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These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated: 1 00:00:01,720 --> 00:00:04,400 We live on one level of existence. 2 00:00:04,560 --> 00:00:06,000 But there are others. 3 00:00:06,160 --> 00:00:09,480 These hidden dimensions of reality are everywhere... 4 00:00:09,639 --> 00:00:13,239 far away, across the light-years, beneath our feet... 5 00:00:13,400 --> 00:00:16,840 and even inside you and me. 6 00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:20,279 We are made of atoms. 7 00:00:21,159 --> 00:00:22,759 There are more atoms in your eye... 8 00:00:22,920 --> 00:00:26,439 than there are stars in all the galaxies of the known universe. 9 00:00:30,879 --> 00:00:35,198 The same is true of any solid object larger than the tip of your little finger. 10 00:00:35,359 --> 00:00:38,998 I'm a collection of 3 billion billion billion... 11 00:00:39,158 --> 00:00:42,518 intricately arranged atoms called Neil deGrasse Tyson. 12 00:00:42,679 --> 00:00:45,958 You're a similar collection with a different name. 13 00:00:46,198 --> 00:00:49,638 We don't usually think of ourselves this way, because that level of reality... 14 00:00:49,798 --> 00:00:51,838 lies beyond the realm of our senses. 15 00:00:51,998 --> 00:00:54,438 But we're not gonna let that stop us. 16 00:00:54,598 --> 00:00:57,797 We can go deeper into the wonder. 17 00:02:38,312 --> 00:02:40,473 Atoms let matter do funny things. 18 00:02:40,632 --> 00:02:43,672 To understand water, you need to know what its atoms are doing. 19 00:02:43,832 --> 00:02:47,193 Every molecule of water is composed of two tiny hydrogen atoms... 20 00:02:47,352 --> 00:02:49,592 attached to a larger oxygen atom. 21 00:02:49,752 --> 00:02:51,552 That's why we call it H20. 22 00:02:52,512 --> 00:02:54,432 If it's not too hot or too cold... 23 00:02:54,592 --> 00:02:57,472 the molecules can slide and tumble past each other. 24 00:02:57,631 --> 00:02:59,591 There's stickiness between the molecules... 25 00:02:59,752 --> 00:03:02,552 but not enough to lock them into a rigid solid. 26 00:03:02,711 --> 00:03:05,152 That's what makes something a liquid. 27 00:03:05,311 --> 00:03:06,831 The sun warms the water. 28 00:03:06,991 --> 00:03:10,271 And with more energy, the molecules move faster. 29 00:03:10,431 --> 00:03:12,191 That's all that temperature is. 30 00:03:12,351 --> 00:03:14,111 Those molecules are moving fast enough... 31 00:03:14,271 --> 00:03:17,031 to break the weak bonds that hold them to their neighbors. 32 00:03:17,191 --> 00:03:18,671 That's evaporation. 33 00:03:18,831 --> 00:03:22,510 The air we breathe is made of nitrogen and oxygen molecules... 34 00:03:22,671 --> 00:03:26,110 with a scattering of water vapor and carbon dioxide. 35 00:03:26,590 --> 00:03:28,150 Incoming! 36 00:03:28,310 --> 00:03:30,110 That's condensation. 37 00:03:30,270 --> 00:03:32,590 A dewdrop is the momentary triumph... 38 00:03:32,750 --> 00:03:34,910 of condensation over evaporation. 39 00:03:35,069 --> 00:03:36,470 And while it lasts... 40 00:03:36,630 --> 00:03:39,869 it's a little cosmos with its own worlds... 41 00:03:40,029 --> 00:03:42,749 creatures, drama. 42 00:03:42,909 --> 00:03:46,030 To explore the far-flung realms of this dewdrop... 43 00:03:46,189 --> 00:03:48,229 we're gonna need a ship. 44 00:03:48,910 --> 00:03:50,589 One with twin engines... 45 00:03:50,749 --> 00:03:53,869 science and imagination. 46 00:03:58,749 --> 00:04:00,468 That's a single-celled paramecium... 47 00:04:01,148 --> 00:04:03,468 one of a multitude of skilled hunter-warriors... 48 00:04:03,628 --> 00:04:05,708 that roam the dewdrop. 49 00:04:05,868 --> 00:04:08,109 But they too are hunted. 50 00:04:10,308 --> 00:04:11,548 The Dileptus... 51 00:04:11,708 --> 00:04:13,628 the paramecium's mortal enemy. 52 00:04:13,788 --> 00:04:16,627 The paramecium might get lucky and score a direct hit. 53 00:04:16,788 --> 00:04:17,788 Even if it doesn't... 54 00:04:17,948 --> 00:04:20,187 the recoil from the barrage will put some distance... 55 00:04:20,347 --> 00:04:22,908 between the paramecium and its attacker. 56 00:04:25,388 --> 00:04:26,907 What can I say? 57 00:04:27,067 --> 00:04:28,627 That's life in the dewdrop. 58 00:04:40,346 --> 00:04:42,586 That little guy is a tardigrade... 59 00:04:43,587 --> 00:04:46,426 an animal smaller than the head of a pin. 60 00:04:48,827 --> 00:04:50,506 Don't underestimate them. 61 00:04:50,666 --> 00:04:53,866 Tardigrades have been living on this planet a lot longer than we have. 62 00:04:54,026 --> 00:04:56,746 About 500 million years. 63 00:04:59,145 --> 00:05:00,665 For every one of us... 64 00:05:00,826 --> 00:05:04,026 there's at least a billion of them. 65 00:05:06,906 --> 00:05:08,865 They can make a living anywhere on Earth... 66 00:05:09,025 --> 00:05:11,425 in the frigid peaks of the tallest mountains... 67 00:05:11,585 --> 00:05:13,905 in the cauldrons of erupting volcanoes... 68 00:05:14,065 --> 00:05:16,265 the deep ocean vents at the bottom of the sea. 69 00:05:16,425 --> 00:05:17,625 Tardigrades are so tough... 70 00:05:17,784 --> 00:05:20,944 they can survive naked in the vacuum of space. 71 00:05:21,265 --> 00:05:22,985 They've survived all five... 72 00:05:23,144 --> 00:05:26,144 of the most recent mass extinctions on this planet. 73 00:05:26,304 --> 00:05:28,585 A visitor from another world could be forgiven... 74 00:05:28,865 --> 00:05:32,585 for thinking of Earth as the planet of the tardigrades. 75 00:05:35,544 --> 00:05:39,224 If we're ever gonna get to the bottom of this dewdrop, better get a move on. 76 00:05:42,424 --> 00:05:46,583 Every leaf and tiny clump of moss has hundreds of thousands... 77 00:05:46,743 --> 00:05:49,463 of microscopic mouths called stomata. 78 00:05:49,623 --> 00:05:52,543 Plants breathe through them, taking in carbon dioxide... 79 00:05:52,703 --> 00:05:55,143 and exhaling the oxygen that we need to live. 80 00:05:55,863 --> 00:05:57,943 The plants can survive without us. 81 00:05:58,102 --> 00:05:59,622 But we and all the other animals... 82 00:05:59,783 --> 00:06:02,143 we d be toast without them. 83 00:06:02,703 --> 00:06:05,303 The plants make food out of sunlight. 84 00:06:05,463 --> 00:06:06,983 We animals can't do that. 85 00:06:07,143 --> 00:06:08,742 To see how they do it... 86 00:06:08,903 --> 00:06:10,302 we have to go deeper... 87 00:06:10,462 --> 00:06:13,102 make ourselves about a thousand times smaller... 88 00:06:13,262 --> 00:06:15,062 to get into their treasure house... 89 00:06:15,222 --> 00:06:18,902 the place where they keep the good stuff, the chlorophyll. 90 00:06:19,062 --> 00:06:22,902 That's the molecule that converts sunlight into energy. 91 00:06:25,661 --> 00:06:27,942 Every one of those rectangles is a plant cell. 92 00:06:28,102 --> 00:06:29,622 And those tiny green vehicles... 93 00:06:29,781 --> 00:06:32,502 are its energy factories. 94 00:06:32,661 --> 00:06:36,941 If we could steal their trade secrets, it would trigger a new Industrial Revolution. 95 00:06:37,141 --> 00:06:40,181 But to spy on them, we're gonna need to go deeper still. 96 00:06:52,860 --> 00:06:57,420 What alien world has the Ship of the Imagination carried us to this time? 97 00:06:57,580 --> 00:06:59,660 It's the cosmos... 98 00:06:59,819 --> 00:07:02,859 contained within a dewdrop. 99 00:07:03,659 --> 00:07:05,940 We're on an industrial espionage mission. 100 00:07:06,900 --> 00:07:08,659 If we can penetrate the trade secrets... 101 00:07:08,820 --> 00:07:11,219 of the manufacturing process in that chloroplast... 102 00:07:11,379 --> 00:07:13,939 let's just say our whole future hangs in the balance. 103 00:07:15,059 --> 00:07:17,139 This chloroplast is using sunlight... 104 00:07:17,299 --> 00:07:21,259 to break water molecules into atoms of hydrogen and oxygen. 105 00:07:21,419 --> 00:07:24,938 It combines the hydrogen with carbon dioxide to make sugar... 106 00:07:25,099 --> 00:07:27,499 and releases the oxygen as a waste product. 107 00:07:27,658 --> 00:07:30,738 To see how it happens, we have to go even deeper... 108 00:07:30,899 --> 00:07:32,538 get even smaller. 109 00:07:32,699 --> 00:07:35,338 We're talking atomic scale. 110 00:07:35,498 --> 00:07:36,578 Bingo. 111 00:07:36,738 --> 00:07:38,778 This assembly line is the heart... 112 00:07:38,938 --> 00:07:41,298 of the molecular industrial complex. 113 00:07:41,458 --> 00:07:42,578 At the molecular level... 114 00:07:43,178 --> 00:07:45,458 things happen too fast for us to see... 115 00:07:45,617 --> 00:07:48,978 so we'll have to slow them down about a billion times. 116 00:07:52,057 --> 00:07:54,378 Those larger molecules are carbon dioxide. 117 00:07:54,537 --> 00:07:57,737 Each one of them is made of one carbon and two oxygen atoms. 118 00:07:57,897 --> 00:08:00,497 When sunlight strikes a green molecule of chlorophyll... 119 00:08:00,657 --> 00:08:03,337 it sets in motion a series of chemical reactions... 120 00:08:03,497 --> 00:08:05,137 breaking apart water molecules... 121 00:08:05,297 --> 00:08:08,097 and freeing energetic electrons. 122 00:08:09,577 --> 00:08:11,056 And that's just the day shift... 123 00:08:11,217 --> 00:08:14,056 when sunlight supplies the incoming stream of energy. 124 00:08:14,416 --> 00:08:16,976 There's a second shift that works day and night... 125 00:08:17,136 --> 00:08:20,256 using the solar energy kept in reserve. 126 00:08:21,376 --> 00:08:23,615 The energy of the free electrons is put to work... 127 00:08:23,776 --> 00:08:27,455 combining carbon dioxide with hydrogen from the water. 128 00:08:27,615 --> 00:08:29,655 The end product is sugar... 129 00:08:29,815 --> 00:08:32,336 which stores the solar energy. 130 00:08:32,655 --> 00:08:37,535 The chloroplast is a 3-billion-year-old solar energy collector. 131 00:08:37,695 --> 00:08:39,855 This submicroscopic solar battery... 132 00:08:40,015 --> 00:08:42,975 is what drives all the forests and the fields... 133 00:08:43,135 --> 00:08:45,014 and the plankton of the seas... 134 00:08:45,175 --> 00:08:48,334 and the animals, including us. 135 00:08:48,495 --> 00:08:51,894 The solar-powered biosphere collects and processes... 136 00:08:52,054 --> 00:08:55,774 six times more power than our entire civilization. 137 00:08:55,935 --> 00:08:59,214 We understand on a chemical level how photosynthesis works. 138 00:08:59,374 --> 00:09:01,934 We can re-create the process in a laboratory... 139 00:09:02,094 --> 00:09:04,654 but we re not as good at it as plants are. 140 00:09:04,814 --> 00:09:05,973 And that's not surprising... 141 00:09:06,133 --> 00:09:09,054 considering nature's been at this for billions of years... 142 00:09:09,214 --> 00:09:10,693 and we've only just started. 143 00:09:10,854 --> 00:09:14,334 But if we could figure out the trade secrets of photosynthesis... 144 00:09:14,493 --> 00:09:17,933 every other source of energy we depend on today... 145 00:09:18,093 --> 00:09:20,613 coal, oil, natural gas... 146 00:09:20,773 --> 00:09:22,733 would become obsolete. 147 00:09:22,893 --> 00:09:25,973 Photosynthesis is the ultimate green power. 148 00:09:26,132 --> 00:09:27,493 It doesn't pollute the air... 149 00:09:27,652 --> 00:09:29,533 and is, in fact, carbon neutral. 150 00:09:29,693 --> 00:09:31,831 Artificial photosynthesis, on a big enough 151 00:09:31,842 --> 00:09:34,092 scale, could reduce the greenhouse effect... 152 00:09:34,252 --> 00:09:37,373 that's driving climate change in a dangerous direction. 153 00:09:38,092 --> 00:09:41,772 Uh-oh. Place is evaporating. Time to get out of here. 154 00:09:43,932 --> 00:09:46,412 How fleeting is the life of a dewdrop. 155 00:09:46,571 --> 00:09:49,252 It condenses from thin air in the cool of the night... 156 00:09:49,412 --> 00:09:51,772 only to vanish with the heat of the day. 157 00:09:51,931 --> 00:09:54,571 And what of its inhabitants, the tardigrades? 158 00:09:54,731 --> 00:09:55,891 They'll be fine. 159 00:09:56,051 --> 00:09:57,771 They can go without water for years. 160 00:10:00,091 --> 00:10:03,451 It's hard to imagine, but plants covered the surface of the Earth... 161 00:10:03,611 --> 00:10:05,611 for hundreds of millions of years... 162 00:10:05,770 --> 00:10:08,451 before they put forth their first flower. 163 00:10:08,731 --> 00:10:11,290 That was about a hundred million years ago... 164 00:10:11,451 --> 00:10:13,851 shortly before the dinosaurs were wiped out. 165 00:10:14,531 --> 00:10:17,850 Our world must've been a relatively drab-looking place back then... 166 00:10:18,010 --> 00:10:21,050 dominated by shades of green and brown. 167 00:10:21,210 --> 00:10:25,130 Yeah, there were giant trees and ferns and other plant life... 168 00:10:25,290 --> 00:10:27,530 but not the purple of an iris... 169 00:10:27,690 --> 00:10:30,370 or the crimson of a red, red rose. 170 00:10:37,529 --> 00:10:41,889 Orchids were among the first flowering species to appear on Earth... 171 00:10:42,049 --> 00:10:44,329 and they're the most diverse. 172 00:10:45,969 --> 00:10:50,249 Darwin was particularly fascinated by the comet orchid of Madagascar... 173 00:10:50,409 --> 00:10:53,128 a flower whose pollen is hidden at the bottom... 174 00:10:53,289 --> 00:10:56,609 of a very long, thin spur. 175 00:10:57,888 --> 00:11:01,928 There can be no stronger test of an idea than its predictive power. 176 00:11:02,088 --> 00:11:05,128 On the basis of his theory of evolution through natural selection... 177 00:11:05,288 --> 00:11:09,168 Darwin speculated that somewhere on the island of Madagascar... 178 00:11:09,328 --> 00:11:11,368 there must live flying insects... 179 00:11:11,528 --> 00:11:14,128 with extraordinarily lengthy tongues... 180 00:11:14,288 --> 00:11:16,768 ones long enough to reach the pollen. 181 00:11:16,928 --> 00:11:19,528 No one had ever seen such a beast there... 182 00:11:19,687 --> 00:11:24,287 but Darwin insisted that an animal fitting this description must exist. 183 00:11:24,447 --> 00:11:26,807 Few people at the time believed him. 184 00:11:26,967 --> 00:11:29,607 It wasn't until more than 50 years later... 185 00:11:29,767 --> 00:11:31,687 that Darwin was proven right. 186 00:11:32,647 --> 00:11:37,166 In 1903, a huge hawk moth called the Morgan's sphinx... 187 00:11:37,327 --> 00:11:39,606 was discovered in Madagascar. 188 00:11:39,766 --> 00:11:42,006 Attracted by the comet orchid's scent... 189 00:11:42,167 --> 00:11:45,846 the moth slurps its pollen with its foot-long tongue... 190 00:11:46,006 --> 00:11:48,606 exactly as Darwin expected it would. 191 00:11:53,246 --> 00:11:56,646 It's even more amazing that the Morgan's sphinx was discovered... 192 00:11:56,806 --> 00:12:00,005 when you consider that more than 90 percent of Madagascar's rain forests... 193 00:12:00,165 --> 00:12:02,085 have been destroyed. 194 00:12:02,245 --> 00:12:04,485 In the years since Darwin's famous prediction... 195 00:12:04,965 --> 00:12:09,445 this moth species could have easily become extinct with all the others... 196 00:12:09,604 --> 00:12:13,405 every one of them a unique phrase of life's poetry... 197 00:12:13,565 --> 00:12:17,245 written in the atoms by eons of evolution. 198 00:12:22,924 --> 00:12:25,204 Ah, the fragrance of lilacs. 199 00:12:25,365 --> 00:12:29,404 It's one of those scents that triggers a whole constellation of associations... 200 00:12:29,564 --> 00:12:32,404 all those Junes of long ago. 201 00:12:32,564 --> 00:12:33,844 But how does that happen? 202 00:12:34,004 --> 00:12:37,603 How does a smell prompt a movie to start running in your head? 203 00:12:37,763 --> 00:12:39,403 It's not something we can see. 204 00:12:39,563 --> 00:12:42,084 Could it be a wave of energy, like light? 205 00:12:42,243 --> 00:12:44,923 Or is it some kind of microscopic particle? 206 00:12:45,083 --> 00:12:46,483 It's actually a molecule. 207 00:12:46,963 --> 00:12:51,442 Every odor we can sense, whether it comes from burnt toast, gasoline... 208 00:12:51,603 --> 00:12:53,762 or a field of lilacs... 209 00:12:53,922 --> 00:12:55,682 it's a cloud of molecules. 210 00:12:56,522 --> 00:12:59,923 These molecules have particular shapes. 211 00:13:00,082 --> 00:13:01,082 When I inhale them... 212 00:13:01,242 --> 00:13:05,322 they stimulate a particular set of receptor cells in my nose. 213 00:13:06,162 --> 00:13:08,802 An electrical signal then travels to my brain... 214 00:13:08,962 --> 00:13:12,482 which identifies this scent as lilac. 215 00:13:15,402 --> 00:13:19,281 Other scents are carried by different molecules with different shapes. 216 00:13:19,441 --> 00:13:21,042 But when I smell a flower... 217 00:13:21,201 --> 00:13:24,322 or the smoke from a campfire, or the grease of a motor gear... 218 00:13:24,481 --> 00:13:27,081 I'm often flooded with memories. 219 00:13:28,281 --> 00:13:31,841 Why is it that a simple thing, such as the scent of a flower... 220 00:13:32,001 --> 00:13:34,721 can trigger powerful memories? 221 00:13:37,120 --> 00:13:40,641 It has to do with the way our brains have evolved. 222 00:13:40,800 --> 00:13:42,480 Our sense of smell kicks in... 223 00:13:42,640 --> 00:13:46,120 when the olfactory nerve in our brain is stimulated. 224 00:13:47,040 --> 00:13:50,280 That nerve is located very close to the amygdala... 225 00:13:50,440 --> 00:13:53,600 a structure that is integral to our experience of emotion. 226 00:13:55,680 --> 00:13:58,000 It's also very close to the hippocampus... 227 00:13:58,160 --> 00:14:00,719 which helps us form memories. 228 00:14:03,239 --> 00:14:05,639 The network of neurons that carry the scent signal... 229 00:14:05,799 --> 00:14:08,479 from my nose to my brain has been fine-tuned... 230 00:14:08,639 --> 00:14:12,119 over hundreds of millions of years of evolution. 231 00:14:13,479 --> 00:14:14,999 It's a survival mechanism... 232 00:14:15,159 --> 00:14:18,639 that can alert us to danger or guide us to safety. 233 00:14:21,158 --> 00:14:25,079 If you can detect the predator before he's near enough to strike... 234 00:14:25,518 --> 00:14:27,918 or the fire before it traps you in the forest... 235 00:14:28,078 --> 00:14:31,198 you have a much better chance to survive and pass on your genes... 236 00:14:31,358 --> 00:14:33,438 to the next generation. 237 00:14:38,277 --> 00:14:40,678 That lovely scent from this field of flowers... 238 00:14:40,838 --> 00:14:43,998 sets off a unique combination of nerve signals. 239 00:14:44,157 --> 00:14:47,397 Only that exact combination can crack the safe... 240 00:14:47,557 --> 00:14:51,517 where the memory of lilacs is stored inside my brain. 241 00:14:55,676 --> 00:14:57,717 Wonder who they're for. 242 00:14:58,276 --> 00:14:59,917 Maybe we'll find out later. 243 00:15:00,076 --> 00:15:04,596 But first, there's another hidden cosmos waiting for us. 244 00:15:25,435 --> 00:15:28,195 The plants are softly breathing... 245 00:15:28,355 --> 00:15:30,636 inhaling molecules of carbon dioxide... 246 00:15:30,795 --> 00:15:33,115 and exhaling molecules of oxygen. 247 00:15:33,275 --> 00:15:35,275 And I'm doing the opposite. 248 00:15:35,435 --> 00:15:37,995 Unlike snowflakes and fingerprints... 249 00:15:38,155 --> 00:15:42,594 atoms or molecules of the same kind are utterly identical to one another. 250 00:15:42,754 --> 00:15:44,154 With every breath we take... 251 00:15:44,315 --> 00:15:47,114 we inhale as many molecules as there are stars... 252 00:15:47,274 --> 00:15:49,754 in all the galaxies in the visible universe. 253 00:15:49,914 --> 00:15:53,274 And every breath we exhale is circulated through the air... 254 00:15:53,434 --> 00:15:55,753 and, mixed gradually across the continents... 255 00:15:55,914 --> 00:15:58,674 becomes available for others to breathe. 256 00:15:59,193 --> 00:16:00,794 Breathe with me. 257 00:16:10,873 --> 00:16:13,993 We all just inhaled about a hundred million molecules... 258 00:16:14,153 --> 00:16:17,993 that once passed through the lungs of everyone who ever lived before us. 259 00:16:18,153 --> 00:16:21,313 Think of it. This kind of atomic reincarnation... 260 00:16:21,473 --> 00:16:23,833 is another link to our distant ancestors... 261 00:16:23,992 --> 00:16:26,752 including those who first launched us on our explorations... 262 00:16:26,912 --> 00:16:28,832 of the unseen universes. 263 00:16:28,992 --> 00:16:32,472 These universes are as real as you or me... 264 00:16:32,632 --> 00:16:34,352 and they surround us. 265 00:16:38,712 --> 00:16:43,992 There was a moment when we awakened to a new way of thinking and seeing. 266 00:16:44,151 --> 00:16:46,992 It happened about 2500 years ago... 267 00:16:47,152 --> 00:16:50,511 on the Greek islands that lie between the empires of the East... 268 00:16:50,671 --> 00:16:52,191 and the West. 269 00:16:52,351 --> 00:16:55,791 There, merchants, tourists and sailors freely mingled... 270 00:16:55,951 --> 00:16:59,110 exchanging tales of great kings and gods. 271 00:16:59,271 --> 00:17:03,311 In Ionian cities and towns like Miletus, in what is now Turkey... 272 00:17:03,471 --> 00:17:06,670 the most fundamental elements of the way we live now... 273 00:17:06,830 --> 00:17:07,831 first appeared. 274 00:17:11,310 --> 00:17:15,270 Here, for the first time, reenactments of aspects of life... 275 00:17:15,790 --> 00:17:18,070 created and executed by professionals... 276 00:17:18,230 --> 00:17:22,549 with the expectation of touching something deep within the hearts of the audience... 277 00:17:22,950 --> 00:17:24,229 or just making them laugh. 278 00:17:25,550 --> 00:17:29,670 The first plays, dramas and comedies were performed. 279 00:17:29,829 --> 00:17:32,629 Here also was born a radical new idea... 280 00:17:32,789 --> 00:17:34,709 government by the people. 281 00:17:34,869 --> 00:17:38,669 The first inklings, imperfect then as now, of a democracy... 282 00:17:38,829 --> 00:17:42,748 and the notion that the ordinary citizen might possess certain rights... 283 00:17:42,909 --> 00:17:46,188 come to us from this time and place. 284 00:17:47,349 --> 00:17:50,548 But in my view, the most revolutionary innovation of all... 285 00:17:50,708 --> 00:17:52,948 to come to us from this ancient world... 286 00:17:53,109 --> 00:17:55,388 was the idea that natural events... 287 00:17:55,548 --> 00:17:57,588 were neither punishment nor reward... 288 00:17:57,748 --> 00:17:59,868 from the capricious gods. 289 00:18:00,308 --> 00:18:02,548 The workings of nature could be explained... 290 00:18:02,708 --> 00:18:05,548 without invoking the supernatural. 291 00:18:06,027 --> 00:18:09,907 The first person to express this thought was a man named Thales. 292 00:18:10,067 --> 00:18:12,107 When the thunder clapped or the earth quaked... 293 00:18:12,507 --> 00:18:15,547 it was not because something you did had somehow displeased... 294 00:18:15,707 --> 00:18:17,707 the very demanding gods. No. 295 00:18:17,867 --> 00:18:20,067 It was the result of natural processes... 296 00:18:20,227 --> 00:18:22,707 that we were capable of understanding. 297 00:18:22,867 --> 00:18:25,827 Though none of the books he is said to have written survive... 298 00:18:25,987 --> 00:18:29,746 Thales kindled a flame that still burns to this day. 299 00:18:29,906 --> 00:18:32,826 The very idea of cosmos out of chaos... 300 00:18:32,986 --> 00:18:35,746 a universe governed by the order of natural laws... 301 00:18:35,907 --> 00:18:38,386 that we could actually figure out... 302 00:18:38,546 --> 00:18:40,466 this is the epic adventure... 303 00:18:40,626 --> 00:18:42,946 that began in the mind of Thales. 304 00:18:44,466 --> 00:18:46,745 Only a century following Thales death... 305 00:18:46,905 --> 00:18:48,585 another genius came along. 306 00:18:48,746 --> 00:18:50,306 And he, more than any other... 307 00:18:50,465 --> 00:18:52,505 was the first to discover the existence... 308 00:18:52,665 --> 00:18:55,825 of the hidden universes that surround us. 309 00:18:56,225 --> 00:18:59,545 Democritus of Abdera was a true scientist... 310 00:18:59,705 --> 00:19:02,664 a man with a passionate desire to know the cosmos... 311 00:19:02,825 --> 00:19:04,505 and to have fun. 312 00:19:04,665 --> 00:19:07,825 This is the man who once said, "A life without parties... 313 00:19:07,985 --> 00:19:10,865 would be like an endless road without an inn." 314 00:19:11,224 --> 00:19:12,944 You mean, that's it? 315 00:19:13,104 --> 00:19:14,144 That's all there is? 316 00:19:14,305 --> 00:19:16,584 Just a bunch of atoms in a void? 317 00:19:16,744 --> 00:19:17,744 Yep. 318 00:19:19,504 --> 00:19:22,064 Well, think about it. The world has to be made... 319 00:19:22,224 --> 00:19:25,464 of countless indivisible particles in a void. 320 00:19:25,624 --> 00:19:28,063 Otherwise, nothing could move or grow... 321 00:19:28,223 --> 00:19:30,823 be divided or changed. 322 00:19:31,503 --> 00:19:34,383 Without atoms and empty space for them to move in... 323 00:19:34,543 --> 00:19:38,023 the world would be solid, static and dead. 324 00:19:38,183 --> 00:19:40,143 So don't be sad, my friend. 325 00:19:40,303 --> 00:19:42,583 Just think of the infinite possibilities... 326 00:19:42,743 --> 00:19:47,063 that arise from different arrangements of those atoms. 327 00:19:50,463 --> 00:19:53,542 Here's to the atoms in this cup... 328 00:19:53,702 --> 00:19:55,822 and in this wine... 329 00:19:55,983 --> 00:19:58,702 and to the laughter they make possible. 330 00:20:00,982 --> 00:20:05,142 Dispersed through the clay of the cup are microscopic mineral grains... 331 00:20:05,302 --> 00:20:06,861 different kinds of crystals... 332 00:20:07,022 --> 00:20:10,701 each with its own distinctive atomic architecture. 333 00:20:11,342 --> 00:20:13,341 Mineral structures are exquisite... 334 00:20:13,501 --> 00:20:15,941 but they have a limited repertoire. 335 00:20:16,101 --> 00:20:19,901 A grain of quartz is a lattice of the same three atoms repeated... 336 00:20:20,061 --> 00:20:23,501 without variation, over and over again. 337 00:20:25,100 --> 00:20:28,421 Even a relatively complex mineral lattice like topaz... 338 00:20:28,581 --> 00:20:30,420 composed of 10 or so atoms... 339 00:20:30,580 --> 00:20:33,261 can only repeat the identical atomic structure... 340 00:20:33,421 --> 00:20:35,420 again and again. 341 00:20:39,140 --> 00:20:41,220 To lift matter to another dimension... 342 00:20:41,380 --> 00:20:44,460 to free it from the lattice prison of endless repetition... 343 00:20:44,620 --> 00:20:47,220 you need an atom that can bond in all directions... 344 00:20:47,380 --> 00:20:51,979 with other atoms like itself, as well as with atoms of different kinds. 345 00:20:58,739 --> 00:21:01,179 Behold, the carbon atom. 346 00:21:01,339 --> 00:21:04,219 The essential element for life on Earth. 347 00:21:04,379 --> 00:21:05,779 Why? 348 00:21:06,659 --> 00:21:11,139 Carbon is special because it can bond with up to four other atoms at a time. 349 00:21:11,298 --> 00:21:13,859 It can connect with many different kinds of atoms... 350 00:21:14,019 --> 00:21:16,619 was well as other carbon atoms. 351 00:21:17,098 --> 00:21:20,378 It can curl into rings and string together into chains... 352 00:21:20,538 --> 00:21:25,017 building molecules far more complex than any crystal. 353 00:21:27,658 --> 00:21:30,377 No other atom has the same flexibility. 354 00:21:30,537 --> 00:21:34,217 Even atoms that have similar chemical properties, like silicon... 355 00:21:34,377 --> 00:21:38,577 can't form the amazing variety of molecules built on carbon. 356 00:21:38,737 --> 00:21:41,097 The carbon-based molecules we call proteins... 357 00:21:41,257 --> 00:21:42,617 the molecules of life... 358 00:21:42,777 --> 00:21:47,177 contain literally hundreds of thousands of atoms. 359 00:21:47,577 --> 00:21:49,897 Carbon atoms are the backbone of the molecules... 360 00:21:50,057 --> 00:21:54,416 that make every living thing on Earth, including us. 361 00:21:54,656 --> 00:21:58,256 That's the difference between rocks and living things. 362 00:21:59,336 --> 00:22:03,936 Life can make enormous molecules of stunning size and complexity... 363 00:22:04,096 --> 00:22:10,616 freeing matter to improvise, evolve and even love. 364 00:22:41,214 --> 00:22:43,014 Take it easy, Dad. 365 00:22:43,174 --> 00:22:45,094 He never actually touched her. 366 00:22:45,254 --> 00:22:47,494 In everyday life on our world... 367 00:22:47,654 --> 00:22:48,933 on the scale of atoms... 368 00:22:49,093 --> 00:22:52,533 material objects never really touch. 369 00:22:53,053 --> 00:22:55,853 Each atom has a tiny nucleus at its center... 370 00:22:56,014 --> 00:22:59,813 surrounded by an electron cloud of lines of force. 371 00:22:59,973 --> 00:23:01,733 As the atoms approach each other... 372 00:23:01,893 --> 00:23:05,253 the boy's electron clouds push away the girl's. 373 00:23:05,413 --> 00:23:08,773 More than 99.9 percent of the matter of any atom... 374 00:23:08,933 --> 00:23:11,452 is concentrated in its nucleus. 375 00:23:12,053 --> 00:23:14,572 The nucleus is surrounded by an electron cloud... 376 00:23:14,732 --> 00:23:19,292 which produces an invisible field of force and acts like a shock absorber. 377 00:23:19,452 --> 00:23:23,692 The configuration of the electron cloud determines the nature of an element. 378 00:23:23,852 --> 00:23:28,252 In the ordinary course of things here on Earth, the nuclei never touch. 379 00:23:28,412 --> 00:23:30,052 We have a sensation of touching... 380 00:23:30,211 --> 00:23:32,702 but that's really just our invisible force 381 00:23:32,713 --> 00:23:35,331 fields overlapping and repelling each other. 382 00:23:50,611 --> 00:23:54,370 The nucleus is very small compared to the rest of the atom. 383 00:23:55,811 --> 00:23:59,170 If an atom were the size of this cathedral, its nucleus... 384 00:23:59,330 --> 00:24:03,170 would be the size of that mote of dust. 385 00:24:05,250 --> 00:24:08,690 An atom is mostly empty space. 386 00:24:09,569 --> 00:24:11,610 To understand the nature of matter... 387 00:24:11,769 --> 00:24:13,450 we have to go deeper still... 388 00:24:13,610 --> 00:24:17,210 to a place 100,000 times smaller than the atom: 389 00:24:17,370 --> 00:24:18,489 its nucleus. 390 00:24:21,569 --> 00:24:25,449 The simplest and most plentiful atom in the cosmos is hydrogen. 391 00:24:25,609 --> 00:24:27,969 It's nucleus is a single proton... 392 00:24:28,129 --> 00:24:30,889 which makes hydrogen element number one. 393 00:24:31,049 --> 00:24:32,449 The clouds that surround it... 394 00:24:32,608 --> 00:24:37,209 are the realms where this atom's lone electron is permitted to roam. 395 00:24:37,448 --> 00:24:40,529 What happens when you have a nucleus with two protons? 396 00:24:40,689 --> 00:24:42,169 Protons repel each other. 397 00:24:42,329 --> 00:24:44,328 In order to hold them together in a nucleus... 398 00:24:44,488 --> 00:24:47,768 you need other particles called neutrons. 399 00:24:47,928 --> 00:24:51,488 Their job is to keep the proton from getting out of line. 400 00:24:51,648 --> 00:24:56,327 They overwhelm the protons with their strong attractive nuclear force. 401 00:24:56,487 --> 00:24:59,367 A nucleus with two protons is element number two... 402 00:24:59,527 --> 00:25:01,567 otherwise known as helium. 403 00:25:01,727 --> 00:25:05,088 A nucleus with six protons is element number six... 404 00:25:05,247 --> 00:25:09,327 which is carbon, the fundamental building block of life. 405 00:25:09,487 --> 00:25:12,567 The nucleus of a gold atom has 79 protons. 406 00:25:12,727 --> 00:25:16,327 They attract 79 electrons in clouds around it. 407 00:25:16,486 --> 00:25:21,206 The way light interacts with those electrons is what makes gold glitter. 408 00:25:21,646 --> 00:25:24,055 Every additional proton in the nucleus 409 00:25:24,067 --> 00:25:27,046 requires enough neutrons to bind them together. 410 00:25:27,206 --> 00:25:28,286 Up to a point. 411 00:25:28,606 --> 00:25:32,125 There's an upper limit to the number of neutrons you can stuff into a nucleus... 412 00:25:32,286 --> 00:25:34,725 before it becomes unstable. 413 00:25:34,885 --> 00:25:37,852 I know a place where the nuclei of different 414 00:25:37,863 --> 00:25:40,245 atoms actually do touch each other. 415 00:25:59,485 --> 00:26:01,965 The sun looks like a solid object... 416 00:26:02,125 --> 00:26:03,884 but it's not. 417 00:26:04,124 --> 00:26:08,284 It's so hot that all its atoms are always in their gaseous state. 418 00:26:08,444 --> 00:26:11,644 The bonds that join atoms to make solids and liquids on Earth... 419 00:26:11,804 --> 00:26:16,324 are not strong enough to withstand the heat of the broiling sun. 420 00:26:16,764 --> 00:26:20,884 Those arcing streams of incandescent gas that dwarf the Earth... 421 00:26:21,044 --> 00:26:23,244 are guided by magnetic lines of force... 422 00:26:23,404 --> 00:26:26,523 that emanate from below the surface of the sun. 423 00:26:26,843 --> 00:26:28,563 Why is the sun so hot? 424 00:26:28,723 --> 00:26:33,763 Because its own stupendous gravity is squeezing its atoms together. 425 00:26:35,482 --> 00:26:39,882 The energy of gravity is being transformed into the energy of moving atoms. 426 00:26:40,042 --> 00:26:42,362 That's what heat is. 427 00:26:42,522 --> 00:26:44,282 The deeper we go into the sun... 428 00:26:44,442 --> 00:26:48,162 the greater the squeezing and the higher the temperature. 429 00:26:48,322 --> 00:26:49,682 In the heart of the sun... 430 00:26:49,842 --> 00:26:54,122 the atoms are moving so fast that when they collide, they fuse. 431 00:26:54,281 --> 00:26:56,642 Their nuclei touch. 432 00:26:57,682 --> 00:27:00,481 The sun is a nuclear fusion reactor... 433 00:27:00,642 --> 00:27:02,801 held together by its own gravity. 434 00:27:02,961 --> 00:27:06,042 It's balanced between the inward pull of gravity... 435 00:27:06,201 --> 00:27:09,561 and the outward push of its hot gases. 436 00:27:12,401 --> 00:27:15,201 That balance has lasted billions of years... 437 00:27:15,361 --> 00:27:18,801 providing stability that made possible the evolution of life on Earth. 438 00:27:19,561 --> 00:27:21,121 In the sun's core... 439 00:27:21,280 --> 00:27:26,000 the fusion of hydrogen into helium releases nuclear energy in the form of photons. 440 00:27:26,160 --> 00:27:29,400 These particles of light slowly work their way to the surface... 441 00:27:29,560 --> 00:27:31,480 where they're seen as sunlight. 442 00:27:31,640 --> 00:27:34,840 Helium is the ash of the sun's nuclear furnace. 443 00:27:36,799 --> 00:27:38,719 The sun is a medium-sized star. 444 00:27:38,880 --> 00:27:42,039 It's core is only a lukewarm 10 million degrees. 445 00:27:42,200 --> 00:27:45,240 Hot enough to fuse hydrogen, but too cold to fuse helium. 446 00:27:46,159 --> 00:27:48,799 There are many stars in the galaxy that get much hotter... 447 00:27:48,960 --> 00:27:52,079 because they're more massive and have more gravity. 448 00:27:52,239 --> 00:27:57,239 Such stars fuse helium into heavier elements, like carbon and oxygen. 449 00:27:57,399 --> 00:28:01,399 In their old age, they gently diffuse these elements into space. 450 00:28:03,718 --> 00:28:07,798 Other stars, more massive yet, live fast and die young... 451 00:28:07,958 --> 00:28:09,998 in cataclysmic supernova explosions. 452 00:28:10,639 --> 00:28:14,438 In our galaxy, such stars go supernova about once a century. 453 00:28:16,118 --> 00:28:19,877 Those explosions are far hotter than the core of the sun. 454 00:28:20,038 --> 00:28:24,517 Hot enough to transform elements like iron into all the heavier ones... 455 00:28:24,677 --> 00:28:27,437 and spew them into space. 456 00:28:27,597 --> 00:28:28,957 The Large Magellanic Cloud... 457 00:28:29,117 --> 00:28:31,397 is a neighboring galaxy of our Milky Way. 458 00:28:31,557 --> 00:28:33,877 It's visible in the skies of the southern hemisphere. 459 00:28:34,557 --> 00:28:36,436 When a supernova explodes... 460 00:28:36,597 --> 00:28:40,597 its brightness rivals that of its entire galaxy. 461 00:28:50,796 --> 00:28:56,036 But all that light is only about 1 percent of the energy liberated in the explosion. 462 00:28:56,196 --> 00:28:58,956 The rest of the energy is carried off by the most common... 463 00:28:59,116 --> 00:29:01,796 and the most mysterious particles in the cosmos. 464 00:29:01,955 --> 00:29:04,555 There are trillions of them passing through you right now. 465 00:29:04,715 --> 00:29:07,035 And yet tracking down even one of them... 466 00:29:07,195 --> 00:29:10,515 will take us to one of the strangest places on Earth. 467 00:29:19,634 --> 00:29:23,514 Stalking the wild neutrino is the rarest of sport. 468 00:29:23,675 --> 00:29:27,474 The lengths one must go to track them down is nothing short of astonishing. 469 00:29:28,515 --> 00:29:31,114 Welcome to Super-Kamioka... 470 00:29:31,275 --> 00:29:34,634 the subterranean Japanese neutrino-detection chamber... 471 00:29:34,794 --> 00:29:37,474 more than a half mile beneath Earth's surface. 472 00:29:37,634 --> 00:29:39,714 You might ask, "Well, who in their right mind... 473 00:29:39,874 --> 00:29:42,953 would bury an astronomical observatory so far underground?" 474 00:29:43,154 --> 00:29:46,354 Those who hunt the most elusive prey in the cosmos: 475 00:29:46,833 --> 00:29:48,033 the neutrino. 476 00:29:48,193 --> 00:29:50,531 This enormous array of light detectors 477 00:29:50,543 --> 00:29:53,313 surrounding 50,000 tons of distilled water... 478 00:29:53,473 --> 00:29:56,513 is a trap designed to catch neutrinos only. 479 00:29:56,833 --> 00:29:58,992 Other particles, such as cosmic rays... 480 00:29:59,153 --> 00:30:01,953 mostly protons and electrons that rain down from space... 481 00:30:02,113 --> 00:30:04,792 cannot get through all that rock above us. 482 00:30:04,953 --> 00:30:07,473 But matter poses no obstacle to a neutrino. 483 00:30:08,153 --> 00:30:10,668 A neutrino could pass through a hundred 484 00:30:10,680 --> 00:30:13,712 light-years of steel without even slowing down. 485 00:30:13,992 --> 00:30:16,232 Neutrinos hardly interact with matter at all. 486 00:30:16,392 --> 00:30:19,472 That's why you need so much of it to catch even one of them. 487 00:30:19,712 --> 00:30:20,712 On those rare occasions... 488 00:30:20,872 --> 00:30:24,472 when a neutrino actually does collide with a particle of ordinary matter... 489 00:30:24,631 --> 00:30:28,192 it produces a ghostly ring-shaped flash of light. 490 00:30:28,791 --> 00:30:33,911 We're lying in wait for a particle that weighs next to nothing. 491 00:30:34,071 --> 00:30:35,872 Even the miniscule electron... 492 00:30:36,031 --> 00:30:39,151 has more than a million times its mass. 493 00:30:39,310 --> 00:30:40,751 There! 494 00:30:41,111 --> 00:30:45,031 When the supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud blew its top in 1987... 495 00:30:45,191 --> 00:30:47,590 this is what it would have looked like in here. 496 00:30:47,751 --> 00:30:50,990 Now remember, the Large Magellanic Cloud is in our southern hemisphere... 497 00:30:51,150 --> 00:30:54,430 so the neutrinos didn't come through that half-mile of rock above us. 498 00:30:54,590 --> 00:30:58,030 They had to pass through the thousands of miles of rock and iron below us... 499 00:30:58,190 --> 00:30:59,750 to reach this detector. 500 00:30:59,910 --> 00:31:01,030 But the coolest thing... 501 00:31:01,190 --> 00:31:03,070 was that those neutrinos hit Earth... 502 00:31:03,230 --> 00:31:06,670 three hours before the light from the supernova did. 503 00:31:06,830 --> 00:31:08,910 If nothing can travel faster than light... 504 00:31:09,069 --> 00:31:11,749 how could that possibly be? 505 00:31:17,029 --> 00:31:20,109 This is a dead star walking. 506 00:31:20,269 --> 00:31:25,029 It may look normal, but deep within it, something cataclysmic is happening. 507 00:31:25,189 --> 00:31:27,269 This blue supergiant star... 508 00:31:27,429 --> 00:31:31,628 has already begun to explode inside. 509 00:31:35,389 --> 00:31:37,908 Like rats deserting a sinking ship... 510 00:31:38,068 --> 00:31:41,028 the neutrinos produced in the heart of the exploding star... 511 00:31:41,188 --> 00:31:43,507 race outward at near the speed of light... 512 00:31:43,668 --> 00:31:47,268 through the overlying mass in only a few seconds. 513 00:31:47,428 --> 00:31:52,187 But the shock wave of the exploding gas plods along from the center of the star... 514 00:31:52,347 --> 00:31:55,668 at one ten-thousandth the speed of light... 515 00:31:55,867 --> 00:31:58,267 until it finally reaches the star's surface... 516 00:31:58,428 --> 00:32:02,027 turning it into Supernova 1987A. 517 00:32:08,027 --> 00:32:09,895 It took hours for the explosion to reach the 518 00:32:09,907 --> 00:32:11,786 surface of the star and blow it wide-open... 519 00:32:11,946 --> 00:32:13,986 exposing the superhot core. 520 00:32:14,146 --> 00:32:17,067 The neutrinos had an insurmountable head start. 521 00:32:17,226 --> 00:32:19,776 That's why the flash of light arrived on Earth 522 00:32:19,787 --> 00:32:22,186 so much later than the shower of neutrinos. 523 00:32:22,506 --> 00:32:26,106 Before anyone had ever snared the wild neutrino... 524 00:32:26,266 --> 00:32:30,186 it existed in the mind of a theoretical physicist. 525 00:32:30,665 --> 00:32:34,746 Just as Charles Darwin knew there must be an extremely long-nosed creature... 526 00:32:34,906 --> 00:32:37,185 flying around somewhere in Madagascar... 527 00:32:37,345 --> 00:32:41,465 a 20th-century physicist named Wolfgang Pauli... 528 00:32:43,305 --> 00:32:45,308 was desperately seeking a particle to 529 00:32:45,319 --> 00:32:47,704 rescue one of the pillars of modern physics. 530 00:32:47,865 --> 00:32:50,584 The law of the conservation of energy. 531 00:32:59,384 --> 00:33:00,944 So why didn't I flinch? 532 00:33:01,104 --> 00:33:03,224 Because the laws of science differ fundamentally... 533 00:33:03,384 --> 00:33:05,544 from those of other human endeavors. 534 00:33:05,704 --> 00:33:08,304 In order for an idea to become a scientific law... 535 00:33:08,464 --> 00:33:10,623 it has to be unbreakable. 536 00:33:10,784 --> 00:33:15,583 That's why I was willing to bet this face on the laws of conservation of energy. 537 00:33:16,343 --> 00:33:18,383 Now, if you try this at home... 538 00:33:18,543 --> 00:33:20,823 take care not to give the Cannonball a push. 539 00:33:20,984 --> 00:33:22,183 That's adding energy... 540 00:33:22,343 --> 00:33:25,102 and the ball will surely come back and do some damage. 541 00:33:25,263 --> 00:33:28,422 You just have to let it go, like this: 542 00:33:29,023 --> 00:33:30,023 By lifting the ball... 543 00:33:30,182 --> 00:33:31,943 you give it gravitational energy... 544 00:33:32,102 --> 00:33:34,663 which is the potential to fall and accelerate. 545 00:33:35,103 --> 00:33:38,182 The Cannonball is going fastest when it's at the bottom of its arc. 546 00:33:38,342 --> 00:33:40,659 At that moment, it's converted all of its 547 00:33:40,671 --> 00:33:43,222 gravitational energy to the energy of motion. 548 00:33:43,382 --> 00:33:44,422 As it swings... 549 00:33:44,581 --> 00:33:48,581 the cannonball is constantly exchanging one of these two kinds of energy for the other. 550 00:33:48,742 --> 00:33:51,301 But the total amount of energy remains constant. 551 00:33:51,461 --> 00:33:55,181 That's an example of the law of conservation of energy. 552 00:33:55,341 --> 00:33:57,022 Once the cannonball is released... 553 00:33:57,182 --> 00:34:00,421 it can never gain more energy than it had to begin with. 554 00:34:00,581 --> 00:34:03,461 It has no way to fly up and break my nose. 555 00:34:03,621 --> 00:34:07,181 The energy accounting books are always strictly balanced. 556 00:34:07,340 --> 00:34:09,181 There's no such thing as cheating. 557 00:34:09,341 --> 00:34:10,780 So in the 20th century... 558 00:34:10,940 --> 00:34:14,340 when physicists first calculated the energy of atoms precisely... 559 00:34:14,500 --> 00:34:18,820 they were startled to discover an apparent violation of this law. 560 00:34:19,941 --> 00:34:22,421 They found that in some radioactive atoms... 561 00:34:22,580 --> 00:34:26,340 the nucleus can spontaneously eject an electron. 562 00:34:26,500 --> 00:34:29,540 This transforms the atom into a different element. 563 00:34:29,699 --> 00:34:31,619 The physicists were mystified. 564 00:34:31,779 --> 00:34:35,420 The energy of the escaped electron plus that of the new element... 565 00:34:35,580 --> 00:34:38,499 adds up to less than the energy in the original nucleus. 566 00:34:38,899 --> 00:34:43,499 But the law says, "Thou shalt not destroy or create energy." 567 00:34:43,659 --> 00:34:45,939 So where did the missing energy go? 568 00:34:46,499 --> 00:34:52,659 In 1930, Wolfgang Pauli predicted there must be an undiscovered particle. 569 00:34:52,819 --> 00:34:55,419 One that makes off with the missing energy. 570 00:34:55,579 --> 00:34:56,578 At the time... 571 00:34:56,738 --> 00:35:02,698 Pauli lamented that such a phantom particle might be so minute, swift and evasive... 572 00:35:02,858 --> 00:35:05,698 as to forever defy detection. 573 00:35:05,858 --> 00:35:09,498 But that was a rare failure of his imagination. 574 00:35:09,658 --> 00:35:12,897 Because science is always searching for a way to go deeper still. 575 00:35:13,217 --> 00:35:14,417 A generation later... 576 00:35:14,577 --> 00:35:17,457 Pauli's neutrinos were actually detected for the first time... 577 00:35:17,617 --> 00:35:20,018 in radiation from a nuclear reactor. 578 00:35:20,177 --> 00:35:24,337 And we've been finding them, with difficulty, ever since. 579 00:35:24,737 --> 00:35:26,097 There are scientists today... 580 00:35:26,257 --> 00:35:29,577 who are trying to find a way to ride those neutrinos... 581 00:35:29,737 --> 00:35:32,577 all the way back to the beginning of time. 582 00:35:34,137 --> 00:35:40,136 We'll go as far as they have gone to come up against the wall of forever. 583 00:35:48,736 --> 00:35:51,096 The wall of forever is nothing new. 584 00:35:51,256 --> 00:35:56,535 Our ancestors came up against it almost as soon as they first started imagining it. 585 00:35:56,695 --> 00:36:00,495 A million dawns ago, in the 13th century BC... 586 00:36:00,655 --> 00:36:03,415 the Egyptians built this temple at Abu Simbel... 587 00:36:03,575 --> 00:36:08,895 to honor the pharaoh Ramses II, depicted here in four colossal statues. 588 00:36:09,495 --> 00:36:11,734 Reigning even above this mighty king... 589 00:36:11,895 --> 00:36:16,534 is the falcon-headed Ra-Harakhte, god of the sun. 590 00:36:21,614 --> 00:36:24,814 The temple was designed so that the light from the rising sun... 591 00:36:24,974 --> 00:36:28,894 could only enter the sanctuary on two days every year. 592 00:36:30,214 --> 00:36:31,774 As the rays enter the temple... 593 00:36:31,934 --> 00:36:35,294 they burnish the statues of the gods with their golden light... 594 00:36:35,453 --> 00:36:38,493 before penetrating the sanctuary. 595 00:36:39,293 --> 00:36:42,974 Even then, one god remains in shadow... 596 00:36:43,133 --> 00:36:45,573 Ptah, lord of creation... 597 00:36:45,733 --> 00:36:50,293 as if the origin of the universe must forever be concealed. 598 00:36:54,532 --> 00:36:57,692 Feel the sun on your face. 599 00:36:57,852 --> 00:37:02,612 The energy that warms you began its journey some 10 million years ago... 600 00:37:02,772 --> 00:37:04,932 in the heart of the sun. 601 00:37:06,492 --> 00:37:07,812 Unlike neutrinos... 602 00:37:07,972 --> 00:37:11,692 the photons needed that long to work their way out from the core to the surface. 603 00:37:12,852 --> 00:37:18,011 Why? Because they were colliding billions of times per second with the sun's atoms... 604 00:37:18,172 --> 00:37:21,611 every collision sending them off in a random direction. 605 00:37:21,772 --> 00:37:23,931 Once they finally reached the surface... 606 00:37:24,091 --> 00:37:27,451 they were free to dash nonstop at the speed of light... 607 00:37:27,771 --> 00:37:31,291 in a mere eight minutes and 20 seconds from the sun to you. 608 00:37:33,211 --> 00:37:37,211 Ten-mi/lion-year-old light on your face. 609 00:37:39,250 --> 00:37:43,731 What was happening when that light left the heart of the sun? 610 00:37:49,730 --> 00:37:52,171 The cosmic calendar compresses the entire 611 00:37:52,182 --> 00:37:54,810 13.8-billion-year history of the universe... 612 00:37:54,970 --> 00:37:56,529 into a single year. 613 00:37:56,690 --> 00:37:59,450 Every month represents about a billion years. 614 00:37:59,610 --> 00:38:02,449 Every day, about 40 million years. 615 00:38:02,609 --> 00:38:05,530 The universe is so old that on the cosmic calendar... 616 00:38:05,689 --> 00:38:09,009 10 million years ago only takes us back as far as... 617 00:38:09,689 --> 00:38:15,288 6 p.m. on the last evening of the last day of the year. 618 00:38:15,448 --> 00:38:16,889 And what about us? 619 00:38:17,049 --> 00:38:19,049 Humans had yet to evolve. 620 00:38:19,209 --> 00:38:20,489 Ten million years ago... 621 00:38:20,648 --> 00:38:22,568 our ancestors were anthropoid apes... 622 00:38:22,728 --> 00:38:25,048 swinging through the trees of Africa. 623 00:38:25,208 --> 00:38:28,088 To us, 10 million years seems like a long time... 624 00:38:28,248 --> 00:38:33,488 but it's only the length of an afternoon on the timescale of the cosmos. 625 00:38:36,168 --> 00:38:41,048 The sun began fusing hydrogen 4500 million years ago. 626 00:38:41,207 --> 00:38:44,087 August 31st on the cosmic calendar. 627 00:38:44,407 --> 00:38:49,047 Our Milky Way Galaxy is about 10,000 million years old. 628 00:38:49,207 --> 00:38:53,406 The first galaxies formed a few billion years earlier. 629 00:38:54,087 --> 00:38:57,686 And something keeps me from going any further back in time. 630 00:38:58,287 --> 00:39:00,247 What is this? 631 00:39:03,286 --> 00:39:05,727 It's the nature of light and time. 632 00:39:05,886 --> 00:39:08,566 Because light travels at a finite speed... 633 00:39:08,726 --> 00:39:10,166 to look across space... 634 00:39:10,326 --> 00:39:12,886 is to look back in time. 635 00:39:15,806 --> 00:39:20,406 So the farther we see, the older the light. 636 00:39:20,926 --> 00:39:25,645 This is as far back in the history of the cosmos as we can see with light. 637 00:39:25,805 --> 00:39:30,325 It's a baby picture of the universe when it was only 380,000 years old. 638 00:39:30,885 --> 00:39:35,845 That's 15 minutes into January 1st on the cosmic calendar. 639 00:39:36,405 --> 00:39:40,884 If we look as far as we can see in any direction using microwave telescopes... 640 00:39:41,044 --> 00:39:42,644 this is what we see... 641 00:39:42,804 --> 00:39:45,365 the glow left over from the Big Bang. 642 00:39:45,524 --> 00:39:49,004 Imagine that all the matter and energy of the observable universe... 643 00:39:49,164 --> 00:39:53,444 was concentrated into something no larger than this. 644 00:39:55,004 --> 00:39:57,043 That's the size of the universe... 645 00:39:57,204 --> 00:40:02,644 when it was a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second old. 646 00:40:02,803 --> 00:40:05,644 All the matter and energy of the hundred billion galaxies... 647 00:40:05,804 --> 00:40:09,003 now splayed out across the billions of light-years... 648 00:40:09,163 --> 00:40:13,483 were once pent up in something the size of a marble. 649 00:40:13,643 --> 00:40:16,403 Can you imagine how tightly packed that marble must have been? 650 00:40:16,563 --> 00:40:19,443 Far too dense for any kind of light to move through it... 651 00:40:19,603 --> 00:40:22,842 but no obstacle for the likes of neutrinos. 652 00:40:23,002 --> 00:40:26,042 The Big Bang must have produced stupendous numbers of neutrinos... 653 00:40:26,203 --> 00:40:29,842 which flew unhindered through that inconceivable crush of matter. 654 00:40:30,002 --> 00:40:32,922 The very thing that makes them almost impossible to detect... 655 00:40:33,082 --> 00:40:36,151 is what allows neutrinos to sail through the 656 00:40:36,163 --> 00:40:39,242 curtain that conceals the beginning of time. 657 00:40:39,402 --> 00:40:40,442 Where are they now? 658 00:40:40,602 --> 00:40:44,121 They're here, they're there, everywhere throughout the universe. 659 00:40:44,282 --> 00:40:47,762 Neutrinos from creation are within you. 660 00:40:48,081 --> 00:40:52,241 From a marble to the cosmos. 661 00:41:02,360 --> 00:41:07,960 This is the road that Thales and Democritus put us on some 2500 years ago. 662 00:41:08,120 --> 00:41:10,080 A road of endless searching. 663 00:41:10,241 --> 00:41:13,360 A relentless, systematic hunt for new worlds... 664 00:41:13,520 --> 00:41:17,000 and an ever-deepening understanding of nature. 665 00:41:17,480 --> 00:41:24,200 Who among you will pick up that torch and take us down that next stretch of road? 56460

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