“困惑式学习”，和敢于困惑的勇气｜1800万订阅、全球第2大知识博主的学习秘诀

“学英语”的秘诀，是从“learn english”（只学习英语本身，忽视具体知识）升级到“learn with english”（以英语为工具，通过优质英文书籍和视频学习具体知识）。

家里小学生8岁0教培通过FCE（剑桥五级的第3级，相当于雅思6分，研究生水平），一个可借鉴的学习方法就是 大量输入高质量的英文的知识视频。

其中，veritasium（真理元素）就是我们家常看的一个科普博主/知识博主/学习博主（不太好细分🤣）。veritasium 在YouTube有1800万订阅，全球排名第二。今天我准备给大家简单介绍一下。

私房推荐的5个知识视频

先从最具体最直观的方式入手，推荐我最喜欢的5个视频。你只要先花200秒看完第1个视频，就了解veritasium的“困惑式学习”教学风格了。

视频1：弹簧是如何下落的？

视频介绍：当一个弹簧玩具被自身重量拉伸后释放，它是如何下落的？veritasium 用每秒记录300帧的慢动作摄像机揭示了这个令人惊讶的答案。

链接： How Does A Slinky Fall? - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAA613hqqZ0

推荐理由：30 秒实验 + 1000 fps 慢镜头。大多数人预测错得离谱，亲眼看到弹簧下端“悬空不动”的魔幻场面，立刻对波传播与重力平衡好奇心爆棚。

视频2：月球离我们有多远？（又名，宇宙的尺度）

视频介绍：如果地球的大小相当于一个篮球，而月球是一个网球，它们之间的距离会有多远？不按比例绘制的图像会让我们误以为它们比实际距离更近。

链接：

• How Far Away is the Moon? (The Scale of the Universe) - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bz9D6xba9Og
• B站 https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1LW411J7hr

推荐理由：博主把“篮球＋网球”拉到实际比例，用公路实拍测距。视觉直观冲击，把抽象天文尺度变成日常物理距离，“原来月亮这么远！”的惊叹极具分享欲。

视频3：为何水库里铺满了9600万颗黑球？

视频介绍：博主乘船穿过洛杉矶水库上方的9600万个黑色塑料球，想弄清它们为什么在那里。人们说遮阳球可以减少蒸发。但事实证明，这并不是真正原因。

链接：

• Why Are 96,000,000 Black Balls on This Reservoir? - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxPdPpi5W4o
• B站  https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1c4411e7Pu

推荐理由：震撼画面 + 环保悬疑：巨量“Shade Balls”一泻而下，先钩住好奇，再以水质、蒸发、成本等数据解谜。视效、科普与公共议题三合一，点击率破 1 亿。

视频4：世界核辐射最严重的地方

视频介绍：博主亲自前往地球上最具放射性的地方。包括但不限于切尔诺贝利、福岛、核电站、研究反应堆、玛丽·居里研究所、爱因斯坦的公寓、医院的核医学区域、铀矿、核爆试验场。并采访了众多专家。

链接：

• The Most Radioactive Places on Earth - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRL7o2kPqw0
• B站 https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1xx411y7c5

推荐理由：探访切尔诺贝利、福岛等核灾地，实地测量辐射剂量。既刺激又消除辐射迷思：数据 > 惊悚。旅行纪录片式节奏，满足猎奇与科普双重需求。

视频5：曼哈顿最危险的大楼

视频介绍：一个可以导致摩天大楼原地倒塌的漏洞。

链接：

• The Most Dangerous Building in Manhattan - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q56PMJbCFXQ
• B站 https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1fmL6ziETo

推荐理由 工程灾难悬疑片：40 层摩天楼在运营后才发现结构险情，如何夜以继日补救？故事跌宕，3D 复原 + 亲访工程师，“真实版灾难电影”既解建筑力学，也传递责任与复盘精神。

今天写这篇文章，是因为昨天我在《科学美国人》杂志读到了介绍veritasium的文章。文章太好了，不能私藏，所以我特别编译了双语对照版本（即使你只读中文，英文对照也是有必要的），分享给你。

读了文章，你会更了解veritasium其人其事，了解他为什么会拍这些视频，背后的理念。有什么用？了解了背后的why，你再看具体的视频，感受会不一样哦。

我最喜欢的是veritasium的学习理念：困惑式学习。

先让学生暴露自己的错误，再给出纠正，比直接清晰讲解更能促进理解；“适度的不适”是学习的杠杆。

然后，我更喜欢那种“用于困惑的勇气”（人类不懂装懂、死要面子的本能，让人哭笑不得🤣）：揭露误解不是羞辱，而是学习的入口。

祝阅读愉快～

veritasium：

困惑式学习，和敢于困惑的勇气

As the creator of Veritasium, a science education YouTube channel with 18 million subscribers, Derek Muller has spent the past 15 years exploring a counterintuitive vision for learning: Clarity numbs the mind, but confusion can crack it open.

作为拥有 1800 万订阅者的科普频道 Veritasium 的创作者，Derek Muller 在过去 15 年里一直在探索一种反直觉的学习理念：

清⁠晰会使头脑麻木，而困惑却能将其打开。

His audience has grown because of how he challenges common misconceptions about the laws of nature, and his rise has paralleled YouTube’s, whose creator-focused approach has made it the world’s largest streaming service by almost every measure—from content library to audience size—recently surpassing Netflix in revenue. Amid this symbiosis, Veritasium evolved—from unpolished five-minute clips of Muller quizzing people on the street to technically sophisticated science explorations with the satisfying depth of feature films.

他的观众之所以不断增长，正是因为他善于挑战关于自然法则的常见误解。而他的崛起恰与 YouTube 平台相伴相生。YouTube 专注于创作者的策略，使其在几乎所有指标上都成为全球最大的流媒体服务——无论是内容库还是受众规模——并在最近的营收上超越了 Netflix。在这种共生关系下，Veritasium 也不断进化——从 Muller 在街头随机提问的粗糙五分钟短片，发展到 技术上精致、剧情深度堪比故事长片的科学探究视频。

Muller himself has appeared in many roles: trickster science teacher, experimenter with a mad-scientist flair, fearless investigator in the mold of Indiana Jones.

Muller 自己在频道中扮演过许多角色：恶作剧式的科学教师、带有疯狂科学家风范的实验者、以及印第安纳·琼斯式的无畏探寻者。

从错误答案中学习

Learning from Wrong Answers

Teaching began early for Muller. Born in Traralgon, Australia, in 1982, he relocated to Vancouver as a toddler and so excelled in school that his teachers sometimes invited him to tutor the class. “There was a certain way in which science appeared like magic,” he recalls—invoking science-fiction giant Arthur C. Clarke’s adage that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from sorcery.

Muller 很早就开始了教学实践。他于 1982 年出生在澳大利亚特拉拉尔根，幼年时搬到了温哥华。由于在学校表现出色，老师有时甚至会请他上台辅导全班同学。他回忆道：“在某种程度上，科学看起来就像魔法一样。”——这句话让人想起科幻大师阿瑟·C·克拉克的名言：

任何足够先进的技术，都与魔法无异。

He remembers ordinary school experiments—the upside-down glass that keeps a tissue dry underwater and the soda-and-Mentos fountain. But what stuck was the sense that the universe kept secrets only curiosity could unlock. “Isn’t it everything?” he says when asked why science matters. “Isn’t it obvious that it’s the most important thing?”

Muller 记得学校里那些普通的科学小实验——比如倒扣的玻璃杯在水下居然能让纸巾保持干燥、又或者可乐配曼妥思糖喷发的喷泉。但令他印象最深的，是那种感觉——宇宙蕴藏着秘密，唯有好奇心才能将其解锁。当被问及科学为何重要时，他反问道：“难道科学不是一切吗？难道这显而易见——它是最重要的事物吗？”

When Muller graduated, he was torn between pursuing filmmaking and science. He wanted to be “uniquely useful,” he says. “I felt like if I went into science, maybe I would be a swappable cog in some sort of machine.” But he also feared that pursuing film might have him running coffees in Los Angeles in hopes of making the right connection and getting a break. He took a full scholarship in engineering physics at Queen’s University in Ontario and then decamped to Sydney, Australia, to pursue film—only to learn that the Australian Film, Television and Radio School admits just a handful of students per program each year.

大学毕业时，Muller 在 电影和科学两条道路之间感到左右为难。他想成为“独一无二的有用之人”。他说：“我觉得如果我从事科学，也许我只会成为某种机器里一个可替换的齿轮。” 但他也担心投身电影业可能意味着在洛杉矶跑龙套端咖啡，只为碰碰运气结识对的人、谋得出头机会。他接受了 安大略省皇后大学工程物理学的全额奖学金，然后动身前往澳大利亚悉尼，尝试追求电影梦——却发现澳大利亚电影电视与广播学院每年每个专业只录取寥寥数人。

Lacking a portfolio, he wandered into the University of Sydney’s physics department in hopes of a tutoring gig and stayed to do a doctorate on how people learn—or fail to. In classes, he noticed that students often nodded appreciatively but retained almost nothing. “If you perform a demonstration and don’t force the class to make a prediction,” he says, “they’ll learn about as much as if they never saw the demonstration at all.”

没有作品集的他走进了悉尼大学的物理系，想碰碰运气找份辅导工作，结果留在那里 攻读了博士学位，研究人们是如何学习——或者如何学不好的。在课堂上，他注意到 学生们经常心领神会地点头致意，但课后几乎什么也没记住。“如果你在课堂上做了演示，却不强迫学生进行预测，”他指出，“他们的收获几乎跟没看这个演示一样。”

Muller’s doctoral thesis compared two instructional video styles, which were viewed by undergraduates at the University of Sydney. The first featured an actor delivering a polished, textbook explanation of Newton’s laws. Participants described this version as easy to follow. The second portrayed a student repeatedly stumbling over the laws while a tutor tried to set him straight. Most viewers found this depiction confusing.

Muller 的博士论文比较了 两种风格的教学视频，并让悉尼大学的本科生观看这两种视频。第一种视频由一位演员流畅地讲解牛顿定律，如教科书般严谨精炼。观看者表示这种版本内容“容易理解”。第二种视频则刻画了一位学生反复将牛顿定律讲错，而一旁的导师不断尝试纠正他。大多数观众觉得这种呈现方式令人困惑。

But when tested on the concepts, participants who called the textbook account “clear” scored no better than they had before watching it. By contrast, those who watched the “confusing” video improved significantly. Muller’s takeaway was that learning requires friction—and that a student’s first confident error may be the strongest lever a teacher can pull. “Some level of discomfort seems to be essential,” Muller says. “That’s when learning can really take place.”

然而，在对概念的掌握情况进行测试时，认为第一种“清晰明了”的学生成绩并不比观看前更好。相反，观看了那个“令人困惑”视频的学生成绩有了显著提升。Muller 从中得出的结论是： ⁠⁠学习需要摩擦 ——学生最初自信满满却犯下的错误，可能正是教师所能利用的最有力杠杆。Muller 说：“某种程度的不适似乎是不可或缺的，只有在那种时候，学习才能真正发生。”

如何走上视频博主的道路

From Back-Up Plans to Veritasium

After Muller received his Ph.D., he says, he took a stable job with a tutoring company in Sydney only to realize that “so much of my life had been about back-up plans.” As he looked for a way to merge his passions, his attention fell on YouTube. The platform, which launched in 2005 and was acquired by Google in 2006, had reversed the logic of the Web: Instead of charging creators to host videos, it was sharing advertising revenue with them and splitting the money 55–45 in the creators’ favor—“a profound shift in thinking,” Muller says.

Muller 拿到博士学位后，先是在悉尼一家辅导公司谋得了一份稳定工作，但他表示，这时他才意识到“自己一生中有太多时候都在准备退路”。在寻求将热情融合起来的方法时，他将目光投向了 YouTube。这个平台在 2005 年上线，2006 年被 Google 收购，彻底颠覆了网络世界的运行逻辑：平台不再向创作者收取托管视频的费用，而是与他们分享广告收入，按照 55–45 的比例将大头分给创作者——Muller 称这是“一种观念上的深刻转变”。

In Australia comedian Natalie Tran’s YouTube channel had already crossed a million subscribers, and she was pulling in a six-figure income. Whereas success in the film industry often depended on luck and connections, YouTube seemed more meritocratic to Muller. He kept tutoring 15 hours per week to pay his bills and started the channel he named Veritasium, which combines veritas, Latin for “truth,” with the “ium” suffix of an element to mean “an element of truth.”

在澳大利亚，当时喜剧演员 Natalie Tran 的 YouTube 频道已经拥有逾百万订阅者，每年入账六位数的收入。相比电影业的成功往往取决于运气和人脉，对 Muller 而言，YouTube 则显得更加任人唯贤。他每周继续从事 15 小时的辅导工作以支付账单，同时创立了他命名为 “Veritasium” 的频道——这个名字结合了 拉丁语 veritas （意为“真理”）和 元素名称的后缀 “ium”，寓意“ 真理元素”。

Muller uploaded his first clip under the channel name Veritasium in early 2011. His trademark became the street-corner quiz. He would ask passersby why the sky was blue or whether a heavy object would fall faster than a light one and then watch their confidence crumble as he kept questioning them.

2011 年初，Muller 以 Veritasium 为名上传了他的第一支视频作品。他的标志性风格逐渐成为“街头问答”。他常常拦下路人问他们诸如“天空为何是蓝色”或者“重物是否会比轻物下落更快”之类的问题，然后在不断追问中目睹他们最初的自信如何瓦解。

In one video, he asked people what they thought would happen to an extended Slinky when it was dropped from a roof. They guessed it would simply fall. When his slow-motion footage revealed that the bottom end of the released Slinky merely hung suspended until a compression wave arrived from above, viewers felt their intuition buckle. Millions clicked, with each view yielding pennies and each penny affirming Muller’s hypothesis: discomfort correlates with learning—and with viewer engagement.

在其中一支视频中，他问人们，当一根被拉开的玩具弹簧（Slinky）从屋顶掉落时会发生什么。他们猜测弹簧会直接坠落。然而，当他放出的慢动作影片显示，被松手下落的弹簧下端在压缩波从上方传到之前竟悬在空中一动不动时，观众们直观的判断受到了冲击。数以百万计的人点击观看，每一次观看都为他带来几分钱的收入，而每一分钱都印证了 Muller 的假设：

不适感与学习——以及观众参与度——是相关的。

Nigel Kuan, a high school physics teacher who met Muller while studying at the University of Sydney and later collaborated on several Veritasium videos, says Muller’s emphasis on using people’s misconceptions to teach science has influenced his own approach. “I actually recommend the videos to newer teachers,” he says.

Nigel Kuan 是一位高中物理教师，他在悉尼大学求学时结识了 Muller，后来也参与合作了几支 Veritasium 视频。他表示 Muller 注重利用人们的认知误区来教授科学，这种方法也影响了他自己的教学理念。“我实际上会把这些视频推荐给新老师观看，”他说。

One in particular, called Why Do You Make People Look Stupid?, stands out to Kuan as best representing Muller’s pedagogic style. It opens with Muller arriving at a café table and saying, “Hey, YouTube, you said you wanted to talk. What’s up?” Across from him also sits Muller, wearing a white YouTube T-shirt and the type of reflective aviator glasses favored by law enforcement. “YouTube Muller” accuses Muller of making people look stupid and shows clips in which the latter watches as individuals fumble through incorrect scientific explanations. YouTube Muller then quotes viewer comments—many laden with expletives—that called Muller “condescending” and “pretentious” and asks, “Why does your face light up with glee every time you hear a misconception?”

其中有一支名为 *Why Do You Make People Look Stupid?*（《你为什么让人显得愚笨？》）的视频，给 Kuan 留下了深刻印象，认为它最能体现 Muller 的教学风格。视频一开始，Muller 走向一家咖啡馆的桌旁坐下，说道：“嗨，YouTube，你说你想聊聊。怎么了？”坐在他对面的，竟也是 Muller himself，只不过穿着一件印有 YouTube 字样的白色 T 恤，戴着警察常戴的那种反光飞行员眼镜。这位“YouTube版的 Muller”指责真人 Muller 让别人看起来很愚笨，并播放了一些片段：片段中，真人 Muller 只是站在一旁看着那些人在磕磕绊绊地给出错误的科学解释。接着，“YouTube Muller”念出了观众的评论——其中不乏粗话——评论里有人骂 Muller “居高临下”，“自命不凡”，并质问道：“为什么每当你听到他人的谬误时，你的表情都会露出幸灾乐祸的神情？”

This video, it turns out, is no different from those in which Muller invites people to explain what water is or where trees get their mass. But now the fallacy to be disproved is not about science but about him: that, in his own words, he “delights in humiliating other people.” Muller, of course, returns to his core idea: people learn better if they confront their own misconceptions.

然而，结果证明，这支视频与 Muller 此前那些邀请人们解释水是什么或者树的质量从何而来的视频并无二致——只不过这一次要揭穿的谬误不再关乎科学，而是关于他本人：用他自己的话说，就是他“以羞辱他人取乐”。当然，Muller 最终又回归了他的核心理念：

当人们直面自身的误解时，学习效果会更好。

YouTube 和 Veritasium 的崛起

The Rise of YouTube and Veritasium

In mid-2011, when Muller was getting his channel off the ground, YouTube was already processing 48 hours of new videos every minute and logging about three billion daily views. Soon it began organizing meetups and creator spaces in major cities and promoting thousands of fledgling teaching channels—from crash-course chemistry to Muller’s experiment-driven physics. The result was a self-reinforcing marketplace where educators could earn a living and viewers could binge gravitational waves alongside gaming highlights.

2011年年中，当 Muller 正在起步经营他的频道时，YouTube 每分钟已经处理多达 48 小时的新视频，每日浏览量达到约 30 亿次。很快，平台开始在各大城市组织创作者聚会并设立创作者空间，推动数以千计初出茅庐的科教频道蓬勃发展——从速成课程式的化学频道到 Muller 实验驱动的物理频道，不一而足。其结果是形成了一个自我强化的市场：教育者可以靠制作内容谋生，观众则可以像刷游戏集锦一样沉迷于引力波等科普视频。

YouTube’s 2012 decision to reward watch-time minutes over mere clicks also encouraged Muller to develop longer videos in which he layered demonstrations, expert cameos, and slow-burn narrative reveals, unspooling each episode like a mystery novel. In 2013 Veritasium cleared one million subscribers—by 2021, the number was 10 million. As for YouTube, today more than 500 hours pour onto the platform each minute. It counts 2.7 billion monthly users. And as of October 2024, its combined ad-and-subscription income had topped $50 billion in the past four quarters—comfortably ahead of any other individual streaming platform, including those owned by Amazon and Disney.

YouTube 在 2012 年决定更看重观看时长而非单纯点击量，这也激励了 Muller 去制作 更长的视频作品。在这些视频中，他层层展开演示实验、邀请专家客串、缓缓揭示悬念，将每一期节目编排得如同悬疑小说般引人入胜。2013 年，Veritasium 订阅量突破了一百万——到 2021 年，这一数字已达到一千万。至于整个YouTube 平台，截至 2024 年 10 月，其用户每分钟上传的视频量已经超过 500 小时，每月活跃用户数达 27 亿。而在最近的四个财季里，YouTube 广告和订阅的总收入已超过 500 亿美元——稳稳领先于任何其他单一流媒体平台，包括亚马逊和迪士尼旗下的平台。

Casper Mebius, who joined Veritasium as an intern in 2023 and now writes, directs and produces episodes, recalls his first meeting with Muller, who, “instead of interrupting me or cutting me short, just literally let me talk through the whole thing for 40 minutes.” Mebius soon learned this wasn’t unusual. Muller often patiently listens through meetings with his team. “Then he just makes one comment, and it’s like he’s throwing a dart and hitting the bull’s-eye,” Mebius says.

Casper Mebius 于 2023 年以实习生身份加入 Veritasium，目前负责为节目撰稿、执导和制作。他回忆起自己与 Muller 的第一次会面：“他既没有打断我，也没有让我长话短说，而是实实在在地让我把所有想法讲了足足 40 分钟。” Mebius 很快发现，这种做法对 Muller 来说并不罕见。Muller 在与团队开会时经常耐心地倾听所有人的想法。“然后他只提出一个意见，就仿佛一支飞镖直击靶心，”Mebius 说。

In this way, Muller is still teaching—letting others lay out their predictions and take the risks necessary for learning. But at times, his emphasis on the pedagogical value of risk-taking goes further, as when he swam in shade balls (softball-size plastic spheres that float on reservoirs to block sunlight) after a manufacturer warned him not to, explored Fukushima’s radioactive zone and had a bucket of pennies dumped on him from a helicopter to prove that they couldn’t kill him.

以这样的方式，Muller 依然是在教学——让别人把他们的预测摆出来，并承担学习过程中必要的风险。当然有时，他对于“冒险在教学中价值”的强调走得更远：比如当一家制造商警告他不要跳进“遮阳球”水池时，他偏偏跳了进去（遮阳球是漂浮在水库表面用来遮挡阳光的塑料球，大小如垒球）；他还曾深入福岛的核辐射隔离区探险，以及让人从直升机上往他身上倒下满满一桶硬币以证明这些硬币砸不死他。

改变人们看世界的方式

Changing How We See the World

Fifteen years after its inception, Veritasium—now one of the world’s most popular science channels, with 18 million subscribers and more than 3.3 billion views—has grown from a one-man passion project to a team of nearly 20 people supported by investments from Electrify Video Partners, a company that helps digital creators scale their businesses. “Now there’s a big team, with dedicated editors, writer-directors and hosts, and that lets us tackle bigger and better stories,” Mebius says. One question the members always ask is whether the story they are telling will make people “change the way they view the world.”

自创立至今 15 年，Veritasium——如今已是全球最受欢迎的科普频道之一，拥有 1800 万订阅者和超过 33 亿次观看量——已经从最初一个人激情驱动的项目，发展为一支近 20 人的团队，并得到了 Electrify Video Partners 的投资支持（这家公司致力于帮助数字内容创作者扩大业务规模）。“现在我们有了一支庞大的团队，配备专职的剪辑师、编导和主持人，这使我们能够挑战更大更好的选题，”Mebius 说道。团队成员经常问的一个问题是，他们所讲述的故事能否让人们“改变看待世界的方式”。

敢于困惑的勇气

The Courage to Question

In an online sphere crowded with science content, Veritasium has consistently excelled for years by not dumbing down its videos to chase clicks. And Muller, as its host, is always quick to share his personal fallibility. “The first principle is: you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool,” he says, invoking the cautionary mantra of physicist Richard Feynman.

在充斥着科普内容的网络领域，Veritasium 多年来始终表现卓越，其 秘诀就是不为了追求点击量而刻意降低视频深度。而作为频道主的 Muller，也总是坦率地暴露自己的不足。“第一原则是：你绝不能愚弄自己，而你是最容易被自己愚弄的人。”他说这话时引用了物理学家理查德·费曼的警示箴言。

When a concept confuses or surprises him, he lets the audience know, and these viewers become his partners on the path to discovery. He hopes his approach—relentlessly trying to figure out the truth—will “seep into people’s brains on this deep level” and encourage them to understand the world “not as I want it to be, not as it appears to be, but as it actually is,” he says. “That is the unvarnished truth of the channel: it’s trying to promote the increase of rationality and critical thinking.”

当一个概念令他迷惑或惊讶时，他会让观众知道，于是观众就成了他探索发现道路上的伙伴。他希望自己这种不懈探求真相的方式，能够“在深层次上渗入人们的大脑”，鼓励大家去理解这个世界“不是按照我希望它那样，不是看上去那样，而是按照它实际的样子”，他解释道。“这就是该频道毫不粉饰的真谛：它试图促进理性和批判性思维的提升。”

The company he built operates nomadically, though Muller, his wife—planetary scientist Raquel Nuno—and their four children call Lisbon, Portugal, home at the moment. Parenting, he reflects, is beautifully poetic. “You get to exist in the same interaction that you’ve already had as a child, but now you’re on the other side of it,” he says.

Muller 创建的公司并没有固定的办公地点，如同游牧般运作。如今，Muller 和他作为行星科学家的妻子 Raquel Nuno 以及他们的四个孩子把葡萄牙里斯本当作家。为人父母，在他看来，是件充满诗意的事。“你得以存在于这样一种互动中——你自己小时候其实已经经历过这种互动，只不过现在你处在了对立的一方，”他感慨道。

When his son asked why a rainbow is an arc, Muller felt the old itch to replace quick answers with deeper voyages. He created the video Why No Two People See the Same Rainbow to explain droplet geometry, refraction, optical caustics and the human penchant for stopping one level short of a true explanation. In this sense, the man accused of making people look stupid is chasing a rarer spectacle: the instant they look enlightened.

当儿子问他为什么彩虹是拱形的，Muller 再次感到那股熟悉的冲动，不愿给出草率的回答而是带孩子深入探索。他据此创作了视频 Why No Two People See the Same Rainbow （《为何没有两个人看到的彩虹是相同的》），借此来解释水滴的几何形状、折射、光学焦散，以及人类在得到真正解释之前往往止步于某个层次的倾向。从这个角度来说，那位被指责“让人看起来愚蠢”的人，所追逐的恰是一种更难得一见的景象：人们眼中顿悟的那一刻。

And as Muller’s story proves, embracing confusion can lead not only to deeper understanding but also to extraordinary outcomes and the courage to take on ever greater challenges. After all, Veritasium itself was born when Muller decided to stop playing it safe.

正如 Muller 的经历所证明的那样，拥抱困惑不仅能带来更深入的理解，也能创造出非凡的成果，并激发迎接更大挑战的勇气。毕竟，Veritasium 本身就是源于 Muller 决心不再墨守成规的那一刻。

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