God created earth for us and rest are bunch of lifeless planets. People should care more about the judgment day than universe.

ppl are dumb

Chipi chipi

@@MrUssy101no

Chapa chapa​@@shridharjadhav3465

Bro thinks the sun is smaller than the earth. That isn’t even schools fault.

@@RicoHelms Yes, I thought some stuff was just common knowledge from a young age but apparently I was wrong

@@RicoHelms I would argue, yes, it is. Like, imagine there was no schools, no education. Of course you would think the sun is smaller than the virtually infinite planet you're standing on. Same way a remarkable amount of antique civilizations considered the sun some kind of (large) object carried/drawn by some deity, usually with the implication that the deity would fit onto the planet in a human-observeable size scale, thus implying the sun had to be smaller than the planet. It's exactly only education (or generally available educative information), thus usually school, that teaches people things beyond the stuff we can observe on first glance. I would never expect somebody to know the precise distance to, or the size of, the sun, because that's not exactly information pertaining to your everyday life, thus nobody should be expected to just look it up for no reason. Hence the only thing a random non-astronomer would know is exactly that a class or two might have shown him (often wildly mis-proportioned) depictions of the solar system. So if people somehow forget about that, or never understood it, the educative system meant to teach them has failed.

This is pretty typical of these productions to cherry pick the biggest ingnoramus' out of the crowd. For everyone of the people that made it into the video, there could have been hundreds who had no problems. Without showing honest statistics of how many people got it right vs didn't all this video does is show that a few very poor students were still able to get through the vetting process of UNLV.

The only person who can be forgiven for this mistake is a child or a peasant from the 15th century, because everyone should at least know that the moon is smaller than the sun.

Same minus the construction part

​@@igetsnipedalot7784nah cuz when the girl said "stars are the smallest" I actually lost some Faith in humanity like I'm not smart in fact I'm dumb but bro come on

It’s terrifying that these are college students

Literally same except I'm a mechanic

Too busy studying sociology and critical race theory

Jesus that's based. That guy's got one heck of a head on him

None of them retained anything he may have taught them

Why only see that side? Think about it... these are COLLEGE students... college students who honestly think that there are 12 galaxies in our universe. After all their years of education in America they still don't know that there are more than "12" galaxies... in every european country a 10yo will be able to tell you that the sun is bigger than the moon... So Instead of thinking: "oh how lovely" maybe think "oh how lovely, but wait a minute... why are college students that uneducated? Imagine these guys are the next generation of doctors and architects... dude they would've never found all of that out if not for Mark I don't want to h8. It's just important that people realize how bad american education is and that this is dangerous

​@@flaminginvite How do you know, do you live in their walls ?

@@metaknecht *Australian

💀

Or they failed education.

ASTROLOGY 😂😂😂

No do this is Europe.

It’s an honest mistake. I’ve done it a few times aswell.

​@@Jose.AFT.SaddulMy mnemonic is to think of a big "log" of poo.

​@@andyjohnson4907I'm sure psychologists would have something to say about that

Lmao

@@vedritmathias9193 A scatologist would agree

ikr? This isn't complicated or subtle. This is about knowing some basic language. "What is a galaxy?" Collection of solar systems. So galaxy bigger than star or moon, right? Wow. [EDIT - Some people have misconstrued my point. I'm not being superior or precise or grandiose. I'm trying to convey that a basic, approximate sense of how it vaguely works (solar systems go in galaxies, for example) is fine for most people. We don't all need to be experts in everything. General Knowledge is just that. General.]

Right! It just seems so odd. I guess I assumed everyone knows the basics at least.

My mind was blown when I found out my stepmom had no idea of the basics of our existence/reality. I thought she was the dumbest person on earth, but I guess there are people even dumber out there. I also had to teach her when i was 7 that there's different types of metal. She thought metal was metal and it's own thing and that copper wasn't metal but it's own thing, and that steel wasn't metal but it's own thing, that brass wasn't metal but it's own thing, and so on. I literally asked her if she was the other word for special at the dinner table and got yelled at for asking her that. I'm pretty sure I made her cry that night because I made her feel so stupid.

@@mLyonJE there are those people, but i'm pretty sure he asked a lot of strangers and just picked the once that struggled more, cause there's nothing to learn if someone just comes up and knows everything

Yeah this is really surprising to me. I thought everyone got taught about basic astronomy in elementary school. Moons orbit planets, planets orbit stars, stars have solar systems, solar systems make up galaxies, galaxies make up the universe. This takes like 1 day to teach, and it's generally mind-blowing for kids, so it's usually a fun lesson that they'll remember for the rest of their lives.

Only bards can cast vicious mockery. He's a wizard.

He just went in with a different goal If I was going to do it I would only want the information He wants to know more after the interaction so he is nice. Or he’s just nicer than us in general, or me any ways… that’s probably more likely

I dislike the way people dont mock him for holding a lav mic like that. aka the "Clueless Logan"

@@tgc517i think he's nice but he's also lot gonna post a video just mocking ppl for a channel like his he's gonna have to stay professional

I notice all the religious answers were cut from the video, so we can't know if he laughed at those. No flat earthers either?

People are dum

I just laughed when I heard that. Watching university students get stuff wrong which 5 year old me could have nailed is quite painful to watch.

yeah I'm curious how much people's confusion with that has led to pseudoscientific thinking in the general public.

I am not American but most of us learned these basic things in primary/elementary school. We went to the local planetarium and science museum for field trips, and heard scientists talk. I'm curious how it's done in the US.

@@pssurvivor From what I know, American education is not the best. I am Italian and here, education is pretty good. People here tend to be auite cultured, but there are exceptions obviously. Here as well, most people know that a star is huge. You can expect a pre school teacher saying to a child that "stars are veeeeeryyy big!"

I aspire to this level of patience

Ow! My neurons! But at least astrology does have something to do with space

@@callangb7652🤨

everyone in this comment section getting on these ppl for saying astrology when really its the long co-opted etymologically correct term for science/study of the stars, its what we know as astronomy today SHOULD be called, but we got stuck with their etymological definition instead (-nomy referring to rule/law). for an astronomer, the psychic damage exists at a base level at all times for having to call themselves astronomers because some schmucks who think the movement of the planets affects your fortune and personal compatibility with other people decided to take the word that means science (no actual offense meant towards astrologers but can we please switch words)

because they used share same ancestor name before both terms separated

Came to the comments for this. I cringed so hard. I'm just an electrician with a love of sci-fi since I was a kid, and knew the answers to all the questions he asked since before I was in high school,, except for the galaxies question, which I thought was infinite, not 100 billion - 2 trillion.

What? OF COURSE a star is smaller than a planet! They're tiny specks, and planets are huge.

It's pretty basic knowledge that out of everything stars are the smallest. They're millions of tiny specks in the universe with the bigger moons and planets in between. Just look in the sky and you'll see hundreds of tiny stars next to the moon which is hundreds of times the size

Failed bait attempt ​@@fuzzyotterpaws4395

​@@fuzzyotterpaws4395 I know right! Stars are tiny, I help up my dog in the sky and she was 1000 times the size of any star in the sky! Stars really are small, smaller than a dog, which is wild.

@@fuzzyotterpaws4395ah yes, sarcasm

I'm not a "space nerd", I'm just a guy who went to a Russian school and received a Russian education. You know, we often say that education in America is disgusting, and no one seems to argue with this But not as much! I don’t presume to say that we are such geniuses, but the question “which is bigger, the Moon or the Sun” causes not only hysterical, but rather panicky laughter

@@Slevaizum You-have-an-education-system-designed-to-educate...You-cannot-even-compare-that-to-what-we-have-here-in-America-because-the-purpose-of-our-system-is-the-complete-opposite...Hopefully-this-changes-in-the-future-though-now-that-so-many-people-here-in-America-are-taking-notice-for-the-first-time.

@@Slevaizum Don't say "Russian" as it's something good. 35% of Russians believe that Sun goes around Earth - data from the Russian state agency for public researches in 2022.

@@Tina-mt9cl In fact, although our education system provides much more knowledge, it is also terrible. Yes, for us, what is shown in the video is the most basic knowledge, but it is not limited to this. Children in post-Soviet countries are obliged not to “study”, but to “know”. It's a big difference. This is a real mockery of children, because we are forced to cram something that will not be useful in life in principle. Of course, this develops neural connections, and this would be the case if we were instilled with the DESIRE to learn, and not just forced to do it.

@@Tina-mt9cl Sorry for GTranslate, but this is the fastest way for me to formulate a thought while concentrating only on what I want to say

fun fact, in terms of size moons can be larger than planets, however never larger than the planet it orbits. Ganymede, one of many of Jupiter's moons, is larger than Mercury for example. Similarly, some red dwarf stars are smaller than the largest planets. Centauri (AB) b being the largest known planet 10x the size of Jupiter, and EBLM J0555-57Ab which is the smallest red dwarf star at 118.000km smaller than Saturn at 120.536km in diameter

On the positive side college kids can now name every one of the 57 genders and have invented many new and useful pronouns

@@StitchSprites I mean I'm sure there are moons/planets bigger than stars(small stars like red dwarfs) but we're talking about the average ones and it's a logical thing to think that a moon will not be bigger than a planet since it needs to orbit it.

You'll be surprised but the moon is larger than most known plants 😂 (it's my lame attempt to make fun of a typo that was funny to me, sorry)

@@shauryapratapsinhbarhat2545 I mean yea, It was just a fun fact.

We only even made it to the moon less than 100 years ago. Billions of lives have ended without even knowing hearing how space was even described, knowing that there’s more out there.. It’s way more important to have life experiences than memorizing facts that will not make you any happier (for most of us), any closer (for most of us) to achieving your goals.. really, put it in perspective It’s very much possible to be content without knowing about things like this, that’s how we’ve lived for thousands of years

@@Zahaveronbut if the information is there why not learn it???

More fun on TikTok I guess. Keeping us dumb as a rock.

@@Zahaveron curiousity is what’s getting me my academic success as i speak and it’s also what i love, i love knowing random stuff even if it’s pointless 🤷‍♀️ don’t assume stuff just bcs its true for u

@@mishchayt I didn’t assume anything. Everything in my comment was factual? *We only made it the moon less than 100 years ago *Billions of lives have ended without knowing about what’s in space *And it _is_ possible to be content without knowing about these things. You might want the knowledge, but that doesn’t make it impossible to live without It’s important to have life experiences and, as I had written, FOR MOST OF US it will not make you and happier or close to your goals Which I did write. For most of us. So I have no clue what you’re trying to say. I didn’t assume anything nor say that this knowledge is bad. Just that nothing is wrong if you don’t have it.

bro you listen to kpop you probably gasp just walking on a daily basis when your not sitting on a chair

​@@saltyninja5534 do people gasp when they realize you can't use basic grammar 😭

I mean if they have only ever seen the sun and moon on earth with their own eyes. They look roughly the same size.

I mean just look at it, duh

@@linamariaorozcouribe5291 i learned that the sun was bigger than the moon in 4th grade... how do people just not get taught basic astronomy

Marvel is to blame. Earth deals with a UNIVERSAL crisis every movie which is extremely narcissistic. WRITERS think the universe is the size of a solar system. Edit: The multiverse contains multiple solar systems. Thinking we're the only one is also narcissistic. :)

They're too busy learning about how women and bIack people are oppressed and how white men invented bigotry and slavery....

To answer random questions from a stranger in a sandwich board? I don't see how that's important.

how does this showcase it? none of these people knew the answers and they seem like theyre doing fine.

@@dangerfly Hm... "a" solar system? Surely you meant "the" because solar refers to our star sol hence there is only one solar system. Others are called star systems (simplified).

I can recommended the film "Ad Astra". Pmays with the same thought

only known inhabitants but probably alien life is thriving in atleast one planet per every supercluster or perhaps we are the only ones extremely rare extremely rare thing in the universe(stress on extremely)

@@sashwathjs9075 Yes, brother in both situations we are indeed extremely lucky. I found a conversation the other day that goes like this. Human: "Oracle, are we alone in the Universe?" Oracle: "Yes." Human: "So, there is no other life out there?" Oracle: "There is. They are alone too."

@@gmzogga Thanks mate, will watch it soon.

For me it’s not even the size, but the sheer amount of nothingness. think of how everything is built out of atoms and those things are basically 99.99% (probably even more) nothingness. The earth with everything on it, for which Carl Sagan had this long ass quote, is still mostly empty space.

@@LuffyTwoYears The quote is actually an excerpt from the book "Pale Blue Dot" he wrote, which would explain why it's such a long one 😅

​@LuffyTwoYears I know that's the fact that is repeated a lot and on surface it sounds right to us intuitively because the size of nucleus of atom is incredibly small and the next atom is so far away (while electron is also small and "orbits" the nucleus), this "99.999%" figure SEEMS right. But I think the more modern version is that this emptiness is actually filled with an electron cloud. And yes, it's really hard to process what an electron cloud actually is because when we measure electrons they appear to be a point-like. But I'm not sure it's correct to imagine that space as "empty" exactly.

I still can’t grasp the concept of sooo many other galaxies existing beside our own one

I always think about the vastness of the universe. It's amazing and simultaneously utterly depressing. This is why I'm not allowed idle time.

I learnt about this from kids tv shows when I was younger

Absolutely. There should be a law that before anyone m*rders anyone they must first teach them the scale of astronomical bodies.

This is why I can't vote Republican ever again. The fact that so many of them think the Earth is only around 6000 years old while we have proof how old stuff in the Universe is, is just mind blowing. And even if you try to teach them, they just plug their ears.

It is commin knowledge before education got hijacked and now they only learn unnecessary stupid stuff

It should be.

It's a matter of comparing infinites. Sure, the universe is incomprehensibly large, but the processes involved in the emergence of life are also incomprehensibly complex. We don't even know all the elements that factor into the equation for life. It really hinges on what one believes.

Theoretically ye it's very unlikely but practically both our life on Earth and the possible life on diffrent planet could be so far appart that there would be no way for us or them to find out. That's the case for like 90% of our universe so without super advanced civilization that by accident discovers us when traveling through wormhole I doubt we'll ever get contact with another intelligent form of life

i got very triggered at that part

As someone who had a pretty good basic education, same 😂 I do not know a lot, I though I knew nothing until this video to be honest… but yeah, last half of the video is really nice. I admire people that keep pushing for people to learn.

Fun fact college educated people support democrats

Good job on getting that Astrophysics major! That’s amazing!

Yeah, in that part I was like "a 14 year old can answer that"

Much of American education rests on the belief that the universe revolves around the USA.

Americans do have a strong stereotype of not being smart. These youngsters don't do the country any favors.

​@dbznappa Not so much anymore. Now it rests on the individual as the center of the universe. "YOU are special. YOU are unique. YOU are whatever you say YOU are, and if anyone tells you different, that is violence against YOU...And that concludes math class. Thank you, everyone! See you tomorrow! And remember, after our pledge to the pride flag, we will have a pop quiz on pronouns! All 5,892,634,051 of them!"

​@@Malhaloc Oh look, another poor conservative that permanently thinks they are a victim. You poor, poor, sensitive snowflake, it must be so hard being so upset all the time. Imagine if you ACTUALLY had something worth caring about.

​@@MalhalocI thought everyone agreed that individuals are important. The U.S. was founded on personal rights. I think there are issues with this, socially, but you are just making sht up. Pronouns have always been taught, but not the 'modern ones.' They are needed in language, and totally made up. If anything, more popular pronouns besides the main ones should be taught, so students know about them. You know, education.

I beg to differ, everything now makes more sense.

People are literally brain dead?@@hovnocuc4551

the idea of perspective is known as a child, how do these people not know

And that's probably the genesis of flat Earth theories...

Looks bigger to me. You’re overthinking it.

In elementary school?

I know, I asked my 5yo and he got it right, he only messed up when I asked him to compare the sun and the stars

@@mariacamilaserranomelo6307 comparing the sun and the stars doesnt really make sense icl

​@@Khal-E1 Why not? I just checked a textbook for 4th grade (9-10 years old), and it has a few chapters about astronomy.

It was part of theirs too; they've just forgotten (or more likely never actually learned) it since them.

wow that makes you now as smart as einstein.

My favourite quote

It does, bow before me ​@@KikujiroChan

Depends on how you define stupidity. The people in this video were just uneducated on the topic, possibly even lacking a previous curiosity on the topic, and therefore willfully uneducated. Be it the basics, or specifics. Yet, they all appeared humble in their lack of knowledge, and grateful to learn. That, to me, indicates anything BUT stupidity.

it's unlikely he actually said that.

Yeah, he doesn’t leave them in ignorance. I love that.

I would have such a hard time not putting people down. The dude in the video has willpower.

I mean for the most part it can't be their fault that they don't know this stuff. Has to be their education system or just society that's to blame.

You know deep inside he's thinking wtf?

Well the comment section here alone is doing a good job of putting them down

average

hai, bang. big fan!

ga kaget liat kokbisa juga nontonin veritasium, keep up the great work you guys!!

Depending on perspective, but when I think of the vastness of our universe and how small we are to scale, I realize how insignificant we are. Which oddly increases the feeling of significance. It definitely forces an out-of-body thought for a second. It makes big problems in our life seem trivial, and yet, makes small acts of kindness mean that much more. Sounds cheesy I guess, but damn if it doesn't make me think.

Kobi!!!

@@MA-ts3xsMA, My forever home is in heaven with Jesus.

The exact same for me, I guessed there were tens of billions, but trillions is incomprehensible

Most question of that nature, comparing numbers of big things up there to small things down here, there's more small things down here. The things up there are very low density. The things down here are very high density.

I wasn't sure either. I was like "there's about 150M km^2 of land on Earth... so that's about 1000 trees per km^2 for there to be about as many as stars in the galaxy... that's a tree for every 1000 m^2... that's about a tree in every 30mx30m area... that's a lot less dense than a forest, but how much of the Earth is forest? Large stretches of it don't even have trees. Hmm.... I decided on trees, but yeah, they're only about an order of magnitude apart (which btw, means there's about 1 tree for every 100 m^2 of Earth, or every 10m x 10m area)

i actually got it pretty easily, but not because i actually managed to grasp the scale, just simple math. if on average a galaxy has 100 bil stars and there are about 8 bil humans, and i think there are probably at least a hundred trees to one human then it easily surpasses the average amount of stars in a galaxy

I felt it from my sense of Earth's nature scale, but I didn't trust myself and picked stars

Now imagine most rich people are far below intelligence of the average people. You didn't know THAT, right?

@@tilmerkan3882 Where are you getting that stat from? In my anecdotal experience, most of the rich people I've met are at least smarter than average. But it's certainly true you don't need to be a genius to be rich. In fact, it may even hamper wealth creation through traditional means because smart people tend to overthink things.

​i would probably snap and call them idiots

Maybe not so shocking? what happens among the stars currently has very little bearing on what happens down here on earth. you could live your whole life never knowing what our own star is, let alone anything beyond, with few if any negative consequences. for most people... knowing about space doesn't matter. it's a novelty. I happen to think space is really cool. I like learning about stuff up there, but it's ok if someone else doesn't. people like different things, and it's not like we're any better or worse off for it.

It's the U.S. It's expected.

That is one of my favorite things about this channel. Derek has always been the type of person to encourage growth. His journeys have always been entertaining and educational.

That’s literally how the channel started!

The original format of Veritasium didn't work very well. Student: "I think that the stars are the smallest because they're just little white dots" Derek: "Really? Hahahahahahahahahahahaaha...."

Yep, as much as I like watching "dumb American geography" or "flat earth debunking" videos for the shock value, ultimately this way of encouragement is one we should all aim for, then we wouldn't even need to create those shock value videos

I'm sorry but.. you maybe should feel a tiny bit bad about not knowing the answer to this question.

I mean you can literally see both of them from earth and one is clearly bigger

I thought he would also ask them about which galaxy is bigger, but it was just basic stuff. Still the video was good.

@@donothesitate1198you should also know one is tremendously closer to us so put one and one together to realise the sun behind dwarfs the moon. You’re comparing a pebble to Everest.

@@donothesitate1198 They actually look about the same size from earth, because the moon is about 400 times closer than the sun, but its diameter is 400 times smaller than the suns.

​@@donothesitate1198that's just plain wrong. neither of them is clearly bigger when seen from earth. they actually look about the exact same size as evidenced by solar eclipses where the sun is perfectly hidden behind the moon.

Real, why cant I be on these videos. Would have had 100% right

I expected it to be hard to watch, but instead it was kind of nice. Like a completely smooth road to the point where I realize I don't know how many stars are in the galaxy, and then I'm right there with the people in the video.

yeah I'm struggling to watch right now

you mean astrology, right? xD

@@raphaelefranco1123 If this is a joke It's way too unclear

The question was based on general size, there is just no excuse to this stupidity.

Making mistakes is one thing, not learning from them is another. Theres a trend in the recent years of the latter.

thats true but how do they think stars are planets

@@moon-pw1bi Because theyre Americans

But you can.

You can absolutely learn without making mistakes.

It's incredible how lacking it was

Really? When those same people are lecturing you about the 32 different genders, you're shocked they are ignorant of the real world? Really? 🙄

i feel like my 6yr old would do better than some of these people. It would also be interesting to see these questions asked of different age groups, cities and even countries and we might have an idea why things like 'flat earth' come back when we just know better :-)

I really thought these knowledge are common after the age of like 10, guess I'm wrong..

I suspect Derek only included the truly clueless people he interviewed to make this video. I cannot - nay - choose not to believe that this is representative.

Seeing this was super dissapointing.

It's as if they were thinking from eye perspective looking at the sky. The sun and the moon are roughly the same size (like during an eclipse) But since the universe is included in the responses, it shows they aren't capable of thinking from an outer perspective.

i'm astounded. i never went to college and i know more than a lot of the people i see in these kinds of videos. it's insane that they even graduated highschool.

When there's no need for it u forget

I once met a guy in school that thought the planets in our solar system where stacked vertically on top of each other and that they didn’t take that long to get to. It was fun explaining to him how long to took it get to each planet. The look on his face was priceless

Such a Gemini comment

I don't believe in astrology. I'm a sagittarius and we're skeptical.

I came here to say the same thing. Crazy sentence

Stop being an Aquarius

If there's an astrology major in there, I'm really afraid to ask what else people can major in

On the other hand, he publishes this ignorance to the public here on KZfaq. And that comes across as a denunciation.

Times New Roman

He's stronger than I am, for sure

​@@HerbertHeyducklol, I'm sure he gets them to sign a legal disclaimer. so they know. some ppl don't care and still want to be seen

@@HerbertHeyduck But who is being denounced? IMO, it's the system that was supposed to be teaching people all this stuff. Can you be faulted for dealing with your life and not learning something you'll likely never use in your daily matters?

90% sure he just didn’t include the ones who knew and only included the ones who didn’t

obviously but its still outstanding the amount who didnt know. or they are just people told to act like that.@@ChatterBoxBran

@@ChatterBoxBran yeah, at a college campus in a 1st world, well developed country every single student should know the answer

@@MisterKazooAmerica is different from most developed countries. For-profit medicine, debilitating medical debt, mass shootings almost daily (usually several on weekend days), and a sad number of people who don’t know basic knowledge.

@@soph7230 name one first world country that is perfect please :) and mass shootings are not weekly tf you mean 😭

i’d say we’re more like the atoms making the stoma up (also stomata is plural)

I mean, I've seen pictures of the Milky Way, and those pictures were clearly smaller than a piece of paper. Also--just going to shamelessly plug--I'm hoping some of you might like the music I make too :)

Yeah am gonna need the contact of your dealer. 🚬

It makes my head hurt that people think like that...and vote.

Lmao

😂😂😂😂

The school system failed them and never bothered to teach them. That's truly sad.

​@@maxxcarver5502 no, they just forgot. Like i bet you did with 90% of what you learned in school too

@@mitchhudson3972 Those are like basics of the world and things around us, how can you forget that.

​@@mitchhudson3972complex math is one thing,now basic knowledge stuff is something else

​@@dantalien6591Don't forget they are also being asked to recall their knowledge on the spot. Hindsight is 20/20, I'm sure if they were relaxed behind a screen that they'd be able to remember better.

wow, that put things into perspective. i have a weird urge to teach someone something

Dude they just don’t apply themselves or have a low IQ, whatever.

Apparently billions of them.........SMH

Is it a failure in curiosity?. I feel the same way you do and I know teaching people and they always enjoy and are fascinated by it. It just seems there are many more, easily accessible thing that consume their curiosity (social media, etc)

This is just wild. Im a welder myself and i had the correct answer in like 3 seconds. Also all the questions in my mind to spesify what planets or moons are we talking about. It just shows what a great basic education can do to people.

Came here to say exactly this.

Well let's be judicial here. It's not UCLA or Harvard, It's UNLV (University of Nevada, Las Vegas) with an 80%+ acceptance rate and 44% graduation rate, so do with that what you will.

UNLV sounds more like a community college / vocational school than a university.

Sheesh. I'm a bit nerdy and probably overestimate the knowledge of the people around me, but I'm fairly sure here in Australia most people are at least educated enough to correctly place the ordering of what's bigger than what.

​@@dustyoldhat... Wow.

These people aren't excited about it as it doesn't affect their lives (which is how our specialized society operates). He also obviously didn't include the interviews where the interviewee knew everything because that would be boring to watch. For example, I'd have gotten all these instantly except for the trillions of trees on earth because I could care less about the number of trees on earth, but my specialization is in a related STEM field to astronomy.

@@timp6834live "i could care less" reaction. WRONG. INCORRECT. CLEARLY you meant that you "couldn't care less" because, right now, you're displaying an AWFUL high potential of caring less about the amount of trees on earth, which indicates that you care an AWFUL lot about the amount of trees on earth. Checkmate "timp6834".

​@@jfan3049Do you feel better now? 😂

@@jfan3049 This is a weird American English thing. They say 'could care less' where British English says 'couldn't care less'. The British version makes rather more sense if you stop to think about it for a mo. But the US version, whilst perverse, isn't really 'wrong' - that is the accepted usage there SFAIK (it may be regional?). Sadly language is very much as we find it, even when it's annoyingly nonsensical.

I almost stopped watching before the 2 minute mark. I'm right there with you.

Schools are failing these kids. It's sad.

@@Volundur9567and the proof is how they were willing to stay and learn, instead of just leaving when they got it wrong

it hurts so bad to watch this

@@Volundur9567 I doubt it. They were probably taught this stuff in school, I know I was. But the fact is most people simply don't care about this sort of thing and their brain forgets it. It's nothing beyond a fun fact and has zero effect on everyday life. I remember when I was 6 or 7 years old reading all sorts of books about the planets and space, I couldn't get enough of it. But sad truth is 99% of people don't care about it at all and don't look up. 80% of people in the US live in an urban area and have never even seen stars or galaxies.

Dont we learn this in schools? So two do most of them not know?

Oh but they should be judged 😭 this is not even funny it's concerning

Some of them should be blamed for not paying attention, but the truth is the public school system is garbage in a great many places.

​@@joshuawillingham6363the basic knowledge asked at the start of this video should be known to everyone regardless of how good their elementary school budgets were. There are no excuses for being this ignorant. I expect all of them know the names of top TikTok influencers...

@@pxprimary3790 When would you encounter this information outside of a formal education setting? Unless they have a particular interest in space there's no reason to look it up, and public school does a great job of beating any joy to be found in learning out of people.

@@joshuawillingham6363 scifi movies. Documentaries. Comic books. TV shows. Novels and general literature. There is almost no way you can go through life and not understand the basic size differences between planets, moons, stars, solar systems, galaxies, etc. You don't have to know exactly how big they are.... But you should know relatively speaking.

It's unacceptable.

Honestly it's absolutely wild that we live in a time where people aren't curious anymore and are often punished by society for being curious

Why? It has no effect in your life to have this information ​@@guy9360

I honestly think a massive amount of this has to do with the fact these interviews are done in LA, or he only shows the clips in which people don't know much. I refuse to believe the average American doesn't have high school level physics. But I'm not american so I have no idea

What are they thinking with their time? What are they doing so as to avoid this information when it is everywhere? You could literally spend all of your time laughing at memes on the internet and STILL come across this information.

Also, Universe > Observable Universe > Galactic Clusters > Galaxies > Solar Systems >Large Stars > Stars > Dwarf Stars > Large Planets > Planets > Large Moons >Dwarf Planets > Moons > Small Moons.

@@Ghostly_FilmProductionganymede is bigger than mercury

I stopped and started looking at the comments instead. Because the things these students said just hurt. From a certain standpoint I can understand what's happening, since they seem to simply judge things off of how they look to us - the further away they are, the smaller they are. But even from that point of view, it is weird when people say the moon is bigger than a planet. So yeah, I think I'll pass on watching this.

@@jorghelfrich8884But they aren’t astrology majors

I mean, the moon is big enough to walk on, but you can't walk on a star. Draw your own conclusions.

@@TheCerealArsonist there is no excuse for thinking a star is smaller than a moon.

There are dwarf stars smaller than earth. Question incomplete and too vaguely worded

Thank you! So many people in the comments are talking down to these people. We can't know their background or what kind of education they got. Being wrong should be exciting cause you get to learn, it shouldn't be a negative thing

Very well said. I don't have that patience. Oh, I will explain away at the slightest invitation, but I get discouraged quickly when people struggle to get stuff.

It helps that on this subject in particular it's just impossible to have the right answer intuitively - unless you're an astronomer you literally cannot know without being told.

@@ethanstong1564 "Being wrong should be exciting cause you get to learn, it shouldn't be a negative thing" completely agree, but that starts falling off when full adults dont know kinder garden level stuff.

Don't read my name.

Naw king you're just built for dense gravity

Stupidity is sadly not something that can be cured.

​@@Zorro9129it can be cured by open-mindedness and the will to learn.

​@@Zorro9129 Why would you consider people not knowing trivia stupidity? There could be loads of reasons why these people do not know this information. They could have not gone to a school that taught this information. They could have lost this knowledge in favor of spending time learning other facts which are more pertinent to their every day lives. They could have known the information and their mind just blanked on the subject while they were being put on the spot.

@@zikli9249 Brilliant mindset here. Not "knowing" some throwaway facts doesn't make one stupid. The information presented, in my opinion, shows a gap in education related to astronomical objects. But, for most people on Earth, astronomical objects are as insignificant as quantum objects. Quantum objects and astronomical objects have almost 0 relevance to everyday life.

@isakleo4706 Agreed. Trivia is fun, but entirely non-indicative of actual human knowledge. Derek manages to walk that line between "trivia to prove people are stupid" and "genuinely caring about people's knowledge" in a way that seems to me to be someone who truly cares about people.

crazy its so old too

Yeah ... And You're taught this as a child*

What about those "not astrology majors" ladies though? They didn't seem too worried about making mistakes.. Imagine people like these making important policy decisions in the government. So maybe making mistakes is ok but if adults are still making mistakes like kids from elementary school maybe they should go back to school.

As trite as it comes

​​@@kyjo72682I mean to be fair how often does needing to know what's larger in terms of planets and moons matter in politics, not often.(I want to change that)

Just made the LOOK stupid instead.

We have multiples moons and stars which is the problem

Earth has one moon. The problem is people can’t or don’t try to grasp the concept of perspective. Nor do they remember one second of the solar system model they learned in elementary school

This video explains why the masses are so easily duped. It's like we're in the dark ages but with smart phones.

@@AMV_KINGDOM_mv This isn't Tatooine dude, what?!?!?

@@TheHiyy .....did you not know factually other moons exist and on other planets some planets have moons look it up

Most of this stuff is honestly elementary level knowledge. The size differences, the difference between moon and planet, the names of the major planets (for god's sake, we're at a point where we're giving kudos for being able to name all of them). The only thing I wouldn't expect the average layman to know are the sheer quantities of things at the upper scope and scale.

Its probably a combination of Pressure because you are filmed in such a situation (without much experience for such situations) Many people simply not cwring about things outside their life in general. Many dont care about the bigger picture (even if it would help e.g. in a job).

As someone with a brain, this made me regret having one

Heh, in the US, you only need to ask people questions about a state 2 or 3 states away to flabbergast them and come up with blank stares

Astrology* Which is consequently one of the many tools of the devil.

So, instead he posts this video online so the whole world can see how embarrassingly ignorant these people are. If he was really being good, he wouldn't have done that in the first place.

I think it’s important to show that people don’t know things and it’s OK to not know things! These people seem kind and open hearted and willing to listen. It might be embarrassing to not know but it’s more embarrassing to not learn. The whole point of this channel is learning. I was cringing at people not knowing things at the beginning but when it came to the size and scale of things I was also ignorant. And it’s ok! We laugh at our ignorance, we learn, and we move on.

I quite like the like ratio between you and the other commenter.@@MatthewTheWanderer

This is beyond sad. These are answers a 13 year old should know. Straight up. That's not an over exaggeration

He should have asked them about Kardashians

Disappointingly so

*Americans

Sad sad sad

Only in America 😂

Now do this in Europe.

Unfortunately it doesn't seem like veritasium is cherry picking results either. 25% of americans think the sun orbits around the earth for example

@imnotnotgameiacmaniac5327 Really? That's actually insane to think about. That would be one person in every immediate family, on average. Possibly two or three in a larger family. That means possibly some of my friends would even think that way, though I like to think my friends are intelligent people. I have had to explain to people, including my own parents, that the sun is a star, and that every star you see in the sky is also a sun, some billions of times bigger than ours. But my parents grew up poor, and with less education, they were never willfully ignorant.

@@ShizuruNakatsuI think when it comes to topics that people lack interest in and where only taught as a child people can look dumber and less educated then they actually are especially sense a lot of people are just kinda doing their own thing and lack curiosity. But still, this kind of stuff is ridiculous and shouldn't be happening in the 21th century though with the same survey finding things like half of Americans not knowing antibiotics don't work on viruses i think human stupidity still plays a large part.

@imnotnotgameiacmaniac5327 Yeah, that's one of the things that makes me very different. I've always had a natural curiosity, loved to learn, and wanted to know as much I could. I pretty much always retain information, whether it's from school, my own research, or even watching quiz shows for entertainment. I don't just let the knowledge flow out of my brain like that, because I want to know and remember things. I know a majority of humans are just caught up in their own little bubble, and don't really care about anything that happens outside of it, but I'll never really understand that mindset.

@@ShizuruNakatsu i envy you lol i also like to do research but i forget information all the time. im often left with the correct conclusion but i can't remember how i got there even with irl stuff i stuggle to remember things clearly that where more than a month ago

I’ve always been taught the saying the other way around: “Reach for the stars, you’ll land on the moon”

atleast she wasn't completely wrong considering the size of neutron stars. Pretty weird that stars can be smaller than moons and at the same time be larger than any planet

You could have agreed and mentioned neutron star. It may not be the kind of stars that the student was talking about, but it has the "star" name in it and comes from a star. And it is definitely smaller than the moon.

Don't read my name.

​​​​@@jannicklumme9298 more *massive* than any planet. Neutron stars can be in the ball park of dozens of miles so planets will not have enough mass at that size to from a sphere. I'm honestly not trying to be rude, just trying to highlight (to anyone who later reads your comment) the different between size and mass. Bigger size frequently doesn't mean more mass. Neutron stars can have a smaller diameter than moons, but will "weigh" more. In this case "weigh" is just referring to the molecular "weight" of the object, which is more properly defined as its mass. If I was talking with someone and discussing "10kg of molecular weight" worth of hydrogen, a person fluent with these ideas would assume that I am talking about 10kg of weight *IF it was weighed on Earth, but they would also be familiar with the fact that this 10kg is referring to a specific number or hydrogen atoms and that the specific number we are discussing would "weigh" different amounts depending on where we weighed it. 10kg can be a reference to an objects mass and can ALSO refer to what it would weigh if placed on a scale with the normal assumption being that the scale was located on Earth. But to say that an item can be "smaller" than Item X, but then also sayit can be "larger" than Item X, is a great way to confuse someone who is not science literate and ALSO not familiar with the specific topic. A significant percentage of the people who fall in to this category or "confused" will just use the lack or clarity to further reinforce their misconceptions and distrust of science. I work side by side with people who would read what you wrote and turn it in to a discussion of: "Your precious SCIENCE can't even decide if a moon or a star is bigger! All of your telescopes are based on photoshopped images and now the people who have not been brainwashed by all of decades of lies from NASA are finally being proved right by your community of "scientists" not being able to keep their lies strait. If you want the truth, just read the bible. God already gave us all the Truth we need. The stars are small points of light that will eventually fall to Earth as a sign that He is returning. Just look up in the sky and ask, which is bigger? That big ass moon that lights up the sky, or some pin point of light you can barely see? And you want me to buy in to this idea that there are stars that are both "bigger" and "smaller" than our God given glorious moon? No thanks, I'll trust what the information I can see with my own eyes. Your "beliefs" and claims about what is happening impossibly far away take way too much Faith for me to support." I am fully aware that most people are not surrounded by the sheer number of uneducated people I seem to be surrounded by....but they ARE out there. The words you use matter. Being perfectly clear and using the correct vernacular matters. Making statements that include what YOU might consider too much detail, matters. If you don't, then I end up fighting with my cousin over Thanksgiving. I end up being the one trying to explain that: "In poor countries, where children have a 35% chance of dying before age 5, women have a LOT of children. They do this in order to make sure they have SOME children that survive. Because, if the AVERAGE is that 1 in 3 die then YOUR family might get unlucky. MAYBE you have 5 kids and 4 of them don't make it, while your 2 sisters ALSO have 5 kids each and only 1 of those 10 don't make it. Between the 3 of you there were 15 kids, 10 survived, but YOU only have 1 kid that made it. If industrial wealthy counties help these countries with basic health care , like vaccines, birth control, sex education, very cheap malaria meds and more, then the survival rates for these children go WAY WAY UP. So...no. Bill Gates is NOT trying to control global populations by poisoning small children in impoverished countries with vaccines that are full of poison and aimed at murdering small children. Bill Gates is trying to give mothers in poor countries the tools to reduce infant mortality, which results in women reducing the number of kids they have...BECAUSE they have confidence that the kids they have will actually LIVE. " Yeah...THAT was a half hour discussing with my cousin who also thought that Alaska was an island somewhere near Hawaii....because "THAT'S WHERE IT IS ON THE MAP! I'll show you and THEN you'll have to tell me how stupid you are." This was before the family reunion where I over heard my uncle say "Yeah! How do we even really know the holocaust even happened?!" So...I had to walk over to my grandmother....HIS MOTHER...who lived through the actual event...and get her to slap the crap out of him. This thinking is EVERYWHERE. When you make a public statement....if you have a general life goal of making things better...it would be wise to make explicitly certain that nothing you say can be misunderstood. Seriously....my time in retail made this even more painfully clear. I had a woman in her mid 50s wave me down from across the entire restaurant...wasn't even my table, but she had an emergency thar someone needed to address right here and now. I make my way to the table. She is holding up a single French fry in front of me...it looks good. I want to eat it....and then she asks me...in perfectly clear english: "So...do I just eat this?" And I think to myself: "Did this 50 something American women with no cultural or language barriers SERIOUSLY just wave me down to ask WHAT SHE IS SUPPOSE TO DO WITH AN EFFING FRENCH FRY?! How do I answer this without sounding like I am INTENTIONALLY trying to a dick to her?" Then the 75 year old guy who spent 20 minutes...alone at his table with a menu...obviously frustrated. After 3 friendly attempts to help him with questions on the menu, or offer suggestions, I finally talk him in to letting me answer questions. Know what his big frustration was? He wanted to know: "If I order soup n salad...can I get the soup separate from the salad?" ....I paused.... ...and paused... ..."I want to make sure I get you what you want, so I just want to make sure I fully understand the question you're asking me. Are you asking if it's possible for me to bring you a salad WITHOUT dumping the soup on top of the salad and serving it all to you in 1 bowl?" Him: Yeah, is that possible? 75 year old American with no cultural or language barriers had spent his entire life hearing "Soup IN salad". So...when you're discussing science.....you can never be to clear. And the cost of NOT being PERFECTLY EFFING CLEAR is the absolute fact that someone out there will turn your harmless error in to a reason to vote for candidate A instead of candidate B.