A decade after An Inconvenient Truth brought climate change into the heart of popular culture comes the riveting and rousing follow-up that shows just how close we are to a real energy revolution. Vice President Al Gore continues his tireless fight, traveling around the world training an army of climate champions and influencing international climate policy. Cameras follow him behind the scenes-in moments private and public, funny and poignant-as he pursues the empowering notion that while the stakes have never been higher, the perils of climate change can be overcome with human ingenuity and passion. Renowned filmmakers Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk have taken the baton from 2006 Academy Award-winner Davis Guggenheim. What started then as a profound slide show lecture has become a gorgeously cinematic excursion. Our extraordinary former vice president invites us along on an inspirational journey across the globe that delivers the tools to heal our planet. The question is: Will we choose to take the baton?
Was the sacrifice of an entire generation worldwide an avoidable or a necessary tragedy? Are the roots of World War II to be found in the devastation of World War I? Drawing from over 300 hours of archival footage and tracing the journeys of the civilians and soldiers across the world, anonymous or well-known, who fought for survival in this unprecedented period in human history, both heroic and barbaric. On June 28th, 1914, the assassination of an obscure Austrian archduke in Sarajevo triggers the most disastrous conflict the world has ever known. Germany becomes an enemy to France, invades Belgium, and in September arrives at the gates of Paris.
This four-part British television series outlines aspects of the history of mathematics. Written and presented by University of Oxford professor Marcus du Sautoy, it is a co-production between the Open University and the BBC. In the first episode, Marcus du Sautoy in Egypt uncovers use of a decimal system based on ten fingers of the hand and discovers that the way we tell the time is based on the Babylonian Base 60 number system. In Greece, he looks at the contributions of some of the giants of mathematics including Plato, Archimedes and Pythagoras, who is credited with beginning the transformation of mathematics from a counting tool into the analytical subject of today. A controversial figure, Pythagoras’ teachings were considered suspect and his followers seen as social outcasts and a little be strange and not in the norm. There is a legend going around that one of his followers, Hippasus, was drowned when he announced his discovery of irrational numbers. As well as his work on the properties of right angled triangles, Pythagoras developed another important theory after observing musical instruments. He discovered that the intervals between harmonious musical notes are always in whole number intervals.
Comet ISON can well be the brightest and most spectacular comet for a generation. It appeared above the eastern horizon from December 2013 as a glorious streak across the sky. ISON has been travelling towards the sun for ten thousand years and will make only one orbit through its corona before disappearing off into the outer solar system. But as well as providing a great spectacle, ISON's tail of vaporised gas and water, hundreds of millions of kilometres long, will give insights into some of the greatest mysteries of science; it will help explain the origins of the solar system, whether earth's water was delivered on comets and even whether we are alone in the universe.
Fly across iridescent tropical reefs, brush through a cloud of a million jellyfish, visit an alien world where the closer you look, the more you see, where the tiniest creatures support the greatest predators... We think of reefs as exotic, distant places with little or no connection to our everyday world. Yet every reef is a living city beneath the sea with a parallel existence to ours, distant yet undeniably connected. Reefs are hotspots of biodiversity as vital to life on earth as the rain-forests. They have been shaping our shorelines, literally forming islands and mountains, for millions of years. The fossil record shows that given time they have recovered from all of earth's major extinction events. Even reefs pulverised by atomic blasts at Bikini Atoll have regenerated. Yet within our lifetime reefs have come to face their greatest threat...
The inspirational documentary account of one man’s pioneering spirit, unswerving tenacity and endless passion, McLaren is the untold story of a motor racing icon. Born in New Zealand in 1937, Bruce McLaren’s determination to make it to the summit of global motor racing circles saw his name become synonymous with the sport; displaying an incomparable will to succeed and desire to better both himself and his burgeoning super brand. In following a singular dream, McLaren elicited the loyalty, determination and love of family, friends and colleagues to create a dynasty that lives on to this day. Revealing the challenges and adversities faced along the way, including a childhood illness which threatened to alter the path of his life, McLaren is the story of one man’s unfaltering commitment to his vision which will inspire generations of sporting fans.
Renowned filmmakers Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk have taken the baton from 2006 Academy Award-winner Davis Guggenheim. What started then as a profound slide show lecture has become a gorgeously cinematic excursion. Our extraordinary former vice president invites us along on an inspirational journey across the globe that delivers the tools to heal our planet. The question is: Will we choose to take the baton?