All language subtitles for BBC - Forces of Nature with Brian Cox (2016) - Ep.2 BD 1080p

BRIAN COX: The natural world is
beautiful, but complex.

The skies dance with color.

(CHILDREN CLAMORING)

Shapes of great geometrical beauty

form and disappear...

And the planet itself is
constantly transformed.

But this seemingly infinite complexity

is the shadow of something deeper,

the underlying laws of nature.

The world we live in
is beautiful to look at,

but it's even more beautiful
to understand.

Everything in the universe is in motion,

and yet it feels as if
we're standing still.

This appears to be such
a simple observation,

but the study of motion lies at
the very foundation of modern physics

and leads to the astonishing conclusion

that the division of time into
past, present and future,

is an illusion.

Our intuition is wrong.

Space and time are stranger
than we could possibly have imagined.

From our viewpoint here on Earth,

the planet seems motionless

as the universe revolves around us.

Every day for
four and a half billion years,

the Sun has risen in the East,

cracked across the sky and set
below the Western horizon.

And as the years pass,
so the seasons turn.

Summer fades into autumn,

and autumn into winter.

But these seemingly
perpetual cycles are delicate,

evocative hints that our planet
is far from stationary.

I've always loved
the passing of the seasons,

a gentle experience with
a powerful resonance.

I'd remember the words
of those hymns I used to sing

when I was six or seven
that celebrate them.

"Let me plough the fields and scatter,"

"in the bleak mid-winter,
the frosty winds may moan."

The daily changes are
almost imperceptible.

The reddening of the leaves and
the cooling of the streams is subtle,

but those changes mask
a jarring celestial violence.

So, what is going on out there,

in space and time,

as the days pass, the seasons change?

The most familiar aspect of our
planet's motion is the day,

caused by the Earth's rotation.

You'd have to go back to
the turn of the 17th century

to find anyone who'd argue
that the Earth doesn't spin.

But you need a piece of
21st century technology

to experience just how fast it's moving.

PILOT: We're going to get ourselves
airborne from Warton, here,

and then we're going to
climb up to altitude

and we're going to try and beat
the Earth's rotation.

BRIAN: The Earth spins so fast

that you can't beat it
with any old crate.

You need something a bit special.

This is a Eurofighter Typhoon.

It flies at, at least Mach 1.85,
twice the speed of sound.

I can't tell you exactly how fast,
'cause it's classified.

They go up to at least 55,000 feet,

but again, I can't tell you,
it's classified.

And you can't film
down those air intakes

because they're classified as well.

This one is BA Systems'
development aircraft

and I'm going to get in it in a minute.

And it's got all the test software

and the pilot told me that, you know,

it's a bit ropey so, erm,

press "control-alt-delete"
occasionally if it all goes funny

and usually it comes back on,

which is good.

MAN: Get in feet-wise. Comfy? Good.

That's for, if you take control.

- It's unlikely. (CHUCKLES)
- Unlikely.

MAN: Have you got a sick bag?

No.

Worst comes to the worst,
do it in your glove.

CONTROLLER: Charlie 6-9.
Runway 0-7. Clear take-off.

Wind 350 degrees, seven knots.
Overall, okay to go.

PILOT: Ready?

- BRIAN: Yeah.
- PILOT: We'll go for it.

And we're off.

Oh, lovely.

(CHUCKLES)

I have to say, that's the way
to depart an airfield.

PILOT: (LAUGHS) Isn't it?

BRIAN: You can see on the East side,
everything's darkening up quite nicely

as the Sun starts to set, and on
the ground it's already...

It's dark on the ground now,
as far as the Sun is concerned.

So accelerating...

- PILOT: So that's Mach .78.
- BRIAN: Yeah.

- And the G-Seat is in place here.
- Certainly is.

BRIAN: Turning directly
towards the setting sun,

the Typhoon accelerates

to catch up with the Earth's spin.

Beneath us,
a 6, 000 billion-billion-tonne rock

is spinning at 650 miles per hour.

Match that speed,
and something interesting happens

to the Sun's motion across the sky.

PILOT: Six-hundred and fifty miles
an hour.

So we're traveling at precisely

- the speed of the Earth's rotation.
- BRIAN: That's right.

PILOT: So we spot the Sun, it's about
what, about two-thirds down?

So it should just stay there now,

'cause we're going at exactly
the same speed as the Earth.

BRIAN: But travel faster than
the plane-it surface

and the normal passage of
the day is reversed.

PILOT: Right, accelerating,
accelerating.

BRIAN: Oh, there we go,
that's acceleration.

PILOT: Mach 1.

Through the sound barrier.

BRIAN: As the jet accelerates,

it starts to overtake
the spin of the Earth...

causing the setting Sun
to rise again.

PILOT: Starting to grow a little.
BRIAN: It is, I can see it.

We're beating the Earth.

Absolutely terrific.

PILOT: Starting to climb again,
you can see it coming up.

- BRIAN: Yeah.
- PILOT: That's Mach 1.4.

BRIAN: So it's 1,000 miles an hour.

PILOT: Yeah, almost
1,000 miles an hour.

BRIAN: And now the Sun, it's almost
the full disc over the clouds.

The sunrise.

Two sunrises in one day

and all you need is the world's
most advanced fighter aircraft.

PILOT: There we go.

BRIAN: Beautiful.

We've done it, we've outrun the Earth.

(BRIAN CHUCKLES)

- Good-bye, Sun.
- PILOT: Yes.

Right, let's get ourselves
on our way home.

BRIAN: Do me a favor.

'Cause I've had a bit of a quarrel with
Lambeth Parking Services.

(BOTH LAUGHING)

just one last favor before we land.

(CONTROLLER SPEAKING IN DISTINCTLY
OVER RADIO)

So that worked beautifully well.
(CHUCKLES)

What happens when you
light those engines on full,

accelerate up to 1.4 times
the speed of sound,

you can't tell you're going
at that speed at all

apart from the fact that
out in the front of the cockpit,

the Sun just gently rises up again

in the West over Ireland.

Erm, and then you put the brakes on
and your face goes funny,

but it was terrific.

- (BOTH LAUGH)
- Thank you.

And for the tape, he wasn't ill.

(LAUGHS)

BRIAN: To turn on its axis
once every 24 hours,

the Earth is spinning
at breakneck speed.

At the Equator, where the ground has
furthest to travel each day,

its speed exceeds
1,000 miles an hour,

which presents a deep paradox.

Here, right now, on a lazy spring day
in the south of England,

this piece of ground is thundering along
at 650 miles an hour

and yet I can't feel it.

And when you think about it,

that's a very strange thing.

I mean, what is motion
if you can't perceive it?

Well, the answer is a deep one.

You can't perceive that you're moving

if you're traveling in a straight line
at a constant speed,

and that's a fundamental
property of nature,

it's the way our universe
is constructed.

So, I don't feel that I'm moving
from minute to minute,

because I'm almost moving
in a straight line.

I have to make it 'round in a circle,

but it's 15,000 miles around
and I have 24 hours to do it.

Although we don't
experience the sensation

of moving around our planet's axis,

we do experience events

that are a direct consequence
of living on a spinning globe.

In the Philippines,

the warmth of the tropical Sun
and the spin of the Earth

conspire to produce some of the most
extreme weather on the planet.

And for the people who live here,

it poses an ever-present threat.

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: With the kids out of the way,

Leanella begins the work she hopes will
allow them to leave Tacloban forever.

(LEANELLA SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: Every time it rains,

darker memories rise to the surface.

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: Three years ago, driven by
heat rising from the tropical waters,

a storm formed over the Pacific Ocean.

As it tracked north,

the Earth's rotation
gave rise to a force

known as the "Coriolis force"

which acted on the air falling
into its low-pressure heart

causing the storm to spin,

increasing its intensity.

So what began as
a tropical storm at sea,

hit Tacloban as
a Category 5 super typhoon.

Leanella's family were caught
directly in its path.

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: Leanella took the children and
sought shelter in the local church,

the only solid structure
in the neighborhood.

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

(READING)

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: But while the family were in
the relative safety of the church,

Leanella's husband was caught up in
the chaos raging outside.

(LEANELLA SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: Boosted by the Coriolis force,

winds approaching 200 miles per hour,

whipped up the ocean

into a devastating storm surge.

Over 90% of the city was destroyed,

leaving Leanella with an anxious wait
for news of her husband

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

(JUVI SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: Exposed to the full force
of the storm,

Juvi had been swept inland
for more than a mile.

(LEANELLA SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

(PRAYING IN OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: The Hanandez family
experienced a singular event

that's affected their lives
dramatically and directly.

The Coriolis force that caused it;

Isn't a fundamental force of nature
in its own right.

It appears because of
the Earth's rotation.

So-called "fictitious forces" like this

arise whenever anything
spins or rotates.

And because the Earth's orbital motion
through space is complex,

affected not only by the Sun
but also the Moon,

there are other
fictitious forces at work.

One of these plays
a subtle but important role

in a twice-daily phenomenon
with which we are all familiar,

the ebb and flow of the tides.

We usually think of the Moon
in orbit around the Earth

as the Earth stays still,

but that's not quite right.

Actually they're both in orbit.

They're in orbit around a point called

the common center of mass
of the Earth-Moon system.

Essentially what's happening is,

something like that,

although it's quite difficult to do.

Now, when things rotate
around in circles,

other forces come into play.

In this case a force called
the centrifugal force.

So, that's a force you'd feel if you're
hanging onto a roundabout

going faster and faster and you have
to hang on tighter and tighter,

'cause of the force trying
to throw you off,

that's the centrifugal force.

Now, let's bring the Moon back.

So, now there are two forces
at play in this system.

There's a gravitational pull
of the Moon,

trying to pull everything towards it,

and there's that centrifugal force,
trying to throw everything off

and they're in perfect balance

at the center of the Earth.

But think about the ocean here.

That's closer to the Moon

and so the Moon's
gravitational pull wins

and you get a tidal bulge.

Now think about this point,
on this side of the Earth.

That's farther away from the Moon,

so the centrifugal force wins,

throwing the water off and
you get a tidal bulge.

Now, the Earth just rotates
underneath those tides,

once a day,

and that's why you get
two tides every day.

On an English beach,

the complex gravitational interaction
between Earth and Moon

is distilled into the gentle advance and
retreat of the waves.

But in some parts of the world,

on a few days of the year,

this mismatch of
the forces across the Earth,

unleashes something
far more destructive.

For nearly 4,500 miles,

the Amazon snakes through
dense rainforest,

from its source high in the Andes

to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean.

And here, close to
the mouth of the river;

Its banks are home to the Rivieros.

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: In this remote part
of the jungle,

Joao's family are completely
dependent on the river.

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: The Amazon is
the center of their world

the place where they work and play.

But today is different.

Today they must get away from the water

because this part of the river

is home to a monster.

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: In the ancient Tupi language,

Pororoca means "Great roar",

a sound so loud

that it can be heard 10 miles away.

(JOAO SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: When the Moon and Sun
fall into alignment with the Earth,

their gravitational pull is combined,

causing the Pororoca
to emerge from the ocean.

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: The Pororoca is
one of the biggest

and most powerful tidal waves
on the planet.

A seething wall of water

that engulfs everything in its path

as it surges up the river
for nearly 200 miles.

But as the Pororoca strikes,

not everyone is trying to escape.

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: Serginia Elowrus
has devoted his life

to surfing the Pororoca,

waiting for the few times a year

when the Earth's orbit around the Sun

and the center of mass of
the Earth-Moon system

provides the ultimate ride
through the jungle.

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: Then as suddenly as it appears,

the Pororoca passes,

leaving nothing but stories in its wake.

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

The tides are a familiar
everyday result

of the details of the Earth's complex
spinning and rotational motion

and its gravitational dance
with the Moon.

We experience them almost
from moment to moment,

certainly over the length of one lazy
summer's afternoon,

but the very existence of the Moon

has its origins in
a series of chance events,

way back in deep time
that created this stage

on which we live out our lives.

BRIAN: 4.6 billion years ago,

the solar system formed from
a cloud of gas and dust,

collapsing under its own gravity.

As the cloud fell inwards,

it began to spin.

And it was out of this maelstrom

that our planet was forged

from colliding rock and ice.

The Earth's spin was taken
from the primordial cloud

out of which it formed.

With every impact, the Earth grew,

until eventually...

The Sun rose over
the newly-formed planet

for the first time.

The first sunrise on the first day.

For around 100 million years,

the young Earth circled the Sun alone.

Until, it's thought,
a catastrophic impact

resulted in the creation of
our planet's constant companion.

It's not long after the Earth formed,

a planet the size of Mars,

crashed into it in a glancing collision,

throwing rocks and debris
thousands of miles out into space

and over time those rocks

coalesced together to form the Moon.

The Moon formed 15 times

closer to the Earth than it is today.

So it wasn't a quarter of
a million miles away,

it was 10 or 15,000 miles away

and it would have been a smooth object

with volcanoes seething with lava.

It would have been an incredible sight.

BRIAN: The collision
that formed the Moon

also had a dramatic and
lasting effect on the Earth.

See, you might expect that
when the planets formed

out of that rotating
disc of gas and dust,

that they would all spin along with it,

so their spin axis would
be at right angles

to the disc of the solar system.

But that collision that formed the Moon,

knocked the Earth over,

so now it's at an angle
of 23 and a half degrees

and that means that as
it orbits around the Sun,

that at some points

the Northern Hemisphere
points towards the Sun

and at other points,
the Northern Hemisphere,

points away from the Sun.

BRIAN: A random event that
happened so long ago,

has shaped the character
of our planet ever since

and we experience its legacy every day.

But these spins and orbits
had a deeper effect,

because they're an essential
part of the stage

upon which life evolved

and over billions of years,
natural selection

has shaped the animals and plants
that live on Earth,

in response to this celestial clockwork.

The lowly dung beetle
is a beautiful example.

Their lives revolve around dung.

Eating it,

fighting over it...

Before rolling it away to safety.

To aid their getaway,

the beetles have evolved a trick

that's intimately linked to
the mechanics of the heavens.

Using specialized photoreceptors
on the tops of their eyes,

they track the Sun
as it sweeps across the sky

using it to guide them on
the quickest straight-line path

away from the other beetles.

But as night falls,

the Sun dips below the Western horizon

to be followed across the sky
by the Moon.

So by night,

nocturnal beetles navigate by moonlight.

And after the Moon itself has set
in the dead of night,

they navigate by the light
of the Milky Way.

It's as if the beetles carry an imprint

of events that happened
billions of years in the past.

Their unique behavior
can be traced back

to the origin of the solar system.

The collisions that
set our world spinning

and the catastrophic impact
that created the Moon.

We're separated from the violence
of our planet's history

by the passage of time.

Although almost paradoxically,

it's in our experience of time,

the setting of the Sun,

the rise and fall of the tides

and the passing of the seasons

that we glimpse the reality of our
voyage through space and time.

It's July 10th and
the Northern Hemisphere

is tilted towards the Sun.

That means that the sunrise
is high across the sky

and that increases
the amount of sunlight

falling on the ground in
this little part of Oxfordshire

and that heats it up.

The English summer's in full swing.

But the Earth is on the move,

a planet continuing to
thunder around the Sun

because of the principle of inertia,

its straight-line path
curved into an orbit

by the force of gravity

and as the Earth moves on that orbit,

the North Pole tilts away from the Sun

and the violence of all
that celestial mechanics

is distilled into the gentle sensation

of a lazy summer's day,

giving way to the crisp chill of autumn.

The Sun rides low in the sky
and the nights draw in.

And as the Earth continues
a yearly voyage,

and the North Pole tilts still further
from the warmth of the Sun,

Autumn...

becomes winter.

The Sun barely rises above
the tops of the trees

and Britain is plunged
into a deep freeze.

BRIAN: In the temperate latitudes
of Oxfords/lire,

the passing of the seasons
is relatively gentle.

But if you head north,

Earth's 23 degree tilt

delivers a much more powerful challenge

to the people that live in
these lands of midnight sun

and perpetual winter night.

Sitting on the Arctic Circle,

Tasiilaq experiences one of the largest

seasonal temperature swings
on the planet.

In summer, days are long and mild

with nearly 23 hours
of daylight to enjoy.

(SPEAKING IN OTHER LANGUAGE)

Mmm!

BRIAN: The dramatic seasonal shifts

present elemental challenges

to families like the Christiansen's.

As the Earth journeys 'round the Sun,

the whole of Greenland
is tilted outwards

towards the cold blackness of space.

Human beings evolved in
the equatorial valleys of Africa

and are not well suited
to the Arctic winter,

where wind speeds exceed
100 miles per hour

and temperatures plummet towards
minus-30 degrees Celsius.

We require all the ingenuity and skills

passed down from
generation to generation

to survive until
the Sun rides high again.

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

(MICHAEL SPEAKING IN OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: To search for food

Michael, Malik and their friend Enoch,

must head out onto
the treacherous, frozen ocean.

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: They've come here because
beneath the ice,

the ocean waters teem with life.

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: Despite appearances,

the frozen depths of winter are in fact

the best time to fish.

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: For just a few months,

ice provides a platform over the ocean,

giving easy access to the fish below.

A brief window, in which
they must catch enough

to last the entire year.

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: Lessons learned this winter
will stay with Malik

for the rest of his life,

until he becomes a hunter himself.

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

(BOTH LAUGHING)

BRIAN: Our planet's motion leads
to something beyond

the shifts and the thickness of the ice
and the lengths of the days.

It's reflected in the ever-deepening
relationship between father and son.

The seasonal shifts and the colors
and sounds of the wood,

the life's response to the clockwork
of the solar system,

spring will follow winter as long as
the Earth orbits the Sun.

The cycle of the seasons
is effectively eternal.

The Earth returning to
the same place every year...

Except, it doesn't return
to the same place

because we don't only
travel through space,

we also travel through time.

BRIAN: We live on
a spinning ball of rock,

hurtling through the universe.

And yet, in only a few moments,

does the violence of
our world's motion, break through.

For the most part,

our planet's movement is
completely imperceptible to us.

But there is a consequence of
motion that affects us all,

more deeply than any other...

Our journey into the future.

Once every year, Antonio Carter,

comes to the Church of St Constantine

to pray for his life.

In just a few hours,

he'll risk everything
taking part in the Ardia,

the town's annual horse race,

a tradition that's been part
of his life since childhood.

(SPEAKING IN OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: As the Earth has circled the Sun,

the Ardia has remained constant,

the highlight of each passing year.

(SPEAKING IN OTHER LANGUAGE)

- (ANTONIO LAUGHS)
- (GUNSHOT)

BRIAN: The race itself is a perilous
cat-and-mouse chase

through the village's most
treacherous streets,

that's taken place on
the same two days in July

for hundreds of years.

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: Every year the riders appear
t0 take the same circuit

around the same Sardinian town

at the precise moment the Earth returns
to the same place in its orbit.

But the reality is different.

With every passing moment,

we move to a different place
in the universe,

not just in space, but also in time.

We're hurtling into the future
at the speed of light

and it's that motion we experience
as the passing of time.

It's only in the last century

that we discovered just how deeply

motion and time are intertwined.

We feel as if we move through
space as time ticks by,

but that's an illusion.

The separation of
space and time is false.

The first person to realize that
was Albert Einstein.

He thought deeply about motion,

about the idea that we can't tell
whether we're moving or not

and he tried to reconcile that with our
picture of the universal laws of nature

and he found that he could do,

but at the expense of jettisoning
space and time

as separate entities,
and merging them together

into a unified whole,

the fabric of the universe,
called "space-time".

In space-time, the central idea
is that of an event,

a moment that has a location
in space and time.

So, although I've come back to
the same place, this wood,

over the course of a year, in summer,
autumn, winter and now spring,

each one of those visits is
a different moment

with a different location in space-time.

BRIAN: As the Earth
moves through space-time,

its orbit traces out a spiral

as it circles the Sun and
races into the future.

It never returns to the same place

because each moment
is a different location

in the fabric of the universe.

And just as the Earth travels

relentlessly onwards on its path
through space-time,

so must we.

So this is how Einstein
asks us to picture

the sweep of our lives,
the experience of living.

Our lives are a series of moments

and they're laid out like
places on a map.

There's me as a little baby.

My dad with my granddad.

That idyllic summer,

sometime in the early 70's in
a paddling pool with my sister.

When I was about four years old.

And the perfect Christmas

with my grandparents
some time back in the 1970's.

(CHUCKLING) There's me
when I was 20 years old

with a ridiculous haircut, playing
a gig somewhere in the middle of Europe,

in Budapest I think.

Wedding day.

And me, in Oldham, where I grew up,

with my little boy, George.

This isn't exactly like a map.

See, I can return to these places
in space, to Oldham,

to Central Europe, to Duluth, Minnesota,
where I got married,

back to Oldham again.

But I can't return to these moments,

to these events in space-time.

Because of the geometry
of space-time itself,

we are compelled to move
inexorably into the future.

(ANTONIO SPEAKING IN OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: As we all journey
through space-time,

it's only in our memories
that we can revisit the past.

(SPEAKING IN OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: But just because
we can't go back in time,

it doesn't mean that
the past isn't out there.

If you take Einstein's universe
at face value,

and there's no reason why you shouldn't,

it's our best theory of space and time,

and this picture of space-time

with events placed within it,

suggests something wonderful

and I think quite magical.

See, if I leave a place in space,

then it doesn't cease
to exist when I've left it.

And in space-time,

if I leave an event,

it doesn't cease to exist
when I've left it.

So that suggests that

all those summers you spent
with your mum and dad

or that first Christmas with
your grandparents long ago,

all those most precious memories
of people and places,

all those summers and winters past

and seasons yet to come,

are out there,
somewhere in space-time.