A 1970s Lockheed idea, sodium, water and a spinning wheel at Applied Science
Ben Krasnow's only upload of the week passed 280,000 views in five days, and the comments are full of Kerbal jokes and liquid-metal cleaning tips.
Applied ScienceStory of Why this story? The channel's weekly summary: what went up this week, what is drawing views now, and where the channel stands among similar channels.
Drawing electricity from this sodium-water reactor prevents it from exploding (in theory)
"Drawing electricity from this sodium-water reactor prevents it from exploding (in theory)" is exactly as advertised: Ben Krasnow builds a device from a 1970s patent that promises real electrical power from sodium metal meeting water, and checks whether it holds up. The catch sits in the title's parentheses. As we reported here, the video got off to a fast start, and five days on it has gathered close to 290,000 views.
What changed since is the conversation underneath. Viewers keep circling the same few moments: the grin with which Krasnow admits to quite a few fires and explosions in his workshop, the scorch marks to prove it, and a stretch around the nine-minute mark that had some briefly convinced mercury would join the sodium. Several point out that the design traces back to Lockheed, and one jokes that the whole thing looks like it came out of Kerbal Space Program. Others turned it into a workshop swap meet, trading tips on cleaning up galinstan, the liquid gallium alloy, and wondering whether a porous graphite variant would amount to a sodium-ion battery.
One upload made for an ordinary week overall: daily views sat right around their usual level, and about a thousand new subscribers arrived. Behind the reactor, the older lab work carries on quietly, led by a June video of an atomic force microscope helping etch diffraction gratings into stainless steel.
Among the science channels nearest his size, Applied Science is second largest by subscribers but gained the fewest views of those compared, while Reactions, the chemistry channel, passed a million for the week.
Published on Trari
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What viewers say
“The design is very kerbal.”
@ericlotze7724See it on YouTubethe absolute grin at "I've had quite a few fires and explosions here" is the best
@hamsandwich780See it on YouTubeImpractical machines that spontaneously combust when something goes wrong are always my favorite science demos
@SHRUGGiExyzSee it on YouTube
Public comments from the video's page on YouTube
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The videos drawing views on Applied Science right now
- Channel
- Applied Science
- Subscribers
- 890,000 ▲ 1,000 this week
- Channel views, last 7 days
- 354,330
- Videos published this week
- 1
- Video published
- September 30, 2026
- Video views so far
- 286,587
- Views on its first day
- 157,722
The numbers
Here is how Applied Science's week looks in figures.
💡 Test your knowledge
Kerbal Space Program, the game one viewer compares the reactor to, was originally developed by which studio?
Kerbal Space Program was created by the Mexican studio Squad and first released in early access in 2011.
