Factalope: What If?

After three years of work, Otto finally finishes his time machine, just in time to miss the doorbell and his pizza. So he sets the dial to one hour ago. The machine works perfectly. That's exactly the problem.

In this episode: why a perfect time machine would drop you in empty space, because Earth isn't where it was an hour ago. We follow Otto back an hour, a year and a thousand years, and watch his plan fail each time as a bigger motion shows up underneath the last one: Earth around the sun, the sun around the galaxy, and the galaxy through the universe. Then the strange answer to the question "what is actually standing still?", a quick look at Einstein's relativity, and how GPS satellites already correct for time every single day.

Real physics, one very hungry time traveler. And remember: you can't go back, but you can make today worth remembering.

Watch the animated version on YouTube: search Factalope.

Otto likes things clean. Very clean. So he builds the Sterilizer 3000, a machine that removes every bacterium from your body while you sleep, and evicts about 38 trillion roommates in a single night. It turns out they were doing a lot more than he thought.

In this episode: why your body carries roughly as many bacteria as human cells, weighing about as much as a mango, and what happens to Otto's breakfast, his gut, his immune system and his skin when they're gone. Then the final twist: mitochondria, the tiny power stations inside almost every one of your cells, descend from bacteria that moved in around two billion years ago. Remove every last trace of bacteria, and Otto removes his own power supply.

Real biology, one very tidy inventor. And remember: you're never as alone as you think, and the smallest things are often doing the most for you.

Watch the animated version on YouTube: search Factalope.

Otto took a 20-minute nap in the garden and woke up three hours later looking like a lobster in a bathrobe. So he does what any reasonable inventor would do: he declares war on the sun.

His plan is a tiny drone with a gold heat shield called Agent Sunny, sent to find the sun's weak spot. The mission does not go to plan.

In this episode: why Earth is falling toward the sun right now and always missing, and why it takes less energy to leave the solar system than to crash into the sun. We follow Agent Sunny through the solar wind, the heat and the real Parker Solar Probe, learn how the sun turns about 4 million tons of matter into energy every second, and find out what actually beat Otto: ultraviolet light, and why the ozone layer matters.

Real physics, one very sunburned inventor. And remember: even the best things in life are best in moderation.

Watch the animated version on YouTube: search Factalope.

Otto has a gorgeous new sofa stuck at the bottom of the stairs, so he builds a machine to switch off weight. It does not go to plan.

In this episode: what the Higgs field really is, why physicists needed nearly 50 years and a 27-kilometre machine to find it, and why switching it off would only take away about 1% of your weight. The real trouble starts with the electron. Lose its mass and atoms stop holding together, and with them every molecule, every sofa and every Otto.

We also look at how the Higgs field helps power the sun, and at the strange idea that our universe might be metastable, like a ball resting halfway down a hill.

Real physics, one very unlucky inventor. And remember: the things that weigh on you are often the things holding you together.

Watch the animated version on YouTube: search Factalope.