The physics binge continues. For centuries physicists have worked on understanding how our universe works, and opening a textbook to understand the concepts and mathematics can be a daunting task for a layperson. Well if, like me, you would like to understand what phycisists are working on, particularly in trying to find a unifying theory for our universe (an exciting quest into finding a theory of everything), then this animated presentation on Big Think by City University of New York Professor of Theoretical Physics Michio Kaku is a good place to begin.

Professor Michio Kaku explains the progress of discovering the workings of our universe from the very beginning. From Aristotle, Newton, to Faraday and Einstein, Big Bang, gravity, energy to string theory, every basic idea leading up to current theories are presented in the video. Kaku presents the content in a manner that is very easy to understand and the production by Jonathan Fowler, Kathleen Russell, and Elizabeth Rodd brings the history, theories and equations to life through pictures, videos and animation. The length of 42 minutes can perhaps be intimidating, but it’s pretty short considering the centuries of work being summarized.

Why should you watch it? Because it is interesting. We as humans have asked repeatedly how our universe and life came to be, and science is getting closer and closer to discovering the answer to this question. Through this video, you can learn about the building blocks that have aided our progress not only towards finding this answer, but to our modern civilization as well. The technology around us; the television we watch, the smartphones we own, the world wide web you are reading this article from; all wouldn’t have existed without the contributions of physics, and it may be surprising to know that all of the technologies we use today are based on works of physicists trying to understand our universe.

Enjoy the presentation!