Worth Watch Documentaries

"It is wrong to think that IBM is present and Microsoft is the future; actually IBM is the past and Microsoft is the present,and the future is unknown.." (Triumph of the Nerds, 1996)

                                                                                         Larry Ellison - CEO, Oracle Systems

" We are all Star Stuff"

                                                                                         Carl Segan, Noted Astronomer

The above quotes are just two of many many enlightening facts that I came across by watching documentaries. Outside the movie and serial craze, this is one of the ways of me usefully wasting time :)

After coming to IIT, I have watched a sizable number of documentaries - that makes me ponder: 'There is a lot of useful stuff out there that ought to be watched before one dies!!'

So, I am enlisting some of the major documentaries I have watched until now....

1. BBC Horizon - An awesome long running series of documentaries, and each one different and intriguing than the previous one.

There are just too many of them, but here are some really cool ones:-

• What time is it?
• What is Reality?
• What happened before big bang? 
• Is seeing believing?  
• Is everything we know about the universe wrong?
• The six billion dollar experiment
• The day the earth nearly died
• Parallel universes
• Supermassive blackholes
• Richard Feynman - No ordinary genius
• What makes a genius?

Well, I wanted to give a one-liner description to each of them; but that itself is too much and wont even do justice. Watch atleast a few of them to appreciate their awesomeness..

2. Stephen Hawking's Universe and Into the Universe 

• Aliens
• Time travel
• The Unified Theory 
• Marvels of universe 
• and of course - what Hawking is well known for: Black Holes. 

Sherlock's Benedict Cumberbatch voices Hawking in Into the Universe - making it all the more interesting beside the super-science that is already there..

3. Albert Einstein's Life 

• E=mc^2 - A journey through scientific history and exploration of the events that ultimately lead to the all famous equation of Einstein that has profound effects. The documentary has a historic story telling feel to it too..
• Einstein's unfinished symphony - Another documentary that deals with the latter part of Einstein's life where he had to struggle with the upsurge of Quantum theory that was clashing with his strong belief in classical relativity physics

4. IMAX - Under the Sea

A visual treat that shows the less explored under-surface marvels of the Sea

5. India v/s China - Race to the top of the world

A relatively small documentary at around 25 minutes, but quite comprehensive in chalking out the differences, commonality and the effect of India and China's development

6. African Cats

Another fantastic documentary of the beauty that is nature - This time set in the African jungle that traces the lives of a herd of Lions in a struggle for supremacy, and the quintessentially lone life of a Cheetah and her cubs. Specially awesome if watched in HD..

7. 100 Greatest Discoveries in Physics

The name suggests it all - a quick recap of the greatest discoveries that have made great impact

8. Religulous

A curious documentary that questions the faiths around the world, ridiculing the various startling aspects that are imprinted blindly into people's lives. And indeed offensive to the firm believers..

9. Triumph of the Nerds 

A pretty old documentary that sheds light on Apple, MS and IBM in the world of  PC, operating systems and the struggle to out-beat others and be on top; and also where Larry Ellison envisions today's connected mobile world back in 1996 itself

10. The Universe

Anything and everything you have heard about the Universe - here is a documentary on it. Another series type documentary - it talks about virtually everything: Big Bang, Parallel Universes, Quasars, Pulsars, Magnetors, Black Holes, White Holes, Worm Holes, Blazars, Space Travel, Past Present and Future of Solar System, Every planet, Alien Earths, Weird Things in the Universe and more funky stuff

11. The Ascent of Money

A six part documentary that focuses on exactly money rules the world. From the history of money system to loaning ; from loan sharks to banks and finance institutes; to bonds and gold as a common currency; how money dictates war and peace and the rise and fall of nations; to stock markets and how its crashing affects us.

Plus a lot more like why printing more money does not solve the problem but just creates inflation and how the Spice trade allured Europeans to colonize parts of the world. In a whole - it covers all the causes and effects of Money

12. Nova - Hunting the Edge of Space

A comprehensive documentary on how telescopes have expanded our vision and propelled advances in astronomy and the discovery of universe

13. Universe from Nothing - Lawrence Krauss

Another quirky talk that says that even nothing a.k.a vacuum is made up of stuff, and correspondingly gives a picture of Universe - on whether it is expanding, stable or contracting. It also sums up the limits of exploration with time

14. BBC - Life

For those who are more eager on nature and variety of life on our planet - this series provides a whole deal of enjoyment. Different episodes pertaining to different kinds of lifeforms - Reptiles, Mammals, Amphibians, Fish etc makes high school biology more fun...

15. The Elegant Universe 

By now one would have realized that I am crazy about documentaries about the Universe. This is one more such documentary, that talks about current hot topics of Universal Physics - String Theory, Quantum Mechanics and a Unified theory that explains everything..

16. Richard Dawkins - The universe is queerer than we can suppose

Actually a TED talk, Dawkins talks about the capability and limits of human intellect in deciphering the code of nature and the universe; with lot of strong and sarcastic anti-religious statements - for he is a well known forerunner of the Atheistic Society

17. TED talks

Covering virtually everything that we have gathered as knowledge - TED talks are a huge collection of freely available videos that focus on ground breaking research and understanding.

This list is but a mere beginning - there are tons of more documentaries by Discovery, National Geographic etc. 

I look forward to some more awesome documentary suggestions....