The Power of Transportation | Origins: The Journey of Humankind

less than 1m read

·Nov 11, 2024

[music playing] [motor revving]

JASON SILVA: What does it take to power a global civilization to connect billions of people across continents? It takes the power of transportation. From the beginning, speed and strength were paramount in the hunt, on the battlefield, for holding together far-flung empires. We sought new forms of power, harnessing the forces of nature to drive us forward—the horse, the wheel, steam power, jet engine. Every new innovation powered our next great leap.

Transportation has become our exoskeleton allowing us to transcend our biology. [music playing] Faster than sound, farther than the moon, our inventions give us a level of power we never imagined. With our machines we carved through solid rock, tunneled beneath the sea floor, connecting the world, mixing distant cultures. Freedom of movement has given us freedom of mind.

The flow of people and materials exposes us to new ideas and new understanding. This is the story of how transportation turned society inside out, how engines and animals powered the rise of civilization, and how the innovations that drive humanity forward made us modern. This is "Origins."

Derivatives of inverse functions: from table | AP Calculus AB | Khan Academy

Alaskan Timelapse - Behind the Scenes | Life Below Zero

View All

How can a dandelion hold back a flood? | Initiating the butterfly effect for good

I’m setting off on a journey around the world to follow the butterfly effect. I want to see how even a single action on one side of the globe can have a profound environmental impact on the other. My journey begins in Germany, with a family rewilding thei…

How to Make a Hero

[Music] Stanford University 1973, professor Philip Zimbardo conducts one of the most infamous experiments in the history of psychology, known as the Stanford Prison Experiment. This dark study of human behavior had student volunteers acting out the roles …

Don't Start a Blog, Start a Cult - Mr. Money Mustache

The first question I had for you, not on the paper, is if I want to start a cult-like Mustache Ian’s. What are your pro tips? That’s a good question, and if I had prepared, I would have brought my little talk that I gave a few years ago at a blogger conf…

Introduction to vertex form of a quadratic

It might not be obvious when you look at these three equations, but they’re the exact same equation. They’ve just been algebraically manipulated. They are in different forms. This is the equation and sometimes called standard form for a quadratic. This is…

What Can Frogs See That We Can't?

[Applause] Imagine you’re in a space suit drifting away from the Sun. Rather than dwell on how you ended up here, open the P bay doors. “How?” “I’m sorry, Derek, I’m afraid I can’t do that.” You decide to collect data for your Google science fair proje…

Charlie Munger: How to Make Your First $1 Million (5 Steps)

Charlie Munger is currently a billionaire with an estimated net worth of 2.4 billion dollars as of 2022. However, that wasn’t always the case. While Charlie didn’t grow up poor by any means, he wasn’t lucky enough to be born into a rich and prominent fami…

The Power of Transportation | Origins: The Journey of Humankind

More Articles