Guide, info box and media list.

No, why did the BBC issue the warning? What was the perceived danger?

He is a particle physicist, no one understands it, if you think you do, you have missed the point.
Alice In Wonderland on acid may be the best description for this science.

The heat death of the universe is a pretty unsettling thought - even though it is so unutterably far into the future as to be completely irrelevant to us.

It does, nonetheless, have profound,albeit very abstract, philosophical implications about the utter futility of everything.

Then there are people who might find the idea that the Sun is going to expand and incinerate the earth a little frightening.

But it was a stupid warning because the people who might have been disturbed by that material would hardly have known what to expect from the warning - if, indeed, they would have known in advance that they would be disturbed by it.

No one fully understands it - mainly because none of the visualisations that we can bring to bear on the subject are up to the job.

There is still a vast gap between the material in the programme and the areas where things get inexplicable weird without some very esoteric maths. And some of that material could easily have been covered if we had not had to endure so many wasted minutes of Brian wondering around the world to explain concepts that are not specifically of this world.

The problem is, if this was purely a deep science show then it probably would only get a small niche audience.

The BBC seem to be trying to bring 'science' to the masses, and as we're in the 'xfactor' age there's a lot of fancy camerawork, exotic locations etc to try and keep peoples attention.

I suppose if someone is interested enough to learn more then there's plenty of good reading material out there for them to delve into.

People who are that stupid to be disturbed by the end of the universe wouldnt be watching the program anyway.

What next, the BBC cant tell people we all die eventually?

And there is a lot of debate about how much of the weirdness is actual and how much is artifacts arising from the esoteric maths.

Nope, it's called: 'Having an imagination'.

I think you will find that the weirdness is caused by the human brain's inability to form a valid visualisation of what is happening at sub atomic levels that is causing the artefacts rather than the maths.

And I think I won't find any such thing.

It does require a fair degree of effort to understand the problem.

And, of course, the desire to look.

I'm reminded of The Total Perspective Vortex.

The first ten million years were the worst.

The second ten million, they were the worst as well.

You have nailed it. Any effort and desire I have left is directed at more mundane things these days.

You have confused two things here, what he is and what he was teaching us about in that episode (I guess the initial laws of thermodynamics would pre-date even simple atomic theory). I never said I understand particle physics, I never made any reference to understanding anything, I made a specific reference to knowledge for that very reason, not understanding.

I picked up the daftest thing in that first episode, I did not know that our current period in the history of the universe is called the Stelliferous era. I had assumed a fairly simple transition from start to death, determined by timeline, and did not know it had been "cut up" in this way. Particle Physics? No, that's my level, and I never claim anything better.

My agreement on progs like Horizon is related to my lack of ability. I used to be VERY stretched by them in the 70s, I no longer find this to be the case. There is, obviously, still stuff way over my head, but it's only a few thousand feet nowadays (and I'm not getting any cleverer as I approach 60 ).

Quick edit. If you couldn't grasp the concept of entropy when I was doing 'O' level physics, our physics teacher would but a glass of water in front of you and put a drop of ink in it. He said we could go home when the ink formed back into a drop in the water. It's funny how quickly we then understood the basic concept!

Where is my confusion?
Professor Cox is a particle physicist and he was talking particle physics (in the beginning there was particle physics, in the end there will be particle physics and everything in between is surely particle physics!)

You must have been watching a different programme.

I don't remember him even mentioning particle physics - although it may have cropped up as an aside.

Certainly the vast majority of the material was about macro scale happenings in the universe.

And where do macro scale events originate, you have missed the point again!

No, I haven't missed any point.

Particle physics is a completely different discipline to cosmology.

The programme we are discussing concerned cosmology not particle physics.

Trying to make out the one is the other is purest sophistry. You might just as well say that literature is particle physics since paper and ink are ultimately made of sub atomic particles as the the brains needed to appreciate it.

So did the explanation of how the elements are made inside the stars fall within the realm of cosmology or particle physics?

Both.

That, and the first moments after the big bang are where the two merge.

However, that was in the second programme which was not the one we were discussing as it hadn't been transmitted.

I really liked this one as I wasn't expecting much detailed science and enjoyed the visualisations.

I also note the Professor Cox was annoyed that the BBC listened to audience complaints and turned down the sound levels for this transmission.

I don't mind loud music for dramatic effect but not when it drowns out speech.

Oh, c'mon, don't be like that. That's just a dumb thing to say. I note you didn't respond to the comment about the laws of thermo-dynamics pre-dating atomic theory anyway, or anything else. Your original comment was around understanding of particle physics. No I don't understand it, I agree with you, I never said I did, but your statement is just silly.

His pitch was at a much higher level, into the realms of stuff that could be comprehended and appreciated. The "arrow of time"/Entropy sandcastle example was good. Even if this could be argued to be particle physics (I dunno), the principles can be grasped easily.

Sorry, like Jepson, I'm still discussing the first prog. Haven't had chance to watch the second yet.

I suppose the hypothesis now, developed from caldirun's position, is that a particle physicist is actually allowed to talk about anything that involves matter/energy and it will still be particle physics. Good job Brian Cox isn't serving me a McMuffin right now, I couldn't handle the pressure of not understanding all those Quarks spinning about in my bun!

Now you are getting it!