Human beings are remarkably limited creatures.

We can only handle a small range of physical enviroments. We die if we are too hot, cold, get too little oxygen or too much carbon monoxide. We can’t see X-rays or radio waves or even infrared or ultraviolet. We can’t hear dog whistles or most geological rumbles.

Heck we can’t even detect magnetic energy.

We can’t fly like a bird. We can’t run as fast as most cats or dogs. We can’t go underwater very far at all.

But for almost all of these physical limitations we have found a way around them with our ingenuity and creativity.

More interesting are the psychological limitations.

There are many such limitations we have, but a Dr Albert Bartlett claims there is one that stands out…

“The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.”

I would expand this to include other areas of non-linear thinking such as the reality-shattering 80/20 rule.

But rather than get bogged down in jargon, let’s simplify it.

Removing limitations is fun.

Let Dr Bartlett take you on a whirlwind tour of undoing one particular human limitation…

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5051121482067161853

[This video is in fact the first half and the other half seems to be lost to the world. However there is a complete transcript you can find here.]

-Dr Martin Russell

Popularity: 38% [?]