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Freeman:
Since the dawn of our species,
humanity has never stopped
moving forward.
First, we mastered fire.
[ Explosion ]
Today, we play with the fabric
of space and time.
Now technology
is about to advance
beyond our wildest dreams.
We may soon know the future
And learn to move matter
at the speed of light.
Could we mortals ever gain power
over the entire universe?
Will we become God?
Space, time, life itself.
The secrets of the cosmos
lie through the wormhole.
[ thunderclap, rain falling ]
The Bible says
that God is the master of all
things in heaven and on earth,
that God created us and guides
the world we live in.
But a total mastery
of the universe
may not be just a divine power.
It could be our destiny.
Will we someday
not only play God
But be God?
And what will we do
with our omnipotence?
[ Birds chirping ]
Freeman: I played cowboys
when I was a kid.
The sneak attack
was my trademark move.
[ Click ]
Freeman: In the world I created,
bullets couldn't harm me.
I was invincible.
I could do anything I wanted.
Could these God-like powers
one day be a reality
in the real world?
U.
C.
Berkeley bioengineer
Adam Arkin
believes we are very close
to one divine ability --
creating new forms of life.
Want evidence?
He's sitting right on top of it.
Arkin: Well, these very organic-looking
pieces of furniture
are actually formed
out of a fast-growing fungus.
The artist's name
is Philip Ross.
He calls this type of work
mycotecture,
because the study of fungi
is mycology,
and so they're like
architecture of fungus.
Freeman:
The artist crafted these tools
by feeding wood chips
to mushrooms.
As the mushrooms feast,
they grow fibers that interlock,
forming a substance
that is stronger than concrete.
We are learning how
to shape life to fit our needs.
But Adam wants to take this idea
a step further,
to have living objects
shape themselves
according to our design,
just as the Bible says
God shaped Eve from Adam's rib.
What we would like to do
as engineers
is to program the cells
to self-organize into shapes
like this,
or into more complicated,
articulated shapes
than even this is.
Freeman: Adam's dream
is to create living organisms
that can sense
their surroundings
and change their shape
on demand.
Instead of a mushroom chair
always being a chair,
it would know
when Adam got tired
Wow.
And then, organically,
morph itself
into a mushroom bed.
[ Yawns and snores ]
To do this, he needs to learn
how to control the movement
of molecules
inside living cells.
[ Continues snoring ]
Arkin: Well,
imagine the dancer is a molecule
that's going inside her cell.
Molecules are what make
the cell act.
They bounce into each other,
they bind, they pull,
they stretch,
and in doing so,
make the cell do, you know,
do all these
amazing acrobatics,
all of which we can exploit
for our own needs.
Freeman:
Every movement a cell makes
stems from instructions
in its D.
N.
A.
code.
Adam had been subtly altering
this code
to change how the molecules
in a cell
are programmed to perform.
As cytoengineers, what we're
able to do these days
is to take D.
N.
A.
,
engineer it,
and put it back inside cells
so it can direct
the dancer
you're seeing here,
and so we can,
on a computer,
program what we expect
to see happen,
make that into D.
N.
A.
,
put it into the cells,
and then watch to see if
they follow our instructions.
Freeman: If Adam can control
the behavior of one cell,
imagine what he can do
with many.
He could program cells to grow
into whatever he wants.
He could create an apple
a tree,
or maybe something
even God never considered,
like a living bicycle.
Arkin: In the case of the bicycle,
each part has to work together.
There's gears and wheels
and steering, and the like.
And so, each cell has to be
aware of its surrounds
and work with other cells,
each one different,
each one with its own job.
And part of our instruction set
is to make that happen.
Freeman: Adam's work
could be the foundation
for creating
a modern garden of eden,
where we, not God,
get to decide what kind of life
grows inside of it.
I think humans want to feel
in control over their world.
We are animals that build things
and control things
and change things,
and I think
it's part
in process with who we are.
Freeman: The Bible says,
"God's ultimate creations
were man and woman --
beings
with their own free will.
"
We have already crafted
new life-forms,
but could our creations
ever have conscious souls?
Most scientists consider
conscious experience
to be an elusive property
that may never be
fully understood,
much less artificially created.
But neuroscientist
Melanie Bolling,
from the University
of Wisconsin-Madison,
doesn't think
it's so mysterious.
In fact, she thinks it can be
boiled down to a single number.
What we try to do in our work
is to quantify consciousness.
By the quantity, we say,
"How much understanding
there is?
How much consciousness
there is in a system?"
Freeman: One way
to understand consciousness
is to observe what happens
when it fails.
Different brain injuries
have dramatically different
consequences.
We learn from neurology
that there are
some brain lesions
that make you unconscious
and some that don't.
Freeman: When damage occurs
in the cerebral cortex,
body organs
like the heart and lungs
may continue to function.
However, a patient
won't show any awareness
of his or her environment.
[ Buzzing ]
But a person with injuries
only to the cerebellum
could still be perfectly awake
and alert.
Even though the cerebellum
has many more neurons
than the cortex, it doesn't play
a vital role in consciousness.
So when you look at what
makes the difference
between the cortex
and the cerebellum,
you will see that the difference
is not in the number of neurons.
What is
making the difference is
the way the different
brain areas talk to each other.
Freeman: Imagine that
each neuron throughout the brain
is a light bulb.
What would happen if every
single one had its own switch?
[ Switch clicks ]
So if I turn this light on,
it won't make any difference
to the rest of the system.
Freeman: Melanie believes
that consciousness arises
in the cortex,
because the neurons
it stems from
are not isolated bulbs.
They form an interconnected
network that communicates.
If we had a set of lamps that
are connected to each other,
then actually turning the lamp
on or off
would make a lot of difference
to the rest of the system.
And there, we would say
that the information
is shared or integrated.
Freeman:
Now the lights are talking.
When one turns on,
it signals another to turn off.
When one turns off, it signals
another to turn on, and so on.
Together, they create
a dynamic symphony
of thoughts and emotions,
leading to the feeling
of being alive.
Bolling: So, this interconnectedness
is thought to be important
for consciousness
to arise in the brain.
Freeman: This idea led Melanie
to develop a formula
that will allow us
to measure consciousness.
It calculates the degree
of interconnectedness of neurons
in any system.
The answer
is a number represented
by the Greek letter, Phi.
The more conscious something is,
the greater its value of phi.
The human brain, with trillions
of neuroconnections,
has a large value of phi.
An earthworm's phi
is exponentially smaller,
but it's still not zero.
So one of the implications
of the theory
is that consciousness is not
necessarily only in humans.
We could use phi as a way
to measure the level
of consciousness
in a lot
of different cases,
being living beings
or computers.
Freeman: If Melanie and her
colleagues have found a way
to measure consciousness,
how long could it be
before we design and build
systems that are self-aware,
just as God populated earth
with sentient beings?
In the Bible,
God solved the consciousness
equation in one day.
This puzzle master
thinks he can solve
any equation and any problem.
If he's right,
divine wisdom could be right
at our fingertips.
If you're a salesman
or maybe an actor,
and you have to travel
to 15 cities around the world,
what's the shortest route
you could take
to visit each one only once?
Well, there are an awful lot
of possibilities --
Of course, God would know
the answer instantly.
Mathematicians have wrestled
with this type of logistical
problem for centuries.
If we could discover the answer,
we would know the perfect way
to do almost anything.
Computer scientist Tom Rokicki
has been on a lifelong quest
for divine wisdom,
at least when it comes
to puzzles.
Well, I got a cube
when I was in high school,
and I just could
not solve it.
It was the first puzzle
that I just could not solve.
And I eventually realized
I had to, like, keep notes.
I had to write,
"Oh, this move does this,
and this move does this.
"
And I built up a notebook
that helped me figure out
how to solve it.
Freeman:
Merely solving the Rubik's Cube
is not enough for Tom.
He wants to conquer it entirely.
He sought
the underlying principle
that would allow him
to crack the cube
in the fewest possible moves,
from any starting position.
Mathematicians call
this step-by-step code
"God's algorithm.
"
So God's algorithm is
the ability
to solve a random position
as quickly as possible,
as efficiently as possible.
If you just had
infinite knowledge,
you could always know
what the next move was
to take you closer
to a solution.
Freeman: In his journey to crack
this little puzzle,
he may have stumbled
across the secret
to cracking really big ones --
problems that have dogged
humanity for centuries.
[ Bell ringing,
men shouting indistinctly ]
Freeman:
Solving the Rubik's Cube won't,
by itself, make the world
a better place.
But the method Tom uses to find
the quickest solution
from any of the 43 quintillion
starting positions
might work
for much larger puzzles.
Tom quickly realized that even
an army of highly skilled
Rubik's Cube solvers
wouldn't be enough for him
to find answers
to every possible scrambled
configuration.
The fastest cube solvers
can solve the cube
in about 10 seconds.
Now, if you took all
and trained them all to solve
the cube that fast,
it would take them more than
a thousand years
to explore
this many different positions.
Freeman: And even
the fastest hands and minds
sometimes take a wrong turn
on their way to reaching
the final arrangement.
Tom needed an unprecedented
amount of power.
He needed a super brain.
I've always been fascinated
with the ability of computers
to expand
what you can figure out.
With computers, you can
actually set up experiments
and play with math.
So, you know, if I can
sit there and, by hand,
figure out that
if I make this move
and then this move
and then this move,
that it changes this cubey
in a particular way,
the sequences get too long.
I can't think --
I can't remember all that stuff.
And a computer is very good
at enabling me to answer
questions like that.
Freeman: Even the most
powerful computer in the world
is not powerful enough
to calculate God's algorithm.
[ Keyboard keys clacking ]
So, Tom decided to break up
the cube into small chunks.
Hoo-hoo!
Rokicki: We were able
to figure out a way to use
a mathematical concept called
group theory and cosets
to actually partition
the problem
into 2 billion other problems
that were smaller,
and then solved each of those
problems on separate computers.
So that let me take advantage
of parallel processing
and solve the entire problem
with a lot of computers.
[ Chuckles ]
Freeman: Each of these cubers
is like a separate computer.
Each is trying to figure out
the series of moves needed
to get from
a random, scrambled position
to another less scrambled
position.
After about 1 billion seconds
of computing time,
Tom finally discovered
God's algorithm.
The minimum number of moves
to solve the Rubik's Cube is 20.
Ultimately, I was able to prove
that every single position
of the Rubik's Cube can be
solved in 20 moves or less.
No matter how much
you scramble it,
there's always
a 20-move sequence
that takes you
back to solved.
That's what God would do.
God would always be able
to solve this cube
in the minimum number of moves.
Freeman: Tom has cracked
God's code for the Rubik's Cube.
In the process,
he's shown that if a puzzle
has a final solution,
there's a right answer
for each step of the way.
So could we solve any problem
that has interconnected parts?
Imagine being able to eradicate
world hunger
by optimizing food distribution
to billions of people,
or instantly curing diseases
in the body just by knowing
the right sequence of procedures
to target pathogens.
If a solution exists,
Tom believes he can find it.
Done.
The ability to actually solve
this problem really tells us
that computer power
plus a couple of good ideas
can take us much further
than we would have thought.
So I think that there's a lot
of optimism to solve
other more difficult problems,
like car accidents and poverty
or economic issues.
There's a lot of opportunity
for that, I believe.
Freeman: God's algorithm
only works for problems
that have a definite solution.
But real life isn't as simple
as a brain teaser.
We can't be sure which puzzles
are actually solvable.
So how do we know
what to tackle?
One scientist is using numbers
to look into the future to
give us mortals a helping hand.
Imagine if you could take
a look at someone
and instantly know everything --
where they were born,
where they live,
and what will happen to them
in the future.
If you were god, you could.
And in this age
of digital data collection,
humans are getting closer
to achieving this power.
Will we become omniscient?
Richard Janikowski is not a God.
He's
a former statistics professor
at the University of Memphis.
But sometimes,
he seems to be all-knowing.
Hi, Allison.
How are you doing today?
Good.
Our analysis shows you're gonna
want to spend about $7.
10,
so one of the first things
you're gonna want is a salad.
Thank you!
And, Allison, you've always
been a big fan of beets.
So have some beets
for lunch.
How do you know this?
And now,
since payday was yesterday,
you can treat yourself
to some pumpkin pie.
Oh, my gosh.
And our prediction is
that either you
or one of your children
will spill something,
so here's some extra napkins.
I can't believe it.
[ Laughs ]
You know everything.
Freeman:
Richard's uncanny predictions
don't come from divine insight.
They come
from collecting data --
lots and lots of data,
and then finding patterns
hidden in the numbers.
To go? Hot sauce to go.
If you were attempting
to predict
what customers would order
in a restaurant like
the Picadilly,
if you began observing
customer patterns,
how many people,
what hours of the day,
what days of the week,
then you can begin looking
at what they order
in terms of coffee
or green beans
or chicken-fried steak.
If you also collect, then,
data on their individual
demographics,
you can begin connecting
that data.
Freeman:
Richard's data patterns
can read the tea leaves
of any restaurant patron.
But he has
an even greater power.
He can use data to see evil
in the hearts of men.
In 2005, Richard joined
a groundbreaking crime
prediction center in Memphis.
It's called Blue Crush.
Blue Crush takes in
video surveillance
from cameras distributed
throughout the city
and centralizes data
gathered by numerous agencies.
At the heart of the operation
lies a program designed
by Richard
to comb through all the data.
The idea is to stop crime
before it happens.
What we integrated was both
arrest data and incident data,
and then we used the theory
that has evolved from research
on offenders to look for certain
types of patterns of behavior,
because the past really is
the best predictor
of the future.
Freeman: The data show
that some types of crime
concentrate in certain areas
and at certain times.
Richard learned
that home burglaries
tend to take place
during business hours,
when most people are away
from home.
Businesses, on the other hand,
usually suffer break-ins
after hours.
Its guiding principle really is
that if you effectively deploy
police resources
in the right place,
on the right day,
at the right time, you're gonna
be able to reduce crime.
Freeman: Out on the street,
patrol officers in Memphis
now work
with central command
to anticipate
and stop crime before it starts.
You actually can figure out
where there's gonna be
concentration of robbers.
Actually, the research shows
that burglars tend to operate in
a doughnut around their house.
They don't want to be too close
to the house,
because then people know them.
But they don't want to be too
far away from the house either,
because they don't know
the territory.
Freeman: The data channeling
through Blue Crush's
predictive computers
has made Memphis a safer place.
From 2006 to 2010,
violent crimes fell
by about 25%,
and burglaries declined
five times faster
than the national average.
Today, Richard's methodology
can predict hot spots
of criminal activity
throughout an entire city.
But what about predicting
the behavior
of a single individual?
The explosion of social media,
market trackers,
and surveillance cameras
are converting our lives
into data.
[ Electronic beeping ]
With enough number crunching,
could
the criminal justice system
achieve an all-knowing presence?
Could that ability tempt
governments or corporations
down a dark path,
toward a world where big brother
watches our every move?
Technology could soon
grant us the ability
to know what our neighbors
will do tomorrow.
But we have to do more than that
to be God-like.
We need to be able
to control the world
with the power of thought.
In the Bible,
God said, "Let there be light.
"
And there was light.
Now, what if you
could use your mind
to make things do
whatever you wanted?
Could we control the universe
with our thoughts?
We might soon achieve
the power of mind over matter,
thanks to the work
of Brazilian neurobiologist,
Miguel Nicolelis,
at Duke University.
For the past two decades,
he has been discovering ways
for the brain to control
its surroundings
using only its thoughts.
Miguel believes
the brain's potential
can be understood by looking
at his country's
most beloved sport -- soccer.
Well, you know,
in a field like that,
when the players start,
you know, passing the ball,
when we score a goal
in a soccer game,
the equivalent is any behavior
that a brain produces.
It results from this interplay
of many players, the neurons,
interacting with one another.
Freeman: Figuring out how
neurons produce a behavior
is like understanding how a team
of soccer players scores a goal.
[ Crowd cheering ]
One way is to track
every single movement
from each of the players
separately.
But there are many thousands
of separate movements
that lead to a goal.
Miguel has a simpler idea.
If he has a seat
in the nosebleeds,
where he can barely
see the players
and can't even see the ball,
he still knows
when a goal has been scored,
because he can see
when all the players end up
near the goal
Man: Goal!
[ Crowd cheering ]
Freeman: And half of them
start celebrating.
[ Fireworks whistling
and exploding ]
[ Electrical crackling ]
Freeman: When neurons achieve
a behavior,
they also create a noise
that Miguel can actually hear
and record.
He calls them "brainstorms.
"
[ Popping ]
Nicolelis: Well, this is the true sound
of a brainstorm --
a real brainstorm.
So all the electrical signals
of a few neurons
have been combined to produce
this popcorn-like sound,
that basically reflect
when the neurons start firing.
Freeman:
By analyzing a brainstorm,
Miguel can see, as well as hear,
neurons in the act
of producing a behavior.
Miguel wondered
if he could replicate
one of these brainstorm patterns
digitally,
and, in this way,
harness thoughts
to control devices.
Miguel set up a trial
with rhesus monkeys.
He first recorded
the brainstorms
of a monkey watching an avatar
moving its arms.
[ Beeping ]
Brainstorm patterns
made by observing an action
are similar to those arising
from either performing
or imagining one.
Miguel digitized
the monkey's brainstorms
into a program
that a computer could execute.
So whenever the monkey
even thought about
moving the avatar's arms,
the computer recognized
the brainstorm.
The result --
monkey see, computer do.
The power of thought
successfully moved the avatar.
Miguel's experiment points to
a future where any person's wish
instantly becomes
a God-like physical command.
Nicolelis:
So you can get your mind now
controlling devices
that are next to you
or in a different part
of the planet,
or even outside earth.
We haven't done that one,
but we have this dream
of one day
sitting here on earth
and controlling a robot
on the moon
or on Mars just by thinking.
Freeman: If it's possible
for our brains
to control objects
with our thoughts,
perhaps we can control
the actions of living beings.
What if we could see
inside the minds of others
and know
their most intimate thoughts
[ Bicycle bell dings ]
just like God?
Miguel set up
another experiment.
He implanted brain activity
monitors into a pair of rats.
The rats hardly noticed,
because brain tissue does not
have pain receptors.
Nicolelis: It is a very thin,
hair-like filament that we use
to create sensors that can be
implanted in the brain
like a pacemaker's
implanted in the heart,
to record the signals.
Freeman: He wired the rats
so that neural activity,
the brainstorms, could travel
from one rat to another.
He then placed the rats
into individual cages.
In the cage of the first rat,
one of two hatches,
either on the left or the right,
opens.
The ink holder, the first rat --
this guy's getting
the information
from the environment.
And his job is to use its brain
to encode that information.
And the brain activity
that we're recording
from this animal's being
broadcasted to a second animal.
Freeman:
In the cage of the second rat,
two hatches open.
This rat now has to pick the hat
on the same side as the one
that opened for the first rat.
If he gets it right,
both rats get a reward.
Nicolelis: And it turns out
that about 70% of the time,
this guy got it right.
So random chance would be 50%,
so just if he's trying to guess,
would be 50%, but he got 70.
Freeman: It was not perfect,
but the experiment showed
that information could flow
from one brain to the other.
Miguel's research might lead us
to a future
where thoughts can be shared
as easily as words.
[ Electrical crackling ]
Imagine receiving feedback
instantaneously
from millions of people,
that you can, you know,
decide which ones
you want to listen to,
or, eventually, collaborating.
We are probably,
for the first time
in our evolutionary history,
influencing directly
our own evolution.
Evolution will continue
to unfold in unpredictable ways.
[ Crackling ]
Freeman:
Will linking our brains
help humanity
achieve infinite wisdom?
And if our brains can be
in so many places at once,
what will happen to our bodies?
God is not only omniscient
but also omnipresent.
One scientist prophesizes
the same for mankind --
the ability to be anywhere
and everywhere.
Believers in God say
they feel his divine presence,
no matter where they are.
With all the billions
of faithful in the world,
God must be everywhere
at the same time.
Quantum physicists
know that tiny particles
already have
this God-like ability,
and we are made
of these subatomic particles.
So why can't we be omnipresent,
like God?
Anton Zeilinger is a pioneer
of quantum information theory.
He studies the strange laws
that govern how tiny particles
communicate with one another.
But every now and then,
he likes to communicate
with his peers
the old-fashioned way.
Zeilinger: In any communication today,
we use classical methods.
Take this letter here.
I'm sending it now
to my friend in China.
So it means that it follows
a path.
It goes to the post office.
The post office brings it
to the airplane.
The airplane flies to China,
and so on and so on.
It's a well-defined trajectory,
and I can follow it.
Freeman: When a letter
goes through the mail,
the information inside
follows a physical trail.
In the quantum world,
the rules
are entirely different.
Zeilinger:
In quantum communication,
the information disappears here
and reappears at another place.
It does not follow a path.
You cannot track it.
You cannot follow it.
Freeman:
In the quantum world,
information is carried
by tiny particles
in what scientists
call "quantum states.
"
A state tells us which features
a particle can show
if I measure it.
Freeman:
You can think of particles
like glowing balls of light that
are constantly changing colors.
If one is in a sealed box
and Anton never opens it,
the particle will forever exist
in the changing state
of red and blue.
However, when he opens the box
and observes the particle,
it will take on
one of those colors.
But the rules
of quantum information
get even stranger than this.
If you take two boxes
and two particles,
you can connect them
through a bizarre process
called "entanglement.
"
Two entangled particles can be
connected in such a way that,
if you do a measurement on one,
it influences
the state of the other one,
no matter how far away,
instantly.
Freeman: Anton realized
that this strange property
can be used
to teleport information.
Imagine Anton entangles
the glowing balls of light
in these two boxes.
These two particles
will remain entangled,
no matter how far
they are separated.
So I will now send this box
off to a friend far away.
Freeman: Anton is sending
one box of light
miles and miles away.
When he unseals his own box,
the light turns blue,
which means
the distant entangled partner
instantly becomes red.
This is what Anton is doing
with real particles,
and in the process,
achieving something fantastic --
quantum teleportation.
He's sending
tiny particle messages
from one island in the
Canary islands
to another in a literal flash.
Zeilinger: We can keep one of the two
entangled particles locally,
and then you do measurements
on the two,
and you see that they are
still entangled.
Freeman:
Having teleported information
across a short distance,
Anton's next goal is to do it
between earth and space
using satellites.
[ Electronic beeping ]
In the satellite experiment,
there is a satellite in orbit,
which sends down to the earth
two entangled particles.
And then you do measurements
on them
and show that they are
still entangled.
Freeman:
Using quantum teleportation,
we may be able to send
and receive information
to and from
anywhere in the cosmos.
But could we teleport
enough information
to transport physical objects?
Perhaps even ourselves?
[ Door creaks shut ]
Zeilinger:There's nothing
in the laws of quantum mechanics
which says
that it would not be possible
to teleport
the state of a system
as a big as a living person,
but it takes a lot of ingenuity
and many generations
to come up with how to do it,
if it can be done.
Freeman:
Someday, in the far, far future,
we may have the power
to be anywhere, instantly.
It appears that science
may eventually give us both
omniscience and omnipotence.
But are we fooling ourselves?
Does mankind really have
what it takes to become God?
Scientists are gradually
giving us powers
we once thought
only a God could have.
Will this progress
come to an end?
To become truly God-like,
we need to go back
to the beginning of time
and figure out
how the cosmos was created.
Can our mortal minds ever grasp
the universal master plan?
Physicist and philosopher
Marcelo Ggleiser
has spent his career
contemplating
whether humans have what it
takes to become God-like,
both mentally and physically.
So this is the spartan race.
It's an obstacle race.
This one in particular
is a very tough one.
It's called "the beast.
"
It goes up Mount Killington,
about 14.
3 miles, 25 obstacles,
jumping walls,
climbing ropes,
under mud ponds,
you name it, and, you know,
they say the elites
are gonna do it in four hours.
We're hoping to do it
under eight.
We'll see what happens.
Freeman: Marcelo competes
in these grueling races
for one main reason --
to push his body to the limits
and to find out what
he's really made of.
It has taught him that,
no matter how hard he trains,
he can never reach
the physical levels of a God.
Our bodies impose limits
on what we can do
and what we cannot do.
So even the most accomplished
of athletes,
most perfect body,
is never exactly perfect.
Freeman:
Marcelo believes that humans
not only have physical limits
that prevent us
from becoming God-like,
we also have mental limits.
He sees evidence of this
in science,
as physicists have been
competing
in their own cosmic
spartan race.
Gleiser:
So it all started with Plato.
You know, Plato loved geometry,
and he thought that,
to understand nature,
find symmetry,
find the most fundamental
symmetry that exists,
and then you unlock
the secret of everything.
Freeman: Most physicists still
use Plato's idea of symmetry
to try to explain how
the universe works.
When one thing on one side is
the same as on the other side,
we call that a symmetry.
So you look around yourself,
and the world
has all these shapes.
Animals,
there are butterflies, plants,
and there is a natural drive
of us humans
to identify patterns
in everything we see.
Freeman: Our desire
to seek symmetry in the world
has lured physicists
into applying this rule
to one of the greatest mysteries
of all --
how the universe began.
Many physicists believe
that just before the big ***,
the universe was like
a perfectly symmetric
glass chandelier,
and suddenly
[ Whooshing, explosion ]
the whole fixture shattered
into billions of pieces.
Scientists have been trying
to put the pieces back together,
to know what the original
structure looked like.
Hmm.
If we can understand
how everything fits,
then maybe humanity
can take God's place
in the celestial throne room.
But Marcelo thinks physicists
are trying to put together
a puzzle that will never fit,
because when scientists
do experiments,
symmetry often falls apart.
Gleiser: One of the most
fascinating particles
that exists in nature
is called the neutrino.
Now it turns out
that most particles,
as most things in nature,
they spin.
They have
a rotational motion.
And you would expect
the neutrinos,
like everything else,
could spin clockwise
or counterclockwise,
perfect symmetry.
But it turns out that in nature,
you only find neutrinos
that are
what we call left-handed.
They only spin
in a certain way.
Nature does not like
right-handed neutrinos.
So there is clear, right there,
a very fundamental system
of particles
that interact where nature
is not perfectly symmetric.
So even at the level
of our own bodies,
our hearts are on the left,
right?
And our livers are on the right.
Then, in fact,
if I would get my face,
which you may think
is symmetric,
and I would superimpose
my left side with my right side,
I would definitely not look
symmetric at all.
Freeman: Marcelo believes
the asymmetries of nature
tell us our theories are wrong.
In fact, he suspects
we will always be wrong.
Finding one theory
to explain everything
may be a race with no finish.
Gleiser: Everything
that we know about nature
depends on how we see nature.
And it turns out
that our tools are limited,
that what we can infer
from nature is limited.
We cannot know everything.
It's really about our urge
to understand the world
that is never final
and never perfect.
This notion that there
is always something else,
that there is always a imbalance
in the way we perceive things,
is what makes us human.
The human drive to become
all-powerful and all-knowing
seems unstoppable.
Science has given us
tremendous power,
but we have limitations
that we may never overcome.
But maybe our fallibilities
are a gift.
After all,
they are what keep us
striving to achieve
what seems impossible.