The Universe

Male narrator: In the beginning, there was darkness,

and then, bang,

giving birth to an endless expanding existence

of time, space, and matter.

Every day, new discoveries are unlocking the mysterious,

the mind-blowing, the deadly secrets

of a place we call The Universe.

As they try to unravel the mysteries of the universe,

scientists are coming to an astounding conclusion.

To make sense of outer space,

they need to understand inner space,

the microscopic matter

that forms the foundation of everything we see.

But shrinking down billions of times,

into the realm of atoms and subatomic particles,

takes us into a strange unexplored world.

- When we descend into the microscopic world,

we find that it's really weird,

and indeed downright bizarre and unbelievable.

Narrator: The stuff in this universe

is far smaller than anything we can see with a microscope,

but it holds the key to the cosmos.

- We can only understand where we came from

if we understand this crazy microworld.

Narrator: So let's go on a fantastic voyage

into an uncharted world

known as the microscopic universe.

The.Universe.S07E05.DVDRip.XviD-FFNDVD English SRT Subtitles - UF (v1.00)

When people talk about the universe,

they usually mean the vast expanse of space

billions of light-years across

that they can see with radio telescopes

and cosmic imaging.

- They think about stars and galaxies and planets

and all the big stuff out there.

You have astronomical bodies

moving under the force of gravity.

There are laws of nature,

and you think that the laws are right,

once and for all.

Narrator: However, there is another universe,

an unseen world that governs everything we see.

- When we go down in size trillions of times smaller

to the microscopic world,

the rules are much less intuitive

than the ones we're used to from the large-scale world.

Narrator: The magic of the microscopic universe

begins at about a ten-billionth of a meter,

or the size of an atom.

Matter behaves so differently at this level

that scientists have developed an entirely new set of rules

to describe what's going on.

They call it quantum theory.

And what it says is extraordinary.

- This baseball represents a subatomic particle,

like an electron or a photon of light,

that routinely does all sorts of weird, strange things

in the microscopic universe.

The subatomic version of this baseball

can be invisible,

can go through solid objects with ease,

can be in multiple places at the same time,

and can seemingly go backwards in time

and change the past.

This means I could throw this microscopic baseball

to first base and to home plate at the same time...

or change the seemingly predetermined outcome of a play

while it's still going on.

Now this-this is the stuff of science fiction.

But really, we know it to be true,

or at least, it appears to be true

in our quantum world.

We get all sorts of weird things happening.

Narrator: If scientists can understand

how these weird things work,

they'll be able to put them to use

in our everyday world,

revolutionizing modern computing,

and perhaps even allowing us

to communicate across the cosmos instantly.

The key to making these miracles come true

is a process called quantum entanglement,

and scientists are already harnessing

this astounding discovery

for both civilian and military purposes.

In quantum physics,

what happens to an object over here

can instantly affect an object over here,

and over here could be millions of miles away.

Narrator: This is how it works.

When two subatomic particles interact,

they can become entangled.

That means their spin, position,

or other properties become linked

through a process unknown to modern science.

- If you then make a measurement of one of the particles,

then that instantaneously determines

what the behavior of the other particle should be.

And when the experiment is done,

it's found that, indeed,

the other particle's quantum state

is exactly determined once you've made a measurement

of the partner particle's quantum state.

Narrator: That means

if a scientist observes one entangled particle

and forces it to spin clockwise,

the other entangled particle

will immediately start spinning in the opposite direction.

That seems intriguing, but it's hardly earth-shattering

until you consider that the two entangled particles

can be separated by billions of light-years,

and still, the moment you observe one particle's spin,

you've dictated the other particle's spin.

- That's weird, because it may suggest

that information has traveled instantaneously,

faster than the speed of light,

from one particle to another.

I don't understand it. I don't know that anyone does.

"Spooky action at a distance," as Einstein called it.

Narrator: Quantum entanglement

is more than a curiosity of the microscopic world

because the effects of entangled particles

can be seen and felt in our world.

If scientists can overcome some fundamental obstacles,

quantum entanglement could someday help humans

communicate across vast distances instantly.

- People sometimes think that quantum entanglement

will achieve the desired goal

of transferring information

at a speed faster than that of light.

I don't think this will be achieved,

because to set up these systems,

you had to have brought them there

at speeds slower than the speed of light.

But then what do I know?

A hundred years ago,

they didn't think that we'd be going to the Moon.

Narrator: Quantum entanglement

is far more likely to transform modern computing.

Scientists hope to use the magic of the microscopic universe

to build powerful new computers.

- We're going to see what this baby can do.

Narrator: At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,

Professor Seth Lloyd

has helped create a prototype of a quantum computer

which uses quantum bits

rather than traditional computer bits

to perform its calculations.

- This lab has the world's best superconducting quantum bit,

or Q-bit, in it.

And when we do quantum computations with Q-bits,

we can have the quantum computer

do multiple tasks simultaneously.

It can do this, it can do that

at the same time.

It can add two plus two,

it can add one plus three,

and it can add those two things simultaneously.

Narrator: The fact that a single Q-bit

can perform many calculations at the same time

gives the quantum computer the potential

to be far more powerful than any computer ever imagined.

Like traditional computers in the 1950s,

quantum computers are in their infancy today.

The machines take up large rooms

and can do only the most basic calculations.

But they hold great promise for the future.

- Quantum physics is notoriously weird,

strange, and counterintuitive.

And so quantum computers use this weirdness

to compute in ways that classical computers can't.

Narrator: The major stumbling block

is figuring out how to effectively code

classical information-

the ones and zeros that computers use-

in a way the microscopic universe can process it

using entangled particles.

But when scientists figure that out,

quantum computers could transform the planet.

- Even if you have a quantum computer

with not that very many bits,

you might still be able to do things

like break all the codes

that people use to communicate on the internet.

Or you could solve very difficult problems

having gajillions of variables,

like try to figure out

what happened at the big bang.

Narrator: That may be hard to believe,

but the microscopic universe gets even stranger.

In fact, the most famous experiment in quantum physics

shows how one object can be in two places at the same time,

a result that startled the great Albert Einstein.

As scientists explore the microscopic universe,

they find it's governed by rules

that are often incomprehensible

to those of us in the normal world.

At the smallest scales imaginable,

not only does information

appear to travel faster than the speed of light,