72 of 74 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best cosmological documentary I have ever seen., November 16, 1999
I have bought just about every worthwhile cosmology documentary out there, and this one is by far the best. For anyone interested in physics, cosmology, big bang theory, astronomy or even religion, this is a must-buy. Timothy Ferris of the university of California, Berkeley, takes you on a joyous ride acroos the intellectual spectrum of 20th century scientific thought. He shows not only what scientists believe, but also WHY they believe what they do in regards to the Big Bang theory. The work traverses the impact that such minds as Hawking, Einstein and Wheeler have had upon the present cosmological paradigm. I simply cannot praise this video enough. Also, for those that like the video even half as much as I, Timothy Ferris' book At Home In The Milky Way is highly recommended as well.
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50 of 60 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Religion and science meet in modern physics, November 23, 2001
I liked this video precisely because it attempts to heal the breach between science and religion, concerning the origin of the universe. Reviewers who disliked the presentation because it is "permeated with religion" have missed the point. The producers were not pandering to any particular denomination or creed, nor were they pushing religion as such. Nor it is Creationism. The universe, to these top scientists, is billions of years old. The vast majority of the material deals with secular science: atomic particles, distant galaxies, forms of energy, high-power telescopes, particle accelerators, astronomical timelines, etc. Much of it was filmed on location at such non-religious places as the Mt. Palomar telescope and the CERN particle accelerator.
But, at the same time, the producers are not hiding the fact that some basic concepts expressed in many ancient philosophies turn out to be correct when viewed through the equations of modern physics. Personally, I liked these religious-cultural parallels. I fail to understand why some critics think it's OK to give the "logical" Greeks credit for the idea of invisible atoms, but not to give credit to the "religious" Jews for the idea that a singularity was at the beginning of the universe. Whether you call it "Let There Be Light" or the Big Bang, the concept is pretty much the same. My personal opinion is that the mystics and philosophers intuited these cosmic events, but did not yet have the math to express them. Now the physicists do.
Ditto for the modern theory of "Shattered Symmetry," which I had never heard until I viewed this film. Essentially, the theory says that a perfectly symetrical universe is a static universe, because it cannot grow or change. "Shattering" that symmetry was an essential step in the formation of the universe as we know it. That one hit me like a lightning bolt, because the same idea was expressed by the Jewish mystics many centuries ago. It's known as the "Shattering of the Vessels" in kabbalah. (No, the video did not mention kabbalah, but for me, the similarity was so obvious, it was utterly awe-inspiring. I literally turned off the VCR to think about it for a while.)
On the technical end, the film is very well done, using easily grasped analogies and excellent computer simulations to get across some very complex concepts. Yes, it's somewhat "dated," in that it was produced in the mid-80s. (For example, Stephen Hawking speaks rather tediously through an interpreter, instead of using a voice synthesizer as in later years.) Still, it's a good intro to basic atomic physics. Not being a physicist myself, I had to watch twice to fully "get" some of the ideas. It was just as good the second time through.
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
out of date but still wonderful !!!, December 28, 2001
this is a landmark program and though it is somewhat out of date at this point (we now know that the universe is accellerating in it's expansion, which defeats many ideas offered by Ferris) it is none the less an outstanding presentation of basic cosmology that almost any layman could understand and enjoy. The exquisite brian eno soundtrack is only one of many high points. Read Hawking. Read Ferris. See this video. Go to bed feeling so small in the scheme of the universe that you'll want to read more to feel more important !!!! :-)
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