''The Beginning and End of the Universe'' is a two-part British television series outlining the theory of the beginning of the universe and the theories about its ending.

Episodes

Episode One: ''The Beginning''

This episode, exploring theories of how the universe came into being, outlines the realisation of

Edwin Hubble Edwin Powell Hubble (November 20, 1889 – September 28, 1953) was an Americans, American astronomer. He played a crucial role in establishing the fields of extragalactic astronomy and observational cosmology. Hubble proved that many objects ...

that the universe is expanding, and the discovery of the residual radiation that gave weight to the

Big Bang theory The Big Bang event is a physical theory that describes how the universe expanded from an initial state of high density and temperature. Various cosmological models of the Big Bang explain the evolution of the observable universe from the ...

. It also highlights some lesser known theorists including Georges Lemaître, who first theorised that there was a big bang, Ralph Alpher, who stated that the light from this should be detectable, and

Cecilia Payne Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (born Cecilia Helena Payne; – ) was a British-born American astronomer and astrophysicist who proposed in her 1925 doctoral thesis that stars were composed primarily of hydrogen and helium. Her groundbreaking conclu ...

, who calculated that hydrogen and helium were the dominant elements in the universe. The episode concludes at the

Large Hadron Collider The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and highest-energy particle collider. It was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) between 1998 and 2008 in collaboration with over 10,000 scientists and hundred ...

, where physicists create matter in a similar manner to the Big Bang.

Episode Two: ''The End''

This episode explores the theories of the big crunch, the big rip and the big freeze, that are postulated by physicists as possible fates for the universe. Al-Khalili indicates that the difficulty in understanding this is our limited ability to comprehend something of such immensity both physically and philosophically. So, rather than suggesting an answer, he provides the historical background for how we came to know what we know, such as how elements are forged inside stars and how gravity provides the key to the fate of the universe, and what we don't know, such as the nature of dark matter and dark energy.

Reception

Jack Seale, writing for ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', commends the Al-Khalili for, "his usual mix of spectacular locations, clear explanations, a few gags and the stories of scientists who made crucial breakthroughs." Gary Rose, writing for ''

RadioTimes ''Radio Times'' (currently styled as ''RadioTimes'') is a British weekly listings magazine devoted to television and radio programme schedules, with other features such as interviews, film reviews and lifestyle items. Founded in May 1923 by J ...

'' however points out that while Al-Khalili is "as watchable as ever", this series, unlike his earlier series ''

Atom Every atom is composed of a nucleus and one or more electrons bound to the nucleus. The nucleus is made of one or more protons and a number of neutrons. Only the most common variety of hydrogen has no neutrons. Every solid, liquid, gas, and ...

'', covers well-trodden ground and while there are "oodles of graphs and stats," which he explains, "with seemingly effortless lucidity," regular viewers of ''

Horizon The horizon is the apparent line that separates the surface of a celestial body from its sky when viewed from the perspective of an observer on or near the surface of the relevant body. This line divides all viewing directions based on whether i ...

'', "might be immune to the barrage of cosmic stats."

References

External links

* *
The Beginning and End of the Universe
' at

OpenLearn OpenLearn is an educational website. It is the UK's Open University's contribution to the open educational resources (OER) project and the home of free, open learning from The Open University. The original project was part-funded by the Will ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Beginning and End of the Universe, The 2016 British television series debuts 2016 British television series endings 2010s British documentary television series BBC high definition shows BBC television documentaries about history BBC television documentaries about science Documentary films about the history of science Historical television series History of electrical engineering British English-language television shows BBC television miniseries 2010s British television miniseries Documentary films about outer space