Hope this was worth the wait! So many people helped with this video: Prof John Sperry, Hank Green, Henry Reich, CGP Grey, Prof Poliakoff, my mum filmed for me in beautiful Stanley Park and Jen S helped with the fourth version of the script.
Prof John Sperry http://biologylabs.utah.edu/sperry/john.html
Hank Green (SciShow) http://www.youtube.com/user/scishow
Henry Reich (minutephysics) http://www.youtube.com/user/minutephysics
CGP Grey http://www.youtube.com/user/cgpgrey
Prof Poliakoff (Periodic Videos) http://www.youtube.com/user/periodicvideos
Also thanks to the Palais de la Decouverte – they helped me with the whole vacuum pump setup in Paris. No, I could not actually suck water up 10m – I did about 4m, but the vacuum pump was easily able to do it and I saw spontaneous boiling on all of our various trials. Footage from this may end up on 2Veritasium.
Trees create immense negative pressures of 10’s of atmospheres by evaporating water from nanoscale pores, sucking water up 100m in a state where it should be boiling but can’t because the perfect xylem tubes contain no air bubbles, just so that most of it can evaporate in the process of absorbing a couple molecules of carbon dioxide. Now I didn’t mention the cohesion of water (that it sticks to itself well) but this is implicit in the description of negative pressure, strong surface tension etc.
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This would be the best team trees video.
It took him 1hour of Skype with a prof to understand, but in the video it's crammed into 3min, there could be better..
So xylem tubes are the ideal watercooling solution… for trees..
All of this just to evaporate water, absorb CO2 and make other life possible on Earth? – And God saw the trees, that they were good.
Fantastic video, congratulations! Keep up this great work!
Transpiration pull
Is th phenomenon
I just know that they do or the top would be dead, that'll do for me.
LOL well the water is pulled up for photosynthesis and growth. The 94% that escapes is needed to get those few molecules of water needed by the plant.
Treeology.
My favourite!
Why? Because they literally eat the ground and drink the sky… youd be pretty big too if you did that.
Trees are overrated…. They're assholes
My guy been spending too much time with Michael from Vsauce
if a tree cant have air bubbles within it otherwise they would act as nucleation sites, and your justification is that the xylem is air tight from the start then how do tree clippings that you plant avoid this?
funny how Veri improved his explaining skills in over 10 years
my left ear liked this video
1:16 This is the most professor looking professor ever, this guy is THE Professor
Evolution my ass, this is pure genius
He saying an average 20 years old trees consume more water than a 20 years old teenager in one single year, there are even 40 years old teenage infact on top of a thousand year old tree in which the two of them are not likely to meet up for a drink of water
My Doubt is; I think that the remaining 95% of water is the necessary amount that the tree uses to create negative pressures. Could it be so?
So beautiful how a small detail can have such a large influence
I also heard another additional explanation. The water contains dissolved salts and sugars, when then the water evaporates, these materials are left behind and so makes the remaining water heavier, so when it sinks down, it drags the lighter water with it in a circulation system.
Also, in cold winters, the strings of water may break. Does that mean the water may start to boil in the spring?
I couldn'tt understand 😐
1:30 what abt capillarity?
i don't see why there is a big differentiation between gas and liquid pressure. I've been taught that gas behavior is just like a less-dense liquid, that we inhabit the bottom of an ocean of gases. Negative pressure is less of a far-fetched idea to me than the concept that liquid pressure behaves inherently different from gas pressure.
Make buildings using similar technology that can absorb CO2 with this process more efficiently than Trees due to using different materials.
This is just great at pointing out the high level of proccessing specialization plants have with our atmospehere. It's the 3rd time i'm watching it and its still pretty great.
Honestly these 9 year old Veretusim and Vsauce videos have better quality content than their today's videos.
0:16 Veritasium's look=Adam Jensen+Kenny Loggins
Sleeerrrppp
So if you put a some paper towel in a cup water where will the water go Up? like a tree
The argumentative tone of this video is not pleasant to watch.
STRONG
I don`t understand why at 1:21 someone is drawing a portrait of the gentleman at 1:18
Real reason they get so tall is when shitty humans don't cut them down…
almost like someone designed it
4:35
Make a video on GHGs.
Anyone asking how we can make trees 95% more efficient at growing/ processing carbon dioxide?
Osmetic pressure was actually my guess and you covered it and said I was wrong. Damn
Cop26 algorithm is in fire this week. Trees are a major part of the answer to climate change!
I just explained this to someone and I thought that I should watch this again… to check facts.
This is a really good video.
Pressure — that’s my guess lol probably wrong
Great video. I knew that you can not suck water higher than 10m and I knew that capillary could not bring the water higher than several dm. But I never ever thought about how the water could go up in trees.
9 years later, still blowing me away.