Hacker Cinema
How the Universe Works
2010 · TV series · documentary · 42 min episodes · 11 seasons
A users' guide to the cosmos, from the Big Bang to galaxies, stars, planets and moons: where did it all come from and how does it all fit together? A primer for anyone who has ever looked up at the night sky and wondered.
2 positive3 neutralfrom 5 commenters
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5 comments on Hacker News
I love that we're still finding new stuff about the universe all the time. I've watched every episode of How the Universe Works multiple times. I get super excited for a new season to find out all the new things scientists have learned.
Apologies for replying to my own post, but I should have included sources. Here is the best stuff I've found so far:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7_gcs09iThXybpVgjHZ_7g
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL39_ud5aKSvkl_wj5BIkRvANCiiUPL3VS
https://jila.colorado.edu/~ajsh/insidebh/waterfall.html
There is an episode of How the Universe Works (I think) where they talk about the multiverse looking like an infinite block of swiss cheese, and each black hole having a child universe inside with its own physics, sealed off from the parent universes. So we're in the black hole where the rules of physics allow us to exist to realize it. In other words, the multiverse used black holes to evolve the rules of physics until consciousness could exist. It's another interpretation of the anthropic principle so isn't really testable, but I thought it was elegant. Wish I could find it.
Edit: some places to start:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KePNhUJ2reI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DhDSjgw3j8
Not movies, but documentaries about space, universe, and our existence are what made me truly open my eyes.
I watched a bunch of those - Cosmos, The Universe, How the Universe Works, and a bunch of other PBS Nova and Discovery content.
Seriously, we don't know why we are here. Why we are so alone, and why we have so many problems in the world. Our lives are short, insignificant, and petty, yet we have so many problems from racism to hunger to wars and international affairs. To be frank, we're no special compared to the other animals around us. We just have the most powerful brain that gives us thinking capability, but it also comes with overflowing emotions all the time.
I keep pondering over these thoughts on why we exist, and that while we do, we need to make sure others around us are happy. Money is just a materialistic medium we introduced to make our lives way too complex.
On a side note, I remember watching an episode of How The Universe Works and they were talking about a massive explosion that was so big and gave off so much energy in two minutes, the analogy used was this:
It was the equivalent of 1000 trillion nuclear bombs going off every second for 100 billion years.
And that's what it put out in two minutes!
Mind blown!
Edit: I think the total energy was measured in Yottawatts. Oh and it was Michelle Thaller and Hakeem Oluseyi that quantified it if it makes any difference...
Edit2: Found the episode here: https://youtu.be/BhME6wejT6U?t=1830
Yes! Mind blown (again). :)
While it's really enjoyable to talk/think about these topics from a purely scientific point of view, there's another side to all this, which is the sheer beauty of such a thing.
There's a great show on Discovery called How the Universe Works. Season 1 had an episode called Galaxies that sorta touches on some of this. The graphics for the show, first off, are awesome. When they show the super zoomed out view of all the galaxy clusters and how everything is connected, immediately I thought, "wow, those look like neurons".
And that's where the beauty of nature comes in. You can start to see how systems arrange and the patterns used from the micro to the macro. The distances on either level are incomprehensible (strings, atoms, molecules, galaxies, universe), but the patterns are visible.
And this is why I love science. While I'm not a physicist, I always appreciated Feynman because you could see he had that same love for the extremely complex and the simple observations - and he had a great way of describing it. I think the same goes for Sagan, although, in a totally different field. But Sagan too just had that love for the beauty of nature, on top of his accomplishments of the Mariner missions and other planetary science.
I have a 6mo son right now and I hope to instill that love of the beauty of nature through science. We're each an insignificant speck on an insignificant blue speck in an unfathomable universe. But, our connections to each other and our appreciation for the beauty of it all are a privilege. And posts like this, shows like How the Universe Works will be my way of conveying to him his place in it all. I hope he'll appreciate it someday like I do.
I hope, some day all people will.