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ScienceEtonnante

ScienceEtonnante is a French science channel devoted to telling the story of science at its most astonishing, entertaining and puzzling. Its main ground is physics ( fundamental and everyday ) with sustained excursions into computer science, astrophysics and cosmology. Each video takes a defined problem and follows it all the way down, rather than abandoning the explanation partway. The catalogue gives a precise sense of the method. There are instalments on nuclear fusion that are not satisfied with the energy promise and ask instead how a plasma is confined without being touched, or whether the technology is genuinely harmless. There is quantum cryptography explained through the BB84 protocol, Turing machines, the four stages of training a large language model, artificial intelligence in video games. There is physics of the immediate world: what actually happens inside an electrical wire, why magnetism can be described as an illusion, what the Earth's magnetic field conceals. And there is history of science, from Newton's imagined cannon to the origin of life and the RNA world hypothesis. Interviews appear too, such as one with Fields medallist Hugo Duminil-Copin. Viewers will find videos that demand attention and repay it. Equations are not hidden when they are needed, nor displayed to intimidate. The author also keeps a blog of the same name where the same work continues in writing. This is science communication that does not mistake simplifying for watering down: it chooses which detail to sacrifice, and explains why.