Sunday, 13. July 2008
ATOM
The discovery that everything is made from atoms has been referred to - with a strong claim - as the greatest scientific breakthrough in history. As scientists delved deep into the atom, they abandoned traditional beliefs, leading to a whole new science which still underpins modern physics, chemistry and biology. Upset everything we thought we knew about reality and maybe even life itself.

Even today as we peer deeper and deeper into the atom, it throws back at us as many questions as it answers.

In this three-part documentary series - first aired on BBC Four, 2007 - nuclear physicist Professor Jim Al-Khalili tells the story of this discovery and the brilliant minds behind the breakthrough.



In part one, Professor Al-Khalili takes us from the discovery of the atom to the development of quantum mechanics and looks how the discovery affected the scientific world.

Atom - The Clash of the Titans - Part 1 - 58 minutes.




In the second episode, Professor Jim Al-Khalili shows how, in our quest to understand the tiny atom, we unravelled the mystery of how the universe was created - a story with dramatic twists and turns, taking in world-changing discoveries like radioactivity, the atom bomb and the Big Bang. He tries to answer the biggest questions of all - why are we here and how were we made?

Atom - The Key to the Cosmos - Part 2 - 58 minutes.




In the final part, Professor Jim Al-Khalili explores how studying the atom forced us to rethink the nature of reality itself, discovers how there might be parallel universes in which different versions of us exist and finds out that 'empty' space isn't empty at all. He shows how the world we think we know turns out to be a tiny sliver of an infinitely weirder universe than which we could have conceived. Our reality is just an illusion!

Atom - The Illusion of Reality - Part 3 - 58 minutes.

Category: Energy & Light Category: Movies & TV Category: Philosophy & Metaphysic




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