When TED asked Hannah Fry to write a book on the mathematics of finding true love, Fry happened to be — of all places — on her honeymoon. “[My husband and I] have been together for a really long time, so the whole newlywed thing didn’t quite apply,” she says. “But I did feel like […]
Pixar films are known for their thoughtful storytelling and groundbreaking animation. One of the coolest things about these movies: the math that Pixar’s team is actually inventing to improve the audience experience and the look of the characters. We caught up with Pixar’s Research Lead, Tony DeRose—who gave the TED-Ed Lesson, “The math behind the movies,” about how arithmetic, trigonometry […]
In New York City, it’s common to hear ten different languages just on your walk to work in the morning. For the students at Lycée Français de New York, that kind of multicultural exposure doesn’t stop at the schoolhouse doors. With a combination French-English curriculum, this PreK-12 school educates students who represent more than 50 nationalities. And when […]
Cartoonist (and former NASA roboticist) Randall Munroe illustrates the questions that keep you (or at least him) up at night. Whether that’s “What would happen if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90% the speed of light?” or “How much of the Earth’s currently-existing water has ever been turned into a soft drink […]
Arthur Benjamin is perhaps the world’s leading mathemagician and, in today’s talk, he aims to show the creativity, beauty and wonder that is as much a part of math as logic. Stepping onto the TEDGlobal 2013 stage, Benjamin takes us on a spirited tour of the Fibonacci numbers, where the patterns to be found go […]
If you look closely at the Lideta Mercato — a shopping mall in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, designed by TED Fellow Xavier Vilalta — you will notice a unique pattern on its skin, inspired by the beautiful, bold patterns found on Ethiopian women’s dresses. But if you look closer, you will also notice something else: that […]
Adam Spencer isn’t just the host of the Australian radio program Triple J Breakfast Show. He also has a degree in pure mathematics and, in today’s talk, he ascends into “geek heaven” to explains his deep love of massive prime numbers, the largest of which was discovered earlier this year and is 17.5 million digits […]
In our three-dimensional world, all we can experience is length, width and height. Unless one of your friends is a hypercube, it’s hard to imagine just what it would look like to live beyond the 3D. Would you like it? Would you understand it? Would you even believe it was real? In this spunky TED-Ed […]
Mathemagician Arthur Benjamin says that there are three reasons we learn math: calculation, application and inspiration. Yes, inspiration. Math is the science of patterns, and learning it teaches us not just logic but creative thinking, says Benjamin. So why, when math is beautiful and exciting, is so much of what we learn in school about preparing for […]
If you’ve Googled anything this morning, you’ve probably noticed that the site’s logo features an orb-shaped graph instead of a second ‘o,’ plus all sorts of equations like “V –E + F = 2.” The doodle is an homage to Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler, who was born on this day in 1707. The man responsible […]
[ted id=1701] How do we negotiate when to sell a stock, whether to rat out a partner in crime, how to play a poker hand, or what to ask for when negotiating a job offer? In each of these situations, the actions of others will greatly affect our outcomes — and yet, we have no […]
Each week, TEDx chooses four of our favorite talks, highlighting just a few of the enlightening speakers from the TEDx community, and its diverse constellation of ideas worth spreading. Below, give this week’s talks a listen. Why you hate math: Laura Overdeck at TEDxWestVillageWomen When dining out, how often do you slide your check across […]
Today is March 14, otherwise known as 3/14. For any math enthusiast, these numbers will certainly set off a bell — they are the first three digits of Pi. To help you celebrate Pi Day, here are two TED Talks, starting with Daniel Tammet’s “Different ways of knowing.” Tammet has linguistic, numerical and visual synesthesia […]
Math class should be fascinating, right? At TED2010, Conrad Wolfram suggests that one reason it often isn’t is hand calculation. Most students spend years in math class learning to work sums by hand that a computer can now do. After all, computers are far better at calculation than human beings will ever be, while people […]
You learn something new every day. This is especially true if you watch TED-Ed lessons, which use animation to bring to life topics as varied as “Insults by Shakespeare” and “Pizza Physics.” As a holiday gift, we’re bringing you a few of the TED-Ed’s team’s favorite talks of the year. Here, a second look at the lesson […]
Mathematics gets down to work in these talks, breathing life and logic into everyday problems. Prepare for math puzzlers both solved and unsolvable, and even some still waiting for solutions. [ted id=198 width=560 height=315] Ron Eglash: The fractals at the heart of African designs When Ron Eglash first saw an aerial photo of an African […]