Ep. 1
I don't buy uncaused Big Bang. Explanation given is laughable.
I think he does other scientists a disservice by implying that there is nothing else to discover about "why" the Big Bang happened (and "what" the Big Bang was).
But to the extent that he was saying that the proposition that "our" universe came into existence out of "nothing" (as a mere random fluctuation in that nothingness) is not inconsistent with well-tested physical pheomena, as well as pure mathematics and theory, he's not saying anything out of the ordinary. Why is that laughable?
Ep. 2
Conway's Game of Life DOESN'T PRODUCE ANY INFORMATION. OBJECTS? SPECIES? U GOTTA BE KIDDING ME...
He was making a point about rules, nothing else.
ie the application of simple rules, on a large scale, over a long time, can lead to complex scenarios.
Yeah, maybe he should not have made that particular game sound so dramatic, or groundbreaking. But that's TV for ya.
Ep. 3
String theory has no testable prediction (yes multivers is not testable) and the show sells it like the ultimate truth. Quarks are made of strings... Yea right.
Overall the show is terrible as it serves theories as facts WITHOUT ANY CLUE THAT THEY ARE HYPOTHETICAL! BUT THATS HOW YOU SELL POPULAR SCIENCE THAT HAS VERY LITTLE TO DO WITH REAL SCIENCE.
I think he would agree with you that theories are just theories, and that - one day - a particular theory might be disproved.
But I think he made clear that string theory is not accepted by everyone.
As you say, this show was intended as "popular science". Some of his attempts to be informal and user friendly actually lead to a lack of accuracy in some of the explanations. HOWEVER, he is not lecturing to students who are going to sit an exam at the end of it (still less be asked to take our current understanding to the next level).
For this particular show, keeping the viewer interested is more important than absolute rigour in the explanations and caveats. For those viewers who will never consider the subject matter in more detail, the explanations contained in the show are good enough. For those viewers who want to try to get a fuller explanation, they'll need to (i) watch a longer series; (ii) sign up for an undergraduate course; (iii) study for a phd.
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pops87
9 years ago
1. It's laughable as it has no ground.
2. No complex anything there - sorry.
3. He didn't make anything clear. Thats the WHOLE POINT.
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padzok
9 years ago
1. It's laughable as it has no ground.
It is consistent with phenomena which have been observed. It is consistent with theories which have made predictions which have been tested.
2. No complex anything there - sorry.
Some of the patterns that can arise from simple starting conditions can, for example, be ever expanding in a regular pattern, or can be repeating in a regular pattern, and so on.
I'm not sure what you're trying to get at. If you mean that this does not "prove" that a human eye could evolve, then I agree.
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