Everyday physics & science demos Videos Recommended on Hacker News (125)
Everyday physics & science demos is one of the 150 topics Hacker News readers organize their video recommendations around. These 125 videos each earned real recommendations in real HN threads between 2009 and 2026 — 341 recommendations in total — and they're ranked by how many separate months the community kept coming back to them, not by view count.
Physics in everyday life: science demonstrations, Steve Mould, Smarter Every Day, slow-motion experiments, optics, sound and acoustics, fluid dynamics, counterintuitive science, citizen experiments.
Why HN keeps sending people here — on AT&T Archives: Similiarities of Wave Behavior (Bonus Edition): “By far the best introduction to the subject of waves of any sort.” — an HN commenter, 2019.
Type
TalkLectureDocumentaryExplainerDemoTutorialInterviewCommentaryComedyMusicPodcastsNews & reportingCoursesFeatures
Evergreen only
8 mo on HNBuilding a realistic artificial sun (for dark winter days)
5 mo on HNWhy You Should Put YOUR MASK On First (My Brain Without Oxygen) - Smarter Every Day 157
4 mo on HNBest fan placement to move air through the house
4 mo on HNMystery of Prince Rupert's Drop at 130,000 fps - Smarter Every Day 86
3 mo on HNThe Backwards Brain Bicycle - Smarter Every Day 133
4 mo on HNSingle particle creates interference after double slit - Wave particle duality at the workshop
3 mo on HNNeutron movie of coffee making
3 mo on HNBackspin Basketball Flies Off Dam
3 mo on HNDIY mass spectrometer measures potassium in dietary salt substitute
2 mo on HNWhy Figure 8 knot is NOT hard to untie!
2 mo on HNJet Fuel VS Diesel VS Gasoline how they burn and what color are they.
2 mo on HNNo Body Steering Bike of the California Superbike School
2 mo on HNLiquid Sand Hot Tub- Fluidized air bed
2 mo on HNCopper vs Pex vs SharkBite - Freeze Testing
2 mo on HNOlympic Cyclist Vs. Toaster: Can He Power It?
2 mo on HNNew vs Old Room Fire Final UL
2 mo on HNPlanes clouds and vortices
2 mo on HNHovering a Helicopter is Hilariously Hard - Smarter Every Day 145
2 mo on HNFiring the Lorentz Plasma Cannon
2 mo on HNTesla Valve Explained With Fire
1 mo on HNDIY Scanning Electron Microscope - Overview
1 mo on HNDangerous tattoo remover from eBay is a MILLION watt laser
1 mo on HNHow dangerous are magnetic items near an MRI magnet?
1 mo on HNlevitating frog
1 mo on HNVisualizing video at the speed of light — one trillion frames per second
1 mo on HN.38 Special vs Prince Ruperts Drop at 170,000 FPS - Smarter Every Day 169
1 mo on HNCan you fold paper more than 7 times with hydraulic press
1 mo on HNLaser diode self-mixing: Range-finding and sub-micron vibration measurement
1 mo on HNSpace Shuttle Thermal Tile Demonstration
1 mo on HN1 million fps Slow Motion video of bullet impacts made by Werner Mehl from Kurzzeit
1 mo on HNWhat salt tastes the best? Li, Na, K, Rb, Cs and more
1 mo on HNShockwave traffic jams recreated for first time
1 mo on HNTMS Bicycle, stable without gyros or trail (TMS=two-mass-skate)
1 mo on HNYour toothbrush is worn-out!
1 mo on HNHypercentric optics: A camera lens that can see behind objects
1 mo on HN[593] Gallium vs. Titalium - Abus Padlock Meets a Gruesome End
Also discussed on Hacker News (41)
Mentioned in HN threads about everyday physics & science demos, though never formally recommended:
Listening radio with grass · Negative Ion/Anti-5g Products Are Actually RADIOACTIVE · Railroad tank car vacuum implosion · Quantum Levitation · am radio tower power · Filming the Speed of Light at 10 Trillion FPS · Zero Mass Water -BUSTED! · How noisy is a wind farm? · EEVblog #646 - Gravity Detection Using A Frequency Counter! · Controlled Demonstration of a Tank Trailer Vacuum Collapse by Wabash National · Delta P · Synchronization of Metronomes · Waterseer -BUSTED! · Drinking Heavy Water · Alvin Lucier - I Am Sitting in a Room · World's Strongest Magnet! · 20Hz to 20kHz (Human Audio Spectrum) · Microwaving Grapes Makes Plasma · 100 car batteries wired in parallel! · The Glass Age, Part 1: Flexible, Bendable Glass · Superheating of water (Mythbusters) · Bullet vs Prince Rupert's Drop at 150,000 fps - Smarter Every Day 165 · New World Record RC Airplane Speed 548mph · Why all solar panels are secretly LEDs (and all LEDs are secretly solar panels) · chernobyl 2013: radioactive ant bites & 115 mSv/h of pure gamma radiation · New Laser Zaps Mosquitoes in SlowMotion | National Geographic · Shepard Tone · World's Second Best Speakers! · RC KFC bucket aeroplane (magnus effect) · Space Suit Testing · FASTEST RC AIRPLANE IN THE WORLD! Transonic DP -- 545mph!! · Does Hot Water Freeze Faster Than Cold Water? · Airflow across a wing · Tacoma Bridge Collapse: The Wobbliest Bridge in the World? (1940) | British Pathé · Scientists Make Easter Island Statue Walk | National Geographic · Fluorescent Lights under High Voltage Power Lines! · The Greenhouse Gas Demo · The Counterintuitive Physics of Turning a Bike · A laser pointer at 2 billion fps makes the speed of light look... kinda weird · Crazy pool vortex · Spinning Sphere of Molten Sodium