The equations of physics suggest time should be able to go backwards as well as forwards. Experience suggests, though, that it cannot. Why? And is time travel really possible?
For most of the Earth's history, life consisted of the simplest organisms; but then something happened that would give rise to staggering diversity, and, ultimately, life as complex as that which we see today. Scientists are still struggling to figure out just what that was.
2015 • Nature
It has long been thought that our universe is all there is, but it is possible we may live in just one of many.
2015 • Astronomy
Understanding what consciousness is, and why and how it evolved, is perhaps the greatest mystery known to science.
2015 • Brain
The equations of physics suggest time should be able to go backwards as well as forwards. Experience suggests, though, that it cannot. Why? And is time travel really possible?
2015 • Physics
Does life exist anywhere else in the universe? And how did it get started? Scientists are seeking the answers in the cosmos, our solar system and right here on planet Earth.
2015 • Astronomy
The Earth, the sun, the stars, and everything we can see, only comprise five percent of the universe. But what about the other 95 percent? Scientists are puzzling over dark matter and dark energy, the mysterious components that make up the rest.
2015 • Astronomy
The gender pay gap is not caused by women earning less than men for the same job. It is largely because women choose different careers and suffer a “motherhood penalty”’.
2017 • Economics
Cities are growing faster than at any time in history, straining services and infrastructure. Technology-driven advances are at the forefront of solving this age-old problem
2017 • Technology
A futurist, a demographer and a museum curator spot trends that will affect the way people live and work.
2015 • Technology
Defying gravity and hurtling through space: the flying saucer is the ultimate science fiction vehicle. Using cutting-edge research and theoretical physics, Dr. Michio Kaku reveals how one day we could all be using the aliens' favorite mode of transport.
S1E11 • Physics of the Impossible • 2009 • Physics
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.
2/2 • Size Matters with Hannah Fry • 2018 • Physics
This Quick Question explains the difference between gravity and g-force, and how you can experience zero-g in space even when it’s not zero gravity!
The story of the groundbreaking scientific discovery that everything is made from atoms.