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Billions and
billions of galaxies...

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the universe is so vast,
we can't even imagine

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00:00:08,027 --> 00:00:09,619
what those numbers mean.

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But 14 billion years ago,
none of it existed...

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until the Big Bang.

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The Big Bang is
the origin of space

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and the origin of time itself.

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We take a journey
through space and time,

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from the beginning to the
end of the universe itself.

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This is our world.

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Cities... forests...

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00:01:03,716 --> 00:01:07,413
oceans... people...

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everything in the universe
is made from matter

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created in the first
seconds of the Big Bang...

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...every star, every planet,
every atom, every blade of

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grass, every drop of water.

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Water is ancient.

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The hydrogen atoms in here were
born moments after the Big Bang.

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Then came everything else.

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The Big Bang
is the defining event

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of our universe...
and everything in it.

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The secrets of our past, our
present, and our future are

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locked inside this
one moment in time.

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To unlock the secrets of the Big
Bang, we have to travel outside

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of our own solar system...

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And journey beyond
even our own galaxy.

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As we travel into deep space,
we're actually seeing into

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the past... and getting closer
to being able to witness

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the dawn of time itself.

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Passing the first infant
galaxies and the first stars...

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We arrive back at the moment
the universe began and face

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the biggest questions
in all of science.

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This is the Holy
Grail of physics.

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We want to know why it banged.

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00:03:05,838 --> 00:03:07,032
We want to know what banged.

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We want to know what was
there before the bang.

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To get the answers,
we've built machines the size of

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cities to simulate conditions

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when the universe
was created...

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And space telescopes to peer
deep into our past.

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We are getting close to answering
the age-old questions,

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"Why are we here?

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Where did we come from?"

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Does the universe in fact
have a beginning or an end?

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And, if so, what are they like?

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If we find the answer to that,
it would be the ultimate triumph

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of human reason.

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We would know the Mind of God.

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The origin of the
Big Bang is the greatest mystery

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of all time.

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00:04:12,972 --> 00:04:17,136
And the more we learn, the
deeper the mystery becomes.

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We like to think
that our universe is unique.

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However, now we're not so sure.

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Perhaps there is a
multiverse of universes.

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Another possibility is
that our Big Bang is just one of many

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Big Bangs, but it may be one of
just an infinite number

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of universes.

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And there may be other regions
in that infinite number of

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universes where a Big Bang is
just happening today.

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But there's only
one universe we're sure of, and

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understanding this
one is hard enough.

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Since the late 1920s, everything
we know about how our universe

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works has been
turned upside down.

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It's important to realize
how much our picture of the universe

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has changed in the last century.

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At the beginning of the
20th century, the conventional

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wisdom in science was that the
universe was static and eternal.

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In 1929,
that all changed.

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At the Mount Wilson observatory
above Los Angeles, astronomer

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Edwin Hubble discovered galaxies
aren't stuck in one place.

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Not only are they moving, but
they're flying away from Earth

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at incredible speeds.

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This was the first real
evidence of the Big Bang.

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All galaxies on average are
moving away from us, and,

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stranger still, those that were
twice as far away were moving

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twice as fast.

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And those that were three times
as far away were moving

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three times as fast, and so on.

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Everything was
moving away from us.

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It became
known as Hubble's Law.

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His discovery is still the
starting point for exploration

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of the Big Bang.

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What Hubble convincingly
demonstrated, by seeing the

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motion of those galaxies, is
that the universe is expanding.

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Theoretically, an
expanding universe must have

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started from a single point.

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By measuring how fast the
universe is expanding,

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astronomers calculated
backwards and figured out when

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it burst into life.

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People ask the question,
"How do you know that

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the universe is 13.7
billion years old?

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I mean, smarty-pants,
you weren't there

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13.7 billion years ago."

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Well, when you watch television
on videotape, you hit the stop

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button when you see an
explosion, and you can run it

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backwards and see when
it actually took place.

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The same thing takes
place with cosmology.

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We can run the videotape
backwards and then calculate

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when it all came from
a cosmic explosion.

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You don't
have to be an astronomer

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to look back in time.

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If you gaze up at the night sky,
you're seeing stars that are

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millions of light-years away,
meaning it took the light from

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those stars millions
of years to get here.

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So if you look far enough,
you should be able to see

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the beginning of the universe.

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Named for the groundbreaking
astronomer, the Hubble Space

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Telescope allows us to look deep
into the universe, back in time,

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and closer to the
moment of the Big Bang.

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But for scientists, winding back
the clock to the Big Bang

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was only the first step.

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When people first hear
about the Big Bang theory, they say,

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well, where did it take place?

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It took place over there.

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It took place over there.

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Where did it take place?

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Actually, it took place
everywhere, because the universe

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itself was extremely
small at that time.

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These are only some
of the most abstract and

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difficult concepts there are.

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So here's a mind-bender.

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What came before the Big Bang?

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The philosophers in ancient
times used to say how could

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something arise from nothing?

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And what's amazing to me
is that the laws of physics

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allow that to happen.

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And it means that our whole
universe, everything we see,

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everything that matters to us
today, could have arisen out of

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precisely nothing.

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It's one of the
biggest hurdles to understanding

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the Big Bang.

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First you have to buy into the
premise that something was

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created out of nothing.

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00:09:01,326 --> 00:09:04,454
It's impossible to describe
the moment of creation

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in human language.

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All we know is that from what
may have been nothing, we go to

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a state of... almost infinite
density and infinite temperature

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and infinite violence.

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Understanding how
nothing turned into something

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may be the greatest
mystery of our universe.

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But if you understand that, you
start to understand the

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Big Bang, when time
and space began,

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and the great big explosion
created everything.

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At the dawn of
time, the universe explodes into

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existence from absolutely
nothing into everything.

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00:10:02,221 --> 00:10:07,352
But everything is actually a
single point, infinitely small,

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unimaginably hot, a super-dense
speck of pure energy.

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00:10:13,198 --> 00:10:20,104
The Big Bang was so immense
that it brought into existence

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all of the mass and all of the
energy contained in all of the

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00:10:24,676 --> 00:10:29,045
400 billion galaxies we see in
our universe in a region smaller

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00:10:29,114 --> 00:10:32,049
than the size of a single atom.

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The entire observable universe
was a millionth of a billionth

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00:10:35,120 --> 00:10:36,985
of a centimeter
across at that time.

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Everything was compressed into
an incredibly hot, dense region.

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It's not even
matter yet, just a point of

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raging energy.

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It was the beginning of the
universe and everything in it.

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Everything was simple.

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All the forces that
we know about today

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were one and the same.

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The universe was amorphous.

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It had no structure.

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In that instant of
creation, all the laws of

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physics, the very forces that
engineer our universe,

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began to take shape.

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The first force to
emerge was gravity.

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The fate of the universe... its
size, structure, and everything

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00:11:28,040 --> 00:11:34,969
in it... was decided
in that moment.

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Carlos Frenk studies how gravity
shaped the universe by creating

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artificial universes in this
supercomputer.

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He gives each one a different
amount of gravity.

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00:11:50,829 --> 00:11:55,232
The first one he tried had
too little, resulting in,

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well, nothing.

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Gravity has saved our
universe, for if gravity was

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weaker than it is, we would have
a very boring universe in which

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everything would be flying apart
so fast that there would be

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no galaxies forming.

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Next, he
programmed a universe with

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too much gravity.

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If gravity was stronger
than we think it is, again,

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we'll end up with
a failed universe.

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Everything will end
up in black holes.

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It has to be just so.

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It has to be just right.

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Lucky for us, the
Big Bang got it just right...

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the perfect amount of gravity.

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In the turmoil of forces after
gravity emerged, still a

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fraction of a second after the
Big Bang, a shock wave of energy

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erupted and expanded the
universe in all directions

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at incredible speed.

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All of space expanded
by an unbelievably large factor in

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a fraction of a second.

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00:13:04,002 --> 00:13:07,597
We think that in less than a
millionth of a millionth of

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a millionth of a millionth of
a second, space expanded by

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a factor bigger than a million,
million, million, million times.

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00:13:26,625 --> 00:13:28,217
And for the record,

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that's faster than
the speed of light.

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00:13:30,662 --> 00:13:37,625
But, wait, doesn't that break
one of the laws of physics?

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00:13:37,769 --> 00:13:41,466
Even schoolchildren know
that, "You can't go faster than

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the speed of light."

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But I say there's
a loophole there.

202
00:13:44,776 --> 00:13:48,109
You see, nothing can
go faster than light,

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00:13:48,180 --> 00:13:49,807
nothing being empty space.

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00:13:49,948 --> 00:13:51,006
Don't worry.

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00:13:51,083 --> 00:13:55,110
This idea gives even the best
minds in science a headache.

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00:13:55,187 --> 00:13:57,587
But it's critical to
understanding

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the early universe.

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00:13:59,357 --> 00:14:03,054
Scientists think it took less
than a millionth of a millionth

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00:14:03,128 --> 00:14:07,155
of a millionth of a millionth of
a second for the universe to

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00:14:07,232 --> 00:14:11,362
expand from the size of
an atom to a baseball.

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00:14:11,436 --> 00:14:14,496
That may not sound like much,
but it's like a golf ball

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00:14:14,573 --> 00:14:16,632
expanding to the
size of the Earth

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00:14:16,708 --> 00:14:18,437
in the same amount of time.

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00:14:18,510 --> 00:14:23,072
That means it was expanding
faster than the speed of light.

215
00:14:23,148 --> 00:14:25,013
That's fast.

216
00:14:25,083 --> 00:14:28,075
So many things were happening
so fast in the early universe,

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00:14:28,153 --> 00:14:30,713
because everything was
so close together,

218
00:14:30,789 --> 00:14:33,587
that we needed a new unit
of time to describe things.

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00:14:33,658 --> 00:14:35,888
It's
called Planck time.

220
00:14:35,961 --> 00:14:40,660
To understand just how short a
Planck time is, consider this.

221
00:14:40,732 --> 00:14:43,826
There are more units of Planck
time in one second than all the

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00:14:43,902 --> 00:14:45,767
seconds since the Big Bang.

223
00:14:45,837 --> 00:14:47,566
The math is mind-blowing.

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00:14:47,639 --> 00:14:51,507
There are more than 31 million
seconds in a year, and it's been

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00:14:51,576 --> 00:14:54,409
14 billion years
since the Big Bang.

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00:14:54,479 --> 00:15:03,285
So multiply 31,556,926 by
14 billion, and what you get is

227
00:15:03,355 --> 00:15:04,413
a really big number.

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00:15:04,489 --> 00:15:07,947
It's a time scale that's
so small that all human intuition

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00:15:08,026 --> 00:15:09,584
goes out the window.

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If we look at our watches
and measure one second,

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00:15:12,931 --> 00:15:15,058
we can ask, how many
Planck times is that?

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00:15:15,133 --> 00:15:22,403
Well, it is a billion, billion,
billion, billion, billion

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00:15:22,474 --> 00:15:28,174
Planck times.

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00:15:28,246 --> 00:15:31,943
So, now the Big
Bang is only a few Planck times old

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00:15:34,538 --> 00:15:37,268
And a fraction of a
second after the Big Bang,

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00:15:37,341 --> 00:15:41,437
the universe is so small it can
fit in the palm of your hand.

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But in another tiny fraction of
a second, it expands to

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00:15:46,717 --> 00:15:48,275
the size of the Earth.

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00:15:48,352 --> 00:15:52,755
Then, moving faster than the
speed of light, it grows larger

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than our solar system.

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00:15:54,658 --> 00:16:00,096
And it's still just a raging
storm of superheated energy.

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00:16:00,231 --> 00:16:05,396
It would be hotter and denser
and more violent than anything

243
00:16:05,469 --> 00:16:09,735
that we can experience
in the universe today.

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00:16:09,807 --> 00:16:14,267
Even the interior of a star is
calm and serene by comparison

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00:16:14,345 --> 00:16:18,782
to the violence of the earliest
moments of the Big Bang.

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00:16:18,849 --> 00:16:21,818
Temperatures were so hot that
even the atoms of your body

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00:16:21,885 --> 00:16:24,911
would disintegrate... so hot, in
fact, that the atoms would be

248
00:16:24,989 --> 00:16:25,978
ripped apart.

249
00:16:26,056 --> 00:16:27,148
How hot?

250
00:16:27,224 --> 00:16:29,249
Trillions of degrees hot.

251
00:16:29,326 --> 00:16:34,764
But as the universe continues to
expand, it also begins to cool.

252
00:16:34,832 --> 00:16:38,859
Dropping temperatures trigger
the next stage in

253
00:16:38,936 --> 00:16:40,597
the universe's evolution.

254
00:16:40,671 --> 00:16:44,402
The raw energy of the
explosion transforms into

255
00:16:44,475 --> 00:16:50,539
tiny subatomic particles.

256
00:16:50,614 --> 00:16:57,349
It's the first matter
in the universe.

257
00:16:57,421 --> 00:17:00,822
This conversion of energy into
matter was predicted by

258
00:17:00,891 --> 00:17:04,691
Albert Einstein years before
anyone started talking about

259
00:17:04,762 --> 00:17:08,858
the Big Bang.

260
00:17:08,932 --> 00:17:13,369
It's the one scientific equation
every schoolkid knows.

261
00:17:13,437 --> 00:17:16,463
There is one very
familiar formula.

262
00:17:16,540 --> 00:17:18,633
And that is
e equals mc squared.

263
00:17:18,776 --> 00:17:21,438
It says something about the
creation of the universe.

264
00:17:21,512 --> 00:17:24,640
It says even if the universe is
created just out of pure energy,

265
00:17:24,715 --> 00:17:27,548
that because energy can be
converted to matter and matter

266
00:17:27,618 --> 00:17:31,110
to energy, that you can get all
of the stuff that we see in the

267
00:17:31,188 --> 00:17:34,419
universe from this pure
energetic event.

268
00:17:34,558 --> 00:17:39,154
Einstein's little
equation had a big impact.

269
00:17:48,272 --> 00:17:54,871
It led to the first
nuclear bombs.

270
00:17:54,945 --> 00:17:59,075
In a nuclear explosion, a small
amount of matter is converted

271
00:17:59,149 --> 00:18:03,210
into an enormous
amount of energy.

272
00:18:03,287 --> 00:18:10,022
As the universe was forming,
the exact opposite happened.

273
00:18:10,094 --> 00:18:14,758
Pure energy transformed into
particles of matter.

274
00:18:14,832 --> 00:18:17,494
You don't need to create
matter in the beginning.

275
00:18:17,568 --> 00:18:18,660
You just need energy.

276
00:18:18,736 --> 00:18:24,697
And energy alone can lead to the
creation of an entire universe.

277
00:18:24,775 --> 00:18:28,040
In just a fraction
of a second after the Big Bang,

278
00:18:28,112 --> 00:18:33,709
the building blocks of our
universe begin to take shape.

279
00:18:33,784 --> 00:18:39,780
But this first matter is like
nothing we see today.

280
00:18:39,857 --> 00:18:43,020
The stuff of matter has been
very different over the age

281
00:18:43,093 --> 00:18:43,684
of the universe.

282
00:18:43,761 --> 00:18:46,195
What we now think is normal
matter was not at all normal in

283
00:18:46,263 --> 00:18:49,960
the earliest moments
of the Big Bang.

284
00:18:50,033 --> 00:18:53,059
That's because
condition were so extreme.

285
00:18:53,137 --> 00:18:56,197
There were no atoms yet.

286
00:18:56,273 --> 00:19:02,508
But there were tiny
subatomic particles.

287
00:19:02,579 --> 00:19:05,776
In the earliest moments of
the Big Bang, the universe was

288
00:19:05,849 --> 00:19:08,716
so hot and dense, there were
great amounts of energy.

289
00:19:08,786 --> 00:19:12,051
And so particles were being
created all the time, and energy

290
00:19:12,122 --> 00:19:15,649
and matter were transferring
back and forth in this hot,

291
00:19:15,726 --> 00:19:18,092
dense soup.

292
00:19:18,162 --> 00:19:21,154
That earliest
matter was too unstable to start

293
00:19:21,231 --> 00:19:28,262
forming the universe
as we know it.

294
00:19:28,338 --> 00:19:29,703
Think of it like this.

295
00:19:29,773 --> 00:19:32,936
Imagine rush hour at
Grand Central in New York City

296
00:19:33,010 --> 00:19:36,502
as that superheated
early universe.

297
00:19:36,580 --> 00:19:40,311
The commuters racing through
the main concourse are

298
00:19:40,384 --> 00:19:43,785
subatomic particles.

299
00:19:43,854 --> 00:19:46,948
If you look at a crowd of
people... a large crowd of

300
00:19:47,024 --> 00:19:50,118
people... they
may appear random.

301
00:19:50,194 --> 00:19:53,322
That random, quirky motion is
very similar than what was

302
00:19:53,397 --> 00:19:56,628
happening in the particles in
the universe in the earliest

303
00:19:56,700 --> 00:20:00,136
moments of the Big Bang.

304
00:20:00,204 --> 00:20:02,934
The extreme
temperature of the early

305
00:20:03,006 --> 00:20:05,873
universe energizes the
subatomic particles.

306
00:20:05,943 --> 00:20:07,137
They appear.

307
00:20:07,211 --> 00:20:11,580
They disappear.

308
00:20:11,648 --> 00:20:14,082
They race around at
incredible speeds.

309
00:20:14,151 --> 00:20:16,244
It's pure chaos.

310
00:20:21,692 --> 00:20:23,455
It's like people.

311
00:20:23,527 --> 00:20:26,587
If they're excited and running
around fast to catch trains at

312
00:20:26,663 --> 00:20:29,791
a train station, they'll
be moving around quickly.

313
00:20:29,867 --> 00:20:34,361
But eventually, they
calm down and get slower.

314
00:20:34,438 --> 00:20:37,100
That's what's been happening to
our universe, in a sense.

315
00:20:37,174 --> 00:20:39,233
The particles are
moving around very fast.

316
00:20:39,309 --> 00:20:42,176
And as the universe cools down,
the particles move more slowly

317
00:20:42,246 --> 00:20:46,012
and, in some sense,
less random.

318
00:20:46,083 --> 00:20:49,211
As the universe
cools, the particles stop

319
00:20:49,286 --> 00:20:51,948
changing back into energy.

320
00:21:00,230 --> 00:21:04,257
Now there are more and more
subatomic particles, but it's

321
00:21:04,334 --> 00:21:08,134
still a hot, violent place.

322
00:21:08,205 --> 00:21:11,436
All this is happening in
fractions of a second

323
00:21:11,508 --> 00:21:12,907
too small to detect.

324
00:21:12,976 --> 00:21:17,379
But the Big Bang is moving into
a critical stage now, a titanic

325
00:21:17,447 --> 00:21:21,679
battle between matter and the
one thing that can destroy the

326
00:21:21,752 --> 00:21:26,416
universe before it even gets
started... antimatter.

327
00:21:37,538 --> 00:21:43,135
Everything in the
universe is made from matter,

328
00:21:43,210 --> 00:21:46,873
from the smallest rock
to the largest star.

329
00:21:46,948 --> 00:21:51,146
And all the matter there will
ever be was created from the

330
00:21:51,218 --> 00:21:58,784
pure energy of the Big Bang.

331
00:21:58,859 --> 00:22:02,590
Einstein's equation,
e equals mc squared,

332
00:22:02,663 --> 00:22:06,656
says that energy
transforms into matter.

333
00:22:06,734 --> 00:22:09,202
But it was just a theory.

334
00:22:09,270 --> 00:22:16,802
Today science is able
to test that theory.

335
00:22:16,877 --> 00:22:20,176
This is CERN in Switzerland,

336
00:22:20,247 --> 00:22:24,206
home to the world's
largest machine.

337
00:22:24,285 --> 00:22:28,346
It's the size of a city and
engineered to re-create the

338
00:22:28,422 --> 00:22:32,984
conditions millionths of a
second after the Big Bang.

339
00:22:33,127 --> 00:22:36,187
If we want to probe
ever-smaller scales,

340
00:22:36,263 --> 00:22:38,697
paradoxically we need an
ever-bigger machine.

341
00:22:38,766 --> 00:22:42,099
There's just no other way of
doing it, so big machines mean

342
00:22:42,169 --> 00:22:46,731
small physics, means early times
and, therefore, getting closer

343
00:22:46,807 --> 00:22:50,641
and closer to the origin
of the universe itself.

344
00:22:50,778 --> 00:22:54,043
This monster
machine is called a collider.

345
00:22:54,115 --> 00:22:57,573
It's designed to take us back to
those first fractions of

346
00:22:57,652 --> 00:22:59,950
a second after the Big Bang.

347
00:23:00,021 --> 00:23:03,980
It's a 12-foot-wide
concrete-line circular tunnel

348
00:23:04,058 --> 00:23:09,690
17 kilometers around.

349
00:23:09,764 --> 00:23:13,393
The collider makes tiny
particles of matter smash into

350
00:23:13,467 --> 00:23:22,034
each other at almost
the speed of light.

351
00:23:22,109 --> 00:23:23,770
For a split second,

352
00:23:23,844 --> 00:23:25,971
those collisions generate
turbocharged energy

353
00:23:26,047 --> 00:23:31,007
similar to the explosive
force of the Big Bang.

354
00:23:31,085 --> 00:23:36,489
And then that pure energy
briefly transforms into matter,

355
00:23:36,557 --> 00:23:43,326
just like it did nearly
14 billion years ago.

356
00:23:43,397 --> 00:23:47,128
But a monster machine
needs a monster detector

357
00:23:47,201 --> 00:23:49,032
to see these collisions.

358
00:23:49,170 --> 00:23:54,403
This detector is five stories
tall and weighs over 7,000 tons.

359
00:23:54,475 --> 00:23:57,444
And 7,000 tons... to give you a
sense of perspective... is the

360
00:23:57,511 --> 00:24:00,173
weight of the Eiffel Tower.

361
00:24:00,314 --> 00:24:03,078
But as big as it
is, it can't see the actual

362
00:24:03,150 --> 00:24:04,674
particles of new matter.

363
00:24:04,752 --> 00:24:08,483
They hang around for just a
split second and move so fast it

364
00:24:08,556 --> 00:24:12,652
can only record their trails.

365
00:24:12,727 --> 00:24:14,957
There's a lot of energy in
these particles.

366
00:24:15,029 --> 00:24:17,759
They move very, very quickly,
and so you need a very large

367
00:24:17,832 --> 00:24:22,531
amount of detector in order to
be able to map the path of these

368
00:24:22,603 --> 00:24:24,036
particles very precisely.

369
00:24:24,105 --> 00:24:26,938
So, the detector is so big
because you need

370
00:24:27,007 --> 00:24:27,905
better resolution.

371
00:24:27,975 --> 00:24:29,875
It works exactly the
same as a camera.

372
00:24:29,944 --> 00:24:32,344
The more pixels you have,
the better the picture.

373
00:24:32,413 --> 00:24:33,675
It's exactly the same here.

374
00:24:33,748 --> 00:24:37,377
We just have a
five-story camera.

375
00:24:37,451 --> 00:24:40,477
Scientists hope
that it'll reveal just how

376
00:24:40,554 --> 00:24:44,513
energy transforms into matter...

377
00:24:44,592 --> 00:24:48,790
But not just any matter... the
kind of matter that emerged

378
00:24:48,863 --> 00:24:55,894
14 billion years ago at
the dawn of time itself.

379
00:24:55,970 --> 00:24:59,201
But the dawn of time was a
critical moment in the birth of

380
00:24:59,273 --> 00:25:02,470
the universe, because pure
energy also produced one of the

381
00:25:02,543 --> 00:25:06,877
most dangerous things in the
universe... antimatter.

382
00:25:14,421 --> 00:25:17,857
Antimatter is the
mirror image of ordinary matter.

383
00:25:17,925 --> 00:25:20,359
However, matter has one charge,

384
00:25:20,427 --> 00:25:23,328
and antimatter has
the opposite charge.

385
00:25:23,397 --> 00:25:27,163
If there was an anti-me made out
of antimatter, that person, in

386
00:25:27,234 --> 00:25:30,692
principle, could look exactly
like me... same personality

387
00:25:30,771 --> 00:25:34,434
quirks, same everything, except,
of course, when I decide to

388
00:25:34,508 --> 00:25:35,372
shake his hand.

389
00:25:35,442 --> 00:25:38,934
At that point, we both would
blow ourselves to smithereens in

390
00:25:39,013 --> 00:25:43,382
a gigantic nuclear explosion.

391
00:25:43,450 --> 00:25:47,113
Matter with a
positive charge locks horns with

392
00:25:47,188 --> 00:25:51,090
its archenemy, antimatter,
with a negative charge.

393
00:25:51,158 --> 00:25:54,616
The fate of the universe
hangs in the balance

394
00:25:54,695 --> 00:25:56,185
of this epic battle.

395
00:25:56,263 --> 00:25:59,824
Equal amounts of matter and
antimatter will cancel each

396
00:25:59,900 --> 00:26:02,733
other out... not good.

397
00:26:02,803 --> 00:26:05,271
A universe with equal amounts
of matter and antimatter is

398
00:26:05,339 --> 00:26:08,331
equivalent to a universe with
no matter at all, because the

399
00:26:08,409 --> 00:26:11,640
matter and antimatter will
annihilate back into

400
00:26:11,712 --> 00:26:12,337
pure radiation.

401
00:26:12,413 --> 00:26:15,109
And there'll be nothing
interesting... no stars and

402
00:26:15,182 --> 00:26:19,585
galaxies and people in between.

403
00:26:19,653 --> 00:26:23,054
Like a cosmic game
of Risk, the side with the most

404
00:26:23,123 --> 00:26:26,650
soldiers wins.

405
00:26:26,727 --> 00:26:33,098
The score was very close,
but there was a winner.

406
00:26:33,167 --> 00:26:35,863
For every billion
particles of antimatter, there were a

407
00:26:35,936 --> 00:26:39,394
billion and one
particles of matter.

408
00:26:39,473 --> 00:26:41,771
That was the moment of creation.

409
00:26:41,842 --> 00:26:46,302
The one extra particle of matter
in each little volume survives,

410
00:26:46,380 --> 00:26:50,578
survives enough to form all the
matter we see in the stars and

411
00:26:50,651 --> 00:26:57,022
galaxies today.

412
00:26:57,091 --> 00:26:59,992
One in a billion
might not sound like much, but

413
00:27:00,060 --> 00:27:03,587
it's enough to build a universe.

414
00:27:03,664 --> 00:27:05,655
We're the leftovers.

415
00:27:05,733 --> 00:27:08,964
So, believe it or not,
everything you see around you,

416
00:27:09,036 --> 00:27:12,563
the atoms of your body, the
atoms of the stars, are nothing

417
00:27:12,640 --> 00:27:16,667
but leftovers... leftovers from
this ancient collision between

418
00:27:16,744 --> 00:27:23,206
matter and antimatter.

419
00:27:23,284 --> 00:27:26,981
Lucky for us, there
was enough left over to make all

420
00:27:27,054 --> 00:27:31,081
the stars and planets.

421
00:27:49,252 --> 00:27:51,550
Give or take a
couple of Planck times, the

422
00:27:51,621 --> 00:27:57,321
universe is nearly a second old
and still a very strange place.

423
00:27:57,393 --> 00:28:02,729
But matter has won the battle
with antimatter.

424
00:28:02,799 --> 00:28:07,964
And now it's time to
build the universe.

425
00:28:08,037 --> 00:28:14,408
It's still extremely hot and
expanding incredibly fast.

426
00:28:14,477 --> 00:28:17,503
When the universe was a
second old, the particles in it

427
00:28:17,580 --> 00:28:20,014
were very different than the
particles we see today.

428
00:28:20,083 --> 00:28:21,607
There were no atoms.

429
00:28:21,684 --> 00:28:24,517
Nothing that we recognize
in the room around us today

430
00:28:24,587 --> 00:28:28,421
yet existed.

431
00:28:28,558 --> 00:28:32,961
Now all
that begins to change.

432
00:28:33,029 --> 00:28:36,624
Temperatures continue to cool.

433
00:28:36,699 --> 00:28:40,499
And as the primitive particles
keep slowing down, they start

434
00:28:40,570 --> 00:28:46,440
bonding together to form the
atoms of the first elements.

435
00:28:46,509 --> 00:28:51,970
The first one to form is
hydrogen.

436
00:28:52,048 --> 00:28:55,882
Then over the next three
minutes, the universe begins to

437
00:28:55,952 --> 00:29:05,486
create two more elements...
helium and lithium.

438
00:29:26,561 --> 00:29:30,019
We went from a universe that
was infinitely small to a

439
00:29:30,098 --> 00:29:32,566
universe that was
light-years in size.

440
00:29:32,634 --> 00:29:35,797
In the first three minutes,
essentially everything

441
00:29:35,871 --> 00:29:40,069
interesting that was going to
happen in the universe happened.

442
00:29:40,142 --> 00:29:41,803
Well, not quite.

443
00:29:41,877 --> 00:29:45,005
If you were there,
you couldn't see it.

444
00:29:45,080 --> 00:29:47,139
When we look at the
night sky, we can see literally

445
00:29:47,215 --> 00:29:50,309
billions of years into the past,
and we think it's always

446
00:29:50,385 --> 00:29:52,512
been that way.

447
00:29:52,654 --> 00:29:54,087
Nope, not true.

448
00:29:54,156 --> 00:29:58,354
380,000 years after the Big
Bang... that's when the universe

449
00:29:58,427 --> 00:30:00,258
began to become transparent.

450
00:30:00,395 --> 00:30:06,027
But before then, it was milky.

451
00:30:06,101 --> 00:30:15,305
There is a milky
soup of loose electrons.

452
00:30:15,377 --> 00:30:19,473
The young universe has to cool
down enough for the electrons

453
00:30:19,548 --> 00:30:23,006
to slow down and
stick to new atoms.

454
00:30:23,085 --> 00:30:26,714
It took a long time for all of
the hydrogen, helium, and

455
00:30:26,788 --> 00:30:30,485
lithium atoms in the
universe to form.

456
00:30:30,559 --> 00:30:35,724
Scientists calculate it took
380,000 years for the electrons

457
00:30:35,797 --> 00:30:39,028
to slow down enough so that
the universe could start

458
00:30:39,101 --> 00:30:40,864
mass-producing atoms.

459
00:30:40,936 --> 00:30:44,303
When that happens,
the milky fog clears.

460
00:30:44,372 --> 00:30:49,309
The first light escapes and
races across the universe.

461
00:30:49,377 --> 00:30:52,972
Nearly 14 billion years later,
two young scientists in

462
00:30:53,048 --> 00:30:58,680
New Jersey pick
it up by accident.

463
00:31:01,753 --> 00:31:06,918
In 1964, Arno Penzias and
Robert Wilson were mapping

464
00:31:06,992 --> 00:31:09,187
radio signals across our galaxy.

465
00:31:09,261 --> 00:31:13,322
Everywhere they looked,
they picked up a strange

466
00:31:13,398 --> 00:31:15,423
background hum.

467
00:31:15,501 --> 00:31:18,231
They first suspected
their equipment.

468
00:31:18,303 --> 00:31:22,103
Maybe pigeon droppings on
the antenna were causing

469
00:31:22,174 --> 00:31:23,573
the strange signal.

470
00:31:23,642 --> 00:31:28,102
But after cleaning the antenna,
the mysterious hum remained.

471
00:31:28,180 --> 00:31:35,450
So much for pigeon droppings.

472
00:31:35,521 --> 00:31:39,150
Penzias delivered a talk at
Princeton University.

473
00:31:39,224 --> 00:31:43,126
And according to lore, one
person in the back said, "Either

474
00:31:43,195 --> 00:31:46,790
you have discovered the effects
of bird droppings or the

475
00:31:46,865 --> 00:31:51,234
creation of the universe."

476
00:31:51,303 --> 00:31:55,399
It was in fact the
moment of creation, nearly

477
00:31:55,474 --> 00:32:02,846
14 billion years ago, when those
first atoms got their electrons.

478
00:32:02,915 --> 00:32:07,318
That's the moment when the milky
cloud clears and the new

479
00:32:07,386 --> 00:32:12,380
universe comes into
view for the first time.

480
00:32:12,457 --> 00:32:16,359
To capture better images of this
critical event, NASA launched

481
00:32:16,428 --> 00:32:20,762
the Cosmic Background Explorer
Satellite, or COBE.

482
00:32:20,832 --> 00:32:25,030
They pointed it out into space,
where it took the temperature

483
00:32:25,103 --> 00:32:26,161
of the universe.

484
00:32:26,238 --> 00:32:30,106
By measuring differences in
temperature across space,

485
00:32:30,175 --> 00:32:33,872
they created the first map of
our early universe.

486
00:32:33,946 --> 00:32:37,507
The images were called
the Face of God.

487
00:32:37,583 --> 00:32:41,713
We got gorgeous pictures...
baby pictures of the infant

488
00:32:41,787 --> 00:32:45,086
universe when it was
380,000 years of age.

489
00:32:45,157 --> 00:32:46,852
But there were problems with it.

490
00:32:46,925 --> 00:32:48,415
The picture was very fuzzy.

491
00:32:48,493 --> 00:32:54,295
The COBE results were
simply not good enough.

492
00:32:53,366 --> 00:32:55,357
Mission looking good.
Liftoff.

493
00:32:55,435 --> 00:32:58,768
So NASA launched an
even more advanced satellite,

494
00:32:58,838 --> 00:33:03,332
WMAP, the Wilkinson Microwave
Anisotropy Probe.

495
00:33:03,409 --> 00:33:07,470
In 2001, David Spergel was part
of the team looking for a

496
00:33:07,547 --> 00:33:11,244
clearer image of
the early universe.

497
00:33:11,384 --> 00:33:13,511
It was exciting
to go to the Cape.

498
00:33:13,586 --> 00:33:16,919
It was one of these moments we
were sitting there, watching

499
00:33:16,990 --> 00:33:19,481
this... I was there
with my family...

500
00:33:19,559 --> 00:33:20,924
watching the rocket go off.

501
00:33:20,994 --> 00:33:23,986
It was very exciting when,
within about a day, we were able

502
00:33:24,063 --> 00:33:26,998
to get our first signal from the
satellite and know it was

503
00:33:27,066 --> 00:33:29,933
working and working properly.

504
00:33:30,069 --> 00:33:32,731
This is the most
detailed picture of the early

505
00:33:32,805 --> 00:33:37,174
universe ever taken, just
380,000 years after

506
00:33:37,243 --> 00:33:41,043
the Big Bang.

507
00:33:41,114 --> 00:33:44,413
The red and yellow areas
are warmer, the blue and

508
00:33:44,484 --> 00:33:45,473
green regions cooler.

509
00:33:45,551 --> 00:33:48,577
And those temperature
differences are clues to the

510
00:33:48,655 --> 00:33:54,685
future structure
of the universe.

511
00:33:54,761 --> 00:33:57,423
You see tiny
variations in temperature.

512
00:33:57,497 --> 00:34:00,557
Those tiny variations in
temperature reflect small

513
00:34:00,633 --> 00:34:01,827
variations in density.

514
00:34:01,901 --> 00:34:03,391
This region has more matter.

515
00:34:03,469 --> 00:34:05,061
This region has less matter.

516
00:34:05,138 --> 00:34:08,505
Like a blueprint
for the construction of our

517
00:34:08,574 --> 00:34:12,032
universe, this image shows us
where there's more matter and

518
00:34:12,111 --> 00:34:14,739
where there's less.

519
00:34:14,814 --> 00:34:20,411
Regions with no matter will
become empty space.

520
00:34:20,486 --> 00:34:24,479
Areas with denser matter will
become the construction sites of

521
00:34:24,557 --> 00:34:31,326
galaxies, stars, and planets.

522
00:34:31,397 --> 00:34:34,594
These are the fluctuations
that will grow to form galaxies.

523
00:34:34,667 --> 00:34:38,467
So if it wasn't for those little
density fluctuations, you and I

524
00:34:38,538 --> 00:34:43,237
would not be here today.

525
00:35:06,309 --> 00:35:11,508
Our universe is now
380,000 years old and trillions

526
00:35:11,581 --> 00:35:15,745
and trillions of kilometers across.

527
00:35:15,819 --> 00:35:20,916
Clouds of hydrogen and helium
gas float through space.

528
00:35:20,990 --> 00:35:24,756
It will take another
200 million years before those

529
00:35:24,828 --> 00:35:27,524
gases create the first stars.

530
00:35:27,664 --> 00:35:32,727
These first stars ignited the
universe into what must have

531
00:35:32,802 --> 00:35:34,827
been the most
amazing fireworks.

532
00:35:41,378 --> 00:35:46,008
The universe went from the dark
ages to an age of splendor when

533
00:35:46,082 --> 00:35:50,246
the first stars illuminated the
gas and the universe began to

534
00:35:50,320 --> 00:35:52,811
glow in majestic fashion.

535
00:35:52,889 --> 00:35:56,154
I wish I'd been there.

536
00:35:56,226 --> 00:35:59,389
It was like Christmas
tree lights turning on.

537
00:35:59,462 --> 00:36:03,228
The universe began to light up
in all directions, until you

538
00:36:03,299 --> 00:36:07,258
form the beautiful
mosaic we now see today.

539
00:36:14,344 --> 00:36:18,747
More and
more stars turn on.

540
00:36:18,815 --> 00:36:24,685
1 billion years after the Big
Bang, the first galaxy forms.

541
00:36:24,754 --> 00:36:30,920
Over the next 8 billion years,
countless more take shape.

542
00:36:30,994 --> 00:36:36,364
Then about 5 billion years ago,
in a quiet corner of one of

543
00:36:36,433 --> 00:36:44,772
those galaxies, gravity begins
to draw in dust and gas.

544
00:36:44,841 --> 00:36:51,804
Gradually they clump together
and give birth to a star,

545
00:36:51,881 --> 00:36:56,784
our Sun.

546
00:36:56,853 --> 00:37:01,847
9 billion years after the Big
Bang, our tiny solar system

547
00:37:01,925 --> 00:37:08,455
springs to life, and with it,
planet Earth.

548
00:37:08,531 --> 00:37:13,195
Everything there is exists
because of the Big Bang,

549
00:37:13,269 --> 00:37:14,759
and it's still going on.

550
00:37:14,838 --> 00:37:17,773
Our universe is still expanding.

551
00:37:17,841 --> 00:37:21,504
But it won't just
keep going forever.

552
00:37:21,578 --> 00:37:26,914
Our universe had a beginning,
and it will also have an end.

553
00:37:30,122 --> 00:37:33,091
In the 14 billion
years since the Big Bang,

554
00:37:33,159 --> 00:37:38,187
galaxies have been created...

555
00:37:38,264 --> 00:37:41,791
Filled with stars,
planets, and moons.

556
00:37:41,868 --> 00:37:49,297
And the universe has been
expanding the whole time.

557
00:37:49,375 --> 00:37:53,175
We've learned space is quite
big... at least 150 billion

558
00:37:53,246 --> 00:37:55,009
light-years across.

559
00:37:55,081 --> 00:37:57,879
The universe
may be infinite.

560
00:37:57,950 --> 00:38:01,784
It might literally go on
forever.

561
00:38:01,854 --> 00:38:03,981
The answer is there doesn't
have to be anything,

562
00:38:04,056 --> 00:38:04,681
in principle.

563
00:38:04,757 --> 00:38:07,954
The universe could be infinite,
and there's no outside, or it

564
00:38:08,027 --> 00:38:09,426
could be closed on itself.

565
00:38:09,495 --> 00:38:11,520
It could be such that if I
looked far enough in that

566
00:38:11,597 --> 00:38:14,088
direction I'd see
the back of my head.

567
00:38:14,166 --> 00:38:17,033
We may never know
if the Big Bang produced a

568
00:38:17,103 --> 00:38:22,234
universe that goes on forever.

569
00:38:22,308 --> 00:38:27,336
But we do know that the Big
Bang hasn't stopped yet.

570
00:38:27,413 --> 00:38:29,313
The Big Bang is really
continuing now.

571
00:38:29,382 --> 00:38:32,044
We're continuing to bang, if you
want, in the sense that the

572
00:38:32,118 --> 00:38:36,214
expansion of the universe is
continuing.

573
00:38:36,289 --> 00:38:39,486
One of the most astounding
discoveries in the last few

574
00:38:39,559 --> 00:38:43,051
years has been the realization
that our universe is not slowing

575
00:38:43,129 --> 00:38:46,360
down, like we once thought, but
it's actually speeding up.

576
00:38:46,432 --> 00:38:47,626
It's accelerating.

577
00:38:47,700 --> 00:38:50,134
It's in a runaway mode.

578
00:38:50,202 --> 00:38:53,831
We now believe there's something
called dark energy, the energy

579
00:38:53,906 --> 00:38:58,275
of nothing, that is pushing the
galaxies apart and is killing

580
00:38:58,344 --> 00:39:00,608
the universe.

581
00:39:00,680 --> 00:39:03,979
We can't see this
destructive force, and we have

582
00:39:04,050 --> 00:39:07,747
no idea why it exists.

583
00:39:07,820 --> 00:39:11,483
But it could mean the end of
everything created in

584
00:39:11,557 --> 00:39:13,525
the Big Bang.

585
00:39:13,593 --> 00:39:18,326
If dark energy continues
pushing the universe apart, our

586
00:39:18,397 --> 00:39:22,265
Milky Way galaxy could
become a lonely outpost.

587
00:39:22,335 --> 00:39:26,897
100 billion years from now, most
of our galactic neighbors will

588
00:39:26,973 --> 00:39:28,838
be out of sight.

589
00:39:28,908 --> 00:39:31,138
Stars will burn out.

590
00:39:31,210 --> 00:39:33,678
Galaxies will grow dark.

591
00:39:33,746 --> 00:39:36,442
Even atoms will tear apart.

592
00:39:36,515 --> 00:39:41,077
The birth of the universe, the
Big Bang, was over in a flash.

593
00:39:41,153 --> 00:39:47,023
But the death of our universe
will take almost forever.

594
00:39:47,093 --> 00:39:52,190
That great philosopher of the western
world, Woody Allen, once said

595
00:39:52,264 --> 00:40:00,194
eternity is an awful long time,
especially toward the end.

596
00:40:00,272 --> 00:40:03,969
Figuring out how
our universe will end is as dark

597
00:40:04,043 --> 00:40:08,275
a mystery as the Big Bang.

598
00:40:08,347 --> 00:40:12,784
It could collapse back in on
itself, like a balloon when

599
00:40:12,852 --> 00:40:18,484
the air is let out.

600
00:40:18,557 --> 00:40:22,118
So, would the universe end
with a Big Crunch, a reverse of

601
00:40:22,194 --> 00:40:25,891
the Big Bang, or would it end by
expanding out and becoming

602
00:40:25,965 --> 00:40:26,693
cold and dark?

603
00:40:26,766 --> 00:40:30,896
If you wished, would it end in
fire or ice, or with a bang or

604
00:40:30,970 --> 00:40:33,530
a whimper?

605
00:40:33,606 --> 00:40:36,973
If the universe
collapses, it might trigger

606
00:40:37,043 --> 00:40:38,874
another Big Bang.

607
00:40:48,621 --> 00:40:54,491
Maybe that's already happened,
and we're just one in a

608
00:40:54,560 --> 00:40:57,427
long line of universes.

609
00:40:57,496 --> 00:41:01,660
Personally, I believe in
continual genesis... that is,

610
00:41:01,734 --> 00:41:06,262
there's a never-ending process
whereby universes collide, split

611
00:41:06,338 --> 00:41:09,933
apart, give birth to new
universes, perhaps with

612
00:41:10,009 --> 00:41:16,209
different laws of physics within
each universe.

613
00:41:16,282 --> 00:41:18,250
Maybe this isn't the first
time it's happened.

614
00:41:18,317 --> 00:41:20,478
Maybe it's cyclic, and it goes
around and around again,

615
00:41:20,553 --> 00:41:23,283
eventually will collapse,
and the whole thing will

616
00:41:23,355 --> 00:41:24,322
start over again.

617
00:41:24,390 --> 00:41:33,389
One universe or many,
they all start with a Big Bang.

618
00:41:33,466 --> 00:41:36,902
Everything that makes us human...
the atoms in our

619
00:41:36,969 --> 00:41:41,303
bodies, the jewelry we wear, all
the things that lead to the

620
00:41:41,373 --> 00:41:45,275
tragedy of life and the beauty
and the excitement, love,

621
00:41:45,344 --> 00:41:48,905
everything else... arose because
of processes that happened

622
00:41:48,981 --> 00:41:52,178
14 billion years ago.

623
00:41:52,251 --> 00:41:55,516
And if we really want to
understand ourselves at some

624
00:41:55,588 --> 00:42:02,653
fundamental level, we really
have to understand the Big Bang.

625
00:42:02,728 --> 00:42:06,687
14 billion years
ago, the Big Bang created time

626
00:42:06,766 --> 00:42:11,635
and space, our whole vast
universe, and everything in it,

627
00:42:11,704 --> 00:42:18,007
including us.

628
00:42:18,077 --> 00:42:19,806
Some people ask
the question,

629
00:42:19,879 --> 00:42:21,312
"What's in it for me?"

630
00:42:21,380 --> 00:42:25,680
The Big Bang gave us everything
we see around us... the

631
00:42:25,751 --> 00:42:28,686
distribution of
galaxies and stars.

632
00:42:28,754 --> 00:42:32,019
It set into motion the creation
of elements that we see

633
00:42:32,091 --> 00:42:32,682
in the universe.

634
00:42:32,758 --> 00:42:37,593
And even the laws of physics
themselves, we think, were born

635
00:42:37,663 --> 00:42:44,068
at the instant of creation.

636
00:42:44,203 --> 00:42:48,867
Everything started
with the Big Bang, one brief

637
00:42:48,941 --> 00:42:54,573
moment in time 14 billion years
ago, that contains the answers

638
00:42:54,647 --> 00:43:00,017
to our greatest questions about
our past, our present,

639
00:43:00,085 --> 00:43:01,052
and our future.

640
00:43:01,120 --> 00:43:06,990
Each discovery brings us one
step closer to understanding

641
00:43:07,059 --> 00:43:09,323
how the universe works.