Paul Debevec's digital inventions have powered the breathtaking visual effects in films like The Matrix, Superman Returns, King Kong and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Ronald Rael draws, builds, writes, 3D-prints and teaches about architecture as a cultural endeavor deeply influenced by a unique upbringing in a desolate alpine valley in southern Colorado.

Gregory Heyworth uses spectral imaging technology to uncover lost classics that could rewrite history.

Benoit Mandelbrot's work led the world to a deeper understanding of fractals, a broad and powerful tool in the study of roughness, both in nature and in humanity's works.

A real-life circus composer, Sxip Shirey makes haunting melodies from familiar objects and reconfigured sounds.

Computer vision expert Abe Davis pioneers methods to extract audio from silent digital videos, even footage shot on ordinary consumer cameras.

Gabe Barcia-Colombo creates madcap art inspired both by Renaissance era curiosity cabinets and the modern-day digital chronicling of everyday life. Think: miniature people projected in objects and a DNA Vending Machine.

Shih Chieh Huang doesn’t make art that’s meant to be admired from afar. He dissects and disassembles the detritus of our lives—household appliances, lights, computer parts, toys—and transforms them into surreal experiences.

Laurie Santos studies primate psychology and monkeynomics -- testing problems in human psychology on primates, who (not so surprisingly) have many of the same predictable irrationalities we do.

Kate Hartman creates devices and interfaces for humans, houseplants, and glaciers. Her work playfully questions the ways in which we relate and communicate.

Philippe Starck designs deluxe objects and posh condos and hotels around the world. Always witty and engaged, he takes special delight in rethinking everyday objects.

Alan Crickmore works with Storybook Dads, a charity that promotes family ties between prisoners and their children.

Rodin Lyasoff makes improbable objects fly.

Tom Shannon's mixed-material sculpture seems to levitate -- often it actually does -- thanks to powerful magnets and clever arrangements of suspension wire. He designed the TED Prize trophy.

TED Fellow Moriba Jah studies and predicts the motion of objects in space in an effort to make space safe, secure, and sustainable.

Logging countless hours behind an X-ray machine, Nick Veasey illuminates the labyrinthine secrets hidden beneath the exteriors of everyday objects.

The writer and presenter of the BBC Radio 4 series "A History of the World in 100 Objects" and the accompanying book.

The first MacArthur-winning cartoonist, Ben Katchor has collected both cult and mainstream hat tips for his wry, poetic creations that find uncanny humor (and color) in the commonplace deeds of a bygone New York City.

Ivan Poupyrev works at the forefront of interaction design, using technology as a raw ingredient to change the way we interact with the physical world.

Chip Colwell is an archaeologist who tries to answer the tangled question: Who owns the past?

Inspired by art in all its forms, Daniel Lismore combines multiple inspirations from around the world into vibrant expressions of cultural appreciation.

Whether he’s taking on insecure hotspots, inept passwords, or lax OS designers, James Lyne exposes technology’s vulnerabilities while elevating the security awareness of everyday users.

Rajesh Rao seeks to understand the human brain through computational modeling, on two fronts: developing computer models of our minds, and using tech to decipher the 4,000-year-old lost script of the Indus Valley civilization.

Astrophysicist, cosmologist and Nobel Prize winner George Smoot studies the cosmic microwave background radiation -- the afterglow of the Big Bang. His pioneering research into deep space and time is uncovering the structure of the universe itself.

With charm and incisive wit, Christoph Niemann sketches the moments of our shared experience.

From the micro scale to the building scale, Neri Oxman imagines and creates structures and objects that are inspired, informed and engineered by, for and with nature.

A part of the Bangalore-based artist duo Pors & Rao, TED Senior Fellow Aparna Rao works with electro-mechanical systems and interactive installations.

Walter Hood imagines urban spaces as a new kind of public sculpture -- full of beauty, strangeness and idiosyncrasy.

Inventor Saul Griffith looks for elegant ways to make real things, from low-cost eyeglasses to a kite that tows boats. His latest projects include open-source inventions and elegant new ways to generate power.

Known as "Captain Organic," Ross Lovegrove embraces nature as the inspiration for his "fat-free" design. Each object he creates -- be it bottle, chair, staircase or car -- is reduced to its essential elements. His pieces offer minimal forms of maximum beauty.