Human Universe

Professor Brian Cox, the University of Manchester physicist and former keyboard player with the pop band D:Ream (famous for the 1993 hit Things Can Only Get Better), is back with his fourth major BBC science documentary series - Human Universe.


In his latest BBC series, Prof Brian Cox asks the two greatest questions of all: Who are we and where do we come from?

The 45-year-old from Oldham has become a hit in Britain in recent years thanks to his three BBC documentary series Wonders of the Solar System (2010), Wonders of the Universe (2011) and Wonders of Life (2012). He has also hosted several one-off science documentaries and, along with Dara O Briain, has hosted the BBC's Stargazing Live live from the Jodrell Bank observatory every new year since 2011. His knack of presenting sometimes complicated science in an easy-to-understand manner in his friendly Northern accent has him endeared to the British public, and his shows attract large audiences.

The first episode of his new documentary series - Human Universe - was shown last night on BBC Two. In the series he examines how it was that in a universe made of stars, rocks and endless space, a conscious civilisation was born.

Episode 1

Apeman - Spaceman


Prof Brian Cox's adventure takes him from a submerged space station in Star City on the outskirts of Moscow, to Ethiopia, high above in the great Rift Valley, where he encounters the geladas, mankind's distant ancestors. Despite once being Africa's most successful primate, a species who at one time roamed across the entire continent, these days they are found in just one place in the remote Ethiopian Highlands. Cox investigates why these ancestors retreated, yet modern mankind has expanded across the planet and even gone into space.


Watch it here: BBC iPlayer - Human Universe - 1. Apeman - Spaceman


And you can also check out this interactive timeline, in which Prof Brian Cox explores each of the chance events that eventually led to the human race: BBC - iWonder - The chance events that led to human existence

A young Brian Cox on Top of the Pops as the keyboardist in D:Ream:

Professor Brian Cox - on keyboards with D:Ream on Top of the Pops - YouTube

Despite its left-wing bias in its news reports, the BBC does have some good points. One of them is that it makes the finest science and nature programmes in the world.

Human Universe is the BBC's latest spectacular offering of science and nature, presented by the Beeb's latest science star Professor Brian Cox.

In this second episode, the University of Manchester physicist and former pop star travels to India where he compares the rules of the country's beloved cricket with the rules of the universe (and also apologises to a camel!) as he ponders the age-old question: Why are we here?

Episode 2

Why Are We Here?



Brian Cox reveals how the wonderful complexity of nature and human life is simply the consequence of chance events constrained by the laws of physics that govern our universe. But this leads him to a deeper question - why does our universe seem to have been set up with just the right rules to create us? In a dizzying conclusion Brian unpicks this question, revealing the very latest understanding of how the universe came to be this way, and in doing so offers a radical new answer to why we are here.

Watch it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0276ppy/human-universe-2-why-are-we-here

Episode 3

Are We Alone?




Brian Cox explores the ingredients needed for an intelligent civilisation to evolve in the universe - the need for a benign star, for a habitable planet, for life to spontaneously arise on such a planet and the time required for intelligent life to evolve and build a civilisation. Brian weighs the evidence and arrives at his own provocative answer to the puzzle of our apparent solitude.

Watch it here:

BBC iPlayer - Human Universe - 3. Are We Alone?

Episode 4

A Place in Space and Time



Professor Brian Cox explores our origins, place and destiny in the universe. We all start our lives thinking that we are at the centre of the universe, surrounded by our family and the world as it spins around us. But the urge to explore is strong. Brian tells the story of how our innate human curiosity has led us from feeling that we are at the centre of everything, to our modern understanding of our true place in space and time - that we are living 13.8 billion years from the beginning of the universe, on a mere speck of rock in a possibly infinite expanse of space.

The story begins with Brian climbing to the summit of the spectacular fortified village of Ait-Ben-Haddou in the foothills of Morocco's Atlas Mountains. Here he reveals how, by watching the stars' motion across the night sky, it was natural for us to believe we were at the centre of everything - a view that held sway for millennia.

It was in Renaissance Venice that our demotion from the centre of the universe began. Here, thanks to the artisan glass-blowers in the city, Galileo was able to build the first telescope and discover our position was not at the centre, rather just one of a number of planets that orbit the sun.


Watch it here: BBC iPlayer - Human Universe - 4. A Place in Space and Time

Episode 5

What Is Our Future?




In the last episode of the series, Professor Brian Cox asks: What is our future/destiny?

Watch it here: BBC iPlayer - Human Universe - 5. What is our Future?