11 Totally Mesmerising Slow-Mo Videos

By Stevie Shephard / March 15, 2016

High speed cameras have been helping our movie screen heroes look 73% more awesome for some time now, but their availability to a bunch of amateur enthusiasts has also led to a slew of incredible videos appearing on the internet. Turns out that even the most mundane things look amazing when you slow them riiight down. Normal footage is recorded at around 24 frames-per-second. High speed cameras can capture as many as 2,500 frames-per-second, making the action appear about 100 times slower. Not satisfied with this, however, there are some scientists out there who have managed to capture footage at one trillion frames-per-second (plus, what they captured with it is pretty breathtaking). Watching things in slow-mo is not only interesting and weirdly satisfying, but it also allows us to see how things work in the kind of exquisite detail that just wouldn't be possible with the naked eye. Plus, it looks really cool when you blow things up.

11. Firing A Gun Underwater

They're always doing it in the movies, but what does it actually look like to fire a gun underwater? Well, at normal speed, the answer is: pretty unspectacular. Slow it down, however, and you get a decent view of the mesmerising gas bubbles that form as the bullet goes streaming through the water. These occur because the water in front of the bullet is highly pressurised, whereas the water behind it has very low pressure, creating a vacuum that causes the water to boil instantly, creating the gas bubbles. The gas then pressurises itself so much that it explodes again, creating the oscillating effect that you see in the video.