WEBVTT - Three Cool Talks at Think2018 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:13.880 stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:13.920 --> 0:00:17.000 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer at 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:19.320 how Stuff Works and I love all things tech. And 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:23.360 here is another special episode brought to you from the 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:27.040 IBM Think two thousand and eighteen conference. I've been going 0:00:27.080 --> 0:00:30.240 to this all week in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is Thursday, 0:00:30.320 --> 0:00:33.800 March twenty two as I record this episode, and you 0:00:33.880 --> 0:00:37.000 probably heard me speak a little bit about a lot 0:00:37.040 --> 0:00:40.519 of different topics that I've heard about here at the 0:00:40.680 --> 0:00:44.839 Think two thousand eighteen conference, and uh pretty much wrapped 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:49.080 everything up. I am technically attending the conference today. However, 0:00:49.120 --> 0:00:51.640 I'm also checking out of my hotel room today, which 0:00:51.640 --> 0:00:54.120 means I will not have a dedicated place to sit 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:58.600 down and record. So I might record another episode after this, 0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:02.240 depending upon what I counter today, but that might have 0:01:02.280 --> 0:01:04.400 to wait until I get back to the studio because 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:06.280 I may not be able to find a corner to 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:09.160 sit down and record and that is suitable for such 0:01:09.200 --> 0:01:12.440 a thing. However, I do have that opportunity right now, 0:01:13.120 --> 0:01:17.200 and I figure I would have this chance to kind 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:19.959 of talk to you about a few different speakers I 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:23.400 had the chance to to witness and listen to while 0:01:23.440 --> 0:01:26.720 I was here at think two thousand eighteen, and uh, 0:01:26.760 --> 0:01:29.720 these were several talks given by various experts, including a 0:01:29.720 --> 0:01:33.960 few who have achieved celebrity status beyond just uh, the 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:36.920 the tech conference level. And I don't think I could 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:42.360 talk about any of these presentations as a full episode 0:01:42.360 --> 0:01:45.200 without doing a ton more research to flesh it out, 0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:48.920 to give background, because these presentations were each about forty 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:52.560 minutes thirty forty minutes long, and so you know, to 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:55.160 make a what usually ends up being about a forty 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:58.080 five minute long podcast about a thirty minute talk, you 0:01:58.120 --> 0:02:00.360 can't do that without patting it, which I'm not gonna do. 0:02:00.560 --> 0:02:02.960 That's an insult to you, guys. You deserve better than that, 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:07.040 or without doing a lot of background information to flesh 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:10.760 things out to provide context. And while I could, in 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:13.480 theory do that, there's only so many hours in the day. 0:02:13.600 --> 0:02:15.639 So what we're gonna do instead is I'm going to 0:02:15.720 --> 0:02:18.320 tell you about three of the speakers I've seen and 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:21.040 the stuff that they covered, and that will be each 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:23.960 of the three segments of this podcast. And I think 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:26.320 it's pretty interesting. They were a fascinating group of people. 0:02:26.639 --> 0:02:28.320 And up first was someone who is kind of a 0:02:28.440 --> 0:02:33.680 rock star in science. That would be Neil Degrass Tyson. 0:02:33.840 --> 0:02:36.200 I'm sure most of you have heard about Neil de 0:02:36.200 --> 0:02:40.040 Grass Tyson. Maybe you've watched television programs that he's hosted, 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:45.000 or heard him chime in on scientific discussions on various venues, 0:02:45.000 --> 0:02:49.120 whether it's online video, radio shows, TV, all sorts of stuff. 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:52.680 He's uh of course, also made cameo appearances, or at 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:55.679 least a character that is Neil de Grass Tyson made 0:02:55.760 --> 0:02:58.839 cameo appearances and epic rap battles of history. It wasn't 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:01.520 actually Neil Degrass Tyson was obviously an actor playing him. 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:05.119 But he's not just an accomplished scientist. He's a famous 0:03:05.160 --> 0:03:09.360 science communicator. So he uses his knowledge and humor and 0:03:09.440 --> 0:03:14.760 other uh social uh strategies to talk about science with 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:17.560 the general public and to explain it and to to 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:20.800 get enthusiasm behind it. He presented a talk here at 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:24.360 THINK two thousand eighteen called the Knowledge of Nature and 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:29.080 the Nature of Knowledge. Now, his presentation didn't speak directly 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:32.040 to the theme of technology, but much of what he 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:35.560 had to say was relevant to tech, particularly the way 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:39.200 people who work in tech communicate their work to the public. 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:42.760 And he began by talking about what we are able 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:47.320 to observe directly using our five primary senses, those of 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:51.080 course being site, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. Now he 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:54.280 acknowledged that we actually have other senses on top of 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:58.160 these five. You could argue a whole list of different senses, 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:01.480 like the ability to sense pain, which is related to 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:05.760 but not completely encompassed by touch. But these are generally 0:04:06.160 --> 0:04:10.640 agreed upon as the five basic senses, and they obviously 0:04:10.720 --> 0:04:15.960 have limits. So let's take an example. Our site is limited. 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:19.360 Not only can we not focus to an infinite distance, 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:23.160 Eventually the focal point will exceed what even the keenest 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:26.640 eyed person can see. We can also only see a 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:30.160 band of the spectrum of light. We call it the 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:33.720 visible spectrum. Obviously, you know that's that's all the light 0:04:33.800 --> 0:04:36.720 that human beings are capable of perceiving with their sight. 0:04:37.360 --> 0:04:41.160 But there's obviously light outside of that spectrum. There's ultraviolet light, 0:04:41.200 --> 0:04:44.200 there's infrared light, and we know it exists, but we 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:47.919 cannot directly observe it with our eyes. And beyond that 0:04:47.960 --> 0:04:52.200 there are other electromagnetic frequencies that we know exist, but 0:04:52.400 --> 0:04:56.479 again we cannot observe them using only our five senses. 0:04:56.920 --> 0:05:01.280 There are similar cases for our other senses, right, Like 0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:04.679 there's limits to what we can hear. We can hear 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:08.360 at a certain spectrum of sound frequencies. Typically we call 0:05:08.440 --> 0:05:12.440 it twenty hurts to twenty thou hurts and anything in between. 0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:15.760 That that's the the average range of human hearing. And 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:18.520 of course that range decreases as we get older. As 0:05:18.560 --> 0:05:22.479 we get older, our ability to hear to perceive those 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:25.920 upper level frequencies, the ones that are at the twenty 0:05:26.360 --> 0:05:30.480 level um, that decreases over time. So we're are our 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:35.000 range narrows as we get older, and we know obviously 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:38.039 that there are frequencies outside of that. So he was 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:42.520 pointing out that we have limitations. It's not that our 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:45.440 senses are total crap. He was pointing out that there's 0:05:45.480 --> 0:05:47.599 way more out there in the universe than we can 0:05:47.640 --> 0:05:53.479 observe directly, and that, uh, we know this through science 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:57.200 and technology. We cannot directly experience it as human beings 0:05:57.520 --> 0:06:00.039 in ways that we can make sense of using the 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:02.720 five basic senses, but we've learned a lot about it 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:05.359 using science and technology, and you can even think of 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:10.200 technology as applied science, because without science, there's really no technology. 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:13.960 With these scientific tools, we can then extend our understanding 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:18.119 of the universe. We can make observations, we can develop hypotheses, 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:21.760 we can test those hypotheses to see if they have merit, 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:25.400 and we can have other people test those hypotheses. We 0:06:25.440 --> 0:06:29.279 can even have them use different methods to test those hypotheses, 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:33.039 and as long as those results keep coming back, then 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:35.640 we can be reasonably confident that we've hit on something. 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:38.120 This is the basis of the scientific method. In fact, 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:40.640 Neil deGrasse Tyson took some time to talk about the 0:06:40.680 --> 0:06:44.800 scientific method and stress the importance of testing ideas and 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:47.839 have others test those same ideas, both with an approach 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:50.960 that is similar to the one you took when you 0:06:51.120 --> 0:06:54.479 first tested it and with other entirely different approaches to 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:56.839 make sure that they come to the same result. And 0:06:56.880 --> 0:06:59.920 if everyone gets more or less the same answer through 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:03.159 their various tests, and those tests are considered to be 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:06.960 well designed, you can feel reasonably sure that the idea 0:07:07.040 --> 0:07:10.560 you had, the observation you made, the conclusion you came 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:14.480 to is close to an actual truth as close as 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:17.480 we can reasonably get, and therefore we just kind of 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:21.440 say it's true, because I mean, otherwise you're being really, 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:24.320 really particular. And if you argue that we can never 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:29.160 know the absolute truth, you might be right, but it's 0:07:29.200 --> 0:07:33.840 also kind of impractical. So at some point you just say, 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:36.080 all right, this is good enough, this is close enough 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:38.160 to truth for us to call it that. He was 0:07:38.200 --> 0:07:42.680 also careful to differentiate the concept of proof from evidence. 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:46.160 He talked about proofs in mathematical terms and said, no 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:49.760 good scientists would ever use the word proof when talking 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:52.640 about his or her work. You can find evidence to 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:56.520 support your claims, but not proof. Proofs are for math, 0:07:56.800 --> 0:07:59.560 not for science. This goes back to something else I 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:02.720 had mentioned and that I had witnessed earlier in the 0:08:02.600 --> 0:08:06.920 h the conference where Chilia Bosquini was talking about lattice 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:11.720 based cryptography and mathematical proofs, and the person she was 0:08:11.760 --> 0:08:16.760 talking to was interpreting proof as evidence. So he was saying, 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:20.320 isn't the fact that computers have had so much trouble 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:26.840 with large factors, large number of factoring that that's proof 0:08:27.520 --> 0:08:31.200 that it is a hard problem. And so they were 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:33.040 both using a word, but they were using it in 0:08:33.120 --> 0:08:36.480 different ways, and there was a disconnect there. There was 0:08:36.520 --> 0:08:39.160 a miscommunication going on, and I didn't want to butt 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:41.160 in because it didn't want to be a smarty pants. 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:44.920 But it was interesting to see this breakdown in communication 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:50.160 because they're using two separate sets of terminologies that share 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:54.600 a common a common lexicography, like they're all lexicons that 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:57.120 are exactly the same, but the meanings are different and 0:08:57.160 --> 0:09:00.520 that's the problem. So then Neil Degrass Tyson went on 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:04.800 to talk about the difference between accuracy and precision. He 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:07.760 used a simple question, and that question is what time 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:10.720 is it? So his first answer was it's two thousand eighteen, 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:13.160 which is accurate, or at least it's accurate as of 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:17.000 the recording of this podcast. I'm recording it on March eighteen. 0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:21.199 But even though the answer is accurate, it's not very precise. 0:09:21.320 --> 0:09:23.400 It doesn't go to a very good level of precision. 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:26.720 It's not useful. Typically, like if I ask you what 0:09:26.840 --> 0:09:28.640 time is it because I need to figure out if 0:09:28.679 --> 0:09:31.839 I'm going to be late to a meeting I'm rushing 0:09:31.880 --> 0:09:33.800 off to, and you just give me the year. That 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:36.800 doesn't give me enough information to know whether or not 0:09:36.840 --> 0:09:39.080 I need to take a car or if I can 0:09:39.120 --> 0:09:41.720 take a bike ride to get there. However, you could 0:09:41.760 --> 0:09:44.400 also air the other way, where you have a lot 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:46.480 of precision but not a lot of accuracy. So his 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:50.560 second answer said, oh, it's oh, seven hours, forty four minutes, 0:09:50.600 --> 0:09:53.920 twenty two seconds and thirty seven milliseconds. Now that answer 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:56.400 is precise, but it could also be wrong. What if 0:09:56.440 --> 0:10:01.080 it's forty five minutes, so it's off by a whole minute. Yeah, 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:03.440 you had this huge level of precision, but your accuracy 0:10:03.520 --> 0:10:06.640 was off. Moreover, because you went to such a level 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:11.480 of precision down to the millisecond, you cannot possibly be 0:10:11.600 --> 0:10:16.320 accurate because by the time you finish telling someone what 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:19.040 time it is, it will be a different time. And 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:22.599 so when was it four minutes, twenty two seconds and 0:10:22.640 --> 0:10:25.400 thirty seven milliseconds? Was it when you started telling the 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:27.880 person what time it was? Was it? The end of 0:10:27.920 --> 0:10:32.320 that precision without accuracy is not very useful either, was 0:10:32.360 --> 0:10:37.000 his point. And uh, his this was to say that 0:10:37.160 --> 0:10:40.880 accuracy and precision are both important, and the level of 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:44.280 precision you should use when you're communicating something to others 0:10:44.720 --> 0:10:47.520 is dependent upon what you're trying to accomplish. You could 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:50.760 always get more precise, but sometimes that reaches a level 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:53.240 that is no longer of any real use. And I 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:56.000 can identify with this idea. See when I construct an 0:10:56.000 --> 0:10:58.320 episode of tech stuff, when I'm researching and writing up 0:10:58.320 --> 0:11:01.679 my notes, I frequently have to figure out where should 0:11:01.720 --> 0:11:05.559 I start? Where's my starting point for the episode, based 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:08.280 upon whatever topic it is that I'm covering. Now, Rarely 0:11:08.520 --> 0:11:11.760 do I start right at the quote unquote beginning of 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:15.160 a technology's creation. And that's because it's usually helpful to 0:11:15.400 --> 0:11:19.400 understand things that were happening before someone, more likely a 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:24.200 string of someone's invented the technology. Without having that understanding 0:11:24.320 --> 0:11:28.079 of what preceded the invention, you don't really have enough 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:31.200 context to understand what is going on and why it's important. 0:11:31.520 --> 0:11:33.800 Neil deGrasse Tyson went on to use an example of 0:11:33.800 --> 0:11:37.600 his own as he spoke about the Earth's orbit. The 0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:41.240 shorthand description of the Earth's orbit around the Sun. Something 0:11:41.240 --> 0:11:43.320 that you might have learned in elementary school is that 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:46.680 it's an elliptical orbit. But that's not entirely accurate. First 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:49.360 of all, the Earth's orbit is only a slight deviation 0:11:49.600 --> 0:11:52.440 from a circle. You could argue that it's closer to 0:11:52.480 --> 0:11:55.800 being a circular orbit than it is an elliptical orbit. 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:59.600 But despite this, many textbooks exaggerate the path that the 0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:03.080 Earth's orbit takes to show that's not a perfect circle. 0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:06.199 But even if you were to say it's more circular 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:10.760 than elliptical, that's not entirely precise because the Earth's Moon 0:12:11.040 --> 0:12:14.360 affects the Earth's orbital path. Now, the Moon does not 0:12:15.080 --> 0:12:18.600 actually revolve around the Earth. Instead, the Earth and the 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:21.839 Moon are in a dance together. They rotate around a 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:25.320 common center of gravity between the two. This is true 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:28.840 for any two objects that are revolving around one another. 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:33.440 They revolve around a common point of center of gravity. Now, 0:12:33.480 --> 0:12:36.920 as it happens because of the masses of the two 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:40.760 the two bodies, the Earth and the Moon, the center 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:44.480 of gravity happens to be located below the Earth's surface. 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:46.839 But it's not at the center of the Earth. If 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:48.560 it if it were at the center of the Earth, 0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:52.160 then you could say while the Moon essentially revolves around 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:55.480 the Earth. Instead, it's about a thousand miles below the 0:12:55.520 --> 0:12:59.400 Earth's surface on whichever side the Moon is on at 0:12:59.440 --> 0:13:02.000 that time. So, in other words, the center of gravity 0:13:02.040 --> 0:13:07.720 moves around the Earth's interior as the Moon continues through 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:10.520 its orbit, which has the effect of creating a little 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:13.960 wobble in the Earth's orbit. So you can really think 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:16.080 of the Earth's orbit around the Sun as a bit 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:19.240 of a a circle that's made up of a kind 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:22.240 of squiggly line. Then that squiggly line is the little 0:13:22.360 --> 0:13:26.080 jiggle that the Earth has because of the the Moon, 0:13:26.400 --> 0:13:29.480 the Moon's poll on the Earth. But even that is 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:33.480 not truly precise, because the Sun in our Solar system 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:37.520 is orbiting around the galactic center of the Milky Way 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:41.280 galaxy and it's not in the same plane as Earth's orbit. 0:13:41.400 --> 0:13:45.800 So while from one perspective you could say the Earth 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:48.880 has a wobbly circular orbit, if you were looking at 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:51.440 the Sun directly in front of it as it was 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:54.760 moving through its galactical orbital path, you would see that 0:13:54.800 --> 0:13:57.360 the planets of our Solar system are moving around and 0:13:57.400 --> 0:14:02.640 what it amounts to a spiral Because take any arbitrary 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:06.600 starting position of the Earth with respect to its position 0:14:06.640 --> 0:14:08.480 with the Sun, and you say, all right, this is 0:14:08.480 --> 0:14:12.800 the day zero, and we're gonna go three days around 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:15.520 so that we return to our point of origin. The 0:14:15.559 --> 0:14:18.520 thing is you'll never return to that exact fixed point 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:23.600 in space, because the Solar system itself is uh rotating 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:26.840 around this galactic center in the Milky Way. So while 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:31.240 you will return to your same relative position in reference 0:14:31.280 --> 0:14:34.080 to the Sun, you won't be in the same fixed 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:37.480 point in space because the whole system has been moving 0:14:37.520 --> 0:14:40.880 this entire time. So you can't really even say it's 0:14:40.920 --> 0:14:43.120 a circle. It's more like a spiral when you when 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:46.480 you take your reference point as the galaxy as opposed 0:14:46.520 --> 0:14:50.080 to just the Solar system. Uh. Again, the whole purpose 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:52.320 of this was to give an example to say we 0:14:52.400 --> 0:14:55.640 have to make choices when we communicate information to others. 0:14:56.040 --> 0:14:57.960 At what point do we need to draw the line 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:00.880 and say, okay, that's enough detail. Anything more than that 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:04.880 is either confusing or it's boring, or it's both. And 0:15:04.920 --> 0:15:06.920 then we make those determinations and hope that we can 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:10.520 inspire people to look further into subjects. Later on, Neil 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:14.360 deGrasse Tyson's presentation concluded with a discussion about how to 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:17.440 convey information to your audience in a way that matters 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:21.800 to them. He showed examples of science incorporated into pop culture. 0:15:22.400 --> 0:15:25.880 He specifically played a clip from the movie Frozen and 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:29.280 then he danced around on stage as Elsa sang frozen 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:33.800 fractals all around because the word fractal was included in 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:37.040 a Disney film and sung by a Disney princess. And 0:15:37.080 --> 0:15:41.480 he said, this is amazing progress. He said, you need 0:15:41.560 --> 0:15:43.840 to find out what your audience cares about and then 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:46.680 find ways to use that as a means of explaining 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:50.720 scientific or technological ideas to them. And he used football 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:53.160 as his own example, showing off a series of fairly 0:15:53.200 --> 0:15:56.280 recent tweets he had made during football games to get 0:15:56.280 --> 0:15:59.880 across scientific principles. Now, those tweets sparked a lot of 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:03.280 conversation and humor and jokes around his followers and other 0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:05.760 people who saw those messages, and it meant that for 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:09.240 a short while at least, people were talking about actual science. 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:12.000 For people in the technology space, that could be a 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:16.440 very valuable lesson because technology gets super complicated, and not 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:21.400 only can the actual mechanics of technology get complex, the 0:16:21.400 --> 0:16:25.480 way it works and the intricacies of how it works. 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:30.560 The way we describe technology can also be really confusing 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:32.320 because we use a lot of jargon, a lot of 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:36.600 terminology that is not in the common parlance, and we 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:40.520 use a lot of shorthand to communicate complicated ideas. To 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:45.240 a newcomer, this comes across as incredibly intimidating, very dense, 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:48.640 and difficult to understand. Before you can even get to 0:16:48.720 --> 0:16:53.520 the point where you comprehend the actual concepts that underlie technology, 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:56.239 you first have to get a grip on the language 0:16:56.280 --> 0:16:59.360 that's being used. Then you have to struggle with that 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:03.480 language to understand what is actually happening with any technological, 0:17:04.080 --> 0:17:08.200 uh product, or service. And if technologies can use analogies 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:11.679 or stories or examples to explain their work, If if 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:15.800 technologists rather can use those tools to explain what it 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:18.159 is they're doing and what they're they're the things they 0:17:18.160 --> 0:17:22.240 work on, what they do, then the general public may 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:25.520 end up having a more enthusiastic response because they'll have 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:30.440 a touchstone to understand what exactly is going on. Now, 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:34.080 that's easier said than done, because you you gotta you 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:37.320 gotta walk a line. You don't want to simplify matters 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:41.480 to the point where people are going to misunderstand what 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:44.960 you're saying. So with some subjects like artificial intelligence or 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:48.680 quantum computing, going too broad or too simple will make 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:51.920 people think that the technology is akin to magic because 0:17:52.320 --> 0:17:55.760 you've you've abstracted it and you've simplified it so much 0:17:56.320 --> 0:17:59.240 that it just sounds like it does things that nothing 0:17:59.280 --> 0:18:03.320 could truly possibly do, or you give them the idea 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:06.399 that this technology is capable of doing things that we 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:09.880 really can't do yet. So, like the science lesson about 0:18:09.920 --> 0:18:12.160 the Earth's orbit, there's a balance we have to achieve 0:18:12.280 --> 0:18:15.320 when we're explaining these things to someone new to the 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:18.320 subject matter. And that's true across every industry. It's not 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:22.119 just science or technology. I mean, there are plenty of 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:27.160 discussions about business and particularly finance. Law is another example. 0:18:27.720 --> 0:18:31.600 Whenever I read any stories about finance or law or business, 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:34.320 I get to a point where I realize I've read 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:37.439 a paragraph and I have absolutely no idea what that 0:18:37.480 --> 0:18:40.280 paragraph meant. I can reread it and I can say 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:43.160 to myself, I individually I understand what all of these 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:46.720 words mean, but collectively I don't get what they're trying 0:18:46.720 --> 0:18:49.359 to say. And you know that that comes with the 0:18:49.440 --> 0:18:53.240 territory of having specialization in any field. Eventually get to 0:18:53.280 --> 0:18:57.200 a point where the language you use is extremely efficient. 0:18:57.320 --> 0:18:59.880 If you're talking to someone else who shares your knowledge, 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:03.800 you can have very deep very quick conversations based upon 0:19:03.840 --> 0:19:06.480 this shared language. But if you try to communicate to 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:09.119 anyone outside of that, you get the deer in the 0:19:09.119 --> 0:19:11.960 headlights look. Or at least that's what I get whenever 0:19:12.000 --> 0:19:14.400 I try and talk to anyone about finance or law 0:19:14.520 --> 0:19:16.840 or anything like that. So that's why I try to 0:19:16.880 --> 0:19:19.280 structure episodes the way I do. It's not that I 0:19:19.320 --> 0:19:22.320 don't have faith in my audience. I have a great audience. 0:19:22.359 --> 0:19:25.280 I have a really smart and engaging audience. It's that 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:28.680 I never know when it might be someone's first introduction 0:19:28.880 --> 0:19:31.680 to that specific subject matter, and I want to make 0:19:31.720 --> 0:19:34.760 sure that I can build a foundation before diving more 0:19:34.800 --> 0:19:37.639 deeply into any given topic. When we come back from 0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:40.680 the break, i'll tell you about the presentation a famous 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:45.760 futurist gave at IBM Think. But first let's take a 0:19:45.800 --> 0:19:56.080 break and thank our sponsor. The next famous person I 0:19:56.080 --> 0:19:58.879 saw give a presentation at Think two thousand eighteen was 0:19:59.000 --> 0:20:03.600 Dr michio Aku. Dr Cocku is a theoretical physicist and 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:06.760 a professor at City College of New York. He's also 0:20:06.800 --> 0:20:10.080 an author. A futurist, UH that would be someone who 0:20:10.080 --> 0:20:13.680 predicts how technology and advancements and science will change our 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:16.680 world in the decades to come very close to my heart. 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:19.359 Since I used to host a show called Forward Thinking. 0:20:19.400 --> 0:20:22.400 In fact, I often would read about Minchio Okaku's work 0:20:22.920 --> 0:20:25.760 as a host of Forward Thinking, I would refer to 0:20:25.840 --> 0:20:28.280 that as part of the research I did for lots 0:20:28.280 --> 0:20:31.399 of different topics. He's a frequent guest or host on 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:34.560 television series and radio programs, and he talks a lot 0:20:34.600 --> 0:20:38.479 about his work and predictions regularly. He has specifically studied 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:41.639 quantum mechanics and string theory. Now, I've talked an awful 0:20:41.680 --> 0:20:44.040 lot about quantum mechanics already in this mini series, so 0:20:44.080 --> 0:20:46.240 I'm not going to rehash that. But what the heck 0:20:46.320 --> 0:20:50.720 is string theory? Well, string theory is a family of 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:55.840 theories that attempt to describe why fundamental forces and particles 0:20:55.880 --> 0:21:00.040 found in nature behave the way they do. They go 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:05.159 into topic in depth. Uh, it would require a whole 0:21:05.240 --> 0:21:08.560 suite of episodes to explain this. And there are multiple 0:21:08.880 --> 0:21:12.320 types of string theory. There's not just one string theory. 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:16.520 There are competing theories. Um. I would rapidly find myself 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:19.719 out of depth if I tried to tackle the entire field, 0:21:19.760 --> 0:21:23.040 and even sum summarize it in uh, you know, in 0:21:23.080 --> 0:21:27.040 a way that was at least semi comprehensive, but I 0:21:27.080 --> 0:21:30.119 can give a very super high level idea. In general, 0:21:30.480 --> 0:21:35.440 these theories describe forces and particles as one dimensional strings 0:21:35.480 --> 0:21:38.879 that vibrate in a way that gives those forces and 0:21:38.960 --> 0:21:42.920 particles their properties. Some of them are closed loop strings 0:21:43.000 --> 0:21:46.160 that are like rubber bands. Dr Cocu has talked about 0:21:46.200 --> 0:21:50.040 supersymmetric string theory in particular. That's one of the flavors 0:21:50.080 --> 0:21:53.600 of string theory, and it's really fascinating stuff that at 0:21:53.680 --> 0:21:57.240 least I'm told makes sense from a mathematical perspective. Now 0:21:57.240 --> 0:21:59.320 I say I'm told because the math is far too 0:21:59.320 --> 0:22:02.600 complex for me to understand, so I certainly can't look 0:22:02.600 --> 0:22:04.800 at and say, oh, yeah, no, that holds up. But 0:22:04.880 --> 0:22:07.960 as of right now and for the foreseeable future, we 0:22:08.000 --> 0:22:11.919 have no way to directly observe and test string theory, 0:22:12.359 --> 0:22:14.199 which has led some people to say that's not so 0:22:14.280 --> 0:22:17.879 much a scientific theory as it is a philosophy because 0:22:17.880 --> 0:22:20.520 you cannot test or observe it. But we'll set that 0:22:20.600 --> 0:22:24.639 whole argument aside. Dr Kaku, who took the main stage 0:22:24.640 --> 0:22:28.439 here at IBM focus largely unwary thinks humanity will be 0:22:28.440 --> 0:22:31.520 headed in the next few decades with the space the 0:22:31.560 --> 0:22:35.119 space missions in particular, he pointed out that today's computers 0:22:35.200 --> 0:22:39.040 still depend upon silicon chips and Moore's law, but he 0:22:39.040 --> 0:22:42.600 also talked about the ultimate limits of that technology, and 0:22:42.640 --> 0:22:45.159 as I mentioned in this series, you can only shrink 0:22:45.200 --> 0:22:49.440 components down so far using traditional silicon chip technology. Once 0:22:49.440 --> 0:22:53.639 you shrink below certain thresholds, quantum effects begin to override 0:22:53.680 --> 0:22:57.280 your classical computer design, and electrons no longer follow the 0:22:57.320 --> 0:23:00.000 pathways you've made for them, and our electronics are tod 0:23:00.000 --> 0:23:02.600 in it upon electrons doing what we want them to do. 0:23:02.960 --> 0:23:05.840 At the quantum level, electrons do lots of strange things, 0:23:06.080 --> 0:23:09.520 things we can't necessarily control or predict, and that means 0:23:09.800 --> 0:23:13.320 our electronics and computers that are built on these components 0:23:14.280 --> 0:23:18.160 cannot really work properly. They will will become unreliable, they'll 0:23:18.200 --> 0:23:21.600