Science & Futurism with Isaac Arthur

What if the ultimate technology isn’t a starship, but a universe? We explore simulated worlds, baby universes, black holes, false vacuum bubbles, and whether civilization could one day create realities of its own. Get Nebula using my link for 50% off an annual subscription: https://go.nebula.tv/isaacarthur Enjoy Rifftrax: https://nebula.tv/rifftrax?ref=isaacarthur 🛒 SFIA Merchandise: https://isaa...

White holes are black holes run backward: nothing can enter, but matter and light can escape. We explore whether these strange solutions could exist, connect to black holes, or even hint at how universes are born. Get Nebula using my link for 50% off an annual subscription: https://go.nebula.tv/isaacarthur Enjoy Rifftrax: https://nebula.tv/rifftrax?ref=isaacarthur 🛒 SFIA Merchandise: https://isaa...

Mercury may be the Solar System’s first true industrial world. We explore robotic mines, solar furnaces, mass drivers, mobile cities, and how the innermost planet could help build a Dyson swarm. Get Nebula using my link for 50% off an annual subscription: https://go.nebula.tv/isaacarthur Checkout Space Money and our Space Industry Collection: https://nebula.tv/isaacarthur/space-industry-collection...

What if we could make gasoline from air? We explore how carbon dioxide, water, and electricity can become synthetic gasoline, jet fuel, rocket propellant, plastics, and more. Get Nebula using my link for 50% off an annual subscription: https://go.nebula.tv/isaacarthur Checkout Space Money and our Space Industry Collection: https://nebula.tv/isaacarthur/space-industry-collection 🛒 SFIA Merchandise...

What happens when time stops being scarce? From nanobots to mind uploads, we explore the economy of immortality... and what it costs to live forever. Get Nebula using my link for 50% off an annual subscription: https://go.nebula.tv/isaacarthur Checkout Mad Kings : https://nebula.tv/madkings?ref=isaacarthur 🛒 SFIA Merchandise: https://isaac-arthur-shop.fourthwall.com/ 🌐 Visit our Website: http://...

Would we ever colonize space with prisoners? From penal colonies to prison planets, we explore whether exile could become a second chance, a new civilization, or a nightmare with rockets. Get Nebula using my link for 50% off an annual subscription: https://go.nebula.tv/isaacarthur Checkout Mad Kings : https://nebula.tv/madkings?ref=isaacarthur 🛒 SFIA Merchandise: https://isaac-arthur-shop.fourthw...

How big could human civilization become? From trillion-person worlds to Dyson swarms, galaxy-spanning cultures, and digital minds, we explore just how far humanity could scale. Get Nebula using my link for 50% off an annual subscription: https://go.nebula.tv/isaacarthur Checkout Gods & Monsters: https://nebula.tv/curiousarchive/gods-and-monsters?ref=isaacarthur 🛒 SFIA Merchandise: https://isa...

What happens when the machines still work, but nobody remembers how they were built? We explore technological amnesia, black-box automation, lost expertise, and civilizations trapped inside inherited technology. Get Nebula using my link for 50% off an annual subscription: https://go.nebula.tv/isaacarthur Checkout Alien Data Arks, Outsider Aliens, and our Alien Life Collection: https://nebula.tv/is...

Why build floating cities above Jupiter and Saturn? Not for fusion fuel, but for something far more valuable: the staggering amounts of hydrogen, nitrogen, and raw material needed to build a spacefaring civilization. Get Nebula using my link for 50% off an annual subscription: https://go.nebula.tv/isaacarthur Checkout Gods & Monsters: https://nebula.tv/curiousarchive/gods-and-monsters?ref=isaa...

If we could build a space elevator tomorrow, where should it go? Earth may be the obvious answer, but the Moon, Mars, and other worlds may be far easier. We compare the best candidates. Get Nebula using my link for 50% off an annual subscription: https://go.nebula.tv/isaacarthur Checkout Mad Kings : https://nebula.tv/madkings?ref=isaacarthur 🛒 SFIA Merchandise: https://isaac-arthur-shop.fourthwal...

Ion drives are slow, quiet, and astonishingly efficient. From asteroid freighters and Mars cargo ships to the infrastructure behind future starships, these patient engines may help build civilization across the Solar System. Get Nebula using my link for 50% off an annual subscription: https://go.nebula.tv/isaacarthur Checkout Gods & Monsters: https://nebula.tv/curiousarchive/gods-and-monsters?...

For 72 seconds, the universe seemed to answer SETI. The Wow! Signal was strong, narrowband, and strangely convincing... but it never came back. So what actually happened in 1977? Get Nebula using my link for 50% off an annual subscription: https://go.nebula.tv/isaacarthur Checkout Alien Data Arks, Outsider Aliens, and our Alien Life Collection: https://nebula.tv/isaacarthur/alien-life-collection...

Could life thrive without sunlight? Explore dark biospheres on rogue planets, icy moons, and buried oceans, where chemistry, tidal heating, and geothermal energy may sustain alien ecosystems in eternal night. Get Nebula using my link for 50% off an annual subscription: https://go.nebula.tv/isaacarthur Checkout Otusider Aliens and our Alien Life Collection: https://nebula.tv/isaacarthur/alien-life-...

What really happens when you fall into a black hole? We explore event horizons, spaghettification, what you’d see inside, possible gateways, and why future civilizations might deliberately build around these cosmic engines. Get Nebula using my link for 50% off an annual subscription: https://go.nebula.tv/isaacarthur Checkout Otusider Aliens and our Alien Life Collection: https://nebula.tv/isaacart...

From company towns in orbit to corporate empires among the stars, could megacorporations build the space frontier—or end up owning the air, the docks, and the only ride home? Get Nebula using my link for 50% off an annual subscription: https://go.nebula.tv/isaacarthur Checkout Otusider Aliens and our Alien Life Collection: https://nebula.tv/isaacarthur/alien-life-collection 🛒 SFIA Merchandise: ht...

What happens when a colony ship’s children inherit a mission they never chose? We explore the values, conflicts, and founding myths that shape civilizations born between Earth and the stars. Get Nebula using my link for 50% off an annual subscription: https://go.nebula.tv/isaacarthur Checkout Otusider Aliens and our Alien Life Collection: https://nebula.tv/isaacarthur/alien-life-collection 🛒 SFIA...

Build a world small enough to circle in a day—or vast enough to house a galaxy. This grand tour explores the strangest space habitats possible under known physics. Get a 50% Match for your donation - https://www.farmkind.giving/isaac 🛒 SFIA Merchandise: https://isaac-arthur-shop.fourthwall.com/ 🌐 Visit our Website: http://www.isaacarthur.net ❤️ Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Isaa...

Aboard a relativistic starship, time is cargo: gamma-10 cruise, decades slipping by outside, lethal dust grains, beam routes, antimatter, ramjets, and the strange culture of crews who trade history for the stars. Get Nebula using my link for 50% off an annual subscription: https://go.nebula.tv/isaacarthur Checkout Otusider Aliens and our Alien Life Collection: https://nebula.tv/isaacarthur/alien-l...

Are we living in a simulation, or are we becoming the simulators? From AI worlds to digital immortality and the Fermi Paradox, we explore reality’s weirdest possibility. 🛒 SFIA Merchandise: https://isaac-arthur-shop.fourthwall.com/ 🌐 Visit our Website: http://www.isaacarthur.net ❤️ Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/IsaacArthur ⭐ Support us on Subscribestar: https://www.subscribesta...

Mars won’t get cities because it becomes easy to live there. It gets cities because people stay. We explore how the first fragile outposts become homes, economies, neighborhoods, and civilization. Get Nebula using my link for 50% off an annual subscription: https://go.nebula.tv/isaacarthur Check out TierZoo Remastered: https://nebula.tv/tierzoo/tierzoo-remastered?ref=isaacarthur Ares Inception on...

Could life survive in oceans that eat glass and treat water as poison? Explore fluorine-rich biology, hydrogen fluoride seas, and alien creatures whose metabolisms resemble carefully contained rocket engines. Get Nebula using my link for 50% off an annual subscription: https://go.nebula.tv/isaacarthur Check out TierZoo Remastered: https://nebula.tv/tierzoo/tierzoo-remastered?ref=isaacarthur 🛒 SFI...

Can you survive inside a star? The answer is stranger than “no.” Explore plasma storms, red giants, magnetic shields, and how future civilizations might turn stars into fortresses. Get Nebula using my link for 50% off an annual subscription: https://go.nebula.tv/isaacarthur Watch my exclusive video Colonizing Ocean Worlds: https://nebula.tv/videos/isaacarthur-colonizing-ocean-worlds-subaquatic-set...

The Moon may be dusty and desolate, but its future could be full of traffic. In this extended edition, we explore how mass drivers, rockets, space elevators, and orbital logistics could turn the Moon into the industrial gateway of the Solar System. Get Nebula using my link for 50% off an annual subscription: https://go.nebula.tv/isaacarthur Watch Mad Kings: https://nebula.tv/madkings?ref=isaacarth...

What if the future of industry isn’t giant factories, but molecular machines too small to see? DNA factories could repair bodies, grow habitats, and transform civilization. Get Nebula using my link for 50% off an annual subscription: https://go.nebula.tv/isaacarthur Watch my exclusive video Colonizing Ocean Worlds: https://nebula.tv/videos/isaacarthur-colonizing-ocean-worlds-subaquatic-settlements...

Space colonies may reach the stars… then collapse. From fragile ecosystems to genetic drift and incentive failure, how do new settlements survive long enough to become civilizations? Get Nebula using my link for 50% off an annual subscription: https://go.nebula.tv/isaacarthur Watch Mad Kings: https://nebula.tv/madkings?ref=isaacarthur 🛒 SFIA Merchandise: https://isaac-arthur-shop.fourthwall.com/...