Bastiverse

Space, research, science. Clearly explained.

A science channel on YouTube: a new episode every week, 10 to 20 minutes. In German for now, English versions are planned.

Your mouse is an invisible black hole. Move it over the golden star. Tap the starry sky: an invisible black hole will sit right there.

What’s happening here?

Mass curves space, and light follows that curvature. A black hole therefore acts like a lens: stars behind it appear shifted and stretched into arcs. If it sits exactly between you and a star, that star’s light is bent into a circle, the Einstein ring.

The ring is the Bastiverse logo, the bright dot on it a photon, a particle of light. The distortion on this page is calculated live with the lens equation for a point mass.

Latest episode

Starting soon

Episode 01

Episode 1 · coming soon

Why your phone needs Einstein

More than 30 GPS satellites with atomic clocks on board circle above your head, and yet engineers deliberately set them wrong. Why? The answer lies in Einstein’s theory of relativity. In this episode we explain, without any maths, why moving clocks run slow, why gravity slows down time, and why your satnav wouldn’t work without Einstein.

In this episode

  1. 01 The puzzle: why are GPS clocks set wrong?
  2. 02 The world before Einstein
  3. 03 The light clock: why moving clocks run slow
  4. 04 Evidence: muons and atomic clocks on planes
  5. 05 Gravity slows down time
  6. 06 Back to the satnav: the puzzle solved

As soon as the episode is online, you can watch it here. Video in German.

Subscribe on YouTube →

What it’s about

Big questions, explained step by step

Bastiverse explains science so you can picture it: with glowing images instead of formulas, with everyday examples, and with sources to read up on in the video description.

Schedule
1×
per week
Length
10–20
minutes
Language
DE
German for now
  • Time & relativity

    Why moving clocks run slow, why gravity slows down time, and what that has to do with your satnav.

  • Black holes & gravity

    How mass curves space, bends light and stretches stars into rings, just like at the top of this page.

  • Particles & quanta

    What everything is made of: from atoms and muons from cosmic rays to the strange rules of the quantum world.

  • Space exploration

    Satellites, telescopes and missions: how we explore space and what it teaches us about ourselves.

Who explains

Basti

Every episode is hosted by Basti, a digital avatar in front of the starry sky. He takes a big question, breaks it down into small steps and shows what’s behind it.

Einstein comes first: why do clocks in space tick differently, and why would your phone not know where you are without relativity?

Newsletter

New episodes by email

A short email when a new episode is out. No ads, and you can unsubscribe with one click.

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Contact

Get in touch

For business enquiries such as partnerships or press:

[email protected]

Questions about an episode? Best leave a comment under the video on YouTube .