Mark Rober耗资六千万美元的科学实验

Name: Mark Rober耗资六千万美元的科学实验
Duration: 14 min 21 s
Description: Mark Rober曾耗费数年心血，尝试将探测车送上火星。这位前美国国家航空航天局工程师如今变身科普博主，坐拥超7700万订阅粉丝，眼下开启了全新征程：培养善于攻克重大难题的新一代人

TED14:21Added Aug 30, 2026

Mark Rober曾耗费数年心血，尝试将探测车送上火星。这位前美国国家航空航天局工程师如今变身科普博主，坐拥超7700万订阅粉丝，眼下开启了全新征程：培养善于攻克重大难题的新一代人

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Contributed by 刘嘉琪

Transcript

00:04I want to start off tonight with a two-step experiment.
00:07For step one,
00:09I've got a two-liter bottle here.
00:10It’s half-filled with liquid nitrogen
00:12that’s negative 320 degrees Fahrenheit.
00:15As you can see, it's violently boiling off into a gas,
00:18just like boiling water does on a hot stove,
00:21because to this freezing-cold liquid nitrogen,
00:23the nice comfy air in this room is super hot.
00:26But here’s the catch:
00:28the gas form of nitrogen
00:30occupies 700 times the volume of the liquid,
00:33so you’ve got to be really careful, as it’s turning into a gas
00:36you don’t trap it in a small container --
00:38like if the lid was screwed on top here.
00:40So then for step two,
00:42I'm going to go ahead and screw the lid on top.
00:45And when I do, if everything goes according to plan,
00:47the contents of this bottle should experience
00:49what we refer to at NASA
00:51as an “energetic, spontaneous, rapid disassembly.”
00:54(Laughter)
00:55It's going to explode.
00:56(Laughter)
00:57All right, here we go.
01:00Put that on.
01:02OK, now, this is going to be --
01:04Oh, you know what?
01:05What the heck, might as well throw these on top.
01:08(Laughter)
01:09This is going to be real boring until it's not.
01:13If you don't like loud noises, cover your ears.
01:15But according to my calculations,
01:17things could get real interesting here
01:19in about three, two, one.
01:23One.
01:25(Laughter)
01:26One.
01:28I said one.
01:30I’m just kidding -- it’s really impossible to actually calculate exactly --
01:34Whoa!
01:35(Cheers and applause)
01:39Let’s go!
01:40(Applause)
01:43How's your jet lag now?
01:44(Laughter)
01:47Alright, my apologies,
01:49my friends in the front row,
01:51you should be warned, it will get worse before it gets better.
01:54(Laughter)
01:56I'm like science Gallagher up here.
02:00So a lot of people would look at that --
02:02Thank you, yeah.
02:03You keep those as souvenirs, actually.
02:05Please don’t throw them back the whole time.
02:08A lot of people look at that and be like,
02:10"Oh, neat, the ping-pong balls exploded."
02:12But what actually happened is so much cooler.
02:14Because as more and more of that nitrogen turned into a gas,
02:17those gas molecules got more and more crowded
02:20as they pushed back on the plastic molecules
02:23comprising the walls of the two-liter bottle.
02:26And then eventually,
02:27the pressure got so great, it got so crowded,
02:30the walls of the two-liter bottle lost the game of molecular Red Rover,
02:34and all the gas came rushing out.
02:37But where could it go?
02:38Because it can’t go down or to the sides --
02:41trash can's too thick.
02:43Therefore, the only option is to go up,
02:46and since all the ping-pong balls are in the way,
02:48they just happen to go along for the ride.
02:51But here's the really cool part.
02:53This is exactly how cannons fire cannonballs.
02:58It's how Nerf blasters fire Nerf darts.
03:02It's how T-shirt cannons fire T-shirts.
03:07And for my friends in the front row,
03:09it’s how straws fire spit wads.
03:11I'm just kidding.
03:12(Laughter)
03:14The trick for all those is you simply build up enough pressure,
03:18you suddenly release it in one direction
03:20and plop whatever you want in the way to go along for the ride.
03:23And I love when I get like, that aha moment.
03:26When I understand the world around me with a new framework.
03:29But even more than that, I love giving that to other people.
03:32This is why, for the last 15 years, once a month,
03:36I've uploaded a free science or engineering video to YouTube
03:40to my now 75 million subscribers
03:42who also have a taste for those aha moments.
03:45And the videos --
03:47(Applause)
03:49The videos can range anywhere from an elephant toothpaste volcano
03:53that sets a world record
03:55to a satellite that's orbiting above us right now that we built,
03:58that you can upload your picture to for free,
04:01and it will display it on a screen
04:03and then give you a selfie in space with the Earth photobombing you.
04:07(Laughter)
04:09Or even a soccer goalie [that]
04:11moves back and forth at 40 miles an hour,
04:13and then we track your shot so effectively,
04:16not even the world's greatest player can score on it.
04:20(Laughter)
04:21Sorry, Ronaldo.
04:23(Laughter)
04:24And 16 billion views later,
04:27what I've learned is I can't teach you
04:29if I don't have your attention.
04:32But if I can get your attention with something remarkable,
04:35well, now I suddenly have something to attach the learning to.
04:39This is why it kills me if someone's like,
04:41"Oh, I don't like science because it's boring."
04:43But at the same time, I get it.
04:44Because instead of learning about pressure
04:46the way I did with these ping-pong balls,
04:48a lot of the times it’s something like this --
04:51with curiosity-murdering phrases
04:54like, "consider a rigid container of volume V."
04:57(Laughter)
04:59It’s a freaking trash can, all right?
05:01(Laughter)
05:03And don’t get me wrong, there is a time and a place for equations,
05:06but for a generation that is growing up on TikTok and YouTube,
05:10you have to make it matter
05:12with something that gets them to lean forward in their seat.
05:15Something that ignites a little curiosity fire in their brain.
05:19And we need that today more than ever.
05:22I like to call this style of teaching “hiding the vegetables.”
05:25(Laughter)
05:27For example, it's really boring if you make a video
05:29about the scientific method.
05:30But what's not boring is if you make a video
05:33about a 15-ton Jell-O pool
05:35you can actually belly flop onto.
05:37And in the process, I'm going to sneak in
05:40all six steps of the scientific method.
05:43What's also really boring is memorizing an equation about terminal velocity.
05:47But what's not boring
05:49is you point out that squirrels are one of the only mammals
05:51that can survive a fall from any height
05:53at their terminal velocity.
05:55And then, in an effort to keep them from stealing all your birdseed,
05:59you set up an eight-part Ninja Warrior obstacle course in your backyard,
06:03and in the process,
06:05what you might find
06:06is they will voluntarily demonstrate this principle for you.
06:10(Laughter)
06:12It's a very true story.
06:14(Laughter)
06:15There's also a ton of super boring microcontroller tutorial videos online.
06:20So when someone came by and stole a package from my porch,
06:23I decided to dedicate a year of my life
06:26to making the world's least boring microcontroller tutorial video.
06:30Step one: you make a bait package like this.
06:32And on the outside, you have something like a picture of headphones.
06:36But inside, instead of headphones, you have this contraption.
06:39And at the top there is a cup that spins a pound of the world’s finest glitter.
06:43You have four phones that will record,
06:45then upload their footage to the cloud in real time,
06:47and as the pièce de résistance:
06:49a very uncharitable amount of fart spray.
06:53(Laughter)
06:55That's foreshadowing.
06:57And then step two: you have the thief come by,
07:00and when he lifts the lid, takes it home --
07:03of course -- it sprays the glitter followed by the fart spray.
07:07I should point out, by the way,
07:09this whole video was sort of a modern-day homage
07:13to the greatest film of a generation.
07:14I'm talking, of course, about "Home Alone."
07:17And so the thief here, who’s pretending,
07:21is none other than my buddy Macaulay Culkin.
07:23(Laughter and applause)
07:26And so then for step three:
07:27what you and Macaulay are going to do
07:29is you're going to make 20 of these,
07:31put them on porches all across America,
07:33and it won't take long
07:34before you start getting back some incredible footage like this.
07:39(Video) Hello.
07:44Machine: Keep the change, you filthy animal.
07:48Person 1: Whoa!
07:52Machine: Hello.
07:56You guys give up?
07:58Or are you thirsty for more?
08:00(Fart spray)
08:03Operation “Whoever Smelt It, Dealt It” initiated.
08:08(Laughter)
08:11Person 2: Oh.
08:12Machine: Operation "Butt Trumpet" initiated.
08:15(Laughter)
08:17Person 2: Oh.
08:19(Fart spray)
08:21Person 2: Alright, alright.
08:23Alright, we get it, OK.
08:26Smells like ... in here.
08:29(Laughter and applause)
08:36Mark Rober: By the way, I was watching.
08:38And when that thief was about to lift the lid on the glitter bomb,
08:41not a single one of you was looking down or was on your phones.
08:45I had your undivided attention.
08:47And that makes for the most fertile brain soil,
08:49because learning is best when it’s attached to a visceral experience.
08:53Basically, if you feel something here, you remember it here.
08:57This is why memorizing a boring equation is hard.
09:00But you know, remembering that song you sang as a teenager
09:03that made you feel all those feels, that’s easy --
09:05and you remember every single lyric, you know, 30 years later.
09:09And to be fair, I didn’t come up with this style of teaching --
09:12all great teachers know this.
09:13For me, it was Mr. Malloy.
09:15He was my high school statistics teacher.
09:17Hello, Mr. Malloy, if you're watching this.
09:20And he was great,
09:21not just because he had a killer Doctor Evil impression --
09:24(Laughter)
09:25Or because, and I mean this with all sincerity,
09:27he had way better hair than whatever I was trying to figure out here.
09:31(Laughter)
09:33He was great because he made it matter.
09:35Like encouraging us to use what we learned in statistics
09:38to predict where our arch-rival soccer team
09:40was going to kick their penalty kicks.
09:42And it worked.
09:43He was so good at attaching emotions to learning.
09:46He was so good at hiding the vegetables.
09:50And the thing is, with a really good teacher, their impact is immeasurable.
09:54Just like Mr. Malloy impacted his students
09:56and we're now, in turn, impacting the world.
09:58That's why I love teachers.
10:00I think they have the most important job on the planet.
10:03In fact, please.
10:04(Cheers and applause)
10:08I've said for like a decade,
10:10my dream job is to be a middle-school science teacher,
10:13and I will be.
10:14But until that time --
10:16and buckle up,
10:17because this is the first time the world is hearing about this --
10:20for the last two and a half years,
10:23myself, with a team of about 50 people,
10:26including some of the best science teachers in the country,
10:29have been secretly working on a full science curriculum,
10:32and it uses all the tricks I’ve learned from the past 15 years
10:35on how to hide the vegetables.
10:37(Cheers and applause)
10:41And the reason we're doing this is because it breaks my heart
10:46when I see teachers who get paid salaries [that],
10:48as a society, we should be ashamed of,
10:50spending their own money on resources that totally suck.
10:53(Applause and cheers)
10:59So it's got everything they'd need,
11:00from banger videos the kids are going to beg to rewatch,
11:03that demonstrate the science --
11:05yes, that is a wrench in an MRI machine,
11:08because how else am I supposed to talk
11:10about the invisible magnetic fields all around us?
11:13It's got ready-to-teach classroom slide decks
11:16that are super clean and easy to use.
11:18And then it’s got these really thought-out
11:20curated science demos
11:23where the kids get to viscerally interact with the science
11:25that the teachers can make
11:27just with stuff they have lying around their classroom.
11:29The idea is that together we teach the classroom,
11:32and the teacher becomes the hero,
11:34as we engage the students in real science and engineering
11:37they actually care about.
11:39We're starting with grades three through eight.
11:42It exceeds all the state science standards,
11:45but most importantly,
11:46it’s exactly what science class is meant to be:
11:49super freaking fun.
11:51(Video) Your teacher and I are about to launch this class into hyperdrive.
11:57Let’s go!
11:58[You've never]
12:00[Had a class]
12:02[Like this]
12:04We’ll build stuff,
12:06ask a ton of questions
12:08and even smash a few things along the way.
12:12If everything goes according to plan,
12:15you'll see the world around you in an entirely new way.
12:19Kristin Bell: Oh my God, that’s crazy.
12:21MR: Buckle up. It’s going to be a wild ride.
12:25It's basically magic,
12:27but science.
12:30Which makes it cooler than magic.
12:33Mr. Beast: I knew it felt too light.
12:37MR: What do you guys want to do now?
12:40(Cheers and applause)
12:45The world has evolved,
12:46and teaching science is long overdue for disruption.
12:49I'm happy to report that of the teachers
12:51who are assigned to teach the pilot lessons to their students,
12:54because of our ability to explain complicated things simply
12:58and for our very unique experience in solving the science motivation gap
13:02for 15 years,
13:0495 percent of the teachers said that when we're done,
13:06they would want this to be their full science curriculum.
13:09And so the idea is you combine incredible teachers
13:13with incredible resources
13:14to get this explosive output,
13:15sort of like you'd expect to see
13:17if you combine this bucket of boiling water
13:19with this trash can of freezing-cold liquid nitrogen.
13:22(Laughter)
13:24So to all those teachers out there in the trenches,
13:26I want you to know reinforcements are on the way.
13:29In fact, a bunch of the videos and lessons are already available right now,
13:33and we'll finish the rest over the next four years,
13:36because I know this will be the most important thing I do my whole life.
13:40And even though this is going to cost us $60 million to make,
13:46my official declaration tonight is every single lesson plan,
13:50every teacher training,
13:51every original class demo
13:53will cost exactly zero dollars
13:55and be 100 percent free for all teachers forever,
13:59as we work to ignite those brain fires of curiosity
14:02in the next generation of big problem solvers.
14:05(Cheers)
14:07Thank you so much.
14:08(Cheers and applause)
14:12Thank you.
14:13(Cheers and applause)
14:16Thank you.
14:17(Applause)