Our Quantum Future • 2016 • episode "S1E3" • Exploring Quantum History with Brian Greene

46:06

For over a century, physicists have searched for a blueprint of the universe in the form of a single mathematical formula. This ultimate formula would explain the fundamental building blocks of the universe -– the elementary particles and the different forces that govern them. In their quest, physicists dedicated themselves to the pursuit of mathematical beauty but they were to be met with unexpected setbacks. The discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 at last confirmed the Standard Model –- a culmination of the theories of various physicists that finally seemed to explain what this universe is made of. But is this where the story ends...? Using the latest computer graphics and interviews with Nobel Prize-winning physicists, we look at the fascinating and dramatic story of the search for the ultimate formula.

S1E1 • The Ultimate Formula • 2016 • Physics

57:59

Hannah is going the other way by asking whether everything could, in fact, be smaller. But going smaller turns out not to be much safer... First, we shrink the Earth to half its size - it starts well with lower gravity enabling us to do incredible acrobatics, but things gradually turn nasty as everyone gets altitude sickness - even at sea level. Then we visit Professor Daniel Lathrop's incredible laboratory, where he has built a model Earth that allows us to investigate the other effects of shrinking the planet to half size. The results aren't good - with a weaker magnetic field we would lose our atmosphere and eventually become a barren, lifeless rock like Mars. In our next thought experiment, we shrink people to find out what life is like if you are just 5mm tall. We find out why small creatures have superpowers that seem to defy the laws of physics, meet Jyoti Amge, the world's smallest woman, and with the help of Dr Diana Van Heemst and thousands of baseball players reveal why short people have longer lives. Lastly, the Sun gets as small as a sun can be. We visit the fusion reactor at the Joint European Torus to find out why stars have to be a minimum size or fusion won't happen. And if our Sun were that small? Plants would turn from green to black, and Earth would probably resemble a giant, frozen eyeball. Which all goes to show that size really does matter.

S1E2 • Size Matters with Hannah Fry • 2018 • Physics

59:11

How harnessing the link between magnetism and electricity transformed the world.

S1E2 • Shock and Awe: The Story of Electricity • Physics

5:03

The double-slit experiment is a demonstration that light and matter can display characteristics of both classically defined waves and particles; moreover, it displays the fundamentally probabilistic nature of quantum mechanical phenomena.

Physics

48:54

The most powerful effect of time on our lives is the way it limits us. Our knowledge of death is so embedded in our lives and spirituality that, were immortality possible, would we lose the sense that makes us human?

S1E2 • BBC: Time • 2006 • Physics

50:00

Carol Vorderman's passions are flying and engineering. She gets hands-on experience with the Airbus workforce at Broughton, Flintshire, where they are building the wings for their latest, greenest, most advanced aircraft - the A350.

2015 • Physics