Human Universe
Brian travels the globe to discuss these topics with examples from our planet and others in the universe.
- 2014-2014
- 1 season
- Documentary, Family
- TV-PG
Brian travels the globe to discuss these topics with examples from our planet and others in the universe.
Season 1 Episode Guide
5 Episodes 2014
Episode 1
Apeman Spaceman
58 mins
Professor Brian Cox considers the history on mankind, presumably unique in the universe, from ordinary primate to the extraordinary achievements of civilization, symbolized by space travel. First he considers the presumed origins of humanity in present Ethiopia, where it may have started with the precision production of obsidian tools, requiring a high IQ, specialization and language. Natural history suggests that the very evolution of apes to Homo Sapiens, with significant brain size increases, peeked each time grave climatic instability, caused by astronomical cycles, demanded greater adaptation, hence brain power. The abandoned Nabataean capital Petra in present Jordania symbolizes how the move north into the Middle East kicked off true civilization. The space station symbolizes the glorious triumph of science and technology, especially since the 20th century enabling rocket technology.
Episode 2
Why Are We Here?
59 mins
The eternal puzzling questions where humanity comes from and why are tackled in various ways. Objectively, the improbability of any birth, considering the endless list of necessary prerequisites, often entirely random, for both individual and species a such, and even earth and the universe, is mind-boggling, yet also often taken as basis for a religious belief in divine creation. Science studies both laws of nature and chaos, attempting to frame all in mathematical terms, from subatomic and the course of a ballgame to cosmic scale. The very key role of natural constants, such as gravity, is held to underpin the theory of countless parallel universes, so numerous at lest one has to be exactly right to be as we know reality.
Episode 3
Are We Alone?
59 mins
Humanity is most curious about and eager to seek contact with alien life, if that exists, so far without scientifically convincing result. natural sciences are combined, notably astronomy and biology, to estimate when and where life as we know it could exist, how many such planets there are, and what's the proportion likely to actually harbor life, involving nine parameters to be multiplied.
Episode 4
A Place in Space and Time
59 mins
Man is the only none species able to question it's own position in time and space. Insight progressed during our history by way of observation, instrument technology, mathematical progress, space travel and physical theories. Thus simple geocentric concepts gave way to the present views on a complex universe comprised on countless galaxies in a truly astronomically complex pattern governed by laws of nature, like gravity, which themselves can become subject to reconsideration such as Einstein's views. .
Episode 5
What Is Our Future?
58 mins
Brian concludes his exploration by asking, what next for the ape that went to space?