Instructional Video8:52
PBS

General Relativity & Curved Spacetime Explained!

12th - Higher Ed
We've been through the first few episodes of our crash course on general relativity, and came out alive! But it's officially "time" for CURVED spacetime. Join Gabe on this week's episode of PBS Space Time as he discusses Newton and...
Instructional Video4:06
PBS

Living Fossils' Aren't Really a Thing

12th - Higher Ed
Crocodiles, horseshoe crabs and tuatara are animals that have persisted for millions of years, said to have gone unchanged since the days of the dinosaurs. But even the most ancient-looking organisms show us that evolution is always at...
Instructional Video4:24
PBS

Nicolas Cage, Taoism, and YOLO

12th - Higher Ed
Legendary actor Nicolas Cage is renowned for his reliably weird roles across many genres of modern film. Is he just a victim of a bad agent, or does he instead follow the philosophy of Taoism, or as its modern derivative is known - YOLO...
Instructional Video7:54
PBS

Is a Tagged Instagram More Than Just a Photo?

12th - Higher Ed
The hashtag, so simple and ubiquitous, raises the image from mere photo to a new complex entity.
Instructional Video6:42
PBS

What Will Destroy Planet Earth?

12th - Higher Ed
Killing all the life on Earth is easy. But what about destroying the planet itself? That is DEFINITELY going to happen!! But HOW? Could it be Nukes? A Giant Asteroid? A Collision with another planet? And what's more, will anyone be...
Instructional Video13:20
PBS

Can a Chess Piece Explain Markov Chains?

12th - Higher Ed
In this episode probability mathematics and chess collide. What is the average number of steps it would take before a randomly moving knight returned to its starting square?
Instructional Video8:31
PBS

5 Ways to Stop a Killer Asteroid

12th - Higher Ed
When it comes to dangerous asteroids striking Earth, it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. We have begun to track projectiles large enough to destroy our planet, and we are in the clear for the foreseeable future. However,...
Instructional Video8:35
PBS

How Many Humans Have the Same Number of Body Hairs?

12th - Higher Ed
Do two people on the planet have the exact same number of body hairs? How about more than two? There's a simple yet powerful mathematical principle that can help you find out the answer. Kelsey Houston-Edwards breaks down the Pigeonhole...
Instructional Video9:21
PBS

The Origin of Matter and Time

12th - Higher Ed
We've broken down our preconceived notions about mass and time, now let's redefine what they really are. Since we know that time is not a universal constant, what is? Matt defines causal order and explains how even though time may look...
Instructional Video7:37
PBS

Should We Colonize Venus Instead of Mars?

12th - Higher Ed
Mars One. The Mars Rover. Bruno Mars. Mars Bars. It's pretty clear we're OBSESSED with the idea of Mars, especially in regard to it being a potential colony for earthlings. But is that really the best option? Is there a better place for...
Instructional Video8:47
PBS

How Gaia Changed Astronomy Forever

12th - Higher Ed
The great advances in any science tend to come in sudden leaps. April 25th of 2018 marks the beginning of just such a leap for much of astronomy. In the early hours of the morning, the Gaia mission's second data release dropped. Our...
Instructional Video11:27
PBS

Neutron Stars Collide in New LIGO Signal?

12th - Higher Ed
Last year LIGO announced the detection of gravitational waves from the merger of two black holes. The science world went a little crazy. Only a few weeks ago a new rumour emerged: that LIGO had, for the first time, spotted gravitational...
Instructional Video9:02
PBS

Quantum Vortices and Superconductivity + Challenge Answers

12th - Higher Ed
Scientists studying quantum vortices and their impact on superconductivity just won the Nobel Prize.
Instructional Video7:04
PBS

Absolute Cold

12th - Higher Ed
Can we ever achieve absolute cold?
Instructional Video9:55
PBS

The End of the Habitable Zone

12th - Higher Ed
The Sun is getting brighter and the planets in our solar system that are habitable are changing.
Instructional Video11:18
PBS

What Does It Mean to Be a Number? (The Peano Axioms)

12th - Higher Ed
If you needed to tell someone what numbers are and how they work, without using the notion of number in your answer, could you do it?
Instructional Video12:34
PBS

What is a Random Walk?

12th - Higher Ed
To understand finance, search algorithms and even evolution you need to understand Random Walks.
Instructional Video10:44
PBS

Associahedra: The Shapes of Multiplication

12th - Higher Ed
What happens when you multiply shapes?
Instructional Video12:10
PBS

Is an Ice Age Coming?

12th - Higher Ed
We're living in a brief window of time where our planet isn't frozen underneath a giant layer of glaciers. How much longer will the moderate climate that we've come to know as "normal" continue? This episode looks at how the changes in...
Instructional Video12:38
PBS

The Real Star Wars

12th - Higher Ed
Anti-Satellite weaponry, giant X-ray lasers and kinetic impact missiles nicknamed the "Rods from God." Find out about the history of the real star wars that have been waged over the past 50 years.
Instructional Video8:16
PBS

Can a Circle Be a Straight Line?

12th - Higher Ed
On this week's episode of Spacetime, Gabe talks about what it actually means for a line to be straight so we can better understand what we mean by the idea of "curved Spacetime". This is Part One of our series on General relativity, so...
Instructional Video5:56
PBS

Is Minecraft the Ultimate Educational Tool?

12th - Higher Ed
Some experts have brought Minecraft into the classroom, allowing teachers to customize lessons and students to engage with concepts in new ways. And while educational games aren't new, Minecraft has some unique advantages that could...
Instructional Video4:51
PBS

Is Facebook Changing Our Identity?

12th - Higher Ed
With 955,000,000 worldwide users, Facebook seems like just about everyone makes use of the social media giant to connect with friends, share photos, and update everyone they've ever met since grade school about their dinner plans. But...
Instructional Video6:09
PBS

Can Dungeons & Dragons Make You Confident & Successful?

12th - Higher Ed
There are some deeply ingrained stereotypes about Dungeons & Dragons, and those stereotypes usually begin and end with people shouting "NERD!!!" But the reality of the D&D universe is a whole lot more complex. Rather than being an escape...