Subtitles section Play video
Vsauce, I am The Great Gonzo and this...Rizzo! The episode has started. What are you doing?
Lookin’ for leftovers. I had a light lunch.
Vsauce is here.
Ooh, Let me get some chips! I love Vsauce.
Vsauce the YouTube channel.
Oh...
Hi there, I’m Rizzo. Proceed..
I assume you've come to hear about the mystery of the Quicksilver case.
Of course, the Quicksilver case!
Are you done? The story begins with two detectives: Jake Roper and Matthew Santoro.
I don’t get it. How could anyone move that fast?
I’m not sure, partner, but we gotta figure out how because somebody got hurt and not
the kinda hurt you get better from.
Have you had a look at the Quicksilver file yet?
Quicksilver, eh? There's a witness in interrogation if you
want get in there and do your thing.
Quicksilver is a very interesting comic book character. He is fast, really fast. According
to MARVEL he can go at Mach 10 ... that's 2.1 miles every second, he’d be able to
run around the planet in 3 and a half hours. At that speed, if he were to hit you, it would
be the same as being smacked by a large oil tanker...it would be messy. But in this case
our suspect didn't run into a person, oh no. In this case we need to figure out what would
happen if something moving that quickly, pushing that much air out of the way, were to go right
by you... What if Quicksilver Ran Past You?
With Jake now firmly on the case, and a witness in hand, it seemed like everything was going
to go smoothly.
Ooh, I’d love a smoothie.
I said “smoothly” not smoothie.
Bummer.
Ahh! The interrogation is about to start.
I’m gonna go get some popcorn.
Why am I not surprised to see you here, Constantine?
Probably cause you read the script. Heheheh.
This is no time for laughs.
Of course not. We’re working with the Muppets.
Tell me everything you know.
I can’t.
Why not?
I lost my script.
Oh, uh Eric. Top of page 5 right there,
Where are we here?...Oh yes...”I will not tell you anything because I am a frog....not
a stinking rat!” CUT TO:
What’d he just say about rats?
It was nothing. Keep eating.
Just tell me what happened.
Let me see...
Oh yes, I felt a gust of wind and saw a quick flash of blue go by. That’s all I know.
That’s ... actually ... great! You can go.
I still get my per diem, no?
No.
And they call me a criminal.
What Constantine said makes sense. Quicksilver would be moving at such incredible speeds,
11,146ft/s, that he would only be in our field of view for 83 microseconds to 1 millisecond.
It takes 13 milliseconds for the brain to process what the eye sees, so by the time
you’d have registered Quicksilver, he’d already be 145 feet past you and you’d have
only seen a slight blue tint if anything at all. Not to mention that going 10 times the
speed of sound would cause a shock wave to form in front of him. The air around him would
be compressed 5.7 times and would heat up to 752 degrees Fahrenheit, almost 3 times
the boiling point of blood. Speaking of your blood, at that temperature your blood would
become a supercritical fluid - where it has properties of both liquid and gas - and would
ooze out of your body. Now, this would only happen if you were 4 inches or closer to a
full speed Quicksilver...there’s gotta be something I’m breezing by...
With that information Jake was making headway but he still was missing one piece of the
puzzle - a piece that only one scientist could give him.
Rizzo! Move, move, move.
All right, waddya got for me?
*meep* *meep* *meep*
...that...is...brilliant!
As Beaker so eloquently put, the air surrounding Quicksilver would be travelling at 6,311mph.
Now, to put that into perspective a category 5 tornado, which is as high as the Fujita
tornado scale goes, says that at that point cars will be flung over 330ft, houses will
be ripped out of the ground and all manner of destruction will occur. And that is with
wind speeds at 318mph...almost 20 times less than Quicksilver’s. However, the incredible
wind speed would pick up almost everything in his path. Things as small as pebbles, sand,
coins, would be thrown around with as much kinetic energy as a bullet. So you wouldn’t
have to be close to Quicksilver to bare witness to and become a potential victim of the death
and destruction that would be left in his wake.
How did it go?
We solved it, partner. If something as fast as Quicksilver were to run right by you it
would do an incredible amount of damage not only to you, but to the surroundings due to
the projectiles he’d be picking up with his wind speed.
Now comes the hard part of actually catching him. Also, we got a new case "10 Superheroes
Based on Real People".
A new case, huh? Let’s go down to Fozzie’s Comedy Club for a nightcap, then go to your
channel to solve that one.
Sounds good.
Wocka..wocka this way.
Good one.
I don’t feel so good.
Of course not. You just sucked the cheese out of 15 grilled cheese sandwiches.
Y’live. Y’learn. So, what happened to Matthew and Jake? Did they ever catch their
guy?
That, Rizzo, is a story for another time.
And, as always, thanks for watching.
So, where do you wanna go for dinner?
You’re unbelievable.
Why thank you, come on. You buy.