The Time Factory • 2021

52:33

A unique and captivating documentary on the story of humanity's quest to measure time. Who invented time, who invented the clock? Why 1 hour, why 60 minutes, why 60 seconds? Since prehistoric times, man has sought to measure time, to organize social and religious life, to plan food supply... Today we can surf the Internet, geolocate, pay by credit card ... All our daily lives depend on time and the synchronization of clocks. The history of the invention of time and of the ways and instruments to measure it is a long story... Controlling Time, one of Humanity's biggest obsessions. First, man began to calculate the observable phenomena of time using incredible astronomical measuring instruments. Calendars were born. Then, he sought to quantify ever more precise durations, with ever more sophisticated machines, in order to establish a social, conventional time, the same for all. Today, this time, inscribed on our smartphones, is established by atomic clocks which have become the keystone of our digital world. Not without enormous industrial and economic challenges at stake. Through what major technological breakthroughs have we succeeded in controlling time, to the point of being able to make its ultra-precise factory the foundation of our interconnected society? From France to Greece, through Italy, England, and Switzerland, a group of experts —astrophysicists, engineers and historians — follows in the footsteps of genius inventors who forged our perception of time and our relationship to the world. For better and for worse. This film delves into the invention of time & ways to measure it. Don't waste time and be sure to make time to watch this fascinating film!

2021 • Physics

58:51

How we finally came to understand the science of electricity.

S1E3 • Shock and Awe: The Story of Electricity • Physics

58:36

Jim Al-Khalili shows how investigation into the atom unravelled the mystery of creation.

S1E2 • Atom • Physics

58:58

Ice is one of the strangest, most beguiling and mesmerising substances in the world. Full of contradictions, it is transparent, yet it can glow with colour, it is powerful enough to shatter rock, but it can melt in the blink of an eye. It takes many shapes, from the fleeting beauty of a snowflake to the multimillion-tonne vastness of a glacier and the eeriness of the ice fountains of far-flung moons. Science writer Dr Gabrielle Walker has been obsessed with ice ever since she first set foot on Arctic sea ice. In this programme, she searches out some of the secrets hidden deep within the ice crystal to try to discover how something so ephemeral has the power to sculpt landscapes, to preserve our past and inform our future.

2011 • Physics

93:01

Documentary which follows six brilliant scientists during the launch of the Large Hadron Collider, marking the start of the biggest and most expensive experiment in the history of the planet. Filmed over seven years, it is an emotionally charged journey with scientists attempting to push the edge of human innovation. For the first time, a documentary gives viewers a front row seat to a significant and inspiring scientific breakthrough as it happens. As they seek to unravel the mysteries of the universe, 10,000 scientists from over 100 countries join forces in pursuit of a single goal - to recreate conditions that existed just moments after the big bang and find the Higgs boson, potentially explaining the origin of all matter. Directed by a physicist-turned-filmmaker and masterfully edited by Walter Murch (The Godfather trilogy), Particle Fever is a celebration of discovery, revealing the human stories behind this epic machine.

2014 • Physics

58:00

Hannah starts her journey by asking whether everything could be bigger, finding out what life would be like on a bigger planet. As the Earth grows to outlandish proportions, gravity is the biggest challenge, and lying down becomes the new standing up. Flying in a Typhoon fighter jet with RAF flight lieutenant Mark Long, the programme discovers how higher G-force affects the human body, and how people could adapt to a high G-force world. But by the time Earth gets to the size of Jupiter, it's all over, as the moon would impact the planet and end life as we know it. Next, Hannah tries to make living things bigger. The programme examines the gigantopithecus, the biggest ape to ever exist, creates a dog the size of a dinosaur and meets Sultan Kosen, the world's tallest man. Humans are then super-sized with the help of Professor Dean Falk to see what a human body would look like if we were 15m tall. The sun gets expanded, and Professor Volker Bromm looks back in time to find the largest stars that ever existed, before the sun explodes in perhaps the biggest explosion since the big bang.

S1E1 • Size Matters with Hannah Fry • 2018 • Physics