The Universe is Hostile to Computers

Tiny particles from distant galaxies have caused plane accidents, election interference and game glitches. This video is sponsored by Brilliant. The first 200 people to sign up via brilliant.org/veritasium get 20% off a yearly subscription.
This video was inspired by the RadioLab Podcast "Bit Flip" ve42.co/BF -- they're brilliant science storytellers.
A Huge thanks to Dr Leif Scheick, Calla Cofield and the JPL Media Relations Team.
Thanks to Col Chris Hadfield. Check out his book: chrishadfield.ca/books/
▀▀▀
References:
J. F. Ziegler, "Terrestrial cosmic rays," in IBM Journal of Research and Development, vol. 40, no. 1, pp. 19-39, Jan. 1996, doi: 10.1147/rd.401.0019. -- ve42.co/Ziegler1996
D. Binder, E. C. Smith and A. B. Holman, "Satellite Anomalies from Galactic Cosmic Rays," in IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, vol. 22, no. 6, pp. 2675-2680, Dec. 1975, doi: 10.1109/TNS.1975.4328188 ve42.co/Binder1975
Ziegler, J. F., & Lanford, W. A. (1979). Effect of cosmic rays on computer memories. Science, 206(4420), 776-788 ve42.co/Ziegler1979
Drury, L. O. C. (2012). Origin of cosmic rays. Astroparticle Physics, 39, 52-60. ve42.co/Drury2012
Hess, V. (2018). On the observations of the penetrating radiation during seven balloon flights. arXiv preprint arXiv:1808.02927. --ve42.co/Hess2018
Carlson, P., & De Angelis, A. (2011). Nationalism and internationalism in science: the case of the discovery of cosmic rays. The European Physical Journal H, 35(4), 309-329. -- ve42.co/Carlson2011
Höeffgen, S. K., Metzger, S., & Steffens, M. (2020). Investigating the effects of cosmic rays on space electronics. Frontiers in Physics, 8, 318. -- ve42.co/Hoeffgen2020
Edmonds, L. D., Barnes, C. E., & Scheick, L. Z. (2000). An introduction to space radiation effects on microelectronics. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, National Aeronautics and Space Administration. -- ve42.co/Edmonds2000
NASA Mars 2020 website covering the specifications of the Perseverance Rover ve42.co/RoverBrains
Australian Government Australian Transport Safety Bureau report on QF72 -- ve42.co/ASTBQantas
Australian Government Australian Transport Safety Bureau summary on QF72 --ve42.co/ASTBQantas2
Great Blog post about QF72 -- ve42.co/DempseyQantas
Michael Barr's report on the Toyota acceleration issue --ve42.co/Barr2015
NASA's Report on Toyota -- ve42.co/NASAToyota
T. C. May and M. H. Woods, "A New Physical Mechanism for Soft Errors in Dynamic Memories," 16th International Reliability Physics Symposium, 1978, pp. 33-40, doi: 10.1109/IRPS.1978.362815. --ve42.co/May1978
P. M. O'Neill and G. D. Badhwar, "Single event upsets for Space Shuttle flights of new general purpose computer memory devices," in IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, vol. 41, no. 5, pp. 1755-1764, Oct. 1994, doi: 10.1109/23.317386. -- ve42.co/ONeill1994
Wikipedia about radiation hardening -- ve42.co/RadHardening
Toward Monitoring Fault-Tolerant Embedded
Systems (Extended Abstract) -- ve42.co/Goodloe2009
Article about speed run -- ve42.co/BurttSpeedrun
Article about speed run -- ve42.co/BountySpeedrun
Article about redundant systems in spaceflight -- ve42.co/NASAComputers
Article about the PowerPC750 -- ve42.co/Wener-FlignerNASA
Fuglesang C, Narici L, Picozza P, Sannita WG. Phosphenes in low earth orbit: survey responses from 59 astronauts. Aviat Space Environ Med. 2006 Apr;77(4):449-52. PMID: 16676658. -- ve42.co/Fuglesang2006
Good article about Cosmic Rays causing flashes -- ve42.co/AtkinsonEye
Good article about radiation resistance -- ve42.co/RoverResistance
Special thanks to Patreon supporters: Paul Peijzel, Juan Benet, Ruslan Khroma, Richard Sundvall, Lee Redden, Sam Lutfi, MJP, Gnare, Nick DiCandilo, Dave Kircher, Edward Larsen, Burt Humburg, Blake Byers, Dumky, Mike Tung, Evgeny Skvortsov, Meekay, Ismail Öncü Usta, Paul Peijzel, Crated Comments, Anna, Mac Malkawi, Michael Schneider, Oleksii Leonov, Jim Osmun, Tyson McDowell, Ludovic Robillard, Jim buckmaster, fanime96, Juan Benet, Ruslan Khroma, Robert Blum, Richard Sundvall, Lee Redden, Vincent, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Alfred Wallace, Arjun Chakroborty, Joar Wandborg, Clayton Greenwell, Pindex, Michael Krugman, Cy 'kkm' K'Nelson, Sam Lutfi, Ron Neal
Written by Derek Muller and Petr Lebedev
Animation by Ivy Tello, Mike Radjabov, Fabio Albertelli, Jakub Misiek and Charlie Davies
SFX by Shaun Clifford
Filmed by Derek Muller, Raquel Nuno, and Emily Zhang
Edited by Derek Muller and Petr Lebedev
SFX by Shaun Clifford
Additional video supplied by Getty Images
Rover Footage From NASA/JPL-Caltech
QF72 footage from the Smithsonian channel • What Caused Flight 72 ...
SM64 footage from ve42.co/pannenkoek2012
Music from Epidemic Sound
Produced by Derek Muller, Petr Lebedev and Emily Zhang

[@martinstiles7922]

Me, a software engineer, encountering a bug after watching this video: "yeah that must be the cosmic radiation again, definitely no errors in my code for sure"

[@zinodz8774]

I wish i can relate 😅 i never learned how to code .

[@Shuroii]

@@zinodz8774 it's never too late to learn anything!

[@zinodz8774]

@@Shuroii you know .....i can make a million excuses .but let's just say that "it is what it is" :)

[@matchedpowerofthesun]

Reminds me of that time earlier today that I completely messed up code on a Fandom page and had to stitch together code from several other wikis

[@ryanm7263]

Haha I had the same thought

[@kalebbruwer]

"How did you win?" "I guess the stars just aligned"

[@panda_invention1810]

😭

[@leosmi1]

LMFAO

[@WolfyPlays]

it really does give a new meaning to that phrase, the stories of a king being born under the right alignment of stars and all might just be true lol

[@gbxmusicchannel3836]

Joe biden 2020 :)

[@harsharya545]

Wow, indeed the _stars may have aligned._

[@M8OfTheNorth]

Imagine being a particle shooting through space for billions of years only to help someone beat a level of Mario.

[@bry0402]

"I wonder where I'll land..." *hits something and a yahoo! plays* "Oh."

[@ramikarandiv2006]

Then my PC is a best option for them. But in other way. (Blue crashing screen)

[@qbanz00]

“Insert can you hear the music soundtrack” 😂

[@The_Server_ong]

hhahhahahahahahhhAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHgha aHA HA HA HA

[@SubSilence]

"It's been an honour, plumber boy."

[@sabersin7694]

It's a little comforting knowing that if there was ever a robot uprising, the universe would be there to protect us.

[@HasteHub]

or maybe the universe could turn the robots against us

[@idehenebenezer802]

​@@HasteHub🤣🤣🤣

[@Donkadocus]

Bit flipping is evolution for robots

[@oompalumpus699]

​@@DonkadocusEvolution isn't always guaranteed. If not a random particle, then it could be a random continent-sized rock flying through space.

[@geox555]

Your dinosaur profile picture makes your comment about robots 10 times better :))

[@AntsCanada]

Ok but how do we get one of those charged particles to flip a 0 in our bank accounts so we can get an extra million $$$$ by mistake? Asking for a friend.

[@actsrv9]

The alphabet flip in your comment is poetic.

[@elisusisgay]

AntsCanada?

[@ChatGPT1111]

Take a smoke detector with you next time you visit an ATM.

[@lach888c2]

You’ll need multiple particle accelerators , not the big fancy ones just the regular kind. Then you find out where the servers that hold the data and the backup records for your bank account are. Aim a particle accelerator in the general direction of each of the servers and start bit flipping until your bank account changes to what you want.

[@tonyzang2344]

You just need uranium

[@timmalcrov8876]

So Cyberpunk isnt "buggy", its just "cosmically attuned"

[@thejanasilva2525]

😂

[@captainrogerdodger144]

i knew it🤣

[@shreyashshambharkar3973]

This comment is Gold 😂

[@_____J______]

They bastards: Universe stole Cyberpunk!

[@ronisaiba9623]

shitty on an astronomical scale.

[@nghiado9895]

My company had an unexplained event like this some 20-25 years ago. The bottom valve of a chemical reactor opened prematurely dropping the batch from that reactor into the next reactor, ruining both batches. The investigation found no issues with hardware and software. Watching this video jogged my memory on that incident and now I truly believe it was caused by cosmic rays.

[@Lizards_Lounge]

hmm, another perfect example why depending on computers will likely come to be a big mistake. we so busy worrying about if we can, but not if WE SHOULD>

[@universenerdd]

​@@Lizards_LoungeEhh id say the better alternative is having a failsafe

[@squidwardo7074]

@@Lizards_Lounge The 1000s of %'s of efficiency we gained from computers is well worth a couple mishaps here and there, and its not like that never happens with human operators.

[@DeletedDevilDeletedAngel]

@@Lizards_Lounge NASA has cosmic ray proof tech, I dont think the problem is THAT big after we learn from our mistakes. Computers used to be a bitch 20-40 years ago

[@thatwindowsxpfan1234]

@@Lizards_Loungeor... use ecc ram (ray proofed)

[@stefanmilinkovic6433]

Bro. The amount of knowledge that is out there that we don’t even know about is crazy. I never knew something like this even existed/ considered it. I’m a software engineer and work with computer hardware, never knew this was a thing

[@modalinterchange8359]

Yes, you can spend your entire life working on IC analog circuits and still have so much to discover on things like firmware’s, pcb design, semiconductor fabriaction, etc

[@eeyorehaferbock7870]

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.” -H.P. Lovecraft (I copy-pasted that quote from somewhere else due to its length)

[@Isaac-eh6uu]

If you encountered it you would probably just think it was some kind of error outside of your code and just move on. Probably super rare for particle flip a bit so who knows if one would ever encounter it.

[@CigsInABlanket]

Its not a thing. This is like seeing a UFO, then coming to the conclusion that it must be aliens. It was recently proven that the mario 64 bit flip was not caused by "cosmic rays", but a hardware malfunction. I can guarantee every other example given here is similar. "we couldn't find the problem, so it must be an issue from outer space" - cmon now.

[@alamrasyidi4097]

everyone in IT probably has heard of bogos sort, a ridiculous sorting algorithm that rearranges the list randomly until it just so happens the random rearranging resulted in an ordered list. an even wackier sorting algoorithm, however, is one that does nothing but occasionally check if the list had been correctly ordered, relying solely on these cosmic rays to flip the bits in just the right way so that the list is ordered

[@SheetMusicBoss]

"Sir, why were you going over the speed limit?" "Uhhhh... Cosmic particles?"

[@tonydai782]

Didn’t expect to see you guys here!

[@GY-bd9bo]

"I was trying to play Rush E using the engine revving as a metronome, here look I have the piano app on my phone here!"

[@tanishqkumar1640]

Here before 1k likes

[@HarnaiDigital]

*Science, molecules and convenience* - Hank Pym Hishe 2015 🤣

[@tfraidium1602]

Nice idea 😂😂

[@MrScientific]

I hope the bit flips on the bank server where my account balance data is stored.

[@blaxmas]

And hope it doesn't change from 1 to 0

[@dapizzaking4455]

@@blaxmas cant flip from 1 to 0 when its already 0 😎

[@freddiem7993]

the sign bit

[@edyasia]

NO!! this never happen!!! never. is cosmicly impossible

[@philipjkb15]

My dad had 93 million € on his bank account overnight. After a week it was only 50 million, and after 2 more weeks back to the normal amount. So that may actually be possible

[@Morphinwithyou]

As a computer engineer, this is an amazing collection of scientific explanations and history on this issue.

[@AlexMkd1984]

you computer engineer 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 i laughed so hard 😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@Morphinwithyou]

@@AlexMkd1984 It seems I'm not smart person like you and I couldn't understand what you are trying to say or what did you laugh for? Why do you care who I am and what the hack do you possibly know about me?

[@peganmiha]

​@@AlexMkd1984you do know people have actual jobs right? 😭

[@arcane3877]

Just want to say that I absolutely love this channel, after getting out of school and feeling like questions I've had as a kid get shut down all the time amongst other things. Your videos rekindle my fascination with all things science, not only that but you're able to break down and explain some wildly complicated things that most people wouldn't even begin to understand. Just goes to show how much effort you put into research and understanding, as well as talking to field professionals & experts. It doesn't go unnoticed and I hope you never stop making these. Thank you Derek!

[@JCW7100]

"Computers work precisely because bits don't flip unless we want them to. Or do they?" Cue Vsauce music.

[@sothreego]

Bro not joking, I missed him and his videos. Especially Mindset series!

[@zukacs]

i love how story folds back on itself on minute 10 exactly like vsauce does too :D

[@seedlingboi9088]

right? WRONG

[@abhinavgaming2110]

@@AxxLAfriku happy 9th birthday!

[@Parajulibkrm]

@@sothreego mindfield*

[@elephantheart9988]

So the universe itself casted its 4,096 votes, and we just discounted them? sheesh

[@zazanashrulhuda]

Universe be like : "hey, we know this guy. Let us give 4096 votes!"

[@patrickbateman2164]

@@zazanashrulhuda does maria sound like a dude name?

[@Itsgyro]

@@patrickbateman2164 it absolutely could be. Heard of di maria?

[@lukerogers979]

@@patrickbateman2164 I would not have that

[@patrickbateman2164]

@@Itsgyro that's a surname kid.

[@jailyngordon4798]

Several years ago I saw a flash of light just as I closed my eyes and sat down on my bed. I tried recreating it, thinking it was the sunlight shining through my window, but nothing like it ever happened again, no matter how I moved around my room. Now, I finally have a possible explanation.

[@horohousu]

Cosmic rays don't affect your eyes. It's uncommon but very normal to see a quick flash of light due to some small error in the inner workings of your eye.

[@musclechicken9036]

I loved this video so much! It mixes my two favorite things, physics and computer science. It shows not only the extreme complexity yet fragility of our tiny computer bits, but also shows a small fraction the unseeable universe we live in. Great video! I’ll do all the algorithm happy things including writing this long comment!

[@h.a.9880]

Just imagine, a black hole shoots a jet of near-light-speed particles in a random direction, one of these particles travels through space for billions of years, passes by stars, black holes, entire galaxies... and then it just sorta makes Mario teleport to a higher platform. The universe is such a weird an crazy place.

[@himadrijoshi]

Or gives extra votes to someone, in an election 😊 Edit : those arguing - Have you even watched the video ? This is what happened in Belgium. Ugh.

[@aidenorpington4637]

Tf?

[@teosandell4278]

@@Zeburakeki maybe they were referencing the video?

[@jesperengelbredt]

This makes me want to grab people in the streets and say "Have you head this?"

[@denkikaminari7887]

ikr so weird

[@moy2010]

"It was caused by a cosmic ray" will be my favourite excuse from now on.

[@DaleTrevors]

In the past folks used to say it was the act of gods. The same strange kind of events.

[@wokevirushandsanitzer5300]

My school work was ate by the do… ohh I mean… a cosmic ray caused it to be deleted off my computer.

[@aghostofrazgriz5137]

Any Tech issue i have im just gonna say "Bit flip".

[@NevilleEkka]

According to the video, so did Microsoft.

[@stanleybochenek1862]

Damn

[@atti92]

Hearing the music slowly fading in, the same song that you've been using for like 10 yrs now feels like home when i watch your videos. thank you!

[@mikemio8943]

One of the most interesting docs I've seen in a while. Keep up the good work.

[@200_cuentos]

Imagine sitting in a plane and the guy next to you pulls out a Geiger counter.

[@fstorino]

That single event would very much upset me

[@magnushultgrenhtc]

Also narrating it each time. 😂

[@juliusxi1666]

@@magnushultgrenhtc and recording it

[@obnoxioussubconscious8895]

@@fstorino That was a nice one 😂

[@chob.h7914]

AND Then by coincidence a bit flips and the plane loses altitude just like that A330 in the video

[@HaggisMuncher-69-420]

Maria is one of the only people that can claim the universe elected her.

[@iam_sirius]

Good one

[@harshitraj953]

🤩🤩

[@sridharkrishnan1591]

Exactly. The entire cosmos is at her side.

[@RC-zf7hp]

Haha winner!

[@moobloom155]

o-o-one of?

[@tortolexie3891]

Yeah I agree with the others. This is honestly one of the best educational videos I have come across on the internet. It opened my mind about a lot of things, one is that we shouldn’t let our everyday work stress us out too much, because if problems or “errors” did not exist we would not progress as problem solvers and critical thinkers.

[@stepanovps]

Great work putting this video together!

[@oath_5208]

Imagine having a bad run and then the universe is like: “I gotchu bro”

[@aweslayne]

Or it could turn against you and pull you back 3 stages down

[@almostok692]

@@aweslayne lmaooooooo

[@parthivdoddarapu901]

Wait so any speedrun cud have itss e pearl drop rate like infinite times. right? and maybe some speedruns like dreams wud not have been actual cheating. Or am i wrong and didnt undrstand the point, Sorry for bad english...

[@averagegenzguy2751]

@@parthivdoddarapu901 nope his dev messed up, he increased the rates. Dream is sorry

[@hypnotoad28]

@@parthivdoddarapu901 Pretty much, unlikely though. But Dream admitted he accidentally cheated with a program used for mods or whatever if you hadn't heard about that, so he was definitely cheating in that case, intentional or not x)

[@iainballas]

Skynet: "Peace was never an option." Cosmic Ray: *Zap* Skynet: "Peace was always an option."

[@kakalimukherjee3297]

lol

[@NonsenseTreasure]

Has probably happened the other way though 🤔

[@user-gk8wj3gr9r]

@@NonsenseTreasure F in the chat for humanity

[@McGravyBoii]

😂😂😂

[@gokuldas027]

A little help from the Universe

[@dmaze8457]

The lessons on this site are so well presented that I keep coming back for more. Some are way over my head but the presenter has such a comfortable style that I can’t turn him off.

[@soto_life_guru]

To all the people editing these videos thank you for making science fun again

[@rabsaque]

Maria can say universe literally was on her side that day

[@martinsimeonov1563]

So true 🤣

[@ricardorico1677]

😂

[@TimVolkovPhD]

which means she should have won and rightly so :)

[@bumblebee9337]

She's the ultimate lobbyist.

[@AnAdequateViolinist]

Too bad for Maria, the universe is not very bright

[@MCMH2000]

**Calculator spits out a different number, than i expect** "These stupid galaxies, i swear..."

[@RezonSV]

Lol 😆🤣😂

[@Mynipplesmychoice]

ME: why do u write with these dialogue boxes YOU: Because I’m trying to fit in and my brain is still developing! ME: okay stop YOU: I slurp on my turds

[@studyingisfun5868]

Funniest joke of the day

[@nuggetz9380]

LMAOOOOO

[@danielarnold9042]

@@Mynipplesmychoice wtf?

[@johnrickard8512]

This reminds me of an incident back in 2017 or so. I was busy working on several of my devices all at once, when nearly every single one of them locked up. All except of course for Phoenix, my dual-processor home server/workstation. It being built off of a decommissioned server motherboard meant of course that I had fully populated its 18 RAM slots with a total of 72gb of registered ECC memory. That computer of course just kept on trucking like nothing had happened.

[@juanjoseviteri6876]

this is by far my favorite video of yours

[@Kamilione]

I'm a software engineer and now every issue explanation will be "it's cosmic rays, man"

[@surferp89]

Trruuee

[@CertainOverlord]

my windows 10 laptop was running fine, only one app was open, then it crashed, and gave me the o'l "your pc ran into a problem needs to restart" then i get on KZbin today and see this.

[@shobhitsadwal756]

Hahahaha ,true

[@epel3010]

you got me hahahaha

[@mk_rexx]

Call it Single Event Upsets (SEU) so it's less obvious

[@kopanvezer]

Supernova probably billions of years ago: Yeah I think Maria looks promising, but since I'm a cosmic event my vote is worth 4096 votes!

[@faizan.]

😀

[@rocioayra9866]

Underrated comment. I love it!

[@kaushalsanyal5924]

It is against democracy but but but supernova is not a human

[@michaelsoddy1892]

Yo nice pfp

[@DetectiveWraith]

A separate one must really like speedrunning

[@manishkrmeena]

I wanted to express my gratitude for the informative video on Single Event Effect (SEE), which offered a concise and comprehensible explanation.

[@dice3000]

I can't understand how every other video on this channel just blows my mind... Also the cloud chamber would make for an amazing animated wallaper

[@bloodwolf2609]

Imagine winning an election because of a supernova that happened billions of years ago

[@alice_in_wonderland42]

Imagine existing because of a supernova that happened which created a lot of new elements, which the Earth is made up of.

[@Yakoable]

At this point, you're entitled to say the universe wants you to win.

[@PremierCCGuyMMXVI]

Another reason why space is very cool

[@cubing7276]

@@Yakoable lmao

[@cubing7276]

You still need people to not notice tho

[@Vienna3080]

Can’t wait for speed runners to start speedrunning in Cherynbol for an extra second less

[@thekingoftheworld9553]

I just thought that Dream could now use this as an excuse 😂

[@johnbaker7102]

@@thekingoftheworld9553 too bad he already admitted to “accidentally” cheating. I bet if he held out and saw this video, I’m sure he would hire another “expert” to come up with a way to use cosmic rays as an excuse

[@jimpie6150]

Speedrunning games and their lives at the same time, brilliant

[@noelvalenzarro]

Why is Mio smoking?

[@rzezzy1]

Some dragon quest 3 speedrunners put their console on a hot plate to make use of a glitch comes up when overheated... So maybe one day

[@mmoore974]

Awesome. I seriously enjoyed this. Thanks!

[@debanjanbhattacharjee6410]

Finally a legitimate reason for my alarm clock not going off

[@lukecollingwood1933]

She literally got helped by the universe and still didn’t win

[@josephputra2987]

no she win the next election, chosen by ppl. Universe used plan b

[@thelikebutton3451]

The Cosmos literally voted for her.

[@BizVlogs]

21:21 sounds like she won in the end

[@hanklim5076]

Maria Vindevoghel: universe’s Marxist choice

[@sumerbc7409]

If she was a democrat they would've just given it to her, like Joe.

[@OurHeroXero]

Imagine holding a speed run record because a cosmic ray bit-flipped the right bit...at the right time..leaving you with a nigh-unbeatable record.

[@noodleman793]

I guess the cosmos itself was watching the speed run

[@jatinsharma5650]

so your telling me speedrun happens without this phenomenon?

[@somerandom7672]

A literal miracle. The more we learn, the less ridiculous the concept of 'divine intervention' seems.

[@DevinDTV]

@@somerandom7672 if that were the case, you'd think the cosmic ray would have happened during a serious speed run attempt rather than a practice session. what was the purpose of this divine intervention? to confuse speed runners for a few years?

[@lawjef]

Except... you will never be able to come close to replicating your record either. Which isn't a good look

[@robertj.3682]

I love your wisdom, blessed to come across your channel 🤙🏻

[@hryfrks]

This is an unexpectedly interesting video! Thanks for that!

[@gun123456zak]

*The stars align* Universe: "Bank error in your favor." Universe: "Collect $5000"

[@tigrafale4610]

$4096*

[@TheRmbomo]

Ah, thanks for landing on my Baltic Avenue. Maybe I'll win second place in a beauty contest and win $5006 next! And just wait until I pass GO.

[@Torchedini]

Accountant says no. Go to jail, do not pass start, do not collect $200

[@scifino1]

Given my typical luck, it's pretty safe to assume, that, if such a bit flip ever happens to me, it flips the first bit in a signed int representing my bank account's value from 0 to 1.

[@worldalternate]

With my lucky I'd probably lose $32768 and have no way to get it back.

[@chrisfromsouthaus2735]

Imagine being such a good candidate that the Universe itself votes for you

[@BluePiano1]

@Sleepy Carl no, if you pay attention in the video, they said that it WASN'T because of the uranium because the computer that calculated the votes was made after intel stopped using the defective casings

[@NotSoMuchFrankly]

Aha! So the universe cheats!

[@wallabra]

The Universe is worth 4096 people, gotcha

[@winninginlife]

That's what I was thinking, she's probably the Best choice lol

[@russellsherry7]

😄👍

[@TMAJ0R]

16:44 depending on a plane of course, there is a point where you are so high that the atmosphere is thin enough for you to overspeed, but also too thin to support the lift of the plane that you can overspeed and stall at the same time. Obviously a commercial plane probably won't be flying that high but the physics says you can stall and over speed

[@kiburamaha7715]

That was a brilliant analysis...loved it

[@astral6749]

"Our game doesn't have bugs, they're just a primary target of cosmic rays!" - Todd Howard, probably

[@jeffrodiziack5285]

ded

[@chattw6885]

A todd howard joke on a veritasium video, now I have seen it all...

[@yepespp1664]

@@chattw6885 Bet you haven't seen the subreddit witches against communism then

[@Vangriffeth]

RIP

[@glass7923]

you have a typo

[@timmilgram]

Great, you guys just gave Adobe an excuse not to fix Premiere

[@Saad-eq7jr]

😂😂😂

[@benty6024]

@@Leruster i like that resolve is free, but i don’t have a stupidly powerful computer that can meet its minimum requirements, i have 2 gb of vram but resolve needs 8 or else even on 1/8 scale it’s unusably laggy edit: also my processor is a 3rd gen, dual core intel

[@rikilshah]

@@benty6024 Well, I have puny 2GB, GT1030 and Resolve works very well. At least, I can edit without much issues.

[@benty6024]

@@rikilshah wel my computer has a seizure every time i open resolve

[@benty6024]

@@kofiy which cpu do you have?

[@8kvision325]

Finally someone talking about what I always thought could be the only explanation to things happened to me myself. And this also correlates perfectly to your recent entropy video, cause it matches to have a mechanism like this to increase chaos in the universe. A big picture puzzles together, however this time going backwards in time on KZbin. You have a good resilience about common thoughts and you do seem to somehow break through standard thinking patterns, explaining reality using an uninfluenced, neutral way of the minimum understanding capabilities of an open minded human being. Which is a quite rare species to find on this planet still. But maybe these videos can make a change. Thanks for not giving up!

[@vladimirkirichenko1972]

absolutely love this channel

[@pflolssa]

Maria's next campaign slogan: "even the universe wants me to win"

[@shardator]

Cosmos cast ITS vote.

[@DK-ox8gh]

Maria actually did win the election. But she was a populist/nationalist and the Ieftists couldn't let her win so they blamed the cosmic particles.

[@oofy_emma1072]

@@DK-ox8gh ripbozo

[@jonathanbautz3234]

@@DK-ox8gh That sounds quite unlikely

[@haziblathif491]

@@DK-ox8gh I mean, if you go around bashing leftists or liberals for being more scientific, you should reconsider your political beliefs because science is factual. Cares nothing about your feelings.

[@FureyinHD]

This is the most drawn out excuse for losing a 1v1, ever. Let it go, Derek.

[@woomynation]

It was a cosmic particle I swear!

[@supasf]

Hahaha real

[@LordVodka313]

Per chance, Is this an 'iniquity' reference?

[@miguelwsth7739]

LOL

[@steviebee1989]

Did you mean lose? There is only one o in lose. Loose is what your shoe laces do.

[@andersnelson]

The blue screen at the end, which then evolved into the channel logo, was some good creativity

[@Micsmit_45]

I work in domain management, and when we advise customers on lookalike domains, bitsquatting is something we also take into account. Basically a bit flip changing a character in the original domain.

[@kujojotarostandoceanman2641]

Imagine getting a new world record of speedrun because a cosmic rays shoots your computer

[@tillson8686]

Literally a sign from the universe that you deserve that run

[@samstoddard4191]

REALLY good rng

[@Mohammed-op4kv]

It wont work ur computer is protected, he said it in the vid

[@eclipset.9683]

@@Mohammed-op4kv If ECC memory is all that it took, then we wouldn't be making the Mars Rover 40x more resilient than regular computers. I believe ECC was meant to be a standard for DDR4 memory, (so only special DDR3 has it), but it's only enough to make it unnoticeable for normal people. For more important tasks, like running servers, you'll see a history of accounting for this effect and taking the necessary precautions.

[@test-rj2vl]

I wonder if that speedrun would count? I mean first you'd have to deal with hacking accusations and then the speedrun community itself could have rule that bitflips dont count and all you gain from that is just cool video or if this game has save game feature, some interesting save game file that you could share for fun.

[@abhinayartham]

"Hey, why is your code failing in prod?" "cosmic rays"

[@kshitizjain9557]

😂

[@cmaxz817]

@Ben W probably

[@kasfpg]

Cosmic Ray sort ftw

[@JohnR436]

337 likes, nice

[@AndreVanKammen]

"But why where we able to reproduce it?" "The universe hates me!"

[@Sek101]

You really got me with the blue screen crash near the end. I thought, "how ironic!"

[@BB992]

Best video on this channel. Nitpicky note: 16:40. An overspeed and stall CAN occur simultaneously.

[@EdgarFroes]

I wouldn't want to be those guys debugging the error, that should've been so frustrating to reproduce.

[@jkojkojkojk]

Exactly why they blamed a soft error. This conspiracy goes all the way to the top!!

[@TheWormzerjr]

i c u. the error is the mandela effect.

[@280SE]

Imagine 🤯

[@senantiasa]

On the bright side, you can now start using Single Event Upset as a reason for one time errors when your debug is going nowhere...

[@EdgarFroes]

@@senantiasa hahaha absolutely

[@tristfall1]

As a software engineer, we've been blaming cosmic rays for our bugs for years. "I assure you, despite you having the error right in front of you, it's impossible. Have you tried running our software from inside a salt mine?"

[@stickguy9109]

I am hearing about this for the first time. But there were times when i was so sure there is no bug and then i hit play again without changing anything and everything works. Now i know

[@Vysair]

@@stickguy9109 Visual Studio be like

[@ericrowe1412]

Sometimes the universe itself it stacked against us

[@TheFinnish1]

"salt mine" I guess aperture science is safe from these rays

[@DanKaschel]

@@stickguy9109 I mean, odds are that the environment was to blame and not a cosmic ray. But it is possible, yes. I’ve certainly had times when I was tempted to blame a cosmic ray for some weird behavior I couldn’t reproduce.

[@sirnumb476]

Love this guy and this channel.

[@luongbach9150]

"Nah, it not an autocorrect, it was caused by a cosmic ray" "We're talking right now"

[@lunasophia9002]

"Cosmic rays" has been a sysadmin joke for explaining system failure for about 30 years, and it's cool to have a video like this that actually explains what happens.

[@farmergiles1065]

Actually, it's a joke about a reality. As a programming neophyte in 1980, I was quick to hear of a faculty member who had proved one of his programs had failed to run correctly when the program logic was correct. The machine was an IBM-360-type mainframe, and after the program proof, a bit flip at a certain point was demonstrated to cause the same failure. The faculty was well aware of cosmic rays and the many experiences NASA had been accumulating over years of flights, so there was no reticence about looking there. When a new computer science building was erected subsequently, it contained rather a lot of concrete, and the mainframe was located in a deep basement under a thick layer of it, in order to minimize its vulnerability to cosmic rays, reducing detectable quantities by a significant margin. So for us students who had to produce working programs within a given number of tries, we had to meet a high bar to make such claims, and the joke was more about what would be required to submit a proof to the admins.

[@chriskennedy2846]

We should just use the computers they used in the late '60s for lunar missions. They seemed to survive okay.

[@prakharmishra3000]

@@chriskennedy2846 they were ferrite beads wound on copper wires. The bits were programmed into the position of the bead itself. You can't use them to do any modern tasks. They were good for basic computing required in the 60s.

[@38911bytefree]

@@prakharmishra3000 But they still had registers, acumulators.... running on silicon. Program was rope memory (try to beat that).

[@PriceAintRight]

This thread is educational as hell.

[@salkohajric9641]

Me losing another game: "Those rays again, I swear..."

[@laddaleangthong2684]

Noice, now I have other thing to blame instead of lag when it's clearly my fault that I lose because I'm bad.

[@apollyon10]

HAHAHAHAHAHAH

[@ahmedexmor]

That's my newest excuse and conversation starter

[@raceabilene]

I'm now blaming the misfire that gave me a 2nd in Solo on Fortnite last night on those damn cosmic rays.

[@aestheticvibezz142]

But It will be hard to explain your teammates 😏

[@kumarrahul11]

Awesome video on SEU. Excellent examples to let people know what SEU can cause.

[@a_desired_turtle]

Imagine one day Cosmic Rays will flip the 64-th bit in your bank account's total money.

[@omgdodogamer4759]

singlehandedly carrying the global economy 🙏

[@Blate1]

“I begged the universe to help me break the Mario speed run world record, and the universe obliged.”

[@bastion8804]

Luckily, it's not a blindfold run.

[@vintagegamer7027]

DREAM

[@ryanklick3572]

Say you beat the world record with a cosmic bit flip glitch in a glitches allowed category…. Does it count? It’s the ultimate glitch.

[@thursday7305]

Does anyone else think this sounds like a bad anime title

[@Laszer271]

@@ryanklick3572 If that were to be allowed even in runs that aren't glitchless it would lead to the ultimate strategy to be to put your computer inside particle colider and just play hoping for some lucky glitches.

[@GeneralLizations]

This is the singlehandedly the most ultimate excuse for all IT professionals. Thank you Veritasium, you have no idea how invaluable this video is to us overworked sysadmins and poor souls of tech support around the world.

[@starscream2092]

Tech: Yes what is your problem maam ? Customer: My laptop wont start. Tech: Its cosmic rays maam, i cant do anything about that.

[@zicho1st]

remember those hackers that 'attacked' gas pipeline ... that was probably an excuse of IT professionals, as their control system were not resilient to charged particles, or induced currents. Because ... at that time, CME hit the Earth in that exact location.

[@InsanePorcupine]

Why am I getting constant BSOD's? Cosmic particles.

[@contrapasta2454]

The IT equivalent of archeology's "It's ceremonial"

[@firstlast9292]

Helpdesk isn't IT professionals. Otherwise you'd know what CRC and hashes are and how only the most primitive (or very old) systems, or poorly designed systems would be susceptible to problems like flipped bits.

[@ImThatGirl101]

I was peacefully listening to an explanation of cosmic rays messing with computers...I was half zoned out and honestly...that ending jump scared me so bad. 😂

[@schwibz]

Literally just happened to me, caught me so off guard and freaked me out LOL

[@RespecterAlexander]

What a great Veritasium video!

[@MHGFTW]

"Drivers pressing down on the gas, thinking it was the brake" Yeah, that will do it too...

[@VieShaphiel]

An example of a Toyota car driver doing exactly that is coincidentally one of the hottest news in Japan recently. It even got a wikipedia article ("Higashi-Ikebukuro runaway car accident").

[@chukwudiilozue9171]

99% of the time it's user error.

[@emillyyelen5169]

@@VieShaphiel Accident happened more than 2 years before all this and he was sentenced 2 days ago...interesting

[@egarcia1360]

Bit flip? No, foot flip!

[@molybdaen11]

Its called the ape test - give your program to an ape and let him do whatever he wants with it. The program is allowed to react to his false inputs - but not to break down by a random shortcut or normally impossible or illogical chain of events. If your program can pass that, its ready for the mass market :)

[@kuzonkatekar7706]

"Off by 4096" Programmers: I know where this is headed.

[@daemonace5910]

You know the rules and so do I

[@cyscott2714]

I was wondering were was the parity bit in all this.

[@colincollins]

@@cyscott2714 seriously 😳

[@dbuezas]

I always assumed that voting machines would use many checksums, software and hardware redundancy, hashes, and methods cleverer than I can imagine. Aaaaaaaand they don't 😥

[@Laszer271]

And most other software doesn't use that either. If people don't even know this problem why would they assume that they need checksums and backups? They think that if the program is tested enough, it will work and in many cases it does while in some it fails tremendously because of something not being taken into account.

[@RameshKumarPkeezhara]

the speedrunner got blessed by the universe's luck

[@Tikolu]

9:17 - I don't think the reason is so "obvious".

[@ashen_madhusanka]

"coding ERROR occurred: let's run it again without changing anything" make sense now

[@mattstorm360]

Cosmic particles. Now i have an excuse.

[@tinotales]

😂😂😂

[@Solkre82]

Just reboot

[@Goodpizzaa]

"Can you crunch the numbers again" ... "crunch" .. "Did anything change?"... "No. Wait, it turns out your aren't going out of business selling paper it was cosmic rays influencing everything."

[@kdavis4910]

The only issue I see is that I remember watching documentaries a few years ago talking about some clever IT people were actively building software that had the capability of influencing election results. This isn't some crazy conspiracy theory either. It was a documentary that I watched on public TV a few years ago. I'm sure they could be found today or similar documentaries. I guess my point is that once this software exists we can never truly trust that votes won't be manipulated ever again.

[@potato_salad9346]

"Man, you suck at this game! Get good!" "Nah man, it was the cosmic particles"

[@lombridious]

Perfekt lol

[@norpriest521]

@DONT Why you need attention? Are you 5 yo?

[@arneshpal7702]

😂

[@JstormZx]

@@norpriest521 lol

[@auhsojacosta1672]

@Pahit Playz spend all of their money so that no one wins lol

[@sudarshanharibaskar1770]

I have watched almost all veritasium videos and by far this is the most well researched well made and interesting video Derek has ever made. Proud to be a fan of your work.

[@omarawad6353]

watching this while having my digital systems final tomorrow hits different

[@Spacemuffin147]

“So now bugs are not only an obstacle, they’re a feature” - The Universe

[@charlietube7165]

So people eat features

[@tiffyw92]

"I totally meant to do that." - The Universe

[@SpaceMan101South]

So what you’re saying is that at literally any point in time while I’m playing on my computer, the universe can vibe check my PC.

[@valinorean4816]

and any neuron in your brain. boom! and you no longer remember your first crush's mom's maiden name. or something more important...

[@heated1333]

​@@valinorean4816 Luckily, memories aren't stored in single bits of information in our brains ^-^ So that won't happen. Though one strand of DNA could change, but it would likely be killed by other healthy cells. It's only going to very heavily change reproduction. very lucky for us

[@valinorean4816]

@@heated1333 and how are they stored? (I vaguely remember that for the long-term memories it's not just about neural circuits and there are some special proteins, restricted to one neuron, that's why i said this?)

[@heated1333]

@@valinorean4816 most memories are stored in physical pathways, very small but not exactly similar to computer chips. Some of them are stronger paths then others, but almost all of them should be strong enough to resist getting wiped from rads. Actually some people have even had memory survive through things like a pickaxe in the head :D Humans are both surprisingly resistant and vulnerable at the same time

[@valinorean4816]

@@heated1333 links on this info?

[@Articulate99]

Always interesting, thank you.

[@paulssuggestions7132]

I've been programming computers since 1969 and I thought this was solved in the 70's with ECC and other memory correction schemes. I also thought the math co processor functions on the Main-frames and Mini's actually ran the calculation multiple times behind the scenes because of how the compilers compiled the code. I had no idea this was still an issue. Holy cow! A plane gets bad data and attempts to fly into the ground. I'm speechless that on a plane's flight controls there isn't redundancy to counteract this.

[@anshulgupta9754]

Boss: "Anshul, why is your code not working properly?" Me: "let me tell you about cosmic rays..."

[@tonis864]

Hahahahaha awesome:)

[@EstuaryEstuary]

Anshul Gupta

[@kaon9181]

@@EstuaryEstuary mechaspirit

[@proger1960]

@@kaon9181 *Kaon*

[@aiyoof498]

@@proger1960 Proger 19

[@_Fox]

Speedrun cheaters be like: I am not cheating, these are cosmic particles

[@saladetomate1318]

*Dream :*

[@ninjagaro.]

you punch the cartridge - it looks like i found a new strat

[@theneekofficial8829]

I think that did actually happen for one world record time on SM64 before, or atleast theorised to happen to one. Not entirely sure doe

[@FinxdMC]

wonder how dream got that amount of subscribers... hmm

[@vke6077]

@@theneekofficial8829 isnt that the one in this video

[@Shayan4evercg]

Mind blowing! Good to know that I wasn't the one to blame for writing buggy softwares for a decade, it was the naughty cosmic ray.

[@stevensrocks798]

9:58 the way you've portrayed that looks like the sprites you get in the upper atmosphere.

[@Alex-lm7cx]

I work in IT support and this was like learning that demons are real.

[@generic6099]

yeah, except the demons just come in the form of having the misfortune of not using ECC memory and subsequently intel nudging ECC memory away from consumers hands by marketing it as an enterprise feature. (i believe it was either linus torvalds/richard stallman that made an article regarding ecc memory)

[@yukariyakumo9622]

Computer: *randomly flips a bit* IT guy: get me holy water and salt

[@spooderman6312]

The -exorcist- IT guy

[@JVRD27]

I work with Quality Assurance, I can't even imagine testing something like that 🤣

[@abandonedaccount123]

@@generic6099 *has no idea what any of that means*

[@sharishth]

Maria: The cosmos chose me, for so I am the rightful leader chosen by the universe.

[@Arkantos117]

@@mauricegoz Gave her enough publicity to win at a later date though.

[@rachmawanatmajiperdana8866]

maybe leader was not a correct term but representative

[@johndoe-cx6ro]

@@mauricegoz on the other hand the Cosmos sure loved Biden

[@blucantrell2]

@@Arkantos117 did it?

[@raidev_]

@@johndoe-cx6ro?

[@theformerkaiser9391]

I once had to fix a friend’s Toshiba Satellite because the hard drive randomly corrupted, we eventually concluded that it was a space particle that corrupted the Windows installation.

[@og_dumpster_fire4482]

Honestly, out of everything, I can believe the other things, but the Mario speedrun just cant be true in my opinion. There are other valid reasons his y coordinate could've changed like that, and some of those reasons match more closely than the bit flip. It also says in the Pannekoek2012's video, that he isnt sure that the bit flip was the reason that Mario flipped because if you line the video up, it isn't completely perfect. It was also shown that DOTA-Teabag had a faulty system and it could've easily contributed to it. Other than that, this video is brilliant. Thanks for all of your hard work.

[@elijahclark2667]

I already knew about the Mario Speedrun but that's still so crazy that a random particle in the universe happened to fly in the EXACT right spot through his console at the exact moment to make him fly forward and skip half the level. Man's used up his entire lifespan worth of luck in one moment

[@KyleBaran90]

It's funny. Even if Pannencoek gets it down to just 6 A-presses, they could theoretically be solved by having cosmic rays affect the emulator. Though, if you were to manipulate the bits yourself via nuclear rays, that could be the same as just cheating on an emulator, so it's a moot point.

[@wesleystoltz8421]

My question is, does EZ peezy know about this?

[@ashokathegreat8731]

Man just think, that particle has just finished it's journey of millions of billions of years after travelling halfway across the universe ☠

[@tannhaeuserx464]

Why surprise? Billion and billions of these particles hit the earth every second.

[@damonedrington3453]

Maybe luck is something collective, and that dude used up the next few years of luck when he did that? Would explain how everything is so… the way it is

[@Breezegod]

me riding in a fully self-driving car in the future: “dear Lord, please don’t let my bits get flipped by space jazz”

[@martiddy]

Universe: "haha cosmic particle go brrr"

[@ARP199]

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@rufsis]

Please don't let my bats get flipped by spaze jizz

[@eaglenebula2172]

😂

[@DifferentPersonnn]

Ah, the extra guy ​👉@@rufsis​

[@AlanMGross]

Back in the '80s I supervised operating system software for over 50 UNIX systems. So, bugs that might show up once a year in a single computer could surface once a week! And sometimes, I said at the time with no evidence, I was sure that cosmic rays would occasionally just flip bits. 🙂

[@blvck265]

That ending was a nice touch.

[@aprilmintacpineda2713]

For us devs, this gives us hope, so when QAs file a bug that we can't replicate, we'll blame it on cosmic rays. Heck, often they themselves can't replicate it.

[@lukmanabdinasir7927]

Hahaha funniest comment ever

[@maki.tolentino]

LOL'ed more than I should have hahaha

[@GamesFromSpace]

The hard part is not blaming it for everything.

[@robotorfeed6806]

Was thinking to comment this, 100% agree.

[@2fifty533]

@@emmaisalone ..?

[@rvjarlos9763]

*fails to hand in homework “It’s the cosmic rays fault”

[@alansony2144]

Lol

[@carloagapito8238]

No! Everything is Mikey's fault

[@asyncxeno]

This joke would have made 0 sense 2 years ago. Crazy how much the world changed.

[@TTTristan1]

Ok so, I was sitting at my office desk a while back, and this intensely blinding light hit my eyes for such a small fraction of a second that I almost thought I just imagined it. It as insanely bright for that short amount of time. Makes me wonder if it was a high energy particle.

[@s3JTD]

I was wondering for a very long time, I mean 5 years for why did I saw a random flash when looking at the night sky thaught this is normal till today and never noticed the same event afterwards. That was a high energy particle, got goosebumps after knowing this. Thats something new to learn.

[@danielsjurjevs8873]

or a meteor