Dance vs. powerpoint, a modest proposal
-
0:03 - 0:25(Music)
-
0:25 - 0:27Good afternoon.
-
0:27 - 0:32As you're all aware, we face difficult economic times.
-
0:32 - 0:34I come to you with a modest proposal
-
0:34 - 0:37for easing the financial burden.
-
0:37 - 0:38This idea came to me while talking to
-
0:38 - 0:41a physicist friend of mine at MIT.
-
0:41 - 0:44He was struggling to explain something to me:
-
0:44 - 0:49a beautiful experiment that uses lasers to cool down matter.
-
0:49 - 0:51Now he confused me from the very start,
-
0:51 - 0:53because light doesn't cool things down.
-
0:53 - 0:56It makes it hotter. It's happening right now.
-
0:56 - 0:59The reason that you can see me standing here is because
-
0:59 - 1:03this room is filled with more than 100 quintillion photons,
-
1:03 - 1:06and they're moving randomly through the space, near the speed of light.
-
1:06 - 1:08All of them are different colors,
-
1:08 - 1:10they're rippling with different frequencies,
-
1:10 - 1:13and they're bouncing off every surface, including me,
-
1:13 - 1:15and some of those are flying directly into your eyes,
-
1:15 - 1:18and that's why your brain is forming an image of me standing here.
-
1:18 - 1:20Now a laser is different.
-
1:20 - 1:24It also uses photons, but they're all synchronized,
-
1:24 - 1:26and if you focus them into a beam,
-
1:26 - 1:29what you have is an incredibly useful tool.
-
1:29 - 1:31The control of a laser is so precise
-
1:31 - 1:34that you can perform surgery inside of an eye,
-
1:34 - 1:36you can use it to store massive amounts of data,
-
1:36 - 1:39and you can use it for this beautiful experiment
-
1:39 - 1:41that my friend was struggling to explain.
-
1:41 - 1:44First you trap atoms in a special bottle.
-
1:44 - 1:47It uses electromagnetic fields to isolate the atoms
-
1:47 - 1:50from the noise of the environment.
-
1:50 - 1:52And the atoms themselves are quite violent,
-
1:52 - 1:56but if you fire lasers that are precisely tuned to the right frequency,
-
1:56 - 1:59an atom will briefly absorb those photons
-
1:59 - 2:01and tend to slow down.
-
2:01 - 2:04Little by little it gets colder
-
2:04 - 2:08until eventually it approaches absolute zero.
-
2:08 - 2:12Now if you use the right kind of atoms and you get them cold enough,
-
2:12 - 2:15something truly bizarre happens.
-
2:15 - 2:18It's no longer a solid, a liquid or a gas.
-
2:18 - 2:22It enters a new state of matter called a superfluid.
-
2:22 - 2:24The atoms lose their individual identity,
-
2:24 - 2:27and the rules from the quantum world take over,
-
2:27 - 2:31and that's what gives superfluids such spooky properties.
-
2:31 - 2:35For example, if you shine light through a superfluid,
-
2:35 - 2:38it is able to slow photons down
-
2:38 - 2:41to 60 kilometers per hour.
-
2:48 - 2:51Another spooky property is that it flows
-
2:51 - 2:53with absolutely no viscosity or friction,
-
2:53 - 2:56so if you were to take the lid off that bottle,
-
2:56 - 2:58it won't stay inside.
-
2:58 - 3:00A thin film will creep up the inside wall,
-
3:00 - 3:05flow over the top and right out the outside.
-
3:05 - 3:08Now of course, the moment that it does hit the outside environment,
-
3:08 - 3:11and its temperature rises by even a fraction of a degree,
-
3:11 - 3:13it immediately turns back into normal matter.
-
3:13 - 3:17Superfluids are one of the most fragile things we've ever discovered.
-
3:17 - 3:19And this is the great pleasure of science:
-
3:19 - 3:24the defeat of our intuition through experimentation.
-
3:24 - 3:25But the experiment is not the end of the story,
-
3:25 - 3:29because you still have to transmit that knowledge to other people.
-
3:29 - 3:31I have a Ph.D in molecular biology.
-
3:31 - 3:35I still barely understand what most scientists are talking about.
-
3:35 - 3:38So as my friend was trying to explain that experiment,
-
3:38 - 3:41it seemed like the more he said,
-
3:41 - 3:44the less I understood.
-
3:44 - 3:46Because if you're trying to give someone the big picture
-
3:46 - 3:50of a complex idea, to really capture its essence,
-
3:50 - 3:54the fewer words you use, the better.
-
3:54 - 3:57In fact, the ideal may be to use no words at all.
-
3:57 - 3:58I remember thinking, my friend could have explained
-
3:58 - 4:02that entire experiment with a dance.
-
4:02 - 4:06Of course, there never seem to be any dancers around when you need them.
-
4:06 - 4:08Now, the idea is not as crazy as it sounds.
-
4:08 - 4:11I started a contest four years ago called Dance Your Ph.D.
-
4:11 - 4:14Instead of explaining their research with words,
-
4:14 - 4:17scientists have to explain it with dance.
-
4:17 - 4:19Now surprisingly, it seems to work.
-
4:19 - 4:23Dance really can make science easier to understand.
-
4:23 - 4:24But don't take my word for it.
-
4:24 - 4:27Go on the Internet and search for "Dance Your Ph.D."
-
4:27 - 4:30There are hundreds of dancing scientists waiting for you.
-
4:30 - 4:33The most surprising thing that I've learned while running this contest
-
4:33 - 4:38is that some scientists are now working directly with dancers on their research.
-
4:38 - 4:40For example, at the University of Minnesota,
-
4:40 - 4:42there's a biomedical engineer named David Odde,
-
4:42 - 4:45and he works with dancers to study how cells move.
-
4:45 - 4:48They do it by changing their shape.
-
4:48 - 4:51When a chemical signal washes up on one side,
-
4:51 - 4:54it triggers the cell to expand its shape on that side,
-
4:54 - 4:57because the cell is constantly touching and tugging at the environment.
-
4:57 - 5:01So that allows cells to ooze along in the right directions.
-
5:01 - 5:05But what seems so slow and graceful from the outside
-
5:05 - 5:07is really more like chaos inside,
-
5:07 - 5:12because cells control their shape with a skeleton of rigid protein fibers,
-
5:12 - 5:15and those fibers are constantly falling apart.
-
5:15 - 5:17But just as quickly as they explode,
-
5:17 - 5:20more proteins attach to the ends and grow them longer,
-
5:20 - 5:22so it's constantly changing
-
5:22 - 5:25just to remain exactly the same.
-
5:25 - 5:28Now, David builds mathematical models of this and then he tests those in the lab,
-
5:28 - 5:31but before he does that, he works with dancers
-
5:31 - 5:34to figure out what kinds of models to build in the first place.
-
5:34 - 5:38It's basically efficient brainstorming,
-
5:38 - 5:40and when I visited David to learn about his research,
-
5:40 - 5:43he used dancers to explain it to me
-
5:43 - 5:48rather than the usual method: PowerPoint.
-
5:48 - 5:50And this brings me to my modest proposal.
-
5:50 - 5:53I think that bad PowerPoint presentations
-
5:53 - 5:56are a serious threat to the global economy.
-
5:56 - 6:03(Laughter) (Applause)
-
6:03 - 6:08Now it does depend on how you measure it, of course,
-
6:08 - 6:13but one estimate has put the drain at 250 million dollars per day.
-
6:13 - 6:15Now that assumes half-hour presentations
-
6:15 - 6:17for an average audience of four people
-
6:17 - 6:20with salaries of 35,000 dollars,
-
6:20 - 6:22and it conservatively assumes that
-
6:22 - 6:26about a quarter of the presentations are a complete waste of time,
-
6:26 - 6:28and given that there are some apparently
-
6:28 - 6:3130 million PowerPoint presentations created every day,
-
6:31 - 6:34that would indeed add up to an annual waste
-
6:34 - 6:37of 100 billion dollars.
-
6:37 - 6:40Of course, that's just the time we're losing
-
6:40 - 6:42sitting through presentations.
-
6:42 - 6:46There are other costs, because PowerPoint is a tool,
-
6:46 - 6:50and like any tool, it can and will be abused.
-
6:50 - 6:52To borrow a concept from my country's CIA,
-
6:52 - 6:55it helps you to soften up your audience.
-
6:55 - 6:59It distracts them with pretty pictures, irrelevant data.
-
6:59 - 7:03It allows you to create the illusion of competence,
-
7:03 - 7:06the illusion of simplicity,
-
7:06 - 7:11and most destructively, the illusion of understanding.
-
7:11 - 7:15So now my country is 15 trillion dollars in debt.
-
7:15 - 7:20Our leaders are working tirelessly to try and find ways to save money.
-
7:20 - 7:24One idea is to drastically reduce public support for the arts.
-
7:24 - 7:27For example, our National Endowment for the Arts,
-
7:27 - 7:29with its $150 million budget,
-
7:29 - 7:32slashing that program would immediately reduce the national debt
-
7:32 - 7:36by about one one-thousandth of a percent.
-
7:36 - 7:37One certainly can't argue with those numbers.
-
7:37 - 7:43However, once we eliminate public funding for the arts,
-
7:43 - 7:45there will be some drawbacks.
-
7:45 - 7:50The artists on the street will swell the ranks of the unemployed.
-
7:50 - 7:52Many will turn to drug abuse and prostitution,
-
7:52 - 7:55and that will inevitably lower property values in urban neighborhoods.
-
7:55 - 8:00All of this could wipe out the savings we're hoping to make in the first place.
-
8:00 - 8:03I shall now, therefore, humbly propose my own thoughts,
-
8:03 - 8:07which I hope will not be liable to the least objection.
-
8:07 - 8:09Once we eliminate public funding for the artists,
-
8:09 - 8:11let's put them back to work
-
8:11 - 8:14by using them instead of PowerPoint.
-
8:14 - 8:17As a test case, I propose we start with American dancers.
-
8:17 - 8:19After all, they are the most perishable of their kind,
-
8:19 - 8:21prone to injury and very slow to heal
-
8:21 - 8:24due to our health care system.
-
8:24 - 8:27Rather than dancing our Ph.Ds,
-
8:27 - 8:31we should use dance to explain all of our complex problems.
-
8:31 - 8:34Imagine our politicians using dance
-
8:34 - 8:38to explain why we must invade a foreign country
-
8:38 - 8:40or bail out an investment bank.
-
8:40 - 8:42It's sure to help.
-
8:42 - 8:46Of course someday, in the deep future,
-
8:46 - 8:49a technology of persuasion
-
8:49 - 8:52even more powerful than PowerPoint may be invented,
-
8:52 - 8:56rendering dancers unnecessary as tools of rhetoric.
-
8:56 - 8:58However, I trust that by that day,
-
8:58 - 9:01we shall have passed this present financial calamity.
-
9:01 - 9:05Perhaps by then we will be able to afford the luxury
-
9:05 - 9:08of just sitting in an audience
-
9:08 - 9:10with no other purpose
-
9:10 - 9:14than to witness the human form in motion.
-
9:14 - 10:25(Music)
-
10:25 - 10:54(Applause)
- Title:
- Dance vs. powerpoint, a modest proposal
- Speaker:
- John Bohannon
- Description:
-
Use dancers instead of powerpoint. That's science writer John Bohannon's "modest proposal." In this spellbinding choreographed talk he makes his case by example, aided by dancers from Black Label Movement. (Filmed at TEDxBrussels.)
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 10:57
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for Dance vs. powerpoint, a modest proposal | ||
Thu-Huong Ha approved English subtitles for Dance vs. powerpoint, a modest proposal | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for Dance vs. powerpoint, a modest proposal | ||
Morton Bast accepted English subtitles for Dance vs. powerpoint, a modest proposal | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for Dance vs. powerpoint, a modest proposal | ||
Joseph Geni edited English subtitles for Dance vs. powerpoint, a modest proposal | ||
Thu-Huong Ha added a translation |