Where Do Trees Get Their Mass?

Veritasium3 HN recommenders · recommended in 3 months, 2015–2021

YouTube

explainer · general · evergreen · 2015–2021 on HN

Veritasium asks people where a tree's mass comes from, then explains that most of a dry tree's mass originates from carbon dioxide in the air. It combines street interviews with a short explanation of photosynthesis.

HN uses it as the go-to demonstration of how unintuitive mass conservation is, especially in weight loss and burning threads.

4 comments from Hacker News

@lathiat2021-04 · in “Where does a candle go when it burns?”

"Where do trees get their mass?" - ▶ this video This was highly enlightening the first time I watched it :)

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@JshWright2017-11 · in “When somebody loses weight, where does the fat go?”

An interesting corollary to this is "Where do trees get their mass?" Veritasium has a fun video demonstrating how unintuitive this is: ▶ this video

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@lkbm2015-04 · in “When You Lose Weight, Where Does It Go?”

There's a nice Veritasium episode wherein he asks people on the street where a tree's mass comes from: ▶ this video (This isn't just one of those "let's laugh at how dumb people on the street are" videos; it's done explicitly as a learning exercise. His PhD looked at how addressing misconceptions and going from there to correct explanations works much better than simply providing explanations: link ) I thought of it upon seeing the first chart in the BMJ article.)

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@MarcScott2015-04 · in “When You Lose Weight, Where Does It Go?”

And the reverse biochemical process is equally misunderstood. I used to teach high school Science and everyone thought a tree's mass came from the soil. ▶ this video

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