Original subtitles

BRIAN COX: The natural world is beautiful, but complex.

The skies dance with color.

(CHILDREN CLAMORING)

Shapes of great geometrical beauty

form and disappear...

And the planet itself is constantly transformed.

But this seemingly infinite complexity

is the shadow of something deeper,

the underlying laws of nature.

The world we live in is beautiful to look at,

but it's even more beautiful to understand.

Everything in the universe is in motion,

and yet it feels as if we're standing still.

This appears to be such a simple observation,

but the study of motion lies at the very foundation of modern physics

and leads to the astonishing conclusion

that the division of time into past, present and future,

is an illusion.

Our intuition is wrong.

Space and time are stranger than we could possibly have imagined.

From our viewpoint here on Earth,

the planet seems motionless

as the universe revolves around us.

Every day for four and a half billion years,

the Sun has risen in the East,

cracked across the sky and set below the Western horizon.

And as the years pass, so the seasons turn.

Summer fades into autumn,

and autumn into winter.

But these seemingly perpetual cycles are delicate,

evocative hints that our planet is far from stationary.

I've always loved the passing of the seasons,

a gentle experience with a powerful resonance.

I'd remember the words of those hymns I used to sing

when I was six or seven that celebrate them.

"Let me plough the fields and scatter,"

"in the bleak mid-winter, the frosty winds may moan."

The daily changes are almost imperceptible.

The reddening of the leaves and the cooling of the streams is subtle,

but those changes mask a jarring celestial violence.

So, what is going on out there,

in space and time,

as the days pass, the seasons change?

The most familiar aspect of our planet's motion is the day,

caused by the Earth's rotation.

You'd have to go back to the turn of the 17th century

to find anyone who'd argue that the Earth doesn't spin.

But you need a piece of 21st century technology

to experience just how fast it's moving.

PILOT: We're going to get ourselves airborne from Warton, here,

and then we're going to climb up to altitude

and we're going to try and beat the Earth's rotation.

BRIAN: The Earth spins so fast

that you can't beat it with any old crate.

You need something a bit special.

This is a Eurofighter Typhoon.

It flies at, at least Mach 1.85, twice the speed of sound.

I can't tell you exactly how fast, 'cause it's classified.

They go up to at least 55,000 feet,

but again, I can't tell you, it's classified.

And you can't film down those air intakes

because they're classified as well.

This one is BA Systems' development aircraft

and I'm going to get in it in a minute.

And it's got all the test software

and the pilot told me that, you know,

it's a bit ropey so, erm,

press "control-alt-delete" occasionally if it all goes funny

and usually it comes back on,

which is good.

MAN: Get in feet-wise. Comfy? Good.

That's for, if you take control.

- It's unlikely. (CHUCKLES) - Unlikely.

MAN: Have you got a sick bag?

No.

Worst comes to the worst, do it in your glove.

CONTROLLER: Charlie 6-9. Runway 0-7. Clear take-off.

Wind 350 degrees, seven knots. Overall, okay to go.

PILOT: Ready?

- BRIAN: Yeah. - PILOT: We'll go for it.

And we're off.

Oh, lovely.

(CHUCKLES)

I have to say, that's the way to depart an airfield.

PILOT: (LAUGHS) Isn't it?

BRIAN: You can see on the East side, everything's darkening up quite nicely

as the Sun starts to set, and on the ground it's already...

It's dark on the ground now, as far as the Sun is concerned.

So accelerating...

- PILOT: So that's Mach .78. - BRIAN: Yeah.

- And the G-Seat is in place here. - Certainly is.

BRIAN: Turning directly towards the setting sun,

the Typhoon accelerates

to catch up with the Earth's spin.

Beneath us, a 6, 000 billion-billion-tonne rock

is spinning at 650 miles per hour.

Match that speed, and something interesting happens

to the Sun's motion across the sky.

PILOT: Six-hundred and fifty miles an hour.

So we're traveling at precisely

- the speed of the Earth's rotation. - BRIAN: That's right.

PILOT: So we spot the Sun, it's about what, about two-thirds down?

So it should just stay there now,

'cause we're going at exactly the same speed as the Earth.

BRIAN: But travel faster than the plane-it surface

and the normal passage of the day is reversed.

PILOT: Right, accelerating, accelerating.

BRIAN: Oh, there we go, that's acceleration.

PILOT: Mach 1.

Through the sound barrier.

BRIAN: As the jet accelerates,

it starts to overtake the spin of the Earth...

causing the setting Sun to rise again.

PILOT: Starting to grow a little. BRIAN: It is, I can see it.

We're beating the Earth.

Absolutely terrific.

PILOT: Starting to climb again, you can see it coming up.

- BRIAN: Yeah. - PILOT: That's Mach 1.4.

BRIAN: So it's 1,000 miles an hour.

PILOT: Yeah, almost 1,000 miles an hour.

BRIAN: And now the Sun, it's almost the full disc over the clouds.

The sunrise.

Two sunrises in one day

and all you need is the world's most advanced fighter aircraft.

PILOT: There we go.

BRIAN: Beautiful.

We've done it, we've outrun the Earth.

(BRIAN CHUCKLES)

- Good-bye, Sun. - PILOT: Yes.

Right, let's get ourselves on our way home.

BRIAN: Do me a favor.

'Cause I've had a bit of a quarrel with Lambeth Parking Services.

(BOTH LAUGHING)

just one last favor before we land.

(CONTROLLER SPEAKING IN DISTINCTLY OVER RADIO)

So that worked beautifully well. (CHUCKLES)

What happens when you light those engines on full,

accelerate up to 1.4 times the speed of sound,

you can't tell you're going at that speed at all

apart from the fact that out in the front of the cockpit,

the Sun just gently rises up again

in the West over Ireland.

Erm, and then you put the brakes on and your face goes funny,

but it was terrific.

- (BOTH LAUGH) - Thank you.

And for the tape, he wasn't ill.

(LAUGHS)

BRIAN: To turn on its axis once every 24 hours,

the Earth is spinning at breakneck speed.

At the Equator, where the ground has furthest to travel each day,

its speed exceeds 1,000 miles an hour,

which presents a deep paradox.

Here, right now, on a lazy spring day in the south of England,

this piece of ground is thundering along at 650 miles an hour

and yet I can't feel it.

And when you think about it,

that's a very strange thing.

I mean, what is motion if you can't perceive it?

Well, the answer is a deep one.

You can't perceive that you're moving

if you're traveling in a straight line at a constant speed,

and that's a fundamental property of nature,

it's the way our universe is constructed.

So, I don't feel that I'm moving from minute to minute,

because I'm almost moving in a straight line.

I have to make it 'round in a circle,

but it's 15,000 miles around and I have 24 hours to do it.

Although we don't experience the sensation

of moving around our planet's axis,

we do experience events

that are a direct consequence of living on a spinning globe.

In the Philippines,

the warmth of the tropical Sun and the spin of the Earth

conspire to produce some of the most extreme weather on the planet.

And for the people who live here,

it poses an ever-present threat.

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: With the kids out of the way,

Leanella begins the work she hopes will allow them to leave Tacloban forever.

(LEANELLA SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: Every time it rains,

darker memories rise to the surface.

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: Three years ago, driven by heat rising from the tropical waters,

a storm formed over the Pacific Ocean.

As it tracked north,

the Earth's rotation gave rise to a force

known as the "Coriolis force"

which acted on the air falling into its low-pressure heart

causing the storm to spin,

increasing its intensity.

So what began as a tropical storm at sea,

hit Tacloban as a Category 5 super typhoon.

Leanella's family were caught directly in its path.

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: Leanella took the children and sought shelter in the local church,

the only solid structure in the neighborhood.

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

(READING)

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: But while the family were in the relative safety of the church,

Leanella's husband was caught up in the chaos raging outside.

(LEANELLA SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: Boosted by the Coriolis force,

winds approaching 200 miles per hour,

whipped up the ocean

into a devastating storm surge.

Over 90% of the city was destroyed,

leaving Leanella with an anxious wait for news of her husband

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

(JUVI SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: Exposed to the full force of the storm,

Juvi had been swept inland for more than a mile.

(LEANELLA SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

(PRAYING IN OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: The Hanandez family experienced a singular event

that's affected their lives dramatically and directly.

The Coriolis force that caused it;

Isn't a fundamental force of nature in its own right.

It appears because of the Earth's rotation.

So-called "fictitious forces" like this

arise whenever anything spins or rotates.

And because the Earth's orbital motion through space is complex,

affected not only by the Sun but also the Moon,

there are other fictitious forces at work.

One of these plays a subtle but important role

in a twice-daily phenomenon with which we are all familiar,

the ebb and flow of the tides.

We usually think of the Moon in orbit around the Earth

as the Earth stays still,

but that's not quite right.

Actually they're both in orbit.

They're in orbit around a point called

the common center of mass of the Earth-Moon system.

Essentially what's happening is,

something like that,

although it's quite difficult to do.

Now, when things rotate around in circles,

other forces come into play.

In this case a force called the centrifugal force.

So, that's a force you'd feel if you're hanging onto a roundabout

going faster and faster and you have to hang on tighter and tighter,

'cause of the force trying to throw you off,

that's the centrifugal force.

Now, let's bring the Moon back.

So, now there are two forces at play in this system.

There's a gravitational pull of the Moon,

trying to pull everything towards it,

and there's that centrifugal force, trying to throw everything off

and they're in perfect balance

at the center of the Earth.

But think about the ocean here.

That's closer to the Moon

and so the Moon's gravitational pull wins

and you get a tidal bulge.

Now think about this point, on this side of the Earth.

That's farther away from the Moon,

so the centrifugal force wins,

throwing the water off and you get a tidal bulge.

Now, the Earth just rotates underneath those tides,

once a day,

and that's why you get two tides every day.

On an English beach,

the complex gravitational interaction between Earth and Moon

is distilled into the gentle advance and retreat of the waves.

But in some parts of the world,

on a few days of the year,

this mismatch of the forces across the Earth,

unleashes something far more destructive.

For nearly 4,500 miles,

the Amazon snakes through dense rainforest,

from its source high in the Andes

to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean.

And here, close to the mouth of the river;

Its banks are home to the Rivieros.

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: In this remote part of the jungle,

Joao's family are completely dependent on the river.

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: The Amazon is the center of their world

the place where they work and play.

But today is different.

Today they must get away from the water

because this part of the river

is home to a monster.

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: In the ancient Tupi language,

Pororoca means "Great roar",

a sound so loud

that it can be heard 10 miles away.

(JOAO SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: When the Moon and Sun fall into alignment with the Earth,

their gravitational pull is combined,

causing the Pororoca to emerge from the ocean.

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: The Pororoca is one of the biggest

and most powerful tidal waves on the planet.

A seething wall of water

that engulfs everything in its path

as it surges up the river for nearly 200 miles.

But as the Pororoca strikes,

not everyone is trying to escape.

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: Serginia Elowrus has devoted his life

to surfing the Pororoca,

waiting for the few times a year

when the Earth's orbit around the Sun

and the center of mass of the Earth-Moon system

provides the ultimate ride through the jungle.

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: Then as suddenly as it appears,

the Pororoca passes,

leaving nothing but stories in its wake.

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

The tides are a familiar everyday result

of the details of the Earth's complex spinning and rotational motion

and its gravitational dance with the Moon.

We experience them almost from moment to moment,

certainly over the length of one lazy summer's afternoon,

but the very existence of the Moon

has its origins in a series of chance events,

way back in deep time that created this stage

on which we live out our lives.

BRIAN: 4.6 billion years ago,

the solar system formed from a cloud of gas and dust,

collapsing under its own gravity.

As the cloud fell inwards,

it began to spin.

And it was out of this maelstrom

that our planet was forged

from colliding rock and ice.

The Earth's spin was taken from the primordial cloud

out of which it formed.

With every impact, the Earth grew,

until eventually...

The Sun rose over the newly-formed planet

for the first time.

The first sunrise on the first day.

For around 100 million years,

the young Earth circled the Sun alone.

Until, it's thought, a catastrophic impact

resulted in the creation of our planet's constant companion.

It's not long after the Earth formed,

a planet the size of Mars,

crashed into it in a glancing collision,

throwing rocks and debris thousands of miles out into space

and over time those rocks

coalesced together to form the Moon.

The Moon formed 15 times

closer to the Earth than it is today.

So it wasn't a quarter of a million miles away,

it was 10 or 15,000 miles away

and it would have been a smooth object

with volcanoes seething with lava.

It would have been an incredible sight.

BRIAN: The collision that formed the Moon

also had a dramatic and lasting effect on the Earth.

See, you might expect that when the planets formed

out of that rotating disc of gas and dust,

that they would all spin along with it,

so their spin axis would be at right angles

to the disc of the solar system.

But that collision that formed the Moon,

knocked the Earth over,

so now it's at an angle of 23 and a half degrees

and that means that as it orbits around the Sun,

that at some points

the Northern Hemisphere points towards the Sun

and at other points, the Northern Hemisphere,

points away from the Sun.

BRIAN: A random event that happened so long ago,

has shaped the character of our planet ever since

and we experience its legacy every day.

But these spins and orbits had a deeper effect,

because they're an essential part of the stage

upon which life evolved

and over billions of years, natural selection

has shaped the animals and plants that live on Earth,

in response to this celestial clockwork.

The lowly dung beetle is a beautiful example.

Their lives revolve around dung.

Eating it,

fighting over it...

Before rolling it away to safety.

To aid their getaway,

the beetles have evolved a trick

that's intimately linked to the mechanics of the heavens.

Using specialized photoreceptors on the tops of their eyes,

they track the Sun as it sweeps across the sky

using it to guide them on the quickest straight-line path

away from the other beetles.

But as night falls,

the Sun dips below the Western horizon

to be followed across the sky by the Moon.

So by night,

nocturnal beetles navigate by moonlight.

And after the Moon itself has set in the dead of night,

they navigate by the light of the Milky Way.

It's as if the beetles carry an imprint

of events that happened billions of years in the past.

Their unique behavior can be traced back

to the origin of the solar system.

The collisions that set our world spinning

and the catastrophic impact that created the Moon.

We're separated from the violence of our planet's history

by the passage of time.

Although almost paradoxically,

it's in our experience of time,

the setting of the Sun,

the rise and fall of the tides

and the passing of the seasons

that we glimpse the reality of our voyage through space and time.

It's July 10th and the Northern Hemisphere

is tilted towards the Sun.

That means that the sunrise is high across the sky

and that increases the amount of sunlight

falling on the ground in this little part of Oxfordshire

and that heats it up.

The English summer's in full swing.

But the Earth is on the move,

a planet continuing to thunder around the Sun

because of the principle of inertia,

its straight-line path curved into an orbit

by the force of gravity

and as the Earth moves on that orbit,

the North Pole tilts away from the Sun

and the violence of all that celestial mechanics

is distilled into the gentle sensation

of a lazy summer's day,

giving way to the crisp chill of autumn.

The Sun rides low in the sky and the nights draw in.

And as the Earth continues a yearly voyage,

and the North Pole tilts still further from the warmth of the Sun,

Autumn...

becomes winter.

The Sun barely rises above the tops of the trees

and Britain is plunged into a deep freeze.

BRIAN: In the temperate latitudes of Oxfords/lire,

the passing of the seasons is relatively gentle.

But if you head north,

Earth's 23 degree tilt

delivers a much more powerful challenge

to the people that live in these lands of midnight sun

and perpetual winter night.

Sitting on the Arctic Circle,

Tasiilaq experiences one of the largest

seasonal temperature swings on the planet.

In summer, days are long and mild

with nearly 23 hours of daylight to enjoy.

(SPEAKING IN OTHER LANGUAGE)

Mmm!

BRIAN: The dramatic seasonal shifts

present elemental challenges

to families like the Christiansen's.

As the Earth journeys 'round the Sun,

the whole of Greenland is tilted outwards

towards the cold blackness of space.

Human beings evolved in the equatorial valleys of Africa

and are not well suited to the Arctic winter,

where wind speeds exceed 100 miles per hour

and temperatures plummet towards minus-30 degrees Celsius.

We require all the ingenuity and skills

passed down from generation to generation

to survive until the Sun rides high again.

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

(MICHAEL SPEAKING IN OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: To search for food

Michael, Malik and their friend Enoch,

must head out onto the treacherous, frozen ocean.

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: They've come here because beneath the ice,

the ocean waters teem with life.

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: Despite appearances,

the frozen depths of winter are in fact

the best time to fish.

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: For just a few months,

ice provides a platform over the ocean,

giving easy access to the fish below.

A brief window, in which they must catch enough

to last the entire year.

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: Lessons learned this winter will stay with Malik

for the rest of his life,

until he becomes a hunter himself.

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

(BOTH LAUGHING)

BRIAN: Our planet's motion leads to something beyond

the shifts and the thickness of the ice and the lengths of the days.

It's reflected in the ever-deepening relationship between father and son.

The seasonal shifts and the colors and sounds of the wood,

the life's response to the clockwork of the solar system,

spring will follow winter as long as the Earth orbits the Sun.

The cycle of the seasons is effectively eternal.

The Earth returning to the same place every year...

Except, it doesn't return to the same place

because we don't only travel through space,

we also travel through time.

BRIAN: We live on a spinning ball of rock,

hurtling through the universe.

And yet, in only a few moments,

does the violence of our world's motion, break through.

For the most part,

our planet's movement is completely imperceptible to us.

But there is a consequence of motion that affects us all,

more deeply than any other...

Our journey into the future.

Once every year, Antonio Carter,

comes to the Church of St Constantine

to pray for his life.

In just a few hours,

he'll risk everything taking part in the Ardia,

the town's annual horse race,

a tradition that's been part of his life since childhood.

(SPEAKING IN OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: As the Earth has circled the Sun,

the Ardia has remained constant,

the highlight of each passing year.

(SPEAKING IN OTHER LANGUAGE)

- (ANTONIO LAUGHS) - (GUNSHOT)

BRIAN: The race itself is a perilous cat-and-mouse chase

through the village's most treacherous streets,

that's taken place on the same two days in July

for hundreds of years.

(SPEAKING OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: Every year the riders appear t0 take the same circuit

around the same Sardinian town

at the precise moment the Earth returns to the same place in its orbit.

But the reality is different.

With every passing moment,

we move to a different place in the universe,

not just in space, but also in time.

We're hurtling into the future at the speed of light

and it's that motion we experience as the passing of time.

It's only in the last century

that we discovered just how deeply

motion and time are intertwined.

We feel as if we move through space as time ticks by,

but that's an illusion.

The separation of space and time is false.

The first person to realize that was Albert Einstein.

He thought deeply about motion,

about the idea that we can't tell whether we're moving or not

and he tried to reconcile that with our picture of the universal laws of nature

and he found that he could do,

but at the expense of jettisoning space and time

as separate entities, and merging them together

into a unified whole,

the fabric of the universe, called "space-time".

In space-time, the central idea is that of an event,

a moment that has a location in space and time.

So, although I've come back to the same place, this wood,

over the course of a year, in summer, autumn, winter and now spring,

each one of those visits is a different moment

with a different location in space-time.

BRIAN: As the Earth moves through space-time,

its orbit traces out a spiral

as it circles the Sun and races into the future.

It never returns to the same place

because each moment is a different location

in the fabric of the universe.

And just as the Earth travels

relentlessly onwards on its path through space-time,

so must we.

So this is how Einstein asks us to picture

the sweep of our lives, the experience of living.

Our lives are a series of moments

and they're laid out like places on a map.

There's me as a little baby.

My dad with my granddad.

That idyllic summer,

sometime in the early 70's in a paddling pool with my sister.

When I was about four years old.

And the perfect Christmas

with my grandparents some time back in the 1970's.

(CHUCKLING) There's me when I was 20 years old

with a ridiculous haircut, playing a gig somewhere in the middle of Europe,

in Budapest I think.

Wedding day.

And me, in Oldham, where I grew up,

with my little boy, George.

This isn't exactly like a map.

See, I can return to these places in space, to Oldham,

to Central Europe, to Duluth, Minnesota, where I got married,

back to Oldham again.

But I can't return to these moments,

to these events in space-time.

Because of the geometry of space-time itself,

we are compelled to move inexorably into the future.

(ANTONIO SPEAKING IN OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: As we all journey through space-time,

it's only in our memories that we can revisit the past.

(SPEAKING IN OTHER LANGUAGE)

BRIAN: But just because we can't go back in time,

it doesn't mean that the past isn't out there.

If you take Einstein's universe at face value,

and there's no reason why you shouldn't,

it's our best theory of space and time,

and this picture of space-time

with events placed within it,

suggests something wonderful

and I think quite magical.

See, if I leave a place in space,

then it doesn't cease to exist when I've left it.

And in space-time,

if I leave an event,

it doesn't cease to exist when I've left it.

So that suggests that

all those summers you spent with your mum and dad

or that first Christmas with your grandparents long ago,

all those most precious memories of people and places,

all those summers and winters past

and seasons yet to come,

are out there, somewhere in space-time.