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Lying just beneath everyday reality
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is a breathtaking world,
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where much of what we perceive about the universe is wrong.
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Physicist and best-selling author Brain Greene takes you
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on a journey that bends the rules of human experience.
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Why don't we ever see events unfold in reverse order?
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According to the laws of physics, this can happen.
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It's a world that comes to light
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as we probe the most extreme realms of the cosmos,
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from black holes to the Big Bang
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to the very heart of matter itself.
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I'm going to have what he's having.
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Here, our universe may be one of numerous parallel realities.
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The three-dimensional world may be just an illusion.
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and there is no distinction
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between past, present and future.
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But how could this be?
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How could we be so wrong about something so familiar?
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Does it bother us?
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Absolutely.
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There's no principle built into the laws of nature
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that say that theoretical physicists have to be happy.
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It's a game-changing perspective
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that opens up a whole new world of possibiblities.
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Coming up...
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What if you took all this stuff away?
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We're left with empty space.
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But what seems like nothing
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is actually teeming with ferocious activity.
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What is space?
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It is one of the deepest mysteries in physics.
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Could its elusive ingredients hold the key
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to the fate of the universe?
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"The Fabric of the Cosmos," right now on NOVA.
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Major funding for NOVA is provided by the following:
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And...
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And by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
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and by contributions to your PBs station from:
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Major funding for "The Fabric of the Cosmos"
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is provided by the National Science Foundation.
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And...
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Supporting original research and public understanding
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of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
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Additional funding is provided by...
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And the George D.Smith Fund.
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We think of our world as filled with stuff,
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like buildings and cars...
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buses and people.
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And nowhere does that seem more apparent than in a crowded city
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like New York.
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Yet all around the stuff that makes up our everyday world...
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is something as important but far more mysterious,
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the space in which all this stuff exists.
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To get a feel for what I'm talking about,
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let's stop for a moment and imagine.
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What if you took all this stuff away?
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I mean all of it:
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the people...
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the cars and buildings.
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And not just the stuff here on earth,
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but the earth itself.
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What if you took away all the planets,stars and galaxies?
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And not just the big stuff,
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but tiny things down to the very last atoms of gas and dust.
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What if you took it all away?
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What would be left?
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Most of us woud say "nothing".
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And we'd be right.
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But strangely, we'd also be wrong.
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What's left is empty space.
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And as it turns out, empty space is not nothing.
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It's something.
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Something with hidden characteristics as real
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as all the stuff in our everyday lives.
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In fact, space is so real it can bend...
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Space can twist...
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And it can ripple.
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So real that empty space itself helps shape
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everything in the world around us
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and forms the very fabric of the cosmos.
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You can't understand anything about the world
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unless you understand space
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because that's the world the world is space.
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With stuff in it
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We're not usually very conscious of space.
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But then again, I tell people,
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fish are probably not conscious of water either.
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They're in it all the time.
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Space is not really nothing.
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It actually has a lot going on inside.
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When most of us picture space,
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we think of outer space-a place that's far,far away.
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But space is actually everywhere.
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You could say
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it's the most abundant thing in the universe
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Even the tiniest of things like atoms,
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the basic ingredient in you and me and everything else we see
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in the world around us,
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even they are almost entirely empty space.
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In fact, if you removed all the space
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inside all the atoms making up the stone, glass and steel
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of the Empire State Building,
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you'd be left with a little lump...
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about the size of a grain of rice,
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but weighing hunbreds of millions of pounds
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The rest is only empty space.
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But what exactly is space?
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I can show you a picture of Spain...
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of Napoleon...
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of my Uncle Harold.
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But space looks like this.
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Nothing.
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So how do you make sense of something
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that looks like nothing?
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Why is there space
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rather than no space?
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Why is space three-dimensional?
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Why is space big?
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We have a lot of room to move around in.
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How come it's not tiny?
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Um...
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We have no consensus about these things.
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What is space?
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We actually still don't really know.
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It is one of the deepest mysteries in physics.
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Fortunately,we're not completely in the dark.
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Wa're been gathering clues about space for centturies.
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Some of the earlist came
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from thinking about how objects move through space.
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To get a feel for this, take a look at that skater.
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As she glides across the rink,
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she's moving in relation to everything around her,
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like the ice.
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And when she goes into a spin,
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not any can she see that she's spinning,
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she can also feel it,
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because as she spins, she feels her arms pulled outward.
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But now let's imagine
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that you could take away at the stuff around her,
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from the rink...
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to the most distant galaxies.
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So the only thing left is the skater
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spinning in completely empty space.
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If the skater still feels her arms pulled outward,
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she'll know she's spinning.
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But if empty space is nothing,
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what is she spinning in relation to?
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Imagine you're that skater.
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When you look out, you don't see anything.
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It's just uniform, still blackness all around you.
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And yet, your arms are beings pulled outwards.
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So you say to yourself,
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what could I be spinning with respect to?
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Is there something out there that I'm not seeing?
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Trying to answer questions like these,
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scientists came up with a bold new picture of space.
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And the key was to make something out of nothing.
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When you go to the theater, you watch the actors...
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I do confess that I love nothing in the world so well as thee.
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...the scenery,the story.
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I protest I love thee...
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Well, then God forgive me!
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What offence, sweet Beatrice?
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But there's something important here
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that you won't find mentioned in the playbill
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Something we hardly ever notice.
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The stage.
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It's an absolutely vital part of the show,
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and yet most of us, we don't even give it a second thought.
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But Isaac Newton, he did.
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This is how the father of modern science pictured space:
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as an empty stage.
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To Newton, space was the framework
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for everything that happens in the cosmos,
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the arena within which the drama of the universe plays out.
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And Newton's stage was passive--
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absolute,eternal and unchanging.
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The action couldn't affect the stage
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and the stage couldn't affect the action.
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By picturing space in this way,
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Newton was able to describe the world.
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as no one had ever done before.
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His unchanging stage allowed him to understand
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almost all motion we can see around us,
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yielding laws that can predict everything
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from the way apples fall from trees...
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to the path the earth takes around the sun.
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These laws worked so well that we still use them
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for the things we do today,
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from launching satellites...
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to landing airplanes.
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And the laws all hinge on one radical idea:space is real.
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Even though you can't see it or smell it or touch it,
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space is enough of a real, physical thing
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to provide a benchmark for certain kinds of motion,
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like that skater.
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Newton would say that when she spins, her arms splay out
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because she is spinning with respect to something
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and that something is space itself.
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GATES: Philosophers had been debating the nature of space
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for a very long time.
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What Newton does is change the terms of the debate,
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and with that,
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essentially, modern science gets born.
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Newton's stage was a huge hit.
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It enjoyed the limelight for over 200 years.
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But in the early decades of the 20th century,
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a new set of ideas emerged
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that shook Newton's stage to its very foundations.
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Ideas put forward
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by a young clerk working in a Swiss patent office.
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His name?
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Albert Einstein.
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Einstein grew up in the late 1800s,
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at the dawn of the age of electricity.
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Electric power was lighting up cities,
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giving rise to all kinds of technologies
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Newton could never have imagined.
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All of these developments tapped into something
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that had captivated Einstein since he was a child:light.
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Not light bulbs and street lamps,,
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but the very nature of light itself.
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and it was his fascination
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with one particularly weird feature of light--its speed--
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that would lead Einstein to overturn
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Newton's picture of space.
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To see how,let's take a ride.
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Right now, we're traveling at about 20 miles per hour.
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To go faster,all the driver needs to do
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is step on the gas and the cab's speed changes.
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Now, you can feel that change, but you can also see it.
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on the cab's speedometer or on one of those radar speed signs.
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Okay,you can slow it down now.
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But now imagine that instead of measuring the speed of the cab,
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you have a radar sign that measures the speed
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of the light coming off its headlights.
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That sign would measure the light traveling
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at an astounding 671 million miles an hour.
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Now, when the cab starts moving,
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you'd think that the speed of the light would increase
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by the same amount as the car.
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After all, you'd think that the moving cab would give the light
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an extra push.
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But surprisingly, that's not what happens.
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Our radar sign--or any measurement of lights speed--
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will always detect light traveling
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at 671 million miles per hour,
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whether the cab is moving or not.
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But how could this be?
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How could all measurements of light's speed
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always come out the same?
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If you're running at a wall, it's coming at you faster
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than if you're standing still with respect to that wall.
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But that's not true with light.
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The speed of light is the same for everybody
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That's really extraordinary.
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So here's how Einstein made sense
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of this extraordinary puzzle.
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Knowing that speed is just a measure of the space
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that something travels over time,
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Einstein proposed a truly stunning idea.
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that space and time could work together,
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constantly adjusting by exactly the right amount
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so that no matter how fast you might be moving
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when you measure the speed of light.
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it always comes out to be 671 million miles per hour.
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To respect that absolute quality about light,
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00:15:51,617 --> 00:15:53,903
time had to cease to be absolute.
269
00:15:54,036 --> 00:15:55,526
Space had to cease to be absolute
270
00:15:55,621 --> 00:15:58,112
And these two had to become relative in such a way
271
00:15:58,207 --> 00:16:00,038
that they slosh between each other.
272
00:16:02,003 --> 00:16:04,710
If space and time being flexible sounds unfamiliar.
273
00:16:04,797 --> 00:16:07,914
it's only because we don't move fast enough in everyday life
274
00:16:08,050 --> 00:16:09,540
to see it in action.
275
00:16:09,635 --> 00:16:12,502
But if this cab could move near the speed of light,
276
00:16:12,597 --> 00:16:15,213
the effects would no longer be hidden.
277
00:16:18,186 --> 00:16:20,643
For example, if you were on a street corner
278
00:16:20,730 --> 00:16:22,721
as I went by close to the speed of light
279
00:16:22,815 --> 00:16:25,557
you'd see space adjusting,
280
00:16:25,651 --> 00:16:30,441
so that my cab, it would appear just inches long,
281
00:16:30,573 --> 00:16:35,283
and you'd also hear my watch ticking off time very slowly.
282
00:16:35,411 --> 00:16:38,073
But from my perspective inside the cab,
283
00:16:38,206 --> 00:16:40,913
my watch would be ticking normally
284
00:16:41,042 --> 00:16:44,159
and space in here would appear as it always does.
285
00:16:45,880 --> 00:16:50,590
But when I look outside the cab, I'd see space wildly adjusting.
286
00:16:50,676 --> 00:16:53,588
All to keep the speed of light constant.
287
00:16:55,515 --> 00:16:56,925
So with Einstein,
288
00:16:57,016 --> 00:17:01,430
time and space are no longer rigid and absolute.
289
00:17:01,562 --> 00:17:04,395
Instead, they meld together with motion,
290
00:17:04,482 --> 00:17:08,896
forming a single entity that came to be called "spacetime."
291
00:17:10,780 --> 00:17:13,146
I think as we live our life every day,
292
00:17:13,282 --> 00:17:16,319
we live with a Newtonian picture of space and time.
293
00:17:16,452 --> 00:17:17,908
It's something that we are confortable with.
294
00:17:17,995 --> 00:17:24,412
But Einstein was able to make reason conquer sense.
295
00:17:24,502 --> 00:17:27,369
That really was the genius of Einstein.
296
00:17:28,798 --> 00:17:32,461
this notion that space and time are a unity
297
00:17:32,552 --> 00:17:34,133
to me is one of the greatest insights
298
00:17:34,262 --> 00:17:35,468
that has ever occurred in science.
299
00:17:35,596 --> 00:17:37,302
It's so counterintuitive
300
00:17:37,431 --> 00:17:40,298
to everything we're ever experienced as human beings.
301
00:17:43,062 --> 00:17:44,893
And in the hands of Albert Einstein,
302
00:17:44,981 --> 00:17:48,348
this new picture of space would solve a deep mystery
303
00:17:48,484 --> 00:17:53,729
having to do with the most familiar force in the cosmos:
304
00:17:53,823 --> 00:17:56,155
Gravity
305
00:17:56,284 --> 00:17:59,822
Newton knew that gravity is a force that attracts objects
306
00:17:59,912 --> 00:18:01,197
to each ether.
307
00:18:01,330 --> 00:18:03,616
And his laws perdiceted the strength of this force
308
00:18:03,708 --> 00:18:06,324
with fantastic precision.
309
00:18:06,460 --> 00:18:10,419
But how does gravity actually work?
310
00:18:10,506 --> 00:18:12,838
How does the earth pull on the moon
311
00:18:12,925 --> 00:18:17,089
across hundreds of thousands of miles of empty space?
312
00:18:17,179 --> 00:18:19,545
They behave as if they are connected
313
00:18:19,682 --> 00:18:21,843
by some kind of invisible rope.
314
00:18:21,934 --> 00:18:25,677
But everyone knew that wasn't true.
315
00:18:25,771 --> 00:18:28,979
And Newton's laws provided no explanation.
316
00:18:29,066 --> 00:18:31,352
Einstein found
317
00:18:31,485 --> 00:18:34,522
that no band-aid patches would fix Newtonian gravity.
318
00:18:34,655 --> 00:18:36,900
He had to invent a mechanism for it,
319
00:18:36,901 --> 00:18:38,523
he had to understand it.
320
00:18:38,618 --> 00:18:43,453
After puzzling over this problem for more than ten years.
321
00:18:43,539 --> 00:18:46,997
Einstein reached a startling conclusion:
322
00:18:47,084 --> 00:18:51,202
the secret to gravity lay in the nature of spacetime.
323
00:18:51,339 --> 00:18:56,709
It was even more flexible than he had previously realized.
324
00:18:56,844 --> 00:19:00,803
It could stretch, like an actual fabric.
325
00:19:00,890 --> 00:19:05,384
This was a truly radical break from Newton.
326
00:19:05,519 --> 00:19:08,807
Think of this table as spacetime,
327
00:19:08,898 --> 00:19:12,106
and think of these balls as objects in space.
328
00:19:12,234 --> 00:19:15,601
Now, if specetime were nice and flat
329
00:19:15,738 --> 00:19:18,000
like the surface of this table.
330
00:19:18,532 --> 00:19:22,445
objects would travel in straight lines.
331
00:19:22,578 --> 00:19:26,070
But if space is like a fabric that can stretch and bend?
332
00:19:26,207 --> 00:19:28,698
Well, this may seem a little strange.
333
00:19:28,793 --> 00:19:34,038
But watch what happens if I put something heavy
334
00:19:34,131 --> 00:19:37,464
on the stretchy spacetime fabric.
335
00:19:42,181 --> 00:19:44,763
Now if I take my shot again...
336
00:19:48,229 --> 00:19:52,063
The ball travells along an indentation in the fabric
337
00:19:52,149 --> 00:19:53,434
that the heavier object creates.
338
00:19:53,526 --> 00:19:59,772
And this, Einstein realized, is how gravity actually works.
339
00:19:59,865 --> 00:20:04,655
It's the warping of spacetime caused by the objects within it.
340
00:20:04,787 --> 00:20:10,407
In other words, gravity is the shape of spacetime itself.
341
00:20:10,501 --> 00:20:14,961
The moon is kept in orbit not because it's pulled to the earth
342
00:20:15,047 --> 00:20:17,129
by some mysterious force,
343
00:20:17,216 --> 00:20:19,832
but rather because it rolls along a curve
344
00:20:19,969 --> 00:20:22,506
in the specetime fabric that the earth creates.
345
00:20:25,015 --> 00:20:31,636
With Einstein, space became not really real,but flexiable.
346
00:20:31,731 --> 00:20:32,811
So suddenly space had properties.
347
00:20:32,940 --> 00:20:34,896
Suddenly space had curvature.
348
00:20:34,984 --> 00:20:37,691
Suddenly space had a flexible kind of geometry
349
00:20:37,820 --> 00:20:40,812
almost like a rubber sheet.
350
00:20:42,575 --> 00:20:47,285
It opens up a whole new way of thinking about reality
351
00:20:47,371 --> 00:20:50,454
that describes the entire universe.
352
00:20:50,541 --> 00:20:54,659
Einstein becomes "Einstein" becense of that observation.
353
00:20:54,795 --> 00:20:57,127
Where Newton space as passive,
354
00:20:57,214 --> 00:21:00,251
Einstein saw it as dynamic.
355
00:21:00,342 --> 00:21:03,834
It's interwoven with time and it dictates how things move.
356
00:21:03,971 --> 00:21:06,383
So after Einstein,
357
00:21:06,515 --> 00:21:10,383
space can no longer be thought of as a static stage.
358
00:21:10,519 --> 00:21:11,599
It's an actor,
359
00:21:11,687 --> 00:21:15,976
and it plays a leading role in the cosmic drama.
360
00:21:22,740 --> 00:21:25,356
Now, it's one thing to think of space
361
00:21:25,493 --> 00:21:28,701
as dynamic, active and flexible like a fabric.
362
00:21:28,788 --> 00:21:30,324
But is it really?
363
00:21:30,414 --> 00:21:32,370
Is this just a metaphor?
364
00:21:32,458 --> 00:21:36,042
Or does it actually describes what space is?
365
00:21:36,170 --> 00:21:39,879
Well, Einstain's theory predicts that one way to find out
366
00:21:40,007 --> 00:21:42,214
would be to take a little journey
367
00:21:42,343 --> 00:21:45,335
to the edge of a black hole.
368
00:21:45,429 --> 00:21:48,216
Black holes are collapsed stars,
369
00:21:48,307 --> 00:21:53,301
massive objects crushed to a fraction of their original size.
370
00:21:53,395 --> 00:21:55,681
Gravity around them is so strong
371
00:21:55,773 --> 00:21:59,391
that according to Einstein's math, a spinning black hole
372
00:21:59,527 --> 00:22:02,815
can literally drag space along with it,
373
00:22:02,905 --> 00:22:06,693
twisting it like an actual piece of cloth.
374
00:22:06,784 --> 00:22:09,696
The nearest black holes is trillions of miles away,
375
00:22:09,787 --> 00:22:13,245
makeing it a challenge to test this prediction.
376
00:22:13,374 --> 00:22:17,367
But in the late 1950s, a physicist named Leonard Schiff
377
00:22:17,461 --> 00:22:18,746
began searching for a way
378
00:22:18,879 --> 00:22:23,919
to test Einstein's ideas about space much closer to home.
379
00:22:24,051 --> 00:22:27,088
Schiff was inspired by something we usually think of
380
00:22:27,221 --> 00:22:30,964
as a child's toy: a gyroscope.
381
00:22:31,100 --> 00:22:35,719
He thought that if space really twists like a fabric,
382
00:22:35,813 --> 00:22:40,933
a gyroscope might allow him to detect it.
383
00:22:41,068 --> 00:22:42,649
It was a strange idea,
384
00:22:42,778 --> 00:22:48,148
and he chose a strange place to share it with the world...
385
00:22:48,284 --> 00:22:51,242
the faculty swimming pool of Stanford.
386
00:22:51,328 --> 00:22:55,867
Here, in 1959, Schiff met
387
00:22:55,958 --> 00:22:58,916
with two collagues,William Fairbank and Bob Cannon.
388
00:22:59,003 --> 00:23:03,997
He was excited about that he'd seen for a high-tech gyroscope.
389
00:23:04,133 --> 00:23:05,168
Though it looked different,
390
00:23:05,301 --> 00:23:07,383
it basically worked the same as the child's toy.
391
00:23:07,469 --> 00:23:08,675
Then and there,
392
00:23:08,804 --> 00:23:13,298
the three decided to launch a device like this into orbit
393
00:23:13,392 --> 00:23:14,598
around th earth.
394
00:23:16,228 --> 00:23:20,392
Normally, a gyroscope's axis points in a fixed direction.
395
00:23:20,482 --> 00:23:23,189
But if Earth is actually dragging space,
396
00:23:23,319 --> 00:23:26,482
then the gyroscope's axis would be dragged along with it,
397
00:23:26,614 --> 00:23:30,323
shifting its orientation in a way that could be measureded.
398
00:23:30,409 --> 00:23:33,822
It was a brilliantly
simple plan.
399
00:23:33,954 --> 00:23:36,912
There was just one problem.
400
00:23:36,999 --> 00:23:38,705
Einstein's theories predict
401
00:23:38,834 --> 00:23:43,077
that the earth's rotation twists space by only a tiny amount--
402
00:23:43,172 --> 00:23:46,505
an amount so small, it would be like trying to measure
403
00:23:46,634 --> 00:23:50,377
the height of a penny from 62 miles away.
404
00:23:53,849 --> 00:23:56,682
The team spent more than two years trying to figure out
405
00:23:56,769 --> 00:23:59,806
how to make such a precise measurement.
406
00:23:59,897 --> 00:24:02,388
They finally devised a plan to attach
407
00:24:02,524 --> 00:24:05,482
four freeli floating gyroscopes to a telescope
408
00:24:05,569 --> 00:24:08,276
aimed at a distant star.
409
00:24:08,364 --> 00:24:11,652
If space twists, then over time,
410
00:24:11,742 --> 00:24:13,698
the gyroscopes would no longer point at the star,
411
00:24:13,786 --> 00:24:17,620
since they'd get caught up in the swirl of space.
412
00:24:17,706 --> 00:24:22,200
And in 1962, they applied to NASA for a grant,
413
00:24:22,294 --> 00:24:24,376
requesting aronnd a million dollars
414
00:24:24,463 --> 00:24:28,627
for what would come to be called Gravity Probe B.
415
00:24:30,219 --> 00:24:31,880
Members of the team originally thought
416
00:24:32,012 --> 00:24:35,254
the project would take about three years.
417
00:24:35,391 --> 00:24:37,848
They were just a little optimistic.
418
00:24:37,935 --> 00:24:40,677
With an over-growing team, Gravity Probe B became
419
00:24:40,771 --> 00:24:44,184
one of the longest-running expriments in history.
420
00:24:44,274 --> 00:24:46,310
Decade affter decade was spent
421
00:24:46,402 --> 00:24:48,984
trying to realize the original vision,
422
00:24:49,071 --> 00:24:51,608
which meant launching a telescope into space
423
00:24:51,740 --> 00:24:53,401
and building gyroscopes
424
00:24:53,492 --> 00:24:57,656
that were among the smoothest objects ever created.
425
00:24:57,746 --> 00:25:00,032
the technology is just frihtening.
426
00:25:00,124 --> 00:25:02,991
It was like the carrot of the front of the mule.
427
00:25:03,085 --> 00:25:05,451
It was like it was always five to ten years away
428
00:25:05,587 --> 00:25:07,418
when we could do this,
429
00:25:07,506 --> 00:25:10,589
and it was five to ten years away far about 35 years.
430
00:25:10,676 --> 00:25:16,091
Consuming more than four decades and $750 million,
431
00:25:16,223 --> 00:25:21,434
the project was nearly cancelled by NASA nine times.
432
00:25:21,520 --> 00:25:24,102
Ten, nine, eight...
433
00:25:24,189 --> 00:25:26,680
Finally, in April of 2004,
434
00:25:26,775 --> 00:25:30,484
the team gathered to witness the launch.
435
00:25:31,488 --> 00:25:34,150
And liftoff!
436
00:25:38,037 --> 00:25:42,201
Of the three men who sat by the pool back in 1959.
437
00:25:42,291 --> 00:25:44,657
only one was alive to see it.
438
00:25:44,793 --> 00:25:46,909
There we were, watching.
439
00:25:47,004 --> 00:25:49,791
It's a terribly exciting moment in your life.
440
00:25:49,882 --> 00:25:55,252
Just a thrilling experience.
441
00:25:55,345 --> 00:25:56,551
It was flawless.
442
00:25:56,638 --> 00:26:00,347
Ten thousand things did not go wrong.
443
00:26:00,476 --> 00:26:04,719
For over a year, Gravity Probe B orbiteb the earth
444
00:26:04,813 --> 00:26:08,226
while the team nervously monitored its every move,
445
00:26:08,317 --> 00:26:12,481
trying to see if the earth would actually twist space.
446
00:26:12,571 --> 00:26:17,110
Finally, the data began to trikle in.
447
00:26:17,201 --> 00:26:18,657
And there was a problem.
448
00:26:18,786 --> 00:26:24,156
The gyroscopes were experiencing a tiny, unexpected wobble,
449
00:26:24,291 --> 00:26:29,081
and to clean up the data would cost millions.
450
00:26:29,171 --> 00:26:31,878
With funds running ant,
451
00:26:32,007 --> 00:26:34,669
it looked like nearly half a century of work
452
00:26:34,802 --> 00:26:37,589
was about to go down the drain.
453
00:26:41,100 --> 00:26:43,716
Then, at almost the last possible moment,
454
00:26:43,852 --> 00:26:46,343
two sources of additional funding emerged:
455
00:26:46,438 --> 00:26:50,306
the son of original team leader William Fairbank,
456
00:26:50,400 --> 00:26:51,856
who made a private donation;
457
00:26:51,944 --> 00:26:55,903
and Turki Al-Saud, a member of the Saudi royal family
458
00:26:56,031 --> 00:26:58,522
with a degree in aeronautics from Stanford,
459
00:26:58,617 --> 00:27:01,654
who arranged for a large grant.
460
00:27:01,745 --> 00:27:03,360
Over the next two years,
461
00:27:03,497 --> 00:27:05,954
the problem with the data was solved,
462
00:27:06,041 --> 00:27:08,703
revealing that the axes of the gyroscopes shifted
463
00:27:08,794 --> 00:27:11,877
by almost exactly the amount predicted
464
00:27:11,964 --> 00:27:14,171
by Einstein's equations.
465
00:27:14,258 --> 00:27:15,668
I think it's the first time
466
00:27:15,759 --> 00:27:20,423
that you can actually see Einstein's effect,his drift,
467
00:27:20,556 --> 00:27:21,716
with the naked eye.
468
00:27:24,810 --> 00:27:29,144
This experiment provides the most direct evidence ever found
469
00:27:29,231 --> 00:27:35,727
that space is something reel a pyhsical entity like a fabric.
470
00:27:35,821 --> 00:27:38,563
After all, if space were nothing,
471
00:27:38,699 --> 00:27:40,564
there would be nothing to twist.
472
00:27:44,955 --> 00:27:48,573
But at the same time that Albert Einstein was investigating space
473
00:27:48,667 --> 00:27:50,658
on the largest of scales,
474
00:27:50,752 --> 00:27:54,085
another band of physicists was probing the universe
475
00:27:54,173 --> 00:27:56,414
on extremely tiny scales.
476
00:27:56,508 --> 00:28:00,000
And there they found a completely uncharted realm
477
00:28:00,095 --> 00:28:02,211
where Einsein's picture of space,
478
00:28:02,306 --> 00:28:04,297
it was nowhere to be found.
479
00:28:04,433 --> 00:28:06,048
To see what I'm talking about,
480
00:28:06,143 --> 00:28:08,930
imagine you could shrink billions of times smaller
481
00:28:09,062 --> 00:28:11,223
than your current size.
482
00:28:13,609 --> 00:28:17,272
This is the realm of atoms and subatomic particles,
483
00:28:17,404 --> 00:28:21,147
the fundamental building blocks of everything we can see.
484
00:28:21,283 --> 00:28:22,898
And when you get down to this size,
485
00:28:22,993 --> 00:28:26,281
the world plays by a wildly different set of rules
486
00:28:26,413 --> 00:28:28,324
calles quantum mechanics.
487
00:28:28,457 --> 00:28:31,290
According to these rules, even if you try to move
488
00:28:31,418 --> 00:28:33,704
every last atom and particle,
489
00:28:33,795 --> 00:28:37,959
you'd find that empty space is still far from empty.
490
00:28:38,050 --> 00:28:41,963
In fact, it's teeming with activity.
491
00:28:42,054 --> 00:28:46,093
Particles are constantly popping in and out of existence.
492
00:28:46,183 --> 00:28:48,765
They erupt out of nothingness,
493
00:28:48,852 --> 00:28:51,468
quickly annihilate each other and disappear.
494
00:28:53,106 --> 00:28:56,269
In quantum mechanics, empty space is not that empty.
495
00:28:56,360 --> 00:28:58,021
it's full of fluctuating fields,
496
00:28:58,153 --> 00:29:01,111
full of all sorts of jittery things going on.
497
00:29:01,198 --> 00:29:02,904
It's a place where particles
498
00:29:02,991 --> 00:29:05,653
are constantly fluctuating and annihilating each ether
499
00:29:05,744 --> 00:29:08,110
and being created again
and annihilating.
500
00:29:08,205 --> 00:29:10,992
It's a place of chaos and bubbling.
501
00:29:11,124 --> 00:29:14,992
While the theory predicted this,it wasn't until 1948
502
00:29:15,087 --> 00:29:18,329
that a scientist named Hendrik Casimir suggested
503
00:29:18,423 --> 00:29:21,335
that even though we can't see these particles,
504
00:29:21,468 --> 00:29:24,960
they should cause empty space to do something we can see.
505
00:29:25,055 --> 00:29:26,511
And he predicted
506
00:29:26,640 --> 00:29:29,803
that if you take two ordinary metal plates...
507
00:29:33,230 --> 00:29:35,846
and place them extremely close together
508
00:29:35,941 --> 00:29:39,525
say,closer together than the thickness of a sheet at paper
509
00:29:39,653 --> 00:29:43,111
then particles with certain energies would be excluded
510
00:29:43,198 --> 00:29:48,409
because in same sense, they wouldn't fit between the plates.
511
00:29:48,537 --> 00:29:50,698
With more of this fernetic activity
512
00:29:50,789 --> 00:29:53,030
outside the plates than inside,
513
00:29:53,166 --> 00:29:55,873
Casimir thought the plates would be pushed together
514
00:29:56,003 --> 00:29:59,996
by what we usually think of as empty space.
515
00:30:00,090 --> 00:30:02,251
And some years later, when the experiment was done...
516
00:30:10,142 --> 00:30:12,133
Casimir was proven right.
517
00:30:12,227 --> 00:30:15,014
In empty space, the plates were pushed together.
518
00:30:15,105 --> 00:30:19,394
So on atomic scales,empty space is not empty.
519
00:30:19,484 --> 00:30:21,395
It's so flooded with activity
520
00:30:21,528 --> 00:30:24,065
that it can force objects to move.
521
00:30:26,533 --> 00:30:27,693
And today,
522
00:30:27,784 --> 00:30:31,072
the quest to understand space on the smallest scale is continuing
523
00:30:31,163 --> 00:30:35,122
with one of the most expensive science experiments in history.
524
00:30:36,835 --> 00:30:38,791
This is CERN,
525
00:30:38,920 --> 00:30:42,788
the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva.
526
00:30:42,924 --> 00:30:46,416
And here, buried a few hundred feet below the ground,
527
00:30:46,511 --> 00:30:47,842
is the Large Hadron Collider,
528
00:30:47,929 --> 00:30:51,296
the world's most powerful
accelerator.
529
00:30:51,433 --> 00:30:54,721
With a price tag of about $10 billion,
530
00:30:54,811 --> 00:30:57,177
it accelerates subatomic particles
531
00:30:57,272 --> 00:31:00,514
to more than 99.99% of the speed of light
532
00:31:00,609 --> 00:31:03,396
and smashes them into each other.
533
00:31:03,487 --> 00:31:06,024
In the showers of debris produced by these collisions,
534
00:31:06,114 --> 00:31:09,777
scientists at placess like this have discovered a whole zoo
535
00:31:09,910 --> 00:31:12,617
of strange and exotic particles.
536
00:31:12,746 --> 00:31:16,489
And right now, they are chasing
one of the most elusive,
537
00:31:16,625 --> 00:31:21,460
a particle thought to be essential to shaping everything
538
00:31:21,588 --> 00:31:28,209
from the atoms in our bodies to the most distant stars.
539
00:31:28,303 --> 00:31:30,168
If this particle is found,
540
00:31:30,305 --> 00:31:33,593
it will redefine our picture of space
541
00:31:33,683 --> 00:31:36,049
and fulfill a quest begun more than 40 years ago.
542
00:31:39,898 --> 00:31:43,891
It all started in 1964,
543
00:31:43,985 --> 00:31:47,022
when a young English physicist named Peter Higgs
544
00:31:47,155 --> 00:31:49,988
suggested something about space that was so radical,
545
00:31:50,117 --> 00:31:53,484
it nearly ruined him.
546
00:31:53,578 --> 00:31:56,786
HIGGS: I was told that I was talking nonsense,
547
00:31:56,873 --> 00:32:01,037
that I couldn't be right.
548
00:32:01,169 --> 00:32:04,753
So they clearly hadn't understand what I was saying.
549
00:32:04,840 --> 00:32:07,172
GREENE:Higgs and a few others
550
00:32:07,300 --> 00:32:10,007
were wrestling with a puzzle which comes down to this:
551
00:32:10,095 --> 00:32:12,131
The fundamental particles in the universe
552
00:32:12,222 --> 00:32:15,305
all contain different amounts of mass,
553
00:32:15,392 --> 00:32:18,930
which we usually think of as weight.
554
00:32:19,020 --> 00:32:23,013
Without mass, these particles would never combine
555
00:32:23,150 --> 00:32:26,813
to form the familliar atoms that make up all the stuff
556
00:32:26,903 --> 00:32:28,689
we see in the world around us.
557
00:32:30,866 --> 00:32:33,528
But what creates mass?
558
00:32:33,660 --> 00:32:36,367
And why do different particles have different masses?
559
00:32:36,455 --> 00:32:38,696
Try as they might,
560
00:32:38,832 --> 00:32:41,699
no one had been able to answer this perplexing question.
561
00:32:41,793 --> 00:32:45,035
Then, one weekend,
562
00:32:45,172 --> 00:32:50,166
after a walk outside Edinbugh, Higgs had a peculiar idea.
563
00:32:50,260 --> 00:32:53,047
Using mathematics, he imagined space in a new way,
564
00:32:53,138 --> 00:32:55,094
as something like an ocean.
565
00:32:55,223 --> 00:32:58,306
Particles are immersed in this ocean
566
00:32:58,393 --> 00:33:01,476
and gain mass as they move through it.
567
00:33:01,563 --> 00:33:04,270
To see how this works,
568
00:33:04,399 --> 00:33:09,063
think of a particle's mass like an actor's fame,
569
00:33:09,154 --> 00:33:12,442
and the Higgs ocean is like the paparazzi.
570
00:33:12,574 --> 00:33:16,817
Some particles, like unknown actors, pass through with ease.
571
00:33:16,912 --> 00:33:19,654
The paparazzi simply aren't interested in them.
572
00:33:19,748 --> 00:33:22,831
But other particles, like superstars,
573
00:33:22,918 --> 00:33:25,159
have to push and press.
574
00:33:25,253 --> 00:33:28,745
And the more those particles struggle to get through,
575
00:33:28,882 --> 00:33:31,043
the more they interact with the ocean,
576
00:33:31,134 --> 00:33:34,092
and the more mass they gain.
577
00:33:34,221 --> 00:33:39,056
Higgs was convinced he'd made a great discovery.
578
00:33:39,142 --> 00:33:43,476
But when he submitted his idea to a journal at CERN,
579
00:33:43,605 --> 00:33:46,597
it was rejected.
580
00:33:46,733 --> 00:33:50,817
Undaunted, Higgs honed his theory further
581
00:33:50,946 --> 00:33:53,779
until he was offered the chance to present it
582
00:33:53,907 --> 00:33:55,693
at Einstein's old haunt:
583
00:33:55,784 --> 00:33:59,322
the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.
584
00:33:59,454 --> 00:34:02,617
There,he expected his new idea
585
00:34:02,749 --> 00:34:04,489
would meet some of its toughest critics.
586
00:34:07,712 --> 00:34:09,828
HIGGS:I was happily driving up the freeway.
587
00:34:09,965 --> 00:34:12,297
and then there was a sign to turn off for Princeton,
588
00:34:12,425 --> 00:34:16,134
and that really confronted me with what I was going into.
589
00:34:16,221 --> 00:34:19,179
I broke out in a cold sweat and started trembling,
590
00:34:19,307 --> 00:34:23,926
and I had to pull off the road to recover.
591
00:34:24,020 --> 00:34:25,009
GREENE: But Higgs persevered.
592
00:34:25,146 --> 00:34:27,853
It was the first in a series of talks
593
00:34:27,983 --> 00:34:31,146
that would convinse colleagues far and wide
594
00:34:31,236 --> 00:34:34,399
that he was onto something profound.
595
00:34:34,489 --> 00:34:37,481
HIGGS: Eventually I sort of wore them down.
596
00:34:37,617 --> 00:34:40,324
I felt I had sort of triumphed.
597
00:34:42,330 --> 00:34:45,447
So I enjoyed the parties which followed.
598
00:34:45,542 --> 00:34:51,003
GREENE: Today, the idea Higgs pioneered calles the Higgs field.
599
00:34:51,131 --> 00:34:53,668
is crucial to our understanding of space.
600
00:34:53,800 --> 00:34:56,007
LYKKEN: The Higgs field is everywhere.
601
00:34:56,136 --> 00:34:58,878
It's something that, even in the emptiest vacuum of space,
602
00:34:59,014 --> 00:35:01,255
has an effect: it gives you mass.
603
00:35:01,349 --> 00:35:04,091
So I think Higgs actually deserves credit
604
00:35:04,185 --> 00:35:08,178
for being one of the people that said space is stuff,
605
00:35:08,273 --> 00:35:11,265
it had properties in it that are intrinsic,
606
00:35:11,359 --> 00:35:13,771
that you can't get rid of, you can't turn them off.
607
00:35:13,862 --> 00:35:15,853
GREENE: The only problem?
608
00:35:15,947 --> 00:35:19,656
There's no physical proof that the Higgs field exeits,
609
00:35:19,743 --> 00:35:21,404
at least not yet.
610
00:35:21,536 --> 00:35:23,117
But here at CERN,
611
00:35:23,204 --> 00:35:26,321
scientists are attempting to smash particles together
612
00:35:26,416 --> 00:35:29,203
with so much energy
613
00:35:29,294 --> 00:35:31,785
that they will knock loose a piece of the Higgs filed...
614
00:35:33,757 --> 00:35:36,715
producing a tiny particle of its own.
615
00:35:36,801 --> 00:35:43,548
It's as if they're trying to chip off off a piece of space.
616
00:35:43,642 --> 00:35:46,099
We think that if we knock into space hard enough
617
00:35:46,227 --> 00:35:48,218
with particle accelerator collisions,
618
00:35:48,313 --> 00:35:50,554
that we can actually make a Higgs particle
619
00:35:50,649 --> 00:35:52,389
come out of empty space.
620
00:35:52,484 --> 00:35:54,975
Our whole understanding of matter as we now have it
621
00:35:55,070 --> 00:36:01,407
would just fall apart if the Higgs field didn't exist.
622
00:36:01,534 --> 00:36:03,741
I don't think anybody seriously doubts that we will see it.
623
00:36:03,870 --> 00:36:07,203
Certainly if we don't,that will be an extremely bizarre outcome.
624
00:36:07,290 --> 00:36:11,374
GREENE: Finding the Higgs particle would be a major milestone
625
00:36:11,461 --> 00:36:14,874
establishing that the emptiest of the empty space
626
00:36:14,964 --> 00:36:18,252
has an impact on all of matter.
627
00:36:18,385 --> 00:36:21,252
But it turns out that space contains an ingredient
628
00:36:21,388 --> 00:36:24,755
far more elusive than anything Higgs ever imagined,
629
00:36:24,849 --> 00:36:26,965
an ingredient that may hold the key
630
00:36:27,102 --> 00:36:29,263
to the greatest of all mysteries,
631
00:36:29,396 --> 00:36:33,560
the very fate of the cosmos.
632
00:36:33,650 --> 00:36:37,984
It's a mystery that began some 14 billion years ago
633
00:36:38,113 --> 00:36:42,777
in what we call the Big Bang.
634
00:36:42,909 --> 00:36:44,240
In a fraction of a second,
635
00:36:44,327 --> 00:36:47,069
the universe underwent a violent expansion,
636
00:36:47,163 --> 00:36:49,449
sending space hurtling outward.
637
00:36:52,168 --> 00:36:56,207
Space has been expanding ever since.
638
00:36:56,297 --> 00:36:59,255
For decades, most scientists thought that expansion
639
00:36:59,342 --> 00:37:04,086
must be slowing down thanks to the pull of gravity.
640
00:37:04,180 --> 00:37:05,795
When I toss an apple up,
641
00:37:05,890 --> 00:37:08,973
the gravity of the earth eventually stops it
642
00:37:09,060 --> 00:37:11,722
and brings it back.
643
00:37:11,813 --> 00:37:13,678
And just like the apple slows down with time,
644
00:37:13,815 --> 00:37:16,978
so too the universe should have been slowing down
645
00:37:17,110 --> 00:37:20,819
in its expansion because of the gravitational attraction
646
00:37:20,905 --> 00:37:24,318
of all matter and energy for all other matter and energy
647
00:37:24,451 --> 00:37:27,363
GREENE:But that raised the question:
648
00:37:27,495 --> 00:37:30,077
what is the ultimate fate of the cosmos?
649
00:37:30,165 --> 00:37:33,077
Would space go on expanding forever,
650
00:37:33,168 --> 00:37:37,036
or would gravity eventually stop space time expanding,
651
00:37:37,172 --> 00:37:41,006
cauing it to collapse back on itself in a "big crunch"?
652
00:37:43,636 --> 00:37:46,503
To solve this mystery, two team of astronomer
653
00:37:46,639 --> 00:37:48,971
set out to measure the slowing of the expansion
654
00:37:49,058 --> 00:37:51,014
using a novel tool,
655
00:37:51,144 --> 00:37:54,978
exploding stars called supernovas.
656
00:37:57,901 --> 00:38:00,438
ADAM RIESS:So a supernova is a star
657
00:38:00,528 --> 00:38:03,019
that ends its life in a massive explosion.
658
00:38:03,156 --> 00:38:05,522
They're extremely luminous.
659
00:38:05,658 --> 00:38:07,944
They can be as bright as a billion suns.
660
00:38:10,538 --> 00:38:11,948
SAUL PESLMUTTER:What makes supernova great
661
00:38:12,040 --> 00:38:13,905
is that they are very similar when they explode.
662
00:38:14,042 --> 00:38:15,953
They all get to about the same brightness
663
00:38:16,044 --> 00:38:18,160
and then they fade away in just about the same way.
664
00:38:21,966 --> 00:38:25,959
GREENE:Because the explosions are so bright and uniform.
665
00:38:26,054 --> 00:38:28,170
the teams reasoned that these supernovas
666
00:38:28,264 --> 00:38:30,505
would act as very precise cosmic beacons,
667
00:38:30,600 --> 00:38:33,763
allowing them to track how the expansion of space
668
00:38:33,895 --> 00:38:36,557
has slowed over time.
669
00:38:36,689 --> 00:38:40,557
The trouble is, supernovas are extremely rare.
670
00:38:40,693 --> 00:38:43,275
To find enough of them,
671
00:38:43,404 --> 00:38:47,147
Perlmutter spent years calling astronmers around the globe,
672
00:38:47,242 --> 00:38:49,153
begging for time on their telescopes.
673
00:38:49,244 --> 00:38:52,907
We needed the biggest telescopes in the world.
674
00:38:52,997 --> 00:38:54,737
We needed perfect conditions.
675
00:38:54,833 --> 00:38:56,118
And in those perfect conditions,
676
00:38:56,251 --> 00:38:58,617
I would be calling people up at the middle of their night
677
00:38:58,753 --> 00:39:01,415
when they're tring to do some serious work,
678
00:39:01,506 --> 00:39:02,871
and I'd be saying,
679
00:39:02,966 --> 00:39:04,581
"I know that you have a very busy schedule,
680
00:39:04,717 --> 00:39:05,832
"but by any chance,
681
00:39:05,927 --> 00:39:08,464
"if you could just squeeze in this half-hour observation,
682
00:39:08,596 --> 00:39:10,257
it would really be very interesting to us."
683
00:39:10,390 --> 00:39:13,507
GREENE:When they finally had enough data
684
00:39:13,601 --> 00:39:15,762
to chart how much the pull of gravity
685
00:39:15,895 --> 00:39:17,806
was slowing the expansion of the universe,
686
00:39:17,939 --> 00:39:20,521
they were in for a surprise.
687
00:39:20,608 --> 00:39:22,690
PERTMUTTER: The results looked a little bit strange.
688
00:39:22,777 --> 00:39:25,234
They didn't really show any slowing of the universe at all.
689
00:39:25,321 --> 00:39:26,936
Very surprising.
690
00:39:27,073 --> 00:39:30,941
Actually,a universe that's actually speeding up.
691
00:39:31,035 --> 00:39:34,619
It was as thought space,which we really thought was nothinng,
692
00:39:34,706 --> 00:39:37,823
actually had an inherent springiness to it.
693
00:39:37,959 --> 00:39:40,450
And so space did not want to be compressed;
694
00:39:40,587 --> 00:39:43,203
space actually wants to push the uninverse apart.
695
00:39:43,298 --> 00:39:45,209
It looked like the universe
696
00:39:45,300 --> 00:39:48,542
was expanding fastar and fastar with time,
697
00:39:48,636 --> 00:39:52,470
accelerating rather than decelerating.
698
00:39:52,557 --> 00:39:54,764
My immediate response was,
699
00:39:54,851 --> 00:39:56,682
"I have to figure out why this is wrong.
700
00:39:56,811 --> 00:39:57,891
This can't be right."
701
00:39:57,979 --> 00:40:00,345
GREENE: But it was right.
702
00:40:00,481 --> 00:40:04,190
And most scientists converged on one explanation:
703
00:40:04,319 --> 00:40:06,651
There's something that fills space
704
00:40:06,738 --> 00:40:10,481
and counteracts the pull of ordinary attractive gravity,
705
00:40:10,575 --> 00:40:12,657
pushing galaxies apart
706
00:40:12,744 --> 00:40:17,864
and stretching the very fabric of the cosmos.
707
00:40:17,999 --> 00:40:21,082
This mysterious substance filling space
708
00:40:21,169 --> 00:40:24,582
has been dubbed"dark energy,"
709
00:40:24,672 --> 00:40:29,587
and it's turned our picture of the universe upside down.
710
00:40:29,677 --> 00:40:31,838
FILIPPENKO: Over the largest distances,
711
00:40:31,930 --> 00:40:35,843
dark energy dominates the contents of the uninverse,
712
00:40:35,934 --> 00:40:39,222
and we don't know what it is.
713
00:40:39,354 --> 00:40:41,891
GATES: If you do sort of a survey,
714
00:40:42,023 --> 00:40:44,685
a census of all the enrgy in the universe
715
00:40:44,817 --> 00:40:50,028
dark energy turns out to be about 70% of the universe.
716
00:40:50,114 --> 00:40:52,651
And up until a decade ago,
717
00:40:52,742 --> 00:40:55,984
nobody imagined such stuff even existed.
718
00:40:56,079 --> 00:41:00,413
GREENE:So in essence, the weight of empty space itself
719
00:41:00,541 --> 00:41:04,375
is 70% of the weight of the entire universe.
720
00:41:04,504 --> 00:41:07,371
Thet's roughly the same percentage of Earth's surface
721
00:41:07,465 --> 00:41:09,706
that's covered by watter.
722
00:41:09,801 --> 00:41:12,463
Imagine we didn't know what water is.
723
00:41:12,553 --> 00:41:16,296
That's where we stand with dark enengy.
724
00:41:16,391 --> 00:41:19,474
LYKKEN:We're really clueless about how to explain it.
725
00:41:19,560 --> 00:41:21,892
We have all of this fancy scientific apparatus
726
00:41:22,021 --> 00:41:24,512
of quantum mechanics and relativity and particle physics
727
00:41:24,607 --> 00:41:26,723
that we've developed in the last hundred years,
728
00:41:26,818 --> 00:41:30,060
and none of that works to explain dark energy.
729
00:41:32,281 --> 00:41:36,775
GREENE: And the discovery of dark energy held another surprise:
730
00:41:36,911 --> 00:41:41,746
The idea that the universe contains such an"ingredient"
731
00:41:41,874 --> 00:41:46,368
had actually been "cooked up" 80 years earlier.
732
00:41:46,462 --> 00:41:48,919
GREENE: I'll let you in on a little secret.
733
00:41:49,048 --> 00:41:50,913
Although he didn't call it dark energy,
734
00:41:51,050 --> 00:41:54,213
long ago,Albert Einstein prediceted that space itself
735
00:41:54,303 --> 00:41:58,717
could exert a force that would drive galaxies apart.
736
00:41:58,808 --> 00:42:00,093
You see,
737
00:42:00,184 --> 00:42:04,302
shortly after discovering his general theory of relativity,
738
00:42:04,439 --> 00:42:06,225
his theory of gravity,
739
00:42:06,315 --> 00:42:09,057
Einstein found that, according to the mathematics,
740
00:42:09,152 --> 00:42:16,524
the universe would either be expanding or contracting.
741
00:42:16,617 --> 00:42:18,858
But it couldn't hover at a fixed size.
742
00:42:18,953 --> 00:42:23,617
This was puzzling because before they knew about the Big Bang,
743
00:42:23,708 --> 00:42:26,450
most scientists, including Einstein,
744
00:42:26,586 --> 00:42:31,296
pictured the universe as static: eternal and unchanging.
745
00:42:31,382 --> 00:42:33,794
When Einstein's equations
746
00:42:33,885 --> 00:42:36,968
suggested an expanding or contracting universe--
747
00:42:37,055 --> 00:42:39,797
not the static universe everyone believed in--
748
00:42:39,932 --> 00:42:42,298
he had a problem.
749
00:42:42,393 --> 00:42:44,759
So Einstein went back to his equations
750
00:42:44,854 --> 00:42:48,688
and modified them to allow for a kind of anti-gravity
751
00:42:48,816 --> 00:42:51,808
that would infuse space with an outward push,
752
00:42:51,944 --> 00:42:54,310
counteracting the usual inward pull of gravity,
753
00:42:54,405 --> 00:42:57,818
alowing the universe to stand still.
754
00:42:57,950 --> 00:43:01,317
He called the modification the cosmological constant.
755
00:43:01,454 --> 00:43:06,323
Adding the cosmological constant rescued his equations.
756
00:43:06,417 --> 00:43:12,003
But the truth is, Einstein had no idea if this outward push,
757
00:43:12,131 --> 00:43:15,168
or anti-gravity,really existed.
758
00:43:15,259 --> 00:43:17,841
The introduction of the cosmological constant
759
00:43:17,929 --> 00:43:21,842
by Einstein was not a very elegant solution
760
00:43:21,974 --> 00:43:23,839
to try to find what he was looking for:
761
00:43:23,976 --> 00:43:25,682
a stationary universe.
762
00:43:25,812 --> 00:43:27,848
It achieves this effect of anti-gravity.
763
00:43:27,980 --> 00:43:30,471
It says that gravity sometimes can behave in such a way
764
00:43:30,566 --> 00:43:33,023
as not to pull things together but to push things apart.
765
00:43:33,152 --> 00:43:34,767
Like the clash of two titans,
766
00:43:34,862 --> 00:43:38,195
the cosmological constant and the pull of ordinary matter
767
00:43:38,282 --> 00:43:41,695
could hold the universe in check and keep it static.
768
00:43:41,786 --> 00:43:46,155
But about a dozen years later,the astronomer Edwin Hubble
769
00:43:46,249 --> 00:43:49,207
discovered the universe is not static.
770
00:43:49,293 --> 00:43:53,127
It's expanding due to the explosive force of the Big Bang
771
00:43:53,214 --> 00:43:54,829
140 billion years ago.
772
00:43:58,219 --> 00:44:00,380
That meant Einstein's original equations
773
00:44:00,471 --> 00:44:04,089
no longer had to be altered.
774
00:44:04,225 --> 00:44:07,717
And so suddenly,the need for a cosmological constant
775
00:44:07,854 --> 00:44:09,845
went right out the window.
776
00:44:15,236 --> 00:44:16,396
Thank you.
777
00:44:16,529 --> 00:44:17,860
You're welcome.
778
00:44:17,947 --> 00:44:21,064
Einstein is said to have called this his biggest blunder.
779
00:44:21,200 --> 00:44:23,407
But here's the thing.
780
00:44:23,536 --> 00:44:25,197
With the recent discovery
781
00:44:25,288 --> 00:44:28,246
that the expansion of the universe is accelerating,
782
00:44:28,374 --> 00:44:31,161
scientists are convinced that there is something in space
783
00:44:31,252 --> 00:44:33,083
that is pushing things apart.
784
00:44:33,171 --> 00:44:36,083
So 70 years later,Einstein's biggest blunder
785
00:44:36,215 --> 00:44:40,584
may rank among his greastest insights.
786
00:44:40,720 --> 00:44:43,427
It was something that nobody else was thinking about.
787
00:44:43,514 --> 00:44:47,302
But it might be that Einstein's cosmological constant is the key
788
00:44:47,435 --> 00:44:49,050
to understanding the expansion of the universe
789
00:44:49,145 --> 00:44:50,430
as we see it today.
790
00:44:50,521 --> 00:44:55,732
GREENE: Though no one knows what dark energy actually is,
791
00:44:55,818 --> 00:44:59,902
it raises an astounding and troubling possibility.
792
00:44:59,989 --> 00:45:04,232
Einstein pictured the strength of his anti-gravity as constant,
793
00:45:04,327 --> 00:45:08,366
but is the strength of dark energy constant?
794
00:45:08,456 --> 00:45:11,789
And what if it changes over time?
795
00:45:11,876 --> 00:45:15,869
The answer could overturn everything we thought we knew
796
00:45:15,963 --> 00:45:19,376
about the fate of the cosmos.
797
00:45:19,467 --> 00:45:21,674
At the moment,everything in our world,
798
00:45:21,802 --> 00:45:24,293
from the molecules making up my body
799
00:45:24,388 --> 00:45:26,629
to the molecules making up the room,
800
00:45:26,766 --> 00:45:28,848
is held together by forces
801
00:45:28,976 --> 00:45:31,638
that overwhelm the outward push of dark energy.
802
00:45:31,729 --> 00:45:34,562
And that's why we don't see things expanding
803
00:45:34,649 --> 00:45:36,435
in our everyday lives.
804
00:45:36,525 --> 00:45:39,858
But that situation might not last forever.
805
00:45:39,987 --> 00:45:43,479
In one scenario,
806
00:45:43,574 --> 00:45:46,737
dark energy will continue to push the galaxies
807
00:45:46,827 --> 00:45:51,491
farther and farther apart until ultimately,
808
00:45:51,582 --> 00:45:53,288
they'd be pushed so far apart
809
00:45:53,376 --> 00:45:59,042
that the universe would become a cold,dark and lonely place.
810
00:46:02,343 --> 00:46:03,879
In another scenario,
811
00:46:04,011 --> 00:46:07,128
the strength of dark energy might increase over time,
812
00:46:07,223 --> 00:46:10,090
becoming so strong that it would tear apart everything
813
00:46:10,184 --> 00:46:11,344
within the galaxies,
814
00:46:11,477 --> 00:46:19,395
from stars,to planets,to matter of all kind.
815
00:46:24,740 --> 00:46:27,698
If the dark energy grows with time,
816
00:46:27,785 --> 00:46:32,529
then ultimately even atoms will get ripped apart
817
00:46:32,623 --> 00:46:35,706
when there's enough dark energy between the nuclear
818
00:46:35,835 --> 00:46:38,542
and the electrons to rip space apart.
819
00:46:38,671 --> 00:46:39,911
The Big Rip.
820
00:46:48,097 --> 00:46:49,337
Our picture of space
821
00:46:49,432 --> 00:46:52,549
has gone through a remarkable transformation.
822
00:46:52,643 --> 00:46:56,807
Back in Newton's time,space was just the container.
823
00:46:56,897 --> 00:47:00,890
It didn't do anything at all.
824
00:47:01,027 --> 00:47:02,142
Then through Einstein,
825
00:47:02,236 --> 00:47:06,570
space begans to effect how objects move.
826
00:47:06,699 --> 00:47:10,692
Then with Casimir literally objects can be pushed
827
00:47:10,786 --> 00:47:13,653
by the activity even in empty space.
828
00:47:17,752 --> 00:47:20,585
And now, through the ideas of Higgs and dark energy,
829
00:47:20,671 --> 00:47:24,414
the very expansion of the universe may be coming
830
00:47:24,508 --> 00:47:29,593
from the energy of empty space itself.
831
00:47:29,722 --> 00:47:31,428
I don't think anybody would have thought
832
00:47:31,557 --> 00:47:35,220
that space would have this kind of rich and profound impact
833
00:47:35,311 --> 00:47:37,222
on the nature of reality.
834
00:47:40,232 --> 00:47:42,018
But as far as we're come,
835
00:47:42,109 --> 00:47:46,273
the journey that began with Isaac Newton's picture of space
836
00:47:46,364 --> 00:47:51,609
as something like a stage is not yet finished.
837
00:47:51,702 --> 00:47:55,490
As we examine the fabric of the cosmos more closely,
838
00:47:55,623 --> 00:47:58,865
we may well find far more surprises
839
00:47:58,959 --> 00:48:01,291
than anyone ever imagined.
840
00:48:03,255 --> 00:48:06,122
Take me, for example.
841
00:48:06,217 --> 00:48:11,007
I seem real enough,don't I?
842
00:48:11,138 --> 00:48:13,094
Well, yes.
843
00:48:13,182 --> 00:48:16,140
But surprising new clues are emerging that everything--
844
00:48:16,227 --> 00:48:18,718
you and I and even space itself--
845
00:48:18,813 --> 00:48:20,019
may actually be...
846
00:48:23,484 --> 00:48:25,099
a kind of hologram.
847
00:48:25,194 --> 00:48:29,153
That is, everything we see and experience,
848
00:48:29,240 --> 00:48:34,109
everything we call our familiar
849
00:48:34,203 --> 00:48:38,162
may be a projection of information that's stored
850
00:48:38,290 --> 00:48:41,327
on a thin, distant, two-dimensional surface,
851
00:48:41,460 --> 00:48:44,918
sort of the way the information for this hologram
852
00:48:45,005 --> 00:48:48,543
is stored on this thin piece of plastic.
853
00:48:48,676 --> 00:48:51,668
Now, holograms are something we're all familiar with
854
00:48:51,762 --> 00:48:55,801
from the security symbol you find on most credit cards.
855
00:48:58,227 --> 00:49:00,934
But the universe as a hologram?
856
00:49:01,021 --> 00:49:03,182
That's one of the most drastic revisions
857
00:49:03,315 --> 00:49:07,024
to our picture of space,and reality,ever proposed.
858
00:49:07,153 --> 00:49:08,689
And the evidence for it
859
00:49:08,779 --> 00:49:13,239
comes from some of the strangest realms of space:black holes.
860
00:49:13,367 --> 00:49:16,234
This is a real disconnect
861
00:49:16,370 --> 00:49:18,031
and it's very hard to get your head around.
862
00:49:21,250 --> 00:49:24,538
Modern ideas coming from black holes
863
00:49:24,628 --> 00:49:29,497
tell us that reality is two-dimensional,
864
00:49:29,592 --> 00:49:31,548
that the three-dimensional world,
865
00:49:31,677 --> 00:49:33,884
the full-bodied,three-dimensional world
866
00:49:34,013 --> 00:49:36,129
is a kind of image of a hologram
867
00:49:36,223 --> 00:49:39,715
on the boundary of the region of space.
868
00:49:39,810 --> 00:49:41,892
This is a very strange thing.
869
00:49:41,979 --> 00:49:45,688
When I was a younger physicist,I would have thought
870
00:49:45,774 --> 00:49:49,312
any physicist who said that was absolutely crazy.
871
00:49:49,403 --> 00:49:52,440
Here's a way to think about this.
872
00:49:52,573 --> 00:49:57,112
Imagine I took my wallet and threw it into a black hole.
873
00:49:57,244 --> 00:49:59,200
What would happen?
874
00:49:59,288 --> 00:50:03,497
We used to think that since nothing,not even light,
875
00:50:03,584 --> 00:50:06,451
can escape the immense gravity of the black hole
876
00:50:06,587 --> 00:50:10,205
my wallet would be lost forever
877
00:50:10,299 --> 00:50:15,009
but it now seems that may not be the whole story.
878
00:50:15,095 --> 00:50:19,088
Recently, scientists exploring the math describing black holes
879
00:50:19,183 --> 00:50:21,765
made a curious discovery
880
00:50:21,852 --> 00:50:25,094
Even as my wallet disappears into the black hole,
881
00:50:25,231 --> 00:50:28,098
a copy of all the information it contains
882
00:50:28,234 --> 00:50:31,943
seems to get smeared out and stored on the surface
883
00:50:32,029 --> 00:50:34,315
of the black hole in much the same way
884
00:50:34,448 --> 00:50:38,612
that information is stored in a computer.
885
00:50:38,702 --> 00:50:42,945
So in the and, my wallett exists in two places:
886
00:50:43,040 --> 00:50:46,453
there's a three-dimensianal version that's lost forever
887
00:50:46,585 --> 00:50:50,203
inside the black hole, and a two-dimensianal version
888
00:50:50,297 --> 00:50:54,085
that remains on the surface as information.
889
00:50:54,176 --> 00:50:56,918
CLIFFORD IOHNSON: the information content of all the stuff
890
00:50:57,012 --> 00:51:00,470
that fell into that black hole can be expressed
891
00:51:00,599 --> 00:51:03,466
entirely in terms of just the outside of the black hole.
892
00:51:03,602 --> 00:51:06,969
The idea then is that you can capture
893
00:51:07,106 --> 00:51:09,472
what's going on inside the black hole
894
00:51:09,608 --> 00:51:12,475
by referring only to the outside.
895
00:51:12,611 --> 00:51:16,149
And in theory, I could use the information
896
00:51:16,240 --> 00:51:20,904
on the outside of the black hole to reconstruct my wallet.
897
00:51:20,995 --> 00:51:24,487
And here's the truly mind-blowing part:
898
00:51:24,582 --> 00:51:27,745
Space within a black hole plays by the same rules
899
00:51:27,835 --> 00:51:31,669
as space outside a black hole or anywhere else.
900
00:51:31,797 --> 00:51:34,834
So if an object inside a black hole
901
00:51:34,967 --> 00:51:37,834
can be described by information on the black hole's surface,
902
00:51:37,970 --> 00:51:41,383
then it might be that everything in the universe--
903
00:51:41,515 --> 00:51:46,760
from galaxies and stars to you and me, even space itself--
904
00:51:46,854 --> 00:51:49,846
is just a projection of information stored
905
00:51:49,940 --> 00:51:53,853
on some distant, two-dimensional surface that surrounds us.
906
00:51:53,986 --> 00:51:57,444
In other words, what we experience as reality
907
00:51:57,531 --> 00:52:01,023
may be something like a hologram.
908
00:52:01,160 --> 00:52:03,776
Is the three-dimensional world an illusion
909
00:52:03,871 --> 00:52:07,989
in the same sense that a hologram is an illusion?
910
00:52:08,083 --> 00:52:09,744
Perhaps.
911
00:52:09,877 --> 00:52:11,913
I think I'm inclined to think," Yes",
912
00:52:12,046 --> 00:52:14,378
that the three-dimensional world is a kind of illusion
913
00:52:14,506 --> 00:52:17,873
and that the ultimate precise reality
914
00:52:17,968 --> 00:52:22,632
is the two-dimensional reality of the surface of the universe.
915
00:52:22,723 --> 00:52:27,342
This idea is so new that physicists are still struggling
916
00:52:27,436 --> 00:52:29,301
to understand it
917
00:52:29,396 --> 00:52:31,853
But if it's right, just as Newton and Einstein
918
00:52:31,940 --> 00:52:34,477
conpletely changed our picture of space,
919
00:52:34,568 --> 00:52:39,232
we may on the verge of an even more dramatic revolution.
920
00:52:39,323 --> 00:52:41,405
For something that's such a vital part
921
00:52:41,533 --> 00:52:43,273
of our everyday lives,
922
00:52:43,410 --> 00:52:46,402
space remains kind of like a familiar stranger.
923
00:52:46,497 --> 00:52:48,909
It's all arounnd ns,
924
00:52:48,999 --> 00:52:53,618
but we're still far from having unmassked its true identity.
925
00:52:53,754 --> 00:52:58,373
That may take a hundred years, it may take a thousand years,
926
00:52:58,467 --> 00:53:00,799
or it may happen tomorrow.
927
00:53:00,928 --> 00:53:03,715
But when we solve that mystery,
928
00:53:03,806 --> 00:53:06,593
we'll take a giant step toward fully understanding
929
00:53:06,725 --> 00:53:09,512
the fabric of the cosmos.
930
00:53:27,621 --> 00:53:30,112
Major funding for NOVA is provided by:
931
00:53:32,584 --> 00:53:33,915
And...
932
00:53:44,722 --> 00:53:48,135
And by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
933
00:53:48,225 --> 00:53:52,343
and by contributions to your PBS station from:
934
00:53:59,027 --> 00:54:01,689
Major funding for" The Fabric at the Cosmos"
935
00:54:01,822 --> 00:54:04,734
is provided by the National Science Foundation.
936
00:54:12,166 --> 00:54:13,656
And...
937
00:54:17,337 --> 00:54:19,749
Supporting original research and public understanding
938
00:54:19,840 --> 00:54:26,131
of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
939
00:54:26,221 --> 00:54:28,086
Additional funding is provided by...
940
00:54:39,443 --> 00:54:41,775
And the George D. Smith Fund.
941
00:54:44,406 --> 00:54:47,113
Captioned by Media Access Group at WGBH access.wgbh.org
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