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Is Gravity An illusion

   2014    Science
We feel it every moment of our lives but for physicists, gravity is the longest running unsolved mystery of the universe. Why do all objects that have mass pull on one another? Cutting-edge theories are proposing unexpected answers: Gravity could be another force in disguise, a thermodynamic mirage, or even, a shadow of a hidden holographic universe. If so, the force that holds us to the surface of the earth, and holds the earth in orbit around the sun, may be a trick of the mind. We feel it, but it may not be real. Is Gravity an Illusion?
Series: Through the Wormhole Season 5

Homo Interneticus

   2010    Technology
Dr Aleks Krotoski concludes her investigation of how the World Wide Web is transforming almost every aspect of our lives. Joined by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Al Gore and the neuroscientist Susan Greenfield, Aleks examines the popularity of social networks such as Facebook and asks how they are changing our relationships. And, in a ground-breaking test at University College London, Aleks investigates how the Web may be distracting and overloading our brains.
Series: The Virtual Revolution

China Has a Plan

   2019    Technology
From fears about work and privacy to a rivalry between the U.S. and China, the series explores the promise and perils of AI. It traces a new industrial revolution that will reshape and disrupt our lives, our jobs and our world, and allow the emergence of the surveillance society.
Today, China leads the world in e-commerce and is a society that bypassed credit cards. Now shops in stores are without cashiers, where the currency is facial recognition. No country has ever moved that fast. And in a short two-and-a-half years, China's A.I. implementation really went from minimal amount to probably about 17 or 18 unicorns, that is, billion-dollar companies. The progress was powered by a new generation of ambitious young techs pouring out of Chinese universities, competing with each other for new ideas, and financed by a new cadre of Chinese venture capitalists.
Series: In the Age of AI

Cosmic Apocalypse

   2008    Science
The Universe as we know it is condemned to death. Space, matter and even time will one day cease to exist and there's nothing we can do about it. Harsh realities are revealed about the future of our Universe; it may collapse and burn or it might be gripped by a galactic ice age. Either of these scenarios might be a long way off. However, our Universe could suddenly be destroyed by a "random quantum fluctuation", a bubble of destruction that can obliterate the entire cosmos in the blink of an eye. No matter how it ends, life in our Universe is doomed.
Series: The Universe

Jungles

   2019    Nature
A rain forest is the richest habitat on Earth. Exactly how many species rain forests contain is unknown, but it runs into millions. And new ones are discovered every week. There are some, like the clouded leopard, we still know virtually nothing about. Although they cover just seven percent of the world's land area, jungles play a vital role in the health of the planet .
Jungles and rainforests are home to an incredible variety of species like preening birds, intelligent orangutans and remarkably ambitious ants.
Series: Our Planet

Expanded Horizons

   2018    Science
Dr Hannah Fry travels down the fastest zip wire in the world to learn more about Newton's ideas on gravity. His discoveries revealed the movement of the planets was regular and predictable. James Clerk Maxwell unified the ideas of electricity and magnetism, and explained what light was. As if that wasn't enough, he also predicted the existence of radio waves. His tools of the trade were nothing more than pure mathematics. All strong evidence for maths being discovered.
But in the 19th century, maths is turned on its head when new types of geometry are invented. No longer is the kind of geometry we learned in school the final say on the subject. If maths is more like a game, albeit a complicated one, where we can change the rules, surely this points to maths being something we invent - a product of the human mind. To try and answer this question, Hannah travels to Halle in Germany on the trail of perhaps one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century, Georg Cantor. He showed that infinity, far from being infinitely big, actually comes in different sizes, some bigger than others. This increasingly weird world is feeling more and more like something we've invented. But if that's the case, why is maths so uncannily good at predicting the world around us? Invented or discovered, this question just got a lot harder to answer.
Series: Magic Numbers