Physics essentials
From atoms to black holes, with Newton and Einstein along the way.
6 lessons · about 82 min
The steps
- Physical sciencesUp next
1. Physics
What do rubbed amber, a falling stone and a black hole have in common? How physics hunts for the simplest root causes, tests its theories by experiment, and why Newton's physics was never thrown away.
- Physical sciences
2. Atom
Discover what atoms are made of, how experiments reshaped our picture of them, and how their structure explains elements, light, chemistry and radioactivity.
- People
3. Isaac Newton
How one pull explains both a falling apple and the orbiting Moon, and the mathematics, experiments and method Newton used to show it. Also meet the private theologian and alchemist behind the public scientist.
- Physical sciences
4. Gravity
Why does a heavy ball fall no faster than a light one? From Galileo's falling objects to Newton's universal law and Einstein's curved spacetime.
- People
5. Albert Einstein
How a patent clerk reconciled electromagnetism with mechanics, rebuilt gravity as curved spacetime, helped found quantum theory, and then resisted its randomness.
- Physical sciences
6. Black hole
What happens when a mass is squeezed so tightly that not even light can escape? The size, density and surprising behaviour of black holes, and how we detect objects that give off no light.