Stanislav Petrov's case is still mind-blowing. Billions of people were saved because of the decision of a single man. If it had not happened, I would not have been born

@ahooogerhuis

7 ай бұрын

...and we Norwegians are seen as a peaceful folk, except when we almost got us all nuked. :p

@Michael-vf2mw

7 ай бұрын

"After this incident, Petrov took an early retirement, and later suffered a nervous breakdown." No f-ing kidding. I can't fathom what it must have been like to have made that kind of call.

@mikejackson2228

7 ай бұрын

This is a good acknowledgement that humans are dumb shits.

@kamilstenzel3929

7 ай бұрын

I like to think that the faulty system explanation was just a later excuse for his superiors and in the moment he thought "Screw it, let's have at least half the planet survive this"

@aurelia8028

7 ай бұрын

oh shut up

The one man who died in the Rural Arkansas fuel leak issue actually saved many people. He went into an air duct vent, back into the fuel vapour-laden areas to use the computers and shut down as much as he could of the rocket to minimize damage. There was a documentary on it. Can't remember for the life of me the name of it now but worth reading/watching about.

@holycrapchris

7 ай бұрын

The man was David Lee Livingston. The documentary might have been _Command and Control_

@jonslg240

7 ай бұрын

^ The heroes we need 😉 Hope I remember to watch that next time I have a chance

@pashaveres4629

7 ай бұрын

​@@holycrapchrisThat is a name, like the two Russians, that we should all know and celebrate.

@ClipsCrazy__

7 ай бұрын

@holycrapchris @johnslg240 @pashavres4629 @mrcheddahcheese Yea but the guy who dropped the tool should be remembered even more as the biggest idiot ever, who caused that hero’s death, only behind the safety manager of the location who didn’t think of tying safety harnesses to all tools used inside of the silos.

@_.dace._

7 ай бұрын

considering non western safety standards are so much worse, and we see how badly the US screwed up, I call simulation shenanigans.@@ClipsCrazy__

Hats off to Vasily Arkhipov and Stanislav Petrov for keeping Fallout just a game and not reality

@User-jr7vf

6 ай бұрын

On the other hand, if those were real missiles heading towards Russia, then they would have lost the chance of retaliating and destroying the US before their own destruction happens.

@demonfreeman3018

6 ай бұрын

@@User-jr7vf 5 missiles are not gonna take out Russia’s ability to retaliate.

@User-jr7vf

6 ай бұрын

@@demonfreeman3018 I think they could,if they were nuclear missiles

@hitub3

6 ай бұрын

@@User-jr7vfof course they wouldn’t be enough, have you any idea of the size of Russia? And even it they would land it flat, they would have enough time to fire back from one of the many nuclear subs that can be anywhere, maybe as close from US cost that they could be seen from the beach. There’s no nothing such a winner in a nuclear war.

@70mavgr

6 ай бұрын

@@User-jr7vf it takes less than a minute for the ICBM's to launch. The Russian missiles would be on their way to America anyway.

I had heard of Stanislav Petrov's heroism many times, but this is the first time I heard the tiny little follow-up detail that after dismissing the initial one-off missile alert, his systems told him there were FOUR MORE MISSILES INBOUND and he dismissed those too. Absolutely unreal.

@User-jr7vf

6 ай бұрын

He could have easily being responsible for the complete destruction of his homeland, if those were real missiles heading towards Russia.

@yosefm170

Ай бұрын

This must be the hardest decision a human ever had to make, just wow

I'm from the small town of Fryazino, a place where Stanislav Petrov lived after the incident. It was great to see you mentioning him! I want to add to what you mentioned, that he had never received any reward for his actions in USSR or Russia, even though he was highly praised in Europe and USA. Quite the opposite, he was moved to another less important position and later had to leave the army, had a mental crisis, and lived a difficult life, being a person who may have singlehandedly saved the world.

@fffUUUUUU

7 ай бұрын

And he died in poverty, google for the pictures.

@dashvash5440

7 ай бұрын

That's really sad. Military leaders who operate with millions of lives in their hands should be able to make rational decisions like Petrov and Vasily. There's always something to be said for following operating procedures but, as we've seen, those can be incredibly otherworldly dangerous when dealing in nukes. Poor guy should have gotten promoted to a higher position of authority or as a diplomat. No clue who he was as a person but if he was anything but terrible he did an amazing thing and deserved better.

@darthnosam3313

7 ай бұрын

Likely because his valor arose through disobedience of a direct order. The soviets couldn’t stand embarrassment

@farmergiles1065

7 ай бұрын

May he rest in peace. His reward is in heaven, for God knows his service. May his memory be eternal! Isn't it interesting that in all these stories, from east and west, it is the subordinates, the lower-ranking, who notice the crucial things, and who stand up for rational behavior. If the decisions had been left to politicians and other powerful people, the penalties would have exceeded that of all other wars ever fought.

@noiJadisCailleach

7 ай бұрын

Face it. He will only be canonized as a hero when countries are treated like cities today. When there is a world government. Probably in 800 years. Give or take.

The nuclear bomb animations are ridiculously good. Props to the animators!

@SKETCHERBOY

7 ай бұрын

this stuffs better than nickelodeon ngl

@gonplays5478

7 ай бұрын

​@@DontReadMyProfilePicture.104ok

@Litkeen

7 ай бұрын

My tears are saltier than Veritasium's tears.

@Amadioh

7 ай бұрын

YASS

@Litkeen

7 ай бұрын

95% of people in this world are idiots @@2bb-2

Mankind owes a debt to Vasili Arkhipov and Stanislav Petrov that can't even be put into words. May you both rest in peace, and THANK YOU.

Who would imagine that a fallen socket from a ratchet wrench could potentially cause a 9 megaton explosion.

@cia6543

7 ай бұрын

Who would imagine that a fuel tank is built so weak that it gets punctured by a socket?

@silverbackhayabusa

7 ай бұрын

I'd recommend searching KZread for the words "Always Never Sandia". It's a 3-part series by Sandia National Labs on nuke weapon safety. The weapons are extremely safe when it comes to possible accidental detonation.

@sorlag110

7 ай бұрын

Who would imagine a 9 megaton explosion

@athaya2992

7 ай бұрын

idt that explosion was 9 mt, bc the nuclear core (?) didnt explode i think

@mrleenudler

7 ай бұрын

@@athaya2992 It didn't, hence "potential" 🙂

Damn. So basically we all owe our lives to Vasily Arkhipov. I imagine staying strong to your convictions under pressure like that was insanely difficult - especially when your boss is screaming in your face.

@ctrl-del630

7 ай бұрын

We are most likely lucky he was Russian. If it were an American... Oh dear.

@The_TruthisHere

7 ай бұрын

​@@ctrl-del630What are you saying? 😂 We all are just as human as our neighbors. Also just wanted to say that everything lies in God's hands so we thank all our existence him.

@leo_the_beaver9966

7 ай бұрын

I’m American and this gave me a good chuckle! Your probably right tho! X|

@jumpander

7 ай бұрын

No, all our lives were almost ended by Vasily Arkhipov.

@badouplus1304

7 ай бұрын

​@@jumpander You are kind of right, but as he did not have a "cowboy" mentality, in other words, a "shoot-first-then-ask-questions" mentality, he prevented a catastrophe.

I'm so grateful for those Stanislav Petro and Vasily Arkhipov. They are heroes. Even if the stories are inaccurate, the incredible pressure on any individual driving something holding nuclear weapons--come to think of it... the fate of the world was granted to so many people--and the fact that nobody pushed the big red button is incredible, especially in the cold-war when there was so much uncertainty.

@Dan1elAndrade

7 ай бұрын

Why are the stories inaccurate?

@p3t3mit

7 ай бұрын

@@Dan1elAndrade I have no idea if they were inaccurate. I know that any story involving a hero is sometimes stretched--so I try not to rest my hat on any account. I'm just saying that even the hint of truth is amazing. Objectively we know that that the world wasn't thrown into WWIII, so we know that there were individuals who were facing incredible pressures like Stanislav and Vasily and managed to keep the world alive.

@inaminayo5327

7 ай бұрын

@@p3t3mit It seems like you're waiting to hear the catch, so here it is (as I understand it): Unfortunately, these "heroic" men were not seen as such by the country they worked for. They were both court marshalled and tried for treason, and even after being cleared they still lost all of their security clearance.

@drizdoh

7 ай бұрын

They are as bigger war hero than any.

@iam6424

7 ай бұрын

​@@inaminayo5327 if true , some filmmaker should definitely go for their biopics .😎🙏🏼

I am from southeastern Spain, as a matter of fact, my town is less than 50km away from Palomares. It is always said around here that the hydrogen bomb was found by a local fisherman who lived in my town, he was named Francisco or Paco for short, and would forever be nicknamed "Paco el de la bomba". If those bombs were detonated a huge area would be uninhabitable, but instead now there is a summer electronic music festival in a nearby town called Dreambeach Villaricos, where some of the biggest names in the scene have come to perform. I wonder if they knew about the history and the possible radioactive material that was just 10km away.

@User-jr7vf

6 ай бұрын

In my opinion the US should give you Spaniards compensation for as long as the radioactive threat remains in your territory.

@alexber8838

3 ай бұрын

The US should clean the place, as they said they would and never did. But being in colaboration with the Fascist dictator of the country, I could expect no less. I mean, which country has not suffered the US?

STAY OFF MY LAWN DEREK

@JchenTheChen

7 ай бұрын

It's nuclear season baby

@DonVigaDeFierro

2 ай бұрын

WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE!

@JashanDeepsingh3

9 күн бұрын

Haha, love your vids and radioactivity.

The Cuban Missile Crisis came even closer than the video suggests. The only reason the Soviet submarine required three people's approval was because Arkhipov was the chief of staff of the brigade and he just happened to be on the right submarine.

@ironcito1101

6 ай бұрын

Just imagine if Arkhipov had the flu a week earlier or whatever, the world could've been destroyed. I'm always amazed by those "butterfly effect", "step on a prehistoric bug" moments. Change a tiny detail in the past and you get a totally different outcome.

@User-jr7vf

6 ай бұрын

Given the number of nuclear weapons in the world at that time, chances of the world being completely destroyed were pretty high.

@cz320

6 ай бұрын

@@ironcito1101I’m sure that alternative timeline exists and there’s no KZread nor this comment to discuss why it has happened.

@evanmarschand9930

6 ай бұрын

We came SO CLOSE to Nuclear Armageddon.

My favorite near miss is the one where someone mistook a bear scaling a fence for a person in Wisconsin, raised the alarm, the alarm turned out to be miswired and went directly to telling the airbase to scramble and launch, then one guy floored it to stop the jets from taking off because of a phone call, as once the jets took off they were to go radio silent.

@Martineski

7 ай бұрын

Sheeeesh, that's a crazy chain of events.

@Imthefake

7 ай бұрын

can't they still receive messages once they go radio silent?

@adriendebosse6941

7 ай бұрын

I looked a couple weeks ago at all the near misses in the french wikipedia. There's a similar event in the french nuclear forces in the 60ies, where a false alarm triggered a mirage F4 (nuclear supersonic bomber) to strike the USSR. When he got radioed to come back, nothing happened, as the procedure was to shut off radio. The pilot came back for one specific reason, the refueler plane was absent at the refueling point, which promped him to come back.

@MGZetta

7 ай бұрын

Is there a reason jets go radio silent? Or it's just something to spice up your story?

@MGZetta

7 ай бұрын

@@adriendebosse6941 What is the reason for radio silence? That seems way too reckless to me. All you got is 5 minutes of take off time and if you can't call it off within that time world is ending. Lol.

Derek, you are making a change. With every video, in a different domain, contributing to making the world a better place in your own special way. I extend my most sincere congratulations!

My great-grandfather was the first man put in charge of the US nuclear arms. I haven’t watched the entire video yet if you might mention it, but late in his career a live nuclear weapon was lost near Japan, and he was sent undercover to locate the bomb and determine whether or not it had been found by the Japanese or not. It was eventually found 80 miles offshore in deep mud and was not recovered. (To my knowledge)

@HerbertTowers

7 ай бұрын

GREAT GRANDFATHER? How quickly does your family reproduce?

@Bartekwis

7 ай бұрын

So in theory somewhere near Japan there is buried live nuclear bomb? *Horrifying*

@yuvrajmishra1873

7 ай бұрын

casually dropping classified information.

@ernestkhalimov9368

7 ай бұрын

​@@yuvrajmishra1873it's all declassified now. you can check US national archive online or offline if you go there. people call it the golden treasury for thrill seekers in books.

@user-yq6cm5ku4n

6 ай бұрын

Now we're waiting for the CIA to break into our home.

More than 1 "broken arrow" per year between 1950 and 1980? That's just incredibly insane!

@KougaJ7

7 ай бұрын

Besides, what if a terrorist group gets their hands on one of these missing nuclear bombs?

@kristoffer3000

7 ай бұрын

@@KougaJ7 wdym, the US has nukes and is the biggest exporter of terrorism globally by a gigantic margin

@AlexH4774

7 ай бұрын

I assume most of them lie deep in the Pacific

@Dr.Fluffles

7 ай бұрын

Many of the bombs have only a couple of decades of potential use before they degrade beyond risk from their own radiation. Iirc we are passed the point for the missing ones, but I'd have too look into it again.@@KougaJ7

@alwaysdisputin9930

7 ай бұрын

Homer Simpson had a sign "Days since the last nuclear accident .... 3 days"

You know your life is going good when Veritasium uploads four videos in the span of less than 2 months

@gepvpr

7 ай бұрын

Same

@ukleth

7 ай бұрын

2 of them talk about Nuke

@gabyfeza

7 ай бұрын

You know it's good when your body has not been vaporized by a nuclear explosion 😅

@AndrewBrowner

7 ай бұрын

this is a pretty sad comment.. how it got so many upvotes is beyond me.. its good content but go outside my guy.

@gepvpr

7 ай бұрын

@@AndrewBrowner you talking like you know what this guy does in his day to day 😂 what the

Probably the best educational content on YT. Have been for years now. Still getting better.

Love your channel and this video! Just a quick feedback - The border referenced a few times (1:42, 10:54), is not that the border of Soviet Union. Back then that was Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia was neither part of Soviet Union nor Warsaw pact. Warsaw pact borders were relatively close, but Soviet Union border was not that close as mentioned in the video.

@mr0big

7 ай бұрын

this mistake pissed me up as well :)

@tinyawka

6 ай бұрын

For an American person, everything beyond NATO countries was Soviet Union

@BenDRobinson

4 ай бұрын

Yeah I noticed the discrepancy between the narration and what was being shown on the map - well short of Soviet territory.

@YourD3estinY

4 ай бұрын

@@tinyawka You just called every American ignorant. 😁

@jeffspaulding9834

3 ай бұрын

@@YourD3estinY In a way, he/she is right. It's not like we were taught much about things on the other side of the iron curtain in school. This was quite intentional - it's one thing to fight against an enemy, but communism is an idea and it's hard to fight ideas once they catch hold. Today the idea of people rising up and throwing off our capitalist overlords seems unrealistic at best, but it was a genuine concern back in the day. So most of us who grew up in that era basically learned about western Europe but everything east of West Germany was basically "the Soviet Union." I mean, sure there were different countries there, but it was the USSR calling the shots so it didn't really matter. It's come to bite us in the ass in the end though. The word "socialism" has such a bad connotation here that we can't even get decent health care.

The story of how the missing bomb off of Spain was found is incredibly cool. The naval scientist John P Craven worked on finding both that bomb and the USS Thresher using Bayesian search theory, one of the techniques used while searching for the remains of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. edit: I got Berenstain Beared, and for some reason thought that MH370 was found. It was not.

@H3X4G0N

7 ай бұрын

Dang, I gotta read more of that stuff, cool!

@LibertyDankmeme

7 ай бұрын

they never found flight 370 tho ...

@clorox1676

7 ай бұрын

Another cool fact is that at that time Spain was researching to develop its own nuclear weapons (with the support of France) but the project was stuck, when the leading scientist had access to the H bomb in Palomares he gather enough information about the detonation mechanism to continue to develop the project. The US pressured the Spanish goverment to give up and gave them blueprints for a high powered conventional bomb in exchange of abandoning the project.

@H3X4G0N

7 ай бұрын

@@thehen101 yo geez, chill my guy

@michaelhowell2326

7 ай бұрын

When did they find 370?

Now we need a Veritasium episode on the best methods for reducing anxiety.😨

@NocturnalCoder

7 ай бұрын

did you mean to say "introducing anxiety"?

@joshuacornelius25

7 ай бұрын

@@NocturnalCoder lol.... That's what this episode's alternate title should be

@widodoakrom3938

7 ай бұрын

Agreed

@JG-mp5nb

7 ай бұрын

Shaving can reduce anxiety.

@jdogsful

7 ай бұрын

you just need to realize that you have been manipulated by fear, nuke videos are propaganda and just regular explosives, nukes dont exist and the only reason nuclear war has not occurred is simply because they dont exist. russia, north korea, iran are not a threat to the US military. now you can sleep easy like the rest of us that know the truth.

My god! Heard a lot about your channel. You did so much of detailed research and such superb animations. Hats off to you. Your channel is mind-blowing.

Ive learnt so much in the few weeks discovering this channel than i have in recent months..very telling. Good job

The Palomares incident is something my dad told me about when I was a kid. He must've been about six or so and every summer he went to a town about 30 kms away. According to him, the nuke was found thanks to a local fisherman and, apparently, the boats had to follow the fisherman, who couldn't give them any indications, since he sailed by feel, so what he did was he just sailed the way he had on the day he saw the bomb fall at the same speed. Followed by a couple American ships, according to legend, in a little fishing boat

Not only is it insane that we’ve lost these things, its nuts that we just had these bombs flying around fuggin’ EVERYWHERE.

@J_F_G

7 ай бұрын

Politicians, dude. Those damn politicians.

@Stierenkloot

7 ай бұрын

These things are still everywhere on hidden submarines

@paritoshgavali

7 ай бұрын

@@Stierenkloot if some accident happens in a sub it might be in ocean middle of nowhere.. but image 4 H-bombs flying on head, that can land anywhere ☠

@michalmaixner3318

7 ай бұрын

@@J_F_G AFAIK it was physicists and mathematicians who were working on these policies. von Newmann in particular is pretty famous for his role in this.

@luvshak3095

7 ай бұрын

Yeah. It's called MAD or "Mutually Assured Destruction." I know some people like to paint Communists as "for the people" egalitarians but trust me, as someone who lived during the last half of the Cold War, they are pure evil. I know. I know. It's the entitled younger generations who have lived as the US being the sole superpower who think America is evil but that's the viewpoint of the entitled and weak.

This is such a cool story. My grandfather was stationed in Spain and went out in the search party looking for it. Awesome video

This is the Video of the year! Thank you...seriously!

The scary part is these are the incidents that we know about. Edit: Glad you brought up Vasily Arkhipov - he literally saved the world. The PBS special "Secrets of the Dead" about him was especially good.

@eduardonegrao8364

7 ай бұрын

Arguably I would say he was the most important man in the XX century

@aleeph4919

7 ай бұрын

@@eduardonegrao8364 And the US and Russian governments are the least important in the XX century for creating the scenario? Vasily Arkhipov, isn't a hero. We have 2* parties who are the ones who are to blame for the constant near death of millions.

@Goreuncle

7 ай бұрын

​@@maskettaman1488 You're mistaking Arkhipov with Petrov. Arkhipov was a submarine flotilla commander, he definitely had the authority to launch that T5 torpedo they had onboard. What Derek and most people around here don't seem to realize is that a T5 torpedo was just a torpedo with a nuclear warhead, it wasn't made to attack cities and kill thousands... it was meant to sink large warships and other submarines, like any other torpedo... it was not a first strike weapon by any stretch of the imagination.

@Nah_I_Would_Plummet

7 ай бұрын

@@aleeph4919 Yes, he's a hero unless you deny history.

Seen a bunch of these near miss stories before. This should be part of every high schooler's education. Understanding nuclear weapons is a civic duty.

@warrenarnold

7 ай бұрын

Problem is We are letting mad people run this world

@commentfreely5443

7 ай бұрын

with democrats they will never be happy till they nuke themselves

@Gakulon

7 ай бұрын

@@nytro8027 ?

@Mystery-pd6jc

7 ай бұрын

@@nytro8027 it...went...well...?

@nickxenix

7 ай бұрын

​@@nytro8027 everyone would explode. 😂

15:05 That segue into the ad was brilliant 🤣🏆

This channel is a true gem in my subscriptions list!

Stanislav Petrov should have a statue with the full story in the capitol of every country that has a nuclear arsenal. Heck, in every capitol city, because there probably hasn't been a person in the history whose actions saved the world from ending.

@seandeshields6759

7 ай бұрын

Been sayin this for years

@seandeshields6759

7 ай бұрын

Vasili arkopov too

@ZlejChleba

7 ай бұрын

@@seandeshields6759 absolutely!

@jasper4849

7 ай бұрын

Petrov did an excellent job during the incident. But the Soviet Union would not have launched a retaliatory strike on warning from a satellite, even if it was believed to be true.

How SEAMLESSLY you finished talking about atomic bombs and how we could all die any moment and then GLEEFULLY started talking about shaving. A real rollercoaster of emotions, Derek.

@Ys_Guy

7 ай бұрын

close shave😉

@aleeph4919

7 ай бұрын

As Capitalistic as it get. Even the dooms day info video has a commercial. Buy before you die

@emreyurtseven23

7 ай бұрын

@@aleeph4919 these videos don't make themselves though...

@infinitemonkey917

7 ай бұрын

Would you prefer it if the sponsor offered doomsday / prepper supplies to his audience?

@alshahriar6230

7 ай бұрын

​@@aleeph4919alrighty than give me your money , I ain't giving you anything

Always a great channel thank you for existing

This is one of the most valuable video on KZread and Internet. This deserves to billion views.

It's always interesting when you look into the declining numbers of nuclear weapons in the world. The old tech is decommissioned because those 5 nukes can now be achieved with a single, smaller one. So while we do technically have less nuclear weapons, it's partly because the newer, more powerful weapons made the old ones obsolete.

@swfsql

7 ай бұрын

Yeah, their aggregated potential for doomsday probably still increased manifold.

@ismaeljuhoor6743

7 ай бұрын

My thought exactly

@micha-ix1iy

7 ай бұрын

Yes, i'm also curious. There real metric should be "nuclear firepower" (in kT TNT or sth). Not "count of missiles"

@Spencergolde

7 ай бұрын

Older weapons are also primarily decommissioned because the tritium in the fusion warhead has a relatively short half-life of 12.3 years. They intentionally add a huge excess of tritium during production, but after several decades, the amount decays to a low enough concentration to risk a misfire in the core, so the whole thing has to be taken apart.

@jesusramirezromo2037

7 ай бұрын

Not really, newer nukes have less fallout, and smaller precise blasts They are less powerful per say

Not only was Vasili Arkhipov a man who prevented nuclear Armageddon, he wasnt even part of the crew. Any other mission, he wouldn't have been there. Any other mission, it would have only needed 2 men to turn the key. But because he was an executive officer, the captain and political officer needed his approval as well. He was incredibly courageous in that single moment. A moment between life and annihilation. I doubt most people would be able to say no in that situation. Stanislav Petrov is another incredibly brave man.

@littlefrank90

7 ай бұрын

I mean the case was basically "we may be about to be hit by nuclear bombs, should we respond by firing nuclear bombs?" and the guy said "no". What if they were indeed about to be hit by nuclear bombs and the guy did say "no"? Don't know how to express this, but I feel like launching nuclear weapons, with or without the excuse of responding to an attack is always a loss for everyone involved, even for the attacker. I'm way oversimplifying this, but saying "no" to a nuclear bomb launch would seem pretty straight forward.

@thetangaledbug7670

7 ай бұрын

There's just simply no wrapping your head around that 😅

@Gakulon

7 ай бұрын

@@littlefrank90 I agree. Even when faced with a nuclear strike, I can see exactly zero reason why you would retaliate except to be a monster and kill as many innocent lives as possible before you die. No different than a serial murderer in that case

@TejusKusur

5 ай бұрын

@@Gakulon the entire reason for operation Chrome Dome was to retaliate almost immediately. So there was a lot of incentive even for Petrov to act just like how the Americans would in the exact same situation. It's not that he would be a monster if he had said yes, but the entire setup from both the US and USSR which had called for it

thank you for all your educational videos, Veritasium!

Great video. Hey sobering thought. Just watched Threads 1984 so this hit extra hard

Not to discount your premise - which I agree with. But you did gloss over a couple of points. Admirable points, if you ask me. The teams that developed these weapons not only did amazing work to make them go boom, but added redundancy after redundancy to make sure they didn't go off. The fact that dozen of mishaps have happened and on both sides, none went to full detonation should be a solid gold star for the engineers and scientists that tried their very best to rein in the madness that they were tasked with. And not to mention the people that stand between overwhelming death, and the full use of it, like Vasily Arkhipov. Countless analysts and technicians that are quite literally the salvation of a technology that just wants to do harm.

@Maxjoker98

7 ай бұрын

I'd like to mention that for example the "unsymmetrical explosion safety" isn't all that effective, and could still lead to a fizzle(nuclear reaction with less than expected yield) - still a nuclear explosion, just not *as* large as a "full" one. All explosives can only be made so safe - At some point, you *have* to have a small amount of energy trigger a large one. And most of the dangers discussed in the video originate from the people - Even a perfectly accident-safe bomb should explode when commanded, and we unfortunately can't engineer better humans to eliminate this failure mode.

@Bill_Woo

7 ай бұрын

Correct. And that Petrov "saved millions of lives" is simply incorrect. He did not have launch authority. The agency above him that he did not inform of a strike detection - did not have launch authority. THEIR superiors did not have launch authority. There were numerous levels above him that would be required. And protocol, one of which was believed to be *proof of detonation* before M.A.D. Obviously there never was proof nor implication of detonation. Petrov was great. He did what great men do. Which was simply be rational, with a new-ish relatively untested detection system. To say that he saved the world by not being irrational, AND due to the layer above him to not be irrational, AND due to the layer above that, AND due to the layer above that, is story telling, irresponsibly paraded as "history".

@fritzwalter1112

7 ай бұрын

Airplanes are also built to incredible safety standards with layers and layers of redundancy and checks. Yet there are still planes falling from the sky from time to time.

@SlipperyTeeth

7 ай бұрын

Maybe you know more than me, but the incidents mentioned in the video seem to have the laws of physics responsible for not going nuclear. It is (fortunately) very hard to create a nuclear explosion. The fact that they didn't go off doesn't seem like intentional design - just that it's hard enough to get them to go off in ideal circumstances. Still we may be unlucky.

@Maxjoker98

7 ай бұрын

@@SlipperyTeeth See also Operation Plumbbob, where the goal was to test safety(among a lot of other things). The Pascal-A test for example was an asymmetrical explosion with an expected yield

I was surprised you didn’t mention the close call during exercise Able Archer in 1983. I was a part of Able Archer and worked in the HQ of the 59th Ordnance Brigade. This exercise was suspected by Russia to be a cover for a nuclear attack by the US. There are a few videos about this, and even a German television series based on Able Archer, “Deutchland ‘83”.

@artyb27

7 ай бұрын

Perhaps the reason he didn't mention it was because it's already been adequately covered elsewhere. It wouldn't have been as interesting a video if it was just a listicle of the most famous close calls.

@jesusramirezromo2037

7 ай бұрын

Honestly, Deutschland 83 is really underated, Same with 86 and 89

@Stoney_Snark

7 ай бұрын

@@jesusramirezromo2037 , agree about ‘86, I still need to watch ‘89. I was there ‘82-‘84 and worked on the Pershing II deployment.

@Stoney_Snark

7 ай бұрын

@@artyb27 , the title of the video is “All The Times……….”

@turtle2720

7 ай бұрын

1983 was an interesting year. Soviets shot down a passenger jet, Stanislav Petrov's call to not launch, and then Able Archer.

Thank you for saying this. For the sake of our sanity we forget most of the time, but it is an horrific issue.

Thank you for your awesome work, love your vids!

There should be statues commemorating the Russian officers who kept their calm and thought critically in literally THE most stressful situation anyone can be in!! They are not just national heroes, they are global heroes! 👏👏

@bozhijak

7 ай бұрын

True. But their own governments threw them under the bus for not starting armageddon.

@cheesebusiness

7 ай бұрын

What you know is just the tip of the iceberg

@overtimeseed

7 ай бұрын

@@cheesebusinessEnlighten us

@cheesebusiness

7 ай бұрын

@@overtimeseed do I look like a person who knows the whole iceberg?

@overtimeseed

7 ай бұрын

@@cheesebusiness Certainly not much to look at I'll give you that much

This definitely blew my mind, I had no idea there had been so many accidents over the time of the cold war... This is so incredibly difficult to believe that people actually authorized all that.

@oXogon80

7 ай бұрын

Hopefully with the new cold war we can have many more such situations.

@theOG2109

7 ай бұрын

Americans... and they 'smart' ideas

@User-jr7vf

6 ай бұрын

@@oXogon80why would you want that?

@marcoperin2135

6 ай бұрын

Pun intended?

@flrn84791

6 ай бұрын

@@marcoperin2135 Definitely not, just realized 😂

Nicely done!

Thank you for making this video.

"Humanity invented the nuclear bomb. No mouse in the world would think of building a mousetrap." - Albert Einstein

@robertwilloughby8050

7 ай бұрын

"I have made nuclear weapons possible and an acoustic fridge. I am far more proud of the acoustic fridge." - Also Albert Einstein.

I love how the first story, describing bombs falling from a plane after taking off from North Carolina that had a fuel mishap, was a DIFFERENT near miss than the Goldsboro incident I was expecting!

@MattH-wg7ou

7 ай бұрын

Currently living in GBoro...what were you expecting? Genuinely curious.

@rockradstone

7 ай бұрын

@@MattH-wg7ou When NC was mentioned I thought it would be the GBoro story. Learned something! 😏 There are so many of these incidents. Madness.

@ntl5983

7 ай бұрын

​@@MattH-wg7ouThis... 5:27

@MattH-wg7ou

7 ай бұрын

@@ntl5983 oh yea, thats crazy that TWO B52 Broken Arrows have taken off from Goldsboro!

Brilliant idea for a video! Thanks a lot. 😊 After watching it, update! Brilliant video. I loved it. More please…

Veritasium is so well executed in every way. Most importantly to me is when it comes to clarity, context and accuracy of information. There's nothing left for the viewer to be unsure about or any ambiguity that's confusing. It's a dying art. Some would argue a dead art.

@robertgregory1770

7 ай бұрын

Generally agree. One small quibble: at 4:45 I'm sure there weren't 29 US Army ships involved in the search. Pretty sure they were US Navy 😅

I’m not sure if I should be shocked and surprised of the haphazard handling of nuclear weapons, or just expect it.

@Kitt_the_Katt

7 ай бұрын

If you're not sure which one to be, that kind of tells you what your answer should be

@JCWren

7 ай бұрын

I disagree with the word "haphazard". There are processes in place for all the contingencies that they've imagined. That's not to say they've imagined every conceivable event, however. It looks "haphazard" because we're on the outside and we can make those armchair assessments on topics we know little about. Given the cost of aircraft and the weapons themselves, no one just says "Ah, yeah, we just dunked a B-52 with a load of multi-megaton warheads. Oh well, screw it, we'll worry about it later". And honestly, I'm more concerned about whackos like Kim Jong Un and his cohorts than I am about the Russians starting world war 3. The Russians are smart enough to know the consequences of their actions. KJU is a wildcard and may well press the button out of spite. I'm pretty confident that every nuclear nation is more worried about his ilk than anything else.

@EnkiduShamesh

7 ай бұрын

@@JCWren KJU isn't a wacko, he's an authoritarian dictator. His actions are completely rational from his position. No nuclear armed nation has ever been invaded, which makes nukes desirable to any country fearful of regime change imposed from without. He's a monster, but he isn't crazy. All of the saber rattling they do is deliberate (and often motivated by food shortages with the aim of coercing international aid). It reminds me of the "madman" strategy during the cold war, where the US deliberately fostered the perception that the US was reckless and willing to blow up the world. Nukes aren't any good as a deterrent if no one believes that you will use them.

@weegaz22

7 ай бұрын

@@JCWren I think Kim likes his rich cushy life too much and will throw a whole load of bluster around with some sabre rattling thrown in as an attempt to look strong to his own people. But right now I bet he's looking at big strong Russia coming begging for ancient stocks of unserviced scrap lying in North Korean armouries since the 60's cos Big Vladdy the baddie is now into day 565 of his 3 day war ...and I bet he's thinking that hanging out with Denis Rodmans probably more fun than kicking s*** off and sitting in a bunker for a couple of years at the end of a huge long table talking to your own generals that are probably plotting your inevitably close death. But then we seem to be heading towards lots of nations having what can only be described as cartoonish dictators popping up similar to what was around with WW2....creating a perfect stoichiometric mix for a really big bang to kick off WW3

@kristoffer3000

7 ай бұрын

@@EnkiduShamesh You're quite right about a lot of things but KJU is far from a crazy dictator, that's just the ludicrous propaganda we're fed here in the West, he's not even the head of state in the DPRK lol Also the US nearly nuked Korea and Vietnam so they are actually that reckless madman.

My basic training instructor was walking a security perimeter around the silo in Arkansas when it blew up. He spent 6 months in the military hospital and changed jobs after that.

I love that you phrased these incidents as what they all were - lucky. The biggest mistake we could ever make is seeing this as proof that we can handle these weapons rather than proof they should never have existed to begin with.

Thank you Vasili Arhkipov!

7:50 This operation is also the origin of the term "Glomar response", which refers to a "neither confirm nor deny" response to a request for information (in particular FOIA requests in the US). When asked for details of this operation and whether it was connected to the submarine by journalist , the response was "We can neither confirm nor deny the existence of the information requested but, hypothetically, if such data were to exist, the subject matter would be classified, and could not be disclosed."

In 1959 I joined the Canadian Airforce Reserve and was trained as a Fighter Control radar Operator (Fighter COP) watching for Russian bombers coming over the Arctic. I was a teenager having a whale of a time . Only looking back did I realize how many time we came within a whisker of blowing each other up. Then in 1962 along came the Cuban missile crisis and with the help of Commander Arkipov we thought we had dodged the bullet ... again. The assumption was that the Russian missiles in Cuba were not yet operational. With the collapse of the Soviet Union the world got access to formerly classified Soviet documents ... that clearly indicated there were operational missiles in Cuba. Had the Russian sub fired that missile heaven only knows how much of the east coast of the US would have been reduced to radioactive glass let alone how much of the world we know would still be here.

On thay Goldsboro incident, the accidental exposion was much closer than you made it seem. Both bombs had 3 of their 4 switches armed, and they were starting to conduct the arming sequence. The scarier part in this incident is that the switch esin the bombs that didn't activate were different between the two. So for two entirely separate reasons, both bombs didn't detonate.

Thank you for this timely and chilling reminder about humanity's vulnerability to an accidental nuclear war.

A great book about this is "Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety" by Eric Schlosser. Great audiobook too!

@Samir12357

7 ай бұрын

Sounds great I would love to read or listen it.. Is this available for free?? May be on KZread or livrobox.... ( I am broke that too in economical poor country)

@rakeshchowdhury202

7 ай бұрын

​@@Samir12357Check 1lib or Google Podcast

@rakeshchowdhury202

7 ай бұрын

Ok there's a ton of great content. Thanks for the title. Podcasts are epic

what a day to post this video 💀💀💀

@travisthree11

7 ай бұрын

For real, this guy

@MoMo-ul6uk

7 ай бұрын

Minor, 9/11 is insignificant to the rest of the world.

@Calstar_

7 ай бұрын

why’s that

@Joshehh

7 ай бұрын

​@@Calstar_sept 11

The Bearded One selling Razors didn't click in until the end. Which means your a mean pitchman as well! The topic is so deep i cant comment without going on and on. Cheers 🇨🇦

What's even more entertaining abt this video is that it reminds of some past memorable Hollywood flicks.

I have found no record of it on the internet but in1974 or early 1975 in the middle of the night, while I was stationed in Minot ND, the officers in control of the missiles were ordered to complete their preparations to launch and the B-52s began to roll out to the flightline. We were literally one more turn of a switch from the end of the world. From what we were told, the Russians had tested two of their missiles at the same time and our computers interpreted that as a first strike, not a test. I assume they changed the code after that. Rumor had it that some of the officers had what we now call PTSD because of this incident.

@peelysl

7 ай бұрын

Either you are making this up, or you are releasing classified information online

@urieaaron

7 ай бұрын

@@peelysl It has been 50 years and no one told us we had to keep this secret. Are you some kind of expert on the subject or a math teacher?

@Disorder2312

7 ай бұрын

Wasn't it always called PTSD?

@KaitouKaiju

7 ай бұрын

​@@Disorder2312PTSD has gone by many names from shell shock to battle fatigue

@urieaaron

7 ай бұрын

@@Disorder2312 I didn't know so I asked Bard. The term "posttraumatic stress disorder" (PTSD) was first used in the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III) published by the American Psychiatric Association in 1980. However, the symptoms of PTSD have been recognized for centuries, and it has been known by many different names over time. In the First World War, it was called "shell shock" because it was thought to be caused by the concussive force of exploding shells. In the Second World War, it was called "battle fatigue" or "operational exhaustion." And in the Vietnam War, it was called "post-Vietnam syndrome."

On the one hand, it's awesome that Petrov and Arkhipov both almost single-handedly prevented the destruction of at least 2 continents. On the other hand, can we _please_ stop putting ourselves in situations where the destruction of 2 continents is even an option? Please?

@Ducktility

7 ай бұрын

I have noted your complaint. I'll pass on the word to the president.

@crf80fdarkdays

7 ай бұрын

я принял к сведению вашу жалобу. Я передам слово президенту.

@thatprogramer

7 ай бұрын

hm

Thank you very much for this video

Truly riveting had me at the edge of my seat

Love how a video can go in 1 sec from blowing up the world to shaving

@gaaraofddarkness

7 ай бұрын

Capitalism yo..

@dipling.pitzler7650

7 ай бұрын

The connecting link was that both were a close shave! LOL

@babilon6097

7 ай бұрын

Saving/shaving... so easy to confuse.

@sabawoonhewaddoost8889

7 ай бұрын

To avoid nuclear disaster, you have to just shave 🪒 your face. 😉

@alwaysdisputin9930

7 ай бұрын

The connecting link is that your facial hairs are fucked either way

"Hey, do you not have enough to be anxious about in the world? Watch this." Seriously, my mouth was hanging open for this entire video. Holy crap.

For the first time in my life I actually bought a product based on a youtuber recommendation and I've been using the Henson razor for about half a year now. It does cause more skin irritation than a normal 4 or 5 blade quality razor. It is also incredibly expensive, but that's a one-time cost. It's the only razor I'll ever need and the blades are cheap so I think it was well worth it and I'm sticking to it. So yes, I'll give it five stars but I'm not sure it's so different from any other old razors out there.

Excellent video, thank you!

The Titan II silo story really hits close to home for me. My dad was a mechanic in just that type of silo during the Vietnam War era. His was just outside of Tucson, AZ, fairly close to the Titan Missile Museum (but not that specific silo). To my knowledge he never had any tool mishaps, and certainly nothing of the magnitude of the incident in the video. But I've thought a lot about how intense of a job that must have been, turning a wrench just a few feet from a rocket the size of a small building, tipped with one of the most destructive weapons ever devised. And the guys he ate lunch with would be the ones to turn keys and push buttons in the first salvos of WWIII, had everything gone terribly sideways. I never found out if he was one of the two people needed to open up the safe with the launch keys.

@paradox9551

7 ай бұрын

saluton!

The problem with relying on luck, is that we need to be lucky every time... We can only be unlucky once.

13:41 I cannot even fathom the stress.

Lately I've been leaning towards the philosophy in life that bad things can/will happen and life is short so I should do what I want. I think this just pushed me over the edge.

My grandpa walked uphill both ways with nuclear bombs dropping left and right just to get to school.

@michaelhowell2326

7 ай бұрын

You're Japanese?

The story of Vasily Arkhipov gives me shivers every time I hear it. If a different man had been on the submarine - or if Arkhipov had cowed to his fellow commanders - none of us would be here.

@wurfyy

7 ай бұрын

Most of us would be here. At no point has humanity ever had enough nukes to kill every human. Even if they were launched in a coordinated manner with the sole purpose of killing as many people as possible - and that wouldn't be the case. Most of them would be aimed at other nukes. A huge number of nukes would be destroyed without ever getting used. A relatively small fraction would be aimed at high value military targets and a few would be aimed at the biggest population centers. Lots of people would die, for sure. There would be a lot of fallout and it probably would strongly affect weather patterns. But most of humanity wouldn't see a single nuclear explosion and many would hardly even feel affected. In the long term, most likely the superpowers that be would be less super afterwards but I'm not even convinced they'd cease to be superpowers altogether. Nuclear bombs are overhyped - as are the dangers of anything else nuclear, like nuclear power generation. It's obviously great that we never had a nuclear war, and if we'd had one, the world would be a drastically different place today - but most of us would still be here.

@pokejinwwi

7 ай бұрын

@@wurfyywhat about hydrogen bombs

@Cube_Box

7 ай бұрын

@@wurfyy well what you mean to say is that humanity would not go extinct BUT it's true, none of us would be here as history would change too much and different people would've been born instead of us. I believe that's what he meant

@wurfyy

7 ай бұрын

@@pokejinwwi Doesn't affect the equation in any way.

@wurfyy

7 ай бұрын

@@Cube_Box That's a ridiculous argument to make. By that logic we should all be grateful for both world wars because without them other people would have been born instead of us.

I got tears in my eyes at the end of the video. it was wonderful and makes us greatful for the contributions of Vasili Arkhipov and Stanislav Petrov that can't even be put into words.

Masterwork history of Nakamura and the blue LED. I notice the channel over the years has similarly worked in improving the communication of the science alongside the human story. Key points made, not blurred, and the science never oversimplified. This is not an easy task. If there’s a better history of science communicator in the world now, I don’t know it. Well done Nakamura, and we’ll done Veritasium.

This was really well done! Probably some of the best animation and editing I’ve seen, which really helps make the narrative even better.

My Grandpa was a Major in the Airforce, he flew B52s in operation Chrome Dome. He unfortunately died the year I was born and never really talked about his 200+ missions he flew. My Grandmother says she still remembers how scary those times where, the worst was when Kennedy was assassinated, my Grandpa was actually in the air on mission at the time so she had no contact with him, she had 3 children at the time and thought we where in WW3!

@flexinclouds

7 ай бұрын

Damn. What a time to be alive. That must've been a humbling job doing those nonstop flights.

@warrenarnold

7 ай бұрын

​@@flexincloudsthey chose old men as they never used to sleep

@user-wb4yq2hb2o

7 ай бұрын

Most likely the dumbest thing I've heard today - ugh @@warrenarnold

@Jezee213

6 ай бұрын

Omg, well he's a hero in my books.

@user-wb4yq2hb2o

6 ай бұрын

@@Jezee213 people have to sleep - duh

Great video. Everyone needs to see this.

7:27 I've been told storys about this since i was a little kid, my grandfather was one of the first people on sight when that happened He was working an ordinary shift sunday, January 21, 1968. He was driving out to check up on a generator near J site at the base, when he was about 2 miles from J site he said that everything around him became lit up, and it was almost like day for a couple of seconds. First he thought a steam boiler which was next to "Hangar 2" had exploded and maybe also exploded the 25.000 gallons diesel oil that was next to the steam boiler. So he turned around as fast as he could, but after only what he describes as minutes, the radio called and said that a B-52 had crash-landed, and everyone on shift had to go there asap to see what happened and look for survivors. And as the story in the video also says, 6 out of 7 crewmembers survived, but the one that did not, died because of his parachute set on fire, as he jumped out of the plane. My grandfather is still alive and somewhat well, so if you have any questions feel free to ask them, i will try to answer them, when i go to visit him next time

"It's on arm." The scariest three words imaginable when dealing with a damaged hydrogen bomb.

13:40 AKA was interrogated(tortured) mercilessly and made to step down or risk the death of himself and his family.

Thanks veritasium, this is eye opening

Kudos to those safety Engineers making those triggers so robust.

4:37 They just don't do journalism like they used to these days 😂

These videos just keep getting better and more fun to watch. New animations and the perfect narration can never be beaten.

Great content as always

I've known the first story, of the B-52 accidentally dropped bombs in Spain (and other dropped bomb accidents on Operation Chrome Dome) from a number of videos on KZread. But not one of them said it was an air incident and 7 people were killed. They told the story as it was an oopsie and the bombs somehow fell. I feel bad now.

@User-jr7vf

6 ай бұрын

No need to feel bad. You have been misled by these KZreadrs. That's their fault not giving accurate info and being only after likes and views (money).

We always use the amount of bombs to visualize the dismantlement of bombs in the world, but it would be nice to see the MT of TNT equivalent. Just to see what power was really decommissioned.

@Soken50

7 ай бұрын

None of the yield has been decommissioned, the thousands of kiloton yield gravity bombs have been replaced by hundreds of megaton or gigaton yield hypersonic guided missiles with active jamming, decoys, flares and all the bells and whistles to make it to the target and maximise damage. the number decreased but the yields increased by orders of magnitudes.

@flexinclouds

7 ай бұрын

​@@Soken50Thats what he's saying. Like if they just told us how many megatons were decommissioned, so we could try and compare to the yield of current or any new icbm's replacing them

@the_ALchannel

7 ай бұрын

If you google "total megatons of all nuclear weapons over the years" its literally the first picture that comes up. This yield has also decreased significantly with the decrease in the number of missiles

@Soken50

7 ай бұрын

@@the_ALchannel As if countries would willingly give up the actual numbers, it's the known stock that is decreasing. Yield isn't going down, it's being replaced by bigger ones we don't know about

@the_ALchannel

7 ай бұрын

@@Soken50 if the whole point of having a large nuclear weapons arsenal is intimidation, wouldn't it be counterproductive for countries to *hide* the actual numbers rather then publish them? Especially if they're large

How is it possible to keep creating such exceptional content for so many years!? Thank you making KZread useful!

@vagkalosynakis

7 ай бұрын

While I do agree Veritasium content is great, this topic has been covered on other channels extensively. Most notably, Lemmino did an amazing job at it a few years ago and I feel like the production value of Lemmino is even greater than that of Veritasium.

Probably your best video ever. The truth is too often hidden from us.

That segue into the shaving ad killed me. 😂

Crazy how many times we came close to total disaster. Makes you wonder about all the things you don’t know about.

@GregGBM7

7 ай бұрын

Ecclesiastes ch1 v18 "For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief." ... or the expression "ignorance is bliss". Sometimes it's best not to know.

@sayhowling

7 ай бұрын

it just makes "ignorance is bliss" quote even more meaningful.

@miranda.cooper

7 ай бұрын

​@@GregGBM7 Ignorance is bliss to the ignorant (and a lot of the times even not). To the rest it can be torture.

6:52 My man just told us where a hydrogen bomb is, and how to get to it.

I did not know any of this, thank you for educating us. We humans seem to like to simply look away from such enormous problems.

It seems to me that I live on this planet to see how it will end. Sort of, to see the end of the world with your own eyes. The ravings of a madman, but everything is coming to this. Derek, thank you for trying to instill reason in people. The war is the end.