TED Talks
Ted: Ted Ed: Can You Solve the Temple Riddle?
Your expedition finally stands at the heart of the ancient temple. But as you study the inscriptions in the darkness, two wisps of green smoke burst forth. The walls begin to shake. The giant sandglass begins flowing with less than an...
TED Talks
Ted: Ted Ed: Can You Solve "Einstein's Riddle"?
Before he turned physics upside down, a young Albert Einstein supposedly showed off his genius by devising a complex riddle involving a stolen exotic fish and a long list of suspects. Can you resist tackling a brain teaser written by one...
TED Talks
Ted: Ted Ed: How Did Clouds Get Their Names?
Richard Hamblyn tells the history of Luke Howard, the man who classified the clouds and forever changed humanity's understanding of these changeable, mysterious objects. [5:07]
TED Talks
Ted: Ted Ed: Can You Solve the Prisoner Hat Riddle?
You and nine other individuals have been captured by super-intelligent alien overlords. The aliens think humans look quite tasty, but their civilization forbids eating highly logical and cooperative beings. Unfortunately, they're not...
TED Talks
Ted: Ted Ed: The Mathematical Secrets of Pascal's Triangle
Wajdi Mohamed Ratemi shows how Pascal's triangle is full of patterns and secrets. [4:50]
TED Talks
Ted: Ted Ed: Why Are Manhole Covers Round?
Why are most manhole covers round? Sure it makes them easy to roll, and slide into place in any alignment. But there's another, more compelling reason, involving a peculiar geometric property of circles and other shapes. Marc Chamberland...
TED Talks
Ted: Ted Ed: The Last Banana: A Thought Experiment in Probability
Imagine a game played with two players and two dice: if the biggest number rolled is one, two, three, or four, player 1 wins. If the biggest number rolled is five or six, player 2 wins. Who has the best probability of winning the game?...
TED Talks
Ted: Ted Ed: The Mighty Mathematics of the Lever
Andy Peterson and Zack Patterson use the seesaw to illustrate the amazing implications and uses of the lever. [4:45]
TED Talks
Ted: Ted Ed: Is Math Discovered or Invented?
Would mathematics exist if people didn't? Did we create mathematical concepts to help us understand the world around us, or is math the native language of the universe itself? Jeff Dekofsky traces some famous arguments in this ancient...
TED Talks
Ted: Ted Ed: Mile of Pi
The team from Numberphile printed one million decimal places of Pi onto a piece of paper which stretched for over a mile. They rolled it out on a runway usually used for testing planes and cars. [6:28]
TED Talks
Ted: Ted Ed: Is Our Climate Headed for a Mathematical Tipping Point?
Scientists have warned that as CO2 levels in the atmosphere rise an increase in Earth's temperature by even two degrees could lead to catastrophic effects across the world. But how can such a tiny, measurable change in one factor lead to...
TED Talks
Ted: Ted Ed: Can You Solve This?
In this video, Veritasium asks people to try and figure out the rules of a pattern presented. This video teaches us about the scientific method and how our preconceived notions can affect how we discover new information. [4:43]
TED Talks
Ted: Ted Ed: Should I Stay or Should I Switch Doors?
The Monty Hall Problem is a brain teaser based on the popular game show, Let's Make a Deal. The folks at Numberphile explore the famous problem which posits if a contestant should switch doors in order to find the car amongst the goats....
TED Talks
Ted: Ted Ed: Why Do Honeybees Love Hexagons?
Zack Patterson and Andy Peterson delve into the very smart geometry behind the honeybee's home. [3:58]
TED Talks
Ted: Ted Ed: The Case of the Missing Fractals
A bump on the head, a mysterious femme fatale and a strange encounter on a windswept peak all add up to a heck of a night for Manny Brot, Private Eye. Watch as he tries his hand at saving the dame and getting the cash! Shudder at the...
TED Talks
Ted: Ted Ed: How Many Ways Can You Arrange a Deck of Cards?
Any time you pick up a well shuffled deck, you are almost certainly holding an arrangement of cards that has never before existed and might not exist again. Yannay Khaikin explains how factorials allow us to pinpoint the exact (very...
TED Talks
Ted: Ted Ed: An Athlete Uses Physics to Shatter World Records
When Dick Fosbury couldn't compete against the skilled high jumpers at his college, he tried jumping backwards. Fosbury improved his record immediately and continued to amaze the world with his new technique all the way to Olympic gold....
TED Talks
Ted: Ted Ed: Fractals and the Art of Roughness
Mathematics legend Benoit Mandelbrot develops a theme he first discussed in 1984- the extreme complexity of roughness and the way that fractal math can find order within patterns that seem unknowably complicated. [17:10]
TED Talks
Ted: Ted Ed: The Infinite Hotel Paradox
The Infinite Hotel, a thought experiment created by German mathematician David Hilbert, is a hotel with an infinite number of rooms. Easy to comprehend, right? Wrong. What if it's completely booked but one person wants to check in? What...
TED Talks
Ted: Ted Ed: Is Time Travel Possible?
Time travel is a staple of science fiction stories, but is it actually possible? Colin Stuart imagines where (or, when) this fascinating phenomenon, time dilation, may one day take us. [5:04]
TED Talks
Ted: Ted Ed: A Trip Through Space to Calculate Distance
Imagine two aliens racing across outer space to their moon. Who can we deem the fastest alien? With DIRT- or the equation Distance = Rate x Time- we can calculate their rates, using the distance they traveled and the time they took....
TED Talks
Ted: Ted Ed: The Good News of the Decade?
Hans Rosling reframes 10 years of UN data with his spectacular visuals, lighting up good news: We're winning the war against child mortality. Along the way, he debunks one flawed approach to stats that blots out such vital stories. [15:34]
TED Talks
Ted: Ted Ed: Math Jokes Explained
It's not your typical knock-knock joke- these funny jests will tickle your imaginary numbers and teach you a thing or two about mathematics. [4:04]
TED Talks
Ted: Ted Ed: The Infinite Life of Pi
This irrational number, pi, has an infinite number of digits, so we'll never figure out its exact value no matter how close we seem to get. Reynaldo Lopes explains pi's vast applications to the study of music, financial models, and even...