Tom seems to have taken a leaf out of Chris's book, literally (semi-literally?). I mean, Chris wrote a book and there he said that he made it a principle not to talk about going to space unless someone else asked him to.
Fun fact - and I know, because I live in (East) Berlin and have seen it happen: even if the street lights in Berlin are changed to energy-efficient modern ones, those in the eastern part are usually replaced by orangy-yellow LEDs, because >> that's, what people are used to
That's a nice touch. A few years ago I was wondering about a street in Chemnitz with all new but all different LED lights. There was a QR code on the lampposts where you could vote which colour you preferred. I don't think a lot of people noticed but it is nice to be given a sense of participation.
North Carolina recently had an issue where a sizeable percentage of the new streetlight bulbs that they bought had a defect where they would suddenly change from white to purple. All of the ones lining the streets have since been replaced, but there are still a few purple ones remaining in out of the way parking lots.
There's a couple of areas in the Chicago suburbs where the defects are that the streetlights are just always purple, and it is annoying to drive through them.
it exists in a couple places, it happened near where I live so I looked it up and found that apparently it has something to do with it being cheaper to produce purple LEDs, and then put some kind of film covering it to make it white, and some cheaper manufacturers have had their films come off a few years later, revealing the purple bulb underneath
Same thing happened in my UK city. Went from the very yellow sodium, to bright white LEDs, that when dying, would give off purple light. Then moved to some yellow LEDs, that aren't quite as intense as the sodiums, and I haven't seen any of them die into purple since.
Just coming to the comments to post my guess based only on hearing the question. Berlin, because the lights used in East Berlin were noticeably different types to the ones used in West Berlin.
Which is wrong, because it is Unification, not re-unification. Germany was never united in the current shape and form, that's why we speak of Unity and Day of German unity not re-unification, especially because it is quite smaller than before the war.
3:17 it is actually deliberate. By now that could have easily changed the lights, but we east Berliners would riot if we got those ugly bright white lights.
0:20 - Berlin, the lights on the east side are different color temp than the west side due to the different lighting technology used in the soviet days.
I mean, I think I could recognize a good 6 or so European capitals at night by their street layout. My immediate thought was Moscow because of its concentric circles. My second thought when they moved on to talking about light colours was that maybe some European capital had done a good job of reducing light pollution, and therefore looked quite dark from above.
To be pedantic: Berlin was unified on October 3rd, 1990. The Berlin Wall fell in 1989, but the German Democratic Republic still existed until October 3rd, 1990.
A lot has changed in the 11 years since that photo. The difference stopped being easily visible from the air around 2016 or 2017, and following a resolution passed by the city in 2022, almost all of the last remaining gas streetlamps have now been replaced. There are a few places where you can still find sections of a street that still have to be updated, but those have become so rare that you're unlikely to find them if you wander through (east) Berlin at light, and much less from the air.
Wow, one of the rare instances where I guessed it immediately (before the second reading of the question even). Except that I had no clue which city, just that it was the color of the lights and why they were different colors, just not why any specific city would have older lighting.
I love how at 4:34 Tom said '.. which are much whiter.' And two people went 'hmmm. *nod nod*' and you could tell by their faces nobody had any idea what he was on about.
I just looked at the photo and must say that I would have written off the color distinction to number of lights and would never have guessed it was because of sodium vs non-sodium lighting.
"Technology evolved different ways in these two places" was a major giveaway. It's ironic that LED lights are whiter when it was such a huge issue to develop blue LED and that was only a pathway to white LED.
I looked this up, and I don't think the episode mentioned the West Berlin lights were *GAS* lights, not incandescents! The Telegraph article about the photo (18 April 2013 "Berlin satellite image reveals stark east-west divisions) mentions this. With mantles of some kind to produce the white light, perhaps?
0:20 Getting in early because I'm damned sure I know this one: it's Berlin, because the streetlights used in East Berlin use a different colour of bulb from the West Berlin lights. I don't exactly remember the difference chemically, but it's probably a different material for the filament or smth
Spoiler . . . . Being a German jumping right to different colours in street lights made me feel smart. But then thinking "is it a city in Spain?!" Took that away quickly 😂
(also: Edinburgh, Cardiff, and Belfast could work depending on how one interprets "European capital", as Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are sometimes considered their own countries within the United Kingdom, where a kingdom isn't necessarily the same as a country)
When they said about Milton Keynes being a grid and Tom said there weren't many cities in Europe in grids, I immediately thought it was Madrid and stuck with that until they said about lights, then I realised I was thinking of Barcelona not Madrid.
Initial thoughts: I think I know this one. There isn't a lot of European capitals and that narrows it down greatly. As it's at night, it's probably lighting being seen; and he saw the road layout, so lampposts. And what EU capital was divided in two clear side until the end of the 80s? Berlin. Two different road infrastructures in the same city. Could have been Sweden when they switched the driving side of the road, but the year is wrong.
I was sure it was going to be Madrid as it doesn't have a river running through it so there would be a noticable absence of street lights along a line running through the city... gah!
From the question, I immediately thought of London, since one would see lots of red lights on the left side of the road (from car’s backlights) and white/yellow lights on the right (from car’s fronts), the opposite of other capitals of Europe.
London did have a wall - but got rid of it long before it got street lights. I doubt most people could easily pick out the City of London from a distance at night anyway.
@@mrab4222(also: Edinburgh, Cardiff, and Belfast could work depending on how one interprets "European capital", as Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are sometimes considered their own countries within the United Kingdom, where a kingdom isn't necessarily the same as a country)
Very wierd i got the answer cause of a kinda different reason. I guessed that with the sodium lights, cause i got reminded of the orange street lights by a video of a blck flame. My reason why it must be berlin was cause they got a lot of curruption and the ministers of traffic mosty try to cash just into their own pockets. That means since years the infrastructure is kinda stuck, like the railroads that cant handle anymore the growing traffic.
So it was not London, the capital where they drive on the wrong side of the road.. But also, I doubt it is sodium vs LED (as presented that those were the original lights from the time of the wall)... the wall fell 20+ years before the photo was taken - they did not have LED streetlights in 1989 and.
If Berlin was reunited that long ago, why was there still a difference in the streetlights? They didn't have white LEDs in 1989, so those would all have been replaced after Berlin unified. So why didn't they do both sides?
That was still in progress in 2013. East Berlin was lit by sodium-vapor lamps while West Berlin had mercury-vapor ones and gas lighting that was being replaced first. Now that they have all been swapped to LEDs, there's still a bit of a difference in color temperature but not nearly so noticeable.
Kinda cheating since the image mentioned light but Guess at 0:18 Berlin? Still has different lighting in east and west? Well, not so much a guess as a "i think i've heard this"
Tom is a better man than me. He managed to mention Chris Hadfield without saying "who i shared a room with in the arctic"
Tom seems to have taken a leaf out of Chris's book, literally (semi-literally?). I mean, Chris wrote a book and there he said that he made it a principle not to talk about going to space unless someone else asked him to.
so.. you shared a room with Chris Hadfield in the arctic?
@@fariesz6786 No. I think they would have told us about it if they did. :)
"I am still in the arctic"
"I am back in the UK and I have a cold"
Fun fact - and I know, because I live in (East) Berlin and have seen it happen: even if the street lights in Berlin are changed to energy-efficient modern ones, those in the eastern part are usually replaced by orangy-yellow LEDs, because >> that's, what people are used to
That's super interesting, thanks for sharing that detail.
Also nice way to keep a bit of history and uniqueness of the city alive
That's a nice touch. A few years ago I was wondering about a street in Chemnitz with all new but all different LED lights. There was a QR code on the lampposts where you could vote which colour you preferred. I don't think a lot of people noticed but it is nice to be given a sense of participation.
North Carolina recently had an issue where a sizeable percentage of the new streetlight bulbs that they bought had a defect where they would suddenly change from white to purple. All of the ones lining the streets have since been replaced, but there are still a few purple ones remaining in out of the way parking lots.
There's a couple of areas in the Chicago suburbs where the defects are that the streetlights are just always purple, and it is annoying to drive through them.
it exists in a couple places, it happened near where I live so I looked it up and found that apparently it has something to do with it being cheaper to produce purple LEDs, and then put some kind of film covering it to make it white, and some cheaper manufacturers have had their films come off a few years later, revealing the purple bulb underneath
Ah! I was wondering about all the purple streetlights here in Hickory, NC!
Same thing happened in my UK city. Went from the very yellow sodium, to bright white LEDs, that when dying, would give off purple light. Then moved to some yellow LEDs, that aren't quite as intense as the sodiums, and I haven't seen any of them die into purple since.
Happening in Seattle area too, basically anywhere that used one brand of streetlights. Tbh I like the purple way more 😅
Ah, yes, Chris. Tom's mate he shared a bunk with for a fortnight on a cruise.
As one does...
I love this thank you, this made me laugh
I knew the Berlin answer right away but I thought the Chris in question is Chris Joel (he reads books you know) lol
He did have a chainsaw licence at around that point in time, but did he have a pilot's license though?
Tho he was Tom's roommate😅
@@LelouchVee you don't need a pilots license to attach a few helicopter blades to the chain
I was thinking of Chris Joel throughout the entire question.
@@LelouchVeeIf he had, he could have landed a plane outside York Megabowl
Knew this one from the moment it was read out! Helps that I follow the Chris in question, and that I have visited said city.
Yep, me too! I didn't know the physical reason, but yeah.
Just coming to the comments to post my guess based only on hearing the question. Berlin, because the lights used in East Berlin were noticeably different types to the ones used in West Berlin.
i was screaming "BERLIN!" at my monitor the entire time
And then you clicked this video?
What a coincidence, Wendover Productions uploaded "The Logistics of German Reunification" an hour ago.
Yep
Also just watched that before this video.
Made me immediatly guess the answer
Could have put this in a spoiler mode…
Which is wrong, because it is Unification, not re-unification. Germany was never united in the current shape and form, that's why we speak of Unity and Day of German unity not re-unification, especially because it is quite smaller than before the war.
3:17 it is actually deliberate. By now that could have easily changed the lights, but we east Berliners would riot if we got those ugly bright white lights.
Hmm, die Wessis könnten das überlegene Licht des Sozialismus doch gar nicht vertragen. Gruß aus Treptow ❤😎
Verständlich!
0:20 - Berlin, the lights on the east side are different color temp than the west side due to the different lighting technology used in the soviet days.
He wasn't flying, he was falling!
With style!
There are still around 1500 gas lights in London. It would be interesting to see how noticeable the colour difference is from the air / space.
I saw a photo of this difference, about a year ago, on Instagram. That photo immediately flashed before my eves when I heard the question!
I mean, I think I could recognize a good 6 or so European capitals at night by their street layout. My immediate thought was Moscow because of its concentric circles. My second thought when they moved on to talking about light colours was that
maybe some European capital had done a good job of reducing light pollution, and therefore looked quite dark from above.
I can’t be the only one that instantly googled the answer and was blown away by the beauty of that picture?
My very first thought was Berlin, but then I saw the 2013 date, and went, "no, it couldn't possibly..."
🤦♂️
back in 2013, Milton Keynes wasn't officially a city
But it is now and we're all very proud of it 😁.
To Rep. Ocasio-Cortez in 2020, that wasn't a city either: that was an economist! 🤣
@@abigailcooling6604 agreed.
I remember playing Sim City in the 90's and writing the city's name with roads
I like how the thumbnails are always so blatant they are effectively the opposite of a red herring.
To be pedantic: Berlin was unified on October 3rd, 1990. The Berlin Wall fell in 1989, but the German Democratic Republic still existed until October 3rd, 1990.
Have been missing Tom glad to have stumbled in to his new project
0:40 This moment is a proof that the time between a joke and the laughter is constant.
i remembered an old Vsauce clip about this, though i'll admit when you said "Chris" i just assumed it was Chris Joel and not Chris Hadfield
Tom once again subtly flaunting that he's on a first name basis with Chris Hadfield
A lot has changed in the 11 years since that photo. The difference stopped being easily visible from the air around 2016 or 2017, and following a resolution passed by the city in 2022, almost all of the last remaining gas streetlamps have now been replaced. There are a few places where you can still find sections of a street that still have to be updated, but those have become so rare that you're unlikely to find them if you wander through (east) Berlin at light, and much less from the air.
From the beginning I thought "it must be an iron curtain thing, it's gotta br Berlin" and then I dismissed that
The first thing I was going to say was the
LED streetlights, but without hints I'd have never got Berlin or who Chris was
I mean - what other city in europe has an entirely different lighting pattern for one half of it? It HAS to be Berlin.
I saw the headline and immediatly knew it.
At 3:26 something dawned on me, that would bake a huge difference to different parts of a city.
woohoo - second question I got right this week! I am starting to feel proud of myself
Wow, one of the rare instances where I guessed it immediately (before the second reading of the question even). Except that I had no clue which city, just that it was the color of the lights and why they were different colors, just not why any specific city would have older lighting.
The same Chris that shared a room on a ship with Tom. 🤔
I love how at 4:34 Tom said '.. which are much whiter.' And two people went 'hmmm. *nod nod*' and you could tell by their faces nobody had any idea what he was on about.
Cardiff! - it's 2013, so pre. the blanket 20 mph speed limit & light could still get out . . . well, partly : )
Haven't watched the video yet, but just from the prompt I'm guessing East and West Berlin lights are different colors. Heard that one a while back.
Second guess halfway through: Berlin, are there any old streetlights that are different East vs West? Or along where the wall used to be?
The city where I live uses LED lights now and they got a bad batch of bulbs. After some time, they go from white to purple.
The streets in Khartoum (Sudan) are laid out in the 🇬🇧 pattern
I love that I knew instantly!
I just looked at the photo and must say that I would have written off the color distinction to number of lights and would never have guessed it was because of sodium vs non-sodium lighting.
0:27
my guess : Berlin because if the street lights
"Technology evolved different ways in these two places" was a major giveaway.
It's ironic that LED lights are whiter when it was such a huge issue to develop blue LED and that was only a pathway to white LED.
I looked this up, and I don't think the episode mentioned the West Berlin lights were *GAS* lights, not incandescents! The Telegraph article about the photo (18 April 2013 "Berlin satellite image reveals stark east-west divisions) mentions this. With mantles of some kind to produce the white light, perhaps?
Plot Twist, there was a McCoy in Berlin taking a pic of the ISS at the same time! 🤣
I heard the question and initially thought Berlin...
Thought so too the moment I read the Titel.
I was thinking either Berlin or Nicosia, Cyprus, which is still split, though I don't know if the streetlights are different colours on either side.
Me coming from the Wendover video that was just posted lol
Fortysome years of West German and East German street lighting ended 35 years ago (which one was yellow and which was blue?)
I just watched a video about the sodium lamps last week. It's weird how things chain together.
I was going with London because of driving on the other side of the road!
“Light can be damaging”
Lol. Sunlight. I guess during the day they put a tarp over the city.
0:20 Getting in early because I'm damned sure I know this one: it's Berlin, because the streetlights used in East Berlin use a different colour of bulb from the West Berlin lights. I don't exactly remember the difference chemically, but it's probably a different material for the filament or smth
Spoiler
.
.
.
.
Being a German jumping right to different colours in street lights made me feel smart. But then thinking "is it a city in Spain?!" Took that away quickly 😂
I got that one immediately yay
That the third video about sodium street lights in my subscription channels in two weeks.
Which isn't a lot, but it's weird it happened thrice
got this one of the bat, like this question
I was sure it was London, because you can see from the car lights that they drive on the left there. But that's probably not visible from *that* high.
Dublin would also be a possibility if that's what you saw
(also: Edinburgh, Cardiff, and Belfast could work depending on how one interprets "European capital", as Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are sometimes considered their own countries within the United Kingdom, where a kingdom isn't necessarily the same as a country)
Is the East German Ampelmännchen taken directly from the Phaistos Disc 𐇐 ?
When they said about Milton Keynes being a grid and Tom said there weren't many cities in Europe in grids, I immediately thought it was Madrid and stuck with that until they said about lights, then I realised I was thinking of Barcelona not Madrid.
is it berlin west east difference?
When tom asked "who was chris?" I instinctively said out loud "Chris Hadfield" and was suprised i was actually right
I'm fairly sure that London has the same thing thanks to its many powerful boroughs
Initial thoughts: I think I know this one. There isn't a lot of European capitals and that narrows it down greatly. As it's at night, it's probably lighting being seen; and he saw the road layout, so lampposts. And what EU capital was divided in two clear side until the end of the 80s? Berlin. Two different road infrastructures in the same city.
Could have been Sweden when they switched the driving side of the road, but the year is wrong.
I had Nicosia, with the notable shape in the middle and a distinct difference between the parts.
This was obvious from the title. The actual caption made it even easier, specifying it's in Europe and it's a capital.
I was sure it was going to be Madrid as it doesn't have a river running through it so there would be a noticable absence of street lights along a line running through the city... gah!
If you have never seen it, it is worth looking up the photograph in question.
An soon as Dan said technologies evolved differently in these 2 places - i knew it was Berlin
I got Berlin but the streetlights made me doubt myself
That one I knew right away, as my sis lives in Berlin.
From the question, I immediately thought of London, since one would see lots of red lights on the left side of the road (from car’s backlights) and white/yellow lights on the right (from car’s fronts), the opposite of other capitals of Europe.
I was thinking London since the Jay Foreman video mentioned that London's boroughs are visible from space based on the streetlight color.
Have you forgotten about Dublin?
I doubt Chris would have been able to see *that* from where he was.
London did have a wall - but got rid of it long before it got street lights. I doubt most people could easily pick out the City of London from a distance at night anyway.
@@mrab4222(also: Edinburgh, Cardiff, and Belfast could work depending on how one interprets "European capital", as Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are sometimes considered their own countries within the United Kingdom, where a kingdom isn't necessarily the same as a country)
Before even watching, just based on the thumbnail, I’m guessing the answer is Berlin
Someone needs to tell Ruth the story of how the US figured out Spy satellites were a thing that was going to happen.
Very wierd i got the answer cause of a kinda different reason. I guessed that with the sodium lights, cause i got reminded of the orange street lights by a video of a blck flame. My reason why it must be berlin was cause they got a lot of curruption and the ministers of traffic mosty try to cash just into their own pockets. That means since years the infrastructure is kinda stuck, like the railroads that cant handle anymore the growing traffic.
I knew the answer to this one as soon as he said a city from the air.
Berlin is still split that way to this day.
A Belgian one. They clearly spend their infrastructure budget on paying for all the lamp posts instead of fixing the road.
i knew it as soon as i read the question. but, hey, i was born here in Berlin.
I was going to say london because traffic was on the other side of the road.
It is kind of a spoiler when the answer is Berlin, and you tube is suggesting "related videos" about Berlin.
And here I was thinking it was Chris Joel, Ornithologist!
My implication being that Chris, is in fact, a bird
I knew that one 😃
from the thumbnail i knew exactly the answer to the question, thnx ww2
Same here. And I have seen the photo in question a couple of times before. But I didn't know who shot it until this video.
Btw: It should be "thnx cold war", not WW2.
I just finished the Wendover video that came out like, an hour before this on the same topic lol
First guess: London because the red taillights were to the left of the white headlights on each street.
Guess at 50 seconds, Berlin because of two distinct lighting colours.
So it was not London, the capital where they drive on the wrong side of the road..
But also, I doubt it is sodium vs LED (as presented that those were the original lights from the time of the wall)... the wall fell 20+ years before the photo was taken - they did not have LED streetlights in 1989 and.
I hope astronauts arent using a big telescope to specifically look at Amsterdam red light district
Berlin? If it is it was the "parts" part
Berlin, it’s Berlin. As soon as Peake told historical reason, it’s Berlin.
I knew the answer when I saw the title of the video
london
I guessed Berlin for the wrong reason lol: that lights travel much faster in the autobahn cos no speed limit.
My hometown Berlin, DDR and BRD lights.
Seems like it's much too late to be Berlin?
"Split European capital? Got to be Berlin!"
Poor Nicosia gets no recognition...
If Berlin was reunited that long ago, why was there still a difference in the streetlights? They didn't have white LEDs in 1989, so those would all have been replaced after Berlin unified. So why didn't they do both sides?
That was still in progress in 2013. East Berlin was lit by sodium-vapor lamps while West Berlin had mercury-vapor ones and gas lighting that was being replaced first. Now that they have all been swapped to LEDs, there's still a bit of a difference in color temperature but not nearly so noticeable.
Kinda cheating since the image mentioned light but
Guess at 0:18
Berlin? Still has different lighting in east and west?
Well, not so much a guess as a "i think i've heard this"
I immediately thought chris hadfield, because if it were some sort of aircraft, you'd just know where you're flying.
Are you suggesting that Chris _didn't_ know where he was flying?
"Let's see where this thing goes..."
My first guess was that the cars were driving on the wrong side of the road.
The road layout of Rome, actually spells Paris!
For tax reasons.
Today I was part of the shouting the answer at the screen demographic...