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.

Comments

Great Show

[strictnein]

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.

Superstring theory

[drivelikejehu]

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.

Re:Superstring theory

[tloh]

I've been a astro-geek for as long as I can remember. A few years ago, I was blown away after reading "Hyperspace". At the time, I was truly impressed with Prof. Michio Kaku's elequent and penatrating writing style. As far as books on physics goes, my opinion is that his is a head and shoulder above Stephen Hawkings "A Brief History of Time". Unlike Hawking's tome, "Hyperspace" at times reads like a well written novel with an evolving plotline and compeling characters that put a human dimension on our quest for understanding reality.

That all fell apart a few weeks ago when I came across an archived broadcast on the webpage of the NPR radio show "Science Friday".

http://www.sciencefriday.com/pages/1997/Sep/hour2_ 090597.html

Kaku was a guest on a discussion of the safety of Radio-isotope Thermal Generators (RTGs) which coincide with the launch of the much delayed Cassini mission to Saturn. The voice I heard completely floored me with his arrogance and condescension. He spoke about "saving science from the misguided hands of NASA" as a politician who has no appreciation of the hard work NASA engineers have accomplished would. He verbally assulted another science guest on the show as a "fringe" with no qualifications.

This sounded nothing like the voice of knowledge and wisdom I had come to know in the pages of "Hyperspace". Surely Mr. Kaku must be just having a bad day? I set out to scour the web and find out more rational words from the man. I was disapointed. The most promanent source document I have found on the subject is a speech he delivered at Cape Canaveral.

http://www.lovearth.org/mkaku.htm

another more formal and detailed expository:

http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/mk9708so.h tm

There is no loss of elegance, and the retoric is as insightful as ever. But after you finish reading them, you realize that he is long on criticism and short on solutions. Furthermore, he completely fails to make any mention of rebuttals (extremely sound and very obvious rebuttals, I might add) to the ideas he is advancing. I can go on about exactly how he leaves us short for many more paragraphs. But I'm off topic as it is so I'll let you pursue that at your own discression.

Basically, I got the distinct impression that the man is a megalomaniac. It would have been forgivable if he had been an activist in the spirit of Carl Sagan's conservation activities. But it seems this guy, on this particular subject at least, is purely out for attention and will stop at nothing to get it. I find it sad and disapointing when smart people overstep the boundaries of authority or credibility and abuse the trust and admiration the public has given them. Thankfully, I'm not alone. Attached to a blurb at geek.com, the first two comments raise questions about Mr. Kaku views just as I have.

I am a fan of Dr Kaku (4:26pm EST Fri Jun 27 2003)
But, I need to respond with a resounding, HUH? to this blurb. Dr. Kaku has giving me invaluable insights into string theory, and his ideaas for public policy are well reasoned and logical, but what's with the report on needed to turn off artificial monkey brains? Heck, I am as liberal and prohuman as the next guy, but I feel that I could really use some murderous sim simians. - by IA my eye

Quack (5:06pm EST Fri Jun 27 2003)
I read Visions and had a high opinion of Dr. Kaku, until I realized he was the central figure organizing and supporting the protests against the launch of the Ullyses Saturn Probe.
He did this because he believed that the RTGs on the probe would contaminate the earth if they re-entered the atmosphere. The probability of this happening is beyond remot

Re:Oh for the love of sweet Baby Jesus on a skewer

[drivelikejehu]

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.

Experiment is what counts

[mpn14tech]

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.

Re:Download?

[werdnapk]

Part I:
http://www.logged.org/suprnova/torrents/528/PBS-No va-The.Elegant.Universe-Part.I-Einsteins.Universe- SctV-avi.torrent

Part II:
http://www.logged.org/suprnova/torrents/530/PBS-No va-The.Elegant.Universe-Part.II-Strings.the.Thing- SctV-avi.torrent

Part III:
http://www.oinkfrickinbaaa.co.uk/suprnova/torrents /537/PBS-Nova-The.Elegant.Universe-Part.III-Welcom e.to.the.11th.Dimension-SctV-avi.torrent

Remove the spaces from the urls, I don't know why they're there.

Re:Oh for the love of sweet Baby Jesus on a skewer

[OmnipotentEntity]

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.

If you would like to download the videos...

[bobdotorg]

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:

http://stream.qtv.apple.com/qtv/wgbh/http/nova_e u/ nova_eu_3012c01_hi_100.mov

Re:If you would like to download the videos...

[injustice_sucks]

Try this:

curl http://a388.g.akamai.net/5/388/142/3f9e93f2/1a1a1a fb6ae049ae214fc034aad839a91985ea187bea5786f362d841 a61948bf2688f01f87fb6fdf0e7ceb61c22186fb/nova_eu_3 01{2,3,4}c0[1-8]_hi_100.mov -O

BitTorrent links

[Saeger]

Here's the BitTorrent links to the same thing, except that it's in three convenient 300MB divx parts.

--

Re:BitTorrent links

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad none of those links seem to work... heres a few that work (direct torrent file links):

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Re:BitTorrent links

[Anonymous Coward]

Argh just noticed the 3rd link is the one that doesnt work.. here fixed:

Part 3

Sorry about that.

Oh and just one more thing: If possible, still buy the DVD when it comes out, support PBS.. It comes out in january and im gonna buy it

torrents

[frogsarefriendly]

Part I
Part II
Part III
More downloaders, the better!

DVD/VHS

[dissy]

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.

http://shop.wgbh.org/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Cat alogSearchResultView?storeId=11051&catalogId=10051 &langId=-1&pageSize=20&searchText=elegant+universe

Re:xine problem.

[blixel]

xine tells me that it can't play these because they're in "gif video format," something that seems unlikely. Any advice?

Do you have the right codecs?

Re:Download?

[Gherald]

The spaces are there because you chose "Plain Old Text" when you posted.

And third URL doesn't even work, so here are some working and proper links:

Part I

Part II

Part III

Torrents

[Anonymous Coward]

Posted again because the other guy got the last link wrong.

Part 1


Part 2

Part 3

Tell them....

[Anonymous Coward]

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/

Truly Excellent!

[Mister Transistor]

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.

And for those without a VCR...

[webhat]

... akamai provides download links here

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...

How to play using MPlayer and no binary codecs

[Anonymous Coward]

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.)

Re:How long will it be up for free?

[mcrbids]

Actually it's closer to $.10 these days. Anyone paying $1-$5 is getting ripped off big time.

It depends on what *exactly* you are paying for.

It costs less than $0.10 to produce a can of soda in volume. Yet most people routinely pay $0.50, $0.75, even $1.00 or more for it. Why?

Because it's not the can of soda you're paying for - it's the convenience of delivery. It's there, in your local store, just around the corner from your office, home, or wherever you like to shop.

You're not going to run across town because you can save $0.88 on your next 6-pack of soda. For little guys, convenience is routinely a much larger part of the equation than price per unit.

If you are a smaller ISV, (Independent Service Provider, in case you didn't know) convenience is *far* more important than cost per GB.

I'm *happy* to pay $1-3 per GB, if the next DDoS attack is filtered out by a qualified network technician in the hosting facility while I peacefully sleep. I'm *happy* to pay this price if there's somebody there, day or night, to help me when something goes wrong. I'm not at all hesitant to pay this if I know that I can handle any reasonable traffic spike, anytime, day or night, without having to buy new hubs, switches, and routers.

On the other hand, if I was /., and had to deliver a truly massive quantity of traffic every day, the metrics of the business equation suddenly change rather dramatically in favor of price/unit. If you deliver 70 GB per hour instead of 200 GB per month, things become quite different quite quickly.

A good price can be *alot* more than just calculating price per unit, particularly when the unit count is small. Just remember what you are *really* paying for.

-Ben