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Indeed extraordinary, especially considering that the static apnea world record is 11 min 35 sec.

To clarify: I'm totally calling bullshit on his claim.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freediving#AIDA_recognized_wor...

That's the record for static apnea on regular air. After breathing up with pure o2, you can push the limits quite a bit more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Static_apnea

The accreditation for _most_ of the records with the pure oxygen is from Guinness. I'm really not at all convinced by that.

The highest record with pure oxygen that's recognised by AIDA is at 16:32. That's half a minute under what Blaine claims. So, still, not convinced.

I'm very glad someone brought this up. The whole talk is kind of weird. David is extremely nervous, drinking all the time, and then (spontaneously) bursts into tears in the end. One comment read that he was 'high', and, while there's no way (or point) to verify this, it describes his abnormal nervousness pretty well.

Adding to this the fact that this achievement hasn't been verified, leads to a very strange TED Talk.

So, I started wondering, whether a deliberately bad TED talk can be considered a good magic trick...?

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