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Cosmic Voyage
Morgan Freeman hosts this ambitious exploration into science and space. This 36:05 IMAX presentation gives audiences views of the cosmos that were never imaginable before. Using computer generated graphics and the latest technological advances in cinematography, this program studies the universe and the role of humans occupy in this world. Originally produced for the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum and screened in the IMAX format, this documentary program boasts two of the longest continuous zooms in the history of filmmaking achieved through animation. Also included is a thrilling "Big Bang" simulation.
May 6, 2008 4:36 AM
Re: Cosmic Voyage
Also found here:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5757507304603419799
Lesser quality sound, though.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5757507304603419799
Lesser quality sound, though.
By: spam_vigilante
Re: Cosmic Voyage
Hey, I saw this baby on IMAX about 12 years ago! I didn't know they transfered these to a... umm... rectangular format. Anyway, excellent post.
By: niktemadur
Re: Cosmic Voyage
BTW, this is a great primer into cosmology, although some of the info presented is slightly dated (the Universe is now known to be almost exactly 13.7 billion years old, not 15 billion), while stranger and more complex events are skirted altogether. The most compelling case point: Inflationary Theory, now widely accepted by the scientific community. Here goes...
The Universe sprang into being from less than one ounce of matter, which inflated (not the same as expanded) in a billionth billionth trillionth of a second to encompass a larger area than the visible Universe today. In Inflation, driven by a peculiar negative gravity stronger than regular gravity, all the matter in our Cosmos was spontaneously created from the energy it took to inflate it. The creator of the theory, Alan Guth, famously said that the Universe may be "the ultimate free lunch".
Have you ever put a beer in the freezer, taken it out while it was still in a liquid state, then it suddenly turned to ice when you tapped the bottle? The beer was in a supercooled state - below the freezing point yet still liquid, a close enough analogy for our Universe, which for an inconceivably small instant was supercooled. It has to do with a swarm of Higgs Particles (the big hoopla about CERN this year is the possibility of detecting the Higgs Particle for the first time), taking longer than expected to reach a relative state of rest after the instant of creation.
A consequence of supercooling was a false vacuum, which drove negative gravity, which in turn doubled and redoubled the size of the Universe by a factor of over a hundred - that's a 1 followed by a hundred zeros! And then the Higgs Particle fell into the level of energy it was supposed to have arrived to an instant before.
It sounds incredibly weird, but you have no idea just how much sense Inflation makes from the point of view of particle physicists and cosmologists, and just how spectacularly well it fits with what is observed - Inflation came in to fill the gaps that the classical Big Bang Theory just could not solve. Inflation does not replace the Big Bang, it complements it.
As a final idea to chew on, Inflation implies that the observable Universe, 13.7 billion light years in every direction, is less than 1% of the total size of the Universe.
Whew, that was a bitch to write, I'll tell ya.
The Universe sprang into being from less than one ounce of matter, which inflated (not the same as expanded) in a billionth billionth trillionth of a second to encompass a larger area than the visible Universe today. In Inflation, driven by a peculiar negative gravity stronger than regular gravity, all the matter in our Cosmos was spontaneously created from the energy it took to inflate it. The creator of the theory, Alan Guth, famously said that the Universe may be "the ultimate free lunch".
Have you ever put a beer in the freezer, taken it out while it was still in a liquid state, then it suddenly turned to ice when you tapped the bottle? The beer was in a supercooled state - below the freezing point yet still liquid, a close enough analogy for our Universe, which for an inconceivably small instant was supercooled. It has to do with a swarm of Higgs Particles (the big hoopla about CERN this year is the possibility of detecting the Higgs Particle for the first time), taking longer than expected to reach a relative state of rest after the instant of creation.
A consequence of supercooling was a false vacuum, which drove negative gravity, which in turn doubled and redoubled the size of the Universe by a factor of over a hundred - that's a 1 followed by a hundred zeros! And then the Higgs Particle fell into the level of energy it was supposed to have arrived to an instant before.
It sounds incredibly weird, but you have no idea just how much sense Inflation makes from the point of view of particle physicists and cosmologists, and just how spectacularly well it fits with what is observed - Inflation came in to fill the gaps that the classical Big Bang Theory just could not solve. Inflation does not replace the Big Bang, it complements it.
As a final idea to chew on, Inflation implies that the observable Universe, 13.7 billion light years in every direction, is less than 1% of the total size of the Universe.
Whew, that was a bitch to write, I'll tell ya.
By: niktemadur
