Created on Saturday, 31 July 2010 14:33

This documentary explores the ultimate historical event as it almost literally transports viewers to the very beginnings of the cosmos. It describes the history of cosmology and how we've pieced together scientific knowledge to support the Big Bang theory.

Relive the moments of history's greatest astronomical discoveries as the wonders of space come alive through computer animations.

Created on Wednesday, 29 June 2011 11:55

The fundamental particles of the universe that physicists have identified—electrons, neutrinos, quarks and so on—are the "letters" of all matter. Just like their linguistic counterparts they appear to have no further internal substructure. String theory proclaims otherwise. According to string theory, if we could examine these particles with even greater precision—a precision many orders of magnitude beyond our present technological capacity—we would find that each is not pointlike but instead consists of a tiny, one-dimensional loop. Like an infinitely thin rubber band each particle contains a vibrating, oscillating, dancing filament that physicists have named a string.

This simple replacement of point-particle material constituents with strings attempts to resolve the incompatibility between quantum mechanics and general relativity which, as currently formulated, cannot both be right.

Created on Saturday, 03 March 2012 21:39

In 1954 a young Princeton University doctoral candidate named Hugh Everett III came up with the radical idea that parallel universes exactly like our universe exist. These universes are all related to ours; indeed, they branch off from ours, and our universe is branched off of others. Within these parallel universes our wars have had different outcomes than the ones we know. Species that are extinct in our universe have evolved and adapted in others. In other universes humans may have become extinct.

This thought boggles the mind and yet, it is still comprehensible. Notions of parallel universes or dimensions that resemble our own have appeared in works of science fiction and have been used as explanations for metaphysics. With his ‘Many Worlds’ theory Everett was attempting to answer a rather sticky question related to quantum physics: why does quantum matter behave erratically?

The quantum level is the smallest one science has detected so far. The study of quantum physics began in 1900 when physicist Max Planck first introduced the concept to the scientific world. Planck's study of radiation yielded some unusual findings that contradicted classical physical laws. These findings suggested that there are other laws at work in the universe operating on a deeper level than the one we know.

Created on Saturday, 31 July 2010 16:24

This short video contains high-resolution visualizations of black holes and other cosmic phenomena based on data generated by telescope observations and ultra-high end computer simulations.

Immersive animations portray the formation of the early universe, star birth and death, the collision of giant galaxies and a simulated flight to a super-massive black hole lurking at the center of our own Milky Way Galaxy.