Ideas worth spreading

Playlist

Can you believe your eyes?

Magic tricks, optical illusions, death-defying feats, digital lies. Believe it or not.

Optical illusions show how we see

Beau Lotto's color games puzzle your vision, but they also spotlight what you can't normally see: how your brain works. This fun, first-hand look at your own versatile sense of sight reveals how evolution tints your perception of what's really out there.

Art that craves your attention

In this charming talk, artist Aparna Rao shows us her latest work: cool, cartoony sculptures (with neat robotic tricks underneath them) that play with your perception -- and crave your attention. Take a few minutes to simply be delighted.

Helder Guimarães

A magical search for a coincidence

Small coincidences. They happen all the time and yet, they pass us by because we are not looking for them. In a delightfully subtle trick, magician Helder Guimarães demonstrates with a deck of cards, a dollar bill and a stuffed giraffe.

Two nerdy obsessions meet -- and it's magic

David Kwong is a magician who makes crossword puzzles -- in other words, a pretty nerdy guy. And for his next trick ...

Danielle Feinberg

The magic ingredient that brings Pixar movies to life

Danielle Feinberg, Pixar's director of photography, creates stories with soul and wonder using math, science and code. Go behind the scenes of Finding Nemo, Toy Story, Brave, WALL-E and more, and discover how Pixar interweaves art and science to create fantastic worlds where the things you imagine can become real. This talk comes from the PBS special "TED Talks: Science & Wonder."

Brain magic

First, Keith Barry shows us how our brains can fool our bodies -- in a trick that works via podcast too. Then he involves the audience in some jaw-dropping (and even a bit dangerous) feats of brain magic.

Arthur Benjamin

A performance of "Mathemagic"

In a lively show, mathemagician Arthur Benjamin races a team of calculators to figure out 3-digit squares, solves another massive mental equation and guesses a few birthdays. How does he do it? He’ll tell you.

How I held my breath for 17 minutes

In this highly personal talk from TEDMED, magician and stuntman David Blaine describes what it took to hold his breath underwater for 17 minutes -- a world record (only two minutes shorter than this entire talk!) -- and what his often death-defying work means to him. Warning: do NOT try this at home.

Visual illusions that show how we (mis)think

Al Seckel, an expert on illusions, explores the perceptual illusions that fool our brains. He shares loads of cool tricks to prove that not only are we easily fooled, we kind of like it.

The magic of truth and lies (and iPods)

Using three iPods like magical props, Marco Tempest spins a clever, surprisingly heartfelt meditation on truth and lies, art and emotion.

Close-up card magic with a twist

Like your uncle at a family party, the rumpled Swedish doctor Lennart Green says, "Pick a card, any card." But what he does with those cards is pure magic -- flabbergasting, lightning-fast, how-does-he-do-it? magic.