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

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…

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…

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.

(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. :)

Gia: *sigh*