What vintage bomb survival suits have to do with Dr. Stragelove and Richard Nixon.
The recent tragedy in Japan has triggered a tsunami of terror, founded and unfounded, about the potential risks of nuclear reactors. While there are people better equipped than us to explain the precise implications of the situation, we thought we’d put things in perspective by examining the flipside of these dystopian fears: The exuberant optimism about nuclear power in mid-century America.
The Atomic Cafe (1982) offers clever satire of America’s atomic culture through a mashup of old newsreels and archival footage from military training films, government propaganda, presidential speeches and pop songs — remix culture long before it became a buzzword. From congressmen pushing for nuclear attacks on China to mind-boggling inventions like the “bomb survival suit,” the darkly humorous film revolves around the newly built atomic bomb and pokes fun at the false optimism of the 1950s, showing how nuclear warfare made its way into American homes and seeped into the collective conscience from the inside out.
Though the collector’s edition DVD is a winner, the film — which became a cult classic often referred to as the “nuclear Reefer Madness” and compared to Kubrick’s Dr. Stragelove — is also available for free online in its entirety:
The Atomic Cafe is a poignant reminder that all social reactions, whatever their polarity, are always a complex function of the era’s cultural concerns, political propaganda and media mongering, rather than an accurate reflection of the actual risks and opportunities at hand.
Please note that none of this is meant as commentary on or an effort to invalidate the debilitating human tragedy in Japan. In fact, we’re diverting Brain Pickingsdonations this month to the American Red Cross in support of the relief efforts there. Our thoughts remain with the people of Japan as they piece their lives back together.
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What the theory of relativity has to do with barefoot lectures and antisemitism in Europe.
Today is 3.14, which, besides being Pi day, is also Albert Einstein’s birthday. The iconic German theoretical physicist would’ve been 131 today, so we’re celebrating with Albert Einstein: How I See The World — a fantastic 2006 PBS documentary exploring his life, work and legacy, now free online in six parts. From his audacious scientific exploits to his notorious personal quirks to his controversial political convictions, the film is an essential piece of cultural history and a rare look at one of humanity’s greatest minds.
Historians, philosophers and scientists alike have spent decades trying to dissect the specific source of Einstein’s genius and his gift for ideas. Was it his keen analytical mind? His extraordinary computational ability? His eccentric way of withdrawing into his work? We believe a lot of it had to do with his remarkable curiosity and penchant for cross-disciplinary pattern recognition, something Hanna Loewy captures with wonderful eloquence:
It was like someone who looked for many, many, many dimensions, whether they be proven or not, and could see the whole.” ~ Hanna Loewy, family friend
You can catch the remaining fourpartsonYouTube. In a similar vein, OpenRoad Philosophical Library just released The World As I See It — a fascinating anthology of Einstein’s observations about life, religion, nationalism, and various personal topics that engaged his intellect. For more on Einstein’s unique brand of genius, you won’t go wrong with Einstein: His Life and Universe.
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It’s been a great month for Isotype, the vintage pictogram language that gave rise to much of today’s visual communication and sparked the infographics revolution. Yesterday, we featured the story of Otto Neurath, considered the father of Isotype, and last week we raved about the ace iPhone app testing your memory through pictograms by Gerd Arntz (1900-1988), the politically engaged Modernist German graphic designer who collaborated with Neurath on the invention of Isotype.
Today we turn to Gerd Arntz Graphic Designer — an absolutely fantastic recent book about Arntz’s work, exploring the 4000 symbol signs he designed in his lifetime and their visual legacy.
Best-known for his iconic black-and-white wood and linoleum cuts, Arntz also created an astounding array of Isotype color icons spanning nature, industry, people, architecture, mobility, food and more.
And here’s something we found wildly interesting, a living testament to the iconic designer’s cultural footprint: Does the F in this Arntz logo look familiar?
Beautifully designed and thoughtfully written, Gerd Arntz Graphic Designer is both a treasure trove of Isotypes and a priceless overview of the system, its political and historical context, and its timeless design legacy.
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Redefining life, understanding consciousness, and why technology is humanizing education.
This week, we’re reporting live from TED 2011: The Rediscovery of Wonder. Earlier, we warmed up with 5 must-read books by some of this year’s speakers and kicked off with exclusive coverage of Day One yesterday. Today, we’re back — sleep-deprived and intellectually overstimulated in typical TED fashion — with highlights, photos and notable soundbites from Day Two. Hold your heart and brace your brain.
Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio: 'A conscious mind is a mind with a self in it.'
Image credit: James Duncan Davidson / TED
The day’s first session, Deep Mystery, opened with one of our favorite brain-tinkerers, neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, whose work on consciousness we’ve previously covered and whose new book, Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain, is an absolute must-read. Damasio spoke of the three three levels of self — the proto self, the core self and the autobiographical self. While we share the first two with other species, the third, which deals with memory and weaves complex mental narratives, is uniquely human.
Antonio Damasio: 'Consciousness is how we know we exist.'
Image credit: James Duncan Davidson / TED
Consciousness is what we regain when we awaken from deep sleep” ~ Antonio Damasio
Philosopher Damon Horowitz: 'I want to know about wrongness itself. The idea of wrong.'
Image credit: James Duncan Davidson / TED
Everything around you is connected, and that’s the profound weirdness of quantum mechanics.” ~ Aaron O’Connell
Biochemist Felisa Wolfe-Simon, whose recent discovery of arsenic-utilizing bacteria that thrive in otherwise poisonous environments rewrote science textbooks in a profound way, reminded us of the importance of questioning our most fundamental understanding of life.
Astrochemist Felisa Woldfe-Simon is responsible for one of the most important discoveries in modern life science.
Image credit: James Duncan Davidson / TED
If all life on Earth was made of the same pieces, how can we look for something different? I can only find what I know to look for. It’s really hard to look for something when you don’t know what it is.” ~ Felisa Wolfe-Simon
We’re fascinated by language, so MIT Media Lab’s Deb Roy blew us away with some astounding research on how children learn language, some of which is reflected in his Human Speechome Project and some in his fascinating observation of his baby son’s speech development, meticulously recording his development for three years. Listening to the evolution of the child’s pronunciation of the word “water.” Essentially, Roy made a 90,000-hour home video to explore the evolution of human speech.
As our world becomes increasingly instrumented and we gain the ability to connect the things people are saying with the context in which they’re saying it, new social structures are being revealed. And I think the implications for science and commerce will be significant.” ~ Deb Roy
Groundbreaking documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, of Supersize Me and 30 Days fame, took us behind the scenes of his new film, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold — an irreverent investigation of the make-believe world of product placement. In fact, he auctioned off the naming rights to this very TED talk, which EMC eventually acquired for $7,000. (Spurlock subsequently handed the check to The Sapling Foundation, TED’s parent entity, and joked that it was to be put towards his 2012 attendance.)
Embrace fear, embrace risk. Today, more than ever, we need to embrace transparency.” ~ Morgan Spurlock
Documentarian-provocateur Morgan Spurlock
Image credit: James Duncan Davidson / TED
When you’re traing your employees to be risk averse, you’re training your whole company to be reward-challenged.” ~ Morgan Spurlock
TED’s Tom Rielly brought this year’s remarkable class of TED Fellows on stage — exceptional doers and world-changers working across everything from documentary film to education to tissue engineering — for a well-deserved ovation.
Tom Reilly introduces 2011's class of fellows and senior fellows.
Image credit: James Duncan Davidson / TED
Astro-historian David Christian made a passionate argument for teaching kids Big History — essential knowledge about the origin of the universe. His 2005 book, Maps of Time, is an aboslutely must-read
Bill Gates with David Christian: Collective knowledge -- the ability to record information and pass it beyond the lifespan of the individual -- is what makes us different.
Image credit: James Duncan Davidson / TED
We can share what we learn with such precision that it can outlast the individual and remain in our collective memory. That’s why we have a history. I call this ability ‘collective learning.’ It’s what makes us different.” ~ David Christian
Polio is like a root fire — it can explode again if you don’t snuff it out completely.” ~ Bruce Aylward
The Khan Academy may just be the most important phenomenon in grassroots open education of our time, so it was an absolute pleasure to see its founder, Salman Khan, take the TED stage.
Bill Gates with Salman Khan.
Image credit: James Duncan Davidson / TED
Here I was, an analyst at a hedge fund, and I was doing something of social value.” ~ Salman Khan
Khan Academy founder Salman Khan: 'By removing the one-size fits all lecture from the classroom, these teachers have used technology to humanize the classroom.'
Image credit: James Duncan Davidson / TED
Khan was introduced by Bill Gates, who curated the entire Knowledge Revolution session — a new guest curation experiment at TED. Last fall, Gates eloquently captured just why the Khan Academy is such a formidable force of social change:
Learn math the way you learn anything, the way you learn to ride a bicycle. Fall off that bicycle and get back on. We encourage you to fall, we encourage failure, but we do expect mastery.” ~ Salman Khan
The day’s final session opened with a surprise talk directly from TEDxCairo. Wael Ghonim — the widely credited with sparking the Egyptian revolution by building a Facebook page for Khaled Said, the businessman slain by police brutality —
No one was a hero because everyone was a hero.” ~ Wael Ghonim
Internet activist Wael Ghonim delivers a powerful surprise talk.
Image credit: James Duncan Davidson / TED
Everything was done by the people for the people, and that’s the power of the Internet.” ~ Wael Ghonim
Deep-sea explorer Edith Widder studies bioluminescent creatures.
Image credit: James Duncan Davidson / TED
Bioluminescence expert Edith Widder delivered a fantastic follow-up to her 2010 TED Talk on the fascinating glowing world of the world’s deepest waters.
There’s a language of light in the deep ocean and we’re just beginning to understand it.” ~ Edith Widder
TEDPrize winner JR in Session 7: Radical Collaboration.
Image credit: James Duncan Davidson / TED
It doesn’t matter today if it’s your photo or not. The importance is what you do with images.” ~ JR
Keep an eye on our live Twitter coverage and come back here tomorrow evening for highlights from Day Three.
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The Atomic Cafe (1982) offers clever satire of America’s atomic culture through a mashup of old newsreels and archival footage from military training films, government propaganda, presidential speeches and pop songs — remix culture long before it became a buzzword. From congressmen pushing for nuclear attacks on China to mind-boggling inventions like the “bomb survival suit,” the darkly humorous film revolves around the newly built atomic bomb and pokes fun at the false optimism of the 1950s, showing how nuclear warfare made its way into American homes and seeped into the collective conscience from the inside out.
Brain Pickings has a free weekly newsletter and people say it’s cool. It comes out on Sundays and offers the week’s best articles. Here’s an example. Like? Sign up.
