This offering is in 12 segments ÄÄ







                                THE CREATION
                                   OF THE
                                  UNIVERSE

                      A Science Special For Television

                          Written and Presented by

                               TIMOTHY FERRIS

                          Produced and Directed by

                           GEOFFREY HAINES-STILES

                                Co-Producer

                               ERNA AKUGINOW

                    Title Theme and Additional Music by

                                 BRIAN ENO

                             Executive Producer

                              LARRY F. BOTTO



 TIMOTHY FERRIS:   [over video of Albert Einstein arriving dockside in
 New York] Albert  Einstein  dreamt of finding a unified field theory,
 a single equation that might account for every fundamental process in
 nature, from the  jostling of atoms to the wheeling of  the galaxies.
 Today,  science is  close to fulfilling Einstein's dream.

   The  nucleus  of the  atom  has  yielded  up evidence of an elegant
 simplicity underlying the wild diversity of the universe. New unified
 theories  are  being  written  that  reveal traces of this primordial
 simplicity.    The  1984  Nobel  Prize  in  physics  was  awarded for
 experiments  that   confirmed   the  first  of  these  new  theories.

   Experiment  and theory alike  indicate that the universe began in a
 state of perfect simplicity,  evidence  of which  was burned into the
 heart of every  atom in  the heat  of  the  Big Bang at the beginning
 of time.

 MICHAEL TURNER:   [cosmologist]   We have a pretty good understanding
 of the  history of  the universe  from a hundredth  of a second after
 the  Big Bang  until today, 15 billion years later.   And it's pretty
 remarkable  that I can say this; and it's  even more remarkable I can
 say it  and  the men  in  white coats  don't come and pull me off the
 stage.   That part  of the  history  we have pretty much nailed down,
 because  there  are  fossils  and  relies that  are  left behind that
 tell us that our theory is right.

 MURRAY GELL-MANN:   [physicist]   Cosmology, it turns out,  provides,
 in  a way,  a sort  of testing  ground  for  some  of  the  ideas  of
 elementary  particle physics.    We can't observe the early universe,
 but we can observe its consequences in the universe of today.

 ALLEN SANDAGE:   [astronomer]  What's it Iike out there?  [laughs]  I
 don't  know  what it's  like out there.  It's cold.  It's impersonal.
 It is the machine,  if you like to put it that way,  that has created
 you.  Now, by that, I mean the following:   every single atom in your
 body was once inside a star.  We are all brothers in that sense.

 TIMOTHY FERRIS:   To know  the atom,  it seems that we must know  the
 universe.  And  to know  the  universe, we must know the atom.   In a
 confluence of large and small that  would have  gladdened  Einstein's
 heart,  the  search for  simplicity  is bringing science face to face
 with the ancient enigma of creation.

 THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE

 TIMOTHY FERRIS:     [on  beach  at  Pigeon Point,  California,  with
 telescope] When I was a boy I used to bring  a telescope down to the
 shore, point it up into the sky, and look out into what I took to be
 the universe.  I had read in the astronomy books that what we see in
 the sky is the past.

   [video of Big Dipper]     The Big Dipper,  for instance, is a star
 cluster 75 light  years away.   That  means  it takes light from the
 stars of the Big Dipper 75 years to  speed  through space  and reach
 our solar system.   If  you're  lucky enough to  get to  be 75 years
 old,  you  can see the  Big Dipper just  as it looked on the day you
 were  born.   [video of Hercules star cluster]  This star cluster is
 further out.   It's in the constellation Hercules,  and it's  27,000
 light years away.   That  means that we see it as  it looked  27,000
 years   ago--back  when  horses stood only  half a meter high, there
 wasn't a human city anywhere on the face of the Earth, and the great
 whales were new to our world.   One way to  study the history of the
 universe is to look out into deep space.

   But  the  universe,  after all,  isn't all out among the stars and
 galaxies. It's also right here at home. We live IN the universe. And
 ordinary objects are full of clues to cosmic history.

   Every  stone on the beach is  a galaxy  of atoms,  and those atoms
 have a history that goes back longer than the history of the  Earth.
 Before the Earth was formed, those atoms were adrift in interstellar
 space.  Before that, some of them were  incorporated   into  ancient
 stars.  The subatomic  particles  that make up these atoms can trace
 their lineage  back  15  billion  years, to  the  beginning of time.

   In this program,  we'll  explore the history and the origin of the
 universe.  We'll look down into the minuscule world of the subatomic
 particles, and out toward the  cosmological  frontiers  of space and
 time.   Our hope  is to  learn something about how everything got to
 be the way it is.

 continued...

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