The BEST episodes directed by Nic Stacey
#1 - Information
Order and Disorder - Season 1 - Episode 2
Professor Jim Al-Khalili investigates one of the most important concepts in the world today - information. He discovers how we harnessed the power of symbols, everything from the first alphabet to the electric telegraph through to the modern digital age. But on this journey he learns that information isn't just about human communication, it's woven very profoundly into the fabric of reality.
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#2 - Energy
Order and Disorder - Season 1 - Episode 1
Professor Jim Al-Khalili discovers the intriguing story of how we discovered the rules that drive the universe. Energy is vital to us all, but what exactly is energy? In attempting to answer this question Jim investigates a strange set of laws that link together everything from engines to humans to stars. It turns out that energy, so critical to daily existence, actually helps us make sense of the entire universe.
Watch Now:Amazon
#3 - Shield
One Strange Rock - Season 1 - Episode 3
Earth protects itself from the sun. The David and Goliath story of Earth’s relationship with its greatest threat, our seemingly benign Sun. The Sun is the big violent boss of the Solar System throwing out devastating particles and energy. Without several shields, one generated by our unique planetary core, another by our atmosphere, and a third by our interconnected weather systems… life on Earth would never have survived.
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#4 - Life Beyond the Sun: Saturn
The Planets (2019) - Season 1 - Episode 4
Professor Brian Cox reveals the history of Saturn. Saturn began life as a strange planet of rock and ice and in time transformed into a gas giant, ring-less and similar looking to its rival, Jupiter.
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#5 - Terraform
One Strange Rock - Season 1 - Episode 7
Earth’s great paradox. For our planet to become inhabitable for life, you already need life. Ever since life emerged, microbes, plants and animals have all sculpted the planet’s surface and air in the strangest of ways; fish poop creates islands; dead animals create mountains; lichen drive continents. But life also has the power to destroy our world. We are changing the climate, but we are not the first to do so. Long before us, microbes froze the planet and almost wiped out all life. The difference between us and them is we are conscious of our actions.
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
#6 - The Secret Life of Chaos
BBC Documentaries - Season 2010 - Episode 249
Professor Jim Al-Khalili shows how chaos theory can answer a question that mankind has asked for millennia - how does a universe that starts off as dust end up with intelligent life? It's a mindbending, counterintuitive and for many people a troubling idea. But Professor Al-Khalili reveals the science behind much of beauty and structure in the natural world and discovers that far from it being magic or an act of God, it is in fact an intrinsic part of the laws of physics.
#7 - Mechanical Marvels: Clockwork Dreams
BBC Documentaries - Season 2013 - Episode 111
Documentary presented by Professor Simon Schaffer which charts the amazing and untold story of automata - extraordinary clockwork machines designed hundreds of years ago to mimic and recreate life.
#8 - Oak Tree: Nature's Greatest Survivor
BBC Documentaries - Season 2015 - Episode 225
George McGavin investigates the dramatic life of the oak tree - a species that makes extraordinary transformations as it meets the challenges of the four seasons.