Product Details

• Format: Color, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 2
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: BBC Home Entertainment
• DVD Release Date: August 30, 2011
• Run Time: 240 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (47 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B004XKVPLG
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #17,031 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Wonders of the Universe is a lovely, sometimes surreal journey to the edges of reality and back--and a fully entertaining experience right here on planet Earth. British scientist Brian Cox is a personable host for this BBC miniseries--an enthusiastic teacher who could be Carl Sagan's English offspring. Wonders of the Universe is a follow-up to Wonders of the Solar System, and some of the same territory is covered. But Wonders of the Universe contains plenty of amazing information and visuals in its four episodes. Cox and his producers don't claim to speak to the scientific community (for which he and the series have received some mild complaints) but instead present for the lay audience a basic overview of four pretty giant topics: "Destiny" (the laws of the universe), "Stardust" (how stars and solar systems--and life--are formed), "Falling" (the science of gravity), and "Messengers" (the study of the travel of light, and what might lie beyond the farthest reaches of our knowledge). If the topics are big, Cox's approach is down-to-earth and infectiously captivating. It's hard to imagine a more enthusiastic scientist just brimming with superlatives he wants to share with his audience. The photography, and Cox's travels to little-known ancient ruins around the world where prehistoric peoples built structures to study the stars, are both truly heavenly. Wonders of the Universe makes understanding the barely comprehensible easy and very enjoyable. Great for star watchers of all ages. --A.T. Hurley

Product Description

Who are we? Why are we here? Where do we come from? These are among the most enduring and profound questions we can ask, and it is an essential part of human nature to want to find the answers. We can trace our ancestry back hundreds of thousands of years to the dawn of humankind, but in reality our story extends much further back: it starts with the beginning of the universe. Our universe began 13.7 billion years ago, and today it is filled with over 100 billion galaxies, each containing hundreds of billions of stars and a breathtaking array of wonders. In this groundbreaking new series, Professor B Cox tells the epic story of the universe and shows how its story is also our story.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

74 of 79 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Not as good as 'Wonders of the Solar System', but still worth getting May 8, 2011

By rossuk

Format:DVD

This review is based on the series as aired in the UK, March 2011. This is a follow-up to `Wonders of the Solar System'; it has the same format with Brian Cox travelling the world. As usual, some science background will help you to appreciate this series, my degree is in physics. I found it a bit slow, it is also dumbed down in places, and it is only four episodes, hence only 4 stars. The account of the nucleosynthesis of the heavy elements in stars and supernovae was fascinating, we are all made of star dust (Ep 2).

Episodes (adapted from BBC iPlayer and youtube)

1. Destiny

Professor Brian Cox explores the laws of the universe. In this episode, Brian seeks to understand the nature of time and its role in creating both the universe and ourselves.

It looks at the furthest star that we know, which blew up 13.0bn years ago. It looks at the arrow of time which is always moving forward, which he relates to the second law of thermodynamics, entropy always increases, i.e. the tendency to go from order to disorder. He looks at the stelliferous era. The red dwarfs will be the longest lived stars in the universe, because they burn their fuel so slowly. The death of stars will be in a 100 trillion years time, leading to the heat death of the universe when all matter will disappear leaving only photons. However the good news is that the arrow of time gives a point in time (i.e. now) when intelligent life is possible in the universe. He ends with the single pixel picture of earth taken by Voyager.

2. Stardust

What are we and where do we come from? Professor Brian Cox finds out. The account of the nucleosynthesis of the heavy elements in stars and supernovae was fascinating. As my degree is in physics, I have already bought a text book on cosmology and am thinking of buying one on nucleosynthesis, so be careful this stuff can become addictive.

This episode deals with the lives of stars, or stellar evolution. Especially element formation in stars through nucleosynthesis and heavy elements in supernova. All the 92 elements we find on earth are made from stars, so we are actually stardust. Our sun is only converting hydrogen into helium through nuclear fusion which creates the energy that we get from the sun. The creation of elements heavier than helium only occur at the end of a stars life, when it has run out of hydrogen and a star becomes a red giant. Then helium is fused to produce carbon and oxygen. For massive stars the process continues and carbon fuses to become magnesium, sodium, neon and aluminium, this continues until only iron is formed. There are over 60 elements heavier than iron in the universe and they can only be created by stars nine times the mass of the sun. Once iron fusion has been reached, no further fusion is possible and the star collapses under its own gravity and rebounds forming a supernova in which the heavy elements are formed. So we are all made out of stardust from the death of a star billions of years ago. He ends up discussing the Orion nebula in which new stars are being formed from the remains of dead ones, a similar nebula from which our sun and solar system emerged. If we look at the spectrum of a nebula we find complex hydrocarbon chemicals which are the building blocks of life. And we find evidence of this in meteorites, including amino acids. If one looks at this episode, it shows how the death of a star produces new life, including our own.

Ep. 3. Falling

This is about gravity, and so far is the best in the series.

Cox experiences weightlessness in an aircraft, falling at the speed of gravity? The moon always faces the earth due to tidal interaction, and there is a 7 m tidal bulge in the rock on the moon. Gravity locks many solar systems into our Milky Way. The Andromeda galaxy and the Milky Way are hurtling towards each other at 0.5 million km/hr and will collide in 3 billion years and Cox shows us a computer simulation. We are a part of the Virgo cluster of 2,000 galaxies. Cox then takes a ride in a centrifuge, at just over 1g he is on Neptune, at 2.5g he is on Jupiter, at 4g and 5g he is on an exo-planet (our Sun has 28g). When a massive star runs out of fuel it implodes under the weight of its own gravity and then rebounds to form a supernova, leaving a tiny neutron star at the centre, rotating at 30/s (a consequence of the conservation of angular momentum). He then goes on to consider the perihelion precession of Mercury which can only be explained by Einstein's general theory of relativity (1915), Newtonian gravity just did not do it (c 1680's).

Ep. 4. Messengers.

Professor Brian Cox explores the laws of the universe. He shows how light holds the key to our understanding of the whole universe, including our own deepest origins.

Light is a messenger that takes us into the past, which has travelled over 13 billion years to reach us, for example, the 2004 Hubble ultra deep field pictures of distant galaxies. He also takes a look at the cosmological microwave background radiation (CMB), discovered in 1965, which showed that the CMB had a temperature of 2.7 degrees Kelvin. It also convinced most of the scientific commununity that the hot Big Bang model of cosmology was correct.

36 of 37 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Follow Up - Great Stand Alone May 24, 2011

By Androly-San

Format:Blu-ray

Just as the first reviewer, this is based on the series as it aired on the BBC. It does not speak for any additional scenes or features that may be found in the disc version.

Similarly to Wonders of the Solar System, Wonder of the Universe focuses on familiar subjects and doesn't pretend to teach advanced physics to the audience. It's a show aimed at facilitating understanding of appealing subjects and to initiate the viewer into ideas and concepts that can lead to much deeper - and more interesting - waters.

Professor Cox is a great presenter, as his attitude and general excitement about these subjects is very easily contagious. I suppose he's easy to relate to because he speaks our language - that of the layman - when explaining things that took the greatest scientists in history decades to decipher.

The 4 episodes do a good job at staying within their topics, so an overwhelming number of concepts are not thrown around, which makes these otherwise complicated subjects easy to follow. The second episode - Stardust - is particularly awesome. Even though it's something most people are probably familiar with, it never fails to excite you when you see it presented in such a way. The fact that every atom in my body once exploded from within a star will never bore me :)

My only complaint is that it's only 4 episodes long. The good news? There's a 'Wonders of Life' in the works :)

40 of 43 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Cinematic experience June 18, 2011

By Derek Jones

Format:DVD

The minority who did not like "Wonders of the Solar System" will not like "Wonders of the Universe", but the many more who did like it will enjoy this one too - though it is not quite as good as the first series in my opinion. It has been claimed that it has little serious science. This is true. For example, compare what was said about the arrow of time and entropy with the Wikipedia page on the subject, which contains much more information on a single page. However, this misses the point. Professor Cox has rightly described the series as a "cinematic experience". It combines state-of-the-art CGI, wonderful astronomical photos, soaring music, exotic locations, fancy camerawork, and the infectious enthusiasm of Cox himself. As for the science, there may not be much depth but the topics covered are very well done and explained with crystal clarity. Everybody watching these DVDs, whether a child or a senior, will complete their viewing with some understanding of topics ranging from the life and death of the universe and the formation of the elements, to gravity and light. Just as important it is likely to have inspired enthusiasm and a sense of wonder. For that we must thank Brian Cox. The impact he has made with both "Wonders" series can be gauged by the fact he is being called by many "the David Attenborough of astrophysics". High praise indeed.