Wonders Of The Universe - BBC2 - 06/03/11

NUTZZ

The follow up to the hugely successful 'Wonders Of The Solar System' returns to our screens this Sunday at 9pm on BBC 2.

Having explored the wonders of the solar system, Professor Brian Cox steps boldly on to an even bigger stage - the universe.

Who are we? Where do we come from? For thousands of years humanity has turned to religion and myth for answers to these enduring questions. But in this series, Brian presents a different set of answers - answers provided by science.

In this episode, Brian seeks to understand the nature of time and its role in creating both the universe and ourselves. From an extraordinary calendar built into the landscape of Peru to the beaches of Costa Rica, Brian explores the cycles of time which define our experience of life on Earth. But even the most epic cycles of life can't begin to compare to the vast expanse of cosmic time.

For instance, just as the Earth orbits the Sun, the solar system orbits the entire Milky Way galaxy. This orbit takes a staggering 250 million years to complete.

And a sneaky peak...

ger vallely

Fantastic,can't wait. Though my eldest daughter is in a singing competition that night. Think I may have to make my excuses to her!! Or get her to set up the dvd. Thanks for that bit of info.

John mac

And on BBCHD at the same time..

Beeker

Great stuff!! Cant wait:)

Stargate

Really looking forward to this !

rccaulfield

Just to let yis know, the wonders of the universe book by Briasn cox is in easons at the moment, really enjoying it!

clln

rccaulfield wrote: »

Just to let yis know, the wonders of the universe book by Briasn cox is in easons at the moment, really enjoying it!

Thanks for the timely reminder RC! just set it to series link.
i love his presentation style,he exudes enthusism and knowledge,
blows all the cobwebs away and makes A&S what it should be,exciting,dramatic informative and most of all entertaining!!!!

will trust your word and get the book,what is it selling for?

cheers

ScrubsfanChris

Thank God I was in the Astro forum.
He plugged it so much, I can't believe I nearly forgot about it. :rolleyes:

BULLER

Brian Cox, what a man!

Ecocrexis

tutrles and lightning awesome

AnnyHallsal

My God, I am madly in love with Brian Cox

Kewreeuss

I've just finished watching Brian Cox's Wonders of the Universe.
From an amatuer, normal everyday person's point of view I found it fascinating. He has a very clear linear way of explaining difficult concepts.
Perhaps his colleagues may say he simplifies too much but to an outsider it's great.
However, I would like to know from the phsysicists' or even philosophic point of view, are there other theories that may be considered?
The only other theory I know about is that at the very end, the universe contracts in an instant, there is another big bang and the whole thing starts all over again.
I missed what he said about black holes; do they just dissipate?
I'd love to hear other's view and theories.

ctrl-alt-delete

Kewreeuss wrote: »

I've just finished watching Brian Cox's Wonders of the Universe.
From an amatuer, normal everyday person's point of view I found it fascinating. He has a very clear linear way of explaining difficult concepts.
Perhaps his colleagues may say he simplifies too much but to an outsider it's great.
However, I would like to know from the phsysicists' or even philosophic point of view, are there other theories that may be considered?
The only other theory I know about is that at the very end, the universe contracts in an instant, there is another big bang and the whole thing starts all over again.
I missed what he said about black holes; do they just dissipate?
I'd love to hear other's view and theories.

He said the Black Dwarfs will be the last matter in the Universe, which will eventually evaporate away into the void as radiation leaving absolutely nothing behind.

With them gone, there will not be a single atom of matter left, just leaving some particles of light and the Black holes.

After an unimaginable length of time, the Black Holes will evaporate - and the Universe will have become nothing but a sea of Photons - which will then cool towards absolute zero. When everything reaches the same temperature then, that will be the end of the Universe. For the first time ever it will be permanent and unchanging, with entropy finally unable to increase. Nothing happens and it keeps not happening forever.


The Time taken for the Universe to reach the stage of the sea of Photons will have been . . .

10 Thousand, Trillion, Trillion, Trillion, Trillion Trillion, Trillion, Trillion, Trillion Years :eek: ,

More years than there are atoms in the whole Universe he said :eek:

He then put this in laymans terms by explaining this as being very similar to Irish Debt Ok he didn't do that but it reminded me of that . . .

Kewreeuss

I also loved the bit where he said that life is more or less just a brief occurrance in the timespan of the universe. I expect he means any type of life, anywhere in the universe.

So, any other theories about the end of time?
Alternate universes, anybody? It's all a bar of Aero?
Are there any physicists with other theories?

dream brother

Kewreeuss wrote: »

So, any other theories about the end of time?
Alternate universes, anybody? It's all a bar of Aero?
Are there any physicists with other theories?

On the sky at night Brian Cox was talking about the string theory and how there may be different universes right beside eachother but would have no idea that they're even there....I was half alseep watching so could have picked some of it up wrong.

sink

I found it fascinating and beautiful, he is a great presenter of science. I couldn't help but be reminded of one of my favourite sci-fi short stories, Isaac Asimov's 'The Last Question'.

http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html

Cú Giobach

ctrl-alt-delete wrote: »

Nothing happens and it keeps not happening forever.

I loved that line.

keane2097

Have this downloaded because I forgot about the first episode. Can't wait to watch it now.

Have the rest of the season on series-link.

rccaulfield

clln wrote: »

Thanks for the timely reminder RC! just set it to series link.
i love his presentation style,he exudes enthusism and knowledge,
blows all the cobwebs away and makes A&S what it should be,exciting,dramatic informative and most of all entertaining!!!!

will trust your word and get the book,what is it selling for?

cheers

Bout 26 euro unfortunately, but its the size of an encylopedia and the book has the same titles as the series but doesn't repeat any of the examples in it-he tries to make it a separate thing, and for me theres nothing like a book for understanding info and having it stick!

clln

rccaulfield wrote: »

for me theres nothing like a book for understanding info and having it stick!

You and me both so RC:),thanks for reply,much appreciated!

keane2097

It's somewhat cheaper on amazon fwiw

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wonders-Universe-Brian-Cox/dp/0007395825/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1299582629&sr=8-1

ctrl-alt-delete

rccaulfield wrote: »

Bout 26 euro unfortunately, but its the size of an encylopedia and the book has the same titles as the series but doesn't repeat any of the examples in it-he tries to make it a separate thing, and for me theres nothing like a book for understanding info and having it stick!

Yeah I have the book from the Wonders of The Solar System, and have the one for this series ordered, was only £10 on amazon - i have the benefit of getting it delivered to a UK address though.

Cosimo Salvatore

BUMP

oneillMan999

Brian Cox = the universe for dummies.

Im not knocking him, i suppose he gets more people interested in the cosmos but as far as documentaries go, its pretty lame IMO.





I await the backlash of course

djhaxman

For anyone into astronomy its pretty standard stuff. But not everyone is, and if it gets more people interested then all the better.

Ardent

I have a casual interest in astronomy and that episode was a real eye-opener. I was blown away - never knew how the elements were formed and how finite they are!

Great show.

markfla

I realise it's not really anything new to any of us here but the show is kind of a nice little basic summary for the average punter.....which I fear does still go over the head of a lot of people

rccaulfield

Best line from tonights show was "all the other elements form from hydrogen". I had to pause and let that line sink in. That means theres only one element not 115 or whatever it is these days, theres one and given time look what happens. I'd consider myself big into astronomy and while i knew that already i had never realised what it meant and it hit me like a tonne of bricks! You have hydrogen and 4 forces and thats it.

jill_valentine

Was good this week, but not as good as last week's one, which IMHO may have been the best episode of any of his shows thus far.

Packing information into a show is one thing, and boiling it down to something accessible is another, but I don't think Cox sets out to do either. I get why astronomy die hard types might consider Cox's shows redundant or simplistic, but his appeal isn't just that his enthusiasm is catching, or that he makes the subject easy to digest - it's that he ties the ideas and concepts together in a way that highlights their significance and majesty. For my money, Cox balances an acquired understanding of his subject with a naturally elegant turn of phrase, and he's got a real knack for picking out and driving home the profound implications of concepts we might even be familiar with already, and take for granted.

I mean, I had a pretty good handle on the nuts and bolts of the concept of entropy for instance, but the neatly poetic language and stunning visuals of that episode presented it in a way I hadn't really considered before. That line about nothing happening - and it happening forever - is an arresting one that stopped me dead in my tracks. Indeed, that whole sequence is as good a piece of practical philosophy as it is anything else. Quite apart from any scientific or informative value, it's just a very beautiful bit of writing, delivered perfectly.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that you maybe shouldn't approach it as a scientific documentary program - rather as a pretty remarkable perspective on a scientific subject.

Kewreeuss

What's BUMP mean?

mickger844posts

Loved last nights show. Really was an eye opener. Very well put together. Excellent stuff.

Ardent

Kewreeuss wrote: »

What's BUMP mean?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bump_%28Internet%29

ctrl-alt-delete

rccaulfield wrote: »

Best line from tonights show was "all the other elements form from hydrogen". I had to pause and let that line sink in. That means theres only one element not 115 or whatever it is these days, theres one and given time look what happens. I'd consider myself big into astronomy and while i knew that already i had never realised what it meant and it hit me like a tonne of bricks! You have hydrogen and 4 forces and thats it.

Yeah that bit got me too! It is amazing to think there is so much we don't know out there in our Universe - yet we know that everything out there is made from a combination from 92 possible chemical elements!

Was very interesting for me anyways to see that we can tell what things in our Universe are made of, from looking at a spectrum of the light they emit.

Looking forward to next weeks episode already.

I know many may know Brian Cox was in D:Ream but maybe some of you may not know that the first band he was in was a band called Dare!



See if you can spot him in the picture above

djhaxman

He doesn't look much older!

Gael Uirbeach

I enjoyed the other nights prog, though I was just pondering somthing, in the first episode he said eventually every last star would go out, forever, and the universe would cease to exist, but then in the second episode he was describing the process of the death of a star and how it creates a nebula, which i think he called a nursery for stars, basically creating new stars from the matter of the old one that went super nova, like our own sun, maybe im missing somthing but do these two points not contradict each other? as in, how will all the stars go out if the death of a star creates a nebula which in turn creates new stars? do not all stars go supernova? or do not all nebulas create new stars and it just chance?

djhaxman

Gael Uirbeach wrote: »

I enjoyed the other nights prog, though I was just pondering somthing, in the first episode he said eventually every last star would go out, forever, and the universe would cease to exist, but then in the second episode he was describing the process of the death of a star and how it creates a nebula, which i think he called a nursery for stars, basically creating new stars from the matter of the old one that went super nova, like our own sun, maybe im missing somthing but do these two points not contradict each other? as in, how will all the stars go out if the death of a star creates a nebula which in turn creates new stars? do not all stars go supernova? or do not all nebulas create new stars and it just chance?

Only stars about 4 times the size of the sun and bigger go supernova. Smaller stars like our sun form planetary nebulae when they die, which is where the star sheds its outer layers into space, in a far less violent manner than a supernova. When all the hydrogen in the universe gets used up, or gets so dispersed that nebulae can't collapse due to gravity, then all stellar formation will end, so he is right in what he said, it just wasn't the clearest way he could have said it.

Hauk

Tell me I'm not the only one that thought the first episode was depressing as hell?

Haven't watched the second ep. Gonna watch that tonight.

Ardent

Yes it was very depressing. I always knew our solar system and maybe even our galaxy would end one day. But the thought that the universe itself will eventually dissipate into nothingness really does bring a sense of hopelessness.

But we don't need to worry about that for another few trillion trillion years!

thecommander

He said the universe will end up as nothing, and close to absolute zero. But if energy is neither created or destroyed then where does it all go?

Dublin_Gunner

Missed it the other night - its repeated tonight?

Am I the only one that thinks its a bit of a struggle to get through an episode? His constant commentary has a sort of monotonous drone to it.

I also think he over-simplifies his explanations to the point of confusion.

Half the time I was thinking "Will ya just get to the point and stop talking about turle sex".

But then again, the turtle moved at about the pace of the episode, so I suppose it was an apt inclusion.

I'll probably be slated for this opinion (though it hasn't deterred me from wanting to watch the rest of the episodes, especially now that the new season of 'The Universe' is over), I generally rather scientific programs with a bit more substance and fact.

mike65

I haven't bothered with this series as I felt I'd had enough of Prof Cox, he knows his stuff but the "everythings big and wonderful and soooooooooooooo fab-tastic" tone is a bit much after a while.

jill_valentine

I take it you guys have already seen this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhn8j7S4uKU

This is pretty funny too.

The series will be released as a DVD box set later this year with his earlier documentary Stars & That, Yeah? Right in both their original formats and, at the Cox's insistence, a version remixed by Frankie Knuckles

Hauk wrote: »

Tell me I'm not the only one that thought the first episode was depressing as hell?

Haven't watched the second ep. Gonna watch that tonight.

It was a bit, eh? But it was totally worth it to watch the Twitter traffic immediately afterwards - thousands of people all over Britain and Ireland suddenly confronted with the end of all things, all at once. Was interesting.

I do think he made a game attempt to present us with reasons why it shouldn't be such a bleak prospect though - if it wasn't for that continuous process of change, there wouldn't be an Us to be depressed about it.

I think it might have been a mistake to start the series on that one, to be honest, I think it's a tough one to top.

david75

See if you can see Mr. Cox..(he's on keyboards)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKIiNx8pCq8

ceejay

I've liked both programs so far, looking forward to the other ones.

The sand castle explanation for entropy was really good I thought, as was his description of the heat death of the universe and the general idea that time is linked to change, so no change = no time passing

As for being depressing, I actually took the other view - it's amazing we're here at all, and we're capable of theorising about the life cycle of stars and the universe itself, and of proving these theories too. Life (wherever it may exist in the universe) is brief and fleeting, but wonderful too

This thread carries through into the second program. I love the fact that everything we see was born in stars, that every atom in my body was once in the heart of a star or created in the biggest explosions since the creation of the universe itself! I thought he conveyed that quite well.

I also learned some new stuff, like the way the different elements in the star's core are in concentric shells with hydrogen at the outside all the way through Helium, Carbon, Oxygen, etc., through to Iron. I knew the idea of the process, but I never quite visualised it in that way

I also thought it was good the way he helped visualise just how big Betelguese is - it would reach out to Jupiter if it was in our solar system :eek:
It doesn't look like that from here though, does it:


(I took this last night Full details on Flickr)


If it gets more people interested in science, physics, and cosmology, then I think it's doing its job

djhaxman

I would love to be around to see Betelgeuse go supernova. They are pretty rare events and with it being so close (in astronomical terms), it would likely be visible during daylight and would be like having two moons in the sky at night. Not many generations have seen one of them.

Plug

It dimmed 14% in the last 10 years:eek:
Something must happen within the next few years.

Sad Professor

I wasn't wild about the first episode. Seemed very repetitive. Second episode was brilliant though. Can't wait for next week. Disappointed to see there's only going to be 4 episodes.

missingtime

Cant wait till next weeks episode, its a really good show.

Ardent

Dublin_Gunner wrote: »

I'll probably be slated for this opinion (though it hasn't deterred me from wanting to watch the rest of the episodes, especially now that the new season of 'The Universe' is over)

You're entitled to your opinion but I think "The Universe" is poor in comparison. Too much programmatic padding, rent-a-quote scientists and cheap cgi.

Dublin_Gunner

Ardent wrote: »

You're entitled to your opinion but I think "The Universe" is poor in comparison. Too much programmatic padding, rent-a-quote scientists and cheap cgi.

I don;t mind the sort-of-crappy CGI if it serves its purpose, and in fairness, its not that bad.

While I agree its the same scientists you see in most things, its gives a bit more detail than Cox's cryptic analogys. And to say the Universe's scientists are any more 'rent-a-quote' than Cox himself is nothing short of hilarious. He whores himself to the beeb like noone else.

Fair enough, I'm basing this all off the first episode (still haven't seen the second one).

Too much talk, and not enough visual. He seem to try to hard to over simplify not very simple theory's.

Fair enough, I'm basing this all off the first episode (still haven't seen the second one).

Some of his analogy's were good, like others have said, the sand castle for entropy.

ScrubsfanChris

BUMP...
Just started.