Alfred Nobel: The Man Who Fooled The World

Discover the explosive story of Alfred Nobel. Sponsored by Opera - Upgrade your browsing experience with Opera today. Download it right here: https://opr.as/Opera-browser-veritasium If you’re looking for a molecular modelling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - https://ve42.co/SnatomsV Sign up to the Veritasium newsletter for weekly science updates - https://ve42.co/Newsletter We have a tabletop game launching! Pledge your support now - https://ve42.co/KickStarterD CORRECTIONS: 30:36 The molecular chain we showed here when talking about cellulose was actually starch, the glycosidic bonds should be bent (beta) not straight (alpha) bonds - Thank you to someriversong1793 for spotting this 37:38 The animation shows the casing flying away with the bullet, this is incorrect, only the bullet accelerates down the barrel like that - Thank you to kettusnuhveli for pointing this out ▀▀▀ A huge thank you to Jesse Taylor for making the demonstrations possible and sharing his experience with us! And a big thanks to Dr. Katharine Tibbets, Dr. Julien Glorian & Sabrina DePiero for their expertise and participation in this video. Also thanks to Steven Johnson, author of The Infernal Machine (as featured on 99% Invisible) and to Jonah Sachs and professor Terry Reynolds for their help on the project ▀▀▀ 0:00 The Nobel Armament Factory 4:18 Gunpowder vs Nitroglycerine 10:58 How safe is nitroglycerin? 14:50 Blast Caps 19:09 Why does nitroglycerin explode on impact? 22:19 The invention of dynamite 26:56 Dynamite vs TNT 27:53 Explosive Cotton - Gelignite 32:43 The Merchant of Death 35:42 Smokeless Guns 38:04 The Birth of Terror 42:08 Why did Nobel start the prize? 43:11 What happened to Nobel? ▀▀▀ References: https://ve42.co/NobelRefs Images & Video: https://ve42.co/NobelImRefs ▀▀▀ Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, Anton Ragin, Anupam Banerjee, armedtoe, Balkrishna