Kind: captions
Language: en
[Applause]
I'm floating in shape oh this feels
incredible because like I can hardly
tell there's water under me it feels
like just being in a ball pit I feel
like this is the Internet's fault
because I made this video about the
shade balls on la reservoir and a lot of
people asked can you swim in shade balls
and I'm like it's a drinking reservoir
obviously you can't swim in the drinking
water but then I thought you know what
we know the people who actually made
these shade balls and so I could call
them up and order them and sure enough
I've purchased 10,000 shade balls to try
to swim in now there is a scientific and
safe way to test this which would be to
go in the shallow end but I'm gonna do
the YouTube way which is to jump in the
deep end and just see if I can swim
[Music]
it was probably right about now that I
thought back to my conversation with the
Shay ball manufacturer you don't
recommend swimming and shake balls so do
you think it's a bit dangerous maybe so
dangerous in fact that he regularly
refuses requests from residential
customers they didn't even want to sell
me shade balls I appreciate you making
an exception for our Channel and for
science and we will not promote this as
a thing that people should do we will
show people what it what happens and
therefore that they should probably not
do it
what makes shade balls inherently more
dangerous than other plastic balls is
that they're half-full of water so
they're heavy
this bag of 1,200 shaped balls weighs
300 kilograms or 660 pounds so when I
ordered 10,000 of these things I didn't
really think about how hard it would be
to get them home and now we have them
all in the back of u-haul
now the only challenge get in the mouth
after driving the largest vehicle I've
ever attempted across LA I hired a
moving company
it's time to release the balls
[Music]
kind of surprised 6,000 shape balls
doesn't quite cover the whole pool but
it's it's just about there and you can
see already the balls have sort of
arranged themselves in crystal
structures for their clothes packed and
then there's some boundaries between
these grains we've basically got a
single layer of balls on the whole pool
I'm gonna jump in and try to swim with
them we'll see how that works and if I
can do that then we have 3,600 more and
we can put on top which brings us back
to what
[Music]
I'm swimming
[Applause]
so this is breast rate
and on
I can swim but I am getting a lot of
balls into the face a few observations
for objects whose purpose is to block
out sunlight a surprising amount still
gets through that's because even packed
as tightly as possible Spears only cover
about 91% of the water surface light
coming through the cracks and reflecting
off the balls makes these really
interesting patterns on the bottom of
the pool when swimming through shaped
balls the other thing that hits you is
the noise they make so much noise so
close to your head that it's virtually
impossible to hear anything else I feel
like you're getting an extra workout
frankly I'm gonna try a different swim
stroke I'm gonna go over to front crawl
or freestyle
[Applause]
ah I feel like I got like a bloody lip I
[Music]
feel like I'm getting knocked around
like in a rock tumbler swimming in shape
balls made me reflect on drag the force
that opposes motion when moving through
a fluid drag is typically proportional
to your velocity squared why is that
well let's imagine these shaped balls as
particles of their own fluid and the
faster you go the more of them you
encounter per second but also the faster
they're moving relative to you and hence
the impact they have on you as you push
them out of the way so that's why drag
is proportional to V squared because you
run into more of them and they're moving
faster relative to you so they have a
greater impact swimming is a good
workout swimming you shade balls next
level next level so I'm not actually the
best swimmer so I brought over some
friends Christian and Jorden butterfly
is even more challenging because not
only do you have to push the balls
forward they also get pushed down and up
and out
[Applause]
however that's insane it looks hard you
can hit your face with your shoulders so
with it clear that you can swim albeit
with difficulty in a single layer of
shaved balls it was time to test if you
can swim in multi layer shade balls
[Music]
this is in fact how most of la reservoir
is covered
it looks as though you could like float
on the top so I'm gonna see if I can
like run across these shape balls it's
gonna end poorly I'm sure three two one
similar attempts to slide across the
surface of the shade balls were also
doomed to failure
each ball is almost half full of water
so when fully submerged it only supports
around 300 grams that means to support
my body entirely above the water I'd
need more than 260 shade balls trapped
under mine this is amazing I'm still I'm
still but what about the central
question can you swim in multiple layers
of shade
[Applause]
I don't think you can swim until I found
the kind of unorthodox style swimming
mostly beneath the shade balls just like
the guy in the boat said you just don't
move I was swimming I don't say good and
I just couldn't like go anywhere but
don't just take my word for it
watch Jordan try butterfly
[Applause]
amazing
unlike in the single layer where the
balls could easily move past each other
with multiple layers the balls kind of
get trapped against each other and act
more like a solid providing
significantly more resistance so I
wanted to see if I could use this to my
advantage to lower myself
gently down with the hose hit and see if
I can float on top of all these v-shaped
balls all right I'm floating in shape oh
this feels incredible because like I can
hardly tell there's water under me it
feels like just being in a ball pit
[Applause]
that is exactly like quicksand oh my
goodness if you don't move
you're good on the surface but then if
you start moving around all the balls
get enough energy to sort of shift and
then you start sinking down deeper and
deeper and deeper now after all this the
one question I'm left with is what do
you do with 10,000 shade balls well I've
decided that I am going to sign each one
and mail it out to a patreon supporter
so if you want to receive one of these
balls signed by me go and sign up to be
a patreon supporter now I my plan is to
send these out to basically every
patreon supporter I have everywhere in
the world I'll put more details in the
description below
obviously the shipping costs are going
to be horrendous but it is your support
on patreon that allows me to do things
like this so this is my way of saying
thank you