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."

Worked example finding area under density curves | AP Statistics | Khan Academy

The Terrifying Real Science Of Avalanches

View All

What Month Begins the New Year? | National Geographic

Looking for an interesting fact to share at your New Year’s party? How about this: New Year’s Day hasn’t always been celebrated on January 1st. The new year that many cultures celebrate falls on January 1st, but this only came into effect in 46 BC when Ju…

Reflections: graph to algebraic rule | Transformational geometry | Grade 8 (TX) | Khan Academy

We’re told that quadrilateral A’B’C’D’ is the image of quadrilateral ABCD after reflection. So we can see ABCD here and A’B’C’D’ right over here. What we want to do is figure out a rule for this transformation. So pause this video and have a go at that by…

Flooding in Miami | Years of Living Dangerously

Jack’s attitude was: “I’m on a journey.” He wants to find out about Miami and wants to meet the people. Nicole: “Hey, Jack. Hello! Hi, my name is Nicole Hernandez-Hammer. I just gave a tour of the town of Shorecrest to jet-black. This is high tide. This …

How to Cleanse Your Beauty Regime of Microplastic | National Geographic

Did you know what that plastics could be hiding in your beauty products? Many body products contain plastics, specifically microplastics. They’re plastics that are really tiny; I mean smaller than a grain of rice. Tiny cosmetics, body washes, and toothpas…

Chase Adam at Startup School NY 2014

Chase Adams, the founder of Watsi. Watsi is the crowdfunding platform for healthcare that lets anyone donate as little as $5 to fund medical care for people in need. So before starting Watsi, Chase traveled, worked, and studied in more than 20 countries. …

Contour plots | Multivariable calculus | Khan Academy

So I have here a three-dimensional graph, um, and that means that it’s representing some kind of function that has a two-dimensional input and a one-dimensional output. So that might look something like f(x, y) = and then just some expression that has a b…

The Power of Transportation | Origins: The Journey of Humankind

More Articles