There is always an enjoyable opportunity to learn about ourselves, and our planetary and cosmic surroundings, from documentaries, but the main problem with documentaries is that they are not as rich as books or even lectures, because they aim to attract a broad sector of the audience that does not care much about the depth but would like to pick up a quick idea about It also has technical standards as well as scientific standards.
But documentary series in particular avoids this problem, because their writers take enough time and effort to review an issue in an attractive manner, but it is not devoid of detail. Therefore, we preferred in the scientific section of "
Maidan
" to nominate a group of them for you, provided that it is as simple as possible and diversified In its themes and the length of each, and suitable for the general public.
This is undoubtedly one of the most entertaining scientific documentary series presented by David Eagleman, an American neuroscientist from Stanford University, in six episodes.
Eagleman simply pushes you to ask about everything around you, is everything that you see, hear, and perceive in general real?
This may be a bit strange, but the answer is that it is not so. In fact, what we perceive is closer to a distortion on which we all agree, but it is not the reality in its reality.
Do you make your own decisions? Do you have freedom of will? Are there things that you do not realize that influence your decisions? Are you just a complex of nerve signals interacting together in a complex interaction, or are you "you"? Well, this documentary on the mind is really able to blow your mind off because of the amount of excitement it provides, especially with Eagleman's really ingenious way of introducing neuroscience, and he's one of the very few to have the ability to run so smoothly in this range.
In this series of three episodes, the famous mathematician Marcus de Sautoy, a professor at the University of Oxford, wanders in some branches of his specialization, and begins with the numbers that govern our world, and how the natural world is part of a hidden mathematical world that contains the rules that govern everything on our planet and what Behind him, he turns to the shapes in this world, from honey cells to soap bubbles, to say that such formations are far from random, but part of a hidden symbol that governs the world, and finally he moves to the wonderful ability of mathematics and, by extension, the equations, to predict phenomena in this the world.
The series is really simple and fun, although it would have been better if it expanded a little in some other areas of mathematics, and the presenter himself has a previous series entitled "The Story of Maths" that was published about 15 years ago, and the two series together represent a very interesting introduction to the wonderful world of mathematics.
This famous series produced by the "National Geographic" platform, and dubbed into Arabic, is distinguished by being very carefully written that balances the scientific achievements of Albert Einstein with his two relativistic theories and the private life of a man, with its sweetness, bitter, vile and goodness, the secret of that is in the book from which the series is taken, which is "Einstein." … His life and his world “to Walter Isaacson, one of the best biographers of contemporary scholars, who is usually able to express the scientific achievement of the character as a result of his life story, and with the wonderful artistic and visual review presented by National Geographic, we are in front of perhaps the best documentary series that tells the story of the most famous scientists ever.
One of the most interesting books of the past two decades, among professionals and the public alike, must have been "Weapons, Germs, and Steel" by Jard Diamond, a professor of physiology and geography at the University of California, California. This book has turned into a wonderful three-part documentary, presented by National Geographic. And dubbing it into Arabic.
The documentary asks: Did human civilizations arose solely because of our intelligence or our endurance, or do other reasons stand at the background of every progress we have made?
This leads us to another important question: Why did European society advance while some peoples in Africa, Australia and the Americas remained primitive?
The documentary also introduces you to our ancient origins over 10 thousand years ago, and how things like the animals we domesticated or the grains we ate have had a great impact on our entire historical itinerary.
Now let's consider a wonderful documentary series released about 15 years ago, and yet you do not find much interest. It is the "atom" series presented by the English nuclear physicist, Iraqi of Iraqi origin, Jim Al-Khalili, and in which he moves in a very simple manner between the different stages of that more idea. Strange in our history, the idea of the atom, how everything in this universe, no matter how varied and different, is made of atoms.
The documentary, which consists of three episodes, starts from that moment when we thought that atoms are nothing but silent balls of matter, about two hundred years ago, through the discovery of the components of the atom from electrons, protons and neutrons, based on the tremendous achievements of quantum mechanics, and how do you see this world?
Finally, we come to the quantum field theory and particle physics, and here you will see how in a very short period, compared to our long history of we humans on Earth, we were able to dive not only into the depths of matter and its composition, but in understanding reality itself, is it a fact or just an illusion?
Al-Khalili has another series of three very interesting episodes, produced by the BBC, entitled “Chemistry: A Fluctuating History”.
This series is consistent in its main theme, which is the essential structure of this universe, but it is directed more towards exploring the components of the periodic table of elements and the chemical interactions between them, and how chemistry affects our daily life?
In fact, this kind of topic is very rare to be presented in documentary films, because chemistry in general does not find much interest in the audience, which usually is interested in the achievements of strange physics, but the writer of the report in any case does not find in this field better than the lectures of the wonderful professor Andrew Szydlo at the Royal Society of Sciences, it is always one of the best possible beginnings for someone who wants to enjoy learning about chemistry, as he uses impressive experiments to arouse the public's attention and never delves into academic matters.
The Nobel Prize in Science for the year 2020 aroused people's attention to gene editing techniques, but what really caught their attention was not the science behind this, but the ethical question, what if we were able to tamper with the origin of life itself, the genetic code for life on this planet, is this permissible?
Could it cause more harm than expected benefits?
This documentary, issued in four episodes of "Netflix", presents the same questions that revolve in your brain, and tries to penetrate into the world of patients in need - with a severity that leads to a lot of sadness - to such treatments, but it also exposes the world of hidden "gene editing enthusiasts", which is The most interesting point in that series. Although it has not been exposed to an adequate degree of depth to the science in the background of gene editing, and only to therapeutic techniques, it remains one of the best in this range. The series is not boring, it shows human experiences in such a wonderful way that it makes you think that you are watching a series and not a documentary.
It is really fun, and important as well, to learn about the windows of others that overlook this world, and there is nothing more speculative than indigenous peoples, those who still lead a primitive life, but nonetheless hold unique perspectives. Take The Bajau, for example, in Indonesia, those who do not live on land but at sea, and endure staying underwater for five minutes or more, as for the Tana Toraja, they have really strange burial rituals, for a moment that you think is unacceptable, but as soon as you understand their contexts, the matter changes, in this documentary Published in 6 episodes of Al Jazeera Documentary, you will not cover the scientific anthropological aspects of these peoples, but you will at least get to know their unique worlds.
There is no doubt that this is one of the most famous documentary series released during the past decade, presented by the famous American physicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson as an extension of a previous series presented by Carl Sagan in the eighties of the last century, and it consists of 13 long episodes, very simple in the way of presentation, and visually enhanced Wow, you primarily tour astronomy and cosmology, with references to biology and geology as well.
The series oscillates between two main topics, on the one hand Tyson works to explain the structure of this vast universe, sometimes he talks about its development from the moment of the Big Bang, through the emergence of the Earth and the emergence of life on it, and sometimes he talks about the structure of stars, galaxies, matter and dark energy, and on the other hand he uses sepals From the history of science, a desire to open the door for the viewer to understand the scientific method of thinking and its development with time.
What if life appeared on a planet but was twice as attractive as Earth?
What if this planet was close to a red dwarf?
What if its atmosphere was lighter or heavier than Earth's?
This documentary released by "Netflix" is undoubtedly a masterpiece that combines astronomy, biology and science fiction, in a mixture that you rarely see in the form of a documentary film that comes in four episodes that you would like to never end.
The job of life, wherever it is found in this vast universe, is to make an amazing adaptation that you cannot imagine.
Planet Earth has gravity of a specific nature, its day passes in a specific pattern, it receives a specific amount of light annually from its star, its climate is almost constant for relatively long periods, everything on its surface adapts to the astronomical and environmental nature of planet Earth, and in this documentary, you will learn about that idea by looking at Weird forms of life whose makers imagined would appear on other planets with other properties.
Well, our journey ended with documentary series, of course there may be better than them, but it is a group that we promise to be really fun and rich in knowledge, so that spending every minute with it is the best possible investment of your time.