Scientific Method / Science & Exploration

From your couch, Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking

Ars reviews a documentary series Stephen Hawking created for the Discovery …

A few weeks ago, Stephen Hawking celebrated his 70th birthday. The famous cosmologist (who is probably more widely known than any other living scientist) has written several popular books including A Brief History of Time, The Universe in a Nutshell, and most recently, The Grand Design. A documentary series he created for the Discovery Channel in 2010, titled Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking, was recently released on Blu-ray, and Discovery sent us a copy of the set to check it out. Hawking hosts the program, but Benedict Cumberbatch (who played Hawking in a 2004 BBC movie) does the majority of the narration as Hawking’s inner voice.

The three-part series starts off with an episode on the tantalizing possibility of life elsewhere in the Universe. It covers the usual ground (looking for water and the right temperature range to make it liquid) before moving on to more speculative endeavors. There are some enjoyable (and fairly well-animated) attempts to imagine strange forms of animal life, but the program also allows that evolution might hit upon similar structures to those that arose on Earth.

When the topic turns to intelligent extraterrestrial life, Hawking reiterates his position that just as Christopher Columbus’ visit didn’t work out too well for the native Aztecs, so too an encounter with a more advanced civilization may prove dangerous for us. But it’s not all pending-doom-and-obliteration. This section also includes the requisite dramatization of a bemulletted victim of UFO abduction, complete with a mesh baseball cap and run-down pickup truck. 

Interestingly, Hawking demonstrates his sense of humility and optimism for scientific progress when he discusses the possibility that advanced civilizations could develop wormhole technology. While some would dismiss that as science fiction, Hawking thinks it would be foolish of us to claim that it can’t be done.

The second episode discusses another sci-fi staple—time travel. Like the first episode, this is a light-hearted look at what physics can tell us and what the future could hold. Hawking discusses who he would visit if he could travel through time (Marilyn Monroe), how paradoxes show that traveling into the past is likely to be impossible, and how we already have the tools to travel into the future. The series does a good job of walking the fine line between playfulness and the common pitfalls of cheesiness and inaccuracy.

The final episode is where the series really shines. Aptly titled "The Story of Everything," it’s a stroll through questions of origins and destinations. Starting with a description of the Big Bang, Hawking displays the knack for clear explanations and helpful analogies that have made his books so popular. The matter in the Universe that avoided annihilation with anti-matter? Think of it as the smoke from the Big Bang. Why did that matter come together to form galaxies? Let Hawking show you by filling a Cambridge dining hall with ball bearings. Hawking touches briefly on the hot-button topic that landed him in the media spotlight in 2010—the prospect of a creator—but gives it much less attention than he and Leonard Mlodinow did in The Grand Design.

It all adds up to a very rich portrayal of the history of the cosmos. Turning to the future, Hawking moves on to some of the various things that could destroy us (the asteroid Apophis gets a mention) before coming to the final topic—human space travel. He talks about colonizing Mars as a stepping stone to the stars, going as far as to predict that, in 500 years, humans on Mars will have their own language and culture. Hawking articulates his dream of settling on worlds in other stellar systems, laying out the logistical obstacles but imagining what humans might do in spite of those challenges.

The first two episodes of the series are entertaining, and the visuals are attractive (so yes, the Blu-ray release is warranted), but are unlikely to blow your mind if you’re already familiar with the subjects. The final episode, however, is excellent and well worth viewing, even for amateur cosmologists. It delivers on the perspective that Carl Sagan had articulated so proficiently a few decades earlier. 

As Hawking puts it, "Even long after our Sun has died, new stars will be born, some of which will have new planets around them, made of the same atoms that make you and me. Maybe we’ll end up as part of a future alien ecosystem, although that's probably a bit of a long shot. What’s true is that we are only the temporary custodians of the particles which we’re made of. They will go on to lead a future existence in the enormous Universe that made them."

Beyond all that, the series offers a window into Hawking’s personality, which is now difficult for him to convey. It’s sometimes hard for truly brilliant people to connect with the rest of us, and Hawking’s medical condition would seemingly erase any possibility, but watching Into The Universe, you get a feeling for the man’s wit and sense of wonder.

Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking, the Blu-ray version. Discovery Channel, 2012.

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