BBC Horizon: From Here to Infinity (1999) // Watch Online. Time. In this four-programme series, string theory pioneer Michio Kaku goes on an extraordinary exploration of the world in search of time. He discovers our sense of time passing and the clocks that drive our bodies. He reveals the forces of time that make and destroy us in a lifetime. He journeys to some of the Earth's most spectacular geological sites to look for clues to the extraordinary depths of time at a planetary level.
Finally, he takes us on a cosmic journey in search of the beginning (and the end) of time itself. Daytime. Lifetime. Earthtime. Cosmictime. Watch the full documentary now (playlist - 4 hours) The Elephant: Life after Death. Elephants can live for 70 years. But what happens when one of these magnificent beasts dies in the wild? This stunning film turns normal wildlife documentaries on their head to find out what happens after death, as a five-tonne adult elephant is transformed into six million calories worth of fat, meat and guts, feeding a whole new cycle of life.
The documentary gives scientists the chance to watch close up, day and night, as animals from leopards, hyenas and vultures to flies and beetles take just days to reduce the largest land animal on earth to bare bones. Biologist Simon Watt leads a team of experts watching the events unfold in Tsavo West National Park in Kenya. They follow the action as never before, using remote cameras and night vision equipment under the supervision of animal behavior expert Warren Samuels.
The elephant, a young adult male, had to be put down by a vet after being mortally wounded by ivory poachers. This documentary is available for preview only. Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. With Cosmos, Carl Sagan and his wife and co-writer, Ann Druyan, brilliantly illustrated the underlying science of his same-titled book, placing the human species within a space-and-time context that brought the infinite into stunningly clear view. The series, which originally aired in 1980 on PBS, has been seen by more than 700 million people worldwide and remains a high-water mark in miniseries history. Sagan lucidly explains such topics as Einstein's theory of relativity, Darwin's theory of evolution, and the greenhouse effect, bringing the mysteries of the universe down to a layman’s level of understanding. The footage in these remastered, seven-DVD or seven-VHS sets is as fresh and riveting as it was two decades ago and is certain to fire the imaginations of a whole new generation of viewers.
This is THE GREATEST television series ever. This documentary inspired me to a love of science, learning, and freedom of inquiry that have shaped both my interests and intellectual curiosity. Darwin’s Dangerous Idea. Andrew Marr explores how Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection has taken on a life of its own far beyond the world of science.
In the first episode of the three-part series, he argues that Darwin's theory has transformed our understanding of what it means to be human. Over the last 150 years, Darwin's ideas have challenged the need for a creator, undermined religious authority, and provided new ways of looking at the origins of human morality. Andrew Marr discovers something surprising about his own evolutionary history as this epic series continues with an exploration of Darwin's impact on politics and society. In the final episode of this ground-breaking series about Charles Darwin's legacy, Andrew Marr discovers how Darwin's ideas are helping us to save ourselves and all life on earth from extinction. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3. The Real Superhumans: Quest for the Future Fantastic. The Real Superhumans and the Quest for the Future Fantastic is a special from the Discovery Channel.
It follows four people with what are described as real life superhuman abilities, a geneticist who created the first chimera of two very different species of rodents, and a scientist on a mission to become immortal. The show was done in a comic book format ending with the common slogan To be continued as to indicate that the people of the show and humanity itself is just beginning to venture into a new age, one where genetic manipulation and other technologies to obtain special abilities will be for sale to the general public. The program postulates that the sole reason for the abilities of these people is their genetic makeup. However, many scientists now dispute this orthodoxy, as there are sufficient scientific grounds to think that genetics has limited scope in explaining all human characteristics, and epigenetic processes play a much larger role than previously realized.
The Hawking Paradox. Stephen Hawking is the most famous scientist on the planet. His popular science book A Brief History of Time was a publishing sensation, staying at the top of the bestseller lists longer than any other book in recent history. But behind the public face lies an argument that has been raging for almost 30 years. Hawking shot to fame in the world of physics when he provided a mathematical proof for the Big Bang theory. This theory showed that the entire universe exploded from a singularity, an infinitely small point with infinite density and infinite gravity. Hawking was able to come to his proof using mathematical techniques that had been developed by Roger Penrose. Science had long predicted that if a sufficiently large star collapsed at the end of its life, all the matter left in the star would be crushed into an infinitely small point with infinite gravity and infinite density – a singularity.
Watch the full documentary now. To Infinity and Beyond. What is One Degree? The Brain: Our Universe Within. Forty years ago, American anthropologist Doctor Ralph Selecki explored the caves at Shanidar where he unearthed an image of ancient man that profoundly changed the way we saw our ancestors. The professor discovered a skull - a Neanderthal skull.
Strangely, it was covered with microscopic pollen from the flowers of thistle, groundsel, spiraea and hollyhock, among others. The same pollen dust covered the rest of the weathered skeleton, suggesting that his family and friends had deliberately gathered the flowers and laid them in bunches on the dead body. These mourners left behind the earliest known signs of man's awareness of death. Based on Doctor Selecki's findings, Neanderthals seemed to possess what we have come to call a mind. Complex and deeply mysterious, the human brain is an odyssey unto itself. Take this journey into the inner workings of the mind with the guidance of scientist Dr. Watch the full documentary now. DNA. Deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms (with the exception of RNA viruses).
The main role of DNA molecules is the long-term storage of information. DNA is often compared to a set of blueprints, like a recipe or a code, since it contains the instructions needed to construct other components of cells, such as proteins and RNA molecules. The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in regulating the use of this genetic information. 1. The Secret of Life - The discovery of the double helix structure of DNA is to science what the Mona Lisa is to painting. 2. 3. 4. 5. Watch the full documentary now (playlist - 4 hours, 25 minutes) Obsessed and Scientific. What Is Reality? The Story of One. Our world is built on numbers and the first of these was the number 1. Starting with scratches on a bone and heading through the Greek philosophers to the development of the Roman Numerals and the Arabic number system that fed through to the numbers we use today.
Using Terry Jones semi-comic presentation style, the film is built on two key aspects. The main part of the film is based on Jones' narration, the actual words he says. Without being aloof or inaccessible, the film tells the story in a fascinating and enlightening way – never going into too much detail but doing enough to actually make you feel like you have learn something and have a very broad knowledge base on which to go off and find out more. The other aspect is the delivery style – colorful, irreverent and fun. Jones is a good presenter because he holds these two directions together – seeming genuinely enticed by the subject while also enjoying himself. Watch the full documentary now. The Beauty of Diagrams.
Series in which mathematician Marcus du Sautoy explores the stories behind some of the most familiar scientific diagrams. Vitruvian Man - He looks at Leonardo da Vinci's world-famous diagram of the perfect human body, which has many layers from anatomy to architecture, and defines our species like no other drawing before or since. The Vitruvian Man, drawn in the 1480s when he was living and working in Milan, has become one of the most famous images in the world. Leonardo's drawings form a vast body of work, covering every imaginable subject in spectacular detail: from feet, skulls and hands to muscles and sinews; from hearts and lungs to buildings, bridges and flying machines. Copernicus - When Polish priest and astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus developed his extraordinary theory of a sun-centered universe 500 years ago, he was flying in the face of both science and religion. To explain what he had done, Newton created a diagram. Florence Nightingale - Can a diagram save lives?
Universe: The Cosmology Quest. Most of us are intrigued by questions to do with the origin and evolution of the universe. Where do we come from? Where are we going? These are fundamental questions. But no one knows the answers. In the last few years there have been many claims that we are finally getting a true answer. It is that the universe and all of the matter and energy out of which we are created was created in a great explosion about 15 billion years ago.
Most astronomical theory is arrived at in personal meetings between members of an influential elite. Listen and reflect as researchers discuss discoveries which do not reach the news media, and public at large. It is amazing that this film got made considering the animosity towards alternative ideas in the field. This feature length presentation is a unique mixture of human interest and science documentary film. Watch the full documentary now (playlist - ) The End of God?: A Horizon Guide to Science and Religion. As the Pope ends his visit to Britain, historian Dr Thomas Dixon delves into the BBC's archive to explore the troubled relationship between religion and science. From the creationists of America to the physicists of the Large Hadron Collider, he traces the expansion of scientific knowledge and asks whether there is still room for God in the modern world.
The relationship between science and religion has been long and troubled: from the condemnation of Galileo by the Catholic Church in 17th century Italy, through the clashes between creationism and evolution in 20th century America, right up to recent claims that the universe does not need God. Delving through the rich archive of programmes from Horizon and BBC Science, Thomas Dixon looks at what lies behind this difficult relationship. Using original footage from 1925, he tells the story of John Scopes, a Tennessee teacher who was tried for teaching evolution. Watch the full documentary now (non-English version) Fractals: Hunting the Hidden Dimension. Mysteriously beautiful fractals are shaking up the world of mathematics and deepening our understanding of nature. You may not know it, but fractals, like the air you breathe, are all around you.
Their irregular, repeating shapes are found in cloud formations and tree limbs, in stalks of broccoli and craggy mountain ranges, even in the rhythm of the human heart. In this film, we takes viewers on a fascinating quest with a group of maverick mathematicians determined to decipher the rules that govern fractal geometry. For centuries, fractal-like irregular shapes were considered beyond the boundaries of mathematical understanding. Now, mathematicians have finally begun mapping this uncharted territory. Their remarkable findings are deepening our understanding of nature and stimulating a new wave of scientific, medical, and artistic innovation stretching from the ecology of the rain forest to fashion design.
Watch the full documentary now (playlist - 52 minutes) Dimensions: A Walk Through Mathematics. A film for a wide audience! Nine chapters, two hours of maths, that take you gradually up to the fourth dimension. Mathematical vertigo guaranteed! Dimension Two - Hipparchus shows us how to describe the position of any point on Earth with two numbers... and explains the stereographic projection: how to draw a map of the world. Dimension Three - M.C. Escher talks about the adventures of two-dimensional creatures trying to imagine what three-dimensional objects look like. The Fourth Dimension - Mathematician Ludwig Schläfli talks about objects that live in the fourth dimension... and shows a parade of four-dimensional polytopes, strange objects with 24, 120 and even 600 faces!
Complex Numbers - Mathematician Adrien Douady explains complex numbers. Fibration - Mathematician Heinz Hopf explains his "fibration". Proof - Mathematician Bernhard Riemann explains the importance of proofs in mathematics. Watch the full documentary now (playlist - ) Richard Feynman: Fun to Imagine. Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space. The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph, they can become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on this scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner.
How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatred. Our posturing, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in this universe are challenged by this point of pale light. As the ancient myth makers knew, we're children equally of the earth and the sky.
Which aspects of our nature will prevail is uncertain, particularly when our visions and prospects are bound to one small part of this small planet earth. Watch the full documentary now. What Happened Before the Big Bang? Don’t Grow Old. Beautiful Minds. Are We Still Evolving? Miracle Cure? A Decade of the Human Genome. The Ascent of Man. Evolutions. Fermat’s Last Theorem. Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey. Human Ape. Facts of Evolution. What Darwin Never Knew. Adventures In Human Evolution. Living on Mars. The Story of Maths. The Betrayal by Technology: A Portrait of Jacques Ellul. Into The Universe With Stephen Hawking. Under Our Skin - Watch the Documentary Film for Free | Watch Free Documentaries Online. The Other Nostradamus | Documentary Heaven | Watch Free Documentaries Online.