All language subtitles for Timegeist - There Is No Escape (2020) 900p WEB x264 Dr3adLoX.ENG

[electric sounds]

[dramatic orchestral music]

[brooding music]

- [Questioner] How do you feel?

- [Man] Alive.

- [Questioner]
What is your name?

- [Man] David.

- I am your father.

You are my creation

- If you created
me, who created you?

- [Announcer] Where
do we come from?

The question of the ages.

[dramatic orchestral music]

- [Narrator] In
1915, Albert Einstein

published his general
theory of relativity,

which changed, changes

and will change the
way we perceive time.

In this groundbreaking theory,

he proposed that
the laws of physics

are the same for all
non-accelerating observers.

This basically explains why

if you were to watch
a car drive past you,

you would interpret
the cars passengers

as moving at the same
speed as the car,

since their speed is
relative to your position

as an observer on still ground.

Meanwhile, inside the car,

the passengers feel
like stationary objects,

since their motion
matches the car's motion

relative to the outside world.

But while Einstein's
theory of relative motion

could be applied to all
objects in the universe,

he also realized
that one exception to
relativity was light.

Light always moves
at a constant speed.

These two principles led
Einstein to conceive of a link

between time and space,

also known as space-time.

And one of its
tricky implications

is that the perception
of how time passes

can be different
between two observers,

depending on how much
faster one is moving

compared to the other.

So if it's possible
for two observers

to have two accurate
perspectives of times passing,

but for those perspectives
to be different,

whose clock is right,
and whose is wrong?

Oddly enough,
they're both right.

After all, the fact that
different time zones exist

are enough proof that your watch

and someone's watch
across the world

will read different times
every second of the day.

We're inclined to think
of the passing of time

as objective or universal,

since humans have all more or
less agreed on the same system

to organize our busy lives,

and to be on the same
page with our neighbors

either next door or
a few countries over.

But well, time is
a convenient tool

for keeping track of the
past, present, and future,

the true nature of time
is trickier to grasp

once you realize that the
past, present and future,

could all exist at once.

When you look up at the sky,

you might be able to point
out Proxima Centauri.

After the sun,

Proxima Centauri is the
closest star to earth,

and it's only about
four light years away.

So the light you see now,

is actually four
years old in our time.

If Proxima Centauri exploded,

we wouldn't know about it
until four years later.

That's because the speed
of light is constant

no matter where you
are in the universe.

Another thing you
need to know is,

the faster you move,
the slower time does.

This explains how
astronaut Scott Kelly

spent a year in space
and came back to Earth

13 milliseconds
younger than his twin.

Now with these two examples,
let's put an astronaut

on a planet that's
four light years away.

That means his present
is unfolding for
years ahead of you.

Anything you do now on earth
is already in his past.

Put simply, the past, present,
and future all exist at once.

Now, before you have
an existential crisis,

there's a theory that might
make living in the past,

present and future all
at once, a little easier.

It's called moving
spotlight theory,

and it basically argues,

that there is only
one absolute present,

which changes moment by moment

as if a spotlight
is moving over it.

So with that information,
you can begin to see,

how the passage of time
might be an illusion.

There's no single
objective past,

objective present
or objective future.

[brooding music]

- [Narrator] Light is the
fastest thing we know.

It's so fast that we
measure enormous distances

by how long it takes for
light to travel them.

In one year, light travels
about 6 trillion miles,

a distance we call
one light year.

To give you an idea of
just how far this is,

the moon, which took
the Apollo astronauts

four days to reach,

is only one light
second from Earth.

Meanwhile, the nearest
star beyond our own Sun,

is Proxima Centauri,
4.24 light years away.

Our Milky Way is on the order
of 100,000 light years across.

The nearest galaxy to
our own, Andromeda,

is about 2.5 million
light years away.

space is mind-blowingly vast.

[brooding music]

- [Announcer] Time
is like an arrow,

it moves in one
direction, forward.

Scientists fittingly call
this the arrow of time.

If you one day woke up

and found yourself floating
in the middle of empty space,

would you be able to
tell which way is up,

down, left or right?

Probably not.

However, time is a
much simpler ordeal.

See, time comes from the past,
originating at the Big Bang,

where our history
lies and is fixed,

through the present where we
are essentially presiders of

towards the unknown
and turbulent future.

We can remember
things from the past,

like how I can tell you

that this morning I
went to the store,

bought groceries and
then forgot to buy milk.

But at the same time,

I can't tell you what I ate
for breakfast next Thursday.

The arrow of time
originated at the Big Bang

and has been moving
forward ever since.

We use the second
law of thermodynamics
to represent this,

it is known as entropy.

Think of entropy as a measure
of disorder in the universe.

At the Big Bang, all the
matter in the universe

was compacted into an
infinitely small point.

This is considered a very
low entropy situation,

a very orderly situation.

It would be similar to stuffing

every sock that was ever
made into one drawer.

In that situation,

you know with 100% certainty
where your socks would be.

Ever since the Big Bang,

all the matter in the universe

has been expanding
away from each other,

making the universe a
higher entropy system.

Because of entropy and
because of the arrow of time,

we have galaxies, stars,
planets and even life.

Entropy is the reason that
you can tell the difference

between the past and the future,

it explains why
every human is born

and then lives and then
dies, always in that order.

If there were no entropy,

if there were no
change in the universe,

you wouldn't be able
to tell the difference

between the year 2017
and the year 1 billion.

No matter what you
do, time moves forward

and doesn't stop for
anyone or anything,

at least on the macro scale.

See, the arrow of time works

and is extremely
noticeable on large scales,

the scales that you and
I operate on every day.

But at a quantum level,
time operates differently.

- 100,000 B.C. stone tools

4000 B.C. the wheel,

ninth century A.D. gunpowder,

19th century, Eureka,
the light bulb,

20th century, the automobile,

television, nuclear weapons,
spacecraft, internet.

- The internet is amazing.

- 21st century, biotech,

nanotech, fusion and
fission and M-theory,

and that was just
the first decade.

We are now three months into
the year of our Lord, 2023.

At this moment in
our civilization,

we can create
cybernetic individuals,

who in just a few short years

will be completely
indistinguishable from us.

Which leads to an
obvious conclusion,

we are the gods now.

- You look at our
computing power today,

and you say, I have the
power to program a world

inside of a computer.

Well imagine in the future

where you have even
more power than that,

and you can create characters
that have for example,

freewill and I
program in the laws

that govern that world.

Now you're a character
in that world

and you think you
have freewill and say,

I wanna invent a
computer, so you do.

Hey, I wanna create a
world in my computer,

so now you lay out all these
universes and throw a dart,

which of these universes
are you most likely to hit?

The original one
that started it,

or the countless simulations,

the daughter simulations
that unfolded thereafter?

[deep bass music]

- [Announcer] Everything,
the world we live in

seems to be based on
mathematical laws.

Even our genetic code
has a mathematical model.

Just like if someone had
programmed our reality

with a computer code,

see where I'm going with this.

We may be living in a giant
video game without realizing it.

[bright upbeat music]

But who designed this matrix?

An advanced alien civilization?

Maybe not aliens,

but a future
iteration of humanity,

simulating the lives
of their ancestors,

which would make
you a living memory

of someone else's great
great great grandmother.

This future humanity,

would require extremely
powerful supercomputers

to run the simulation down
to the subatomic level,

much more powerful

than the most advanced
supercomputer we could imagine.

If we ever got to this level
of technological advancement,

and started running computer
simulations of our own,

that would be very
strong evidence

that our reality
was also simulated,

a simulation creating
their own simulation.

Chances are our creators

would turn out to be
someone else's simulation.

In the many, many simulations

from the original
reality on down,

each subsequent simulation

would turn out less
and less advanced.

They just wouldn't be able
to match their creators

in advancing their technologies.

If your life was a
simulation, you wouldn't know,

just like there's no proof

that you're not living
in a simulation.

But you could try
looking for the glitches.

If our world was
some computer code,

it could have software bugs.

Every now and then,

when our simulators
decided to roll an update,

something could slip sideways.

It could be a glitch like
meeting your doppelganger,

someone who looks like you,
but isn't related to you.

It might just be a mix up

in character
appearance preferences.

If we ever found out

that we were a program
on someone's hard drive,

it could be because that
someone wanted us to.

In that case, escaping
the simulation would be,

well, simulated,

we'd just end up on another
level of the matrix.

Maybe discovering the
identity of our creators

would make them
reboot the system,

a big Control + Alt + Delete
for the entire universe.

[brooding music]

- [Woman] The A theory
is what most of us think

and experience in
regards to time,

that the past, present
and future are linear

and are fundamental to
the nature of time itself.

- [Narrator] How many
times have you wished

you could jump in a time machine

and skip that boring meeting,

or choose a better comeback
in that argument last week.

Time travel sounds
like some wild fantasy

that only happens
in sci-fi movies,

but we're actually
traveling in time every day.

Albert Einstein found that
time is not a constant,

but it's continually
moving forward,

and we're moving
forward with it.

According to Einstein, time
is the fourth dimension,

together with three
dimensional space,

it's fused,

into a single four dimensional
continuum, space-time.

If you think of
traveling in space,

moving upwards is a
bit of a challenge,

unless we get on a plane,

or at least take the stairs.

So maybe we just haven't
come up with a proper machine

to travel in time yet.
[shattering glass sounds]

Theoretically, building a
time machine is possible,

but it wouldn't look like this,

or like this,

rather more like this.

Because the secret
to time travel

isn't in some exotic
form of matter.

What you'd need is a spaceship

that could travel
almost as fast as light.

[jet engine roaring]

Einstein's theory of
relativity taught us that,

the faster we move
through space,

the slower we move in time.

Let's assume you
were in a spaceship,

traveling at 99.9%
the speed of light,

to a potentially
habitable exoplanet

some 40 light years away.

You find some
primitive life forms

and speed back to Earth
to share your discovery,

but when you finally
make it back to Earth,

you discover that
all your colleagues

are now very, very old.

From your perspective,

you'd only been gone
for about two years,

for people on earth,
you'd been gone for 80.

This phenomenon is
known as time dilation.

It's not likely to
happen to you though,

because traveling at the speed
of light isn't quite possible

with the technology we have now.

The fastest piloted
vehicle we've ever created,

Apollo 10, reached a speed
of 11,000 meters per second.

The speed needed
for time travel,

is somewhere near 299
million meters per second.

On top of that,
accelerating at that speed

would cause an enormous
centrifugal force,

a force that would rip you apart

before you came anywhere
close to light speed.

But hey, we still
have wormholes.

Einstein predicted that
these theoretical tunnels

link two separate places
in two different times,

a shortcut to another
universe and another time.

The problem with wormholes
is, they're extremely tiny,

just a billion trillion
trillionths of a
centimeter across,

no human would be
able to fit through.

If only we could
capture a wormhole,

we might be able to enlarge it.

Imagine a giant tunnel
above the earth,

leading to another planet.

And theoretically,

if we put both ends of a
wormhole in the same place,

but in different times,

we could step into a wormhole

and come out in
the distant past.

But wormholes have their issues,

they're very short lived,

and traveling into the past
would create paradoxes.

Like the one in which
you go back in time

and convince your grandmother
never to get married,

then your grandmother doesn't
give birth to your dad,

and he doesn't have you.

But if you didn't exist,

who went back in time
to talk your grandmother

out of marrying
your grandfather?

Time is linear, it
only goes forward.

For that reason, we can
only travel into the future,

not to the past.

In fact, astronauts
that spend about a year

on the International
Space Station,

are now living in the
future compared to us.

Even though it's just 13
milliseconds in the future,

they're proof that traveling
in time is possible.

And maybe wormholes could open
up a whole different world,

where the laws of physics
work in different ways

and traveling to the
past is possible.

Would you dare step
into a time machine

not knowing where
it would take you?

And if you had the choice,
where would you go and when?

- [Announcer] Back in 2009,

Stephen Hawking threw a
party for time travelers

complete with a buffet,
balloons and chilled champagne.

He waited for his
guests to arrive,

but ultimately no one came.

After all, he'd sent
out the invitations

only after he had
thrown the party.

Hawking saw this as proof
that time travel didn't exist,

but couldn't deny
throughout his career

that it may be possible.

Time travel is one of the most

popular modern
sci-fi tropes around,

present in series ranging
from "Harry Potter",

to "Doctor Who",
"Star Trek" and more.

However, the concept
of traveling in time

via mechanical means,

was first popularized
more than a century ago,

in 1895 by H.G. Wells'
novel, "The Time Machine".

Though it may seem like it
belongs only in fiction however,

time travel is
scientifically plausible,

and in fact, technically
does already exist.

That's because Einstein's
theory of special relativity

explains that time is subjective

and can speed up or slow down

depending on how
fast you're going.

So if you travel near
the speed of light

for five years in your time,

decades could have
passed back on Earth.

Everyone you knew before your
trip would have grown old,

even though from
your perspective,

only a few years
will have passed.

So today's question on the
face of it, is very plausible.

Time travel to the
future at least,

is an idea with sound
science to back it up.

In fact, some astronauts
have already time traveled

into the future, but only
by the smallest of margins.

Russian cosmonaut Gennady
Padalka can reasonably claim

to be the world's most
prolific time traveler,

as he spent more time in
orbit around the Earth

than anyone else.

Because of time dilation,
he's time traveled around,

point 02 seconds into the
future during his missions,

meaning he's aged
point 02 seconds less

than everyone else alive.

But that's only time
traveling forwards,

what about traveling
backwards in time?

It's a notoriously
tricky concept

and there're certain
paradoxes that come into play,

including bootstrap theory,

which says that bringing
an object back in time

means that the object existed
before it was created,

and so has no determinable
origin, a clear problem.

Then there's the grandfather
paradox which posits that,

if someone were to go back
and kill their grandfather,

they would prevent themselves
from ever being born,

and so would never have
been able to go back in time

in the first place,
another sizable issue.

However, both of
these can be solved

if we assume infinite
timelines and universes,

allowing for all of the
possibilities to unfold.

So if time travel exists,
it's almost certain

that there're countless
timelines to cater for it,

with new realities
forming every few seconds.

In which case would we ever
know that time travel exists,

even if it already does,
there's a chance we might not.

If technology is developed

that allows us to travel
around the speed of light

to push us into the future,

yet it have zero effect
on us in the here and now.

So as we live our everyday
lives, driving to work,

eating lunch and watching TV,

there's a seemingly distant,

though still very
real possibility

that someone else is
jetting off in front of you,

aging far less
rapidly than you are,

that person could theoretically
travel to the year 2100,

having only aged a year or two,

but we'd never know about them

because we'd likely
never meet them.

And if we did meet them,

we'd perhaps be
skeptical of their story.

But still,

via those potentially infinite
universes and timelines,

we could all be experiencing
the effects of time travelers

messing up our own
timelines every day.

Say someone traveled
back in time

to prevent you from
getting in a car accident,

they then split
your life into two,

one where you crash
in a fatal accident

and another where you don't.

Every time someone spliced
your original timeline,

they'd birth new ones
right alongside it.

And the multiverse becomes

an ever thickening web of
everything that ever was,

is or could be,

but you as in the original you,

living in your original timeline

would be completely oblivious

and would never know
that time travel existed

or that it had shaped
your life to this point.

On the other hand,

if you were living across
one of the other timelines,

you might come face to face
with solid proof of time travel.

So somewhere out
there a different you

could even be time
traveling right now,

completely aware that you exist

even if you're
unaware that they do.

If technology for
traveling to the past

has already been invented,

after all, if it's
to ever exist,

then why not right now.

It's likely that
world governments

would keep it under
strict lock and key,

as that sort of tech
could cause huge problems.

Unless time travel was
rigorously regulated

anyone and everyone

could show up in all
sorts of time periods,

leaving artifacts
from the future,

blowing their own cover
and altering human history.

Changing even the smallest thing

could send ripples through time,

all the way up to the moment

you yourself first
time traveled,

which could be disastrous
for the world around you.

So if time travel
already exists,

then there's surely
a time police too,

it'd be their job to stop
others from creating chaos,

like a time travel version
of the "Men in Black",

maybe even erasing your memory

if you'd ever seen anything
you weren't supposed to.

More specifically, if time
travel really was real,

it could provide answers to
some unexplained phenomena

in our standard
non-time travel lives.

It could be that deja vu

is simply the experience of
having our own timeline split

by an unknown time
traveler's actions

leaving us to feel as
though we've experienced

the same thing twice.

The Mandela effect causing
shared but incorrect memories

might be another sign.

Common examples,

Ren from believing

that Curious George
has a tail, he doesn't

to recalling that Nelson Mandela

passed away in
prison, he didn't.

If time travel already exists,

these false memories could be
down to some kind of glitch

caused by an errant
travelers antics.

There's no doubt though that
if time travel does exist,

those who know about it

and can use it have
unrivaled power.

They'd have prior
access to new stories,

exam questions and
lottery numbers,

unless their time
police outlawed it,

and for as long as they could
even glimpse the future,

they'd know which companies
were best to invest in.

More than money though,

they'd have the ability to peek
through anybody's life story

at any time, and potentially
the power to reshape,

redirect, prolong or cut
short any life they felt like.

Without even knowing it,
those not privy to time travel

would be completely under
the time travelers control,

and the scary part,

if you accept that time travel

is even theoretically possible,

then all of that
should inevitably be
happening right now.

Because if time travel
is to ever exist,

then surely it already does.

Someone somewhere at some time

should have already mastered it.

And that's what would happen
if time travel already exists.

[brooding music]
- From a car

speeding down a road,

speed up the image infinitely,

and the car disappears.

So what proof do we
have of its existence?

Time gives legitimacy
to its existence,

time is the only
true unit of measure.

It gives proof to the
existence of matter,

without time,

we don't exist.

[brooding music]

- Time is unity.

[dramatic orchestral music]

[dramatic orchestral music]

[electric sounds]

[dramatic orchestral music]

[birds chirping]

[electric sounds]

[brooding music]

[cars honking]

[sirens wailing]

[brooding music]

[horse neighing]

[horse neighing]

[animal roaring]

[birds cawing]

[dinosaur roaring]

[gibbering sounds]

[brooding music]

- [Narrator] In 1952 an
author named Ray Bradbury

published a short story
called, "A Sound of Thunder"

in it a hunter named
Eckels pays $10,000

to travel with time safari,

a time machine company
that takes hunters

back to the time of dinosaurs

and allows them
to hunt the T-Rex.

The company guarantees nothing,

neither your safety
nor your return.

And there're strict
instructions and expectations

for how the hunters
should behave

once they travel back in time.

When they travel 60
million years back in time,

they notice the path that
has been laid by the company,

it floats six inches
above the earth

and is the only path that the
hunters should travel upon.

They cannot touch anything
during their stay in the past

and they're only to
shoot when told to,

interrupting any of the
natural processes in the past

could have irreparable
repercussions for the future.

Step on a mouse and
you leave your print,

like the Grand Canyon
across eternity.

They're very careful
with leaving the past

just as it was
supposed to unfold.

The T-Rex that they
were supposed to kill

was going to be crushed by
a tree only seconds later,

it was going to die anyway.

Eckels however, is terrified

and runs back to the time
machine through the jungle

and waits for the others.

But once the rest
of the crew returns,

they notice the mud
on Eckels' boots,

against their better judgment,

they allow him to return with
the crew back to present day.

When they exit the time machine,

the crew checks in with
the man behind the desk

to see if everything is okay,

and the man tells them it is.

The man however,

is acting a bit different
from before they left.

There's a strange
smell in the air,

it's faint, but it's there.

The sign on the
wall is different,

the words were
spelled differently.

Eckels sits down and checks
every inch of his body

for things he could have ruined,

and on his boot,
caked in the mud,

he finds a butterfly,
beautiful and dead.

The death of a single butterfly

has somehow resulted in
the future being changed.

He cries out in disbelief
begging to return to the past

and somehow undo what he's done.

He sits down with
his eyes closed

and senses a crew
member enter the room.

The crew member breathes loudly

and takes the safety
off his rifle.

Eckels opens his eyes
but suddenly all he hears

is a sound of thunder.

[hip hop music]

[brooding music]

- [Woman] There is a debate
raging between time theorists

between those who
subscribed to the ideas

of what is known
as the A theory,

and those who believe in,

you guessed it, the B theory.

But B theorists don't agree,

and you know how
intense scientists

can get about their debates.

Instead, they believe
that there is nothing

metaphysically special

about the concepts of
past and future times,

and that time doesn't
actually flow at all.

They go as far as to say
that the passage of time

is an illusion, and
that at any point,

the past, present, and
future are all equally real.

From our human perspective,

we remember the past and
look forward to the future,

but never the
opposite way around.

B theorists however,

think that this is simply
a result of our knowledge,

just because we know
more about the past

than we do about the future

doesn't mean that future
events are any less real

than those in the past.

Rather than time
being a progression,

it all exists at once.

[brooding music]

Einstein's theory of
relativity was a game changer

for explanations of the
fundamental processes

that occur within the universe.

But it's the
consequences that it has

to the understanding of time

that are perhaps the
most interesting.

He showed that gravity and
time are inextricably linked,

where there's a higher
force of gravity

time moves slower
and vice versa.

This means that near the
center of a black hole,

time hardly moves at all,

and in the empty
regions of space,

time moves at a
much faster speed,

the effect is so strong
that physicists think

that if you were
caught in a black hole,

you'd actually see the
universe's entire existence

flash before you, before
you finally succumbed

to the crushing
force of gravity.

On Earth, this means
that the higher you are,

the faster you experience time.

Of course, these
effects are minute

and hardly have any
impact on how we live.

If you lived a foot above
someone else for example,

then in 79 years,

you would be 90 billionths
of a second older.

This does become
a practical issue

on our human level though,

and becomes an effect
we need to understand

for systems such as GPS.

It relies on satellites
in orbit of the planet

where gravity is a quarter

of that experienced
on the surface.

The clocks on those
satellites go out of sync

with those on earth by about
38 microseconds per day,

something that has to
be regularly corrected

or would result in very
imprecise location measurement.

[brooding music]

- [Narrator] A black
hole's gravity is so strong

that even light can't get out.

That's why you'll never see one,

but you can detect it
from the gamma ray bursts

that the hole emits.

These bursts discovered
by Stephen Hawking

now carry his name,
Hawking radiation.

Stephen Hawking
himself believed that

black holes can be passages
to another universe.

So if you were to fall into one,

would you find yourself
in an alternate dimension?

Every black hole has
an event horizon,

the point at which gravitational
pull becomes so strong

you can't escape from it.

The point of no return.

If you found yourself
outside of that point,

you'd see that stars are twisted

around a perfect
circle of darkness.

As you start being pulled
toward a black hole,

you'd be moving
faster and faster,

accelerated by the
force of gravity.

That's the first bad news
for you brave space traveler.

The gravitational
force of a black hole

is very, very strong.

If you fell feet first,

your legs would be feeling a
stronger gravitational pull

than your head,

your body would be
stretched apart.

The most common black
holes are called stellar,

They can stretch about
nine miles across

and be as heavy as 20 suns.

If you happen to be pulled
towards a stellar black hole,

you'd be completely torn apart

before you even reach
the event horizon.

So make sure to choose
a super massive one,

the one that's a million
times heavier than our Sun,

in this case, your body
would remain unharmed

as you cross the event horizon,

as the gravity would be pulling
both your feet and your head

with almost the same strength.

And if you're wondering
where to find one,

you don't have to look too far.

There's one right at the
center of our Milky Way galaxy.

Luckily, it's 165 quadrillion
miles away from us

and will suck in neither
the sun nor the planets.

But don't pack your
suitcase just yet,

crossing the event horizon

is just the beginning
of the challenge,

there's a gravitational
singularity

at the center of the black hole

where density becomes infinite,

you'd be squashed
into that center

and become one with
the black hole,

you wouldn't be able to tell
anyone about your experience.

However, a person observing you

from outside the event horizon

would see a very
different picture,

as you were falling
into a black hole,

they'd see you slowing down
getting dimmer and redder,

in the end, you'd just freeze

never crossing
the event horizon.

This is because space
and time in a black hole

swap the roles,

at the event horizon time
comes to a standstill,

while space on the other
hand moves forward.

You wouldn't be
able to turn around

and escape the black hole

any more than you could
travel back in time.

Even when the black
hole eventually died

emitting all the
particles it had absorbed,

including your body,

it would be impossible to tell

whether those
particles were you.

Stephen Hawking however,

found a way in which the
information about your body

wouldn't be lost.

He theorized that there're
alternative universes

with different histories.

This means in one reality,
you fell into a black hole,

in the second one,
there was no black hole.

It's impossible to be certain

from outside of
the event horizon,

whether there's a black hole
or not until you fall in there.

If you cross the event horizon,

and there was a black
hole [muffled speaking]

but if you happen
to be in a reality

where the black
hole didn't exist,

you'd still be alive, just
in a different universe.

[brooding music]

- [Announcer] Our universe
is like a big flat sheet,

bent in just the right way,

wormholes could connect two
very, very distant spots

with a short bridge,

that you could cross
almost instantaneously,

enabling you to
travel the universe

even faster than
the speed of light.

So, where can we
find a wormhole?

Presently, only on paper.

General relativity says
they might be possible,

but that doesn't mean
they have to exist.

General relativity is
a mathematical theory,

it's a set of equations that
have many possible answers,

but not all maths
describes reality.

But they are
theoretically possible,

and there're different kinds.

[bouncy pop music]

The first kind of
wormholes to be theorized

were Einstein-Rosen bridges.

They describe every black
hole as a sort of portal

to an infinite
parallel universe.

Let's try to picture
them in 2D again.

Empty space time is flat,
but curved by objects on it.

If we compress that object,

space time gets more
curved around it.

Eventually, space
time becomes so warped

that it has no choice but to
collapse into a black hole.

A one way barrier forms
the event horizon,

which anything can enter,

but nothing can escape,

trapped forever at the
singularity at its core.

But maybe there is
no singularity here.

One possibility is that the
other side of the event horizon

looks a bit like
our universe again,

but mirrored upside down
where time runs backwards.

In our universe, things
fall into the black hole.

In the parallel universe
with backwards time,

the mirror black hole

is spewing things out
a bit like a big bang.

This is called a white hole.

Unfortunately,
Einstein-Rosen bridges

can't actually be crossed.

It takes an infinite
amount of time

to cross over to the
opposite universe,

and they crimp
shut in the middle.

If you go into a black hole,

you won't become the stuff
coming out of the white hole,

you'll only become dead.

So to travel the cosmos
in the blink of an eye,

humans need a different
kind of wormhole,

a traversable wormhole.

[bouncy pop music]

If string theory or
one of its variations

is the correct description
of our universe,

then we could be lucky

and our universe might
even have a tangled web

of countless wormholes already.

Shortly after the Big Bang,

quantum fluctuations in the
universe at the smallest scales,

far, far smaller than an atom,

may have created many,
many traversable wormholes.

Threaded through them are
strings called cosmic strings.

In the first billionth of
a trillionth of a second

after the Big Bang,

the ends of these
tiny tiny wormholes

were pulled light years apart,

scattering them
through the universe.

If wormholes were made
in the early universe,

whether with cosmic
strings or some other way,

they could be all over just
waiting to be discovered.

One might even be
closer than we realize.

From the outside,

black holes and wormholes
can look very similar,

leading some
physicists to suggest

the super massive black holes
in the center of galaxies

are actually wormholes.

It will be very hard
to go all the way

to the center of the Milky
Way to find out though,

but that's okay.

There might be an equally
extremely hard way

to get our hands on a wormhole,
we could try to make one.

[bouncy pop music]

To be traversable and useful,

there're a few properties
we want a wormhole to have.

First, it must obviously connect

two distant parts of space-time,

like your bedroom
and the bathroom,

or Earth and Jupiter.

Second, it should not
contain any event horizons,

which would block
two way travel.

Third, it should be
sufficiently sized

so that the gravitational forces

don't kill human travelers.

The biggest problem
we have to solve

is keeping our wormholes open.

No matter how we make wormholes,

gravity tries to close them.

Gravity wants to pinch it
closed and cut the bridge,

leaving only black
holes at the ends.

Whether it's a traversable
wormhole with both ends in ours,

or a wormhole to
another universe,

it will try to close

unless we have something
propping it open.

For very old string
theory wormholes,

that's the cosmic strings job.

For manmade wormholes,
we need a new ingredient,

exotic matter.

This isn't anything
like we find on Earth,

or even antimatter,

it's something totally new
and different and exciting,

with crazy properties
like nothing

that's ever been seen before.

Exotic matter is stuff
that has negative mass.

Positive mass like
people and planets

and everything else
in the universe

is attractive
because of gravity.

But negative mass
would be repulsive,

it would push you away.

This makes a kind
of anti-gravity

that props open our wormholes.

And exotic matter must
exert enormous pressure

to push space-time open,
greater even than the pressure

at the centers of neutron stars.

[brooding music]

- [Lady] Einstein's
theory also stated

that the faster an object moves,

the slower it experiences time.

The theoretical
maximum limit for this

is the speed of light.

At this speed, time
is at a standstill.

While we see light from the
other side of the universe

that has taken billions
of years to reach us,

from the photons point of view,

this journey happens
instantaneously.

This raises the question
then of what happens

if you break that barrier

and can travel faster
than the speed of light?

Does this mean that
time works in reverse

where cause and effect work
in a different direction

to everything else
in the universe?

Some physicists think so,

and even believe there's
a particle that exists

in this strange realm
known as the Tachyon.

Tachyons have never been
observed and remain theoretical,

but it would be virtually
impossible to spot them,

we wouldn't be able
to see them approach

because this would
happen in the future.

So all we'd be able to see,

was the path they leave behind
them before their arrival.

If we could, however, harness
the power of a tachyon,

it might just lead
to the ability

to travel backward in time.

[brooding music]

- [Narrator] We can
move left to right,

up and down, and then
forward and back.

If you wanted to tell
me to meet you somewhere

even outside the earth,

three numbers is all I need.

But this isn't quite complete,

because if I wanted to meet
you for lunch let's say,

I would need three
numbers like a longitude,

a latitude, and the
floor to meet you on,

but I'd also need a time.

Because we need
this fourth value

to completely specify some
event in the universe,

we consider time to be
the fourth dimension.

Now time is not a
spatial dimension

that extends beyond
height, length and width,

but rather it's called
a temporal dimension.

It doesn't behave like
the other dimensions,

and we definitely can't point

in the direction
of time, let's say,

since we're embedded
in 3D space.

But in simplest terms, since
we need that fourth value

of time to specify an event,

we consider it to be
the fourth dimension.

Now we used to
think space and time

were totally independent,

but then Einstein came along
and found that's not the case,

they were in fact
linked together.

And the mathematical model
that fuses these two things

became known as space-time.

What Einstein's general
theory of relativity says,

is that massive objects
curve space-time.

This means that
distances between points,

and also times between events

are warped around
massive objects.

And this has
strange consequences

like time ticking differently
on different planets

and massless photons being
bent by massive objects

because of that curvature.

- [Woman] Many physicists
think the fourth dimension

has been clear to us
all along, what is it?

Time itself.

It plays a crucial role in
the mathematical formulations

of physical laws and theories,

such as the theory of
relativity and string theory,

and gives a way to define
not just where an object is,

but when it is in a
particular place too.

Say for example,
you were charting

your movements through the day,

it would make sense to note
down the coffee shop you visited

along with the time
you were there,

the gym, the amount of
time you spent there

and at work, and eating
dinner and so on.

This is essentially treating
time as a fourth dimension.

And while there're arguments

why it shouldn't be
classified as such,

it works in the vast
majority of cases.

[brooding music]

Without their understanding
of quantum physics

or the realization of
the theory of relativity,

the Greeks had their own
ways to understand time,

which treated it as a
surprisingly fluid concept.

One of the original
Titan gods, Kronos,

was the god of agriculture

and the destructive
forces of time,

often being referred
to as Father Time.

He wielded powers such
as temporal stasis,

temporal deceleration,
temporal looping,

and the ability to
steal time from people.

They also had another god
named Chronos with an H,

who was the primordial
god of time,

which shows how important
a concept it was to them.

While they didn't understand
time to the level that we do,

which itself is by no
means comprehensive,

they were already
toying with the idea

that it wasn't a
pervasive constant

and is something that can be
manipulated in various ways.

[brooding music]

The phrase specious present,

first became used
in the late 1800s

as a way to describe the period
of time in which we exist,

with William James defining it

as the way that we were always
aware of a certain duration,

be it a few seconds to
no more than a minute,

and that this is the
original intuition of time.

There're a number of ways
in which you can look

at the specious present,

as the time span of
your short-term memory,

the amount of time which we
perceive as being instantaneous,

the duration of what
we directly perceive

or the duration that is
perceived as both present

and extended in time.

What this means in simple terms
is that the specious present

is an attempt to define the
meaningful experience of time

for each of us, outside of the
wider concepts of what it is.

There's no denying that we
interpret our surroundings

in linear time, that there's
a cause and an effect.

But philosophers
and psychologists

have long struggled to
define what's in the moment.

Their argument is that
the only measure of time

that really matters to us,
is that which we can affect,

in other words, the time
that we currently exist in.

We can learn from the past and
aim for things in the future,

but beyond that,

those concepts don't
really affect us as much

as the present does.

[brooding music]

- [Narrator] The most likely way

that humans will
start teleporting,

will be through something
called quantum teleportation.

Quantum teleportation
involves scanning an object

and transmitting its
information to another location

where that information is
used to reassemble the object

from different
molecules and atoms.

But would this work for
entire human bodies?

The prospect of
human teleportation

could lead to a pretty
different looking life

for you and me.
[soft music]

Our bridges and roads could
become desolate wastelands.

Dense cities might become
a thing of the past,

and space exploration
might accelerate

at a pace we're not ready for.

But before we get too
far ahead of ourselves,

let's look at how this
would actually work.

- [Announcer] Chinese scientists

have successfully achieved
quantum teleportation

from a station on the ground
to a satellite in orbit,

a distance of over
1400 kilometers.

The scientists were successful
in this task over 900 times.

Let's take a deeper look.

[soft piano music]

First up, the
teleportation achieved

wasn't the kind that you
would imagine from the movies,

where an object gets
physically moved

from one location to another,

but it's a different
kind of teleportation

called quantum teleportation.

Let me explain.

A fundamental particle
such as a photon,

which is what light is made of,

can be described with
something called a state.

A state is a set of properties
that include information

about the way a particle
is moving and behaving.

The state or description
of one particle

can be linked to another
particle in a special way.

The state of one particle

influences the state
of the other particle,

this is called
quantum entanglement.

Consider two particles

that are made to
interact with each other,

so that their properties
are now connected.

These two entangled particles
are kind of like twins now,

each of the individual particles

can only be measured
in two states.

Technically, the
states are called spin,

and the particles can only
exist as spin up or spin down.

For this video, it's easier
to think of the states

like binary, one or zero,

much like quantum
computer qubit.

Strangely, when
we're not looking,

the particles exist in both
states at the same time,

and there's only a probability

of which one
they're going to be.

This is called superposition.

The state of a particle
only gets confirmed

as a one or a zero, if we
look at it and measure it.

Now what I'm about to say
is going to sound odd,

for this is how the world works.

When you observe the
state of one particle,

the other connected particle

has to be in exactly
the opposite state.

In other words,

when we observe that the
state of one particle

is in state one, the
other particle has
to be in state zero.

Is a strange thing to
get your head around,

but it's fascinating

because it has some
amazing implications.

What's more interesting

is that the distance between
the particles, doesn't matter.

You can move them a meter apart,

or the distance of
the universe apart,

and they would still
interact with each other

and be in opposite states.

This transfer of information

about which state
the particles are in,

by definition is called
quantum teleportation.

It's a hard concept for
human minds to understand

because in our world of
everyday classical physics,

if there're two things
that are exactly identical,

they still have an
individual identity,

they might only
affect each other

if they're relatively close.

This is not the same

for the very small world
of quantum physics.

Because quantum entanglement

works at any distance
and instantly,

the actual information
transmitted between
the two particles

travels faster than
the speed of light,

this has been known
for many decades.

- One of the great peculiarities
of quantum mechanics

which Schrodinger
already realized in 1926,

is that in many situations,

two distinct physical systems

are characterized
by a single state,

in such a way that if
you try to characterize

the state of one part,

you must refer to the
state of the other part.

And if you refer to the
state of the second part,

you must refer to the
state of the first,

the two systems as he
put it are entangled.

- So, that obliged
to admit that,

the quantum correlations
exist in the world

and if we are to explain them

and not just accept
them as given,

if we are to explain them,

we are obliged to
invoke something like,

actions going faster than light
from one place to another.

- [Announcer] Although
the perception

and transfer of the
knowledge of that information

obviously can't be
transmitted faster

than the speed of light.

If this sounds weird
or impossible to you,

you're in good company.

This predicament bothered
Albert Einstein so much

that he thought
it was so strange

and believed that
it couldn't be true.

He called it spooky
action at a distance.

In 1935, he and some other
physicists of the day

wrote a paper outlying
the phenomenon

but stated that
quantum entanglement

must just be due to some things

that we just don't understand.

The idea remained a theory

and was only speculated to
be possible in the 1990s.

Fast forward to 2014,

and it was proven that
this quantum entanglement

could happen at a
distance of 25 kilometers.

And in 2015, this distance
rose to 100 kilometers.

This was actually
the physical limit

as fiber optic cables
cause too many losses.

Next, we had to
move beyond Earth

and test this theory from space,

a much greater challenge

and something that had
never been done before.

After five years of development,

the Chinese Academy
of Scientists

launched the world's
first quantum satellite,

called Micius, in
August of 2016.

According to study co-author,
Professor Chao-Yang Lu,

quote, "Quantum science
has become a new resource

"as real as energy and is
being applied to cryptography,

"teleportation and
quantum computing.

"This new knowledge

"can instantly be applied
to these areas," end quote.

So here's how it worked,

the satellite made
two photon particles

interact with each other,
so that they were entangled

and then beamed them down to
two separate stations on earth

more than 1000 kilometers apart.

Amazingly, it was observed

that these particles
were still interacting

despite the very large distance.

Dr. Chunle Xiong, of the
Australian National University,

who themselves
are in the process

of developing Australia's
own quantum satellite,

said that the results
were a major milestone,

quote, "Since they
launched the satellite,

"all of us working in this area

"have been expecting
some results,

"but I'm very surprised that
they achieved this so quickly

in less than a year's
time," end quote.

Some applications of this

include the secure
transfer of information.

Because any change
in one particle

will be apparent in
the other instantly.

Quantum entanglement
has been considered

a potentially powerful tool

for sending
information securely.

In particular, this could enable
secure distribution of keys

to unlock codes, encrypting
secret information.

In other words,
quantum teleportation
can actually be used

as a kind of digital
burglar alarm.

Because of the nature
of entanglement,

if any third party
tried to use the key,

it would be detected by the
sender and receiver instantly

and they would know that
they had been hacked.

This technology could also be
used to build quantum networks

that are instantaneous

and much faster than anything
that we could build today.

Here's another quote from
the Chinese research team,

quote, "Long-distance
entanglement distribution

"is essential for the testing

"of quantum physics
and quantum networks.

"These works establish

"the first
ground-to-satellite up-link

"for faithful
ultra-long-distance
quantum teleportation,

"an essential step forward

"to the global-scale quantum
internet," end quote.

- [Woman] The realm of
quantum physics is an exciting

and in many ways a logical one.

So quantum gravity
theories are an attempt

to combine the theories
of quantum mechanics

with the theory of relativity.

This is by no means
a completed idea,

but the main principles
involve suggesting that time

is not a fundamental building
block of the physical world.

Instead, these
theories regard time

as an emergent phenomenon,

one that isn't captured
within equations

that explain existence,
but still happens anyway,

almost in a similar way

to how weather affects
your drive to work.

It isn't integral to
the functioning or
process of your car,

but still is able to
affect the performance.

Quantum gravity says
that time doesn't exist

in any meaningful way at all.

Whether this is the truth

or simply a way to
allow quantum physics

and the theory of relativity
to exist alongside each other

until a better
explanation comes along,

no one's entirely sure.

But It's a fascinating
area of research

for those interested in
the fundamental truths.

[brooding music]

- [Narrator] Our universe began,

when a small but
very hot singularity

exploded in the Big Bang,
13.7 billion years ago.

But maybe it wasn't the
only one to be born then.

In physics, space and time

fuse into one four dimensional
continuum, space-time.

If this space-time is flat,

and stretches far beyond the
limits of our observation,

there is a possibility,

that it holds uncountable
disconnected universes.

But, for all we know there
are a limited number of ways

the particles in those other
universes can be put together.

At some point, the realities

will have to start
repeating themselves.

That means in theory,

our reality is only a small
part of what's out there.

And someone just like you,

might be living in a parallel
universe similar to our own.

And that universe
may be as close

as a million trillion
trillionth of a centimeter away.

[siren wailing]

Although the wall
between the universes

might be incredibly small,

traveling between
them, won't be easy,

but it could be done.

All you'd need is an 85
megawatt nuclear reactor

capable of firing billions
of neutrons on command.

That's how a team of physicists

working in Tennessee's
Oak Ridge laboratory,

are trying to open the
gates of a mirror universe.

Of course, they have
to find it first.

It all comes from
a theory that says,

if you beam neutrons at a
wall, none should pass through,

if some do manage to make
it to the other side,

it would mean that
they've transformed

into mirror images of themselves

as they went through the
wall between the two worlds.

How do we even know all that?

Well, there's one odd
thing about neutrons.

In particle beams on average,

they last for 14
minutes and 48 seconds

before they decay into protons.

But, if you place
neutrons in a lab bottle,

they'll break down
10 seconds faster.

It's not something we can
explain with physics yet,

neutrons are all the same,

and there shouldn't be
any 10 second difference

in their lifespan, regardless
of where they're stored.

Could it be possible,

that the neutron experiments
didn't go as expected

because physicists
accidentally opened a portal

to a mirror world?
[brooding music]

That would be the first evidence

that a mirror universe
exists right next to our own.

A mirror world
with mirror atoms,

maybe even a mirror Earth,

an entire mirror world, almost
totally cut off from ours.

Could you meet another
version of yourself

in that mirror world?

Now it gets a
little complicated.

Even though particle
configurations can
repeat themselves,

the odds of finding a portal
to a parallel universe

that's exactly the same as
ours, are close to zero.

Think about it,

there're a novemvigintillion
particles in the universe,

that's the number one
followed by 90 zeros.

Every single one of them

would need to have had
the same interactions

for 13.7 billion years to
create an identical universe

to what we have now.

The mirror universe,

would most likely have its
own mirror laws of physics,

but it's hard to know for sure,

because nobody has detected
a single mirror particle yet.

Maybe, we shouldn't be
searching for answers in a lab,

perhaps we should be
looking in space itself.

Our universe is
full of dark matter,

we can't observe it directly,

and we have no idea what
it's made of or how it works,

but we know that dark
matter is strong enough

to stop galaxies
from flying apart,

yet, we can't find it.

Perhaps the reason
is that dark matter

is leaking from a
mirror world into ours.

If we could detect that,

it would confirm that a
mirror universe exists.

Because we know that there's
five times more dark matter,

than there is visible
matter in the universe,

you've gotta think
that a mirror universe

is much more massive
than the one we live in.

Even if we did manage to open
up a gate into another world,

the portal would be
incredibly small,

too small for you
to see anything

without some very
powerful lab equipment.

We'd still be dealing with
neutrons and protons remember,

you could only enter that realm

if you had the ability
to shrink yourself

to the size of an atom.

[brooding music]

- [Woman] Our
experience of the world

is dictated by what
our brains perceive.

But with so much information
being collected at all times,

it takes huge processing
power to analyze everything,

that's why our brains
purposefully ignore

what they deem to be
irrelevant stimuli,

and amazingly have the
ability to rewrite the past

to fill in the gaps.

There're a number of experiments
that are used to prove this

and they raise the question

of when does our
consciousness actually exist?

Is it in the present or
slightly in the past?

Take for example,

if you were to tap both
your nose and your foot

at the same time,

now you'll feel them in
precisely the same moment,

but it takes longer for the
signal to reach your brain

from your foot than it
does from your nose.

It turns out that your brain
presents information to you

in the best way possible
for you to understand it,

not necessarily in real
time to how events happen.

This also means
that we're existing

slightly behind the present,

so our brains can
build a picture of
what we will perceive.

We're talking micro-fractions
of a second here,

but it shows how our
perception of time

might well be very different
to its true nature.

[brooding music]

Astrophysicists who observe
the universe expanding

can see it continually
accelerating,

and presumably continuing
on like this forever.

This process known
as eternal inflation

causes issues though,
when trying to calculate

the probability of certain
events taking place.

Take for example, when
they try to predict

the nature of cosmic
microwave background,

to determine the probability
of something happening,

you calculate the number
of observations of the CMB

along with the number of times

what you're looking for happens.

But, if the number of
observations are infinite,

as is the case if
time goes on forever,

then how can you
calculate probabilities?

And what's even the point?

Each event that doesn't
have a probability of zero

will therefore happen an
infinite number of times.

So how do you distinguish
those events from any other?

The solution some
researchers have come to,

is that time itself will end.

In five different scenarios,

they came to the conclusion
that there's nearly a 50% chance

that it will finish
within 3.7 billion years,

and a nearly 50% chance

that it will end within
3.3 billion years.

[brooding music]

[brooding music]

- [Narrator] Einstein's insight

was that when something falls,

it no longer feels
the pull of gravity.

In fact, falling is like
floating in empty space.

This is the essence of
Einstein's happy thought,

and what we now call his
principle of equivalence.

Einstein's point is that when
the man in the lift falls,

he doesn't just feel
weightless, he is weightless.

- Einstein said the man
feels no force pulling on him

because there is no
force pulling on him.

Gravity doesn't act on him,

it acts on the space
and time around him,

what we now call the
geometry of space time.

[brooding music]

- [Narrator] This was
a radical redefinition.

Einstein says forget
the idea of gravity

as a force acting mysteriously
between two objects.

Now we have to think of it

as the shape of
space-time changing.

- You see, Newton
saw space and time

as independent,
fixed and immutable.

The three dimensional
space is the stage

in which things happen.

But time is separate.

It ticks by at the same rate
everywhere in the universe.

According to Newton,

an object will travel through
space in a straight line,

unless acted upon by
a force like gravity,

that will cause it to
deviate from that path.

But Einstein said
that space and time

aren't fixed and immutable,

they're interconnected,

meshed together in what
is known as space-time.

And he said that
space-time can be warped,

that matter, curves
space and time around it.

[bouncy music]

So after Einstein, we
no longer see gravity

as an invisible string
pulling objects together.

[bouncy music]

Instead, a body like the Earth

warps the structure of
space and time around it.

And an object in
orbit follows a path,

which is as straight as possible
through that space-time.

Its a fundamental part of
Einstein's vision of reality.

Space and time can't
be disentangled.

You can't talk about space
separately from time.

So matter warps time
as well as space.

It's known as gravitational
time dilation.

And is possibly the strangest

of all of Einstein's
discoveries.

[brooding music]

- I've got two
identical clocks here.

Now because the clock lower down

is closer to the
center of the Earth,

it feels and is a slightly,
a stronger gravitational pull

than the clock higher up.

Einstein's theory says that
the lower clock will tick by

at a slightly slower rate
than the higher clock.

Basically, gravity
slows time down.

[brooding music]

- [Narrator] It's
an extraordinary

conception of reality
that Einstein describes.

Space is being curved and
time is being distorted.

So why can't we perceive
this in our everyday lives?

Einstein had a rather
nice way of explaining it.

- Most of us have had the
experience as children

of trying to work out what
our parents do for a living.

Well, imagine your father
is Albert Einstein.

When he was about 12 years old,

young Eduard Einstein
asked his father,

why he was so famous,
what he discovered.

Well, this put Einstein
senior on the spot,

but he came up with a
beautifully simple analogy.

[playful music]

- Einstein told his son,

when a blind beetle
crawls over the surface

of a curved branch,

it doesn't notice that the
track it has covered is curved.

I was lucky enough to notice
what the beetle didn't notice.

This is what Einstein meant,

the beetle is free to move in
any direction on the branch,

it can move forwards,
backwards, left and right,

but it has no concept of the
direction up of the branch,

its as though for the beetle,

the universe is missing
the third dimension.

The beetle may think it's
moving in a straight line

along the branch,

but we can see that the
surface it's walking on

is itself curving and twisted.

[dramatic orchestral music]

- [Narrator] Einstein's
point was that what we see

as the twists and
curves of the branch

feel to the beetle like
forces pushing and pulling it.

[dramatic orchestral music]

- Okay, so consider this
rather strange example,

imagine we have two beetles
perched on this pumpkin,

and for whatever reason,

they want to walk
up towards the top.

Now, if they start at the
equator, pointing due north,

as they walk,

they will begin by moving
parallel to each other.

That means their paths
should never meet,

but as they get
closer to the top,

their paths get closer together.

Now, if they're clever beetles

they might try and figure
out what's going on.

And they could imagine that
there's some mysterious force

that's pulling them
closer together.

But for us, from
our perspective,

we can see there
is no such force,

all they're doing is
following straight paths

over a curved surface.

[playful music]

- [Narrator] Just as the
Beatles have no sense

that the surface of
the branch is curved,

we completely fail to
perceive the bizarre ways

that gravity shapes
the reality we live in.

[dramatic orchestral music]

Einstein's problem was
proving that he was right.

After years more thought, he
realized that there was a way

by looking far out
into the solar system.

Incredibly here in the grounds
of Herstmonceux Castle,

is housed one of the
original telescopes

that were used to prove
Einstein was correct.

[thudding footsteps]

- In 1915,

when Einstein developed his
general theory of relativity,

it was just that, it was a
theory, they had no proof.

In fact, many people found
it completely outlandish.

But then just four
years later in 1919,

this telescope and allow
me to geek out a bit here,

and I'll give it
its correct name.

This is the 13-inch
Astrographic refractor.

This telescope proved that
Einstein was in fact right,

that gravity does
curved space itself.

[playful music]

- [Narrator] Since then,
observation after observation

have confirmed that
matter curves space
and slows down time.

[brooding music]

So the simple question of why
things fall the way they do,

has led us deeper and deeper

into the very nature of
space and time itself.

Gravitation science
shows us how galaxies,

stars and planets form.

By measuring gravity,

we've discovered the
existence of dark matter,

that 80% of the mass of
our universe is invisible,

and we don't know
what it's made of.

And we've detected exotic
objects with extreme gravity,

like neutron stars, which
have more mass than our sun,

yet are only 20
kilometers across.

[brooding music]

- [Announcer] Matter
as we know it,

atoms, stars and galaxies,
planets and trees, rocks and us,

this matter accounts for less
than 5% of the known universe,

about 25% is dark matter,

and 70% dark energy, both
of which are invisible.

This is kind of strange
because it suggests

that everything we experience

is really only a tiny
fraction of reality.

But it gets worse,

we really have no clue what
dark matter and energy are

or how they work.

We are pretty sure
they exist though.

So, what do we know?

Dark matter is the stuff
that makes it possible

for galaxies to exist.

When we calculated why
the universe is structured

the way it is,

it quickly became clear

that there's just not
enough normal matter.

The gravity of the visible
matter is not strong enough

to form galaxies and
complex structures.

The stars would more likely be
scattered all over the place

and not form galaxies.

So we know there is something
else inside and around them.

Something that doesn't
emit or reflects light,

something dark,

but besides being
able to calculate

the existence of dark matter,

we can see it, kind of,

places with a high
concentration of dark matter

bend light passing nearby.

So we know there's
something there

that interacts with gravity.

Right now, we have more ideas
about what dark energy is not,

than what it is.

We know dark matter is not
just clouds of normal matter

without stars,

because it would emit
particles we could detect.

Dark matter is not antimatter,

because antimatter
produces unique gamma rays

when it reacts
with normal matter.

Dark matter is also not
made up of black holes,

very compact objects

that violently affect
their surroundings,

while dark matter seems to be
scattered all over the place.

Basically, we only know
three things for sure.

One, something is out there,

two, it interacts with gravity,

three, there is a lot of it.

Dark matter is probably made up

of a complicated exotic particle

that doesn't interact
with light and matter

in a way we expect, but right
now, we just don't know.

Dark energy is even more
strange and mysterious.

We can't detect it,
we can't measure it,

and we can't taste it,

but we do see its
effects very clearly.

In 1929, Edwin Hubble examined

how the wavelength of light
emitted by distant galaxies

shifts towards the red end of
the electromagnetic spectrum

as it travels through space.

He found that fainter
more distant galaxies

showed a large
degree of redshift,

closer galaxies not so much.

Hubble determined
that this was because

the universe itself
is expanding.

The redshift occurs because
the wavelengths of light

are stretched as the
universe expands.

More recent
discoveries have shown

that the expansion of the
universe is accelerating.

Before that, it was thought
that the pull of gravity

would cause the expansion
to either slow down

or even retract and collapse
in on itself at some point.

Space doesn't change its
properties as it expands,

there's just more of it.

New space is constantly
created everywhere.

Galaxies are tight
bound clusters of stuff

held together by gravity,

so we don't experience this
expansion in our daily lives,

but we see it
everywhere around us.

Wherever there is empty
space in the universe,

more is forming every second.

So dark energy seems to
be some kind of energy

intrinsic to empty space,

energy that is stronger
than anything else we know,

and that keeps getting
stronger as time passes by.

Empty space has more
energy than everything else

in the universe combined.

- [Narrator] Advancements in
quantum mechanical theories

and new technologies
that allow us

to better perceive our universe

and understand the
answers to questions,

we never believe
possible to answer

seem to be developing
every single day.

As research scientists work to
provide us with new insights

and revelations to our universe

that break the boundaries

of what we ever
thought was possible.

These findings will
often spawn new theories

and enlightenment,

that will cause even the
most stoic of people,

the need to sit back and
collect their thoughts

in order to come to terms

with theories that
are so mind blowing,

they're often groundbreaking
in their own right.

- [Terence] Which lasts longer,

a million years in
which nothing happens,

or 10 seconds with 50,000
events crammed into it.

In other words,

really time is only
experienced by the events

which occur within it.

And I maintain that
the early universe,

had very little going on.

And consequently,

time moved very, very slowly.

The character of time as
we approach the present

is that there're more and more,

physical domains and
energetic domains

in which change can occur.

For example, the early
universe was a pure plasma,

a pure swarm of
unassociated electrons.

You didn't even
have atomic systems,

let alone chemistry,

molecular chemistry,

life, complex speciated life

and dynamically balanced
planetary ecosystems,

each one of those
more complex phenomena

crystallized out or
emerged if you will,

from the previous systems
that had come into existence.

So when I say time
is speeding up,

what I mean really, is that
more and more is happening,

more and more is happening.

More connectivity occurs
now in a calendar year

than occurred in
a million years,

a billion years ago.

So, somehow as we
approach the present,

we find ourselves in an ever
denser realm of activity,

interrelationship, connectivity.

And the result of this
is more of the same,

producing a shrinking globe,

ever more immersive
technologies,

dissolution of
political, social,

gender and class
boundaries of all sorts.

So that's what I mean when I say

the universe is speeding up.

You know, before the advent
of man, of human beings,

the fastest changes on this
planet of any consequence,

were genetic changes,

changes in the genomes
of plants and animals.

Well, biologists know

that for a fruit fly
to add spur to its leg,

for a bird to
change its plumage,

you need hundreds of thousands,

sometimes millions of
years of evolutionary time.

With the advent of human
beings, using spoken language,

a new kind of
possibility was born,

it's called epigenetic change.

In other words change
which is not about genes,

but which is about languages,

customs, behaviors
of human beings.

Epigenetic change reaches
its dramatic combination

in speech, writing,

and communication of all sorts.

And so the carriers
of epigenetic change
the human beings,

are automatically then the
carriers of accelerated novelty.

And so when you look at,

let's say, evolution
on a coral reef,

and you compare it,

let's say to the evolution
of political ideas

in modern Europe,

obviously modern Europe's
rate of change in this domain

is thousands of times faster.

So by moving from the genetic
to the epigenetic realm,

we have vastly accelerated
all kinds of processes.

Now we appear to
be about to move

from the strictly human domain,

to the human machine
symbiosis domain.

And of course, machines
process information,

make connections
and do their work

at a rate thousands
of times faster

than any human being can work.

So we see again, a
progressive acceleration

of the process of
creating and maintaining

varieties of connectivity.

If the universe is
complexifying faster and faster,

epoch time will come

when this rate of
complexification is
occurring so rapidly,

that it will become itself,

the overwhelming phenomena

in the world of three
dimensional space and time.

And I call this the omega point

or the transcendental object
at the end of history.

And I believe it is
not that far off,

that with the emergence
of global internet,

a human population
of several billions,

and electronic noosphere,

that we are now
within the shadow

of this transcendental
object at the end of time,

our religion sense it,

that's what gives them their
apocalyptic intuitions.

And I think the ordinary
man and woman in the street

sense a kind of built in
acceleration to time itself.

Well, rather than
dismissing that

or treating it as a
psychological perception

or something unique
to our society,

I took it as a basic
perception about physics,

and I have built elaborate
mathematically defined theories

around this idea,

and then have found
to my astonishment,

incredible congruences
with other work.

I'm thinking of
the Mayan calendar,

and it's curious count
down like quality,

toward an extremely unique event

that the Maya felt would
occur in the same timeframe

that my own equations predicted,

even though at the time I
was unaware of the Maya.

So what we have here
is a new model of time

based on a very real intuition

that I think most people share,

which is, that time
is speeding up,

that human beings are
part of that process

and that the culmination
of that process

is now within the van
of historical time.

In other words, I believe it
will happen in 2012 in December

coincident with the same events

that the Maya placed at
the end of their calendar.

Even if I'm wrong,
even if it's 100 years

or 500 years later,

these are still spans of time

that when compared to
the life of the planet

are fractions of a percentage.

So, whether you believe as I do

that we can know the precise
moment of this transformation

of the world of time,

or whether you believe it is
simply coming soon and fast,

really doesn't make
that much difference.

We are all gathered here

at the end game of developmental
processes on this planet.

We are about to become
unrecognizable to ourselves

as a species,

our technologies, our religions,

our science has pushed us toward
this for thousands of years

without us, awakening to
what the denouement would be.

Now we stand close enough to it.

And I think all but the
most lumpen among us

must feel the tug

of the transcendental
and the transformative.

[melancholy orchestral music]

- [Announcer]
Achieving immortality,

the way it's portrayed
in the movies,

where you can jump
off a building

and live to tell the
tale, is highly unlikely.

However, immortality where
people don't die of old age

could be right
around the corner.

Would our planet be able to
handle a population of people

with ever expanding lifespans?

In Silicon Valley,

there's a movement
of billionaires and
biotech companies

that are developing
drugs to eliminate aging

and extend healthy
lifespans indefinitely.

In their opinion, playing
around with genetics

and reducing caloric intakes

have already proven to extend
the lifespans of flies,

worms and mice,

so why couldn't it
work for humans?

Regardless of whether these
efforts are successful?

The real question is, are we
ready for longer lifespans?

There're almost 8 billion
of us on this planet,

and if we all start living
for centuries on end,

life is gonna look
a lot different.

Just think of the
social implications

that would come along with that.

For starters,

the idea of being married
to someone your whole life

might become a
thing of the past.

With a lifelong union,

potentially comprising upwards
of 1000 years together,

we might start
looking at marriages

as a bunch of long
term commitments

we make throughout our lives.

Living longer would also mean,

we'd all be working a lot more.

No pension plan in the world
would be able to support you,

if you stopped working at
65 and then live to 500.

Longer careers would be
a blessing and a curse.

On the positive side,

with so many skilled workers
staying in the workforce,

our economy would be more
productive than ever.

But on the other hand,

if people stayed in their
positions for hundreds of years,

then there'd be no
room for young people

to find jobs and move out.

This sort of stagnation
would become a problem

in other areas like
social progression.

If the same old thinking
leaders from the 18th century

never died or
retired from power,

who's to say we'd ever
be able to progress

past problems like
racial segregation?

Even if our society found
a way to regulate itself,

what would the whole
immortality experience

be like for you
as an individual?

If we had virtually
endless days ahead of us,

wouldn't that take
away a big part

of what makes life special,

there'd be less incentive
to make every day count,

and as a result, we might end up

with a bunch of unhappy
people on our planet.

Oh, and by the way, that planet
is not getting any bigger,

it's just going to keep
getting more crowded.

Earth already has an
overpopulation problem,

and if the death
rate slows to a halt,

then our resources are going
to start running out quickly.

Suddenly, the idea
of immortality

doesn't seem so great after all.

Eventually, we wouldn't have
any room for new generations.

Maybe we'd have to start
shipping people out

to settle on other planets.

- [Alan] It has become
extremely plausible

that,

this trip between the maternity
ward and the crematorium

is what there is to life.

But when you consider
this attitude,

you know what is the
poetic counterpart of it,

man is a little germ, that lives
on an unimportant rock ball

that revolves about
an insignificant star

on the outer edges of one
of the smaller galaxies.

God, what a put down that was?

But you see, I don't
know what question to ask

when I wonder
about the universe?

It isn't a question that
I'm wondering about,

it's a feeling that I have.

Because I cannot
formulate the question,

that is my wonder,

the moment my mouth
opens to utter it,

I suddenly find I'm
talking nonsense.

But that should
not prevent wonder

from being the
foundation of philosophy.

[soft piano music]

Well, as Aristotle said,

"Wonder is the beginning
of philosophy".

Because it strikes you that
existence is very, very strange.

So,

there is obviously a place

in life for awe,
astonishment, at existence.

And that is also a basis
of respect for existence.

We don't have very much
of it in this culture,

even though we call
it materialistic.

A materialist is a person
who loves material.

[soft piano music]

In the culture that we
call materialistic today

we are of course bent on the
total destruction of material

and its conversion into
junk and poisonous gas

as quickly as possible.

This is not a
materialistic culture,

because it has no
respect for material

and respect is in
turn based on wonder,

on feelings of marvel,

of just an ordinary
pebble in your fingers.

And then more so,

when this so called
insignificant little creature

has inside his skull,

a neurological contraption,

that is able to center
itself in the midst of these,

incredible expansive galaxies

and start measuring
the whole thing.

That is quite extraordinary.

And then furthermore,
when you realize

that in a world where
there're no eyes,

the sun would not be light,

and that in a world where
there were no soft skins

rocks would not be hard,

nor in a world where
there were no muscles

would they be heavy.

Existence is relationship,

and you are smack
in the middle of it.

[dramatic orchestral music]

[air whooshing]

[dramatic orchestral music]

[dramatic orchestral music]

[electric sounds]

[downbeat music]