People said this experiment was impossible, so I tried it

A massive thank you to everyone at Goldschmidt for making this possible. With special thanks to Dr. Axel Hoeschen, Christof Gassmann and Claudia Koch.

00:00 What is thermite?
00:51 Hans Goldschmidt and the first thermite reaction
05:55 The reaction as it’s never been seen before
14:57 How thermite welding works
17:43 I destroyed a laptop!
26:44 How thermite is made
31:11 Blow-torching thermite to show how reactive it is

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References:

Archives from Goldschmidt

Images & Video:

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Special thanks to our Patreon supporters:

Albert Wenger, Anton Ragin, Ayush Agrawal, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Bill Linder, Blake Byers, Bruce, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, I. H., Jack Cuprill, John H. Austin, Jr., Juan Benet, KeyWestr, Kirill Shore, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Matthias Wrobel, Meekay, Michael Krugman, Orlando Bassotto, Paul Peijzel, Reed Spilmann, Richard Sundvall, Sam Lutfi, TTST, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures, gpoly, john kiehl, meg noah, wolfee

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Directed by Derek Muller
Written by Derek Muller
Edited by Trenton Oliver
Animated by Fabio Albertelli, Rokas Vikšraitis and Mike Radjabov
Illustrations by Jakub Misiek
Filmed by Derek Muller, David Bochmann, Casper Mebius, Luise Dietert, Henning Fischer and Harald Schweiger
Additional Research by Gregor Čavlović and Gabriel Bean
Produced by Gregor Čavlović, Derek Muller, Casper Mebius, Rob Beasley Spence, Emily Lazard and Tori Brittain

Thumbnail contributions by Peter Sheppard, Ren Hurley and Casper Mebius
Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images and Story Blocks
Music from Epidemic Sound

[xtianeskay]

It is so cool that the company showed you - idk how much - twelve? different reactions. Indoors, outdoors, in a veritasium logo, slow, fast, higher and lower temperature... A big thank you to this company!

[danv]

"Why is it pulsing?
I don't know...We try to understand."
That's the scientific spirit perfectly encapsulated right there.

[TheDonutMan]

Them pretending to not know the outcome of the blowtorch experiment and making Derek put on safety equipment to freak him out is peak German humor. It was obviously made for drama and Derek played into it, but their deadpan delivery seemed to genuinely unnerve him hahaha

[mm]

That is such a cool, respectable answer. "I dont know. We try to understand"

an honest admission of not knowing something, and a desire to try and learn about it. Very cool.

[ericsmith]

Data removal levels:
1. Delete my data.
2. Delete my recycle bin.
3. Break hard drive.
4. It can't be data if it's liquid.

[wuzzy]

"Remember kids, the only difference between screwing around and science... is writing it down." - Adam Savage

[norlore]

when you said “first in a series” and the video was 35 minutes long I got very excited

[GriIIe]

Geil, dass diese Firma dir das ermöglicht, und dann noch in diesem riesigen Rahmen aus Versuchen. Tolle Sache!! Greetings from Germany

[Netrole]

29:45 "I'm 95% sure he cannot ignite it" Ah good old german humor

[HomebrewHorsepower]

"Why is there pulsing?"
"I don't know."
I already trust this guy immensely. To state that you just don't know something, and not try to justify or speculate or excuse it shows intelligence.

[androiddave]

Great video but special shout to the moment he says 'I don't know' to your question. True man of character in teaching, doesn't try to fake knowing it all and by admitting something he didn't know it gives more credibility to everything else he says. Thanks for the work.

[WCM]

We used to use special kits for welding "00" copper cable to grounding stakes for computer installations. One kit was missing the igniter packet. Propane, MAPP, Smokeless gunpowder—nothing worked until we came up with a single sparkler that had been recovered and left in the trunk of a patrol car. That did it.

[HistoryDose]

This video has such a nostalgic Myth Busters vibe and I love it

[macupie]

I work for the German railway (Deutsche Bahn) and see thermite welding almost every day. this video should be shown to every worker during education!

[massminer]

I love that they use mill scale to make thermite. It's a nice way to reprocess what would normally be waste

[cynosure]

Derek I just wanted to say that your entire video production process is noticeably getting even better, between how you tell the story, and even down to the minutiae thumbnails and how you integrate ads and end videos--it was always great before, but I wanted to affirm that I love seeing you and your team always striving to improve to push the frontier of what YouTube videos can really be. We can really notice the effort!

[michelepinato]

Watching a 35 min veritasium video on thermite before going out on a saturday night... Living my best life right now

[cahdoge]

I love how Derek get's increasingly confident in lighting thermite over the course of the video.

[ElSelcho]

"At least there will be footage of how it happened." had me in stitches 😂

[timgalivan]

When he asked the guy why it was pulsing and the guy said he didn't know. So much respect for that. It's always ok to admit the limits to our knowledge. When we make up answers it robs us of the opportunity to find out in the future