On a cosmic scale, we live laughably short lives on an almost completely inconsequential planet. On the planetary level, we could be described as a constantly evolving delivery system for our DNA, with – at best – marginal control over our surroundings. Part of the Munich-based design studio Kurzgesagt’s In a Nutshell series, Are You Alone? (In the Universe) is a short, animated appraisal of humanity’s place in the cosmos amid scientific findings that seem to keep making human existence less and less significant.
Our existence is both cosmically trivial and linked to everything that ever was
Video by Kurzgesagt
19 October 2015

videoComplexity
A radical reimagining of physics puts information at its centre
13 minutes

videoAstronomy
Visualisations explore what the deep future holds for our night sky
6 minutes

videoEthics
What’s an idea worth? How prominent thinkers have understood intellectual property
6 minutes

videoKnowledge
Why David Deutsch believes good explanations are the antidote to bad philosophy
10 minutes

videoEvolution
How – and how not – to think about the role randomness plays in evolution
60 minutes

videoChemistry
Why do the building blocks of life possess a mysterious symmetry?
12 minutes


