The video owner has disabled playback on external websites.

This video is no longer available on YouTube.

This video cannot be played right now.

Watch on YouTube

AI学習ツールを解放

登録して、すべての動画からより速く学べる強力なツールにアクセスしましょう。

シーン解説 フレーズハンター カードで復習 シャドーイング練習 トークバック
無料で登録
B1 中級 英語 17:41 Educational

The history of our world in 18 minutes | David Christian | TED

TED · 8,925,222 回視聴 · 追加日 3週間前

学習統計

B1

CEFRレベル

5/10

難易度

字幕 (359 セグメント)

00:16

First, a video.

00:24

Yes, it is a scrambled egg.

00:29

But as you look at it,

00:30

I hope you'll begin to feel just slightly uneasy.

00:36

Because you may notice that what's actually happening

00:40

is that the egg is unscrambling itself.

00:42

And you'll now see the yolk and the white have separated.

00:44

And now they're going to be poured back into the egg.

00:48

And we all know in our heart of hearts

00:50

that this is not the way the universe works.

00:54

A scrambled egg is mush -- tasty mush -- but it's mush.

00:57

An egg is a beautiful, sophisticated thing

01:00

that can create even more sophisticated things,

01:02

such as chickens.

01:04

And we know in our heart of hearts

01:06

that the universe does not travel from mush to complexity.

01:10

In fact, this gut instinct

01:12

is reflected in one of the most fundamental laws of physics,

01:15

the second law of thermodynamics, or the law of entropy.

01:19

What that says basically

01:20

is that the general tendency of the universe

01:24

is to move from order and structure

01:27

to lack of order, lack of structure --

01:30

in fact, to mush.

01:31

And that's why that video feels a bit strange.

01:35

And yet, look around us.

01:39

What we see around us is staggering complexity.

01:43

Eric Beinhocker estimates that in New York City alone,

01:46

there are some 10 billion SKUs, or distinct commodities, being traded.

01:50

That's hundreds of times as many species as there are on Earth.

01:55

And they're being traded by a species of almost seven billion individuals,

01:59

who are linked by trade, travel, and the Internet

02:02

into a global system of stupendous complexity.

02:07

So here's a great puzzle:

02:10

in a universe ruled by the second law of thermodynamics,

02:14

how is it possible

02:16

to generate the sort of complexity I've described,

02:19

the sort of complexity represented by you and me

02:23

and the convention center?

02:26

Well, the answer seems to be,

02:28

the universe can create complexity,

02:31

but with great difficulty.

02:33

In pockets,

02:34

there appear what my colleague, Fred Spier,

02:37

calls "Goldilocks conditions" --

02:39

not too hot, not too cold,

02:41

just right for the creation of complexity.

02:44

And slightly more complex things appear.

02:46

And where you have slightly more complex things,

02:48

you can get slightly more complex things.

02:51

And in this way, complexity builds stage by stage.

02:56

Each stage is magical

02:58

because it creates the impression of something utterly new

03:02

appearing almost out of nowhere in the universe.

03:04

We refer in big history to these moments as threshold moments.

03:09

And at each threshold, the going gets tougher.

03:12

The complex things get more fragile,

03:15

more vulnerable;

03:17

the Goldilocks conditions get more stringent,

03:20

and it's more difficult to create complexity.

03:24

Now, we, as extremely complex creatures,

03:28

desperately need to know this story

03:30

of how the universe creates complexity despite the second law,

03:34

and why complexity means vulnerability and fragility.

03:40

And that's the story that we tell in big history.

03:43

But to do it, you have do something

03:45

that may, at first sight, seem completely impossible.

03:48

You have to survey the whole history of the universe.

03:52

So let's do it.

03:54

(Laughter)

03:56

Let's begin by winding the timeline back

03:59

13.7 billion years,

完全な字幕は動画プレーヤーで利用可能

練習問題に挑戦

この動画から語彙・文法・読解の練習問題を作成

語彙と文法 読解クイズ IELTS試験 ライティング練習
登録して練習
まだコメントがありません。最初に考えをシェアしましょう!

登録してすべての機能を解放しよう

進捗を追跡、単語を保存、演習で練習しよう

無料で語学を始める