'60 Second Adventures In Thought': David Mitchell Narrates Open University Educational Videos

Listen up, class -- someone has finally found a foolproof way to make learning enjoyable. Open University, an unconventional learning institution based in the UK, is smartly appealing to its students (we are all students here!) through animated YouTube videos that explain dry subjects with humor and clarity. Their latest series, "60-Second Adventures in Thought," is narrated by David Mitchell, of "That Mitchell and Webb Look" fame. Mitchell explains six famous thought experiments in rapid succession, including, "Can a cat be both alive and dead?", "Can a computer think?" and "How does a tortoise beat Achilles in a race?" Each 60-second clip is animated, amusing, informative, and only 60 SECONDS, which means right when we start tuning out is when the clip ends. You can read transcripts of each episode here, and find more videos like this here -- we recommend the "History of English" series -- fascinating stuff.

LEARN!:

Comments

[trp981]

05:04 PM on 11/27/2011

One may not say:

It is
It is not
It both is and is not
It neither is nor is not

-- Nagarjuna

[Frosted Flake]

08:25 AM on 11/27/2011

Time travel may be physically possible, but it isn't socially possible.

A working time machine means that at any point in time or space a squad of Marines can suddenly appear, blow the smack out of the standers about, and beat a VERY hasty retreat. There is no way to look at this but as a threat, to anyone, anywhere, anytime. Like you, ten minutes ago.

One working time machine means another can be built. And be used to send a team to sabotage the first one, before the initial, "previously" successful test. So, the successful test will (did) not occur and a catastrophic failure will (did). This will wipe out the brain trust involved in the initial project and convince everyone else to NOT try this particular approach themselves.

So, the time machine will not be constructed. So no one will be threatened by it, build another and then use it to sabotage the first. So the crime goes undetected, even by the guilty parties. And that, not the possibility or impossibility of time travel, is why time travel can not work.

What I miss?

[jessivehadit]

03:45 AM on 11/27/2011

Schrodinger's cat was a Republican.

[markgendala]

02:38 AM on 11/27/2011

Schrodinger's Cat - why not double it?

Let's say Prof. Smith is delivering a lecture on alleged implications of Schrodinger's thought experiment in Hall 18...
In the middle of the Hall 18 stands a box enclosing the cat, vial of poison and Geiger counter
that can randomy release the poison killing the cat. etc...etc... It's all old hat.

So, let's give it a novel twist...
What Prof. A doesn't know is that his evil rival - Prof. Jones, had secretly wired the entire Hall
18 in accordance with Schrodinger's original diagram.
In other words, Prof. Smith and the students are now the Cat - they can at any time be wiped
out by poison randomly released by a Geiger counter.

However, prior to that - while giving a dissertation on the Cat in the box being "simultaneously
dead and alive" - is the good Prof. A himself "simultaneously dead and alive"?

Mark Gendala
Melboune, Australia
www.ssotu.com

[dsws]

02:36 AM on 11/27/2011

If a bunch of neurons each don't understand Chinese characters, but between them they're pushing around information in a way that seems to constitute an understanding of Chinese characters, this is supposed to prove that they're not pushing around enough information after all? The Chinese Room argument made as little sense in college as it does in 60 seconds.

[August Stover]

10:05 PM on 11/26/2011

Number 5 was the deus ex machina that allowed the Ender's Game series to make a modicum of sense. So, yay Einstein.

[pixiepotpie]

09:53 PM on 11/26/2011

Well, that was humbling. Lol.

[Scotishpinkocommie]

06:36 PM on 11/26/2011

What wasn't mentioned in the twin paradox is that if you gave the brothers super telescopes so they could look at each other, to the brother on Earth the twin on the spaceship is moving in slowed time but when the spaceship twin looks through his telescope it is the earthbound brother who time has slowed for! (Because from the spaceships frame of reference is the Earth that's speeding away near the speed of light.)

[dsws]

02:30 AM on 11/27/2011

Yes, that's what really makes it look like a paradox. If you look at it a little carelessly, as countless undergrads do each year before getting it straight, it seems to say that each will expect to be the older twin. But if you follow through the calculations properly, the paradox is resolved: they can both agree that the one who goes will be young and the one who stays will be old when they reunite.

[Brigette]

06:17 PM on 11/26/2011

Schrodinge­­r's cat! And the only reason I know this is because I'm a fan of The Big Bang Theory.

[khanremmy]

09:10 PM on 11/26/2011

Big Bang Passe. M theory the bomb

[Lahonda]

06:13 PM on 11/26/2011

Only if that cat is in a box... preferably not litter-related.

[carolineeaton]

05:45 PM on 11/26/2011

We actually are evolving as people. We "like" children, and instead of beating them senseless to pay attention, we've come up with novel ideas that appeal to their learning natures.

[Lahonda]

06:27 PM on 11/26/2011

...as long as they don't eat the Crayolas.

[carolineeaton]

06:29 PM on 11/26/2011

Well yeah, that's unforgivable, especially the green ones.

[carolineeaton]

06:29 PM on 11/26/2011

Does that include paste?

[Rational Thought Plz]

05:10 PM on 11/26/2011

Perhaps someone here can enlighten me about something I've wondered about for a while. Are all the cats in the movie The Prestige a reference to Schrodinge­r?

[Demitasse]

03:42 PM on 11/26/2011

The Grandfather Paradox - maybe one can't go back in time & kill one's grandfather but how about someone else doing the deed? How would we or anyone else know if someone else had went back in time to facilitate the spread of a disease or ensure a dictator was born who would live to start a war that killed millions of grandfathers & grandmothers? Maybe we're not living the 'future' we're suppose to be living right now because someone went back in time & changed things. The kicker is how would we know if this was the case or not?

[WilliamTheV]

04:39 PM on 11/26/2011

Because if they purposefully changed the past to create a new present, then they too would have changed, and would have spent their entire lives in the altered present, meaning that they would then never have traveled back in time to change it in the first place.

[Demitasse]

05:59 PM on 11/26/2011

The grandfather paradox states that if a person went back in time to & killed his grandfather, he or she would have never existed & there would have been no one to go back in time in the first place. Why would that logic apply to a stranger who wasn't related to me, & who went back in time & killed my grandfather? I fail to see how the outcomes would be the same. A stranger killing my grandfather would prevent my existence; the stranger, totally unrelated to me, would live, his existence not affected.

Imo the Grandfather Paradox prevents us as individuals from going back in time but it doesn't necessarily prevent someone else, a person unrelated to our lives, from going back in time.

[hornedcog]

07:14 PM on 11/26/2011

Unless both scenarios exist in parallel.

[Rafael Perez]

05:26 PM on 11/26/2011

For the GFP its different, at least for me heh...

Lets say you wanted to kill your grandfather, well you can't because someone else did it (assuming that in this part of the paradox, someone else did it), and therefore you ceased to exist, so therefore you could have never had the thought of wanting to kill your grandfather because you never existed.

The only way for things to "change" in my own opinion is before they happen (expecting) or after they happen BUT having sufficient time to change it (like changing a pizza order after you have ordered it, but has not been made yet).

Logically, we do not know when and what is going to happen if we make a choice... now.... I could decide to eat a 500 calorie sammich right now and get fat in the future or never eat it and never be 500 calories fatter... or I could have saved my 200 dollars back in 2002 and I would have been 200 dollars richer today. The flaw in this is that we know what will happen if we make such actions and therefore the power that we have is the power to allow or prevent things to happen.

[Demitasse]

07:01 PM on 11/26/2011

If someone wanted to kill me & had access to a time machine, they could commit the perfect crime by going back in time & killing my grandfather. Come back to the present & find out I've never existed.

If you wanted to be rich & had a time machine (just having a time machine could make you rich: charge big $$$ for people to use it), you could go back in time & buy shares of microsoft & come back & be a millionaire.

Imo the only way for an individual to allow or prevent things from happening is to go live in a cave (or something similar) & cease all contact with the human race. Some choices are routine & a lot of people make the same choices, like having coffee for breakfast. And some choices aren't routine, like becoming a politician, & they sometimes affect the lives of others. In other words, some choices have more weight than others & more of a chance to affect the future. Personally I believe one has to go into the future to change the past before one can change the future, but that's another thought experiment.

[Harvee Wallbanger]

03:14 PM on 11/26/2011

Remember those old cartoon shorts called Aesops Fables? This reminds me of those. Its also kind of like Sesame Street for college... I'm not sure its a good idea for college level. I would have to see some positive results from them.

[Lahonda]

06:19 PM on 11/26/2011

...these are the letters OWS. They are sponsored by anyone but Goldmann Sachs.

[Grumpy Old Dude]

02:58 PM on 11/26/2011

When I first started posting here, I would occasionally use Schrodinge­r's cat as a metaphor! I stopped because I had to keep explaining what Schrodinger's cat was to Repubs! I switched to Thomas The Tank Engine instead...they understood that!

[AirStreamDriver]

03:12 PM on 11/26/2011

I read a quantum physics book when I was around 20 and the Schrodinge­­r's cat experiment was in and I've always been fascinated by quantum physics ever since even though I feel like my brain is getting twisted into a pretzel trying to fully understand it. The part about the collapse of the wave function and how the word doesn't really exist when you shut your door always sends me for a loop. I never tell my conservative friends about the shut door part, I'm worried they'll try use it as an opportunity to dismantle the country and start over again while my doors shut ;)

[Grumpy Old Dude]

03:14 PM on 11/26/2011

ROFLMAO

[carmenalex]

04:20 PM on 11/26/2011

You might find this interesting. check out number 5.
http://www.cracked.com/article_19419_6-parodies-that-succeeded-because-nobody-got-joke.html

[gransview]

03:25 PM on 11/26/2011

Oh! You're so baad!

LOL!

[Grumpy Old Dude]

03:31 PM on 11/26/2011

I can't help myself, Grans! Please stop me! ;-)))