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Are you a person existing within a vast universe, or a brain formed spontaneously in a void, hallucinating this very moment? Your experience would almost certainly lead you to believe the former. However, since cosmologists building on the work of the Austrian physicist Ludwig Eduard Boltzmann (1844-1906) suggested that the latter is actually far more likely, it’s created a complex puzzle for logicians, cosmologists and philosophers to try and untangle. Taking viewers on a mind-bending jaunt through modern cosmology, this brief animation from TED-Ed explains why the ‘Boltzmann brain paradox’ was born, the arguments some thinkers use to counter it, and why it’s a useful thought experiment, even if you didn’t just pop into existence to contemplate a thermodynamic puzzle.
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Religion
Hear from blasphemes, sceptics and free-thinkers in this ‘tour of medieval unbelief’
52 minutes
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Ecology and environmental sciences
The ancient Hawaiian myth that sparked a modern ecological breakthrough
10 minutes
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Music
‘Dun dun dun duuun!’ Why Beethoven’s Fifth sticks in the head and stirs the heart
5 minutes
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Art
The irreverent duo who thumbed their noses at the Soviet Union and the US art world
11 minutes
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Computing and artificial intelligence
A scientist’s poor eyesight helped fuel a revolution in computer ‘vision’
9 minutes
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Thinkers and theories
Henri Bergson on why the existence of things precedes their possibility
3 minutes
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Ageing and death
Demystifying death – a palliative care specialist’s practical guide to life’s end
4 minutes
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Future of technology
Is this the future of space travel? Take a luxury ‘cruise’ across the solar system
6 minutes
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Metaphysics
Why mathematical truths exist with or without minds to consider them
8 minutes