1 00:00:03,637 --> 00:00:07,975 TYSON: We all feel the weight of the shadows on our future. 2 00:00:08,376 --> 00:00:11,945 But in another time, every bit as ominous as our own, 3 00:00:12,513 --> 00:00:16,150 there were those who could see a way through the darkness 4 00:00:16,184 --> 00:00:19,019 to find a star to steer by. 5 00:00:20,621 --> 00:00:22,690 Carl Sagan wrote, 6 00:00:22,923 --> 00:00:26,394 "I was a child in a time of hope... 7 00:00:26,694 --> 00:00:30,064 I wanted to be a scientist from my earliest school days. 8 00:00:30,331 --> 00:00:33,000 The crystallizing moment came when I first caught on that 9 00:00:33,033 --> 00:00:35,969 the stars are mighty suns... 10 00:00:36,570 --> 00:00:39,707 When it first dawned on me how staggeringly far away they 11 00:00:39,740 --> 00:00:43,377 must be to appear as mere points of light in the sky... 12 00:00:44,812 --> 00:00:48,716 I'm not sure I even knew the meaning of the word "science" then, 13 00:00:48,749 --> 00:00:52,386 but I wanted somehow to immerse myself in all that grandeur... 14 00:00:53,754 --> 00:00:56,890 I was gripped by the splendor of the universe... 15 00:00:57,258 --> 00:01:00,328 Transfixed by the prospect of understanding how things 16 00:01:00,361 --> 00:01:03,597 really work, of helping to uncover deep mysteries... 17 00:01:04,798 --> 00:01:07,535 Of exploring new worlds... 18 00:01:08,769 --> 00:01:11,272 Maybe even literally. 19 00:01:15,676 --> 00:01:19,079 It has been my good fortune to have had that dream, 20 00:01:19,113 --> 00:01:21,315 in part, fulfilled... 21 00:01:27,188 --> 00:01:31,058 For me, the romance of science remains as appealing and 22 00:01:31,091 --> 00:01:34,428 new as it was on that day... 23 00:01:35,129 --> 00:01:41,535 When I was shown the wonders of the 1939 New York World's Fair. 24 00:01:49,610 --> 00:01:53,447 This is where the future became a place." 25 00:01:55,349 --> 00:01:58,619 But, how could there be hope in 1939? 26 00:01:59,119 --> 00:02:02,323 The angriest voices had taken the world stage, 27 00:02:02,623 --> 00:02:05,426 preaching hatred and tribal division. 28 00:02:05,459 --> 00:02:08,262 The most cataclysmic war in history, 29 00:02:08,296 --> 00:02:11,965 which would take the lives of 60 million human beings, 30 00:02:11,999 --> 00:02:14,302 was only just beginning. 31 00:02:14,702 --> 00:02:17,338 Yet, even as darkness descended, 32 00:02:17,371 --> 00:02:20,474 it was possible to awaken the young Carl Sagan and his 33 00:02:20,508 --> 00:02:24,412 contemporaries with a thrilling vision of the future. 34 00:02:25,513 --> 00:02:28,616 One that was powerful enough to inspire many of them 35 00:02:28,649 --> 00:02:31,252 to do the years of hard work required to 36 00:02:31,285 --> 00:02:34,021 become scientists and engineers. 37 00:02:53,374 --> 00:02:58,512 * 38 00:03:00,381 --> 00:03:04,184 The "miracle" of television became a reality to the public 39 00:03:04,218 --> 00:03:06,887 at the 1939 World's Fair. 40 00:03:07,154 --> 00:03:10,291 We had learned to manipulate electrons into what would become a 41 00:03:10,324 --> 00:03:13,193 civilization-altering force. 42 00:03:13,727 --> 00:03:17,698 This working model of a TV set was transparent to convince 43 00:03:17,731 --> 00:03:20,401 the skeptics that what they were seeing was not just 44 00:03:20,434 --> 00:03:22,135 motion picture images. 45 00:03:22,603 --> 00:03:25,706 The images on the television screen were actually live 46 00:03:25,739 --> 00:03:28,609 signals from across time and space. 47 00:03:30,644 --> 00:03:33,714 A possible world of revolutionary high technology 48 00:03:33,747 --> 00:03:35,849 was first glimpsed here. 49 00:03:48,562 --> 00:03:52,400 Carl Sagan was the first to explore space and time on the 50 00:03:52,433 --> 00:03:54,435 Ship of the Imagination. 51 00:03:54,868 --> 00:03:57,204 But we have something else in common. 52 00:03:57,237 --> 00:04:02,009 We both had life-changing experiences in this same place 53 00:04:02,042 --> 00:04:03,977 in Flushing Meadow, New York. 54 00:04:10,518 --> 00:04:12,320 When I was about the same age as Carl, 55 00:04:13,120 --> 00:04:16,724 my family took me to the 1964 World's Fair. 56 00:04:17,325 --> 00:04:19,893 I'm the little guy on the left. 57 00:04:19,927 --> 00:04:24,164 It was 25 years later and our world faced a different set of problems. 58 00:04:24,798 --> 00:04:27,701 The superpowers had rigged the planet with some tens of 59 00:04:27,735 --> 00:04:30,504 thousands of nuclear weapons. 60 00:04:30,538 --> 00:04:33,574 They were on short fuses that could be lit at any moment. 61 00:04:34,608 --> 00:04:37,110 Preparing for the coming apocalypse was a frequent 62 00:04:37,144 --> 00:04:39,347 ritual for schoolchildren like me. 63 00:04:39,747 --> 00:04:42,249 While we all knew that our lives could be terminated at 64 00:04:42,282 --> 00:04:47,287 any moment, the 1964 World's Fair presented a vision of a 65 00:04:47,321 --> 00:04:50,223 boundless future, one freed of danger, 66 00:04:51,325 --> 00:04:54,595 where science and technology had been refocused on human 67 00:04:54,628 --> 00:04:56,296 hopes and dreams... 68 00:04:57,230 --> 00:05:00,100 I have stunning, indelible memories of that visit. 69 00:05:00,834 --> 00:05:03,270 My father was a key administrator for New York City 70 00:05:03,303 --> 00:05:05,539 during the civil rights movement, 71 00:05:05,573 --> 00:05:08,175 and they named a monorail car after him for the day... 72 00:05:08,876 --> 00:05:12,179 We proudly rode the Tyson Comet into the fair. 73 00:05:18,285 --> 00:05:21,822 I remember the life-like, animatronic dinosaurs and 74 00:05:21,855 --> 00:05:24,492 being amazed that we could know about things that 75 00:05:24,525 --> 00:05:26,527 happened so long ago. 76 00:05:27,361 --> 00:05:30,731 I remember the sense that Earth was just a place we happened to be. 77 00:05:32,132 --> 00:05:34,802 Even the fair's main symbol, the Unisphere, 78 00:05:35,469 --> 00:05:38,706 was a vision of Earth in the larger context of the cosmos. 79 00:05:39,640 --> 00:05:42,710 Remember, this was before anyone had ever seen the whole 80 00:05:42,743 --> 00:05:44,745 Earth from deep space... 81 00:05:46,146 --> 00:05:49,349 It was a time when everything soared. 82 00:05:49,383 --> 00:05:51,885 Even the buildings seemed ready for take-off. 83 00:05:56,123 --> 00:05:59,527 You could go on a trip to a brighter future, 84 00:05:59,560 --> 00:06:02,062 an Earth where there were no slums, 85 00:06:02,329 --> 00:06:04,331 and no hunger... 86 00:06:09,069 --> 00:06:11,672 Some of those promises remain unfulfilled, 87 00:06:12,172 --> 00:06:15,743 and others have been exceeded beyond even the wildest dreams of that time... 88 00:06:17,411 --> 00:06:19,613 Do me a favor. 89 00:06:19,647 --> 00:06:22,916 Try to forget everything you take for granted at this moment. 90 00:06:24,017 --> 00:06:27,421 Imagine you've never seen a laptop, or tablet, 91 00:06:28,021 --> 00:06:29,557 or smart phone, 92 00:06:29,590 --> 00:06:32,726 that you've never searched for anything online, 93 00:06:32,760 --> 00:06:35,863 or ever received an email or a text message from anyone. 94 00:06:37,330 --> 00:06:40,934 This was a world where if you wanted to know something about 95 00:06:40,968 --> 00:06:43,737 the history of life, or the lyrics to a song, 96 00:06:45,105 --> 00:06:47,941 you had to go to the nearest library. 97 00:06:49,977 --> 00:06:51,645 (overlapping chatter). 98 00:06:51,679 --> 00:06:53,380 TYSON: Like many people at that time, 99 00:06:53,413 --> 00:06:55,816 it was here that I had my very first interaction 100 00:06:55,849 --> 00:06:57,585 with a computer. 101 00:06:57,618 --> 00:06:59,887 WOMAN: The machine on my right is the IBM Optical Character Reader. 102 00:07:00,220 --> 00:07:02,856 It's a machine which reads handwritten numbers. 103 00:07:02,890 --> 00:07:04,625 To illustrate its operation to you, 104 00:07:04,658 --> 00:07:07,928 you will be able to ask for the news of any date that you'd like. 105 00:07:08,395 --> 00:07:11,198 You simply write a date on a card and then the IBM Optical 106 00:07:11,231 --> 00:07:13,901 Character Reader reads your handwritten numbers. 107 00:07:14,267 --> 00:07:16,403 The computer replies with the news event. 108 00:07:20,908 --> 00:07:24,645 TYSON: Imagine my amazement that a machine could read the date of my birth, 109 00:07:26,013 --> 00:07:29,917 and spit out the most important events that took place on that very day. 110 00:07:32,820 --> 00:07:35,088 How could a machine possibly know that? 111 00:07:36,189 --> 00:07:39,493 Even in this optimistic dream of the future, 112 00:07:39,827 --> 00:07:42,663 the long shadow cast on it was inescapable... 113 00:07:43,931 --> 00:07:46,767 The very same vehicles that promised to take us to other 114 00:07:46,800 --> 00:07:50,370 worlds also threatened to destroy this one. 115 00:07:51,839 --> 00:07:55,509 They could carry explorers, or they could carry weapons of 116 00:07:55,543 --> 00:07:57,878 mass destruction. 117 00:07:58,445 --> 00:08:01,549 This Project Mercury spacecraft had recently taken 118 00:08:01,582 --> 00:08:03,817 Scott Carpenter into Earth orbit... 119 00:08:04,818 --> 00:08:07,788 There was a two-man Gemini spacecraft that wouldn't be 120 00:08:07,821 --> 00:08:10,958 operational for another year... 121 00:08:10,991 --> 00:08:14,795 And the most ambitious of all: The Apollo command module and 122 00:08:14,828 --> 00:08:18,599 lunar lander were close enough for me to reach out and touch. 123 00:08:19,667 --> 00:08:23,937 The first actual manned trip to the Moon was still four years away. 124 00:08:24,404 --> 00:08:27,507 Think of the audacity of that time: 125 00:08:27,808 --> 00:08:30,944 We were going to send humans to the Moon 126 00:08:30,978 --> 00:08:33,013 and bring them back safely, 127 00:08:33,046 --> 00:08:36,984 and do it all with computers whose best trick was to tell 128 00:08:37,017 --> 00:08:39,219 you what happened on the day you were born... 129 00:08:42,690 --> 00:08:44,792 All these decades later, 130 00:08:44,825 --> 00:08:47,561 I can't believe we really did those things. 131 00:08:47,995 --> 00:08:49,597 But like Carl, 132 00:08:49,630 --> 00:08:53,400 the hope I discovered at the World's Fair has never left me. 133 00:08:54,367 --> 00:08:56,737 The odds were against us, 134 00:08:56,770 --> 00:08:59,673 but we're still here more than 50 years later. 135 00:09:00,407 --> 00:09:04,511 And still dreaming of what the future might hold for us... 136 00:09:13,386 --> 00:09:19,059 Come with me to the New York World's Fair of 2039. 137 00:09:28,736 --> 00:09:34,708 (theme music plays). 138 00:09:54,394 --> 00:10:00,000 * 139 00:10:19,820 --> 00:10:26,159 * 140 00:10:48,481 --> 00:10:53,286 TYSON: It's the year 2029 and there's a girl somewhere, 141 00:10:54,187 --> 00:10:57,657 imaging how the future might unfold. 142 00:11:23,550 --> 00:11:26,754 * 143 00:11:42,903 --> 00:11:47,074 * 144 00:12:22,509 --> 00:12:25,078 TYSON: Dreams are maps... 145 00:12:26,313 --> 00:12:29,049 Without them, we go nowhere... 146 00:12:32,452 --> 00:12:35,956 This new colossus, one of many erected in each of 147 00:12:35,989 --> 00:12:40,227 the Earth's greatest harbors, is made of calcium carbonate, 148 00:12:41,428 --> 00:12:45,532 the same material that nature used to build life's first 149 00:12:45,565 --> 00:12:48,936 home in that ancient lost city beneath the sea. 150 00:12:50,337 --> 00:12:53,807 Carbon dioxide, the main driver of climate change, 151 00:12:53,841 --> 00:12:57,177 has been extracted from our atmosphere and converted into 152 00:12:57,210 --> 00:13:01,314 the mineral used to construct this monumental Tree of Life. 153 00:13:02,816 --> 00:13:06,219 These new wonders of the world not only signify that our 154 00:13:06,253 --> 00:13:09,823 species has found a way to avert the worst consequences 155 00:13:09,857 --> 00:13:14,394 of climate change, but they also declare our ambition for 156 00:13:14,427 --> 00:13:17,097 the kind of greatness that lives in harmony 157 00:13:17,130 --> 00:13:19,933 with our fellow earthlings. 158 00:13:22,135 --> 00:13:26,406 Welcome to the 2039 New York World's Fair. 159 00:13:26,439 --> 00:13:27,941 Come with me. 160 00:13:30,143 --> 00:13:34,581 (overlapping chatter). 161 00:13:44,925 --> 00:13:51,031 * 162 00:14:09,349 --> 00:14:12,019 MAN: Hi. 163 00:14:13,120 --> 00:14:14,988 WOMAN: Yes, it's right that way. 164 00:14:18,125 --> 00:14:23,630 (inaudible chatter). 165 00:14:32,839 --> 00:14:36,176 (inaudible chatter). 166 00:14:55,895 --> 00:14:58,231 TYSON: Here, in the Pavilion of the Searchers, 167 00:14:58,265 --> 00:15:00,934 the greatest heroes in the history of science come to 168 00:15:00,968 --> 00:15:04,371 virtual life to recount, one-on-one, 169 00:15:04,404 --> 00:15:06,739 how they deciphered nature's secrets. 170 00:15:07,207 --> 00:15:10,944 They tirelessly answer every conceivable question you might have. 171 00:15:12,012 --> 00:15:15,115 And here, there is no such thing as a dumb question, 172 00:15:16,016 --> 00:15:18,751 no shame in asking anything you really want to know. 173 00:15:19,752 --> 00:15:22,255 And these aren't just robots whose heads are filled 174 00:15:22,289 --> 00:15:23,923 with recorded messages. 175 00:15:23,957 --> 00:15:26,994 We have found a way to reproduce the neural networks 176 00:15:27,027 --> 00:15:30,463 in their brains, their ideas, memories and associations, 177 00:15:31,764 --> 00:15:33,566 their connectome. 178 00:15:36,803 --> 00:15:39,906 Imagine a world where the still unfolding story of the 179 00:15:39,939 --> 00:15:44,144 universe was told to every child as naturally as we tell 180 00:15:44,177 --> 00:15:46,946 them our nursery rhymes and fairy tales. 181 00:15:47,680 --> 00:15:49,416 WOMAN: Oh, can they take us now? 182 00:15:51,884 --> 00:15:54,854 TYSON: Two questions: Did it blow your mind when we 183 00:15:54,887 --> 00:15:56,689 discovered gravitational waves, 184 00:15:56,723 --> 00:15:58,758 even though you said we never would? 185 00:15:58,791 --> 00:16:01,428 EINSTEIN: Ja. 186 00:16:01,661 --> 00:16:03,463 TYSON: Second question. 187 00:16:03,496 --> 00:16:06,599 Your hidden variables, solution to the paradox of 188 00:16:06,633 --> 00:16:09,469 quantum mechanics, now that we know they don't exist, 189 00:16:09,969 --> 00:16:13,506 what does that say about the nature of reality? 190 00:16:13,840 --> 00:16:15,975 EINSTEIN: Come with me. 191 00:16:18,478 --> 00:16:22,349 (overlapping chatter). 192 00:16:31,858 --> 00:16:35,995 TYSON: And this is the Pavilion of the 4th Dimension, time. 193 00:16:36,663 --> 00:16:40,433 It's a place where anyone can set their coordinates in space and time, 194 00:16:40,467 --> 00:16:45,272 and visit any moment in the 14 billion year history of cosmic evolution. 195 00:16:46,073 --> 00:16:48,475 Isn't it amazing that we only started doing science 196 00:16:48,508 --> 00:16:51,078 systematically four centuries ago? 197 00:16:51,578 --> 00:16:55,014 And yet we've already been able to reconstruct so much of 198 00:16:55,048 --> 00:16:58,185 what happened billions of years before we even got here. 199 00:17:04,691 --> 00:17:06,893 (overlapping chatter). 200 00:17:26,779 --> 00:17:32,719 * 201 00:17:43,530 --> 00:17:45,198 TYSON: This Cosmic Calendar, 202 00:17:45,232 --> 00:17:48,235 with all of time compressed into a single Earth year, 203 00:17:48,568 --> 00:17:50,503 is yours to explore. 204 00:17:51,238 --> 00:17:53,373 What event in the history of the universe would 205 00:17:53,406 --> 00:17:55,208 you most like to witness? 206 00:17:56,443 --> 00:17:57,577 Not the Big Bang, 207 00:17:57,610 --> 00:18:00,012 everybody wants to see that, and besides, 208 00:18:00,046 --> 00:18:01,948 you have to be over 14. 209 00:18:02,282 --> 00:18:05,385 But, we could go to that nanosecond before time began... 210 00:18:06,353 --> 00:18:08,588 Or that last perfect day of the dinosaurs. 211 00:18:10,123 --> 00:18:13,626 Or to spend the afternoon with the mitochondrial Eve, 212 00:18:14,294 --> 00:18:17,564 the mother of us all, the woman to whom all humans can 213 00:18:17,597 --> 00:18:19,599 trace their lineage? 214 00:18:19,632 --> 00:18:22,869 Or what about a day trip to Giza to see the pyramids when 215 00:18:22,902 --> 00:18:24,771 they were new? 216 00:18:24,804 --> 00:18:26,739 Just take your pick... 217 00:19:11,818 --> 00:19:14,187 TYSON: Life, the escape artist, 218 00:19:14,221 --> 00:19:17,123 having found every niche on Earth, 219 00:19:17,156 --> 00:19:19,226 even ventured to the Moon... 220 00:19:19,259 --> 00:19:21,594 (radio chatter) 221 00:19:24,697 --> 00:19:28,167 When we first stood amidst its sterile desolation, 222 00:19:28,201 --> 00:19:32,772 its lifeless dust, a world painted only in shades of gray, 223 00:19:32,805 --> 00:19:36,509 we began to appreciate how radically our planet 224 00:19:36,543 --> 00:19:39,312 changed when it was touched by life's genius. 225 00:19:39,346 --> 00:19:41,314 ARMSTRONG (over radio): The eagle has landed. 226 00:19:42,549 --> 00:19:45,352 TYSON: What form will life's genius take hundreds of 227 00:19:45,385 --> 00:19:47,687 millions of years in the future? 228 00:20:07,307 --> 00:20:12,679 * 229 00:20:18,885 --> 00:20:22,689 TYSON: Behold: This is the earliest known ancestor we 230 00:20:22,722 --> 00:20:27,193 humans share with almost every animal who lives now 231 00:20:27,226 --> 00:20:30,162 or ever lived on Earth. 232 00:20:30,196 --> 00:20:33,733 The real Saccorrhytus coronarius was actually quite small, 233 00:20:34,066 --> 00:20:36,202 just a black dot to our eyes, 234 00:20:36,235 --> 00:20:38,838 but it looms large in our personal story. 235 00:20:39,606 --> 00:20:43,610 "Sacco" flourished more than half a billion years ago. 236 00:20:43,943 --> 00:20:46,579 It's a progenitor of the animal kingdom. 237 00:20:47,079 --> 00:20:50,950 So how did life, the sculptor, carve us out of this? 238 00:20:52,785 --> 00:20:56,456 Evolution, given world enough and time, 239 00:20:56,489 --> 00:20:59,526 makes possible the emergence of those more complex and 240 00:20:59,559 --> 00:21:02,395 completely unexpected qualities that can arise from 241 00:21:02,429 --> 00:21:06,098 simpler things. 242 00:21:19,011 --> 00:21:23,683 Life is a thread four billion years long. 243 00:21:23,716 --> 00:21:27,119 It has survived at least five mass extinction events and 244 00:21:27,153 --> 00:21:30,890 come back from each of them stronger than ever before. 245 00:21:31,591 --> 00:21:35,828 Life demonstrates that we are more than the sum of our parts, 246 00:21:35,862 --> 00:21:39,131 and even when we find ourselves with our backs to the wall, 247 00:21:39,165 --> 00:21:41,601 life can find a way into the future... 248 00:21:41,634 --> 00:21:43,636 (explosion) 249 00:21:49,342 --> 00:21:50,977 Landmine. 250 00:21:51,978 --> 00:21:56,916 A souvenir of our savagery left over from conflicts all over the planet. 251 00:21:57,650 --> 00:22:01,087 We've infested our world with more than 100 million of them. 252 00:22:01,120 --> 00:22:04,757 Every year they kill or maim thousands of civilians, 253 00:22:04,791 --> 00:22:08,060 among them children at play with their friends. 254 00:22:10,262 --> 00:22:14,100 Think of a global effort that would be required to find and 255 00:22:14,133 --> 00:22:17,169 defuse more than 100 million explosive devices 256 00:22:17,203 --> 00:22:19,138 buried in the earth. 257 00:22:19,171 --> 00:22:21,240 Hopeless, right? 258 00:22:21,273 --> 00:22:24,944 But botanists have devised an ingenious way to reveal 259 00:22:24,977 --> 00:22:27,313 the presence of dangerous explosives beneath our feet. 260 00:22:28,681 --> 00:22:32,351 They have bioengineered the thale cress plant whose roots 261 00:22:33,152 --> 00:22:35,755 can detect the nitrogen dioxide gas that these 262 00:22:35,788 --> 00:22:38,224 landmines and IEDs emit. 263 00:22:38,991 --> 00:22:42,028 If the plant puts out red leaves, beware. 264 00:22:42,929 --> 00:22:47,500 But if its leaves are green, then you can play there in 265 00:22:47,534 --> 00:22:50,102 peace with your friends. 266 00:22:50,136 --> 00:22:53,440 We can use our understanding of nature to spring the traps 267 00:22:53,473 --> 00:22:55,975 that we've set for ourselves. 268 00:23:04,016 --> 00:23:06,919 Let's take the subway to New Jersey. 269 00:23:10,757 --> 00:23:14,193 We're riding the mycelium, that underground network that 270 00:23:14,226 --> 00:23:18,030 connects 90% of the world's trees and plants. 271 00:23:18,598 --> 00:23:22,735 It's an ancient coproduction of four kingdoms of life, 272 00:23:23,235 --> 00:23:28,040 plants, bacteria, fungi and animals. 273 00:23:31,511 --> 00:23:34,413 New Jersey was once a state with the highest number of 274 00:23:34,447 --> 00:23:37,684 dangerously polluted areas in the country, 275 00:23:37,717 --> 00:23:41,287 shameful artifacts of our technological adolescence. 276 00:23:41,921 --> 00:23:46,225 But then, we partnered with the trees and the plants... 277 00:23:46,258 --> 00:23:50,162 Poplars naturally transform trichloroethylenes, 278 00:23:50,196 --> 00:23:54,066 known as TCEs, carcinogenic solvents that are common 279 00:23:54,100 --> 00:23:58,638 by-products of industry, into harmless chloride ions. 280 00:23:58,671 --> 00:24:00,773 Simple salts. 281 00:24:01,307 --> 00:24:05,044 Microbiologists discovered that they could crossbreed two 282 00:24:05,077 --> 00:24:08,848 different species of poplar trees to enhance their power 283 00:24:08,881 --> 00:24:11,951 to neutralize TCEs. 284 00:24:11,984 --> 00:24:15,354 The extensive planting of these trees not only rid this 285 00:24:15,387 --> 00:24:18,925 area of its poisonous threats to human and other life, 286 00:24:19,358 --> 00:24:22,461 but also added to the number of trees that turn the most 287 00:24:22,495 --> 00:24:26,666 prevalent greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, into oxygen. 288 00:24:35,942 --> 00:24:37,944 With our wars and our lifestyle, 289 00:24:37,977 --> 00:24:40,613 we dumped a lot garbage on this world. 290 00:24:41,247 --> 00:24:43,516 Not just landmines and IEDs, 291 00:24:43,550 --> 00:24:45,885 but the toxins from our fossil fuels, 292 00:24:45,918 --> 00:24:48,354 the waste from our consumer civilization, 293 00:24:48,387 --> 00:24:50,957 nuclear power plants and weapons. 294 00:24:50,990 --> 00:24:53,960 And the electronic toys that we discarded at an alarming 295 00:24:53,993 --> 00:24:57,597 rate laden with lethal heavy metals, lead, 296 00:24:57,630 --> 00:25:00,366 cadmium, beryllium and other e-wastes. 297 00:25:01,868 --> 00:25:04,604 I have moments of despair when I try to wrap 298 00:25:04,637 --> 00:25:07,139 my mind around the enormity of the problem... 299 00:25:08,374 --> 00:25:11,443 But life even provides a way out of this nightmare. 300 00:25:12,579 --> 00:25:15,514 It's called bioremediation... 301 00:25:15,848 --> 00:25:18,184 See that node at the intersection? 302 00:25:18,217 --> 00:25:19,919 That's yeast. 303 00:25:19,952 --> 00:25:23,723 Without it, no bread, no beer. 304 00:25:24,323 --> 00:25:26,826 But in this future, we have used it to clean up 305 00:25:26,859 --> 00:25:28,695 the whole world. 306 00:25:28,728 --> 00:25:31,097 It was a means to neutralize the most dangerous 307 00:25:31,130 --> 00:25:33,432 garbage we produced. 308 00:25:33,465 --> 00:25:36,168 Yeast captures these poisons and prevents them from 309 00:25:36,202 --> 00:25:39,005 contaminating the water supply and the rest of the environment. 310 00:25:39,872 --> 00:25:41,808 Think of it. 311 00:25:41,841 --> 00:25:44,944 Nature offered us a second chance, 312 00:25:44,977 --> 00:25:47,714 a shot at undoing the damage done... 313 00:25:50,349 --> 00:25:53,385 But how do we keep from doing it again? 314 00:26:03,429 --> 00:26:07,700 (inaudible chatter). 315 00:26:08,968 --> 00:26:13,039 What on Earth is designed by humans to protect the distant future? 316 00:26:14,006 --> 00:26:16,075 We don't have a single institution that even 317 00:26:16,108 --> 00:26:19,178 acknowledges the long-term danger we pose to ourselves, 318 00:26:19,612 --> 00:26:22,715 let alone one designed to plan for it. 319 00:26:22,749 --> 00:26:25,718 Our time horizon looms three months from now, 320 00:26:25,752 --> 00:26:28,721 or four years, the corporate balance sheet, 321 00:26:28,755 --> 00:26:30,857 the next election. 322 00:26:30,890 --> 00:26:34,560 But science is telling us that life's time scale measures in 323 00:26:34,593 --> 00:26:36,863 the billions of years. 324 00:26:36,896 --> 00:26:39,531 How do we maintain awareness of the continuity 325 00:26:39,565 --> 00:26:40,933 of life's past, 326 00:26:40,967 --> 00:26:43,736 and our personal role in being a link to its future, 327 00:26:43,770 --> 00:26:46,405 so that it has operational consequences? 328 00:26:47,039 --> 00:26:51,811 Science, as of now, has no means of making us wise and far-sighted. 329 00:26:52,845 --> 00:26:55,648 That's up to us. 330 00:26:58,150 --> 00:27:02,689 How many have lost the battle that we fight now? 331 00:27:02,722 --> 00:27:06,292 How many worlds lie buried beneath the surface of this one? 332 00:27:07,159 --> 00:27:08,895 Maybe we'll never know. 333 00:27:08,928 --> 00:27:12,932 But here at this fair, there's a pavilion where long-dead 334 00:27:12,965 --> 00:27:16,568 civilizations come roaring back to life... 335 00:27:18,004 --> 00:27:20,139 I know of one lost world that flourished for 336 00:27:20,172 --> 00:27:22,174 thousands of years. 337 00:27:22,208 --> 00:27:24,376 Their accomplishments were many. 338 00:27:24,410 --> 00:27:27,546 They left behind a written language that no one has ever 339 00:27:27,579 --> 00:27:29,481 been able to decipher. 340 00:27:29,515 --> 00:27:32,284 We have yet to discover a clue that could explain 341 00:27:32,318 --> 00:27:34,253 why they vanished. 342 00:27:34,286 --> 00:27:36,889 They are just one of the mysteries of the 343 00:27:36,923 --> 00:27:40,192 Pavilion of Lost Worlds... 344 00:27:57,977 --> 00:28:00,446 TYSON: In 5th century B.C.E. Greece, 345 00:28:00,479 --> 00:28:03,149 Herodotus, the father of history, 346 00:28:03,182 --> 00:28:07,019 wrote of the opulent lifestyle of the Tartessians on the Iberian Peninsula. 347 00:28:08,087 --> 00:28:11,724 Their wealth came from the silver and gold they extracted from the earth. 348 00:28:12,591 --> 00:28:16,295 They had their own language, culture, dances, 349 00:28:16,328 --> 00:28:19,431 music, and yet very little survives of them 350 00:28:19,465 --> 00:28:22,935 besides a handful of trinkets of marvelous design. 351 00:28:23,502 --> 00:28:27,774 Theirs is one of the lost worlds of planet Earth... 352 00:28:41,153 --> 00:28:43,890 As are the nameless people, who lived in what is now 353 00:28:43,923 --> 00:28:47,093 Nigeria, in a place called "Nok." 354 00:28:48,427 --> 00:28:51,798 For 1,500 years, their engineers were on the cutting 355 00:28:51,831 --> 00:28:55,434 edge of technology, forging new ways to work with iron. 356 00:28:57,069 --> 00:28:59,071 Just as with the Tartessians, 357 00:28:59,105 --> 00:29:02,008 they had their own unique civilization. 358 00:29:02,041 --> 00:29:05,377 All that remains of them are some ceramic statues in a 359 00:29:05,411 --> 00:29:10,216 style unlike any other and an inscription on this wall. 360 00:29:10,516 --> 00:29:13,953 Everything else about them has been devoured by time... 361 00:29:14,453 --> 00:29:18,257 But inside this pavilion, these lost civilizations live, 362 00:29:18,757 --> 00:29:21,760 they breathe, they dance again... 363 00:29:22,694 --> 00:29:26,432 Of them all, which one to bring back to life tonight? 364 00:29:26,465 --> 00:29:28,434 I know... 365 00:29:28,467 --> 00:29:30,702 the Indus Valley civilization 366 00:29:30,736 --> 00:29:33,739 at its high point in 2,500 B.C.E., 367 00:29:33,772 --> 00:29:38,945 when it was a vast network of cities with a population of five million. 368 00:29:39,478 --> 00:29:42,248 Come with me to their most famous city, 369 00:29:42,281 --> 00:29:44,716 Mohenjo Daro... 370 00:30:12,444 --> 00:30:15,814 (clucking) 371 00:30:31,230 --> 00:30:35,167 (chanting in native language) 372 00:30:36,302 --> 00:30:39,671 We don't know how this pool called the "great bath" was used, 373 00:30:40,539 --> 00:30:45,244 but we do know that this city was planned and laid out, 374 00:30:45,277 --> 00:30:48,147 while the Greeks wandered in small tribes, 375 00:30:48,647 --> 00:30:50,816 just a band of itinerant merchants... 376 00:30:54,153 --> 00:30:56,588 (running water) 377 00:30:56,622 --> 00:30:58,157 Wait... 378 00:30:58,190 --> 00:30:59,325 Do you hear that? 379 00:30:59,358 --> 00:31:00,492 Listen... 380 00:31:00,526 --> 00:31:02,194 (toilet flush) 381 00:31:02,228 --> 00:31:06,933 Yes, the Indus Valley people of nearly 5,000 years ago 382 00:31:06,966 --> 00:31:09,135 installed modern plumbing in their homes! 383 00:31:09,835 --> 00:31:13,539 Something most people didn't have until the late 20th century. 384 00:31:14,206 --> 00:31:18,044 And, they mastered other forms of hydro-engineering, 385 00:31:18,077 --> 00:31:20,212 underground pipes, sewage management, 386 00:31:21,413 --> 00:31:23,549 kitchens with running water. 387 00:31:32,224 --> 00:31:35,361 They had dentistry, and standardized measures for the 388 00:31:35,394 --> 00:31:37,063 tiniest quantities. 389 00:31:37,596 --> 00:31:40,899 They were great sculptors who introduced natural reality 390 00:31:40,933 --> 00:31:43,369 into the three dimensional depiction of the human form. 391 00:31:51,543 --> 00:31:54,580 They had writing, and hung signs on buildings, 392 00:31:54,613 --> 00:31:56,949 but we have yet to understand their meaning. 393 00:31:58,717 --> 00:32:03,555 They used dice to play games of chance and wiled away their 394 00:32:03,589 --> 00:32:05,424 evenings with board games. 395 00:32:06,292 --> 00:32:08,894 And there's something curious about them. 396 00:32:08,927 --> 00:32:11,630 They left no depictions of war in their art, 397 00:32:11,964 --> 00:32:14,133 nor large caches of weapons. 398 00:32:14,166 --> 00:32:18,104 There's no evidence that their meticulously planned cities 399 00:32:18,137 --> 00:32:21,140 were ever burned to the ground by enemy invaders. 400 00:32:21,840 --> 00:32:23,609 In the study of their contemporaries, 401 00:32:23,642 --> 00:32:27,146 and human history generally, this is most unusual. 402 00:32:34,953 --> 00:32:39,791 This figurine is one of the only surviving remnants of their civilization. 403 00:32:41,093 --> 00:32:44,630 And yet, they were as real as we are. 404 00:32:46,032 --> 00:32:49,235 Their moment as real as ours... 405 00:33:08,987 --> 00:33:15,261 * 406 00:33:15,994 --> 00:33:18,764 Just beyond the Pavilion of Lost Worlds, 407 00:33:18,797 --> 00:33:20,166 there's another one... 408 00:33:20,199 --> 00:33:22,868 The pavilion of worlds still to come... 409 00:33:22,901 --> 00:33:25,704 We've launched five ships to the stars. 410 00:33:25,737 --> 00:33:28,340 They are backward and primitive craft, moving, 411 00:33:28,374 --> 00:33:31,343 compared to the immense interstellar distances, 412 00:33:31,377 --> 00:33:34,012 with the slowness of a race in a dream. 413 00:33:34,980 --> 00:33:37,783 But in the future we will do better. 414 00:33:37,816 --> 00:33:40,886 We've located and begun to study thousands of worlds that 415 00:33:40,919 --> 00:33:45,124 orbit other suns, all this from our remote confinement in 416 00:33:45,157 --> 00:33:49,661 the suburbs of the galaxy, all this in just 400 years since 417 00:33:49,695 --> 00:33:52,464 Galileo's first look through a telescope. 418 00:33:53,232 --> 00:33:57,035 The Milky Way has hundreds of billions of stars, 419 00:33:57,069 --> 00:33:59,505 and likely even more worlds. 420 00:33:59,538 --> 00:34:01,707 Somewhere in the vastness, 421 00:34:01,740 --> 00:34:05,444 there may be an Encyclopedia Galactica, 422 00:34:06,112 --> 00:34:11,650 a reference work that includes all the worlds of all the stars. 423 00:34:29,401 --> 00:34:31,370 * 424 00:34:31,403 --> 00:34:34,240 TYSON: Our vague perceptions and inferences of thousands of 425 00:34:34,273 --> 00:34:38,244 exoplanets have given way to a more intimate degree of 426 00:34:38,277 --> 00:34:41,247 knowledge of some half a million worlds. 427 00:34:42,013 --> 00:34:44,650 Imagine a huge galactic database, 428 00:34:44,683 --> 00:34:47,819 a Library of Alexandria for the whole universe... 429 00:34:47,853 --> 00:34:52,458 a means for our small world to attain some measure of cosmic citizenship... 430 00:34:54,226 --> 00:34:56,595 Imagine an Encyclopedia Galactica 431 00:34:56,628 --> 00:34:59,131 that is constantly evolving and growing, 432 00:34:59,165 --> 00:35:01,400 an open source where the knowledge of 433 00:35:01,433 --> 00:35:04,770 the worlds of the universe would be available to all. 434 00:35:13,445 --> 00:35:17,583 These guys, who call themselves "We Who Survived," 435 00:35:18,517 --> 00:35:21,387 are only a little more advanced than we are. 436 00:35:22,954 --> 00:35:24,923 If we could only communicate with them, 437 00:35:24,956 --> 00:35:28,494 maybe they could tell us how they got through their stormy adolescence. 438 00:35:46,712 --> 00:35:49,181 And these guys, too... 439 00:35:49,448 --> 00:35:52,150 "We Who Flower in Darkness." 440 00:36:21,680 --> 00:36:25,384 What about a civilization far more advanced than ours? 441 00:36:25,417 --> 00:36:28,354 There may be worlds with engineering on a scale that 442 00:36:28,387 --> 00:36:30,356 dwarfs our proudest achievements. 443 00:36:31,156 --> 00:36:34,493 There may be cultures that disassemble other planets in 444 00:36:34,526 --> 00:36:37,829 their system and reassemble them around their world to 445 00:36:37,863 --> 00:36:41,733 make a ring, buying them more room and more resources. 446 00:36:47,673 --> 00:36:50,075 Well, their future looks bright. 447 00:36:58,149 --> 00:37:02,554 But the poor beings of these worlds have only a 1 in 3 chance 448 00:37:02,588 --> 00:37:04,890 of making it through. 449 00:37:06,358 --> 00:37:08,560 What is that? 450 00:37:10,662 --> 00:37:14,500 Could this be their attempt to solve a solar system-wide energy crisis? 451 00:37:16,402 --> 00:37:18,304 They depend on solar power, 452 00:37:18,337 --> 00:37:20,906 but their star is only a feeble red dwarf, 453 00:37:21,273 --> 00:37:23,475 incapable of providing direct energy 454 00:37:23,509 --> 00:37:26,211 for their multi-planetary civilization. 455 00:37:26,244 --> 00:37:29,448 Maybe, they've used up all their fuel. 456 00:37:30,215 --> 00:37:33,084 So, they're building a shell to surround their star 457 00:37:33,118 --> 00:37:35,687 and harvest every photon of sunlight. 458 00:37:50,802 --> 00:37:53,204 How would we frame our own entry in the 459 00:37:53,238 --> 00:37:56,074 Cosmic Encyclopedia of Possible Worlds? 460 00:37:56,375 --> 00:37:59,545 Perhaps, even now, someone has written it for us, 461 00:38:00,145 --> 00:38:03,582 a planetary dossier garnered from our television broadcasts 462 00:38:04,115 --> 00:38:06,485 or from some discreet survey mission. 463 00:38:07,285 --> 00:38:10,522 They might summon up the index of blue worlds in our province 464 00:38:10,556 --> 00:38:13,725 of the Milky Way, until they came to the listing for Earth. 465 00:38:15,394 --> 00:38:17,963 What would they think of us? 466 00:38:25,637 --> 00:38:28,674 We have long watched the stars and mused about whether there 467 00:38:28,707 --> 00:38:32,010 are other beings who think and wonder about us. 468 00:38:32,811 --> 00:38:36,415 In a cosmic setting vast and old beyond ordinary human 469 00:38:36,448 --> 00:38:38,784 understanding, we're a little lonely. 470 00:38:44,189 --> 00:38:47,759 50%, huh? That's all? 471 00:38:50,862 --> 00:38:53,465 I know a way we can up those odds... 472 00:38:54,966 --> 00:38:59,137 It's about taking what science is telling us to heart. 473 00:39:07,546 --> 00:39:11,550 (overlapping chatter). 474 00:39:12,317 --> 00:39:15,687 This is the dream of Cosmos. 475 00:39:16,221 --> 00:39:19,858 And this is the story that science is telling us... 476 00:39:43,749 --> 00:39:48,053 Our universe began, some 14 billion years ago, 477 00:39:48,887 --> 00:39:53,659 when matter, energy, time and space burst forth... 478 00:39:55,260 --> 00:39:59,631 And the darkness was cold, and the light was hot and the 479 00:39:59,665 --> 00:40:04,002 union of these extremes gave shape to matter and 480 00:40:04,035 --> 00:40:06,905 there was structure... 481 00:40:10,208 --> 00:40:13,411 There were great stars, hundreds of times the mass of 482 00:40:13,445 --> 00:40:17,348 our Sun and these stars exploded, 483 00:40:19,017 --> 00:40:22,888 sending oxygen and carbon to the worlds to come and 484 00:40:22,921 --> 00:40:26,224 adorning them with gold and silver... 485 00:40:29,761 --> 00:40:35,400 And in their deaths, the stars became darkness and the weight 486 00:40:35,433 --> 00:40:38,504 of their darkness vanquished the light... 487 00:40:41,807 --> 00:40:47,045 And new stars were born from their death shrouds and they 488 00:40:47,713 --> 00:40:50,782 began to dance with each other. 489 00:41:02,761 --> 00:41:05,997 And now there were galaxies... 490 00:41:21,947 --> 00:41:24,583 Galaxies make stars... 491 00:41:29,187 --> 00:41:32,023 (gasping). 492 00:41:36,662 --> 00:41:39,330 (cheering and applause). 493 00:41:42,968 --> 00:41:45,804 TYSON: Stars make worlds... 494 00:41:51,677 --> 00:41:55,146 And a world made life... 495 00:41:57,248 --> 00:42:00,085 And there came a time when heat shot out from the molten 496 00:42:00,118 --> 00:42:04,623 heart of this world, and it warmed the waters and the 497 00:42:04,890 --> 00:42:07,492 matter that had rained down from the stars came 498 00:42:07,525 --> 00:42:13,198 alive and that star stuff became aware... 499 00:42:19,571 --> 00:42:22,540 And that life was sculpted by the Earth, 500 00:42:22,574 --> 00:42:26,878 and its struggles with the other living things... 501 00:42:28,246 --> 00:42:32,350 And a great tree grew up, one with many branches, 502 00:42:33,418 --> 00:42:36,688 and six times it was almost felled... 503 00:42:36,722 --> 00:42:42,260 But still, it grows and we are but one small branch... 504 00:42:43,194 --> 00:42:47,398 One that cannot live without its tree. 505 00:42:48,266 --> 00:42:52,203 And slowly, we learned to read the book of nature... 506 00:42:53,171 --> 00:42:57,242 To learn her laws... To nurture the tree... 507 00:42:57,776 --> 00:43:02,681 To become a way for the cosmos to know itself 508 00:43:05,250 --> 00:43:08,586 and to return to the stars. 509 00:43:52,530 --> 00:43:54,532 Captioned by Cotter Captioning Services.