(speaking backwards)
Hi, Vsauce. Michael here.
(static noises)
You can practice speaking backwards, so when your words are reversed
they're intelligible.
But here's something else that is weird.
The digits in the speed of light are exactly the same
as the latitude of the great pyramid of Giza.
And, as the anagram genius has revealed,
all the world's a stage,
but if you rearrange the letters in the meaning of life
it becomes the engine of a film.
Or more pessimistically, the fine game of nil.
What does all this mean?
Are these just coincidences or are greater powers at work?
Why is it so easy for us to find hidden messages?
Why can a mere coincidence give us chills?
And why is it so fun?
When you reverse Neil Armstrong saying, "Small step for man,"
you can hear what sounds like "man will spacewalk".
- (Armstrong) That's one small step for man. - Man will spacewalk.
One small step for man. Man will spacewalk.
Small step for man. Man will spacewalk.
Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated president John F. Kennedy,
and in this interview, he defends the Fair Play for Cuba Committee,
of which he was a member.
The fact that I did live for a time in the Soviet Union
gives me excellent qualifications to repudiate charges
that Cuba and the Fair Play for Cuba Committee is communist controlled.
Now listen to what it sounds like when we reverse him saying,
"...and the Fair Play for Cuba".
...And the Fair Play for Cuba I wish to kill president.
Is that a coincidence or a subconscious confession hidden within his own words?
It's a coincidence.
For crying out loud, if anybody says, "...and the fair play for Cuba"
and reverses it, it sounds the same.
I wish to kill president.
This app, by the way, is called Virtual Recorder.
It's a really easy way to quickly reverse your own speech.
Matthew Hudson, in The Seven Laws of Magical Thinking,
points out that if you record yourself saying,
"Ooh! You sniff turkey fat!" And then reverse it,
it sounds a bit like "Happy birthday to you!"
Happy birthday to you!
Kind of.
If a word can be spelled the same forward and backward,
it's a palindrome. But if a word or phrase
sounds the same, whether spoken forward or rewound,
is a phonetic palindrome.
For example, "Say yes."
- Reversed? - Say yes.
Pretty cool.
But check out this poem by Karsten Johansson.
"When I wonder why What's never been's never been so
We would lie when we say 'Yes, you know we all love you'
What's never been's never been so Hell, we're nowhere now."
When I wonder why What's never been's never been so
We would lie when we say, "Yes, you know we all love you."
What's never been's never been so Hell, we're nowhere now.
By the way, some people can speak in reverse on the fly.
It is really cool to see them in action. Watch guys lean back after this video.
It's linked down in the description
and it's full of pretty cool coincidence videos.
Apophenia is the perception of connections, or patterns,
in information.
One type of Apophenia is Pareidolia,
the seeing or hearing of things that weren't meant to be there.
For instance, hearing your name being called, or your phone ringing,
in the sound of running water.
Or hearing English words in a non-English song,
or seeing faces that weren't purposely placed there.
Our brains aren't good at this kind of work,
probably because being hyper-attentive to patterns and faces
can save your life.
If there's ambiguity as to whether that thing hiding
in the shadows is a threat or just a shadow,
it's advantageous to err on the side of threat.
Organisms with a healthy sense of Apophenia
live longer--long enough to have kids and raise them
and naturally become the norm.
We connect with faces so well, Hudson relates a story
of a friend who draws faces on things she doesn't wanna lose,
like her bags.
She says the faces make her less likely to forget about them.
If you like, it you should have put a ring on it.
If you like not losing it, you should've drawn a face on it.
We are so good at at teasing out patterns
and faces from random noise,
actual random sequences don't always feel random to us.
Originally, Apple's iTunes shuffle feature generated complaints from users.
They said that similar songs, or songs from the same artist,
appeared in a string...which, of course, is to be expected from randomness.
But it didn't feel random enough,
so Apple introduced a smart shuffle
that avoided totally random sequences that nonetheless
didn't seem random to our pattern loving brains.
As Steve Jobs explained, we're making it less random
to make it feel more random.
Our impressive ability to imagine patterns also expresses itself
when it comes to connecting songs and moving images.
This dancing Spider-man animation will famously sync up
with any music you play.
Try it. What kind of black magic is going on here?
Well, as it turns out, most of it is in our heads.
RADIOLAB reported that Michigan State University explains
that the major movements of dancing animations like this one,
or this one, move at typical song tempos,
but also contain, like most dance,
various other different related rhythms of movement
allowing them to seemingly fit many different tempos.
Selection bias helps a lot too.
We fall prey to this when we reject all the times the animation
doesn't really sync up, focusing instead on the more surprising times
when it does.
The bizarre pyramid coincidence mentioned earlier is a lot less bizarre
when you consider the fact that we got to control
where we placed the decimal point.
And that a number of degrees this precise isn't necessary to locate the pyramid.
By the fourth decimal, we're only talking about a matter of a few meters,
so it's easy to make the rest fit the speed of light exactly
and have still picked a point on the pyramid.
Confirmation bias also comes into play here.
If you really want two things to sync up...
they will
We often look for evidence that supports what we already believe,
while marginalizing things against it.
As Marshall McLuhan said,
"I wouldn't have seen it if I hadn't have believed it."
These biases also help explain the seemingly mind-blowing coincidence
that famous movies and famous albums can line up.
One the most popular states that if you start playing Pink Floyd's
Dark Side of the Moon
at the same time as the Wizard of Oz, they will eerily line up.
Entire communities have sprouted around the syncing
of movies and albums.
Some of my favorites are the Yellow Submarine soundtrack
and The Little Mermaid.
Lordes Pure Heroin and Twilight's Saga, Breaking Dawn II,
and the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey,
with Pink Floyd's echoes.
There are conspiracies that these were somehow secretly planned.
Though, in reality, they're just accidental music videos.
The product of selection bias, confirmation bias,
And the Law of Near Enough,
a behavior of our pattern sensitive minds.
Two things don't have to line up exactly, or literally,
for us to see a connection. This is why vague predictions
are a great way to look psychic.
These are also actually unsurprising when you consider the fact
that the number of narrative paces and rhythms we enjoy,
and typically use, are much smaller than the number possible.
In The Improbability Principal, David J. Hand calls this
the probability lever.
What may be rare on average, or when considering all possible scenarios,
can be less rare for specific scenarios,
even if they are only marginally different.
Getting struck by lightning is a proverbially unlikely event,
but Walter Summerford wasn't just struck by lightning once during his life,
he was struck three times.
It never killed him, but four years after his death
his gravestone was also struck by lightning.
What are the chances? I mean, clearly Summerford was
some sort of robot built out of lightning rods,
or had somehow angered Zeus. Right?
Probably not.
You see, while for the average person,
the chance of being struck by lightning is quite low.
For an avid outdoor sportsman like Summerford, it's not as low.
The Law of Truly Large Numbers also comes into play here.
With lightning striking earth 40-50 times a second,
billions of people for it to strike
and thousands of years of recorded history?
It's actually not surprising at all that at least once,
a story like Summerford's would've happened.
Given the truly large number of people
who visit Disney World every day,
and the fact that they take photos--and lots of them--
it's actually not surprising at all that at least once so far
a story like Alex and Donna Voutsina has happened.
While sorting through old photos before their wedding,
Alex and Donna found a photo of Donna
at Disney World, 14 years before the couple met.
But then Alex noticed something.
He too had visited Disney World as a child and there,
in the background, was his father pushing him in a stroller.
Sometimes coincidences can be tragic.
In 1864, Abraham Lincoln's son,
Robert Lincoln, was saved from serious injury, or possibly even
death, when a stranger grabbed him by the shirt collar
moments before he plunged onto train tracks below.
That stranger turned out to be Edwin Booth, one of the most famous
Shakespearean actors of the time--
so famous, in fact, Robert recognized him
and had a letter sent thanking him for saving his life.
Less than a year later
Edwin Booth's brother, John Wilkes Booth, undid the favor by
assassinating Abraham Lincoln. STOP 11:04
map says that given enough time and psychology says that given up interest
in finding them
coincidences and connections will be
them
even unlikely the coincidences between
Abraham Lincoln and John F Kennedy are Banus
both were elected to the presidency in the year Indian
sixty Lincoln was shot at boards
dealer kennedy was shot in 1961 Lincoln Continental four-door convertible
made by forward both presidents last names have seven letters
and both assassins had 15 letters in their names
the list goes on as it should
if you look long enough you can find coincidences between any two people or
things were tense
any seem strange at first but tend to wind up being in the end
pretty expecting for just one example
name like isn't that wildly variable
seven-letter names are pretty common Lincoln
Kennedy I'll Michael Stevens
ok in the famous spooky presidential coincidences contest
held by the Skeptical Inquirer in 1992 one contestant alone
found similar lists of crazy coincidences
between 21 pairs a former presidents
given the vast amount details in anyone in our lives
its pretty easy this court can be exploited to almost comedic Heights
when it comes to overanalyzing of course
hidden messages in fines are often intentionally included in media
for fun or to reward attentive viewers
but unintentional extraordinary things
happen all the time its not really that
extraordinary there's a the miscalculation
that is known as little woods law given the number I've
hours we are awake every day and assuming an event only takes about a
second
to occur if you calculate the odds of something happening to you are only one
in a million
well you should expect that thing to happen to you about
once every 35 days DDG
and took this even further with seven billion people
on earth the chance that an event with a one in a million probability of
happening
take each of us won't happen today is one
intended 3,000 boring as Percy diet colas put it
the truly unusual day would be a day where
nothing unusual happens and as always
thanks for watching me
you may have noticed a lot of YouTube channels making videos about learning
this week
well that is not a coincidence it is school
YouTube week many people are going back to school or college right now
but across the world millions a children
won't be either because the work to support their families
work lived without a home bring areas where there is conflict
inexperience overcrowding at school or a lack of teaching
school supplies but luckily we can help
donations to comic relief school love you too campaign
can help disadvantaged young people all around the world
get an education it doesn't take much to change a life
you can learn more in description below were Dhoni
right now and is all its thanks for helping and thanks for Lord