Nova: Fabric of the Cosmos [Blu-ray] by PBS (DIRECT)

Actors

• Brian Greene

Format

• NTSC

Editorial Review

Physicist-author Brian Greene, whose Nova presentation The Elegant Universe made string theory comprehensible to the armchair scientist, returns with the four-part Fabric of the Cosmos, an even more whiz-bang approach to current ideas in physics. Imagine the final section of 2001: A Space Odyssey interrupted by talking heads and voiceover narration, and you'll get a grasp for the baffling realm Greene and his cadre of brainiacs enter here: theories of quantum physics, “entanglement” (that one'll mess with your mind), and the possibility of a multiverse, a set of universes beyond our own visible one. Various explanations for the Big Bang are also explored. Greene, a humorous if somewhat awkward presenter, knows perfectly well he is dealing with stuff that goes beyond the knowledge of the average viewer, so he offers many examples and demonstrations, and the information is reliably intriguing. Not so intriguing is the show's overall style, which is so full of pulsating graphics and cutesy metaphors that it might prove headache-inducing. Too bad the makers of this series didn't trust the information contained here, because it's pretty exciting on its own. –Robert Horton