Do You Know TED? A History & Criticisms of this new Public IDEA Conference

TED ConferenceImagine the opportunity to hear the late mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot, the father of fractal geometry, explain its application in fields ranging from “how galaxies cluster, how wheat prices change over time, or how mammalian brains fold as they grow.” Or MacArthur Fellow and University of Southern California law professor Elyn Saks detail her life dealing with schizophrenia on a daily basis, often imagining that she has killed “hundreds of thousands of people.”

Perhaps you would prefer watching jazz musician Herbie Hancock improvise a new version of “Watermelon Man,” or see 64-year-old long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad explain her successful fifth attempt to swim from Florida to Cuba, 110 miles through shark- and jellyfish-infested water.
Mandelbrot, Saks, Hancock, and Nyad are a small representation of the 1,416 speakers and subjects presented at annual Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) Conferences since 1984. And they are available for free to anyone in the world who has an Internet connection and a desire for knowledge.

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