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Horizon: What is Reality?, BBC Two

Horizon: What is Reality?, BBC Two

Physicists give us a taste of reality in a world where nothing is as it appears

by Monday, 17 January 2011
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Quantum physicist Anton Zeilinger gets his photons in a twist in the Double-slit experiment

Horizon took a funny turn this week. The new series started off gently enough – there was a nostalgic look back at 60 years of science on the box, then an exploration as to what makes us clever (the fun this entailed when vaguely well-known people sweated through a series of IQ tests). But last night it wanted us to get to grips with something very slippery indeed, so slippery that even the eminent scientists responsible for unleashing some of the more frontier theories in particle physics readily admitted their conceptual limitations in understanding their own formulations.

Horizon took a funny turn this week. The new series started off gently enough – there was a nostalgic look back at 60 years of science on the box, then an exploration as to what makes us clever (the fun this entailed when vaguely well-known people sweated through a series of IQ tests). But last night it wanted us to get to grips with something very slippery indeed, so slippery that even the eminent scientists responsible for unleashing some of the more frontier theories in particle physics readily admitted their conceptual limitations in understanding their own formulations.

The hunt is still on for Higgs boson, which will add one more piece to the protean jigsaw of our understanding of reality

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Comments

Submitted by ally (not verified) on Wed, 19/01/2011 - 10:04
Absolutely brilliant. Push our interest boundaries further, if we are armchair detectives, we are armchair cosmologists- but please! where can i learn the math equations written on lighthouse window-

Submitted by Tony McGinley (not verified) on Wed, 19/01/2011 - 13:40
Congratulation Horizon on a brilliant programme - Pushed the envelope of my rather cramped brain. The holographic concept of reality took my fancy. Being a somewhat "old-fashioned" believer in God, I would rather like to express it as a projection from the mind of God!

Submitted by Mark (not verified) on Wed, 19/01/2011 - 21:08
My brain hurts now! Despite all the controversies of the BBC, Auntie still produces some of the best television in the world. Enlightening, funny, thought provoking and mind blowing at the same time..... Great series Horizon, making science accessible for most of my lifetime. Yes it has it's critics that it drums down science, I would disagree programs like this are inspiring to the young and informative to my age ;-) is the balance right? Yes, more please!

Submitted by onotimagen (not verified) on Fri, 21/01/2011 - 16:45
most of the program was stuff they've covered before. The holonomic Universe could do with a program all to itself, at least. Also they made it seem like a new idea but it's been round since the 70's. generally credited to David Bohm and Karl Pribram. Further reading for anyone interested: Bohm, D. (1980). Wholeness and the Implicate Order. London: Routledge. and Michael Talbot, "The Holographic Universe" 1991, HarperCollins

Submitted by mark (not verified) on Mon, 24/01/2011 - 19:11
Thought the programme was great, they said they were doing an experiment soon to find out if we were living as a hologram, when is it being done and where can i find out more about it ?

Submitted by Bob Lee (not verified) on Wed, 02/02/2011 - 11:20
Yet again a missed opportunity to convey the amazing work of the World's top scientists. The whole programme was overlarded with totally irrelevant effects & junk sound clips, both distracting & intensly annoying. Whatever happened to the straightforward presentations of the past? I shall resist the temptation to watch more of this self indulgent, patronising tripe!! Bob Lee.

Submitted by Dave Andrews (not verified) on Wed, 02/02/2011 - 14:56
Great pogram, massively insightful. Being a geek i had to figure out how much faster any computer/phone/processor would be if it was quantum, and the result was: 921108170135826810275068192 297853020756110280646550086 64820 times faster just by being quantum, adding a 3rd state to binary....i was amazed as the length of the number as i figured it out, especially as i had to divide by 128 to arrive here!

Submitted by warren slater (not verified) on Sat, 05/02/2011 - 09:46
on seeing this program made me think of something strange that happened to me,in summer of 93 or 94 i was sunbathing reading a book,when for split second everything went black by black i mean everything vanished,like nothing just black i thought damn i just blacked out and carried on reading,until my younger sister came out of the shed and said warren did everything just go black to you,my jaw hit the floor,ive been trying to understand what i experienced ever since,after seeing this program i emailed some physicists including professor susskind,none have replied,proberly think im crazy or lying.

Submitted by Alistair (not verified) on Sun, 06/02/2011 - 17:58
I really love science docos, but I tend to avoid Horizon because of the eye-abusing effects they use. Is it to keep the attention of the ADHD generation? Does the complete opposite for me unfortunately. Can't stand it. Carl Sagan didn't need it, so why does Horizon? As long as these ridiculous ediI really love science docos, but I tend to avoid Horizon because of the eye-abusing effects they use. Is it to keep the attention of the ADHD generation? Does the complete opposite for me unfortunately. Can't stand it.

Submitted by Dejavu (not verified) on Sat, 12/02/2011 - 03:17
The 'reality' of this program was an hour of Yosser Hughes talking b*llocks

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