Can $340,000,000 rewrite history?

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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 & Dr. 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

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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?

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References: https://ve42.co/NobelRefs

Images & Video: https://ve42.co/NobelImRefs

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Special thanks to our Patreon supporters:

Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, Anton Ragin, Anupam Banerjee, armedtoe, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, Ibby Hadeed, Jeromy Johnson, Jon Jamison, Juan Benet, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Matthias Wrobel, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Bush, Michael Krugman, Orlando Bassotto, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Robert Oliveira, Sam Lutfi, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures, wolfee

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Writer, Director & Producer: Henry van Dyck
Presenters: Derek Muller & Henry van Dyck
Editor: Trenton Oliver
Camera Operators: Wesley Wright, Prescott McCarthy, Joel Schöppe & Henry van Dyck
Animators: Fabio Albertelli, Emma Wright, Rokas Viksraitis & Ivy Tello
Illustrators: Jakub Misiek, Maria Gusakovich, Nataly Zhuk, Isaac McRee, Grace Nemanic, Sofia Constantini & Veronika Pasynkova
Additional Editors: James Stuart & Spencer Wright
Researchers: Aakash Singh Bagga & Gabe Strong
Thumbnail Designers: Abdallah Rabah, Ren Hurley, Ben Powell & Henry van Dyck
Production Team: Josh Pitt, Nicola Griffiths, Rob Beasley Spence, Matthew Cavanagh, Anna Milkovic & Zoe Heron
Executive Producers: Casper Mebius & Derek Muller

Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images, The David Rumsey Historical Map Collection, Pond5 & StoryBlocks
Music from Epidemic Sound

Post from Veritasium on September 21, 2025

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