Nova

At PBS' recent Annual Meeting, physicist and acclaimed author Brian Greene discusses his return to NOVA with "The Fabric of the Cosmos," coming to PBS Wednesdays, November 2-23, 2011, at 9:00 p.m. ET. The four-part miniseries takes us to the frontiers of physics to see how scientists are piecing together the most complete picture yet of space, time, and the universe.

Physicist Brian Greene discusses his return to NOVA with "The Fabric of the Cosmos."

Brian Greene Previews NOVA's "The Fabric of the Cosmos"

It separates you from me, one galaxy from the next, and atoms from one another. It is everywhere in the universe. But to most of us, space is nothing, an empty void. Well, it turns out space is not what it seems. From the passenger seat of a New York cab driving near the speed of light, to a pool hall where billiard tables do fantastical things, Brian Greene reveals space as a dynamic fabric.

Surprising clues indicate that space is very much something and not nothing.

The Fabric of the Cosmos: What Is Space?

Fabric of the Cosmos: What Is Space?

"The Fabric of the Cosmos," a four-hour series based on the book by renowned physicist and author Brian Greene, takes us to the frontiers of physics to see how scientists are piecing together the most complete picture yet of space, time, and the universe. With each step, audiences will discover that just beneath the surface of our everyday experience lies a world we'd hardly recognize.

Brian Greene reveals a mind-boggling reality beneath the surface of our everyday world.

The Fabric of the Cosmos Preview

Fabric of the Cosmos Preview

The Fabric of the Cosmos: What Is Space? Preview

Fabric of the Cosmos: What Is Space? Preview

The National Science Foundation

the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

The Arthur Vining Davis Foundation

The Department of Energy

Koch Foundation

NOVA Science Trust Logo

(This program is no longer available for online streaming.) Space. It separates you from me, one galaxy from the next, and atoms from one another. It is everywhere in the universe. But to most of us, space is nothing, an empty void. Well, it turns out space is not what it seems. From the passenger seat of a New York cab driving near the speed of light, to a pool hall where billiard tables do fantastical things, Brian Greene reveals space as a dynamic fabric that can stretch, twist, warp, and ripple under the influence of gravity. Stranger still is a newly discovered ingredient of space that actually makes up 70 percent of the universe. Physicists call it dark energy, because while they know it's out there, driving space to expand ever more quickly, they have no idea what it is.Probing space on the smallest scales only makes the mysteries multiply. Down there, things are going on that physicists today can barely fathom—forces powerful enough to generate whole universes. To top it off, some of the strangest places in space, black holes, have led scientists to propose that like the hologram on your credit card, space may just be a projection of a deeper two-dimensional reality taking place on a distant surface that surrounds us. Space, far from being empty, is filled with some of the deepest mysteries of our time.

The Fabric of the Cosmos, Hour 1: Surprising clues indicate that space is very much something and not nothing.

UC Berkeley

Stanford University

University of California, Berkeley

University of Maryland

Columbia University

University Edinburgh

University of Chicago

University of Southern California

Astrophysicist, Barnard College of Columbia University

Fermilab

Lawrence Berkeley National Lab

Johns Hopkins University

The Fabric of the Cosmos, Hour 1: Surprising clues indicate that space is very much something and not nothing.

Physics & Math

Time. We waste it, save it, kill it, make it. The world runs on it. Yet ask physicists what time actually is, and the answer might shock you: They have no idea. Even more surprising, the deep sense we have of time passing from present to past may be nothing more than an illusion. How can our understanding of something so familiar be so wrong?

It defines our lives, but what is time really? Have a look into its true nature.

The Fabric of the Cosmos: The Illusion of Time Preview

Fabric of the Cosmos: The Illusion of Time Preview

The Fabric of the Cosmos: The Illusion of Time

Fabric of the Cosmos: The Illusion of Time

Time. We waste it, save it, kill it, make it. The world runs on it. Yet ask physicists what time actually is, and the answer might shock you: They have no idea. Even more surprising, the deep sense we have of time passing from present to past may be nothing more than an illusion. How can our understanding of something so familiar be so wrong? In search of answers, Brian Greene takes us on the ultimate time-traveling adventure, hurtling 50 years into the future before stepping into a wormhole to travel back to the past. Along the way, he will reveal a new way of thinking about time in which moments past, present, and future—from the reign of T. rex to the birth of your great-great-grandchildren—exist all at once. This journey will bring us all the way back to the Big Bang, where physicists think the ultimate secrets of time may be hidden. You'll never look at your wristwatch the same way again.

Harvard University

NIST

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Author, Our Mathematical Universe

The Fabric of the Cosmos, Hour 2: It defines our lives, but what is time really? Have a look into its true nature.

Join Brian Greene on a wild ride into the weird realm of quantum physics, which governs the universe on the tiniest of scales. Greene brings quantum mechanics to life in a nightclub like no other, where objects pop in and out of existence, and things over here can affect others over there, instantaneously and without anything crossing the space between them.

Take a wild ride into the quantum realm, where even the impossible seems possible.

The Fabric of the Cosmos: Quantum Leap Preview

Fabric of the Cosmos: Quantum Leap Preview

The Fabric of the Cosmos: Quantum Leap

Fabric of the Cosmos: Quantum Leap

Join Brian Greene on a wild ride into the weird realm of quantum physics, which governs the universe on the tiniest of scales. Greene brings quantum mechanics to life in a nightclub like no other, where objects pop in and out of existence, and things over here can affect others over there, instantaneously and without anything crossing the space between them. A century ago, during the initial shots in the quantum revolution, the best minds of a generation—including Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr—squared off in a battle for the soul of physics. How could the rules of the quantum world, which work so well to describe the behavior of individual atoms and their components, conflict so dramatically with the everyday rules that govern people, planets, and galaxies?Quantum mechanics may be counterintuitive, but it's one of the most successful theories in the history of science, making predictions that have been confirmed to better than one part in a billion, while also launching the technological advances at the heart of modern life, like computers and cell phones. But even today, even with such profound successes, the debate still rages over what quantum mechanics implies for the true nature of reality.Notes on the DVD: The DVD version of the program stated that one entangled photon is sent from the island of La Palma to the island of Tenerife by laser. The photon is sent via laser-guided telescope. In the DVD version of the program, it appears that the research team led by Anton Zeilinger has successfully teleported photons from La Palma to Tenerife. Although the Zeilinger team has used the method described to teleport photons shorter distances in other locations, as of November 2011, photons have not yet been teleported between La Palma andTenerife. The team plans to continue experiments in the Canary Islands, which attempt to complete the teleportation process there.

Institut d'Optique, Palaiseau

J. F. Clauser & Associates

MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering

University of Texas at Austin

University of Vienna

The Fabric of the Cosmos, Hour 3: Take a wild ride into the quantum realm, where even the impossible seems possible.

Hard as it is to swallow, cutting-edge theories are suggesting that our universe may not be the only universe. Instead, it may be just one of an infinite number of universes that make up the "multiverse." In this show, Brian Greene takes us on a tour of this brave new theory at the frontier of physics, showing what some of these alternate realities might be like.

Is our universe unique, or could it be just one in an endless "multiverse"?

The Fabric of the Cosmos: Universe or Multiverse? Preview

Fabric of the Cosmos: Universe or Multiverse? Preview

The Fabric of the Cosmos: Universe or Multiverse?

Fabric of the Cosmos: Universe or Multiverse?

(This program is no longer available for online streaming.) Hard as it is to swallow, cutting-edge theories are suggesting that our universe may not be the only universe. Instead, it may be just one of an infinite number of universes that make up the "multiverse." In this show, Brian Greene takes us on a tour of this brave new theory at the frontier of physics, showing what some of these alternate realities might be like. Some universes may be almost indistinguishable from our own; others may contain variations of all of us, where we exist but with different families, careers, and life stories. In still others, reality may be so radically different from ours as to be unrecognizable. Brian Greene reveals why this radical new picture of the cosmos is getting serious attention from scientists. It won't be easy to prove, but if it's right, our understanding of space, time, and our place in the universe will never be the same.

University of California, Davis

UC Santa Barbara

Tufts University

Princeton University

The Fabric of the Cosmos, Hour 4: Is our universe unique, or could it be just one in an endless "multiverse"?

"The Fabric of the Cosmos," a four-hour series based on the book by renowned physicist and author Brian Greene, takes us to the frontiers of physics to see how scientists are piecing together the most complete picture yet of space, time, and the universe. With each step, audiences will discover that just beneath the surface of our everyday experience lies a world we'd hardly recognize—a startling world far stranger and more wondrous than anyone expected.Brian Greene is going to let you in on a secret: We've all been deceived. Our perceptions of time and space have led us astray. Much of what we thought we knew about our universe—that the past has already happened and the future is yet to be, that space is just an empty void, that our universe is the only universe that exists—just might be wrong.Interweaving provocative theories, experiments, and stories with crystal-clear explanations and imaginative metaphors like those that defined the groundbreaking and highly acclaimed series "The Elegant Universe," "The Fabric of the Cosmos" aims to be the most compelling, visual, and comprehensive picture of modern physics ever seen on television.

Acclaimed physicist Brian Greene reveals a mind-boggling reality beneath the surface of our everyday world.

Acclaimed physicist Brian Greene reveals a mind-boggling reality beneath the surface of our everyday world.

The Fabric of the Cosmos

Episodes

The Fabric of the Cosmos: What Is Space?

The Fabric of the Cosmos: The Illusion of Time

Explore More

Special Relativity in a Nutshell

Spooky Action at a Distance

Traveling Through Time

Einstein Thought Experiments

How Big Is the Universe?

What Is Gravity Made Of?

Finding My Father

Putting Relativity to the Test

The Many Worlds Theory Today

Will We Ever Find ET?

Pursuing Dark Matter, Hundreds of Miles Above Earth

Inside Einstein's Mind

What is the Shape of a Proton?

There’s More Than One Way To Hunt For Gravitational Waves

Does Antimatter Fall Up or Down?

The Elegant Universe: Pt 1

Schrödinger’s Menagerie

The Theory Behind the Equation

Relativity and the Cosmos

Riddles of the Multiverse

A Radical Reinterpretation of Einstein’s Theory

Carl Sagan Ponders Time Travel

"Fringe" Science

A Quantum Leap in Computing

From Discovery to Dust

On Being a Physicist