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This is a film
about one very simple question.

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How did we get here?

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These are the elements and compounds
from which all humans are made.

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They're incredibly,
almost embarrassingly common.

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In fact, almost 99% of the human body
is a mixture of air, water,

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coal and chalk, with traces of other
slightly more exotic elements

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like iron, zinc,
phosphorus and sulphur.

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In fact, I've estimated
that the elements

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which make up the average
human cost at most a few pounds.

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But somehow, trillions of these very
ordinary atoms conspire miraculously

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to organise themselves into thinking,
breathing, living human beings.

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How the wonders of creation
are assembled from such simple

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building blocks, is surely the most
intriguing question we can ask.

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You may think that answering it is
beyond the realm of science.

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But that's changing.

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For the first time, I believe
science has pushed past religion

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and philosophy in daring to tackle
this most fundamental of questions.

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This film is the story
of a series of bizarre

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and interconnected discoveries that
reveal a hidden face of nature.

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That woven into its simplest
and most basic laws,

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is a power to be unpredictable.

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It's about how inanimate matter
with no purpose or design,

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can spontaneously
create exquisite beauty.

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It's about how the same laws
that make the universe chaotic

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and unpredictable, can turn
simple dust into human beings.

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It's about the discovery
that there is a strange

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and unexpected relationship
between order and chaos.

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The natural world really is one
great, blooming, buzzing confusion.

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It's a mess of quirky shapes
and blotches.

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What patterns there are,
are never quite regular,

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and never seem to repeat exactly.

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The idea that all this mayhem,
all this chaos, is underpinned,

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indeed determined,
by mathematical rules,

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and that we can work out what
those rules might be,

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runs counter
to our most dearly held intuitions.

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So not surprisingly, the first man
to really take on the momentous task

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of unravelling
nature's mysterious mathematics,

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had a very special and unusual mind.

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He was both a great scientist
and a tragic hero.

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He was born in 1912, in London.

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His name was Alan Turing.

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Alan Turing was a remarkable man,

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one of the greatest mathematicians
who ever lived.

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He discovered many
of the fundamental ideas

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that underpin the modern computer.

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Also, during the Second World War,

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he worked here at Bletchley Park,
just outside today's Milton Keynes,

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in what was then a secret
government project called Station X,

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which was set up
to crack the German military codes.

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The Station X code breakers proved
highly effective,

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and Turing's contribution
was crucial.

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The work he personally did
to crack German naval codes,

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saved thousands of Allied lives
and was a turning point in the war.

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But code breaking was just one aspect
of Turing's genius.

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Just one part of his
uncanny ability to see patterns

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that are hidden from the rest of us.

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For Turing, the natural world
offered up the ultimate codes.

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And over the course of his life

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he'd come tantalisingly
close to cracking them.

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Turing was a very original person.

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And he had realised that there
was this possibility

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that simple mathematical equations

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might describe aspects of
the biological world.

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And no-one
had thought of that before.

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Of all nature's mysteries,
the one that fascinated Turing most

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was the idea that there might be
a mathematical basis

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to human intelligence.

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Turing had very personal
reasons for believing in this.

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It was the death of this young
man, Christopher Morcom,

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who...Alan Turing, well, he was gay,

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and it had been the great emotional
thing of his life at that point.

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Christopher Morcom suddenly died.

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And, Alan Turing was obviously
very emotionally disturbed by this.

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But you can see
that he wanted to put this

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in an intellectual
context, a scientific context.

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And the question he wanted
to put into context was

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what happens to the mind?
What is it?

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Turing became convinced that
mathematics could be used to describe

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biological systems,
and ultimately intelligence.

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This fascination would give
rise to the modern computer,

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and later in Turing's life,
an even more radical idea.

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The idea that a simple mathematical
description could be given

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for a mysterious process that
takes place in an embryo.

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The process is called morphogenesis,
and it's very puzzling.

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At first, all the cells in
the embryo are identical.

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Then, as this footage of a
fish embryo shows,

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the cells begin to clump together,

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and also become
different from each other.

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How does this happen?
With no thought,

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no central co-ordination?

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How do cells that start off
identical, know to become say, skin,

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while others become part of an eye?

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Morphogenesis is
a spectacular example

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of something called
self-organisation.

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And before Turing,
no-one had a clue how it worked.

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Then, in 1952,
Turing published this, his paper

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with the world's first mathematical
explanation for morphogenesis.

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The sheer chutzpah
of this paper was staggering.

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In it, Turing used
a mathematical equation

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of the kind normally seen in papers
on astronomy or atomic physics,

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to describe a living process.

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No-one had done anything like this.

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Crucially, Turing's equations did,
for the first time,

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describe how a biological system
could self-organise.

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They showed that something smooth
and featureless can develop features.

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One of the astonishing things
about Turing's work

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was that
starting with the description

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of really very simple processes

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governed by very simple equations,
by putting these together,

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suddenly complexity emerged.

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The pattern suddenly came
out as a natural consequence.

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And I think in many ways
this was very, very unexpected.

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In essence, Turing's equations
described something quite familiar,

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but which no-one had thought of
in the context of biology before.

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Think of the way a steady wind
blowing across sand

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creates all kinds of shapes.

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The grains self-organise
into ripples, waves and dunes.

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This happens, even though the
grains are virtually identical,

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and have no knowledge of the
shapes they become part of.

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Turing argued
that in a very similar way,

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chemicals seeping across an embryo

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might cause its cells to
self-organise into different organs.

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These are Turing's own very rough
scribblings of how this might work.

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They show how a completely
featureless chemical soup,

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can evolve
these strange blobs and patches.

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In his paper, he refined his sketches

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to show how his equations could
spontaneously create markings

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similar to those on
the skins of animals.

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Turing went around showing people
pictures saying,

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"Doesn't this look
a bit like the patterns on a cow?"

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And everyone sort of went,
"What is this man on about?"

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But actually,
he knew what he was doing.

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They did look like the patterns
of a cow, and that's one of

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the reasons why cows have this
dappled pattern or whatever.

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So, an area where mathematics
had never been used before,

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pattern formation in biology,
animal markings,

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suddenly the door was opened
and we could see

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that mathematics might be
useful in that sort of area.

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So even though Turing's exact
equations are not the full story,

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they are the first piece of
mathematical work that showed

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there was any possibility
of doing this kind of thing.

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Of course, we now know
that morphogenesis

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is much more complicated than the
process Turing's equations describe.

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In fact, the precise mechanism of how
DNA molecules in our cells interact

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with other chemicals, is still
fiercely debated by scientists.

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But Turing's idea that whatever
is going on is, deep down,

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a simple mathematical process,
was truly revolutionary.

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I think Alan Turing's paper
is probably the cornerstone

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in the whole idea of how
morphogenesis works.

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What it does is it provides
us with a mechanism,

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something that Darwin didn't,
for how pattern emerges.

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Darwin, of course, tells us
that once you have a pattern

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and it is coded for in the genes,
that may or may not be passed on,

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depending on circumstances.
But what it doesn't do

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is explain where that pattern
comes from in the first place.

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That's the real mystery.

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And so, what Turing had done
was to suddenly provide

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an accessible chemical mechanism
for doing this. That was amazing.

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Turing was onto a really big,
bold idea.

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But sadly, we can only speculate
how his extraordinary mind

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would have developed his idea.

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Shortly after his groundbreaking
paper on morphogenesis,

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a dreadful and completely
avoidable tragedy destroyed his life.

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After his work
breaking codes at Bletchley Park,

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you might well have assumed that
Turing would have been honoured

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by the country
he did so much to protect.

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This couldn't be
further from the truth.

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What happened to him after the war
was a great tragedy,

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and one of the most shameful episodes
in the history of British science.

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The same year Turing
published his morphogenesis paper,

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he had a brief affair
with a man called Arnold Murray.

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The affair went sour

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and Murray was involved in
a burglary at Turing's house.

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But when Turing reported
this to the police,

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they arrested him as well as Murray.

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In court, the prosecution argued

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that Turing, with his university
education, had led Murray astray.

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He was convicted of gross indecency.

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The judge then offered Turing
a dreadful choice.

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He could either go to prison,
or sign up to a regime of

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female hormone injections
to cure him of his homosexuality.

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He chose the latter, and it was to
send him into a spiral of depression.

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On 8 June 1954, Turing's
body was found by his cleaner.

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He'd died the day before
by taking a bite from an apple

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he'd laced with cyanide,
ending his own life.

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Alan Turing died aged just 41.

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The loss to science is incalculable.

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Turing would never know
that his ideas would inspire

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an entirely new mathematical
approach to biology,

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and that scientists would
find equations like his

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really do explain many of the shapes
that appear on living organisms.

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Looking back, we now know
Turing had really grasped the idea

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that the wonders of creation are
derived from the simplest of rules.

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He had, perhaps unexpectedly,
taken the first step

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to a new kind of science.

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The next step in the story was
just as unexpected,

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and in many ways,
just as tragic as Turing's.

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In the early 1950s, around the time
of Turing's seminal paper

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on morphogenesis, a brilliant
Russian chemist by the name of

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Boris Belousov
was beginning his own investigations

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into the chemistry of nature.

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Deep behind the iron curtain, in a
lab at the Soviet Ministry of Health,

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he was beginning to investigate
the way our bodies

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extract energy from sugars.

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Just like Turing, Belousov was
working on a personal project, having

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just finished a distinguished career
as a scientist in the military.

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In his lab, Belousov had formulated
a mixture of chemicals

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to mimic one part of the process
of glucose absorption in the body.

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The mix of chemicals sat on
the lab bench in front of him,

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clear and colourless
while being shaken.

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As he mixed in the final chemical,
the whole solution changed colour.

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Now this isn't
particularly remarkable.

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If we mix ink into water,
it changes colour.

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But then something happened
that made no sense at all.

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The mixture began to go clear again.

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Belousov was astounded.

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Chemicals can mix together and react.

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But they shouldn't be able
to go back on themselves,

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to apparently
unmix without intervention.

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You can change from a clear
mixture to a coloured mixture, fine.

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But surely not back again?

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And it got weirder.

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Belousov's chemicals didn't just
spontaneously go into reverse.

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They oscillated.

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They switched back and forth
from coloured to clear,

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as if they were being driven by some
sort of hidden chemical metronome.

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With meticulous care, he repeated
his experiments again and again.

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It was the same every time.

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His mixture would cycle from clear to
coloured and back again, repeatedly.

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He'd discovered something
that was almost like magic,

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a physical process that seemed to
violate the laws of nature.

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'Convinced he'd discovered something
of great importance, Belousov

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'wrote up his findings, keen to share
his discovery with the wider world.

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'But when he submitted his paper to a
leading Russian scientific journal,

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'he received a wholly
unexpected and damning response.'

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The editor of the journal told
Belousov that his findings in the lab

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00:18:33,800 --> 00:18:36,000
were quite simply impossible.

238
00:18:36,000 --> 00:18:39,480
They contravened
the fundamental laws of physics.

239
00:18:39,480 --> 00:18:43,040
The only explanation
was that Belousov had made a mistake

240
00:18:43,040 --> 00:18:48,600
in his experiment, and the work
was simply not fit for publication.

241
00:18:53,240 --> 00:18:56,000
'The rejection crushed Belousov.

242
00:18:56,000 --> 00:19:00,160
'Deeply insulted by the suggestion
his work had been botched,

243
00:19:00,160 --> 00:19:02,360
'he abandoned his experiments.

244
00:19:02,360 --> 00:19:05,760
'Soon he gave up science altogether.'

245
00:19:07,280 --> 00:19:11,840
The tragic irony was that, divided
as they were by the Iron Curtain,

246
00:19:11,840 --> 00:19:15,520
Belousov never encountered
Turing's work.

247
00:19:15,520 --> 00:19:20,280
For if he had, he would have
been completely vindicated.

248
00:19:20,280 --> 00:19:24,120
It turns out that Belousov's
oscillating chemicals,

249
00:19:24,120 --> 00:19:27,240
far from contravening
the laws of physics,

250
00:19:27,240 --> 00:19:30,400
were actually a real world example

251
00:19:30,400 --> 00:19:34,920
of precisely the behaviour
Turing's equations predicted.

252
00:19:45,200 --> 00:19:49,560
While the connection might not
appear obvious at first sight,

253
00:19:49,560 --> 00:19:52,800
other scientists showed
that if you left a variation

254
00:19:52,800 --> 00:19:56,240
of Belousov's chemicals,
unstirred in a Petri dish,

255
00:19:56,240 --> 00:20:01,560
instead of simply oscillating,
they self-organise into shapes.

256
00:20:01,560 --> 00:20:05,920
In fact, they go beyond
Turing's simple blobs and stripes

257
00:20:05,920 --> 00:20:10,240
to create stunningly
beautiful structures and patterns

258
00:20:10,240 --> 00:20:12,040
out of nowhere.

259
00:20:22,040 --> 00:20:26,080
The amazing and very unexpected
thing about the BZ reaction

260
00:20:26,080 --> 00:20:28,680
is that someone
had discovered a system

261
00:20:28,680 --> 00:20:32,080
which essentially reproduces
the Turing equations.

262
00:20:32,080 --> 00:20:36,200
And so, from what looks like
a very, very bland solution

263
00:20:36,200 --> 00:20:41,520
emerge these astonishing patterns
of waves and scrolls and spirals.

264
00:20:45,480 --> 00:20:49,800
Now this is emphatically not
abstract science.

265
00:20:49,800 --> 00:20:53,960
The way Belousov's chemicals
move as co-ordinated waves

266
00:20:53,960 --> 00:20:58,800
is exactly the way our heart
cells are co-ordinated as they beat.

267
00:21:01,800 --> 00:21:04,720
Animal skins and heart beats.

268
00:21:04,720 --> 00:21:08,880
Self-organisation seems to operate
all over the natural world.

269
00:21:15,280 --> 00:21:20,080
So why were the scientific community
in Turing and Belousov's day,

270
00:21:20,080 --> 00:21:25,520
so uninterested, or even hostile to
this astonishing and beautiful idea?

271
00:21:29,760 --> 00:21:33,200
Well, the reason was all too human.

272
00:21:34,720 --> 00:21:38,480
Mainstream scientists
simply didn't like it.

273
00:21:38,480 --> 00:21:41,760
To them it seemed
to run counter to science,

274
00:21:41,920 --> 00:21:44,040
and all that it had achieved.

275
00:21:52,080 --> 00:21:56,080
To change that view
would require a truly shocking

276
00:21:56,080 --> 00:21:59,280
and completely unexpected
discovery.

277
00:22:02,600 --> 00:22:06,600
In essence, by the beginning
of the 20th century,

278
00:22:06,600 --> 00:22:09,760
scientists saw the universe
as a giant,

279
00:22:09,760 --> 00:22:12,960
complicated, mechanical device.

280
00:22:12,960 --> 00:22:17,360
Kind of a super-sized
version of this orrery.

281
00:22:21,200 --> 00:22:26,520
The idea was that the universe
is a huge and intricate machine

282
00:22:26,520 --> 00:22:30,080
that obeys
orderly mathematical rules.

283
00:22:30,080 --> 00:22:33,840
If you knew the rules of how the
machine was configured to start with,

284
00:22:33,840 --> 00:22:37,120
as you turned the handle,
over and over again,

285
00:22:37,120 --> 00:22:40,640
it would behave
in an entirely predictable way.

286
00:22:43,160 --> 00:22:44,840
Back in the times of Isaac Newton

287
00:22:44,840 --> 00:22:48,720
when people were discovering
the laws that drove the universe,

288
00:22:48,720 --> 00:22:52,400
they came up with this kind of
metaphor of a clockwork universe.

289
00:22:52,400 --> 00:22:56,000
The universe looked like a machine
which had been set going at the

290
00:22:56,000 --> 00:23:00,040
instant of creation and just
followed the rules and ticked along.

291
00:23:00,040 --> 00:23:04,440
And it was a complicated machine and
therefore complicated things happen.

292
00:23:04,440 --> 00:23:08,680
But once you set it going
it would only do one thing,

293
00:23:08,680 --> 00:23:11,320
and the message
that people drew from this

294
00:23:11,320 --> 00:23:14,880
was that anything describable
by mathematical rules

295
00:23:14,880 --> 00:23:17,360
must actually
basically be fairly simple.

296
00:23:21,880 --> 00:23:25,320
Find the mathematics
that describes a system

297
00:23:25,320 --> 00:23:28,720
and you can then predict
how that system will unfold.

298
00:23:28,720 --> 00:23:30,880
That was the big idea.

299
00:23:30,880 --> 00:23:33,560
It began with Newton's
law of gravity

300
00:23:33,560 --> 00:23:37,920
which can be used to predict
how a planet moves around the sun.

301
00:23:37,920 --> 00:23:42,680
Scientists soon found many
other equations just like it.

302
00:23:44,640 --> 00:23:49,280
Newtonian physics seemed
like the ultimate crystal-ball.

303
00:23:49,280 --> 00:23:51,720
It held up
the tantalising possibility

304
00:23:51,720 --> 00:23:54,600
that the future could,
in principle, be known.

305
00:23:54,600 --> 00:23:57,240
The more careful
your measurements are today,

306
00:23:57,240 --> 00:24:00,280
the better you can predict
what will happen tomorrow.

307
00:24:05,200 --> 00:24:10,080
But Newtonianism
had a dangerous consequence.

308
00:24:10,080 --> 00:24:13,520
If a nice mathematical system,
that worked in a similar way

309
00:24:13,520 --> 00:24:19,400
to my orrery, did sometimes become
unpredictable, scientists assumed

310
00:24:19,400 --> 00:24:24,880
some malign outside force was
causing it. Perhaps dirt had got in?

311
00:24:24,880 --> 00:24:26,800
Perhaps the cogs were wearing out?

312
00:24:26,800 --> 00:24:30,320
Or perhaps someone
had tampered with it?

313
00:24:30,320 --> 00:24:34,440
Basically we used to think,
if you saw very irregular behaviour

314
00:24:34,440 --> 00:24:39,000
in some problem you're working on,
this must be the result of some sort

315
00:24:39,000 --> 00:24:43,440
of random outside influences,
it couldn't be internally generated.

316
00:24:43,440 --> 00:24:45,720
It wasn't an intrinsic part
of the problem,

317
00:24:45,720 --> 00:24:47,880
it was some other thing
impacting on it.

318
00:24:50,920 --> 00:24:53,560
Looked at from this point of view,

319
00:24:53,560 --> 00:24:57,800
the whole idea of self-organisation
seemed absurd.

320
00:24:57,800 --> 00:25:02,120
The idea that patterns of the kind
Turing and Belousov had found

321
00:25:02,120 --> 00:25:04,840
could appear of their own accord,

322
00:25:04,840 --> 00:25:09,400
without any outside influence,
was a complete taboo.

323
00:25:12,600 --> 00:25:15,400
The only way for self-organisation
to be accepted

324
00:25:15,400 --> 00:25:21,040
was for the domineering
Newtonian view to collapse.

325
00:25:21,040 --> 00:25:23,400
But that seemed very unlikely.

326
00:25:26,160 --> 00:25:28,920
After all, by the late '60s
it had delivered

327
00:25:28,920 --> 00:25:32,080
all the wonders of the modern age.

328
00:25:32,080 --> 00:25:34,040
Beautiful, beautiful.

329
00:25:34,040 --> 00:25:36,760
Ain't that something?
Magnificent desolation.

330
00:25:39,680 --> 00:25:43,840
But then, at the same time
as the moon mission,

331
00:25:43,840 --> 00:25:47,120
a small group of scientists,
all ardent Newtonians,

332
00:25:47,120 --> 00:25:52,800
quite unexpectedly
found something wasn't right.

333
00:25:52,800 --> 00:25:55,680
Not right at all.

334
00:25:58,800 --> 00:26:01,760
During the second half
of the 20th century,

335
00:26:01,760 --> 00:26:06,360
a devil was found in the detail.
A devil that would ultimately

336
00:26:06,360 --> 00:26:11,520
shatter the Newtonian dream
and plunge us literally into chaos.

337
00:26:20,520 --> 00:26:25,720
Ironically, the events that forced
scientists to take self-organisation

338
00:26:25,720 --> 00:26:31,160
seriously was the discovery
of a phenomenon known as chaos.

339
00:26:33,040 --> 00:26:37,760
Chaos is one of the most over-used
words in English, but in science

340
00:26:37,760 --> 00:26:43,960
it has a very specific meaning. It
says that a system that is completely

341
00:26:43,960 --> 00:26:48,040
described by mathematical
equations is more than capable

342
00:26:48,040 --> 00:26:53,680
of being unpredictable without
any outside interference whatsoever.

343
00:26:55,240 --> 00:26:59,600
There's a widespread misapprehension
that chaos is just somehow saying,

344
00:26:59,600 --> 00:27:03,000
the very familiar fact,
that everything's complicated.

345
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:06,240
I mean, the nitwit chaoticist
in Jurassic Park,

346
00:27:06,240 --> 00:27:08,080
was under that confusion.

347
00:27:08,080 --> 00:27:12,480
It's something much simpler and
yet much more complicated than that.

348
00:27:12,480 --> 00:27:17,920
It says, some very, very simple
rules or equations,

349
00:27:17,920 --> 00:27:21,680
with nothing random in them,
they're completely determined,

350
00:27:21,680 --> 00:27:23,680
we know everything about the rule,

351
00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:29,560
can have outcomes
that are entirely unpredictable.

352
00:27:31,240 --> 00:27:37,120
Chaos is one of the most
unwelcome discoveries in science.

353
00:27:37,120 --> 00:27:41,560
The man who forced the
scientific community to confront it

354
00:27:41,560 --> 00:27:45,240
was an American meteorologist
called Edward Lorenz.

355
00:27:45,240 --> 00:27:49,760
In the early 1960s he tried
to find mathematical equations

356
00:27:49,760 --> 00:27:52,640
that could help predict the weather.

357
00:27:55,400 --> 00:28:00,000
Like all his contemporaries,
he believed that in principle

358
00:28:00,000 --> 00:28:03,720
the weather system was no
different to my orrery.

359
00:28:03,720 --> 00:28:06,600
A mechanical system
that could be described

360
00:28:06,600 --> 00:28:09,320
and predicted mathematically.

361
00:28:10,240 --> 00:28:11,760
But he was wrong.

362
00:28:15,280 --> 00:28:19,640
When Lorenz wrote down what looked
like perfectly simple mathematical

363
00:28:19,640 --> 00:28:23,320
equations to describe the movement 
of air currents,

364
00:28:23,320 --> 00:28:26,520
they didn't do
what they were supposed to.

365
00:28:26,520 --> 00:28:30,560
They made no useful predictions
whatsoever.

366
00:28:33,080 --> 00:28:37,400
It was as if the lightest breath
of wind one day could make the

367
00:28:37,400 --> 00:28:44,160
difference a month later between a
snowstorm and a perfectly sunny day.

368
00:28:46,400 --> 00:28:51,000
How can a simple system that works
in the regular clockwork manner

369
00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:54,520
of my orrery become unpredictable?

370
00:28:54,520 --> 00:28:57,280
It's all down
to how it's configured.

371
00:28:57,280 --> 00:28:59,640
How the gears are connected.

372
00:28:59,640 --> 00:29:02,880
In essence,
under certain circumstances,

373
00:29:02,880 --> 00:29:07,160
the tiniest difference in
the starting positions of the cogs,

374
00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:10,480
differences that are too small
to measure,

375
00:29:10,480 --> 00:29:15,240
can get bigger and bigger
with each turn of the handle.

376
00:29:15,240 --> 00:29:18,760
With each step in the process
the system then moves

377
00:29:18,760 --> 00:29:23,920
further and further away
from where you thought it was going.

378
00:29:23,920 --> 00:29:28,600
Lorenz captured this radical idea in 
an influential talk he gave called,

379
00:29:28,600 --> 00:29:35,600
"Does a flap of a butterfly's wings
in Brazil set off a tornado
in Texas?"

380
00:29:40,080 --> 00:29:42,760
It was a powerful
and evocative image

381
00:29:42,760 --> 00:29:46,760
and within months a new
phrase had entered our language.

382
00:29:46,760 --> 00:29:48,600
"The butterfly effect."

383
00:29:50,120 --> 00:29:54,600
And the butterfly effect,
the hallmark of all chaotic systems,

384
00:29:54,600 --> 00:29:56,960
started turning up everywhere.

385
00:30:00,760 --> 00:30:04,920
In the early '70s, a young
Australian called Robert May,

386
00:30:04,920 --> 00:30:07,720
was investigating a mathematical
equation

387
00:30:07,720 --> 00:30:12,000
that modelled how animal
populations changed over time.

388
00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:16,640
But here too lurked
the dreaded butterfly effect.

389
00:30:16,640 --> 00:30:20,720
Immeasurably small changes to the
rates at which the animals reproduced

390
00:30:20,720 --> 00:30:23,400
could sometimes have huge
consequences

391
00:30:23,400 --> 00:30:25,320
on their overall population.

392
00:30:25,320 --> 00:30:31,320
Numbers could go up and down wildly
for no obvious reason.

393
00:30:31,320 --> 00:30:35,800
The idea that a mathematical
equation gave you the power

394
00:30:35,800 --> 00:30:41,280
to predict how a system will behave,
was dead.

395
00:30:41,280 --> 00:30:44,560
In some sense this is
the end of the Newtonian dream.

396
00:30:44,560 --> 00:30:48,840
When I was a graduate student,
the belief was,

397
00:30:48,840 --> 00:30:52,320
as we got more and
more computer power,

398
00:30:52,320 --> 00:30:57,960
we'd be able to solve ever more
complicated sets of equations.

399
00:30:57,960 --> 00:31:00,520
But this said
that's not necessarily true.

400
00:31:00,520 --> 00:31:03,960
You could have the simplest
equations you can think of,

401
00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:07,880
with nothing random in them,
you know everything.

402
00:31:07,880 --> 00:31:12,480
And yet, if they have behaviour

403
00:31:12,480 --> 00:31:15,840
that gives you chaotic solutions,

404
00:31:15,840 --> 00:31:20,240
then you can never know the
starting point accurately enough.

405
00:31:23,520 --> 00:31:29,760
Centuries of scientific certainty
dissolved in just a few short years.

406
00:31:29,760 --> 00:31:34,080
The truth of the clockwork universe
turned out to be just an illusion.

407
00:31:34,080 --> 00:31:37,360
Something which had seemed
a logical certainty,

408
00:31:37,360 --> 00:31:40,560
revealed itself merely
as an act of faith.

409
00:31:40,560 --> 00:31:44,720
And what's worse, the truth had been
staring us in the face all the time.

410
00:31:44,720 --> 00:31:47,600
Because chaos is everywhere.

411
00:31:51,520 --> 00:31:55,560
It seemed unpredictability
was hard-wired

412
00:31:55,560 --> 00:31:58,600
into every aspect
of the world we live in.

413
00:32:00,240 --> 00:32:04,120
The global climate
could dramatically change

414
00:32:04,120 --> 00:32:07,000
in the course
of a few short years.

415
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:09,960
The stock markets
could crash without warning.

416
00:32:09,960 --> 00:32:14,480
We could be wiped from the face of
the planet overnight

417
00:32:14,480 --> 00:32:18,280
and there is nothing
anyone could do about it.

418
00:32:23,880 --> 00:32:28,600
Unfortunately, I have to tell
you that all of this is true.

419
00:32:28,600 --> 00:32:31,960
And yet to be scared of
chaos is pointless.

420
00:32:33,040 --> 00:32:37,320
It's woven into
the basic laws of physics.

421
00:32:37,400 --> 00:32:42,200
And we really all have
to accept it as a fact of life.

422
00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:47,040
The idea of chaos really did have a
big impact over a period of about 20

423
00:32:47,040 --> 00:32:50,480
or 30 years, because it changed
the way everyone thought about

424
00:32:50,480 --> 00:32:52,200
what they were doing in science.

425
00:32:52,200 --> 00:32:53,520
It changed it to the point

426
00:32:53,520 --> 00:32:56,400
that they forgot that they'd ever
believed otherwise.

427
00:32:56,400 --> 00:33:02,600
What chaos did was to show us
that the possibilities inherent

428
00:33:02,600 --> 00:33:07,760
in the simple mathematics are much
broader and much more general

429
00:33:07,760 --> 00:33:12,360
than you might imagine.
And so a clockwork universe can

430
00:33:12,360 --> 00:33:17,840
nonetheless behave in the rich,
complex way that we experience.

431
00:33:19,440 --> 00:33:21,080
The discovery of chaos

432
00:33:21,080 --> 00:33:24,840
was a real turning point
in the history of science.

433
00:33:24,840 --> 00:33:27,120
As it tore down the Newtonian dream,

434
00:33:27,120 --> 00:33:30,720
scientists began to look more
favourably at Turing and

435
00:33:30,720 --> 00:33:34,720
Belousov's work
on spontaneous pattern formation.

436
00:33:34,720 --> 00:33:38,680
And perhaps more importantly,
as they did so,

437
00:33:38,680 --> 00:33:41,320
they realised
something truly astonishing.

438
00:33:41,320 --> 00:33:44,920
That there was a very deep
and unexpected link.

439
00:33:44,920 --> 00:33:47,400
A truly cosmic connection

440
00:33:47,400 --> 00:33:51,200
between nature's strange
power to self-organise

441
00:33:51,200 --> 00:33:55,640
and the chaotic consequences
of the butterfly effect.

442
00:33:55,640 --> 00:34:00,080
Between them,
Turing, Belousov, May and Lorenz,

443
00:34:00,080 --> 00:34:05,600
had all discovered different faces
of just one really big idea.

444
00:34:08,160 --> 00:34:12,200
They discovered that the natural
world could be deeply,

445
00:34:12,200 --> 00:34:16,600
profoundly, unpredictable. But the
very same things that make it

446
00:34:16,600 --> 00:34:21,560
unpredictable also allow it
to create pattern and structure.

447
00:34:21,560 --> 00:34:24,040
Order and chaos.

448
00:34:24,040 --> 00:34:26,640
It seems the two
are more deeply linked

449
00:34:26,640 --> 00:34:28,920
than we could have ever imagined.

450
00:34:30,440 --> 00:34:32,800
So how is this possible?

451
00:34:32,800 --> 00:34:36,880
What do phenomena as apparently
different as the patterns in

452
00:34:36,880 --> 00:34:40,640
Belousov's chemicals
and the weather, have in common?

453
00:34:43,120 --> 00:34:47,920
First, though both systems
behave in very complicated ways,

454
00:34:47,920 --> 00:34:52,240
they are both based on surprisingly
simple mathematical rules.

455
00:34:56,680 --> 00:35:00,800
Secondly,
these rules have a unique property.

456
00:35:00,800 --> 00:35:05,720
A property that's often referred
to as coupling, or feedback.

457
00:35:10,760 --> 00:35:15,360
To show you what I mean, to show
you both order and chaos can emerge

458
00:35:15,360 --> 00:35:20,400
on the their own from a simple system
with feedback, I'm going to do

459
00:35:20,400 --> 00:35:24,240
what seems at first glance
like a rather trivial experiment.

460
00:35:29,840 --> 00:35:35,320
This screen behind me is connected
up to the camera that's filming me.

461
00:35:35,320 --> 00:35:39,240
But the camera in turn is filming me
with the screen.

462
00:35:39,240 --> 00:35:43,080
This creates a loop with
multiple copies of me

463
00:35:43,080 --> 00:35:45,200
appearing on the screen.

464
00:35:46,800 --> 00:35:51,760
This is a classic example
of a feedback loop.

465
00:35:51,760 --> 00:35:55,000
We get a picture,
in a picture, in a picture.

466
00:35:55,000 --> 00:35:57,920
At first it seems
fairly predictable.

467
00:35:57,920 --> 00:36:00,000
But as we zoom the camera in

468
00:36:00,000 --> 00:36:03,680
some pretty strange
things begin to happen.

469
00:36:05,200 --> 00:36:08,800
The first thing I notice
is that the object I'm filming

470
00:36:08,800 --> 00:36:13,200
stops bearing much resemblance
to what now appears on the screen.

471
00:36:17,520 --> 00:36:22,800
Small changes in the movement of
the match become rapidly amplified

472
00:36:22,800 --> 00:36:27,120
as they loop round from the camera to
the screen and back to the camera.

473
00:36:30,520 --> 00:36:35,440
So even though I can describe each
step in the process mathematically,

474
00:36:35,440 --> 00:36:39,400
I still have no way
of predicting how tiny changes

475
00:36:39,400 --> 00:36:42,840
in the flickering of the flame
will end up in the final image.

476
00:36:46,680 --> 00:36:49,960
This is the butterfly effect
in action.

477
00:36:55,880 --> 00:36:58,400
But now here comes the spooky bit.

478
00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:03,960
With just a slight tweak
to the system,

479
00:37:03,960 --> 00:37:09,640
these strange and rather
beautiful patterns begin to emerge.

480
00:37:11,160 --> 00:37:16,720
The same system, one that's
based on simple rules with feedback,

481
00:37:16,720 --> 00:37:19,080
produces chaos and order.

482
00:37:27,040 --> 00:37:31,720
The same mathematics is generating
chaotic behaviour

483
00:37:31,720 --> 00:37:34,320
and patterned behaviour.

484
00:37:34,320 --> 00:37:38,040
This changes completely how
you think about all of this.

485
00:37:38,040 --> 00:37:41,960
The idea that there are
regularities in nature and then,

486
00:37:41,960 --> 00:37:44,320
totally separately from them,

487
00:37:44,320 --> 00:37:47,680
are irregularities, and these are
just two different things,

488
00:37:47,680 --> 00:37:49,000
is just not true.

489
00:37:49,000 --> 00:37:51,760
These are two ends of a spectrum of
behaviour

490
00:37:51,760 --> 00:37:55,120
which can be generated
by the same kind of mathematics.

491
00:37:55,120 --> 00:38:00,120
And it's the closest thing we
have at the moment to the kind
of true mathematics of nature.

492
00:38:01,240 --> 00:38:06,080
I think one of the great take home
messages from Turing's work and from

493
00:38:06,080 --> 00:38:10,120
the discoveries in chemistry
and biology and so on, is that

494
00:38:10,120 --> 00:38:13,720
ultimately, pattern formation seems
to be woven, very, very deeply

495
00:38:13,720 --> 00:38:17,840
into the fabric of the universe. And
it actually takes some very simple

496
00:38:17,840 --> 00:38:20,640
and familiar processes,
like diffusion,

497
00:38:20,640 --> 00:38:22,760
like the rates
of chemical reactions,

498
00:38:22,760 --> 00:38:26,480
and the interplay between them
naturally gives rise to pattern.

499
00:38:26,480 --> 00:38:30,400
So pattern is everywhere,
it's just waiting to happen.

500
00:38:32,400 --> 00:38:36,440
From the '70s on,
more and more scientists

501
00:38:36,440 --> 00:38:39,440
began to embrace
the concept that chaos

502
00:38:39,440 --> 00:38:44,080
and pattern are built into
nature's most basic rules.

503
00:38:44,080 --> 00:38:48,680
But one scientist more than any
other brought a fundamentally new

504
00:38:48,680 --> 00:38:52,320
understanding to this astonishing
and often puzzling idea.

505
00:38:54,520 --> 00:38:58,200
He was a colourful character
and something of a maverick.

506
00:38:58,200 --> 00:39:01,640
His name is Benoit Mandelbrot.

507
00:39:03,840 --> 00:39:07,120
Benoit Mandelbrot
wasn't an ordinary child.

508
00:39:07,120 --> 00:39:09,760
He skipped the first
two years of school

509
00:39:09,760 --> 00:39:14,520
and as a Jew in war-torn Europe
his education was very disrupted.

510
00:39:14,520 --> 00:39:18,560
He was largely self-taught
or tutored by relatives.

511
00:39:18,560 --> 00:39:21,240
He never formally learned
the alphabet,

512
00:39:21,240 --> 00:39:24,880
or even multiplication
beyond the five times table.

513
00:39:27,560 --> 00:39:29,280
But, like Alan Turing,

514
00:39:29,280 --> 00:39:33,120
Mandelbrot had a gift for seeing
nature's hidden patterns.

515
00:39:33,120 --> 00:39:37,320
He could see rules where
the rest of us see anarchy.

516
00:39:37,320 --> 00:39:39,480
He could see form and structure,

517
00:39:39,480 --> 00:39:42,640
where the rest of us just
see a shapeless mess.

518
00:39:42,640 --> 00:39:47,160
And above all, he could see that
a strange new kind of mathematics

519
00:39:47,160 --> 00:39:49,560
underpinned the whole of nature.

520
00:39:53,320 --> 00:39:57,800
Mandelbrot's lifelong quest was
to find a simple mathematical basis

521
00:39:57,800 --> 00:40:02,720
for the rough and irregular
shapes of the real world.

522
00:40:05,360 --> 00:40:07,320
Mandelbrot was working for IBM

523
00:40:07,320 --> 00:40:10,600
and he was not in the normal
academic environment.

524
00:40:10,600 --> 00:40:13,360
And he was working on
a pile of different problems

525
00:40:13,360 --> 00:40:17,400
about irregularities in nature,
in the financial markets,

526
00:40:17,400 --> 00:40:18,760
all over the place.

527
00:40:18,760 --> 00:40:21,720
And I think at some point it
dawned on him that everything

528
00:40:21,720 --> 00:40:25,520
he was doing seen to be really
parts of the same big picture.

529
00:40:25,520 --> 00:40:30,960
And he was a sufficiently
original and unusual person that

530
00:40:30,960 --> 00:40:34,320
he realised that pursuing
this big picture was what

531
00:40:34,320 --> 00:40:37,960
he really wanted to do. To
Mandelbrot, it seemed perverse that

532
00:40:37,960 --> 00:40:42,680
mathematicians had spent centuries
contemplating idealised shapes

533
00:40:42,680 --> 00:40:45,480
like straight lines
or perfect circles.

534
00:40:45,480 --> 00:40:49,560
And yet had no proper or systematic
way of describing the rough

535
00:40:49,560 --> 00:40:53,720
and imperfect shapes
that dominate the real world.

536
00:40:55,000 --> 00:40:57,240
Take this pebble.

537
00:40:58,200 --> 00:41:01,040
Is it a sphere or a cube?

538
00:41:01,040 --> 00:41:03,280
Or maybe a bit of both?

539
00:41:03,280 --> 00:41:08,520
And what about something much
bigger? Look at the arch behind me.

540
00:41:08,520 --> 00:41:12,640
From a distance,
it looks like a semi-circle.

541
00:41:12,640 --> 00:41:15,840
But up close,
we see that it's bent and crooked.

542
00:41:17,360 --> 00:41:19,360
So what shape is it?

543
00:41:23,360 --> 00:41:25,920
Mandelbrot asked if
there's something unique

544
00:41:25,920 --> 00:41:29,040
that defines all
the varied shapes in nature.

545
00:41:29,040 --> 00:41:33,800
Do the fluffy surfaces of clouds,
the branches in trees and rivers,

546
00:41:33,800 --> 00:41:39,760
the crinkled edges of shorelines,
share a common mathematical feature?

547
00:41:39,760 --> 00:41:42,600
Well, they do.

548
00:41:42,600 --> 00:41:47,320
Underlying nearly all the shapes in
the natural world is a mathematical

549
00:41:47,320 --> 00:41:53,320
principle known as self-similarity.
This describes anything in which the

550
00:41:53,320 --> 00:42:00,480
same shape is repeated over and over
again at smaller and smaller scales.

551
00:42:02,040 --> 00:42:04,920
A great example are
the branches of trees.

552
00:42:04,920 --> 00:42:08,680
They fork and fork again,
repeating that simple process

553
00:42:08,680 --> 00:42:13,440
over and over
at smaller and smaller scales.

554
00:42:14,880 --> 00:42:19,640
The same branching principle applies
in the structure of our lungs

555
00:42:19,640 --> 00:42:23,320
and the way our blood vessels are
distributed throughout our bodies.

556
00:42:25,280 --> 00:42:30,160
It even describes how rivers
split into ever smaller streams.

557
00:42:30,160 --> 00:42:33,800
And nature can repeat
all sorts of shapes in this way.

558
00:42:35,560 --> 00:42:38,560
Look at this Romanesco broccoli.

559
00:42:38,560 --> 00:42:42,920
Its overall structure is made up
of a series of repeating cones

560
00:42:42,920 --> 00:42:46,320
at smaller and smaller scales.

561
00:42:47,920 --> 00:42:50,920
Mandelbrot realised self-similarity

562
00:42:50,920 --> 00:42:54,760
was the basis of an entirely
new kind of geometry.

563
00:42:54,760 --> 00:42:58,440
And he even gave it a name -
fractal.

564
00:43:00,120 --> 00:43:03,000
Now, that's a pretty neat
observation.

565
00:43:03,000 --> 00:43:07,800
But what if you could represent this
property of nature in mathematics?

566
00:43:07,800 --> 00:43:11,040
What if you could capture
its essence to draw a picture?

567
00:43:11,040 --> 00:43:13,280
What would that picture look like?

568
00:43:13,280 --> 00:43:17,200
Could you use a simple set
of mathematical rules

569
00:43:17,200 --> 00:43:20,760
to draw an image
that didn't look man-made?

570
00:43:20,760 --> 00:43:23,520
The answer
would come from Mandelbrot.

571
00:43:23,520 --> 00:43:26,560
Who had taken a job at IBM
in the late 1950s

572
00:43:26,560 --> 00:43:30,320
to gain access to
its incredible computing power

573
00:43:30,320 --> 00:43:35,240
and pursue his obsession
with the mathematics of nature.

574
00:43:35,240 --> 00:43:38,720
Armed with a new
breed of super-computer,

575
00:43:38,720 --> 00:43:42,080
he began investigating
a rather curious

576
00:43:42,080 --> 00:43:44,920
and strangely simple-looking equation

577
00:43:44,920 --> 00:43:48,800
that could be used to draw
a very unusual shape.

578
00:43:48,800 --> 00:43:52,560
What I'm about to show you
is one of the most remarkable

579
00:43:52,560 --> 00:43:59,440
mathematical images ever discovered.
Epic doesn't really do it justice.

580
00:43:59,440 --> 00:44:03,040
This is the Mandelbrot set.

581
00:44:03,040 --> 00:44:07,000
It's been called
the thumbprint of God.

582
00:44:07,000 --> 00:44:10,040
And when we begin to explore
it, you'll understand why.

583
00:44:18,560 --> 00:44:21,280
Just as with the tree
or the broccoli,

584
00:44:21,280 --> 00:44:25,520
the closer you study this picture,
the more detail you see.

585
00:44:29,680 --> 00:44:31,280
Each shape within the set

586
00:44:31,280 --> 00:44:34,400
contains an infinite number
of smaller shapes.

587
00:44:34,400 --> 00:44:37,560
Baby Mandelbrots
that go on for ever.

588
00:44:43,560 --> 00:44:48,360
Yet all this complexity stems from
just one incredibly simple equation.

589
00:44:49,560 --> 00:44:53,000
This equation has
a very important property.

590
00:44:53,000 --> 00:44:55,160
It feeds back on itself.

591
00:44:56,760 --> 00:45:02,000
Like a video loop, each output
becomes the input for the next go.

592
00:45:06,080 --> 00:45:09,600
This feedback means that an
incredibly simple mathematical

593
00:45:09,600 --> 00:45:14,760
equation can produce a picture
of infinite complexity.

594
00:45:31,240 --> 00:45:33,320
The really fascinating thing

595
00:45:33,320 --> 00:45:38,160
is that the Mandelbrot set isn't
just a bizarre mathematical quirk.

596
00:45:38,160 --> 00:45:42,480
Its fractal property
of being similar at all scales

597
00:45:42,480 --> 00:45:46,760
mirrors a fundamental
ordering principle in nature.

598
00:45:51,800 --> 00:45:57,040
Turing's patterns, Belousov's
reaction and Mandelbrot's fractals

599
00:45:57,040 --> 00:46:02,240
are all signposts pointing to a deep
underlying natural principle.

600
00:46:05,840 --> 00:46:08,880
When we look at complexities
in nature, we tend to ask,

601
00:46:08,880 --> 00:46:10,760
"Where did they come from?"

602
00:46:10,760 --> 00:46:13,160
There is something
in our heads that says

603
00:46:13,160 --> 00:46:15,880
complexity does not arise
out of simplicity.

604
00:46:15,880 --> 00:46:19,880
It must arise from something
complicated. We conserve complexity.

605
00:46:19,880 --> 00:46:22,840
But what the mathematics in
this whole area is telling us

606
00:46:22,840 --> 00:46:27,120
is that very simple rules naturally
give rise to very complex objects.

607
00:46:27,120 --> 00:46:30,800
And so if you look at the object, it
looks complex, and you think about

608
00:46:30,800 --> 00:46:32,960
the rule that generates it,
it's simple.

609
00:46:32,960 --> 00:46:35,400
So the same thing is both
complex and simple

610
00:46:35,400 --> 00:46:38,960
from two different points of view.
And that means we have to rethink

611
00:46:38,960 --> 00:46:42,960
completely the relation between
simplicity and complexity.

612
00:46:45,680 --> 00:46:50,200
Complex systems
can be based on simple rules.

613
00:46:50,200 --> 00:46:52,480
That's the big revelation.

614
00:46:52,480 --> 00:46:55,240
And it's an astonishing idea.

615
00:46:56,800 --> 00:46:59,640
It seems to apply
all over our world.

616
00:47:10,040 --> 00:47:15,840
Look at a flock of birds.
Each bird obeys very simple rules.

617
00:47:15,840 --> 00:47:19,920
But the flock as a whole does
incredibly complicated things.

618
00:47:19,920 --> 00:47:25,520
Avoiding obstacles, navigating
the planet with no single leader

619
00:47:25,520 --> 00:47:31,640
or even conscious plan. But amazing
though this flock's behaviour is,

620
00:47:31,640 --> 00:47:34,800
it's impossible
to predict how it will behave.

621
00:47:36,400 --> 00:47:39,240
It never repeats
exactly what it does,

622
00:47:39,240 --> 00:47:42,560
even in seemingly
identical circumstances.

623
00:47:45,440 --> 00:47:48,160
It's just like
the Belousov reaction.

624
00:47:48,160 --> 00:47:53,280
Each time you run it, the patterns
produced are slightly different.

625
00:47:53,280 --> 00:47:56,520
They may look similar,
but they are never identical.

626
00:47:56,520 --> 00:48:01,680
The same is true of
video loops and sand dunes.

627
00:48:01,680 --> 00:48:05,280
We know they'll produce
a certain kind of pattern,

628
00:48:05,280 --> 00:48:08,880
but we can't predict
the exact shapes.

629
00:48:12,120 --> 00:48:17,200
The big question is, can nature's
ability to turn simplicity

630
00:48:17,200 --> 00:48:21,960
into complexity in this mysterious
and unpredictable way

631
00:48:21,960 --> 00:48:24,520
explain why life exists?

632
00:48:26,080 --> 00:48:29,760
Can it explain how a universe
full of simple dust

633
00:48:29,760 --> 00:48:32,200
can turn into human beings?

634
00:48:33,280 --> 00:48:37,320
How inanimate matter
can spawn intelligence?

635
00:48:39,080 --> 00:48:43,480
At first, you might think that
this is beyond the remit of science.

636
00:48:43,480 --> 00:48:46,680
If nature's rules are
really unpredictable,

637
00:48:46,680 --> 00:48:48,560
should we simply give up?

638
00:48:48,560 --> 00:48:51,680
Absolutely not.
In fact, quite the opposite.

639
00:48:54,040 --> 00:48:58,760
Fittingly, the answer to this problem
lies in the natural world.

640
00:48:58,760 --> 00:49:03,160
All around us, there exists
a process that engineers

641
00:49:03,160 --> 00:49:05,880
these unpredictable complex systems

642
00:49:05,880 --> 00:49:10,320
and hones them to perform
almost miraculous tasks.

643
00:49:12,360 --> 00:49:15,320
The process is called evolution.

644
00:49:17,040 --> 00:49:20,440
Evolution has built
on these patterns.

645
00:49:20,440 --> 00:49:22,960
It's taken them as
the raw ingredients.

646
00:49:22,960 --> 00:49:26,280
It's combined them together
in various ways,

647
00:49:26,280 --> 00:49:29,840
experimented to see what works
and what doesn't,

648
00:49:29,840 --> 00:49:34,200
kept the things that do work
and then built on that.

649
00:49:34,200 --> 00:49:36,360
It's a completely
unconscious process,

650
00:49:36,360 --> 00:49:38,520
but basically
that's what's happening.

651
00:49:38,520 --> 00:49:41,880
Everywhere you look,
you can see evolution

652
00:49:41,880 --> 00:49:45,360
using nature's
self-organising patterns.

653
00:49:45,360 --> 00:49:50,720
Our hearts use Belousov-type
reactions to regulate how they beat.

654
00:49:50,720 --> 00:49:54,400
Our blood vessels are
organised like fractals.

655
00:49:54,400 --> 00:50:00,640
Even our brain cells
interact according to simple rules.

656
00:50:00,640 --> 00:50:05,080
The way evolution refines
and enriches complex systems

657
00:50:05,080 --> 00:50:09,000
is one of the most intriguing
ideas in recent science.

658
00:50:12,080 --> 00:50:15,640
My interest in my PhD research
in complex systems was to see

659
00:50:15,640 --> 00:50:18,720
how complex systems
interact with evolution.

660
00:50:18,720 --> 00:50:22,640
So, on the one hand you have systems
that almost organise themselves

661
00:50:22,640 --> 00:50:26,200
as complex systems, so they exhibit
order that you wouldn't expect,

662
00:50:26,200 --> 00:50:30,360
but on the other hand, you still
have to have evolution interact with

663
00:50:30,360 --> 00:50:33,960
that to create something that is
truly adapted to the environment.

664
00:50:33,960 --> 00:50:38,200
Evolution's mindless, yet creative,
power to develop

665
00:50:38,200 --> 00:50:42,560
and shape complex systems
is indeed incredible.

666
00:50:43,600 --> 00:50:46,920
But it operates on
a cosmic timescale.

667
00:50:48,400 --> 00:50:51,440
From the first life on
Earth, to us walking about,

668
00:50:51,440 --> 00:50:55,200
took in the region of
3.5 billion years.

669
00:50:56,720 --> 00:50:59,080
But we now have in our hands

670
00:50:59,080 --> 00:51:04,120
a device that can mimic this process
on a much shorter timescale.

671
00:51:04,120 --> 00:51:08,040
What is the invention
I'm talking about?

672
00:51:08,040 --> 00:51:12,400
Well, there's a good chance you've
been sitting in front of one all day.

673
00:51:13,560 --> 00:51:16,480
It is, of course, the computer.

674
00:51:21,440 --> 00:51:27,320
Computers today can churn through
trillions of calculations per second.

675
00:51:27,320 --> 00:51:30,720
And that gives them the power
to do something very special.

676
00:51:30,720 --> 00:51:34,600
They can simulate evolution.

677
00:51:35,600 --> 00:51:40,400
More precisely, computers can use
the principles of evolution to shape

678
00:51:40,400 --> 00:51:44,600
and refine their own programs, 
in the same way the natural world

679
00:51:44,600 --> 00:51:49,920
uses evolution to shape
and refine living organisms.

680
00:51:49,920 --> 00:51:55,000
And today, computer scientists
find that this evolved software

681
00:51:55,000 --> 00:52:00,680
can solve problems that would
be beyond the smartest of humans.

682
00:52:00,680 --> 00:52:04,240
One thing that we found particularly
in our original research is how

683
00:52:04,240 --> 00:52:08,720
powerful evolution is as a system,
as an algorithm, to create something

684
00:52:08,720 --> 00:52:12,320
that is very complex and to create
something that is very adaptive.

685
00:52:12,840 --> 00:52:16,080
Torsten and his team's goal
was nothing less

686
00:52:16,080 --> 00:52:18,760
than to use computerised evolution

687
00:52:18,760 --> 00:52:23,520
to create a virtual brain
that would control a virtual body.

688
00:52:24,520 --> 00:52:29,000
To begin with,
they created 100 random brains.

689
00:52:29,000 --> 00:52:31,480
As you can see,
they weren't up to much.

690
00:52:33,240 --> 00:52:35,920
Evolution then took over.

691
00:52:35,920 --> 00:52:40,400
The computer selected the brains
that were slightly better

692
00:52:40,400 --> 00:52:43,760
at moving their bodies
and got them to breed.

693
00:52:45,920 --> 00:52:49,160
The algorithm then takes those
individuals that do the best

694
00:52:49,160 --> 00:52:51,720
and it allows them
to create offspring.

695
00:52:53,160 --> 00:52:56,400
The best movers
of the next generation

696
00:52:56,400 --> 00:52:59,840
were then bred
together and so on and on.

697
00:52:59,840 --> 00:53:03,840
Amazingly,
after just 10 generations,

698
00:53:03,840 --> 00:53:08,040
although they're still a bit
unsteady, the figures could walk.

699
00:53:09,000 --> 00:53:11,600
Eventually, miraculously,
you actually end up

700
00:53:11,600 --> 00:53:14,840
with something that works.
The slightly scary thing

701
00:53:14,840 --> 00:53:17,240
is you don't know why it
works and how it works.

702
00:53:17,240 --> 00:53:20,680
You look at that brain and you have
no idea actually what's going on

703
00:53:20,680 --> 00:53:23,640
because evolution has
optimised it automatically.

704
00:53:26,440 --> 00:53:31,280
In 20 generations,
evolution had turned this...

705
00:53:31,280 --> 00:53:33,200
..into this.

706
00:53:36,240 --> 00:53:41,840
But these evolved computer beings
soon went far beyond just walking.

707
00:53:44,640 --> 00:53:46,200
They evolved to do things

708
00:53:46,200 --> 00:53:49,760
that really are impossible
to program conventionally.

709
00:53:53,120 --> 00:53:57,560
They react realistically
to unexpected events.

710
00:53:57,560 --> 00:54:00,280
Like being hit or falling over.

711
00:54:03,880 --> 00:54:07,840
Even though we programmed these
algorithms, what actually happens

712
00:54:07,840 --> 00:54:10,320
when it unfolds live,
we don't control any more

713
00:54:10,320 --> 00:54:12,560
and things happen
that we never expected.

714
00:54:12,560 --> 00:54:14,120
And it's quite a funny feeling

715
00:54:14,120 --> 00:54:18,000
that you create these algorithms
but then they do their own thing.

716
00:54:24,200 --> 00:54:28,520
An unthinking process of
evolutionary trial and error

717
00:54:28,520 --> 00:54:34,840
has created these virtual creatures
that can move and react in real time.

718
00:54:39,120 --> 00:54:43,240
What we're seeing here
is fantastic experimental evidence

719
00:54:43,240 --> 00:54:47,720
for the creative power of systems
based on simple rules.

720
00:54:57,720 --> 00:55:02,520
Watching how computers can
unconsciously evolve programs

721
00:55:02,520 --> 00:55:05,840
to do things that no human
could consciously program

722
00:55:05,840 --> 00:55:11,680
is a fantastic example
of the power of self-organisation.

723
00:55:11,680 --> 00:55:14,720
It demonstrates that
evolution is itself

724
00:55:14,720 --> 00:55:18,200
just like the other
systems we've encountered.

725
00:55:18,200 --> 00:55:21,720
One based on simple
rules and feedback.

726
00:55:21,720 --> 00:55:25,280
From which complexity
spontaneously emerges.

727
00:55:26,400 --> 00:55:30,960
Think about it. The simple rule
is that the organism

728
00:55:30,960 --> 00:55:36,000
must replicate with a few
random mutations now and again.

729
00:55:36,000 --> 00:55:39,720
The feedback
comes from the environment

730
00:55:39,720 --> 00:55:43,520
which favours the mutations
that are best suited to it.

731
00:55:43,520 --> 00:55:47,680
The result is
ever-increasing complexity,

732
00:55:47,680 --> 00:55:51,280
produced without thought or design.

733
00:55:52,560 --> 00:55:55,840
The interesting thing
is that one can move up

734
00:55:55,840 --> 00:55:58,920
to a higher level of organisation.
Once you have organisms

735
00:55:58,920 --> 00:56:02,840
that actually have patterns on them,
these can be selected for

736
00:56:02,840 --> 00:56:07,720
or selected against by processes
which are essentially feedbacks.

737
00:56:07,720 --> 00:56:11,280
And so evolution itself,
the whole Darwinian scheme,

738
00:56:11,280 --> 00:56:14,440
is, in a sense, Turing again

739
00:56:14,440 --> 00:56:17,760
with feedbacks happening
through different processes.

740
00:56:19,560 --> 00:56:21,560
And that's the essence of this story.

741
00:56:21,560 --> 00:56:26,080
Unthinking, simple rules
have the power to create

742
00:56:26,080 --> 00:56:30,560
amazingly complex systems
without any conscious thought.

743
00:56:31,560 --> 00:56:36,760
In that sense, these computer beings
are self-organised systems,

744
00:56:36,760 --> 00:56:41,040
just like the one Belousov
observed happening in his chemicals.

745
00:56:42,320 --> 00:56:46,640
Just like the ones in sand dunes
and the Mandelbrot sets,

746
00:56:46,640 --> 00:56:51,040
in our lungs, our hearts, in weather

747
00:56:51,040 --> 00:56:53,520
and in the geography
of our planet.

748
00:56:53,520 --> 00:56:58,920
Design does not need
an active, interfering designer.

749
00:56:58,920 --> 00:57:02,920
It's an inherent part
of the universe.

750
00:57:06,280 --> 00:57:10,280
One of the things that makes people
so uncomfortable about this idea of,

751
00:57:10,280 --> 00:57:15,000
if you will, spontaneous pattern
formation, is that somehow or other 

752
00:57:15,000 --> 00:57:19,760
you don't need a creator. But
perhaps a really clever designer,

753
00:57:19,760 --> 00:57:22,640
what he would do,
is to kind of treat the universe

754
00:57:22,640 --> 00:57:26,800
like a giant simulation,
where you set some initial condition

755
00:57:26,800 --> 00:57:30,000
and just let the whole thing
spontaneously happen

756
00:57:30,000 --> 00:57:32,600
in all of its wonder
and all of its beauty.

757
00:57:35,000 --> 00:57:39,000
The mathematics of pattern formation
shows that the same kind of pattern

758
00:57:39,000 --> 00:57:42,680
can show up in an enormous range
of different physical,

759
00:57:42,680 --> 00:57:46,320
chemical, biological systems.
Somewhere deep down inside,

760
00:57:46,320 --> 00:57:49,480
it's happening
for the same mathematical reason.

761
00:57:49,480 --> 00:57:53,400
Implicit in those facts
are these beautiful patterns

762
00:57:53,400 --> 00:57:55,200
that we see everywhere.

763
00:57:55,200 --> 00:57:58,960
This, I think,
is a mind-blowing thought.

764
00:58:07,920 --> 00:58:12,080
So, what is the ultimate
lesson we can take from all this?

765
00:58:12,080 --> 00:58:15,840
Well, it's that
all the complexity of the universe,

766
00:58:15,840 --> 00:58:18,160
all its infinite richness,

767
00:58:18,160 --> 00:58:23,960
emerges from mindless simple rules,
repeated over and over again.

768
00:58:23,960 --> 00:58:27,400
But remember,
powerful though this process is,

769
00:58:27,400 --> 00:58:30,520
it's also inherently unpredictable.

770
00:58:30,520 --> 00:58:36,080
So although I can confidently tell
you that the future will be amazing,

771
00:58:36,080 --> 00:58:40,000
I can also say,
with scientific certainty,

772
00:58:40,000 --> 00:58:43,520
that I have no idea what it holds.

773
00:59:04,600 --> 00:59:07,640
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

774
00:59:07,640 --> 00:59:10,680
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