It's amazing how you can actually see the water level get lower when the can sucks all the liquid in, all in less than a second, you gotta love physics

Its amazing and terrifying to be able to see what Hank Green meant by "they ceased being biology and rapidly became physics"

Mythbusters did an excellent video showing what happens to the human body at extreme depths. They made a cadaver out of pig parts and put it in an old diving suit with a metal diving helmet. When they shut off the equalizing pressure in the suit, the entire cadaver was horrifyingly squeezed up into in the diving helmet. And that was only at around 90 meters, not even 3% of the depth of the Titanic.

If that soda can was Titan, the beer can was Pisces III. The latter was a DSV that got stranded on the bottom of the sea for a time, but the worry there was running out of oxygen because the main hull held just fine. The crew of two later got rescued on the verge of running out of air.

Now imagine your beer can isn't made out of a material which undergoes plastic deformation but instead a material that can only fail by shattering.

Kyle Hill is probably my favorite science teacher since Adam Savage.

The experiment Kyle demonstrated is far more effective at explaining the catastrophic failure of the sub than any CGI recreation of the disaster. The implosion of Titan was a tragedy that could have been avoided had the physics been respected when designing the vessel.

I’ve been trying to imagine what this would’ve looked like from outside the sub. Since carbon fiber shatters, the implosion must’ve been like a reverse frag grenade. 🤯

This video crushed my expectations

I think it is really clever how you created this video about safety, and your instructions for the experiment is a perfect example of complete safety protocols.

The thing I found quite interesting about the sub disaster was the fact the time taken for the sub to implode was less time that it takes for an electrical impulse to reach the brain. Meaning the people that died could well have had the fastest and most 'painless' death in history.

the reaction at 8:05 then the processing of what just happened was just great. im quite sure kyle already knew it was going suck in a lot of water, but didn't realize it was going to do with such force that the reaction force ripped the steel can away from the tongs.

The Artemis Fowl books had a similar metaphor. "Like a soda can in the hands of a giant who was immensely strong and didn't like soda cans."

I think the most damning indictment of Stockton and Oceangate's hubris is just how short every video explaining what happened is

So Kyle, when are we going to get a mini episode about why water can instantly start and stop boiling? I know you stopped yourself b/c you were starting down a rabbit hole, but I wanna see where in Wonderland that hole comes out.

There's an episode of Behind the Bastards about Stockton Rush. I cannot stress enough how often this man, in interviews and on camera said "ahhhh, it's probably not that bad. Safety shmafety". He was quite literally asking for it, and was going to get someone killed eventually. As the old saying goes, "regulations are written in blood".

I think the best thing that illustrates this is actually those videos of sea creatures being instantaneously sucked into undersea pipelines when they get too close. The pressure difference is so great that they basically just vanish into a hole they could never normally fit into.

I love the barely contained rage you can see behind Kyle's eyes as he describes the incredible amounts of ineptitude that went into allowing something like this to happen.

1:48 I have so much anxiety this invoked the same feeling as having a dream about missing/forgetting about an important test. Also I feel so seen with the anger behind kyle’s eyes because that’s exactly how I feel. By a narcissistic billionaire being greedy, a 19 year old boy who ONLY went to please his father lost his life in a fraction of a second. I have trouble feeling sympathy for the billionaires, but that one boy needs to be remembered as more than one of five in a tin can Edit: his name is Suleman Dawood and he was a student at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. I should’ve included this in my first comment

I love Kyle. Ive seen people joke about this but Kyle isnt just doing this for views. You can see he really cares about the how and that there is no valid reason for why this was allowed to happen is frustrating.

This explanation AND the experiment was amazing to show how disastrous that submarine was.

I remember this simple demonstration from my chemistry teacher back in the 8th grade. We used steel beer cans, because aluminum was not as popular in the Late 70s . Still the pop sound is a strong reminder of how pressure is all around us.

I remember Bill Nye doing this experiment when I was a kid. Though he did it with a metal barrel and a pool. Nice to see its still being taught.

3:02 I...I have... _SOOOO_ many questions!!!

I used to work with 'dry boxes' where you stick your arms into long gloves. The pressure in the box typically is a tiny positive 3 inches (8 cm) of water [compare that to 10 meters = 33 feet of water for a full ONE atmosphere.]. Holy pressure, that was a tiny 0.01 atm I had to fight and push my arms HARD to get to work. In order to work comfortably you would release the pressure to 1 inch (3 cm) = 0.003 atmospheres, that is 3 thousandths of an atmosphere over room pressure. I learned to appreciate the 1 atm over our bodies that way. Nice vid! Cheers!

I knew that straws had height limits, but I hadn't thought about how that knowledge related to submarines. That's such a satisfying connection!

For others who don’t have access to a propane torch and soda can… try this. Take all necessary safety precautions to protect against scalding. With an empty soda bottle made from plastic, fill it with hand hot warm water. NOT boiling water, that will be very dangerous. Allow the plastic to soften a little and immediately pour out the water into a basin and put the lid back on the soda bottle. Plunge the bottle into a bucket of cold water or let it sit for a few minutes. It’s a similar crushing effect.

I like the demonstration of the implosion, but it is important to also note that even if the sub had not imploded the passengers would have still died... The demonstration of the second can actually shows that because as you said, the can kept its shape but almost instantly filled with water and equalized the pressures. At the depth of the Titan, the reequalization (even just with an extremely small hole) would have been massive and would have killed the passengers. If that would not have killed the passengers, then in anycase the compressed air due to the equalization would be toxic for them and they probably would not have time to return to the surface before perishing... The biggest issue is not that the frame of the Titan imploded, it's that it was able to have a hole in the first place. That was the deadly part, because even if the sub had not imploded the passengers would have dies anyways....

The first time I saw an implosion (sort of) was when I was on 6th grade, an associated high school from our school did an open house exhibition. Some seniors boiled water and poured it down a soda can and dropped it in an aquarium of ice cold water. To think something like that happened to a sub with actual living people is harrowing

We once used a double ziplock bag, filled with steak and marinade. We then took that on our dive to 20 meters, or roughly 65 feet. We left it tied to lead weights until our second dive that day. We returned and had deeply marinated steaks for the bbq that evening. The fun part was seeing the bag reinflate with the minute amount of air it still contained. Pressure of water is suspiciously strong. Don't underestimate it. Ever.

I don't typically talk about people's clothes, but I think Kyle's shirt perfectly exemplifies exactly the sort of mindset the folks at Titan are alleged to have had. The demon core and the Titan sub are now linked in my mind.

I like the can analogy, cans are actually incredibly strong and can deal with up to 5 atmospheres of pressure differential, but that only applies when the can is under tension, which happens when the pressure is on the inside, not the outside, and as you can see when the pressure is on the outside even one atmosphere of pressure is too much for it. This is the same with the carbon fibre hull, it is strongest under tension which would only happen if the inside of the sub was higher pressure than the outside, when the pressure is on the outside carbon fibre only has a fraction of the strength it is known for so its only benefit to a sub is the weight reduction not the strength.

Stockton Rush and his last minute warning system that alerts you of critical failure... only you're stuck 4km at the bottom of the ocean not being able to do anything about it.

Still insane to me how Any engineers worked on this. Any engineer with half a brain would know that carbon fibre cannot last many cycles, and also cannot be tested nondestructively, making it one of the absolute worst materials for a deep diving sub.

There was so many massive design flaws with that thing it's amazing it survived any depth let alone getting down to where it did fail.

The dangers of pressures reminds me, in one of Eric Flint's Grantville books there is a scene which a convict is stuffed into a jury-rigged pressure suit and told to walk into the depths. Unfortunately the hand pumps that was providing him the pressure and oxygen so he could survive this didn't have a backflow stop so when the pumps broke, the pressure turned him into paste.

Probably the most succinct demonstration while remaining accurate. Outstanding.

Its amazing how fast the can filled with water to equalize the pressure.

From what I read, the decompression was SO explosive and fast, the temperature inside reached that of the surface of the sun for a brief moment as it was compressing.

I've done experiments like this. It's pretty crazy to watch. In high school, our chemistry teacher was going over the fact that it isn't heat that boils water but a reduction in pressure at the surface. To demonstrate this, he put a glass vacuum bell over a beaker of water, pumped out the air, and the water began boiling quite violently. I'm not sure if you've covered this, but it would be interesting to go over the mechanics of what happens during a violent and sudden _drop_ in pressure. For example, the Byford Dolphin accident.

I've watched quite a few scientific and observational videos on this topic now, but your comparison of catastrophic versus controlled failure possibly emphasizes the importance of material choice the best. Other videos focus on poor material choice, but it never occurred to me that a properly rated vessel should never have been able to catastrophically fail in the first place.

Another example of the pressure at that depth is a Styrofoam cup own by maritime archeologist James Delgado. It was attached to the outside of his submersible on a trip to the Titanic. That full size coffee cup is now no bigger than a large thimble due to the pressure.

This was amazing illustration! I just wish it didn't take the death of a child to bring attention to it. Please keep doing what you do, it may save child in the future that we never have to learn about.

Aww you're bringing back nostalgic memories for me. When I was 12, I did a kids summer chemistry program at the local community college. The professor who was running it showed us the same can implosion demonstration, and let me say, for a 12 year old science nerd it was pretty exciting! Side note: regarding making water boil at room temperature simply with a straw longer than 10 meters- the AlphaPhoenix youtube channel actually tried that out and did a demonstration, which is definitely worth a watch.

Thats crazy, 1atm per 10m adds up very very quickly. I never new how high the pressure could get in the deep ocean. Also, side note thing. I'm currently studying chemical engineering at university, and the sort of pressure implosion you showed with the can, has happened all too often with large industrial tanks that are being cleaned with steam, and the operators forget to open the relief valve. This means that the steam slowly condenses over the course of a day and then suddenly the tank imploads from atmospheric pressure. Great vid kyle.

I really do appreciate the serious tone of the video. What happened was not a joke and it is important to understand what can occur when you ignore the extremes of physics, in this case, deep under the ocean.

I like how your example uses a container that’s designed for higher internal pressure. As it brings to mind the fact they were using carbon fiber to make the titan which is better for internal pressure.

So I knew the first part of what you were going to do but I wasn't expecting the second experiment, which I enjoyed very much. Thanks!

The absolute SPEED of how quickly implosion takes place is insane! NEVER underestimate physics.

That "Oceangate" label on the small can was a delightful touch 😅 Excellent video, Kyle😎👍 This is why one must never underestimate physics.

Since the viewport was entirely blown out, do you think that was the failure point, or maybe one of the welds?

Dr. Hill, thank you so VERY much for your vids! Excellent, riveting, jaw-dropping. You are our 'Bill Nye The Science Guy' for the 2020's. Health-wise, hydrostatic pressure for someone in water is a wonderful thing! Exercising in water for people who have disabilities or issues where they can't have as healthy a lifestyle on land is better because the pressure of water increases circulation via venous return, increases energy expenditure because of the body moving through something thicker than air, AND the gravity is a whole lot less. Of course, it's recommended that you DON'T go down 10,000+ feet. 4-7 feet in a pool is fine, thank you very much. (Your average pool is only 10 feet deep aka 3.33 meters, BTW) Also folks, ever wonder why you have to pee after swimming? This 'hydrostatic pressure' is from water pushing on your WHOLE body, making your circulation go 'way faster and makes your kidneys filter waste faster. It's like the principle of a hose that you hold kinked and the water shoots out. I AM taking a test later, Kevin! The 'water fitness instructor' test actually, about shit like hydrostatic pressure, hydrodynamics, turbulence, form drag, frictional drag, wave drag, specific gravity, Archimedes' principle of buoyancy, surface tension, and lots of other boring stuff that I'll probably never remember but I'll use and DO in the biz of teaching water aerobics. I won't ignore water physics or the properties of water just to make a bunch of people bounce around in the water with NO CLUE why I'm making them do it. Oh, yes...a LOT of my people are in Waupaca, Waukesha, and Neenah-Menasha.

Don't let this deceive you, we can clearly see in 6:20 that Kyle Hill's sheer strength can crush the soda can with tongs. Yes he's that strong

Amazing demonstration! I always think of something I heard a while ago that the rules of safety, are written in blood. Attempting to defy that without precaution is simply adding a new rule.

8:05 the way he scoots back in his chair a little tells me he was half expecting it to explode

3:12 ... when I'm trying to save up for a brand new death rAAAYyyyy, Death Rave.

I'm equally blown away by the succinct, vivid demonstration of science and the increasing psychic damage Kyle inflicts with self-descriptions like "science educator and furry fanfic prompt" 🤣

For a little added perspective for folks (like me) who are still burdened by the Imperial system: 1 atm is roughly equivalent to 14.7 lbs. per sq. inch. If you've ever lifted a 15lb. dumbbell, you know that's a not inconsiderable amount of weight; now, apply that to every single square inch of your body at once. The summer chemistry class I had to take in university had a pretty good demo of this: the teacher had a friend who worked at a machine shop make him a steel weight with a 1 sq. inch contact on it. He had us put a hand flat on our desks and went around, laying the weight on the back of our hands. It started to hurt after a few seconds, and that was the equivalent of just one extra atmosphere of pressure. The Titan sub, from what I've read, was believed to have failed somewhere around 3.5km below sea level, which works out nicely to 350 atmospheres of pressure, or 5,143.6 lbs. per sq. inch. For reference: my car is a 2016 Toyota Camry, which weighs in at around 3,240 lbs. That's about one and a half Toyota Camrys. On every square inch of your vessel, on every square inch of your body. And the poor bastards in the Titan sub had to experience it, even if it was for an instance. All because of one man's short-sighted, egotistical vanity.

Best example of how pressure works on depth. Also I loved the reference of the shirt too because thats what happen when you DON'T follow the protocol of safe protection on radiation wich this is what titan did on submarine. Do not cut corners always create with precatious before testing the real thing.

Out of all the videos I've watched regarding Titan, yours is one of my top 3.

One example we did for chemistry club at my college was using a beer keg. We'd hold little public outings where we demonstrate cool experiments that you can't easily do at home. One of the simplest ones was the can crush. Except we'd immediately go "Well it's just a soda can right?" Que the beer keg. We'd ask adults to come up to try to crush it. Then boil off water in it and seal it with the cap. Then put it aside and have it as a little side show throughout the next few demonstrations before it spontaneously crumples out of nowhere.

At that pressure if you don't respect it you go from biology to physics. Least it was painless

Its cool to see your video on this, I've just had a lecture on fluid mechanics that covers hydrostatic pressure

amazing video. this is the sort of style of science that got me passionate about science all those years back growing up in school. ive since lost that passion, but i wish to get it back. this channel is nice for that. thank you!

I love how he tries to explain why the water only boils when he puts heat underneath it and just says, whatever mid sentence

I remember a scene from Down Periscope that fits perfectly. "If we go too far down, the hull of this boat will crush in like an empty beer can." - The dude whose name I can't remember who was the sub's chief engineer.

Woah!! This was actually so cool... the demonstration of the larger can actually blew my mind... blew, less like an explosion and more like an implosion.. Puns aside, this was so so so informative. I feel like a kid learning stuff from experiments in class. Thank you!

This is exactly the kind of explanation I was looking for. You're awesome! Thanks for keeping it real (scientific).

We did that aluminum can experiment in my chemistry class (about 20 years ago now), but the implosion was much much more violent. The instant we dunked it into the water, the pop it gave was extremely loud and startled my lab partner and I.

Thunderf00t's videos on this subject are amazing and go into the nitty gritty details and calculations. I highly recommend them. The gist is - the Titan sub was put together with glue, and parts made of different materials were glued together. The differing materials and glue all compressed at different rates. After enough trips down to the Titanic, it wore down so bad that the glue gave out which sucked the water in at such a tremendous rate that it compressed the air in the sub, heating it up tremendously, and blowing it to pieces. We know from some data that came out that they tried to ascend shortly before the destruction happened but it just wasn't working, meaning water was probably rushing in from a pinhole-size hole for a bit, before the hull eventually gave out.

Kyle I think you'll find interesting the sinking of the USS Thresher. First the US Navy just said they imploded and everybody died right away, but officially declassified documents from the Department of the Navy showed they, at least, lasted 3 days during the search for it (it included 2 submarines, multiple surface vessels, they really tried to recover them). I think is a good tangent as to that implosion doesn't always mean organic matter turning to physics, but that there's a much complex event. There's a channel; Sub Brief; which covers the tragedy of the USS Thresher. He's a former sonarman from a Los Angeles attack sub, and very knowledgeable in all thing submarine-related. I hope you find this comment interesting.

Thanks Kyle, a simple short and effective explanation of what happened to the Titan. 👍

Be careful putting boiling water in soda cans. They have plastic liners inside which melt and emit toxic fumes. Should use a respirator.

Fun fact: my summer gig is as an outreach educator for our local science center, and we have a program called Science Around the World, where one of our “destinations” is the deep sea. We bring up the challenger deep, the way that submersibles like bathyscaphes work to negate pressure, and all in the lead up to a can crush demo. I did one the day that news of the Titan dropped. You can see where this is going.

This visual demonstration was a breath of fresh, atmospheric, air 👍🏽

it’s awesome that his patreon page is over a minute of the video. if we keep this up that portion could be the main portion of the videos

I've read several articles claiming that on a submarine during an implosion the inrushing water might compress the airbubble violently to a point at which everything would most likely ignite instantly. Not to mention that a sudden increase in pressure would probably rip bodies apart. I'd expect occupants in a submarine dying probably of 3-4 causes at once: 1 pressure increase ripping all hollow organs apart 2 massive increase in pressure incinerates everything 3 violent deformation crushes bodies 4 inrushing water crushing and ripping everything apart

This whole oceangate thing is fascinating because it isn't just one singular fault that caused it to implode. For such a small submersible it really is a gigantic fustercluck! Everything from design to manufacturing and every component from stem to stern was just sketchy as hell. I also happened to see on instagram that the "it was just a hoax, trust me bro" crowd have latched onto this... Geeze

Thunderf00t had very interesting hypothesis in his 2nd Titanic video of how that submersible failed. But he basically proposed that it failed , because that "eye" made out of titan in front that is glued onto composite body had very different pressure compressability than that composite material.

I love your channel, you do such a great job explaining the subject matter. You do it in a way that it is easy to understand. So I guess the Titan submersible should have been ribbed for their protection.

Adding onto your straw thing This is actually why Trees over 10m tall are so impressive. They have roots that get water from the ground, and then they move that water over 10m from the root system to the top of the tree. The only way that is actually possible is by the tree creating negative pressure at the top of the tree, which allows them to get water to the top of the trees. So for trees to exist over 100m tall (tallest tree measured being 115.92m) that have to create over -10 ATM of pressure to get water to the very top of their root systems in order to distribute it out to their leaves.

Important to remember: what killed the crew so quickly was the rapid decompression of the water itself into the vessel. Water molecules get compressed by about 10% at that depth so it’s actually the decompression that kills first.

7:30 I love how Kyle went through the trouble of taping over the logo on the can, when there's exactly one brand of beer on the planet that uses this shape and junkyness for their beer cans.

Also keep in mind, just because it can handle that pressure once does not mean it can handle infinite cycles.

Fantastic Demo! Another analogy i think of often is that the surface of Venus is around 90atm of pressure, so at the titanic's depth you have around *Four* Venus worth of pressure. 90 ATM was enough to cause significant issues when combined with the immense heat and caustic atmosphere for the Venera probes.

When I work with my CCATT docs, they love explaining atmospheric pressure changes at elevations. I though 1 atm was like 14lbs, about 12lbs where we live and it’s “fun” to see the elevation sickness that hits people at 14k feet , even 6k feet is messing some people up. This reminds me, scuba divers should have the hydrostatic pressure of their air tanks every 5 years!

The same demonstration done with a 55 gallon oil drum is always pretty impressive.

7th video of yours I’ve watched today. New favorite channel thanks for the incredible content!

I’ve been waiting for this since the accident happened and I’ve not been disappointed. Thanks Kyle!!! Best teacher ever

The water pressure alone was enough to kill them/cut and or crush but I've gotta imagine the carbon fiber shards were probably more violent than a metal crunch

I love how startled he gets when the beer can suctions to the bottom of the pan.

Wonderful explain. Easy to understand. Great job. Keep going 🎉

One of the greatest examples of perspective that I took from this whole situation and learning about submarines: It is orders of magnitude easier to build a spaceship than a submarine. A space vessel must merely contain 1 atmosphere of pressure. (And radiation shielding but shush) where as a sub must WITHSTAND the force from the outside crushing in, to the order of (In this case 375ish) hundreds of atmospheres of pressure.

I love how midway through one of his scientific rants about why water is instantly boiling and unboiling he just stops himself. Love these videos, so much better than any science class I ever took.

Thank you Kyle, really smart way to clearly demonstrate the principles involved.

It's super unfortunate I graduated with a bachelor's in mechanical engineering before this incident happened. It would've provided a beneficial research topic for my capstone. Anyways, you did a fantastic job explaining how the implosion happened in an easy to understand manner. A slightly more complex explanation is that composite materials - which the hull was made of - are sturdy against tensile forces. The actual elastic modulus is an average of the compressive and tensile strength, but generally composites fail at lower stresses when in compression. Traditional metals (i.e. carbon steel or titanium) are materials best suited for high pressure conditions for a multitude of reasons. The simplest is the predictable failure modes in which we have dozens of models to predict when, where, and how a failure in a specific condition will occur. Models for composites and ceramics are still in active development since it's a balancing act between accuracy and simulating in a reasonable amount of time. The Titan sub is an excellent example of why safety standards exist. Stockton argued that they stifle innovation, but his idea of innovation arose from the flawed idea that cutting costs no matter what fits that definition. This seems to be a common trend wherein individuals that lack the necessary knowledge for a given discipline implement policies or issue demands on how those with the technical background should perform their jobs.

I've honestly been waiting for this. Thanks for everything you do.

im literally so happy to still see you posting content, i watched you a few years back and you randomly popped into my mind again and im happy you're still doing this

Thanks very much for break it down I was wondering how it took place.And your a very very smart young man THANKS AGAIN

Thank you Kyle. This is one of my favorite science channels.