Lasers vs Lightning- Which Is More Powerful?

Which has more destructive

power, lasers or lightning?

Today, to declare a final champion

among all the elements we've tested head-to-head on my channel, they'll be facing off

in tests against seven household objects,

including a CD, a crystal ball,

and a safe full OF CASH. LET'S GO!

And since laser had to defeat lava to make it to the finals,

your favorite former middle school teacher turned to laser-wielding

mad genius is back, Science Bob Pflugfelder. Good luck, Mark. You're so positive.

Representing lightning is Matty Benedetto, aka Electroboom.

He left his manners in Canada

and brought some shocking

bits of electric machinery

to show off his mastery of electrons.

I know what I'm doing, kind of.

But once again, for the final encore performance,

I'm not going to be watching from the sidelines, either.

As all seven objects will have to face my X factor METHOD OF DESTRUCTION.

WHICH AS ALWAYS IS different for each object.

So, for example, this lava lamp might just get turned into an actual LAVA LAMP.

AND AS EXPECTED AT THIS STAGE IN THE COMPETITION,

THE nerd trash talk commenced immediately. Lightning beats everything.

I'm just worried about you surviving.

And by the way, winner of today's competition

gets a safe full of cash. Don't get excited. Actual cash.

got a rusted boat in my driveway from the last one.

It's going to cost you more to get rid of it. Oh my god.

All right, well, let's get started. You're doomed, Bob.

And with that, it was time to start our seven item showdown of destruction,

starting with the contest

to burn a CD from our personal collections.

And Bob is going to get us started by using his super powerful

military grade laser to destroy

Rod Stewart's Greatest Bold choice.

I'm a big Rod Stewart fan, especially "Cracklin' Rose".

So, Bob fired up both his laser

and his Rod Stewart deep cut. WHAT? WAIT, IT'S GONE. Where's the CD?

It's like the end of Avengers. What happened?

We had to use a replay to realize that Bob's super powerful

laser had folded the CD like a taco

for incinerating it in an undeniable show. What is that? That's nothing, Bob. That's literally ash.

You might still be able to play that.

Watch me do it.

Matty, out of the gate strong

with the trash talk.

Yeah, let's hope he can live up to that.

Okay, well, he's a mess.

Now it was lightning.

So, it's time to see how Matty planned to use the super

mean-looking Tesla coil that he brought to CrunchLabs.

So, burn my CD, I'm going to use the

Did you just get shocked?

It went through the ground through my

You're like talking slower, I feel like. Broke my CD.

Poor Chris de Burgh, Lady in Red.

Time to see if the Tesla coil could shock the CD

as well as it shocked

And it worked beautifully,

arcing patterns lighting up CrunchLabs.

They were so gorgeous.

And like moths to a light, we just had to get closer.

Until we remembered we were working by Matty's safety standards. Wow.

Like a little bit longer and I think it would have cut all the

way we should try it one more time.

I have second thoughts.

I never have second thoughts.

I try it again, and every time I learn something With a scar.

I don't have a good feeling about that.

Matty had used a wire to ground the CD

so he could get close without having to

Matty had become the god of thunder.

That's how you erase a CD.

And this crystal ball CD

was facing its It's beautiful.

Until Matty shocked himself.

But despite the second

self-own of the day, Matty had done a pretty great job at burning the CD.

Because I know what I'm doing, kind of.

And this is a good time to point out, even though Matty has made

a career out of building really cool things that always somehow shock him.

HE DOES HAVE A MASTER'S DEGREE IN electrical engineering and is very smart and

actually does know exactly what he's doing.

In other words, please don't try this with your own 4-ft Tesla coil at

For all the X Factor.

It was time to show these boys

what the X Factor could pull off.

Gentlemen, prepare to have your minds blown.

It's not just any microwave,

it's a microwave with two googly eyes.

But googly eyes or not, Mariah Carey was in for a little excitement.

3 2 1 Now wait, I was always told you never put metal into a microwave. This is true.

Do not try this at home.

Only try this at CrunchLabs.

The microwave put on quite a techno light show FOR US.

AND IT DID a great job.

Don't breathe that smoke.

But ultimately, besides destroying a CD beyond repair,

final verdict was I think Matty's was the coolest this to Yeah, I Of course it was.

I'm there on two.

So now that we have the first point on the board, we got ready

for a chilly round two.

Solid block of ice.

I'm going to make a swan sculpture out of it.

I don't want to spoil anything, but I'm feeling good about my chances on this a chainsaw?

And Bob was up first with the super powerful laser. guys. Let's go.

And as he worked his laser across the surface of the ice,

the dripping water indicated

that his laser was

Is it even doing anything, Bob?

Hey, this is how light works.

And honestly, he's right.

Since ice is more or less transparent,

the laser passes straight through and doesn't bounce off or get absorbed

by anything, which means it doesn't build up enough heat to cause any damage.

Let me try again.

So this time Bob focused his laser on one spot and held it there. Oh, uh-oh.

And it started to create a rough surface

on the ice, which allowed the laser to finally

interact with something and build up some heat eventually.

Boring a hole all the way through.

That is cool actually.

It looks very bullet like.

It's a bullet that kills you in

half an It was time for Matty to back up all that trash talk.

Let me show you how it's done.

I'm going to use a welding

machine and run 650

amps of current through this

Like I was saying

Basically Matty's plan was to use the build up of heat from electrical

resistance to create a hot rebar knife through icy butter.

We got a sizzle.

Give me more juice. Wow, that's red. Now watch this. THAT'S COOL.

THAT'S HOW WE DO IT.

You're bending the rod.

And it worked really well until it did. What happened?

Wow, it's black in the middle now.

I think your ice is too cold.

So Matty added a little bit of elbow grease to try and saw his way

through the ice by using the parts of the rebar that were still glowing hot.

bit from that side.

And despite his best efforts resulting in a little melting

but much more reheating

and then subsequent bending Stop it. No arcing. Oh.

All right, I'm done. So close.

It was a failure

but it was a cool failure.

Enough for these jokers.

It was time for the X factor.

This boys is how you win a competition.

I'm actually kind of excited to see

With the red hot nickel ball.

AH, it's very satisfying sound.

The question is can I make it deeper than Matty did? Go. Go. Go.

The core of this nickel ball had been heated to 2,000

degrees and it was slowly

but surely making its way down the Going the distance. Is it?

But unfortunately for me the laws of had OTHER PLANS. OH NO.

IT'S FULL OF WATER.

It stole all of its

It takes a lot of energy to heat up

I guess there's a clear winner.

Is there a clear winner?

Really, there were no clear winners in this group.

I have a solution.

This is how we're going to solve this.

So, we decided to add a little gravity.

And whoever's block broke the cleanest

must have done the most damage.

So, they'd be declared the winner.

And devastatingly, for the second round in a Dang it. Oh, Canada.

You're getting all nationalistic on us. All right. 2-0. Next challenge.

So, we moved on to lamps.

And this one was going to be a little bit different.

This is a science pop lamp.

This is a science pop lamp.

Because this time we wouldn't be trying to destroy lamps.

We'd be using our chosen elements to create lamps.

For my lamp, I have got some ultraviolet reactive slime.

I'm going to hit it with a sparkle

pattern ultraviolet laser filter.

It should look pretty cool. Kill the lights.

I can't see, Bob. Activate the laser. Wow.

The world's first slime laser lamp.

It was some of the prettiest

slime I'd ever seen.

That's kind of interesting.

And I wonder what it would look like if you attacked it with the Crunchlab's vortex kit. Oh, yeah.

It does like a little dance.

Can I play with the laser?

No, don't play with the laser.

Ultraviolet slime laser lamp.

That was not on my bingo card.

You did well, Bob.

I mean, it sucks.

Try that one, lightning boy.

Lightning boy was about to whip out the Tesla coil and this fluorescent bulb.

I'm going to do Nikola Tesla's dream of wireless

power and power this with that super large Tesla coil there.

Is this like a good distance for us?

If it is safe for me, it's safe for you, Why do I not

trust what you say?

But when we turned it on,

the electric field created by the Tesla coil in the air It's alive.

actually causes the fluorescent

tube light to glow.

What's happening is the gas particles in the tube are getting excited

by the electric field, which breaks them into charged particles

releasing energy in the form of light.

And it made it look like the coolest

actual lightsaber battle ever.

I just go less crazy this time.

Light it MATT, STOP BREAKING THINGS.

I'VE LEARNED my lesson.

I just want to see how bright it gets, okay? Thank you. That was delayed.

Once we got the lightning man a light bulb that was too big to

use as a it was undeniable

that it was a pretty cool trick.

Lightning lamp, not bad. Thank you. Thank you. All right, gentlemen.

Well, for my lamp, I'm doing a lava lamp.

As in a lamp

that's filled with actual lava.

Does Kevin the Backyard Scientist know YOU'RE DOING THIS?

YEAH, THAT'S NO, THIS IS OUR LITTLE SECRET, MOM.

BUT THE question was,

could I actually get any in the lamp?

This is the moment of truth.

Can Mark do Cuz I only have one pour.

And the anticipation had us feeling like Christmas morning.

Speaking of which, now's the perfect time to mention that if you want a

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household hero by giving it to someone else, use the link in the video

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Now, back to my precision

lava pouring But, had I POURED TOO MUCH?

ULTIMATELY, I FELT LIKE THE LAVA gods would be pleased.

While it is beautiful,

it's arguably less practical.

So, it's time to pick a

I like to point out something.

You didn't make a lamp, you destroyed a lamp.

I made a lamp.

I suppose even the lava gods agreed with Bob's logic, which meant laser was

on the board with one, lightning with two,

and the X factor

with a very sad zero, which meant I'd have to change that

in the LiPo battery round.

All right, here we go.

More questionable All right, right. Oh, no. Right.

I think it's going to catch on fire. To the right.

All right, all right.

Okay, it's not going to blow up in our faces, is it?

And it did blow up,

but it did it There it is. it's beautiful.

The laser burned right through the battery's

casing Don't try this at home, kids.

and quickly burned off all the excess

energy left stored inside the battery.

Laser did some sweet damage to that thing. Definitely did.

And once it was actually dead,

we were able to see the many battery

layers of smoldering wreckage the laser left

Ooh, nice and sizzly.

Bob, can I just point out how you kind of look like a fly right now? Do I?

For lightning, I'm going to let the battery destroy itself by connecting its leads

with a very low resistance

wire that will allow its

classic Medi starch Don't do that. Oh my god.

to an otherwise interesting plan.

Because by connecting the leads he's created a path for the electrons

to flow with essentially no resistance.

This basically causes a stampede

of electrons trying to squeeze

through the wire so intense

it generated a bunch of heat that melted the connections

on the flimsy white wire.

So in an effort to scale up that flimsy white wire so that the

battery would have to fail from the inside

Medi fashioned himself this giant mad scientist switch.

It's a huge switch.

I know this looks really fun.

I'm not going to lie.

I'll step back that's for sure because only one thing would die

And it actually wasn't the battery.

It was Medi's winning streak. Is it getting warm?

I don't know if it's the sun or the

See what's wrong with the battery.

So Medi attempted to MacGyver

his way to a solution

but he was shocked to find You poor thing. Oh my god.

that these batteries had a fail-safe

internally that prevent them from shorting themselves out. use the knife.

So in the end the only thing that was actually destroyed was the knife.

These batteries are not safe man.

So now the X Factor was up.

This is how you do it boys.

And I was going crossbow.

Now last time my fatal flaw was aiming at a target that was physically impossible to hit. Dang it.

So this time I was picking a distance that would be physically

impossible to You missed. Dang it.

It's going to be a long video. Wow. Dang it.

This is how you do it. Oh my god.

The post stream metal dart did what Medi couldn't do

by connecting all the layers of the

First try right there. First try.

causing the The stampede So smooth.

That resulted in beautiful flames. Well, boys. Yeah, take it.

Just kidding, there's nothing in there.

And thus for the first time, X Factor was on the board.

And according to this crystal ball we were about to destroy,

I saw many more points in my future.

Laser versus crystal ball, Bob.

I feel like lasers pass through glass.

Yeah, I don't know why I'm here.

Bob, have a little confidence, buddy.

Some of the greatest discoveries

in scientific history came from that aha moment.

We might be about to find the cure to cancer here.

Feeling inspired, Bob gave his laser a shot.

And once it hit THE CRYSTAL BALL, It's beautiful. Double rainbow.

It was a beautiful

light show, but the infrared camera indicated

that the only effect Bob had I might be turning the wall into lava.

You're laser, you're not lava, Bob. No, I'm both.

I don't know if we cured cancer.

It didn't even notice the globe.

Meanwhile, team X Factor had no doubts about its upcoming hole in one.

This, while it might look like a normal golf Hard guy.

is actually a firearm.

Goggles, where's my goggles?

Three, two, ONE, FOUR!

NEW HOLE IN THE WALL.

Now you know what you're up against.

I see shards of glass. I'm getting back.

I don't see it being that strong.

You're going to regret those words, Three, two, one.

Yeah, it was super ineffective.

That feels very disappointing.

Claim there are some cracks here.

You know what I'm thinking?

So I called in an assist.

It's like loosening the jar of pickles

from my buddy Isaac Newton.

I thought everyone got one try.

You guys might want to step back. Three, two, one. Oh my god. Oh no. Your logo.

I'm literally destroying the floor.

At best, you could argue I turned the crystal ball into a bowling ball.

I think that's a win for glass.

Bob and I are no match for this thing.

It's up to you.

It all come down to whatever insane

invention Matty had brought in.

We brought in a huge capacitor

that can deliver 100,000

amps, as much as one lightning strike. Mhm. Okay.

As much energy as a.50 caliber sniper

All right, I think we get the point.

It can power 100,000 homes.

For a microsecond, yeah. It's hissing. God.

3, 2, 1, 0.

At the test run WE SET UP

GOSH, THAT WAS LOUD.

Showed that he might have this crystal ball in the bag.

I've never done something like this I'm excited.

to be fun, yeah.

3, 2, 1, I DIDN'T EXPECT THAT AT ALL.

None of us did.

But maybe that's because we finally harnessed enough energy

to destroy that dang crystal ball. No way. You metalized glass.

Well, Bob, I think we got to give this one to Matty.

Does that mean he cleans it up? Yeah.

Yeah, winner cleans up. Sorry, Matty.

Matty added another tally to the score as we moved to the watermelon round.

So, Bob let us know what he was planning to do with his adorable

little to go all James Bond on this guy and go right down that.

Googly eyes now suddenly seem much more

Well, they were sitting around.

I figured why not.

leave this to you.

Canceled for cutting a watermelon. Here we go. 3, 2, 1.

Ooh, there you go.

Tell us where you hid the treasure.

But the highly trained double-0

melon didn't seem like he was going to crack.

So, Bob turned UP THE HEAT.

NO, NO, BOB, STOP. OH, NO. I'M SO SORRY.

ACTUALLY, that was KIND OF FUN. IT'S LIKE LASIK.

OH GOSH, THAT LOOKS HORRIBLE. You think?

Well, would you want to see what it tastes like?

But all that and it only cut the watermelon

about an inch deep.

So, I had to apply

a little old-fashioned elbow

You said you WORK OUT?

WOW, THAT LOOKS GROSS.

it has a hint of laser. Refreshing 100° watermelon.

Gordon Ramsay, watch out.

Next up was lightning.

You remember what I did to the crystal

Remember what I did to the crystal ball? I do, actually.

We're going to do the same thing to this poor watermelon.

Paint the room with watermelon.

This was one that might require the bulletproof safety barrier.

Let's make THE WATERMELON VAPOR-MELON.

3 2 1 0.

ON SECOND THOUGHT, THE BARRIER WAS

THAT DIDN'T DO ANYTHING. WHAT HAPPENED?

I CALL THAT a electro-bust.

No, you cracked the watermelon. You cracked the watermelon.

like what a knife could do. OH MY GOD. LOOK AT THAT. OH MY GOD. THAT LOOKS DISGUSTING.

I think the watermelon

absorbed all the shock from the explosion

and I wonder how it tastes like. No, it doesn't.

And my entry would take some explaining.

All right, for the X factor,

you know if you have a soda bottle and you shake it up and

has a lot of pressure and wants to expand?

I basically take a really cold liquid that will give off gas

and do the same effect

and stick it in the bottle.

I literally did this in an earlier video of yours.

I don't know what you're talking about.

Let's go to the clip.

Wait, you can't call that So, back at the house, while Science Bob distracted

the crowd with liquid nitrogen-powered

exploding Cut the clip. CUT THE CLIP. STOP IT.

NOW, BEFORE I GET INTERRUPTED

AGAIN, let me put on the most important touch.

It's a side box.

And then the second most important touch, which is the activating

mixture, and then high tail it out of there behind the safety glass cuz

this water minion was going to go off any second.

Now this is real boring UNTIL IT'S NOT.

I CAN'T HANDLE THIS.

OH, OH, SOMETHING'S lifting up there.

OH MY THAT WAS LOUD. SMASHING SUCCESS.

It smells amazing in here.

Oh, look at the ceiling. Yeah, I know.

You guys want me to say it?

Fine, fine, take it.

What's up, X Factor?

Only one round left, you got three points, I've got two points, Bob's got one.

Heading in the two-point

finale, it's anybody's game except for Bob's.

He can technically tie at best.

We'd all have to break out the big guns

as we moved into our safest

round yet, cracking open a reinforced

vault filled with cash.

Whoever stacked the most money would win this round and potentially the whole championship.

Finally a challenge worthy of a laser.

Any concern about lighting the money on

I'm assuming the money's down here, therefore

I will cut in here

and I walk away with all the money. Let's roll.

The police are coming, we only got two

Let's pull off this heist.

And Bob's laser immediately started

staring deeply into the recesses of the vault.

And we wondered briefly

whether it would make through THE THICKER MECHANISM.

BUT we didn't need to worry at all as it cut through them like paper.

We did need to worry though

about the Uh, I feel like there's some BURNING CASH

IN THAT SAFE, MANNY.

THE QUESTION WAS HOW MUCH CASH BOB would be able to salvage

after he OPENED THE

YEAH, YEAH, YOU MIGHT HAVE OIL ADDED IT

I WANT MY MONEY.

AND SO THIS operation

depended on me to act as the muscle. AND MATTY.

BUT AFTER ONE FINAL STRUGGLE

BOB FINALLY OPENED UP THE DOOR TO HIS

THERE IS LITERALLY nothing

left in That's not true.

Look, I see a dollar.

Not all is lost.

You have a corner of a dollar.

YOU DID IT, BOB.

SO BOB'S FINAL score was 25

cents, and we moved on to see what lightning could plan, Matty?

750 amps of current cut through this like butter.

you top 3,000 watts?

Mine is literally 1,000 watts.

That's way bigger than that, Bob.

Okay, LET'S DO THIS.

HOLY COW, that's fast.

Why did I pick lasers?

That was beyond me because frankly, Matty's was stunning.

It's like a real-life lightsaber.

It glowed brighter as it got hotter and hotter, making even quicker work of

the vault latching But eventually got so hot

This is getting too hot.

that Matty's gloves almost melted off his hands.

Time to put me out of my misery.

Which of course he had to show us up Careful, man. Careful.

Ultimately, he made much quicker WORK THAN LASER.

BUT HE ALSO BURNED through the money The money.

much quicker than laser had. My money. Come on, man. IT'S TOO LATE.

WHICH MEANT MATTY RECOVERED

EVEN less than Bob.

Fortunately, neither one of you guys got any money.

Which means the stage is now set for THE X FACTOR.

WE'LL DO COOL SOUND effects with that.

All right, gentlemen, you might notice the safe is sitting

on a big red X.

That's because for my final X factor

my plan is to go with 170

ft of pure unadulterated

gravitational potential Let's hook it up. Oh my god. Don't help him?

It had to come to this

because I couldn't be sure this would crack IT OPEN, BUT

I THINK GRAVITY'S going to win this one.

If I even got $1

out of this thing Safe doesn't stand a chance, sir. That's really tall.

I could win the entire championship.

So, let's do it.

5 4 1 GO! THERE IT GOES.

OH MY GOD, IT'S GOING. OH MY GOD.

THAT WAS A BIG SMASH. LET'S GO! WOW!

AT LEAST your money's safe in the safe, but how many dollars had I

gotten out of there?

The door is cracked open.

I could definitely get in there.

I feel like I want to run it one more time.

3 2 1 Hit it! OH, YEAH!

THE SAFE DOOR FLEW OFF THE hinges

like a leaf falling off a tree

or a bird flying through the WIND OR MY MONEY! THAT'S RIGHT. My money. Aw, too bad.

YOUR MONEY'S blown away.

I didn't think about the wind.

Oh, these are like hundreds.

What do you have in your pocket, DEAR? I HAVE HEY!

With all the interference

from the wind, it was hard to get a final tally,

but I was pretty sure I could count more than

Well, I'm nothing if not a generous

Here's a little something for your Thank you, sir. Sorry, gentlemen.

There can only be one winner.

I'm just happy it was me.

Hey, there are some electronics in there. What is that? Watch out, Maddie.

Those could be live.

What What What did you put there?

Now, you might have been just as surprised as me that X-Factor actually won.

But, what should not hopefully surprise you after watching all the videos

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