Atom 1/3
BBC 4 Thu 26 Jul, 21:00-22:00 60mins
A landmark three-part series for BBC Four's Science You Can't See Season charts
the extraordinary and awe-inspiring story of humanity's greatest-ever scientific
revelation – the atom.
Presented by author and nuclear physicist Professor Jim Al-Khalili, the
programme explores the bizarre world of the atom. Only one tenth of a millionth
of a millimetre across, the atom shattered the whole edifice of physics and
turned 3,000 years of philosophy on its head. Atoms are the building blocks of
the world and their discovery has helped our understanding of the universe. Even
today, as scientists continue to peer deeper and deeper inside it, it throws
back as many questions as it answers.
In the first programme, Prof Al-Khalili tells the story of the great scientific
discovery of the atom.
The programme begins with an insight into the life of Ludwig Boltzmann, a German
scientist who hung himself in 1906 after being vilified for his belief in the
atom. It also tells how great geniuses, including Albert Einstein and Werner
Heisenberg, were driven by their thirst for knowledge and glory. It reveals how,
as scientists delved deep into the very heart of matter, they unravelled
nature's most shocking secrets. They had to abandon everything they believed in
and create a new science which, today, underpins physics, chemistry, biology and
maybe even life itself.
It is a story of false starts and conflicts, ambition and revelation, which
leads viewers through some of the most exciting and exhilarating ideas ever
conceived by the human race.
Atom reveals science as a gloriously human endeavour, riddled with jealousy,
rivalry, missed opportunities and moments of genius.
AVI File Details
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Atom 2/3 The Key to the Cosmos
BBC 4 Thu 2 Aug, 21:00-22:00 60mins
Author and nuclear physicist Jim Al-Khalili continues his epic journey of
discovery, from the relatively simple premise that we live in a world made up of
atoms, to the outlandish and mysterious realm of quantum theory.
Jim's investigation shows how, in the quest to understand matter, scientists
began to unravel the mystery of the creation of the universe, in tonight's
second episode.
It's a story with dramatic twists and turns taking in world-changing
discoveries. The programme follows Marie Curie's discovery of radioactivity,
nuclear fission and the controversial atom bomb, as well as the theory of the
Big Bang.
It reveals how a young New Zealander, Ernest Rutherford, proved that the atom
consists mostly of empty space, and, in doing so, turned classical physics on
its head. Also recounted is how the brilliant Niels Bohr made the next great
leap into the incredible world of quantum theory, a theory that still baffles
and intrigues scientists.
This episode forms part of an epic narrative in which the greatest brains of the
20th century compete to answer the biggest questions of all: why are we here,
and how were we made?
This series attempts the impossible – to make these breakthroughs not just
visible, but understandable – as many of them were barely comprehensible, even
to the geniuses who pioneered them.
AVI File Details
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Atom 3/3 The Illusion of Reality
BBC 4 Thu 9 Aug, 21:00-22:00 60mins
Nuclear physicist Professor Jim Al-Khalili reaches the conclusion of his epic
journey of discovery into the history of the atom and how it changed humanity's
understanding of the world.
He explores how studying the atom forced scientists to rethink the nature of
reality itself. Atom encounters ideas that seem like science fiction but are, in
fact, a central part of modern science. It delves into the notion of parallel
universes in which different versions of us could exist. This final episode
considers how the interior of the atom itself is almost entirely empty, and how
this empty atom makes up the solid world around us.
The journey culminates with a reflection on the atom and how, in the human body,
they come together to create a consciousness and a brain – despite being
identical to the atoms found in rocks, trees and air.
The world people think they know, the solid, re-assuring world of their senses,
turns out to be a tiny sliver of an infinitely weirder and more wonderful
universe than we had ever conceived of in our wildest fantasies.
AVI File Details
========================================
Name.........: Atom ep03.WnA.avi
Filesize.....: 550 MB (or 563,220 KB or 576,737,280 bytes)
Runtime......: 00:58:59 (88,475 fr)
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Frame Size...: 720x400 (1.80:1) [=9:5]
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