Monday, May 13, 2024

The whole is qualitatively different from the parts: beer, birds, and brains

Pint of Science is an annual event in cities all around Australia. Local scientists give short talks about their research to general audiences. I am speaking tonight, along with my colleague Ben Powell. 

I found the tips to speakers very helpful. This led me to try and make the talk more of a personal story, reduce the amount of text on slides, and aim for engagement rather than focusing on scientific details or on technical details of your own research.

Here is the current version of my slides.

The introduction is based on this video and poem about emergence in economics.

This provides an example of how "free" economic markets can work well sometimes. But I will also point out that they can also fail spectacularly, another emergent phenomenon! 

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