Slashdot Mirror
The Elegant Universe, Now Available Online
Photon Ghoul writes "PBS has made available online all three hours of the NOVA program on unified theory. Formats are QuickTime and RealVideo with each hour broken up into eight chapters each." I watched the whole thing, and while it's clearly for a lay audience (no math required), it was fun and informative. I was pleased to note that dissenting views on whether string theory was science were presented, and even brief discussion of what constitutes science.
Three...
Two...
One...
They are now holding a fundraiser to cover the multimillion dollar bandwidth costs of three hours of video on SLASHDOT.
..has making something accessible to the general public while remaining factually correct been a bad thing?
I love being a geek, but some of you really take elitism to a bit of an extreme. Sheesh.
You can use this program to watch the video, I hope. I didn't test it, but you can.
http://home.hccnet.nl/h.edskes/finalbuilds.htm
Look for Real Alternative
Why slashdot? Why not?
Is it possible to download? (can someone posts all the links?) BitTorrent?
"If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy
I'm not even done watching this, and now you filthy, unwashed hellshits are gonna turn WBGH's poor little servers into charcoal briquettes!
*SIGH*
Stab-stabbity-stabby-stab!!
I guess I'll have to wait for an ascii version ...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Oh, wait! They said elegant.
Stumbled upon the show when it aired. As the post states it was a little basic in some parts, but they really lay string theory out. It was the first time I really felt like I had at least a little grasp of the subject.
The 3D animated scenes around the host were also quite good.
Casual Games/Downloads
So heat, light, and the electroweak force can be unified? How about sound? I think "reality" must propagate like sound does, maybe that could explain the expansion of the universe?
In that case, let me tell you how it ends...
******* SPOILER WARNING *******
Eventually, the sun gets really, really hotter and starts to expand. It gets bigger and bigger until it eats up all the other planets. Then, in a fit of bulimic rage, it collapses on itself and turns into a big black hole! And then we all get sucked into it until Robert Forster saves us.
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
Michio Kaku's Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps and the Tenth Dimension is a really fascinating introduction into some of the theoretical physics that looks promising to develop a grand unified theory.
One of the best points of the program was when they discussed whether or not string theory could ever be verified experimentally. If it couldn't, most of the physicists had to put it in the category of philosophy rather than science. Interesting how science and philosophy intersects at times.
I also liked the part where they explained 'brane theory. I had been reading about it, but could never quite visualize it. The animation really worked for me.
Too bad our sun isn't the right size/density to become a black whole. More like it'll end up a dwarf of some kind.
Just remember, no matter how elegant the theory or fascinating this series is, it is just a theory. A big leap of faith. For it to be worth anything, there must be an experimentally verifiable result.
Personally, I hope we are getting close.
We need more publications like this, this was the most well done documentary ive *ever* seen. Kudos to PBS/Nova and now its online, we need more like this
I loved this program when it aired. BUT, the coolest thing on the planet will go to the fist d00d or gal who puts a torrent available for each or all episodes ;) What a thing to do on a Friday night.
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
xine tells me that it can't play these because they're in "gif video format," something that seems unlikely. Any advice?
#define DRM chmod 000
When The Elegant Universe aired here locally, PBS followed it by another noteworthy program called Einstein's Wife, which questions wether Einstein was alone in his creation of the Theory of Relativity as well as several other papers, or if he was in fact aided by his first wife Mileva who was as insightful into the universe as Einstein himself.
This program gives an interesting look into the human side of Einstein (never imagined him as a romantic), as well as a lot of issues of the day. While it doesn't delve into the physics, it does serve to illustrate Einstein's life in a much different manner than I've previously seen. It's a fascinating program and well worth a look.
Einstein's Wife
Karma: 0 (But I wield a mean +10 Vorpal Apathy)
You're probably right. It'll probably just end up some black portion.
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
I loved ths book that this series is based upon, and it complimented Kaku's Hyperspace to guide me to a better understanding of Life, The Universe and Everything. (Yes, despite what you may have seen on TV, I know next to nothing about complex quantum theory).
/. reader, but for lamers like me, it was awesome.
I watched the Nova series with my stepson, and it reminded me of watching Cosmos with my parents. The production values were fantastic, too. This show may be beneath the average
I was an undergraduate student of Brian Greene's (honors freshman mechanics) at Cornell. I was very impressed by the Nova special, as having read The Elegant Universe several years ago, I found the special explained many elements of M-theory more clearly. In person, he was quite affable, and even seemed to take my freshman idol worship in stride. I'm happy to see he's gotten the kind of popular (ok, *more* popular than usual) admiration he deserves.
[ home ]
Well produced, MTV style, repetitive, with little information beyond video tricks and zooming backgrounds, but there could have been a density of information that remained unobserved in the higher order dimensions. My only other experience with similar subject matter was Hawking's coffee table epic: Universe in a nutshell, which I much prefer over this. The elegant universe trends towards the mindless eye candy of Discover and TLC. PBS still does it better. But it used to do it better still.
1. Use mplayer
... he uses OS X.
2. Use a real OS
Even CmdrTaco doesn't use Linux
Too bad you have no sense of humor.
Still, I'd rather buy the $32 DVD set. Hey its good television. Support PBS!
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
Any massive object has a Swartzchild radius. You could theoretically make the sun a black hole. You could theorectially make yourself a black hole (it'd be smaller than an atom and would instantly explode into pure energy, but it could be done.)
The sun is too small to form a black hole on it's own though, not enough gravitational force. But you *could* make a black hole out of it.
I'm such a pedant.
"Build a man a fire warm him for a day, set a man on fire and warm him for the rest of his life."
OK, it took a bit of minor sleuthing, but if you would like to DL the raw videos here's a link to the first one:
e u/ nova_eu_3012c01_hi_100.mov
http://stream.qtv.apple.com/qtv/wgbh/http/nova_
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
--
Power to the Peaceful
Part I
Part II
Part III
More downloaders, the better!
Can't help with a full download, but if you would concider supporting PBS for shows like this, you can buy it on DVD and VHS at the link below.
t alogSearchResultView?storeId=11051&catalogId=10051 &langId=-1&pageSize=20&searchText=elegant+universe
http://shop.wgbh.org/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Ca
It was EXCELLENT.
It is a must download if you missed it because they explain string theory and what might have occured at the moment of the big bang or even if there was one. Nice explanations and good visual examples.
One of the best Pbs shows in years.
Now all we need is a once a week, one hour show about leading edge Sciences and Technology.
I remember watching it on TV and they used every graphic about 5 times and repeated every concept at least 3 times. The compressed video will be tiny!
leave it to slashdotters to take a joke and intellectualize every ounce of humor out of it. sometimes it makes me really wish that big comet would just get it over with and hit us.
In Soviet Russia, intellectualize jokes YOU!
Posted again because the other guy got the last link wrong.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Major funding for NOVA is provided by the Park Foundation, Sprint, and Microsoft You would think they would have included a WMP link. Guess they are trying diversity without favoritism? Having boycotted those two choices, I guess I'll have to wait till their sponser raises an eyebrow.
Pedant -
Every object has a Schwarzschild radius. Please note: not just any massive object; it's spelled S-c-h-w-a-r-z-s-c-h-i-l-d.
Another pedant
See you there honey. :-)
Hope you wear that dress you look so good in.
That goes to show that pretty bright minds are working on Free Software, doesn't it? And suggests what could be a very interesting (though probably quite busy) Slashdot interviewee... I will admit I'm curious to know what drew him to that level of participation in Free Software.
Having participated as a "pure mathematician", I guess he might be well-placed to explain that one can do science without a need for immediate applications or even ties to "experiment".(I saw the man once in Park City, Utah -- no, he wouldn't remember me -- busy with a PowerBook, and at the time helping launch another noteworthy open project, the UC Davis Math Archive.)
Slashdot editors?
Timeo idiotikOS et dona ferentes
I know people who worked on this project and they worked a lot of long nights trying hard to do it as well as they could. The obvious thing to say is that your financial support of your PBS station helps make these things possible.
Feedback from users is also really important.
If this kind of content is valuable to you, PBS, WGBH and the folks at NOVA need to hear from you directly. Tell them specifically what you do and don't like about the site and the show and how you use it.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/feedback/
OK. So everyone, when the PBS pledge breaks roll around. Give till it hurts. Then give again.
Can anyone find non-stream URLs for the QuickTime versions of these movies? I'd love to post them to the cURL blog here:
http://www.superdeluxo.com/wget_curl/
Mikey-San
Karma: +Eleventy billion (mostly affected by watching Celebrity Jeopardy)
Bootleg copies available on the internet are higher resolution, too (i presume they are hdtv rips). Another advantage, the bootlegs are only three .ogm files, 350MB each. I HATE downloading lots of small files!
I was just watching that before it went on slashdot. Now I can't watch hour 3 chapter 4 and beyond.
*On knees shaking fist*
DAMN YOU!
I also liked the part where they explained 'brane theory. I had been reading about it, but could never quite visualize it. The animation really worked for me.
Yes they really did a tremendous job really bringing everything to life in visual terms. Most people find it hard thinking in terms of 4 dimensions, let alone 11. The whole series had a very professional presentation and did a good job of being interesting, while not resorting to cheap Cheech and Chong LSD effects.
While I have no real background education in physics, I naturally have the strong human curiousity of where we're from and where we're going. I watched this show in awe. It really did a great job of demonstrating all of the history and evolution of the theories as well as how to really understand what string theory is all about.
PBS and NOVA really earned their keep on this one.
Use your favorite Bt search engine, you'll find a torrent file for 3 ogg vorbis files, 1.1GB. Higher quality that the official PBS downloads. Enjoy!
MPlayer plays the video stream just fine (using FFMPEG's Sorenson v3 decoder), but the audio uses the qtaudio codec rather than AAC like many other quicktime videos, so MPlayer can't play it. (Yes, I know about usage of binary codecs, but I don't run proprietary software.)
Is there any Free Software package or library which will play the qtaudio codec?
This was a superb series! I enjoyed it thoroughly, as did most of my colleagues.
:)
I snagged the 3 episodes on my hand-dandy video capture box and mastered a DVD from them, compressing the 3 hours onto 1 DVD.
I'm glad they're making the whole thing available online; it makes me feel better about giving my buddy a copy of my DVD...
He missed the second episode - the series had such a loooong (2:48) introduction, he thought they were re-airing the 1st episode again and turned it off! I told him no - there were 2 different episodes aired back-to-back
All-in-all, while I agree it was a bit "lay" (non-technical) in nature, it did explain a few things I hadn't known about previously, so I did enjoy watching it.
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I watched this show and I was all hyped up to see it. The first hour discussed almost nothing but review. Don't get me wrong, though I have two math degrees my physics knowledge is only very general from reading and one (goofy) freshman physics course. I guess you could say I've read enough to be dangerous :)
The show does give an overview of string theory but it's definitely the PG version. When they were talking about M-Theory (which I read about in Hawking's most recent book) they had these big old letter M's popping out of people's mouths! I was thinking: "Ok, this is PBS, maybe they have a bit too much of that 'Sesame Street' or 'Electric Company' (remember that show?) influence."
The visuals were good, and that kind of intuition is helpful. For instance, at the plank scale they had a drum beat to the chaotic dance of the cosmic substrate (or whatever you call it) and I loved it. Also, they had a little broken clock indicating that you can't tell before from after nor left from right because things are so shaky down there. So here's the one substantive thing I walked away from the show with: String theory calms the action at this 10^-43 scale. I wish I wish I wish they would have told me a little more about HOW!
I think Sagan's "Cosmos" had a tad more dignity. I enjoyed "The Elegant Universe" and don't regret watching it but probably won't watch it again.
This program seems to be the new hip intellectual thing to talk about at my school (highschool)... really shows how dumb people are I think... Not that I didn't enjoy it, it's great "infotainment", it's just that anyone with any calc knowledge can go a much longer way into understanding this stuff if they look at better sources (the book for one)...
String Theory for Dummies
Scientists involved too much in popularizing science are not considered 'real scientists' by their colleagues, which is bad for their careers.
For example, Carl Sagan did way too much popular science, and for this reason he was not elected a member of the NAS for many years.
Scientists are supposed to do real science and leave the popularization to less qualified individuals, such as high school science teachers, reporters, etc
All these bittorent links got me thinking... why is there so little porn availeable thru this protocol? After all, it IS the most important thing in the universe, and in much higher demand than PBS theories!
Someone posted them earlier on you can find there post ::here::
---
Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves. -- AE
Comment removed based on user account deletion
AND DIE WHILE YOU ARE AT IT.
They come from the width of your text box, which in your case is 50 columns (the default). You can change that in your user Preferences under the Comments tab. However, it is rather rude to use plain text. One person saving time by not making links clickable wastes the time of the many people who want to use the link.
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
I found the series to be mostly repetitive eye candy. The content could have easily been reduced to 1 hour. My kids got bored with it very quickly. I stuck it out until the end on the hopes that it would improved. But it never did.
Maybe somebody will re-edit the video to make it grab and hold you.
To be sure, this is a universal problem with PBS-produced shows -- a plodding tempo.
As a (non degree) physics buff, I too have to agree that the first 2 hours were disappointing and too fluff filled (oooo..the QUANTUM cafe with Greene eating a donut and walking through walls to demonstrate Heisenberg uncertainty!! .... way too cornball and almost patronizing). However the third hour (on the next week) was actually pretty redeeming, explaining some things on m-theory and how string theory supposedly predicts Supersmmetry which with its Neutralinos and Photinos should be experimentally verifiable with the new Tev scale colliders coming on in the next few years (LHC et. al.) and how this will help explain dark matter. That was really interesting and exciting.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
then you don't really understand it. Right? Discuss...
Syntax error: loose != lose, affect != effect, then!=than
http://a768.g.akamai.net/5/768/142/3f9e9589/1a1a1a fb6ae049ae214fc034aad839a91985ea187bea5786f362d841 a61948bf2688f01f87fb6fdf0e7ceb61c22186fb/nova_eu_3 012c01_mp4_300.mov
Where the first bold part is episode numbers 12-14 and the second the part numbers from 01-08. Between 20-26Mb each...
'I am become Shiva, destroyer of worlds'
Physics for Arts Students for Phys Ed. Majors
And then the gravity falls right off the bread! er, universe!
Not bad, it was pretty funny.
I have a class taught by an incredible scholar of Einstein. The Wife argument is pretty much baseless--he did frequently send her letters with physics in them, and it may have seemed like he was bouncing off ideas off her--but that's pretty much it.
In actuality, Einstein was a horrible father, as well. Oh, and that cute rumor about Einstein doing bad in school? That's because his school's grading system switched quickly from 1-6 grading to 6-1 grading--so anyone not in the know would be wondering why he suddenly is failing classes completely, when he actually was quite good at chemistry, math, etc.
I don't like math-less presentations of something like this--it's just inviting people to become annoying armchair physicists. The tendency of people to want to hate/bypass people who have worked harder than them is very great (cf the popularity of books like Ender's Game), and this sort of thing just gives them more reason to believe they know what they're talking about.
Tell them all you want about string theory, just don't start mentioning the philosophy of science. In fact, let's get rid of the philosophers anyways; who's signing their paycheck?
You might want to try Gordon Lightman's "Einstein's Dreams" to get a different experience. I found the visions compelling.
I'm surprised that the slash-dot group really liked this series. I know I found it frothy, heavy on the ol' special effects (I had the feeling that SOMEONE in the production team got a new non-linear editing system and just absolutely had to play with every possible feature). The first installment was by far the strongest.
I've disliked Nova increasingly over the past few years - all the re-enactments (Gallileo for example) - they've gotten all touchy-feely. I have this awful thought that liberal-arts people, who are intrinsicly afraid of technology, would rather do dramas than do hard looks at science.
Are there any dissenting views on Science itself? Because I know there are a lot of Creation Scientists that have an axe to grind with blasphemous atheist constructs like the "Scientific Method". REVOKE PBS' FEDERAL FUNDING! THE STATE IS SQUELCHING RELIGION WITH ITS SECULAR POISON!
Seems like he had some kind've evil takeoverthierminds agenda. And I mean, there's these stupid previews where it is saying "The next einstien is hosting the documentary you are watching". That made me think twice about his credibility.
Many Thanks,
Luke
I skipped the third one. Maybe I should watch it. Everything in the first two hours could have been said in ten minutes:
There are the 4 forces of the apoclypse and everyone thinks that they are probably related, but since no one could figure out how gravity fit in with the other three, unification became a backwater of physics and Einstein was past his prime anyway. Then string theory came along based on Euler's equation and maybe it can unify all 4 forces. Of course string theory is philosophy and not really physics at all since it doesn't have any observable consequenses.
Did I leave anything out?
FreeSpeech.org
You have to understand, there are some people who have a need to bash or denigrate everything in order to make themselves feel important, or smart. It's the only reason they have for getting up in the morning.
WGBH does not host the content directly. If you know how to follow the links in the MOV code (which fortuanately for you I do). You will find that, for the MOV's at least, they are hosted by http://a388.g.akamai.net I have not yet determined who is hosting teh RM files yet.
I appreciate that PBS has made this "re-broadcast" possible.Now I can share it with my son who missed it fist time around.I also enjoyed Cosmos and it would be great to see it again in this format.
an, this is terrible. I can barely afford to RTFA most of the times, where exactly do you want me to find 3 hours to view these videos?? My boss is going to kill me!
Bah, I'll just talk my ass off, as usual.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
But a fun show, and informative, despite some of its flaws.
A friend sent me the link a couple weeks ago. That is some cool thought-provoking shit to watch.
Glad I saw it before the
That's why you find physicists and mathematicians working on high-energy particle experiments rather than clever plumbers.
leave us alone. Go read the cryptic equations and maybe someday produce your own string theory show without computer visuals . You could sit there on a chair with your monotone voice and read from a book all the sting theory equations. Nice and boring just the way you like it. Nobody would care or would watch.
They're posted several times over further down.
And don't forget to leave bitTorrent running for a while after the download completes to help speed up the download for people after you.
If we get everyone to use bitTorrent instead of the PBS site, maybe we can slashdot half the Internet instead of just one site. =D
Every science company and scientist in America needs to pull out their wallet or check book to pay tribute to PBS and the folks at NOVA. This is by far one of the most informative television programs ever created. I'm pretty sure PBS just recently lost a huge amount of governmental funding, so please, do your part.
I personally read it a few years ago and it is an amazing book. It really makes you think about alot and is much more detailed then this series. I heard a lot of complaints which said that this was lacking in certain areas as a result of it being produced for the general public. If you want math and detail, read the book. However, the book is still general enough that you don't really need a background in this field. If you find it interesting, there are many other books that I would recommend. "Quantum Gravity", "Time Travel in Einstein's Universe", and "The Book About Nothing" are all great follow-ups that cover more specific areas of interest. Unfortunately I can't think of all of the authors off of the top of my head, but I assure you that they are worth gettting.
-Steve
I am the only one here that thought the series was horrible? The graphics were cute and Brian Greene is very enthusiatics about his field, but the substance wasn't there. This was an emperor's clothes approach to physics: Play up the glitzy graphics and camera effects to hide the fact that string theory still does not yet unify gravity and quantum field theory. I really expected a lot more. Hawking did a better job of explaining m-branes; and Feynman's QED sets the standard for lay explanation of the strange quantum world.
"The Elegant Universe" is about string theory, sure... but rather than being as accurate and descriptive as possible, they opt to squander three hours on needless (and logically irrelevant) special effects.
I found not only the special effects distracting and annoying but even the flashy way they filmed non-SPFX scenes. They even tried to do funny things with the editing of the interviews with the professors!
I happen to know one of the string theorists who appeared on the show. I was talking with him about what he thought of the finished product a few days after the final episode was shown. Both he and I agreed that while the rapid-fire editing and SPFX were not to our liking, we were both impressed that someone at least spent a fair chunk of dough to make this show. And he told me that he was hearing that a lot of kids (I assume he meant younger kids -- not college students) liked the show and that it got them interested in string theory.
We could certainly debate whether those kids actually learned anything or whether they were just dazzled by the pretty pictures but I have to say that it's been quite awhile since anyone put up a chunk of dough to make a program about science. The show may not have been to my liking but if it can at least make people think that we're doing interesting and exciting stuff, perhaps it does serve an important purpose. I guess it all comes down to who their target audience is. And with Nova these days, one can never really be sure.
GMD
watch this
His point was that the show was as repetitive as porn. It should have been edited down to 20 or 30 minutes.
This was one of the few things that wasn't repeated a hundred times.
Strings have finite extent, so String Theory is not subject to the singularities of Quantum Field Theory, which has point particles, which lead to nasty normalization problems.
Now I have yet another way to show that I have no life.
This beer, my friends, this is for no sleep!
I'm surprised that the slash-dot group really liked this series. I know I found it frothy, heavy on the ol' special effects (I had the feeling that SOMEONE in the production team got a new non-linear editing system and just absolutely had to play with every possible feature.
I've disliked Nova increasingly over the past few years - all the re-enactments (Gallileo for example) - they've gotten all touchy-feely. I have this awful thought that liberal-arts people, who are intrinsicly afraid of technology, would rather do dramas than do hard looks at science.
No. his point was that he thinks he could produce something more boring and terse for the public.
Yes he could.
The Elegant Universe was brought to you by contributions to PBS stations by viewers like you. Thank you!
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
Could you explain how this applies to Enders Game? Just curious.
More boring? Not possible. The show is a absolute snoozer, mindlessly repeating the same glitzy visuals over and over and over and over and over and over. It was one long commercial for Greene's book.
Download the MPEG4 version, which MPlayer will play just fine - both audio and video. (Change the last "12" and "01" to 12-14 and 01-08 to get them all.)
I hope the internets best kept secret can handle being Slashdotted.
Oh yeah... in hour 3 when the guy is leaving his house and getting into the cab, i love 2 buildings up =]
Simple. Everyone likes the idea of an ordinary kid coming up with "stuff that's never been done before." And starting a revolution because those in power are to set in their "old ways." or of Physicists spending so much money looking at the universe and missing the truth that is right in front of them (puke).
Ender's Game was very popular with everyone in the GT/Honors class at my old highschool--because everyone liked the idea that they could be Ender--that they could be the one who tragically is so smart that they (oops) destroy an entire race.
It's an ego thing, and it's surprising that more people don't realize it. It's tough not to get swept up in his momentum, as he takes the school by storm, and bests everyone. But when you catch the feeling that it's trying to make you wish you could be/were/are Ender, you'll feel different about the book too.
Sorry, maybe it's cuz I'm an engineer/geek, as most /.er are, but I found it extremely simplistic. I watched it when it first aired on PBS, after watching the whole thing in one sitting, I just felt, I wasted my time. There wasn't anything in there that I didn't know, and no I didn't read the books either. But for the first 3/4 of the bloody thing, he would keep on saying: "Strands of vibrating energy we call Strings", over and over and over again.
The only thing that I found remotely interesting was when he talked about how the other theories were unified. That being, electriomagnetism and the weak/strong nuclear force, via quantum theory.
The last bit when he did actually talk about String theory, he didn't even get into enough detail for me to learn anything meaningful out of it at all. I am pretty disappointed, this coming from a long time Nova watcher.
An Object must have mass to have a Schwarzschild radius.
And... opps.
"Build a man a fire warm him for a day, set a man on fire and warm him for the rest of his life."
Se also a recent speech (scroll down a bit) by Stephen Hawking on string theory and the origin of the universe.
I agree with your points, though I think that your claim that it's necessarily because someone else "worked harder" isn't necessarily true. Wanting to be the top dog is completely disconnected from how hard other people worked.
May we never see th
However, I've never heard mention of the above theory since, including in "The Elegant Universe" (unless I somehow missed it). Yes, String Theory requires 11 dimensions total, but (apparantly) all of the 7 "extra" dimensions beyond the 3-phsycical and 1-time dimensions are "all curled up" and very small. In contrast, the 4th-physical dimension mentioned in "Cosmos" is the size of the entire universe.
So the question is: is the theory of the 4th-physical dimension and the "hypershpere universe" as presented in "Cosmos" still believed to be true?
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
I've been trying to figure out how the QuickTime streams work on the site.
... /wgbh/nova/elegant/media2/nova_eu_3012c00_ref.mov
... /wgbh/nova/elegant/media2/nova_eu_3012c00_mp4_ref. mov
... /wgbh/nova/elegant/media2/nova_eu_3012c00_hi_ref.m ov ... /wgbh/nova/elegant/media2/nova_eu_3012c00_lo_ref.m ov
e u/ nova_eu_3012c00_lo_ref.mov
This is as much as I've figured out, but still no luck at capturing a stream.
Using StreamBox!VCR and a little research on what the QuickTime streaming protocol is I figured this much out.
By changing the HTTP to RTSP
I copy in the url that I arlready know of: [ "..." is www . pbs . org]
rtsp://
redirects to:
rtsp://
Which gives me these two lovely sources to play with
rtsp://
rtsp://
But I still can't save the stream. Just times out.
And then I get an itching and I get weird errors in my logs. Like this url appended to the urls stated above..
h**p://stream.qtv.apple.com/qtv/wgbh/http/nova_
But that doesn't exist either or with RTSP. Hrmm...
misundstood by most, hated by some, loved by few.
What you're saying is exactly why I don't like math.
Oh, I'm good enough at it; not brilliant, but good. But math seems so in-grown.
On the other hand, once you're past newtonian physics, physics really is just another philosophy. It sort of bridges between math and science.
And of course, there's computers, which are not science despite what the degree on my diploma says. Programming is like math in that its a pure construct; its a philosophy, its a state of mind. The fact that it may do something useful is purely a side effect of how clever (or not clever) the programmer is.
In the end, at the age of 43, I've decided I don't give a shit anymore; I just want my big salary so I can have fun on the weekend.
And yes, I do make 6 figures, thank you.
Exactly. During many of the special effect sequences, I grimaced because what they were describing and what they were portraying were contradictory.
I finally couldn't stomach it any longer, and when they started repeating vaguaries for the uptenth time and laying on more eye candy in episode 3, I couldn't take it any longer.
I'm a Nova fan and documentary junkie, and while I did find the explanations of newtonian and einsteinian theories excellent, I still have no frigging clue about the implcations of string theory and 11 dimensions. Am I to believe there are 5 of me sitting here, each drinking a different color of coffee?! Or playing cello. Good grief! Why should multiple dimensions mirror other dimensions? Is there *any* part of theory which states this?!
Just because you *can* do special effects does not mean you *should* do them, especially when they end up distracting and misleading your audience.
"You have liberated me from thought."
It's like, google, WTF?! I'm like "komboocha", and it's like, Did you mean: kombucha, and I'm all, "yeah, dude! Kombucha!" Fucking ingenious! How does it do that!?! Google, you are a freakin' genious. [ScabbleDapp]
Will, I can't seem to access your site either from here, or by typint it in or by any other link: it comes up as "forbidden".
I'm using my Telus ISP account here in Edomonton, and hope you still have good memories of appearing at the West Edmonton Mall, the world's largest. Have we evil Canucks offended?
My Yahoo account is blairpetterson@yahoo.com and I hope you'll consider reopening your site to us.
But... but... you said it would take ten minutes! I read your description in less than 30 seconds.
FRAUD! SELLER MISREPRESENTED PRODUCT AND WOULD NOT RETURN PHONE CALLS. AVOID!!!
Seriously, though, I thought I had seen this when it was on television. Turns out, I didn't know it was a miniseries and only saw the last hour. The last hour all by itself pretty much describes the bulk of the program. Going back and now having seen the first and second hour, I'd say that it gives more background information and helps fill in a few holes. (Like know I have a better idea of what they mean by the hidden dimensions. At least, I think I do. By "very tiny dimensions" they mean instead of a vast amout of movement along their plane, they have an extremely tiny amount of travel distance. At least, I think?)
I have all sorts of questions after watching this, and I know I'll never get them answered. But I'm wondering what string theory says about what, in my mind, is a conversion of energy types. Like the strong nuclear force into plain energy (in a nuclear explosion)? Does string theory explain it? Can it explain a theoretic conversion of gravity to something else?
I think the pictures between chapter 2 and 3 should be switched. You don't even see chapter's 2 picture in chapter 2. I guess I need to email webmaster@pbs.org.
I didn't use the preview button, so get over it!!!!
Mike
Hey, yeah. That's true. It is a terrible movie. For a physics grad student.
As a person who's interested in physics, but also interested in many other things which I am MUCH better at grasping, this program was great for me. See, I don't know anything. Surprisingly little, now that I really think about it. I've heard of string theory, but never had the slightest idea what it was. The only thing I knew about Bohr was that he came up with the model of the atom, not that he was in any way involved in quantum mechanics. Which, of course, is ridiculous unless you consider that I had only a vague conception of what quantum mechanics really says.
In high school I learned basic motion equations, basic EM equations, a tiny bit of nuclear, and that's almost all. I took one full year (college-level, supposedly) class.
Say it didn't teach you anything, fine, say it didn't have any great depth. But don't be all elitist and say that makes it bad. That's like me saying a book on introductory programming is bad, because it's so shallow.
I found chapter 2 while channel surfing one day and never to to see any of the other parts, thanks poster!
Does anyone else find it ironic that everyone here is using Supernova to download a program in the.....Nova series?
...but I was really disappointed in the series. I felt it was more at the Discovery Channel level than Nova, and the entire first hour didn't tell me anything more than I learned in high school. The second hour maybe a little bit of first year college physics, and the third didn't seem to be going anywhere and I finally gave up on it. The one thing I thought was good was the ant on the cable visualization of another spatial dimension...
I could have found out faster reading a print weekly...
Seriously folks, I'm not trying to be a Troll but its been up since at least the 1st of the month. The 3rd hour went up shortly after the last one aired on TV on the 4th.
movie 1 movie 1 movie 1 movie 1 movie 1 movie 1 movie 1 movie 1
movie 2 movie 2 movie 2 movie 2 movie 2 movie 2 movie 2 movie 2
movie 3 movie 3 movie 3 movie 3
"When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail." - Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
Please mod this comment up (no karma whoring since I am posting anonymously) since long after the above Bit Torrent links have ceased working, the decentralised Overnet will still have these files. I know I'll keep them there anyway.
. I- Einsteins.Universe-SctV.avi|317745152|675bdfe5fe27 4122a8d352ec6f9066de|/
. II -Strings.the.Thing-SctV.avi|299335680|2efb573c094c 4d511e0f4b51d408c1f5|/
. II I-Welcome.to.the.11th.Dimension-SctV.avi|325081088 |9fc1e2be000cdffa4fad30762c8ff91f|/
Sorry, I don't know how to make them clickable. You'll have to copy/paste. Here goes:
ed2k://|file|PBS-Nova-The.Elegant.Universe-Part
ed2k://|file|PBS-Nova-The.Elegant.Universe-Part
ed2k://|file|PBS-Nova-The.Elegant.Universe-Part
I've been trying those links few times.
And I always got downloaded some strange files.
Those files are way too short to be a video...
Anyone can help me in getting those films?
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For what it's worth, I think marketing and informal price-fixing have as much to do with making people tolerate huge soda prices as the real value of convenience. The bandwidth market is probably a lot more rational, since a lot of people are paid by their employers to make the correct purchasing decision!
Another cool fact about convenience: A study was done on how far people would drive for a discount. They were willing to drive an extra 20 minutes to get a $5 discount on a single $20 purchase, but they wouldn't dive those same 20 minutes to get a $5 discount on a $100 purchase. The markets would be a lot more rational if people were!
Nice series, but what I'm left wondering is what the Strings are made of?
RJG
Here is the elegant universe series All three parts.
It will be there about one month.
And it is for all those people that do not use bittorrent, and want to get this film.
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#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
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