As the year winds to a close, Big Think has pulled together a list of their Most Popular Videos of 2010. Perhaps the biggest thinker on the list is Stephen Hawking, the renowned theoretical physicist, who issues a stark warning. “Our only chance of long term survival, is not to remain inward looking on planet Earth, but to spread out into space.” Population growth, limited resources, climate change – these pressures could drive the human race into extinction within two centuries, and possibly even one. That makes space – planets beyond our own – the next great frontier.
The Beauty of Pixar
Earlier this year, Leandro Copperfield spent days re-watching the films of Quentin Tarantino and the Coen brothers. Then, using 500+ scenes from 17 movies, he developed a montage tribute called Tarantino vs Coen Brothers, which nicely complements his other short tribute, Kubrick vs Scorsese. Now comes something a little different – a montage celebrating the films of Pixar Animation Studios. This mashup brings together moments from 11 Pixar films made between 1995 and 2010, starting with Toy Story, moving to Finding Nemo, Monsters, Inc and The Incredibles, and ending with Toy Story 3. The Young Turks, Louis Armstrong, Randy Newman and Peter Garbriel power the soundtrack…
Denis Dutton (RIP) Talks Beauty @ TED
Denis Dutton – the founder of Arts & Letters Daily and philosophy professor at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand – passed away today. He was 66 years old. In 2009, he wrote his most recent book, The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution. Above, we have Dutton speaking at TED, elaborating on these themes in a great little talk called “A Darwinian Theory of Beauty.”
Robot Masters Rubik’s Cube in 15 Seconds
Where was this when I needed it 30 years ago? Two students at Rowan University, Zachary Grady and Joe Ridgeway, have constructed a robotic arm that can solve the Rubik’s Cube in 15 seconds. As The New Scientist explains, the “system uses a camera to capture how the cube is scrambled and sends the images to a computer. It determines the pattern on each face and algorithms are used to solve the cube. The solution is then translated to the arm’s pneumatics and motors.” For more brilliant robot tricks, you can watch robots shoot archery, lead the Detroit Symphony orchestra, and even make ethical decisions…
The Rosetta Stone: A Quick Primer
No doubt about it, the discovery of the Rosetta Stone in 1799 ranks as one of the greatest archaeological discoveries. One slab of stone deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs and demystified the history of Ancient Egypt. Now, we had a window into the real history of Ancient Egypt, not the imagined one. The story behind the Rosetta Stone gets nicely told here by Beth Harris (Director of Digital Learning at MoMA) and Steven Zucker (chair of History of Art and Design at Pratt Institute), as part of their series of Smarthistory videos. The British Museum, which houses the famous artifact, has more on the Rosetta Stone.
How Large is the Universe?
For centuries, humanity has been utterly transfixed by the cosmos, with generations of astronomers, philosophers and everyday ponderers striving to better understand the grand capsule of our existence. And yet to this day, some of the most basic, fundamental qualities of the universe remain a mystery. How Large is the Universe? is a fascinating 20-minute documentary by Thomas Lucas and Dave Brody exploring the universe’s immense scale of distance and time.
“Recent precision measurements gathered by the Hubble space telescope and other instruments have brought a consensus that the universe dates back 13.7 billion years. Its radius, then, is the distance a beam of light would have traveled in that time – 13.7 billion light years. That works out to about 1.3 quadrillion kilometers. In fact, it’s even bigger – much bigger. How it got so large, so fast, was until recently a deep mystery.”
For more on the subject, see these five fascinating ways to grasp the size and scale of the universe.
Maria Popova is the founder and editor in chief of Brain Pickings, a curated inventory of cross-disciplinary interestingness. She writes for Wired UK, GOOD Magazine and DesignObserver, and spends a great deal of time on Twitter.
The Junky’s Christmas: William S. Burrough’s Claymation Christmas Film
Back in 1993, the Beat writer William S. Burroughs wrote and narrated a 21 minute claymation Christmas film. And, as you can well imagine, it’s not your normal happy Christmas flick. Nope, this film – The Junky’s Christmas – is all about Danny the Carwiper, a junkie, who spends Christmas Day trying to score a fix. Eventually he finds the Christmas spirit when he shares some morphine with a young man suffering from kidney stones, giving him the “immaculate fix.” There you have it. This film produced by Francis Ford Coppola appears in our collection of Free Movies Online, or you can buy it on Amazon here. via @UBUWeb
Related Content:
William S. Burroughs Shoots Shakespeare
William S. Burroughs on Saturday Night Live, 1981
William S. Burroughs Reads Naked Lunch, His Controversial 1959 Novel
A ‘Lil Bob Dylan Christmas
The Little Drummer Boy. Animated. Off of Dylan’s 2009 Christmas album. Have a joyful and safe holiday…
My Blackberry Is Not Working!
Classic… This fruity sketch just aired on the BBC program The One Ronnie. Great work by Ronnie Corbett and Harry Enfield.
Related Content:
Conan O’Brien @ Google
The Monty Python Philosophy Football Match Revisited
Father Guido Sarducci’s Five Minute University
Sir David Frost Interviews Julian Assange Upon Release from Jail
Let me preface things by saying this will likely be our last WikiLeaks post for a while. Don’t want to slip into WikiLeaks overkill. With that said…
Yesterday, Sir David Frost landed the first television interview with Julian Assange since his release from a London jail. The 24 minute interview aired on Al Jazeera English (where Frost hosts a show called Frost Over the World) and pretty quickly they dive into some important questions: Do governments have the right to keep state secrets? And do media organizations have the right to divulge such secrets? Assuming so, where (if anywhere) must journalists draw the line? Why has WikiLeaks recently taken aim at the United States? Is it fair to characterize WikiLeaks as an anarchic organization? The list of questions goes on, including ones delving into Assange’s legal problems. Thanks for @eacion for the heads up on this one…
Shaq Conducts The Boston Pops: A Little Christmas Delight
This Monday, the great Shaquille O’Neal, now playing for the Boston Celtics, made his conducting debut, leading the Boston Pops Orchestra and Tanglewood Festival Chorus at the Holiday Pops Concert. You’ll immediately recognize the tunes: the Christmas standard, “Sleigh Ride,” leading into Queen’s power ballad “We Are the Champions.”
via Mother Jones
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