Canada and the World

        Current Events with a Canadian Perspective

 

Last update

27 January 2012

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Interesting Videos

 

Videos of interesting people doing interesting things

 

The Fibonacci sequence is a series of numbers whose discovery is attributed to Leonardo Pisano Bigollo (1180-1250) who was also known as Fibonacci. However, the sequence was known earlier to Indian mathematicians but they get no credit for this in the modern world. The series begins with 0 and 1. After that, use the simple rule of adding the last two numbers to get the next. So, the Fibonacci sequence is 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, and so on. The Sequence is important in mathematics but it also appears frequently in nature as demonstrated in this video created by Cristóbal Vila.

Watch here

 

U.S. General Smedley D. Butler (1881-1940) was a much-decorated soldier. In 1935 he wrote a book, War is a Racket, that was highly critical of war and the profiteering that goes with. As a result of the book he was much in demand as a speechmaker. One such speech is

Re-enacted here

 

Third World living conditions for residents on the Attawapiskat First Nation in Northern Ontario.

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A short, and sobering presentation on the American economy - A Lost Decade.

Watch here.

 

A world with seven billion people is described Fergus Walsh of BBC News.

Watch here.

 

Swedish doctor and statistician Hans Rosling gives a graphic demonstration of world population changes in 200 countries, over 200 years, in four minutes.

Watch here.

 

Necessity is the mother of invention. When you need to cross a river in a truck and there’s no bridge – improvise.

Watch here.

 

Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” played on a wooden staircase.

Watch here.

 

Teacher John Hunter gives a talk about his creation of a game he invented for fourth grade students in Virginia. He calls it the “World Peace Game.”
Watch here.

 

In Holland Theo Jansen has created some mechanical “animals” he calls Strandbeests.

Watch here.

 

On April 1, 1957, the British Broadcasting Corporation fooled an entire nation with this classic documentary about Switzerland’s annual spaghetti harvest.

Watch here.

 

It’s probably not a great idea to play cards with this man – Australian magician James Galea.

Watch here.