This video is part of our Brilliant Breakthroughs series: our new 20-episode mini-series exploring the “Eureka!” moments and proud accomplishments of the greatest scientific minds of our time. Join us …
“The infinite! No other question has ever moved so profoundly the spirit of man,” said David Hilbert, one of the most influential mathematicians of the 19th century. A subject extensively studied by philosophers, mathematicians, and more recently, physicists and cosmologists, infinity still stands as an enigma of the intellectual world.
Winners of the prestigious $1 million Kavli Prizes were announced May 31, 2012 live via satellite from the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in Oslo.
The inflationary theory of cosmology, an enduring theory about our universe and how it was formed, explains that just after the Big Bang, the universe went through a period of rapid expansion. This theory has been critical to understanding what’s going on in the cosmos today.
What makes Mona Lisa’s smile so intriguing? What makes Picasso’s portraits so compelling? Kurt Andersen hosts artists Chuck Close and Devorah Sperber, with neuroscientists Margaret Livingstone, Chris Tyler and Ken Nakayama, as they examine the power of brain imaging technology to illuminate how we perceive the most intimate yet public of features, the human face.
For decades, inflation has been the dominant cosmological scenario, but recently the theory has been subject to competition and critique. Two renowned pioneers of inflation — Alan Guth and Andrei …