Top 10 Best Tom Scott Videos

  • 7 months ago
This legendary YouTuber may be stepping away, but his epic videos will live forever! Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down the best and most mind-blowing videos from British YouTuber Tom Scott, as he takes a well-earned break.

Category

🗞
News
Transcript
00:00 This is not going to be a normal video.
00:02 We're sending garlic bread to the edge of space!
00:06 Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down the best and most mind-blowing videos
00:10 from British YouTuber Tom Scott as he takes a well-earned break.
00:14 I've been throwing stuff at the internet since 1999.
00:17 Number 10.
00:18 I promise this story about microwaves is interesting.
00:21 Or you could put a magnetron inside a safe radiation-proof box called a Faraday cage,
00:25 you tune the wavelength so that water absorbs the radiation easily, and you've got a microwave
00:29 and you can cook lunch.
00:31 In this video, Tom begins by talking about a research tangent he went on in which he
00:36 found the bizarre kernel of information that microwaves were invented to be a "humane
00:41 way to reheat hamsters."
00:43 It feels like a story that shouldn't be buried as a vague anecdote in a newspaper
00:46 from years ago.
00:47 As he goes on to explain, this turns out to be absolutely true, and he interviews one
00:52 of the men responsible, James Lovelock.
00:55 An early version of a microwave was invented by British scientists in the 1950s during
00:59 cryobiological experiments.
01:08 They were freezing small rodents and then trying to reanimate them through heat.
01:12 As the video explains, this only worked on small animals because you can freeze and heat
01:17 them very quickly and can't be repeated in humans.
01:22 Number 9.
01:23 Language sounds that could exist but don't.
01:26 Fans of Tom Scott will know that he has a degree in linguistics, which makes his videos
01:31 about language particularly interesting.
01:41 He gives us a crash course in the history of the English language, and then moves on
01:45 to the International Phonetic Alphabet.
01:53 If you've ever wanted to understand the phonetic alphabet, this is an excellent explanation.
01:57 But he goes the extra mile by speculating about sounds that are possible for humans
02:01 to make but which don't appear in known languages, and sounds that may exist but which
02:06 no human has ever been able to vocalize.
02:17 Number 8.
02:18 YouTube's copyright system isn't broken, the world's is.
02:21 It's always interesting to hear professional YouTubers talk about YouTube and the way it
02:25 works behind the scenes.
02:32 Something that remains enigmatic is YouTube's copyright system, which we're very familiar
02:36 with at WatchMojo.
02:42 In this 40-minute masterpiece, Tom explains the intricacies of copyright law, both in
02:47 his native UK and over in the US, where Google is based.
02:51 He goes into detail about what gets flagged as being copyright infringement online and
02:55 what doesn't, despite many of those things being fair use and many of the things that
03:00 don't get flagged potentially being illegal.
03:09 Watch him get to the bottom of what is and isn't transformative under the law and explain
03:13 how this should change.
03:18 Number 7.
03:19 Why you can't buy Dasani water in Britain
03:29 While Dasani water is very widely sold in North America, it's not available to Brits
03:34 like Tom Scott.
03:35 But why is that?
03:36 Well, as Tom explains, Coca-Cola was part of a PR scandal when it tried to introduce
03:41 Dasani to the UK in 2004.
03:48 The problem was that Dasani was bottling tap water, which is acceptable in America but
03:53 seen as absurd in the UK.
03:55 So when the public found out, they were not happy.
03:59 Worse, the water was later found to be contaminated with bromate.
04:11 All this happened in the space of a month and Dasani has never been sold in the UK since.
04:16 Even weirder, this mirrored the plot of a 1992 episode of the popular British sitcom
04:21 Only Fools and Horses.
04:29 Number 6.
04:30 The US-Canada border splits this road down the middle
04:39 He doesn't only make videos about the UK and has traveled to America time and time
04:43 again.
04:44 In this quick video, Tom journeys to the border between Canada and the US, where the towns
04:49 of Derby Line and Stansted are divided by the international border.
05:02 It's actually illegal to cross the street here without going through a customs checkpoint
05:06 and showing your passport.
05:07 Tom interviews the locals and explores how they're inconvenienced by the border, and
05:11 how strange laws about borders are enforced.
05:20 If you cross the street for whatever reason, there's a good chance the cops will show
05:24 up because you've illegally entered another country.
05:27 Number 5.
05:28 Why the US Army electrifies this water
05:37 Moving down from Canada and into the United States, Tom's now in Peoria, Illinois to
05:42 teach us about how the US has tackled the problem of invasive carp in its rivers.
05:46 These river systems have now been taken over by huge carp, which leap out of the water
05:50 with such force that they can actually hurt humans if they hit them.
06:02 But the real problem is that America is trying to protect the Great Lakes from these carp.
06:07 Tom, with the help of an Army engineer, explains how the US wants to achieve that.
06:23 This dangerous electric fence has enough voltage to potentially kill a person, and all to protect
06:29 the Great Lakes and their fishing industries from these environmentally harmful carp.
06:34 Number 4.
06:35 20 years ago, I predicted 2022.
06:38 Did I get it right?
06:39 Back in April 2012, Tom made a video predicting the future, going through everything he thought
06:51 would happen or would have happened already by 2022.
06:55 And then he made a follow-up talking about how the video had aged.
06:58 A lot of his predictions were on point, including about the widespread adoption of 5G in smartphones.
07:05 That's another big miss, although to be fair to earlier me, I still think wireless headphones
07:11 are a terrible idea.
07:12 But many were wrong, too.
07:14 And it's fascinating to see him talk about why and how they were wrong, and what led
07:18 him to believe those things could happen a decade ago.
07:25 And he finishes it by saying what he thinks will happen by 2032, including the potential
07:30 demise of YouTube.
07:31 We'll have to see if in 10 years' time, Google decide to shut down this old product
07:37 as well.
07:39 Number 3.
07:40 YouTubers have to declare ads.
07:41 Why doesn't anyone else?
07:52 Another video that gets into the weeds of how YouTube works.
07:55 This time, Tom is looking at product placement.
07:58 On YouTube, all creators are required to declare clearly and upfront if they've been given
08:02 a sponsorship.
08:12 But in both Britain and America, this isn't really true for traditional media.
08:16 As Tom points out, in the US, disclosures about product placement are often hidden in
08:21 the end credits of movies and shows, meaning that people aren't aware they're being advertised
08:25 to unless they go looking for the information.
08:34 This video digs into the history of advertising and product placement, and Tom concludes by
08:38 saying he thinks all media should be required to do what influencers do.
08:43 Number 2.
08:44 We sent garlic bread to the edge of space, then ate it.
08:47 Using a high-altitude balloon, Tom and a team of enthusiasts decided to launch a garlic
08:52 bread baguette to the edge of space - as high as balloons like that are physically able
08:57 to go.
09:04 When the balloon reaches its limit and pops, the garlic bread will crash back down to Earth.
09:09 To keep the bread relatively safe to eat, a mechanism to close the box it's in was designed.
09:19 This all works, and they're able to track the box, find where it landed, and then actually
09:24 eat it without worrying about contamination.
09:26 Tom later uploaded the full uncut livestream of the bread's journey to space, racking up
09:31 millions more views.
09:36 Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel and ring the bell to get notified
09:40 about our latest videos.
09:42 You have the option to be notified for occasional videos or all of them.
09:45 If you're on your phone, make sure you go into your settings and switch on notifications.
09:52 Number 1.
09:53 This video has X views.
09:55 The title of this video constantly changes, and so far, it's always been close to the
10:00 real number.
10:08 So how did Tom pull off this magic trick?
10:11 With a deceptively clever piece of code, this video is set to automatically update its title.
10:25 He did this to talk about the changing nature of the internet, and how different it is today
10:29 for software engineers and web developers.
10:40 It's an homage to the old days of Web 2.0, when anyone could learn how to code and build
10:44 simple but functional websites, before everything online had to be monetized and made to turn
10:50 a profit.
10:51 Let us know in the comments what your favorite video from Tom Scott's huge back catalog is.
11:09 Did you enjoy this video?
11:14 Check out these other clips from WatchMojo and be sure to subscribe and ring the bell
11:18 to be notified about our latest videos.
11:20 See you next time!