A few years ago, I set a goal for myself to watch one documentary and read one non-fiction book a month. I've slacked off once in a while, but the net result has been that I've seen a lot of neat documentaries I wouldn't have seen otherwise! All of the ones I'm going to mention here are available—for free!—on DocumentaryHeaven.com. So you, too, can watch at your leisure!
First up: The Core
Just what is inside our planet? Not to be confused with the schlocky Hollywood movie, this is a slick BBC documentary that slices off the crust and takes us as close as we can get to the Earth's molten center.The good: Always very interesting and engaging. I mean, I think the molten core of the Earth is already super interesting, but I think they did a good job of making it accessible and entertaining for people who don't think so. Plus sometimes there are explosions!
The bad: There's a bit too much in terms of attempting to create "dramatic tension" or whatever: an over-acted sense of urgency in the narrator's voice, melodramatic music, and so forth. It got kind of cheesy.
One interesting fact: At the molten core of the Earth is an inner nickel-iron solid core. Due to the intense heat and pressure at the center of the planet, this nickel-iron solid is most likely in the shape of HUGE crystals multiple kilometers in size!
Would recommend? Yes!
2 comments:
Just curious Katherine, did they interview academics? If so, who?
They did. Off of the top of my head, they interviewed Japanese scientists who were working on determining the shape of the nickel-iron solid core; an American seismologist; a British scientist who was the first to figure out the inner core was solid; and probably others that I can't recall off the top of my head.
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