What If Space And Time Are NOT Real?

Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord!

Physics progresses by breaking our intuitions, but we’re now at a point where further progress may require us to do away with the most intuitive and seemingly fundamental concepts of all—space and time.

Check out the Space Time Merch Store

Sign up for the mailing list to get episode notifications and hear special announcements!

Hosted by Matt O'Dowd
Written by Bahar Gholipour & Matt O'Dowd
Post Production by Leonardo Scholzer, Yago Ballarini & Stephanie Faria
Directed by Andrew Kornhaber
Associate Producer: Bahar Gholipour
Executive Producers: Eric Brown & Andrew Kornhaber
Executive in Charge for PBS: Maribel Lopez
Director of Programming for PBS: Gabrielle Ewing
Assistant Director of Programming for PBS: John Campbell

Spacetime is produced by Kornhaber Brown for PBS Digital Studios.
This program is produced by Kornhaber Brown, which is solely responsible for its content.
© 2023 PBS. All rights reserved.

Space Time Was Made Possible In Part By:

Big Bang Sponsors
Ian Jones
Bryce Fort
Peter Barrett
David Neumann
Leo Koguan
Sean Maddox
Alexander Tamas
Morgan Hough
Juan Benet
Vinnie Falco
Fabrice Eap
Mark Rosenthal
Daniel Muzquiz

Quasar Sponsors
Alex Kern
Ethan Cohen
Stephen Wilcox
Christina Oegren
Mark Heising

Hypernova Sponsors
Ivari Tölp
Vyce Ailour
Kenneth See
Gregory Forfa
Kirk Honour
Joe Moreira
Bradley Voorhees
Marc Armstrong
Scott Gorlick
Paul Stehr-Green
Ben Delo
Scott Gray
Антон Кочков
John R. Slavik
David S. Cerutti
Donal Botkin
John Pollock
Edmund Fokschaner
Chuck Zegar
Jordan Young
Glenn Sugden

Gamma Ray Burst Supporters
Thomas Nielson
Joe Pavlovic
Ryan McGaughy
Mark West
Chuck Lukaszewski
Edward Hodapp
Kevin Tillery
Marc Forand
Andrea Galvagni
Jerry Thomas
Nikhil Sharma
Ryan Moser
Jonathan Cordovano
John Anderson
David Giltinan
Scott Hannum
Paul Widden
Bradley Ulis
Craig Falls
Kane Holbrook
Ross Story
Teng Guo
Mason Dillon
Matt Langford
Harsh Khandhadia
Thomas Tarler
Susan Albee
Frank Walker
Matt Quinn
Michael Lev
Terje Vold
James Trimmier
Anatoliy Nagornyy
Andre Stechert
Paul Wood
Kent Durham
jim bartosh
Ramon Nogueira
Paul Suchy
Ellis Hall
John H. Austin, Jr.
Faraz Khan
Almog Cohen
Alex Edwards
Ádám Kettinger
Endre Pech
Daniel Jennings
Cameron Sampson
Geoffrey Clarion
Russ Creech
Jeremy Reed
David Johnston
Michael Barton
Andrew Mann
Isaac Suttell
Oliver Flanagan
Bleys Goodson
Robert Walter
Mirik Gogri
Mark Delagasse
Mark Daniel Cohen
Nickolas Andrew Freeman
Shane Calimlim
Tybie Fitzhugh
Robert Ilardi
Eric Kiebler
Craig Stonaha
Graydon Goss
Frederic Simon
Dmitri McGuiness
John Robinson
Jim Hudson
Alex Gan
David Barnholdt
David Neal
John Funai
Bradley Jenkins
Daniel Stříbrný
Cody Brumfield
Thomas Dougherty
King Zeckendorff
Dan Warren
Patrick Sutton
John Griffith
Dean Faulk

[lucascsrs]

If you watch PBS Space Time from the beginning, it feels like Matt is constantly preparing us mentally for the episode where he tells us the Real Meaning of Life.

[michaelhorning]

"The greatest trick PBS Space Time ever played was convincing the audience that space time doesn't exist."
-Professor Keyser Söze

[Casey-Jones]

Leibniz best invention was his chocolate biscuits

[joem]

I can stop watching for a year, come back, and episodes continue to be fresh and mind blowing. Thank you!🎉

[Dany]

I have a PhD in physics. I teach physics in college. Despite all my experience, this video makes me rethink my notion of space and time. I love it.

PBS Spacetime provides amazing contents that can be meaningful to all level of physics enthusiasts.

Thank you to all the people involved in making those videos!

[openorigami]

Your videos are so cool that whenever I watch them but get distracted by e.g., making a coffee for myself, I need to (I want to) roll back to rewatch parts of it, because I do not want to skip important parts, even though I had my earprohes on me the whole time. You make all seconds count. Full with vital information and useful explanations. Thank you!

[kevinvallejo]

I love the fact that this series recovers the sense of natural philosophy. The real questions are asked here. Thank you to the PBS team❤️❤️

[ASLUHLUHC]

First of all, what do you mean by 'real'?

[Thoughtful_Balance]

Matt, Sabine & Anton are intelligently awesome people. They try their best to teach complex and challenging topics to the masses. Sincerely. Thank you.

[wouaqazambouga]

Would that "space as property" explain (a bit) the weirdness of non-locality in particle entanglement ?
Thank you so much for this episode (and in advance for the rest of this mini-series).

[jedlapk]

Can we take a moment to apreciate matt’s ability to explain such hard topics to understand?

Im amazed👏

[WossersProductions]

I just finished reading _The Case Against Reality_ by Donald Hoffman, a very interesting way of rethinking our current understanding of physics and moving forward.

[mikeyalls]

I've just recently, in the last two years or so become quite interested in physics, and have not been able to get enough of it since! I honestly pride myself on the amount of understanding I think I've gained in that amount of time. For instance, I can now somewhat intelligently make my way through a conversation about Schrödinger's cat, the double slit experiment, spooky action at a distance or the laws of thermodynamics. However, whenever I watch THIS channel, I'm immediately catapulted back to day one and reminded that actually, I have NO understanding of physics whatsoever. Lol. Everything on this channel is way over my head. That now makes my eventual understanding of it one of my life's goals, haha. It will happen!

[marabunya]

I'm in energy generation but this man and his programme and/or channel make me want to study higher physics for real now. Extremely well articulated ideas. Impressive and eye-opening.

[ramkumarr]

Time prevents everything from happening at once. Space prevents everything being in same place. Guess I was leibnitzian

[fruchtbeavis]

Ahhh finally you guys made a video about the death of spacetime! But it seems you barely touched the surface. Maybe an in-depth-video of Nima Arkani-Hamed Amplituhedron? That would be amazing=)

[Marcus_K]

The episodes where a bunch of old philosophers are quoted are my favorites.

[NethDugan]

I've long wondered if we would get to a point where out brains wouldn't be able to process or grasp enough of what is needed to progress further in physics. Given what our brains evolved to see and process and such. So. Looking forward to this series.

[Skiskiski]

Keep it real professor, Matt O'Dowd, just like Jesse Pinkman did!

[AltcoinAnalysis]

After following this channel for years I can honestly feel this is the start of your most important series. Break physics out of the box it's been stuck in for the last half century! There's no more appropriate topic for the time we're living in.