What are the Odds of Quantum Tunneling your Hand through a Table? [Long Short]

Not my typical content by any means, but I hope y’all enjoy anyway!

[@rescyy2235]

Studies show that most people give up right before tunneling their hand through a table

[@w1llyboi248]

LMAO

[@Mark-Wilson]

Motivation

[@Hobbicollector]

This is the problem with young people nowadays. They give up very early and too easily.

[@nise6699]

​@@Hobbicollectorare you slamming your hand hoping to quantum tunnel as you were typing this?

[@quandaledingle2107]

​@@Hobbicollectorare you backrooms entity cuz you seem like you want us to noclip into the backrooms 😮💀

[@Twinkiepower420]

If it has happened, it’s gotta be so sad being the one person who tunneled. You’re trying to convince others your hand really went through that table and then this guy pulls out the math equations.

[@pastawater]

honestly, this whole video SCREAMS victim blaming. I am not on board with this.

[@JmKrokY]

Yeah

[@-thanawat-8296]

@@pastawaterhow

[@brightblackhole2442]

@@pastawater i agree. it's truly, truly horrible to all those 10^-797025 people who have quantum tunnelled, for nobody to believe them

[@MathemadicaPrinkipia]

True. Even if the chance is extremely low doesn't mean it's impossible. You could get really really lucky placing an object on the table and it went down through the table. but nobody's gonna believe you, and that sucks😢

[@sporksto4372]

Even if it somehow happens, you're more likely to get your hand stuck inside the table halfway through.

[@venteex]

​@@themightycxzeriallordmala tuya

[@orangemonks894]

@@themightycxzeriallordbruh backrooms cannot be real

[@cybertar]

​@@themightycxzeriallord oh yea that could happen too. Imagine man...

[@Post98w]

@@orangemonks894 Your odds of suddenly fading outside of reality are low, but never zero.

[@oberonpanopticon]

ah, Philadelphia experiment style

[@Jeb.07]

"So you're saying there's a chance" 👀

[@futurecuber24]

this made me laugh out loud, nice one bro

[@mathboy8188]

I came to read the comments looking for this. I knew there'd be someone who couldn't resist.

[@user-xp8vf7tb9b]

Fuck. I said the same thing. Now I have to delete my comment

[@Cast-Carnival]

do it, @@user-xp8vf7tb9b.

[@MaoZedowner]

I LOVE GAMBLING!!!!!

[@toothlessblue]

Still, the idea that the chance of it happening is > 0%, is an incredible thought.

[@w1llyboi248]

True

[@user-ck3bi7pv7u]

Possible, but with odds like this it's not 🙃

[@Pickled_Poet]

Anything in life is possible. Reach for the stars, then quickly pull your hand back because the stars are hot

[@sploofmcsterra4786]

I almost guarantee that 99% of the things you think are impossible are as likely as this. By any meaningful definition, it's impossible.

[@EdKolis]

​@@Pickled_Poet But if you touch a star you'll be invincible! Then you can kill turtles just by touching them. Why would you want to do that, though?

[@severeon]

Technical impossibility vs practical impossibility demonstration. Love it

[@ckq]

It's technically impossible too. Too many factors he's not accounting for

[@gigamad1729]

Nothing and really nothing in the universe is impossible, the chances of them happening are so close to zero that we deem them impossible. For example, the chance of you teleporting from your house to a random part of the universe may seem sci fi, but in reality, there is an incredibly small chance that a wormhole opens up in your location even if that takes longer than the heat death of the universe, because something that experiences time forever, will experience pretty much everything. To put it in simple words you or a remaining part of you, is bound to teleport eventually. Just like quantum tunneling. It’s bound to happen simply because there’s infinite time for it to happen.

[@godlyvex5543]

​@@gigamad1729The thing about the wormhole is suspect. It's more plausible to suggest that the atoms would just so happen to collide in the perfect arrangement to construct your body, mind and memories and all.

[@someonestupid6385]

anything that can happen will happen if wormholes are actually possible then what he said is going to happen because time is infinite it never runs out @@godlyvex5543

[@sebastiangudino9377]

​@@gigamad1729There literally it isn't infinite time. Remember, heat death of the universe and all You maybe need to watch the short again, i am not gonna type a whole comment explain again what the video already explained better than i ever could

[@TheRepublicOfUngeria]

Not only is it not going to happen: but when it starts getting close to happening, your whole hand isn't going to quantum tunnel through the table intact, but spontaneously dissolve, and you will have no hand left, because it is far more likely that if and when freak events of multiple atoms quantum tunnelling that much in the same locality, they will do so in a way that doesn't maintain the larger, complex chemical order of the larger, local object itself, but instead all separate from each other in a chaotic mess.

[@pixelmace1423]

What if that’s what happened to D.B. Cooper

[@lucidnode]

​@@pixelmace1423 What if Siddhartha Gautama had such pure concentration he was able to consistently walk through walls unscathed and was able to perfectly relay how to develop this ability to others?

[@Zargabaath]

@@lucidnode what if dude, what if.

[@lucidnode]

​@@Zargabaath Always great to meet another flat mooner

[@lucidnode]

​@@Zargabaathwait-

[@sagearias969]

Am I the only one that's super curious on how he researches for these videos?? Keep on educating us!

[@homomorphichomosexual]

banged his hand against the desk a good few times i think

[@JmKrokY]

Same

[@justanidiom5232]

maybe... he went... to school?

[@Fr00stee]

learning math equations

[@Sir_Isaac_Newton_]

​@@justanidiom5232maybe he didn't skip high school

[@MrXerios]

It is worth noting that the odds are probably way smaller even, because the atoms in your hand are bonded to each other.

[@bobbirdsong6825]

Also have to account for radiation, probably throws things off even more

[@user-en5vj6vr2u]

No. . . Including that would INCREASE the odds since you can think of the hand as something that isn’t N independent bodies, but it’s not 1 cohesive body either, so it’s somewhere in between. But even then, the odds of a single atom teleporting through the table is pretty low too

[@meyes1098]

@@user-en5vj6vr2u it will be less, because think about it as a lattice, it will decohere itself the bigger it is.

[@GodplayGamerZulul]

@@user-en5vj6vr2u If they're independent they lose the ability to do it all together, so no, the odds do decrease... to 0.

[@gee3591]

For some reason I remember as a kid that if something was going fast enough it would go through another object. It’s like a Mandela affect and I remember learning how to make coins go through a table.

[@parthkothari1756]

I think the odds of that happening are 50%. You either pass your hand through the table, or you don't.

[@imincent1767]

Yh idk why he is overcomplicating it

[@OO-bh8jg]

Nice bait

[@mtdfs5147]

This is how alien believers think. Like sure there is definitely aliens out there, but they aren't here. LOL.

[@AD-wg8ik]

@@mtdfs5147you’re awfully confident about something you couldn’t possibly know.

[@quartzsz7171]

As if we are the only ones in the universe

[@kylebroussard5952]

*Explain this to all the socks that quantum tunnel out of my drawer to the other side of the universe*

[@lashlarue7924]

Gnomes, bro. Gnomes.

[@user-zs3st5qq6r]

Always the damn gnomes​@@lashlarue7924

[@Bossman50.]

I doubt anyone will ever truly understand the scale of just how unlikely that is.

[@mystify_raider9923]

Ey just gotta believe

[@GodplayGamerZulul]

People are bad with big numbers. People who aren't used to big numbers are TERRIBLE with big numbers and only like 5% of the population (if that) is interested.

[@elquesohombre9931]

It’s not really possible for any living thing to do that, not with numbers so out of the way small anyway.

[@freddytheshadowninja]

Let's just say "practically 0%". It's not 0% but it's about as close to 0% as one could possibly get, aside from the calculations concerning infinitely small numbers. I now truly understand just how unlikely that is.

[@MysticMicrowave]

It's impossible for us to fathom Googl, or values way less crazy than even that.

[@andysabur4966]

I love the number of multiverse times universes times galaxies thing. Such an apt way of describing how improbable something is. Kinda reminds me of another vid that showed how insane that minecraft speedruning thing was

[@andysabur4966]

Also love how youre into languages and physics. So down for whatever type of content you wanna do, the passion is nice to watch

[@ZqTi0]

Could you expand about that Minecraft thing? Which video are you talking about

[@andysabur4966]

​@@ZqTi0 ok so I kinda looked it up to refresh my memory. The channel name is Stand-up Maths, video titled "how lucky is too lucky" at 29mins if you wanna watch it. Context: Several years ago, person named Dream speedrun Minecraft. People accused him of cheating. Their proof was math, showing how insanely lucky he would have to be for the run to go his way. Internet drama as usual etc. The vid I remembered was some outsider(not even a gamer) making a math video to explain it

[@ecksdee9768]

@@andysabur4966yoo i also watched that!

[@sleha4106]

Yeah I remember(actually not) that dream internet drama

[@urinstein1864]

It's amazing how much can be explained with just some knowledge in linguistics.

[@humanteneleven]

i used so much linguistics in this video

[@quito0567]

@@humanteneleven fr fr

[@sebaschan-uwu]

​@@humanteneleventhe power of linguistics knows no bounds

[@simont390]

The language of numbers

[@Souler5z]

Physicists treat math as a language, so, yeah

[@ItsGamein]

Sounds like an awesome ability to give a character who can manipulate luck

[@ananas_6029]

Exactly what I was planning to do lol

[@xislomega242]

If a character can bend luck to allow themselves to pass through objects, they'd need one hell of a downside to such power to keep them from becoming uninteresting and essentially godlike.

[@grav8455]

Always bet on hakari

[@_quixote]

@@grav8455I don’t think his luck goes that far

[@Mark-Wilson]

Well they'd be able to do anything

[@dapperdinosaurus]

Could you imagine if the chances were higher? Like you’re just walking around your house thinking about what to have for lunch and then you just quantum tunnel through the freaking floor

[@JmKrokY]

Oh no 💀

[@nuh_uh210]

noclipped 😂

[@enguerranvandenbossche2447]

Well you would probably also quantum tunnel through the floor, being stuck inside of it forever so I prefer my world with its physics tbh

[@FarranLee]

I guess that by natural selection this universe proceeded because everything in it didn't keep dying from random quantum tunnelling events

[@suspiciouslyBee]

going to the backrooms

[@ElitheSnowFox]

Man you’re so smart it’s crazy you know so much about languages and now this I’m crying

[@nalat1suket4nk0]

He is literally a physics student at university lmao Language is like a side thing

[@therealgaben5527]

@@nalat1suket4nk0he’s the Asian your parents compare you to, but if they weren’t Asian

[@OptimusPhillip]

When you need to use orders of magnitude to express how many orders of magnitude you have... just walk away.

[@Glad_Bros_Entertainment]

“But how likely” VSause music intensifies

[@nemo-x]

Michael got to him before he could finish the sentence 😔

[@uzairname]

Never would I have expected to see a video called a "long short"

[@quokka_yt]

Linguistics and physics, two of my favorites!

[@user-pq8zb8we1b]

This was amazing, love watching your videos! Keep up the interesting videos!

[@humanteneleven]

thanks man!

[@DereC519]

Your video will make a fine addition to my "KZbin algorithm strikes again" collection

[@weightinglist]

Absolutely loved the way you did this video, so informative at the same time as being fun!

[@bazingaswine424]

yo this was actually really cool, you should do more stuff like this time to time

[@Heteroslayer666]

Hey,Vsauce,come take your son back before he’ll completely turn into you!

[@ali_new_world]

these 2 minutes were the highlights of my day dude, big love to you 💜

[@PolyhedralMedia]

This is such a great explanation, I love it!

[@gui18bif]

The thing about statistics is that, even if the odds are 1/10^(shitload), you could slap your hand on the table 5 times and it could happen in one of those 5 times.

[@johndrewno2219]

Stanley Clark proud!!! and don't listen to the people saying stick to linguistics, physics and linguistics are both immensely interesting, I can't believe you're into both! Your channel is incredible keep up the good work!

[@humanteneleven]

Thanks a bunch!

[@alcapuno]

I'm glad I'm not the first to think about these kind if things

[@leonidkornienko7077]

This was amazing! Thanks for your great content, I like it a lot!

[@JosszzoL]

So you’re saying there’s a chance

[@Aabil11]

Come for the linguistics, stay for the, whatever this is

[@lietpi]

"The worst she can say is no" She:

[@SandhyaSharma-wr1vv]

that ending perspective was rly good man...keep up the good work

[@landerbogers2031]

How did you get this number? The formula for transition probability through a finite potential barrier is T=exp(-2GL), If we say the effective size of a carbonlike atom (wood) is about 1nm = L. Average room-temp thermal energy of a “hand molecule” is about 0.01eV, If we say the potential barrier is about 1000ish eV at 0.001nm proximity then G = sqrt(2m(U-E)/hbar^2) = 10^14, such that the transmission probability is about on the order of 10^(10^5) or so (of one atom crossing). Still enormously small but nothing compared to your guess…

[@Simon-wx4qy]

ok now im genuinely curious what the chances are lol

[@q7b663]

It's the best kind of possible imo Theoretically possible!

[@Walleyedwosaik]

Never tell me the odds

[@letallettuce816]

Insane vid, really funny, really well put together, made my day better :)

[@MAKMath]

I want more of this!!!

[@Magic-3154]

Vsause music goes crazy

[@greensalad_1205]

Imagine if your hand DID pass through, but you forgot to press record 💀.

[@DeemIsTaken]

The odds are low.. but never zero...

[@advaitkamath8442]

Thats the thr entirely true probability. Since your hand molecules could pass through the tables molecules, the chance of that separate from the quantum tunneling result would be 1/(5.2^61), which the quantum tunneling result could be comparatively neglected

[@francegamer]

Don't let this nerd distract you from the fact all it takes is believing in the heart of the cards.

[@user-si7nd3tr1v]

Thank Math Master, I didn't know I needed this.

[@KynneloVyskenon]

i like how this puts things into a better perspective. sometimes it feels like quantum tunneling is something that is way more likely to happen than in reality

[@AirKIng74]

I like to imagine this has happened exactly once in human history to some poor dude in Ancient Rome or something whose friends never believed him and whose life was forever changed by that time his hand just phased through a table for seemingly no reason

[@yungkmartnffc]

My Earth Science teacher in 7th grade would always tell us that if we could run through a wall, we would get 100s on our quizzes. Safe to say it didnt happen

[@NuLuumo]

That one kid in the back of the class: *literally becomes Danny Phantom*

[@joeligma4721]

@@NuLuumo im goin ghost

[@cookiemonster9804]

The new micheal! Great job bro. Loved this video

[@Mohammad72784]

Thank you bro now I learned something new today

[@khdur]

Infinity. In spite of those incredibly huge numbers we can still add one. Let's just take a moment and appreciate that. Reality is so cool.

[@electrobean]

So the chance of me falling through the ground randomly like a physics bug is low but never zero?

[@AxiomVA]

Yes.

[@rhyemir]

this is my new excuse for why the tennis ball went through my racket

[@VeryRGOTI]

Great information, i should save this video for later

[@KenikoB]

The thing is, it's not that you have to do it X number of times for it to work, it's that you have an X chance of it working every single time you do it. So you could do it in 5 tries, or you could do it 10 times the probability number and still not do it.

[@David_Apollonius]

Or you could get it right on the first try.

[@benbrook469]

yeah but there is a number of times you can do it after which it's expected to have happened

[@KenikoB]

@@benbrook469 if you roll a die over and over until you get a 6, it feels like eventually it should roll a 6, but probability states that each roll has to be considered separately. You always have a 1 in 6 chance of rolling a 6 regardless of what the other numbers before were.

[@benbrook469]

@@KenikoB well, firstly, the die will eventually land a 6 with 100% chance. And intuitively rolling the die twice yields higher odds of landing a 6 than rolling it once But I don't think what you replied has relevance to what I replied. Im saying there is an expected number of times you have to hit the desk for your hand to go straight through. In the case of a 6-sided die, the expected number of rolls it takes to get 6 is 6 Otherwise I agree with you

[@AutokickOff]

@@benbrook469​​⁠​⁠ The probability that you will eventually roll a 6 over the course of infinite rolls approaches 100%, but never actually reaches it. It is theoretically possible that you could just get unlucky and never get that 6. The expected values are never guaranteed, only expected.

[@austinsontv]

Well not with THAT attitude! Someone didn't have Miss Frizzle as their teacher, and it shows! 😂

[@cc_snipergirl]

Reminds me of a story I saw on Reddit a while ago where a mom was living in her childhood home. They went to renovate their bathroom and found a hairbrush under the floor. The mom went pale white, and explained that she had dropped her hairbrush as a child and it just vanished before her eyes. She eventually dismissed it as her imagination until the renovation. Of course, it's Reddit and there could also be other explanations, but it just makes you think.

[@SunnySJamil]

I didn't hear "Hey, Vsauce. Michael here." before the music started.

[@Sr_Drip]

So if It's just odds, however unlikely it is, it COULD happen at any time?

[@mz8258]

The possibility is not zero. But if you listen to the video, it is in human terms of truth equal to say: "It is never going to happen."

[@insertcreativenamehere492]

@@mz8258 But… it COULD

[@Fr00stee]

it could happen, but the odds are so incredibly low it is essentially 0

[@diemonder]

to put it in perspective, it’s even lower odds than you ever getting laid

[@mz8258]

@@diemonder that burn was hotter than the sun

[@Aoderic]

10^100 is just an estimate of the average chance. You could still get lucky and do it in the first try 😁

[@brightblackhole2442]

the chance is just a little bit smaller than 10^-100. it's only about 10^31 orders of magnitude off

[@Aoderic]

@@brightblackhole2442 Sure, that's why I said "estimate", and his estimate btw. not mine.

[@professionalfurret7225]

I actually did it first try but I forgot to record it

[@Aoderic]

@professionalfurret7225 Oh, that was unfortunate, I hope you remember to record next time 😉

[@OptimusSkiver]

Thank you for breaking this down to plain English so we can understand it.

[@AWSMcube]

I once explained in a YT comment about how it was technically possible to teleport to the moon via quantum tunneling. Someone responded saying maybe that's the explanation for missing persons, and although I knew it was totally, absurdly unrealistic to expect an entire human to quantum tunnel to the moon, I had no way of explaining in words or numbers how unlikely that was. Thank you for this, now I have a reference for how unlikely it is for even a hand to pass through a table, let alone a body to the moon.

[@driesvanheeswijk1633]

I study maths and this is my calculation: It can either happen or not happen so it's 50/50. In other words, slap the table twice and on the second time you will always go through. That's just the facts man, I'm sorry

[@aryanjain6948]

As a nobody, i 100% agree with your thinking. Even i dont understand the need of bringing equations. It is simple math 50/50

[@Poland4life]

there's a 50% chance every child is actually a horse, so 1 in 2 children are horses

[@popcat2309]

So you're saying it's not exactly zero and there's a chance?

[@Fu__yguy]

I feel like we all slammed our hands on our desk after watching this just in case

[@kristyandesouza5980]

Love the Vsauce tribute with moon men playing in the background right after the question

[@excancerpoik]

imagine if he gets lucky and no one belives him

[@jakobtonkunaschristensen5703]

Great video, but one major counter point: If it's possible at all, it could happen at the first slap. To my knowledge of stats, just because something is incredible unlikely, it can still happen, even twice in a row etc., because it's a likelyhood, not a prediction.

[@GrimblyGoo]

Never tell me the odds *bashes hand into bloody pulp**

[@coleisgod9872]

This won’t stop me

[@schmidty4992]

The real probability would actually be a lot lower than this because 1) he didn’t normalize his Gaussian 2) he didn’t account for the near infinite potential wall that the table would create

[@blissewent]

wheres the math conlang

[@humanteneleven]

what would that even look like

[@RubyPiec]

@@humanteneleven leetspeak

[@quokka_yt]

He is not etymology nerd 💀

[@blissewent]

i mean that was just for the jokes @@quokka_yt

[@alex0895]

... so you're telling me there's a chance

[@veroxid]

This just makes me imagine a situation where a singular small part of your hand quantum tunnels part way through the table.

[@quantum9964]

The eyebrow move was on point

[@Diddybot22]

This man does language and physics? I think I’m in love.

[@cavejohnson982]

Thx, iv eactually asked myself this since at least 10 years

[@fusion8945]

my admiration for you has risen....

[@jasimmathsandphysics]

Wow can’t wait to learn about this 🤯

[@ihbarddx]

Haven't worried about this since college - nor have I had to.

[@figlego]

Imagine being able to rig the universe's RNG to get this to happen whenever you want.

[@nise6699]

It'd be a pretty interesting horror to make those impossible things start happening

[@thepaywall7900]

God that was the shortest long I've never seen before

[@massivecowbreakout7555]

"So you're telling me there's a chance?"

[@jeffhernandez4099]

and they said the worst she could say is no...

[@leol216]

Very very very good stuff! Keep it up

[@cypher2498]

And theres a much higher chance that a small amount of atoms from your hand go through the table, and now your hand is merged partly with the table.

[@PhooGiSucky]

And yet, if many worlds is true, then there's a universe where people tunnel through everything they want to.

[@crab_with_no_legs]

This is the ultimate " _this is a story of a man named Stanley_ " moment😅

[@drakands8452]

"ignore: - sanity" fair enough

[@Runabou]

Michael, we need you to duo with this dude.

[@literallylegendary6594]

the odds of cosmic rays corrupting a video file on a computer in just the right way to make it look like someone quantum tunneled their hand through their desk are

[@Point5_]

imagine quantum tunneling your hand but only midway through and now it's forever stuck in a table

[@baibhabchakraborty8760]

Love it how you suddenly became proper michael stevens

[@FebruaryHas30Days]

Fun fact: You can win the lottery a googol times, get struck by lightning a googol times and spawn right next to diamonds in Minecraft a googol times but you cannot quantum tunnel *even once.*

[@TheLetterB123]

and yet that number of hand slaps is no closer to infinity than one is

[@MichaelDavins-id7vx]

So this is how people fall into the Backrooms

[@blacktimhoward4322]

You know it's about to get serious when someone rolls up the chalkboard to reveal a second chalkboard