TED Theme: Words About Words

Language is the stuff of thought -- the more we know about it, the better we will understand ourselves. These speakers are trying to crac...

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What we learned fro...
9 Views
15:37:42 09/20/11

Have you played with Google Labs' Ngram Viewer? It's an addicting tool that lets you search for words and ideas in a database of 5 million books from across centur...

What we learned from 5 million books

Added 09/20/11
9 Views

What we learned from 5 million books

[LESS INFO] 9 VIEWS | ADDED 15:37:42 09/20/11
Have you played with Google Labs' Ngram Viewer? It's an addicting tool that lets you search for words and ideas in a database of 5 million books from across centuries. Erez Lieberman Aiden and Jean-Baptiste Michel show us how it works, and a few of the surprising things we can learn from 500 billion words.

Mark Pagel: How lan...
6 Views
15:14:21 08/03/11

Biologist Mark Pagel shares an intriguing theory about why humans evolved our complex system of language. He suggests that language is a piece of "social technolog...

Mark Pagel: How language transformed humanity

Added 08/03/11
6 Views

Mark Pagel: How language transformed humanity

[LESS INFO] 6 VIEWS | ADDED 15:14:21 08/03/11
Biologist Mark Pagel shares an intriguing theory about why humans evolved our complex system of language. He suggests that language is a piece of "social technology" that allowed early human tribes to access a powerful new tool: cooperation.

Daniel Tammet: Diff...
9 Views
14:47:28 06/21/11

Daniel Tammet has linguistic, numerical and visual synesthesia -- meaning that his perception of words, numbers and colors are woven together into a new way of per...

Daniel Tammet: Different ways of knowing

Added 06/21/11
9 Views

Daniel Tammet: Different ways of knowing

[LESS INFO] 9 VIEWS | ADDED 14:47:28 06/21/11
Daniel Tammet has linguistic, numerical and visual synesthesia -- meaning that his perception of words, numbers and colors are woven together into a new way of perceiving and understanding the world. The author of "Born on a Blue Day," Tammet shares his art and his passion for languages in this glimpse into his beautiful mind.

Mike Matas: A next...
10 Views
14:34:04 04/28/11

Software developer Mike Matas demos the first full-length interactive book for the iPad -- with clever, swipeable video and graphics and some very cool data visual...

Mike Matas: A next-generation digital book

Added 04/28/11
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Mike Matas: A next-generation digital book

[LESS INFO] 10 VIEWS | ADDED 14:34:04 04/28/11
Software developer Mike Matas demos the first full-length interactive book for the iPad -- with clever, swipeable video and graphics and some very cool data visualizations to play with. The book is "Our Choice," Al Gore's sequel to "An Inconvenient Truth."

Roger Ebert: Remaki...
7 Views
14:37:58 04/13/11

When film critic Roger Ebert lost his lower jaw to cancer, he lost the ability to eat and speak. But he did not lose his voice. In a moving talk from TED2011, Eber...

Roger Ebert: Remaking my voice

Added 04/13/11
7 Views

Roger Ebert: Remaking my voice

[LESS INFO] 7 VIEWS | ADDED 14:37:58 04/13/11
When film critic Roger Ebert lost his lower jaw to cancer, he lost the ability to eat and speak. But he did not lose his voice. In a moving talk from TED2011, Ebert and his wife, Chaz, with friends Dean Ornish and John Hunter, come together to tell his remarkable story.

Patricia Ryan: Don'...
6 Views
14:31:32 03/28/11

At TEDxDubai, longtime English teacher Patricia Ryan asks a provocative question: Is the world's focus on English preventing the spread of great ideas in other lan...

Patricia Ryan: Don't insist on English!

Added 03/28/11
6 Views

Patricia Ryan: Don't insist on English!

[LESS INFO] 6 VIEWS | ADDED 14:31:32 03/28/11
At TEDxDubai, longtime English teacher Patricia Ryan asks a provocative question: Is the world's focus on English preventing the spread of great ideas in other languages? (For instance: what if Einstein had to pass the TOEFL?) It's a passionate defense of translating and sharing ideas.

Sarah Kay: If I sho...
6 Views
15:02:22 03/18/11

"If I should have a daughter, instead of Mom, she's gonna call me Point B ... " began spoken word poet Sarah Kay, in a talk that inspired two standing ovations at ...

Sarah Kay: If I should have a daughter ...

Added 03/18/11
6 Views

Sarah Kay: If I should have a daughter ...

[LESS INFO] 6 VIEWS | ADDED 15:02:22 03/18/11
"If I should have a daughter, instead of Mom, she's gonna call me Point B ... " began spoken word poet Sarah Kay, in a talk that inspired two standing ovations at TED2011. She tells the story of her metamorphosis -- from a wide-eyed teenager soaking in verse at New York's Bowery Poetry Club to a teacher connecting kids with the power of self-expression through Project V.O.I.C.E. -- and gives two breathtaking performances of "B" and "Hiroshima."

Deb Roy: The birth ...
5 Views
16:21:24 03/10/11

MIT researcher Deb Roy wanted to understand how his infant son learned language -- so he wired up his house with videocameras to catch every moment (with exception...

Deb Roy: The birth of a word

Added 03/10/11
5 Views

Deb Roy: The birth of a word

[LESS INFO] 5 VIEWS | ADDED 16:21:24 03/10/11
MIT researcher Deb Roy wanted to understand how his infant son learned language -- so he wired up his house with videocameras to catch every moment (with exceptions) of his son's life, then parsed 90,000 hours of home video to watch "gaaaa" slowly turn into "water." Astonishing, data-rich research with deep implications for how we learn.

Courtney Martin: Re...
10 Views
16:24:20 03/08/11

Blogger Courtney Martin examines the perennially loaded word "feminism" in this personal and heartfelt talk. She talks through the three essential paradoxes of her...

Courtney Martin: Reinventing feminism

Added 03/08/11
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Courtney Martin: Reinventing feminism

[LESS INFO] 10 VIEWS | ADDED 16:24:20 03/08/11
Blogger Courtney Martin examines the perennially loaded word "feminism" in this personal and heartfelt talk. She talks through the three essential paradoxes of her generation's quest to define the term for themselves.

Patricia Kuhl: The ...
11 Views
18:40:58 02/15/11

At TEDxRainier, Patricia Kuhl shares astonishing findings about how babies learn one language over another -- by listening to the humans around them and "taking st...

Patricia Kuhl: The linguistic genius of babies

Added 02/15/11
11 Views

Patricia Kuhl: The linguistic genius of babies

[LESS INFO] 11 VIEWS | ADDED 18:40:58 02/15/11
At TEDxRainier, Patricia Kuhl shares astonishing findings about how babies learn one language over another -- by listening to the humans around them and "taking statistics" on the sounds they need to know. Clever lab experiments (and brain scans) show how 6-month-old babies use sophisticated reasoning to understand their world.

Krista Tippett: Rec...
11 Views
17:24:04 02/14/11

The term "compassion" -- typically reserved for the saintly or the sappy -- has fallen out of touch with reality. At a special TEDPrize@UN, journalist Krista Tippe...

Krista Tippett: Reconnecting with compassion

Added 02/14/11
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Krista Tippett: Reconnecting with compassion

[LESS INFO] 11 VIEWS | ADDED 17:24:04 02/14/11
The term "compassion" -- typically reserved for the saintly or the sappy -- has fallen out of touch with reality. At a special TEDPrize@UN, journalist Krista Tippett deconstructs the meaning of compassion through several moving stories, and proposes a new, more attainable definition for the word.

Naif Al-Mutawa: Sup...
11 Views
09:25:20 07/20/10

In "THE 99," Naif Al-Mutawa's new generation of comic book heroes fight more than crime -- they smash stereotypes and battle extremism. Named after the 99 attribut...

Naif Al-Mutawa: Superheroes inspired by Islam

Added 07/20/10
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Naif Al-Mutawa: Superheroes inspired by Islam

[LESS INFO] 11 VIEWS | ADDED 09:25:20 07/20/10
In "THE 99," Naif Al-Mutawa's new generation of comic book heroes fight more than crime -- they smash stereotypes and battle extremism. Named after the 99 attributes of Allah, his characters reinforce positive messages of Islam and cross cultures to create a new moral framework for confronting evil, even teaming up with the Justice League of America.

Ethan Zuckerman: Li...
11 Views
10:24:48 07/15/10

Sure, the web connects the globe, but most of us end up hearing mainly from people just like ourselves. Blogger and technologist Ethan Zuckerman wants to help shar...

Ethan Zuckerman: Listening to global voices

Added 07/15/10
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Ethan Zuckerman: Listening to global voices

[LESS INFO] 11 VIEWS | ADDED 10:24:48 07/15/10
Sure, the web connects the globe, but most of us end up hearing mainly from people just like ourselves. Blogger and technologist Ethan Zuckerman wants to help share the stories of the whole wide world. He talks about clever strategies to open up your Twitter world and read the news in languages you don't even know.

Michael Sandel: The...
14 Views
09:05:36 06/07/10

Democracy thrives on civil debate, Michael Sandel says -- but we're shamefully out of practice. He leads a fun refresher, with TEDsters sparring over a recent Supr...

Michael Sandel: The lost art of democratic debate

Added 06/07/10
14 Views

Michael Sandel: The lost art of democratic debate

[LESS INFO] 14 VIEWS | ADDED 09:05:36 06/07/10
Democracy thrives on civil debate, Michael Sandel says -- but we're shamefully out of practice. He leads a fun refresher, with TEDsters sparring over a recent Supreme Court case (PGA Tour, Inc. v. Martin) whose outcome reveals the critical ingredient in justice.

Lies, damned lies a...
11 Views
09:01:21 04/30/10

In a brilliantly tongue-in-cheek analysis, Sebastian Wernicke turns the tools of statistical analysis on TEDTalks, to come up with a metric for creating "the optim...

Lies, damned lies and statistics (about TEDTalks)

Added 04/30/10
11 Views

Lies, damned lies and statistics (about TEDTalks)

[LESS INFO] 11 VIEWS | ADDED 09:01:21 04/30/10
In a brilliantly tongue-in-cheek analysis, Sebastian Wernicke turns the tools of statistical analysis on TEDTalks, to come up with a metric for creating "the optimum TEDTalk" based on user ratings. How do you rate it? "Jaw-dropping"? "Unconvincing"? Or just plain "Funny"?

Kirk Citron: And no...
11 Views
09:34:24 03/31/10

How many of today's headlines will matter in 100 years? 1000? Kirk Citron's "Long News" project collects stories that not only matter today, but will resonate for ...

Kirk Citron: And now, the real news

Added 03/31/10
11 Views

Kirk Citron: And now, the real news

[LESS INFO] 11 VIEWS | ADDED 09:34:24 03/31/10
How many of today's headlines will matter in 100 years? 1000? Kirk Citron's "Long News" project collects stories that not only matter today, but will resonate for decades -- even centuries -- to come. At TED2010, he highlights recent headlines with the potential to shape our future.

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What we learned from 5 million books

Show: TED Theme: Words About Words

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What we learned from 5 million books
09/20/11

Have you played with Google Labs' Ngram Viewer? It's an addicting tool that lets you search for words and ideas in a database of 5 million books from across centuries. Erez Lieberman Aiden and Jean-Baptiste Michel show us how it works, and a few of the surprising things we can learn from 500 billion words.