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Hello. My name is Ann Druyan.
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When Carl Sagan, Steven Soter and I...
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00:00:07,400 --> 00:00:11,200
...wrote the Cosmos TV series
in the late 1970s...
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00:00:11,200 --> 00:00:12,900
...a lot of things where different.
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00:00:12,900 --> 00:00:15,100
Back then, the U.S. and the Soviet Union...
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00:00:15,100 --> 00:00:18,300
...held the hole planet
in their perpetual hostage crisis...
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...called the Cold War.
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The wealth and scientific ingenuity
of our civilization...
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...was being squandered
on a runaway arms raise.
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Then employed half the world scientists...
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...and infested the world
with 50.000 nuclear weapons.
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So much has happened since then.
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The Cold War is history...
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...and science has made great strides.
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00:00:42,000 --> 00:00:45,800
We've completed the spacecraft
recognizance of the Solar System...
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00:00:45,800 --> 00:00:49,800
...the preliminary mapping of the visible
universe that surrounds us...
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00:00:49,800 --> 00:00:53,800
...and we've charted the universe within:
the human genome.
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00:00:54,700 --> 00:00:58,600
When Cosmos was first broadcast
there was no World Wide Web...
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00:00:58,600 --> 00:01:00,800
...it was a different world.
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What a tribute to Carl Sagan...
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...a scientist who took many a punch
for daring to speculate...
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...that even after 20 of the most eventful
years in the history of science...
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...Cosmos requires few revisions
and indeed is rich in prophecy.
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Cosmos is both the history
of the scientific enterprise...
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...and an attempt to convey the spiritual high...
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...of its central revelation:
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Our oneness with the universe.
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Now, please, enjoy Cosmos,
the proud saga of how...
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...through the searching of 40.000
generations of our ancestors...
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...we have come to discover
our coordinates...
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...in space and in time.
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And how, through the awesomely
powerful method of science...
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...we have been able to reconstruct
the sweep of cosmic evolution...
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...and defined our own part
in its great story.
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SAGAN:
The cosmos is all that is...
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...or ever was or ever will be.
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Our contemplations of
the cosmos stir us.
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There is a tingling in the spine,
a catch in the voice...
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...a faint sensation,
as if a distant memory...
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...of falling from a great height.
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We know we are approaching
the grandest of mysteries.
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The size and age of the cosmos...
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...are beyond ordinary
human understanding.
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Lost somewhere between
immensity and eternity...
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...is our tiny planetary home,
the Earth.
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For the first time,
we have the power to decide...
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...the fate of our planet
and ourselves.
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This is a time of great danger.
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00:04:04,860 --> 00:04:09,090
But our species is
young and curious and brave.
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It shows much promise.
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In the last few millennia,
we've made...
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...the most astonishing
and unexpected discoveries...
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...about the cosmos
and our place within it.
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I believe our future depends
powerfully on...
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...how well we understand
this cosmos...
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...in which we float
like a mote of dust...
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...in the morning sky.
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(SEA GULL CHIRPS)
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We're about to begin a journey
through the cosmos.
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We'll encounter galaxies and suns
and planets...
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...life and consciousness...
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...coming into being,
evolving and perishing.
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Worlds of ice and stars of diamond.
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Atoms as massive as suns...
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...and universes smaller than atoms.
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But it's also a story
of our own planet...
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...and the plants and animals
that share it with us.
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And it's a story about us:
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How we achieved our present
understanding of the cosmos...
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...how the cosmos has shaped
our evolution and our culture...
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...and what our fate may be.
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We wish to pursue the truth,
no matter where it leads.
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But to find the truth, we need
imagination and skepticism both.
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We will not be afraid to speculate.
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But we will be careful to distinguish
speculation from fact.
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The cosmos is full beyond measure
of elegant truths...
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...of exquisite interrelationships...
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...of the awesome machinery of nature.
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The surface of the Earth is
the shore of the cosmic ocean.
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On this shore, we have learned
most of what we know.
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Recently, we've waded
a little way out...
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...maybe ankle-deep,
and the water seems inviting.
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Some part of our being knows
this is where we came from.
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We long to return.
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And we can.
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Because the cosmos is also within us.
We're made of star-stuff.
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We are a way for the cosmos
to know itself.
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The journey for each of us
begins here.
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We're going to explore the cosmos
in a ship of the imagination...
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...unfettered by ordinary limits
on speed and size...
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...drawn by the music
of cosmic harmonies...
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...it can take us anywhere
in space and time.
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Perfect as a snowflake...
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...organic as a dandelion seed...
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...it will carry us...
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...to worlds of dreams
and worlds of facts.
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Come with me.
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Before us is the cosmos
on the grandest scale we know.
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We are far from the shores of Earth...
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...in the uncharted reaches
of the cosmic ocean.
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Strewn like sea froth
on the waves of space...
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...are innumerable
faint tendrils of light.
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Some of them containing hundreds...
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...of billions of suns.
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These are the galaxies...
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...drifting endlessly
in the great cosmic dark.
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In our ship of the imagination...
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...we are halfway to the edge
of the known universe.
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In this, the first of
our cosmic voyages...
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...we begin to explore the universe
revealed by science.
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Our course will eventually carry us
to a far-off and exotic world.
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But from the depths of space,
we cannot detect even...
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...the cluster of galaxies
in which our Milky Way is embedded...
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...much less the sun or the Earth.
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We are in the realm
of the galaxies...
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...8 billion light years from home.
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No matter where we travel,
the patterns of nature are the same...
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...as in the form
of this spiral galaxy.
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The same laws of physics
apply everywhere...
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...throughout the cosmos.
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But we have just begun to
understand these laws.
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The universe is rich in mystery.
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Near the center of
a cluster of galaxies...
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...there's sometimes a rogue,
elliptical galaxy...
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...made of a trillion suns...
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...which devours its neighbors.
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Perhaps this cyclone of stars...
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...is what astronomers on Earth
call a quasar.
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00:10:02,080 --> 00:10:05,480
Our ordinary measures
of distance fail us...
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...here in the realm of the galaxies.
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We need a much larger unit:
the light year.
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00:10:11,460 --> 00:10:14,020
It measures how far
light travels in a year...
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...nearly 10 trillion kilometers.
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It measures not time,
but enormous distances.
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In the Hercules cluster...
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...the individual galaxies are
about 300,000 light years apart.
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So light takes about 300,000 years...
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...to go from one galaxy to another.
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00:10:52,700 --> 00:10:56,260
Like stars and planets and people...
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...galaxies are born, live and die.
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00:11:01,140 --> 00:11:05,130
They may all experience
a tumultuous adolescence.
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During their first 100 million years,
their cores may explode.
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Seen in radio light,
great jets of energy...
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...pour out and echo
across the cosmos.
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Worlds near the core or along
the jets would be incinerated.
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I wonder how many planets
and how many civilizations...
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...might be destroyed.
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00:11:36,410 --> 00:11:40,240
In the Pegasus cluster,
there's a ring galaxy...
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...the wreckage left from
the collision of two galaxies.
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A splash in the cosmic pond.
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Individual galaxies may
explode and collide...
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...and their constituent stars
may blow up as well.
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00:11:55,830 --> 00:11:58,200
In this supernova explosion...
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...a single star outshines
the rest of its galaxy.
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00:12:05,270 --> 00:12:08,730
We are approaching what
astronomers on Earth call...
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...the Local Group.
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Three million light years across,
it contains some 20 galaxies.
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It's a sparse and rather typical
chain of islands...
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...in the immense cosmic ocean.
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We are now only 2 million
light years from home.
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On the maps of space,
this galaxy is called M31...
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...the great galaxy Andromeda.
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It's a vast storm of stars
and gas and dust.
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As we pass over it...
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...we see one of its small
satellite galaxies.
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Clusters of galaxies...
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...and the stars of
individual galaxies...
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...are all held together by gravity.
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Surrounding M31...
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...are hundreds of globular
star clusters.
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We're approaching one of them.
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Each cluster orbits the massive
center of the galaxy.
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Some contain up to
a million separate stars.
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Every globular cluster is
like a swarm of bees...
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...bound by gravity...
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...every bee, a sun.
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From Pegasus,
our voyage has taken us...
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...200 million light years
to the Local Group...
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...dominated by two
great spiral galaxies.
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Beyond M31 is another
very similar galaxy.
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Its spiral arms slowly turning...
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...once every quarter billion years.
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This is our own Milky Way...
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...seen from the outside.
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This is the home galaxy
of the human species.
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In the obscure backwaters
of the Carina-Cygnus spiral arm...
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...we humans have evolved
to consciousness...
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...and some measure of understanding.
189
00:14:30,080 --> 00:14:33,420
This region of the Milky Way galaxy is
now usually called the Local Arm...
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00:14:33,620 --> 00:14:37,350
...or the Orion Arm, but the spiral
arm nomenclature remains rather fuzzy.
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Concentrated in its brilliant core...
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...and strewn along its spiral arms...
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...are 400 billion suns.
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00:14:50,900 --> 00:14:53,400
It takes light 100,000 years
to travel...
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00:14:53,610 --> 00:14:56,580
...from one end of the galaxy
to the other.
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Within this galaxy are
stars and worlds...
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...and, it may be, an enormous
diversity of living things...
198
00:15:07,320 --> 00:15:12,260
...and intelligent beings
and space faring civilizations.
199
00:15:20,170 --> 00:15:22,970
Scattered among the stars
of the Milky Way...
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00:15:23,170 --> 00:15:25,140
...are supernova remnants...
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00:15:25,340 --> 00:15:29,600
...each one the remains of
a colossal stellar explosion.
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00:15:29,880 --> 00:15:31,900
These filaments of glowing gas...
203
00:15:32,110 --> 00:15:36,140
...are the outer layers of a star
which has recently destroyed itself.
204
00:15:36,350 --> 00:15:38,080
The gas is unraveling...
205
00:15:38,290 --> 00:15:41,810
...returning star-stuff
back into space.
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00:15:42,060 --> 00:15:44,990
(PULSAR HISSES)
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00:15:46,030 --> 00:15:49,290
And at its heart, are the remains
of the original star...
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...a dense, shrunken stellar
fragment called a pulsar.
209
00:15:54,370 --> 00:15:57,670
A natural lighthouse,
blinking and hissing.
210
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A sun that spins twice each second.
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00:16:07,250 --> 00:16:10,610
Pulsars keep such perfect time
that the first one discovered...
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...was thought to be a sign of
extraterrestrial intelligence.
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00:16:13,920 --> 00:16:16,290
Perhaps a navigational beacon...
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00:16:16,490 --> 00:16:19,430
...for great ships that travel
across the light years...
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00:16:19,760 --> 00:16:21,780
...and between the stars.
216
00:16:25,430 --> 00:16:29,030
There may be such intelligences
and such starships...
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00:16:29,240 --> 00:16:33,000
...but pulsars are not
their signature.
218
00:16:43,180 --> 00:16:46,580
Instead, they are
the doleful reminders...
219
00:16:46,790 --> 00:16:48,550
...that nothing lasts forever...
220
00:16:48,760 --> 00:16:51,450
...that stars also die.
221
00:16:54,090 --> 00:16:58,030
We continue to plummet,
falling thousands of light years...
222
00:16:58,230 --> 00:17:00,760
...towards the plane of the galaxy.
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00:17:03,100 --> 00:17:04,730
This is the Milky Way...
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00:17:04,940 --> 00:17:07,410
...our galaxy seen edge on.
225
00:17:07,610 --> 00:17:09,700
Billions of nuclear furnaces...
226
00:17:09,910 --> 00:17:12,970
...converting matter into starlight.
227
00:17:17,880 --> 00:17:20,790
Some stars are flimsy
as a soap bubble.
228
00:17:20,990 --> 00:17:25,360
Others are 100 trillion times
denser than lead.
229
00:17:25,560 --> 00:17:29,090
The hottest stars are
destined to die young.
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But red giants are mostly elderly.
231
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Such stars are unlikely
to have inhabited planets.
232
00:17:39,970 --> 00:17:42,670
But yellow dwarf stars,
like the sun...
233
00:17:42,880 --> 00:17:46,740
...are middle-aged
and they are far more common.
234
00:17:47,450 --> 00:17:50,380
These stars may have
planetary systems.
235
00:17:50,580 --> 00:17:54,180
And on such planets, for the first
time on our cosmic voyage...
236
00:17:54,390 --> 00:17:56,880
...we encounter rare forms of matter:
237
00:17:57,090 --> 00:18:01,690
Ice and rock, air and liquid water.
238
00:18:06,630 --> 00:18:08,260
Close to this yellow star...
239
00:18:08,500 --> 00:18:11,490
...is a small, warm, cloudy world...
240
00:18:11,710 --> 00:18:13,870
...with continents and oceans.
241
00:18:14,070 --> 00:18:19,010
These conditions permit an even more
precious form of matter to arise:
242
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Life.
243
00:18:27,920 --> 00:18:29,790
But this is not the Earth.
244
00:18:29,990 --> 00:18:34,650
Intelligent beings have evolved
and reworked this planetary surface...
245
00:18:34,860 --> 00:18:37,730
...in a massive engineering
enterprise.
246
00:18:37,930 --> 00:18:41,160
In the Milky Way galaxy,
there may be many worlds...
247
00:18:41,370 --> 00:18:44,800
...on which matter has
grown to consciousness.
248
00:18:52,080 --> 00:18:55,410
I wonder, are they very
different from us?
249
00:18:55,620 --> 00:18:57,050
What do they look like?
250
00:18:57,250 --> 00:19:01,350
What are their politics, technology,
music, religion?
251
00:19:01,860 --> 00:19:06,350
Or do they have patterns of culture
we can't begin to imagine?
252
00:19:06,560 --> 00:19:10,790
Are they also a danger to themselves?
253
00:19:17,700 --> 00:19:21,230
Among the many glowing clouds
of interstellar gas...
254
00:19:21,440 --> 00:19:24,430
...is one called the Orion Nebula...
255
00:19:24,680 --> 00:19:27,810
...only 1 500 light years from Earth.
256
00:19:33,220 --> 00:19:36,620
These three bright stars
are seen by earthlings...
257
00:19:36,820 --> 00:19:41,620
...as the belt in the familiar
constellation of Orion the hunter.
258
00:19:48,030 --> 00:19:51,200
The nebula appears from Earth
as a patch of light...
259
00:19:51,400 --> 00:19:55,640
...the middle star in Orion's sword.
260
00:20:03,620 --> 00:20:06,080
But it is not a star.
261
00:20:06,290 --> 00:20:09,220
It is another thing entirely.
262
00:20:09,420 --> 00:20:14,190
A cloud that veils
one of nature's secret places.
263
00:20:23,240 --> 00:20:28,170
This is a stellar nursery,
a place where stars are born.
264
00:20:28,410 --> 00:20:31,170
They condense by gravity
from gas and dust...
265
00:20:31,380 --> 00:20:36,210
...until their temperatures become
so high that they begin to shine.
266
00:20:36,750 --> 00:20:39,480
Such clouds mark
the births of stars...
267
00:20:39,690 --> 00:20:42,520
...as others bear witness
to their deaths.
268
00:20:48,630 --> 00:20:52,860
After stars condense in the hidden
interiors of interstellar clouds...
269
00:20:53,070 --> 00:20:54,560
...what happens to them?
270
00:20:54,770 --> 00:20:58,300
The Pleiades are a loose cluster
of young stars...
271
00:20:58,510 --> 00:21:00,560
...only 50 million years old.
272
00:21:00,770 --> 00:21:05,710
These fledgling stars are just
being let out into the galaxy.
273
00:21:05,950 --> 00:21:09,140
Still surrounded by wisps
of nebulosity...
274
00:21:09,350 --> 00:21:12,880
...the gas and dust
from which they formed.
275
00:21:47,290 --> 00:21:50,650
There are clouds
that hang like inkblots...
276
00:21:50,860 --> 00:21:52,480
...between the stars.
277
00:21:52,690 --> 00:21:55,490
They are made of fine, rocky dust...
278
00:21:55,700 --> 00:21:58,100
...organic matter and ice.
279
00:21:59,800 --> 00:22:03,790
Inside, a few stars begin to turn on.
280
00:22:04,000 --> 00:22:05,900
Nearby worlds of ice evaporate...
281
00:22:06,110 --> 00:22:08,700
...and form long, comet-like tails...
282
00:22:08,910 --> 00:22:11,840
...driven back by the stellar winds.
283
00:22:16,780 --> 00:22:20,050
Black clouds, light years across...
284
00:22:20,250 --> 00:22:22,220
...drift between the stars.
285
00:22:22,420 --> 00:22:25,360
They're filled with
organic molecules.
286
00:22:25,560 --> 00:22:28,430
The building blocks of life
are everywhere.
287
00:22:28,630 --> 00:22:30,600
They are easily made.
288
00:22:30,800 --> 00:22:35,730
On how many worlds have such complex
molecules assembled themselves...
289
00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:39,670
...into patterns we would
call alive?
290
00:22:45,010 --> 00:22:49,880
Most stars belong to systems
of two or three or many suns...
291
00:22:50,080 --> 00:22:52,070
...bound together by gravity.
292
00:22:52,290 --> 00:22:55,520
Each system is isolated
from its neighbors...
293
00:22:55,720 --> 00:22:57,280
...by the light years.
294
00:22:59,590 --> 00:23:03,390
We are approaching a single,
ordinary, yellow dwarf star...
295
00:23:03,600 --> 00:23:06,290
...surrounded by a system
of nine planets...
296
00:23:06,500 --> 00:23:10,960
...dozens of moons, thousands of
asteroids and billions of comets:
297
00:23:11,200 --> 00:23:13,230
The family of the sun.
298
00:23:14,970 --> 00:23:19,240
Only four light hours from Earth
is the planet Neptune...
299
00:23:19,450 --> 00:23:22,210
...and its giant satellite, Triton.
300
00:23:25,950 --> 00:23:28,820
Even in the outskirts
of our own solar system...
301
00:23:29,020 --> 00:23:33,120
...we humans have barely begun
our explorations.
302
00:23:35,560 --> 00:23:36,960
Only a century ago...
303
00:23:37,160 --> 00:23:41,030
...we were ignorant even of
the existence of the planet Pluto.
304
00:23:41,230 --> 00:23:43,570
Its moon, Charon, remained
undiscovered until 1978.
305
00:23:43,570 --> 00:23:48,230
Since the discovery of Kuiper Belt objects
in 1 992, Pluto has come to be seen...
306
00:23:48,440 --> 00:23:51,140
...as the largest member of
this population of comets.
307
00:23:51,140 --> 00:23:51,510
The rings of Uranus were
first detected in 1977.
308
00:23:51,510 --> 00:23:54,540
Many astronomers no longer
regard it as a planet.
309
00:23:55,820 --> 00:23:59,680
There are new worlds to chart
even this close to home.
310
00:24:03,120 --> 00:24:06,460
Saturn is a giant gas world.
311
00:24:06,660 --> 00:24:08,630
If it has a solid surface...
312
00:24:08,830 --> 00:24:12,630
...it must lie far below
the clouds we see.
313
00:24:14,270 --> 00:24:16,200
Saturn's majestic rings...
314
00:24:16,400 --> 00:24:19,670
...are made of trillions
of orbiting snowballs.
315
00:24:25,550 --> 00:24:29,570
We are now only 80 light minutes
from home.
316
00:24:29,780 --> 00:24:33,270
A mere 1 1/2 billion kilometers.
317
00:24:47,100 --> 00:24:50,970
The largest planet in our
solar system is Jupiter.
318
00:24:51,170 --> 00:24:55,500
On its dark side, super bolts
of lightning illuminate the clouds...
319
00:24:55,710 --> 00:25:00,540
...as first revealed by
the Voyager spacecraft in 1979.
320
00:25:12,760 --> 00:25:14,590
Inside the orbit of Jupiter...
321
00:25:14,790 --> 00:25:18,390
...are countless shattered
and broken world-lets:
322
00:25:18,600 --> 00:25:20,190
The asteroids.
323
00:25:20,400 --> 00:25:22,490
These reefs and shoals...
324
00:25:22,700 --> 00:25:25,870
...mark the border of
the realm of giant planets.
325
00:25:26,070 --> 00:25:30,480
We are now entering the shallows
of the solar system.
326
00:25:32,210 --> 00:25:36,550
Here there are worlds with thin
atmospheres and solid surfaces:
327
00:25:36,750 --> 00:25:38,080
Earth-like planets...
328
00:25:38,280 --> 00:25:42,310
...with landscapes crying out
for careful exploration.
329
00:25:42,520 --> 00:25:45,510
This world is Mars.
330
00:25:47,990 --> 00:25:51,490
In 1976, after a year's voyage...
331
00:25:51,700 --> 00:25:54,190
...two robot explorers from Earth...
332
00:25:54,400 --> 00:25:56,990
...landed on this alien shore.
333
00:25:58,870 --> 00:26:02,470
On Mars, there is a volcano
as wide as Arizona...
334
00:26:02,680 --> 00:26:05,440
...and almost three times
the height of Mount Everest.
335
00:26:05,650 --> 00:26:08,770
We've named it Mount Olympus.
336
00:26:13,490 --> 00:26:16,420
This is a world of wonders.
337
00:26:18,090 --> 00:26:20,720
Mars is a planet with ancient
river valleys...
338
00:26:20,930 --> 00:26:25,860
...and violent sandstorms driven
by winds at half the speed of sound.
339
00:26:33,070 --> 00:26:37,910
There is a giant rift in its surface
5000 kilometers long.
340
00:26:38,110 --> 00:26:41,570
It's called Vallis Marinaris.
341
00:26:41,780 --> 00:26:44,110
The valley of
the Mariner spacecraft...
342
00:26:44,320 --> 00:26:48,690
...that came to explore Mars
from a nearby world.
343
00:27:06,740 --> 00:27:10,000
In this, our first cosmic voyage...
344
00:27:10,210 --> 00:27:13,040
...we have just begun
the reconnaissance of Mars...
345
00:27:13,250 --> 00:27:16,700
...and all those other planets
and stars and galaxies.
346
00:27:16,920 --> 00:27:21,180
In voyages to come,
we will explore them more fully.
347
00:27:28,730 --> 00:27:32,390
But now, we travel the few
remaining light minutes...
348
00:27:32,600 --> 00:27:37,330
...to a blue and cloudy world,
third from the sun.
349
00:27:37,740 --> 00:27:39,800
The end of our long journey...
350
00:27:40,010 --> 00:27:42,410
...is the world where we began.
351
00:27:42,740 --> 00:27:44,570
Our travels allow us...
352
00:27:44,780 --> 00:27:47,040
...to see the Earth anew...
353
00:27:47,250 --> 00:27:50,310
...as if we came from somewhere else.
354
00:27:52,750 --> 00:27:55,380
There are a hundred billion
galaxies...
355
00:27:55,590 --> 00:27:58,580
...and a billion trillion stars.
356
00:27:58,790 --> 00:28:03,390
Why should this modest planet
be the only inhabited world?
357
00:28:03,600 --> 00:28:08,190
To me, it seems far more likely
that the cosmos is brimming over...
358
00:28:08,400 --> 00:28:10,530
...with life and intelligence.
359
00:28:10,740 --> 00:28:13,400
But so far, every living thing...
360
00:28:13,610 --> 00:28:15,200
...every conscious being...
361
00:28:15,410 --> 00:28:18,100
...every civilization
we know anything about...
362
00:28:18,310 --> 00:28:21,010
...lived there, on Earth.
363
00:28:28,250 --> 00:28:29,880
Beneath these clouds...
364
00:28:30,090 --> 00:28:33,720
...the drama of the human species
has been unfolded.
365
00:28:36,360 --> 00:28:39,590
We have, at last, come home.
366
00:28:49,310 --> 00:28:51,500
Welcome to the planet Earth.
367
00:28:51,840 --> 00:28:54,680
A place with blue nitrogen skies...
368
00:28:54,880 --> 00:28:56,780
...oceans of liquid water...
369
00:28:56,980 --> 00:28:58,310
...cool forests...
370
00:28:58,520 --> 00:28:59,920
...soft meadows.
371
00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:03,750
A world positively rippling with life.
372
00:29:04,290 --> 00:29:07,820
In the cosmic perspective,
it is, for the moment, unique.
373
00:29:08,030 --> 00:29:10,660
The only world in which
we know with certainty...
374
00:29:10,860 --> 00:29:14,860
...that the matter of the cosmos
has become alive and aware.
375
00:29:15,100 --> 00:29:17,930
There must be many such worlds
scattered through space...
376
00:29:18,140 --> 00:29:20,570
...but our search for them
begins here...
377
00:29:20,770 --> 00:29:24,170
...with the accumulated wisdom of
the men and women of our species...
378
00:29:24,380 --> 00:29:26,170
...acquired at great cost...
379
00:29:26,380 --> 00:29:28,510
...over a million years.
380
00:30:11,660 --> 00:30:14,560
There was once a time when
our planet seemed immense.
381
00:30:14,760 --> 00:30:17,250
When it was the only world
we could explore.
382
00:30:17,460 --> 00:30:21,700
Its true size was first worked out
in a simple and ingenious way...
383
00:30:21,900 --> 00:30:26,170
...by a man who lived here in Egypt,
in the third century B.C.
384
00:30:32,110 --> 00:30:36,380
This tower may have been
a communications tower.
385
00:30:36,580 --> 00:30:40,350
Part of a network running along
the North African coast...
386
00:30:40,550 --> 00:30:44,960
...by which signal bonfires were used
to communicate messages of state.
387
00:30:45,160 --> 00:30:49,560
It also may have been used
as a lighthouse...
388
00:30:49,760 --> 00:30:53,030
...a navigational beacon
for sailing ships...
389
00:30:53,230 --> 00:30:55,560
...out there in the Mediterranean Sea.
390
00:30:55,770 --> 00:30:58,290
It is about 50 kilometers west...
391
00:30:58,500 --> 00:31:03,170
...of what was once one of the great
cities of the world, Alexandria.
392
00:31:04,110 --> 00:31:06,140
In Alexandria, at that time...
393
00:31:06,350 --> 00:31:09,370
...there lived a man named
Eratosthenes.
394
00:31:09,580 --> 00:31:14,080
A competitor called him "beta," the
second letter of the Greek alphabet...
395
00:31:14,290 --> 00:31:18,990
...because, he said, "Eratosthenes
was second best in everything."
396
00:31:19,190 --> 00:31:23,920
But it seems clear, in many fields,
Eratosthenes was "alpha."
397
00:31:24,130 --> 00:31:27,790
He was an astronomer, historian,
geographer...
398
00:31:28,030 --> 00:31:31,900
...philosopher, poet, theater critic
and mathematician.
399
00:31:32,100 --> 00:31:36,510
He was also the chief librarian
of the Great Library of Alexandria.
400
00:31:36,710 --> 00:31:41,650
And one day while reading
a papyrus book in the library...
401
00:31:41,850 --> 00:31:45,780
...he came upon a curious account.
402
00:31:53,030 --> 00:31:54,860
Far to the south, he read...
403
00:31:55,060 --> 00:31:57,390
...at the frontier outpost of Syene...
404
00:31:57,600 --> 00:32:01,090
...something notable could be seen
on the longest day of the year.
405
00:32:06,070 --> 00:32:07,600
On June 21st...
406
00:32:07,810 --> 00:32:10,870
...the shadows of a temple column,
or a vertical stick...
407
00:32:11,080 --> 00:32:13,670
...would grow shorter
as noon approached.
408
00:32:19,620 --> 00:32:21,250
As the hours crept towards midday...
409
00:32:21,450 --> 00:32:25,690
...the sun's rays would slither down
the sides of a deep well...
410
00:32:25,890 --> 00:32:28,380
...which on other days
would remain in shadow.
411
00:32:35,330 --> 00:32:37,960
And then, precisely at noon...
412
00:32:38,170 --> 00:32:40,570
...columns would cast no shadows.
413
00:32:40,770 --> 00:32:45,300
And the sun would shine directly down
into the water of the well.
414
00:32:51,450 --> 00:32:52,880
At that moment...
415
00:32:53,090 --> 00:32:55,610
...the sun was exactly overhead.
416
00:33:00,830 --> 00:33:05,160
It was an observation that someone else
might easily have ignored.
417
00:33:05,360 --> 00:33:09,230
Sticks, shadows,
reflections in wells...
418
00:33:09,440 --> 00:33:11,160
...the position of the sun...
419
00:33:11,370 --> 00:33:13,400
...simple, everyday matters.
420
00:33:13,610 --> 00:33:16,670
Of what possible importance
might they be?
421
00:33:17,040 --> 00:33:19,740
But Eratosthenes was a scientist...
422
00:33:19,950 --> 00:33:23,400
...and his contemplation of these
homely matters changed the world...
423
00:33:23,620 --> 00:33:25,880
...in a way, made the world.
424
00:33:26,090 --> 00:33:30,220
Because Eratosthenes had
the presence of mind to experiment...
425
00:33:30,420 --> 00:33:34,880
...to actually ask whether
back here, near Alexandria...
426
00:33:35,090 --> 00:33:40,030
...a stick cast a shadow
near noon on June the 21 st.
427
00:33:40,400 --> 00:33:43,200
And it turns out, sticks do.
428
00:33:45,470 --> 00:33:47,910
An overly skeptical person
might have said...
429
00:33:48,110 --> 00:33:50,770
...that the report from Syene
was an error.
430
00:33:50,980 --> 00:33:53,770
But it's an absolutely
straightforward observation.
431
00:33:53,980 --> 00:33:57,140
Why would anyone lie
on such a trivial matter?
432
00:33:57,350 --> 00:34:00,080
Eratosthenes asked himself
how it could be...
433
00:34:00,290 --> 00:34:02,310
...that at the same moment...
434
00:34:02,520 --> 00:34:05,180
...a stick in Syene
would cast no shadow...
435
00:34:05,390 --> 00:34:08,950
...and a stick in Alexandria,
800 kilometers to the north...
436
00:34:09,160 --> 00:34:11,720
...would cast a very definite shadow.
437
00:34:14,800 --> 00:34:18,070
Here is a map of ancient Egypt.
438
00:34:18,900 --> 00:34:22,270
I've inserted two sticks, or obelisks.
439
00:34:22,470 --> 00:34:26,930
One up here in Alexandria
and one down here in Syene.
440
00:34:27,150 --> 00:34:30,980
Now, if at a certain moment
each stick casts...
441
00:34:31,180 --> 00:34:33,580
...no shadow, no shadow at all...
442
00:34:33,950 --> 00:34:38,220
...that's perfectly easy to understand,
provided the Earth is flat.
443
00:34:38,420 --> 00:34:41,620
If the shadow at Syene is
at a certain length...
444
00:34:41,830 --> 00:34:44,260
...and the shadow at Alexandria is
the same length...
445
00:34:44,460 --> 00:34:47,020
...that also makes sense
on a flat Earth.
446
00:34:47,500 --> 00:34:50,730
But how could it be,
Eratosthenes asked...
447
00:34:50,940 --> 00:34:55,430
...that at the same instant
there was no shadow at Syene...
448
00:34:55,770 --> 00:35:00,440
...and a very substantial shadow
at Alexandria?
449
00:35:01,780 --> 00:35:06,340
The only answer was that
the surface of the Earth is curved.
450
00:35:06,590 --> 00:35:07,920
Not only that...
451
00:35:08,120 --> 00:35:11,920
...but the greater the curvature,
the bigger the difference...
452
00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:15,820
...in the lengths of the shadows.
The sun is so far away...
453
00:35:16,030 --> 00:35:18,460
...that its rays are parallel
when they reach the Earth.
454
00:35:18,660 --> 00:35:22,930
Sticks at different angles to the sun
will cast shadows at different lengths.
455
00:35:23,140 --> 00:35:26,570
For the observed difference
in the shadow lengths...
456
00:35:26,770 --> 00:35:29,210
...the distance between
Alexandria and Syene...
457
00:35:29,410 --> 00:35:33,310
...had to be about seven degrees
along the surface of the Earth.
458
00:35:33,510 --> 00:35:37,410
By that, I mean, if you would imagine
these sticks extending...
459
00:35:37,620 --> 00:35:40,050
...all the way down
to the center of the Earth...
460
00:35:40,320 --> 00:35:43,410
...they would there intersect
at an angle of seven degrees.
461
00:35:43,620 --> 00:35:46,790
Well, seven degrees is
something like a 50th...
462
00:35:46,990 --> 00:35:50,550
...of the full circumference
of the Earth, 360 degrees.
463
00:35:50,760 --> 00:35:55,290
Eratosthenes knew the distance
between Alexandria and Syene.
464
00:35:55,500 --> 00:35:57,470
He knew it was 800 kilometers.
465
00:35:57,670 --> 00:36:02,270
Why? Because he hired a man
to pace out the entire distance...
466
00:36:02,470 --> 00:36:05,930
...so that he could perform
the calculation I'm talking about.
467
00:36:06,150 --> 00:36:10,880
Now, 800 kilometers times 50
is 40,000 kilometers.
468
00:36:11,080 --> 00:36:13,180
That must be the circumference
of the Earth.
469
00:36:13,390 --> 00:36:16,580
That's how far it is to go
once around the Earth.
470
00:36:17,060 --> 00:36:18,520
That's the right answer.
471
00:36:18,720 --> 00:36:21,060
Eratosthenes' only tools were...
472
00:36:21,260 --> 00:36:25,130
...sticks, eyes, feet and brains.
473
00:36:25,660 --> 00:36:28,690
Plus a zest for experiment.
474
00:36:29,400 --> 00:36:33,130
With those tools, he correctly deduced
the circumference of the Earth...
475
00:36:33,340 --> 00:36:37,800
...to high precision with an error
of only a few percent.
476
00:36:38,910 --> 00:36:43,850
That's pretty good figuring
for 2200 years ago.
477
00:36:54,190 --> 00:36:57,920
Then, as now, the Mediterranean was
teeming with ships.
478
00:36:58,130 --> 00:37:02,230
Merchantmen, fishing vessels,
naval flotillas.
479
00:37:02,430 --> 00:37:06,800
But there were also
courageous voyages into the unknown.
480
00:37:08,210 --> 00:37:12,840
400 years before Eratosthenes,
Africa was circumnavigated...
481
00:37:13,050 --> 00:37:15,980
...by a Phoenician fleet
in the employ...
482
00:37:16,180 --> 00:37:18,240
...of the Egyptian pharaoh Necho.
483
00:37:18,450 --> 00:37:19,640
They set sail...
484
00:37:19,850 --> 00:37:24,380
...probably in boats as frail
and open as these...
485
00:37:24,590 --> 00:37:27,790
...out from the Red Sea,
down the east coast of Africa...
486
00:37:27,990 --> 00:37:31,260
...up into the Atlantic and then
back through the Mediterranean.
487
00:37:31,660 --> 00:37:34,360
That epic journey took three years...
488
00:37:34,570 --> 00:37:36,690
...about as long as
it takes Voyager...
489
00:37:36,900 --> 00:37:39,890
...to journey from Earth to Saturn.
490
00:37:40,470 --> 00:37:43,100
After Eratosthenes,
some may have attempted...
491
00:37:43,310 --> 00:37:45,670
...to circumnavigate the Earth.
492
00:37:45,880 --> 00:37:48,780
But until the time of Magellan,
no one succeeded.
493
00:37:49,380 --> 00:37:52,370
What tales of adventure and daring...
494
00:37:52,580 --> 00:37:54,710
...must earlier have been told...
495
00:37:54,920 --> 00:37:59,250
...as sailors and navigators,
practical men of the world...
496
00:37:59,460 --> 00:38:02,330
...gambled their lives
on the mathematics...
497
00:38:02,530 --> 00:38:05,960
...of a scientist
from ancient Alexandria.
498
00:38:12,570 --> 00:38:16,230
Today, Alexandria shows few traces
of its ancient glory...
499
00:38:16,440 --> 00:38:19,770
...of the days when Eratosthenes
walked its broad avenues.
500
00:38:19,980 --> 00:38:24,640
Over the centuries, waves of conquerors
converted its palaces and temples...
501
00:38:24,850 --> 00:38:29,620
...into castles and churches,
then into minarets and mosques.
502
00:38:30,960 --> 00:38:35,360
The city was chosen to be the capital
of his empire by Alexander the Great...
503
00:38:35,560 --> 00:38:39,520
...on a winter's afternoon in 331 B.C.
504
00:38:40,070 --> 00:38:43,400
A century later, it had become
the greatest city of the world.
505
00:38:43,600 --> 00:38:47,330
Each successive civilization
has left its mark.
506
00:38:53,280 --> 00:38:57,740
But what now remains of the
marvel city of Alexander's dream?
507
00:38:59,220 --> 00:39:02,120
Alexandria is still
a thriving marketplace...
508
00:39:02,320 --> 00:39:05,590
...still a crossroads
for the peoples of the Near East.
509
00:39:12,060 --> 00:39:15,230
But once, it was radiant
with self-confidence...
510
00:39:15,430 --> 00:39:17,700
...certain of its power.
511
00:39:24,280 --> 00:39:26,370
Can you recapture a vanished epoch...
512
00:39:26,580 --> 00:39:30,950
...from a few broken statues and scraps
of ancient manuscripts?
513
00:39:38,620 --> 00:39:42,150
In Alexandria, there was
an immense library...
514
00:39:42,360 --> 00:39:44,990
...and an associated
research institute.
515
00:39:45,200 --> 00:39:49,330
And in them worked the finest minds
in the ancient world.
516
00:39:52,970 --> 00:39:55,000
(CAN CLUNKS)
517
00:39:55,210 --> 00:39:57,610
(DOOR SQUEAKS)
518
00:40:09,920 --> 00:40:12,360
Of that legendary library...
519
00:40:12,560 --> 00:40:15,120
...all that survives is this...
520
00:40:15,330 --> 00:40:18,020
...dank and forgotten cellar.
521
00:40:18,960 --> 00:40:22,900
It's in the library annex,
the Serapeum...
522
00:40:23,100 --> 00:40:25,070
...which was once a temple...
523
00:40:25,270 --> 00:40:28,070
...but was later reconsecrated
to knowledge.
524
00:40:28,610 --> 00:40:32,300
These few moldering shelves...
525
00:40:32,710 --> 00:40:35,150
...probably once in a basement
storage room...
526
00:40:35,350 --> 00:40:38,040
...are its only physical remains.
527
00:40:38,420 --> 00:40:41,180
But this place was once...
528
00:40:41,490 --> 00:40:44,350
...the brain and glory...
529
00:40:44,560 --> 00:40:47,680
...of the greatest city
on the planet Earth.
530
00:40:55,700 --> 00:40:58,300
If I could travel back into time...
531
00:40:58,500 --> 00:41:01,030
...this is the place I would visit.
532
00:41:01,940 --> 00:41:06,430
The Library of Alexandria
at its height, 2000 years ago.
533
00:41:10,520 --> 00:41:12,950
Here, in an important sense...
534
00:41:13,150 --> 00:41:17,450
...began the intellectual adventure
which has led us into space.
535
00:41:24,060 --> 00:41:29,000
All the knowledge in the ancient world
was once within these marble walls.
536
00:41:35,110 --> 00:41:38,570
In the great hall, there may have
been a mural of Alexander...
537
00:41:38,780 --> 00:41:42,010
...with the crook and flail
and ceremonial headdress...
538
00:41:42,210 --> 00:41:44,840
...of the pharaohs of ancient Egypt.
539
00:41:48,450 --> 00:41:51,950
This library was a citadel
of human consciousness...
540
00:41:52,160 --> 00:41:56,250
...a beacon on our journey
to the stars.
541
00:41:59,600 --> 00:42:04,470
It was the first true research
institute in the history of the world.
542
00:42:04,740 --> 00:42:06,670
And what did they study?
543
00:42:06,970 --> 00:42:10,910
They studied everything.
The entire cosmos.
544
00:42:11,110 --> 00:42:15,510
"Cosmos" is a Greek word
for the order of the universe.
545
00:42:15,710 --> 00:42:18,810
In a way, it's the opposite of chaos.
546
00:42:19,050 --> 00:42:23,950
It implies a deep interconnectedness
of all things.
547
00:42:24,390 --> 00:42:29,330
The intricate and subtle way
that the universe is put together.
548
00:42:30,760 --> 00:42:33,460
Genius flourished here.
549
00:42:33,670 --> 00:42:38,000
In addition to Eratosthenes,
there was the astronomer Hipparchus...
550
00:42:38,200 --> 00:42:39,970
...who mapped the constellation...
551
00:42:40,170 --> 00:42:43,200
...and established the brightness
of the stars.
552
00:42:43,880 --> 00:42:45,930
And there was Euclid...
553
00:42:46,140 --> 00:42:48,980
...who brilliantly
systematized geometry...
554
00:42:49,180 --> 00:42:51,550
...who told his king,
who was struggling...
555
00:42:51,750 --> 00:42:54,380
...with some difficult problem
in mathematics...
556
00:42:54,590 --> 00:42:58,960
...that there was no royal road
to geometry.
557
00:42:59,490 --> 00:43:02,190
There was Dionysius of Thrace,
the man who defined...
558
00:43:02,390 --> 00:43:05,850
...the parts of speech:
nouns, verbs and so on...
559
00:43:06,060 --> 00:43:10,000
...who did for language, in a way,
what Euclid did for geometry.
560
00:43:10,200 --> 00:43:14,230
There was Herophilus,
a physiologist who identified...
561
00:43:14,440 --> 00:43:17,970
...the brain rather than the heart
as the seat of intelligence.
562
00:43:18,640 --> 00:43:21,340
There was Archimedes,
the greatest mechanical genius...
563
00:43:21,550 --> 00:43:23,740
...until the time
of Leonardo da Vinci.
564
00:43:23,950 --> 00:43:28,680
And there was the astronomer Ptolemy,
who compiled much of what today is...
565
00:43:28,890 --> 00:43:31,150
...the pseudoscience of astrology.
566
00:43:31,360 --> 00:43:33,690
His Earth-centered universe...
567
00:43:33,890 --> 00:43:36,550
...held sway for 1 500 years...
568
00:43:36,760 --> 00:43:40,200
...showing that intellectual brilliance
is no guarantee...
569
00:43:40,400 --> 00:43:42,490
...against being dead wrong.
570
00:43:42,970 --> 00:43:46,960
And among these great men,
there was also a great woman.
571
00:43:47,170 --> 00:43:49,370
Her name was Hypatia.
572
00:43:49,570 --> 00:43:52,440
She was a mathematician
and an astronomer...
573
00:43:52,640 --> 00:43:54,640
...the last light of the library...
574
00:43:54,850 --> 00:43:59,750
...whose martyrdom is bound up with
the destruction of this place...
575
00:43:59,950 --> 00:44:03,250
...seven centuries after
it was founded.
576
00:44:21,640 --> 00:44:23,900
Look at this place.
577
00:44:25,110 --> 00:44:28,010
The Greek kings of Egypt
who succeeded Alexander...
578
00:44:28,210 --> 00:44:31,550
...regarded advances in science,
literature and medicine...
579
00:44:31,750 --> 00:44:34,010
...as among the treasures
of the empire.
580
00:44:34,220 --> 00:44:38,680
For centuries, they generously
supported research and scholarship.
581
00:44:38,890 --> 00:44:43,290
An enlightenment shared by
few heads of state, then or now.
582
00:44:46,130 --> 00:44:49,070
(FOUNTAIN GURGLES)
583
00:44:52,770 --> 00:44:56,730
Off this great hall were
1 0 large research laboratories.
584
00:44:56,940 --> 00:45:01,070
There were fountains and colonnades,
botanical gardens...
585
00:45:01,280 --> 00:45:05,650
...and even a zoo with animals
from India and sub-Saharan Africa.
586
00:45:05,850 --> 00:45:10,550
There were dissecting rooms
and an astronomical observatory.
587
00:45:12,560 --> 00:45:14,390
But the treasure of the library...
588
00:45:14,590 --> 00:45:17,860
...consecrated to the god Serapis...
589
00:45:18,060 --> 00:45:20,860
...built in the city of Alexander...
590
00:45:21,070 --> 00:45:22,900
...was its collection of books.
591
00:45:23,100 --> 00:45:25,300
The organizers of the library combed...
592
00:45:25,500 --> 00:45:28,730
...all the cultures and languages
of the world for books.
593
00:45:28,940 --> 00:45:32,310
They sent agents abroad
to buy up libraries.
594
00:45:32,510 --> 00:45:37,450
Commercial ships docking in Alexandria
harbor were searched by the police...
595
00:45:37,680 --> 00:45:40,120
...not for contraband, but for books.
596
00:45:40,320 --> 00:45:43,880
The scrolls were borrowed, copied
and returned to their owners.
597
00:45:44,090 --> 00:45:48,150
Until studied, these scrolls were
collected in great stacks...
598
00:45:48,360 --> 00:45:51,630
...called, "books from the ships."
599
00:45:51,930 --> 00:45:54,360
Accurate numbers are
difficult to come by...
600
00:45:54,570 --> 00:45:57,560
...but it seems that the library
contained at its peak...
601
00:45:57,770 --> 00:46:00,860
...nearly one million scrolls.
602
00:46:14,420 --> 00:46:17,860
The papyrus reed grows in Egypt.
603
00:46:18,060 --> 00:46:20,250
It's the origin of our word
for "paper."
604
00:46:20,460 --> 00:46:24,220
Each of those million volumes
which once existed in this library...
605
00:46:24,430 --> 00:46:28,870
...were handwritten
on papyrus manuscript scrolls.
606
00:46:29,830 --> 00:46:31,700
What happened to all those books?
607
00:46:31,900 --> 00:46:35,340
The classical civilization
that created them disintegrated.
608
00:46:35,540 --> 00:46:38,030
The library itself was destroyed.
609
00:46:38,240 --> 00:46:41,410
Only a small fraction
of the works survived.
610
00:46:41,610 --> 00:46:44,740
And as for the rest,
we're left only with pathetic...
611
00:46:44,950 --> 00:46:47,110
...scattered fragments.
612
00:46:47,450 --> 00:46:51,720
But how tantalizing those remaining
bits and pieces are.
613
00:46:51,920 --> 00:46:55,590
For example, we know
that there once existed here...
614
00:46:55,790 --> 00:47:00,130
...a book by the astronomer
Aristarchus of Samos...
615
00:47:00,330 --> 00:47:04,460
...who apparently argued that
the Earth was one of the planets...
616
00:47:04,670 --> 00:47:08,160
...that, like the other planets,
it orbits the sun...
617
00:47:08,370 --> 00:47:12,740
...and that the stars are
enormously far away.
618
00:47:13,110 --> 00:47:15,580
All absolutely correct.
619
00:47:15,780 --> 00:47:18,410
But we had to wait
nearly 2000 years...
620
00:47:18,620 --> 00:47:21,780
...for these facts to be rediscovered.
621
00:47:28,860 --> 00:47:32,660
The astronomy stacks
of the Alexandria Library.
622
00:47:33,470 --> 00:47:35,370
Hipparchus.
623
00:47:35,730 --> 00:47:38,360
Ptolomeus. Here we are.
624
00:47:39,740 --> 00:47:42,570
Aristarchus.
625
00:47:43,640 --> 00:47:45,110
This is the book.
626
00:47:45,310 --> 00:47:48,540
How I'd love to be able
to read this book...
627
00:47:48,880 --> 00:47:51,850
...to know how Aristarchus
figured it out.
628
00:47:52,050 --> 00:47:55,420
But it's gone. Utterly and forever.
629
00:47:55,890 --> 00:48:00,260
If we multiply our sense of loss
for this work of Aristarchus...
630
00:48:00,460 --> 00:48:01,860
...by 1 00,000...
631
00:48:02,060 --> 00:48:04,530
...we begin to appreciate
the grandeur...
632
00:48:04,730 --> 00:48:07,390
...of the achievement
of classical civilization...
633
00:48:07,800 --> 00:48:10,670
...and the tragedy of its destruction.
634
00:48:14,170 --> 00:48:18,700
We have far surpassed the science
known to the ancient world...
635
00:48:18,910 --> 00:48:22,510
...but there are irreparable gaps
in our historical knowledge.
636
00:48:22,750 --> 00:48:26,110
Imagine what mysteries of the past
could be solved...
637
00:48:26,320 --> 00:48:28,750
...with a borrower's card
to this library.
638
00:48:28,950 --> 00:48:33,190
For example, we know of a three-volume
history of the world...
639
00:48:33,390 --> 00:48:37,890
...now lost, written by
a Babylonian priest named Berossus.
640
00:48:38,100 --> 00:48:41,730
Volume I dealt with the interval
from the creation of the world...
641
00:48:41,930 --> 00:48:43,090
...to the Great Flood.
642
00:48:43,300 --> 00:48:47,360
A period that he took
to be 432,000 years...
643
00:48:47,570 --> 00:48:51,300
...or about 1 00 times longer than
the Old Testament chronology.
644
00:48:51,510 --> 00:48:55,410
What wonders were in
the books of Berossus!
645
00:48:56,510 --> 00:49:00,540
But why have I brought you
across 2000 years...
646
00:49:00,750 --> 00:49:02,980
...to the Library of Alexandria?
647
00:49:03,760 --> 00:49:07,050
Because this was when and where
we humans...
648
00:49:07,260 --> 00:49:11,350
...first collected
seriously and systematically...
649
00:49:11,560 --> 00:49:13,500
...the knowledge of the world.
650
00:49:13,800 --> 00:49:16,290
This is the Earth
as Eratosthenes knew it.
651
00:49:16,500 --> 00:49:19,770
A tiny, spherical world, afloat...
652
00:49:19,970 --> 00:49:22,960
...in an immensity of space and time.
653
00:49:23,440 --> 00:49:26,140
We were, at long last,
beginning to find...
654
00:49:26,340 --> 00:49:29,280
...our true bearings in the cosmos.
655
00:49:30,050 --> 00:49:31,910
The scientists of antiquity...
656
00:49:32,120 --> 00:49:35,710
...took the first and most
important steps in that direction...
657
00:49:35,920 --> 00:49:38,680
...before their civilization
fell apart.
658
00:49:38,990 --> 00:49:41,860
But after the Dark Ages,
it was by and large...
659
00:49:42,060 --> 00:49:46,000
...the rediscovery of the works
of these scholars done here...
660
00:49:46,200 --> 00:49:48,390
...that made
the Renaissance possible...
661
00:49:48,600 --> 00:49:51,660
...and thereby powerfully influenced
our own culture.
662
00:49:51,870 --> 00:49:55,100
When, in the 1 5th century,
Europe was at last ready...
663
00:49:55,310 --> 00:49:58,100
...to awaken from its long sleep...
664
00:49:58,310 --> 00:50:02,580
...it picked up some of the tools,
the books and the concepts...
665
00:50:02,780 --> 00:50:06,810
...laid down here more than
a thousand years before.
666
00:50:12,260 --> 00:50:16,160
By 1600, the long-forgotten ideas
of Aristarchus...
667
00:50:16,360 --> 00:50:17,590
...had been rediscovered.
668
00:50:18,660 --> 00:50:21,930
Johannes Kepler constructed
elaborate models...
669
00:50:22,130 --> 00:50:25,030
...to understand the motion
and arrangement of the planets...
670
00:50:25,240 --> 00:50:27,900
...the clockwork of the heavens.
671
00:50:32,010 --> 00:50:35,840
And at night, he dreamt
of traveling to the moon.
672
00:50:46,560 --> 00:50:48,750
His principal
scientific tools were...
673
00:50:48,960 --> 00:50:51,760
...the mathematics
of the Alexandrian Library...
674
00:50:51,960 --> 00:50:54,400
...and an unswerving respect
for the facts...
675
00:50:54,600 --> 00:50:58,040
...however disquieting they might be.
676
00:51:01,440 --> 00:51:04,880
His story, and the story of
the scientists who came after him...
677
00:51:05,080 --> 00:51:07,510
...are also part of our voyage.
678
00:51:09,880 --> 00:51:12,850
Seventy years later,
the sun-centered universe...
679
00:51:13,050 --> 00:51:14,640
...of Aristarchus and Copernicus...
680
00:51:14,850 --> 00:51:18,720
...was widely accepted
in the Europe of the Enlightenment.
681
00:51:18,920 --> 00:51:22,360
The idea arose that the planets
were worlds...
682
00:51:22,560 --> 00:51:24,190
...governed by laws of nature...
683
00:51:24,400 --> 00:51:28,630
...and scientific speculation turned
to the motions of the stars.
684
00:51:28,830 --> 00:51:31,460
The clockwork in the heavens
was imitated...
685
00:51:31,670 --> 00:51:33,430
...by the watchmakers of Earth.
686
00:51:34,040 --> 00:51:37,530
Precise timekeeping permitted
great sailing ship voyages...
687
00:51:37,740 --> 00:51:40,270
...of exploration and discovery...
688
00:51:40,480 --> 00:51:42,040
...which bound up the Earth.
689
00:51:44,480 --> 00:51:46,810
This was a time when free inquiry...
690
00:51:47,020 --> 00:51:48,990
...was valued once again.
691
00:51:49,190 --> 00:51:53,450
(SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
692
00:51:55,890 --> 00:51:59,290
250 years later,
the Earth was all explored.
693
00:51:59,500 --> 00:52:02,660
New adventurers now looked to
the planets and the stars.
694
00:52:03,400 --> 00:52:07,060
The galaxies were recognized
as great aggregates of stars...
695
00:52:07,270 --> 00:52:11,210
...island universes
millions of light years away.
696
00:52:12,110 --> 00:52:15,240
In the 1920s, astronomers had
begun to measure...
697
00:52:15,450 --> 00:52:18,180
...the speeds of distant galaxies.
698
00:52:22,950 --> 00:52:23,920
ASTRONOMER 1:
What time is it?
699
00:52:24,120 --> 00:52:25,820
7:1 5.
700
00:52:26,260 --> 00:52:27,420
ASTRONOMER 1:
Lights off, please.
701
00:52:28,390 --> 00:52:33,020
They found that the galaxies were
flying away from one another.
702
00:52:33,230 --> 00:52:35,130
To the astonishment of everyone...
703
00:52:35,330 --> 00:52:38,560
...the entire universe was expanding.
704
00:52:44,380 --> 00:52:49,180
We had begun to plumb the true depths
of time and space.
705
00:52:51,620 --> 00:52:54,310
The long, collective enterprise
of science...
706
00:52:54,520 --> 00:52:58,820
...has revealed a universe
some 1 5 billion years old.
707
00:52:59,020 --> 00:53:02,020
The time since the explosive
birth of the cosmos...
708
00:53:02,230 --> 00:53:03,460
...the big bang.
709
00:53:03,460 --> 00:53:03,830
The current estimates for the age of the
universe range from 1 2 to 1 5 billion years.
710
00:53:03,830 --> 00:53:05,990
(THUNDER CRASHES)
711
00:53:09,970 --> 00:53:13,990
The cosmic calendar compresses
the local history of the universe...
712
00:53:14,210 --> 00:53:15,930
...into a single year.
713
00:53:16,140 --> 00:53:18,700
If the universe began
on January 1st...
714
00:53:18,910 --> 00:53:22,280
...it was not until May
that the Milky Way formed.
715
00:53:23,050 --> 00:53:25,810
Other planetary systems
may have appeared...
716
00:53:26,020 --> 00:53:28,820
...in June, July and August...
717
00:53:29,190 --> 00:53:31,920
...but our sun and Earth,
not until mid-September.
718
00:53:32,120 --> 00:53:34,490
Life arose soon after.
719
00:53:35,360 --> 00:53:39,420
Everything humans have ever done
occurred in that bright speck...
720
00:53:39,630 --> 00:53:42,690
...at the lower right
of the cosmic calendar.
721
00:53:45,340 --> 00:53:47,330
The big bang is at upper left...
722
00:53:47,540 --> 00:53:50,230
...in the first second of January 1st.
723
00:53:50,510 --> 00:53:54,210
Fifteen billion years later
is our present time...
724
00:53:54,410 --> 00:53:57,780
...the last second of December 31st.
725
00:54:02,750 --> 00:54:05,990
Every month is
1? billion years long.
726
00:54:06,190 --> 00:54:09,090
Each day represents 40 million years.
727
00:54:09,290 --> 00:54:13,020
Each second stands for some 500 years
of our history.
728
00:54:13,230 --> 00:54:17,460
The blinking of an eye
in the drama of cosmic time.
729
00:54:22,840 --> 00:54:27,300
At this scale, the cosmic calendar
is the size of a football field...
730
00:54:27,510 --> 00:54:30,680
...but all of human history
would occupy an area...
731
00:54:30,880 --> 00:54:32,510
...the size of my hand.
732
00:54:32,720 --> 00:54:36,180
We're just beginning to trace
the long and tortuous path...
733
00:54:36,390 --> 00:54:39,120
...which began with
the primeval fireball...
734
00:54:39,320 --> 00:54:42,020
...and led to the condensation
of matter:
735
00:54:42,230 --> 00:54:44,850
Gas, dust, stars, galaxies, and...
736
00:54:45,060 --> 00:54:47,430
...at least in our little nook
of the universe...
737
00:54:47,630 --> 00:54:51,930
...planets, life, intelligence
and inquisitive men and women.
738
00:54:52,140 --> 00:54:53,730
We've emerged so recently...
739
00:54:53,940 --> 00:54:56,810
...that the familiar events
of our recorded history...
740
00:54:57,010 --> 00:55:01,240
...occupy only the last seconds
of the last minute of December 31st.
741
00:55:01,450 --> 00:55:05,070
But some critical events for the
human species began much earlier...
742
00:55:05,280 --> 00:55:07,050
...minutes earlier.
743
00:55:08,320 --> 00:55:11,720
So we change our scale
from months to minutes.
744
00:55:11,920 --> 00:55:15,090
Down here, the first humans
made their debut...
745
00:55:15,290 --> 00:55:18,790
...around 10:30 p.m. on December 31st.
746
00:55:21,670 --> 00:55:24,000
And with the passing
of every cosmic minute...
747
00:55:24,200 --> 00:55:26,260
...each minute 30,000 years long...
748
00:55:26,470 --> 00:55:28,800
...we began the arduous journey
towards understanding...
749
00:55:29,010 --> 00:55:31,670
...where we live and who we are.
750
00:55:34,510 --> 00:55:36,610
11:46...
751
00:55:36,810 --> 00:55:39,370
...only 14 minutes ago...
752
00:55:39,650 --> 00:55:42,620
...humans have tamed fire.
753
00:55:43,350 --> 00:55:48,160
11:59:20, the evening
of the last day of the cosmic year...
754
00:55:48,360 --> 00:55:52,190
...the 11th hour, the 59th minute,
the 20th second...
755
00:55:52,400 --> 00:55:55,260
...the domestication of
plants and animals begins:
756
00:55:55,470 --> 00:55:58,370
An application of the human talent...
757
00:56:01,240 --> 00:56:02,970
...for making tools.
758
00:56:10,180 --> 00:56:14,680
11:59:35, settled agricultural
communities...
759
00:56:14,890 --> 00:56:17,620
...evolved into the first cities.
760
00:56:18,560 --> 00:56:22,650
We humans appear on
the comic calendar so recently...
761
00:56:22,860 --> 00:56:25,260
...that our recorded history
occupies only...
762
00:56:25,460 --> 00:56:30,400
...the last few seconds of
the last minute of December 31 st.
763
00:56:31,140 --> 00:56:35,900
In the vast ocean of time
which this calendar represents...
764
00:56:36,110 --> 00:56:39,470
...all our memories are confined...
765
00:56:41,650 --> 00:56:43,880
...to this small square.
766
00:56:44,250 --> 00:56:49,120
Every person we've ever heard of
lived somewhere in there.
767
00:56:49,550 --> 00:56:54,490
All those kings and battles, migrations
and inventions, wars and loves.
768
00:56:54,930 --> 00:56:56,690
Everything in the history books...
769
00:56:56,890 --> 00:56:58,830
...happens here...
770
00:56:59,700 --> 00:57:02,930
...in the last 10 seconds
of the cosmic calendar.
771
00:57:08,370 --> 00:57:10,860
We on Earth have just awakened...
772
00:57:11,080 --> 00:57:13,870
...to the great oceans
of space and time...
773
00:57:14,080 --> 00:57:16,050
...from which we have emerged.
774
00:57:17,350 --> 00:57:18,910
We are the legacy...
775
00:57:19,120 --> 00:57:22,610
...of 15 billion years
of cosmic evolution.
776
00:57:23,250 --> 00:57:24,950
We have a choice:
777
00:57:25,260 --> 00:57:28,750
We can enhance life and come to know
the universe that made us...
778
00:57:28,960 --> 00:57:32,190
...or we can squander
our 15 billion-year heritage...
779
00:57:32,400 --> 00:57:35,330
...in meaningless self-destruction.
780
00:57:36,570 --> 00:57:39,760
What happens in the first second
of the next cosmic year...
781
00:57:39,970 --> 00:57:43,130
...depends on what we do,
here and now...
782
00:57:43,340 --> 00:57:45,140
...with our intelligence...
783
00:57:45,340 --> 00:57:48,370
...and our knowledge of the cosmos.
65862
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