Filmmaker David Hoffman shares footage from his feature-length documentary Sputnik Mania, which shows how the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik in 1957 led to both the space race and the arms race -- and jump-started science and math education around the world.

Using daring displays of algorithmic trickery, lightning calculator and number wizard Arthur Benjamin mesmerizes audiences with mathematical mystery and beauty.

You're on the trail of a werewolf that's been terrorizing your town. After months of detective work, you've narrowed your suspects to one of five people. You've invited them to dinner with a simple plan: to slip a square of a rare antidote into each of their dinners. Unfortunately, you only have one square left. Can you divide it into perfect fi...

Dutch artist Piet Mondrian's abstract, rectangular paintings inspired mathematicians to create a two-fold challenge. Can you solve the puzzle and get to the lowest score possible? Gordon Hamilton shows how. [TED-Ed Animation by Anton Trofimov]

You've found Leonardo da Vinci's secret vault, secured by a series of combination locks. Fortunately, your treasure map has three codes: 1210, 3211000, and... hmm. The last one appears to be missing. Can you figure out the last number and open the vault? Tanya Khovanova shows how. [TED-Ed Animation by Artrake Studio].

The villainous Dr. Schrödinger has developed a growth ray and intends to create an army of giant cats to terrorize the city. Your team of secret agents has tracked him to his underground lab. You burst in to find ... that it's a trap! Can you escape from Dr. Schrödinger's lair and save the day? Dan Finkel shows how. [TED-Ed Animation by Artrake ...

Oxford's newest science ambassador Marcus du Sautoy is also author of The Times' Sexy Maths column. He'll take you footballing with prime numbers, whopping symmetry groups, higher dimensions and other brow-furrowers.

Max Little is a mathematician whose research includes a breakthrough technique to monitor – and potentially screen for – Parkinson's disease through simple voice recordings.

2012 World Poetry Slam Champion Harry Baker has travelled the world off the strength of his way with words. He combines the nerdiness of being a math student with the hopefulness of being a human.

Your team has developed a probe to study an alien monolith. It needs protective coatings — in red, purple and green — to cope with the environments it passes through. Can you figure out how to apply the colors so the probe survives the trip? Dan Finkel shows how. [TED-Ed Animation by Anton Trofimov].

The family of giants you work for is throwing a fancy dinner party, but there's a problem — the elder giant's favorite shirt is wrinkled! To fix it, you'll need to power up the giant iron. It needs two batteries to work, but the baby giant mixed the working battery pile with the dead pile. Can you test the batteries so that you get a working pai...

Have you ever sat in a doctor's office for hours, despite having an appointment? Has a hotel turned down your reservation because it's full? Have you been bumped off a flight that you paid for? These are all symptoms of overbooking, a practice where businesses sell or book more than their capacity. So why do they do it? Nina Klietsch explains th...

Sharpen your pencils! It’s time to hit the books again, with these TED Talks that take you through a busy day of math, history, gym, lunch, English, science and art. No finals required.

In 2004, Sal Khan, a hedge fund analyst, began making math tutorials for his cousins. Twelve years later, Khan Academy has more than 42 million registered users from 190 countries, with tutorials on subjects from basic math through economics, art history, computer science, health, medicine and more.

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.

An algorithm is a method of solving problems both big and small. Though computers run algorithms constantly, humans can also solve problems with algorithms. David J. Malan explains how algorithms can be used in seemingly simple situations and also complex ones. [Directed by Joyce Stenneke, narrated by David J. Malan].

Your expedition finally stands at the heart of the ancient temple. But as you study the inscriptions in the darkness, two wisps of green smoke burst forth. The walls begin to shake. The giant sandglass begins flowing with less than an hour before it empties, and a rumbling tells you that you don't want to be around when that happens. Can you use...

Think you're good at guessing stats? Guess again. Whether we consider ourselves math people or not, our ability to understand and work with numbers is terribly limited, says data visualization expert Alan Smith. In this delightful talk, Smith explores the mismatch between what we know and what we think we know.

"Where do great ideas come from?" Starting with this question in mind, Vittorio Loreto takes us on a journey to explore a possible mathematical scheme that explains the birth of the new. Learn more about the "adjacent possible" -- the crossroads of what's actual and what's possible -- and how studying the math that drives it could explain how we...

Comic author Rob Reid unveils Copyright Math (TM), a remarkable new field of study based on actual numbers from entertainment industry lawyers and lobbyists.

Web cartoonist Randall Munroe answers simple what-if questions ("what if you hit a baseball moving at the speed of light?") using math, physics, logic and deadpan humor. In this charming talk, a reader's question about Google's data warehouse leads Munroe down a circuitous path to a hilariously over-detailed answer — in which, shhh, you might ac...

When Nicolas Bourbaki applied to the American Mathematical Society in the 1950s, he was already one of the most influential mathematicians of his time. He'd published articles in international journals and his textbooks were required reading. Yet his application was firmly rejected for one simple reason: Nicolas Bourbaki did not exist. How is th...

Greg Lynn is the head of Greg Lynn FORM, an architecture firm known for its boundary-breaking, biomorphic shapes and its embrace of digital tools for design and fabrication.

Journalist Gary Wolf spends his days in pursuit of the most fascinating things. As a contributing editor at Wired, he's written about technology, mushroom hunters, venture capitalists ...

Hannah Fry researches the trends in our civilization and ways we can forecast its future.

Best known as the voice of Roger Rabbit, Charles Fleischer's multi-decade career includes work on stage and on screen, and an online emporium of unusual observations called MonkeyDog.

After astonishing success as a mathematician, code breaker and billionaire hedge fund manager, Jim Simons is mastering yet another field: philanthropy.

Stephen Hawking's scientific investigations shed light on the origins of the cosmos, the nature of time and the ultimate fate of the universe. His bestselling books for a general audience have given an appreciation of physics to millions.

Euclid, known as the "Father of Geometry," developed several of modern geometry's most enduring theorems--but what can we make of his mysterious fifth postulate, the parallel postulate? Jeff Dekofsky shows us how mathematical minds have put the postulate to the test and led to larger questions of how we understand mathematical principles. [Direc...

A shooting star crashes onto Earth and a hideous blob emerges. It creeps and leaps, it glides and slides. It's also unstoppable: no matter what you throw at it, it just re-grows and continues its rampage. The only way to save the planet is to cut the entire blob into precise acute triangles while it sleeps, rendering it inert. Can you stop the b...