Series · 5 episodes · 8:59
How the modern world works
Electricity, the internet, AI and money: the systems you use every day, from the wire up.
Play from episode 1- 1
1:56How does electricity flow?
The light comes on at once, yet each electron in the wire crawls at 0.04 mm a second. What travels fast is the push, shared round the whole loop.
- 2
1:33How does the internet work?
A page crosses the internet as numbered packets. Routers pass each one a hop at a time, around broken links; your device sorts them and asks for lost ones.
- 3
2:04How a neural network learns
A small network guesses which dots are blue, measures its error, passes it back and nudges every connection. Thousands of nudges later, it has found the rule.
- 4
1:46How compound interest grows
At an example 7% a year, $1,000 becomes $7,612 in 30 years. $4,512 of it is interest earned on interest; simple interest stops at $3,100.
- 5
1:40What is inflation?
Inflation is the average rise in prices, measured by repricing one basket of goods. At 3% a year, $100 of cash buys about $74 of today’s goods in ten years.