Wow, what a bore of a documentary, I really had to fight through it, especially that long stretch in the middle.
What starts out as an interesting view about atoms quickly turned into metaphysical nerd speak only interesting to people who wouldn't need to watch this documentary as they wouldnt get any new insights from it.

I found it also a major let down that they didnt ilustrate the majority of ideas graphically but instead let this actor with his monotonous voice send you asleep, whilst his clumsy intonations made it rather seem as if he didn't have a clue what he was talking about.
"Don't understand this complicated formula here. Just look at it and marvel"
You gotta be kiddin me.

During one stage (that long boring middle stretch) I had the impression that it was more about big scientific egos rather than their unprovable theories. I could have as well watched some airhaeaded celebrities arguing who has got the coolest hairdo.

Or this scientist (sorry forgot his name) came out with this formula about the universe and said that nobody not even he himself understands it. I thought to myself "Thanks God for that. Wouldn't know what to do without it"

Only in the end it picked up a bit for me, when they elaborated about having an open mind as to how we view the world and how old notions have been overthrown in the past (Galileo). But that was its only saving grace for me and found this documentary all in all of very little value for a total layman like myself.

I like the quote, "Shut up and calculate!" How possible is it, to accurately describe the findings of the maths using only the tools of poetry?

Its a trial and error science. just like medicine was in the 1800s. give it time, and quantum phyisics and its sister sciences will either make sense, and have results, or not.

Reality is fragmented. Reality is a whole of which we all have a little jagged piece of.

It's not because one is mesmerized by his piece of "truth" that all the zillions of other realities cease to exist.

What are we looking for?

The truth!

I'm not arguing that we should abandon those we love, and spend all our money smashing atoms, but I do feel that what physicist are doing are just as important and "real" as just living your life with those around you.

Science is just important as art. If what we are is really just atoms and clouds of energy, then realistically what you do with your life matters, and doesn't matter (antimatters chuckle chuckle) all at the same time. I suppose that's a scary thought, but in a way it's comforting. It reminds me of a quote I read in a Tom Robbins book - "man can be as free and happy as he wants to because there's nothing to lose, and nothing to gain"

Do what you want, and let others do what they want. Especially if that's trying to solve the great mystery. Good on them!

Close the books, stop the ridiculous calculations and go out into the world and love the people around you. That is reality!

The only alternate reality these geniuses are discovering is their world of rabbit holes and endless tangents. Wake up. Reality is the people you see everyday, the things that make you happy and the community of people around you.

Maybe someday when people are no longer living in poverty we can build billion dollar machines to smash invisible particles to test abstract mathematical theories. Until then, I think we should just focus on meeting the needs of people around us. I'm am sure that in 75 years, scientists and physicists will still be saying that they are on the verge of unlocking the universe and answering all our questions. Good luck with that!

We already have the ability to live happy lives and care for one another. What else are we searching for?

for now:

"dont try to understand it, just look at it and marvel"

i love this documentary.

This is my comment to my son who send me this video:
I am fed up of pseudo-scientist who want to jump over philosophy and dominate it by their bullshit math and deductions based on MICRO-cosmologies. (atomic dimensions and sub atomic particles) which usually do not exist for more than few moments in their labs.

Reality has no definition as such since you do not need proof that you are there in Malmö or sun rises or you eat and shit every day.

But when they try to deduce another reality based on quarks µons antimatter and other particles well, they fall in a shit hole. The reason is all that they say belongs to Micro-world and has no relevance what so ever to MACRO world the world we see we feel we live in.

And the question of Quantum Dynamics of gloves and shrouded cat all are examples which do not correlate to MICRO worlds if they want to prove their theory it would be just if they could assemble a box and fill it with a pair of electrons/positrons/quarks/or other sub atomic particle and then let us observe what the hell they want you to observe.

The fact is the world of MACRO is solid fast and dynamic real and full of mysteries and we the two-footed ape after few thousand years of appearing on this planet, is just opening our eyes to understand what and whys of this nature around us.

Philosophers tried to make an understanding of ourselves with universe as it is, and tried very hard to let us know that we are unique and have one chance in this world and better not to waste it.
But the picture they provided was and still is the most beautiful picture since we with our inquisitive mind wondering around and dancing in an ocean of secrets and mysteries while at the same time walking towards our end- one by one.

Please next time, when I tell you something about such matters, do not bring religion in it.
And do not try to run away or take refuge behind jokes and cheap comments.

its a very good documentary.......Its mad the way we are made up of atoms and we dont fully know what they are.Thats almost like saying what are we.

i love how it ends.. 'how a something consicence can come together and ask the question what is an atom?'

Very good documentary...now I gotta study some of this stuff in more depth.

well put.

have a cuple for your other versions too!

wow....other versions of me??

Well good...i can just chill out now,become a hippie. My "other versions" are hopefully doing all the breeding, high achieving and altruistic stuff!-chuckle,Sara.

This is really an inspiring documentary to know about the power of physics in knowing this universe........liked it.

Perhaps the answer to the presenters last question (the difference between him and his surroundings) has just to to do with the arrangement and quantity of atoms. What i'd like to know is if at a subatomic level its all just energy and information, what is the light that has been seen as a bonding which holds it all together? fascinating documentary by theway - thanks to all concerned in the making of it and putting it up on this wonderful site.

DOH!
I forgot to mention you can find lectures on many topics, like the ones by the great Leonard Susskind himself, a cosmologis and particle physicist, over on YouTube and elsewhere.

Enjoy :)

Hello Mike and other "inquisitors" (Q^Q).

I very much understand your point. Perhaps you could also try a library? There are many great books out there that go deeper than documentaries, however interesting they are.
And if like me you don't understand them at first, read em again and over again : repetitition is afterall one of the (often forgotten) fundamentals of learning.

Don't fall of your armchairs y'all, this small yellow book entitled "Relativity" I read more than 10 times!!! But I now not only ubderstand it, it's deeply engraved in my thought patterns, relativly speaking of course.

Oh, and you can also view this and other great docs more than once :)

Keep on keeping on eh

maybe some person with a quantum mechanics degree will see this and answer this question for me.

Do you need some super hi IQ and a natural talent at math to understand this stuff? Or is determination, imagination and hard work enough?

thanks, please reply to
michaelrobb_3@hotmail.com

I wish I could understand the Math involved in these theories or even the observations. I guess I will have to be content with the simple explanations given.

If i could have anything in the world it would be the capacity to truly understand the Universe instead of having to be content with network documentary simplifications.

For me the most frustrating thing is having questions I don't have the capacity to understand the answers.

What the bleep is worthless babble.

It takes years of hard core devoted study to even begin to understand the theories that this and other popularized documentaries are based on.

Don't kid yourself, you know nothing more about the nature of reality from watching these layman simplifications than you did before. If you want real knowledge, it takes a fucking lot of work.

Intellectual honesty is the best policy.

LIES

I actually purchased what the bleep and trust me it is worth the buy. It takes the theories of this documentary and explains in a much more in depth way.

this isnt as in depth as Id like but it is very good. It really opens your mind, although I much prefer What the Bleep (down the rabbit hole).

That was...confusing.
I really don't grasp the measurement problem thing. Is it implying that atoms (or combinations of them) which we currently aren't aware of aren't actually there? 'Cause if you back up without knowing what's behind you, you will hit something even if you aren't aware of it... Do they pop into existence the moment they touch (which they can't, 'cause they're not actually there...) "your" atoms or something?

I only understood like 2/3 'cause English isn't my native tongue. That didn't exactly help either.

Hmmmm. Absolutely fantastic.

Just loved the way it ended by saying we have only begun......

During the doc there was few notions that we as human are incapable of such understanding and that we do not have the language to explain.

I disagree.

It took a few milleniums for us to know that earth was round and not flat.
It also took a few centuries for us to know that the earth rotated and not the sun.
Finally, it took a few decades for us to know
that atoms are not the basic elements but quarks and electrons.

In each stage, we human had much difficulties but not impossible understandings.

Somehow we overcame our limitations.
It's just matter of time we get the latest one.

I just hope this happens in my life time!!!!

I think you misunderstand scientific theory. Scientific theories are theories supported by vast amounts of evidence. Of course, they are not falliable, but through knowledge and understanding we can build upon them to solidify and further our knowledge.

All scientific theories started as ideas that people were deeply sceptical about; that seemed obsurd and ridiculous. But we have built upon them over time.

The fact that there are many scientific ideas about at the moment is magnificent. They must all be proved using evidence and then tested and approved by scientific peers before they are a true theory with all the evidence in tow.

To suggest that the gaps left by science must point towards a god is terribly ignorant. Give it time and all will be revealed.

Don't attempt to jump down the throat of science with your god, for which there is no evidence and for which everyone has a different view of, especially within your own religion if you are a christian.

Peace

well said. scientific pragmatism or dogmatic fundamentalism!
Science has always been based on experimentation . A theory which cannot be proved via experiments is only philosophy or mathematical fantasies not science! With all these outlandish theories in existence, it can be only said that they are slowly moving towards God! Recently i read two books "Tao of Physics" and "The turning point" , they are really thought provoking!

Man i cant see this doc.

if only we were able to see the shape of things to come...

We are just at the edge of a great change. Awareness.

Oh my word.
I have to get into physics.
And poetry.


Right now I need a shot of Johnny.

this is a wondelful documentary...I really think there are more things we never have imagined...Well english is not my native languague so It's something difficult to unerstand the video

"Shut up and calculate!" What a bottom line! Besides, it's a marvellous documentary, informing about subatomic particles and not as irrelevant as the title might trigger you to think.

Thanks!!

Hi Simons, I fixed that now. You can watch it in fullscreen.

Is there a way that I can watch some of these cool docs on full screen?

i think its the bear shits in the woods theory,but when my mum is behind me,i could punch her,even if i didnt know she was there

i find the existance of paralel universes a mind blowing revelation...it could be the world of angels, jinn,or maybe where a soul goes to after a person dies! and other things we dont know,
i mean thats what they said in the doc...you dont really know what exists in that universe...but it's there..even emptiness around us is an active place..wow!
i dont get the cat experiment though! anyone care to explain?

I know the universe branches out into every possibility. One continues to emerge out of the wave of probability. Its not a observer that capitulates a state of super position. Its only a measurement.

Nice one, this is excellent :)

There is Scientific evidence that shows that Scientist are unable to make any distinction between the Dream State charaterised by REM and the Waking State. Philosophers and Mystics have been telling people for thousands of years that what we call reality is just a dream.
Now for those of you who claim the wall is real I say prove it. The ball is in your court because I have already pointed out on here what different scientific disciplines are saying about the wall, the wall is made up of Nothing or No thing, scientist are saying the only place it exist is in our minds. Although I would go one step further and say it is in fact existing in the Mind of God.

Reality is an Illusion albeit a very persistent one.
Albert Einstein

our big bang was created by a flucuation of space time and it will happen again but with different physical laws! after areound 101 cosmic decades!

i want somone to add me to talk about this
jaronmorley@hotmail.com

nothing will ever finish

the problem is that human beings think too literally.. i mean, linear
ly {not allowing for a combination of the calculations of the chaos of imagination to coalesce with the right/angles of mathematics}
not outside of
the 'box'
there is a good pair of books if you wish to understand how to perceive a fourth dimension. one is called FLATLAND. the other SPHERELAND. read both and you can perhaps begin to see the USE of imagination and dreams in balance with HUMAN logic.
thank you for the film!

My mind is as infinite inwardly as the Universe is infinate outwardly! What the f*%$*#@? I think I'll go have two beers!

Amazing. Gets you thinking.

This was by far the most confusing document i have every watched. However it was worth it.

Jeez.....I think I'll go have a beer.

I wish I could live as long as I want to so I can be sure to see how everything happens and find out all the ansewres.But I think id be good with a trillion years or so

all I can say is WOW