Forces of Nature with Brian Cox - Season 1

In episode one, The Universe In A Snowflake, Brian uncovers how the stunning diversity of shapes in our natural world are shadows of the rules that govern the Universe. In Northern Spain he shows how a breathtaking attempt by hundreds of people to build the highest human tower reveals the force that shapes our planet.

In Nepal, honey-hunters seek out giant beehives that cling to precipitous cliff walls. The perfect hexagonal honeycombs made by the bees to store their precious honey conceal a mathematical rule.

Off the coast of Canada Brian explains how some of the most irregular, dangerous shapes in nature - massive icebergs that surge down from Greenland and into shipping lanes of the Atlantic - emerge from a powerful yet infinitely small force of nature. Even the most delicate six-sided snowflake tells an extraordinary story of the forces of nature that forged it - the same forces that created everything in the Universe.

In this episode Professor Brian Cox follows Earth's epic journey through space. He takes to the air in a top-secret fighter jet to race the spin of the planet and reverse the passage of the day. In Brazil, a monstrous wave that surges up the Amazon River provides an epic ride of a different kind - chased by a top surfer through the rainforest, this tidal wave marks Earth's constant dance with the Moon. Greenland experiences some of the biggest swings in seasons in the world, but despite the deep freeze, the harsh winter brings opportunity to the Inuit people who live there.

All this spectacle here on Earth signals that we are thundering through the universe at breakneck speed. Brian explains why we can't feel it and how understanding motion brings us to understanding the nature of space and time itself, leading to the astonishing conclusion that the past, present and future all exist right now.

In this episode Professor Brian Cox shows how Earth's basic ingredients, like the pure sulphur mined in the heart of a deadly volcano in Indonesia, have become the building blocks of life. Hidden deep in a cave in the Dominican Republic lies a magical world created by the same property of water that makes it essential to life. Clinging to a precipitous dam wall in Italy, baby mountain goats seek out Earth's chemical elements essential to their survival. In the middle of the night in a bay off Japan, Brian explains how the dazzling display of thousands of glowing squid shows how life has taken Earth's chemistry and turned it into the chemistry of life.

In the final episode Professor Cox travels to Iceland to witness the delicate splendour of a moonbow, the band of colours unleashed when moonbeams are cracked open by the spray of a waterfall.

Brian visits the site of an enormous outpouring of lava to explain why hot things glow red, and how the different colours of light energy from the Sun transform the plains of the Serengeti in Tanzania, and drive the great migration of humpback whales to the Caribbean each year.

The way light interacts with the stuff of our planet paints it in myriad colours, but understanding how points the way to hunting other Earth-like planets far out in the Cosmos.