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[Assistant] And flapped her ears as if she'd finally heard a distant call or caught a special scent. Her rumbling cries grew louder and louder.


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[Assistant] Jack was sure the elephant would start down the street filled with horses and ox carts. But morning breeze headed up the other street, the one that went through the bazaar. No, no, go the other way, cried Jack.


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[Assistant] The elephant began to run. Her flat oval feet thumped against the road as she headed toward the tents and stalls of the bazaar.


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[Assistant] Rogue elephant, a banana seller shouted. Sorry, sorry, Jack kept shouting.


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[Assistant] She's from the wild, she can't help it. Annie cried. Sorry, sorry, Jack said.


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[Assistant] With the merchants all chasing after her, Morning Breeze bolted from the bazaar. She started down a narrow pebbled road that soon became a dirt path. She left the bearded merchants shouting angrily in the dust. Morning Breeze kept running down the path, passing farms with small mud huts.


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[Assistant] Sheep and goats bleated and scuttled out of her way, chickens clucked and scattered.


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[Assistant] Her bell's jangling wildly. The elephant clomped past women and girls tending outdoor cooking fires. She lumbered past men and boys unloading hay from wooden carts.


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[Assistant] Hi, hi, excuse us, any yelled waving. Jack tried to smile as he clung to the sides of the swaying carriage. No one smiled or waved back.


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[Assistant] Everyone stared in shock as the elephant thundered by. Morning breeze ran to the end of the dirt path, but she didn't stop there.


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[Assistant] She kept running, cutting her own path through a sunscorched field.


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[Assistant] Jack felt as if they were riding a big gray ship on waves of tall yellow grass. This is fun, said Annie.


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[Assistant] Not really, thought Jack. Where in the world were they going? A million insects hummed and buzzed.


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[Assistant] Butterflies and dragonflies darted about. The elephant burst from the sea of grass and charged into a scrubby forest.


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[Assistant] As she plowed through shrubs and trees, birds cawed and flapped out of the brush. Okay, slow down, morning breeze, yelled Jack.


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[Assistant] Yeah, but not dump us off, said Jack.


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[Assistant] I wonder how long it will take us to get back to the tree house. I don't know. Let's just start retracing our steps, said Annie.


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[Assistant] Jack and Annie stood up and brushed the dirt off their coats. Hey, where's your bag? Asked Annie. My bag, said Jack. Where was it? He whirled around. He saw it lying in the grass. There, he said. He hurried to his bag and picked it up. It was open. Oh no. He reached in and pulled out their research book. The blue bottle and Teddy and Kathleen's note.


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[Assistant] He searched frantically for the emerald rose. I don't believe it. The emerald's missing, cried Jack.


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[Assistant] It must have slipped out when we fell off Morning Breeze, said Annie. We'll find it. It has to be here somewhere. Jack shoved everything back into his bag. Then he and Annie got down on their hands and knees. Jack looked intently at the forest undergrowth.


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[Assistant] The dried vegetation, sticks, clumps of dirt and rotten leaves. I can't believe this said Jack.


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[Assistant] They had been so close to returning home, their mission done. Now they were stuck in the middle of nowhere, and the emerald rose was missing.


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[Assistant] Like a tiny green light in a small sunlit clearing.


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[Assistant] It was lying next to a mound of earth and dead leaves. Yes said Jack.


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[Assistant] Its skin was olive brown, the color of the dead leaves. It had speckled yellow bands that ran around its scaly body. Back up, back up, go slow, Jack whispered to Annie.


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[Assistant] Jack picked up his bag and they quietly stepped backward until they got to the edge of the clearing. Now run!


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[Assistant] Jack and Annie took off. Clutching his bag, Jack ran with little steps, trying not to lose his pointy slippers. After about a hundred yards, Annie came to a halt. Stop, stop. She grabbed Jack's arm. We shouldn't get too far away. Why not? Said Jack.


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[Assistant] Penny, said Annie. We have to get the emerald for a penny. Right, right, said Jack. Okay. He took a deep breath. First, we have to get calm. Jack took another deep breath. Then he pulled out their research book. Okay, let's read about cobras.


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[Assistant] Jack opened the book and found a section about Indian wildlife. He read,


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[Assistant] The king cobra is the only snake known to make a nest for its eggs. The nest is made of a mound of dead leaves.


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[Assistant] The cobra's scaly skin is the same color as the leaves, a good example of natural camouflage.


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[Assistant] So that mound of leaves was its nest, said Jack, and the cobra was probably a mother snake guarding her eggs. How does that information help us? Said Annie. It doesn't, said Jack. He went on.


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[Assistant] When threatened, the King Cobra flattens its neck into a hood.


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[Assistant] That must be why Morning Breeze panicked and ran away.


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[Assistant] What if we were really small? Yes! said Annie. The cobra can't hear us, right? said Jack. She can only see us and feel vibrations. So if we make ourselves small,


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[Assistant] Maybe we can sneak back and get the emerald without being seen. Yes, said Annie. Jack reached into his bag and pulled out the blue bottle. He and Annie both stared at it. So how many sips should we take? Jack asked. One for ten minutes? Annie shook her head. Two for twenty. Okay, Jack took a deep breath.


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[Assistant] But just so you know, when we get small, everything else will be huge, like flies and spiders and...


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[Assistant] Spiders? Annie said in a small voice. Yeah, said Jack. Hey, you know what?


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[Assistant] You don't have to do this. I can do it by myself. It only takes one person to get the emerald.


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[Assistant] Suddenly the forest was filled with chirping, whirring, crunching, and squeaking. Uh oh.


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[Assistant] Wow, whispered Annie. Open your eyes. Jack opened his eyes. He and Annie were both small.


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[Assistant] Very small. Their clothes and shoes and Jack's bag were all small, too.


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[Assistant] Oh man, we got really small, said Jack. He looked around at the grass and the weeds and the mushrooms. They were all taller than he was. I think we shrunk to about six or eight inches.


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[Assistant] Close to the ground, the scrubby forest was awake and alive, filled with the ripe smells of earth, noisy insect sounds, and the rustling and whispering of grasses and weeds. The dirt glittered as if sprinkled with flecks of silver. It's really beautiful, said Annie. Yeah, said Jack.


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[Assistant] Wildflowers looked like elegant and luminous umbrellas with pale pink petals and silvery leaves. Berries were the size of apples. Look up, said Annie. Wow, said Jack.


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[Assistant] The tall trees of the forest were like skyscrapers. It was hard to see where they ended. Whoop. Something plopped down in the dirt beside Jack. Jack and Annie grabbed each other in terror.


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[Assistant] It was a giant insect as long as Jack's arm. It had a flat brown body, six legs, and two sets of wings. It looked at them with huge, goggle-like eyes. It waved its antennae and crept forward.


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[Assistant] Jack and Annie stumbled backward. The giant bug stopped. Then it rubbed its front wings together. The forest erupted with shrill chirping. Crickle, crickle, crickle, crickle. Jack covered his ears and laughed. The giant insect was a cricket. He knew a cricket wouldn't hurt them.


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[Assistant] The cricket pushed off the ground with its long hind legs and leapt into the brush. Look! said Annie glancing up.


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[Assistant] A giant golden yellow butterfly hovered above her.


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[Assistant] As if Annie were a flower, the butterfly touched down lightly on her head and opened its wings. Annie held her breath.


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[Assistant] Gigantic bee circled above Jack. Whoa, keep moving, buddy, Jack said, ducking and waving his hands. We're not flowers, the bee buzzed lazily away.


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[Assistant] Hey, we better hurry and get our emerald before we become our real size again, said Annie. Oh, right, said Jack. Which way? asked Annie. Jack looked around. It was hard to tell where they were. I remember the emerald was shining in the sunlight.


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[Assistant] It looks sunny over there, said Annie. She pointed to a clearing.


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[Assistant] So let's creep through the shade toward the light, said Jack. Remember the cobra can't hear us, but she can see us and feel our vibrations. We have to stay hidden and step lightly.


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[Assistant] Hey, I wonder where the dad is, said Annie.


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[Assistant] Don't ask, said Jack. Don't think about it. We have enough to worry about. Come on, let's go.


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[Assistant] He and Annie crouched down and started creeping toward the sunlight.


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[Assistant] Jack and Annie stepped lightly through dead leaves and pushed aside feathery weeds that towered above them. They carefully climbed over twigs, pebbles, and tangled roots. They skirted around a deserted ant hill as high as Jack's knees.


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[Assistant] When they got to the edge of the cobra's clearing, Jack stopped. He held up his hand, and Annie nodded. They peered between tall blades of grass. The emerald rose glittered in the sunlight. It looked as big as a softball. The cobra was still coiled around her nest.


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[Assistant] Should I just run as fast as I can, grab it and run back? No, no, said Jack. He was shocked by how big the cobra looked. I think she's asleep, said Annie. We can't really tell, said Jack.


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[Assistant] Her eyes are hard to see because of her camouflage. So how, started Annie. That's it, said Jack. Camouflage. What about it, said Annie. That's how we'll get the emerald, said Jack. We'll use our own camouflage. You mean like leaves, said Annie. Yeah, leaves would be good, said Jack. They looked around. There.


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[Assistant] He and Annie gripped another leaf and pulled until they ripped it from the vine too. Poke holes in them so we can see said Annie. Good idea said Jack.


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[Assistant] They poked holes in their leaves and then held them up covering their faces. Jack moved his leaf around until he could see the emerald through the eye holes. Go slowly and stick with me, Jack said. Two steps then stop, two steps then stop. Got it, said Annie.


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[Assistant] Holding their leaves in front of them, Jack and Annie carefully stepped into the clearing. They took two steps toward the emerald, then stopped, two steps, then stopped. The cobra didn't move. Jack desperately hoped she was asleep.


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[Assistant] He and Annie took two more steps then stopped. The emerald glittered in the hot sunlight. They took two more steps, then Annie gasped. The cobra was lifting her body above her nest. Her head was broad and flat.


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[Assistant] She swayed back and forth and looked around with staring eyes. Jack and Annie froze. Then slowly the cobra lowered her head. Jack let out his breath. Their camouflage had worked.


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[Assistant] He motioned to Annie, and they both took another two steps, then stopped. Jack was only a step away from the jewel now.


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[Assistant] Holding up his leaf camouflage with one hand, he leaned over and scooped up the emerald. It felt as heavy as a big rock. Holding the leaf with one hand, Jack used his other hand to shove the emerald into his bag.


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[Assistant] With Annie behind him, he stepped backward two steps, then stopped.


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[Assistant] Jack kept his eye on the cobra coiled around her nest. He and Annie kept backing up. Suddenly, a sound came from behind them.


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[Assistant] A strange, hissing, growling sound. A chill went through Jack. He turned around.


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[Assistant] A monster-sized cobra towered over them. The dad, yelled Annie.


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[Assistant] The male cobra had the same coloring as the female.


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[Assistant] His hood was spread out as he raised himself high above the grass.


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[Assistant] He swayed from side to side staring down at Jack and Annie with cold, unblinking eyes. He opened his giant mouth, showing two deadly fangs.


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[Assistant] They took off scrambling through the undergrowth of the forest. Jack led the way as they both half-crawled, half-ran over the dirt and through the grass.


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[Assistant] Jack lost his slippers and ripped his coat. Like a mouse, he clamored over sticks and twigs, nuts, seeds, bark, feathers, mosses, and mushrooms. All kinds of ants and beetles scuttled out of the way. The air was filled with screeching insect sounds.


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[Assistant] Maybe both King Cobras were searching for them now, he thought, and all the forest was screaming about it.


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[Assistant] The ground trembled. Jack heard thumping, thrashing, and bells. He crouched down in the grass and covered his head. He heard Annie shout, Jack, where are you, Jack?


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[Assistant] She sounded as if she was up in a tree. What was going on?


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[Assistant] The snake didn't have the olive brown skin of a cobra. It was grey and wrinkled.


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[Assistant] Before Jack could think, the tip of the elephant's trunk curled around him, clutching him like a banana. Morning breeze lifted Jack up in the air.


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[Assistant] Jack clung to his bag so he wouldn't lose the emerald again. The trunk curled back and Jack could see the sky whirling above him. The elephant uncoiled her trunk and let go of Jack. He plopped down into the straw carriage. Annie was already there.


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[Assistant] Morning praise! Annie cried. She came back for us.


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[Assistant] As they bounced around in the basket on the back of the elephant.


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[Assistant] They were safe from the cobras, they had their emerald rose, and morning breeze had risked her life to save them.


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[Assistant] Instantly the straw carriage felt small and cramped. Jack and Annie sat up and looked at each other. We're big again, said Annie. Yeah, said Jack, dazed. Where's the emerald, said Annie. Jack opened his bag.


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[Assistant] The jewel looked tiny again, but it was there. No problem, I have it, he said. It was kind of fun being so little, wasn't it? Said Annie.


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[Assistant] Yeah, until we nearly got killed by humongous super poisonous snakes, said Jack. Thanks for saving us, Morning Breeze.


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[Assistant] Called Annie. She reached out from the carriage and patted the elephant's wrinkled skin. Yeah, thanks. Said Jack.


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[Assistant] Morning breeze made a trumpet sound and swayed from side to side as she tramped through the low scraggly brush. I wonder where she's going, said Jack. The elephant slowed down. She sniffed the air with the tip of her trunk.


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[Assistant] A baby elephant bumbled out into the open. He had a fuzzy head and bright shining eyes.


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[Assistant] So that's why Morning Breeze had to escape the fort, said Annie. When they captured her in the wild, they took her away from her baby. She was desperate to get back to him. Yeah, said Jack.


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[Assistant] And after she found him, she came back to help us.


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[Assistant] Annie climbed out of the straw carriage and carefully slid down off the elephants back. Jack followed her. Annie padded the elephants back.


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[Assistant] I guess you'll be staying here now that you found your baby.


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[Assistant] Jack rubbed his hand over Morning Breeze's skin.


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[Assistant] Her huge wrinkled body smelled of grass and heat and trees. The elephant actually looked as if she were smiling. I don't think you need to wear this stuff anymore, said Annie.


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[Assistant] She reached up and lifted the rope of silver bells off the elephant's neck. The bells jangled as Annie dropped them into the grass. Or this, said Jack.


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[Assistant] He took the fringed cloth off the elephant's head. And especially this said Annie.


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[Assistant] They pulled the carriage off and set it on the grass. Doesn't that feel better? said Jack.


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[Assistant] Morning breeze stared at Jack and Annie. Her eyes were bright and clear. She trumpeted and rose to her full height. Before you go, can we pet your baby? Asked Annie.


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[Assistant] Jack rubbed his hand slowly over the baby's head. The elephant's fuzzy hair felt coarse and tickly. Jack laughed. Enjoy being home in the wild again, Annie said to Morning Breeze. Jack and I have to go back to our home now. Thanks, Morning Breeze, said Jack. Good luck. We love you, said Annie.


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[Assistant] Then she turned and lumbered off with her baby at her heels. The two of them kicked up grass and dirt as they disappeared into the brush.


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[Assistant] We look like we've been in a train wreck, she said. No kidding, said Jack.


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[Assistant] They'd both lost their pointy shoes and their coats were torn and dirty.


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[Assistant] At least we have our emerald rose, said Annie, and morning breezes back with her baby. Mission done, said Jack. So let's go back to the tree house, said Annie. Yeah, said Jack. He looked around. But where the heck are we?


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[Assistant] I think the big field we came through is over there," said Annie, pointing. I hear a lot of bug noise. Let's look. Jack and Annie headed for the field.


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[Assistant] So to get back to the tree house, we cross the field, and go on the dirt path, then head back through the bazaar, and down the road to the red fort. Got it?


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[Assistant] Got it, said Annie. I just hope we don't get eaten alive by bugs, said Jack. Or get heat stroke, or get clobbered by those angry guys in the bazaar. Enough, stop, said Annie, grinning. One thing at a time.


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[Assistant] Come on, don't be chicken. The bugs are more afraid of us than we are of them. Run!


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[Assistant] Annie and Jack started running through the dry, dusty field. Their torn silk coats billowed behind them. Jack could feel grasshoppers and all sorts of buzzy and jumpy things bashing against him, but nothing really hurt.


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[Assistant] His feet crushed the dry tough grass until he and Annie finally reached the dirt path. Yes, we, we made it, Annie said out of breath. Oh, look. Jack was burning up, he felt dizzy. Whew, we, look, Annie said again.


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[Assistant] She grabbed Jack and pointed to a farmer hauling hay.


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[Assistant] He must be searching for us, said Jack. Hide! But it was too late.


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[Assistant] The guard had jumped out of the carriage. He was striding toward the edge of the field. Stop, ambassadors from Frog Creek, he called. Jack held his breath as he and Annie waited for the guard. The guard looked about as he approached them. Where's the elephant? He asked. She threw us off, said Annie. Yeah, and then she ran that way, said Jack.


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[Assistant] He pointed to the right while Annie pointed to the left. But the guard didn't seem to care about the elephant.


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[Assistant] Jack and Annie silently followed the guard to his carriage and climbed in the back.


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[Assistant] The guard flicked the reins and the pair of black horses took off trotting down the dirt path. Annie looked at Jack. I wonder where we're going, she whispered. Jack just shook his head, his worst thought.


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[Assistant] Was that the great mogul had changed his mind and wanted to punish them.


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[Assistant] The horses passed the mud huts, the men and boys hauling hay, the women and girls cooking outdoors. They passed goats and sheep and chickens. The horses clopped down the stone road. They moved easily through the bazaar.


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[Assistant] Jack saw that the silks and carpets were hanging on the lines again. Oranges, lemons, and pineapples were back in the baskets.


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[Assistant] Tent poles were all standing and the bearded merchants looked happy and busy. The horses trotted down the street toward the Red Fort.


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[Assistant] When they came to the drawbridge, Jack expected them to cross the moat and head back to the palace. But they didn't.


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[Assistant] The horses trotted past the fort and down a road along the river.


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[Assistant] The sun was low in the sky when the horse-drawn carriage came to a square.


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[Assistant] The horses stopped before a massive red gateway with an arched entrance. The guard turned to Jack and Annie. You are to go inside and wait, he said. Okay, thanks for the ride, said Annie.


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[Assistant] Leading from the entrance was a narrow canal stretching to the horizon. In the sunset.


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[Assistant] Jack thought he saw a cloud of mist hovering above the ground.


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[Assistant] Then he realized it was a shimmering milky white dome about 20 stories high. It seemed to float between the earth and the sky.


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[Assistant] There were four tall towers at the corners of a terrace beneath the dome. Jack and Annie just stared at the dreamlike vision. Then they saw a man walking along the narrow canal toward them. As the man got closer, Jack caught his breath. It was the great mogul. No guards were with him. He was all alone. The great mogul stopped and stared at them.


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[Assistant] His gaze took in their ragged torn coats and bare feet. Jack panicked.


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[Assistant] They look terrible. Would the ruler think they weren't showing proper respect for him? Bow, Annie whispered.


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[Assistant] Then they lowered their hands and stood perfectly still.


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[Assistant] Jack cast his eyes down, afraid to look directly at the great mogul. There was a moment of silence. Then the all-powerful ruler spoke. I have never read such writing before, or seen such artwork, he said. Jack looked up at the great mogul, but he didn't know what to do. Were they allowed to talk? Excuse me, your majesty, said Annie. Is it all right to speak?


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[Assistant] Yes, said the great mogul. Thank you. Well, Jack wrote the words, said Annie, and I drew the pictures. The great mogul nodded. Your story and pictures tell of riding through the world in a treehouse.


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[Assistant] You tell of saving a huge octopus. A baby gorilla and a baby kangaroo.


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[Assistant] Not really, Annie said. Lots of people draw better than me.


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[Assistant] What you probably loved was the perfect printing of Jack's story and the sparkly colors of my pants.


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[Assistant] Yeaah, we can't take credit for those things, said Jack. The great mogul almost smiled. The perfect letters and the sparkles were not what I liked best. He said, I liked the heart in the story. I liked the heart in the drawings.


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[Assistant] And now I want to answer the question you asked me today, the great mogul said to Annie. You asked if I loved anything. I could not speak freely in front of my guards or my foreign guests, but the answer is yes. I once did love something, someone, very much. My wife, she was my best friend and the mother of many children. I wept an ocean of tears when she died.


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[Assistant] Oh, I'm so sorry, said Annie. Me too, said Jack. You have shown me your hearts, said the great mogul. Now I show you mine. He turned and looked at the shimmering dome. This is the tomb of marble I built for my wife. It is called the Taj Mahal.


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[Assistant] Chapter 12, The Meaning of the Emerald.


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[Assistant] Jack, Annie, and the great mogul were silent for a long moment. The marble of the Taj Mahal seemed to change color as the sun went down. Against the darkening sky,


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[Assistant] It went from pale pink to orange to purple the dome sparkled


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[Assistant] Stonecutters set precious stones in the marble, said the great mogul.


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[Assistant] Many were cut in the shapes of flowers and leaves.


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[Assistant] The emerald rose you chose today is like the carved flowers set in the Taj Mahal. It's really beautiful, Jack said. Yes.


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[Assistant] Many say it is the most beautiful building in all the world, said the great mogul.


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[Assistant] But hidden beneath the sparkle and magnificence of the Taj Mahal.


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[Assistant] Uh, actually, Jack started. He didn't know what to say. How could he protect Morning Breeze? We left her in the forest. Annie finished. She has a baby she wanted to take care of.


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[Assistant] You probably didn't know this, but Morning Breeze was a new mom when she was captured. She's a good mother. She should stay with her baby. The great mogul nodded. I understand, he said. My wife was a good mother too. The last thing she said to me was, please take care of our children.


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[Assistant] Do not worry, the elephant will remain in the forest with her child. Thank you, said Annie. The great mogul stared at them for a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice was kind. You are ambassadors from far away, he said. But you are children too. You should go back to your home, to those who care for you. A splendid idea, said Jack, trying to sound like an ambassador.


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[Assistant] The great mogul walked with Jack and Annie back to the arched entrance and through the tall gate. He waved at the driver in the cart, then he turned to Jack and Annie. Farewell, he said. Travel safely. Thank you, said Annie. Bow, Jack whispered to her. Jack and Annie performed their bow one last time. When they straightened up, the great mogul nodded.


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[Assistant] Oh, and thank you for the emerald rose, said Annie. It is a priceless treasure. You are most welcome, said the great mogul. The rose was my wife's favorite flower. And as you know, emeralds stand for love.


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[Assistant] Then without another word, he turned and walked through the tall gate.


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[Assistant] Please take us to the trees outside the walls of the Red Fort, Jack's Head.


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[Assistant] The guard flicked his reins, the black horses trotted along the river in the pink twilight.


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[Assistant] They passed veiled women on the backs of elephants, white oxen pulling a cart, and small boys driving a herd of sheep.


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[Assistant] This is fine. We'll get out here, please," said Jack. The guard gave them a silent nod. Jack and Annie jumped out of the cart.


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[Assistant] They ran under the trees to the rope ladder and climbed into the tree house. Jack grabbed the Pennsylvania book. Before he made the wish, he and Annie looked out the window.


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[Assistant] In the shape of a rose is an emerald stone that uncovers the heart of one who's alone. Our mission wasn't really done until now, he said.


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[Assistant] We were so worried about the Emerald Rose, we forgot the part about uncovering the heart of one who's alone. The Great Mogul, said Annie, even though he has millions of followers, he's really lonely. Jack and Annie looked out the window again. Goodbye, Great Mogul, Annie said. I hope your heart feels better someday. Jack took a deep breath.


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[Assistant] He pointed at a picture of the Frog Creek woods. I wish we could go home, he said.


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[Assistant] The wind began to blow. The treehouse started to spin. It spun faster and faster. Then everything was still. Absolutely still.


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[Assistant] Jack and Annie were wearing their own clothes again. Jack's bag was a backpack.


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[Assistant] A warm wind was blowing the trees in the Frog Creek woods.


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[Assistant] I'm glad it's not boiling hot here, said Jack. It feels good, said Annie. You've still got the emerald rose, right? Jack looked in his backpack. Got it, he said. He pulled out their note, their research book.


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[Assistant] And the blue bottle, and he left them in the corner of the treehouse.


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[Assistant] Then Jack took out the sparkling stone and held it up to the afternoon light. This is for you, Penny, Jack said.


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[Assistant] I was just thinking that it's really cool that emeralds stand for love, said Annie.


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[Assistant] Love was the reason for every big thing that happened today. How do you mean? said Jack. He thought their day had been crazy.


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[Assistant] Well, we win on our mission because Merlin and everyone else in Camelot loves Penny, said Annie, and we love her too. Right, said Jack.


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[Assistant] And morning breeze took us into the wild because she loved her baby, said Annie. Right, said Jack.


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[Assistant] And we ran into trouble with the cobras because they loved their babies to be, said Annie. Yeaah, said Jack. Okay.


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[Assistant] And finally, the great mogul showed us the Taj Mahal, which is the most amazing building we've ever seen, and he built it because he loved his wife, said Annie. Yeah, said Jack. You're right. Annie made it all sound so simple. And now I would love to go home, said Annie. Me too, said Jack.


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[Assistant] Hey, we can tell mom and dad you got an A plus on your story, said Annie. We'll print it out again.


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[Assistant] Yeah, and I made copies of your artwork, said Jack, except the sparkles don't really show. That's okay, said Annie. The sparkles aren't that important. Right, said Jack, is the heart that counts.


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[Assistant] And the two of them left the Frog Creek woods and headed home under the cloudless May sky.


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[Assistant] This is Mary Pope Osborne. We hope you have enjoyed this unabridged production of Magic Treehouse Merlin Missions, book number 17, A Crazy Day with Cobras. This program was directed by Lewis Milgram, executive producer Orly Moskowitz.


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[Assistant] Text Copyright 2011 by Mary Pope Osborne Production Copyright 2011 Penguin Random House LLC All Rights Reserved


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[Assistant] Okay, just as we're, uh,


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[Assistant] Getting, getting started, I thought I'd add a few words about a question that came up after class. Suppose in that discussion last time, where you were given three, you were given a distance matrix, you were given the distance between


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[Assistant] x1 and x2, between x2 and x3, and between x1 and x3, and you wanted to find points that satisfied that.


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[Assistant] We're gonna fail on this example, because if the distance here is 1,


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[Assistant] The distance here is 1 then by the triangle inequality.


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[Assistant] And when we square it, it could not be more than 4, and here it's 6. So what's going to happen? What goes wrong in that case? Uh, yeah, I hadn't commented on that, and I'm not sure that the paper that I referenced does so. So I had to do a little search back in the literature, because


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[Assistant] People couldn't overlook this problem. So this is the triangle.


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[Assistant] And it's not going to help to go into 10 dimensions, because the triangle inequalities doesn't, doesn't change.


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[Assistant] And it's still there in 10 dimensions and we're still failing. So what happens? Well, what could happen?


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[Assistant] Uh, do you remember, and you'll have to remind me,


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[Assistant] The key equation, you remember we had an equation connecting, connecting the, the, so what is the matrix D for this problem? So D is, this is a 3 by 3 matrix.


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[Assistant] With these distances squared, and it was convenient to use distances squared because that's what comes into the next steps.


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[Assistant] So of course the distance from each x to itself is 0. The distance from x, distance squared was that.


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[Assistant] This one was that, but this one is 6. Okay.


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[Assistant] So that's the distance matrix, and we would like to find


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[Assistant] The job was to find, and I'm just going to write down, we cannot find,


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[Assistant] So what goes wrong? Well, there's only one thing that could go wrong. When you connect this distance matrix D to the matrix X transpose X, you remember the position matrix, maybe I called it G. This, this is giving, so Gij,


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[Assistant] So, Gij is the matrix of dot products, and,


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[Assistant] Uh, the great thing was that we can...


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[Assistant] Discover what that matrix, that matrix G comes directly from D. Comes directly from D.


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[Assistant] And of course, what do we know about this matrix of cross products? We know that it is positive semi-definite.


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[Assistant] So what goes wrong? Well, just in a word, when we write out that equation and discover what g is, if the triangle inequality fails,


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[Assistant] We learn that g is, g doesn't come out positive definite.


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[Assistant] Really all I want to say, and I could push through the example, g will not come out positive definite if d, if that's d, because, uh, it can't. If it came out positive definite, then we could find an x.


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[Assistant] Find an x, well we know that if g is positive semi-definite, there are multiple ways to find an x, uh, you know, this is,


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[Assistant] Positive semi-definite matrices is what you get out of X transpose X's.


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[Assistant] And we can find an x given a g, we can find g given an x. So it has to be that, uh, uh, this won't be true.


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[Assistant] That the matrix G that comes out of that equation will turn out not to be positive definite. So it's really quite nice.


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[Assistant] It's a beautiful little bit of mathematics that if


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[Assistant] If and only if the triangle inequality is satisfied by these numbers, if and only if


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[Assistant] Then the G matrix that comes out of this equation, which I haven't written, is positive semi-definite.


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[Assistant] If the triangle inequality is okay, we can find the point.


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[Assistant] If the triangle inequality is violated, like here, then the matrix G is not positive semi-definite, has negative eigenvalues, and we cannot find the point.


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[Assistant] I could recall the G matrix, but the, the G equation, but, uh, uh,


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[Assistant] It's, it's coming to you in the two page, uh, uh,


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[Assistant] Made a point, it's nice to have specific numbers and I could get the specific numbers for g and we would see no way it's not positive definite. Okay, so that's just tidying up last time. I have another small problem to talk about and then a big question of whether, uh,


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[Assistant] Deep learning actually works. I had an email from an expert last night which, uh, changed my view of the world, uh, about that question. As you can imagine, uh, the, the change in my world was I had thought


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[Assistant] The answer was yes, and I now think the answer is no. So that's like, rather a big issue for 18.065. But we'll, let's see about that later. Okay.


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[Assistant] So Procrestes, and it's included in the notes, that name comes from a Greek myth. Are you guys into Greek myths? Uh, so what was the story of Procrestes? He, uh, was it Procrestes who, um,


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[Assistant] Adjusted the length of his, so he had a special bed.


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[Assistant] It's uh, the Greeks liked this sort of thing. Okay.


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[Assistant] So anyway, that's a Greek myth for 18.065.


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[Assistant] Okay, so the whole idea of the percussities problem is to make something


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[Assistant] Fit something else. So the, the, so the two things are, uhm,


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[Assistant] So suppose I'm just in three dimensions and I have two vectors here.


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[Assistant] So I have a basis for a two-dimensional space, and over here I have


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[Assistant] People, uh, space scientists might have...


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[Assistant] One computation of the, of the positions of satellites, then of course they wouldn't be off by as much as this figure shows, but then they have another computation using different coordinates, so it, so it's, it's partly rotated from this picture, but also it's partly got round-off errors and an error in it.


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[Assistant] So the question is, what's the best trans- best orthogonal transformation? So this, this is a bunch of vectors x1, x2, to xn, let's say.


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[Assistant] And I want to multiply them by an orthogonal matrix. No, maybe I do it on the other side. I think I do. Yeah.


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[Assistant] Q to be as close as possible to this other set, y1, y2, up to yn. So let me just say it again. I have two sets of vectors, and I'm looking, and they're


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[Assistant] Different, like those two sets. And I'm looking for the orthogonal matrix that, as well as possible, takes this set into this one. Of course, if this was, if this was an orthogonal basis, and this was an orthogonal basis, then we would be home free. Uh, Q, we could get equality. We could take


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[Assistant] An orthogonal basis directly into an orthogonal basis with a orthogonal matrix Q.


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[Assistant] In other words, if x was an orthogonal matrix and y was an orthogonal matrix, we would get the exact correct Q. But, uh, uh, that's not the case, so we're looking for the best possible. So that's the problem there. Minimize.


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[Assistant] Over orthogonal matrix, matrices Q, and I just want to get my notation to be consistent here.


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[Assistant] What orthogonal matrix Q multiplies the y's to come as close as possible to the x's?


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[Assistant] Over all orthogonal q's, I want to minimize yq minus x in the Frobenius norm. And I might as well square it. So Frobenius, we're into the Frobenius norm. Remember the, of a matrix.


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[Assistant] This is a very convenient norm in, in data science, uh, to measure the size of a matrix. And we have several possible formulas for it. So the, so let me call the matrix A.


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[Assistant] And the Frobenius norm squared, okay, so what's one expression in terms of the entries of the matrix, the numbers a, i, j in the matrix? The Frobenius norm is just treats it like a long vector.


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[Assistant] So it's a11 squared plus a12 squared all the way along the first plus second row, just


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[Assistant] I'll say n, n square. Okay.


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[Assistant] Some of all the squares, uh, just treating it like a long vector. Okay. This, but that's a awkward expression to write down.


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[Assistant] So what other ways do we have to find the Frobenius norm of a, of a matrix?


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[Assistant] Uh, let's see, I can look at this as, uh, A transpose A.


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[Assistant] Is that right? A transpose A, so what, what's happening there? Remind me what, uh,


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[Assistant] Yeah, I would get all that, I would get all these by taking the matrix A transpose times A, but what, sorry, I'm not, I'm not, uh,


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[Assistant] Oh, and then I take the trace, of course. So that first row, first column of A.


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[Assistant] Times that one will give me the one set of squares. And then that one times the other one, the next one will give me the next set of squares, right?


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[Assistant] So this is going to, if I look at the trace, so now let me, so I just want to look at the diagonal here. So it's the trace.


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[Assistant] Remember, the trace of a matrix, of a matrix M, is the sum down the diagonal M11, M22, down to MNN. It's the, it's the, it's the sum, it's the diagonal sum.


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[Assistant] Term on the diagonal of A transpose A gives me all of that. Then, or maybe I've


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[Assistant] Maybe I should be doing AA transpose, and the point is it doesn't matter. So, or the trace of AA transpose. That would be, those would both give, give the correct Frobenius norm squared.


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[Assistant] So traces are going to come into this little problem.


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[Assistant] Well, certainly shorter than this one, involving a sum of squares and what's that one?


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[Assistant] If I look at the SVD, look at singular values, I think that this is also equal to


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[Assistant] Sigma, sum square of all the singular values.


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[Assistant] So it's three nice expressions for the Frobenius norm.


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[Assistant] The nice ones involve A transpose A or AA transpose. And of course, that connects to the singular values, because what are, what's the connection between singular values and those, and these guys? A transpose A or AA transpose.


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[Assistant] The singular values are the, or the singular values squared, are the eigenvalues of A transpose A. And then when I add up the trace, I'm adding up the eigenvalues and that's the,


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[Assistant] That, that gives me the, uh, the Frobenius norm squared. So this is a, that's a,


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[Assistant] That tells us something important, uh, which we can see in different ways.


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[Assistant] So to solve this problem, we're going to need various facts, like the QA in the Frobenius norm is the same as A in the Frobenius norm. Why is that? Why?


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[Assistant] So here I'm multiplying every column by the matrix Q. What happens to the length of the column when I multiply it by Q? Doesn't change.


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[Assistant] So I could add up the length of the columns all squared. Here I wrote it in terms of rows, but I could have reordered that and got it in terms of columns. That's because


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[Assistant] The length of q times any vector squared is


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[Assistant] The same as the vector square. And these, take these to be the columns.


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[Assistant] Of A. So for column by column.


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[Assistant] The multiplication by q doesn't change the length. And then when I add up all the columns squared, I get the Frobenius norm squared.


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[Assistant] Another way to say it, let's make the connection between the


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[Assistant] This fact that q didn't change the Frobenius norm, and this fact that the Frobenius norm is expressed in terms of the sigmas. So what does q do to the sigmas?


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[Assistant] I want to see in another, another way the answer.


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[Assistant] To y. So if I have a matrix A with singular values, I multiply by q, what happens to the singular values? Don't change.


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[Assistant] Don't change. That's the key point about singular values.


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[Assistant] If I multiply, so A has an SVD U sigma V transpose. And QA will have the SVD QU sigma V transpose.


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[Assistant] So all I've changed when I multiply by q, all I changed was the first factor, the first orthogonal factor in the SVD. I didn't change the sigmas. They're still sitting there.


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[Assistant] So and of course I could do also q on the other side, different q, same q or a different q on the other side would show up here and would not change the sigmas and therefore would not change the Frobenius norm. So that's, these are important properties of this Frobenius norm. It's a, it looks messy to write down in that form.


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[Assistant] But it's much nicer in these forms and in that form. Okay.


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[Assistant] Okay, so now if I can just, then we saw that it involves traces. So let me make a few observations about traces. Okay.


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[Assistant] So I'll just, we want to, we want to be able to play with traces and that's something we really haven't done. Here's a fact. That the trace of A transpose B is equal to the trace of


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[Assistant] B transpose A. Of course, if B is A,


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[Assistant] It's clear. And it's equal to the trace of


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[Assistant] Little changes in your matrix without changing the trace. Let's see why one of these is true. Why is that first statement true?


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[Assistant] I'm adding down the diagonal. The transpose has no effect. Clearly, this...


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[Assistant] This is just the fact that the trace doesn't change, is not changed when you transpose a matrix because the diagonal is not changed. Now what about this guy?


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[Assistant] I guess we're getting back to old fashioned 18.065, remembering facts about linear algebra, because this is pure linear algebra.


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[Assistant] So what's this one about? This says that I can...


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[Assistant] Reverse the order of two matrices. So I'm now looking at the connection between those two. And, and, and so, so let me just to use different letters. CD equals the trace of DC. I can flip the order.


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[Assistant] That's all I've done here is I've reversed B with A transpose. I've reversed C with D. Okay, so why is that true? Why is that true?


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[Assistant] Well, how shall we see the truth of that fact?


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[Assistant] So these are really convenient facts that make a lot of people


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[Assistant] Use the trace more often than we have in 18.065. I'm not a big user of arguments based on trace, but these are identities that


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[Assistant] Go a long way with many problems. So let's see why that's true. Anytime you think about trace, you've got two languages to use.


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[Assistant] You can use the eigenvalues, it's the sum of the eigenvalues.


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[Assistant] Or you can use the diagonal entries because it's the sum of the diagonal entries. Let's use eigenvalues.


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[Assistant] How are the eigenvalues of CD related to the eigenvalues of DC? They're the same.


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[Assistant] If these matrices are rectangular, then there might be some extra zero eigenvalues, because they have, would have different shapes. But zeros are not going to affect the trace. So, so this is the same, same non-zero eigenvalues.


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[Assistant] Let me, let me try to tell you the steps now to get the correct Q in, or let me tell you the answer first.


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[Assistant] And I'm realizing that, that all important question four, does deep learning actually work?


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[Assistant] We're going to run out of time today because we only have a few minutes left. I suggest we...


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[Assistant] Bring that question back up because, like, it's pretty important to, to a lot of people. There's a, you know, I had lunch with Professor Edelman and he said, you know, deep learning and neural nets have had, like, a record amount of, uh,


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[Assistant] Publicity and hype for, uh, for a sort of computational algorithm and, uh,


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[Assistant] But I had, uh, I've had people now tell me that typical


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[Assistant] Uh, first, if you create a network.


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[Assistant] Using Alex's, uh, design for example.


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[Assistant] The chances are that it won't be successful. That the successful networks have been worked on and experimented with and a good structure has emerged but didn't


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[Assistant] Wasn't there at the start. So I think that's a topic for, for Monday.


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[Assistant] And, uh, I'm really just realizing from talking to people in the field that, uh, uh, it's by no means automatic, that the structure, even if you put in a whole bunch of layers,


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[Assistant] It may not be what you want. Okay, so I'm, let me finish, uh, this argument today. Let me give you the answer. So what's the good Q? I have matrices Y and X.


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[Assistant] And the idea is that I take it, uh, I look at y transpose x.


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[Assistant] So that'll be all the dot products of one set of vectors with the other set of vectors. That's a matrix. And I do its SVD, u, sigma, v transpose.


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[Assistant] Multiply y, the two bases that you're given. Of course, if y was the same as x, if it was an orthogonal basis, you'd have the identity. No questions.


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[Assistant] Generally we have, it has an SVD. And we're looking for the, for a orthogonal matrix of the best Q.


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[Assistant] Da-da-da-da. I mean, it's the right time for, for, uh,


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[Assistant] Uh, expressions of amazement. Uh, it is uv transpose.


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[Assistant] So that gives us the answer. We're given x and y. We're looking for the best q. And the answer comes in the simplest possible way.


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[Assistant] Compute Y transpose X, compute its SVD, and use the orthogonal matrices from the SVD.


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[Assistant] Yeah, and I'm out of time, so, uh, so proof.


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[Assistant] It's, it's three line, uh, later.


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[Assistant] Either, uh, either to just send you the section online or to discuss it in class Monday, but I-


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[Assistant] I'm really planning Monday to, uh, start with question four.


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[Assistant] And meanwhile to ask a whole lot of people, everybody I can find, uh, uh,


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[Assistant] About that important question is, does deep learning usually work? What can you do to make sure it works or give yourself a better chance to have it work?


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[Assistant] Uh, so that's up for Monday then.


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[Assistant] Hi, I'm Emma. I grew up in Melbourne and lived there most of my life before moving to Sydney three years ago.


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[Assistant] I work as a journalist specializing in social issues.


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[Assistant] I love writing about housing and homelessness, children's and adult social care, and about mental health.


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[Assistant] My favorite pastime is learning new things by reading or watching informational videos.


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[Assistant] I like participating in volunteer activities, especially teaching underprivileged kids.


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[Assistant] I like spending my weekends helping these NGOs for different activities from teaching


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[Assistant] ...to organizing interesting games and activities to make learning fun for kids.


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[Assistant] Recently I've been interested in exploring different languages as they help me explore new cultures around the world.


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[Assistant] I started learning Spanish online, and I've already cleared the beginner level.


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[Assistant] I like spending time in nature and capture all the wonderful moments of beauty with my camera.


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[Assistant] I've been doing nature photography since I was in school and I am truly proud of this hobby.


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[Assistant] I like searching for different recipes on YouTube and trying them out on my friends and family.


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[Assistant] I think it's important that people say please and thank you, and don't push or shove.


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[Assistant] I think my greatest weakness is that I have trouble saying no to my coworkers. Even when I have a lot on my plate, I really don't like to disappoint people. Though sometimes I end up taking on more work than I should.


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[Assistant] Lesson 2. Spare that spider. First listen and then answer the following question.


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[Assistant] How much a each year do spiders spend killing insects? Why, you may wonder, should spiders be our friends? Because they destroy so many insects, and insects include some of the greatest enemies of the human race.


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[Assistant] Insects would make it impossible for us to live in the world. They would devour all our crops and kill our flocks and herds. If it were not for the protection we get from insect eating animals.


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[Assistant] We owe a lot to the birds and beasts who eat insects but all of them put together kill only a fraction of the number destroyed by spiders


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[Assistant] Moreover, unlike some of the other insect eaters, spiders never do the least harm to us or our belongings


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[Assistant] Spiders are not insects, as many people think, nor even nearly related to them


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[Assistant] One can tell the difference almost at a glance. For a spider always has eight legs and an insect never more than six


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[Assistant] How many spiders are engaged in this work on our behalf?


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[Assistant] One authority on spiders made a census of the spiders in a grass field in the south of England, and he estimated that there were more than 2,250,000 in one acre—that is something like 6 million spiders of different kinds on a football pitch.


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[Assistant] Spiders are busy for at least half the year in killing insects


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[Assistant] It is impossible to make more than the wildest guess at how many they kill. But they are hungry creatures, not content with only three meals a day.


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[Assistant] It has been estimated that the weight of all the insects destroyed by spiders in Britain in one year would be greater than the total weight of all the human beings in the country


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[Assistant] Yeah, always. To come back into, into this building in particular, where it all begins, is, yeah, it's phenomenal. Tell us about Some Young Guys, because, uh, in


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[Assistant] So we've got prawn curry with cumin rice and raita.


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[Assistant] Here we go. Did you make that yourself? Smells like something I make. So we have a crab curry with coconut rice and a side of acha.


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[Assistant] What ice cream are you going to do, Matt? Uhm, I am making a... orange pomegranate.


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[Assistant] Ginger, lime, thyme, pepper, ice cream, and then I'm doing, uh, uh, honey-coated roasted macadamia nut crumble.


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[Assistant] Is that everything? Ginger? It sounds good. Yeah. I'm Matt Jordan, I'm 42 and I'm from Sydney.


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[Assistant] I got your pantry. Yes. What have we got going on? Okay, so I'm making a orange pomegranate, thyme, lime, ginger, a little bit of pepper, um, ice cream, and a roasted macadamia nut, um, light crumble.


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[Assistant] Do they work cold? Yeah, yeah, yeah, they work perfectly. To me it tastes beautiful. It's, it's kind of, it's like summer.


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[Assistant] It was such a pleasure to have, you know, Matt, George and Gary taste my food. And I now know that like I need to work on flavour, flavour, flavour.


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[Assistant] Maybe because the earth forgets to switch off the lights. Nah. Let me explain.


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[Assistant] So, should we use a big umbrella to protect ourselves from these particles? No.


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[Assistant] The Earth's magnetic field acts like a shield and protects us. Its field lines appear to emerge from the south pole and merge into the north pole.


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[Assistant] Lesson 6 – The sporting spirit. First listen and then answer the following question.


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[Assistant] How does the writer describe sport at the international level


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[Assistant] I am always amazed when I hear people saying that sport creates goodwill between the nations. And that if only the common peoples of the world could meet one another at football or cricket, they would have no inclination to meet on the battlefield.


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[Assistant] Even if one didn't know from concrete examples, the 1936 Olympic Games, for instance, that international sporting contests lead to orgies of hatred, one could deduce it from general principles.


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[Assistant] Nearly all the sports practiced nowadays are competitive. You play to win, and the game has little meaning unless you do your utmost to win


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[Assistant] On the village green, where you pick up sides and no feeling of local patriotism is involved.


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[Assistant] It is possible to play simply for the fun and exercise, but as soon as the question of prestige arises, as soon as you feel that you and some larger unit will be disgraced if you lose, the most savage combative instincts are aroused.


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[Assistant] Anyone who has played even in a school football match knows this


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[Assistant] At the international level, sport is frankly mimic warfare. But the significant thing is not the behavior of the players but the attitude of the spectators.


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[Assistant] And, behind the spectators, of the nations who work themselves into furies over these absurd contests, and seriously believe, at any rate for short periods, that running, jumping and kicking a ball are tests of national virtue.


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[Assistant] It is my very first time here in New York, so I'm really excited. I got into New York two days ago.


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[Assistant] It's fantastic. I really like it. I like the vibe here. It's really energetic.


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[Assistant] What I really appreciate about New York is that you can discover the city very well by foot.


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[Assistant] New York seems to be the ideal city for long strolls, which I enjoy very much.


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[Assistant] The fact that this city never sleeps, this continuous flow of energy is quite thrilling.


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[Assistant] You alright? I'll do my best to stay focused on my work and do a good job here.


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[Assistant] I can see you've installed a few appliances here. Brilliant.


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[Assistant] You've put in a sound system too? Everything looks great, thank you!


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[Assistant] That sounds good. Can you tell me a bit about my schedule?


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[Assistant] Oh, right. I forgot you call them fries here. Uh, with fries of course.


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[Assistant] And a glass of apple juice for me, please? Can you tell me where the toilets are?


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[Assistant] Well, to start with, my first impressions of New York, you know, the nightlife, the music, things like that.


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[Assistant] Thanks, I have to get to Manhattan now for an interview I have to take.


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[Assistant] I need to get to Bloom's Tavern? How do I get to Greenwich Village on the Underground?


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[Assistant] Oh, in UK the floor above is called the first floor and the street level floor is called the ground floor.


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[Assistant] And the portions in American restaurants are enormous. No one cooks meat like Americans. It's very easy to put on weight here.


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[Assistant] Anyway, my flat is near the office. I don't need a bike.


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[Assistant] Okay, that's a great idea, but I don't have any trainers.


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[Assistant] Can we make it a bit later? Say 7.45?


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[Assistant] Can I help you, sir? Yes, do you have these in an eight? Just a minute, I'll go and check.


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[Assistant] Here you are. These are an eight. Do you want to try them on?


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[Assistant] No thanks, I'm sure they'll be fine. How much are they? Uh, they're 85 dollars and 25 cents.


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[Assistant] Can I help you? Yeah, I bought these about half an hour ago. Yes, I remember. Is there a problem?


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[Assistant] Yeah, I'm afraid they're too small. I should have tried them on. What size are they?


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[Assistant] But we do have these, and they're the same price. Or you can have a refund.


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[Assistant] No, I don't wanna refund. I'll take this pair then, please. No problem. Do you have the receipt? Yeah, here you are.


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[Assistant] I know, I am a bit tired of eating out all the time. It isn't good for my figure.


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[Assistant] I might be coming down with a flu or something. Is there a chemist nearby?


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[Assistant] Well, I was shocked to see everyone here expects you to pay them by cheque. You hardly see any cheques in the UK.


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[Assistant] Your banking system works extremely slow. Digital transfers from bank to bank are not easy. That's hardly a problem in the UK.


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[Assistant] I love that you can order your lunch in advance on the website of your favorite lunch place.


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[Assistant] I also noticed that you get ID'd absolutely everywhere, while having brunch for example, or in bars.


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[Assistant] When it comes to paying, you're told the item is actually more expensive than it says on the price tag because a tax needs to be added to the overall price.


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[Assistant] But I'm really enjoying living in the USA. People are so friendly here. I got invited to people's houses. I got invited round to watch football games. I got invited out for beers. The Americans are very nice to be around.


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[Assistant] I love it. It works as a dish. It's ripping cooking. Well done.


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[Assistant] Delicious. Brilliant. We couldn't cook that any better.


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[Assistant] There are six ups for grabs. And to help them along, please welcome this season's new mentors.


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[Assistant] And a loving prince. He was fearless and generous all at the same time.


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[Assistant] The kingdom of Ambertown loved their prince.


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[Assistant] Feeling hungry, he took out some slices of bread from his sack.


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[Assistant] As he broke the first piece, he saw an ant crawling out.


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[Assistant] Adam quietly kept the piece down and picked up another slice. Now there were two ants coming out of the second slice.


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[Assistant] He again kept the slice down. And in the third slice, he found three ants.


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[Assistant] Oh, your highness, I have everything. In fact, I have more than I need.


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[Assistant] Confused, Adam mounted his horse and left. A little ahead, he saw a tiger crying in pain. He had a thorn stuck on his paw. Adam fearlessly helped the tiger. Thank you. What can I do for you? You can talk too? I just met a talking ant. Seems like you met the ant king. Tell me, where are you going?


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[Assistant] The princess you seek lives across the seven jungles and in the high hills. But how will I get there? A little ahead, to your right, you will find an old man. Tell him that you met me and the ant king.


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[Assistant] Confused again, Adam thanked the tiger and left to find the old man.


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[Assistant] Just as the tiger had promised, the old man was found under a tree with a bed in front of him.


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[Assistant] Adam told him about his meet with the tiger and the ant king.


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[Assistant] The old man stared into Adam's eyes and smiled.


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[Assistant] Lay down on it and tell it where to go. It will fly you wherever you want. And here is a stone bowl. It will give you water whenever you ask for it.


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[Assistant] You will need all of this to find Princess Lanun.


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[Assistant] Adam left his horse with the old man and flew away with the stone bull on the magic bed.


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[Assistant] The bed brought Adam to the kingdom of Princess Lallon.


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[Assistant] It was dark, and he wanted a place to rest before going to the palace the next morning. Suddenly, he heard something. I can't walk.


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[Assistant] Adam quickly wished for water from his stone bowl and helped the old man drink it.


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[Assistant] He then helped the old man all the way to his house.


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[Assistant] Oh, thank you, child. Wait. You aren't from this town. Who are you?


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[Assistant] The king tired of these foreigners, banned them from the kingdom for life. Nobody is allowed to host any foreigner. I can't give you shelter, even for an hour. I understand. I will not get you into any trouble. I will leave right away. Just as the prince was about to leave, there came a bright light through the window.


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[Assistant] The whole town lit up like stars upon earth.


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[Assistant] Adam rushed out. As the old man's house was closer to the palace, Adam could clearly see what was happening.


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[Assistant] A beautiful woman dressed in a white gown came to the roof. She looked radiant and pure.


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[Assistant] The woman opened her eyes and saw Prince Adam. It was love at first sight. They stared into each other's eyes.


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[Assistant] But after a while, she sadly closed her eyes and sat on the roof.


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[Assistant] Adam wanted her to open her eyes and see him again, but she didn't. She won't open her eyes again. Come inside, child. Who is she? Why won't she open her eyes? And why did she look so sad?


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[Assistant] What is this legend that everybody keeps talking about?


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[Assistant] You know, why don't we have any lights in this kingdom? Because Princess Aladdin lights this whole town till midnight.


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[Assistant] The hill is so high, it almost touches heaven! Wait a second.


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[Assistant] The tiger and I can both fight two demons at once. And well, for the drum on the highest hill, what is my magic bed for?


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[Assistant] Prince Adam had made up his mind. After sending a message through the trees and ants for his new friends, he would surrender to the royal guards.


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[Assistant] He knew that this was the only way to see the princess and not bring any trouble to the old man.


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[Assistant] Once inside the palace, Prince Adam saw Princess Lalun. She wasn't shining as she was the previous night, but she was beautiful nevertheless.


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[Assistant] How dare you enter this kingdom! I don't even want to know your name! Throw him into the dungeons!


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[Assistant] Sorry to interrupt your highness, but I am a prince. Prince Adam of Ambertown. You can't just marry my daughter. You have to finish three tasks.


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[Assistant] I know about the legend, your highness. I am ready to finish a hundred tasks to marry the woman I love.


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[Assistant] The King explained the first task to Prince Adam, who accepted it with a smile.


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[Assistant] He left the palace with a promise to come back with tons of oil.


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[Assistant] That night at the guest house, Adam had a few visitors. It was the Ant King and his army of ants.


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[Assistant] All the ants got to work and till morning all the seeds were crushed. The oil was brought to the palace.


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[Assistant] The surprise king looked a little hopeful.


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[Assistant] Maybe this was the man who was destined to marry his daughter. He then explained the next task.


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[Assistant] A combat between Adam and the two demons was set. But rather than entering the ring alone,


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[Assistant] Adam walked inside with his friend the tiger.


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[Assistant] The king, now extremely happy with his future son-in-law, explained the next task to him. But, it's on the highest hill, son. How will you get there?


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[Assistant] Adam wrought his bed and laid down on it in front of everyone.


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[Assistant] He flew up in the sky as everybody excitedly waved him goodbye.


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[Assistant] Hours passed, but there was no sign of Adam. The kingdom began to worry. Then, suddenly, there was a loud noise from the sky, almost like thunder. It was the drum.


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[Assistant] Adam had reached the top of the hill and was beating the drum.


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[Assistant] Within the next few hours, Adam flew down on his magic bed.


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[Assistant] The whole palace cheered for their new prince. The legend came true.


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[Assistant] You are truly courageous and a pure-hearted man. I am honored to give my daughter's hand in marriage to you.


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[Assistant] Thus, Princess Adam showed courage and generosity to win over the love of his life, Princess Lalun.


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[Assistant] They both ruled Ambertown with love and courage, and lived happily ever after.


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[Assistant] Oh my god! What's your name? Waleed. This is my modern twist on a buckler bar.


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[Assistant] There you are, Robbie. Tortoise was looking for you. He needs you to help with his guard.


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[Assistant] Well, I couldn't wait for him to finish the sentence, but I am guessing he meant Gaaaaaarden?


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[Assistant] But we have to be cautious about his growing arrogance.


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[Assistant] How did Vera discover she had this gift of second sight? Several cases have been reported in Russia recently of people who can read and detect colors with their fingers, and even see through solid doors and walls.


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[Assistant] One case concerns an 11-year-old schoolgirl, Vera Petrova, who has normal vision but who can also perceive things with different parts of her skin, and through solid walls


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[Assistant] Suddenly she asked her father why he kept so many old newspapers locked away there, and even described the way they were done up in bundles


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[Assistant] Vera's curious talent was brought to the notice of a scientific research institute in the town of Yulinovska, near where she lives, and in April she was given a series of tests by a special commission of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federal Republic.


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[Assistant] During these tests she was able to read a newspaper through an opaque screen and, stranger still, by moving her elbow over a child's game of Lotto she was able to describe the figures and colors printed on it


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[Assistant] And, in another instance, wearing stockings and slippers, to make out with her foot the outlines and colors of a picture hidden under a carpet


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[Assistant] Other experiments showed that her knees and shoulders had a similar sensitivity


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[Assistant] During all these tests Vera was blindfolded. And, indeed, except when blindfolded she lacked the ability to perceive things with her skin


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[Assistant] It was also found that although she could perceive things with her fingers this ability ceased the moment her hands were wet


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[Assistant] How do I get to your house, Denise? Is it easy to find it?


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[Assistant] What does your room look like? Please describe it to me.


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[Assistant] I went to South Korea to join an exchange student program.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I applied for the program at the scholarship office of our university and I got accepted.


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[Assistant] Very nice. Better than ours. How long were you there? I was there for ten months.


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[Assistant] Appearance means everything in Korea. Your hairstyle, dress sense, the shoes that you're wearing. They love to look trendy.


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[Assistant] They are incredibly respectful to their elders.


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[Assistant] If there's even a one year difference in age, they'll make sure that the elder is respected properly.


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[Assistant] I visited a lot of attractions like palaces, museums, parks, markets, and temples.


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[Assistant] The food was good to begin with. It has its own kind of spices.


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[Assistant] They use pepper paste and pepper vinegar in a lot of their foods.


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[Assistant] I particularly liked a dish of vegetables, egg and noodles mixed together.


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[Assistant] They also have a traditional side dish of salted and fermented vegetables called kimchi, which is served at nearly every meal.


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[Assistant] Food was very, very cheap and clothing was cheap on the outskirts of the city where the university was.


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[Assistant] I could also enjoy a live musical band on board, which was lovely.


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[Assistant] Yes, I picked up a lot of words and phrases. I enjoyed being abroad for 10 months. It was a nice experience to get out and live somewhere else.


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[Assistant] Meg was young and beautiful and very wise.


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[Assistant] She was the prettiest of all the sisters.


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[Assistant] All of them had a very strong bond amongst themselves.


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[Assistant] One day, a soldier came to their house to take their father to the army, as it was civil war going on.


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[Assistant] The officials have informed that Father had been badly injured during the war. They've hospitalized him and want someone to be with him, to take care of him. Oh, I'll have to go there, but how can I? I need money to travel. How can we arrange it? Don't worry, Mother.


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[Assistant] Joe couldn't sleep that night. She was crying silently in her bed. Late at night, Meg put her arm on Joe's shoulder. Joe woke up to see who it was. When she saw Meg sitting beside her, she hugged Meg. Don't worry. Everything will be alright soon. After their mother left for the hospital, the sisters take care of the house.


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[Assistant] She had a high fever and she was shivering with cold. All the three sisters took good care of Beth. But the fever was persistent. All of them were worried. We should call the doctor. What about the fees? How will we pay the doctor's fee? We don't have any money. I've a few cents saved. They won't be enough. Let it be. I'll be okay soon. I'll get the doctor. And his fees?


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[Assistant] I miss you, mother. Where are you? Please come home. I need you. Please come home. Beth, please don't cry. She will be back soon. You get well, and we'll write a letter to her. Yes, yes. She will come home soon. At the same moment, their mother entered the house. All of them were too happy to see her. Oh, mother. Mommy!


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[Assistant] He had also broken one of his legs. But now, he is out of danger. And he can be here anytime. We miss him so much. I know, dear. I wish nobody faces such hardships in life. Don't say that, mother. These hard times are the best teachers.


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[Assistant] Also, don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel.


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[Assistant] Instead, let me sit on the beach somewhere drinking mojitos. But instead, people go down, and after they recover they go up again.


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[Assistant] And if you think about mountain climbing as an example, it suggests all kinds of things. It suggests that we care about reaching the end, the peak.


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[Assistant] It suggests that we care about the fight, about the challenge. It suggests that there's all kinds of other things that motivate us to work or behave in all kinds of ways.


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[Assistant] This was a student that was one of my students a few years earlier, and he came one day back to campus, and he told me the following story.


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[Assistant] And when they finished, we took it, we put it under the table, and we said, would you like to build another one? This time for 270.


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[Assistant] This was what we call the meaningful condition. People build one bionicle after another, after they finished every one of them, we put them under the table, and we told them that at the end of the experiment, we will take all these bionicles, we will unassemble them, we will put them back in the boxes, and we will use it for the next participant.


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[Assistant] There was another condition. This other condition was inspired by David, my student. And this other condition we call the Sisyphic condition.


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[Assistant] And if you remember the story about Sisyphus, Sisyphus was punished by the gods to push the same rock up a hill. And when he almost got to the end, the rock would roll over and he would have to start again.


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[Assistant] Prison movies, sometimes the way that the guards torture the prisoners is to get them to dig a hole and when the prisoners finish they ask them to fill the hole back up and then dig again. There's something about this cyclical version of doing something over and over and over that seems to be particularly demotivating.


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[Assistant] We asked people, would you like to build one bionicle for three dollars? And if they said yes, they build it.


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[Assistant] And then we asked them, do you want to build another one for 270? And if they said yes, we gave them a new one. And as they were building it, we took apart the one that they just finished.


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[Assistant] The first thing that happened was that people built many more bionicles. They built 11 versus 7 in the meaningful condition versus the Sisyphus condition.


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[Assistant] Now we had another version of this experiment. In this other version of the experiment, we didn't put people in this situation, we just described to them the situation, much I'm describing to you now, and we asked them to predict what the result would be.


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[Assistant] What happened? People predicted the right direction but not the right magnitude. People who were just given the description of the experiment,


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[Assistant] If you think about it, there are some people who love Legos and some people who don't. And you would speculate that the people who love Legos will build more Legos even for less money. Because after all they get more internal joy from it. And the people who love Legos less will build less Logos because the enjoyment that they derive from it is lower.


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[Assistant] And that's actually what we found in a meaningful condition. There was a very nice correlation between love of Flegaux and the amount of Flegaux's people built. What happened in this specific condition?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In that condition, the correlation was zero. There was no relationship between the love of Lego and how much people built. Which suggests to me that with this manipulation of breaking things in front of people's eyes, we basically crushed any joy that they could get out of this activity. We basically eliminated it.


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[Assistant] Soon after I finished running this experiment, I went to talk to a big software company in Seattle. Can't tell you who they were, but they were a big company in Seattle.


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[Assistant] And this was a group within this software company that was put in a different building and they asked them to innovate and create the next big product for this company.


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[Assistant] And I described to them some of these LEGO experiments, and they said they have felt like they have just been through this experiment.


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[Assistant] And I asked them, I said, how many of you now show to work later than you used to? And everybody raised their hand. I said, how many of you now go home earlier than you used to? And everybody raised their hand.


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[Assistant] And they didn't really raise their hand, but they took me out to dinner and showed me what they could do with expense reports.


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[Assistant] And then I asked them, I said, what could the CEO have done to make you not as depressed?


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[Assistant] And they came up with all kinds of ideas. They said the CEO could have asked them to present to the whole company about their journey over the last two years and why they decided to do. He could have asked them to think about which aspect of their technology could fit with other parts of their organization.


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[Assistant] But the thing is that any one of those would require some effort and motivation.


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[Assistant] If the CEO, just like our participants, thought that the essence of meaning is unimportant, then he would care. And he would tell, well the moment I directed you in this way, and now I'm directing you in this way, everything would be okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But if you understood how important meaning is, then you would figure out that it's actually important to spend some time, energy and effort in getting people to care more about what they're doing.


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[Assistant] The next experiment was slightly different. We took a sheet of paper with random letters, and we asked people to find pairs of letters that were identical next to each other.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was the task, and people did the first sheet, and then we asked them if they want to do the next sheet for a little bit less money, and the next sheet for a little bit less money, and so on and so forth.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we had three conditions. In the first condition, people wrote the name on the sheet, found all the pairs of letters, gave it to the experimenter. The experimenter would look at it, scan it from top to bottom, say aha, and put it on the pile next to them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the shredder condition, it was twice as much. 30 cents per sheet. And this is basically the results we had before. You shred people's, ehm, effort, output, you get them not to be as happy with what they're doing. But I should point, by the way, that in the shredder condition, people could have cheated.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The good news is that by simply looking at something that somebody has done, scanning it and say, aha, that seems to be quite sufficient to dramatically improve people's motivations.


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[Assistant] So the good news is that adding motivation doesn't seem to be so difficult. The bad news is that eliminating motivation seems to be incredibly easy, and if we don't think about it carefully, we might overdo it.


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[Assistant] The next part I want to show you something about the positive motivation. So there is a store in the US called the IKEA.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But when I finish it, I seem to like those IKEA pieces of furniture more than I like other ones. And there's an old story about cake mixes.


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[Assistant] Now I think a little bit like the IKEA effect, by getting people to work harder, they actually got them to love what they're doing to a higher degree. So how do we look at this question experimentally?


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[Assistant] And they were willing to pay for them five times more than the people who just evaluated them externally.


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[Assistant] Now you could say, if you were a builder, do you think that, oh, I love this origami, but I know that nobody else would love it?


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[Assistant] Which one of those two is correct? Turns out the builders not only loved origami more, they thought that everybody will see the world in their view. They thought everybody else would love it more as well.


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[Assistant] Of course this tells you about something about how we evaluate things. Now think about kids. Imagine I asked you, how much would you sell your kids for?


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[Assistant] Your memories and association and so on. Most people would say for a lot, a lot of money. On good days.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But imagine this was slightly different. Imagine you did not have your kids and one day you went to the park and you played, you met some kids and they were just like your kids and you played with them for a few hours. And when you were about to leave, the parents said, hey, by the way, just before you leave, if you're interested, they're for sale.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this is because our kids are so valuable, not just because of who they are, but because of us. Because they're so connected to us and because of the time and connection. And by the way, if you think that IKEA instructions are not good, think about the instructions that come with kids. Those are really tough.


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[Assistant] We don't see that other people don't see things our way.


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[Assistant] Let me say one last comment. If you think about Adam Smith vs Karl Marx,


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[Assistant] Adam Smith had a very important notion of efficiency. He gave an example of a pin factory.


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[Assistant] He said pins have 12 different steps. And if one person does all 12 steps, production is very low.


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[Assistant] But if you get one person to do step one and one person to do step two and step three and so on, production can increase tremendously. And indeed, this is a great example and the reason for the industrial revolution and the efficiency.


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[Assistant] Karl Marx on the other hand said that the alienation of flavor is incredibly important. And how people think about the connection to what they're doing. And if you make all 12 steps, you care about the pin. But if you make one step every time, maybe you don't care as much.


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[Assistant] And I think that in the Industrial Revolution, Adam Smith was more correct than Karl Marx.


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[Assistant] But the reality that we've switched and now we're in the knowledge economy. And you can ask yourself, what happens in the knowledge economy? Is, is efficiency still more important than meaning? I think the answer is no. I think that as we move to situations in which people have


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To decide on their own about how much effort, attention, caring, how connected they feel to it. Are they thinking about labor on their way to work and in the shower and so on? All of a sudden, Mark has more things to say to us.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So when we think about labor, we usually think about motivation and payment as the same thing. But the reality is that we should probably add all kinds of things to it. Meaning, creation, challenges, ownership, identity, pride, etc.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the good news is that if we added all of those components and thought about them, how do we create our own meaning pride motivation and how do we do it in our workplace and for the employees, I think we could get people to both be more productive and happier. Thank you very much.


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[Assistant] Listening Library presents Magic Treehouse Super Edition Book Number One World at War 1944