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This graph will change how you see the world - Our latest video, ad-free! (Patreon)

Published:
2025-11-30 08:41:09
Imported:
2026-09

Videos

  • 572868859.mp4

Downloads

Content

The world is not Normal.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

Comments

Stef Kuypers

I think this must have been one of the most interesting videos I've seen in a very long time. Thank you so much for this. It also started to make me think. As you mentioned, wealth is distributed according to a power law, casualties in war are distributed according to a power law, and I'm guessing that the emergence of autocracies and such might also be distributed according to a power law. It seems like human society is constantly setting itself up for criticality. However, in contrast to nature, society runs on a whole bunch of systems that are not governed by laws of physics. As shown in one of your earlier videos, voting systems have an impact on both the outcome and the behaviour of the politicians involved. I did a little bit of research on that and it seems that Ireland, which has a ranked voting system, has less problems with the far right than other countries who don't. Introducing ranked voting also reduced electoral violence in Papa-New Guinea. Now what if we would look at society, determine the systems that cause power law distributions and design alternatives that avoid this. Wouldn't that help in avoiding human society to reach devastating criticality over and over again? Now I know this is also tied to how human nature plays out in context. The books 'The Psychology of Power 'and 'The Psychology of Inequality' describe what happens with people when the have/lack power and how inequality societies wreak havoc. Still, what if we can design, and more crucially, implement systems that avoid power law distribution of power and wealth. Would that not lead to a better world? I know that the implementation part is quite a challenge, especially in a power law governed context. But maybe it could be the one idea that changes the world ;)

Mike Mitchell

Intuitively, I would guess that stars, black holes, galaxies, and even planets operate on a power law. As a matter of fact, the entire structure of the universe may follow something that simple (or complex).

Mike Mitchell

Also, in terms of socio-economic structures, it seems to me that empires rise and fall based on uneven distribution of wealth. It would be interesting to model a society where wealth is capped and somehow redistributed (not just taxed). For instance, what would happen to the poverty level if individual or corporate wealth were capped at a particular level such as $5 billion? That's certainly something that could be modeled.

Jesse Thompson

One of the most illustrative examples of a power law that I think everyone would *really* do well to consider is that of a slot machine.. or even clearer, those token-pushing games at arcades where you put in tokens, they form piles, and you get big payouts with the piles of tokens topple. The take home is that in either of these circumstances, one bet *cannot* win big unless it is off the backs of hundreds or thousands of other bets that failed. Those piles that collapse have to be made up out of something after all.. and they are made up out of hundreds or thousands of "small events" that lead nowhere. That also means that you cannot *issue* thousands of bets expecting to win big without those winnings including the value lost by the thousands of bets you made before that.. and you can *never* win more than you put in and do any better than breaking even without other people first *losing* their bets. So when power laws describe the transfer of value it is by definition *exploitative*.

Robert

Just a quick reminder that not all power laws have infinite expectation: If your probability scales like 1/x^alpha, the expectation is 0 if alpha>2. So venture capital firms all go bust if that is the critical exponent. BTW, my favourite example of a distribution that is not normal is the number of legs of humans: Almost everybody has an above average number of legs!

Ronan Mandra

A fun video to watch. Out of curiosity, what was the Simulaton App that you used to create your simulatioins?