The video titled "Misspelled in Honour of Mistakes" by Vsauce discusses the concept of mistakes and how they are a part of our identity. It highlights the evolution of language and how silent "k"s in words like "knife", "knight", and "knee" came to be. The video also touches upon the history of science, using Fritz Machlup's "Half-life of knowledge" concept to explain how knowledge within a field is constantly being superseded by new, better ideas.
The video further explores the ubiquity of mistakes in popular songs like "For What It's Worth" by Buffalo Springfield and "Hey Jude" by the Beatles. It also mentions a 700-year-old prayer book, which was actually a previously unknown copy of a work by Archimedes, revealing the heart of calculus thousands of years before Newton and Leibniz.
The video also discusses the Mars Climate Orbiter's failure, a $327.6 million expedition that burned up in the red planet's atmosphere due to a mix-up between metric and imperial units. It also highlights the tragic Cedar Fire in California, which was caused by a small fire lit by a lost hunter.
The video concludes with the story of Henry Tandey, an English recipient of the Victoria Cross who spared the life of Adolf Hitler in World War I. It suggests that Hitler confirmed the story to emphasize the near miss that led to his survival.
The video ends with a discussion on regret and guilt, using a metaphor of a tree's scar as an analogy for regrets that stick around forever. The speaker suggests that regrets can be seen as a part of our identity, similar to a tree's scar, and that we can make them a smaller part of who we are. The video ends with a message of gratitude for watching.
1. The video title is misspelled in honour of mistakes.
2. Mistakes are a part of who we are today, as much as the stuff we've gotten right.
3. The "k"s in knight, knifed, and knee are silent by mistake.
4. The original old English forms of these words were pronounced with "k" sounds.
5. Reading and writing weren't as common hundreds of years ago, so people just pronounced words the way they wanted to do, regardless of spelling.
6. Warren G, in the fourth verse of his "What's Next", asks what's next.
7. Fritz Machlup coined the phrase "Half-life of knowledge".
8. Donald Hebb estimated that the half-life of knowledge in psychology is just five years.
9. Humans tend to believe that what we currently think we know about the universe is reasonably correct, even though statistics aren't on our side.
10. Examples of the ubiquity of mistakes are production errors in popular songs.
11. A 700-year-old prayer book was written on fresh, clean paper.
12. Recent multispectral images of the prayer book have revealed that the old manuscript a monk erased was a previously unknown copy of a work by Archimedes.
13. The Mars Climate Orbiter, a 327.6 million dollar expedition, burned up in the red planet's atmosphere because NASA used the agreed-upon metric units while Lockheed Martin used the imperial system.
14. Sergio Martinez became lost in the woods while hunting outside of San Diego, and his fire quickly got out of control and became a giant Cedar Fire.
15. The Cedar Fire destroyed 300,000 acres of land, 2,322 homes, and killed 15 people.
16. Henry Tandey, an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, caught a wounded German soldier in his gun sights four years after the event in the image.
17. Tandey spared the life of the German soldier who later became Adolf Hitler.
18. Hitler owned a copy of the painting of Tandey, and in 1938, when meeting with Neville Chamberlain, Hitler pointed to Tandey and told Chamberlain that Tandey came so close to killing him in 1918 that he thought he should never see Germany again.
19. The story is apocryphal but what is known is that Hitler pointed to Tandey and told Chamberlain that Tandey came so close to killing him in 1918 that he thought he should never see Germany again.
20. Ze Frank told a metaphor about how stuff in your past is like a carving on the bark of a sapling. Over time, the scar, the carving won't go away. But you can keep growing, doing more things, more branches, being more things.
21. The wound won't get smaller but you can make it a smaller part of who you are.