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."

Setting Up a Beaver Trap | Life Below Zero

Climate Change is Boring

View All

Graphing a circle from its standard equation | Mathematics II | High School Math | Khan Academy

[Voiceover] Whereas to graph the circle (x + 5) squared plus (y - 5) squared equals four. I know what you’re thinking. What’s all of this silliness on the right-hand side? This is actually just the view we use when we’re trying to debug things on Khan Aca…

Worked example: Continuity at a point | Limits and continuity | AP Calculus AB | Khan Academy

We have the graph of y is equal to g of x right over here. What I want to do is check which of these statements are actually true and then check them off. Like always, I encourage you to pause the video and see if you can work through this on your own. L…

The Warren Buffett Scandal That Nearly Destroyed Wall Street

In 1991, Warren Buffett, the world’s best investor and most humble billionaire, got caught up in the middle of a scandal that rocked Wall Street and nearly destroyed his personal reputation forever. U.S. Investment Bank Solomon Brothers, of which Buffett …

The First Amendment | National Constitution Center | Khan Academy

[Kim] Hi, this is Kim from Khan Academy. And today, I’m learning more about the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The First Amendment is one of the most important amendments to the Constitution, if not the most important. It reads: “Congress shall…

Photographing America’s Wounded Soldiers in Iraq | Nat Geo Live

In 2004, I got a call from LIFE magazine. They said we have this incredible assignment for you. It’s to photograph the wounded coming out of Fallujah. When we flew in, this is one of the first scenes I saw. This is on my birthday in 2004, and it was durin…

Worked example: Lewis diagram of the cyanide ion (CN⁻) | AP Chemistry | Khan Academy

In this video, we’re going to try to get more practice constructing Lewis diagrams, and we’re going to try to do that for a cyanide anion. So, this is interesting; this is the first time we’re constructing a Lewis diagram for an ion. So, pause this video …

The Power of Transportation | Origins: The Journey of Humankind

More Articles