Hans Rosling kicked off the second session of Day One of TED07. Rosling was here last year and brought the house down with his informative presentation of historical health data trends. His imaginative data visualization tool, Gapminder, was augmented by his infectiousness. Seeing him on the program again this year I thought, "hmm..." Not to worry. Not only was he factually informative (partially attributable, he says, to the UN opening up their health information databases) but once again highly entertaining. We can no longer look at the world's nations in simplistic "developed/developing" terms. Here's a vintage Rosling line: "My neighbor knows 200 kind of wine and two kinds of countries; I know two kinds of wind (red and white!) and 200 kinds of countries." One more. In talking about historical statistics he said: "I believe stats when they are grandma-verified stats!" And then, the piece de resistance. Rosling takes off his shirt, revealing a superhero-like t-shirt (complete with gold lamé lightning bolt!) and declares that he is going to swallow an 18" long Swedish bayonet as a way of demonstrating that while most of us believe significant African development to be impossible (along the seven key dimensions of human rights, environment, governance, economic growth, education, health and culture), he will show that the seemingly impossible is, indeed, possible. The result?
Now, that's a guy who knows how to close!
How do you follow that? Well, it helps to have a Nobel Prize, which made it easier for the legendary quantum physicist, complexity theorist, etc., Murray Gell-Mann. It's hard to describe the thrill of watching and listening to a brilliant man in his late 70s speak about profound things. Gell-Mann started by honoring the images of his predecessors which surrounded him on stage, particularly Newton and Einstein ("hi Al," he quipped!). Beauty, he said, is a remarkable criterion for determining the accuracy of theories in physics. Why? Because the mathematical simplicity/elegance of those theories (a kind of operational definition of "beauty") has consistently proven to be a key indicator of their explanatory power. Gell-Mann spoke with such force (speaking about the emergence of complex structure from simple elements plus accidents, he said, "people say there must be more to it than that; they're WRONG!!"), wit and charm that I know I'm not alone in wishing he could have stayed on for hours. It was a real honor to experience him here.
Unfortunately, the brilliant geneticist Jonathan Widom had the unenviable task of being next. At the party last evening I spoke with another brilliant genetic researcher who said he believed that if his research proves to be as productive as it appears, it is possible that Widom himself may be in line for a Nobel. Heady stuff. Unfortunately, his presentation was too complex for the layman and, despite Chris Anderson's efforts to bring out the key relevant messages for an audience like this, informative in only general terms. My takeaway: we are learning more about the particular circumstances in which genetic sequences instantiate and Widom is at the forefront of that learning.
Jeff Han's presentation is impossible to portray verbally. Watch this video of last year's talk and you'll understand what I mean. This year's developments? A much bigger screen and multi-user capability. This technology will change everything about the way we think of computers and their role in collaboration. After seeing Han's work, the Apple iPhone looks like something made by Fisher-Price.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar closed the session with a message, appropriately enough, about standing on the shoulders of giants. Kareem is such a legend that it's impossible to overstate his impact on basketball. But his story of growing up in Harlem in the 50s and 60s and being deeply influenced by the Harlem Renaissance is surely not as well known. He paid homage to many of the great jazz musicians of the era, including his police-officer father, and to his coach at Power Memorial Academy, Jack Donahue. Ultimately, success in any endeavor is a function of three factors: integrity (being yourself), learning the system (not simply doing your own thing), and execution (most importantly, having the gift of timing.) Most of us probably wish Kareem could have presented his talk extemporaneously instead of reading prepared remarks, but that would be quibbling. His message was a powerful one.
And that was it for Day One. On to Day Two and an amazing array of speakers.
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