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Thank you very much. Thank you, thank you. | 0:00:13 | 0:00:15 | |
Good evening. | 0:00:21 | 0:00:22 | |
Roughly 41 years ago today...ish, | 0:00:24 | 0:00:28 | |
Rutland Weekend Television, | 0:00:28 | 0:00:30 | |
the world's smallest TV station, | 0:00:30 | 0:00:32 | |
did a special starring Beatle George Harrison. | 0:00:32 | 0:00:36 | |
And now, tonight, 41 years later, we're back | 0:00:36 | 0:00:40 | |
to put on another TV special with the Beatle of science, | 0:00:40 | 0:00:43 | |
Professor Brian Cox. | 0:00:43 | 0:00:45 | |
And tonight, our subject is the entire universe, | 0:00:51 | 0:00:55 | |
which we'll be covering in one hour... | 0:00:55 | 0:00:58 | |
as a musical. OK, so... | 0:00:58 | 0:01:01 | |
Without further ado, please welcome, | 0:01:01 | 0:01:03 | |
all the way from Rutland, | 0:01:03 | 0:01:04 | |
Muriel Tritt... | 0:01:04 | 0:01:07 | |
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING | 0:01:07 | 0:01:09 | |
..and the Muriel Tritt School Of Music And Dance. | 0:01:09 | 0:01:13 | |
# The Muriel Tritt School Of Music And Dance | 0:01:26 | 0:01:30 | |
# Gives young people a wonderful chance | 0:01:30 | 0:01:33 | |
# To appear in a show | 0:01:33 | 0:01:35 | |
# To star in a play | 0:01:35 | 0:01:37 | |
# And one day we may be | 0:01:37 | 0:01:40 | |
# On Broadway | 0:01:40 | 0:01:44 | |
# For 13 years through rain and snow | 0:01:44 | 0:01:47 | |
# Every year we put on a show | 0:01:47 | 0:01:52 | |
# We did The Sound Of Mucus | 0:01:52 | 0:01:54 | |
# And Zombie And Son | 0:01:54 | 0:01:55 | |
# The Little Barmaid | 0:01:55 | 0:01:57 | |
# And Second To Nun | 0:01:57 | 0:01:58 | |
# We did Spamma Mia | 0:01:58 | 0:02:00 | |
# And Porky & Bess | 0:02:00 | 0:02:02 | |
# And an all-new version of G&S | 0:02:02 | 0:02:05 | |
# We did Mersey Boys And Richard The Turd | 0:02:05 | 0:02:09 | |
# We did Hello Polly About a dead bird | 0:02:09 | 0:02:12 | |
# We sank the Titanic On a real boat | 0:02:12 | 0:02:16 | |
# The 007 musical Legally Bond | 0:02:16 | 0:02:19 | |
# So relax, throw your hats And hang on to your butts | 0:02:19 | 0:02:22 | |
# For tonight we proudly present | 0:02:22 | 0:02:26 | |
# The Entire Universe | 0:02:26 | 0:02:29 | |
# Yes, tonight we'll be thinking Out of the box | 0:02:31 | 0:02:34 | |
# Will you all please welcome our smart | 0:02:34 | 0:02:38 | |
# Professor Brian Cox! # | 0:02:38 | 0:02:43 | |
-Where the bloody hell is he? -Ah, bit of a snag - he's not here. | 0:02:50 | 0:02:54 | |
-But he should be on the way from the airport. -This is a live show! | 0:02:54 | 0:02:56 | |
-Yeah, he'll be on his way. -I hope so! -Anyway, that's not the snag. | 0:02:56 | 0:03:00 | |
-You see, I haven't been able to speak to him for the last few weeks... -What? | 0:03:00 | 0:03:03 | |
Well, I haven't been able to explain to him | 0:03:03 | 0:03:05 | |
that isn't so much a kind of lecture, it's more of a...musical. | 0:03:05 | 0:03:09 | |
-You didn't a get hold of him? -Well, it's not my fault, is it? | 0:03:09 | 0:03:12 | |
He's been to Patagonia testing magnetism, or something. | 0:03:12 | 0:03:14 | |
-You know, no cellphones. -So, he doesn't know it's a musical? | 0:03:14 | 0:03:18 | |
'He's here!' | 0:03:18 | 0:03:19 | |
Oh, jeez. | 0:03:19 | 0:03:20 | |
-Eric! -Brian! Where have you been? -Well, I'm sorry I'm late. | 0:03:22 | 0:03:26 | |
-Can you just pay for the taxi? -What? We've already started! | 0:03:26 | 0:03:28 | |
It's funny, isn't it? | 0:03:28 | 0:03:29 | |
We can send probes into space at tremendous speeds, | 0:03:29 | 0:03:32 | |
but one lane closed on the M25 and you're stuck forever. | 0:03:32 | 0:03:34 | |
We've been trying to reach you for weeks. | 0:03:34 | 0:03:36 | |
I've been in Patagonia measuring micromagnetism. | 0:03:36 | 0:03:38 | |
It's very interesting, cos the earth's poles are beginning to shift. | 0:03:38 | 0:03:41 | |
We phoned! We texted! We tweeted! | 0:03:41 | 0:03:43 | |
I can't use cellphones, because we're measuring micromagnetism. | 0:03:43 | 0:03:46 | |
-But tell me, you did get the script? -Not unless you sent it by llama. | 0:03:46 | 0:03:50 | |
-What?! -What's this? | 0:03:50 | 0:03:51 | |
It's just a costume. Oh, no time to explain. | 0:03:51 | 0:03:54 | |
-But I haven't got my lecture. -It's all right, it's all on the autocue. | 0:03:54 | 0:03:57 | |
-Here we are, here's the set. And good luck for the show. -Hey, Brian. | 0:03:57 | 0:04:00 | |
-Robin. What are you doing here? -Er... Helping. | 0:04:00 | 0:04:04 | |
I'm putting in the correct number of billions and billions | 0:04:04 | 0:04:06 | |
in the autocue for you. | 0:04:06 | 0:04:07 | |
I've put in loads, you'll love it. | 0:04:07 | 0:04:09 | |
Now... | 0:04:09 | 0:04:11 | |
Pointer. | 0:04:11 | 0:04:13 | |
Clicker. | 0:04:13 | 0:04:15 | |
Showtime. | 0:04:15 | 0:04:17 | |
Ladies and gentlemen, will you please welcome, Professor Brian Cox. | 0:04:17 | 0:04:21 | |
Thank you. | 0:04:27 | 0:04:29 | |
Good evening. | 0:04:29 | 0:04:30 | |
This is the Hubble Deep Field image, | 0:04:30 | 0:04:33 | |
it's the deepest image of our universe ever taken. | 0:04:33 | 0:04:36 | |
# Oooh eee oooh eee oooh. # | 0:04:36 | 0:04:39 | |
It's a photograph of the piece of sky you would cover | 0:04:40 | 0:04:43 | |
if you took a five-pence piece and held it about 75 feet away. | 0:04:43 | 0:04:46 | |
# Oooh eee oooh eee oooh. # | 0:04:47 | 0:04:50 | |
It contains over 10,000 galaxies, | 0:04:51 | 0:04:53 | |
each with over 100 billion stars. | 0:04:53 | 0:04:56 | |
# Oooh eee oooh eee ooooooh. # | 0:04:56 | 0:04:59 | |
Look, what the hell is that? | 0:04:59 | 0:05:01 | |
-Er, it's the universe music, Brian. -It's distracting. | 0:05:01 | 0:05:05 | |
-It sounds really good. -Yeah, it sounds really, really brilliant. | 0:05:05 | 0:05:08 | |
It really kind of jazzes up the universe. | 0:05:08 | 0:05:10 | |
Tell them I don't need any music in the lecture. | 0:05:10 | 0:05:13 | |
Well, you know, with the BBC broadcasting it worldwide live... | 0:05:13 | 0:05:16 | |
Hang on a minute, I thought it was only broadcast in Rutland. | 0:05:16 | 0:05:19 | |
Well, mainly Rutland, but also the rest of the world. | 0:05:19 | 0:05:22 | |
But, look, just read the autocue, please, love, | 0:05:22 | 0:05:25 | |
because we're running a bit late, OK? | 0:05:25 | 0:05:27 | |
"Please welcome Professor Brian Cox!" | 0:05:27 | 0:05:29 | |
This is the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. This is real data. | 0:05:33 | 0:05:37 | |
It's a fly-through of nearby galaxies | 0:05:37 | 0:05:39 | |
in the observable universe, | 0:05:39 | 0:05:41 | |
which contains around 350 billion large galaxies, | 0:05:41 | 0:05:45 | |
each with 200 billion stars, just like our Milky Way. | 0:05:45 | 0:05:49 | |
So, if we multiply 350 billion galaxies | 0:05:49 | 0:05:52 | |
by 200 billion stars, | 0:05:52 | 0:05:54 | |
that means, in the observable universe, | 0:05:54 | 0:05:56 | |
there are at least 70 thousand billion billion stars, | 0:05:56 | 0:06:00 | |
7 followed by 22 zeroes. | 0:06:00 | 0:06:03 | |
7 billion trillion stars. | 0:06:03 | 0:06:05 | |
And that's just the observable universe. | 0:06:05 | 0:06:07 | |
We've got good reason to think the universe extends | 0:06:07 | 0:06:10 | |
way beyond that little patch we can see. | 0:06:10 | 0:06:12 | |
It might even be infinite in extent. | 0:06:12 | 0:06:14 | |
Now, today, after expanding for 13.8 billion years, | 0:06:14 | 0:06:18 | |
we can see out to the edge of a giant sphere, | 0:06:18 | 0:06:21 | |
centred on the earth, 90 billion light years wide. | 0:06:21 | 0:06:25 | |
PING! | 0:06:26 | 0:06:28 | |
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE | 0:06:28 | 0:06:30 | |
What's this?! What the hell is this?! | 0:06:30 | 0:06:32 | |
Robin? Eric? | 0:06:33 | 0:06:35 | |
Eric! Eric! | 0:06:35 | 0:06:36 | |
# It's so damn big It's so damn vast | 0:06:43 | 0:06:46 | |
# It's so damn huge and it's so damn fast | 0:06:46 | 0:06:49 | |
# It's so massive With such weight | 0:06:49 | 0:06:53 | |
# It's so enormous It's just great! | 0:06:53 | 0:06:56 | |
# We're living in a sphere And it's 14 billion years | 0:06:56 | 0:06:59 | |
# 98 billion light years In diameter | 0:06:59 | 0:07:03 | |
# Standing in a bubble At the speed of Hubble | 0:07:03 | 0:07:06 | |
# It's so damn huge In each parameter | 0:07:06 | 0:07:09 | |
# 30.7 billion years | 0:07:09 | 0:07:12 | |
-# On every side -Every side | 0:07:12 | 0:07:16 | |
# Which makes our universe | 0:07:16 | 0:07:18 | |
# 93 billion light years wide | 0:07:18 | 0:07:23 | |
# 350 billion galaxies | 0:07:23 | 0:07:26 | |
# With 70 million trillion stars | 0:07:26 | 0:07:29 | |
# That's 70 thousand thousand thousand | 0:07:29 | 0:07:31 | |
# Thousand thousand thousand thousand stars | 0:07:31 | 0:07:35 | |
# It makes you feel so small | 0:07:36 | 0:07:38 | |
CHEERING | 0:07:38 | 0:07:39 | |
# Stuck on the surface of the spinning ball | 0:07:39 | 0:07:43 | |
# When you consider the size of it all | 0:07:43 | 0:07:46 | |
# It makes you feel so...small | 0:07:46 | 0:07:50 | |
# It makes you feel so small | 0:07:50 | 0:07:53 | |
# Wondering why we're here at all | 0:07:53 | 0:07:56 | |
# Trying to walk before we can crawl | 0:07:56 | 0:08:00 | |
# It makes you feel so small | 0:08:00 | 0:08:03 | |
# The universe so big and vast | 0:08:03 | 0:08:06 | |
# And oh so very shiny | 0:08:06 | 0:08:09 | |
# It makes you feel irrelevant | 0:08:09 | 0:08:12 | |
# So useless and so tiny | 0:08:12 | 0:08:16 | |
# It makes you feel so small | 0:08:16 | 0:08:19 | |
# The universe holds us all in thrall | 0:08:19 | 0:08:23 | |
# When you consider the size of it all | 0:08:23 | 0:08:26 | |
# It makes you feel so small | 0:08:26 | 0:08:30 | |
# Aah aah aah aaah | 0:08:30 | 0:08:33 | |
# Yeah! # | 0:08:35 | 0:08:38 | |
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING | 0:08:38 | 0:08:41 | |
Science isn't a bloody musical! | 0:08:44 | 0:08:46 | |
Everyone's very excited. | 0:08:46 | 0:08:48 | |
I really look like a prat. | 0:08:48 | 0:08:50 | |
-You have looked like a prat before. -Look, science isn't showbiz. | 0:08:50 | 0:08:54 | |
-Well, it can be. -It's not The Morecambe & Wise Show, is it? | 0:08:54 | 0:08:57 | |
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE | 0:09:00 | 0:09:02 | |
It could be. | 0:09:05 | 0:09:06 | |
Eh - you can see the join! | 0:09:08 | 0:09:11 | |
-Definitely a wig! -Definitely. -Definitely. | 0:09:11 | 0:09:14 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:09:14 | 0:09:15 | |
All right, Brian? | 0:09:18 | 0:09:19 | |
-Warwick Davis. Big fan. -Warwick. | 0:09:19 | 0:09:21 | |
-What are you doing here? -I'm playing The Big Bang. | 0:09:21 | 0:09:24 | |
Ba-da-ba-baa! | 0:09:24 | 0:09:26 | |
-What? -I know. Irony. | 0:09:27 | 0:09:29 | |
Warwick's tip-top on science, Brian. | 0:09:29 | 0:09:32 | |
-Per foot, he knows more about science than Tim Peake. -Aww. | 0:09:32 | 0:09:35 | |
Yeah, that's right. Isn't it, Tim? | 0:09:35 | 0:09:38 | |
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE | 0:09:39 | 0:09:42 | |
That's right, Brian. Absolutely. It's right. | 0:09:53 | 0:09:57 | |
-What? -No, really. | 0:09:57 | 0:09:59 | |
Warwick is really good on science, Brian. He's absolutely amazing. | 0:09:59 | 0:10:02 | |
He could have been on the International Space Station with me. | 0:10:02 | 0:10:05 | |
He would have saved a lot of space. | 0:10:05 | 0:10:07 | |
-Cheers, Tim. Are you still on for dinner Tuesday? -Absolutely, yeah. | 0:10:08 | 0:10:11 | |
-Your turn to pay. -Oh, OK. | 0:10:11 | 0:10:14 | |
Um, Tim. I've got a couple of questions. | 0:10:14 | 0:10:16 | |
-Listen, ask me any question you like. -All right. | 0:10:16 | 0:10:19 | |
What's a light year? | 0:10:19 | 0:10:20 | |
A light year is when you don't have very much on - | 0:10:20 | 0:10:22 | |
say, a panto in Woking and a possible telly. | 0:10:22 | 0:10:24 | |
No, it's a measure of distance. | 0:10:26 | 0:10:27 | |
The distance light travels in one year, which is... | 0:10:27 | 0:10:30 | |
6 trillion miles. | 0:10:30 | 0:10:32 | |
Am I right? | 0:10:32 | 0:10:33 | |
-Yeah. -Yeah. 6 followed by 12 zeroes. | 0:10:33 | 0:10:36 | |
-Now, let me ask you a question. -OK. | 0:10:36 | 0:10:37 | |
-What's hot, dense, and forever expanding? -Well... | 0:10:37 | 0:10:41 | |
The Kardashians! | 0:10:41 | 0:10:42 | |
-Lovely joke, Warwick! -Oh, thanks, Eric. | 0:10:44 | 0:10:46 | |
-It's G-string theory! -Ohh! -There's another. -I love it! | 0:10:46 | 0:10:49 | |
We'll have a shot of Kim's bum, and that could be like Saturn. | 0:10:49 | 0:10:51 | |
-What, like a great gas giant? -Ohh! Boo-boom! | 0:10:51 | 0:10:54 | |
You see, material like this writes itself, Brian, so... | 0:10:54 | 0:10:57 | |
Moving on now. On the autocue, love. | 0:10:57 | 0:11:00 | |
"If you think of the universe as..." | 0:11:00 | 0:11:02 | |
If you think of the universe as a balloon... | 0:11:03 | 0:11:05 | |
Ah, great metaphor. | 0:11:05 | 0:11:07 | |
..with the galaxies represented by dots on the balloon, | 0:11:09 | 0:11:12 | |
then the expansion of our universe | 0:11:12 | 0:11:14 | |
is just like the expanding surface of the balloon. | 0:11:14 | 0:11:17 | |
All the galaxies appear to be rushing apart from each other. | 0:11:17 | 0:11:20 | |
All right. Carry on. | 0:11:23 | 0:11:25 | |
We used to think the universe was slowing down | 0:11:26 | 0:11:28 | |
under the effects of gravity | 0:11:28 | 0:11:30 | |
until we measured the expansion rate very precisely | 0:11:30 | 0:11:33 | |
back in the 1990s | 0:11:33 | 0:11:34 | |
and discovered that it is in fact speeding up | 0:11:34 | 0:11:36 | |
because of the effects of something known as dark energy. | 0:11:36 | 0:11:39 | |
Now, we don't know what dark energy is, | 0:11:39 | 0:11:41 | |
but it accounts for 70% of the energy density of the universe. | 0:11:41 | 0:11:45 | |
Dark matter makes up a further 25%. | 0:11:45 | 0:11:48 | |
We don't know what that is either. And the stuff... Are you all right? | 0:11:48 | 0:11:51 | |
Yeah, I'm hyperventilating. Quickly! | 0:11:51 | 0:11:53 | |
The stuff we can actually see shining as stars, | 0:11:55 | 0:11:57 | |
and out of which we are all made, is only 5% of the universe. | 0:11:57 | 0:12:00 | |
So, the universe is expanding, but from what? | 0:12:00 | 0:12:04 | |
If we were able to reverse time, wind back the clock | 0:12:04 | 0:12:07 | |
so that everything rushes back together again... | 0:12:07 | 0:12:10 | |
Ohh! | 0:12:10 | 0:12:12 | |
BALLOONS DEFLATE NOISILY | 0:12:12 | 0:12:14 | |
Sorry! | 0:12:16 | 0:12:17 | |
If we wind everything back to the beginning, | 0:12:20 | 0:12:22 | |
and we go back in time | 0:12:22 | 0:12:23 | |
13.8 billion years before there were any stars or galaxies, | 0:12:23 | 0:12:27 | |
and all the matter of the universe | 0:12:27 | 0:12:29 | |
was crammed into a tiny, wrinkly little pea, | 0:12:29 | 0:12:32 | |
unimaginably hot, unimaginably dense, | 0:12:32 | 0:12:35 | |
containing all the energy and the ingredients | 0:12:35 | 0:12:37 | |
to build the hundreds of billions of galaxies | 0:12:37 | 0:12:39 | |
and billions of trillions of stars in our universe, | 0:12:39 | 0:12:42 | |
contained in a single primordial atom... | 0:12:42 | 0:12:46 | |
we call that the big bang. | 0:12:46 | 0:12:48 | |
And hold it there, love, for the Big Bang Song. | 0:12:48 | 0:12:50 | |
-The big bang isn't a song. -It is now! | 0:12:50 | 0:12:53 | |
-What are they doing? -Well, it's pretty obvious, isn't it? | 0:13:10 | 0:13:12 | |
They're elementary particles. | 0:13:12 | 0:13:14 | |
Look, they're banging into each other and then disappearing. | 0:13:14 | 0:13:16 | |
-Particles? -Yeah, much better than your boring old equations. | 0:13:16 | 0:13:20 | |
Ah! So, what do you think? | 0:14:34 | 0:14:36 | |
I'm a professor. | 0:14:36 | 0:14:38 | |
No-one will take me seriously if they think I'm in showbiz. | 0:14:38 | 0:14:41 | |
Yeah, I think that ship might have sailed some time ago. Erm... | 0:14:41 | 0:14:46 | |
Oh, and the BBC did say they were going to pay you more money. | 0:14:47 | 0:14:50 | |
The early cosmos can be thought of as a series of epochs | 0:14:53 | 0:14:56 | |
as, in the gradually expanding and cooling universe, | 0:14:56 | 0:14:59 | |
the forces of nature separate out, | 0:14:59 | 0:15:02 | |
and the particles we see today - the protons, neutrons and electrons, | 0:15:02 | 0:15:05 | |
out of which we are all made - are formed. | 0:15:05 | 0:15:08 | |
Time itself started 13.8 billion years ago, | 0:15:08 | 0:15:12 | |
and once time had started... | 0:15:12 | 0:15:14 | |
Sorry, Brian. Can we hold time? | 0:15:14 | 0:15:16 | |
-What? -Can we just hold time for a minute, please. | 0:15:16 | 0:15:19 | |
Well, time isn't here yet. | 0:15:19 | 0:15:21 | |
-What? -Hannah Waddingham is playing time | 0:15:21 | 0:15:24 | |
but, unfortunately, she's late. | 0:15:24 | 0:15:26 | |
She's stuck in traffic, so if you could give us just a bit more BS... | 0:15:26 | 0:15:29 | |
I'm sorry, a bit more science about the early universe | 0:15:29 | 0:15:32 | |
until she gets here. Thanks a lot. | 0:15:32 | 0:15:34 | |
You could say that more happened in the first three minutes | 0:15:35 | 0:15:39 | |
of the life of the universe | 0:15:39 | 0:15:40 | |
than in the next 13.8 billion years. | 0:15:40 | 0:15:42 | |
By the time the universe was around three minutes old, | 0:15:42 | 0:15:45 | |
it had cooled down to a temperature of only a billion degrees | 0:15:45 | 0:15:48 | |
and was filled with what we call plasma, | 0:15:48 | 0:15:51 | |
a soup of electrically charged particles | 0:15:51 | 0:15:53 | |
through which light couldn't pass. | 0:15:53 | 0:15:55 | |
Now, light can be thought of as a stream of particles called photons, | 0:15:55 | 0:15:58 | |
and they have no mass. | 0:15:58 | 0:15:59 | |
But other fundamental particles, like electrons, do have mass, | 0:15:59 | 0:16:03 | |
and they get it through their interaction with the Higgs field, | 0:16:03 | 0:16:06 | |
which permeates the universe | 0:16:06 | 0:16:08 | |
and has a particle associated with it called the Higgs boson. | 0:16:08 | 0:16:12 | |
Har-har, Cap'n Cox! | 0:16:12 | 0:16:14 | |
Har-har! | 0:16:16 | 0:16:17 | |
-Who are you? -It got better. Um... | 0:16:18 | 0:16:20 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:16:20 | 0:16:22 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:16:22 | 0:16:24 | |
Who? | 0:16:27 | 0:16:28 | |
I'm the Higgs boson, me hearties! Har-har! | 0:16:28 | 0:16:31 | |
Noel Fielding, meet Brian. | 0:16:33 | 0:16:35 | |
-Brian, Noel. -Hey, Brian, I'm a huge fan. Love your astrology. | 0:16:35 | 0:16:37 | |
Astronomy. | 0:16:37 | 0:16:39 | |
Whatever. What's your star sign? | 0:16:39 | 0:16:41 | |
I haven't got a star sign. | 0:16:41 | 0:16:42 | |
Come on, everyone's got a star sign. | 0:16:42 | 0:16:44 | |
All right, gin and tonic. | 0:16:44 | 0:16:47 | |
That's not a star sign. | 0:16:47 | 0:16:49 | |
-He's a Pisces. -I knew it. I'm a Gemini. | 0:16:49 | 0:16:51 | |
-We get on instantly! -We don't. | 0:16:51 | 0:16:54 | |
All right. | 0:16:54 | 0:16:55 | |
Unless you've got Jupiter rising. | 0:16:55 | 0:16:57 | |
I've got anger...rising. | 0:16:57 | 0:17:00 | |
I've got a very finely tuned drivel detector, | 0:17:00 | 0:17:04 | |
and it goes off every time anyone mentions astrology. | 0:17:04 | 0:17:09 | |
It's all true, isn't it? | 0:17:09 | 0:17:10 | |
Well, it's not really. It's cack. | 0:17:10 | 0:17:12 | |
What kind of talk is that? Cack? | 0:17:14 | 0:17:17 | |
You'll be saying crop circles don't exist next! | 0:17:17 | 0:17:19 | |
Crop circles don't exist. | 0:17:19 | 0:17:21 | |
This is ridiculous. Next, you'll be saying | 0:17:21 | 0:17:23 | |
global warming is a real thing that we should all be worried about. | 0:17:23 | 0:17:25 | |
-Eric, can we just have a word? -Just keep going, keep going. | 0:17:25 | 0:17:28 | |
Brian, the thing is, I love science. | 0:17:28 | 0:17:31 | |
I love Scientology. | 0:17:31 | 0:17:32 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:17:32 | 0:17:35 | |
I love all the sciences. | 0:17:35 | 0:17:37 | |
I hope one day to have a haemorrhoid named after me, like you. | 0:17:37 | 0:17:41 | |
-Asteroid! -Whatever. | 0:17:41 | 0:17:43 | |
You get what you want named after you, | 0:17:43 | 0:17:45 | |
and I'll get what I want named after me. | 0:17:45 | 0:17:47 | |
And I'm getting a haemorrhoid! | 0:17:48 | 0:17:50 | |
Like you! | 0:17:51 | 0:17:53 | |
Brian, do you know my theory about the universe? | 0:17:53 | 0:17:55 | |
-You've got a theory about the universe? -Yes. | 0:17:55 | 0:17:57 | |
-You don't know about my theory? -I don't know your theory about the universe. | 0:17:57 | 0:18:00 | |
I've looked through all the literature - I've seen no record of your theory about the universe. | 0:18:00 | 0:18:04 | |
You don't know? This is going to blow your mind. | 0:18:04 | 0:18:08 | |
I've been working on this for over four and a half days. | 0:18:08 | 0:18:11 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:18:11 | 0:18:12 | |
I believe that the universe is entirely made of water. | 0:18:12 | 0:18:15 | |
It's just that the molecules are so far apart | 0:18:15 | 0:18:18 | |
you can't tell it's water, unless you're outside, looking in. | 0:18:18 | 0:18:23 | |
Pwhoa! | 0:18:23 | 0:18:25 | |
Pwhoa! It's too much for you, isn't it? | 0:18:25 | 0:18:28 | |
I can see. | 0:18:28 | 0:18:29 | |
Your knees are trembling. | 0:18:29 | 0:18:31 | |
That's your theory?! | 0:18:31 | 0:18:32 | |
That's... That's your theory?! | 0:18:34 | 0:18:36 | |
-That's...? -That... | 0:18:36 | 0:18:37 | |
-That is my theory. -All that? | 0:18:37 | 0:18:39 | |
All of that is my... | 0:18:39 | 0:18:40 | |
I've copyrighted that, mate. | 0:18:40 | 0:18:42 | |
-In fact, Deepak Chopra says... -That's...! | 0:18:42 | 0:18:45 | |
Don't you like Deepak? | 0:18:46 | 0:18:48 | |
In my opinion, Deepak is full of more methane than "Uranus". | 0:18:48 | 0:18:53 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:18:53 | 0:18:55 | |
He's great, isn't it? | 0:18:55 | 0:18:57 | |
He's like a rhinestone guru. | 0:18:57 | 0:18:59 | |
# Like a rhinestone guru! | 0:18:59 | 0:19:02 | |
# Ding-aga-ding-aga-ding! # | 0:19:02 | 0:19:03 | |
Why are you dressed as a second-rate character from Pirates Of Penzance? | 0:19:04 | 0:19:08 | |
Second mate. He's got it. He's very bright, isn't he? | 0:19:08 | 0:19:10 | |
Well, he's a professor. | 0:19:10 | 0:19:12 | |
Actually, he's a double professor. | 0:19:12 | 0:19:14 | |
I thought he looked a bit bi! | 0:19:14 | 0:19:16 | |
He was checking me out earlier in the lifts. | 0:19:17 | 0:19:19 | |
What are you supposed to be? | 0:19:19 | 0:19:21 | |
Well, I'm the Higgs boson, aren't I? | 0:19:21 | 0:19:23 | |
Get it? Har-har, me hearties! | 0:19:23 | 0:19:25 | |
-"Boson"... -Yes? | 0:19:26 | 0:19:28 | |
..is an elementary particle. | 0:19:28 | 0:19:29 | |
Right. | 0:19:29 | 0:19:30 | |
"Bosun" is the second mate on a ship. | 0:19:30 | 0:19:34 | |
So what's your point? | 0:19:34 | 0:19:35 | |
Well, the point is, it's silly. | 0:19:35 | 0:19:38 | |
It's not silly. It's a metaphor. | 0:19:38 | 0:19:40 | |
They like it - you like it, don't you? | 0:19:40 | 0:19:42 | |
-AUDIENCE: -Yes! | 0:19:42 | 0:19:44 | |
-Shall I sing? -AUDIENCE: -Yes! | 0:19:44 | 0:19:47 | |
Excusez-moi, Brian. My audience calls. | 0:19:47 | 0:19:50 | |
Stay away from my theory, yeah, Spock? | 0:19:52 | 0:19:54 | |
# There's a Higgs boson | 0:20:01 | 0:20:03 | |
# And there's leptons and there's gluons | 0:20:03 | 0:20:05 | |
# There's the Higgs boson | 0:20:05 | 0:20:07 | |
# And there's positons and muons | 0:20:07 | 0:20:09 | |
# There are photons There are protons | 0:20:09 | 0:20:11 | |
# There's neutrinos, posit-inos | 0:20:11 | 0:20:12 | |
# There are quarks and there's electrons | 0:20:12 | 0:20:14 | |
# In the Higgs boson | 0:20:14 | 0:20:15 | |
# Oh, the Higgs boson All the particles will scatter | 0:20:15 | 0:20:19 | |
# Oh, the Higgs boson As they're starting to be matter | 0:20:19 | 0:20:23 | |
# There are leptons There are gluons | 0:20:23 | 0:20:25 | |
# There are positons and muons | 0:20:25 | 0:20:27 | |
# There are photons There are protons | 0:20:27 | 0:20:28 | |
# In the Higgs boson | 0:20:28 | 0:20:30 | |
# There's a Higgs boson | 0:20:30 | 0:20:31 | |
# And there's electrons and there's muons | 0:20:31 | 0:20:33 | |
# There's a Higgs boson | 0:20:33 | 0:20:35 | |
# And there's positons and muons | 0:20:35 | 0:20:37 | |
# There are photons There are protons | 0:20:37 | 0:20:39 | |
# There's neutrinos, posit-inos | 0:20:39 | 0:20:40 | |
# There are quarks and there's electrons | 0:20:40 | 0:20:43 | |
# In the Higgs boson | 0:20:43 | 0:20:44 | |
# There's neutrinos, Angelinas In the Higgs boson | 0:20:44 | 0:20:47 | |
# There are Sauvignons and Pinots In the Higgs boson | 0:20:47 | 0:20:51 | |
# There are Bonos, Yoko Onos Brian Enos, cappucinos | 0:20:51 | 0:20:54 | |
# Latinas and Latinos In the Higgs boson | 0:20:54 | 0:20:57 | |
# There are gluons, there are muons In the Higgs boson | 0:20:57 | 0:21:00 | |
# There are many, there are few ones In the Higgs boson | 0:21:00 | 0:21:03 | |
# There are gobbles There are gluons | 0:21:03 | 0:21:05 | |
# There are old ones There are new ones | 0:21:05 | 0:21:07 | |
# We haven't got a clue what's in the Higgs boson! # | 0:21:07 | 0:21:09 | |
Har-har! | 0:21:09 | 0:21:10 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:21:10 | 0:21:14 | |
You stop. Stop. | 0:21:18 | 0:21:20 | |
Stop clapping. | 0:21:20 | 0:21:22 | |
Stop clapping! | 0:21:22 | 0:21:23 | |
Number one. | 0:21:23 | 0:21:25 | |
Number one, there's no such element as a Brian Eno. | 0:21:25 | 0:21:28 | |
-And number two... -There should be. | 0:21:28 | 0:21:30 | |
..this is... | 0:21:30 | 0:21:32 | |
Number two, this isn't physics - it's music hall. | 0:21:32 | 0:21:34 | |
-Thanks a lot. -It's not a compliment. | 0:21:34 | 0:21:36 | |
That wasn't a thank you! | 0:21:36 | 0:21:38 | |
-Noel... -Please, call me Cuddles. | 0:21:39 | 0:21:43 | |
That's what Deepak calls me. | 0:21:43 | 0:21:45 | |
I call him Douchepak. We have such a laugh together. | 0:21:45 | 0:21:48 | |
You see, he's like you, he's very clever - | 0:21:48 | 0:21:50 | |
but he's got a sense of humour. | 0:21:50 | 0:21:51 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:21:51 | 0:21:54 | |
We can't upset him. He's part-Vulcan. | 0:21:54 | 0:21:56 | |
He's got no feelings. | 0:21:58 | 0:21:59 | |
We'll have to explain to him later what went wrong. | 0:21:59 | 0:22:02 | |
Listen, science isn't a panto. | 0:22:02 | 0:22:05 | |
Well, it can be. | 0:22:05 | 0:22:06 | |
It can't. | 0:22:06 | 0:22:07 | |
-ALL: -Oh, yes, it can! | 0:22:07 | 0:22:10 | |
Oh, no, it can't. | 0:22:10 | 0:22:11 | |
-ALL: -Oh, yes, it can. | 0:22:11 | 0:22:13 | |
No, it can't. | 0:22:13 | 0:22:15 | |
-ALL: -Oh, yes, it can. | 0:22:15 | 0:22:17 | |
-Well, what's that, then? -Where? | 0:22:17 | 0:22:18 | |
-ALL: -Behind you! | 0:22:18 | 0:22:21 | |
Meow! | 0:22:21 | 0:22:22 | |
It's a pantomime cat. | 0:22:23 | 0:22:25 | |
A cat, but not just any cat. | 0:22:26 | 0:22:28 | |
Er, it's Schrodinger's cat. | 0:22:29 | 0:22:31 | |
-And what's that? -That's a box. | 0:22:35 | 0:22:37 | |
Right. So if the cat goes in the box... | 0:22:37 | 0:22:41 | |
I might be able to salvage something here. | 0:22:41 | 0:22:43 | |
This is Schrodinger's famous thought experiment about a cat in a box. | 0:22:43 | 0:22:47 | |
The cat represents elementary particles | 0:22:47 | 0:22:49 | |
in an entangled quantum state. | 0:22:49 | 0:22:50 | |
So the idea is, you have a radioactive source in the box. | 0:22:50 | 0:22:53 | |
When it decays, it releases radioactive poisonous gas, | 0:22:53 | 0:22:56 | |
something like cyanide, into the box. | 0:22:56 | 0:22:58 | |
That means that before you open the box, the cat is both alive and dead. | 0:22:58 | 0:23:04 | |
But when you open the box, the cat will be seen to be alive or dead. | 0:23:04 | 0:23:08 | |
Like Keith Richards? | 0:23:09 | 0:23:10 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:23:10 | 0:23:13 | |
Well, let's see, then, shall we? | 0:23:14 | 0:23:16 | |
You want to see in the box, don't you? | 0:23:16 | 0:23:17 | |
-ALL: -Yes! | 0:23:17 | 0:23:20 | |
Ta-da! | 0:23:20 | 0:23:21 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:23:21 | 0:23:23 | |
You see? It demonstrates particles. | 0:23:26 | 0:23:29 | |
A cat met an anti-cat and disappeared. | 0:23:29 | 0:23:32 | |
There's no such thing as an anti-cat. | 0:23:32 | 0:23:34 | |
Oh, really? Oh, really? | 0:23:34 | 0:23:36 | |
Says Mr CERN. | 0:23:36 | 0:23:37 | |
Says Mr Particle Collider. | 0:23:37 | 0:23:39 | |
Says Mr Let's Bang Things Into Each Other And See What Comes Out. | 0:23:39 | 0:23:43 | |
Oh, really? | 0:23:46 | 0:23:47 | |
Says Mr I'm A Pirate Of Penzance And I Don't Know Much About Quantum Mechanics | 0:23:47 | 0:23:52 | |
But I Dress Warwick Davis Up As A Little Cat | 0:23:52 | 0:23:55 | |
And Put Him In A Box And Make Him Disappear. | 0:23:55 | 0:23:57 | |
Is that Warwick Davis? Should have got a selfie, right? | 0:24:00 | 0:24:03 | |
Well, let's see, shall we? Let's see. Yeah? | 0:24:04 | 0:24:06 | |
-Let's open the box. Yeah? -Go ahead. -OK. | 0:24:06 | 0:24:09 | |
Ta-da! Hannah Waddingham, everybody! | 0:24:11 | 0:24:14 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:24:14 | 0:24:16 | |
-SHE GIGGLES -Thank you! | 0:24:16 | 0:24:19 | |
-Brian, Hannah's playing Time. -I'm so sorry I'm late. | 0:24:21 | 0:24:24 | |
Traffic on the M25. | 0:24:24 | 0:24:25 | |
Gynaecologist in Hackney. | 0:24:25 | 0:24:27 | |
Off you pop, Cox. | 0:24:28 | 0:24:30 | |
CLOCKS STRIKE, CHIME AND CUCKOO | 0:24:35 | 0:24:39 | |
# Time | 0:24:43 | 0:24:45 | |
# Will go on | 0:24:45 | 0:24:48 | |
# On and on, dear | 0:24:48 | 0:24:52 | |
# For ever | 0:24:52 | 0:24:54 | |
# Although time is slow | 0:24:54 | 0:25:00 | |
# It will go on | 0:25:00 | 0:25:03 | |
# Whenever you hear | 0:25:03 | 0:25:09 | |
# This song play | 0:25:09 | 0:25:12 | |
# And you will say | 0:25:12 | 0:25:14 | |
# Oh, look there | 0:25:14 | 0:25:16 | |
# Hey | 0:25:16 | 0:25:18 | |
# There's that song about time | 0:25:18 | 0:25:21 | |
# That'll go on and on | 0:25:21 | 0:25:24 | |
# On and on | 0:25:24 | 0:25:31 | |
# On and on | 0:25:31 | 0:25:33 | |
# And on and on | 0:25:33 | 0:25:36 | |
# On and on and on | 0:25:36 | 0:25:40 | |
# And on and on | 0:25:40 | 0:25:43 | |
# And on and on | 0:25:43 | 0:25:46 | |
# And on | 0:25:46 | 0:25:48 | |
# This song will still go on | 0:25:48 | 0:25:54 | |
# Time's song will still go on. # | 0:25:54 | 0:26:04 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:26:04 | 0:26:08 | |
DRUM FILL | 0:26:08 | 0:26:10 | |
# On and on | 0:26:10 | 0:26:12 | |
# And on and on | 0:26:12 | 0:26:16 | |
# On and on and on | 0:26:16 | 0:26:19 | |
# It'll still go on, still go on | 0:26:19 | 0:26:22 | |
# And on | 0:26:22 | 0:26:23 | |
# Oh, ah-ah, ah, ah | 0:26:23 | 0:26:28 | |
# Time's song will go-ooooo-oooo-ah | 0:26:28 | 0:26:36 | |
# Time's song | 0:26:36 | 0:26:40 | |
# Will still go on | 0:26:40 | 0:26:46 | |
# Oh oh | 0:26:46 | 0:26:48 | |
# Oh-oh | 0:26:48 | 0:26:51 | |
# On. # | 0:26:51 | 0:26:56 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:26:56 | 0:26:57 | |
Oh, thank you! | 0:26:57 | 0:26:59 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:26:59 | 0:27:02 | |
Stop! Stop clapping! | 0:27:02 | 0:27:04 | |
Stop, stop! | 0:27:04 | 0:27:06 | |
Stop! | 0:27:08 | 0:27:09 | |
Stop. | 0:27:10 | 0:27:11 | |
It's not right. | 0:27:13 | 0:27:15 | |
-It's not right. It's not right, it's not right. -Says who? | 0:27:15 | 0:27:17 | |
-Well, science, actually. -Ugh! | 0:27:17 | 0:27:19 | |
What are you supposed to be? | 0:27:19 | 0:27:22 | |
I'm Time, Brian. Obvs. | 0:27:22 | 0:27:25 | |
There's no such thing as time. | 0:27:25 | 0:27:27 | |
There's only space-time. | 0:27:27 | 0:27:29 | |
FaceTime? | 0:27:29 | 0:27:31 | |
Space-time. | 0:27:31 | 0:27:32 | |
See, according to Einstein's special theory of relativity, | 0:27:32 | 0:27:35 | |
published in 1905, time and space | 0:27:35 | 0:27:37 | |
are no longer to be thought of as separate entities. | 0:27:37 | 0:27:41 | |
They're supposed to be considered as an indivisible whole | 0:27:41 | 0:27:45 | |
called space-time. | 0:27:45 | 0:27:47 | |
You see, Einstein said... | 0:27:47 | 0:27:49 | |
E = mc2. | 0:27:49 | 0:27:51 | |
Ha-ha, ha-ha! | 0:27:53 | 0:27:56 | |
-Ah! -Hello, Brian! | 0:27:56 | 0:27:59 | |
Hello, Albert. Which means... | 0:27:59 | 0:28:01 | |
Energy and matter are interchangeable. | 0:28:01 | 0:28:04 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:28:04 | 0:28:06 | |
Correct, Albert. | 0:28:06 | 0:28:08 | |
You're damn right, Brian. | 0:28:08 | 0:28:10 | |
Before that, we used to think of space as an arena. | 0:28:10 | 0:28:12 | |
-Oh, what, like Wembley? -Well, if you like. | 0:28:12 | 0:28:15 | |
Actually it's a good metaphor. But Einstein showed us we were wrong. | 0:28:15 | 0:28:18 | |
Absolute space doesn't exist. | 0:28:18 | 0:28:21 | |
-And... -Nothing goes faster than the speed of light. | 0:28:21 | 0:28:24 | |
Oh, sorry! | 0:28:26 | 0:28:27 | |
So, in the new Einsteinian worldview, | 0:28:28 | 0:28:31 | |
moving clocks run slow and moving rulers shrink. | 0:28:31 | 0:28:35 | |
Right, so if the Queen could travel at the speed of light...? | 0:28:35 | 0:28:37 | |
-Not that kind of ruler. -Ah. | 0:28:37 | 0:28:39 | |
-All right, er, if the Sheikh of Qatar... -Not that kind of ruler. | 0:28:39 | 0:28:42 | |
It's more like a measure. | 0:28:42 | 0:28:45 | |
Right. So, er, would the Queen shrink at the speed of light? | 0:28:45 | 0:28:50 | |
Well, hypothetically, yes. | 0:28:50 | 0:28:52 | |
As Her Majesty approached the speed of light, | 0:28:52 | 0:28:54 | |
she would shrink and become more massive. | 0:28:54 | 0:28:56 | |
What, she'd become Queen Victoria? | 0:28:56 | 0:28:59 | |
Brian, I have a question for you. | 0:29:00 | 0:29:03 | |
We know the speed of light, yeah? | 0:29:06 | 0:29:08 | |
-Yeah. -That's one of mine. Thank you. | 0:29:08 | 0:29:11 | |
What is the speed of darkness? | 0:29:12 | 0:29:14 | |
-It's the same. The same. -Ah, coincidence. | 0:29:14 | 0:29:17 | |
Hey, guys, maybe I see you afterwards, yeah, | 0:29:17 | 0:29:19 | |
for some crazy fun times! | 0:29:19 | 0:29:21 | |
OK. | 0:29:22 | 0:29:23 | |
# There's the Higgs boson | 0:29:25 | 0:29:26 | |
# And there's electrons and there's... # | 0:29:26 | 0:29:28 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:29:28 | 0:29:30 | |
Brian, um, I've actually got a science question. | 0:29:30 | 0:29:33 | |
Go on. | 0:29:33 | 0:29:34 | |
Can you have sex in zero gravity? | 0:29:34 | 0:29:37 | |
Why don't you ask Tim Peake? | 0:29:37 | 0:29:39 | |
Tim PEAKE! | 0:29:39 | 0:29:40 | |
Oh! | 0:29:41 | 0:29:43 | |
Um...! | 0:29:44 | 0:29:46 | |
Can we have sex in zero gravity? | 0:29:46 | 0:29:48 | |
-Well... -Oh! | 0:29:48 | 0:29:50 | |
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE | 0:29:51 | 0:29:53 | |
-Ah! -SHE LAUGHS | 0:29:53 | 0:29:55 | |
As the universe continued to expand and cool, | 0:29:57 | 0:30:00 | |
gravity began to take hold of the particles of matter | 0:30:00 | 0:30:03 | |
and clumped them together to become the first stars in galaxies. | 0:30:03 | 0:30:07 | |
Do you remember the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, | 0:30:07 | 0:30:10 | |
that snowstorm of galaxies? | 0:30:10 | 0:30:13 | |
This shows us the distribution of those galaxies across the universe. | 0:30:13 | 0:30:17 | |
So gravity pulls everything together. | 0:30:17 | 0:30:20 | |
And hold it there for the Gravity Song. | 0:30:20 | 0:30:23 | |
You're going to love this one, it's really your era. | 0:30:23 | 0:30:25 | |
-Yeah. '80s. -Mm. | 0:30:25 | 0:30:27 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:30:27 | 0:30:29 | |
It's all right, Brian. Things can only get better. | 0:30:34 | 0:30:36 | |
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE | 0:30:36 | 0:30:39 | |
UPBEAT MUSIC | 0:30:43 | 0:30:45 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:30:45 | 0:30:47 | |
# Ever since the apple fell | 0:30:47 | 0:30:49 | |
# On Newton from its tree | 0:30:49 | 0:30:51 | |
# He began examining the force of gravity | 0:30:51 | 0:30:56 | |
# His ruminations gave equations very logically | 0:30:56 | 0:31:00 | |
# Explanation, gravitation was the force to free | 0:31:01 | 0:31:05 | |
# Free that apple from the tree | 0:31:05 | 0:31:07 | |
# It applies to you and me | 0:31:07 | 0:31:10 | |
# Isaac Newton simply found | 0:31:10 | 0:31:11 | |
# What keeps our feet down on the ground | 0:31:11 | 0:31:16 | |
# It's a force of gravity | 0:31:16 | 0:31:17 | |
# Gra-Gra-Gra-Gra-Gravity! | 0:31:17 | 0:31:22 | |
# Gra-Gra-Gra-Gra-Gravity! | 0:31:22 | 0:31:26 | |
# Gra-Gra-Gra-Gra-Gravity! | 0:31:26 | 0:31:30 | |
# Gra-Gra-Gra-Gra-Gravity! | 0:31:31 | 0:31:34 | |
# It's a force of gravity! | 0:31:36 | 0:31:38 | |
# Galileo... | 0:31:38 | 0:31:39 | |
-# Galileo... -# Oh, oh, oh, oh... | 0:31:39 | 0:31:41 | |
# One day Albert Einstein watched | 0:31:41 | 0:31:44 | |
# A worker on the roof | 0:31:44 | 0:31:46 | |
# Instantly he thought up what he called his happiest truth | 0:31:46 | 0:31:50 | |
# If the man was careless | 0:31:50 | 0:31:52 | |
# And he slipped and had a fall | 0:31:52 | 0:31:55 | |
# Einstein realised he wouldn't really fall at all | 0:31:55 | 0:31:59 | |
# He's not crashing to the ground | 0:31:59 | 0:32:02 | |
# Waiting there to greet him | 0:32:02 | 0:32:04 | |
# He is simply floating round | 0:32:04 | 0:32:06 | |
# And the ground comes up to meet him | 0:32:06 | 0:32:08 | |
# It's a force of gravity! | 0:32:08 | 0:32:10 | |
# Gra-Gra-Gra-Gra-Gravity! | 0:32:10 | 0:32:14 | |
# Gra-Gra-Gra-Gra-Gravity! | 0:32:14 | 0:32:17 | |
# Gra-Gra-Gra-Gra-Gravity! | 0:32:19 | 0:32:23 | |
# Gra-Gra-Gra-Gra-Gravity! | 0:32:23 | 0:32:26 | |
# It's a force of gravity! | 0:32:28 | 0:32:30 | |
INSTRUMENTAL | 0:32:30 | 0:32:32 | |
# Newton's theory of gravity | 0:32:34 | 0:32:36 | |
# Appeared in the 17th century | 0:32:36 | 0:32:38 | |
# And eventually we have to face | 0:32:38 | 0:32:41 | |
# It was inaccurate in space | 0:32:41 | 0:32:43 | |
# Einstein then began to see that light is a bit like gravity | 0:32:43 | 0:32:47 | |
# Energy is matter | 0:32:47 | 0:32:49 | |
# And matter energy | 0:32:49 | 0:32:51 | |
# We live in four dimensions | 0:32:51 | 0:32:53 | |
# And space-time is its name | 0:32:53 | 0:32:56 | |
# And Einstein found the formula | 0:32:56 | 0:32:58 | |
# Which really changed the game | 0:32:58 | 0:33:00 | |
# For E equals mc2 | 0:33:00 | 0:33:05 | |
# For E equals mc2 | 0:33:05 | 0:33:08 | |
-# Gra-Gra-Gra-Gra-Gravity! -# For E equals mc2 | 0:33:10 | 0:33:14 | |
-# Gra-Gra-Gra-Gra-Gravity! -# E equals mc2! | 0:33:14 | 0:33:19 | |
-# Re-Re-Re-Relativity! -# E equals mc2! | 0:33:19 | 0:33:23 | |
# Re-Re-Re-Relativity! | 0:33:23 | 0:33:26 | |
# It's a force of gravity! # | 0:33:28 | 0:33:30 | |
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE | 0:33:31 | 0:33:34 | |
Well, no-one's more surprised than me, but that's right. | 0:33:34 | 0:33:37 | |
Einstein did come along with a general theory of relativity, | 0:33:37 | 0:33:41 | |
modifying the Newtonian view of gravity. | 0:33:41 | 0:33:43 | |
We now know that space-time is four-dimensional, | 0:33:43 | 0:33:46 | |
and massive objects curve and warp it. | 0:33:46 | 0:33:48 | |
So, matter tells space-time how to curve, | 0:33:48 | 0:33:51 | |
and space-time tells matter how to move. | 0:33:51 | 0:33:54 | |
Now, relativity describes everything down to the quantum level, | 0:33:54 | 0:33:57 | |
but at very small distances, at high energies at the subatomic level, | 0:33:57 | 0:34:02 | |
general relativity breaks down... | 0:34:02 | 0:34:04 | |
All right, who are you? | 0:34:04 | 0:34:06 | |
-Who are we? -Who are we?! -Who are we?! He's good, isn't he? | 0:34:06 | 0:34:10 | |
THEY LAUGH | 0:34:10 | 0:34:11 | |
Who are we? | 0:34:11 | 0:34:12 | |
Quantum mechanics. | 0:34:12 | 0:34:13 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:34:15 | 0:34:16 | |
Shouldn't have asked. | 0:34:17 | 0:34:19 | |
Hey, carry on, sunshine! Carry on. | 0:34:19 | 0:34:21 | |
You're doing well, you're doing well. | 0:34:21 | 0:34:23 | |
GENTLE LAUGHTER | 0:34:23 | 0:34:24 | |
The century since Einstein published his theory | 0:34:26 | 0:34:28 | |
has been filled with the most spectacular scientific discoveries. | 0:34:28 | 0:34:32 | |
We've discovered a universe filled with wonders, pillars of gas, | 0:34:32 | 0:34:36 | |
thousands of light years, | 0:34:36 | 0:34:37 | |
tall clouds of bright gas where young stars are born, | 0:34:37 | 0:34:41 | |
and we see the deaths of stars, | 0:34:41 | 0:34:43 | |
producing pulsars, quasars | 0:34:43 | 0:34:45 | |
and supermassive black holes at the centre of galaxies. | 0:34:45 | 0:34:50 | |
This is the CMB. | 0:34:50 | 0:34:52 | |
It's the cosmic microwave background radiation. | 0:34:52 | 0:34:55 | |
This is the picture of the whole sky, the celestial sphere. | 0:34:55 | 0:34:58 | |
It's a stunning image. | 0:34:58 | 0:35:00 | |
This is the afterglow of the big bang. | 0:35:00 | 0:35:03 | |
It comes from every direction in space. | 0:35:03 | 0:35:05 | |
So this really is a picture of the universe | 0:35:05 | 0:35:07 | |
as it was 380,000 years after the big bang. | 0:35:07 | 0:35:10 | |
This is the oldest light in the universe. | 0:35:10 | 0:35:13 | |
These tiny fluctuations that you see as different colours | 0:35:13 | 0:35:18 | |
are density fluctuations in the early universe. | 0:35:18 | 0:35:21 | |
These are the reasons that we have galaxies at all. | 0:35:21 | 0:35:25 | |
So this is a kind of a static buzz that permeates the universe. | 0:35:25 | 0:35:29 | |
You used to be able to pick it up on old TV sets, | 0:35:29 | 0:35:31 | |
a bit like Morecambe and Wise. | 0:35:31 | 0:35:33 | |
LAUGHTER AND GROANING | 0:35:33 | 0:35:35 | |
There's no need for that, is there, eh? | 0:35:35 | 0:35:37 | |
GENTLE APPLAUSE | 0:35:37 | 0:35:39 | |
As the universe continues to expand and cool | 0:35:39 | 0:35:42 | |
after the release of the CMB, | 0:35:42 | 0:35:44 | |
matter eventually began to collapse and clump around the denser regions | 0:35:44 | 0:35:48 | |
to form stars and galaxies, | 0:35:48 | 0:35:50 | |
and the universe was filled with light once more. | 0:35:50 | 0:35:54 | |
Only around 200 million years after the big bang, | 0:35:54 | 0:35:57 | |
the age of stars had begun. | 0:35:57 | 0:35:59 | |
-MUSIC -# Oh, oh, oh, ah-oh, ah-oh | 0:35:59 | 0:36:01 | |
# Oh, oh, oh, ah-oh, ah-oh | 0:36:01 | 0:36:03 | |
-# Oh, oh, oh, ah-oh, ah-oh -CHEERING AND APPLAUSE | 0:36:03 | 0:36:06 | |
# Oh, oh, oh, ah-oh, ah-oh | 0:36:06 | 0:36:08 | |
# Oh, oh, oh, ah-oh, ah-oh | 0:36:08 | 0:36:11 | |
# Oh, oh, oh, ah-oh, ah-oh | 0:36:11 | 0:36:13 | |
# Baby, let me tell you what it's all about | 0:36:13 | 0:36:15 | |
# Lying on your back with your tush hanging out, oh! | 0:36:15 | 0:36:18 | |
# Hey, la... | 0:36:18 | 0:36:20 | |
# Oh, oh, oh, ah-oh, ah-oh | 0:36:21 | 0:36:23 | |
-# All you need is a... # -MUSIC WARPS AND STOPS | 0:36:23 | 0:36:26 | |
-LAUGHTER -Oh! | 0:36:26 | 0:36:27 | |
What are you now? | 0:36:27 | 0:36:29 | |
I'm a star, darling. | 0:36:29 | 0:36:31 | |
It's not the kind of star that I meant. | 0:36:31 | 0:36:33 | |
Did you mean an astronomical object | 0:36:33 | 0:36:36 | |
in which nuclear fusion happens? | 0:36:36 | 0:36:38 | |
Protons being fused together to make helium? | 0:36:38 | 0:36:41 | |
Yeah. | 0:36:41 | 0:36:42 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:36:42 | 0:36:44 | |
Actually. The oldest stars in the universe | 0:36:44 | 0:36:47 | |
were over 13 billion years old. | 0:36:47 | 0:36:49 | |
But there's one very special star, | 0:36:49 | 0:36:51 | |
which formed 4.6 billion years ago in an outer spiral arm | 0:36:51 | 0:36:55 | |
of the Milky Way galaxy, and we call this star... | 0:36:55 | 0:36:59 | |
The sun. | 0:36:59 | 0:37:00 | |
The sun. | 0:37:01 | 0:37:02 | |
GENTLE LAUGHTER | 0:37:02 | 0:37:03 | |
And that was followed in less than a million years | 0:37:03 | 0:37:06 | |
by the most significant moment in our history. | 0:37:06 | 0:37:09 | |
The birth of the Earth. | 0:37:09 | 0:37:11 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:37:13 | 0:37:14 | |
# The Earth, the Earth | 0:37:20 | 0:37:22 | |
# Is the planet of our birth | 0:37:22 | 0:37:25 | |
# But the girth of the Earth is quite small | 0:37:25 | 0:37:30 | |
# So to understand | 0:37:30 | 0:37:32 | |
# The size of it all | 0:37:32 | 0:37:34 | |
# Let's take a flight into the night | 0:37:34 | 0:37:37 | |
# Remembering Einstein's great sound bite... # | 0:37:37 | 0:37:44 | |
Nothing goes faster than the speed of light! | 0:37:44 | 0:37:48 | |
# Nothing, nothing Nothing, nothing | 0:37:48 | 0:37:49 | |
# Nothing, nothing Nothing, nothing | 0:37:49 | 0:37:51 | |
# Nothing goes faster than the speed of light! Hey! | 0:37:51 | 0:37:55 | |
# Albert Einstein one bright night | 0:37:55 | 0:37:58 | |
# Said! | 0:37:58 | 0:37:59 | |
# Nothing goes faster than the speed of light! | 0:37:59 | 0:38:02 | |
# A shy German man but quite polite | 0:38:02 | 0:38:05 | |
# Said! | 0:38:05 | 0:38:06 | |
# Nothing goes faster than the speed of light! | 0:38:06 | 0:38:10 | |
# His equations were quite right | 0:38:10 | 0:38:13 | |
# As he worked in the office of the Swiss copyright | 0:38:13 | 0:38:16 | |
# Despite a moving car with its headlights shining bright | 0:38:16 | 0:38:20 | |
# Nothing goes faster than the speed of light! # | 0:38:20 | 0:38:23 | |
Yeah! | 0:38:23 | 0:38:24 | |
# Nothing, nothing Nothing, nothing! | 0:38:24 | 0:38:26 | |
# Nothing, nothing Nothing, nothing! | 0:38:26 | 0:38:28 | |
# Nothing goes faster than the speed of light! | 0:38:28 | 0:38:30 | |
# Hey! | 0:38:30 | 0:38:31 | |
# Suppose I could fly at the speed of light | 0:38:31 | 0:38:34 | |
# And I took off from the Earth up into the night | 0:38:34 | 0:38:38 | |
# In 1.3 seconds Which is really quite soon | 0:38:38 | 0:38:42 | |
# I'm flying past a lovely moon | 0:38:42 | 0:38:44 | |
# Flying past a lovely moon | 0:38:44 | 0:38:46 | |
# Heading for the sun Which is really far | 0:38:46 | 0:38:49 | |
# Takes me 8.5 minutes to our local star | 0:38:49 | 0:38:53 | |
# From the sun Then Mercury's three minutes away | 0:38:53 | 0:38:56 | |
# And three minutes more to Venus | 0:38:56 | 0:39:00 | |
# There's nothing more to say | 0:39:00 | 0:39:02 | |
# Our Earth is nine minutes' flight from the sun | 0:39:02 | 0:39:05 | |
# And Mars at light speed is 30 minutes further on! | 0:39:05 | 0:39:11 | |
# Nothing, nothing Nothing, nothing! | 0:39:11 | 0:39:13 | |
# Nothing, nothing Nothing, nothing! | 0:39:13 | 0:39:15 | |
# Nothing goes faster than the speed of light! | 0:39:15 | 0:39:18 | |
# Hey! | 0:39:18 | 0:39:19 | |
# To fly on to Jupiter at maximum power | 0:39:19 | 0:39:22 | |
# Takes me another three quarters of an hour | 0:39:22 | 0:39:26 | |
# Saturn with its rings make a lovely display | 0:39:26 | 0:39:29 | |
# But they're still 90 minutes away | 0:39:29 | 0:39:33 | |
# That's very far away | 0:39:33 | 0:39:35 | |
# Beautiful Uranus, such a delight | 0:39:35 | 0:39:38 | |
# Two and a half hours at the speed of light | 0:39:38 | 0:39:43 | |
Yeah! | 0:39:43 | 0:39:44 | |
# Nothing, nothing Nothing, nothing! | 0:39:44 | 0:39:46 | |
# Nothing, nothing Nothing, nothing! | 0:39:46 | 0:39:48 | |
# Nothing goes faster than the speed of light! | 0:39:48 | 0:39:50 | |
# Hey! | 0:39:50 | 0:39:51 | |
# Two hours further on like a great balloon | 0:39:51 | 0:39:54 | |
# Is the giant gas mask that we call Neptune | 0:39:54 | 0:39:58 | |
# Six hours away at the speed of light | 0:39:58 | 0:40:02 | |
# Suddenly Pluto comes into sight | 0:40:02 | 0:40:07 | |
# And Pluto may be feeling a little bit sore | 0:40:07 | 0:40:13 | |
# For Pluto's not a planet | 0:40:13 | 0:40:16 | |
# Any more... | 0:40:16 | 0:40:19 | |
# No, Pluto's not a planet any more | 0:40:20 | 0:40:25 | |
# Its days of glory faded | 0:40:25 | 0:40:28 | |
# Its reputation jaded | 0:40:28 | 0:40:31 | |
# It has sadly been downgraded | 0:40:31 | 0:40:33 | |
# And Pluto's not a planet any more | 0:40:35 | 0:40:39 | |
# First they heavily promoted it | 0:40:39 | 0:40:43 | |
# And now they have demoted it | 0:40:43 | 0:40:45 | |
# Because it's been confirmed by all | 0:40:45 | 0:40:48 | |
# That it was just too small | 0:40:48 | 0:40:51 | |
# It's enough to give you haemorrhoids | 0:40:51 | 0:40:54 | |
# There are 10,000 planetoids | 0:40:54 | 0:40:56 | |
# Each of them has big as Pluto Circling round the sun | 0:40:56 | 0:41:01 | |
# I guess it needed to be done | 0:41:02 | 0:41:04 | |
# In size it is deficient | 0:41:04 | 0:41:07 | |
# They thought it more efficient | 0:41:07 | 0:41:09 | |
# To get rid of it | 0:41:09 | 0:41:11 | |
# Ah-ah | 0:41:11 | 0:41:12 | |
# But still I feel quite sore | 0:41:12 | 0:41:15 | |
# That Pluto's not a planet | 0:41:15 | 0:41:17 | |
# Any more | 0:41:17 | 0:41:19 | |
# No, Pluto's not a planet | 0:41:19 | 0:41:22 | |
# It's been relegated, dammit | 0:41:22 | 0:41:25 | |
# And Pluto's not a planet any more-ore-ore | 0:41:25 | 0:41:32 | |
# And so I leave our solar system for a brighter star | 0:41:32 | 0:41:35 | |
# Centauri Proxima is still very far | 0:41:35 | 0:41:39 | |
# Four and a half light years of flight | 0:41:39 | 0:41:42 | |
# To reach our closest neighbour at the speed of light | 0:41:42 | 0:41:47 | |
# At the speed of light | 0:41:47 | 0:41:49 | |
# To cross the Milky Way at 17 billion miles a day | 0:41:49 | 0:41:53 | |
# Takes 100,000 Earth years | 0:41:53 | 0:41:56 | |
# No way! | 0:41:56 | 0:41:57 | |
# To reach the next galaxy Andromeda appeals | 0:41:57 | 0:42:01 | |
# It would take me two and a half million years | 0:42:01 | 0:42:05 | |
# That's a lot of years | 0:42:05 | 0:42:07 | |
I know! | 0:42:07 | 0:42:08 | |
# Nothing, nothing Nothing, nothing | 0:42:08 | 0:42:10 | |
# Nothing, nothing Nothing, nothing | 0:42:10 | 0:42:12 | |
# Nothing goes faster than the speed of light! Hey! | 0:42:12 | 0:42:15 | |
# Nothing, nothing Nothing, nothing | 0:42:15 | 0:42:17 | |
# Nothing, nothing Nothing, nothing | 0:42:17 | 0:42:19 | |
# Nothing goes faster than the speed of light! Hey! # | 0:42:19 | 0:42:21 | |
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE | 0:42:21 | 0:42:23 | |
Actually, that's not right. | 0:42:29 | 0:42:31 | |
The reality is that nothing travels through space-time | 0:42:31 | 0:42:34 | |
faster than the speed of light, | 0:42:34 | 0:42:35 | |
but galaxies can recede from each other faster than light, | 0:42:35 | 0:42:39 | |
because they ride along with space-time as it expands | 0:42:39 | 0:42:42 | |
and it can stretch at any speed that it wants. | 0:42:42 | 0:42:46 | |
Now there's a remarkable new theory | 0:42:46 | 0:42:47 | |
about the origin of the universe called inflation. | 0:42:47 | 0:42:50 | |
We've got good evidence to suggest | 0:42:50 | 0:42:52 | |
that before the universe was hot and dense, | 0:42:52 | 0:42:54 | |
at what we used to call the big bang, | 0:42:54 | 0:42:56 | |
the universe was still in existence in a different form, | 0:42:56 | 0:42:59 | |
it was doing something else, | 0:42:59 | 0:43:01 | |
it was doubling in size unimaginably fast. | 0:43:01 | 0:43:04 | |
This exponential expansion stopped, certainly, | 0:43:04 | 0:43:07 | |
to form our universe, but some cosmologists think | 0:43:07 | 0:43:10 | |
that it may only have stopped in patches. | 0:43:10 | 0:43:14 | |
The bits that stop form universes through a big bang, | 0:43:14 | 0:43:17 | |
like our own, but the rest keeps on going. | 0:43:17 | 0:43:20 | |
If this theory is correct, it's known as eternal inflation, | 0:43:20 | 0:43:23 | |
then there's a striking and, I think, mind-blowing prediction. | 0:43:23 | 0:43:27 | |
The prediction is that there will be other universes out there, | 0:43:27 | 0:43:31 | |
some being created as we speak, | 0:43:31 | 0:43:33 | |
and this process may have been going on possibly forever. | 0:43:33 | 0:43:37 | |
There may be an infinite number of universes. | 0:43:37 | 0:43:39 | |
And if there are, then it's possible that we all could exist | 0:43:39 | 0:43:43 | |
somewhere out there in the multiverse in quite different forms. | 0:43:43 | 0:43:47 | |
So for example, in this universe, | 0:43:47 | 0:43:49 | |
I'm wearing this T-shirt and I look like me... | 0:43:49 | 0:43:52 | |
And in another universe, I might be wearing | 0:43:52 | 0:43:54 | |
this, rather fetching, off-the-shoulder red dress. | 0:43:54 | 0:43:56 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:43:56 | 0:43:58 | |
Now, you see, in this universe, | 0:43:58 | 0:44:00 | |
I'm obviously dressed in this dowdy nerd garb. | 0:44:00 | 0:44:03 | |
But in another universe I might be dressed in this blue miniskirt, | 0:44:05 | 0:44:08 | |
showing off my beautiful, beautiful knees. | 0:44:08 | 0:44:11 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:44:11 | 0:44:12 | |
In this universe I am me, but in another universe, | 0:44:12 | 0:44:16 | |
I might be a beaver. | 0:44:16 | 0:44:17 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:44:18 | 0:44:20 | |
In our universe, I can be me, | 0:44:22 | 0:44:24 | |
but in another one, a camel in a poncho. | 0:44:24 | 0:44:27 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:44:27 | 0:44:30 | |
In this universe, I can be the size I am, but in another, | 0:44:30 | 0:44:34 | |
I could be as tall as the Eiffel Tower! | 0:44:34 | 0:44:37 | |
CHEERING | 0:44:37 | 0:44:38 | |
And French. | 0:44:38 | 0:44:39 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:44:39 | 0:44:41 | |
In this universe, I'm looking a little bit saucy and fierce, | 0:44:41 | 0:44:44 | |
but in another universe I might be the Queen of the Fairies. | 0:44:44 | 0:44:48 | |
-AUDIENCE: -Aw! | 0:44:48 | 0:44:49 | |
Here, the royal family are dressed for a royal occasion. | 0:44:52 | 0:44:57 | |
But in another universe, | 0:44:57 | 0:44:59 | |
they might be dressed for a tribal dinner. | 0:44:59 | 0:45:02 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:45:02 | 0:45:04 | |
And in another universe, | 0:45:04 | 0:45:06 | |
they might be gorillas. | 0:45:06 | 0:45:07 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:45:07 | 0:45:09 | |
And in yet another universe, | 0:45:09 | 0:45:11 | |
they could all be aquatic sea creatures from space. | 0:45:11 | 0:45:14 | |
Such speculation is endless, | 0:45:16 | 0:45:19 | |
and it might seem ridiculous, but it's not, | 0:45:19 | 0:45:21 | |
it's illustrating the possibilities of an infinite universe. | 0:45:21 | 0:45:25 | |
SKIFFLE MUSIC | 0:45:25 | 0:45:26 | |
# I find quantum mechanics confusing today | 0:45:32 | 0:45:36 | |
# Now science is all the rage | 0:45:36 | 0:45:39 | |
# The Hadron Collider is banging away | 0:45:40 | 0:45:43 | |
# Trying to guess our age | 0:45:43 | 0:45:47 | |
# A particle here | 0:45:48 | 0:45:50 | |
# A particle there | 0:45:50 | 0:45:51 | |
# In this weird quantum world Bits can be anywhere | 0:45:51 | 0:45:55 | |
# Which might just explain why I'm losing my hair | 0:45:55 | 0:45:59 | |
# In the infinite monkey cage | 0:45:59 | 0:46:03 | |
# T'other day I heard Mrs Schrodinger say... | 0:46:03 | 0:46:07 | |
I'm going to put out the cat! | 0:46:07 | 0:46:10 | |
CAT SCREECHES | 0:46:10 | 0:46:11 | |
# Mrs Heisenberg said... | 0:46:11 | 0:46:12 | |
Oh, it might be quite dead! | 0:46:12 | 0:46:14 | |
I'm uncertain if you should do that. | 0:46:14 | 0:46:18 | |
# Unless you've got that Robin Ince and Professor Cox | 0:46:18 | 0:46:22 | |
# I'd leave that poor pussy alone in its box | 0:46:22 | 0:46:26 | |
# That cat may be both dead and alive said the sage | 0:46:26 | 0:46:30 | |
# In the infinite monkey cage | 0:46:30 | 0:46:33 | |
# Scientists say all the world's just a stage | 0:46:34 | 0:46:38 | |
# That physics is passing through | 0:46:38 | 0:46:41 | |
# There may be an infinite number of mes | 0:46:42 | 0:46:45 | |
# And an infinite number of yous | 0:46:45 | 0:46:48 | |
# God help us! | 0:46:48 | 0:46:50 | |
# If an infinite universe seems a bit nuts | 0:46:50 | 0:46:53 | |
# Scientists sometimes talk through their butts | 0:46:53 | 0:46:57 | |
Ooh! | 0:46:57 | 0:46:58 | |
# Proof, you can't do That there are more of you | 0:46:58 | 0:47:01 | |
# In the infinite monkey cage. # | 0:47:01 | 0:47:05 | |
# This linear superpositional thing | 0:47:36 | 0:47:40 | |
# Is blowing my mind away | 0:47:40 | 0:47:43 | |
# The multiverse seems to be made out of string | 0:47:44 | 0:47:47 | |
# That's what some particle physicists say | 0:47:47 | 0:47:51 | |
# If infinite monkeys write every day | 0:47:51 | 0:47:55 | |
# They may accidentally write Hamlet the play | 0:47:55 | 0:47:59 | |
# But they'd probably just poop on it and throw it away | 0:47:59 | 0:48:03 | |
# In the infinite monkey cage | 0:48:03 | 0:48:05 | |
# Them naughty monkeys | 0:48:05 | 0:48:07 | |
# In the infinite monkey cage | 0:48:07 | 0:48:09 | |
# Without their trousers | 0:48:09 | 0:48:11 | |
# In the infinite monkey cage! # | 0:48:11 | 0:48:15 | |
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE | 0:48:18 | 0:48:19 | |
WHISTLING IN AUDIENCE | 0:48:21 | 0:48:22 | |
Nothing lasts forever. | 0:48:25 | 0:48:27 | |
Stars die, galaxies die, | 0:48:27 | 0:48:29 | |
even universes gradually wind down. | 0:48:29 | 0:48:33 | |
The formation of new stars grinds to a halt, | 0:48:33 | 0:48:36 | |
we already see evidence of this in our own Milky Way galaxy. | 0:48:36 | 0:48:40 | |
So, ultimately, eventually, the universe will die. | 0:48:40 | 0:48:44 | |
Oh. That's all very cheery-uppy. | 0:48:44 | 0:48:47 | |
Once stars run out of fuel, there are only three possibilities. | 0:48:47 | 0:48:51 | |
Our sun will keep fusing hydrogen into helium | 0:48:51 | 0:48:54 | |
for another five billion years or so | 0:48:54 | 0:48:56 | |
until it burns through the last of its hydrogen fuel. | 0:48:56 | 0:48:59 | |
After that, it swells to become a red giant | 0:48:59 | 0:49:02 | |
approaching the Earth's orbit | 0:49:02 | 0:49:05 | |
before collapsing like a dying fire. | 0:49:05 | 0:49:07 | |
The core will compact to a planet-sized ember | 0:49:07 | 0:49:11 | |
and it will become a white dwar... | 0:49:11 | 0:49:14 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:49:15 | 0:49:17 | |
Sorry? | 0:49:21 | 0:49:23 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:49:23 | 0:49:24 | |
A white dwarf, it's, er... | 0:49:24 | 0:49:26 | |
It's a technical term, like black hole. | 0:49:26 | 0:49:29 | |
Oh, racist as well. | 0:49:29 | 0:49:31 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:49:31 | 0:49:32 | |
More massive stars will collapse in supernova explosions that, | 0:49:33 | 0:49:37 | |
for a few brief moments, | 0:49:37 | 0:49:39 | |
are amongst the brightest objects in the universe. | 0:49:39 | 0:49:42 | |
The core will be squeezed by gravity into a neutron star, | 0:49:42 | 0:49:46 | |
a spinning ball, 12 miles in diameter. | 0:49:46 | 0:49:49 | |
Oh, about the size of Oldham. | 0:49:49 | 0:49:51 | |
GENTLE LAUGHTER | 0:49:51 | 0:49:52 | |
Well, yes, but with the mass of the sun, | 0:49:52 | 0:49:55 | |
a sugar-cube fragment would weigh a billion tonnes on Earth. | 0:49:55 | 0:50:00 | |
If you took a marshmallow and dropped it, | 0:50:00 | 0:50:02 | |
the gravitational pull is so big it accelerates towards the ground | 0:50:02 | 0:50:05 | |
and hits it with the power of an atomic bomb. | 0:50:05 | 0:50:08 | |
Hold on - where would the marshmallow come from? | 0:50:08 | 0:50:10 | |
Well, don't you see - it's a metaphor? | 0:50:10 | 0:50:12 | |
Oh, like "white dwarf"? | 0:50:12 | 0:50:13 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:50:13 | 0:50:15 | |
Brian, does anything become spam? | 0:50:15 | 0:50:17 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:50:17 | 0:50:19 | |
Spam? | 0:50:19 | 0:50:20 | |
Yeah, spam! | 0:50:20 | 0:50:21 | |
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE | 0:50:21 | 0:50:24 | |
Most of the stars we see today in the night sky | 0:50:24 | 0:50:27 | |
have planets around them. | 0:50:27 | 0:50:28 | |
Data from observatories, like the Kepler space telescope, | 0:50:28 | 0:50:32 | |
tell us that around one in ten stars | 0:50:32 | 0:50:34 | |
may have Earth-like rocky planets around them, | 0:50:34 | 0:50:37 | |
perhaps with rivers, seas and oceans. | 0:50:37 | 0:50:40 | |
That's around 20 billion potentially Earth-like planets | 0:50:40 | 0:50:44 | |
in the Milky Way galaxy alone, | 0:50:44 | 0:50:45 | |
and there are 350 billion galaxies in the observable universe. | 0:50:45 | 0:50:49 | |
So the question is... | 0:50:49 | 0:50:51 | |
are we alone? | 0:50:51 | 0:50:53 | |
No - we're here with you. | 0:50:53 | 0:50:55 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:50:55 | 0:50:57 | |
No, what I mean is, | 0:50:57 | 0:50:58 | |
is intelligent life common in the universe? | 0:50:58 | 0:51:01 | |
It's not even common at the BBC! | 0:51:01 | 0:51:03 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:51:03 | 0:51:06 | |
Why are we here? | 0:51:06 | 0:51:07 | |
-Eric asked us to come. -Yeah. | 0:51:07 | 0:51:09 | |
To be honest, there's no way we'd come if you asked us! | 0:51:10 | 0:51:12 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:51:12 | 0:51:14 | |
Where do we come from? | 0:51:17 | 0:51:19 | |
-You've come from Peterborough. -Yeah. | 0:51:19 | 0:51:21 | |
Kentish Town. | 0:51:21 | 0:51:22 | |
No, we think that life started only once on this planet. | 0:51:22 | 0:51:27 | |
Do you know where? | 0:51:27 | 0:51:28 | |
-Oldham? -LAUGHTER | 0:51:28 | 0:51:30 | |
-No, 3.8 billion years ago. -Oh! | 0:51:30 | 0:51:33 | |
Manchester. | 0:51:33 | 0:51:35 | |
In the oceans. | 0:51:35 | 0:51:36 | |
And, here, it took 3.8 billion years | 0:51:36 | 0:51:40 | |
for first living things to become us. | 0:51:40 | 0:51:42 | |
And what's wonderful and, I think, at the same time a little bit scary, | 0:51:42 | 0:51:45 | |
is how frequently our own evolutionary path | 0:51:45 | 0:51:48 | |
came close to ending. | 0:51:48 | 0:51:49 | |
In the Permian extinction 250 million years ago, for example, | 0:51:49 | 0:51:53 | |
96% of all marine life became extinct. | 0:51:53 | 0:51:57 | |
The odds against our survival were huge. | 0:51:57 | 0:52:00 | |
The Earth has been a volcanic hell. | 0:52:00 | 0:52:02 | |
It's been a frozen ice ball. | 0:52:04 | 0:52:06 | |
It's been an ocean, free of land. | 0:52:07 | 0:52:09 | |
The Earth has been a target for meteorites. | 0:52:09 | 0:52:12 | |
30,000 objects a day burn up in our atmosphere | 0:52:12 | 0:52:16 | |
and, shortly after its formation, | 0:52:16 | 0:52:18 | |
a glancing blow from a planet-sized object smashing into our Earth | 0:52:18 | 0:52:22 | |
caused the formation of our moon. | 0:52:22 | 0:52:24 | |
Against all the odds, | 0:52:24 | 0:52:25 | |
there's an unbroken chain of life, | 0:52:25 | 0:52:28 | |
stretching back 3.8 billion years - | 0:52:28 | 0:52:31 | |
that's one third of the age of the universe - | 0:52:31 | 0:52:33 | |
to some primordial life form in an ancient ocean. | 0:52:33 | 0:52:36 | |
And those first living things have, over geological time, | 0:52:36 | 0:52:40 | |
assembled themselves into intelligent, conscious beings, | 0:52:40 | 0:52:43 | |
inside a superbly complex body, | 0:52:43 | 0:52:46 | |
that can replicate, evolve and pass on our genes, | 0:52:46 | 0:52:50 | |
with an enormous brain that's learned to communicate | 0:52:50 | 0:52:53 | |
with the finest of its peers, both past and present, | 0:52:53 | 0:52:56 | |
and leave a legacy into the far future | 0:52:56 | 0:52:59 | |
through language, writing, maths, science... | 0:52:59 | 0:53:04 | |
-Panto... -LAUGHTER | 0:53:04 | 0:53:06 | |
Shopping... | 0:53:06 | 0:53:07 | |
A hominid intelligence, staggering on the edge of space, | 0:53:07 | 0:53:10 | |
pondering the immensity, and our next steps. | 0:53:10 | 0:53:14 | |
The age of stars will close in 100 trillion years | 0:53:14 | 0:53:18 | |
and, with it, the window for life in the universe will close. | 0:53:18 | 0:53:21 | |
If we define the end of our universe | 0:53:21 | 0:53:23 | |
to be the time the last supermassive black hole evaporates, | 0:53:23 | 0:53:26 | |
that takes place in...when? | 0:53:26 | 0:53:28 | |
-Roughly? -Yeah, all right. | 0:53:29 | 0:53:31 | |
I've got this one. | 0:53:31 | 0:53:32 | |
10,000 trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, | 0:53:32 | 0:53:37 | |
trillion, trillion years. | 0:53:37 | 0:53:40 | |
Correct. | 0:53:40 | 0:53:41 | |
Yes! | 0:53:41 | 0:53:42 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:53:42 | 0:53:43 | |
Don't leave me hanging. | 0:53:43 | 0:53:45 | |
That means that life will have been possible | 0:53:48 | 0:53:51 | |
for only one thousandth of a billion, billion, | 0:53:51 | 0:53:54 | |
billion, billion, billion, | 0:53:54 | 0:53:55 | |
billion, billion, billion, billionth of 1% | 0:53:55 | 0:53:59 | |
of the age of the universe. | 0:53:59 | 0:54:01 | |
Imagine that. | 0:54:01 | 0:54:02 | |
We live in a tiny, minute, golden, bright age - | 0:54:02 | 0:54:06 | |
the briefest of moments in cosmic time. | 0:54:06 | 0:54:09 | |
We don't know how the universe came into existence, | 0:54:09 | 0:54:12 | |
or why it came into existence, | 0:54:12 | 0:54:14 | |
but we do know where it is. | 0:54:14 | 0:54:16 | |
It's all around us. | 0:54:16 | 0:54:17 | |
It's in us. | 0:54:17 | 0:54:19 | |
It is us. | 0:54:19 | 0:54:21 | |
We are the means by which the universe understands itself. | 0:54:21 | 0:54:25 | |
But we may be effectively alone - | 0:54:25 | 0:54:27 | |
an isolated island of meaning | 0:54:27 | 0:54:29 | |
in an unimaginably vast and hostile universe. | 0:54:29 | 0:54:33 | |
Ugh. | 0:54:33 | 0:54:34 | |
That's a bit of a downer, isn't it? | 0:54:34 | 0:54:36 | |
Terribly depressing. | 0:54:36 | 0:54:37 | |
-That's a terrible ending, Brian. -Yeah. | 0:54:37 | 0:54:39 | |
Well, no, it isn't. | 0:54:39 | 0:54:41 | |
Cheer up. | 0:54:41 | 0:54:43 | |
You know what they say... | 0:54:43 | 0:54:44 | |
PING! | 0:54:44 | 0:54:46 | |
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE | 0:54:46 | 0:54:48 | |
# Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving | 0:54:50 | 0:54:55 | |
# And revolving at 900 miles an hour | 0:54:55 | 0:55:00 | |
# That's orbiting at 19 miles a second, so it's reckoned | 0:55:00 | 0:55:04 | |
# The sun that is the source of all our power | 0:55:04 | 0:55:08 | |
# The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see | 0:55:08 | 0:55:11 | |
# Are moving at a million miles a day | 0:55:11 | 0:55:15 | |
# In an outer spiral arm at half a million miles an hour | 0:55:15 | 0:55:20 | |
# In a galaxy they call the Milky Way | 0:55:20 | 0:55:24 | |
-CHOIR: -# Ah ah ah | 0:55:24 | 0:55:28 | |
-CHOIR: -# Ah-ah | 0:55:28 | 0:55:31 | |
-STEPHEN HAWKING: -# Our galaxy itself contains 500 billion stars | 0:55:31 | 0:55:35 | |
# It's 100,000 light years side to side | 0:55:35 | 0:55:39 | |
# It bulges in the middle 6,000 light years thick | 0:55:39 | 0:55:43 | |
# But by us it's just 1,000 light years wide | 0:55:43 | 0:55:47 | |
# We're 30,000 light years from galactic central point | 0:55:47 | 0:55:51 | |
# We go round every 200 million years | 0:55:51 | 0:55:55 | |
# And our galaxy is only one of millions and billions | 0:55:55 | 0:55:59 | |
# In this amazing, expanding universe | 0:55:59 | 0:56:02 | |
-CHOIR: -# Ah ah ah | 0:56:02 | 0:56:05 | |
-CHOIR: -# Ah ah ah ah | 0:56:19 | 0:56:22 | |
# Ah ah ah | 0:56:22 | 0:56:27 | |
# Ah ah ah-ah | 0:56:27 | 0:56:31 | |
# Ah ah ah ah-ah | 0:56:31 | 0:56:35 | |
-ROBIN, JONTY AND IAN: -# The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding | 0:56:35 | 0:56:39 | |
# In all of the directions it can whizz | 0:56:39 | 0:56:43 | |
# As fast as it can go At the speed of light, you know | 0:56:43 | 0:56:47 | |
# 12 million miles a minute That's the fastest speed there is | 0:56:47 | 0:56:51 | |
# So remember when you're feeling very small and insecure | 0:56:51 | 0:56:55 | |
# How amazingly unlikely is your birth | 0:56:55 | 0:56:59 | |
# And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space | 0:56:59 | 0:57:04 | |
-ALL: -# Cos there's bugger-all down here on Earth! # | 0:57:04 | 0:57:14 | |
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE | 0:57:14 | 0:57:18 | |
The Entire Universe was brought to you by Rutland Weekend Television, | 0:57:27 | 0:57:32 | |
with John Du Prez and the Rutland Light Orchestra... | 0:57:32 | 0:57:36 | |
..with the Muriel Tritt School Of Music And Dance Ensemble... | 0:57:38 | 0:57:41 | |
CHEERING | 0:57:41 | 0:57:44 | |
..with Arlene Phillips as Muriel Tritt... | 0:57:44 | 0:57:47 | |
CHEERING | 0:57:47 | 0:57:50 | |
..special guest star Tim Peake... | 0:57:50 | 0:57:53 | |
CHEERING | 0:57:53 | 0:57:55 | |
..Jonty Stephens and Ian Ashpitel as Morecambe and Wise... | 0:57:58 | 0:58:02 | |
CHEERING | 0:58:02 | 0:58:04 | |
..Robin Ince as Robin Ince... | 0:58:04 | 0:58:07 | |
CHEERING | 0:58:07 | 0:58:09 | |
..Hannah Waddingham... | 0:58:09 | 0:58:11 | |
CHEERING | 0:58:11 | 0:58:14 | |
..Noel Fielding... | 0:58:14 | 0:58:16 | |
CHEERING | 0:58:16 | 0:58:18 | |
..Warwick Davis... | 0:58:18 | 0:58:20 | |
CHEERING | 0:58:20 | 0:58:22 | |
..Eric Idle... | 0:58:22 | 0:58:23 | |
CHEERING | 0:58:23 | 0:58:25 | |
..and Professor Brian Cox. | 0:58:25 | 0:58:27 | |
CHEERING | 0:58:27 | 0:58:29 | |
Please join us again in another 41 years, | 0:58:31 | 0:58:35 | |
for another Rutland Weekend TV show. | 0:58:35 | 0:58:38 | |
Thank you and good night. | 0:58:38 | 0:58:40 | |
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE | 0:58:40 | 0:58:43 |