Exploring the universe

WHEN Stephen Hawking was here last month, many of us - who stood in very long, winding queues for the privilege of hearing him privately - admitted later that we understood very little of what he said. Now the Discovery Channel which was one of the sponsors of his Delhi visit, has followed up with a telecast of their six- part series, "Stephen Hawking's Universe". It will air today continuously from 1 to 7 p.m., and it brings considerable lucidity to abstruse theories of astronomy and physics which explain the origins of the universe. Central to its appeal is the small, poignant wheelchair-bound figure who, with his synthesised voice, and script running across the computer screen attached to his chair, moves in and out of the narration.

The first episode, "Seeing is Believing", explores early theories of where we have come from, tracing the history of cosmology from flat earth to Big Bang. From Eratosthenes to Ptolemy, Copernicus and Kepler, from Galileo and Newton to Edwin Hubble, you get an unfolding of man's understanding of the universe over the centuries. Between this episode and the next one titled "In the Beginning", you also get a sense of the conflict between science and church, and how the latter eventually accepted the Big Bang theory for its own reasons: it fitted in with Genesis, and the theory of God's creation. Narrates Hawking: "In 1975 the Pope gave me a medal for my part in proving the Big Bang theory. In 1981 a different Pope ... said I should not enquire into the Big Bang itself, because it was the moment of creation."

Much of the history of human understanding of the cosmos has to do with the tools that astronomers could lay their hands on. At the end of the year 1609, a funny object coming from Holland was sold as a toy-a tube with glasses at the end - a telescope. When Galileo came across it, he turned it into an instrument and began to use the magnification power of the glasses to look at the sky. In 1917, a company that usually built battleships came to a mountain in Los Angeles to weld and rivet the largest and most optically perfect telescope the world had ever seen. This observatory atop Mount Wilson gave a totally new view of the cosmos. Edwin Hubble came to Mount Wilson and by peering into the sky all night long, began to identify other galaxies. And when he found that the galaxies were all moving away from us, it suggested to him that the universe was expanding.

Is the Universe static or dynamic? Hubble showed that it was dynamic. And after generations of astronomers have wrestled with the question of what was at the centre, earth or sun, he demonstrated that there was no centre to the Universe: there were countless number of other universes. The third episode in the series, titled "Cosmic Alchemy", explores what the universe and everything in it is made of. And with the fourth episode Hawking is exploring the destiny of the universe.

How do you picturise abstractions on television? This series, produced for the BBC, does so with considerably ingenuity. There are interviews, there is vivid computer imagery, and there are recreations of meetings and conversations.

"Stephen Hawking's Universe" is accompanied by programme essays written for each episode by Richard Talcott, Associate Editor for Astronomy magazine. These are available on the Internet: http://members.nbci.com/luciomarassi/links.com.

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No prizes for answering the following, but try them any way.

Star Plus put on a one and a half hour special charity show of "Kaun Banega Crorepati" because:

a) Rupert Murdoch's heart bleeds for the victims of the Gujarat earthquake.

b) Amitabh Bachchan's heart bleeds for the victims of the Gujarat earthquake.

c) Star Plus wants to sock it to Sony and Govinda

d) Amitabh is bored and wants to convert the game show into a chat show.

How do you fix a charity show so that the stars will win respectable amounts?

a) By asking cooks about cookery, cricketers about cricket, film stars about films, and cardiac surgeons' wives about cardiac surgery.

b) By having Amitabh hint like mad when they still don't get it.

c) By asking guests questions about their own zodiac signs and those of their husbands, wives, children and household pets.

d) By asking questions that you know their wives/husbands/friends can answer.

At which of these places would you be most likely to find Amitabh Bachchan?

a) at Anjar helping the Reliance clan rebuild the town.

b) at Amar Singh's hospital bedside.

c) At Film City shooting for "KBC".

d) At an RSS relief camp learning to use words like sarvayapi and vinashkari bhukamp.

What will Star do next to keep KBC at the top of the charts?

a) Get Rekha and Jaya Bachchan as celebrity guests on the same show.

b) Get Laloo Yadav and Rabri Devi on the show.

c) Get Govinda on the show and demolish him.

d) Quickly get another crorepati going.

Beating Ramanand Sagar At the stretching it out game: Mihir's death in "Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi" on Star Plus.

Going the BITV way: Rathikant Basu's Tara Channels, which have run out of both money and programming within less than 10 months of launching.

SEVANTI NINAN

Email the writer at sevantininan@vsnl.com

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