Videos - Program Excerpts

  The inaugural 2008 World Science Festival attracted over 120,000 people to the Festival's 44 events at 22 venues located throughout New York City. More than 130 participants, speakers, and performers, including 11 Nobel Laureates, guided a large, diverse audience-students to adults, novices to professionals, the merely curious to science enthusiasts-to experience science as never before, making the esoteric understandable and the familiar fascinating. Through a series of gripping debates, captivating performances and interactive events, the Festival showcased cutting- edge ideas and discoveries, revealed science's pivotal role in addressing critical global issues, and explored how it profoundly shapes modern life. read more

Program Excerpt Albert Einstein spent his last thirty years unsuccessfully searching for a 'unified theory' - a single master principle to describe everything in the universe, from tiny subatomic particles to immense clusters of galaxies. In the decades since, generations of researchers have continued working toward Einstein's dream. read more

Famed musician Bobby McFerrin treated the audience to several improvised a cappella performances. Here is the first of two songs. read more

During the "Notes & Neurons: In Search of a Common Chorus" event, musician Bobby McFerrin treated the audience to several improvised a cappella performances. read more

Program Excerpt This multi-media event for curious minds of all ages invited our audience to meet scientists with some of the coolest jobs in the world — from crime scene investigator and space explorer to oceanographer and Disney Imagineer. read more

Watch as Snowball leads our panelists in an impromptu dance to his favorite song. read more

Program Excerpt In what many call a "golden age of cosmology", astronomers can now observe the universe with unprecedented precision, resulting in spectacular progress in the search for the origin of the universe. Yet, for all the impressive progress, fundamental questions remain. What is the mysterious "dark energy" driving space to rapidly expand? What existed before the big bang? Is there an origin of time? Do we live in a multiverse? read more

Program Excerpt Prominent clashes - both historical and contemporary - have led to the widely held conclusion that science and religion are fundamentally incompatible. Yet, many scientists practice a traditional faith, having found a way to accommodate both scientific inquiry and religious teaching in their belief system. Other scientists are bringing science to bear on the phenomenon of religion and spiritual belief - neuroscientists are studying what happens in the brain during religious experiences, while anthropologists are investigating how religion is linked to cooperation and community. This program provided an intimate look at what scientists have to say about their religious beliefs and what might be revealed by scientific studies of spirituality. read more

Program Excerpt We stand at a crossroads. Cities must change radically to achieve long-term sustainability. Energy, food and water sources, transportation systems and basic infrastructure, must all adapt to emerging pressures from climate change, dwindling resources and growing urban populations. read more

Program Excerpt Blending live performances, personal accounts of the creative process, and state-of-the-art brain imaging, this program illuminated questions about whether creativity is innate or learned, whether the innovative brain has distinct structural or chemical features, and whether we can enhance our ability - and that of our children - to be creative. read more

Program Excerpt Proposed a century ago to better explain the mind-bending behavior of the smallest constituents of the universe, quantum theory has implications far beyond the atom. This rich set of laws has applications both practical and extraordinary - from the technology that has revolutionized modern life to the possibility of parallel worlds. read more

Program Excerpt How can one person hear a sound that the person right next to them can't? Why are we tracking elephants and what are they saying to each other? What happens when you freeze air? Are you up to the challenge of our Roller Coaster simulation? read more

Program Excerpt The World Science Festival took to the streets with a non-stop program of interactive exhibits, experiments, games, and shows that entertained and inspired. read more

Bobby McFerrin demonstrates the power of the pentatonic scale, using audience participation, from the June 12, 2009 World Science Festival event "Notes & Neurons: In Search of the Common Chorus." read more

Program Excerpt Stories of Experiments Gone Wrong Throwing a uniquely personal and intimate spotlight on their relationship with science, renowned researchers, writers, and artists, including Sam Shepard, Jim Gates, Nathan Englander, Lucy Hawking, and Michael Turner, took to the stage to tell stories about heroic failures, miscalculations and experiments — scientific and otherwise — gone wrong. read more

Program Excerpt The advent of direct-to-consumer DNA testing means that anyone with cash and curiosity can now glimpse their molecular makeup. Personal genomics will soon be common currency. Nobel Laureate Paul Nurse, geneticist Francis Collins and other prominent researchers discussed how personal genomics will affect our lives. To what extent do our genes determine our health and who we are? What are the dangers and opportunities of viewing ourselves in molecular terms? If your DNA can hint at your future, will you read your biological biography? read more