0:58we're all here together.
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0:58 - 1:00But this speech is being recorded
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1:00 - 1:02and it will become a video
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1:02 - 1:03that people can access all over the world
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1:03 - 1:05on computers,
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1:05 - 1:06mobile devices,
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1:06 - 1:07televisions.
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1:07 - 1:11I weight about 190 pounds.
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1:11 - 1:16How much will the video weigh?
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1:18 - 1:20Asking questions like that
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1:20 - 1:23is what I do every week on my channel Vsauce.
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1:23 - 1:24For the last two years,
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1:24 - 1:27I have been asking really fun questions,
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1:27 - 1:28mind-boggling questions,
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1:28 - 1:30and approaching them
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1:30 - 1:31as sincerely as I can,
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1:31 - 1:34celebrating scientific concepts and scientists.
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1:34 - 1:36And I research
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1:36 - 1:36and write
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1:36 - 1:37and produce
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1:37 - 1:37and host
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1:37 - 1:38and edit
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1:38 - 1:39and upload
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1:39 - 1:41and run the social media all by myself,
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1:41 - 1:43but it's not lonely
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1:43 - 1:46because Vsauce has more than 2 million subscribers,
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1:46 - 1:48and every month, my videos are seen
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1:48 - 1:51by more than 20 million people.
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1:51 - 1:52Yeah.
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1:54 - 1:56It's very exciting.
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1:56 - 1:59I've found that asking a strange question
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1:59 - 2:02is a great way to get people in,
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2:02 - 2:04not just people, but fans.
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2:04 - 2:06And fans are different than just viewers or an audience
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2:06 - 2:09because fans want to come back.
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2:09 - 2:12They subscribe to you on YouTube
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2:12 - 2:13and they want to watch everything you've made
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2:13 - 2:15and everything you plan to make in the future
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2:15 - 2:18because we are curious people
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2:18 - 2:24and sparking curiosity is great bait.
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2:24 - 2:27It's a great way to catch a human.
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2:27 - 2:28And once you've caught them,
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2:28 - 2:31you have this captive audience that you can,
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2:31 - 2:33with the goal in mind of answering the question,
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2:33 - 2:37accidentally teach a lot of things to.
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2:37 - 2:39So, let's take a look at some of my videos.
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2:39 - 2:41Here are eight of them.
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2:41 - 2:43But down here in the lower-right corner,
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2:43 - 2:45"What Color is a Mirror?"
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2:45 - 2:47When people see that,
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2:47 - 2:49it's very difficult not to click because you think,
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2:49 - 2:50"Come on, are you serious?
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2:50 - 2:53How could you possibly answer that question?"
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2:54 - 2:58Well, so far, 7.6 million people have watched
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2:58 - 3:01this five-minute video about what color a mirror is.
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3:01 - 3:03And in that episode, I answer the question
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3:03 - 3:05and I get a chance to explain
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3:05 - 3:07what would normally be kind of dry topics:
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3:07 - 3:08optics,
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3:08 - 3:10diffuse versus specular reflection,
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3:10 - 3:11how light works,
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3:11 - 3:13how light works on the retina,
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3:13 - 3:14and even the etymology of color terms
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3:14 - 3:17like white and black.
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3:17 - 3:19Okay, spoiler alert:
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3:19 - 3:21mirrors are not clear,
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3:21 - 3:23they are not silvery
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3:23 - 3:25like they're often illustrated.
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3:25 - 3:26Mirrors, technically speaking,
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3:26 - 3:29are just a tiny, tiny, little bit
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3:29 - 3:31green.
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3:31 - 3:32You can demonstrate this
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3:32 - 3:33by putting two mirrors next to each other,
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3:33 - 3:35facing so they reflect back and forth
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3:35 - 3:36and back and forth forever.
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3:36 - 3:38Look down that infinite reflection
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3:38 - 3:39and it will get dimmer
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3:39 - 3:43because some light is lost or absorbed every time,
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3:43 - 3:46but it will also become greener
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3:46 - 3:48because green light,
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3:48 - 3:49that is light of a wavelength
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3:49 - 3:51that we perceive as green,
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3:51 - 3:54is best reflected by most mirrors.
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3:54 - 3:56Okay, so, how much does a video weigh?
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3:56 - 3:59Well, when you stream a video onto your computer,
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3:59 - 4:02that information is temporarily stored
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4:02 - 4:04using electrons.
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4:04 - 4:07And the number of electrons on your device
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4:07 - 4:09won't actually increase or decrease.
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4:09 - 4:12But it takes energy to store them in one place,
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4:12 - 4:12and we know,
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4:12 - 4:15thanks to our friend Albert Einstein,
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4:15 - 4:17that energy and mass are related.
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4:17 - 4:18Okay, so here's the thing:
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4:18 - 4:20let's say you're watching a YouTube video
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4:20 - 4:23at a really nice resolution, 720p.
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4:23 - 4:25Assuming a typical bit rate,
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4:25 - 4:30we can figure that a minute of YouTube video
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4:30 - 4:32is going to need to involve
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4:32 - 4:37about 10 million electrons on your device.
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4:37 - 4:40Plugging all those electrons
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4:40 - 4:41and the energy it takes to hold them
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4:41 - 4:42in the correct place for you to see the video
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4:42 - 4:44into that formula,
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4:44 - 4:45we can figure out
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4:45 - 4:47that one minute of YouTube video
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4:47 - 4:51increases the mass of your computer
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4:51 - 4:56by about 10 to the negative 19th grams.
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4:56 - 4:59Written out, it looks like this.
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4:59 - 5:00That's like nothing.
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5:00 - 5:03That's, you could call that nothing
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5:03 - 5:04and you wouldn't really get in trouble
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5:04 - 5:08because the best scales we've ever invented
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5:08 - 5:09that we could try to use
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5:09 - 5:11to actually to detect that change
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5:11 - 5:13are only accurate to 10 to the negative 9th grams.
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5:13 - 5:15So, we can't measure it,
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5:15 - 5:17but we can, like we just did,
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5:17 - 5:18calculate it.
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5:18 - 5:19And that's really cool
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5:19 - 5:20because when I was a kid,
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5:20 - 5:25my school had two shelves of science books.
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5:26 - 5:27That was really cool,
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5:27 - 5:29but I read all of them within, like, two grades,
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5:29 - 5:30and it was hard to get more books
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5:30 - 5:32because books are heavy
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5:32 - 5:33and you need space for them
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5:33 - 5:34and moving books around is a lot tougher
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5:34 - 5:36than what we can do today.
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5:36 - 5:37With numbers that small,
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5:37 - 5:40I can fit thousands of books
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5:40 - 5:43on my own little personal electronic reader.
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5:43 - 5:45I can stream hours and hours
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5:45 - 5:47and days and days of YouTube video
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5:47 - 5:52without my computer ever getting measurably heavier.
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5:52 - 5:54And as information becomes that light,
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5:54 - 5:56it becomes a lot more democratic,
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5:56 - 5:58meaning that more teachers
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5:58 - 6:00and presenters
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6:00 - 6:01and creators
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6:01 - 6:04and viewers than ever before
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6:04 - 6:05can be involved.
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6:07 - 6:08Right now on YouTube
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6:08 - 6:09there is an explosion of content
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6:09 - 6:11like this happening.
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6:11 - 6:12The three Vsauce channels
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6:12 - 6:13are down there in the corner.
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6:13 - 6:15But everyone else, all together,
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6:15 - 6:15collectively,
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6:15 - 6:18their views dwarf what I can do alone
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6:18 - 6:20or with the people that I work with,
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6:20 - 6:22and that is really, really exciting.
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6:22 - 6:25It turns out that tapping into people's curiosity
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6:25 - 6:28and responsibly answering their questions
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6:28 - 6:32is a brilliant way to build fans and an audience
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6:32 - 6:33and get in viewers.
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6:33 - 6:37It's even a great way for brands and companies
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6:37 - 6:38to build trust.
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6:38 - 6:43So, calculating the weight of a video
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6:43 - 6:45is kind of a funny question,
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6:45 - 6:50but I cannot wait to see
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6:50 - 6:52what we ask and answer next.
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6:52 - 6:54As always, thanks for watching.
- Title:
- How much does a video weigh? - Michael Stevens of Vsauce
- Speaker:
- Michael Stevens
- Description:
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View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-much-does-a-video-weigh-michael-stevens
What color is a mirror? How much does a video weigh? Michael Stevens, creator of the popular educational YouTube channel Vsauce, spends his day asking quirky questions like these. In this talk he shows how asking the right -- seemingly silly -- questions can make incredibly effective lessons.
Talk by Michael Stevens.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TED-Ed
- Duration:
- 07:21
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Krystian Aparta
The English transcript was updated on 2/13/2015.