Someone always asks the math teacher, "Am I going to use calculus in real life?" And for most of us, says Arthur Benjamin, the answer is no. He offers a bold proposal on how to make math education relevant in the digital age.

Statistics are persuasive. So much so that people, organizations, and whole countries base some of their most important decisions on organized data. But any set of statistics might have something lurking inside it that can turn the results completely upside down. Mark Liddell investigates Simpson's paradox. [Directed by Mike Foster and Tom Sande...

TED Studies, created in collaboration with Wiley, are curated video collections — supplemented by rich educational materials — for students, educators and self-guided learners. In Visualizing Data, TED speakers shake up statistics with elegant, dynamic representations that make mountains of data comprehensible — and even exciting. Learn how to v...

Think you're good at guessing stats? Guess again. Whether we consider ourselves math people or not, our ability to understand and work with numbers is terribly limited, says data visualization expert Alan Smith. In this delightful talk, Smith explores the mismatch between what we know and what we think we know.

Oxford mathematician Peter Donnelly reveals the common mistakes humans make in interpreting statistics -- and the devastating impact these errors can have on the outcome of criminal trials.

Want a different perspective of the world? Get a better, more friendly grasp of statistics -- one of the most understood and misused tools in modern society.

You've never seen data presented like this. With the drama and urgency of a sportscaster, statistics guru Hans Rosling debunks myths about the so-called "developing world."

In a brilliantly tongue-in-cheek analysis, Sebastian Wernicke turns the tools of statistical analysis on TEDTalks, to come up with a metric for creating "the optimum TEDTalk" based on user ratings. How do you rate it? "Jaw-dropping"? "Unconvincing"? Or just plain "Funny"?

We all want to know if we're normal -- do I have enough friends? Should it take me this long to get over my ex? Should I move or stay where I am? Endlessly curious data journalist Mona Chalabi needs to know, and she's ready to dive into the numbers to get some answers. But studies and spreadsheets don't tell the whole story, so she's consulting ...

Anna Rosling Rönnlund's personal mission: to make it easy for anyone to understand the world visually.

By day, Johnny Staats is a UPS package car driver. The rest of the time, he is a world-class bluegrass mandolin, guitar, and violin player. In this short and charming interview, he explains why he kept his day job between shows at the Grand Ole Opry, and how he incorporated his life's passion into his life's work. Followed by infectious bluegras...

When she became the attorney general of New Jersey in 2007, Anne Milgram quickly discovered a few startling facts: not only did her team not really know who they were putting in jail, but they had no way of understanding if their decisions were actually making the public safer. And so began her ongoing, inspirational quest to bring data analytic...

Sometimes it's hard to know what statistics are worthy of trust. But we shouldn't count out stats altogether ... instead, we should learn to look behind them. In this delightful, hilarious talk, data journalist Mona Chalabi shares handy tips to help question, interpret and truly understand what the numbers are saying.

These TED Talks push us to question more -- our doctors, our governments and even our own eyes.

When they're used well, graphs can help us intuitively grasp complex data. But as visual software has enabled more usage of graphs throughout all media, it has also made them easier to use in a careless or dishonest way — and as it turns out, there are plenty of ways graphs can mislead and outright manipulate. Lea Gaslowitz shares some things to...

Inaccuracies can be difficult to spot. See the difference between fact and fiction, and learn to spot the gray areas with these informative talks.

Alan Smith uses interactive graphics and statistics to breathe new life into how data is presented.

Sebastian Wernicke thinks every TED Talk can be summarized in six words. In this talk, he shows how to do just that -- and less.

Articles I-III of the United States Constitution allow for three separate branches of government (legislative, executive, and judicial), along with a system of checks and balances should any branch get too powerful. Belinda Stutzman breaks down each branch and its constitutionally-entitled powers. [Directed by Johnny Chew, narrated by Belinda St...

A new drug reduces the risk of heart attacks by 40%. Shark attacks are up by a factor of two. Drinking a liter of soda per day doubles your chance of developing cancer. These are all examples of a common way risk is presented in news articles, and can often be misleading. So how can we better evaluate risk? Gerd Gigerenzer explores the differenc...

Steven Levitt's eye-opening Freakonomics took economic theory into the real world of suburban parenting and urban drug gangs, turning conventional wisdom upside-down.

Written by the educators who created Visualizing Data, a brief look at the key facts, tough questions and big ideas in their field. Begin this TED Study with a fascinating read that gives context and clarity to the material. The reality of today All of us now are being blasted by information design. It's being poured into our eyes through the We...

No one remembers when you're right, but no one forgets when you're wrong. Your local weather person knows that saying all too well. But while they take a lot of the heat (get it?), how much of it is actually justified? In this episode, Mona Chalabi looks at weather forecasting data to see how accurate these predictions really are, and gives us t...

Talithia Williams builds statistical models that study the spatial and temporal structure of data.

Artist Chris Jordan shows us an arresting view of what Western culture looks like. His supersized images picture some almost unimaginable statistics -- like the astonishing number of paper cups we use every single day.

In memory of a great man and the numbers he loved.

Journalist Gary Wolf spends his days in pursuit of the most fascinating things. As a contributing editor at Wired, he's written about technology, mushroom hunters, venture capitalists ...

Mohamad Jebara loves mathematics -- but he's concerned that too many students grow up thinking that this beautiful, rewarding subject is difficult and boring. His company is experimenting with a bold idea: paying students for completing weekly math homework. He explores the ethics of this model and how it's helping students -- and why learning m...

Ola Rosling is the director and co-founder of the Gapminder Foundation. Previously, he was the Google Public Data product manager.

How much do you know about the world? Hans Rosling, with his famous charts of global population, health and income data (and an extra-extra-long pointer), demonstrates that you have a high statistical chance of being quite wrong about what you think you know. Play along with his audience quiz — then, from Hans’ son Ola, learn 4 ways to quickly g...