00:00How many kilometers of bridges would be required to connect every island in the world together by bridges?
00:06For as long as humans have walked the earth, the oceans have divided us.
00:11Islands scattered across blue water, separated by gulfs, seas, and endless horizons.
00:17We built boats.
00:19We built ships.
00:20We built airplanes.
00:23But imagine if we went further.
00:26What if humanity decided to connect the entire world?
00:30Not by roads, not by tunnels, not by ships, but with bridges.
00:35Every island, every continent, every speck of land in the ocean, bound together by one continuous network of steel and concrete.
00:44The ultimate human megastructure!
00:47A world of bridges.
00:50How much would it take?
00:52How many kilometers of bridge must we build to tie the earth into one connected land?
00:58The answer begins with numbers.
01:01Our planet has over 900,000 islands.
01:06From the smallest coral speck to the giants of Greenland and New Guinea.
01:10The oceans between them cover 361 million square kilometers of water.
01:15To connect them all, bridge by bridge, we would need to span hundreds of thousands of kilometers.
01:20Let's imagine the plan.
01:23First, we begin with the continents.
01:26Eurasia to Africa.
01:28Already linked by the Isthmus of Suez.
01:32But Africa to the Arabian Peninsula.
01:34We need a bridge across the Red Sea.
01:37More than 30 kilometers long.
01:39Europe to Africa!
01:40Across Gibraltar, another 14 kilometers.
01:45South America to North America!
01:48The Darien Gap, another 100 kilometers.
01:53Now, the oceans.
01:54A bridge across the Atlantic from Africa to Brazil.
01:59Nearly 3,000 kilometers.
02:02Across the Pacific, from Asia to the Americas.
02:05More than 8,000 kilometers.
02:10Bridges longer than anything ever imagined, stretching horizon to horizon, than the islands.
02:17Indonesia alone has over 17,000 islands.
02:21To connect them all would require at least 50,000 kilometers of bridges.
02:26The Philippines, another 7,000 islands.
02:30Oceania, tens of thousands more.
02:33Scattered like jewels across the ocean.
02:37The calculations spiral upward.
02:40To connect every inhabited island.
02:43Every major landmass.
02:45We would need more than 200,000 kilometers of bridges.
02:49Half the distance from Earth to the moon.
02:52A web of concrete and steel wrapping the planet like a spider's net.
02:56But even that is only the beginning.
03:00The oceans are deep.
03:01Storms rage.
03:03Currents tear at the foundations.
03:06To build such bridges, humanity would need technology far beyond today's engineering.
03:12Pillars taller than skyscrapers.
03:14Sunk kilometers into the seafloor.
03:17Floating spans that rise and fall with the tides.
03:20Cables of carbon nanotubes.
03:22Stronger than steel.
03:23Stretching for hundreds of kilometers without breaking.
03:27Imagine the vision.
03:28From London, you could drive to New York.
03:31Across a bridge over the Atlantic.
03:33From Tokyo, you could cross the Pacific Island by island all the way to San Francisco.
03:39From Cape Town, you could drive north.
03:41Across Africa.
03:42Across the Mediterranean.
03:43Through Europe.
03:44Through Asia.
03:45Across Bering Strait.
03:47Down through Alaska.
03:49All the way to Argentina.
03:51The Earth itself would be one single connected road.
03:55But at what cost?
03:56Such a project would require more steel than exists in our civilization.
04:01It would cost hundreds of trillions of dollars.
04:04And the oceans themselves might rebel.
04:06Storms would batter the bridges.
04:08Earthquakes would shatter them.
04:10Rising seas would swallow them whole.
04:12And yet, the thought experiment inspires all.
04:17Because even if we cannot build it, we can imagine it.
04:21A planet where the sea is no barrier.
04:22Where every island is a neighbor.
04:24Where no place is unreachable by road.
04:26In the end, to connect every island by bridge, humanity would need to build at least 200,000 kilometers of bridges.
04:33A number almost beyond reason.
04:36But in imagining it, we remember something powerful.
04:40That the world, though vast, is still one.
04:44That oceans divide us only because we let them.
04:47And that perhaps, one day, with new technologies, new dreams, and new courage,
04:53the bridges we build will not just span water.
04:56They will span nations, cultures, and hearts.
05:00Because the greatest bridge humanity can ever build is the one that connects us all.
05:04Final answer.
05:06Roughly 200,000 kilometers of bridges would be required to connect all islands of the world.
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