This Graph Changes The Way You View The World

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To play around with the simulations in the video, you can follow these links:
Sandpiles - https://www.veritasium.com/simulation3
Ising model (magnetism) - https://www.veritasium.com/simulation4
Forest fires - https://www.veritasium.com/simulation5

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A huge thanks to Steven Strogatz, Mark Buchanan and Mark Newman for their time and expertise.

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CHAPTERS:
0:00 What is a power law?
4:31 Expected Values
8:49 The St. Petersburg Paradox
11:37 Outliers Dominate Averages
15:23 Fractals and Power Laws
19:28 Self-Organized Criticality
24:08 Why do we light controlled forest fires?
26:40 How We Can Predict Earthquakes
32:11 Critical Systems and Universality
36:31 How Some Businesses Are Built On Power Laws
39:30 What game are you playing? Normal or power?

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References: https://ve42.co/PowerLawsRefs

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Special thanks to our Patreon supporters:

Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, Anton Ragin, Anupam Banerjee, armedtoe, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, Hayden Christensen, 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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Writers - James Moore, Casper Mebius & Derek Muller
Producer & Director - James Moore
Presenters - Derek Muller & Casper Mebius
Editors - Jack Saxon & Peter Nelson
Animators - Fabio Albertelli, Emma Wright, Saif Javed & Andrew Neet
Additional Editor - James Stuart
Researchers - Aakash Singh Bagga & Callum Cuttle
Simulations - Aakash Singh Bagga
Thumbnail Designers - Abdallah Rabah, Ren Hurley & Ben Powell
Production Team - Josh Pitt, Matthew Cavanagh, Anna Milkovic & Katy Southwood
Executive Producers - Derek Muller & Casper Mebius

Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images, Storyblocks
Music from Epidemic Sound

Post from Veritasium on November 26, 2025

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