The Music Instinct: Science and Song

The Music Instinct: Science and Song provides a ground-breaking exploration into how and why the human organism and the whole ebb and flow of the cosmos is moved by the undeniable effect of music. This film follows visionary researchers and accomplished musicians to the crossroads of science and culture in search of answers to music’s deep mysteries. Researchers and scientists from a variety of fields are using groundbreaking techniques that reveal startling new connections between music and the human mind, the body and the universe. Together with an array of musicians from rock and rap to jazz and classical, they are putting music under the microscope. (from pbs.org)

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Secrets of the Parthenon

For 25 centuries the Parthenon has been shot at, set on fire, rocked by earthquakes, looted for its sculptures, almost destroyed by explosion, and disfigured by well-meaning renovations. It has gone from temple, to church, to mosque, to munitions dump. What could be next? How about a scientific search for the secrets of its incomparable beauty and astonishingly rapid construction? With unprecedented access, this film unravels the architectural and engineering mysteries of this celebrated ancient temple. (from pbs.org)

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Lost Treasures of Tibet

Located in present-day Nepal, Mustang contains some of the last remaining relics of an almost vanished world of ancient Buddhist culture. Across the border in Tibet, Chinese occupiers have destroyed thousands of monasteries since taking control of the country in 1950. Therefore, the survival of Mustang's monasteries or gompas is more important than ever. But preservation is extremely difficult because of the centuries of neglect, weather, and earthquakes that have brought many buildings to the brink of collapse. Inside, their exquisite murals are in a near-ruined state. (from pbs.org)

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The Secret Life of Chaos

This is a BBC documentary presented by Jim Al-Khalili, taking a look at a fascinating and hidden side to chaos. With some of examples to explain how nature transforms simplicity into complexity, it uncovers the science behind much of beauty and structure in the natural world and discovers that far from it being magic or an act of God, it is in fact an intrinsic part of the laws of physics. Amazingly, it turns out that the mathematics of chaos can explain how and why the universe creates exquisite order and pattern.

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High Anxieties - The Mathematics of Chaos

This is a BBC documentary which looks at how developments in mathematics over the past 40 years have completely changed our understanding of the fundamental nature of the world we live in. As we approach tipping points in both the economy and the climate, the film examines the mathematics we have been reluctant to face up to and asks if, even now, we would rather bury our heads in the sand rather than face harsh truths.

To Infinity and Beyond

By our third year, most of us will have learned to count. Once we know how, it seems as if there would be nothing to stop us counting forever. But, while infinity might seem like an perfectly innocent idea, keep counting and you enter a paradoxical world where nothing is as it seems. Mathematicians have discovered there are infinitely many infinities, each one infinitely bigger than the last. And if the universe goes on forever, the consequences are even more bizarre. In an infinite universe, there are infinitely many copies of the Earth and infinitely many copies of you. Older than time, bigger than the universe and stranger than fiction. This is the story of infinity. (from bbc.co.uk)

Bernard Williams on Descartes

I think, therefore I am. Rationalist philosopher and mathematician Rene Decartes, considered the father of modern philosophy, held this as self-evidently true. In this program, Bernard Williams of Kings College examines Decartes' theory of knowledge and his use of skeptical inquiry to affirm reality, including the existence of God. Descartes' theory of physical and mental substances, and Cartesian dualism - which allows the concept of science to coexist with the notion of God - are examined.

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Volcanoes of the Deep

The deep sea was long considered a barren place, devoid of sunlight and inhospitable to life. Now, scientists are witnessing how deep sea volcanoes can support oases of astounding creatures. These oases hold clues to how life might exist elsewhere in the universe, and to how life itself may have begun on Earth. At the heart of these systems lie "black smoker" chimneys, towering structures which spew acidic and scalding water heated by volcanoes beneath the ocean floor. These seemingly hostile environments are teeming with exotic life.

Doomsday Earth (National Geographic)

Catastrophe is sadly never far from the news headlines, with the 2011 Japan tsunami and the Chilean earthquake of 2010 continuing to loom large in the memories of millions. Doomsday Earth is a documentary examining the likelihood of the planet being struck by both a mega-tsunami and a mega-quake. Experts find that it seems a giant fault line beneath the sea is readying itself for a violent explosion of activity, and the race is on to calculate when rather than if, this ‘megathrust’ will do its worst.

Episode 1 - Mega-tsunami

Episode 2 - Mega-quake

Journey to the Earth's Core

Journey to the Earth's Core is a History Channel documentary taking us a journey to the Earth’s core and finding out how our existence depends on the mysterious underground forces that shape the Earth. Along the way, scientists, engineers, explorers and adventurers encounter an underground world where: strange life forms inhabit deadly environments over a mile down; trees force their way through 400 feet of rock to find water; 1500-foot tall skyscrapers are built on sand; mines are the size of cities; and prospectors give the Earth electric shocks to help find oil. It also a place where people run marathons, make parachute jumps and scuba divers edge their way to the base of the world’s deepest caves.

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How to Build a Jumbo Jet Engine: Rolls-Royce

As Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner makes its inaugural flight, Rolls-Royce engineers celebrate the performance of its revolutionary Trent 1000 jet engines. They're the latest in a family of sophisticated aero engines that have driven Rolls-Royce to become world leaders in the market for jumbo jet engines. This is the story of the thousands of people who design, build and test engines at Rolls-Royce's manufacturing plants in Derby and across the UK, making Rolls-Royce a central part of life for the people who work there.

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Airbus A380 - The Giant of the Skies

This documentary tells the story behind making the Airbus A380, the world's biggest and heaviest airliner ever built. The Airbus A380 is a double-deck, wide-body, four-engine airliner manufactured by the European corporation Airbus. The components of the A380 are constructed by tens of thousands of people in teams from Britain, France, Germany and Spain. The components are transported thousands of miles by land and sea for final assembly in Toulouse, France. From design concepts to test flight, this film tells the inside story of building the Airbus A380.

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Absolute Zero

Absolute Zero is a documentary based on the book Absolute Zero and the Conquest for Cold by Tom Shachtman. The series consists of two episodes: “The Conquest of Cold” and “The Race for Absolute Zero”. Through the episodes, the series follows the quest for cold from the unlikely father of air-conditioning, the court magician of King James I of England in the 17th century, to today's scientists pioneering superfast computing in the quantum chill near absolute zero - the ultimate extreme of cold at minus 273.15 C (minus 460 F). And it tells interesting stories about the invention of thermometers, the origin of the ice business in 19th-century New England, Clarence Birdseye's fishing trip that led to the invention of frozen food, and a couple of cold-inspired scientific races towards absolute zero that ended in Nobel Prizes.

Part 1: The Conquest of Cold

Part 2: The Race for Absolute Zero

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Dangerous Knowledge

Dangerous Knowledge is a BBC documentary presented by David Malone, looking at four brilliant mathematicians - Georg Cantor, Ludwig Boltzmann, Kurt Godel and Alan Turing - whose genius has profoundly affected us, but which tragically drove them insane and eventually led to them all committing suicide. The film begins with Georg Cantor, the great mathematician whose work proved to be the foundation for much of the 20th-century mathematics. Cantor believed he was God's messenger and was eventually driven insane trying to prove his theories of infinity. Ludwig Boltzmann's struggle to prove the existence of atoms and probability eventually drove him to suicide. Kurt Godel, the introverted confidant of Einstein, proved that there would always be problems which were outside human logic. His life ended in a sanatorium where he starved himself to death. Finally, Alan Turing, the great Bletchley Park code breaker, father of computer science and homosexual, died trying to prove that some things are fundamentally unprovable.

Dangerous Knowledge (Part 1/2)

Dangerous Knowledge (Part 2/2)

Great Planes - Boeing 747

Since its first commercial flight more than thirty years ago, the Boeing 747 has flown more than two billion people a distance greater than 42,000 round-trips to the Moon. This film examines the aviation marvel and the revolution it created in passenger air transport. It explores the evolution of the classic 747 models - the roots of Jet-airline technology and Boeing's race to create the world's first jumbo jet.

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