Every week in December brings a new chance to explore enduring mysteries of the ancient world, uncover the secrets of a genius and travel to the farthest reaches of the universe. It's all on NOVA on WTVP. And if you miss an episode, catch up any time on WTVP Passport.
Explore the wonders and mysteries of our galaxy—the giant city of stars we call home.
Straddling the night sky, the Milky Way reminds us of our place in the galaxy we call home. But what shaped this giant spiral of stars and what will be its destiny? NOVA travels back in time to unlock the turbulent story of our cosmic neighborhood.
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Leonardo da Vinci was a Renaissance genius. Not only did he paint masterpieces of art, but he was an obsessive scientist and inventor, dreaming up complex machines centuries ahead of his time, including parachutes, armored tanks, hang gliders and robots. On the 500th anniversary of Leonardo’s death, with the help of biographer Walter Isaacson, NOVA investigates the secrets of Leonardo’s success. How did his scientific curiosity, from dissections of cadavers to studies of optics, shape his genius and help him create perhaps the most famous painting of all time, the Mona Lisa?
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Discover the science behind Leonardo da Vinci's masterpieces—and Mona Lisa's iconic smile.
New archeological evidence shows the stunning engineering of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
The 6 million ton Great Pyramid of Giza is the last surviving wonder of the ancient world. How did the Egyptians engineer the mighty pharaoh Khufu’s tomb so precisely, with none of today’s surveying and power tools? And who were the thousands of laborers who raised the stones? Were they slaves or volunteers, and how were they housed, fed and organized? Decoding the Great Pyramid presents the latest evidence from groundbreaking archaeological research that has transformed our understanding of the ancient world’s most ambitious engineering project, revealing a lost city and intimate details of the lives of the laborers and officials who toiled on the vast construction.
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The Forbidden City is the world’s biggest and most extravagant palace complex ever built. For five centuries, it was the power center of imperial China and survived wars, revolution, fires and earthquakes. How did the Ming Emperor’s workforce construct its sprawling array of nearly 1,000 buildings and dozens of temples in a little over a decade? How were stupendous 250-ton marble blocks moved across many miles to reach the site? And how did fantastically intricate woodwork, all fastened without nails or glue, enable the palaces to survive hundreds of earthquakes, including recent ones that obliterated nearby modern structures? To find answers, NOVA joins a team of master craftsmen who build a scale model of a typical palace in a seismic lab, then subject it to simulated earthquakes to shake out the secrets of how the Forbidden City has withstood centuries of violent tremors.
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How has China’s magnificent Forbidden City withstood centuries of earthquakes?
