All language subtitles for Through the Wormhole S04E03 Can We Survive the Death of the Sun [pseudo]

Freeman: The sun.

Its radiant light sustains
nearly all beings on earth.

Its glowing disk rises each day

to give us new life

and new opportunity.

But the sun
also holds a dark secret.

Someday it will bathe the earth
in a fiery holocaust.

Can we move to
a new home in the cosmos?

Or could we
master the laws of nature

and create a new earth,

a new star,

or even a new universe?

Can we survive
the death of the sun?

Space, time, life itself.

The secrets of the cosmos
lie through the wormhole.

Subtital By RA_One

To survive in the cosmos,

we must learn to
think in time scales

longer than
a single human life-span

because the biggest threat
to our existence

will play out
over billions of years.

Our tiny speck in the universe,
planet earth,

is in terrible danger

because the sun,

the giant ball of hot plasma
that fuels life,

is dying

and our time here
is running out.

When I was young,
my mother and I

moved from our rural home
in sunny Mississippi

to cold and crowded Chicago.

Heading to a strange, new place
was unnerving,

but I had no say in the matter.

We had to go, and that was that.

Will our entire civilization

someday have no choice
but to move to a new home?

Peter schroeder
is an astrophysicist

whose lifelong passion
to study stars, like our sun,

inspired him to also
move far away from home,

from a small town in Germany

to sunny guanajuato, Mexico.

Mexico gets a lot of sun,

and already
the ancient cultures, therefore,

worshiped the sun
as one face of their God.

And still today, you can --

you can feel the presence
of the sun in this country.

The colors of the houses reflect

this closeness to sunny days.

Freeman:
The more he studies the sun,

the more he, too,
venerates its godlike power,

because the same sun that
makes life possible on earth

could eventually fill our sky

with an ocean of fire.

In about five billion years,

the sun will
run out of hydrogen fuel.

Then it begins to burn helium.

Its core
shoots up in temperature,

and our star expands.

It will swallow Mercury...

Torch Venus...

And grow
perilously close to earth.

It may even swallow our planet

and vaporize everything we know.

Schroeder: A colleague
who was working on cosmology

came up to my office,
and he said,

"I'm going to give
a public talk to schoolkids,

"and one of these questions
is always,

'will the sun become so big
that it will swallow earth?'"

and I said, "oh, yeah,
good point, actually.

I have to
look at my latest models."

Freeman: Peter was determined to
find a definitive answer.

Even though he uses
complex computer programming,

the core of his model
can also be built from Clay,

just like the world-famous
pottery of his new hometown.

To understand what's going on
in the solar system,

we first need a sun.

This is the earth.

Then we put it...

Gracias.

So, we can see it here

in this orbit.

Earth is not falling
to the center of the bowl

because of
the centrifugal forces,

and it would
hang out there forever

unless something is changing
in this balance.

Freeman: The earth
stays in orbit because of

a perfect balance
between its speed around the sun

and our star's gravity
pulling it inwards.

However, as our aging sun
begins to burn helium,

the intense heat
generated in its core

blasts away
some of its outer layers

and causes it to lose mass.

Schroeder: And in
7 1/2 billion years' time,

the sun is losing
1/3 of its mass

and so it's losing
part of its grip on earth.

Here we can demonstrate this
by putting the speed up.

Okay.

So, now we see higher speed.

We will establish
a larger orbit.

We thought, well, that's it.

Earth survives,
and we'll be around forever.

Freeman: But Peter wondered
if there was more to the story.

The sun is not a solid ball.

It is more like
a mass of malleable Clay,

one that can distort and bend
when other bodies pull on it.

Just as the gravity of the moon

pulls up a tidal bulge
in the earth's liquid ocean,

the earth
can cause a tidal bulge

in the sun's fluid plasma.

And this detail
changed everything.

Well, it took a few years
until I figured out

a way to
quantitatively take into account

the tidal interaction.

And so I programmed it
into my computer model,

and then the answer was,

"oh [Bleep]

"Earth is plunging to the sun.

We are doomed."

Freeman:
In about five billion years,

our dying sun will

pull the earth
into its roiling fires.

Oceans, continents,

even the earth's metal core

will boil away into hot plasma.

Nothing will survive.

He may be
a face in the crowd today,

but astrophysicist Greg laughlin

could one day go down in history
as the man who

saved the world
from a fiery death.

Some colleagues and I looked
carefully at the problem.

Could you -- if you had, like,

much more advanced technology
than what we've got,

would it be possible
to save the earth?

And how would you pull it off
in the most elegant way?

Freeman: Greg thinks
he's figured out how to

win back the earth
from the death grip of the sun.

It's a game plan
of extreme patience

and even more extreme precision.

Laughlin:
So, here's a model of the earth,

and if this represents

the earth's current position

relative to the sun,

as the sun expands in the sky,

we're gonna need to somehow

move the earth
further from the sun

if we want life on earth
to survive.

Freeman:
To move our entire planet

to a cooler region of space,

Greg thinks we might employ
a fundamental force of nature --

gravitational attraction.

This magnet is a good model
for the force of gravity

because it's fairly weak.

I have to bring this magnet
really close to the earth

before I get
any attractive effect.

Freeman: Greg's plan
calls for extracting

a 60-mile-wide rock
from the asteroid belt

and sending it on
an intercept course with earth.

It would be the perfect
gravitational magnet.

So, if we're gonna use
the asteroid to move the earth,

the gravitational pull from
the asteroid is not very strong.

We've got to, every single time,

come in
pretty close to the earth

and really pull the earth

to get the earth moving

so that it's at a farther orbit.

Freeman: The asteroid would fly
laps around the solar system,

beginning
in the outer asteroid belt,

swinging by earth
every 10,000 years

and back again.

And each time it passes,
it gently pulls us

a mere 30 Miles
further away from the sun,

keeping us
at the perfect distance --

not too cold, not too hot.

But for such a high reward
as saving the planet,

there's an even higher risk.

As the asteroid
comes in close to the earth,

it's going really fast,

and the absolute last thing
you want to do

is to hit the earth
with the asteroid.

That'll cause
a complete sterilization

of the surface of the earth,

and you've completely screwed up

what you were
trying to accomplish.

We have to bring the asteroid
by the earth a million times.

Every single time,
it has to work out perfectly.

Freeman: Each time
the asteroid passes us,

it must come within a mere
300 Miles of earth's surface.

At any point in its journey,

collisions with
small asteroids or space debris

could slightly change its course

and send it smashing into earth,

annihilating all life.

The ever-present threat
of sterilizing our planet

makes Greg's scheme
a risky last resort.

But could we survive
the death throes of the sun

by moving out of the way?

This NASA pioneer believes
we can reshape entire worlds

and make the cold, red planet
next door

our new home.

If our home
is destroyed by the sun,

where will we go?

There is no place like earth
in our solar system,

but could we take
another rocky planet

and transform it
into a new earth?

Can we build
a new home for humanity?

Chris McKay
is known to his peers

as the Indiana Jones of NASA.

But instead of
a whip and a fedora,

he brings more practical gear
for his adventures...

...whether in the
freezing waters of Antarctica

or the blistering sands
of the gobi desert.

McKay:
I like going out into the field

and looking at
the extremes of life,

figuring out what it's like
to live on the very edges.

It's sort of
a little detective problem.

Can life survive
in this environment?

How does it survive?
What's it doing?

Freeman: Chris is now
embarking on a new adventure

to find out how we could survive
in the extremes

of a completely alien
environment.

It's a quest that will take him
from his home in California

to an exotic greenhouse
down the street.

McKay: On any world,

for life to be present,
there must be plants.

Plants are
the basis of a biosphere.

They make the oxygen we breathe.

They make the food we eat.

How to make a world
suitable for plants?

The same way this structure
is suitable for plants.

This is a greenhouse.

We can make a greenhouse effect
on another world

by putting greenhouse gases
in their atmosphere.

Freeman: Chris believes that the
same runaway greenhouse effect

that is threatening
climate stability today

could be the very thing
that builds us a new home

when we leave earth.

What we have here is
two worlds in a jar.

Think of these as
little, tiny representations

of an entire planet --

soil, water, atmosphere.

Just like a real planet,

the sun is shining down.

So, what I have here
is little carbonate tablets.

If I take these tablets,
break them in half,

and stick them in this bottle,

one of these systems
will now have

more carbon dioxide
than the other.

Freeman: Even though
it basks in the same heat,

after 30 minutes,
the bottle with carbon dioxide

ends up
over seven degrees hotter

than the bottle with just air.

That's because greenhouse gases,
like carbon dioxide,

retain heat from the sun.

Chris believes that the right
combinations of greenhouse gases

could rapidly warm the
frozen wasteland next door --

Mars, a planet that will survive

even after earth
is burnt to a crisp.

Mars is a cold, dry place.

By the numbers,
it's minus-80 fahrenheit.

6 millibars
atmospheric pressure,

compared to 1,000 here on earth.

Its gravity
is 1/3 that of earth,

and its distance from the sun is
1 1/2 times that of the earth.

All that makes it
a cold, dry world,

but a world that could be
a warm, wet world.

Freeman: Chris estimates
insulating Mars would require

4 million metric tons
of greenhouse gases,

way more than could reasonably
be transported from earth.

But in 2008,
NASA's Phoenix lander

showed us where these gases
could come from

when it dug into and analyzed
martian soil.

McKay: On Mars, we would
produce super greenhouse gases

out of elements that are
in the soil and the atmosphere.

For example, perfluorocarbons.

These are carbon molecules
attached to fluorine.

But we could go there
with small factories, literally,

take the fluorine
out of the rocks,

take the carbon
out of the atmosphere,

make these perfluorocarbons,

and release them
in the atmosphere.

Freeman: In Chris' plan
to terraform Mars,

a small band of mobile factories
about the size of s.U.V.S

crawl across the surface
of Mars, eating dirt

and processing it
into greenhouse gases.

Those gases
raise the temperature

of the entire planet.

Chris estimates that
it may only take 100 years

before humans can move to Mars,

where the rain falls,

water flows,

and plants grow.

The first pioneers
to settle Mars

will need to
breathe through oxygen masks,

but given enough time,
the martian plants

will process the entire
atmosphere into breathable air.

McKay: It's a long, long time
before the plants

make enough oxygen
that it's breathable,

but if that occurs,
then we can walk around,

in principle,
just like we do on earth.

In fact, it'd be better,
because with less gravity,

we'd be able to jump up high.

Freeman: But escaping to Mars
is only a temporary solution,

because after
the sun destroys earth,

it burns helium
for two billion years,

runs out of fuel, and collapses

into a tiny, dim
white dwarf star.

What then?

How will we power civilization
in the cold darkness?

A groundbreaking laboratory
in California

may have the answer

because it could be
on the brink of building

an artificial sun on earth.

Humanity's days
could be numbered

because everything we do
requires energy

and almost all of our energy
comes from the sun.

When our star dies,

our descendants
will need a new source of power.

Ed Moses is a physicist,
engineer, and executive

at the Lawrence livermore
national laboratory

in California.

His group was awarded $2 billion
by the U.S. department of energy

to build the national
ignition facility, or nif.

Completed in 2009,
nif is home to

192 of the world's
most powerful lasers.

They can annihilate anything
locked inside this chamber.

And, yes,

he's trying to
take over the world.

This facility,
the national ignition facility,

is the world's
most energetic laser by a lot.

About 100 times more than
any other laser on earth.

We'd really like to
find a way to make

a completely sustainable,
clean energy source.

Freeman: If ed succeeds,

we may soon be able to
power an entire city

with this.

The energy in this water
could power San Francisco

or Washington, Boston --

cities that have like
a million people in them --

for a day.

Think about
the amazing part that is.

So, 365 glasses of water,

you power it for a year.

It's an astounding thought.

L'Chaim.

To life.

[ Thunder crashes ]

Freeman:
In the right conditions,

the atoms of hydrogen in water
can be fused together,

converting some of their mass
into pure energy.

It's the same fuel
that burns inside our sun.

Inside its core,
the sun's powerful gravity

squeezes the nuclei
of hydrogen atoms together.

As they fuse, the protons
in the hydrogen nuclei

convert 0.7% of their mass
into pure energy.

That may not sound like much,

but it's enough
to keep the temperature

at 28 million degrees
fahrenheit.

On earth,

we don't have the
prodigious gravity of the sun

to create enough pressure
for a fusion reaction,

so Ed's team at nif
will use their giant lasers.

They will charge them using
a trillion watts of power

from the U.S. electric grid.

A fraction of this power
will fire the lasers.

The rest of
the massive power draw

will be injected into the beams
along the way

through a series of amplifiers.

And at the central chamber,
the hypercharged laser beams

will converge
onto a small gold cylinder

containing a single,
tiny ball of frozen hydrogen.

Moses:
This target is being illuminated

only for
a few billionths of a second,

and it's being illuminated
with power so intense

that it's more than 1,000 times
the total electrical production

of the U.S. grid at that time.

And when we do that,
we move this target,

crush it together at around
a million Miles an hour,

and it burns for
a few trillionths of a second.

Freeman: In one short burst,

the hydrogen atoms will be fused
into a new element, helium,

and release
an enormous burst of energy.

You know,
our goal is interesting --

get more energy out
than we put in.

You know,
it sounds like the free lunch.

How do you do that?

You know, right now,
I have energy

stored in this match
as chemical energy.

So, with
a small amount of energy --

just a flick of my wrist --
I can get this to burn.

Now what if I light up
all these other matches?

So, now,
from a small flick of energy,

I have this much energy.

So, I can keep doing this
and make this

a greater and greater
conflagration, or fire.

That's the goal,
what we're trying to do here --

to get a fusion burn to happen,

to create the sun
right here on our earth.

Freeman: If nif
strikes a fusion reaction,

its tiny artificial sun
will produce enough energy

to fire the lasers again
and have plenty to spare.

A power plant
built on this technology

could output
50 to 100 times more energy

than is needed
to fire the lasers.

Moses:
This is around 10 million times
more energy dense

than a chemical reaction.

That's why fusion energy

is so incredibly interesting.

You know,
it doesn't have carbon,

it doesn't use much hydrogen,
it doesn't use much water,

but you could power the world.

Freeman: Around the world,

other fusion experiments
are under way.

Even if nif is not
the first to achieve ignition,

someone will eventually
bring star power to earth.

By unlocking
the energy inside hydrogen,

the most common element
in the universe,

our descendants
will have the energy they need

to keep civilization running
after the sun dies.

But their entire lives

would be spent
under artificial light.

The last sunset
would only be a fading memory.

And every time
they look at the heavens,

they would see billions
of other worlds with stars,

just like the one we once knew.

What would it take
to move to a new cosmic home?

With the rockets we have today,

no astronaut
could ever live long enough

to travel to another star.

But theoretical physicists
may have discovered

a new means of propulsion

so powerful it could
take our entire civilization

to any star in the galaxy.

When our sun dies,

life in this solar system
will change forever.

Moving billions of us
to a new star

trillions of Miles away

seems next to impossible,

but a radical idea
from the frontiers of physics

may show us how.

The starships that will take
the human race to a new home

could be powered by the most
enigmatic objects in the cosmos.

[ Guitar plays ]

Shawn westmoreland is
a mathematician and physicist

who often does his best work
when he escapes the office.

A lot of times,
it's good to kind of

let go of what you're working on

and maybe try not to
actually think about it.

If I'm stuck on a problem,

I often will write a song

or just play music.

Freeman:
Shawn is noodling on the details

of how we might
trek across the stars.

It's a problem
of energy efficiency.

Sending this space shuttle

a mere 200 Miles
above the surface of the sun

burned over 4 million pounds
of rocket fuel.

At that rate,
sending a group of human beings

trillions of Miles
to another star

would take more fuel
than we could ever manufacture.

But Shawn knows that
all matter contains

significantly more energy

than can be unlocked
through burning,

thanks to a famous equation.

This equation -- e=mc squared --

was discovered
by Albert Einstein,

and it tells us that

everything that has mass
has energy.

The amount of energy
is given by the mass

multiplied by the square
of the speed of light.

And since the speed of light
is such a fast speed,

there is
an enormous amount of energy

contained even in
a small amount of mass.

When I burn this paper...

...I'm releasing
a lot of energy.

But for this process,
I'm only converting

about 15 billionths of a percent
of the mass into energy.

Freeman: The most efficient
energy-producing process

on earth
will soon be hydrogen fusion,

where almost
1% of the fuel's mass

is converted to energy.

But Shawn and his colleagues
believe

nature may already have
created energy factories

with much higher efficiency.

Black holes.

For a black hole,

practically 100% of the mass

is converted into pure energy.

Freeman: These voracious
gravitational Wells

devour every particle of matter
or life that they touch.

But they aren't entirely black,

because
any mass that they swallow

eventually radiates away.

Our best theory
of how matter works,

quantum mechanics,

envisions particles
as more like vibrations,

and these particle vibrations
can and will

tunnel out of traps
that are otherwise inescapable,

even if that trap happens to be

the event horizon
of a black hole.

Freeman:
The smaller the black hole,

the more energetic
the escaping radiation.

It's not unlike
the exhaust nozzle of a jet ski

that pushes water out
to move the vessel forward.

If the nozzle is big,

the exhaust water pushed out
doesn't have much speed.

But with a small nozzle,

the energy is intense enough
to push the vessel forward.

[ Laughs ]

Shawn has worked out
the optimum size

of a spaceship-powering
black hole.

Too big and there won't be
enough radiation power.

Too small and it will
burn out in a few seconds.

Westmoreland:
We calculated that a black hole

with a mass of
a couple million tons

seems to be a good candidate
for a starship engine.

Freeman: 2 million tons is about
the mass of an oil tanker.

A black hole with the same mass
would fit into

a space
300 times smaller than a proton.

Man: Hey, Shawn.

Hey, captain Dan.
How's it going?

Good.

Shawn's plan calls for tethering

a tiny black hole
to a spaceship.

The constant
wind of radiation it generates

would propel the ship forward.

Westmoreland: The best idea
would be like a sailboat.

The sail
is being pushed by the wind,

and the black hole
generates radiation,

and this radiation
pushes on the reflector,

driving the starship forward,

and it would last
for about 100 years.

Freeman: If you're wondering
where we might find

a black hole of this size
in the cosmos,

Shawn is one step ahead of you.

He has worked out how we could
build our own black hole.

Its size, made to order.

Westmoreland:
I calculated that

a perfectly efficient
square solar panel

100 Miles on each side
in a tight, circular orbit

about one million Miles
above the surface of the sun

would, over the course of
one year,

absorb enough energy to
create one of these black holes.

Freeman: Shawn's solar panel
would charge up

high-power gamma-ray lasers

and fire them
at a concentrated point,

producing
a microscopic black hole

seething with radiation,

a source of fuel unlike
anything mankind has ever known.

The black-hole-powered starship
is a captain's ultimate delight.

It's like bringing along
your own wind.

[ Guitar plays ]

Freeman: Our inefficient
chemical rockets have so far

only sent a small band of humans
to the moon,

but Shawn calculates that
an array of black-hole engines

could transport millions
of people aboard a single ship,

the constant thrust
accelerating them

to velocities
near the speed of light.

And the passengers
need not worry.

The black holes are so tiny,

they pose no threat
of swallowing the ship.

We might outlive the sun

by moving all of humanity
to a new star.

Westmoreland: Just as the
explorers of previous centuries

discovered new worlds,
new continents, here on earth,

future explorers can travel to

new worlds
beyond our solar system.

Freeman: If we master
the power of black holes,

the human race
may truly become cosmic sailors,

wandering from star to star.

But every star in the universe
has an expiration date.

Astronomers believe that
someday far into the future,

every single star in the heavens
will burn out.

Is this the end of humanity?

Or could we
build a new universe?

Our sun is going to die.

So are all the other stars
in the heavens.

When the cosmos goes dark,

life as we know it
will be impossible.

But this does not have to be
the end of humanity,

because we might be able to
create a new universe.

Anthony aguirre is a cosmologist

at the university of California
at Santa Cruz,

a town famous for its artists.

Staying true to
the local spirit,

he's exploring
a unique creative process --

one that
shaped our entire cosmos.

The universe is sort of
everything that there is,

and yet modern cosmology
has suggested that

maybe that's not the case --
that we understand

how our universe was
sort of created and has evolved.

And through that understanding,
we've come to think that

maybe that's a process
that could happen many times,

that you could create
not just this universe,

but other ones.

Freeman:
Anthony, like most cosmologists,

believes that
13.7 billion years ago,

our universe
rapidly expanded into existence,

creating
the heavens we see today.

And he also believes that

the forces of creation
continue to generate

a near-infinite number
of other universes

thanks to a cosmic mechanism
called inflation.

Aguirre: So, inflation
is the process where

a very small
region of the universe

with a very, very high energy

takes on the properties in which

gravity actually
becomes repulsive,

and this antigravity force
pushes the universe apart,

sort of like the small piece of
glass on the end of this

gets blown up by a large factor

into this sort of
large and smooth expanse.

So, the universe, starting out
rather messy and small,

turns into something

dramatically bigger
and much smoother.

Freeman: If this is the case,

the immense cosmos we see today

started off as a puny speck.

In fact, Anthony's calculations
suggest that

the raw materials needed
to trigger

the creation
of an entire universe

could be held in your hands.

Aguirre: It turns out that
the region that you need

to get inflation going

has a mass of
only about 10 kilograms,

and from that 10 kilograms,

you get something
that's this big,

and then that expands into
the entire observable universe.

So, immediately
you sort of start to wonder

if it just takes 10 kilograms --
it's small --

can't we just do that?

Freeman: Anthony calculates that
any 10-kilogram mass

could inflate
into a new universe,

provided
it is correctly compressed

and heated up to
100 trillion trillion degrees.

Today, the hottest temperature
we can reach

is inside
the large hadron collider

in Geneva, Switzerland.

Here, tiny particles accelerate
to near the speed of light

and smash into one another,

raising the temperature to
more than 100,000 times hotter

than the center of the sun.

But it's not nearly hot enough

to create a new universe.

Aguirre:
A collider would have to be
sort of solar-system size,

and we can imagine
that far in the future,

those colliders and accelerators
and experiments

will have attained the sort of
energies that we need

to get inflation going.

Freeman:
Over the next few billion years,

Anthony's
spacefaring descendants

will have enough time
to work out

the details of
building the collider

the size of the solar system.

If they pull it off,

they could
trigger an inflation reaction

and create a parallel universe.

Huh?

But there's just one snag.

Oh!

Huh?

Aguirre: Unfortunately, if we
could make this baby universe,

it still would be
frustratingly difficult

for us to actually
make the transition

into that other universe.

The bridge
connecting our universe

and the new baby universe

would be
both infinitesimally small

and incredibly short-lived --

a tiny fraction of a second
before it would pinch off.

If we tried to
get to the other side,

we'd almost certainly just
end up in a black hole.

Of course, this black hole
would be so small

that we could never
fit inside it, either.

But we should probably just
leave it there. [ Laughs ]

Freeman: If the only way
to get to a new universe

is through a tiny black hole,

how would we ever move there?

This scientist is working out
how to pull off

the greatest escape of all time.

If he succeeds,

we could survive

forever.

Could we ever
travel to a parallel universe?

A new home with new stars

that will burn for eons to come

could be waiting for us...

...through a wormhole.

And one scientist is already
working out

how to make
this fantastic voyage.

Michio kaku
is a theoretical physicist

and a die-hard fan
of science-fiction.

His work may soon bridge

the dreams
of these two disciplines.

He's figuring out
when we'll be able to

make the journey
to a new universe

by quantifying how far
our technology has advanced

to date.

This looks like a set
from a science-fiction movie,

but actually it's

the newtown creek
wastewater treatment plant.

It's one of the largest,
most modern,

up-to-date waste-treatment
plants on the planet earth.

Over a million people's
wastewater

is processed, purified,

and dumped
right back into the oceans.

So, in some sense,
this is a monument

to our technological advances.

Freeman: Today, our knowledge
of science and engineering

allows us to control natural
resources of entire cities,

and to michio, it's a sign that

our civilization
is climbing up the cosmic ranks.

We look at civilizations
based on energy production.

A type I civilization,
for example,

can harness truly
planetary forms of energy.

They can perhaps control
the weather,

perhaps control
the force of earthquakes.

Eventually,
you become type ii --

that is, stellar.

You play with stars,

sort of like the federation
of planets in "star trek."

And then you begin to
roam the galactic space lanes.

You become a galactic empire,

like in "star wars."

Now, on this cosmic scale,
what are we?

Do we control the weather? Do we
roam the galactic space lanes?

No, we're closer to type 0.

However, if you
look at it very carefully,

we can harness the power
of entire cities and nations.

So, technically speaking,
we are about a 0.7 civilization.

Freeman: Right now,
our type 0.7 civilization

can manipulate citywide
natural resources, like water.

But to
venture to another universe,

we'll have to master the most
fundamental natural resource

in all creation --

the fabric of space and time.

Let's say the surface of this
water represents our universe,

everything we can see
and touch and feel

represented right here
on the surface,

and let's say this is us.

Notice that we are stuck

on the surface of this water.

So, we cannot
leave our universe.

That's us floating
on the fabric of space and time.

However, there could be
another universe

located
at the bottom of this water.

What we need is a bridge
connecting two universes.

Freeman:
Most physicists believe that

nature allows
parallel universes to exist,

just like
two separate planes of water.

But is there a way
to connect two planes

that are completely
isolated from one another?

Water can be
distorted into a whirlpool

that connects
the top and the bottom.

Physicists like michio
have discovered that

just like a whirlpool,

space itself
can bend and distort

to form a pathway
between two parallel universes,

a pathway known as a wormhole.

Now, a wormhole is
a portal that allows you to

go back and forth
between two worlds,

but they are
potentially unstable.

To stabilize them,
we need a new substance

called negative energy.

Freeman: Just like an oil-based
solution pushes apart water,

negative energy
would push apart space itself.

You see, this negative energy
is antigravitational.

Positive energy wants to
collapse the hole.

Negative energy
wants to keep it afloat.

However,
with enough negative energy,

you may be able to
go right through the wormhole.

Freeman: Our entire civilization
could move

from one universe to another
through a wormhole,

and nature may have already
given us

the raw materials to build one.

To actually create a wormhole,

you would have to manipulate
the power of a star.

For a type III civilization,
it would be child's play

to get
a ring of white-dwarf stars.

You could create a wormhole
in slow motion.

By simply increasing
the velocity of the stars

and the number of stars,

you could slowly
open up a wormhole.

This would be like
the looking glass of Alice

in "Alice in wonderland,"

and then you would add
negative energy to stabilize it.

In that way, you can
create a wormhole.

Freeman:
In order to outlive our sun

and every other star
in the universe,

we may someday initiate

a great cycle
of cosmic immortality.

New universes
will be grown in laboratories,

then ventured into
through wormholes,

a process that could repeat

forever.

Today we exist

at the mercy of our sun,

but as we discover
the true laws of the universe

and learn to master them,

we may, at last,
find our independence.

We'll become citizens
not of the earth,

but of the galaxy, the cosmos,

or even of the multiverse,

surviving as long as
our ingenuity will allow.