Dr. Brian Cox on Horizon
**UPDATE** 2nd December. Brian’s new Horizon on Time is on tonight at 9pm. More on that here.
For more info on Brian and his research, please visit his website.
For more info on the work being done at CERN, please visit Brian’s podcast, CERN Podcast
There’s loads of outtakes from Horizon on YouTube
And, if you’re so inclined, there is a Dr. Brian Cox Facebook Group you can join.
I just wanted to let everyone know that Brian’s done a Horizon which will be on BBC2 on the 29th of January. It’s called ‘What On Earth Is Wrong With Gravity?’. I would very much appreciate it if you could a) make a note of the day and time b) tell your friends c) watch it d) tell the Beeb how much you enjoyed it and that they should continue to make science documentaries that aren’t crap. :)
I’ve seen it already (natch), several times, and it really is very good. I’m so proud. *squee* They traveled all across the States (because, as Brian told US Customs and Immigration, gravity is just so much bigger and better in the US than anywhere else) and is shot in a ‘roadtrip’ style. They travelled to:
Chicago, Fermi Lab
Lousiana, LIGO
Colorado Springs, GPS Headquarters
Sequoia Desert, Kit Peak Observatory
El Paso, Apache Point Apollo Lunar Ranger
San Francisco, SLAC (this stuff didn’t make it into the programme).
The director, Paul Olding, took loads of fantastic photos during the shoot and sent a load through for me to put up online. Click for big ones.
Brian and Paul the director
And for the ‘Brian fans’…
I had to laugh out loud at the comment about US Immigration; it would not surprise me if they really believed that.
Heheh. Well, let’s just say they didn’t think he was being a smart arse. :)
Excellent!
I shall ready the sky+ for this. Nice “how do ya’ like them apples?” photos :)
On another note, I heard Brian on Radio 4 this morning, talking about the STFC funding deficit. This needs to be sorted, quickly. It’s not an insurmountable task, but the gov seems to be dragging their heals over it. Wasn’t so difficult to push billions into keeping Northern Rock afloat. :(
Ciaran, Brian’s been doing TONS of work behind the scenes on the STFC debacle.
Are you saying that Brian’s behaviour in SF contravened BBC programming guidelines?
I’ve caught a few of his interviews here and there. Though it really needs more of the media to pick up the ball on it, to keep the pressure up. It seems utterly ridiculous, that:
1. The LHC is about to go online,
2. The government have finally started to take a serious look at nuclear power.
3. Gordon’s been banging on about how we need to achieve scientific excellence, to boost the economy.
And yet they’re pulling the rug from under the research and training. How are they hoping that the next generation to be involved in, and run these facilities?
Do they (the STFC) know whether this is intentional, or is it just a stuff up in the figures?
Ciaran, I will give you a link to a website run by one of the physicists working with Brian on this. It has TONS of information on everything they are doing behind the scenes. It also includes links to all of the press so far…
As far as the STFC knowing whether its intentional or not… Let’s just say that NO ONE knows where the fault lies whether it’s with the government or, indeed, the STFC… The only thing anyone knows for sure is that physics is fucked unless this gets sorted out.
John,
Ha! No, I’m not sure why the SLAC stuff didn’t make it into the programme. I think there was just too much good stuff and something had to go…
Will that show be available in the US any time soon? Science shows are the only reality programs that I watch. :^)
Loved the Fermilab picture, we are going there for a lecture Friday night. I don’t know about gravity being bigger and better here but until I saw the comment about STFC funding being cut I thought that things were more dense here with the fine folks in the US congress slashing the budget for Fermilab. Abstinence only sex ed is safe for another year though. Sigh. I looked at the link above and haven’t been able to figure out what the problem with the STFC funding is, or is that part of the issue?
Mena
In a nutshell, the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council was merged in April last year, with the Science and Technology Facilities Council. It was said at the time that this was simply to promote research opportunities, and reassurances were given that there were no funding cuts on the way.
In the meantime, strong words from the Prime Minister about how Britain should be putting more into encouraging training, and re-training people in scientific fields, to spearhead growth into the future, blah blah blah…
However, when the figures came out, it seems that when you factor in inflation, etc, there’s a basic shortfall of around £80 million. That suddenly puts jobs on the line in universities, and international subscriptions (to projects such as CERN) are put into jeopardy. It doesn’t seem like an open attack, i.e. it genuinely looks like an accountant made a mistake. But the government are now dragging their heals over coughing up the extra money.
I’m not directly affected (well, maybe to a certain extent, I’m a latecomer undergraduate physics student with the OU). But personally I was all for Gordon Brown when he made his “science” push. I agree that we should be getting more people into scientific fields, than into callcentres. Was it a dupe? :S
(Sorry about the miniblog Gia! And cheers for the link, had a good nosey on there earlier)
Thanks Ciaran. One of the reasons that I was so mad about the Fermilab thing was because it didn’t have to happen. Dennis Hastert, the former Speaker of the House, resigned for an unknown reason. Speculation is that he did so because there’s a new law which makes it illegal for former members of congress to work as lobbyists for two years after they leave office. Right now they would only have to wait one year. This left the district that Fermilab is in (Bativia, IL, about 30 miles west of Chicago) unrepresented. Both of our senators are democrats, as is a lot of the state and Hastert was a republican. People feel like some of the funding was cut because this was a republican district. I don’t know if that is true or not but some of it is that it wasn’t being protected in the House of Representatives. At first Barack Obama didn’t say anything about it but the other senator from Illinois, Dick Durbin, issued a statement about how funding had to be cut because we need to support our troops. That did not go over well. Now they are at least paying attention to the problem, I don’t know if anything is actually being done. :^(
People love Fermilab. Teachers go there to get professional credits that they need to keep working at a reasonable price. The grounds are beautiful. I have met so many nice people there that I really did find it a shame that 200 people found out that they had to worry about their jobs about a week and a half before Christmas. I’m glad that you are ok but best wishes to the Europeans who are affected by the FTSC cuts.
Brian Cox may have the geek girls wetting their knickers but I found his presentation style annoying and distracting. All the daft, lingering, space-filling shots of him grinning like a goon almost made me turn over. Overall, I felt the programme was OK but a bit too Newsround. It’s a bit sad that Horizon is only allowed to make dumbed-down documentaries like this.
Sorry to be negative but I’ve just seen the documentary and thought it was absolutely dreadful. As a person Brian was annoying e.g. he didn’t seem able to speak direct to camera and just seemed like a lost little boy, and the ‘science bit’ was so badly explained I cringed. There was the potential for a good, well explained programme – this sadly wasn’t it. It was far too dumbed down for starters.
Why have you not looked at how what why when where loss of gravity occurs for 15-18 seconds in the plane which lets people experience zero gravity. What are the Gravitons doing or not doing up there ?? There seems to be something that your programme and explanations missed out on. You are firing subatomic particles at each other yet that is not what is happening in the plane. What are the subatomic particles doing when that mechanism occurs when the plane loops??? Am I being too simple. Super thoughtful programme
Alan Jones
Great programme.
I dont know about knickers and the like, I just need to know if the BBC are planning to release this on DVD or repeat it.
I wasnt expecting anything intersting on a Tuesday night, so I didnt have my brain in gear.
What I saw was great and I would like to watch it again.
Just watched Brian’s proggie on Horizon.
A most fascinating subject but quite frankly I almost turned it off as he comes over in the first 5 mins as an arrogant “*%&&+”&/+”ç%.
Once the opening 5 mins passed it was quite good but he always portrayed to the viewer that Newton and Einstein were supposed to be exact (or at least give you that impression when he first introduces their work) when of course they are not.
At the end I thought he actually did a rather good job on the subject (despite struggling with gravity waves/ripples).
Oh – and of course nothing is wrong with gravity – its our explanations that are not quite up to scratch
Alan Jones, no, you see… gravity doesn’t go away on the vomit comet. What’s actually happening is that everyone in the plane is plummeting earthwards; it’s just that… so is the plane. So they’re all falling at once. The loss of gravity is illusory.
Exactly like what happens to people in a lift when the cable (and all the safety stuff) breaks and the lift falls down the lift shaft. Everyone inside appears weightless – but only in relation to the lift itself; it and everyone in it is going *down* at the same time…
Dillon, it’s already on the BBC’s iPlayer so you can watch it again.
Great stuff Gia!
I watched it last night (by accident!)
Please keep us informed.
Brian does a great job to keep us amateur cosmologists in the picture.
I just hope poor old Einstein can watch (from another dimension?)
Really enjoyed the Horizon programme. It was nice to have a Horizon that didn’t follow the usual, irritating format of spending half an hour telling me stuff that turns out to be wrong and getting to the correct stuff in the last 15 minutes. This one jumped straight in with a history lesson and built through our different levels of understanding to get to where we are today. The visualisations were excellent and Dr Cox was infectiously enthusiastic. It was nice to have some lighter moments too.
More please!
Sion- Yeah! That was brilliant, wasn’t it? I HATE when science programmes do that!! Even worse is when they repeat the previous 10 minutes over again… and then 10 minutes later repeat it again, so that the programme ends up being no more than 10-15 minutes of actual content.
Hiya. I don’t know what to make of the Brians of this world. I want science to be accessible and since 99% of science programming died in the late ’80s and early ’90s (antenna, QED, Equinox jesus christ just how DO they build 747s for the eightieth time, blah blah) to be replaced with ‘accessible’ para-fictional nonsense like walking with dinosaurs, what little is left had _better_ do the job (all those jobs, in fact).
Now I don’t know about everyone else, but even though I’m a biologist (the scientific equivalent of a drummer, I know) I track most science and stuff like Horizon rarely did more than fill in some gaps and put a shine on what I already knew (not trying to sound like a polymath — honestly, you must know what I mean). QED of course was mostly GCSE stuff, but was great for non-science people.
Of Horizon and QED, the worse loss (for public awareness of science) was BY FAR QED (Equinox and Antenna were more Horizon-y). So if Horizon is all that is left, it should do the most important job and make science accessible. I know, retch retch but it rilly rilly matter these days as we are gradually losing our supply of new scientific brain power to add to the collective. Like Frankie Boyle said on Mock the Week the other week (I’m paraphrasing at the cost of the comedy), science lessons can’t compete with Tekken.
So, to Brian, who I like, and if I knew personally (we co-occurred at Manchester Uni, but not in any way that would matter) I’m sure I would like lots. The floppy hair and limbs thing is forgivable — not charming in a 40yo the way it would be in a 25yo, but not affected imho. So that’s a love or loathe. But I really did change my mind on the programme as it went on. At the start I was just think ffs another triumph of style over content, but as it went on I came around. Watching him there failing to think of a way to explain gravity waves was (a) funny (he’s funny) and (b) what this stuff is all about! I liked seeing him flail around — I assume this is to the director’s credit — cos that’s what we all do 90% of the time (if it wasn’t that way it wouldn’t be science). I came to science originally (from school) thinking most of it was done (lol) thanks to the way lessons were and the way the telly was (which in a nutshell was “science ROCKS”). It was a matter of time till Gene Roddenberry got all he wanted.
If I had seen a science where people were really thinking in front of me, and getting a kick out of it, I would have been more turned on to it I think (I was a sitter anyway, so a bad example, but anyway). Horizon meets scrapheap challenge. Because in the end, we are a social, problem solving, pattern seeking animal. Knowledge is not actually hugely satisfying in itself (unless it resolves a [perhaps briefly] pre-existing conflict or gap internally); what keeps us going in to work is the _chase_ for new knowledge/order. People don’t fox hunt for the fox, they like the chase (I know, kill them all etc., but that’s the best analogy I can think of if this post isn’t going to turn into a book).
So in summary, I think that as long as the payload is still in there somewhere, Brian and his director got it right (although there is no excuse for perpetuating that bloody apple myth). Science is a process, and that process is not just fun, it is bloody addictive. And while the people in it might not be the epitome of modern cool (iz it bcoz i iz not in my twenties any more), neither are they unapproachable gods. This is why the RI lectures (when good) are great.
Some summary. Sorry. I don’t think that we attract kids at any price, but we can go a LOT further to attract them without descending into pathetic tossy value-free crap. We need to think more about making the science (the process and the result) accessible not in the comedy fashion that it normally happens, but another way; I think that Horizon got pretty close. It’s waaay not done, it’s fun, come get some (bring maths ability — eek — no maths? be a biologist yay). I spend a lot of time explaining computers to biologists who can barely work their email; most informaticians throw up their hands, but you can do it if you think about the kinds of analogies, the way you present yourself, blah blah. Basic shit. We should be getting this right. Goddamnit we have to get off this planet!
Chris, thanks for your excellent comment. You might be interested to find out that last night’s Horizon got 2.1 million viewers. Horizon normally gets 1.1 million. Portillo’s the other week got 2.1 million and was trailed and advertised heavily. Brian’s Horizon, though it had the same number of viewers, actually got a higher share of the audience than Portillo’s programme did. The BBC didn’t trail Brian’s Horizon at all and the only PR/marketing done was online or Brian phoning some people up and saying, ‘Hey, can I come on your programme.’ (In the end, he did one radio interview, BBC Breakfast and Northwest Tonight)
That says to me that there is a large number of people who want to watch ‘hard science’ on telly.
I suspect last night was a bit of a wake up call for ‘Horizon’. About time, too. :)
Oh and you may have noticed Brian’s snarky comments in the programme about the whole apple thing ;)
I saw the program last night and would like to offer the following opinion to those of you unhappy that this was ‘dumbed down’ and didn’t contain in depth explanations of the science: In an ideal world, yes, but ‘get real’; This was a program aimed at a mainstream channel, shown at prime time, and was always going to be aimed at mainstream understandings.
And, so aimed, I think it was pitched excellently. I suspect that for Brian and the producers, this show was just as much about the quest to catch the wider publics flagging scientific imagination. One one hand, I can sympathise with the purist view that it shouldn’t *need* a pop-culture style of presentation to do this, but the reality is that it probably does, and all credit to the programme makers for achieving what I think they set out to. If their efforts bring just one young, potential scientist in from the cold, then it was worth it.
Frankly, I think you’d have to be a bit of a miserable so-and-so to not find Brians genuine enthusiasm at all infectious. In any case, serious scientists who are past all that, however, have another fantastic medium to share ideas… the internet.
To the Chris before me, I would like to say; excellently put – you express a lot of my own feelings about why this was a highly worthy style of programme.
I happened upon the show last night quite accidentally and thoroughly enjoyed it. I’m not a scientist at all but find particle physics fascinating, and for me (who understands very little and that only through reading the odd book in the “popular science” section or from reading New Scientist) the show hit the right note. It showed that scientists are enthused by what they’re working on and this is infectious, that even if you understand the theories it’s not always possible to put them into words and that we need to keep probing and producing theories.
I shall definitely be harrassing my friends and family to catch the show on BBC iPLayer.
Also, for the people who found Dr Cox’s style irritating and annoying – grow up! There’s no sense sitting around moaning that the public at large are not up in arms over the cut in STFC funding but then lambasting someone who’s trying to engage their interest in science. Even if you don’t like him, others might…even if he did have a part in the New Labour anthem.
Hiya. Thanks both C & G — I think we’re all after the same thing — appealing broadly without selling out. I did miss the apple-teaser, oops, must have blinked er my erm ears.
Overall, I think the sell (for science via the telly I mean) is very much that this is stuff that people _can_ get stuck in to, that the rewards are huge (if not pecuniarily — should have been a medic lol), and that the people already stuck in are for the most part _normal_ (god, fun even, being for the most part bright and not overly acquisitive). And of course I’m compelled to randomly mention both Radio 4 and BBC 4 (which is just Radio 4 on the telly anyway, more or less), both of which throw (pseudo-)commercial programming into sharp relief. Yay licence fee.
And while I’m avoiding work: I was thinking about the older ‘worthier’ (and don’t get me wrong, for me personally, the harder the better) Horizons (etc.), especially those covering my own immediate interests, and why I liked watching them even when I knew more about the thing at hand than was presented (newer results, for example, or more depth): It’s like putting on a favourite album I think; I know every squeak and whistle on Physical Graffiti, but it still does it for me (more so, perhaps). Hearing once more about how the modern sysnthesis came about or whatever is actually relaxation — kind of meditative :)
Christ I need to get out more.
Fascinating program .. well. it provoked me!
Why does the BBC find it acceptable to repeat “2 pints of lager …” and other such ad nauseam, and yet if you missed this (or perhaps wanted a recap) ….
Leaving aside the self promotion (what else can one do on TV) .. I thought Newton got a bit of a poor deal .. a quick flash of his formula scribbled on a bit of paper … amongst arty shots of apples .. whereas Einstein had lots of arty graphics trying to show space-time fabric … I think if I want to plan a journey in space – I would go for the bit of paper.
I was provoked by 2 facts .. perhaps the only ones I noticed –
1 The moon and earth are 10 meters further apart than they should be
2 You have to keep applying corrections to the clocks on the GPS satellites, otherwise your position is out by 11 kms – a day!!
For some reason I find these a tad worrying.
The first one appears to have been the case for 30 years .. or did I misunderstand?
Now, as a simple person, I would have measured it once, and if it was not as expected .. done it again.. maybe even a couple more times – just to be sure. Then either checked my tape measure, or decided that the original supposition was wrong …. a couple of weeks tops .. 30 years?
Sounds like there was another hour of explanation missing .. perhaps Gravity 11?
As for fact 2 .. I am just gob-smacked .. did they not know when they built the system .. surely someone had an inkling .. had they not read Einstein’s book … or was it that they had and shouldn’t have?
and if those poor US war-fighters forget .. just once ?
Sounds like Gravity 111 and possibly 1V, not to mention the disaster movie just waiting to be made of the plane landing 11 km short – or long ..
Another thing that puzzles me … and which I was hoping the program may give some clue about …
The earth and the moon are “linked” by gravity .. in a sort of predictable way (at least according to Newton)…
This link depends on the mass of each .. so the distance between the 2 depends on the mass of each
If you change the weight of one (or both) – by say throwing odd bits into space, or indeed moving stuff from one to the other.
Does this affect the orbits – of each / both?
And if so – by how much?
The earth and the moon are getting heavier as it happens (sweeping dust, meteorites, etc.) on average, and as a result are moving further apart over (a very long) time. This though is centrifugal force outweighing the tiny increase in gravitational attraction (which provides the countering centripetal force that keeps them orbiting). They are also slowing a little iirc (same energy, more mass = less speed I think, in both orbital speed, and in their rotation on their own axes incidentally — days are getting longer). They also orbit a point in between their centres of mass (weighted towards the larger — in our case it is within the earth’s interior).
The funny one for me was the satellite one too, but for another reason. I’m used to joking that bosses who fly a lot age slower (by femtoseconds) due to relativistic effects (speed — I remember James Burke doing it with a moped in n ‘Connections’ back in deep time); tuns out that may be trumped by the effect of being less deep in earth’s gravity well. Or are these the same thing? Er..? I’d be interested to know how fast vs how high works out which way depending on the relevant bit (gravity versus % of speed of light).
Loved the show as an amateur I found it a good watch without to many preconceptions or slanted views, I still think though Gravity has a few surprises even beyond the quantum barrier.
And do we really understand what space-time is, it is odd after nearly one hundred years of relativistic based theories we still think in classical universe terms about time, I mean is the universe really expanding faster each day or is time just running differently in the voids of space between the clusters of galaxies, did gravity lose a fight not with dark matter or dark energy but with space-time.
My one thought I was left with after the show was, is there energy imparted from one to the other when gravity distorts space-time is this where the fabled graviton goes, is space-time absorbing the energy of gravity as it passes through it and therefore why gravity is so weak and if space-time does indeed do this where does the energy go?
Actually I have another question, on that gravity detector (the big L): Surely if a gravity wave stretches space_time_, then reality itself (there is no other yardstick than spacetime and that is itself distorting) is stretching and would that look any different then to any observer anywhere? If _everything_ slows / gets more distant / whatever then surely it is literally undetectable? If my ruler stretches, then how do I know that the thing I’m measuring stretched as well? I think the interferometer will always show no effect.
Imagine — one car goes further, but _has_ to make the same time (all of reality has changed in sync), so is _effectively_ going faster, but relative to everything else in that frame, nothing is different (perhaps literally as well as perceptibly); but there is no external frame; i.e. any two ‘patches’ of space are the same and show the same aggregate behaviour; light would change along with everything else — so one tunnel gets longer, but so does the wavelength of the light and (relative to a non-existent external frame) goes quicker, so returns exactly in phase still. This sort of seems like some sort of topological equivalence or something. If there was some magical way to see in one frame with the eyes of another, then maybe you could see it, but the light goes through the change in the density of reality (for want of a better phrase) so cannot somehow be part of an objective observation of itself. my god that makes no perceptible sense even now :(
I’m confused, of Cambridge.
I’ve invaded your blog :) I promise to go away soon…
Hi all, I watched the Horizon programme & thought it was ok made. I always like these sort of programmes & have been interested in science stuff for years. I’m not in any way qualified but the more I find out I often think to myself who really is anyway, we’re all learning. Anyhow I was especially interested in this programme because of a book I’ve been reading recently called The Final Theory by Mark McCutcheon. In the book Mark postulates that there is NO SUCH THING AS GRAVITY! He has found what is really the cause of so-called GRAVITY. Its the ATOMIC EXPANSION OF ATOMS AT A UNIVERSAL RATE. I urge everybody who is truly interested to know what is truly going on where so-called ‘gravity’ is concerned to read this book. I’m only half way through the book at present & there’s still more to come about black holes & SETI. If anyone has any questions you can ask me on here & I’ll do my best to answer with my own early understanding of Atomic Expansion Theory, but you’d be better to check Mark’s website http://www.thefinaltheory.com/homepage.html & if you click on the science flaws tab you’ll see a list of questions & answers from Mark. Cheers. Happy reading, I honestly cannot recommend the book highly enough, to me its THE ANSWER to the unsolved ‘mystery’ of gravity. THERE IS NO GRAVITY!!
Just caught this on iplayer. I am no scientist, and have at best a rudimentary understanding of the principles of physics. There have been lots of comments slating the presentation style and saying that the programme was dumbed down. Let me say this:
This was not a prgram for the physics geeks who already undeerstand all of this stuff. Horizon has always been about making complex subjects accessible to all those intersted. If it gets people thinking and maybe even doing more research on a topic, then the BBC has fulfilled its mandate as a public service broadcaster.
Personally I thought it was very interesting. Much easier to follow than “The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe”, which I am currently fighting my way through!
Oh dear. Horizon ain’t what it used to be, and although times are changing I can’t understand why such a programme has to be more of a fashion statement and ego-trip for the presenter than an educational documentary. It all began to go wrong so early on. Why look to the side of the camera? I know, and everyone knows, there’s nobody there. But the director thought it would look “cool” I guess. “Does anyone have a bit of paper so I can write down an equation?” What’s THAT about?! So obviously scripted that by now I’m reaching for the bucket. Oh, and let’s have a laugh with the camera crew in the back of the truck……… In the past I’ve used Horizons in school for valuable lessons in astronomy and physics – I deleted this from my PVR immediately after watching it. My students at least would be laughing AT the programme, not “with” it. I’m surprised the US Army officer didn’t take more offence to the “maybe you’re an idiot” comment, but maybe he did and that’s why they left hurriedly. Shameful. If the programme had done its job properly, we’d have learned more about gravity and less about Dr Cox’s previous employment and personal interests.
Gia: Sorry, but there was absolutely nothing in the programme about Brian’s “previous employment” other than the comment that he used to work at Fermilab which was entirely relevant to the programme. The presenting style of the programme is a stylistic choice made for documentaries which follow people on ‘journeys’. There was, indeed, someone there off camera – the producer/director. Of course, his input was cut out – I invite you to watch one of the outtakes to watch an unedited sequence where the producer/director and Brian were arguing about how to explain gravity waves. The comment to the Air Force officer was aimed at Brian himself *not* the officer. (It was something like, ‘I’d guess you’d say the reason why I got lost on the way here would be, “you’re an idiot”.’) Do you think Brian’s programme was any more scripted than the normal Horizon where they hire a voice over artist to read a script written by a tv producer over shots of speeded up traffic at night? If so, I again invite you to watch one of the outtakes where Brian *admits* that he didn’t even read the script (!). Finally, I’m very pleased that you are able to enthuse and inspire your physics and astronomy students without acknowledging that scientists are ‘normal people’.
I should imagine the general public would have gained a lot from this programme. It was useful for me (as a former astronomer) to get an update on gravitons and gravity waves from the people working on them. I didn’t find Brian arrogant at all! Some of his side comments were great — ‘it’s just a ruler then’ on the gravity wave detector was spot on…
On the graviton ‘disappearing energy’ bit. How do you know the disappearing energy isn’t composed of neutrinos, or some other difficult to detect particle?
I’m 60 and have only maths, physics, chemistry, and biology “O” levels so I need “dumbed-down” accessible science programmes. Hawking is too heavy for me, but I get along fine with Michio Kaku and Australia’s Dr Karl. Now at last a young good looking physicist who even talks “Manc” or at least “Lanc” (I think he’s from Oldham). It’s even better than Christopher Eccleston as Dr Who!
Seriously, the Horizon programme was excellent. I’d like to see a lot more science programmes on television and it seems to me that Dr Brian Cox is just the man for the job. Well done!
I’ve just watched Horizon on the BBC iPlayer, and can echo some of the thoughts of earlier commenters. I’m not a “hard” scientist myself, but a technologist, and so am one of the general primetime audience that this sort of show is aimed at. Maybe it felt “dumbed down” to those of you with deep personal interest or professional training in the subject, but for me it was interesting, entertaining, and thoroughly informative. hence the web search to fine out more about the infectiously enthusiastic Dr Brian Cox (who I had never heard of before) which led me here.
I hope there is more programming like this in the pipeline involving him, and do tell : has he been at the anti-wrinkle cream? Surely he’s not older than me?!
I guess Mark Poddington’s contribution above makes my point. It’s the cult of celebrity again which comes to the fore, not the science. Of course it’s a matter of taste, but I still use the Horizons from the ’80s where Martin Jarvis does a superb narration on the two programmes about the Voyager missions. They are almost timeless, unlike, I feel, the subject of this discussion. If you have a fascination for outtakes, then you really should get out more.
Grahame, give it up now. Thanks. “blahblahblah it was so much better in the olden days blahblahblah”. Come on.
OK, so you can’t take any more. But please get rid of the obscenity at the bottom of this page – that does you no credit.
Sorry, Graham, this is my site and I will put up what I want. If you want your own ‘obscenity-free’ site, you are welcome to sign up for one of many good, free blogging services like WordPress or Blogger… then I can come and tell *you* how to do things and criticise your spouse’s work. How’s that? ^_^
I thought that the programme was interesting and stylish. I was immensely impressed by Brian’s infectious delivery – his students must love him! I think he is a great role model for all stuffy 40ish academics. I like the fact that he can use his talents to reach out to a wider audience, rather than closing himself off in a comfy cocoon.
Thank you, Pete. Yes, Brian is so deeply enthusiastic about science that he really does want to share his joy about it with as many people as possible.
Also, he doesn’t have students at the moment. He’s got PhDs, but he doesn’t lecture to undergrads. He’s got a Royal Society Research Fellowship which effectively buys him out of lecturing so that he can spend his time doing research. Something like 20% of the Fellowship is for ‘public understanding of science’ – that is giving talks and lectures to the general public at science festivals, schools, conferences etc – doing tv programmes comes under that heading. ^_^
Calm down Giagia, calm down! Look we’ve just got to accept that your Brian int in the same league as that Martin Jarvis.
Martin Jarvis is an ac-tor with a Surrey/Suthun accent, best known for voice-overs and even better known for reading audio-books. Pretty good cruciverbalist mind! Now with all due respect, I believe that your Brian ant really gorra clue about acting and voice-overs. Am I right?
I can only assume that the reason Horizon even looked at him is because he’s a natural in front of a camera, and actually knew summat about science. Am I right?
Haha! Thanks, Pat. For many years now, both the BBC and Channel 4 (cos really who else does ‘science’ on telly… and yes, apparently the freak show stuff Ch4 do is ‘science’) have been actively seeking ‘experts’ as presenters.
They, quite rightly I feel, believed that audiences deserved better than an actor like, say, Sam Neil doing a science series like Space just cos he’d starred in a sci-fi film or two. They wanted to find actual working scientists, researchers, doctors etc who actually knew what they were talking about. Unfortunately, Channel 4 didn’t seem to mind that one of their ‘doctors’ had bought their doctorate on the internet. They knew about it years ago, but admitted they didn’t mind that Gillian McKeith wasn’t really a doctor. :-/ Anyway…
The problem with using experts is that talking to camera in a comfortable and believable way is actually really, really difficult for most people. Finding someone who has genuine knowledge AND can be relaxed on camera without hours and hours and hours of previous practice on camera, is virtually impossible… So, they’ve been testing a lot of people out. Getting people on as talking heads on programmes, giving small programmes to people to see how they work on camera, generally getting a lot of experts used to being on camera.
So Brian’s been a talking head on several Horizon’s already over the past few years. After the last one they asked him if he had any ideas for a programme. He suggested ‘Gravity’.
He wrote the programme’s structure and ‘content’ with Professor Jeffrey Forshaw from the University of Manchester. The telly people re-jigged it a bit so it was better for tv… then off he went with the crew driving across the US.
Brian, however, has had quite a lot of tv experience, though I’m sure he won’t mind me saying this, he’s only really come into his own on tv in the past 18 months. I’m convinced it was all the press he did for ‘Sunshine’ that helped him more than anything… but it means that now, as someone with years of presenting experience, I can honestly say that he’s good on camera. :)
I come in peace! You’ll be pleased to know that my head of physics has asked the technician here to make a dvd copy of Brian’s prog – hopefully not infringing copyright? As with all these matters it’s clearly a matter of taste. Only when you rattled my cage did I look you up on Wiki and found you were Brian’s wife. Honest. I am now better able to understand your reaction to my remarks! Unreserved apologies if you felt I caused offence.
Grahame, don’t worry. Despite my somewhat splenetic responses, I don’t actually take things personally nor am I genuinely offended- only occasionally and certainly not with you :)
Hi Gia, why do you keep deleting my posts? Gia: I’ve not deleted your comments. They were caught by Askimet spam filter. Either your url or what you say is considered to be spam. Don’t you want anybody to read about a new theory that challenges the old ones? Gia: I don’t care what anyone else wants to read. Personally, however, I don’t have time for loonies. I wonder why that is when science is supposed to be open minded & progressive & finding out what’s really going on. Gia: I don’t think science makes a point of ‘being’ those things for the sake of it, you know. Its just a members only club really. Gia: Well, I guess it isn’t for small-minded people and whackjobs, no. You got me there. Expand your mind, read David Icke’s books Gia: Oooop. Loony. Goodbyeeee!!!! & Mark McCutcheons THE FINAL THEORY Rethinking Our Scientific Legacy Single new principle ADVANCES science beyond Newton & Einstein! It won’t be long before so-called scientists start claiming this theory as their own. It answers many so-called ‘mysteries’ where science falls flat. Science can’t even manage to explain how a light bulb really works, how it gives off heat & light without any voltage drop, so-called ‘free energy’ is a violation of the Law of Conservation Of Energy! Today’s science offers neither a clear physical description of light nor a scientifically viable explanation for how or why it is produced by electricity flowing through a resistor.
Gia: *sigh*
[sorry, I may have submitted this twice]
(Err this is a little long, Brain/his programme is a little close to my heart at the moment, so maybe just skip to the last paragraph)
Just watched the show…I’m sorry, I can’t help shake the feeling that us license payer types have simply given Brian a free ticket to go on an expensive holiday. Maybe I’m a little slow, but what exactly is wrong with gravity? If anything, this program just (poorly) explained how good our understanding of gravity is.
I simply did not get the road trip element to this programme. It seems to be something that plagues Horizon programmes of late (well, I haven’t bee watching it for too long-I’m only young!), we the viewers follow the clues and magically reach the conclusion. Portillo’s sudden realisation that nitrogen (I think) can kill by going into a decompression chamber was terrible. Why couldn’t he just lay it out on the table at the start? Say, ‘Look, this is a much better method-why don’t we use it?’. (Cos of the nut jobs in America…)
Similarly, why didn’t Brian begin wby explain WHY we need a new theory of gravity? What problems can we not currently solve-Big Bang, black holes etc. The whole we can explain big things (stars et al.) and small things (atoms et al.), but we currently cannot predict the behavior of something which is both ‘big and small’. One thing I really stuggle to find is a clear explanation of predictions or experimental results that a new theory would be required to explain. I believe that the first problem General Relativity addressed was the orbit or Mercury around the sun, which cannot be accurately predicted by Newton’s laws? What is the modern day equivalent?
The cliched, method for these types of programme is to follow the history of gravity, from Newton to Cox in 3 easy steps. This would satisfy the ‘journey’ element that Horizon so craves, and this appears to be how Brian started out. Then he seems to have realised this would be likely warming up last Tuesday’s soup, packed it in and decided to go to America instead. While I’m on it, WHAT THE FLIP was that piece of paper form the pocket thing? Oh I just happen to have a perfectly square piece of paper in my pocket but, ‘have you gor a pen?’. Given Newton’s formula some flipping respect, it’s lasted for 300 years!
Ah Newton-perhaps the greatest (scientific, or otherwise?) mind that has ever existed? So why did he come across as an idiot? We got to the point where Netwon realised his theory doesn’t actually explain what gravity is, but Brian’s answer is simply, ‘Yeah Newton believed in God, so he didn’t care.’ Yes he did! Even with the limited information available to him, Newton realised that his thoey did not take acount of the effects of distance on time. He realised that according to his theory, everything happened instantly; if he moved his hand then every star in the universe would shift instantly-he could wave his hand at the sun and it would wobble on the spot. Clearly this would not do, and Newton was beginning to scratch on the surface of realise that gravity is a ‘local’ force. There was simply too many gaps that needed to be filled, which would take centuries, but who knows, maybe if he had lived another 50 years?
I’ve already had ago about Newton, so I’m going to skip the points about Einstein and relatvity, many of which have already been made. But I can resist pointing out that GPS has got to be the most boring outcome of relativity ever! Oh and that, yes, the explanation of general relativity was pretty poor, but to be honest, to give it a fair airing would have taken the whole 50 minutes up so, hmm. Having said that, I would love to have ago at explaining it on the tely (60 secs will do!), I always seem to suceed with my friends *big grin*.
Actually thinking about, this was the programme’s biggest problem. It was torn between giving proper explanations (handwaving ain’t gonna explain nothing) to those who are interested but ain’t got the patience to pick up a book, and simply telling the wonderful story of how much humans actually know. I have to say here, the moon landing stuff was great. I’m about 20 years younger than Brian, and I can see how much my generation has missed out on admiring such a focussed project. Why haven’t we landed on Mars yet!?! The Earth is very inward looking, oil and celebrities all over the place.
But there I say it, isn’t Brian himself is a celebrity of sorts? Well, no he’s a physicist, but no journalist seems to be able to mention him without pointing out her hasn’t got grey curly hair (But jeez! Who does these days!?). Isn’t that why he got the Sunshine gig? He certainly lives in that strange world between serious hard physics (go away, I’m a genius) of the blackboard and the fun exploding balloons of public theatre shows I mean *ahem* lectures.
Well, perhaps that’s a good thing. I started writing this because after I watched Horizon, I was fuming and dissapointed to be honest. But having thought about it, it was at least trying to be new, actually, maybe I liked it. But one thing I REALLY wish Brian would do now, is toughen up and act a little more serious. His light hearted style is enternaing, but it is exactly someone like him who should be debating, say, nuclear power or science funding issues with politicians/the pubilic. I’m pretty certain he has the recognition that his opinion would carries weight to actually influence the politician type, but he would just be walked over as he is.
Gia: James, Brian certainly wouldn’t disagree with you on the Newton stuff. He didn’t want any of that in. It was insisted upon. :-/ And they needed to go to the US cos that’s where the big stuff is actually happening. Horizon specifically wanted to try and change their style this series from the talking heads, voice over, speeded-up shots of traffic in a city at night bore-fests, to ‘journeys’. The style mightn’t be right for everyone, but they are trying something new and for that they should be commended.
For the record, Brian *is* discussing nuclear power publicly – he just spoke at the Nuclear Industry Associations annual conference before Christmas – and both he and I have done work with the NIA on public understanding of nuclear power and Brian *is* at the forefront of the science funding issue including meetings at Parliament and with the STFC and press appearances etc. So though you mightn’t know about it, he *is* involved in all of that. :)
Thank you for the reply Gia, it’s like wow! The little people inside my television just got a little more real.
I think it shows that Brian didn’t want the Newton stuff in. Newton didn’t really didn’t fit in with the show, maybe that piece of paper trick was a silent protest? Well I hope it was; it will fill me with a small sense of glee.
Maybe I spoke too soon. Hey, that info ain’t readily available-well within 2 clicks away. Can I ask if Brian and/or yourself in favour of or against building new fission power stations? For me personally, it is an outdated source of power. I just with nuclear fussion would hurry up and come along already, even guys have several hair dryers today. [Sorry to be a bore and mention, the oh so scary, nuclear power, but it is the most pressing headline at the moment what with Mr Brown's energy reforms and all]
I don’t know this is a hard one; as an armchair critic I always have the last laugh. Just, well, the NIA is not necessarily acting for the benefit of the public. I mean obviously, it is, just that it will always be pro-nuclear, surely? Again, obviously, I’m wrong, but it’s a bit like the way your trained never to trust a car dealer…what a terrible analogy…I almost feel Brian is in the position to simply go it alone. Become the in-house expert on Question Time and the like, and not just on physics; it’s obvious Brian is fascinated, like all scientisits should be, by the achievements of humans and the state of world today.
James, for some reason your comments are ending up in my Askimet spam. Strange. That doesn’t happen very often. Good thing I checked otherwise you’d have thought I was being rude!
Re: nuclear power. You can read what I think about it here and here and both Brian and I have articles here. Brian’s (and my) involvement with the NIA came from our New Statesmen articles. Apparently, we’d said things that caused a ‘bit of a stir’ within the nuclear industry.
Fusion is a long way off – 30 years is the estimate. There isn’t enough investment in the research. Over the next 30 years it’s estimated that ITER will cost about $15 billion paid for by the EU and about 8 other countries. ID cards in the UK are estimated to cost between £5 billion and £30 billion (remember to double those figures to get the *dollar* value)…
I would prefer to see the ID card scheme dropped and the UK’s investment in fusion research go up. I think, the longterm benefits of the UK being the world leader in fusion far, far outweigh the benefits of catching a couple ‘terrorists’ with ID cards…
Don’t worry Gia, I would never think you rude. To get one reply was great, I did not expect two. Thanks for the links; I printed off the New Statesmen articles and gave them to my girlfriend. I asked her what she thought was wrong with them and she simply said, ‘There’s no catch. There has to be a catch surely?’
I agree with Brian absolutely in that the world as a whole should aim to use more energy not less. However, I still think that we in the ‘West’ are little bit gluttonous with our energy usage, but this is more to do with us becoming lazy. Also, London in the desserts of Africa; that’s both a beautfil and horrendous image at the same time.
‘Nuclear Power Is Not Nuclear War.’
I simply cannot agree with this statement. Ok, I am willing to ignore the terrorism threat to power stations for now. But just look at the recent Iran controversy; the simple fact of the matter is that no one trusts anyone to be enriching uranium. In the old days of the Cold War, it was relatively simple in that only the super rich countries had the resources and wealth to infest in nuclear technology. America watched Russia and vice versa; everything ticked over nicely. But now, seemingly unstable and poor countries can get access to such technologies. Whilst I am not saying this will result in a a nuclear war, or even a new Cold War, everyone is twitchy. I can certainly see there being a war OVER nuclear technology; America was seemingly moments away from invading Iran.
In regard to power stations, it is not just those cute friendly stations that you see in the countryside with big blue skies and families skipping by them *whistles* that you need to worry about; nuclear reactors can crop up anywhere. Look at the problems being created by Russia’s aging nuclear submarines for example. You mention in your article, perhaps rather selectively, the number of Chinese coal miners that die every year. Well I can tell you I would much rather be a miner in China, or anywhere else, then be on a nuclear sub in Russia. Ok, millions will not die if one of those sub goes into meltdown. But hundreds might. Nuclear power may work when then are perhaps a dozen, tightly regulated power stations scattered across a country. But the fact is, nuclear power is ONLY safe if properly maintained. To read your article, it seems you’d be safe to swap your combi boiler for a minature reactor. Now imagine calling out British gas to fix that!
For me, I don’t see why fission power is still being considered. You suggest that fussion power may be here in as little as 30 years, why not bridge the gap till then? Fossil fuels will surely last that long and fossil fuel stations can easily be made green through carbon capture technologies etc. To me, the ultimate argument has to be cost. How much is a new fission station, about £2 billion? Well 3-4 new stations and you’ve covered the costs of your fussion research. Or you could just dissolve the army…yay pacifism. Ok I’ll get my coat…
HONOURABLE CONTROLLERS OF THE BBC SCIENCE PROGRAMMES
Having seen a number of these sorts of programs on TV, recently, I am prompted to respond as follows.
This programme on ‘What on Earth is Wrong With Gravity?’ was very well put together and was well worth watching. However, I was reminded of Voltaire, the 18th Century sceptical author and philosopher, who challenged the authorities of the time with his heretical Questions of Zapata. If he were alive today, faced with the complexities of modern science as expressed in this programme, I imagine he would have commented, in the following way:
‘Oh, Wise Masters, can you please tell me how I can regard the universe as expanding in what is called the ‘Big Bang’? As I see it, the universe means, literally, everything there is, so that there can be no ‘outside’ to it, As James Jeans put it, ‘It is nothing, not even empty space.’
‘So, what can it be into which the universe is supposed to be expanding? To say, then, that the universe is expanding entails that it is expanding into nothing., which is the same as saying that it is not expanding. So what do I glean from this but that the universe is both expanding and not expanding I confess to be perplexed by this wisdom.
‘Also, my esteemed teachers, can you please tell me how, prior to its explosion, the size of that all-encompassing ‘primeval universe’ can be said to be ‘smaller than an atom.’? Since all means of measuring size had to be inside that ‘smallest of all spaces, with there being nothing outside it, how can that ‘universe’ sensibly be regarded as either small or big? I regret that to my meagre but honest intellect, this makes no sense.
‘You tell me, O wise ones, that prior to the Big Bang, everything there is was locked up inside that same ‘primeval atom’, including not only all space but also all time or duration, and that it was in that Big Bang, that ‘all time began’ – meaning that there was no time before it. But what is a universe, whatever size, small or big, which is in a state of ‘no time’, ‘waiting for time to begin’? And if there was nothing prior to it, if there were no preceding states or preconditions for the Big Bang to occur, then where could it possibly have come from? What sense am I to make of these things?
‘When the universe was settling down and cooling after the Big Bang, please tell me, where did the heat go, since there was nowhere for it to go except into the expanding universe which was all there is? Please tell me how to answer this.
‘When Hubble and Slipher reported the fact of the cosmological redshift why did their followers interpret this as a uniform ‘recession of the galaxies’ when it is by no means logically obligatory to interpret it that way? It is a fact, certainly, that all light-sources receding from us exhibit a reddening of the frequency of the light we receive from them. But it by no means follows from this that all reddenings in the frequency of a light-source exhibit a motion of recession – which would be like saying that because all mice are mammal, all mammals are mice. As I see it, surely some logical person would have looked for a better explanation of the Hubble redshift than that 13.7 billion years ago, the whole universe began as something smaller than a pinhead. In a proper scientific dialogue, that result would, surely, have been taken as a reduction to absurdity of that proposition, hence as affirming the need to research among the other possible explanations of the Hubble redshift, the number of which, I understand, are far from exhausted.
‘And if anyone continued to plump for just that single one of the many alternatives – that is, the Big Bang explanation of the redshift – then surely, by definition, he would be labelled a dogmatist. Please tell my why this dogmatism is allowed to continue in the most authoritative public media, even now, in the name of ‘Science’
‘And as for ‘gravity’ may I humbly bring to your attention the existence of some books by bona fide researchers which dispose of all in vacuo forces, such as ’gravitational’, ‘electrostatic’, ‘magnetostatic’ and ‘nuclear’ forces, replacing them all, uniformly, with a universal angular momentum equation. By this equation they prove that the orbital parameters of fast-spinning bodies are not the same as for non-spinning ones, and that G is not the same in both cases as is classically assumed. In other words, these books solve the ‘unified field’ problem at a stroke, simply by cutting the whole Gordian Knot of classical theory, that is to say, they unify all the classical ‘field-forces’ by getting rid of them altogether in favour of universal angular momentum. The latest of the books on this subject is Light-Speed. Gravitation and Quantum instantaneity, by A. D. Osborne and N. V. Pope, recently published and now available on Amazon Books http://www.amazon.co.uk , Section: Books; Professional Medical and Technical), also on http://www.gwales.com.uk I understand that further information about these books and the subject they deal with may be obtained on the website http://www.poams,org . Can you please read these books and inform me as to whether, for certain, they are so persuasive as to be works of the devil.
‘In any event, to me, these books make profound sense, representing as they do, a whole fifty-year long period of dedicated research into those very things that your programme deals with. Yet no mention of that research appears in your programme. What else can I gather from this but that you are perhaps ignorant of this research – perish the thought – or that its results are not approved by your reverences for public presentation? Yet they do make profound sense to me in a way which, I confess, your officially received views on ‘gravity’, etc., do not.
‘I trust you will forgive me, my masters, for these sinful but naïve questions which, honest simpleton at I am, I am unable to settle for myself. I eagerly await your judgement and esteemed instructions, and am prepared to do penance for my sins if you deem it necessary.
Your humble and obedient servant,
Vivianus Papatus
Is This the ‘New Physics’?
One of the most disturbing developments in modern experimental physics is the discovery that, virtually, the ‘gravitational constant’, G, long regarded as sacrosanct in its dependability, is not a constant but a variable. This means that some of the planets, satellites, space-probes, etc., are not where they should be according to the standard equations. This has prompted physicists, particularly those connected with space-probes, such as Pioneers 10 and 11, seriously to contemplate the necessity for a ‘new physics’. As NASA scientist, John Anderson puts it:
In the unlikely event that there is new physics, one does not want to miss it because one had the wrong mind set [ ]
Unfortunately, to flip from one ‘mindset’ to another, as radically as may be necessary, is not easy. Indeed, as history attests (witness Galileo, et al.) it may even be socially traumatic. In any case, if there is such a new physics in the offing, it is obviously not something that can be just ‘plucked out of the air’ or manufactured, ad hoc. Fortunately, over the last half-century there has been developed a radically new paradigm of physics, based on the ideas of relativity’s originator, Mach, who was Einstein’s Philosophy mentor. This Machian relativism differs from Einstein’s in that instead of opposing quantum theory in the way Einstein’s theory so notoriously does, it actually incorporates it as part and parcel of its physics. Also, in its predictions of varying G, not only does it propose a natural solution of the Pioneer anomaly, but also of the anomalous ‘missing mass’ in current astrophysics, without having to postulate the completely undetectable ‘dark matter’ that mystifies modern physics.
The full account of this radically new approach to modern physics is presented in a recent (2008) book entitled Light-Speed, Gravitation and Quantum Instantaneity, by A. D. Osborne and N. V. Pope. This book describes the neo-Machian philosophy of Normal Realism and its Physics spin-off, POAMS (the Pope-Osborne Angular Momentum Synthesis). The book is available from some bookshops, such as Borders, as well as in some libraries and from the distributors listed on the website http://www.poams.org .
Hi, Is there any chance someone got the freaky long equation of standard model as shown in the Ted talk by Dr Cox? I really wanna get that and print it on my T-shirt. If you can send it to me I will be very appreciative!