BBC4 - The Search for Life & Beautiful Equations

[g3org3y]

I don't really watch much television to be fair (apart from the Apprentice) and it has been a while since the last episode of Horizon so it was a pleasure to stumble across two very good science programmes this evening on BBC4.

The Search for Life - all about the search for ETs, exploring the ideas regarding the Drake Equation (formula to work out how many potential intelligent civillisations there are out there) and why despite the high estimate why we've had no contact (the Fermi Paradox). Very interesting.

Beautiful Equations - some of the most important equations of physics through the eyes of an artist. Explained very well (apart from the Dirac Equation) and genuinely demonstrates the beauty and elegance of the world arond us through physics. Very very enjoyable.

I you like science (or even if you don't and you'd like the stretch the old brain muscle a bit), I'd certainly recommend both of these. A delighful antidote to the utter tripe that is 'celebrities dancing in ballrooms factor'. Well done BBC.

[ewenm]

The Joy of Stats was on last night too.

[tank slapper]

ewenm said:

The Joy of Stats was on last night too.

That was quite good. Hans Rosling has given a number of TED lectures, some of which were excerpted in that programme. You can watch them in full here.

[Eric Mc]

After a couple of years of shabby nonsense, Horizon is back on track again and recent episodes have been pretty good.

[Marf]

Eric Mc said:

After a couple of years of shabby nonsense, Horizon is back on track again and recent episodes have been pretty good.

So they've moved away from talking slowly and repeating themselves 15 times to make sure the lowest common denominator has a chance of understanding the content?

[Eric Mc]

Marf said:

Eric Mc said:

After a couple of years of shabby nonsense, Horizon is back on track again and recent episodes have been pretty good.

So they've moved away from talking slowly and repeating themselves 15 times to make sure the lowest common denominator has a chance of understanding the content?

To an extent, yes.

However, the main improvement is in subject matter. For a while, every episode seemed to be about the wiping out of the human race - whether it was through virus, plague, asteroids or global warming. I was getting a bit tired with it all.