0:00:03.161,0:00:25.117 (Music) 0:00:25.117,0:00:27.412 Good afternoon. 0:00:27.412,0:00:31.873 As you're all aware, we face difficult economic times. 0:00:31.873,0:00:34.325 I come to you with a modest proposal 0:00:34.325,0:00:36.857 for easing the financial burden. 0:00:36.857,0:00:38.390 This idea came to me while talking to 0:00:38.390,0:00:41.362 a physicist friend of mine at MIT. 0:00:41.362,0:00:44.051 He was struggling to explain something to me: 0:00:44.051,0:00:48.627 a beautiful experiment that uses lasers to cool down matter. 0:00:48.627,0:00:50.534 Now he confused me from the very start, 0:00:50.534,0:00:52.888 because light doesn't cool things down. 0:00:52.888,0:00:56.337 It makes it hotter. It's happening right now. 0:00:56.337,0:00:58.880 The reason that you can see me standing here is because 0:00:58.880,0:01:02.652 this room is filled with more than 100 quintillion photons, 0:01:02.652,0:01:06.187 and they're moving randomly through the space, near the speed of light. 0:01:06.187,0:01:07.703 All of them are different colors, 0:01:07.703,0:01:09.643 they're rippling with different frequencies, 0:01:09.643,0:01:12.518 and they're bouncing off every surface, including me, 0:01:12.518,0:01:14.928 and some of those are flying directly into your eyes, 0:01:14.928,0:01:18.128 and that's why your brain is forming an image of me standing here. 0:01:18.128,0:01:19.783 Now a laser is different. 0:01:19.783,0:01:23.786 It also uses photons, but they're all synchronized, 0:01:23.786,0:01:26.493 and if you focus them into a beam, 0:01:26.493,0:01:28.888 what you have is an incredibly useful tool. 0:01:28.888,0:01:31.024 The control of a laser is so precise 0:01:31.024,0:01:33.698 that you can perform surgery inside of an eye, 0:01:33.698,0:01:36.343 you can use it to store massive amounts of data, 0:01:36.343,0:01:38.673 and you can use it for this beautiful experiment 0:01:38.673,0:01:41.146 that my friend was struggling to explain. 0:01:41.146,0:01:44.401 First you trap atoms in a special bottle. 0:01:44.401,0:01:47.361 It uses electromagnetic fields to isolate the atoms 0:01:47.361,0:01:49.547 from the noise of the environment. 0:01:49.547,0:01:52.030 And the atoms themselves are quite violent, 0:01:52.030,0:01:56.074 but if you fire lasers that are precisely tuned to the right frequency, 0:01:56.074,0:01:58.702 an atom will briefly absorb those photons 0:01:58.702,0:02:00.585 and tend to slow down. 0:02:00.585,0:02:03.897 Little by little it gets colder 0:02:03.897,0:02:08.410 until eventually it approaches absolute zero. 0:02:08.410,0:02:11.586 Now if you use the right kind of atoms and you get them cold enough, 0:02:11.586,0:02:15.363 something truly bizarre happens. 0:02:15.363,0:02:18.185 It's no longer a solid, a liquid or a gas. 0:02:18.185,0:02:22.125 It enters a new state of matter called a superfluid. 0:02:22.125,0:02:24.412 The atoms lose their individual identity, 0:02:24.412,0:02:27.239 and the rules from the quantum world take over, 0:02:27.239,0:02:31.334 and that's what gives superfluids such spooky properties. 0:02:31.334,0:02:34.786 For example, if you shine light through a superfluid, 0:02:34.786,0:02:37.811 it is able to slow photons down 0:02:37.811,0:02:40.970 to 60 kilometers per hour. 0:02:47.585,0:02:50.638 Another spooky property is that it flows 0:02:50.638,0:02:53.274 with absolutely no viscosity or friction, 0:02:53.274,0:02:55.538 so if you were to take the lid off that bottle, 0:02:55.538,0:02:57.633 it won't stay inside. 0:02:57.633,0:03:00.410 A thin film will creep up the inside wall, 0:03:00.410,0:03:04.634 flow over the top and right out the outside. 0:03:04.634,0:03:07.591 Now of course, the moment that it does hit the outside environment, 0:03:07.591,0:03:11.307 and its temperature rises by even a fraction of a degree, 0:03:11.307,0:03:13.430 it immediately turns back into normal matter. 0:03:13.430,0:03:16.996 Superfluids are one of the most fragile things we've ever discovered. 0:03:16.996,0:03:19.357 And this is the great pleasure of science: 0:03:19.357,0:03:23.572 the defeat of our intuition through experimentation. 0:03:23.572,0:03:25.261 But the experiment is not the end of the story, 0:03:25.261,0:03:28.787 because you still have to transmit that knowledge to other people. 0:03:28.787,0:03:31.163 I have a Ph.D in molecular biology. 0:03:31.163,0:03:34.696 I still barely understand what most scientists are talking about. 0:03:34.696,0:03:37.646 So as my friend was trying to explain that experiment, 0:03:37.646,0:03:40.592 it seemed like the more he said, 0:03:40.592,0:03:43.565 the less I understood. 0:03:43.565,0:03:45.936 Because if you're trying to give someone the big picture 0:03:45.936,0:03:50.015 of a complex idea, to really capture its essence, 0:03:50.015,0:03:53.598 the fewer words you use, the better. 0:03:53.598,0:03:56.917 In fact, the ideal may be to use no words at all. 0:03:56.917,0:03:58.474 I remember thinking, my friend could have explained 0:03:58.474,0:04:01.606 that entire experiment with a dance. 0:04:01.606,0:04:05.974 Of course, there never seem to be any dancers around when you need them. 0:04:05.974,0:04:07.863 Now, the idea is not as crazy as it sounds. 0:04:07.863,0:04:11.365 I started a contest four years ago called Dance Your Ph.D. 0:04:11.365,0:04:13.980 Instead of explaining their research with words, 0:04:13.980,0:04:16.880 scientists have to explain it with dance. 0:04:16.880,0:04:19.249 Now surprisingly, it seems to work. 0:04:19.249,0:04:22.521 Dance really can make science easier to understand. 0:04:22.521,0:04:24.317 But don't take my word for it. 0:04:24.317,0:04:27.204 Go on the Internet and search for "Dance Your Ph.D." 0:04:27.204,0:04:30.462 There are hundreds of dancing scientists waiting for you. 0:04:30.462,0:04:32.545 The most surprising thing that I've learned while running this contest 0:04:32.545,0:04:37.834 is that some scientists are now working directly with dancers on their research. 0:04:37.834,0:04:39.714 For example, at the University of Minnesota, 0:04:39.714,0:04:42.219 there's a biomedical engineer named David Odde, 0:04:42.219,0:04:45.377 and he works with dancers to study how cells move. 0:04:45.377,0:04:47.786 They do it by changing their shape. 0:04:47.786,0:04:50.605 When a chemical signal washes up on one side, 0:04:50.605,0:04:53.730 it triggers the cell to expand its shape on that side, 0:04:53.730,0:04:57.011 because the cell is constantly touching and tugging at the environment. 0:04:57.011,0:05:00.982 So that allows cells to ooze along in the right directions. 0:05:00.982,0:05:04.920 But what seems so slow and graceful from the outside 0:05:04.920,0:05:07.349 is really more like chaos inside, 0:05:07.349,0:05:11.752 because cells control their shape with a skeleton of rigid protein fibers, 0:05:11.752,0:05:14.597 and those fibers are constantly falling apart. 0:05:14.597,0:05:17.166 But just as quickly as they explode, 0:05:17.166,0:05:19.583 more proteins attach to the ends and grow them longer, 0:05:19.583,0:05:21.766 so it's constantly changing 0:05:21.766,0:05:24.764 just to remain exactly the same. 0:05:24.764,0:05:27.934 Now, David builds mathematical models of this and then he tests those in the lab, 0:05:27.934,0:05:30.709 but before he does that, he works with dancers 0:05:30.709,0:05:34.410 to figure out what kinds of models to build in the first place. 0:05:34.410,0:05:37.503 It's basically efficient brainstorming, 0:05:37.503,0:05:39.758 and when I visited David to learn about his research, 0:05:39.758,0:05:43.102 he used dancers to explain it to me 0:05:43.102,0:05:47.644 rather than the usual method: PowerPoint. 0:05:47.644,0:05:49.997 And this brings me to my modest proposal. 0:05:49.997,0:05:52.866 I think that bad PowerPoint presentations 0:05:52.866,0:05:55.538 are a serious threat to the global economy. 0:05:55.538,0:06:03.467 (Laughter) (Applause) 0:06:03.467,0:06:08.346 Now it does depend on how you measure it, of course, 0:06:08.346,0:06:13.115 but one estimate has put the drain at 250 million dollars per day. 0:06:13.115,0:06:15.296 Now that assumes half-hour presentations 0:06:15.296,0:06:17.353 for an average audience of four people 0:06:17.353,0:06:19.672 with salaries of 35,000 dollars, 0:06:19.672,0:06:21.632 and it conservatively assumes that 0:06:21.632,0:06:25.564 about a quarter of the presentations are a complete waste of time, 0:06:25.564,0:06:28.143 and given that there are some apparently 0:06:28.143,0:06:31.415 30 million PowerPoint presentations created every day, 0:06:31.415,0:06:34.303 that would indeed add up to an annual waste 0:06:34.303,0:06:37.399 of 100 billion dollars. 0:06:37.399,0:06:39.767 Of course, that's just the time we're losing 0:06:39.767,0:06:41.990 sitting through presentations. 0:06:41.990,0:06:46.306 There are other costs, because PowerPoint is a tool, 0:06:46.306,0:06:49.636 and like any tool, it can and will be abused. 0:06:49.636,0:06:52.126 To borrow a concept from my country's CIA, 0:06:52.126,0:06:55.241 it helps you to soften up your audience. 0:06:55.241,0:06:59.489 It distracts them with pretty pictures, irrelevant data. 0:06:59.489,0:07:03.229 It allows you to create the illusion of competence, 0:07:03.229,0:07:05.989 the illusion of simplicity, 0:07:05.989,0:07:10.716 and most destructively, the illusion of understanding. 0:07:10.716,0:07:14.960 So now my country is 15 trillion dollars in debt. 0:07:14.960,0:07:19.945 Our leaders are working tirelessly to try and find ways to save money. 0:07:19.945,0:07:24.414 One idea is to drastically reduce public support for the arts. 0:07:24.414,0:07:26.622 For example, our National Endowment for the Arts, 0:07:26.622,0:07:29.199 with its $150 million budget, 0:07:29.199,0:07:32.211 slashing that program would immediately reduce the national debt 0:07:32.211,0:07:35.572 by about one one-thousandth of a percent. 0:07:35.572,0:07:37.312 One certainly can't argue with those numbers. 0:07:37.312,0:07:42.594 However, once we eliminate public funding for the arts, 0:07:42.594,0:07:45.266 there will be some drawbacks. 0:07:45.266,0:07:49.662 The artists on the street will swell the ranks of the unemployed. 0:07:49.662,0:07:52.069 Many will turn to drug abuse and prostitution, 0:07:52.069,0:07:55.188 and that will inevitably lower property values in urban neighborhoods. 0:07:55.188,0:08:00.095 All of this could wipe out the savings we're hoping to make in the first place. 0:08:00.095,0:08:03.336 I shall now, therefore, humbly propose my own thoughts, 0:08:03.336,0:08:07.118 which I hope will not be liable to the least objection. 0:08:07.118,0:08:09.011 Once we eliminate public funding for the artists, 0:08:09.011,0:08:10.598 let's put them back to work 0:08:10.598,0:08:13.619 by using them instead of PowerPoint. 0:08:13.619,0:08:17.102 As a test case, I propose we start with American dancers. 0:08:17.102,0:08:19.255 After all, they are the most perishable of their kind, 0:08:19.255,0:08:21.414 prone to injury and very slow to heal 0:08:21.414,0:08:24.231 due to our health care system. 0:08:24.231,0:08:27.374 Rather than dancing our Ph.Ds, 0:08:27.374,0:08:30.988 we should use dance to explain all of our complex problems. 0:08:30.988,0:08:33.848 Imagine our politicians using dance 0:08:33.848,0:08:37.626 to explain why we must invade a foreign country 0:08:37.626,0:08:40.498 or bail out an investment bank. 0:08:40.498,0:08:42.460 It's sure to help. 0:08:42.460,0:08:46.212 Of course someday, in the deep future, 0:08:46.212,0:08:48.593 a technology of persuasion 0:08:48.593,0:08:52.022 even more powerful than PowerPoint may be invented, 0:08:52.022,0:08:55.566 rendering dancers unnecessary as tools of rhetoric. 0:08:55.566,0:08:58.142 However, I trust that by that day, 0:08:58.142,0:09:01.457 we shall have passed this present financial calamity. 0:09:01.457,0:09:04.823 Perhaps by then we will be able to afford the luxury 0:09:04.823,0:09:07.943 of just sitting in an audience 0:09:07.943,0:09:09.783 with no other purpose 0:09:09.783,0:09:14.349 than to witness the human form in motion. 0:09:14.349,0:10:25.174 (Music) 0:10:25.189,0:10:54.204 (Applause)