Thought Brian Cox's programme was a very good stab at explaining impossibly complicated stuff - it didn't quite come off, but certainly admirable and (mostly) intelligible, even to me. But the review is right, getting tv comedians to help with quantum physics was a bit of a mis-match, and going off and leaving Jonathan Ross to solve complicated equations was embarrassing and maybe a bit smug (wish Cox didn't giggle so much at his own jokes, too).

But given the criticism of his last series for being too padded and effects-driven at the expense of content, I thought this was an excellent riposte, stripped down and mostly just him and a blackboard - and all the better for it. Give him an audience of 6th form science kids and a 6-part series and educate the nation.

Well, what it means – I think – is that the diamond's not going to jump anywhere

No, that's not what it means

To be fair it does mean that,

I thought it was the best stab at these hard to grasp things there has been so far at popularising quantum theory. especially amazing since it was on bbc2 at 9. With all the science programming it's obvious that people want to know why things are the way they are, rather than just accepting it and watching x factor.

I'll be iPlayering the Brian Cox thing, tho am I the only one who finds him a bit annoying, with his floppy fringe and simpering grin? I much prefer Jim Al-Khalili and am glad that he's involved too. And any attempt to get some decent science programmes on at prime time is to be celebrated.

But no mention of the last Black Mirror? I thought this week's was maybe the best of the lot and packed an emotional punch that the previous two were perhaps lacking in.

I agree with your appraisal of the first three shows, but I can't believe what you said about #lostchristmas, the best Xmas fairytale I've ever seen on TV! Maybe it's because you're on the London-centric anti-Manc bandwagon!

I'm iplayering Brian Cox cos when I got home I just wanted Stardust which led me into a new Star Trek. I wonder if Brian would actually have a scientific reason for believing in Stardust.

It's probably only me but with all the science, I'd still rather have Robert de Niro doing the Can Can though I am very very fond of Brian.

[Things can only get better]

#blackmirror was outstanding!

And now on BBC2.......trendy,pob lookalike scientist, teaches key stage 3 science to gormless,attention seeking celebs. Charlie Brooker(who would have slated this sort of crap a couple of years ago) unforgiveably being one of them. The horror.

Just to confirm the bit where Brian rubbed the Diamond.

If I do anything, every electron in the universe changes/updates in response.

Have I understood that correctly?

*Let's not even get into the nature of "I" and the possibility that "I" do nothing, have no free will etc etc etc etc

If I get an erection - the entire universe changes as electrons can't exist in the same pattern as others (right?) so all must update to reflect the new state.

And on a log enough timeline does the diamond leave the box?

Like him or hate him, Cox manages to attract a huge amount of public attention to a difficult subject, especially among the kids. It's great to see so many of them tweeting enthusiastically about science A-Levels - and we all know who is responsible for that. And when did take-no-prisoners physics last go out on holiday prime-time television, FFS? The fact it's aired at all tells you something.

Maybe the next young Feynman or Hawking is out there somewhere, being drawn towards a future he or she might otherwise not have had, because of Cox's popular touch and [pick one] (a) charming (b) irritating manner. This is precisely the quality you need to reach - let's face it - the majority of the population. No point preaching to the converted.

I thought Cox was bloody awful. Introducing Plancks Constant and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle at the last minute explained absolutely nothing at all, where did they come from so conveniently, so acceptably.
Poorly picked volunteers was the standout CERNlike head on collision.
That was the first lecture ever given in that hall that asked the unquestioning inept to help. In years past the 'kid' would be screened for adding up abilities if required.
Cox almost got no further than a Norman Stanley Fletcher satsuma football apple guide to the size of the universe.
The two slit experiment was guff. His spaces of no electrons quite clearly had them in, albeit in fewer numbers. No explanation.
And no indication of whether the waves would be further apart if the detection screen was further away or even if it was flat or curved. Quite important if you are expected to accept the uniform ripples of an electron microscope.
Disappointing bilge of the highest order.

Just out of interest, Sam, do you watch the RI Christmas Lectures series any more? Although this was pitched at a slightly higher level (Cox made the mistake of presuming that his audience were in fact adults) it was clearly doing much the same sort of job. It's a shame that it took a "celebrity" audience - and a "celebrity" lecturer - to get this onto prime-time; just shows how much serious science has followed serious art down the pan in recent years. (And no, BBC4 doesn't count.)

"The two slit experiment was guff. His spaces of no electrons quite clearly had them in, albeit in fewer numbers. No explanation."

I've always wondered about the double slit experiment why the resulting pattern is random. Why if electron A and electron B pass through the slit they not get detected in the exact same spot? It's not like they are buffeted about by the wind, like a dart or bullet. Why does A end up there and B end up 1cm to the right 3cms down?

What is making the electron go "And I'll go over here" - as in gravity makes the apple go "I'll drop to here"

Back to the two slit balls up.
No mention of the width of the slit, the distance they were apart, how far the beam was from the slit, the speed they were fired, the distance of the detector from the slit , whether other shapes other than slits were used and if results were the same when any of the above criteria were altered. Were electrons ever fired at two holes for instance.
I'll wake up tomorrow not in the slightest bit convinced that any single molecule in my bedroom has moved any further than a mouse fart on that evidence.
Don't get me wrong I love physics and the better press it gets for which Brian Cox can stake some claim in helping accelerate but not like tonights effort.

Ken, I think both Planck and Heisenberg were jokered in to provide the get out clause. Unless multiple layered detectors have been used tracking random movement.
It's great seeing experiments used in situ to encourage interest but the variations in finding the results must be factored in too.
Another point. Was it the effect of the TV that had the water ripples going towards the slits, not away. Such was the slavishness of the observant crowd I doubt if any hands were held up in curious doubt.

None of those details are s really relevant to the point he was making, though, and that the nice comedian lady (that he put on the spot a bit) couldn't grasp either. Which was that he'd just done two experiments - the sand which behaved like particles, and the water which behaved like waves - and he wanted to show that the electrons were behaving like the water, not the sand.

What are the results when electrons are fired through one slit, or one hole, or a diamond shape even ?
Or three slits?
A huge desert of questions is all I watched tonight.

But the evidence he proffered could only draw the conclusion that electrons behave mostly like water and sometimes like sand. The no-electron gaps weren't electron free.

What was most interesting about the programme, though, was when he was rubbing the diamond and explaining about how all the other electrons in the universe were changing (imperceptibly) because of it.

This is an obvious consequence of the basic tenets of Quantum Mechanics, however it is one that 95% of working physicists, if challenged on it, would find a wishy-washy way to dismiss.

It's fascinating that the poster boy that the BBC has picked to front theoretical physics is actually popularising such fringe views. (Even though in this case the fringe views are actually almost certainly correct and it is the consensus that is wrong!)

Do you really want him to go through the explanation of all the different diffraction patterns one would get from all the variations of the experiment, most of which is quite irrelevant to the viewer unless they intend to try and get an in-depth understanding of wave mechanics. You're approaching this from the perspective of someone who knows the theory with a degree of rigour that few in the audience would match.

He could have gone into more detail about why the double slit experiment is indicative of the very weird and counter-intuitive nature of quantum mechanics, but given the length of time available to the show, I can understand why they didn't go into a topic that brings in still-unsolved aspects of physics such as many worlds.

Did the Guardian's sub-editor actually watch the programme? The equation that Cox is pointing to is not Heisenberg's. It is Fenyman's equation for the energy of an electron as it traverses all possible paths through the two-slit experiment. Cox followed this up with a comment on Heisenberg's uncertainity principle but what he's pointing to above ain't a statement about it.

But the evidence he proffered could only draw the conclusion that electrons behave mostly like water and sometimes like sand. The no-electron gaps weren't electron free.

There would only be an infinitesimal line which was truly electron free - same goes for the water waves. The point was 2 slits giving 2 piles implies particles, 2 slits giving many piles implies waves.

If it wasn't for Ross's self-deprecating good humour, it might be a bit awkward. I think sometimes people who get complicated maths and physics don't really get how hard it is for those of us who don't really get it.

In fairness, the bit of maths that Ross was asked to do was incredibly easy and should have been approximately solvable by anyone with a high school level of education by mental arithmetic alone. The fact that so many people view it as a difficult problem is a rather damning indictment of education standards in the UK.

I liked the show. For a pop-science lecture on a terrestrial channel at that time, it was surprisingly rigorous and introduced a lot of interesting challenging concepts.

Is Coxy a "greate communicator"?

I really want him to be, and at least the telly's found someone who gives a damn, but I don't think he was very clear about what his message was in the lecture, and bungled a few points.

e.g. he never mentioned that the sand represented particles and the water was waves, so no wonder poor Sarah Millican didn't know the answer.

I admire his stance that anyone can understand these concepts, but that doesn't mean he's the man to explain them.

No but I've suddenly discovered that I want to know.
Tick marks as ever for the professor there but I strongly suspect I'm as thick as a proverbial constant and it will remain forever beyond me.

Electrons posess wave-particle duality. They behave like waves AND particles. Since electrons were discovered, they had been thought of particles; responsible for the flow of electricity in conducting materials.

The double slit experiment was the first indication that electrons ALSO behave like waves. Some of you say you could see electrons between the lines. Thats fine. The slit experiment was simply supposed to show that electrons didn't behave like particles, ie form two big piles like the sand did.

As a physics student, I found it an excellent recap but for the general public I suspect it was a little overwhelming. Introducing Pauli and Heisenberg's principles to an audience who science ended at GCSE was rather adventurous. It was around two weeks of first year material squeezed into an hour. Personally, I think he should have done away with the Maths completed and visualised the concepts instead. Still, it was infinitely better than anything else on tonight. Please sir, can we have some more?

Excuse the grammer errors, its waaaay past my bedtime.

I watched the first 15 minutes and I had to switch off. Brian Cox's delivery was absolutely, absolutely awful. "Nocod" and "ZodKneelsFirst" (above) have got it right. I was even left wondering what the point of the programme was, to get Brian Cox some credibility with the London media set ?

If you want to see marvellous TV programmes about the Periodic Table, Atomic Theory and Nuclear Theory, that guy Jim Jaleel (hope I've spelt that correctly ! apologies if I have not) did a set of really first class programmes on BBC 4 just recently. They were ace. Each programme was that good, you just felt .... inspired .. at the end of it.

Error in my comments above. The guy that made the programmes on BBC 4 was: Jim Al-Khalili.

I remember the first time someone tried to explain the twin-slit experiment to me and I didn't get it either as the analogy used didn't quite make sense - well, not for me anyway. I thought Prof. Cox's explanation was quite good, but there were still a few things he didn't mention, like constructive and deconstructive waves and how they cancel each other out - hence the dark areas on the screen with the electron image (he touched on this with the water wave experiment, but didn't explain that the areas of dead water were because the peaks and troughs of the wave meet and cancel each other out).

I needed to hear a few different analogies before I got it. Ironically the best analogy for me was from comedian/writer Ken Campbell on his 1995 TV series "Reality on the Rocks" (unfortunately it doesn't seem to be on YouTube).

The Wikipedia articles aren't a bad introduction but they do get a bit maths heavy and if you haven't done much trigonometry or calculus, then it gets a bit daunting.

The fundamental principle behind working out why diffraction works the way it does is to break the problem down into considering a series of point sources. One source on it's own will produce circular waves that spread out evenly from that point in all directions. Add another point nearby doing the same thing and you find that the sets of waves will interfere with increases or decreases in wave amplitude being governed by phase differences between the waves at any particular point.

You can get a lot of the basic understanding and calculations for things like the double slit experiment just using basic trig. When you delve more deeply into the various diffraction patterns produced by more complex shapes, you really need a grounding in calculus and complex numbers to get stuck into Fourier transforms. That in turn leads you to some very clever optical signal processing that has nothing to do with quantum physics but does allow for amazing image processing tricks.

Poor Brian, he just can't win.

With his Wonders series, he gets accused of dumbing down, and now with his quantum theory presentation, apparently its too complicated. The point of his programs is to raise interest levels in science and inspire would-be scientists. Brian has often said that science should play a more prominent role in mainstream culture, and I think he's doing more to achieve that status than anyone else right now. I bet there were legions of folks out there mesmerized by Brian's presentation.

If you want to learn actual physics then you enroll at a university. Unless you're extremely bright and disciplined, then an undergraduate course is the only path which is going to bring you close to any form of understanding. There is a formidable array of maths and physics you have to learn before you have any hope of being able to learn quantum mechanics. Expecting to learn Quantum mechanics from a BBC Two program, is like expecting to be able to speak Chinese after watching Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon without subtitles.

I agree with nocod's comment(s) that the Prof blew a great opportunity to communicate some of the amazing history and conclusions Quantum. Manjit Kumar does a much better job in his book and the Prof Cox new book on Quantum spends more time on the points he glossed over last night.

People spend a disproportionate time on woo-woo and the simple fact is that you have to invest some time and effort into understanding the principles of Quantum, it is not hard and far more exciting that astrology or any religion can be.

For example the Prof could have wowed the audience with the story of the debate between EInstein & Bohr or the push back on duality of light thinking. Instead Cox lost the audience with a non sequitur such as the Feynman path integral (wrong caption above), then used Heisenberg and Planck to make an irrelevant point about quantum jumps being improbable.

Ross was indeed paid in diamonds from the licence fee but for all that he joked about his ignorance preventing him from carrying out a simple division. Congrats to the BBC for trying to entertain and educate us, I hope it doesn't give up and stick to force feeding us talent shows and American cartoon re-runs instead.

whatever he meant by the old hippy jibe - Cox is unwatchable and a media creep - the last few minutes were oozingly distasteful about physics ruling the universe -

now Colin Murray on MOTD 2 does a far better job of explaining the physics of the impossible - a ball, some grass and millions of quid - and Murray never celebrity creeps

So, atoms will move to make room for other atoms that have moved? That might explain why I couldn't find my work pass this morning.

'Herriot' sent me packing to the back room in minutes. Eccentric, clanky ca-ca. Cox is a bore and Murray is an annoying wee nyaff, best suited to Channel 5 five a sides coverage.
Festive cheer to you as well!

I didn't understand the bit about the diamond jumping out of the box after 300000000000000000000000000000 seconds. Surely the box would disintegrate long before that?

e.g. he never mentioned that the sand represented particles

Yes he did. Twice, I think.

I probably noticed because the experiment he was doing is familiar to me; I guess the reason you missed it is that you weren't expecting it until afterwards.

I suspect this is why TV documentaries are either dumbed down or repeat themselves incessantly - people just miss bits all the time.

Nothing on the final episode of Black Mirror, probably the best domestic drama series of the year? This wasn't written by Brooker, but was probably the bleakest so far - what if you had an implant that could recall every memory you'd ever had? It would be shit. Amazing stuff.

Bloody hell, did you just make a tasteless dwarf joke?

Really?

Really?

I like the idea of the programme, being a RI Xmas Lecture for adults, but it was totally spoilt by the presence of celebrities, many of whom are as slappable as they come. Why not intelligent and interested members of the public, rather than people whose main reason for being there was to be seen to be there rather than to learn anything?

i With all the science programming it's obvious that people want to know why things are the way they are, rather than just accepting it and watching x factor.

Of course it's entirely possible that some people would watch both X Factor and Brian Cox's programmes. People are more complex and varied than the prejudiced allow.

Agree with most here, was the best Black Mirror, you could've made a series out of it there was so much more to mine... was nowhere near as heavy handed as the (admittedly very enjoyable) previous episodes.

As for the Cox thing, I'm pleased that we're getting prime time programmes about science, but it seemed poorly thought out and editted for an hour long show, but worth doing.

I have a PhD in engineering from Imperial College. I am of course familiar with English, German and French Literature. That seems normal for an educated person with a scientific background. I would be ashamed of being illiterate. So why is it acceptable for a journalist like Sam Wollaston to admit to being innumerate?

BTW - I found the programme to be great fun and quite easy to follow, but then I've benefited from a decent education.

And no fireman would've gone in to save the girl at all. They'd still be waiting for an 'elf 'n safety risk assessment or the 60 ton crane to turn up. And how many down and outs would sleep quite so close to the outside of a bridge in the snow or, for that matter, choose a bridge so close to a river full of cold water ? As he said, "Physics, innit?"

Brian is good but he's no Simon Conway Morris...

JimTheFish wins the prize for being the first to mention that they prefer Jim Al-Khalili in an article about Brian Cox. It only took 4 comments too, well done.

From what I gathered of the show, one of the plot points of Last Christmas was that the man who walked the ice was a rubbish fireman.

e.g. he never mentioned that the sand represented particles

Yes he did. Twice, I think.

I wasn't keeping score like you but yes he did mention it. And when he did Sarah Milligan's face portrayed the disbelief of the non-specialist.

I suspect this is why TV documentaries are either dumbed down or repeat themselves incessantly - people just miss bits all the time.

I had the opposite thought. What did the BBC editor out. It felt like there were gaps in the narrative. These occurred when they put up some banal quotations on the screen.

The guy that made the programmes on BBC 4 was: Jim Al-Khalili.

That'd be the same Jim Al-Khalili who along with Simon Pegg played with the spring. I, for one, didn't understand why that leads to empty space in the atom. The exclusion principle that I sort of understood but the standing wave stuff I just didn't get --- other than the finite limits on electron movement.