What's invisible? More than you think - John Lloyd
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0:14 - 0:22(Music)
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0:22 - 0:25[Ted N' Ed's Carnival; open daily - all day long; Yew Chube Common - Entrance off the Google highway]
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0:25 - 0:39[John Lloyd's Inventory of the Invisible]
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0:39 - 0:41[Adapted from a TEDTalk given by John Lloyd in 2009]
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0:41 - 0:44Now our next speaker has spent his whole career eliciting that sense of wonder.
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0:44 - 0:48Please welcome John Lloyd. (Applause)
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0:48 - 0:53Question is: what is invisible?
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0:53 - 0:56There's more of it than you think, actually.
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0:56 - 0:59Everything, I would say -- everything that matters --
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0:59 - 1:03Except every thing, and except matter.
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1:03 - 1:04We can see matter
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1:04 - 1:07but we can't see what's the matter.
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1:07 - 1:12We can see the stars and the planets but we can't see what holds them apart,
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1:12 - 1:14or what draws them together.
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1:14 - 1:17With matter as with people, we see only the skin of things,
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1:17 - 1:21we can't see into the engine room, we can't see what makes people tick,
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1:21 - 1:22at least not without difficulty,
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1:22 - 1:25and the closer we look at anything,
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1:25 - 1:26the more it disappears.
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1:26 - 1:31In fact, if you look really closely at stuff, if you look at the basic substructure of matter,
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1:31 - 1:35there isn't anything there. Electrons disappear in a kind of fuzz, and there is only energy.
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1:35 - 1:39One of the interesting things about invisibility is the things that we can's see,
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1:39 - 1:41we also can't understand.
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1:41 - 1:45Gravity is one thing that we can't see, and which we don't understand.
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1:45 - 1:48It's the least understood of all the four fundamental forces,
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1:48 - 1:51and the weakest, and nobody really knows what it is or why it's there.
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1:51 - 1:55For what it's worth, Sir Isaac Newton, the greatest scientist who ever lived,
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1:55 - 1:59he thought Jesus came to earth specifically to operate the levers of gravity.
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1:59 - 2:01That's what he thought he was there for.
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2:01 - 2:05So, bright guy, could be wrong on that one, I don't know. (Laughter)
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2:05 - 2:10Consciousness. I see all your faces; I've no idea what any of you are thinking.
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2:10 - 2:13Isn't that amazing? Isn't it incredible that we can't read each other's minds,
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2:13 - 2:19when we can touch each other, taste each other, perhaps, if we get close enough, but we can't read each other's minds.
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2:19 - 2:21I find that quite astonishing.
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2:21 - 2:26In the Sufi faith, this great Middle Eastern religion which some claim is the root of all religions,
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2:26 - 2:31Sufi masters are all telepaths, so they say,
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2:31 - 2:38but their main exercise of telepathy is to send out powerful signals to the rest of us that it doesn't exist.
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2:38 - 2:42So that's why we don't think it exists; the Sufi masters working on us.
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2:42 - 2:46In the question of consciousness and artificial intelligence,
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2:46 - 2:48artificial intelligence has really, like the study of consciousness,
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2:48 - 2:51gotten nowhere, we have no idea how consciousness works.
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2:51 - 2:54Not only have they not created artificial intelligence,
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2:54 - 2:58they haven't yet created artificial stupidity.
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2:58 - 3:02The laws of physics: invisible, eternal, omnipresent, all powerful.
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3:02 - 3:04Remind you of anyone?
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3:04 - 3:09Interesting. I'm, as you can guess, not a materialist, I'm an immaterialist.
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3:09 - 3:13And I find a very useful new word -- ignostic. Okay? I'm an ignostic, [God?]
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3:13 - 3:16I refuse to be drawn on the question on whether God exists
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3:16 - 3:19until somebody properly defines the terms.
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3:19 - 3:21Another thing we can't see is the human genome.
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3:21 - 3:26And this is increasingly peculiar, because about 20 years ago
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3:26 - 3:30when they started delving into the genome, they thought it would probably contain
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3:30 - 3:33around 100 thousand genes. Every year since,
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3:33 - 3:38it's been revised downwards. We now think there are likely to be just over 20 thousand genes
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3:38 - 3:40in the human genome.
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3:40 - 3:43This is extraordinary, because rice -- get this --
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3:43 - 3:46rice is known to have 38 thousand genes.
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3:46 - 3:50Potatoes -- potatoes have 48 chromosomes, two more than people,
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3:50 - 3:55and the same as a gorilla. (Laughter)
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3:55 - 3:58You can't see these things, but they are very strange.
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3:58 - 4:01The stars by day, I always think that's fascinating.
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4:01 - 4:05The universe disappears. The more light there is, the less you can see.
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4:05 - 4:09Time. Nobody can see time.
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4:09 - 4:13I don't know if you know this. Modern physicists -- there's a big movement in modern physics
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4:13 - 4:17to decide that time doesn't really exist, because it's too inconvenient for the figures.
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4:17 - 4:19It's much easier if it's not really there.
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4:19 - 4:21You can't see the future, obviously,
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4:21 - 4:24and you can't see the past, except in your memory.
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4:24 - 4:28One of the interesting things about the past is you particularly can't see --
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4:28 - 4:31my son asked me this the other day, he said Dad, can you remember what I was like when I was two?
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4:31 - 4:33And I said yes. He said, why can't I?
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4:33 - 4:39Isn't that extraordinary? You cannot remember what happened to you earlier than the age of two or three.
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4:39 - 4:43Which is great news for psychoanalysts, because otherwise they'd be out of a job.
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4:43 - 4:48Because that's where all the stuff happens [laughter]
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4:48 - 4:52that makes you who you are.
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4:52 - 4:54Another thing you can't see is the grid on which we hang.
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4:54 - 4:58This is fascinating. You probably know, some of you, that cells are continually renewed.
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4:58 - 5:02Skin flakes off, hairs grow, nails, that kind of stuff --
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5:02 - 5:05but every cell in your body is replaced at some point.
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5:05 - 5:08Taste buds, every 10 days or so.
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5:08 - 5:10Livers and internal organs take a bit longer.
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5:10 - 5:12Spine takes several years.
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5:12 - 5:16But at the end of seven years, not one cell in your body
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5:16 - 5:18remains from what was there seven years ago.
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5:18 - 5:23The question is: who then are we? What are we? What is this thing that we hang on?
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5:23 - 5:25That is actually us?
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5:25 - 5:30Atoms, can't see them. Nobody ever will. They're smaller than the wavelength of light.
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5:30 - 5:34Gas, can't see that. Interesting, somebody mentioned 1600 recently.
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5:34 - 5:38Gas was invented in 1600 by a Dutch chemist called Van Helmont.
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5:38 - 5:45It's said to be the most successful ever invention of a word by a known individual.
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5:45 - 5:49Quite good. He also invented a word called blas, meaning astral radiation.
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5:49 - 5:53Didn't catch on, unfortunately. (Laughter)
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5:53 - 5:56But well done, Him. Light -- you can't see light.
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5:56 - 6:02When it's dark, in a vacuum, if a person shines a beam of light straight across your eyes, you won't see it.
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6:02 - 6:06Slightly technical, some physicists will disagree with this. But it's odd that you can't see the beam of light,
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6:06 - 6:08you can only see what it hits.
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6:08 - 6:13Electricity, can't see that. Don't let anyone tell you they understand electricity, they don't.
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6:13 - 6:18Nobody knows what it is. (Laughter) You probably think the electrons in an electric wire move instantaneously
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6:18 - 6:21down a wire, don't you, at the speed of light, when you turn the light on.
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6:21 - 6:27They don't. Electrons bumble down the wire, about the speed of spreading honey, they say.
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6:27 - 6:31Galaxies -- hundred billion of them, estimated in the universe. Hundred billion.
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6:31 - 6:36How many can we see? Five. Five, out of a hundred billion galaxies, with the naked eye.
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6:36 - 6:40And one of them's quite difficult to see, unless you've got very good eyesight.
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6:40 - 6:43Radio waves. There's another thing. Heinrich Hertz, when he discovered radio waves,
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6:43 - 6:47in 1887, he called them radio waves because they radiated.
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6:47 - 6:51Somebody said to him, well what's the point of these, Heinrich? What's the point of these radio waves
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6:51 - 6:57that you've found? And he said, well I've no idea, but I guess somebody'll find a use for them someday.
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6:57 - 7:00The biggest thing that's invisible to us is what we don't know.
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7:00 - 7:03It is incredible how little we know.
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7:03 - 7:09Thomas Edison once said we don't know one percent of one millionth about anything.
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7:09 - 7:12And I've come to the conclusion --
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7:12 - 7:15because you ask this other question: what's another thing we can't see?
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7:15 - 7:18The point, most of us. What's the point?
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7:18 - 7:22The point -- what I've got it down to is there are only two questions really worth asking.
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7:22 - 7:26Why we're here, and what should we do about it while we are?
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7:26 - 7:29To help you, I've got two things to leave you with, from two great philosophers,
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7:29 - 7:32perhaps two of the greatest philosopher thinkers of the 20th century.
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7:32 - 7:36One a mathematician and engineer, and the other a poet.
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7:36 - 7:39The first is Ludwig Wittgenstein, who said,
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7:39 - 7:45I don't know why we are here, but I am pretty sure it's not in order to enjoy ourselves.
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7:45 - 7:49He was a cheerful bastard, wasn't he? (Laughter)
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7:49 - 7:54And secondly, and lastly, W.H. Auden, one of my favorite poets
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7:54 - 8:02who said, We are here on earth to help others. What the others are here for, I've no idea.
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8:07 - 8:26[Get your souvenir photo here! Continue your journey into the unknown!]
- Title:
- What's invisible? More than you think - John Lloyd
- Speaker:
- John Lloyd
- Description:
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View full lesson on ed.ted.com http://ed.ted.com/lessons/what-s-invisible-more-than-you-think-john-lloyd
Gravity. The stars in day. Thoughts. The human genome. Time. Atoms. So much of what really matters in the world is impossible to see. A stunning animation of John Lloyd's classic TEDTalk from 2009, which will make you question what you actually know.
Lesson by John Lloyd, animation by Cognitive Media.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TED-Ed
- Duration:
- 08:48
Krystian Aparta edited English subtitles for An animated tour of the invisible | ||
Krystian Aparta commented on English subtitles for An animated tour of the invisible | ||
Krystian Aparta edited English subtitles for An animated tour of the invisible | ||
Jenny Zurawell edited English subtitles for An animated tour of the invisible | ||
Bedirhan Cinar approved English subtitles for An animated tour of the invisible | ||
Bedirhan Cinar accepted English subtitles for An animated tour of the invisible | ||
Bedirhan Cinar edited English subtitles for An animated tour of the invisible | ||
tom carter added a translation |
Krystian Aparta
The English transcript was updated on 2/13/2015.