Alan Browne
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 Posted:
Wed Dec 22, 2004 4:58 am Post subject:
[OT] Heads up in North America - NOVA-The Elegant Universe. |
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A very interesting program on PBS tonight (20h00 Eastern) on NOVA presenting
String Theory.
Cheers,
Alan
From the PBS website:
The Elegant Universe -- In the last few years, excitement has grown among
scientists as they've pursued a revolutionary new approach to unifying nature's
forces. To the uninitiated, string theory is totally mind-boggling. But
physicist Brian Greene has a rare gift for conveying physics in vivid everyday
images, a gift that has turned his recent book, The Elegant Universe, into a
mighty bestseller. Now Greene brings his talent, youth and vitality to
television for the first time in this special three-hour presentation. A highly
innovative, Matrix-like production style makes the surreal world of string
theory spring to life on the screen. Einstein's Dream -- The first hour
introduces string theory and shows how modern physics - composed of two theories
that are ferociously incompatible - reached an impasse: one theory, known as
general relativity, is successful in describing big things like stars and
galaxies; another, called quantum mechanics, is equally successful in describing
small things like atoms and subatomic particles. Albert Einstein, the inventor
of general relativity, dreamed of finding a single theory that would embrace all
of nature's laws. But in his quest for the so-called unified theory, Einstein
came up empty-handed, and the conflict between general relativity and quantum
mechanics has stymied all who've followed. That is, until the discovery of
string theory. String's the Thing -- In the second hour, Greene describes the
serendipitous steps that led from a forgotten 200-year-old mathematical formula
to the first glimmerings of strings - quivering strands of energy whose
different vibrations give rise to quarks, electrons, photons and all other
elementary particles. Strings are truly tiny - smaller than an atom by the same
factor that a tree is smaller than the entire universe. But, as Greene explains,
it is possible - for the first time ever - to combine the laws of the large and
the laws of the small into a proposal for a single, harmonious Theory of
Everything. Closed Captioned. In Stereo. Rated TVG. |
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