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TED-Ed: Can You Solve the Egg Drop Riddle?
The city has just opened its one-of-a-kind Faberge Egg Museum, with a single egg displayed on each floor of a 100-story building -- and the world’s most notorious jewel thief already has her eyes on the prize. Can you help the thief formulate a plan that will drop the most expensive egg she can get safely into her waiting truck? Yossi Elran shows how.
TED-Ed: Can You Solve the Stolen Rubies Riddle?
Townspeople are demanding that a corrupt merchant’s collection of 30 rubies be confiscated to reimburse the victims of his schemes. The king announces that the fine will be determined through a game of wits between the merchant and the king’s most clever advisor – you. Can you outfox the merchant and win back the greatest amount of rubies to help his victims? Dennis Shasha shows how.
How one journalist risked her life to hold murderers accountable - Christina Greer
The story of Ida B. Wells and her fight against injustice.
Can you solve the bridge riddle? - Alex Gendler
A classic logic puzzle to test your problem-solving.
Can you solve the prisoner hat riddle? - Alex Gendler
A challenging logic puzzle involving strategy and probability.
TED-Ed: Can You Solve the Passcode Riddle?
In a dystopian world, your resistance group is humanity’s last hope. Unfortunately, you’ve all been captured by the tyrannical rulers and brought to the ancient coliseum for their deadly entertainment. Will you be able to solve the passcode riddle and get everyone out safely? Ganesh Pai shows how.
TED-Ed: The Paradox of Value
Imagine you’re on a game show and you can choose between two prizes: a diamond … or a bottle of water. It’s an easy choice – the diamonds are more valuable. But if given the same choice when you were dehydrated in the desert, after wandering for days, would you choose differently? Why? Aren’t diamonds still more valuable? Akshita Agarwal explains the paradox of value.
TED-Ed: The Pleasure of Poetic Pattern
Humans are creatures of rhythm and repetition. From our breath to our gait: rhythm is central to our experience, and often brings us pleasure. We can find pleasure in the rhythm of a song, or even the rows of an orchard. Of course, too much repetition can also backfire. David Silverstein describes what poetic repetition is and why it works.
TED-Ed: The Königsberg Bridge Problem
You’d have a hard time finding the medieval city Königsberg on any modern maps, but one particular quirk in its geography has made it one of the most famous cities in mathematics. Dan Van der Vieren explains how grappling with Königsberg’s puzzling seven bridges led famous mathematician Leonhard Euler to invent a new field of mathematics.
TED-Ed: The Last Banana: A Probability Thought Experiment
Imagine a game played with two players and two dice: if the biggest number rolled is one, two, three, or four, player 1 wins. If the biggest number rolled is five or six, player 2 wins. Who has the best probability of winning the game? Leonardo Barichello explains how probability holds the answer to this seemingly counterintuitive puzzle.
TED-Ed: The Math Behind Van Gogh's Starry Night
Physicist Werner Heisenberg said, “When I meet God, I am going to ask him two questions: why relativity? And why turbulence? I really believe he will have an answer for the first.” As difficult as turbulence is to understand mathematically, we can use art to depict the way it looks. Natalya St. Clair illustrates how Van Gogh captured this deep mystery of movement, fluid and light in his work.
TED-Ed: Can You Solve the Three Gods Riddle?
You and your team have crash-landed on an ancient planet. Can you appease the three alien overlords who rule it and get your team safely home? Created by logician Raymond Smullyan, and popularized by his colleague George Boolos, this riddle has been called the hardest logic puzzle ever. Alex Gendler shows how to solve it.
The paradox at the heart of mathematics: Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem - Marcus du Sautoy
Explore Gödel's incompleteness theorem and the limits of mathematics.
TED-Ed: Can You Solve the Locker Riddle?
Your rich, eccentric uncle just passed away, and you and your 99 nasty relatives have been invited to the reading of his will. He wanted to leave all of his money to you, but he knew that if he did, your relatives would pester you forever. Can you solve the riddle he left for you and get the inheritance? Lisa Winer shows how.
TED-Ed: The Science of Symmetry
When you hear the word symmetry, you might think generally of triangles, butterflies, or even ballerinas. But defined scientifically, symmetry is “a transformation that leaves an object unchanged.” Huh? Colm Kelleher unpacks this abstract term and explains how animals' distinct symmetries can tell us more about them -- and ourselves.
TED-Ed: How Statistics Can Be Misleading
Statistics are persuasive. So much so that people, organizations, and whole countries base some of their most important decisions on organized data. But any set of statistics might have something lurking inside it that can turn the results completely upside down. Mark Liddell investigates Simpson’s paradox.
TED-Ed: What's the Best Country to Live In?
What’s the best country to live in? Is it the one with the best food? The longest life expectancy? The best weather? For the past 70 years, most governments have relied heavily on a single number: the Gross Domestic Product, or GDP. But it was never intended for its current purpose; and some argue that we are addicted to making it grow. Explore the different ways countries measure quality of life.
TED-Ed: A Brief History of Banned Numbers
They say the pen is mightier than the sword, and authorities have often agreed. From outlawed religious tracts and revolutionary manifestos to censored and burned books, we know the potential power of words to overturn the social order. But as strange as it may seem, some numbers have also been considered dangerous enough to ban. Alessandra King details the history behind illegal numbers.
The Infinite Hotel Paradox - Jeff Dekofsky
Wrap your mind around the concept of infinity.
TED-Ed: Can You Solve the Temple Riddle?
Your expedition finally stands at the heart of the ancient temple. But as you study the inscriptions in the darkness, two wisps of green smoke burst forth. The walls begin to shake. The giant sandglass begins flowing with less than an hour before it empties, and a rumbling tells you that you don’t want to be around when that happens. Can you use math to escape the temple? Dennis E. Shasha shows how.