bps.space

A PBS Space Time episode hosted by Gabe Perez-Giz on the nature of spacetime and whether space and time are fundamental. It builds up reference frames and causality in a short, dense format.

A PBS Space Time episode explaining how space and time swap roles inside a black hole's event horizon. It is part of the channel's black hole series.

Kurzgesagt explains how accumulating space junk could trigger a collision cascade (Kessler syndrome) that makes launches too dangerous and traps humanity on Earth.

Isaac Arthur explores space-based solar power, in which satellites beam energy down via microwaves to rectennas on Earth. He discusses feasibility, profitability and its role in spurring space colonization.

PBS Space Time explains the quantum eraser experiment, in which erasing which-path information appears to reverse causality in a double-slit setup. It discusses what this means for quantum mechanics.

A PBS Space Time episode asking what matter, mass, and energy really are, starting with inertial versus gravitational mass and what mass-energy equivalence means.

PBS Space Time introduces Miguel Alcubierre's warp drive, explaining how spacetime itself could be warped rather than moving a ship through it, and whether it is physically possible.

PBS Space Time explains what happens as you approach and cross a black hole's event horizon, using Penrose diagrams and light cones as the tool for understanding spacetime there.

PBS Space Time explains the Higgs field and how the Higgs mechanism gives particles mass within quantum field theory. It is a ten-minute overview for a lay audience.

Curious Droid surveys vertical take-off and landing rockets that predate SpaceX and Blue Origin, including the McDonnell Douglas DC-X of the 1990s. It shows that propulsive landing has about 60 years of history.

Everyday Astronaut explains the basic physics of rocket engines, the main engine cycles and fuel types, then compares SpaceX's methane-fueled full-flow staged combustion Raptor to other engines. It runs nearly 50 minutes with chapter markers.

Kurzgesagt explains the skyhook, a rotating cable with a counterweight that could catapult spacecraft from Earth orbit toward deep space. It covers why it would make space travel cheaper and more efficient.

A PBS Space Time episode introducing de Broglie-Bohm pilot wave theory, an interpretation of quantum mechanics that avoids much of the strangeness of the mainstream views. It is aimed at curious lay viewers.

PBS Space Time explains the Bohr-Einstein debate over quantum mechanics and how quantum entanglement settled it. It covers the weirdness of measurement and nonlocal correlations.

PBS Space Time explains how spacetime geometry and light cones determine the order of events and what can cause what. It visualizes causality in special relativity.

PBS Space Time surveys five realistic options for interstellar travel, from conventional rocket fuel to antimatter and nuclear pulse propulsion. The options rely only on known physics.

2swap explains how he solved the Klotski sliding-block puzzle by mapping its full state space as a graph and visualizing it. The video includes footage of the Guinness world-record solve and links to an interactive graph.

Real Engineering explains the engineering behind the James Webb Space Telescope, including its folding mirror, sunshield, orbit and cooling systems, and why deployment was so difficult.

PBS Space Time argues that the speed of light is better understood as the speed of causality, the universal limit on how fast cause and effect propagate. Light travels at that speed because it is massless, but the limit itself is a property of spacetime.

PBS Space Time explains the proposal to use the Sun's gravity as a giant lens, sending a train of small light-sail spacecraft to the focal point roughly 550 AU out. It covers how such a telescope could image exoplanets in surprising detail and the engineering challenges involved.

A PBS Space Time episode asking whether Venus would be a better colonization target than Mars. It covers Venus's habitable altitudes, floating balloon habitats, and the term surfacism.

A PBS Space Time episode on how the Higgs mechanism gives particles mass, prompted by Fermilab's heavier-than-expected W boson measurement. It goes beyond the usual pop-science treatment without heavy math.

PBS Space Time explains Stephen Hawking's prediction of Hawking radiation and how black holes can emit radiation and slowly evaporate. It goes beyond the common particle-antiparticle analogy.

A PBS Space Time episode asking what black holes really are and whether events can happen inside them. It covers event horizons, time dilation and common misconceptions about black holes.

A PBS Space Time episode explaining the holographic principle: the idea that our 3+1 dimensional universe may be described by information on a lower-dimensional boundary. It walks through black hole entropy and the AdS/CFT correspondence.

PBS Space Time episode on the black hole information paradox, covering how black holes seem to destroy information, the no-hair conjecture and the proposed role of the event horizon. It is part of a series on black holes.

A PBS Space Time episode asking whether time began at the Big Bang. It explains that the Big Bang is not what most people were taught and what 'start' of the universe really means.

PBS Space Time explores whether time causes gravity, explaining that gravity does not truly warp the flow of time but arises from time gradients. It revisits how gravitational time dilation works in general relativity.

A PBS Space Time episode on fuzzballs, the string-theory proposal for black holes that replaces the singularity with a tangle of strings. It explains why black holes seem to both have to exist and break known physics.

A PBS Space Time episode on how gravitational wave observations of a neutron star merger, GW170817, can limit the number of spacetime dimensions. It is based on a 2018 paper.

PBS Space Time considers whether life could be based on silicon instead of carbon, comparing the two elements' chemistry and why silicon is the most plausible alternative.

A PBS Space Time episode asking whether our universe could sit inside a black hole. It covers what physicists think happens inside black holes and the arguments for and against this idea.

PBS Space Time examines the Silurian hypothesis, the idea that an industrial civilization could have existed on Earth before humans. It looks at what traces such a civilization might leave in the geological record.

Isaac Arthur explains the orbital ring, a megastructure launch-assist system that could move bulk cargo cheaply to orbit and beyond. He compares it with space elevators and discusses power transmission.

Veritasium explains, with expert input, that in general relativity gravity is not a force and objects follow straight paths through curved spacetime, including why standing on the ground means you are accelerating.

Breaking Taps explains how the cryogenic mirror actuators on the James Webb Space Telescope achieve nanometer precision using flexures. It shows a 3D-printed replica and how one motor handles both coarse and fine motion.

A video essay from Every Frame a Painting on animator Satoshi Kon and his editing style, which distorts and warps space and time. It draws on his four features and one TV series.

Kurzgesagt explains why, even with science-fiction technology, most of the universe is permanently out of reach because of cosmic expansion and finite resources.

ScienceClic explains why the rubber sheet analogy for general relativity is misleading and offers a new visualization that includes the curvature of time and shows gravity as motion through curved spacetime.

3Blue1Brown explains space-filling curves and the Hilbert curve, and how infinite mathematical constructions connect to finite, practical approximations. It touches on mapping between dimensions and sensory ideas.