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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.
..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.
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.
I second that. I own the book and it is really interesting. A book written by a guy that built his own kilowatt particle accelerator from spare wire and junk when he was a teen [?] has got to be pretty good. I'll have to read it again since I haven't read it in years. IIRC, he even was on a Discovery Channel show about physics.
But then again, I have to finish "Alice in Quantumland", and find my "The God Particle" by Leon Lederman to read again, which is a hillarious and extremely informative book. It is almost a review of Physics from day one -- the Greeks -- to now, in a huge amount of detail. Imagine a 26 page narrative between Leon Lederman and the ancient Greek philosofer Democritus in the Fermilab collider detector late at night, starting with the title Late Night with Lederman! I love the book.
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)
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.
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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.
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 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.
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.
Nothing personal, but if there was no mathematical background, then I'd suggest that at best you have a grasp of the consequences of the theory. Like Relativity, QM, and several other recent developments, if you don't know the maths, then I don't think you really understand it - the underlying reasons for its strangeness, how it was developed, the way it fits into our current understanding of the universe, its internal structure or logic.
(I include myself in that category, BTW - despite having a maths degree, and having seen some of the basic mathematical theory for both Relativity and QM, I really wouldn't say I understand them.)
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
Possible responses, take your pick:
- Yeah! How the hell is WBGH going to pay for Nova if we're able to skip the commercials? Oh, wait...
- Think of all the money WBGH is losing because of third-party mirrors instead of paying for a metric truckload of streaming connections? Er...
- That content isn't yours! It belongs to PBS, who are paid by... um...
Seriously, if you're feeling guilty go find your local public television station's URL and give them some money. If you're feeling really guilty, a lot of them in their efforts to raise money will tell you exactly how much it costs to air a single episode of such-and-such (Nova in this case). Donate enough money to cover all of it and I can't see how you wouldn't be justified in mirroring it yourself."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
For another example, take a piece of pastry of uniform thickness. Put in some rasins in a grid spaced at equal distances. Now roll out the pastry smoothly in all directions. All of the rasins move the same distance from their nearest neighbors, and rasins initally at a distance x are now at a distance K x (here, K is bascally the 'Hubble constant' of the pastry :-).
The balloon is used because its easier to demonstrate blowing up a balloon versus rolling pastry (scientists are usually not good a cooking!). The curvature of the balloon is irrelevant - and misleading because the whole point is that all points (ahem, no pun intended) in the universe are moving away from all other points - there is no center of the universe, or not one that can be determined by simple red-shift experiments anyway.
The large-scale curvature of the universe is very nearly zero, so you need to think of the space-time being very nearly flat, and a long way from the boundary. Either a very very large pastry sheet (the edges are beyond the horizon) or a very very large balloon.