The BEST episodes of TED Talks season 2015
Every episode of TED Talks season 2015, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of TED Talks season 2015!
TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. TEDTalks began as a simple attempt to share what happens at TED with the world. Under the moniker "ideas worth spreading," talks were released online. They rapidly attracted a global audience in the millions. Indeed, the reaction was so enthusiastic that the entire TED website has been reengineered around TEDTalks, with the goal of giving everyone on-demand access to the world's most inspiring voices. [TED-Ed and TEDx are separate TVDB series and should NOT be listed here. Episode ordering and dates are sourced from YouTube.]
#1 - Hannah Fry: The mathematics of love
Season 2015 - Episode 26 - Aired 2/13/2015
Finding the right mate is no cakewalk — but is it even mathematically likely? In a charming talk, mathematician Hannah Fry shows patterns in how we look for love, and gives her top three tips (verified by math!) for finding that special someone.
Watch Now:Amazon
#2 - Harry Baker: A love poem for lonely prime numbers
Season 2015 - Episode 39 - Aired 3/4/2015
Performance poet (and math student) Harry Baker spins a love poem about his favorite kind of numbers — the lonely, love-lorn prime. Stay on for two more lively, inspiring poems from this charming performer.
Watch Now:Amazon
#3 - Sarah Jones: One woman, five characters, and a sex lesson from the future
Season 2015 - Episode 104 - Aired 6/10/2015
In this performance, Sarah Jones brings you to the front row of a classroom in the future, as a teacher plugs in different personas from the year 2016 to show their varied perspectives on sex work. As she changes props, Jones embodies an elderly homemaker, a “sex work studies” major, an escort, a nun-turned-prostitute and a guy at a strip club for his bachelor party. It’s an intriguing look at a taboo topic, that flips cultural norms around sex inside out.
#4 - Donald Hoffman: Do we see reality as it is?
Season 2015 - Episode 105 - Aired 6/12/2015
Cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman is trying to answer a big question: Do we experience the world as it really is ... or as we need it to be? In this ever so slightly mind-blowing talk, he ponders how our minds construct reality for us.
#5 - BJ Miller: What really matters at the end of life
Season 2015 - Episode 153 - Aired 9/10/2015
At the end of our lives, what do we most wish for? For many, it’s simply comfort, respect, love. BJ Miller is a palliative care physician at Zen Hospice Project who thinks deeply about how to create a dignified, graceful end of life for his patients. Take the time to savor this moving talk, which asks big questions about how we think on death and honor life.
#6 - Christopher Soghoian: How to Avoid Surveillance...With Your Phone
Season 2015 - Episode 141 - Aired 9/14/2015
Who is listening in on your phone calls? On a landline, it could be anyone, says privacy activist Christopher Soghoian, because surveillance backdoors are built into the phone system by default, to allow governments to listen in. But then again, so could a foreign intelligence service ... or a criminal. Which is why, says Soghoian, some tech companies are resisting governments' call to build the same backdoors into mobile phones and new messaging systems. From this TED Fellow, learn how some tech companies are working to keep your calls and messages private.
#7 - Barry Schwartz: The way we think about work is broken
Season 2015 - Episode 152 - Aired 9/8/2015
What makes work satisfying? Apart from a paycheck, there are intangible values that, Barry Schwartz suggests, our current way of thinking about work simply ignores. It's time to stop thinking of workers as cogs on a wheel.
#8 - Alan Eustace: I leapt from the stratosphere. Here's how I did it
Season 2015 - Episode 151 - Aired 9/4/2015
On October 24, 2014, Alan Eustace donned a custom-built, 235-pound spacesuit, attached himself to a weather balloon, and rose above 135,000 feet, from which point he dove to Earth, breaking both the sound barrier and previous records for high-altitude jumps. Hear his story of how -- and why.
#9 - Jim Simons: A rare interview with the mathematician who cracked Wall Street
Season 2015 - Episode 150 - Aired 9/3/2015
Jim Simons was a mathematician and cryptographer who realized: the complex math he used to break codes could help explain patterns in the world of finance. Billions later, he’s working to support the next generation of math teachers and scholars. TED’s Chris Anderson sits down with Simons to talk about his extraordinary life in numbers.
#10 - Jamie Bartlett: How the mysterious dark net is going mainstream
Season 2015 - Episode 149 - Aired 9/2/2015
There’s a parallel Internet you may not have run across yet -- accessed by a special browser and home to a freewheeling collection of sites for everything from anonymous activism to illicit activities. Jamie Bartlett reports from the dark net.
#11 - Elizabeth Nyamayaro: An invitation to men who want a better world for women
Season 2015 - Episode 148 - Aired 9/1/2015
Around the world, women still struggle for equality in basic matters like access to education, equal pay and the right to vote. But how to enlist everyone, men and women, as allies for change? Meet Elizabeth Nyamayaro, head of UN Women’s HeForShe initiative, which has created more than 2.4 billion social media conversations about a more equal world. She invites us all to join in as allies in our shared humanity.
#12 - Wendy Freedman: This new telescope might show us the beginning of the universe
Season 2015 - Episode 147 - Aired 8/31/2015
When and how did the universe begin? A global group of astronomers wants to answer that question by peering as far back in time as a large new telescope will let us see. Wendy Freedman headed the creation of the Giant Magellan Telescope, under construction in South America; at TEDGlobal in Rio, she shares a bold vision of the discoveries about our universe that the GMT could make possible.
#13 - Yves Morieux: How too many rules at work keep you from getting things done
Season 2015 - Episode 146 - Aired 8/28/2015
Modern work -- from waiting tables to crunching numbers to designing products -- is about solving brand-new problems every day, flexibly and collaboratively. But as Yves Morieux shows in this insightful talk, too often, an overload of rules, processes and metrics keeps us from doing our best work together. Meet the new frontier of productivity: cooperation.
#14 - Robin Murphy: These robots come to the rescue after a disaster
Season 2015 - Episode 145 - Aired 8/27/2015
When disaster strikes, who's first on the scene? More and more, it’s a robot. In her lab, Robin Murphy builds robots that fly, tunnel, swim and crawl through disaster scenes, helping firefighters and rescue workers save more lives safely -- and help communities return to normal up to three years faster.
#15 - Seth Berkley: The troubling reason why vaccines are made too late ... if they’re made at all
Season 2015 - Episode 144 - Aired 8/25/2015
It seems like we wait for a disastrous disease outbreak before we get serious about making a vaccine for it. Seth Berkley lays out the market realities and unbalanced risks behind why we aren't making vaccines for the world's biggest diseases.
#16 - Jim Al-Khalili: How quantum biology might explain life’s biggest questions
Season 2015 - Episode 143 - Aired 8/24/2015
How does a robin know to fly south? The answer might be weirder than you think: Quantum physics may be involved. Jim Al-Khalili rounds up the extremely new, extremely strange world of quantum biology, where something Einstein once called “spooky action at a distance” helps birds navigate, and quantum effects might explain the origin of life itself.
#17 - Dustin Yellin: A journey through the mind of an artist
Season 2015 - Episode 142 - Aired 9/15/2015
Dustin Yellin makes mesmerizing artwork that tells complex, myth-inspired stories. How did he develop his style? In this disarming talk, he shares the journey of an artist -- starting from age 8 -- and his idiosyncratic way of thinking and seeing. Follow the path that leads him up to his latest major work (or two).
#18 - Mac Stone: Stunning photos of the endangered Everglades
Season 2015 - Episode 166 - Aired 9/30/2015
For centuries, people have viewed swamps and wetlands as obstacles to avoid. But for photographer Mac Stone, who documents the stories of wildlife in Florida's Everglades, the swamp isn't a hindrance — it's a national treasure. Through his stunning photographs, Stone shines a new light on a neglected, ancient and important wilderness. His message: get out and experience it for yourself. "Just do it — put your feet in the water," he says. "The swamp will change you, I promise."
#19 - Billie Jean King: This tennis icon paved the way for women in sports
Season 2015 - Episode 154 - Aired 9/11/2015
Tennis legend Billie Jean King isn't just a pioneer of women's tennis -- she's a pioneer for women getting paid. In this freewheeling conversation, she talks about identity, the role of sports in social justice and the famous Battle of the Sexes match against Bobby Riggs.
#20 - David Rothkopf: How fear drives American politics
Season 2015 - Episode 155 - Aired 9/14/2015
Does it seem like Washington has no new ideas? Instead of looking to build the future, it sometimes feels like the US political establishment happily retreats into fear and willful ignorance. Journalist David Rothkopf lays out a few of the major issues that US leadership is failing to address -- from cybercrime to world-shaking new tech to the reality of modern total war -- and calls for a new vision that sets fear aside.
#21 - Mia Birdsong: The story we tell about poverty isn't true
Season 2015 - Episode 156 - Aired 9/15/2015
As a global community, we all want to end poverty. Mia Birdsong suggests a great place to start: Let's honor the skills, drive and initiative that poor people bring to the struggle every day. She asks us to look again at people in poverty: They may be broke — but they're not broken.
#22 - Michael Kimmel: Why gender equality is good for everyone — men included
Season 2015 - Episode 157 - Aired 9/16/2015
Yes, we all know it’s the right thing to do. But Michael Kimmel makes the surprising, funny, practical case for treating men and women equally in the workplace and at home. It’s not a zero-sum game, but a win-win that will result in more opportunity and more happiness for everybody.
#23 - Mandy Len Catron: Falling in love is the easy part
Season 2015 - Episode 158 - Aired 9/17/2015
Did you know you can fall in love with anyone just by asking them 36 questions? Mandy Len Catron tried this experiment, it worked, and she wrote a viral article about it (that your mom probably sent you). But … is that real love? Did it last? And what’s the difference between falling in love and staying in love?
#24 - Scott Dinsmore: How to find work you love
Season 2015 - Episode 159 - Aired 9/18/2015
Scott Dinsmore quit a job that made him miserable, and spent the next four years wondering how to find work that was joyful and meaningful. He shares what he learned in this deceptively simple talk about finding out what matters to you — and then getting started doing it.
#25 - Sakena Yacoobi: How I stopped the Taliban from shutting down my school
Season 2015 - Episode 160 - Aired 9/21/2015
When the Taliban closed all the girls' schools in Afghanistan, Sakena Yacoobi set up new schools, in secret, educating thousands of women and men. In this fierce, funny talk, she tells the jaw-dropping story of two times when she was threatened to stop teaching -- and shares her vision for rebuilding her beloved country.