How to measure the universe | The Cosmic Distance Ladder Part 2

2025-02-23

[public] 277K views, 37.6K likes, dislikes audio only

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How we know the distances to the planets, stars, and faraway galaxies.

Instead of sponsored ad reads, these lessons are funded directly by viewers: https://3b1b.co/support

FAQ with added details and corrections: https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2025/02/13/cosmic-distance-ladder-video-with-grant-sanderson-3blue1brown-commentary-and-corrections/

An equally valuable form of support is to simply share the videos.

Terry and his collaborator Tanya have an Instagram about the cosmic distance ladder: https://www.instagram.com/cosmic_distance_ladder/

Artwork of Guillaume Le Gentil by Kurt Bruns

Artwork of Antonia Maury and Henrietta Leavitt by Talia Gershon: https://bit.ly/taliagershonart

Several of the great cosmological animations where by Paul Dancstep

Timestamps:

0:00 - Intro

1:04 - Distance to Venus

7:30 - Speed of light

10:08 - Nearby stars

13:20 - The Milky Way

18:14 - Nearby Galaxies

19:44 - Distant Galaxies

22:42 - Lingering mysteries

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These animations are largely made using a custom Python library, manim. See the FAQ comments here:

https://3b1b.co/faq#manim

https://github.com/3b1b/manim

https://github.com/ManimCommunity/manim/

All code for specific videos is visible here:

https://github.com/3b1b/videos/

The music is by Vincent Rubinetti.

https://www.vincentrubinetti.com

https://vincerubinetti.bandcamp.com/album/the-music-of-3blue1brown

https://open.spotify.com/album/1dVyjwS8FBqXhRunaG5W5u

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