Hans Rosling's 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes

While many bemoan the dumbing down of TV as something terminal, those of us who live in the UK can afford a slightly smug moment every now and again. BBC4 is one of those rare channels that shows genuinely challenging television content and the above is a great example.

Hans Rosling is famous for his lectures - they combine the huge amount of data which is generally available to each and every one of us and shows them in a way which is easily comprehensible, despite the vastness of the data. Here, he shows the story of 200 countries over 200 years - all shown through the remarkable technology of augmented reality animation.

This is taken from a programme called The Joy of Stats.  If you are laboring under the impression that statistics are essentially boring then take a look at this excerpt from the show and then deny the fact that you were completely drawn in by it - if you can!

This is an amazing piece of footage - 120,000 numbers flash in front of our eyes in just four minutes and the data that is extrapolated indicates that perhaps the world in which we live is somewhat different from the world which most of us have in our imagination.

Image Credit Wikimedia