1 00:00:04,047 --> 00:00:06,093 TYSON: The kingdom of matter stores it treasures 2 00:00:06,267 --> 00:00:07,964 on my many levels. 3 00:00:08,138 --> 00:00:11,359 Until recently, we thought there was only one. 4 00:00:11,533 --> 00:00:15,189 We had no idea there were others. 5 00:00:17,800 --> 00:00:21,282 When we strike a match, a chemical reaction liberates 6 00:00:21,456 --> 00:00:25,329 energy stored in the molecules. 7 00:00:25,634 --> 00:00:29,855 Old chemical bonds break and new ones are forged. 8 00:00:30,030 --> 00:00:33,033 Now, the adjacent molecules begin to move faster and the 9 00:00:33,207 --> 00:00:36,427 temperature increases. 10 00:00:37,950 --> 00:00:41,128 Soon, the process becomes self-propagated, 11 00:00:41,302 --> 00:00:43,347 a kind of chain reaction. 12 00:00:43,521 --> 00:00:46,655 The energy represented by a flame has been locked, 13 00:00:46,829 --> 00:00:50,702 perhaps for many years, in chemical bonds between atoms. 14 00:00:50,876 --> 00:00:55,185 Mediated by the electrons that revolved around their core. 15 00:00:56,360 --> 00:00:58,014 When we make a fire, 16 00:00:58,188 --> 00:01:02,149 we release this hidden chemical energy. 17 00:01:03,193 --> 00:01:05,500 But there is a deeper level of matter that 18 00:01:05,674 --> 00:01:08,851 houses another kind of energy. 19 00:01:11,462 --> 00:01:15,684 Inside the heart of the atom, its nucleus. 20 00:01:16,424 --> 00:01:20,080 This hidden treasure was forged billions of years ago 21 00:01:20,254 --> 00:01:22,343 in distant stellar furnaces. 22 00:01:22,517 --> 00:01:25,737 Long before Earth was formed. 23 00:01:27,870 --> 00:01:30,786 It's what powers the stars. 24 00:01:30,960 --> 00:01:32,570 Wresting this knowledge from nature 25 00:01:32,744 --> 00:01:36,139 is a cosmic rite of passage. 26 00:01:36,313 --> 00:01:39,316 The beings of any possible world clever enough to travel 27 00:01:39,490 --> 00:01:44,191 this deep into nature's labyrinth better take care. 28 00:01:44,669 --> 00:01:48,717 The secret of starlight is nothing to fool with. 29 00:01:49,152 --> 00:01:51,807 Like fire, it can bring a civilization to life and it 30 00:01:51,981 --> 00:01:54,549 can burn it to the ground. 31 00:01:58,118 --> 00:02:03,906 [theme music plays]. 32 00:02:24,361 --> 00:02:30,846 ♪ ♪ 33 00:02:50,822 --> 00:02:56,176 ♪ ♪ 34 00:03:07,839 --> 00:03:10,755 What is an atom? 35 00:03:10,929 --> 00:03:12,801 What are they made of? 36 00:03:12,975 --> 00:03:15,499 How are they joined together? 37 00:03:15,673 --> 00:03:17,893 How could something as small as an atom 38 00:03:18,067 --> 00:03:20,852 contain so much power? 39 00:03:21,026 --> 00:03:24,247 Where do atoms come from? 40 00:03:24,421 --> 00:03:26,989 The same place we do. 41 00:03:27,642 --> 00:03:29,992 When we seek the origin of atoms, 42 00:03:30,166 --> 00:03:33,213 we are searching for our own beginnings. 43 00:03:33,387 --> 00:03:37,826 This quest takes us to the depths of space and time. 44 00:03:38,000 --> 00:03:41,786 I want to tell you a tale of two atoms. 45 00:03:41,960 --> 00:03:44,876 Come with me. 46 00:03:52,754 --> 00:03:55,800 Long ago, before there was an Earth, 47 00:03:55,974 --> 00:03:59,500 there was a wisp of cold thin gas. 48 00:03:59,674 --> 00:04:02,894 It was made of the simplest atoms. 49 00:04:03,068 --> 00:04:06,420 And they were gravitationally attracted to one another. 50 00:04:06,594 --> 00:04:09,988 So, the cloud grew. 51 00:04:13,688 --> 00:04:15,385 The atoms contained small, 52 00:04:15,559 --> 00:04:17,996 but heavy particles in their nuclei. 53 00:04:18,170 --> 00:04:23,175 The hydrogen had protons, the helium had neutrons as well. 54 00:04:23,741 --> 00:04:26,178 They both had a skittering veil of electrons 55 00:04:26,353 --> 00:04:28,050 in orbit around them. 56 00:04:28,224 --> 00:04:31,532 The atoms in the interior of the cloud moved ever faster 57 00:04:31,706 --> 00:04:34,839 as gravity pulled them ever closer together. 58 00:04:35,013 --> 00:04:38,669 Until the whole thing collapsed in on itself. 59 00:04:38,843 --> 00:04:41,803 This collapse raised the temperature so high, 60 00:04:41,977 --> 00:04:45,589 that the cloud became a natural fusion reactor. 61 00:04:49,463 --> 00:04:53,162 In other words, a star. 62 00:04:53,336 --> 00:04:56,426 Atoms operating according to the laws of physics met 63 00:04:56,600 --> 00:05:00,038 and fused in the unbroken darkness. 64 00:05:01,126 --> 00:05:04,347 And then there was light. 65 00:05:04,521 --> 00:05:06,871 In this froth of elementary particles, 66 00:05:07,045 --> 00:05:09,134 the nucleus of one of the atoms, 67 00:05:09,309 --> 00:05:12,573 a helium atom, was formed. 68 00:05:14,792 --> 00:05:18,840 After billions of years, the star is now elderly. 69 00:05:19,014 --> 00:05:23,235 Having converted all of its available hydrogen fuel to helium. 70 00:05:23,410 --> 00:05:26,238 Now that it's time for the star to die, 71 00:05:26,413 --> 00:05:29,894 it resumes the turning inward of its infancy. 72 00:05:35,073 --> 00:05:38,120 Can you find our helium atom? 73 00:05:38,294 --> 00:05:41,166 It joined with two others to become one of our heroes, 74 00:05:41,341 --> 00:05:42,690 a carbon atom. 75 00:05:42,864 --> 00:05:45,040 That's what in the hearts of stars. 76 00:05:45,214 --> 00:05:47,434 Soon, our carbon atom will tumble out of this 77 00:05:47,608 --> 00:05:51,916 red giant star into the interstellar ocean of space. 78 00:05:52,090 --> 00:05:54,266 We've tinted this atom blue so you can find it 79 00:05:54,441 --> 00:05:56,399 in the vastness. 80 00:05:56,573 --> 00:06:00,229 Meanwhile, in another part of the galaxy. 81 00:06:13,938 --> 00:06:16,201 Similar processes were unfolding as stars were 82 00:06:16,376 --> 00:06:18,508 born and died. 83 00:06:18,682 --> 00:06:20,815 The other atom of our tale was formed in the heart 84 00:06:20,989 --> 00:06:23,165 of this dying star. 85 00:06:23,339 --> 00:06:25,689 In the catastrophic process of going supernova, 86 00:06:25,863 --> 00:06:30,999 226 protons and neutrons became fused to a carbon atom. 87 00:06:31,173 --> 00:06:34,350 Turning it into a uranium atom. 88 00:06:34,524 --> 00:06:36,700 We've tinted our other hero atom red, 89 00:06:36,874 --> 00:06:38,398 so that you could follow it on its odyssey 90 00:06:38,572 --> 00:06:42,445 through space and time. 91 00:07:03,640 --> 00:07:05,381 As chance would have it, 92 00:07:05,555 --> 00:07:08,166 after wandering the vast Milky Way galaxy, 93 00:07:08,340 --> 00:07:11,518 our two atoms both happened on the fiery birth 94 00:07:11,692 --> 00:07:14,608 of a small solar system. 95 00:07:14,782 --> 00:07:17,785 Ours. 96 00:07:22,833 --> 00:07:27,403 Our carbon atom has traveled far to become part of a small planet. 97 00:07:29,405 --> 00:07:32,713 After billions of years, it joined an extremely complex 98 00:07:32,887 --> 00:07:36,064 molecule, which has the peculiar property of a making 99 00:07:36,238 --> 00:07:39,894 virtually identical copies of itself. 100 00:07:40,895 --> 00:07:44,899 The carbon atom plays its tiny role in the origin of life. 101 00:07:46,204 --> 00:07:48,250 Through all its incarnations, 102 00:07:48,424 --> 00:07:51,775 our carbon atom has had no self-awareness. 103 00:07:51,949 --> 00:07:54,038 No free will. 104 00:07:54,212 --> 00:07:58,521 It is merely an extremely minor cog in some vast cosmic machinery, 105 00:07:58,695 --> 00:08:02,220 working in accord with the laws of nature. 106 00:08:02,394 --> 00:08:03,961 And that other atom? 107 00:08:04,135 --> 00:08:06,311 The uranium atom made in the supernova? 108 00:08:06,486 --> 00:08:09,271 What has become of it? 109 00:08:13,362 --> 00:08:16,365 Our world was born in fire. 110 00:08:16,539 --> 00:08:19,629 And this tiny atom was drawn to it. 111 00:08:19,803 --> 00:08:23,415 Maybe it rode the explosive wave of a supernova. 112 00:08:23,590 --> 00:08:26,593 Or perhaps, it was attracted by the gravity of our sun and 113 00:08:26,767 --> 00:08:30,248 pulled down deeper and deeper into the interior, 114 00:08:30,422 --> 00:08:33,643 which was even more of a hell. 115 00:08:33,817 --> 00:08:36,037 The Earth's surface soon cooled, 116 00:08:36,211 --> 00:08:39,257 but the interior remained molten. 117 00:08:39,431 --> 00:08:43,131 The magma slowly circulating and our uranium atom found 118 00:08:43,305 --> 00:08:47,744 itself carried over the ages, from the deep interior, 119 00:08:47,918 --> 00:08:51,095 back all the way up to the surface. 120 00:08:51,269 --> 00:08:54,055 Despite the high temperatures and pressures deep within the 121 00:08:54,229 --> 00:08:59,147 Earth, our atom's integrity was never threatened. 122 00:08:59,974 --> 00:09:05,545 Atoms are small, old, hard and durable. 123 00:09:08,852 --> 00:09:11,942 Everything is made of atoms, including us. 124 00:09:12,116 --> 00:09:14,684 But until the last years of the 19th Century, 125 00:09:14,858 --> 00:09:18,906 we didn't know about the frenzied activity inside the atom. 126 00:09:19,080 --> 00:09:22,257 And this is where our two atoms from opposite ends of 127 00:09:22,431 --> 00:09:24,999 the Milky Way galaxy finally met. 128 00:09:25,173 --> 00:09:27,697 It happened in Paris. 129 00:09:34,182 --> 00:09:40,797 ♪ ♪ 130 00:09:47,238 --> 00:09:50,546 TYSON: Our carbon atom became part of the retina of one of 131 00:09:50,720 --> 00:09:54,898 the world's greatest scientists. 132 00:10:03,254 --> 00:10:07,389 This was just a few years after the discovery of x-rays. 133 00:10:07,563 --> 00:10:10,392 Marie Curie and her husband and research partner, 134 00:10:10,566 --> 00:10:14,744 Pierre, wanted to know how a piece of matter could make it 135 00:10:14,918 --> 00:10:18,618 possible to see through skin and even walls. 136 00:10:19,531 --> 00:10:22,360 The knowledge that there were rare places in the world where 137 00:10:22,534 --> 00:10:25,146 rocks, rich in uranium, possess these strange 138 00:10:25,320 --> 00:10:29,411 properties inspired Marie on her scientific quest. 139 00:10:30,717 --> 00:10:33,763 The dull brown ore, still mixed with pine needles, 140 00:10:33,937 --> 00:10:37,941 came from the part of Eastern Europe that is now the Czech Republic. 141 00:10:38,594 --> 00:10:41,423 But this material was very rare. 142 00:10:41,597 --> 00:10:44,600 And even to distill a tiny amount of it required 143 00:10:44,774 --> 00:10:47,690 the most lengthy and labor intensive efforts. 144 00:10:54,088 --> 00:10:56,786 She was later to write, 145 00:10:56,960 --> 00:11:01,182 "we lived in our single occupation, as in a dream." 146 00:11:01,356 --> 00:11:05,316 [thunder, raining]. 147 00:11:06,361 --> 00:11:08,798 They worked under the worst possible conditions to 148 00:11:08,972 --> 00:11:12,584 purify the ore into a mineral called pitchblende, 149 00:11:12,759 --> 00:11:16,371 which was 50 to 80% uranium. 150 00:11:19,330 --> 00:11:22,203 This was quite an achievement, but Marie and Pierre were 151 00:11:22,377 --> 00:11:26,163 hunting for something far more rare. 152 00:11:28,513 --> 00:11:32,561 It took them three years to process tons of ore. 153 00:11:32,735 --> 00:11:38,132 To isolate a mere tenth of a gram of a substance she named radium. 154 00:11:39,220 --> 00:11:42,832 Marie and Pierre had discovered a completely new element. 155 00:11:44,573 --> 00:11:47,619 The Curies showed that the radium was entirely 156 00:11:47,794 --> 00:11:50,884 unaffected by extreme temperatures. 157 00:11:51,058 --> 00:11:52,842 That was strange. 158 00:11:53,016 --> 00:11:55,062 Most things subjected to such intense heat would 159 00:11:55,236 --> 00:11:57,673 change drastically. 160 00:11:57,847 --> 00:12:00,284 And, there was something else. 161 00:12:00,458 --> 00:12:03,157 It spontaneously emitted energy. 162 00:12:03,331 --> 00:12:05,246 Not through chemical reactions, 163 00:12:05,420 --> 00:12:08,031 but through some unknown mechanism. 164 00:12:08,205 --> 00:12:11,948 Marie Curie called this new phenomenon radioactivity. 165 00:12:13,994 --> 00:12:17,432 She and Pierre calculated the energy that spontaneously 166 00:12:17,606 --> 00:12:20,696 flowed from a lump of radium would be much greater than 167 00:12:20,870 --> 00:12:23,220 burning the same amount of coal. 168 00:12:23,394 --> 00:12:25,875 Radioactivity, to their astonishment, 169 00:12:26,049 --> 00:12:30,445 was millions of times more potent than chemical energy. 170 00:12:30,619 --> 00:12:32,490 The difference between liberating the energy that 171 00:12:32,664 --> 00:12:35,667 resides in molecules and the far greater power 172 00:12:35,842 --> 00:12:38,409 stored deeper down. 173 00:12:41,456 --> 00:12:44,502 Between Marie, Pierre, little Irene and the man 174 00:12:44,676 --> 00:12:46,722 she would later marry, 175 00:12:46,896 --> 00:12:50,900 the family would win five Nobel prizes in science. 176 00:12:55,122 --> 00:12:59,779 [fire crackling]. 177 00:13:02,999 --> 00:13:06,046 The bottles, tubes and flasks of pitchblende that 178 00:13:06,220 --> 00:13:10,441 they had refined, left a residue of radium particles. 179 00:13:10,877 --> 00:13:14,532 They were so potent, that they lit up the lab at night. 180 00:13:15,185 --> 00:13:19,755 As Marie wrote years later, "they were like Earthly stars, 181 00:13:19,929 --> 00:13:24,412 these glowing tubes in that poor rough shack." 182 00:13:28,546 --> 00:13:31,027 Marie leapt to the correct conclusion that the 183 00:13:31,201 --> 00:13:33,725 luminescence was due to something happening inside 184 00:13:33,900 --> 00:13:37,468 the nuclei of radioactive atoms. 185 00:13:37,642 --> 00:13:40,341 For thousands of years, it had been thought that atoms were 186 00:13:40,515 --> 00:13:43,300 the smallest unit of matter. 187 00:13:43,474 --> 00:13:47,174 Curie's earthly stars were evidence that within the atom 188 00:13:47,348 --> 00:13:49,785 was a possible world where even smaller 189 00:13:49,959 --> 00:13:53,223 particles were interacting. 190 00:13:53,397 --> 00:13:57,314 100 years after this magical night, 191 00:13:57,488 --> 00:14:00,840 Marie Curie's cookbooks still glowed with the exquisite 192 00:14:01,014 --> 00:14:04,452 radioactivity she had discovered. 193 00:14:04,626 --> 00:14:08,195 But it took a little time for the darker implications of 194 00:14:08,369 --> 00:14:11,459 this deeper understanding of nature to dawn in the mind of 195 00:14:11,633 --> 00:14:15,115 a visionary named H.G. Wells. 196 00:14:15,463 --> 00:14:18,118 A writer, who was a genius at turning the 197 00:14:18,292 --> 00:14:20,860 new revelations of science into stories 198 00:14:21,034 --> 00:14:23,558 that captivated the world. 199 00:14:23,732 --> 00:14:28,693 And foreseeing as no one else, their gravest consequences. 200 00:14:34,134 --> 00:14:36,658 TYSON: The writer H.G. Wells, 201 00:14:36,832 --> 00:14:40,009 who first imagined time machines and alien invasions 202 00:14:40,183 --> 00:14:43,056 had a nightmare of a future world where atoms 203 00:14:43,230 --> 00:14:45,101 were weaponized. 204 00:14:45,275 --> 00:14:47,974 In his book called The World Set Freewritten in 1913, 205 00:14:48,148 --> 00:14:50,672 he coined the phrase atomic bombs. 206 00:14:50,846 --> 00:14:54,415 And loosed them on helpless civilian populations. 207 00:14:55,285 --> 00:14:58,071 He set his vision of a nuclear war between England and 208 00:14:58,245 --> 00:15:03,206 Germany in the impossibly distant future of the 1950's. 209 00:15:12,433 --> 00:15:18,961 ♪ ♪ 210 00:15:19,135 --> 00:15:21,921 [explosion]. 211 00:15:30,799 --> 00:15:33,976 In 1933, the Hungarian physicist, 212 00:15:34,150 --> 00:15:38,589 Leo Szilard, was contemplating becoming a biologist. 213 00:15:38,763 --> 00:15:40,026 [knocking]. 214 00:15:40,200 --> 00:15:41,853 MAID: Dr. Szilard? 215 00:15:42,028 --> 00:15:43,986 Are you quite all right in there? 216 00:15:44,160 --> 00:15:47,947 TYSON: He read Wells' novel and it started him thinking. 217 00:15:49,339 --> 00:15:52,429 [chatter]. 218 00:15:54,866 --> 00:15:57,217 TYSON: Szilard knew that atoms are made of protons and 219 00:15:57,391 --> 00:15:59,349 neutrons on the inside. 220 00:15:59,523 --> 00:16:02,831 And a skittering veil of electrons on the outside. 221 00:16:03,005 --> 00:16:05,921 Suddenly, awaiting for the light to change at this 222 00:16:06,095 --> 00:16:10,143 intersection in London, he was struck by the thought, 223 00:16:10,317 --> 00:16:12,754 if he could find a sufficiently large amount of 224 00:16:12,928 --> 00:16:17,019 an element that would emit two neutrons when it absorbed one, 225 00:16:17,193 --> 00:16:21,023 it would sustain a nuclear chain reaction. 226 00:16:21,937 --> 00:16:24,418 Two would produce four, four would produce eight 227 00:16:24,592 --> 00:16:26,246 and so forth. 228 00:16:26,420 --> 00:16:29,640 Until enormous amounts of energy in the nucleus itself 229 00:16:29,814 --> 00:16:32,382 could be liberated. 230 00:16:32,556 --> 00:16:35,646 Not a chemical reaction, but a nuclear one. 231 00:16:35,820 --> 00:16:36,647 [gasping]. 232 00:16:36,821 --> 00:16:39,128 [air raid alarm]. 233 00:16:39,302 --> 00:16:41,522 [explosion]. 234 00:16:42,523 --> 00:16:44,699 [honking]. 235 00:16:45,091 --> 00:16:47,093 [grunts]. 236 00:16:47,267 --> 00:16:51,488 TYSON: This was the moment our world changed. 237 00:16:55,405 --> 00:16:58,843 Leo Szilard also knew the power of exponentials and 238 00:16:59,018 --> 00:17:01,803 if a neutron chain reaction could be triggered down there 239 00:17:01,977 --> 00:17:04,240 in world of the atom's nucleus, 240 00:17:04,414 --> 00:17:06,808 then something like Wells' imaginary atomic bomb 241 00:17:06,982 --> 00:17:08,723 might be possible. 242 00:17:08,897 --> 00:17:12,074 He shuddered at the thought of this destructive capability. 243 00:17:12,248 --> 00:17:14,990 It was just the latest development on a continuum 244 00:17:15,164 --> 00:17:19,299 of violence that began long long before. 245 00:17:24,086 --> 00:17:26,001 50,000 years ago, 246 00:17:26,175 --> 00:17:30,005 all humans were roving bands of hunter-gatherers. 247 00:17:30,179 --> 00:17:32,747 They communicated over limited areas by 248 00:17:32,921 --> 00:17:34,923 calling to one another. 249 00:17:35,097 --> 00:17:37,230 That is, at the speed of sound. 250 00:17:37,404 --> 00:17:40,363 Around 750 miles per hour. 251 00:17:40,537 --> 00:17:43,323 But over longer distances, they could communicate only 252 00:17:43,497 --> 00:17:45,803 as fast as they could run. 253 00:17:45,977 --> 00:17:48,676 Around 12,000 years ago, about the same time as the 254 00:17:48,850 --> 00:17:51,592 invention of agriculture, they developed the power to 255 00:17:51,766 --> 00:17:54,247 kill at a longer distance. 256 00:17:54,421 --> 00:17:57,554 The kill radius expanded to the arc of an arrow 257 00:17:57,728 --> 00:17:59,556 launched by a bow. 258 00:17:59,730 --> 00:18:03,169 And they could kill one person with a single arrow. 259 00:18:03,343 --> 00:18:06,259 Our ancestors were not particularly warlike because 260 00:18:06,433 --> 00:18:09,349 there was so few people and so much room back then that 261 00:18:09,523 --> 00:18:12,700 moving on was preferable to armed conflict. 262 00:18:12,874 --> 00:18:16,225 Their weapons were used almost entirely for hunting. 263 00:18:16,399 --> 00:18:19,359 Their identification horizon was likely small. 264 00:18:19,533 --> 00:18:21,622 Only with the other members of their band of 265 00:18:21,796 --> 00:18:23,885 50 or 100 people. 266 00:18:24,059 --> 00:18:28,585 But their time horizon took a giant leap. 267 00:18:32,154 --> 00:18:35,070 They worked long and hard planting crops in the here and 268 00:18:35,244 --> 00:18:39,770 now, so several months later, they could harvest them. 269 00:18:39,944 --> 00:18:44,079 They postponed present gratification for later advantage. 270 00:18:45,907 --> 00:18:50,868 They began to plan for the future. 271 00:18:53,175 --> 00:18:57,614 By about 2,500 years ago, there was a new kind of war. 272 00:18:57,788 --> 00:19:00,400 The conquered territories of Alexander stretched from 273 00:19:00,574 --> 00:19:03,098 Macedonia to the Indus Valley. 274 00:19:03,272 --> 00:19:06,580 There were now many on planet Earth who owed allegiance to 275 00:19:06,754 --> 00:19:09,496 groups composed of millions. 276 00:19:09,670 --> 00:19:11,324 Over long distances, 277 00:19:11,498 --> 00:19:13,761 maximum speed of both communication and transportation 278 00:19:13,935 --> 00:19:16,981 was the speed of the sail and the horse. 279 00:19:17,156 --> 00:19:19,810 Archidamus III, King of Sparta, 280 00:19:19,984 --> 00:19:22,944 was famed for his unflinching courage. 281 00:19:23,118 --> 00:19:27,078 He relished taking part in hand to hand combat with the enemy. 282 00:19:27,253 --> 00:19:31,039 It is said that when he first saw a projectile hurled by a 283 00:19:31,213 --> 00:19:34,434 Balista, he cried out in anguish. 284 00:19:34,608 --> 00:19:39,047 "Oh Hercules! The valor of man is lost!" 285 00:19:39,221 --> 00:19:41,876 [screaming]. 286 00:19:44,487 --> 00:19:47,229 [groaning]. 287 00:19:48,926 --> 00:19:51,059 Both the kill range and the kill ratio 288 00:19:51,233 --> 00:19:53,801 had increased exponentially. 289 00:19:53,975 --> 00:19:58,153 Now, ten corpses lay where one would have been. 290 00:19:58,327 --> 00:20:00,982 And the soldier who released the lever on the siege engine 291 00:20:01,156 --> 00:20:03,854 never even saw their faces. 292 00:20:04,028 --> 00:20:06,814 He remained far removed from the carnage on the other side 293 00:20:06,988 --> 00:20:09,643 of the city wall. 294 00:20:12,211 --> 00:20:15,605 Today, the maximum speed of transportation is the escape 295 00:20:15,779 --> 00:20:17,607 velocity from Earth. 296 00:20:17,781 --> 00:20:20,219 25,000 miles per hour. 297 00:20:20,393 --> 00:20:23,483 The speed of communication is the speed of light. 298 00:20:23,657 --> 00:20:27,182 The identification horizons have also expanded enormously. 299 00:20:27,356 --> 00:20:30,098 For some, it's a billion or more. 300 00:20:30,272 --> 00:20:32,927 For others, it's our whole species. 301 00:20:33,101 --> 00:20:36,800 And for a few, it's all living things. 302 00:20:36,974 --> 00:20:39,890 The kill radius, in the worst case scenario, 303 00:20:40,064 --> 00:20:43,459 is now our global civilization. 304 00:20:45,374 --> 00:20:47,724 How did we get here? 305 00:20:47,898 --> 00:20:52,294 It was the result of a deadly embrace between science and state. 306 00:20:52,468 --> 00:20:55,645 And there was one scientist for whom no amount of 307 00:20:55,819 --> 00:20:58,474 destructive power was enough. 308 00:20:58,648 --> 00:21:00,346 [distant explosion]. 309 00:21:00,520 --> 00:21:04,611 [air raid alarm]. 310 00:21:15,099 --> 00:21:17,363 TYSON: It's hard to pinpoint the precise moment when the 311 00:21:17,537 --> 00:21:20,104 first nuclear war began. 312 00:21:20,279 --> 00:21:23,151 Some might trace it all the way back to that arrow sailing 313 00:21:23,325 --> 00:21:25,153 over the treetops. 314 00:21:25,327 --> 00:21:27,895 Others might say it started much later, 315 00:21:28,069 --> 00:21:31,159 with three messages. 316 00:21:39,428 --> 00:21:43,084 In 1939 on Adolf Hitler's birthday, 317 00:21:43,258 --> 00:21:45,652 one of his brightest young scientists, 318 00:21:45,826 --> 00:21:50,178 Paul Harteck, had a special gift in mind for his Fuührer. 319 00:21:51,135 --> 00:21:54,617 Harteck wrote a letter to the Nazi war office, 320 00:21:54,791 --> 00:21:58,186 he wished to inform them that the latest developments in 321 00:21:58,360 --> 00:22:02,103 nuclear physics would make it possible to produce an explosive 322 00:22:02,277 --> 00:22:05,976 exponentially more powerful than conventional weapons. 323 00:22:07,326 --> 00:22:12,156 He was trying to give an atomic bomb to Adolf Hitler. 324 00:22:12,592 --> 00:22:15,856 But Hitler would never get his hands on a nuclear weapon, 325 00:22:16,030 --> 00:22:18,859 he had murdered, imprisoned or exiled many of the great 326 00:22:19,033 --> 00:22:21,340 physicists in his territories. 327 00:22:21,514 --> 00:22:24,343 Those who happened to be Jews or liberals and 328 00:22:24,517 --> 00:22:27,650 many who were both. 329 00:22:30,000 --> 00:22:32,612 Exactly a month before the war began, 330 00:22:32,786 --> 00:22:35,658 Leo Szilard made a pilgrimage to the house Albert Einstein 331 00:22:35,832 --> 00:22:37,965 was renting on Long Island. 332 00:22:38,139 --> 00:22:40,533 The physicist who usually chauffeured Leo Szilard on 333 00:22:40,707 --> 00:22:45,755 trips out of Manhattan was unavailable that August day in 1939. 334 00:22:45,929 --> 00:22:50,586 So, Szilard enlisted the services of a fellow Hungarian emigrate, 335 00:22:50,760 --> 00:22:54,721 a young scientist named Edward Teller. 336 00:22:54,895 --> 00:22:57,288 Persecution in Budapest sent him and his family to 337 00:22:57,463 --> 00:22:59,595 take refuge in Munich, 338 00:22:59,769 --> 00:23:02,685 where he lost his right foot in a traffic accident. 339 00:23:02,859 --> 00:23:05,993 In the early 1930s, Teller and his family were forced 340 00:23:06,167 --> 00:23:08,778 to flee once again. 341 00:23:08,952 --> 00:23:12,260 Just as Harteck felt it his duty to inform Hitler. 342 00:23:12,434 --> 00:23:15,350 Szilard wanted President Franklin Roosevelt to know 343 00:23:15,524 --> 00:23:18,571 the awesome power of such a weapon. 344 00:23:18,745 --> 00:23:21,704 There was no scientist on Earth whose prestige and 345 00:23:21,878 --> 00:23:25,142 influence was comparable to Einstein's. 346 00:23:25,316 --> 00:23:28,058 Einstein's nightmare was imagining Hitler with a 347 00:23:28,232 --> 00:23:31,148 nuclear weapon at his disposal. 348 00:23:31,322 --> 00:23:33,499 But what would be the long-term consequences of 349 00:23:33,673 --> 00:23:35,718 this dangerous new knowledge? 350 00:23:35,892 --> 00:23:39,940 Which, once unleashed, could never be taken back. 351 00:23:40,114 --> 00:23:42,595 Einstein would take no role in the U.S. 352 00:23:42,769 --> 00:23:44,901 effort to build the atomic bomb, 353 00:23:45,075 --> 00:23:47,774 which became known as "The Manhattan Project." 354 00:23:47,948 --> 00:23:50,690 But he did alert the President to the potential use of 355 00:23:50,864 --> 00:23:53,823 atomic nuclei in warfare. 356 00:23:56,260 --> 00:23:59,220 After the war was over, he told a reporter that if he had 357 00:23:59,394 --> 00:24:01,962 known the Germans would fail in developing in an atomic 358 00:24:02,136 --> 00:24:05,574 bomb, he never would have signed the letter. 359 00:24:05,748 --> 00:24:08,577 But Edward Teller had no such ambivalence. 360 00:24:08,751 --> 00:24:13,756 He couldn't wait to get started on weaponizing the atom. 361 00:24:14,801 --> 00:24:19,545 The Russian physicist, G.N. Flyorov had tried for years to alert his leader, 362 00:24:19,719 --> 00:24:23,070 Joseph Stalin, to the possible military applications of a 363 00:24:23,244 --> 00:24:25,376 nuclear chain reaction. 364 00:24:25,551 --> 00:24:28,902 But the Soviet Union was under siege by the Germans. 365 00:24:29,076 --> 00:24:33,428 And an atom bomb project was likely to take years to complete. 366 00:24:33,602 --> 00:24:35,517 With their backs against the wall, 367 00:24:35,691 --> 00:24:38,564 it seemed too impractical to even think about. 368 00:24:38,738 --> 00:24:40,261 [coughing]. 369 00:24:40,435 --> 00:24:43,830 In 1942, Flyorov had published a scientific paper 370 00:24:44,004 --> 00:24:46,093 on nuclear physics. 371 00:24:46,267 --> 00:24:49,444 Now, he was excited to see what the eminent physicists 372 00:24:49,618 --> 00:24:53,187 in Europe and the United States had to say about it. 373 00:24:53,361 --> 00:24:55,319 Flyorov was puzzled. 374 00:24:55,494 --> 00:24:57,757 None of the physicists of the International Scientific 375 00:24:57,931 --> 00:25:01,543 Community thought his paper worthy of comment. 376 00:25:01,717 --> 00:25:05,895 At first, he was hurt, but then he realized what was 377 00:25:06,069 --> 00:25:08,898 really happening. 378 00:25:09,072 --> 00:25:12,815 American and German scientific journals were being scrubbed 379 00:25:12,989 --> 00:25:16,819 of any nuclear physics papers as both nations secretly 380 00:25:16,993 --> 00:25:19,169 worked on building the bomb. 381 00:25:19,343 --> 00:25:21,694 It was this absence of published data, 382 00:25:21,868 --> 00:25:24,914 the dogs that did not bark, that moved Flyorov to 383 00:25:25,088 --> 00:25:27,917 re-double his efforts to convince Stalin to start his 384 00:25:28,091 --> 00:25:30,964 own nuclear weapons program. 385 00:25:31,138 --> 00:25:34,489 In all three cases, it was the scientists, 386 00:25:34,663 --> 00:25:36,970 not the generals or the arms dealers, 387 00:25:37,144 --> 00:25:40,147 who informed their leaders that a huge increase in 388 00:25:40,321 --> 00:25:42,541 kill ratio was possible. 389 00:25:44,543 --> 00:25:46,545 The U.S. Department of War 390 00:25:46,719 --> 00:25:49,852 chose the remote location of Los Alamos, New Mexico 391 00:25:50,026 --> 00:25:53,726 as the headquarters for the atomic bomb research project. 392 00:25:54,988 --> 00:25:58,339 It had been recommended by the project's director, 393 00:25:58,513 --> 00:26:01,516 physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, 394 00:26:01,690 --> 00:26:05,476 who had recuperated there from an illness as a teenager. 395 00:26:05,651 --> 00:26:09,829 But for Edward Teller, an atomic bomb wasn't big enough. 396 00:26:10,003 --> 00:26:12,919 He dreamed of even greater lethality. 397 00:26:13,093 --> 00:26:15,965 A weapon in which the atomic bomb was nothing more than a 398 00:26:16,139 --> 00:26:19,490 match to light a fuse to the nucleus. 399 00:26:19,665 --> 00:26:22,189 A thermal nuclear weapon. 400 00:26:22,363 --> 00:26:26,236 What Teller affectionately called, the super. 401 00:26:26,410 --> 00:26:30,284 If Edward Teller had a polar opposite in the scientific community, 402 00:26:30,458 --> 00:26:33,243 it would have been Joseph Rotblat. 403 00:26:33,417 --> 00:26:36,551 Rotblat was born in Warsaw to a wealthy family, 404 00:26:36,725 --> 00:26:40,294 who like Teller's, had lost everything. 405 00:26:40,468 --> 00:26:44,385 In the summer of 1939, just before the Nazis invaded, 406 00:26:44,559 --> 00:26:47,649 he was invited to England to take a research position at 407 00:26:47,823 --> 00:26:50,173 the University of Liverpool. 408 00:26:50,347 --> 00:26:52,393 At the last minute before his departure, 409 00:26:52,567 --> 00:26:57,224 his beloved wife, Tola had an emergency appendectomy. 410 00:26:57,398 --> 00:26:59,618 She was forced to remain behind until she was 411 00:26:59,792 --> 00:27:01,881 well enough to travel. 412 00:27:02,055 --> 00:27:06,146 Tola insisted that Joseph go on ahead to prepare their new home. 413 00:27:06,320 --> 00:27:09,758 It would just be a matter of weeks, she told him. 414 00:27:14,110 --> 00:27:17,244 The challenge, was to find a chemical fuse that 415 00:27:17,418 --> 00:27:19,768 would light the nuclear chain reaction, 416 00:27:19,942 --> 00:27:23,250 first imagined by Leo Szilard in London. 417 00:27:23,424 --> 00:27:26,340 The scientists and engineers told themselves that they 418 00:27:26,514 --> 00:27:29,822 would be averting a grave danger by building a bomb 419 00:27:29,996 --> 00:27:32,868 of unprecedented destructive power. 420 00:27:33,042 --> 00:27:35,610 Their government could be trusted. 421 00:27:35,784 --> 00:27:38,178 They would never use such a weapon in an act of 422 00:27:38,352 --> 00:27:41,834 aggression, not like those other governments. 423 00:27:42,704 --> 00:27:45,620 These atomic scientists were the first to see 424 00:27:45,794 --> 00:27:50,233 building nuclear weapons as a deterrent to using them. 425 00:27:51,452 --> 00:27:54,542 The fear of Hitler with an atomic bomb was the driving 426 00:27:54,716 --> 00:27:57,458 rationale for the Manhattan Project. 427 00:27:57,632 --> 00:28:01,592 And yet, when Germany surrendered and Hitler was no more, 428 00:28:01,767 --> 00:28:04,683 of the thousands of scientists who worked on the bomb, 429 00:28:04,857 --> 00:28:07,947 only one resigned. 430 00:28:08,121 --> 00:28:10,689 It was Joe Rotblat. 431 00:28:10,863 --> 00:28:13,256 In the years that followed, whenever he was asked about 432 00:28:13,430 --> 00:28:16,607 his decision, he always rejected any suggestion that 433 00:28:16,782 --> 00:28:20,394 he had done so out of moral superiority. 434 00:28:20,568 --> 00:28:24,006 He would just smile and say, the truth was that he 435 00:28:24,180 --> 00:28:27,227 desperately missed his wife, who had been prevented from 436 00:28:27,401 --> 00:28:31,666 leaving Warsaw and lost to him in the chaos of the war. 437 00:28:32,580 --> 00:28:34,060 With its end in Europe 438 00:28:34,234 --> 00:28:37,324 came his chance to go and search for her. 439 00:28:37,498 --> 00:28:39,979 But, he never found her. 440 00:28:40,153 --> 00:28:43,852 Except as a name on a list of the dead. 441 00:28:44,026 --> 00:28:46,812 Tola had perished in the Holocaust. 442 00:28:46,986 --> 00:28:50,250 Exterminated at the Belzec concentration camp. 443 00:28:51,120 --> 00:28:53,514 Although he lived another 60 years, 444 00:28:53,688 --> 00:28:56,517 Rotblat never remarried. 445 00:28:56,691 --> 00:28:59,215 [explosion]. 446 00:28:59,389 --> 00:29:01,435 Of the three nations that pursued wartime research 447 00:29:01,609 --> 00:29:03,611 into building the bomb, 448 00:29:03,785 --> 00:29:07,223 only the U. S. succeeded before the war's end. 449 00:29:07,397 --> 00:29:09,922 And historians believe that was because America had 450 00:29:10,096 --> 00:29:13,360 taken in so many immigrants. 451 00:29:13,534 --> 00:29:15,884 Of the leading figures in the Manhattan Project, 452 00:29:16,058 --> 00:29:18,713 only two were native born. 453 00:29:18,887 --> 00:29:22,282 And only one got his PhD in the U.S. 454 00:29:24,240 --> 00:29:26,721 Atomic bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities of 455 00:29:26,895 --> 00:29:31,682 Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ending the second World War. 456 00:29:31,857 --> 00:29:34,729 Two months later, President Truman invited Oppenheimer 457 00:29:34,903 --> 00:29:38,167 for congratulations in the Oval Office. 458 00:29:38,341 --> 00:29:40,213 But to Truman's dismay, 459 00:29:40,387 --> 00:29:43,694 Oppenheimer was in no mood to celebrate. 460 00:29:43,869 --> 00:29:47,742 OPPENHEIMER: Mr. President, I feel like I have blood on my hands. 461 00:29:47,916 --> 00:29:49,788 TRUMAN: Don't be a fool. 462 00:29:49,962 --> 00:29:51,920 If anyone has blood on their hands, it's me. 463 00:29:52,094 --> 00:29:54,096 And it doesn't bother me at all. 464 00:29:55,619 --> 00:29:57,883 OPPENHEIMER: How long do you think it will be before the 465 00:29:58,057 --> 00:30:00,233 Russians get the bomb? 466 00:30:00,407 --> 00:30:02,148 TRUMAN: Never! 467 00:30:05,281 --> 00:30:08,241 Don't you ever let that cry baby scientist anywhere 468 00:30:08,415 --> 00:30:11,070 near me again, do you hear? 469 00:30:11,244 --> 00:30:13,507 TYSON: Less than four years later, 470 00:30:13,681 --> 00:30:16,597 the Russians exploded their own atomic bomb. 471 00:30:16,771 --> 00:30:19,382 And shortly after, both nations went on to create 472 00:30:19,556 --> 00:30:23,734 supers: thermonuclear hydrogen bombs. 473 00:30:24,474 --> 00:30:27,216 The nuclear arms race begun by those three letters from 474 00:30:27,390 --> 00:30:32,178 scientists was off to a terrifying start. 475 00:30:32,874 --> 00:30:36,399 After the war, Teller's dreams of greater and greater killing 476 00:30:36,573 --> 00:30:39,185 power were to come true. 477 00:30:39,359 --> 00:30:42,318 The early 1950s, when the Communist witch hunts began 478 00:30:42,492 --> 00:30:45,278 in the United States, he was perfectly happy to hint 479 00:30:45,452 --> 00:30:48,455 that Robert Oppenheimer, his former boss, 480 00:30:48,629 --> 00:30:51,284 who had brilliantly run the Manhattan Project, 481 00:30:51,458 --> 00:30:53,634 should be stripped of his security clearance, 482 00:30:53,808 --> 00:30:56,811 thereby ruining Oppenheimer's career. 483 00:31:17,049 --> 00:31:21,401 Despite dramatic reductions in nuclear arsenals, 484 00:31:21,575 --> 00:31:25,492 the specter of nuclear war haunts us still. 485 00:31:26,797 --> 00:31:29,061 How can we sleep so soundly 486 00:31:29,235 --> 00:31:33,630 in the shadow of a smoking volcano? 487 00:31:36,807 --> 00:31:39,114 In another time, there were others who faced a 488 00:31:39,288 --> 00:31:43,814 grave danger as if immobilized in a dream. 489 00:31:54,564 --> 00:32:00,962 ♪ ♪ 490 00:32:05,227 --> 00:32:07,621 TYSON: Let me tell you a story. 491 00:32:07,795 --> 00:32:10,145 Two men walk into a bar. 492 00:32:11,668 --> 00:32:15,020 ♪ ♪ 493 00:32:15,194 --> 00:32:16,586 And they got into a fight. 494 00:32:16,760 --> 00:32:18,371 [glass breaking]. 495 00:32:18,545 --> 00:32:21,156 [grunting]. 496 00:32:24,507 --> 00:32:26,422 [grunting]. 497 00:32:26,596 --> 00:32:28,729 [gasps]. 498 00:32:28,903 --> 00:32:30,383 SOLDIERS: Allez! 499 00:32:30,557 --> 00:32:32,211 [grunts]. 500 00:32:34,604 --> 00:32:37,781 TYSON: Louis-Auguste Cyparis was arrested and taken to the 501 00:32:37,956 --> 00:32:41,481 Saint Pierre Prison, where he was locked in the dungeon. 502 00:32:45,398 --> 00:32:48,009 [grunting]. 503 00:32:51,839 --> 00:32:54,102 TYSON: This all happened on the French colonial island of 504 00:32:54,276 --> 00:32:57,932 Martinique in the Caribbean in 1902. 505 00:32:58,106 --> 00:33:01,066 In the midst of an election campaign. 506 00:33:05,461 --> 00:33:09,857 On this April morning, Fernan Cleric stepped outside 507 00:33:10,031 --> 00:33:12,207 to admire the view. 508 00:33:12,381 --> 00:33:15,080 He was master of all he surveyed. 509 00:33:15,254 --> 00:33:18,474 The factories that turned the island's trees into furniture. 510 00:33:18,648 --> 00:33:21,651 And the fields of sugar cane and coffee. 511 00:33:22,609 --> 00:33:24,306 That's strange. 512 00:33:24,480 --> 00:33:28,136 Why would there be frost on such a sunny warm morning? 513 00:33:28,310 --> 00:33:31,879 But it wasn't frost, it was ash from the volcano, 514 00:33:32,053 --> 00:33:34,012 Mount Pelée. 515 00:33:38,233 --> 00:33:40,975 [eruption]. 516 00:33:41,497 --> 00:33:43,717 [gasps]. 517 00:33:58,645 --> 00:34:00,777 TYSON: When the ash began to fall, 518 00:34:00,951 --> 00:34:03,302 Claire Apprentice, wife of the American Council 519 00:34:03,476 --> 00:34:06,653 considered going home to Massachusetts. 520 00:34:06,827 --> 00:34:08,916 No, but that was out of the question. 521 00:34:09,090 --> 00:34:11,701 There was the gala she planned for the following week, 522 00:34:11,875 --> 00:34:15,053 postponing it was unthinkable. 523 00:34:19,709 --> 00:34:23,322 And there were many who were too poor to leave their meager 524 00:34:23,496 --> 00:34:26,629 possessions and flee the city of Saint Pierre for a 525 00:34:26,803 --> 00:34:29,545 safer part of the island. 526 00:34:29,719 --> 00:34:31,895 Others, with the means to do so, 527 00:34:32,070 --> 00:34:35,073 departed on boats. 528 00:34:41,166 --> 00:34:43,777 Mayor Fouché worked late into the evening, 529 00:34:43,951 --> 00:34:48,086 drafting detailed plans for the Ascension Day Banquet and Ball. 530 00:34:48,260 --> 00:34:50,044 Meanwhile, below... 531 00:34:50,218 --> 00:34:53,134 Servants cleaned ash from the banquet hall 532 00:34:53,308 --> 00:34:56,485 in preparation for the event. 533 00:35:01,838 --> 00:35:04,798 The closest thing to a scientist on the island of Martinique 534 00:35:04,972 --> 00:35:09,455 was an elementary school teacher named Gaston Landes. 535 00:35:10,412 --> 00:35:12,719 Landes actually made a pilgrimage to the newly 536 00:35:12,893 --> 00:35:16,201 awakened volcanic crater and shared his observations of 537 00:35:16,375 --> 00:35:19,334 heightened activity in the newspaper. 538 00:35:19,508 --> 00:35:21,206 But Landes was more concerned about his 539 00:35:21,380 --> 00:35:23,599 forthcoming trip to Paris. 540 00:35:23,773 --> 00:35:26,646 He was to display samples of the island's plant life along 541 00:35:26,820 --> 00:35:30,128 with the lecture he had been asked to give. 542 00:35:31,781 --> 00:35:34,349 But, with the ash falling at this rate, 543 00:35:34,523 --> 00:35:36,917 his specimens would all be ruined. 544 00:35:44,054 --> 00:35:48,711 Mayor Fouché mustered enough resolve to create a new poster. 545 00:35:48,885 --> 00:35:51,932 "Fellow citizens, be not afraid. 546 00:35:52,106 --> 00:35:55,065 No lava flows could reach the city in the near future. 547 00:35:55,240 --> 00:35:58,765 We have seven kilometers between us and the volcano. 548 00:35:58,939 --> 00:36:01,985 The amount of lava would have to be impossibly huge 549 00:36:02,160 --> 00:36:05,250 to cross the two immense valleys and the swamp 550 00:36:05,424 --> 00:36:08,253 between us and Mount Peleé." 551 00:36:09,341 --> 00:36:15,303 [coughing]. 552 00:36:16,304 --> 00:36:18,828 In the early hours of May 7th, 553 00:36:19,002 --> 00:36:22,658 the people Saint Pierre awoke to thundering seismic tremors 554 00:36:22,832 --> 00:36:26,880 and volcanic lightning near the mouth of the hellish volcano. 555 00:36:27,924 --> 00:36:32,190 Now, mass panic began to spread. 556 00:36:32,364 --> 00:36:35,932 Troops were dispatched to try and calm the public. 557 00:36:37,282 --> 00:36:39,284 And then... 558 00:36:39,458 --> 00:36:41,590 Just before the dawn of Thursday morning. 559 00:36:41,764 --> 00:36:43,331 May 8th. 560 00:36:43,505 --> 00:36:46,378 The volcano became utterly calm. 561 00:36:46,552 --> 00:36:48,989 The air was cool and fresh. 562 00:36:49,163 --> 00:36:52,601 And the sea like glass. 563 00:36:53,820 --> 00:36:55,691 [eruption]. 564 00:36:55,865 --> 00:36:57,215 [screaming]. 565 00:36:57,389 --> 00:36:59,782 TYSON: When Mount Pelée erupted at 8:02 AM on 566 00:36:59,956 --> 00:37:04,483 May 8th, 1902, the explosion produced a sound so loud 567 00:37:04,657 --> 00:37:08,965 it was heard 500 miles away, in Venezuela. 568 00:37:11,229 --> 00:37:13,448 The massive pyroclastic flood, 569 00:37:13,622 --> 00:37:16,146 a death cloud of super-heated gasses, 570 00:37:16,321 --> 00:37:20,325 crossed the valleys to the city in minutes. 571 00:37:25,112 --> 00:37:27,723 The explosion was the equivalent of just one 572 00:37:27,897 --> 00:37:31,597 strategic nuclear warhead. 573 00:37:33,338 --> 00:37:35,514 Three days after the eruption, 574 00:37:35,688 --> 00:37:37,559 men from the other part of the island, 575 00:37:37,733 --> 00:37:40,954 combed the still smoking streets of Saint Pierre. 576 00:37:41,128 --> 00:37:44,871 To collect the bodies and burn what the volcano had failed 577 00:37:45,045 --> 00:37:47,090 to consume completely. 578 00:37:47,265 --> 00:37:49,049 [grunting]. 579 00:37:49,528 --> 00:37:52,879 [calling]. 580 00:38:02,802 --> 00:38:04,804 TYSON: Few have ever experienced what 581 00:38:04,978 --> 00:38:09,330 Louis-Auguste Cyparis endured and lived to tell. 582 00:38:10,026 --> 00:38:12,899 When the volcano erupted, he heard the screams of his 583 00:38:13,073 --> 00:38:17,904 captors briefly before a terrifying silence. 584 00:38:19,079 --> 00:38:21,516 And then, a fierce heat came blasting through the 585 00:38:21,690 --> 00:38:23,997 tiny vent in his cell. 586 00:38:24,171 --> 00:38:26,086 He hopped and jumped around to avoid it, 587 00:38:26,260 --> 00:38:29,002 but was still severely burned up to his shoulders. 588 00:38:29,959 --> 00:38:32,614 For three days he suffered in agony with 589 00:38:32,788 --> 00:38:37,097 no other sustenance than the moisture on the walls of his cell. 590 00:38:38,098 --> 00:38:40,492 His sentence to solitary confinement in the thick 591 00:38:40,666 --> 00:38:44,104 walled dungeon had saved his life. 592 00:38:44,278 --> 00:38:48,064 He was one of only two survivors of the 593 00:38:48,238 --> 00:38:52,678 30,000 citizens of Saint Pierre. 594 00:38:57,030 --> 00:38:58,597 What about us? 595 00:38:58,771 --> 00:39:01,034 Would we know when to sound the alarm? 596 00:39:01,208 --> 00:39:03,341 Can we see what's coming? 597 00:39:03,515 --> 00:39:06,169 Can we awaken in time? 598 00:39:19,008 --> 00:39:25,101 [buzzing]. 599 00:39:29,367 --> 00:39:32,326 TYSON: We're back on the trail of one of our two atoms. 600 00:39:32,500 --> 00:39:35,111 The uranium atom. 601 00:39:37,810 --> 00:39:40,813 A uranium atom is inherently unstable. 602 00:39:40,987 --> 00:39:43,381 Sooner or later, it decays. 603 00:39:43,555 --> 00:39:45,774 A particle from its nucleus breaks away, 604 00:39:45,948 --> 00:39:47,776 transforming the uranium atom 605 00:39:47,950 --> 00:39:50,213 into an entirely different element. 606 00:39:50,388 --> 00:39:52,912 Thorium. 607 00:39:53,478 --> 00:39:57,395 We're flying through the crossfire of radioactive decay. 608 00:39:57,569 --> 00:39:59,484 Subatomic particles move like bullets through the 609 00:39:59,658 --> 00:40:01,790 fine structure of life. 610 00:40:01,964 --> 00:40:04,706 Shearing electrons from their molecules. 611 00:40:04,880 --> 00:40:10,625 This is how ionizing radiation affects living things. 612 00:40:14,934 --> 00:40:17,937 Those chromosomes never had a chance. 613 00:40:18,111 --> 00:40:20,330 This is why atomic weapons are so much more dangerous 614 00:40:20,505 --> 00:40:22,681 than conventional ones. 615 00:40:22,855 --> 00:40:26,249 Ionizing radiation is all around us and even inside us. 616 00:40:26,424 --> 00:40:28,687 At low levels, it poses no threat. 617 00:40:28,861 --> 00:40:32,168 But at higher levels, it's a different story. 618 00:40:34,344 --> 00:40:37,913 In the near term, exposure to lethal levels of radiation can 619 00:40:38,087 --> 00:40:40,786 cause a runaway reaction of the cell that makes it 620 00:40:40,960 --> 00:40:43,702 multiply exponentially. 621 00:40:44,616 --> 00:40:46,269 Cancer. 622 00:40:46,444 --> 00:40:51,405 But its power to harm can also echo down the corridors of time. 623 00:40:52,885 --> 00:40:55,235 When the radiation tore into the chromosomes of the 624 00:40:55,409 --> 00:40:59,500 butterfly, it left a trail of destruction in its wake that 625 00:40:59,674 --> 00:41:03,809 changed the destiny of the butterfly's unborn offspring. 626 00:41:04,984 --> 00:41:07,943 A mutation in its genes. 627 00:41:09,728 --> 00:41:12,426 We have a lot in common with butterflies. 628 00:41:12,600 --> 00:41:15,560 Any change in the DNA architecture will be copied 629 00:41:15,734 --> 00:41:19,128 over and over again in succeeding generations. 630 00:41:19,302 --> 00:41:21,479 The damage is passed on. 631 00:41:21,653 --> 00:41:24,046 Vandalizing our future. 632 00:41:24,220 --> 00:41:28,050 We are made of atoms that were born in stars thousands of 633 00:41:28,224 --> 00:41:32,533 light years away in space and billions of years ago in time. 634 00:41:32,707 --> 00:41:35,841 The search for our own origins has carried us 635 00:41:36,015 --> 00:41:38,800 far from our epoch in our world. 636 00:41:38,974 --> 00:41:41,760 We are star-stuff, deeply connected with 637 00:41:41,934 --> 00:41:44,066 the rest of the universe. 638 00:41:44,240 --> 00:41:47,679 The matter we are made of was generated in cosmic fire. 639 00:41:47,853 --> 00:41:52,161 And now, we, ambulatory collections of seven billion 640 00:41:52,335 --> 00:41:55,600 billion billion atoms intricately assembled over 641 00:41:55,774 --> 00:42:00,430 eons has devised a means to tap that cosmic fire, 642 00:42:00,605 --> 00:42:03,433 hidden in the heart of matter. 643 00:42:03,608 --> 00:42:06,393 We cannot unlearn this knowledge. 644 00:42:06,567 --> 00:42:11,964 And tragically, insanity runs in our family. 645 00:42:22,148 --> 00:42:24,454 The letters that the scientists wrote to begin 646 00:42:24,629 --> 00:42:28,067 this nightmare were followed by another. 647 00:42:28,241 --> 00:42:30,504 This one, a letter to the planet, 648 00:42:30,678 --> 00:42:33,551 stating that this new understanding of physics 649 00:42:33,725 --> 00:42:37,511 demanded a new way of thinking. 650 00:42:37,685 --> 00:42:42,908 "Shall we choose death because we cannot forget our quarrels, 651 00:42:43,082 --> 00:42:47,565 we appeal as human beings to human beings. 652 00:42:47,739 --> 00:42:52,091 Remember your humanity and forget the rest." 653 00:42:57,836 --> 00:42:59,315 And what of our other atom? 654 00:42:59,489 --> 00:43:01,883 The carbon atom? 655 00:43:02,057 --> 00:43:05,191 It's inside one of you. 656 00:43:52,586 --> 00:43:54,588 Captioned by Cotter Captioning Services.