Genius By Stephen Hawking

2016 • PBS
4.2
21 reviews
TV-PG
Rating
Eligible
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Season 1 episodes (6)

1 Can We Time Travel?
5/18/16
World-famous scientist Stephen Hawking sets three ordinary people a series of fun physical and mental challenges. Can they think like a genius? This is a show where as you watch you realise you actually understand concepts that you never thought you would. In this mind-bending episode – can three volunteers work out if time travel is possible? Hawking leads us on a fascinating journey of discovery, featuring DeLoreans, clocks, a giant black hole and a large swathe of New York City. It seems as if nothing is beyond his imagination. Without any mathematics or equations, he effortlessly manages to get three non-scientists to grasp 4 dimensional space and time travel. Along the way, Genius also explains how the great minds of history reached their conclusions about the nature of the universe. We travel around the world to find out how these breakthroughs were made, and how important they still are, according to the world’s top thinkers. Finally a devastating realisation lands – and the team have their minds blown in a way they were never expecting...
2 Are We Alone?
5/17/16
World-famous scientist Stephen Hawking sets three ordinary people a series of fun physical and mental challenges. Can they think like a genius? The task is to work out the likelihood of alien life, out there in the universe. Cue an extraordinary journey of discovery, involving tons of sand, huge machinery, some straightforward thinking and several amazing, head-exploding reveals. The team discovers how many stars there are in the night sky, how to look for planets around those stars and how many of those planets could harbor life. To watch the team members struggle with their own discoveries is almost as much fun as guessing the outcomes of the experiments. Along the way, Genius also explains how the great minds of history reached their conclusions about the likelihood of alien planets and their possible inhabitants. We travel around the world to find out how these breakthroughs were made, and how important they still are, according to the world’s top thinkers. Finally a devastating realization lands – and the team have their minds blown in a way they were never expecting...
3 Why Are We Here?
5/25/16
World-famous scientist Stephen Hawking sets three ordinary people a series of fun physical and mental challenges. Can they think like a genius? This episode is truly mind-bending – can they work out why they exist at all? Cue an extraordinary journey of discovery, featuring smashed glasses, spooky castles and a truly freaky flash-mob illustration of multiple universes. Hawking takes them down a rabbit hole of deeply profound realizations, helping them think like philosophers as much as scientists. The end result is that the volunteers have a newfound appreciation of why they are here at all. Along the way, Genius also explains how the great minds of history reached their conclusions about the nature of the universe. We travel around the world to find out how these breakthroughs were made, and how important they still are, according to the world’s top thinkers. Finally a devastating realization lands – and the team have their minds blown in a way they were never expecting... This is a whole new kind of science show, hosted by the ever remarkable and inspiring figure that is Professor Stephen Hawking.
4 Where Did the Universe Come From?
5/25/16
World-famous scientist Stephen Hawking sets three ordinary people a series of fun physical and mental challenges. Can they think like a genius? This is a show where as you watch you realize you actually understand concepts that you never thought you would. In this mind-bending episode – can we work out where the universe comes from? Cue an extraordinary journey of discovery, featuring racing cars, ice-skaters, balloons and running tracks as Hawking leads his three intrepid souls to a deeper understanding of the evolution of the universe than the average physics major, all without any mathematics or equations. Along the way, Genius also explains how the great minds of history reached their conclusions about the nature of the universe. We travel around the world to find out how these breakthroughs were made, and how important they still are, according to the world’s top thinkers. Finally a devastating realization lands – and the team have their minds blown in a way they were never expecting... This is a whole new kind of science show, interactive, fun and engaging, hosted by the ever remarkable and inspiring figure that is Professor Stephen Hawking.
5 What Are We?
6/1/16
The series continues as Hawking takes three ordinary people on a journey of discovery; to show them how inspiring it can be to think like a genius, and work out what we humans really are. The audience will want to play along and see if they can think like a genius too. By the end everyone will have an entirely new appreciation of themselves. In this episode a new set of volunteers take on some more extraordinary tasks. They begin with a crazy Rube Goldberg chain reaction machine, and from there the realizations come thick and fast. Self-assembling machines, light-up bacteria and the world’s first physical demonstration of evolution in action conspire to totally revolutionize their view of life. We discover not only that our bodies are machines of incredible complexity, but how they came to exist and how long it took for our lives to come about. Along the way the show also explains how the great geniuses of history made their breakthroughs about life and how we came to understand not just who we are but the processes that produced us. At the end of the film, an epic CGI sequence reveals the amazing age of life – and how tiny a blip is the whole of human history. We have truly thought like geniuses...
6 Where Are We?
6/1/16
Hawking takes three ordinary people on a journey of discovery; to show them how inspiring it can be to think like a genius. They face a series of exciting challenges, each designed to steer the volunteers to an amazing realization. The audience will want to play along and see if they can think like a genius too. In this episode the volunteers take on some extraordinary tasks. To start, they visit a lake in Nevada. Using a helicopter, a boat and a powerful laser, can they prove the earth is round – and even measure it? Next they head off to the iconic Blackrock desert to try and get a grip on the massive scale of the solar system. We learn that our galaxy is full of billions of stars, and the sun, the center of our solar system, is just one of them. What’s more, our galaxy is just one of billions of similar clusters in the universe, which stretch out in every direction. Along the way the show also explains how the great geniuses of history reached their conclusions about our place in the universe. We travel to Egypt, California and London’s Science Museum to find out how these breakthroughs were made, and how important they still are. At the end of the film, an epic CGI sequence reveals the amazing scale of the universe. We have truly thought like geniuses...

About this show

You are smarter than you think. Professor Stephen Hawking challenges a selection of volunteers to think like the greatest geniuses in history and solve some of humanity's most enduring questions. Professor Stephen Hawking reveals our true potential in a radical new science show which challenges a selection of volunteers and the viewer to think like the greatest geniuses of the past and answer some of humanity's toughest and most enduring questions. Using large scale experiments and incredible stunts we'll follow the volunteers' journeys as they get to grips with molecular biology, astrophysics and even quantum mechanics. And we'll learn about the Geniuses whose discoveries helped build our scientific knowledge and allowed us to solve questions like "Where are we?" "Are we alone?" and "Can we travel through time?"

Ratings and reviews

4.2
21 reviews
Scott Connolly
June 2, 2016
It is amazing how much information they can fit in an hour episode, all while not requiring a degree to follow along.
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Jeff Hawkins
June 3, 2016
Beyond imagination...
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Haley Pennington
April 19, 2018
Stephen hawking rest in peace
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