Quark Science
Directors Nic Stacey, Here Thompson, Quentin Lazzarotto
Network MagellanTV; Magellan TV
Format Prime Video (streaming online video)
It doesn’t have anything to do with James Joyce, even though he invented the term “quark.” Or Carl Sagan, who invented the term “science.”
Quark Science is an incredibly good collection of science documentaries, now available for free to Prime Members on Amazon video. And it is a collection: the first four are independent films (between an hour and two hours, 6 ½ hours in all) and narrated/presented by University of Surrey’s Doctor Jim Al-Khalili. Al-Khalili is renowned in the UK, having won an OBE and the highest awards internationally for science communication.
In the first four episodes, the viewer finds that the accolades are well-placed. Al-Khalili belongs in the pantheon of great science documentary presenters, along with Brian Cox (the rock god, not the actor), Neil deGrasse Tyson, Carl Sagan and David Attenborough. He is articulate, engaging, deeply knowledgeable about his subject matter, combined with a sly wit and genuine warmth.
He has hosted BBC4’s The Life Scientific for ten years, and has had hundreds of the world’s top scientists in for interviews. In one episode, he was a guest on his own show as he is, in his own right, one of the world’s top scientists.
In the Quark collection, he tackles some of the deepest and most complicated matters in science. This is college-level material, minus the mathematics. (Trust me: neither of us would understand half the maths involved. Hell, we wouldn’t understand most of the symbols needed!) But Al-Khalili delves into some of the most brain-busting concepts out there, making some of the most obscure elements of particle physics accessible and even sensible.
Episode One, Everything and Nothing, explores what we quaintly think of as “empty space”–the region between atoms. The quantum fluctuations that make time possible and possibly all dark matter—80%+ of the mass in the universe, but invisible to us—lie in these strange regions.
The Amazing World of Gravity explores the curved space of gravity. The Secret Life of Chaos shows how disorder is necessary to create order. Which leads to Order and Disorder, and the strange interdependency and symmetry that exists between the two concepts.
The final two episodes seem to have been added on as an afterthought, and while well worth watching in their own right, are somewhat mundane compared to the first four episodes.
This is a series that should be required viewing in any high school science science class, and even at the college level. It’s brilliant, its accessible, and you will learn stuff.
Now on Amazon Prime.
Al-Khalili Awards and honours (per Wikipedia)
2007 – Royal Society Michael Faraday Prize for science communication
2008 – Appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2008 Birthday Honours
2013 – Warwick Prize for Writing, shortlist, Pathfinders
2014 – RISE leader award[37]
2013 – Honorary Doctor of Science, Royal Holloway, University of London[23]
2016 – Inaugural winner of the Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication[38]
2017 – Honorary Doctorate, University of York[39]
2018 – Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS)[24]
2019 – Honorary Doctor of Science, University of St Andrews[40]
2019 – Outstanding Achievement in Science & Technology at The Asian Awards.[41]
