The Man Who Took LSD and Changed The World

LSD-fiend, surfer, maverick — Kary Mullis might be the weirdest person ever to win the Nobel Prize. Get a little smarter every day with Brilliant. Visit https://brilliant.org/veritasium to get 20% off your annual premium subscription. A massive thank you to Tom White, Hudson Freeze, and Henry Erlich for their time and expertise on the subject. A huge thank you to Eleni Kleanthous, Jan Novoselec, Kieran Sparkes, Andrew Garcia, and UCSD’s Pride Lab for reviewing the science. For great coverage of the PCR story, check out ‘Making PCR’ by Paul Rabinow - https://ve42.co/Rabinow1996 For exclusive behind-the-scenes content on the making of this video, join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/119438561 00:00 DNA under a microscope 01:17 Kary Mullis at Berkeley 02:50 Cetus and early biotech 04:16 How to detect sickle cell anemia 09:12 Kary Mullis at Cetus 10:39 Infinite DNA glitch explained 15:29 Kary Mullis struggles 18:10 Thermus Aquaticus to the rescue 23:53 Going public 26:59 The quirky genius, Kary Mullis ▀▀▀ Special thanks to our Patreon supporters! Join the community to help us keep our videos free, forever: https://ve42.co/PatreonDE Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alexander Tamas, Anton Ragin, Autodidactic Studios, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, Evgeny Skvortsov, Farbod Mansorian, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, Greg Scopel, I. H., Juan Benet, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Matthias Wrobel, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Krugman, Orlando Bassotto, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Sam Lutfi, Spilmann Reed, Tj Steyn, TTST, Ubiquity Ventures, and wolfee If you’re looking for a molecular modeling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - https://ve42.co/SnatomsV ▀▀▀ References: Mullis, K. (1968). Cosmological Significance of Time Reversal. Nature - https://ve42.co/Mullis1968 Mullis, K. (1997). Dancing Naked in the Mind Field. Vintage - https://ve42.co/Mullis1997 McDon