BBC2 - Horizon: Who's scared of the...

specialman

specialman

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...big black hole?

I'm no scientist; hell, I failed maths at school, but this was a brilliant programme amed at informing the uninformed about the creation, existence and purpose of black holes in our universe.

From the description of what a black hole actually is, through to the search for quantum gravity, it was all done in an as easy-to-follow format as possible, with guest speakers who made it sound like they were solving the crime of the century, not some techy space problem. The visuals were great, as was the narration. Awesome.

The beeb gets a lot of stick these days but when it comes to the crunch, it pulls out its trump card – BBC2 – and blows your mind, reminding you that great television is there to make you feel five again.

Truly mind-blowing stuff and so, so interesting.
 
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Just started watching this on the good ol' iPlayer. This is no.4 of the new series and I have to agree with you completely the previous three docs have been incredibly thought provoking and well put together.

Less x-factor (if I was president of the world, NO waste of space x-factor), more docs.
 
awesome, just finished watching it.
 
I'll have to watch that properly. Black hole formation intrigues me, in particular supernova detonation (which is of course the first stage in black hole formation if the star is large enough).

In simple terms a star runs on fusion. So hydrogen fuses to helium, helium fuses to... fuses to silicon and sulfer, and eventually you end up with iron in the core. Now you can't fuse beyond iron withut input of energy, so eventually fusion stops. And heres the cool thing, it does so pretty abruptly and the core of the star collapses in on itself at about 1/4 the speed of light! The energy generated here (gravity turns to kinetic turns to heat) fuses all the heavier elements in the Universe in the resulting explosion, and what gets left behind is a nice black hole.

I love physics :D
 
Excellent program, I love stuff like this :D:
 
It was all this talk of a singularity, an object that's so small it can't exist yet is infinitely denser than anything else, which got me.

Ooooh, and I really liked the analogy about the waterfall to describe event horizons - good explanation technique.

More please Beeb :)
 
I've got it on the freeview box to watch later...
 
Flash In The Pan said:
When did an "E" become a pass? :thinking: :lol:
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ehem, at A-level it is [was], just O-Levels where its a fail [I got a D in o-level physics]...but frankly, I still consider it a fail anyway, men and pubs became a far more interesting study way back then :cuckoo: :nuts:
 
Brilliant programme, very thought provoking.
I love the subject and have read many books on black holes and theoretical physics (only the easy ones mind, no equations or anything :) )

The only problem I have with programmes like this is you know there will be no 'revelation', no amazing new theory that you didnt know about before. I would love for it to have ended by explaining a wonderful new theory of quantum gravity that really looks like it will work!!
But no, of course it would have been on the news weeks ago had that been the case.
 
Yv said:
ehem, at A-level it is [was], just O-Levels where its a fail [I got a D in o-level physics]...but frankly, I still consider it a fail anyway, men and pubs became a far more interesting study way back then :cuckoo: :nuts:
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Up here anything below a C was a fail. :shake:
 
All of the latest Horizon series has been superb. Well worth watching them all on iPlayer.
 
officially an E is a pass, many places only ask about A-C grades though

was good, all shot with a ringlight (or much of it) loving the tunes also and the random quotes

'that is science FACT' lol
 
specialman said:
It was all this talk of a singularity, an object that's so small it can't exist yet is infinitely denser than anything else
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Sounds like my boss :D
 
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