WEBVTT

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Yes, I am the mathematician
who's going to get you so laid.

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(Laughter)

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And to begin I need you
to stare at this equation.

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I mean, there's your first orgasm
right there, I know it.

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But these are very sophisticated equations

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that model a successful marriage.

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And they're ground breaking equations

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because it was the first time 
that truly sophisticated mathematics

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was used in the field of romance.

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And they predict with 95% accuracy rate

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whether newlyweds will be together
in six years time.

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And you can see there's the "W" for wife

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and the "H" for husband.

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So, they modeled newlyweds
talking about areas of contention

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like the in-laws or money.

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And then they modeled the responses

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according to how each partner
was responding to the other.

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Body language as well.

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And what came out
was this interesting influence factor 


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at the end there,

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which actually revealed that couples


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that responded the least to each other

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had a better chance
of a successful marriage.

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So that means --
(Laughter)

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I see some people are like,
"We knew that."

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So, couples that compromised the least


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ended up being together the most.

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This was very interesting

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because a lot of therapy
has been based on empathy.

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And you laughed before,

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so maybe you don't say 
when you partner comes home,

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"Yes darling, I know. Let me rub your feet
and fix you a martini."

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Because what they've actually found
is that might not be the best way forward.

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Maybe the best way,
or the mathematics revealed,

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that having high standards
and finding ways to reach

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for those standards
is in fact the way to go.

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So mathematics is the study of patterns.

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All the symbols that you see
are in fact patterns.

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You know, encapsulating patterns.

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And we're very used to seeing

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mathematics being used 
in physics and engineering.

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That's just because
it's been there the most.

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You know, E equals mc squared.
That's so early 1900's.

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There's actually been an evolution.

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Since the 80's 
we've seen mathematics venture

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into stock market analysis,
risk analysis that was new.

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And then since the 1990's or 2000's even

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we're seeing mathematics enter
into the sometimes called Softer Sciences

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like psychology, sociology,
anthropology, biology.

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New mathematics appears every day.

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I brought in a few
just to remind you of how that works.

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Here's some latest research.

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This is looking at antibiotic use

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and how to implement antibiotics
for tuberculosis

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while getting the patient healthy,

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but making sure
that we avoid antibiotic resistance.

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That came out a couple of weeks ago.

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And this is looking at how an opinion
spreads through a population.

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And when will you have the coexistence
of several opinions, or one big consensus.

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One of my favorites,
it's older but I couldn't resist.

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This one's from 2009 and this is
how to create the perfect chocolate.

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One that melts in your mouth
but not in your hand.

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And yes, these are very sexy equations,
I'm sure you'll agree.

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Mathematics is absolutely everywhere
these days; it's being used everywhere.

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It really is no surprise

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that now we're seeing
the equations for love.

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Now, love sucks.
I know you all know that.

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Because, yes, you're excited at first.

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But then you're scared.
Oh, my god. I haven't eaten.

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You're sitting looking at your phone,
"Please ring!"

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Then they send you a two-word text.

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And you're like, "Whoo-hoo!
It's on like Donkey Kong."

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(Laughter)

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And so these equations
look at which personality traits

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are more likely to come together

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to have a more stable 
companionship type love

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because some people

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they just end up being
up and down continuously.

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Imagine being in a relationship
with Charlie Sheen.

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That would be like
well, unlike Donkey Kong

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and also like this.
(Laughter)

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It gets a bit out of control --
mathematically quite fast.

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So just to tell you, it's about

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one thing to look out for
is if your partner --

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if you overestimate
your partner's qualities.

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So with partners we can behave
a bit like proud parents.

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"He's so smart. He's so sexy."
Everyone's just staring at this guy like

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(mumbling)

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Anyway, (Laughter)

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here's some more mathematics.

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Now, men report, on average,
having had sex with two to four times

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as many women than women do men.

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And this does not make sense.

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(Laughter)

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It doesn't. (Laughter)

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I know you're all thinking,
"But what about prostitutes?"

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"But what about my ex?
He's slept with everybody."

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No, every time a man
has sex with a woman --

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there are averages for other things --

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But in a large enough sample space

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it's going to be about the same,
not off like this.

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So here's an example.

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Here's Charlie Sheen.
He's had sex with everyone.

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(Laughter)

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Then the next guy, only one.
One, one, one.

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And that forces, you see,
the outcome for the women.

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The first one's had one.
The others have had 2 partners each.

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And 2, 4, 6, 8, 9.
9 divided by 5

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and on the right 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.
9 divided by 5.

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Every time a man has sex with a woman

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it's adding to the general tally
of both sides.

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Now, why is this discrepancy?

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Because the surveys 
are confidential and non-identifying,

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it turns out, if you ask about kinky things,
people are very honest.

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(Laughter)

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What we've turned to
is we think it's counting strategy.

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Because if you enumerate
you'll be prone to an underestimation.

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If you approximate
you'll be prone to an overestimation.

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So it seems women are going,
"Justin, Brad,

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the guy with the sexy biceps. The end."

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And men are going,
"20 a year for the last 5 years."

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(Laughter) You know.

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My favorite clue in all the data

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was that 80% of men's results
were divisible by 5.

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(Laughter)

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So, of course the mathematicians are like,
"Yeah, no, you're lying."

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(Laughter)

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Back to some more waves.

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Of course, there are waves
in women's hormones.

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And these equations look at what kind
of mechanism is in a woman's body --

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how does your body know
28 days have gone by?

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And it's based on understanding
why women have all their immature eggs

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at birth ready to go.

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We hear so much about women's hormones,


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so I've brought in men's as well.

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These are ---
(Laughter)

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These are real.
I'm not making them up.

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These model the relationship between
the brain and the testes

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as the fluctuation happens during the day.

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(Laughter)

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I promise these are real.

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Testosterone, for example,
has a peak in the morning.

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And a slump in the evening.

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But there's actually
a mini testosterone peak


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every 2 to 2.5 hours in between.

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So, you know what that means.
Especially women.

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If you ask a guy a favor
and he's not responding

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just wait half an hour
and ask again, just try and --

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(Laughter)

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just try and get that slump moment.

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It's got its purposes.

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Though the peak
has another purpose as well.

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Yes, this is all great fun
and I could carry on with fun maths

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and sex problems for hours.

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But ultimately, what I'm about
is our amazing brain

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and the impact of abstract thinking
and the power of abstract thinking.

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And so let me turn things
a little bit around on you and say,

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What do you think happens
if you think about sex

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before doing mathematics?

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Because it's actually
not super distracting.

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You'll actually become better

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at doing certain types of brain processes.

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It turns out there's two fundamental types
of brain processes.

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You either think globally or locally.


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Forest or trees.

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And when you're solving a problem,

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you often start with the global
kind of analysis

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and then you have to dig in deep
and follow leads to solutions.

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It turns out that we're now seeing
with the latest research

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that this is linked to creative
versus analytical thinking.

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And more than that we're finding

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that it's actually
very easily manipulated.

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So, if you get people to think about love
and then solve problems

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they'll be better at the globalization,

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the beginning, the creative part.

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And if you get people to think about sex

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they get better at the process
part of the problem solving.

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Easy as that.

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And here's the bigger question
that interests me.

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What is this thing called mathematics

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that's only been going
for about 2,000 years

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that popped up independently
across the world

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that so many people swear they can't do?

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See, there's something
that's not quite reconciling there.

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You can't have something
that's developed so recently

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with some people
just having an extra brain bit.

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No, that doesn't make sense.
It's about finding those right triggers.

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Here's a school report card of mine

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in French.

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My parents are these wild, wild travelers
always looking for wild parties.

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I'm actually the conservative offspring
of some crazy wild people.

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As you see, we lived in Cannes, whatever.
Great parties there.

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But more importantly, you can see
two out of 20 for mathematics.

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And my best result was 15
for Travaux Manuels et Technique.

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which is woodwork.

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(Laughter)

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So it's very clear to me
what life is like without mathematics.

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Once I found mathematics at 18
when I came to Australia,

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it was the first time
that I was connecting to something pure,

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to something that was so amazing.

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You see, pattern recognition

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is right at the core of the animal kingdom.

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You see, even reptiles recognize

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whether it's something
to eat, fight or have sex with.

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Even a jellyfish knows which way is up
and which way is down.

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Now the seeds of the number concept


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are also very much part
of the animal kingdom.

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A pack of animals will recognize

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whether another pack
is greater than theirs.

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And you can actually teach a rat
to press a lever

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an approximate number of times
to get food.

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Now, you see how I used
the word approximate.

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That's because the rat doesn't have
self-awareness or a linguistic ability

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to capture, tame those innate sensations.

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So if the rat is just tapping three times
1, 2, 3 -- it will kind of get it right.

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But once it gets to 16, 
the poor little rat is tapping away

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it doesn't know where it's reaching.
And it's the same with us.

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If you do an experiment
where we can't count out

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we'll make exactly the same
mistakes as the rat.

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We went further.

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We went to things like 2 + 5 = 5 + 2.

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I can swap the order of things
and still reach the same result.

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We went further still.

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A + B = B + A

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I can substitute
any of the infinite number of numbers

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that I'm now aware of in that formula
and it means the same thing.

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You see, language is more
than just naming things.

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With it, we also got cause and effect
and temporal reasoning.

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Mathematics is our most precise use
of this syntactical understanding.

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Because with mathematics 
at each step that you're creating

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the pattern linking discovery,
there's no ambiguity.

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It is very precise
what you're doing at each step,

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what is in each classification.
True or false. That's it.

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In the box or outside the box.
It's very clear, ultimate precision.

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And that is why mathematics is so powerful

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and being used more
often right through to sex.

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And that's why it's so hard
because you're using

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the limits of our evolution
right to their extreme.

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We're using,
we're taming those innate sensations

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with the most ultimate precision we can.

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Mathematics as you can see, it's just ---

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what's so breath taking is that it emerged
independently across the globe.

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And when people came together
in peace or war

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they may have clashed when it came 
to religion, cultures, languages,

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but their mathematics,
or pure pattern recognition just meshed.

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You see, mathematics
lies right at the roots of humanity.

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Like sex, it transcends human culture.

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And now that I've shared that with you,

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you are the sexiest ladies in town.

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(Laughter)

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Thank you very much.

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(Applause)