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Hello. My name is Ann Druyan.
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When Carl Sagan, Steven Soter and I...
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00:00:13,400 --> 00:00:17,199
...wrote the Cosmos TV series
in the late 1970s...
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00:00:17,200 --> 00:00:18,899
...a lot of things where different.
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00:00:18,900 --> 00:00:21,099
Back then, the U.S. and the Soviet Union...
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00:00:21,100 --> 00:00:24,299
...held the hole planet
in their perpetual hostage crisis...
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00:00:24,300 --> 00:00:26,199
...called the Cold War.
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The wealth and scientific ingenuity
of our civilization...
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...was being squandered
on a runaway arms raise.
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Then employed half the world scientists...
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00:00:35,200 --> 00:00:39,200
...and infested the world
with 50.000 nuclear weapons.
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00:00:41,100 --> 00:00:43,399
So much has happened since then.
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The Cold War is history...
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00:00:45,000 --> 00:00:47,999
...and science has made great strides.
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00:00:48,000 --> 00:00:51,799
We've completed the spacecraft
recognizance of the Solar System...
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00:00:51,800 --> 00:00:55,799
...the preliminary mapping of the visible
universe that surrounds us...
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00:00:55,800 --> 00:00:59,800
...and we've charted the universe within:
the human genome.
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00:01:00,700 --> 00:01:04,599
When Cosmos was first broadcast
there was no World Wide Web...
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00:01:04,600 --> 00:01:06,799
...it was a different world.
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00:01:06,800 --> 00:01:08,899
What a tribute to Carl Sagan...
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00:01:08,900 --> 00:01:12,599
...a scientist who took many a punch
for daring to speculate...
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00:01:12,600 --> 00:01:16,600
...that even after 20 of the most eventful
years in the history of science...
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00:01:17,400 --> 00:01:21,400
...Cosmos requires few revisions
and indeed is rich in prophecy.
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Cosmos is both the history
of the scientific enterprise...
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00:01:28,000 --> 00:01:32,000
...and an attempt to convey
the spiritual high...
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...of its central revelation:
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Our oneness with the universe.
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Now, please, enjoy Cosmos,
the proud saga of how...
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...through the searching of 40.000
generations of our ancestors...
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...we have come to discover
our coordinates...
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...in space and in time.
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And how, through the awesomely
powerful method of science...
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...we have been able to reconstruct
the sweep of cosmic evolution...
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...and defined our own part
in its great story.
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The cosmos is all that is...
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00:03:19,314 --> 00:03:22,442
...or ever was or ever will be.
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Our contemplations of
the cosmos stir us.
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00:03:27,889 --> 00:03:31,586
There is a tingling in the spine,
a catch in the voice...
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...a faint sensation,
as if a distant memory...
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00:03:35,464 --> 00:03:37,830
...of falling from a great height.
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00:03:38,033 --> 00:03:42,163
We know we are approaching
the grandest of mysteries.
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The size and age of the cosmos...
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...are beyond ordinary
human understanding.
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Lost somewhere between
immensity and eternity...
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...is our tiny planetary home,
the Earth.
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00:04:00,589 --> 00:04:03,820
For the first time,
we have the power to decide...
47
00:04:04,025 --> 00:04:06,619
...the fate of our planet
and ourselves.
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00:04:06,828 --> 00:04:08,659
This is a time of great danger.
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00:04:08,864 --> 00:04:13,096
But our species is
young and curious and brave.
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It shows much promise.
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00:04:15,203 --> 00:04:17,330
In the last few millennia,
we've made...
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00:04:17,539 --> 00:04:20,406
...the most astonishing
and unexpected discoveries...
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...about the cosmos
and our place within it.
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I believe our future depends
powerfully on...
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...how well we understand
this cosmos...
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...in which we float
like a mote of dust...
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...in the morning sky.
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We're about to begin a journey
through the cosmos.
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We'll encounter galaxies and suns
and planets...
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...life and consciousness...
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...coming into being,
evolving and perishing.
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Worlds of ice and stars of diamond.
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Atoms as massive as suns...
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...and universes smaller than atoms.
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But it's also a story
of our own planet...
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00:05:06,254 --> 00:05:08,848
...and the plants and animals
that share it with us.
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And it's a story about us:
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How we achieved our present
understanding of the cosmos...
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...how the cosmos has shaped
our evolution and our culture...
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...and what our fate may be.
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We wish to pursue the truth,
no matter where it leads.
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But to find the truth, we need
imagination and skepticism both.
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We will not be afraid to speculate.
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But we will be careful to distinguish
speculation from fact.
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The cosmos is full beyond measure
of elegant truths...
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...of exquisite interrelationships...
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...of the awesome machinery of nature.
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The surface of the Earth is
the shore of the cosmic ocean.
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On this shore, we have learned
most of what we know.
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Recently, we've waded
a little way out...
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...maybe ankle-deep,
and the water seems inviting.
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Some part of our being knows
this is where we came from.
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We long to return.
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And we can.
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Because the cosmos is also within us.
We're made of star-stuff.
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We are a way for the cosmos
to know itself.
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The journey for each of us
begins here.
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We're going to explore the cosmos
in a ship of the imagination...
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...unfettered by ordinary limits
on speed and size...
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...drawn by the music
of cosmic harmonies...
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...it can take us anywhere
in space and time.
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Perfect as a snowflake...
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...organic as a dandelion seed...
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...it will carry us...
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...to worlds of dreams
and worlds of facts.
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Come with me.
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Before us is the cosmos
on the grandest scale we know.
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We are far from the shores of Earth...
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...in the uncharted reaches
of the cosmic ocean.
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Strewn like sea froth
on the waves of space...
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...are innumerable
faint tendrils of light.
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Some of them containing hundreds...
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...of billions of suns.
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These are the galaxies...
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...drifting endlessly
in the great cosmic dark.
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In our ship of the imagination...
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...we are halfway to the edge
of the known universe.
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In this, the first of
our cosmic voyages...
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...we begin to explore the universe
revealed by science.
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Our course will eventually carry us
to a far-off and exotic world.
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But from the depths of space,
we cannot detect even...
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...the cluster of galaxies
in which our Milky Way is embedded...
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...much less the sun or the Earth.
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We are in the realm
of the galaxies...
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...8 billion light years from home.
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No matter where we travel,
the patterns of nature are the same...
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...as in the form
of this spiral galaxy.
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The same laws of physics
apply everywhere...
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...throughout the cosmos.
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00:09:21,076 --> 00:09:24,170
But we have just begun to
understand these laws.
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The universe is rich in mystery.
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Near the center of
a cluster of galaxies...
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...there's sometimes a rogue,
elliptical galaxy...
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...made of a trillion suns...
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...which devours its neighbors.
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Perhaps this cyclone of stars...
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...is what astronomers on Earth
call a quasar.
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00:10:06,087 --> 00:10:09,488
Our ordinary measures
of distance fail us...
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...here in the realm of the galaxies.
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We need a much larger unit:
the light year.
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It measures how far
light travels in a year...
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...nearly 10 trillion kilometers.
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It measures not time,
but enormous distances.
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00:10:39,654 --> 00:10:41,383
In the Hercules cluster...
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...the individual galaxies are
about 300,000 light years apart.
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00:10:46,261 --> 00:10:49,992
So light takes about 300,000 years...
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...to go from one galaxy to another.
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00:10:56,704 --> 00:11:00,265
Like stars and planets and people...
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...galaxies are born, live and die.
140
00:11:05,146 --> 00:11:09,139
They may all experience
a tumultuous adolescence.
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During their first 100 million years,
their cores may explode.
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Seen in radio light,
great jets of energy...
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...pour out and echo
across the cosmos.
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Worlds near the core or along
the jets would be incinerated.
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I wonder how many planets
and how many civilizations...
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...might be destroyed.
147
00:11:40,415 --> 00:11:44,249
In the Pegasus cluster,
there's a ring galaxy...
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...the wreckage left from
the collision of two galaxies.
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A splash in the cosmic pond.
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00:11:51,859 --> 00:11:55,295
Individual galaxies may
explode and collide...
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00:11:55,496 --> 00:11:58,988
...and their constituent stars
may blow up as well.
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00:11:59,834 --> 00:12:02,200
In this supernova explosion...
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00:12:02,403 --> 00:12:06,533
...a single star outshines
the rest of its galaxy.
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00:12:09,277 --> 00:12:12,735
We are approaching what
astronomers on Earth call...
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...the Local Group.
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Three million light years across,
it contains some 20 galaxies.
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00:12:22,924 --> 00:12:26,553
It's a sparse and rather typical
chain of islands...
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...in the immense cosmic ocean.
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We are now only 2 million
light years from home.
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On the maps of space,
this galaxy is called M31...
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00:12:39,440 --> 00:12:41,635
...the great galaxy Andromeda.
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00:12:41,843 --> 00:12:45,438
It's a vast storm of stars
and gas and dust.
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As we pass over it...
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...we see one of its small
satellite galaxies.
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Clusters of galaxies...
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...and the stars of
individual galaxies...
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...are all held together by gravity.
168
00:13:02,196 --> 00:13:03,925
Surrounding M31...
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...are hundreds of globular
star clusters.
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We're approaching one of them.
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Each cluster orbits the massive
center of the galaxy.
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Some contain up to
a million separate stars.
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Every globular cluster is
like a swarm of bees...
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...bound by gravity...
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...every bee, a sun.
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From Pegasus,
our voyage has taken us...
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...200 million light years
to the Local Group...
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...dominated by two
great spiral galaxies.
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Beyond M31 is another
very similar galaxy.
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Its spiral arms slowly turning...
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...once every quarter billion years.
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This is our own Milky Way...
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...seen from the outside.
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This is the home galaxy
of the human species.
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In the obscure backwaters
of the Carina-Cygnus spiral arm...
186
00:14:27,782 --> 00:14:31,047
...we humans have evolved
to consciousness...
187
00:14:31,252 --> 00:14:34,087
...and some measure of understanding.
188
00:14:34,088 --> 00:14:37,421
This region of the Milky Way galaxy is
now usually called the Local Arm...
189
00:14:37,625 --> 00:14:41,356
...or the Orion Arm, but the spiral
arm nomenclature remains rather fuzzy.
190
00:14:42,630 --> 00:14:45,360
Concentrated in its brilliant core...
191
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...and strewn along its spiral arms...
192
00:14:48,503 --> 00:14:52,530
...are 400 billion suns.
193
00:14:54,909 --> 00:14:57,400
It takes light 100,000 years
to travel...
194
00:14:57,612 --> 00:15:00,581
...from one end of the galaxy
to the other.
195
00:15:02,617 --> 00:15:06,576
Within this galaxy are
stars and worlds...
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...and, it may be, an enormous
diversity of living things...
197
00:15:11,325 --> 00:15:16,262
...and intelligent beings
and space faring civilizations.
198
00:15:24,172 --> 00:15:26,970
Scattered among the stars
of the Milky Way...
199
00:15:27,175 --> 00:15:29,143
...are supernova remnants...
200
00:15:29,343 --> 00:15:33,609
...each one the remains of
a colossal stellar explosion.
201
00:15:33,881 --> 00:15:35,906
These filaments of glowing gas...
202
00:15:36,117 --> 00:15:40,144
...are the outer layers of a star
which has recently destroyed itself.
203
00:15:40,354 --> 00:15:42,083
The gas is unraveling...
204
00:15:42,290 --> 00:15:45,817
...returning star-stuff
back into space.
205
00:15:50,031 --> 00:15:53,296
And at its heart, are the remains
of the original star...
206
00:15:53,501 --> 00:15:58,165
...a dense, shrunken stellar
fragment called a pulsar.
207
00:15:58,372 --> 00:16:01,671
A natural lighthouse,
blinking and hissing.
208
00:16:01,909 --> 00:16:05,401
A sun that spins twice each second.
209
00:16:11,252 --> 00:16:14,619
Pulsars keep such perfect time
that the first one discovered...
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00:16:14,822 --> 00:16:17,723
...was thought to be a sign of
extraterrestrial intelligence.
211
00:16:17,925 --> 00:16:20,291
Perhaps a navigational beacon...
212
00:16:20,495 --> 00:16:23,430
...for great ships that travel
across the light years...
213
00:16:23,764 --> 00:16:25,789
...and between the stars.
214
00:16:29,437 --> 00:16:33,032
There may be such intelligences
and such starships...
215
00:16:33,241 --> 00:16:37,007
...but pulsars are not
their signature.
216
00:16:47,188 --> 00:16:50,589
Instead, they are
the doleful reminders...
217
00:16:50,791 --> 00:16:52,554
...that nothing lasts forever...
218
00:16:52,760 --> 00:16:55,456
...that stars also die.
219
00:16:58,099 --> 00:17:02,035
We continue to plummet,
falling thousands of light years...
220
00:17:02,236 --> 00:17:04,761
...towards the plane of the galaxy.
221
00:17:07,108 --> 00:17:08,735
This is the Milky Way...
222
00:17:08,943 --> 00:17:11,411
...our galaxy seen edge on.
223
00:17:11,612 --> 00:17:13,705
Billions of nuclear furnaces...
224
00:17:13,915 --> 00:17:16,975
...converting matter into starlight.
225
00:17:21,889 --> 00:17:24,790
Some stars are flimsy
as a soap bubble.
226
00:17:24,992 --> 00:17:29,361
Others are 100 trillion times
denser than lead.
227
00:17:29,564 --> 00:17:33,091
The hottest stars are
destined to die young.
228
00:17:33,534 --> 00:17:36,799
But red giants are mostly elderly.
229
00:17:37,004 --> 00:17:41,100
Such stars are unlikely
to have inhabited planets.
230
00:17:43,978 --> 00:17:46,674
But yellow dwarf stars,
like the sun...
231
00:17:46,881 --> 00:17:50,749
...are middle-aged
and they are far more common.
232
00:17:51,452 --> 00:17:54,387
These stars may have
planetary systems.
233
00:17:54,589 --> 00:17:58,184
And on such planets, for the first
time on our cosmic voyage...
234
00:17:58,392 --> 00:18:00,883
...we encounter rare forms of matter:
235
00:18:01,095 --> 00:18:05,691
Ice and rock, air and liquid water.
236
00:18:10,638 --> 00:18:12,265
Close to this yellow star...
237
00:18:12,506 --> 00:18:15,498
...is a small, warm, cloudy world...
238
00:18:15,710 --> 00:18:17,871
...with continents and oceans.
239
00:18:18,079 --> 00:18:23,016
These conditions permit an even more
precious form of matter to arise:
240
00:18:23,417 --> 00:18:24,714
Life.
241
00:18:31,926 --> 00:18:33,791
But this is not the Earth.
242
00:18:33,995 --> 00:18:38,659
Intelligent beings have evolved
and reworked this planetary surface...
243
00:18:38,866 --> 00:18:41,733
...in a massive engineering
enterprise.
244
00:18:41,936 --> 00:18:45,167
In the Milky Way galaxy,
there may be many worlds...
245
00:18:45,373 --> 00:18:48,809
...on which matter has
grown to consciousness.
246
00:18:56,083 --> 00:18:59,416
I wonder, are they very
different from us?
247
00:18:59,620 --> 00:19:01,053
What do they look like?
248
00:19:01,255 --> 00:19:05,351
What are their politics, technology,
music, religion?
249
00:19:05,860 --> 00:19:10,354
Or do they have patterns of culture
we can't begin to imagine?
250
00:19:10,564 --> 00:19:14,796
Are they also a danger to themselves?
251
00:19:21,709 --> 00:19:25,236
Among the many glowing clouds
of interstellar gas...
252
00:19:25,446 --> 00:19:28,438
...is one called the Orion Nebula...
253
00:19:28,683 --> 00:19:31,811
...only 1500 light years from Earth.
254
00:19:37,224 --> 00:19:40,625
These three bright stars
are seen by earthlings...
255
00:19:40,828 --> 00:19:45,629
...as the belt in the familiar
constellation of Orion the hunter.
256
00:19:52,039 --> 00:19:55,202
The nebula appears from Earth
as a patch of light...
257
00:19:55,409 --> 00:19:59,641
...the middle star in Orion's sword.
258
00:20:07,621 --> 00:20:10,089
But it is not a star.
259
00:20:10,291 --> 00:20:13,226
It is another thing entirely.
260
00:20:13,427 --> 00:20:18,194
A cloud that veils
one of nature's secret places.
261
00:20:27,241 --> 00:20:32,178
This is a stellar nursery,
a place where stars are born.
262
00:20:32,413 --> 00:20:35,177
They condense by gravity
from gas and dust...
263
00:20:35,382 --> 00:20:40,217
...until their temperatures become
so high that they begin to shine.
264
00:20:40,755 --> 00:20:43,485
Such clouds mark
the births of stars...
265
00:20:43,691 --> 00:20:46,524
...as others bear witness
to their deaths.
266
00:20:52,633 --> 00:20:56,865
After stars condense in the hidden
interiors of interstellar clouds...
267
00:20:57,071 --> 00:20:58,561
...what happens to them?
268
00:20:58,773 --> 00:21:02,300
The Pleiades are a loose cluster
of young stars...
269
00:21:02,510 --> 00:21:04,569
...only 50 million years old.
270
00:21:04,779 --> 00:21:09,716
These fledgling stars are just
being let out into the galaxy.
271
00:21:09,950 --> 00:21:13,147
Still surrounded by wisps
of nebulosity...
272
00:21:13,354 --> 00:21:16,881
...the gas and dust
from which they formed.
273
00:21:51,292 --> 00:21:54,659
There are clouds
that hang like inkblots...
274
00:21:54,862 --> 00:21:56,489
...between the stars.
275
00:21:56,697 --> 00:21:59,495
They are made of fine, rocky dust...
276
00:21:59,700 --> 00:22:02,100
...organic matter and ice.
277
00:22:03,804 --> 00:22:07,797
Inside, a few stars begin to turn on.
278
00:22:08,008 --> 00:22:09,908
Nearby worlds of ice evaporate...
279
00:22:10,110 --> 00:22:12,704
...and form long, comet-like tails...
280
00:22:12,913 --> 00:22:15,848
...driven back by the stellar winds.
281
00:22:20,788 --> 00:22:24,053
Black clouds, light years across...
282
00:22:24,258 --> 00:22:26,226
...drift between the stars.
283
00:22:26,427 --> 00:22:29,362
They're filled with
organic molecules.
284
00:22:29,563 --> 00:22:32,430
The building blocks of life
are everywhere.
285
00:22:32,633 --> 00:22:34,601
They are easily made.
286
00:22:34,802 --> 00:22:39,739
On how many worlds have such complex
molecules assembled themselves...
287
00:22:40,007 --> 00:22:43,670
...into patterns we would
call alive?
288
00:22:49,016 --> 00:22:53,885
Most stars belong to systems
of two or three or many suns...
289
00:22:54,088 --> 00:22:56,079
...bound together by gravity.
290
00:22:56,290 --> 00:22:59,521
Each system is isolated
from its neighbors...
291
00:22:59,727 --> 00:23:01,285
...by the light years.
292
00:23:03,597 --> 00:23:07,397
We are approaching a single,
ordinary, yellow dwarf star...
293
00:23:07,601 --> 00:23:10,297
...surrounded by a system
of nine planets...
294
00:23:10,504 --> 00:23:14,964
...dozens of moons, thousands of
asteroids and billions of comets:
295
00:23:15,209 --> 00:23:17,234
The family of the sun.
296
00:23:18,979 --> 00:23:23,245
Only four light hours from Earth
is the planet Neptune...
297
00:23:23,450 --> 00:23:26,214
...and its giant satellite, Triton.
298
00:23:29,957 --> 00:23:32,824
Even in the outskirts
of our own solar system...
299
00:23:33,027 --> 00:23:37,123
...we humans have barely begun
our explorations.
300
00:23:39,566 --> 00:23:40,965
Only a century ago...
301
00:23:41,168 --> 00:23:45,036
...we were ignorant even of
the existence of the planet Pluto.
302
00:23:45,239 --> 00:23:47,573
Its moon, Charon, remained
undiscovered until 1978.
303
00:23:47,574 --> 00:23:52,238
Since the discovery of Kuiper Belt objects
in 1992, Pluto has come to be seen...
304
00:23:52,446 --> 00:23:55,148
...as the largest member of
this population of comets.
305
00:23:55,149 --> 00:23:55,516
The rings of Uranus were
first detected in 1977.
306
00:23:55,517 --> 00:23:58,542
Many astronomers no longer
regard it as a planet.
307
00:23:59,820 --> 00:24:03,688
There are new worlds to chart
even this close to home.
308
00:24:07,127 --> 00:24:10,460
Saturn is a giant gas world.
309
00:24:10,664 --> 00:24:12,632
If it has a solid surface...
310
00:24:12,833 --> 00:24:16,633
...it must lie far below
the clouds we see.
311
00:24:18,272 --> 00:24:20,206
Saturn's majestic rings...
312
00:24:20,407 --> 00:24:23,672
...are made of trillions
of orbiting snowballs.
313
00:24:29,550 --> 00:24:33,577
We are now only 80 light minutes
from home.
314
00:24:33,787 --> 00:24:37,279
A mere 1 1/2 billion kilometers.
315
00:24:51,105 --> 00:24:54,973
The largest planet in our
solar system is Jupiter.
316
00:24:55,175 --> 00:24:59,509
On its dark side, super bolts
of lightning illuminate the clouds...
317
00:24:59,713 --> 00:25:04,548
...as first revealed by
the Voyager spacecraft in 1979.
318
00:25:16,764 --> 00:25:18,595
Inside the orbit of Jupiter...
319
00:25:18,799 --> 00:25:22,394
...are countless shattered
and broken world-lets:
320
00:25:22,603 --> 00:25:24,195
The asteroids.
321
00:25:24,405 --> 00:25:26,498
These reefs and shoals...
322
00:25:26,707 --> 00:25:29,870
...mark the border of
the realm of giant planets.
323
00:25:30,077 --> 00:25:34,480
We are now entering the shallows
of the solar system.
324
00:25:36,216 --> 00:25:40,550
Here there are worlds with thin
atmospheres and solid surfaces:
325
00:25:40,754 --> 00:25:42,085
Earth-like planets...
326
00:25:42,289 --> 00:25:46,316
...with landscapes crying out
for careful exploration.
327
00:25:46,527 --> 00:25:49,519
This world is Mars.
328
00:25:51,999 --> 00:25:55,491
In 1976, after a year's voyage...
329
00:25:55,702 --> 00:25:58,193
...two robot explorers from Earth...
330
00:25:58,405 --> 00:26:00,999
...landed on this alien shore.
331
00:26:02,876 --> 00:26:06,471
On Mars, there is a volcano
as wide as Arizona...
332
00:26:06,680 --> 00:26:09,444
...and almost three times
the height of Mount Everest.
333
00:26:09,650 --> 00:26:12,778
We've named it Mount Olympus.
334
00:26:17,491 --> 00:26:20,426
This is a world of wonders.
335
00:26:22,096 --> 00:26:24,724
Mars is a planet with ancient
river valleys...
336
00:26:24,932 --> 00:26:29,869
...and violent sandstorms driven
by winds at half the speed of sound.
337
00:26:37,077 --> 00:26:41,912
There is a giant rift in its surface
5000 kilometers long.
338
00:26:42,116 --> 00:26:45,574
It's called Vallis Marinaris.
339
00:26:45,786 --> 00:26:48,118
The valley of
the Mariner spacecraft...
340
00:26:48,322 --> 00:26:52,691
...that came to explore Mars
from a nearby world.
341
00:27:10,744 --> 00:27:14,009
In this, our first cosmic voyage...
342
00:27:14,214 --> 00:27:17,047
...we have just begun
the reconnaissance of Mars...
343
00:27:17,251 --> 00:27:20,709
...and all those other planets
and stars and galaxies.
344
00:27:20,921 --> 00:27:25,187
In voyages to come,
we will explore them more fully.
345
00:27:32,733 --> 00:27:36,396
But now, we travel the few
remaining light minutes...
346
00:27:36,603 --> 00:27:41,336
...to a blue and cloudy world,
third from the sun.
347
00:27:41,742 --> 00:27:43,801
The end of our long journey...
348
00:27:44,011 --> 00:27:46,411
...is the world where we began.
349
00:27:46,747 --> 00:27:48,578
Our travels allow us...
350
00:27:48,782 --> 00:27:51,046
...to see the Earth anew...
351
00:27:51,251 --> 00:27:54,311
...as if we came from somewhere else.
352
00:27:56,757 --> 00:27:59,385
There are a hundred billion
galaxies...
353
00:27:59,593 --> 00:28:02,585
...and a billion trillion stars.
354
00:28:02,796 --> 00:28:07,392
Why should this modest planet
be the only inhabited world?
355
00:28:07,601 --> 00:28:12,197
To me, it seems far more likely
that the cosmos is brimming over...
356
00:28:12,406 --> 00:28:14,533
...with life and intelligence.
357
00:28:14,741 --> 00:28:17,403
But so far, every living thing...
358
00:28:17,611 --> 00:28:19,203
...every conscious being...
359
00:28:19,413 --> 00:28:22,109
...every civilization
we know anything about...
360
00:28:22,316 --> 00:28:25,012
...lived there, on Earth.
361
00:28:32,259 --> 00:28:33,886
Beneath these clouds...
362
00:28:34,094 --> 00:28:37,723
...the drama of the human species
has been unfolded.
363
00:28:40,367 --> 00:28:43,598
We have, at last, come home.
364
00:28:53,313 --> 00:28:55,508
Welcome to the planet Earth.
365
00:28:55,849 --> 00:28:58,682
A place with blue nitrogen skies...
366
00:28:58,885 --> 00:29:00,785
...oceans of liquid water...
367
00:29:00,988 --> 00:29:02,319
...cool forests...
368
00:29:02,522 --> 00:29:03,921
...soft meadows.
369
00:29:04,124 --> 00:29:07,753
A world positively rippling with life.
370
00:29:08,295 --> 00:29:11,822
In the cosmic perspective,
it is, for the moment, unique.
371
00:29:12,032 --> 00:29:14,660
The only world in which
we know with certainty...
372
00:29:14,868 --> 00:29:18,861
...that the matter of the cosmos
has become alive and aware.
373
00:29:19,106 --> 00:29:21,939
There must be many such worlds
scattered through space...
374
00:29:22,142 --> 00:29:24,576
...but our search for them
begins here...
375
00:29:24,778 --> 00:29:28,179
...with the accumulated wisdom of
the men and women of our species...
376
00:29:28,382 --> 00:29:30,179
...acquired at great cost...
377
00:29:30,384 --> 00:29:32,511
...over a million years.
378
00:30:15,662 --> 00:30:18,563
There was once a time when
our planet seemed immense.
379
00:30:18,765 --> 00:30:21,256
When it was the only world
we could explore.
380
00:30:21,468 --> 00:30:25,700
Its true size was first worked out
in a simple and ingenious way...
381
00:30:25,906 --> 00:30:30,172
...by a man who lived here in Egypt,
in the third century B.C.
382
00:30:36,116 --> 00:30:40,382
This tower may have been
a communications tower.
383
00:30:40,587 --> 00:30:44,353
Part of a network running along
the North African coast...
384
00:30:44,558 --> 00:30:48,961
...by which signal bonfires were used
to communicate messages of state.
385
00:30:49,162 --> 00:30:53,565
It also may have been used
as a lighthouse...
386
00:30:53,767 --> 00:30:57,032
...a navigational beacon
for sailing ships...
387
00:30:57,237 --> 00:30:59,569
...out there in the Mediterranean Sea.
388
00:30:59,773 --> 00:31:02,298
It is about 50 kilometers west...
389
00:31:02,509 --> 00:31:07,173
...of what was once one of the great
cities of the world, Alexandria.
390
00:31:08,115 --> 00:31:10,140
In Alexandria, at that time...
391
00:31:10,350 --> 00:31:13,376
...there lived a man named
Eratosthenes.
392
00:31:13,587 --> 00:31:18,081
A competitor called him "beta," the
second letter of the Greek alphabet...
393
00:31:18,291 --> 00:31:22,990
...because, he said, "Eratosthenes
was second best in everything."
394
00:31:23,196 --> 00:31:27,929
But it seems clear, in many fields,
Eratosthenes was "alpha."
395
00:31:28,135 --> 00:31:31,798
He was an astronomer, historian,
geographer...
396
00:31:32,038 --> 00:31:35,906
...philosopher, poet, theater critic
and mathematician.
397
00:31:36,109 --> 00:31:40,512
He was also the chief librarian
of the Great Library of Alexandria.
398
00:31:40,714 --> 00:31:45,651
And one day while reading
a papyrus book in the library...
399
00:31:45,852 --> 00:31:49,788
...he came upon a curious account.
400
00:31:57,030 --> 00:31:58,861
Far to the south, he read...
401
00:31:59,065 --> 00:32:01,397
...at the frontier outpost of Syene...
402
00:32:01,601 --> 00:32:05,093
...something notable could be seen
on the longest day of the year.
403
00:32:10,076 --> 00:32:11,600
On June 21st...
404
00:32:11,812 --> 00:32:14,872
...the shadows of a temple column,
or a vertical stick...
405
00:32:15,081 --> 00:32:17,675
...would grow shorter
as noon approached.
406
00:32:23,623 --> 00:32:25,250
As the hours crept towards midday...
407
00:32:25,459 --> 00:32:29,691
...the sun's rays would slither down
the sides of a deep well...
408
00:32:29,896 --> 00:32:32,387
...which on other days
would remain in shadow.
409
00:32:39,339 --> 00:32:41,967
And then, precisely at noon...
410
00:32:42,175 --> 00:32:44,575
...columns would cast no shadows.
411
00:32:44,778 --> 00:32:49,306
And the sun would shine directly down
into the water of the well.
412
00:32:55,455 --> 00:32:56,888
At that moment...
413
00:32:57,090 --> 00:32:59,615
...the sun was exactly overhead.
414
00:33:04,831 --> 00:33:09,165
It was an observation that someone else
might easily have ignored.
415
00:33:09,369 --> 00:33:13,237
Sticks, shadows,
reflections in wells...
416
00:33:13,440 --> 00:33:15,169
...the position of the sun...
417
00:33:15,375 --> 00:33:17,400
...simple, everyday matters.
418
00:33:17,611 --> 00:33:20,671
Of what possible importance
might they be?
419
00:33:21,047 --> 00:33:23,743
But Eratosthenes was a scientist...
420
00:33:23,950 --> 00:33:27,408
...and his contemplation of these
homely matters changed the world...
421
00:33:27,621 --> 00:33:29,885
...in a way, made the world.
422
00:33:30,090 --> 00:33:34,220
Because Eratosthenes had
the presence of mind to experiment...
423
00:33:34,427 --> 00:33:38,887
...to actually ask whether
back here, near Alexandria...
424
00:33:39,099 --> 00:33:44,036
...a stick cast a shadow
near noon on June the 21 st.
425
00:33:44,404 --> 00:33:47,202
And it turns out, sticks do.
426
00:33:49,476 --> 00:33:51,910
An overly skeptical person
might have said...
427
00:33:52,112 --> 00:33:54,774
...that the report from Syene
was an error.
428
00:33:54,981 --> 00:33:57,779
But it's an absolutely
straightforward observation.
429
00:33:57,984 --> 00:34:01,147
Why would anyone lie
on such a trivial matter?
430
00:34:01,354 --> 00:34:04,084
Eratosthenes asked himself
how it could be...
431
00:34:04,291 --> 00:34:06,316
...that at the same moment...
432
00:34:06,526 --> 00:34:09,188
...a stick in Syene
would cast no shadow...
433
00:34:09,396 --> 00:34:12,957
...and a stick in Alexandria,
800 kilometers to the north...
434
00:34:13,166 --> 00:34:15,726
...would cast a very definite shadow.
435
00:34:18,805 --> 00:34:22,070
Here is a map of ancient Egypt.
436
00:34:22,909 --> 00:34:26,276
I've inserted two sticks, or obelisks.
437
00:34:26,479 --> 00:34:30,939
One up here in Alexandria
and one down here in Syene.
438
00:34:31,151 --> 00:34:34,985
Now, if at a certain moment
each stick casts...
439
00:34:35,188 --> 00:34:37,588
...no shadow, no shadow at all...
440
00:34:37,958 --> 00:34:42,224
...that's perfectly easy to understand,
provided the Earth is flat.
441
00:34:42,429 --> 00:34:45,626
If the shadow at Syene is
at a certain length...
442
00:34:45,832 --> 00:34:48,266
...and the shadow at Alexandria is
the same length...
443
00:34:48,468 --> 00:34:51,028
...that also makes sense
on a flat Earth.
444
00:34:51,504 --> 00:34:54,735
But how could it be,
Eratosthenes asked...
445
00:34:54,941 --> 00:34:59,435
...that at the same instant
there was no shadow at Syene...
446
00:34:59,779 --> 00:35:04,443
...and a very substantial shadow
at Alexandria?
447
00:35:05,785 --> 00:35:10,347
The only answer was that
the surface of the Earth is curved.
448
00:35:10,590 --> 00:35:11,921
Not only that...
449
00:35:12,125 --> 00:35:15,925
...but the greater the curvature,
the bigger the difference...
450
00:35:16,129 --> 00:35:19,826
...in the lengths of the shadows.
The sun is so far away...
451
00:35:20,033 --> 00:35:22,467
...that its rays are parallel
when they reach the Earth.
452
00:35:22,669 --> 00:35:26,935
Sticks at different angles to the sun
will cast shadows at different lengths.
453
00:35:27,140 --> 00:35:30,576
For the observed difference
in the shadow lengths...
454
00:35:30,777 --> 00:35:33,211
...the distance between
Alexandria and Syene...
455
00:35:33,413 --> 00:35:37,315
...had to be about seven degrees
along the surface of the Earth.
456
00:35:37,517 --> 00:35:41,419
By that, I mean, if you would imagine
these sticks extending...
457
00:35:41,621 --> 00:35:44,055
...all the way down
to the center of the Earth...
458
00:35:44,324 --> 00:35:47,418
...they would there intersect
at an angle of seven degrees.
459
00:35:47,627 --> 00:35:50,790
Well, seven degrees is
something like a 50th...
460
00:35:50,997 --> 00:35:54,558
...of the full circumference
of the Earth, 360 degrees.
461
00:35:54,768 --> 00:35:59,296
Eratosthenes knew the distance
between Alexandria and Syene.
462
00:35:59,506 --> 00:36:01,474
He knew it was 800 kilometers.
463
00:36:01,675 --> 00:36:06,271
Why? Because he hired a man
to pace out the entire distance...
464
00:36:06,479 --> 00:36:09,937
...so that he could perform
the calculation I'm talking about.
465
00:36:10,150 --> 00:36:14,883
Now, 800 kilometers times 50
is 40,000 kilometers.
466
00:36:15,088 --> 00:36:17,181
That must be the circumference
of the Earth.
467
00:36:17,390 --> 00:36:20,587
That's how far it is to go
once around the Earth.
468
00:36:21,061 --> 00:36:22,528
That's the right answer.
469
00:36:22,729 --> 00:36:25,061
Eratosthenes' only tools were...
470
00:36:25,265 --> 00:36:29,133
...sticks, eyes, feet and brains.
471
00:36:29,669 --> 00:36:32,695
Plus a zest for experiment.
472
00:36:33,406 --> 00:36:37,137
With those tools, he correctly deduced
the circumference of the Earth...
473
00:36:37,343 --> 00:36:41,803
...to high precision with an error
of only a few percent.
474
00:36:42,916 --> 00:36:47,853
That's pretty good figuring
for 2200 years ago.
475
00:36:58,198 --> 00:37:01,929
Then, as now, the Mediterranean was
teeming with ships.
476
00:37:02,135 --> 00:37:06,231
Merchantmen, fishing vessels,
naval flotillas.
477
00:37:06,439 --> 00:37:10,808
But there were also
courageous voyages into the unknown.
478
00:37:12,212 --> 00:37:16,842
400 years before Eratosthenes,
Africa was circumnavigated...
479
00:37:17,050 --> 00:37:19,985
...by a Phoenician fleet
in the employ...
480
00:37:20,186 --> 00:37:22,245
...of the Egyptian pharaoh Necho.
481
00:37:22,455 --> 00:37:23,649
They set sail...
482
00:37:23,857 --> 00:37:28,385
...probably in boats as frail
and open as these...
483
00:37:28,595 --> 00:37:31,792
...out from the Red Sea,
down the east coast of Africa...
484
00:37:31,998 --> 00:37:35,263
...up into the Atlantic and then
back through the Mediterranean.
485
00:37:35,668 --> 00:37:38,364
That epic journey took three years...
486
00:37:38,571 --> 00:37:40,698
...about as long as
it takes Voyager...
487
00:37:40,907 --> 00:37:43,899
...to journey from Earth to Saturn.
488
00:37:44,477 --> 00:37:47,105
After Eratosthenes,
some may have attempted...
489
00:37:47,313 --> 00:37:49,679
...to circumnavigate the Earth.
490
00:37:49,883 --> 00:37:52,784
But until the time of Magellan,
no one succeeded.
491
00:37:53,386 --> 00:37:56,378
What tales of adventure and daring...
492
00:37:56,589 --> 00:37:58,716
...must earlier have been told...
493
00:37:58,925 --> 00:38:03,259
...as sailors and navigators,
practical men of the world...
494
00:38:03,463 --> 00:38:06,330
...gambled their lives
on the mathematics...
495
00:38:06,533 --> 00:38:09,969
...of a scientist
from ancient Alexandria.
496
00:38:16,576 --> 00:38:20,239
Today, Alexandria shows few traces
of its ancient glory...
497
00:38:20,446 --> 00:38:23,779
...of the days when Eratosthenes
walked its broad avenues.
498
00:38:23,983 --> 00:38:28,647
Over the centuries, waves of conquerors
converted its palaces and temples...
499
00:38:28,855 --> 00:38:33,622
...into castles and churches,
then into minarets and mosques.
500
00:38:34,961 --> 00:38:39,364
The city was chosen to be the capital
of his empire by Alexander the Great...
501
00:38:39,566 --> 00:38:43,525
...on a winter's afternoon in 331 B.C.
502
00:38:44,070 --> 00:38:47,403
A century later, it had become
the greatest city of the world.
503
00:38:47,607 --> 00:38:51,338
Each successive civilization
has left its mark.
504
00:38:57,283 --> 00:39:01,743
But what now remains of the
marvel city of Alexander's dream?
505
00:39:03,223 --> 00:39:06,124
Alexandria is still
a thriving marketplace...
506
00:39:06,326 --> 00:39:09,591
...still a crossroads
for the peoples of the Near East.
507
00:39:16,069 --> 00:39:19,232
But once, it was radiant
with self-confidence...
508
00:39:19,439 --> 00:39:21,703
...certain of its power.
509
00:39:28,281 --> 00:39:30,374
Can you recapture a vanished epoch...
510
00:39:30,583 --> 00:39:34,952
...from a few broken statues and scraps
of ancient manuscripts?
511
00:39:42,629 --> 00:39:46,156
In Alexandria, there was
an immense library...
512
00:39:46,366 --> 00:39:48,994
...and an associated
research institute.
513
00:39:49,202 --> 00:39:53,332
And in them worked the finest minds
in the ancient world.
514
00:40:13,927 --> 00:40:16,361
Of that legendary library...
515
00:40:16,562 --> 00:40:19,122
...all that survives is this...
516
00:40:19,332 --> 00:40:22,028
...dank and forgotten cellar.
517
00:40:22,969 --> 00:40:26,905
It's in the library annex,
the Serapeum...
518
00:40:27,106 --> 00:40:29,074
...which was once a temple...
519
00:40:29,275 --> 00:40:32,073
...but was later reconsecrated
to knowledge.
520
00:40:32,612 --> 00:40:36,309
These few moldering shelves...
521
00:40:36,716 --> 00:40:39,150
...probably once in a basement
storage room...
522
00:40:39,352 --> 00:40:42,048
...are its only physical remains.
523
00:40:42,422 --> 00:40:45,186
But this place was once...
524
00:40:45,491 --> 00:40:48,358
...the brain and glory...
525
00:40:48,561 --> 00:40:51,689
...of the greatest city
on the planet Earth.
526
00:40:59,706 --> 00:41:02,300
If I could travel back into time...
527
00:41:02,508 --> 00:41:05,033
...this is the place I would visit.
528
00:41:05,945 --> 00:41:10,439
The Library of Alexandria
at its height, 2000 years ago.
529
00:41:14,520 --> 00:41:16,954
Here, in an important sense...
530
00:41:17,156 --> 00:41:21,456
...began the intellectual adventure
which has led us into space.
531
00:41:28,067 --> 00:41:33,004
All the knowledge in the ancient world
was once within these marble walls.
532
00:41:39,112 --> 00:41:42,570
In the great hall, there may have
been a mural of Alexander...
533
00:41:42,782 --> 00:41:46,013
...with the crook and flail
and ceremonial headdress...
534
00:41:46,219 --> 00:41:48,847
...of the pharaohs of ancient Egypt.
535
00:41:52,458 --> 00:41:55,950
This library was a citadel
of human consciousness...
536
00:41:56,162 --> 00:42:00,258
...a beacon on our journey
to the stars.
537
00:42:03,603 --> 00:42:08,472
It was the first true research
institute in the history of the world.
538
00:42:08,741 --> 00:42:10,675
And what did they study?
539
00:42:10,977 --> 00:42:14,913
They studied everything.
The entire cosmos.
540
00:42:15,114 --> 00:42:19,517
"Cosmos" is a Greek word
for the order of the universe.
541
00:42:19,719 --> 00:42:22,813
In a way, it's the opposite of chaos.
542
00:42:23,056 --> 00:42:27,959
It implies a deep interconnectedness
of all things.
543
00:42:28,394 --> 00:42:33,331
The intricate and subtle way
that the universe is put together.
544
00:42:34,767 --> 00:42:37,463
Genius flourished here.
545
00:42:37,670 --> 00:42:42,004
In addition to Eratosthenes,
there was the astronomer Hipparchus...
546
00:42:42,208 --> 00:42:43,971
...who mapped the constellation...
547
00:42:44,177 --> 00:42:47,203
...and established the brightness
of the stars.
548
00:42:47,880 --> 00:42:49,939
And there was Euclid...
549
00:42:50,149 --> 00:42:52,982
...who brilliantly
systematized geometry...
550
00:42:53,186 --> 00:42:55,552
...who told his king,
who was struggling...
551
00:42:55,755 --> 00:42:58,383
...with some difficult problem
in mathematics...
552
00:42:58,591 --> 00:43:02,960
...that there was no royal road
to geometry.
553
00:43:03,496 --> 00:43:06,192
There was Dionysius of Thrace,
the man who defined...
554
00:43:06,399 --> 00:43:09,857
...the parts of speech:
nouns, verbs and so on...
555
00:43:10,069 --> 00:43:14,005
...who did for language, in a way,
what Euclid did for geometry.
556
00:43:14,207 --> 00:43:18,234
There was Herophilus,
a physiologist who identified...
557
00:43:18,444 --> 00:43:21,971
...the brain rather than the heart
as the seat of intelligence.
558
00:43:22,648 --> 00:43:25,344
There was Archimedes,
the greatest mechanical genius...
559
00:43:25,551 --> 00:43:27,746
...until the time
of Leonardo da Vinci.
560
00:43:27,954 --> 00:43:32,687
And there was the astronomer Ptolemy,
who compiled much of what today is...
561
00:43:32,892 --> 00:43:35,156
...the pseudoscience of astrology.
562
00:43:35,361 --> 00:43:37,693
His Earth-centered universe...
563
00:43:37,897 --> 00:43:40,559
...held sway for 1500 years...
564
00:43:40,766 --> 00:43:44,202
...showing that intellectual brilliance
is no guarantee...
565
00:43:44,403 --> 00:43:46,496
...against being dead wrong.
566
00:43:46,973 --> 00:43:50,966
And among these great men,
there was also a great woman.
567
00:43:51,177 --> 00:43:53,372
Her name was Hypatia.
568
00:43:53,579 --> 00:43:56,446
She was a mathematician
and an astronomer...
569
00:43:56,649 --> 00:43:58,640
...the last light of the library...
570
00:43:58,851 --> 00:44:03,754
...whose martyrdom is bound up with
the destruction of this place...
571
00:44:03,956 --> 00:44:07,255
...seven centuries after
it was founded.
572
00:44:25,645 --> 00:44:27,909
Look at this place.
573
00:44:29,115 --> 00:44:32,016
The Greek kings of Egypt
who succeeded Alexander...
574
00:44:32,218 --> 00:44:35,551
...regarded advances in science,
literature and medicine...
575
00:44:35,755 --> 00:44:38,019
...as among the treasures
of the empire.
576
00:44:38,224 --> 00:44:42,684
For centuries, they generously
supported research and scholarship.
577
00:44:42,895 --> 00:44:47,298
An enlightenment shared by
few heads of state, then or now.
578
00:44:56,776 --> 00:45:00,735
Off this great hall were
10 large research laboratories.
579
00:45:00,947 --> 00:45:05,077
There were fountains and colonnades,
botanical gardens...
580
00:45:05,284 --> 00:45:09,653
...and even a zoo with animals
from India and sub-Saharan Africa.
581
00:45:09,855 --> 00:45:14,554
There were dissecting rooms
and an astronomical observatory.
582
00:45:16,562 --> 00:45:18,393
But the treasure of the library...
583
00:45:18,598 --> 00:45:21,863
...consecrated to the god Serapis...
584
00:45:22,068 --> 00:45:24,866
...built in the city of Alexander...
585
00:45:25,071 --> 00:45:26,902
...was its collection of books.
586
00:45:27,106 --> 00:45:29,301
The organizers of the library combed...
587
00:45:29,508 --> 00:45:32,739
...all the cultures and languages
of the world for books.
588
00:45:32,945 --> 00:45:36,312
They sent agents abroad
to buy up libraries.
589
00:45:36,515 --> 00:45:41,452
Commercial ships docking in Alexandria
harbor were searched by the police...
590
00:45:41,687 --> 00:45:44,121
...not for contraband, but for books.
591
00:45:44,323 --> 00:45:47,884
The scrolls were borrowed, copied
and returned to their owners.
592
00:45:48,094 --> 00:45:52,155
Until studied, these scrolls were
collected in great stacks...
593
00:45:52,365 --> 00:45:55,630
...called, "books from the ships."
594
00:45:55,935 --> 00:45:58,369
Accurate numbers are
difficult to come by...
595
00:45:58,571 --> 00:46:01,563
...but it seems that the library
contained at its peak...
596
00:46:01,774 --> 00:46:04,868
...nearly one million scrolls.
597
00:46:18,424 --> 00:46:21,860
The papyrus reed grows in Egypt.
598
00:46:22,061 --> 00:46:24,256
It's the origin of our word
for "paper."
599
00:46:24,463 --> 00:46:28,229
Each of those million volumes
which once existed in this library...
600
00:46:28,434 --> 00:46:32,871
...were handwritten
on papyrus manuscript scrolls.
601
00:46:33,839 --> 00:46:35,704
What happened to all those books?
602
00:46:35,908 --> 00:46:39,344
The classical civilization
that created them disintegrated.
603
00:46:39,545 --> 00:46:42,036
The library itself was destroyed.
604
00:46:42,248 --> 00:46:45,411
Only a small fraction
of the works survived.
605
00:46:45,618 --> 00:46:48,746
And as for the rest,
we're left only with pathetic...
606
00:46:48,954 --> 00:46:51,115
...scattered fragments.
607
00:46:51,457 --> 00:46:55,723
But how tantalizing those remaining
bits and pieces are.
608
00:46:55,928 --> 00:46:59,591
For example, we know
that there once existed here...
609
00:46:59,799 --> 00:47:04,133
...a book by the astronomer
Aristarchus of Samos...
610
00:47:04,337 --> 00:47:08,467
...who apparently argued that
the Earth was one of the planets...
611
00:47:08,674 --> 00:47:12,166
...that, like the other planets,
it orbits the sun...
612
00:47:12,378 --> 00:47:16,747
...and that the stars are
enormously far away.
613
00:47:17,116 --> 00:47:19,584
All absolutely correct.
614
00:47:19,785 --> 00:47:22,413
But we had to wait
nearly 2000 years...
615
00:47:22,621 --> 00:47:25,784
...for these facts to be rediscovered.
616
00:47:32,865 --> 00:47:36,665
The astronomy stacks
of the Alexandria Library.
617
00:47:37,470 --> 00:47:39,370
Hipparchus.
618
00:47:39,739 --> 00:47:42,367
Ptolomeus. Here we are.
619
00:47:43,743 --> 00:47:46,576
Aristarchus.
620
00:47:47,646 --> 00:47:49,113
This is the book.
621
00:47:49,315 --> 00:47:52,546
How I'd love to be able
to read this book...
622
00:47:52,885 --> 00:47:55,854
...to know how Aristarchus
figured it out.
623
00:47:56,055 --> 00:47:59,422
But it's gone. Utterly and forever.
624
00:47:59,892 --> 00:48:04,261
If we multiply our sense of loss
for this work of Aristarchus...
625
00:48:04,463 --> 00:48:05,862
...by 100,000...
626
00:48:06,065 --> 00:48:08,533
...we begin to appreciate
the grandeur...
627
00:48:08,734 --> 00:48:11,396
...of the achievement
of classical civilization...
628
00:48:11,804 --> 00:48:14,671
...and the tragedy of its destruction.
629
00:48:18,177 --> 00:48:22,705
We have far surpassed the science
known to the ancient world...
630
00:48:22,915 --> 00:48:26,510
...but there are irreparable gaps
in our historical knowledge.
631
00:48:26,752 --> 00:48:30,119
Imagine what mysteries of the past
could be solved...
632
00:48:30,322 --> 00:48:32,756
...with a borrower's card
to this library.
633
00:48:32,958 --> 00:48:37,190
For example, we know of a three-volume
history of the world...
634
00:48:37,396 --> 00:48:41,890
...now lost, written by
a Babylonian priest named Berossus.
635
00:48:42,101 --> 00:48:45,730
Volume I dealt with the interval
from the creation of the world...
636
00:48:45,938 --> 00:48:47,098
...to the Great Flood.
637
00:48:47,306 --> 00:48:51,367
A period that he took
to be 432,000 years...
638
00:48:51,577 --> 00:48:55,308
...or about 100 times longer than
the Old Testament chronology.
639
00:48:55,514 --> 00:48:59,416
What wonders were in
the books of Berossus!
640
00:49:00,519 --> 00:49:04,546
But why have I brought you
across 2000 years...
641
00:49:04,757 --> 00:49:06,987
...to the Library of Alexandria?
642
00:49:07,760 --> 00:49:11,059
Because this was when and where
we humans...
643
00:49:11,263 --> 00:49:15,359
...first collected
seriously and systematically...
644
00:49:15,568 --> 00:49:17,502
...the knowledge of the world.
645
00:49:17,803 --> 00:49:20,294
This is the Earth
as Eratosthenes knew it.
646
00:49:20,506 --> 00:49:23,771
A tiny, spherical world, afloat...
647
00:49:23,976 --> 00:49:26,968
...in an immensity of space and time.
648
00:49:27,446 --> 00:49:30,142
We were, at long last,
beginning to find...
649
00:49:30,349 --> 00:49:33,284
...our true bearings in the cosmos.
650
00:49:34,053 --> 00:49:35,918
The scientists of antiquity...
651
00:49:36,121 --> 00:49:39,716
...took the first and most
important steps in that direction...
652
00:49:39,925 --> 00:49:42,689
...before their civilization
fell apart.
653
00:49:42,995 --> 00:49:45,862
But after the Dark Ages,
it was by and large...
654
00:49:46,065 --> 00:49:50,001
...the rediscovery of the works
of these scholars done here...
655
00:49:50,202 --> 00:49:52,397
...that made
the Renaissance possible...
656
00:49:52,605 --> 00:49:55,665
...and thereby powerfully influenced
our own culture.
657
00:49:55,875 --> 00:49:59,106
When, in the 15th century,
Europe was at last ready...
658
00:49:59,311 --> 00:50:02,109
...to awaken from its long sleep...
659
00:50:02,314 --> 00:50:06,580
...it picked up some of the tools,
the books and the concepts...
660
00:50:06,785 --> 00:50:10,812
...laid down here more than
a thousand years before.
661
00:50:16,262 --> 00:50:20,164
By 1600, the long-forgotten ideas
of Aristarchus...
662
00:50:20,366 --> 00:50:21,594
...had been rediscovered.
663
00:50:22,668 --> 00:50:25,933
Johannes Kepler constructed
elaborate models...
664
00:50:26,138 --> 00:50:29,039
...to understand the motion
and arrangement of the planets...
665
00:50:29,241 --> 00:50:31,903
...the clockwork of the heavens.
666
00:50:36,015 --> 00:50:39,849
And at night, he dreamt
of traveling to the moon.
667
00:50:50,563 --> 00:50:52,758
His principal
scientific tools were...
668
00:50:52,965 --> 00:50:55,763
...the mathematics
of the Alexandrian Library...
669
00:50:55,968 --> 00:50:58,402
...and an unswerving respect
for the facts...
670
00:50:58,604 --> 00:51:02,040
...however disquieting they might be.
671
00:51:05,444 --> 00:51:08,880
His story, and the story of
the scientists who came after him...
672
00:51:09,081 --> 00:51:11,515
...are also part of our voyage.
673
00:51:13,886 --> 00:51:16,855
Seventy years later,
the sun-centered universe...
674
00:51:17,056 --> 00:51:18,648
...of Aristarchus and Copernicus...
675
00:51:18,857 --> 00:51:22,725
...was widely accepted
in the Europe of the Enlightenment.
676
00:51:22,928 --> 00:51:26,364
The idea arose that the planets
were worlds...
677
00:51:26,565 --> 00:51:28,192
...governed by laws of nature...
678
00:51:28,400 --> 00:51:32,632
...and scientific speculation turned
to the motions of the stars.
679
00:51:32,838 --> 00:51:35,466
The clockwork in the heavens
was imitated...
680
00:51:35,674 --> 00:51:37,437
...by the watchmakers of Earth.
681
00:51:38,043 --> 00:51:41,535
Precise timekeeping permitted
great sailing ship voyages...
682
00:51:41,747 --> 00:51:44,272
...of exploration and discovery...
683
00:51:44,483 --> 00:51:46,041
...which bound up the Earth.
684
00:51:48,487 --> 00:51:50,819
This was a time when free inquiry...
685
00:51:51,023 --> 00:51:52,991
...was valued once again.
686
00:51:59,898 --> 00:52:03,299
250 years later,
the Earth was all explored.
687
00:52:03,502 --> 00:52:06,665
New adventurers now looked to
the planets and the stars.
688
00:52:07,406 --> 00:52:11,069
The galaxies were recognized
as great aggregates of stars...
689
00:52:11,276 --> 00:52:15,212
...island universes
millions of light years away.
690
00:52:16,115 --> 00:52:19,243
In the 1920s, astronomers had
begun to measure...
691
00:52:19,451 --> 00:52:22,181
...the speeds of distant galaxies.
692
00:52:26,959 --> 00:52:27,926
What time is it?
693
00:52:28,127 --> 00:52:29,822
7:15.
694
00:52:30,262 --> 00:52:31,422
Lights off, please.
695
00:52:32,398 --> 00:52:37,028
They found that the galaxies were
flying away from one another.
696
00:52:37,236 --> 00:52:39,136
To the astonishment of everyone...
697
00:52:39,338 --> 00:52:42,569
...the entire universe was expanding.
698
00:52:48,380 --> 00:52:53,181
We had begun to plumb the true depths
of time and space.
699
00:52:55,621 --> 00:52:58,317
The long, collective enterprise
of science...
700
00:52:58,524 --> 00:53:02,824
...has revealed a universe
some 15 billion years old.
701
00:53:03,028 --> 00:53:06,020
The time since the explosive
birth of the cosmos...
702
00:53:06,231 --> 00:53:07,465
...the big bang.
703
00:53:07,466 --> 00:53:07,833
The current estimates for the age of the
universe range from 12 to 15 billion years.
704
00:53:13,972 --> 00:53:17,999
The cosmic calendar compresses
the local history of the universe...
705
00:53:18,210 --> 00:53:19,939
...into a single year.
706
00:53:20,145 --> 00:53:22,705
If the universe began
on January 1st...
707
00:53:22,915 --> 00:53:26,282
...it was not until May
that the Milky Way formed.
708
00:53:27,052 --> 00:53:29,816
Other planetary systems
may have appeared...
709
00:53:30,022 --> 00:53:32,820
...in June, July and August...
710
00:53:33,192 --> 00:53:35,922
...but our sun and Earth,
not until mid-September.
711
00:53:36,128 --> 00:53:38,494
Life arose soon after.
712
00:53:39,364 --> 00:53:43,425
Everything humans have ever done
occurred in that bright speck...
713
00:53:43,635 --> 00:53:46,695
...at the lower right
of the cosmic calendar.
714
00:53:49,341 --> 00:53:51,332
The big bang is at upper left...
715
00:53:51,543 --> 00:53:54,239
...in the first second of January 1st.
716
00:53:54,513 --> 00:53:58,210
Fifteen billion years later
is our present time...
717
00:53:58,417 --> 00:54:01,784
...the last second of December 31st.
718
00:54:06,759 --> 00:54:09,990
Every month is
1¼ billion years long.
719
00:54:10,195 --> 00:54:13,096
Each day represents 40 million years.
720
00:54:13,298 --> 00:54:17,029
Each second stands for some 500 years
of our history.
721
00:54:17,236 --> 00:54:21,468
The blinking of an eye
in the drama of cosmic time.
722
00:54:26,845 --> 00:54:31,305
At this scale, the cosmic calendar
is the size of a football field...
723
00:54:31,517 --> 00:54:34,680
...but all of human history
would occupy an area...
724
00:54:34,887 --> 00:54:36,514
...the size of my hand.
725
00:54:36,722 --> 00:54:40,180
We're just beginning to trace
the long and tortuous path...
726
00:54:40,392 --> 00:54:43,122
...which began with
the primeval fireball...
727
00:54:43,328 --> 00:54:46,024
...and led to the condensation
of matter:
728
00:54:46,231 --> 00:54:48,859
Gas, dust, stars, galaxies, and...
729
00:54:49,067 --> 00:54:51,433
...at least in our little nook
of the universe...
730
00:54:51,637 --> 00:54:55,937
...planets, life, intelligence
and inquisitive men and women.
731
00:54:56,141 --> 00:54:57,733
We've emerged so recently...
732
00:54:57,943 --> 00:55:00,810
...that the familiar events
of our recorded history...
733
00:55:01,013 --> 00:55:05,245
...occupy only the last seconds
of the last minute of December 31st.
734
00:55:05,450 --> 00:55:09,079
But some critical events for the
human species began much earlier...
735
00:55:09,288 --> 00:55:11,051
...minutes earlier.
736
00:55:12,324 --> 00:55:15,725
So we change our scale
from months to minutes.
737
00:55:15,928 --> 00:55:19,091
Down here, the first humans
made their debut...
738
00:55:19,298 --> 00:55:22,790
...around 10:30 p.m. on December 31st.
739
00:55:25,671 --> 00:55:28,003
And with the passing
of every cosmic minute...
740
00:55:28,207 --> 00:55:30,266
...each minute 30,000 years long...
741
00:55:30,475 --> 00:55:32,807
...we began the arduous journey
towards understanding...
742
00:55:33,011 --> 00:55:35,673
...where we live and who we are.
743
00:55:38,517 --> 00:55:40,610
11:46...
744
00:55:40,819 --> 00:55:43,379
...only 14 minutes ago...
745
00:55:43,655 --> 00:55:46,624
...humans have tamed fire.
746
00:55:47,359 --> 00:55:52,160
11:59:20, the evening
of the last day of the cosmic year...
747
00:55:52,364 --> 00:55:56,198
...the 11th hour, the 59th minute,
the 20th second...
748
00:55:56,401 --> 00:55:59,268
...the domestication of
plants and animals begins:
749
00:55:59,471 --> 00:56:02,372
An application of the human talent...
750
00:56:05,244 --> 00:56:06,973
...for making tools.
751
00:56:14,186 --> 00:56:18,680
11:59:35, settled agricultural
communities...
752
00:56:18,891 --> 00:56:21,621
...evolved into the first cities.
753
00:56:22,561 --> 00:56:26,657
We humans appear on
the comic calendar so recently...
754
00:56:26,865 --> 00:56:29,265
...that our recorded history
occupies only...
755
00:56:29,468 --> 00:56:34,405
...the last few seconds of
the last minute of December 31 st.
756
00:56:35,140 --> 00:56:39,907
In the vast ocean of time
which this calendar represents...
757
00:56:40,112 --> 00:56:43,479
...all our memories are confined...
758
00:56:45,651 --> 00:56:47,881
...to this small square.
759
00:56:48,253 --> 00:56:53,122
Every person we've ever heard of
lived somewhere in there.
760
00:56:53,558 --> 00:56:58,495
All those kings and battles, migrations
and inventions, wars and loves.
761
00:56:58,931 --> 00:57:00,694
Everything in the history books...
762
00:57:00,899 --> 00:57:02,833
...happens here...
763
00:57:03,702 --> 00:57:06,933
...in the last 10 seconds
of the cosmic calendar.
764
00:57:12,377 --> 00:57:14,868
We on Earth have just awakened...
765
00:57:15,080 --> 00:57:17,878
...to the great oceans
of space and time...
766
00:57:18,083 --> 00:57:20,051
...from which we have emerged.
767
00:57:21,353 --> 00:57:22,911
We are the legacy...
768
00:57:23,121 --> 00:57:26,613
...of 15 billion years
of cosmic evolution.
769
00:57:27,259 --> 00:57:28,954
We have a choice:
770
00:57:29,261 --> 00:57:32,753
We can enhance life and come to know
the universe that made us...
771
00:57:32,965 --> 00:57:36,196
...or we can squander
our 15 billion-year heritage...
772
00:57:36,401 --> 00:57:39,336
...in meaningless self-destruction.
773
00:57:40,572 --> 00:57:43,769
What happens in the first second
of the next cosmic year...
774
00:57:43,976 --> 00:57:47,139
...depends on what we do,
here and now...
775
00:57:47,346 --> 00:57:49,143
...with our intelligence...
776
00:57:49,348 --> 00:57:52,374
...and our knowledge of the cosmos.
65412
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