Animations of 6 Famous Thought Experiments

The Open University strikes again. In June, they released The History of English, a series of witty animated videos that covered 1600 years of linguistic history in ten minutes. Now, they’re back with 60-Second Adventures in Thought, another animated sequence that highlights six famous thought experiments. It all starts with Zeno’s ancient Paradox of the Tortoise and Achilles. (Watch above.) Then we head straight to the 20th century, to five famous thought experiments in physics, math and computer science.

The Grandfather Paradox (time travel)

Chinese Room (artificial intelligence)

Hilbert’s Infinite Hotel (the concept of infinity)

The Twin Paradox (special relativity)

Schrödinger’s Cat (quantum mechanics)

You can watch the full series on YouTube and iTunes.