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How High Can We Build?: summary

How High Can We Build?

Vsauce · Jun 3, 2012 · about 10 min

Uploaded Jun 3, 2012 · 29.5M views (as of Oct 30, 2026)

Some value given

The Great Pyramid was the tallest thing humans built for nearly 4,000 years.
A building needs at least half its height to be usable floors. Otherwise it's a tower.
Since the 1950s, radio and TV masts have usually been taller than any skyscraper, until the Burj Khalifa.
The Burj Khalifa is tall enough that people on high floors see the sunset a few minutes later during Ramadan.
A space elevator could make getting material into orbit dramatically cheaper than rockets.

How high can we build?

With today's materials, about as high as current record holders like the Burj Khalifa. In theory, though, a structure reaching past geostationary orbit, more than 35,000 km up, could hold itself up by tension. That's a space elevator, and Vsauce says the only Earth materials that might be strong enough are carbon or boron nanotubes. On the Moon, something like Kevlar could work today.

Worth watching?Some value given. A fun early Vsauce episode that wanders from the pyramids to space elevators. Light on depth, but full of good trivia.

ActionableLessons

Actionable

Next time you're at a beach at sunset, try the double sunset trick.
Look up the tallest building in your city and when it was built.
Read about current space elevator research to see how far nanotube materials have come.

Lessons

Records depend on definitions, like building versus tower.
Physics limits change completely once you reach orbit.
Small experiments, like the double sunset, can teach big ideas like the size of the Earth.

Quick answer

Vsauce posted this video on Jun 3, 2012. Here's our summary in our own words: the answer to the title, a verdict, 5 takeaways, and Actionable and Lessons tabs.

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Watch the video

Watch on YouTube: How High Can We Build?

Channel: Vsauce. Published Jun 3, 2012. About 10 minutes.

Try the trick from the video: watch a sunset over water while lying down, then stand up quickly as it disappears and you'll see it set a second time.

Quotes from the video

“a building is a structure in which at least 50% of its height comes from floor plates where people can live, work, chill out, it has to be habitable.”
“This kind if structure is known as a "Space Elevator."”

A note on this summary

This page reports what the video says, in our own words. Quotes are copied word for word from the video's transcript. Views are as of Oct 30, 2026.

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FAQ: questions people ask

What is the tallest structure ever built?

The Burj Khalifa in Dubai, as of this video.

What is a space elevator?

A cable or tower reaching past geostationary orbit that stays up through tension, letting you lift things into space without rockets.

Is the video worth watching?

Some value given. It's fun trivia more than deep science.