5:51 “Optics is lit” not going to lie I giggled

Ah. A camera obscura. _That's_ what it's called. Yeah. Years ago, I was working the night shift, which meant sleeping during the day. This requires a dark, daytime bedroom which was not accomplished by the venetian blind my bedroom window had, so I put a cardboard sheet in the window as well. But there was a small rectangle of it missing, and I spent a lot of time lying there, watching the world outside the window play out on my wall, upside down.

“When are we gonna do the science?”

3:07 It looks like the truck was transparent and could see through it

This reminds me of a story my great-aunt told me. Essentially, in their house when she was little, their blinds didn't close properly (they were quite poor), and it accidentally created a camera obscura. Except she doesn't know to call it that, or the physics, just that as a kid she found it amazing, and now eighty-some years later, she still remembers it.

Really cool - my Dad was very into photography, and then astronomy in the '50s. I still have his Speed Graphic, and the 6" reflecting telescope that he built - including grinding the mirror. Those were some awesome times with my Dad (I'm 72 now - LOL).

ROFL! The little kid asking about the science. It's nearly identical to the story my parents tell me of when I was little (apparently too little to remember first-hand). Anyway, as the story goes, we were traveling to Wisconsin with my grandparents, and my grandpa must have told me that we'd have so much fun when we got to Wisconsin because of all the things we were going to do there. Then, on the drive there, someone apparently saw the "Welcome to Wisconsin" sign and said something along the lines of "We just crossed into Wisconsin", to which I promptly turned to my grandpa and asked "Grandpa, are we having fun yet?".

I first learned about the camera obscura as a child in the early 1980s from a show called 3, 2, 1, Contact. The main characters were abducted and trapped in the back of a van and used a hole in the van as a camera obscura in order to figure out where they were. It was a delight seeing you use another van as a camera obscura in this video. Thank you.

The colored string / cardboard demonstration was genius. I love it when something is explained in a way that forces you to understand no matter what.

Poor girl doesn't know why everyone is laughing.

1:30 as she said it's dark, all of the sudden, electricity went off at my home.....lol..😂✌️

They did almost this exact thing in "The Bloodhound Gang" mini show on "3 2 1 Contact" when I was a little kid. They were kidnapped and trapped in the back of a moving van and were able to do tell exactly where they were being taken by using the camera obscura technique.

That rainbow graphic explaining the pin hole allowed me to finally understand this! Another brilliant video :)

Awesome experiment! Such a fun idea. Plus any video that includes Dan makes it that much better. :P

Thank you so much! I have a hard time understanding written concepts and this was SUCH a helpful way to visualize and understand camera obscura!

Last partial solar eclipse I realized I had nothing to view it with only a half hour before it started. A few minutes work with cardboard and white paper and voila, a camera obscura. Worked perfectly.

So simple yet so COOL !

What I like about the tree-eclipse thing is that it retroactively makes something mundane into something cool: Trees don't know how to change the positions of their leaves just to make their shadows prettier during eclipses, the images of the sun were always there. It's a lot like how nobody ever looks at something in a mirror by flipping it vertically.

Very well explanation, it made me understand right now about how does obscura cameras work. Thanks Physics Girl

This is pretty sweet! Well done. So many ideas for camera obscura fun now!

Awesome. I am thinking to share it with some of school children who read this in book but never observed it so well.

Fantastic idea and execution.

I love this channel more and more with each video! 😊

Was that your daughter, other relative, or just a random fan. I hope no one ever squashes the excitement she has for science.

Amazing Mam. Very nice video. Its always good to hear from you. Thanks.

The way you explained the upside down projection is something even a 5 yr old can understand.. easy and intiutive❤️

I'd like to see this again with an adjustable aperture so you can see the effect of the hole changing size. Really interesting and fun!

Your explanation is really really good. Great video like always 😊

EXCELLENT description of the size of hole effect! I have a physics degree with an emphasis in optics, and I used to work for a NSF project teaching science to kids, so I LOVE LOVE LOVE your comments in this (and all of!) your videos. Keep up the awesome work, Diana! Keep Physicsing! :-)

This was fascinating! Thanks Dianna!

I remember once at school, one of the bathrooms had its lock broken off and there was a hole left. Before it got fixed we discovered the same effect when the sun was in the right place during the day. It projected the trees and a nearby building on the wall. Was quite cool to see

Such a stunning demonstration of pinhole cameras. Optics blow my mind everyday as i am getting into the depths of it. I have myopia, so seeing through the hand slit was a Wow moment for me :)

That is awesome and OMG Lilly is just all of the cute! That is the best explaination I've ever seen of how a camera obscura works. Very well done!! Maybe a followup video that extends that knowledge to how an SLR expands on the exact same processes?

This is a great video and a great lesson for my grandchildren. I love it. Thank you.

I experienced this in high school in a classroom dedicated to movie watching ( in the 60s before video); there was this pierced blind that was in effect a camera obscura projecting upside down an image of the people walking about. Your project is nice.

Good scientific explanations, fun content, no clickbait... Could it be, a good KZfaq video? :P

Aww how cute is she! 👧🏼 Scientist in the making!

That was so cool!!! Great learning!!!

1:26 Dianna's heart melts.

Excellent explanation.

Thoroughly enjoyed the video, Diana!

that was awesome! Great idea taking it such a large scale!

So nice to see you back.

Thoroughly enjoyed that 😊

As a near sighted person you just totally blew my mind with that looking between my fingers thing! It works! I'm not seeing a pin sharp image but it's a lot sharper than without my glasses. I guess that's why squinting works a bit too.

I think it was at Griffith Observatory that I first encountered a large Camera Obscura. That was so much fun (and so very long ago). Thanks for the reminder.

This was done by that cast of a TV show that I used to watch. The television show was 321 Contact, It was a afternoon TV program and all things science on a public broadcast station. It was a great show, wish they had something like that today.

when i was a kid we made pin-hole projectors using oatmeal cans. which gave us a panoramic image because we taped the film to the round inside

Awwww she was the cutest!

as a kid, a group of us traveled in the back of a uhaul back in the 80's, and there was a perfect hole in the door that created this effect. we learned to read traffic signs backwards, we knew exactly where we were for 12 hours of science. we had a CB back there and would chat with trucks behind us. a lot of memories of this trip, and i have talked to a guest about this recently while discussing my security camera setup.

That was incredibly cool I never would have guessed

I went to the Camera Obscura close to Edimburgh castle, so interesting. As it had mirrors and was almost like a periscope you could get a piece of paper and "pick people up".

The moving U-Haul obscura video is so cool

Excellent. Now I understand how camera works.

I am a current 1st year optometry student and we just went over this in optics 1. You do a great job simplifying and making this interesting for all to watch and learn! Thank you! How did you set it up with the sheet? Was the sheet between you and the pinhole?

But... What about your polarizers?

We worked this out when we grew up doing "Carnivals", and a group of us would pile into the back of one of the trucks (like a Fex Ex truck), to go to Maccas (McDonalds) for food. The whole trip was played like a movie inside the rear cab.

It's just like that episode of the Blood Hound Gang. The Gang got trapped in the back of a box truck, but the box had a hole in the side from rust. They were able to figure out where they were being taken by making the Box a camera obscura. Whenever there's trouble, we're there on the double.

That's just amazing. Will you release the whole video from the moving vehicle?

Brings back memories. There was a kids show about plucky teens who use science to solve mysteries. One time, they got kidnapped and stuck in the back of a box truck. They managed to poke a hole in the wall and create a pinhole camera so they could figure out where they were being taken. The Edison Twins, maybe?

What a great video! I discovered camera obscura accidentally as a kid while playing inside a very large moving box. :)

On particularly sunny mornings I can get a natural camera obscura in my bed room. I have really heavy black out curtains that blocks out all light except a sliver at the top so the light somehow reflects off the white ceiling I think and I am able to make out blurry shapes and colors on our closet doors. At first I thought I was hallucinating or still sleeping but it's there.

Huygens-Fresnel wavelets with colored yarn - pure genius!!

Wow! That was fun! I wish I knew about it :D Do you post the meetups (hopefully there are more) on places other than Facebook (I am assuming it was posted there)

For sure *Optics* _is_ *LIT* , but its more lit jus watching your pretty face talk science all day long {with interval breaks of course} , all your pure love for your craft is just sweetly combined... good one!!

This is so cool!

Oh! Hey, Diana! Is this why squinting works? Small spaces between eyelashes? Keep up the great work! I’m going to use this video with my science class when we study light in the spring.

OMG! YOU are genius! Why i didn't have school teachers like YOU?! Love YOU

That subtle pun was also lit.

On the old PBS show 3-2-1 Contact The Bloodhound Gang did this.

Convincing people to get in the back of a random dark Uhaul is lit.

In elementary school we did something similar with shoe boxes and tissue paper. It was so cool when we got it right!

HIGHLY recommend to google photography of Ian Ruhter. It's not about obscura, but the truck part remains and result is FANTASTIC.

One of your best videos. :)

there is an LA based photographer, Ian Ruther if i remember correctly, who does wet plate photography using a giant camera made from a converted truck using exactly this process, except with an actual lens instead of a pin hole for better resolution/exposure. really cool stuff.

5:40 oh, so this is why it works? Thanks!

Happy physics-king

This video was 🔥

Reminds me of an episode of 3-2-1 Contact, The Bloodhound Gang (kid detectives) gets trapped in a truck and uses a hole in the side as a camera obscura to figure out where they're being taken.

This is the coolest thing ever

"optics are lit", this is awesome

"Optics is lit." Here, have the thumbs-up. I'm already subscribed. haha

this was posted on my bday!!

Some years ago, I read of a camera obscura in the back of a truck. They used a lens to get a sharper, brighter image, and then used very large Polaroid film to make photographs. The truck served both as camera obscura and as darkroom, with an audience inside.

that little girl melted my heart... SHES SO CUTE!

Try putting one of those spherical outdoor white lamp shades on top of the hole. That would make a cool little world effect, I think.

Photography means "To capture light." Painters would use a Camera Obscura to paint a landscape, much like how people use projectors today. So, a lot of old landscape paintings, are actually a reversed image of what they were painting!

Aaand thats how a passionate scientist is born.

Favorite youtuber ever!

This reminds me of an episode of 3-2-1 contact in the 70s or 80s on pbs there was a kid who got stuck in a truck and used a hole in the side to make this camera to help find their way home after getting out

I love a good camera obscura. There is a little room that has been built as a camera obscura at Questacon (Canberra, Australia). Every time I've been there in the last few years though, the camera obscura has been shut off to visitors. Maybe a little dark room outside in the sun wasn't a good idea? Hopefully it's not because somebody wrecked it or misused the small dark space :(

This was fascinating.

4:58 Whoever did that graphic, I want to give to a hug!

There is a documentary film Tim’s Vermeer made by the magician Duo Penn and Teller about a friend of theirs, Tim, who experimented with a theory that the 17th century Dutch painter Vermeer (painted the girl with the pearl earring) used a camera obscura to produce his lifelike paintings.

I saw this in an episode of 321 Contact when I was 12. I'm 50 now and optics still amaze me.

Best science video ever.

great stuff, i love Phizzy gal

we used to do this in my Uncles truck when i was a kid... by opening the door just a tiny bit, the image or what was outside would be projected on the back wall.. but i think from memory that it was still the right way up and not upside down... the crack in the door obscuring the light outside differently than a pinhole does. Maybe that's something to try, with a tiny unobscured strip instead of a pinhole.

THIS IS SO COOL