table version
The atom split! The universe in motion! Matter is mostly empty space, and space is full of dark matter! These confounding ideas throw the centuries-old view of a stable and predictable world out the window. Twentieth-century discoveries in physics and astronomy reveal the cosmos as a dynamic universe whose origins and destiny we struggle to understand, and whose extremes of size -- from the fleeting existence of subatomic particles to the mind-boggling expanses of time and space -- we can barely fathom. As the century unfolds, physics and astronomy become more and more entwined, inspiring the search for a "grand unified theory" to explain simply everything.
Program Contents
In 1900, like today, the everyday world seemed to follow Newton's laws of physics. But from the opening days of the century, discoveries about the hidden workings of that everyday world suggest all is not as it seems. Quantum theory, relativity, nuclear power, and clues about the birth and death of the universe have rocked our deepest beliefs. "Mysteries of the Universe" brings us close to the men and women¬with their ambitions, intuitions, talents, and faults¬whose work forever altered astronomy and physics.
Prologue
Halley's Comet
Introduction
The lure of the heavens
New View of the Universe
New technology offers new evidence
- George Hale builds world's largest telescopes
- Mt. Wilson Observatory
- Henrietta Leavitt's "yardstick to the universe"
- Edwin Hubble redefines the universe
ANIMATION: Red shift shows universal expansion
Redefining space, time, and gravity
- Albert Einstein questions Newtonian physics
- Special Relativity
SIMULATION:E=mc2
- General Relativity
ANIMATION: Time and space are curved
New evidence requires new theories
- Portrait of Niels Bohr
ANIMATIONS: Changing model of the atom
- Implications of the nucleus
- Bohr adds quantum theory to the model
- The electron and the uncertainty principle
DEMONSTRATION: Single-slit experiment
- Resistance to quantum mechanics
World events shape the course of physics
- Is the nucleus the ultimate piece of matter?
- Fleming's 1929 discovery of penicillin
- Europe's scientists flee fascism
- Splitting the atom
- Manhattan Project
Introduction
Lifting the veil from the face of the universe
Beyond the Visible Universe
New stars and physics
- Strange radio signals from space
ANIMATION: Death of a star
- Black holes -- theory and imagination
ANIMATION: Evidence of a black hole
- Current theory
Did the universe have a beginning?
- The big bang theory
- How to prove the big bang
- First heart transplant, 1967
- Success and its side effects
- An accidental find
ANIMATION: Evolution of the universe
Search for simplicity makes things complicated
- "Elementary" particles proliferate
- Quest for quarks
- Is there a fundamental force?
- The superconducting supercollider
- Strings -- physics turns to math
ANIMATION: How strings might look
Views of what's out of sight
- Calculating the mass of the cosmos
- The universe's fate
- Dark matter -- the "real" universe?
Experiencing the mysterious
Looking Back in Time
Atomic Ethics
Stranger than Fiction?
In-Depth Investigation: Universal Proportions
Appendix: Readings on the Manhattan Project
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