"Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman" Science Channel

[StarRider1701]

I've been watching "Through the Wormhole" with Morgan Freeman on the Science Channel, Wednesday nights at 10pm.

I like it very much. Morgan Freeman is one of my favorite actors and he seems personally interested in the topics and genuinely interested in the answers. This isn't "woo" stuff, he talks to Scientists and Professors who gear their answers to a general, non-scientist audience. Some of the topics have included "Black Holes" "Is time travel possible?" which I have watched and they were quite good. Other topics are "Are We Alone?" and "Is there a Creator?" which I've recorded and will watch soon.

Actually, I just heard of the program and last Wed was the season finale program. They re-ran many of the shows last wednesday for a few hours prior to the final show and I recorded them and am watching them a few at a time. But they are still showing the reruns on Wed night at 10pm.

For all you super-brains out there this program may be a bit too general. It does talk about some of the math involved but does not delve deeply into it. The show genuinely tries to answer questions like "Is time travel possible?" by talking to real, accredited professionals on the topic. And when the questions have no answers? They first give as much scientific thinking on the topic as they can, then admit that "We don't know" the final answer.
I find the show very refreshing in its openness and like that the host seems genuinely interested rather than just some bored, big name actor standing there mouthing his/her lines. I was looking for this topic and am a bit surprised, given that the show's season finale was last week, that no one had made one.

Has anyone else been watching this show? What do you think of it?

 

[MeteorWayne]

I've watched a few episodes, hope to catch them all. I've found the science to be uneven, sometimes good, sometimes a bit far on the fringe for my taste. But still, generally informative and entertaining. I'll reserve final judgement until I've seen them all once or twice.

 

[bdewoody]

I too have been watching this series and agree that although the science is uneven overall the effect is positive. I think Morgan Freeman should have been our first black President.

 

[MeteorWayne]

In the movies he's been both the President and God. Once you've been God, it's tough to go back to be just the president

 

[StarRider1701]

Very funny MW, so you do have a sense of humor! :lol:

As I said, I've taped several episodes and have watched several. Friday morning I watched 2 episodes, one about Dark Matter. It was very interesting, I had not heard that we have actually photographed Dark Matter last year. Very intriguing way of going about catching Dark Matter on film, too.

Then I watched the episode called, "Is there a Creator?" It was not at all what I expected. For the most part, the episode leaned towards, "Yes there is a Creator, let's prove it logically and Scientifically." They did have one short segment on the Multiple Universes Theory in which our Universe is simply one of an infinite number. In our Universe the 4 necessary forces (gravity, electromagnatism, weak and strong) just happened to come together in exactly the right combination for life to exist. But most of the rest of the program focused on proving a Creator (they didn't really focus on any one Deity, mentioning several including God.)

I was rather disappointed in the end, for several reasons. They ended with the theory that we are nothing more than a computer simulation made by a human some 50 years in the future. WE (future coders 50 years from now) are God! I don't think so. I'm sorry, but no matter how much better computers are 50 yrs from now, no human coder, or room full of coders could make a simulation this real. I'm sorry, but there simply is too much fine detail. In order to make a simulation of a person's entire life, down to the last little detail would take one coder doing nothing else for nearly a lifetime! Not to mention a room full of coders just to put in each of the the details of: all plant life, all land animals, all ocean plant and animal life, the weather patterns, climate and ecosystem of Planet Earth... The list is nearly endless and I haven't even left Earth yet! NO. Not buying it.

One Scientist (cant remember his name) stated that just because over the last 10 years our computing power has doubled on average every 13 months, that computing power will continue to do so, seemingly indefinately. To me this is a very UN-scientific prediction. He didn't seem to even consider the possibility of any limits to this growth. Even though computers are not living things, everything that grows has limits. Not all that long ago a poster here stated that the current type of processors were reaching thier upper limits of speed and processing capability. And eventually (likely sooner rather than later) the upper limit will be reached for our very versitile tool - the computer.

Overall still like the show, just a bit disappointed with the final direction and ending of this episode.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Actually I have a fine sense of humor...being a mod beats it out of me at times

I should point out that we did not photograph dark matter. The blue blobs (If I'm recalling the simulation you probably saw) are where the dm exists based on the gravitational lensing, but is a simulation, not an actual photo. By definition, you can't image dark matter directly.

Regarding the show, like much on NatGeo and The Science channel, they are made to attract an audience, not always to speak scientific facts.

 

[ramparts]

Waaaaait wait wait. So if y'all are talking about the Bullet Cluster, you're both wrong Dark matter wasn't imaged on film, but neither was it merely a simulation. It was actual data taken from the actual Universe, where the word simulation refers to models built on computers of "fake" universes, or "fake" galaxies, etc. What they found with the Bullet Cluster was a signal of gravitational lensing, so they could (using false coloring) show exactly where the majority of the mass was. What they found is that this happened to not be in the place that the light was coming from, suggesting that that matter was, in fact, dark

 

[MeteorWayne]

Sorry, poor choice of words in my part...too early in the morning You are correct ramparts...but in a sense since the dark matter was imaged the false coloring is a simulation, in that it isn't really visible. Representation of the actual data perhaps?
Meh, semantics.
The point is the data was real, and was shown in the image with blue coloring.

 

[ramparts]

Yeah yeah I figured that's what you meant It's just that in astro and cosmology the word "simulation" is going to carry connotations which you weren't exactly looking for there.

 

[StarRider1701]

Thank you all for clearing that up, because I know they didn't say anything about it being a simulation. Ok, so they colored it blue to make it easier for the audience and the cameras to see. I wouldn't call that a simulation. Yes MW, I do know that you cannot image Dark Matter directly, but using the gravitational lensing they did at least show that it exists. I thought that was very interesting and very cool.