 When Sir Isaac Newton came up with his theory of gravity and he told the story of the apple falling on his head, he actually used techniques that we use in advertising. It was a very simple, very charming and very dramatic idea that allowed his theory to become part of popular culture. Now we'd like to introduce you today to a much more recent example of that same thing. That experiment revolves around the fact about our earth that is not known to many people. The gravity of the world, in fact, is not a constant. So you weigh a bit heavier or lighter wherever you are. The main reason for this is the earth's spin that pushes you slightly away from the earth and reduces your weight. A second reason is that the earth is not a perfect shear. It is actually a little bit potato shaped. The net effect of that is 0.5% variance in weight around the world. This amazing global phenomenon gave us an idea for an advertising campaign. If current scales are capable enough to measure, to be affected by these slight fluctuations in gravity, then they're also sensitive enough to measure them. So we've been sending this flight case around the world from scientist to scientist. Inside the flight case, as you can see, is one set of CERN precision scales and one garden gnome. He's chip-proof and he's non-porous and he also goes by the name of CERN. His travel started in our laboratory in Barlingon in Germany. There we calibrated the scale to the local gravity and measured the gnome precisely with 308.26 grams. Then we sent it on to Mumbai in India, a place very close to the equator, so therefore he measured subsequently the lightest, although his mass always remains the same. On it went to South Africa, you see Table Mountain in the backside, far away from the equator and therefore heavier. Then came San Francisco, again far away and heavier. Oh, that was a very nice interesting place to go. That is, Snow Lab in Canada, the deepest laboratory in Earth. Two kilometers below the surface, our gnome measured 0.1 gram less than on the surface. Why? Although it was closer to the core of the Earth, the rock above him exerts an upward gravitational force, making him slightly lighter. Well, and our gnome is a very well-traveled gnome. He has seen temples in Japan, bad traffic in Mexico, and even pretty lab girls in Canada. And it's a coincidence, South Pole. Here again, we were very happy when our gnome made it to the South Pole and there, again in line with the theory, he measured the heaviest. He actually caused a few problems when he got to the South Pole because that Hercules plane that you can see in the background is reserved just for mission crucial equipment. And the post worker who was working at the South Pole who opened the box, he said that a garden gnome actually doesn't qualify. In the background, you see again, the Amherons Card Research Station just 200 meters away from the geographical South Pole. Of course, we were anticipating that ours would be the first garden gnome ever to visit the South Pole, but Mary, the kind lady you see here in the picture, found five other garden gnomes already being there. The South Pole represented a real milestone in this experiment because it was at this point that the world's media actually found out about our story. And in the next two days, this happened. The story reached over 150 countries and we were actually getting, every 20 seconds, someone somewhere was actually requesting to weigh our gnome. One lady even knitted him a scarf. Well, and the celebrities would testify, fame opens doors, and so Kerr and the gnome was able to visit CERN, the most famous laboratory in the world, and home for the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland. We were delighted when he got here because it's such a famous laboratory. As you can see, there's TV crews standing around the gnome. This was the first day they started testing for the Higgs boson again, smashing together particles at the fastest rate they've ever done before, and this TV crew was asking particle physicists to move out of their desks away from their screens so they could get a better shot of our gnome, probably missing the Higgs boson at that exact moment. Along the way, we've been mapping the gnome's results and his journey on this website. You'll notice that there's natural gap on the UK at the moment. That's because we thought today at TED would be the perfect opportunity for the official London weigh. So fresh from CERN, Albert, would you like to do the weighing? With great pleasure, dear James. Here is the gnome. Here is the gnome, here is the scale, we place it. I hope you are able to read the result, otherwise I can't read it to you. It is 308.54 grams. How do we interpret that? That's actually quite heavy. So if any members of the audience are looking to lose weight, you might want to move to Mexico. Thank you. Hang on. So of course key to all this is the garden gnome. We could quite easily have sent metal test weight around the world, but who'd have cared about that? It's the gnome that captures people's imaginations. Here's our Newton's apple. As you'll see from the picture, the scales and the gnome, they also embody something else. Whilst it's a great demonstration of gravity, it's also a demonstration of another powerful force, that force which is generated when creative meets rational or when science meets advertising. And I bet you wouldn't have thought that we could learn so much from a garden gnome. Thank you.