Directed by Charles and Ray Eames, the legendary husband-and-wife filmmaking and design team, the classic short Powers of Ten (1977) invited viewers to contemplate the edges of our understanding of reality. Starting from a picnic blanket in a Chicago park, that film took viewers on a journey that stretched to the scale of 100 million light years away, and then back down to a single proton. Narrated by the BBC TV presenter Brian Cox – a professor of particle physics in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Manchester – this new short pays homage to the Eames classic by transposing its elegantly simple premise to today. This time, the picnic blanket is in Sicily, and the time horizon stretches to a scale of 100 billion light years away; the resulting film integrates updates in astronomy, astronomical imaging and human understanding into its journey far into the cosmos and back again.
Video by BBC Ideas and The Open University
Producer: Pomona Pictures
video
Biology
Journey deep into the Philippine forest in search of the world’s largest, rarest eagle
95 minutes
video
Art
What does an AI make of what it sees in a contemporary art museum?
15 minutes
video
History of ideas
Tantra is, and was, a subversive philosophy of feminine power
19 minutes
video
Ecology and environmental sciences
Producing food while restoring the planet – a glimpse of farming in the future
7 minutes
video
Archaeology
Ancient Greek sculptures were colourful. Why does the white marble ideal persist?
6 minutes
video
Astronomy
From zero to 5,000 – music and visuals express 30 years of exoplanet discoveries
1 minute
video
Ecology and environmental sciences
Yo-Yo Ma performs a work for cello in the woods, accompanied by a birdsong chorus
4 minutes
video
Thinkers and theories
Metaphysics and beyond – Martha Nussbaum on Aristotle’s indelible ideas
43 minutes
video
Art
A massive art installation attempts to put the COVID-19 deaths in perspective
15 minutes