An epic documentary film in which nine scientists will meet in a chain of encounters to uncover unexpected answers to some of humanity's biggest questions. How did life begin? What is time? What is consciousness? How much do we really know? By introducing researchers from diverse backgrounds for the first time, then dropping them into new, immersive field work they previously hadn't tackled, the film reveals the true potential of interdisciplinary collaboration, pushing the boundaries of how science storytelling is approached. What emerges is a deeply human trip to the foundations of discovery and a powerful reminder that the unanswered questions are the most crucial ones to pose. The Most Unknown is an ambitious look at a side of science.
Professor Jim Al-Khalili investigates the amazing science of gravity. A fundamental force of nature, gravity shapes our entire universe. It sculpts galaxies and warps space and time. But gravity’s strange powers also affect our daily lives in the most unexpected ways. This is a story with surprises in store for Jim himself. In telling the story of gravity, his own understanding of the nature of reality comes to be challenged. Finally, Jim discovers that, despite incredible progress, gravity still has many secrets to unveil.
Deep in the mountains of West Virginia, the Green Bank Observatory has been receiving a mysterious signal from deep space. A team of astronomers has been detecting high-energy bursts erupting from unknown sources far off in space since years ago. But one of them is different from the rest. They call it FRB 121102. What is actually giving rise to this very powerful flash? Could this be a message from an advanced civilization, or is it a much stranger and violent occurrence? Visit the largest steerable radio telescope on the planet for answers.
Donald Trump is the 45th President of the United States and commander in chief of America's armed forces, the most powerful position in the world. But who is Donald Trump? What's he really like? And what does he really believe? To find the answer, we’re going back to his roots. This documentary tells the remarkable story of Donald Trump's family, an extraordinary immigration success story. It reveals how Trump's penniless German grandfather arrived in America in the 1880s, and ended up running bars and brothels in the gold rush. And how his Scottish mother travelled from the Outer Hebrides to New York and worked as a maid before marrying Donald's tycoon father. We will meet his driven parents, his wayward brother, and his three wives.
Vintage footage from the Vietnam war is presented along with narration from both war veterans and Hollywood voice talent. The documentary follows key events and their impact on both the war effort and the American public. The Beginning: The first episode looks at the early months of the Vietnam war from the escalation following the Gulf of Tonkin incident to the grim fighting of the Battle of Ia Drang where a few hundred American soldiers are pinned down by three battalions of North Vietnamese infantry. Using superior air power and reinforcements, the Americans fight the North Vietnamese to a draw.
Dr Hannah Fry explores a paradox at the heart of modern maths, discovered by Bertrand Russell, which undermines the very foundations of logic that all of maths is built on. These flaws suggest that maths isn't a true part of the universe but might just be a human language - fallible and imprecise. However, Hannah argues that Einstein's theoretical equations, such as E=mc2 and his theory of general relativity, are so good at predicting the universe that they must be reflecting some basic structure in it. This idea is supported by Kurt Godel, who proved that there are parts of maths that we have to take on faith. Hannah then explores what maths can reveal about the fundamental building blocks of the universe - the subatomic, quantum world. The maths tells us that particles can exist in two states at once, and yet quantum physics is at the core of photosynthesis and therefore fundamental to most of life on earth - more evidence of discovering mathematical rules in nature. But if we accept that maths is part of the structure of the universe, there are two main problems: firstly, the two main theories that predict and describe the universe - quantum physics and general relativity - are actually incompatible; and secondly, most of the maths behind them suggests the likelihood of something even stranger - multiple universes. We may just have to accept that the world really is weirder than we thought, and Hannah concludes that while we have invented the language of maths, the structure behind it all is something we discover. And beyond that, it is the debate about the origins of maths that has had the most profound consequences: it has truly transformed the human experience, giving us powerful new number systems and an understanding that now underpins the modern world.
What emerges is a deeply human trip to the foundations of discovery and a powerful reminder that the unanswered questions are the most crucial ones to pose. The Most Unknown is an ambitious look at a side of science.