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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.
Three...
Two...
One...
They are now holding a fundraiser to cover the multimillion dollar bandwidth costs of three hours of video on SLASHDOT.
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
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
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.
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.
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've seen Bill Nye specials that are more keen on science than this piece of junk... I expected to see it on Fox.
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.
Too bad none of those links seem to work... heres a few that work (direct torrent file links):
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
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
The unofficial
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
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.)
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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.
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... --
I think that the fact that they had to pack so many effects into the show to keep today's audience interested is mainly a reflection of the sad state of the MTV generation's attention span.
Actually, I was fine with the visual effects that demonstrated the physics priniciples. Computer graphics are available; why not use them. What stood out to me was the need to keep something, anything moving on the screen at all times. Thus, all the strange sliding panels contantly shuffling back and forth in the background behind the various extra-smart scientists as they talked.
The producers must have reasoned that the target audience was so used to being fed spinning logos, scrolling textbars, subsecond edit cuts and webpage-like clutter, that if they saw nothing but someone sitting still talking, then they'd assume the TV must somehow be broken.