The Brightest Light Ever Made By Humans
Watch Becky Stern’s Shenzen series on Nebula! https://nebula.tv/videos/beckystern-how-pcbs-and-leds-are-made-made-in-shenzhen?ref=joescott
For most of human history, the brightest man-made light was just firelight. But around the turn of the century, artificial light came on the scene and the race to create the brightest light ever was on, and it continues to this day. In fact we have created light that is brighter than the sun. Brighter than a nuclear weapon. By tens of millions of times.
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LINKS LINKS LINKS
https://www.britannica.com/science/electromagnetic-spectrum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light#Surface_scattering
https://acd-ext.gsfc.nasa.gov/anonftp/acd/daac_ozone/Lecture4/Text/Semifinal/whatislight.html
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/early-humans-may-have-cooked-fish-780000-years-ago-study-suggests-180981134/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_glass
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes%27_heat_ray
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_flame
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/your-burning-questions-about-olympic-torch-answered-180968120/
https://metro.co.uk/2013/09/03/jaguar-owner-tells-of-moment-he-discovered-his-car-had-been-melted-by-walkie-talkie-3948068/
https://askatria.ai/learn/architectural-death-rays
https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1302898/glare-london-skyscraper-melts-jaguar
https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/museum-tower-glare-threatens-nasher-art/1946053/
https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/arts-district-says-museum-tower-glare-an-issue-for-entire-neighborhood/1952064/
https://www.britannica.com/topic/lighthouse-of-Alexandria
https://hakaimagazine.com/article-short/dark-side-lighthouses/
https://www.historysnob.com/places/strange-history-mad-lighthouse-keepers/4
https://www.signliteled.com/lumens-vs-lux-the-most-confusing-concept-in-led-lighting-selection/
https://www.reagent.co.uk/blog/what-is-the-candela-unit-of-measurement/
https://www.history.com/articles/industrial-revolution
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/december-31/edison-demonstrates-incandescent-light
https://www.history.com/articles/thomas-edison
https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/13049
https://cinematreasures.org/theaters/31988
https://www.centennialbulb.org/palace-theatre.htm
https://www.prolampsales.com/products/koto-kp240h240v-halogen-24000w-240v-g38-base?srsltid=AfmBOopMyVfjikthTkSg82w-8jYFsSoZ44ZAbHaX3ydFqRMHxMeALUr8
https://www.lighthousedigest.com/digest/StoryPage.cfm?StoryKey=2893
https://www.victorysearchlights.com/victory2.html
https://www.ans.org/news/article-879/henri-becquerels-discovery-of-radioactivity/
https://www.atomicarchive.com/resources/documents/beginnings/einstein.html
https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/first-nuclear-bomb-detonated
https://www.afnwc.af.mil/About-Us/History/Trinity-Nuclear-Test/
https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/key-documents/trinity-test-eyewitnesses/
https://www.livescience.com/nuclear-bomb-wwii-shadows.html
https://hpmmuseum.jp/modules/exhibition/index.php?action=ItemView&item_id=112&lang=eng
https://thebulletin.org/2021/11/the-untold-story-of-the-worlds-biggest-nuclear-bomb/
https://www.rferl.org/a/tsar-bomba/31530341.html
https://newsreleases.sandia.gov/another-dramatic-climb-toward-fusion-conditions-for-sandia-z-accelerator/
https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
https://www.vice.com/en/article/physicists-made-the-brightest-light-ever/
https://phys.org/news/2025-05-powerful-laser.html
https://www.fanaticalfuturist.com/2024/05/worlds-most-powerful-laser-will-be-sextillion-times-brighter-than-the-sun/
https://phys.org/news/2017-06-billion-suns-world-brightest-laser.html
https://www.wired.com/story/brightest-light-ever-computer-chips/
https://www.nsf.gov/news/nsf-zeus-becomes-most-powerful-laser-us
TIMESTAMPS
0:00 – Intro
1:00 – Fire
4:43 – Harnessing the Sun
7:41 – Mega-lights
12:34 – Measuring Light
17:30 – Nukes
23:16 – Insane Lasers
27:06 – Sponsor – Nebula
@Baddad36
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
How did they keep the light bulb on when they were moving it to a different place?🤔 PS Trinity 25 kt not 21,000 kt!
@CTCAC2000
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
4:27 Holy moly, that wasn't joke4
@MrKrikkefy
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
@19:08 21.000 kiloton = 21 megaton. i have a feeling that you misspoke there Joe 😉
@fotosurf_pt
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
If he doesn’t say the word “laser” before the first ad drops I’ll stop watching
@ro4eva
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
Back on his world, Klaatu is a dork.
@benjaminbrown3939
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
Have you even considered the instantaneous light output from particle collisions inside the LHC at CERN? While the overall energy might not be that much more than a camera flash, it is all released in such a short amount of time that you can count exactly how many planck units of time that the radiation is emitted within, and this makes the peak power of the emissions from LHC completely unimaginable and perhaps even more luminous than the entire observable universe itself for the tiniest amounts of time that physics even allows.
@gearyae
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
It's sort of cheating, but no mention of the National Ignition Facility?
@rgbcolor6450
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
At some point, a laser might get so bright that it creates matter..
@theoptimisticskeptic
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
Fun fact: Andrei Sakharov was forced to spend many years in exile for his anti-nuclear & pro-democracy activism later in life. It was largely because of his previous work that he first got into activism.
@abstractlizard9377
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
9:20 Probbably the biggest drawback of the arc lamps, that you forgot to mention, is that it emits a bunch of UV light unfiltered.
@reneejones6330
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
You missed limelight.
@noonynoonynoo
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
24:22 I cackled
@michaelspinks9822
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
What a shame. You Google powers have deminished. You mentioned the little laser in Nebraska but missed the petawatt facility down the road from you in Austin. Worse yet, they're building a 25 PW in New York as well as there is at least one 10 PW laser running at ELI in Europe.
@nathanbuczek8344
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
How about a show about moon towers? I've looked them up and there isn't a heck of a lot of info about them. It's something I recently looked up when watching dazed and confused and was like what the hell is a moon tower. The little information about them is pretty fascinating.
@nickwoo2
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
The bone wasn't catching fire it was the wood dust from the spindle stick. You want a harder base that will survive a long time for a soft spindle stick. So the soft stick wears down and produces friction, heat, and with a little breath an ember. bone is as hard or harder them most base board woods so it will survive a long time, barring the heat dosen't makes the bone brittle.
@Edens_E-den
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
18:40 Apropos of nothing, that's the title of a Linkin Park song.
@TheOneCleanHippy
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
Shenzhen is pronounced "Shen-jen". The 'zh' in Chinese generally makes a 'j' sound. I used to live there a couple years ago.
@SeauxNOLALady
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
I would LOVE to work as a lighthouse keeper for a couple years, in a relatively mild area where the risk of hurricanes and rogue waves is not so high. The isolation and monotony is not a problem for me as long as I have enough books and paper to write with. I could easily get used to being out there alone.
@ddmannion
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
Cool stuff Joe. I like that you are resisting the AI slop that is ruining educational content.
@danosdotnl
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
0:48 the numerous pauses are really uncanny somehow
@dolamyte
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
That’s not the bone catching fire. It’s the wood dust from the bone grinding down the wood, plus friction gets you fire. Wood is a lot softer than bone,..
@Piratewaffle43
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
We can't see the lasers though. What happens if the laser is directed towards our eyes?
(disclaimer: do not)
@Walking_Death
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
They use PCB boards in ATM machines.
@EricRhodes1
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
I believe you because of your beard and glasses . You must be smart so therefore good stuff!
@scowell
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
Eeesh… 19:06… 21,000 kilotons is 21 *megatons*…. took a few more years to get *there*. Don't worry, Teh Internet will let you know every time.
@DavidRavenMoon
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
The idea that helped our brains develop because we could cook meat is wrong. Protein wasn’t the reason. Sugar was. Your brain uses 15 grams of glucose a day. Your body metabolizes glucose from carbohydrates. You can’t get glucose from protein. Also you don’t directly utilize the protein you eat. You break it down into amino acids. Your body makes proteins. Breaking down digested proteins creates urea in your blood, which isn’t good for you.
@MasonAlex-f9p
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
guarantee carbon arc lamps are briter
@Joseph-h6z5u
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
Can we all agree that Joe is the brightest light on YouTube? Okay Joe, I've said the words just like we agreed. Do I get free merch now?
@skrame01
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
Could have finished this statement in one sentence.
@jeremyj8153
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
Partially filled plastic water bottles left in car cupholders have been known to refract enough energy to burn holes in upholstery
@denvera1g1
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
The Tsar Bomba was supposedly intended to be up to 3x more powerfil, but they changed something about the stages because they thought it was going to take too long for the observers to get to safety, thus fall too close to the ground, and create dangerous fallout, or set the atmpshere on fire or something
@dominickfosco6374
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
What… No talk about the laser at the National Ignition Facility in Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory?
@m.cigledy6769
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
The projectors in movie theators used to use carbon arc for light. I worked the State Theator in Falls Church, VA back in 1985 – 1986. At the time, it still had the original projectors from 1936. Carbon arc lighting doesn't like AC, so there were two huge motor generators to convert AC to DC. I believe the theator is still open, but that equipment is probably long gone.
@russell2952
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
Neanderthals aren't 'pre-human'.
@joshuasteib4758
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
that’s crazy that u knew exactly where the 2,000,000,000,000,000 would pop up and underlined it perfectly with ur finger lmao
@nitehawk86
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
19:07 Correction: 21 thousand kilotons would be 21 megatons. Which would be the 3rd largest nuclear explosions of all time. The largest US detonation, Castle Bravo was 15 megaton.
Trinity was actually about 25 kilotons, or 25,000 tons.
@Rgygduck
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
The brightest light ever made by humans was gay.
@joesands8860
September 9, 2026 at 7:51 am
Miles please for us old timers.