All language subtitles for Through.the.Wormhole.S05E08.Will.We.Become.God.720p.HDTV.x264-DHD

Freeman:
Since the dawn of our species,

humanity has never stopped
moving forward.

First, we mastered fire.

[ Explosion ]

Today, we play with the fabric
of space and time.

Now technology
is about to advance

beyond our wildest dreams.

We may soon know the future...

And learn to move matter
at the speed of light.

Could we mortals ever gain power
over the entire universe?

Will we become God?

Space, time, life itself.

The secrets of the cosmos
lie through the wormhole.

♪ Through the Wormhole 05x08 ♪
Will We Become God?
Original Air Date on July 9, 2014

== sync, corrected by elderman ==
@elder_man

[ thunderclap, rain falling ]

The Bible says

that God is the master of all
things in heaven and on earth,

that God created us and guides
the world we live in.

But a total mastery
of the universe

may not be just a divine power.

It could be our destiny.

Will we someday
not only play God...

But be God?

And what will we do
with our omnipotence?

[ Birds chirping ]

Freeman: I played cowboys
when I was a kid.

The sneak attack
was my trademark move.

[ Click ]

Freeman: In the world I created,
bullets couldn't harm me.

I was invincible.

I could do anything I wanted.

Could these God-like powers
one day be a reality

in the real world?

U.C. Berkeley bioengineer
Adam Arkin

believes we are very close
to one divine ability --

creating new forms of life.

Want evidence?

He's sitting right on top of it.

Arkin: Well, these very organic-looking
pieces of furniture

are actually formed
out of a fast-growing fungus.

The artist's name
is Philip Ross.

He calls this type of work
mycotecture,

because the study of fungi
is mycology,

and so they're like
architecture of fungus.

Freeman:
The artist crafted these tools

by feeding wood chips
to mushrooms.

As the mushrooms feast,
they grow fibers that interlock,

forming a substance
that is stronger than concrete.

We are learning how
to shape life to fit our needs.

But Adam wants to take this idea
a step further,

to have living objects
shape themselves

according to our design,

just as the Bible says
God shaped Eve from Adam's rib.

What we would like to do
as engineers

is to program the cells

to self-organize into shapes
like this,

or into more complicated,
articulated shapes

than even this is.

Freeman: Adam's dream
is to create living organisms

that can sense
their surroundings

and change their shape
on demand.

Instead of a mushroom chair
always being a chair,

it would know
when Adam got tired...

Wow.
And then, organically,

morph itself
into a mushroom bed.

[ Yawns and snores ]

To do this, he needs to learn

how to control the movement
of molecules

inside living cells.

[ Continues snoring ]

Arkin: Well,
imagine the dancer is a molecule

that's going inside her cell.

Molecules are what make
the cell act.

They bounce into each other,

they bind, they pull,
they stretch,

and in doing so,
make the cell do, you know,

do all these
amazing acrobatics,

all of which we can exploit
for our own needs.

Freeman:
Every movement a cell makes

stems from instructions
in its D.N.A. code.

Adam had been subtly altering
this code

to change how the molecules
in a cell

are programmed to perform.

As cytoengineers, what we're
able to do these days

is to take D.N.A.,
engineer it,

and put it back inside cells
so it can direct

the dancer
you're seeing here,

and so we can,
on a computer,

program what we expect
to see happen,

make that into D.N.A.,
put it into the cells,

and then watch to see if
they follow our instructions.

Freeman: If Adam can control
the behavior of one cell,

imagine what he can do
with many.

He could program cells to grow
into whatever he wants.

He could create an apple...

a tree,

or maybe something
even God never considered,

like a living bicycle.

Arkin: In the case of the bicycle,
each part has to work together.

There's gears and wheels
and steering, and the like.

And so, each cell has to be
aware of its surrounds

and work with other cells,
each one different,

each one with its own job.

And part of our instruction set
is to make that happen.

Freeman: Adam's work
could be the foundation

for creating
a modern garden of eden,

where we, not God,

get to decide what kind of life
grows inside of it.

I think humans want to feel
in control over their world.

We are animals that build things
and control things

and change things,
and I think

it's part
in process with who we are.

Freeman: The Bible says,

"God's ultimate creations
were man and woman --

beings
with their own free will."

We have already crafted
new life-forms,

but could our creations
ever have conscious souls?

Most scientists consider
conscious experience

to be an elusive property

that may never be
fully understood,

much less artificially created.

But neuroscientist
Melanie Bolling,

from the University
of Wisconsin-Madison,

doesn't think
it's so mysterious.

In fact, she thinks it can be
boiled down to a single number.

What we try to do in our work
is to quantify consciousness.

By the quantity, we say,

"How much understanding
there is?

How much consciousness
there is in a system?"

Freeman: One way
to understand consciousness

is to observe what happens
when it fails.

Different brain injuries

have dramatically different
consequences.

We learn from neurology

that there are
some brain lesions

that make you unconscious
and some that don't.

Freeman: When damage occurs
in the cerebral cortex,

body organs
like the heart and lungs

may continue to function.

However, a patient
won't show any awareness

of his or her environment.

[ Buzzing ]

But a person with injuries
only to the cerebellum

could still be perfectly awake
and alert.

Even though the cerebellum
has many more neurons

than the cortex, it doesn't play
a vital role in consciousness.

So when you look at what
makes the difference

between the cortex
and the cerebellum,

you will see that the difference
is not in the number of neurons.

What is
making the difference is

the way the different
brain areas talk to each other.

Freeman: Imagine that
each neuron throughout the brain

is a light bulb.

What would happen if every
single one had its own switch?

[ Switch clicks ]

So if I turn this light on,

it won't make any difference
to the rest of the system.

Freeman: Melanie believes

that consciousness arises
in the cortex,

because the neurons
it stems from

are not isolated bulbs.

They form an interconnected
network that communicates.

If we had a set of lamps that
are connected to each other,

then actually turning the lamp
on or off

would make a lot of difference
to the rest of the system.

And there, we would say

that the information
is shared or integrated.

Freeman:
Now the lights are talking.

When one turns on,
it signals another to turn off.

When one turns off, it signals
another to turn on, and so on.

Together, they create
a dynamic symphony

of thoughts and emotions,

leading to the feeling
of being alive.

Bolling: So, this interconnectedness
is thought to be important

for consciousness
to arise in the brain.

Freeman: This idea led Melanie
to develop a formula

that will allow us
to measure consciousness.

It calculates the degree
of interconnectedness of neurons

in any system.

The answer
is a number represented

by the Greek letter, Phi.

The more conscious something is,
the greater its value of phi.

The human brain, with trillions
of neuroconnections,

has a large value of phi.

An earthworm's phi
is exponentially smaller,

but it's still not zero.

So one of the implications
of the theory

is that consciousness is not
necessarily only in humans.

We could use phi as a way

to measure the level
of consciousness

in a lot
of different cases,

being living beings
or computers.

Freeman: If Melanie and her
colleagues have found a way

to measure consciousness,

how long could it be
before we design and build

systems that are self-aware,

just as God populated earth
with sentient beings?

In the Bible,

God solved the consciousness
equation in one day.

This puzzle master

thinks he can solve
any equation and any problem.

If he's right,

divine wisdom could be right
at our fingertips.

If you're a salesman
or maybe an actor,

and you have to travel
to 15 cities around the world,

what's the shortest route
you could take

to visit each one only once?

Well, there are an awful lot
of possibilities --

87 billion, in fact.

Of course, God would know
the answer instantly.

Mathematicians have wrestled

with this type of logistical
problem for centuries.

If we could discover the answer,

we would know the perfect way
to do almost anything.

Computer scientist Tom Rokicki
has been on a lifelong quest

for divine wisdom,

at least when it comes
to puzzles.

Well, I got a cube
when I was in high school,

and I just could
not solve it.

It was the first puzzle
that I just could not solve.

And I eventually realized
I had to, like, keep notes.

I had to write,
"Oh, this move does this,

and this move does this."

And I built up a notebook

that helped me figure out
how to solve it.

Freeman:
Merely solving the Rubik's Cube

is not enough for Tom.

He wants to conquer it entirely.

He sought
the underlying principle

that would allow him
to crack the cube

in the fewest possible moves,
from any starting position.

Mathematicians call
this step-by-step code

"God's algorithm."

So God's algorithm is
the ability

to solve a random position

as quickly as possible,
as efficiently as possible.

If you just had
infinite knowledge,

you could always know
what the next move was

to take you closer
to a solution.

Freeman: In his journey to crack
this little puzzle,

he may have stumbled

across the secret
to cracking really big ones --

problems that have dogged
humanity for centuries.

[ Bell ringing,
men shouting indistinctly ]

Freeman:
Solving the Rubik's Cube won't,

by itself, make the world
a better place.

But the method Tom uses to find
the quickest solution

from any of the 43 quintillion
starting positions

might work
for much larger puzzles.

Tom quickly realized that even

an army of highly skilled
Rubik's Cube solvers

wouldn't be enough for him
to find answers

to every possible scrambled
configuration.

The fastest cube solvers
can solve the cube

in about 10 seconds.

Now, if you took all
7 billion people in the world

and trained them all to solve
the cube that fast,

24 hours a day, 7 days a week,

365 days a year,

it would take them more than
a thousand years

to explore
this many different positions.

Freeman: And even
the fastest hands and minds

sometimes take a wrong turn

on their way to reaching
the final arrangement.

Tom needed an unprecedented
amount of power.

He needed a super brain.

I've always been fascinated
with the ability of computers

to expand
what you can figure out.

With computers, you can
actually set up experiments

and play with math.

So, you know, if I can
sit there and, by hand,

figure out that
if I make this move

and then this move
and then this move,

that it changes this cubey
in a particular way,

the sequences get too long.

I can't think --
I can't remember all that stuff.

And a computer is very good

at enabling me to answer
questions like that.

Freeman: Even the most
powerful computer in the world

is not powerful enough
to calculate God's algorithm.

[ Keyboard keys clacking ]

So, Tom decided to break up
the cube into small chunks.

Hoo-hoo!

Rokicki: We were able
to figure out a way to use

a mathematical concept called
group theory and cosets

to actually partition
the problem

into 2 billion other problems
that were smaller,

and then solved each of those
problems on separate computers.

So that let me take advantage
of parallel processing

and solve the entire problem
with a lot of computers.

[ Chuckles ]

Freeman: Each of these cubers
is like a separate computer.

Each is trying to figure out
the series of moves needed

to get from
a random, scrambled position

to another less scrambled
position.

After about 1 billion seconds
of computing time,

Tom finally discovered
God's algorithm.

The minimum number of moves
to solve the Rubik's Cube is 20.

Ultimately, I was able to prove
that every single position

of the Rubik's Cube can be
solved in 20 moves or less.

No matter how much
you scramble it,

there's always
a 20-move sequence

that takes you
back to solved.

That's what God would do.

God would always be able
to solve this cube

in the minimum number of moves.

Freeman: Tom has cracked
God's code for the Rubik's Cube.

In the process,

he's shown that if a puzzle
has a final solution,

there's a right answer
for each step of the way.

So could we solve any problem
that has interconnected parts?

Imagine being able to eradicate
world hunger

by optimizing food distribution
to billions of people,

or instantly curing diseases
in the body just by knowing

the right sequence of procedures
to target pathogens.

If a solution exists,
Tom believes he can find it.

Done.

The ability to actually solve
this problem really tells us

that computer power
plus a couple of good ideas

can take us much further
than we would have thought.

So I think that there's a lot
of optimism to solve

other more difficult problems,

like car accidents and poverty
or economic issues.

There's a lot of opportunity
for that, I believe.

Freeman: God's algorithm
only works for problems

that have a definite solution.

But real life isn't as simple
as a brain teaser.

We can't be sure which puzzles
are actually solvable.

So how do we know
what to tackle?

One scientist is using numbers

to look into the future to
give us mortals a helping hand.

Imagine if you could take
a look at someone

and instantly know everything --

where they were born,
where they live,

and what will happen to them
in the future.

If you were god, you could.

And in this age
of digital data collection,

humans are getting closer
to achieving this power.

Will we become omniscient?

Richard Janikowski is not a God.

He's
a former statistics professor

at the University of Memphis.

But sometimes,
he seems to be all-knowing.

Hi, Allison.

How are you doing today?
Good.

Our analysis shows you're gonna
want to spend about $7.10,

so one of the first things
you're gonna want is a salad.

Thank you!

And, Allison, you've always
been a big fan of beets.

So have some beets
for lunch.

How do you know this?

And now,
since payday was yesterday,

you can treat yourself
to some pumpkin pie.

Oh, my gosh.

And our prediction is

that either you
or one of your children

will spill something,
so here's some extra napkins.

I can't believe it.
[ Laughs ]

You know everything.

Freeman:
Richard's uncanny predictions

don't come from divine insight.

They come
from collecting data --

lots and lots of data,

and then finding patterns
hidden in the numbers.

To go? Hot sauce to go.

If you were attempting
to predict

what customers would order

in a restaurant like
the Picadilly,

if you began observing
customer patterns,

how many people,
what hours of the day,

what days of the week,

then you can begin looking
at what they order

in terms of coffee
or green beans

or chicken-fried steak.

If you also collect, then,

data on their individual
demographics,

you can begin connecting
that data.

Freeman:
Richard's data patterns

can read the tea leaves
of any restaurant patron.

But he has
an even greater power.

He can use data to see evil
in the hearts of men.

In 2005, Richard joined

a groundbreaking crime
prediction center in Memphis.

It's called Blue Crush.

Blue Crush takes in
video surveillance

from cameras distributed
throughout the city

and centralizes data
gathered by numerous agencies.

At the heart of the operation

lies a program designed
by Richard

to comb through all the data.

The idea is to stop crime
before it happens.

What we integrated was both
arrest data and incident data,

and then we used the theory
that has evolved from research

on offenders to look for certain
types of patterns of behavior,

because the past really is

the best predictor
of the future.

Freeman: The data show
that some types of crime

concentrate in certain areas
and at certain times.

Richard learned
that home burglaries

tend to take place
during business hours,

when most people are away
from home.

Businesses, on the other hand,

usually suffer break-ins
after hours.

Its guiding principle really is

that if you effectively deploy
police resources

in the right place,
on the right day,

at the right time, you're gonna
be able to reduce crime.

Freeman: Out on the street,

patrol officers in Memphis
now work

with central command
to anticipate

and stop crime before it starts.

You actually can figure out
where there's gonna be

concentration of robbers.

Actually, the research shows

that burglars tend to operate in
a doughnut around their house.

They don't want to be too close
to the house,

because then people know them.

But they don't want to be too
far away from the house either,

because they don't know
the territory.

Freeman: The data channeling

through Blue Crush's
predictive computers

has made Memphis a safer place.

From 2006 to 2010,

violent crimes fell
by about 25%,

and burglaries declined

five times faster
than the national average.

Today, Richard's methodology
can predict hot spots

of criminal activity
throughout an entire city.

But what about predicting
the behavior

of a single individual?

The explosion of social media,

market trackers,
and surveillance cameras

are converting our lives
into data.

[ Electronic beeping ]

With enough number crunching,

could
the criminal justice system

achieve an all-knowing presence?

Could that ability tempt
governments or corporations

down a dark path,

toward a world where big brother
watches our every move?

Technology could soon
grant us the ability

to know what our neighbors
will do tomorrow.

But we have to do more than that
to be God-like.

We need to be able
to control the world

with the power of thought.

In the Bible,

God said, "Let there be light."

And there was light.

Now, what if you
could use your mind

to make things do
whatever you wanted?

Could we control the universe
with our thoughts?

We might soon achieve
the power of mind over matter,

thanks to the work
of Brazilian neurobiologist,

Miguel Nicolelis,
at Duke University.

For the past two decades,

he has been discovering ways

for the brain to control
its surroundings

using only its thoughts.

Miguel believes
the brain's potential

can be understood by looking

at his country's
most beloved sport -- soccer.

Well, you know,
in a field like that,

when the players start,
you know, passing the ball,

when we score a goal
in a soccer game,

the equivalent is any behavior
that a brain produces.

It results from this interplay
of many players, the neurons,

interacting with one another.

Freeman: Figuring out how
neurons produce a behavior

is like understanding how a team
of soccer players scores a goal.

[ Crowd cheering ]

One way is to track
every single movement

from each of the players
separately.

But there are many thousands
of separate movements

that lead to a goal.

Miguel has a simpler idea.

If he has a seat
in the nosebleeds,

where he can barely
see the players

and can't even see the ball,

he still knows
when a goal has been scored,

because he can see

when all the players end up
near the goal...

Man: Goal!
[ Crowd cheering ]

Freeman: ...And half of them
start celebrating.

[ Fireworks whistling
and exploding ]

[ Electrical crackling ]

Freeman: When neurons achieve
a behavior,

they also create a noise

that Miguel can actually hear
and record.

He calls them "brainstorms."

[ Popping ]

Nicolelis: Well, this is the true sound
of a brainstorm --

a real brainstorm.

So all the electrical signals
of a few neurons

have been combined to produce
this popcorn-like sound,

that basically reflect
when the neurons start firing.

Freeman:
By analyzing a brainstorm,

Miguel can see, as well as hear,

neurons in the act
of producing a behavior.

Miguel wondered
if he could replicate

one of these brainstorm patterns
digitally,

and, in this way,

harness thoughts
to control devices.

Miguel set up a trial
with rhesus monkeys.

He first recorded
the brainstorms

of a monkey watching an avatar
moving its arms.

[ Beeping ]

Brainstorm patterns
made by observing an action

are similar to those arising

from either performing
or imagining one.

Miguel digitized
the monkey's brainstorms

into a program
that a computer could execute.

So whenever the monkey
even thought about

moving the avatar's arms,

the computer recognized
the brainstorm.

The result --
monkey see, computer do.

The power of thought
successfully moved the avatar.

Miguel's experiment points to
a future where any person's wish

instantly becomes
a God-like physical command.

Nicolelis:
So you can get your mind now

controlling devices
that are next to you

or in a different part
of the planet,

or even outside earth.

We haven't done that one,

but we have this dream
of one day

sitting here on earth

and controlling a robot
on the moon

or on Mars just by thinking.

Freeman: If it's possible
for our brains

to control objects
with our thoughts,

perhaps we can control
the actions of living beings.

What if we could see
inside the minds of others

and know
their most intimate thoughts...

[ Bicycle bell dings ]

...just like God?

Miguel set up
another experiment.

He implanted brain activity
monitors into a pair of rats.

The rats hardly noticed,

because brain tissue does not
have pain receptors.

Nicolelis: It is a very thin,
hair-like filament that we use

to create sensors that can be
implanted in the brain

like a pacemaker's
implanted in the heart,

to record the signals.

Freeman: He wired the rats
so that neural activity,

the brainstorms, could travel
from one rat to another.

He then placed the rats
into individual cages.

In the cage of the first rat,

one of two hatches,
either on the left or the right,

opens.

The ink holder, the first rat --
this guy's getting

the information
from the environment.

And his job is to use its brain
to encode that information.

And the brain activity
that we're recording

from this animal's being
broadcasted to a second animal.

Freeman:
In the cage of the second rat,

two hatches open.

This rat now has to pick the hat
on the same side as the one

that opened for the first rat.

If he gets it right,
both rats get a reward.

Nicolelis: And it turns out
that about 70% of the time,

this guy got it right.

So random chance would be 50%,

so just if he's trying to guess,
would be 50%, but he got 70.

Freeman: It was not perfect,
but the experiment showed

that information could flow
from one brain to the other.

Miguel's research might lead us
to a future

where thoughts can be shared
as easily as words.

[ Electrical crackling ]

Imagine receiving feedback
instantaneously

from millions of people,
that you can, you know,

decide which ones
you want to listen to,

or, eventually, collaborating.

We are probably,
for the first time

in our evolutionary history,

influencing directly
our own evolution.

Evolution will continue
to unfold in unpredictable ways.

[ Crackling ]

Freeman:
Will linking our brains

help humanity
achieve infinite wisdom?

And if our brains can be
in so many places at once,

what will happen to our bodies?

God is not only omniscient
but also omnipresent.

One scientist prophesizes
the same for mankind --

the ability to be anywhere
and everywhere.

Believers in God say

they feel his divine presence,
no matter where they are.

With all the billions
of faithful in the world,

God must be everywhere
at the same time.

Quantum physicists
know that tiny particles

already have
this God-like ability,

and we are made
of these subatomic particles.

So why can't we be omnipresent,
like God?

Anton Zeilinger is a pioneer
of quantum information theory.

He studies the strange laws

that govern how tiny particles
communicate with one another.

But every now and then,

he likes to communicate
with his peers

the old-fashioned way.

Zeilinger: In any communication today,
we use classical methods.

Take this letter here.

I'm sending it now
to my friend in China.

So it means that it follows
a path.

It goes to the post office.

The post office brings it
to the airplane.

The airplane flies to China,
and so on and so on.

It's a well-defined trajectory,
and I can follow it.

Freeman: When a letter
goes through the mail,

the information inside
follows a physical trail.

In the quantum world,

the rules
are entirely different.

Zeilinger:
In quantum communication,

the information disappears here
and reappears at another place.

It does not follow a path.
You cannot track it.

You cannot follow it.

Freeman:
In the quantum world,

information is carried
by tiny particles

in what scientists
call "quantum states."

A state tells us which features

a particle can show
if I measure it.

Freeman:
You can think of particles

like glowing balls of light that
are constantly changing colors.

If one is in a sealed box
and Anton never opens it,

the particle will forever exist

in the changing state
of red and blue.

However, when he opens the box
and observes the particle,

it will take on
one of those colors.

But the rules
of quantum information

get even stranger than this.

If you take two boxes
and two particles,

you can connect them
through a bizarre process

called "entanglement."

Two entangled particles can be
connected in such a way that,

if you do a measurement on one,

it influences
the state of the other one,

no matter how far away,
instantly.

Freeman: Anton realized
that this strange property

can be used
to teleport information.

Imagine Anton entangles

the glowing balls of light
in these two boxes.

These two particles
will remain entangled,

no matter how far
they are separated.

So I will now send this box
off to a friend far away.

Freeman: Anton is sending
one box of light

miles and miles away.

When he unseals his own box,
the light turns blue,

which means
the distant entangled partner

instantly becomes red.

This is what Anton is doing
with real particles,

and in the process,
achieving something fantastic --

quantum teleportation.

He's sending
tiny particle messages

from one island in the
Canary islands

to another in a literal flash.

Zeilinger: We can keep one of the two
entangled particles locally,

and then you do measurements
on the two,

and you see that they are
still entangled.

Freeman:
Having teleported information

across a short distance,

Anton's next goal is to do it
between earth and space

using satellites.

[ Electronic beeping ]

In the satellite experiment,
there is a satellite in orbit,

which sends down to the earth
two entangled particles.

And then you do measurements
on them

and show that they are
still entangled.

Freeman:
Using quantum teleportation,

we may be able to send
and receive information

to and from
anywhere in the cosmos.

But could we teleport
enough information

to transport physical objects?

Perhaps even ourselves?

[ Door creaks shut ]

Zeilinger:There's nothing
in the laws of quantum mechanics

which says
that it would not be possible

to teleport
the state of a system

as a big as a living person,

but it takes a lot of ingenuity
and many generations

to come up with how to do it,
if it can be done.

Freeman:
Someday, in the far, far future,

we may have the power
to be anywhere, instantly.

It appears that science

may eventually give us both
omniscience and omnipotence.

But are we fooling ourselves?

Does mankind really have
what it takes to become God?

Scientists are gradually
giving us powers

we once thought
only a God could have.

Will this progress
come to an end?

To become truly God-like,

we need to go back
to the beginning of time

and figure out
how the cosmos was created.

Can our mortal minds ever grasp
the universal master plan?

Physicist and philosopher
Marcelo Ggleiser

has spent his career
contemplating

whether humans have what it
takes to become God-like,

both mentally and physically.

So this is the spartan race.
It's an obstacle race.

This one in particular
is a very tough one.

It's called "the beast."

It goes up Mount Killington,
about 14.3 miles, 25 obstacles,

jumping walls,
climbing ropes,

under mud ponds,
you name it, and, you know,

they say the elites
are gonna do it in four hours.

We're hoping to do it
under eight.

We'll see what happens.

Freeman: Marcelo competes
in these grueling races

for one main reason --

to push his body to the limits

and to find out what
he's really made of.

It has taught him that,
no matter how hard he trains,

he can never reach
the physical levels of a God.

Our bodies impose limits

on what we can do
and what we cannot do.

So even the most accomplished
of athletes,

most perfect body,
is never exactly perfect.

Freeman:
Marcelo believes that humans

not only have physical limits

that prevent us
from becoming God-like,

we also have mental limits.

He sees evidence of this
in science,

as physicists have been
competing

in their own cosmic
spartan race.

Gleiser:
So it all started with Plato.

You know, Plato loved geometry,
and he thought that,

to understand nature,
find symmetry,

find the most fundamental
symmetry that exists,

and then you unlock
the secret of everything.

Freeman: Most physicists still
use Plato's idea of symmetry

to try to explain how
the universe works.

When one thing on one side is
the same as on the other side,

we call that a symmetry.

So you look around yourself,

and the world
has all these shapes.

Animals,
there are butterflies, plants,

and there is a natural drive
of us humans

to identify patterns
in everything we see.

Freeman: Our desire
to seek symmetry in the world

has lured physicists
into applying this rule

to one of the greatest mysteries
of all --

how the universe began.

Many physicists believe
that just before the big bang,

the universe was like

a perfectly symmetric
glass chandelier,

and suddenly...

[ Whooshing, explosion ]

...the whole fixture shattered
into billions of pieces.

Scientists have been trying
to put the pieces back together,

to know what the original
structure looked like.

Hmm.

If we can understand
how everything fits,

then maybe humanity
can take God's place

in the celestial throne room.

But Marcelo thinks physicists
are trying to put together

a puzzle that will never fit,

because when scientists
do experiments,

symmetry often falls apart.

Gleiser: One of the most
fascinating particles

that exists in nature
is called the neutrino.

Now it turns out
that most particles,

as most things in nature,
they spin.

They have
a rotational motion.

And you would expect
the neutrinos,

like everything else,

could spin clockwise
or counterclockwise,

perfect symmetry.

But it turns out that in nature,
you only find neutrinos

that are
what we call left-handed.

They only spin
in a certain way.

Nature does not like
right-handed neutrinos.

So there is clear, right there,

a very fundamental system
of particles

that interact where nature
is not perfectly symmetric.

So even at the level
of our own bodies,

our hearts are on the left,
right?

And our livers are on the right.

Then, in fact,
if I would get my face,

which you may think
is symmetric,

and I would superimpose
my left side with my right side,

I would definitely not look
symmetric at all.

Freeman: Marcelo believes
the asymmetries of nature

tell us our theories are wrong.

In fact, he suspects
we will always be wrong.

Finding one theory
to explain everything

may be a race with no finish.

Gleiser: Everything
that we know about nature

depends on how we see nature.

And it turns out
that our tools are limited,

that what we can infer
from nature is limited.

We cannot know everything.

It's really about our urge
to understand the world

that is never final
and never perfect.

This notion that there
is always something else,

that there is always a imbalance
in the way we perceive things,

is what makes us human.

The human drive to become
all-powerful and all-knowing

seems unstoppable.

Science has given us
tremendous power,

but we have limitations
that we may never overcome.

But maybe our fallibilities
are a gift.

After all,

they are what keep us
striving to achieve

what seems impossible.

== sync, corrected by elderman ==
@elder_man