Imagine a world where disease could be eradicated by an injection of tiny robots the size of molecules. That is the hope offered by nanotechnology – the science of microscopically small machines. But others fear nanotechnology could lead to a non-biological cancer – where swarms of tiny nanobots come together and literally devour human flesh.
Sounds like science fiction? It certainly did until a brilliant young scientist called Hendrik Schön seemed to bring it a step closer. What happened next would destroy reputations and shatter lives – because there was more to Hendrik Schön’s discovery than anyone knew.
Hawking joins science and imagination to explore one of the most important mysteries facing humankind — the possibility of intelligent alien life and the likelihood of future contact. Traveling from the moons of Jupiter to a galaxy maybe not so far, far away, he introduces us to possible alien life forms that face the same universal trials of adaptation and survival as the residents of Earth.
In two mind-blowing hours, Hawking reveals the wonders of the cosmos to a new generation. Delve into the mind of the world’s most famous living scientist and reveal the splendor and majesty of the universe as never seen before. See how the universe began, how it creates stars, black holes and life — and how everything will end.
The promise of time travel has long been one of the world’s favorite scientific “what-ifs?” Hawking explores all the possibilities, warping the very fabric of time and space as he goes. From killing your grandfather to riding a black hole, we learn the pitfalls and the prospects for a technology that could quite literally, change everything.
Time is flying by on this busy, crowded planet… as life changes and evolves from second to second. And yet the arc of human lifespan is getting longer: 65 years is the global average … way up from just 20 in the Stone Age. Modern science, however, provides a humbling perspective. Our lives… indeed the life span of the human species… is just a blip compared to the age of the universe, at 13.7 billion years and counting.
Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking is followed as he prepares to deliver a July 2004 paper on black holes that contradicts his earlier, hard-fought theory on the subject. He is now convinced that black holes hold the key to the origins of the universe.
In 1927, Werner Heisenberg made a startling discovery. Quantum theory implies a limitation on how accurately certain pairs of physical variables could be measured simultaneously. Using some of the matrix mechanics that had been proposed by Max Born, Heisenberg realised that position and momentum (the relationship between mass and velocity) were non-commutable; you could not precisely know them both at the same time.
History books tell us that Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin, but that’s not the whole story. This drama uncovers the forgotten team involved in the development and manufacture of the drug that transformed medicine.
A look around Cern’s Large Hadron Collider before this vast, 27km long machine is sealed off and a simulation experiment begins to try and create the conditions that existed just a billionth of a second after the Big Bang.
Brian Cox joins the scientists who hope that the LHC will change our understanding of the early universe and solve some of its mysteries.
Alan Davies attempts to answer the proverbial question: how long is a piece of string? But what appears to be a simple task soon turns into a mind-bending voyage of discovery where nothing is as it seems.
An encounter with leading mathematician Marcus du Sautoy reveals that Alan’s short length of string may in fact be infinitely long. When Alan attempts to measure his string at the atomic scale, events take an even stranger turn. Not only do objects appear in many places at once, but reality itself seems to be an illusion.
A documentary made over a period spanning 2000 to 2001 following the work of Professor Hugo de Garis, Professor Rod Brooks and Steve Grand in developing robots or machines with artificial intelligence.
