0:00:00.621,0:00:03.015
So, this is a map of New York State

0:00:03.015,0:00:06.417
that was made in 1937[br]by the General Drafting Company.

0:00:06.417,0:00:09.767
It's an extremely famous map[br]among cartography nerds,

0:00:09.767,0:00:12.519
because down here at the bottom[br]of the Catskill Mountains

0:00:12.519,0:00:14.576
there is a little town called Roscoe

0:00:14.600,0:00:17.500
- actually, this will go easier[br]if I just put it up here -

0:00:19.626,0:00:23.105
There's Roscoe, and then,[br]right above Roscoe, is Rockland, New York,

0:00:23.105,0:00:27.058
and then right above that[br]is the tiny town of Agloe, New York.

0:00:27.058,0:00:30.182
Agloe, New York,[br]is very famous to cartographers,

0:00:30.182,0:00:32.078
because it's a paper town.

0:00:32.078,0:00:35.078
It's also known as a copyright trap.

0:00:35.078,0:00:38.470
Because my map of New York[br]and your map of New York

0:00:38.470,0:00:41.714
are going to look very similar,[br]on account of the shape of New York.

0:00:41.714,0:00:46.355
Often, map makers will insert[br]fake places onto their maps,

0:00:46.355,0:00:48.969
in order to protect their copyright,[br]because then,

0:00:48.969,0:00:51.599
if my fake place shows up on your map,

0:00:51.599,0:00:54.848
I can be well and truly sure[br]that you have robbed me.

0:00:54.848,0:01:00.110
Agloe is a scrabblization of the initials[br]of the two guys who made this map

0:01:00.110,0:01:03.007
Ernest G. Alpers and Otto Lindberg,

0:01:03.007,0:01:05.477
and they released this map in 1937.

0:01:05.477,0:01:09.464
Decades later, Rand McNally releases a map

0:01:09.464,0:01:13.620
with Agloe, New York, on it,[br]at the same exact intersection

0:01:13.620,0:01:16.662
of two dirt roads[br]in the middle of nowhere.

0:01:16.662,0:01:20.126
Well, you can imagine the delight[br]over at General Drafting.

0:01:20.126,0:01:23.126
They immediately called[br]Rand McNally, and they say,

0:01:23.126,0:01:26.872
"We've caught you![br]We made Agloe, New York, up.

0:01:26.872,0:01:29.036
It is a fake place. It's a paper town.

0:01:29.036,0:01:31.226
We're going to sue your pants off!"

0:01:31.226,0:01:35.856
And Rand McNally says,[br]"No, no, no, no, Agloe is real."

0:01:37.113,0:01:41.082
Because people kept going[br]to that intersection of two dirt roads

0:01:41.082,0:01:42.802
(Laughter)

0:01:42.819,0:01:44.102
in the middle of nowhere,

0:01:44.102,0:01:47.247
expecting there[br]to be a place called Agloe,

0:01:47.643,0:01:50.716
someone built a place[br]called Agloe, New York.

0:01:51.798,0:01:54.974
It had a gas station, a general store,[br]two houses at its peak.

0:01:54.974,0:01:57.244
(Laughter)

0:01:58.205,0:02:02.595
And this is of course a completely[br]irresistible metaphor to a novelist,

0:02:02.595,0:02:07.293
because we would all like to believe[br]that the stuff that we write down on paper

0:02:07.293,0:02:10.157
can change the actual world[br]in which we're actually living -

0:02:10.157,0:02:12.596
which is why my third book[br]is called "Paper Towns".

0:02:12.596,0:02:16.493
But what interests me ultimately more[br]than the medium in which this happened

0:02:16.493,0:02:19.195
is the phenomenon itself.

0:02:20.256,0:02:24.284
It's easy enough to say that the world[br]shapes our maps of the world, right?

0:02:24.284,0:02:28.546
Like the overall shape of the world[br]is obviously going to affect our maps.

0:02:29.110,0:02:32.339
But what I find a lot[br]more interesting is the way

0:02:32.339,0:02:35.880
that the manner in which we map[br]the world changes the world.

0:02:36.369,0:02:40.676
Because the world would truly be[br]a different place if North were down.

0:02:40.676,0:02:44.175
And the world would be a truly[br]different place if Alaska and Russia

0:02:44.175,0:02:46.461
weren't on opposite sides of the map.

0:02:46.461,0:02:48.411
And the world would be a different place

0:02:48.411,0:02:52.047
if we projected Europe[br]to show it in its actual size.

0:02:52.659,0:02:56.320
The world is changed[br]by our maps of the world.

0:02:56.760,0:03:01.390
The way that we choose to, sort of,[br]our personal cartographic enterprise

0:03:01.717,0:03:04.330
also shapes the map of our lives,

0:03:04.330,0:03:06.780
and that in turn shapes our lives.

0:03:06.780,0:03:11.088
I believe that what we map[br]changes the life we lead.

0:03:11.670,0:03:15.539
And I don't mean that in some, like,[br]secrecy Oprah's Angels network, like,

0:03:15.539,0:03:18.578
you-can-think-your-way-out[br]-of-cancer sense.

0:03:18.578,0:03:21.597
But I do believe that while maps[br]don't show you

0:03:21.597,0:03:24.597
where you will go in your life,

0:03:25.116,0:03:27.168
they show you where you might go.

0:03:27.168,0:03:31.743
You very rarely go to a place[br]that isn't on your personal map.

0:03:32.016,0:03:35.304
So I was a really terrible[br]student when I was a kid.

0:03:35.304,0:03:38.161
My GPA was consistently in the low 2s,

0:03:38.482,0:03:41.267
and I think the reason[br]that I was such a terrible student

0:03:41.267,0:03:44.177
is that I felt like education[br]was just a series of hurdles

0:03:44.177,0:03:47.177
that had been erected before me,

0:03:47.177,0:03:50.873
and I had to jump over[br]in order to achieve adulthood.

0:03:50.873,0:03:53.368
And I didn't really want[br]to jump over these hurdles,

0:03:53.368,0:03:56.333
because they seemed completely arbitrary,[br]so I often wouldn't,

0:03:56.333,0:03:58.474
and then people would threaten me,[br]you know,

0:03:58.474,0:04:01.467
they'd threaten me with[br]"this going on my permanent record",

0:04:01.467,0:04:03.363
or "you'll never get a good job".

0:04:03.363,0:04:05.296
I didn't want a good job!

0:04:05.296,0:04:08.112
As far as I could tell[br]at eleven or twelve years old, like,

0:04:08.112,0:04:11.296
people with good jobs woke up[br]very early in the morning,

0:04:11.296,0:04:13.022
(Laughter)

0:04:13.022,0:04:17.211
and the men who had good jobs,[br]one of the first things they did

0:04:17.211,0:04:21.765
was tie a strangulation item[br]of clothing around their necks.

0:04:22.301,0:04:24.493
They literally put nooses on themselves,

0:04:24.493,0:04:27.403
and then they went off to their jobs,[br]whatever they were.

0:04:27.403,0:04:30.226
That's not a recipe for a happy life.

0:04:30.226,0:04:34.455
These people - in my, symbol-obsessed,[br]twelve-year-old imagination,

0:04:34.455,0:04:36.670
these people who are strangling themselves

0:04:36.670,0:04:39.321
as one of the first things[br]they do each morning,

0:04:39.321,0:04:41.246
they can't possibly be happy.

0:04:41.246,0:04:43.541
Why would I want to jump over[br]all these hurdles

0:04:43.541,0:04:45.801
and have that be the end?

0:04:45.801,0:04:47.823
That's a terrible end!

0:04:47.823,0:04:50.726
And then, when I was in tenth grade,[br]I went to this school,

0:04:50.726,0:04:53.758
Indian Springs School,[br]a small boarding school,

0:04:53.758,0:04:55.458
outside of Birmingham, Alabama,

0:04:55.458,0:04:58.775
and all at once I became a learner.

0:04:58.952,0:05:01.195
And I became a learner,[br]because I found myself

0:05:01.195,0:05:03.329
in a community of learners.

0:05:03.329,0:05:05.728
I found myself surrounded by people

0:05:05.728,0:05:08.728
who celebrated intellectualism[br]and engagement,

0:05:08.728,0:05:12.313
and who thought that my ironic[br]oh-so-cool disengagement

0:05:12.313,0:05:14.383
wasn't clever, or funny,

0:05:14.383,0:05:17.757
but, like, it was a simple[br]and unspectacular response

0:05:17.757,0:05:20.757
to very complicated[br]and compelling problems.

0:05:20.757,0:05:23.604
And so I started to learn,[br]because learning was cool.

0:05:23.604,0:05:26.894
I learned that some infinite sets[br]are bigger than other infinite sets,

0:05:26.894,0:05:31.151
and I learned that iambic pentameter is[br]and why it sounds so good to human ears.

0:05:31.151,0:05:34.617
I learned that the Civil War[br]was a nationalizing conflict,

0:05:34.617,0:05:36.013
I learned some physics,

0:05:36.013,0:05:39.143
I learned that correlation[br]shouldn't be confused with causation -

0:05:39.143,0:05:41.071
all of these things, by the way,

0:05:41.071,0:05:44.541
enriched my life[br]on a literally daily basis.

0:05:45.081,0:05:48.413
And it's true that I don't use[br]most of them for my "job",

0:05:48.413,0:05:50.629
but that's not what it's about for me.

0:05:50.629,0:05:52.184
It's about cartography.

0:05:52.184,0:05:55.089
What is the process of cartography?

0:05:55.089,0:05:57.719
It's, you know, sailing upon some land,[br]and thinking

0:05:57.719,0:06:00.199
"I think I'll draw that bit of land",

0:06:00.199,0:06:03.546
and then wondering,[br]"Maybe there's some more land to draw".

0:06:03.546,0:06:05.777
And that's when learning[br]really began for me.

0:06:05.777,0:06:08.437
It's true that I had teachers[br]that didn't give up on me,

0:06:08.437,0:06:10.867
and I was very fortunate[br]to have those teachers,

0:06:10.867,0:06:14.996
because I often gave them cause to think[br]there was no reason to invest in me.

0:06:14.996,0:06:18.551
But a lot of the learning[br]that I did in high school

0:06:18.551,0:06:21.779
wasn't about what happened[br]inside the classroom,

0:06:21.779,0:06:24.294
it was about what happened[br]outside of the classroom.

0:06:24.294,0:06:26.047
For instance, I can tell you that,

0:06:26.047,0:06:28.836
"There's a certain slant of light,[br][On] winter afternoons,

0:06:28.836,0:06:31.712
That oppresses, like the heft [weight][br]Of cathedral tunes",

0:06:31.712,0:06:34.113
not because I memorized[br]Emily Dickinson in school,

0:06:34.113,0:06:35.763
when I was in high school,

0:06:35.763,0:06:38.433
but because there was a girl,[br]when I was in high school,

0:06:38.433,0:06:39.849
and her name was Amanda,

0:06:39.849,0:06:43.290
and I had a crush on her,[br]and she liked Emily Dickinson poetry.

0:06:43.290,0:06:45.745
The reason I can tell you[br]what opportunity cost is,

0:06:45.745,0:06:49.503
is because one day when I was playing[br]Super Mario Kart on my couch,

0:06:49.503,0:06:51.573
my friend Emmet walked in, and he said,

0:06:51.573,0:06:54.170
"How long have you been playing[br]Super Mario Kart?",

0:06:54.170,0:06:57.361
and I said, "I don't know,[br]like, six hours?", and he said,

0:06:57.361,0:07:00.632
"You realize that if you'd worked[br]at Baskin-Robbins those six hours,

0:07:00.632,0:07:03.243
you could have made thirty dollars,[br]so in some ways,

0:07:03.243,0:07:05.893
you just paid thirty dollars[br]to play Super Mario Kart",

0:07:05.893,0:07:08.839
and I was, like, "I'll take that deal."[br](Laughter)

0:07:10.458,0:07:13.733
But I learned what opportunity cost is,

0:07:14.749,0:07:16.606
and along the way,

0:07:16.606,0:07:21.224
the map of my life got better,[br]it got bigger, it contained more places.

0:07:21.695,0:07:26.429
There were more things that might happen,[br]more futures I might have.

0:07:27.037,0:07:30.470
It wasn't a formal[br]organized learning process,

0:07:30.470,0:07:32.400
and I'm happy to admit that.

0:07:32.400,0:07:35.558
It was spotty, it was inconsistent,[br]there was a lot I didn't know.

0:07:35.558,0:07:37.699
I might know, you know,[br]that Cantor's idea

0:07:37.699,0:07:40.611
that some infinite sets are larger[br]than other infinite sets,

0:07:40.611,0:07:43.477
but I didn't really understand[br]the calculus behind that idea.

0:07:43.477,0:07:45.651
I might know the idea of opportunity cost,

0:07:45.651,0:07:47.955
but I didn't know the law[br]of diminishing returns.

0:07:47.955,0:07:50.757
But the great thing about imagining[br]learning as cartography,

0:07:50.757,0:07:52.867
instead of imagining it[br]as arbitrary hurdles

0:07:52.867,0:07:54.484
that you have to jump over

0:07:54.484,0:07:58.046
is that you see a bit of coast line,[br]and that makes you want to see more.

0:07:58.046,0:08:00.495
And so now I do know[br]at least some of the calculus

0:08:00.495,0:08:02.135
that underlies all of that stuff.

0:08:02.135,0:08:04.505
So, I had one learning community[br]in high school,

0:08:04.505,0:08:06.575
then I went to another for college,

0:08:06.575,0:08:09.025
and then I went to another,[br]when I started working

0:08:09.025,0:08:10.556
at a magazine called "Booklist",

0:08:10.556,0:08:11.796
where I was an assistant

0:08:11.796,0:08:13.947
surrounded by astonishingly[br]well-read people,

0:08:13.947,0:08:17.152
and then I wrote a book,[br]and like all authors dream of doing,

0:08:17.152,0:08:19.500
I promptly quit my job.

0:08:20.753,0:08:22.941
And for the first time since high school,

0:08:22.941,0:08:25.941
I found myself[br]without a learning community,

0:08:25.941,0:08:27.521
and it was miserable.

0:08:27.521,0:08:29.232
I hated it.

0:08:29.232,0:08:32.541
I read many, many books[br]during this two-year period.

0:08:32.541,0:08:34.578
I read books about Stalin,

0:08:34.578,0:08:37.881
and books about how the Uzbek people[br]came to identify as Muslims,

0:08:37.881,0:08:40.306
and I read books about[br]how to make atomic bombs,

0:08:40.306,0:08:42.946
but it just felt like[br]I was creating my own hurdles,

0:08:42.946,0:08:46.859
and then jumping over them myself,[br]instead of feeling the excitement

0:08:46.859,0:08:50.089
of being part of a community of learners,[br]a community of people

0:08:50.089,0:08:53.208
who are engaged together[br]in a cartographic enterprise

0:08:53.208,0:08:56.988
of trying to better understand[br]and map the world around us.

0:08:56.988,0:09:00.360
And then, in 2006, I met that guy.

0:09:00.360,0:09:01.952
His name is Ze Frank.

0:09:01.952,0:09:04.650
I didn't actually meet him,[br]just on the Internet.

0:09:04.952,0:09:09.432
Ze Frank was running, at the time,[br]a show called "The Show with Ze Frank",

0:09:09.979,0:09:14.181
and that was my way back[br]into being a community learner again.

0:09:14.735,0:09:17.267
Here's Ze talking about Las Vegas:

0:09:18.006,0:09:21.523
(Video) Ze Frank: Las Vegas was built[br]in the middle of a huge hot desert,

0:09:21.523,0:09:24.582
almost everything here[br]was brought from somewhere else -

0:09:24.583,0:09:26.736
the sort of rocks,[br]the trees, the waterfalls.

0:09:26.736,0:09:29.816
These fish are almost as out of place[br]as my pig that flew.

0:09:29.816,0:09:32.706
Contrasted to the scorching desert[br]that surrounds this place,

0:09:32.706,0:09:33.836
so are these people.

0:09:33.836,0:09:36.337
Things from all over the world[br]have been rebuilt here,

0:09:36.337,0:09:37.730
away from their histories,

0:09:37.730,0:09:39.984
and the people[br]that experience them differently.

0:09:39.984,0:09:41.618
Sometimes, improvements were made.

0:09:41.618,0:09:43.206
Even the Sphinx got a nose job.

0:09:43.206,0:09:44.935
Here, what you see is what you get,

0:09:44.935,0:09:47.752
and there's no reason to feel[br]like you're missing anything.

0:09:47.752,0:09:50.716
This New York means the same to me[br]as it does to everyone else.

0:09:50.716,0:09:52.239
Everything is out of context,

0:09:52.239,0:09:54.373
and that means[br]context allows for everything.

0:09:54.373,0:09:56.281
Self Parking, Events Center, Shark Reef.

0:09:56.281,0:09:59.914
This fabrication of place could be one[br]of the world's greatest achievements,

0:09:59.914,0:10:02.016
because no one belongs here,[br]everyone does.

0:10:02.016,0:10:05.130
As I walked around this morning,[br]I noticed most of the buildings

0:10:05.130,0:10:07.847
were huge mirrors reflecting[br]the sun back into the desert.

0:10:07.847,0:10:10.833
But unlike most mirrors,[br]which present you with an outside view

0:10:10.833,0:10:13.847
of yourself embedded in a place,[br]these mirrors come back empty.

0:10:13.847,0:10:16.057
John Green:[br]It makes me nostalgic for the days

0:10:16.057,0:10:18.757
when you could see[br]the pixels in online video. (Laughter)

0:10:18.757,0:10:22.678
Ze isn't just a great public intellectual,[br]he's also a brilliant community builder,

0:10:22.678,0:10:24.686
and the community of people that built up

0:10:24.686,0:10:27.552
around these videos was in many ways[br]a community of learners,

0:10:27.552,0:10:30.700
so we played Ze Frank at chess[br]collaboratively, and we beat him.

0:10:30.700,0:10:34.654
We organized ourselves to take a young man[br]on a road trip across the United States.

0:10:34.654,0:10:37.222
We turned the Earth into a sandwich

0:10:37.222,0:10:40.762
by having one person hold a piece of bread[br]at one point on the Earth,

0:10:40.762,0:10:43.056
and on the exact opposite point[br]of the Earth

0:10:43.056,0:10:45.416
having another person[br]holding a piece of bread.

0:10:45.416,0:10:50.809
I realize that these are silly ideas,[br]but they are also 'learny' ideas,

0:10:52.240,0:10:54.211
and that was what was so exciting to me,

0:10:54.211,0:10:57.793
and if you go online, you can find[br]communities like this all over the place.

0:10:57.793,0:11:00.177
Follow the calculus tag on Tumblr,[br]and yes,

0:11:00.177,0:11:02.497
you will see people complaining[br]about calculus,

0:11:02.497,0:11:05.165
but you'll also see people[br]re-blogging those complaints,

0:11:05.165,0:11:08.164
making the argument that calculus[br]is interesting and beautiful,

0:11:08.164,0:11:11.925
and here's a way in to thinking about[br]the problem that you find unsolvable.

0:11:11.925,0:11:14.534
You can go to places like Reddit,[br]and find sub-Reddits,

0:11:14.534,0:11:17.034
like 'Ask a Historian', or 'Ask Science',

0:11:17.034,0:11:20.247
where you can ask people[br]who are in these fields

0:11:20.247,0:11:21.817
a wide range of questions,

0:11:21.817,0:11:23.998
from very serious ones to very silly ones.

0:11:23.998,0:11:27.471
But to me, the most interesting[br]communities of learners

0:11:27.471,0:11:30.566
that are growing up on the Internet[br]right now are on YouTube,

0:11:30.566,0:11:31.978
and admittedly I am biased.

0:11:31.978,0:11:35.943
But I think in a lot of ways,[br]the YouTube page resembles a classroom.

0:11:36.567,0:11:38.459
Look for instance at "Minute Physics",

0:11:38.459,0:11:40.889
a guy who's teaching[br]the world about physics.

0:11:40.889,0:11:42.944
(Video) Let's cut to the chase.

0:11:42.944,0:11:46.224
As of July 4th, 2012, the Higgs Boson[br]is the last fundamental piece

0:11:46.224,0:11:49.680
of the standard model of particle physics[br]to be discovered experimentally.

0:11:49.680,0:11:51.690
But, you might ask,[br]why was the Higgs Boson

0:11:51.690,0:11:53.200
included in the standard model,

0:11:53.200,0:11:56.543
alongside well-known particles[br]like electrons and photons and quarks,

0:11:56.543,0:11:59.038
if it hadn't been discovered[br]back then in the 1970s?

0:11:59.038,0:12:01.273
Good question.[br]There are two main reasons.

0:12:01.273,0:12:04.516
First, just like the electron[br]is an excitation in the electron field,

0:12:04.516,0:12:07.306
the Higgs Boson is simply a particle[br]which is an excitation

0:12:07.306,0:12:09.426
of the everywhere-permeating Higgs field.

0:12:09.426,0:12:11.677
The Higgs field in turn[br]plays an integral role

0:12:11.677,0:12:13.817
in our model for the weak nuclear force.

0:12:13.817,0:12:16.854
In particular, the Higgs field[br]helps explain why it's so weak.

0:12:16.854,0:12:18.977
We'll talk more about this[br]in a later video,

0:12:18.977,0:12:21.947
but even though weak nuclear theory[br]was confirmed in the 1980s,

0:12:21.947,0:12:23.557
in the equations, the Higgs field

0:12:23.557,0:12:25.862
is so inextricably jumbled[br]with the weak force,

0:12:25.862,0:12:27.975
that until now we've been unable[br]to confirm

0:12:27.975,0:12:29.875
its actual and independent existence.

0:12:29.875,0:12:31.512
JG: Or here's a video that I made

0:12:31.512,0:12:34.790
as part of my show "Crash Course",[br]talking about World War I:

0:12:34.790,0:12:38.292
(Video) The immediate cause was of course[br]the assassination in Sarajevo

0:12:38.292,0:12:41.210
of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand,[br]on June 28, 1914,

0:12:41.210,0:12:44.450
by a Bosnian-Serb nationalist[br]named Gavrilo Princip.

0:12:44.450,0:12:47.128
Quick aside: it's worth noting[br]that the first big war

0:12:47.128,0:12:49.858
of the twentieth century[br]began with an act of terrorism.

0:12:49.858,0:12:52.188
So Franz Ferdinand[br]wasn't particularly well-liked

0:12:52.188,0:12:54.388
by his uncle, the emperor Franz Joseph

0:12:54.388,0:12:55.880
- now that is a moustache! -

0:12:55.880,0:12:59.469
but even so, the assassination led Austria[br]to issue an ultimatum to Serbia,

0:12:59.469,0:13:02.634
whereupon Serbia accepted some,[br]but not all, of Austria's demands,

0:13:02.635,0:13:05.004
leading Austria to declare[br]war against Serbia.

0:13:05.004,0:13:08.440
And then Russia, due to its alliance[br]with the Serbs, mobilized its army.

0:13:08.440,0:13:10.958
Germany, because it had an alliance[br]with Austria,

0:13:10.958,0:13:13.038
told Russia to stop mobilizing,

0:13:13.038,0:13:16.265
which Russia failed to do,[br]so then Germany mobilized its own army,

0:13:16.265,0:13:19.354
declared war on Russia,[br]cemented an alliance with the Ottomans,

0:13:19.354,0:13:22.458
and then declared war on France,[br]because, you know - France!

0:13:22.458,0:13:25.780
(Laughter)

0:13:25.780,0:13:28.203
And it's not just physics[br]and world history

0:13:28.203,0:13:31.203
that people are choosing to learn[br]through YouTube.

0:13:31.203,0:13:33.737
Here's a video about abstract mathematics.

0:13:35.766,0:13:38.468
(Video) So you're me,[br]and you're in math class yet again,

0:13:38.468,0:13:40.862
because they make you go,[br]like, every single day.

0:13:40.862,0:13:44.231
And you're learning about, I don't know,[br]the sums of infinite series.

0:13:44.231,0:13:46.915
That's a high school topic, right?[br]Which is odd, because

0:13:46.915,0:13:49.775
it's a cool topic, but they[br]somehow manage to ruin it anyway.

0:13:49.775,0:13:52.996
So I guess that's why they allow[br]infinite series in the curriculum.

0:13:52.996,0:13:55.536
So, in a quite understandable need[br]for distraction,

0:13:55.536,0:13:57.429
you're doodling and thinking more about

0:13:57.429,0:14:00.536
what the plural of "series" should be[br]than about the topic at hand.

0:14:00.536,0:14:02.728
"Serieses," "seriese,"[br]"seriesen," and "serii?"

0:14:02.728,0:14:04.868
Or is it that the singular[br]should be changed?

0:14:04.868,0:14:06.677
One "serie," or "serus," or "serum?"

0:14:06.677,0:14:09.258
Just like the singular[br]of "sheep" should be "shoop."

0:14:09.258,0:14:11.145
But the whole concept of things like

0:14:11.145,0:14:13.495
1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 and so on,[br]approaching one,

0:14:13.495,0:14:16.145
is useful if, say, you want[br]to draw a line of elephants

0:14:16.145,0:14:18.121
each holding the tail of the next one:

0:14:18.121,0:14:20.311
normal elephant, young elephant,[br]baby elephant,

0:14:20.311,0:14:22.463
dog-sized elephant,[br]puppy-sized elephant...

0:14:22.463,0:14:24.553
All the way down to Mr. Tusks and beyond.

0:14:24.553,0:14:26.540
Which is at least a tiny bit awesome,

0:14:26.540,0:14:29.483
because you can get an infinite number[br]of elephants in a line

0:14:29.483,0:14:32.033
and still have it fit across[br]a single notebook page.

0:14:32.033,0:14:34.696
JG: And lastly, here's Destin,[br]from "Smarter Every Day",

0:14:34.696,0:14:37.110
talking about the conservation[br]of angular momentum

0:14:37.110,0:14:38.730
and, since it's YouTube, cats:

0:14:38.730,0:14:41.875
(Video) Hey, it's me, Destin.[br]Welcome back to "Smarter Every Day".

0:14:41.875,0:14:45.283
So you've probably observed that cats[br]almost always land on their feet.

0:14:45.283,0:14:46.813
Today's question is why?

0:14:46.813,0:14:49.684
Like most simple questions,[br]there's a very complex answer.

0:14:49.684,0:14:51.844
For instance, let me[br]reword this question:

0:14:51.844,0:14:55.592
How does a cat go from feet up[br]to feet down in a falling reference frame

0:14:55.592,0:14:58.592
without violating the conservation[br]of angular momentum?

0:15:00.402,0:15:03.630
JG: So, here's something[br]all of these videos have in common:

0:15:03.631,0:15:06.630
they all have more than[br]half a million views on YouTube.

0:15:06.630,0:15:10.130
And those are people[br]watching not in classrooms,

0:15:10.130,0:15:13.123
but because they are part[br]of the communities of learning

0:15:13.135,0:15:15.734
that are being set up[br]by these channels.

0:15:15.734,0:15:18.706
And I said earlier that YouTube[br]is like a classroom to me,

0:15:18.706,0:15:21.396
and in many ways it is,[br]because here is the instructor

0:15:21.396,0:15:24.687
- it's like the old-fashioned classroom -[br]here's the instructor,

0:15:24.687,0:15:27.157
and then beneath the instructor[br]is the students,

0:15:27.157,0:15:29.164
and they're all having a conversation.

0:15:29.164,0:15:31.070
And I know that YouTube Comments

0:15:31.070,0:15:34.168
have a very bad reputation[br]in the world of the Internet,

0:15:34.168,0:15:37.436
but in fact, if you go[br]on comments for these channels,

0:15:37.437,0:15:40.436
what you'll find is people[br]engaging the subject matter,

0:15:40.436,0:15:45.018
asking difficult, complicated questions[br]that are about the subject matter,

0:15:45.018,0:15:47.492
and then other people[br]answering those questions.

0:15:47.492,0:15:50.231
And because the YouTube page is set up

0:15:50.231,0:15:52.763
so that the place[br]in which I'm talking to you

0:15:55.172,0:15:56.633
is on the exact same page

0:15:56.633,0:15:59.581
as your comments,[br]you are participating in a live

0:15:59.581,0:16:03.080
and real and active way[br]in the conversation.

0:16:03.080,0:16:07.018
And because I'm in comments usually,[br]I get to participate with you,

0:16:07.018,0:16:09.544
and you find this[br]whether it's world history,

0:16:09.544,0:16:12.544
or mathematics, or science,[br]or whatever it is.

0:16:12.544,0:16:16.012
You also see young people using the tools

0:16:16.012,0:16:20.096
and the sort of genres of the Internet[br]in order to create places

0:16:20.096,0:16:22.997
for intellectual engagement[br]instead of the ironic detachment

0:16:22.997,0:16:27.374
that maybe most of us associate[br]with memes and other Internet conventions,

0:16:27.374,0:16:30.368
you know "Got bored - Invented calculus",

0:16:30.368,0:16:33.741
or here's Honey Boo Boo[br]criticizing industrial capitalism

0:16:33.741,0:16:36.431
["Liberal capitalism is not at all[br]the Good of humanity.

0:16:36.431,0:16:39.805
Quite the contrary; it is the vehicle[br]of savage destructive nihilism"].

0:16:39.805,0:16:42.104
In case you can't see what she says...[br]Yeah.

0:16:42.717,0:16:47.000
I really believe that[br]these spaces, these communities

0:16:47.882,0:16:51.171
have become, for a new generation[br]of learners,

0:16:51.171,0:16:55.578
the kind of communities,[br]the kind of cartographic communities

0:16:55.578,0:16:59.828
that I had when I was in high school,[br]and then again when I was in college.

0:17:00.425,0:17:03.643
And as an adult,[br]re-finding these communities

0:17:03.643,0:17:06.643
has re-introduced me[br]to a community of learners,

0:17:06.643,0:17:11.665
and has encouraged me to continue[br]to be a learner even in my adulthood,

0:17:12.065,0:17:16.419
so that I no longer feel like learning[br]is something reserved for the young.

0:17:16.419,0:17:19.157
Vi Hart and "Minute Physics" introduced me

0:17:19.157,0:17:21.708
to all kinds of things[br]that I didn't know before.

0:17:21.708,0:17:23.545
And I know that we all hearken back

0:17:23.545,0:17:26.545
to the days of the Parisian salon[br]in the Enlightenment,

0:17:26.545,0:17:28.816
or to the Algonquin Round Table, and wish,

0:17:28.816,0:17:31.266
"Oh, I wish I could have been[br]a part of that,

0:17:31.266,0:17:34.013
I wish I could have laughed[br]at Dorothy Parker's jokes".

0:17:34.013,0:17:38.823
But I'm here to tell you[br]that these places exist, they still exist.

0:17:38.823,0:17:44.356
They exist in corners of the Internet,[br]where old men fear to tread. (Laughter)

0:17:45.093,0:17:50.969
And I truly, truly believe that when[br]we invented Agloe, New York, in the 1960s,

0:17:50.969,0:17:55.519
when we made Agloe real,[br]we were just getting started.

0:17:55.519,0:17:57.108
Thank you.

0:17:57.109,0:17:59.500
(Applause)