Can You Swim in Shade Balls?

I bought 10,000 shade balls and tried to swim in them. They appear to act like a non-Newtonian fluid: rigid under high shear stress, but they flow like a liquid under low shear.
All the signed shade balls have now been mailed out - thanks for your support!

Receiving a shade ball:
2. In about a month I will send out signed shade balls
3. I will cover all shipping costs but if things get really crazy I will prioritize existing Patreon supporters and higher tiers

My sense was that swimming in shade balls would be difficult but still doable. This was roughly true for the single layer of shade balls. The shade balls slide past each other so they act like a liquid, albeit a viscous one owing to their significant inertia. It's much more intense exercise and it's also annoying to be bombarded with shade balls on all sides of your body, particularly your head. With multi-layer shade balls (as exists on much of LA reservoir) things get significantly more difficult. The balls bunch together and when you try to move through them quickly, they become more rigid, providing significant resistance to motion. This has the benefit that you can lie on them and as long as they stay trapped under you, you can float on them. But a little bit of motion causes them to move around and you sink through quickly.

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Huge thanks to:
Jordan Schnabel and Cristian Carretero for filming and swimming and providing lifeguard services.
Raquel Nuno for filming and putting up with me.

[CapitaILetter]

I am pretty sure Youtube's gonna recommend me this 5 years later

[reddy]

Girl: I think he's cheating

Him and the boys:

[Proxyhedron]

It was really interesting noticing how he was essentially approaching drowning. There are very specific physiological symptoms that are present in someone who is starting to have that reaction- triggered by the feeling of failing to support yourself in water- that he was absolutely showing. Specifically when he attempted swimming in multiple layers, the way his voice had that panicked "cracking" and he was breathing very heavily. If this was the depth of a reservoir, and not a pool, you would definitely die.

[ChosenWan]

seeing light rays pass through the multi-layered shade balls at 6:50 is priceless! thanks for sharing this amazing experience with us

[apotato]

"But its like quicksand" - famous last words

[HighImHi]

Turtles: no more plastic
Human: let's swim in plastic

[ridwanquick]

Exactly as I thought.
1. You can swim in shade balls, just harder to do. So you should not. Great to hear that the manufacturer sees this as a concern.
2. You can swim in shade balls, just not the shade balls in the water reservoir.
3. Pool with water and floating balls, hop in.
4. They do look like boba.

[deeanna]

The last part with swimming in multiple layers gave me anxiety.😱

[mortemibis]

Him: don’t try this at home!

Me: *sadly puts away the 60, 000 shade balls that i have in my pocket*

[pudgeypig]

those are the things mr incredible got bodied with in the first movie.

[peregrina]

I love Derek's belly laughs. Also Raquel (presumably) laughing at him off camera. Part of why I love Veritasium videos is that y'all stay upbeat and leave in the goofiness.

[shawnjs]

"I can hardly tell that there is water under me, it's kind if like sa-"

-water seeps through

He proceeds to drown

[Forumlife]

"lets see if you can swim in shade balls"


*-cameraman already in the pool*
"am i a joke to you?"

[maxniemi]

i love it when veritasium does fun stuff like this

[lilmoo]

The pov of underwater with the shade balls above seriously looks so pretty.

[icannotthinkofaname]

Mom can we have bubble tea?
Mom: we have bubble tea at home.
Bubble tea at home:

[pafnutiytheartist]

1:33 - "We will not promote this as a thing people should do!"
9:32 - "This feels incredible!.. Feels like being in a ball pit!"

[FisDraws]

“I’m getting a lot of balls in the face.” Now THATS a sentence to remember.

[normalperson]

"It's kinda like quicksand."
"Oh no."
**drowns**

[immanuel]

“I don’t think you can swim in shade balls”; as he starts drowning.