TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The Higgs Field, explained - Don Lincoln
One of the most significant scientific discoveries of the early 21st century is surely the Higgs boson, but the boson and the Higgs Field that allows for that magic particle are extremely difficult to grasp. Don Lincoln outlines an...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How to fossilizeyourself - Phoebe A. Cohen
You can aspire to great things in life, but how about in death? Could you be one of the world's greatest fossils many years from now? To ensure being found by a future paleontologist, you'll need to die in a highly specific way (think...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Could we actually live on Mars? - Mari Foroutan
There's a lot of talk these days about when and how we might all move to Mars. But what would it actually be like to live there? Mari Foroutan details the features of Mars that are remarkably similar to those of Earth — and those that...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: If superpowers were real: Super strength - Joy Lin
What if super strength wasn't just the stuff of epic comic book stories? Is it scientifically possible to be super strong? In this series, Joy Lin tackles six superpowers and reveals just how scientifically realistic they can be to us...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How do hard drives work? - Kanawat Senanan
The modern hard drive is an object that can likely hold more information than your local library. But how does it store so much information in such a small space? Kanawat Senanan details the generations of engineers, material scientists,...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Schrodinger's cat: A thought experiment in quantum mechanics - Chad Orzel
Austrian physicist Erwin Schrodinger, one of the founders of quantum mechanics, posed this famous question: If you put a cat in a sealed box with a device that has a 50% chance of killing the cat in the next hour, what will be the state...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: The invisible motion of still objects - Ran Tivony
Many of the inanimate objects around you probably seem perfectly still. But look deep into the atomic structure of any of them, and you'll see a world in constant flux - with stretching, contracting, springing, jittering, drifting atoms...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: What makes TB the world's most infectious killer? - Melvin Sanicas
Learn why tuberculosis, TB, is the world’s most infectious disease and how medical advancements are improving treatment. -- In 2008, two 9,000-year old skeletons were found with their bones infected by an all too familiar bacterium. The...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Why don't oil and water mix? - John Pollard
Salt dissolves in water; oil does not. But why? You can think of that glass of water as a big, bumpin' dance party where the water molecules are always switching dance partners -- and they'd much rather dance with a salt ion. John...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The ethical dilemma of self-driving cars - Patrick Lin
Self-driving cars are already cruising the streets today. And while these cars will ultimately be safer and cleaner than their manual counterparts, they can't completely avoid accidents altogether. How should the car be programmed if it...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Solid, liquid, gas and plasma? - Michael Murillo
Have you ever seen static electricity cause a spark of light? What is that spark? What about lightning, the Northern Lights, or the tail of a comet? All of those things and many others _ in fact, 99.9% of the universe -- are made of...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: How plants tell time - Dasha Savage
Morning glories unfurl their petals like clockwork in the early morning. A closing white waterlily signals that it's late afternoon. And moon flowers, as their name suggests, only bloom under the night sky. What gives plants this innate...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: The motion of the ocean - Sasha Wright
The constant motion of our oceans represents a vast and complicated system involving many different drivers. Sasha Wright explains the physics behind one of those drivers -- the concentration gradient -- and illustrates how our oceans...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: What on Earth is spin? - Brian Jones
Why does the Earth spin? Does a basketball falling from a spinning merry-go-round fall in a curve, as it appears to, or in a straight line? How can speed be manipulated while spinning? In short, why is the spinning motion so special?...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Does Time Exist? - Andrew Zimmerman Jones
The earliest time measurements were observations of cycles of the natural world, using patterns of changes from day to night and season to season to build calendars. More precise time-keeping eventually came along to put time in more...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: The sonic boom problem - Katerina Kaouri
Objects that fly faster than the speed of sound (like really fast planes) create a shock wave accompanied by a thunder-like noise: the sonic boom. These epic sounds can cause distress to people and animals and even damage nearby...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The fundamentals of space-time: Part 1 - Andrew Pontzen and Tom Whyntie
Space is where things happen. Time is when things happen. And sometimes, in order to really look at the universe, you need to take those two concepts and mash them together. In this first lesson of a three-part series on space-time,...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Solving the puzzle of the periodic table - Eric Rosado
How did the periodic table of elements revolutionize our understanding of the world? What scientists contributed to the table we have today? Eric Rosado discusses the key people and discoveries that have molded our understanding of...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Why does ice float in water? - George Zaidan and Charles Morton
Water is a special substance for several reasons, and you may have noticed an important one right in your cold drink: ice. Solid ice floats in liquid water, which isn't true for most substances. But why? George Zaidan and Charles Morton...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: The fundamentals of space-time: Part 3 - Andrew Pontzen and Tom Whyntie
In the first two lessons of this series on space-time, we've dealt with objects moving at constant speeds, with straight world lines, in space-time. But what happens when you throw gravity into the mix? In this third and final lesson,...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: How do fish make electricity? - Eleanor Nelsen
Nearly 350 species of fish have specialized anatomical structures that generate and detect electrical signals. Underwater, where light is scarce, electrical signals offer ways to communicate, navigate, find, and sometimes stun prey. But...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: What are gravitational waves? - Amber L. Stuver
In September 2015, scientists witnessed something never seen before: two black holes colliding. Both about 30 times as big as our Sun, they had been orbiting each other for millions of years. A fraction of a second before the crash, they...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Just how small is an atom? - Jonathan Bergmann
Just how small are atoms? And what's inside them? The answers turn out to be astounding, even for those who think they know. This fast-paced animation uses spectacular metaphors (imagine a blueberry the size of a football stadium!) to...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Is fire a solid, a liquid, or a gas? - Elizabeth Cox
Sitting around a campfire, you can feel its heat, smell the woody smoke, and hear it crackle. If you get too close, it burns your eyes and stings your nostrils. You could stare at the bright flames forever as they twist and flicker in...