Bret Victor talks about building tools that expand what it's possible for people to think about.
00:00:52 Lots of things (esp science and engineering) come down to understanding systems, which comes down to media for representing those systems
00:03:11 Even skilled authors can't compress their extremely rich understandings into text. Mingling with pictures helps
00:05:37 Problem: System does something, but we can't really see it.
00:08:34 Hamming: Given the structure of our brains, "Perhaps there are thoughts we cannot think"
00:09:25 But we can see things our eyes can't detect - we just have to build tools, build our own senses. Can we do the same with thoughts?
00:12:23 Birth of modern mathematics is considered to be the modern notation, not the discovery of any particular mathematical concept
00:13:56 Bruner's 3 kinds of thinking: Interactive, visual, symbolic
00:17:59 Multiple representations of the same thing. Helps to build associations, ultimately intuition
00:27:23 Side-by-side visual/code representations for Nile, 2D graphics language
00:30:24 Physical drawing is extremely expressive and direct, but not composable
00:31:05 Code is highly composable, but much less expressive. Let's try using code to draw pictures
00:36:07 Summary: We need to see the state and behaviour of the system and be able to change and interact with it
00:37:19 "Code doesn't matter. What matters is what the system is doing"
00:38:39 We still think in terms of pencil and paper, still think via techniques designed for pencil and paper. What can we do with this new medium?