There is something quietly powerful about sitting in a packed theatre, surrounded by people who have chosen to spend their evening learning about the universe. As an astrophysicist, that alone warmed my heart before Brian Cox had even stepped on stage.
What has always drawn me to space science is the perspective it gives you. Learning about galaxies, the vastness of space, and just how potentially rare life may be has a way of shrinking day to day worries and reminding you what truly matters. Brian Cox’s Warm Up did exactly that. It gently lifted the audience out of the everyday and guided us towards something much bigger.
The show was beautifully scaffolded, building from simple ideas into deeper concepts with clarity and care. To help ease the audience into some of the trickier ideas early on, Brian even brought out a keytar in classic rockstar style, a moment that perfectly balanced humour and explanation. We were then introduced to the symmetry of the universe, touched briefly on quantum mechanics, and treated to striking visuals throughout. These included live data feeds showing views of planet Earth, communication with spacecraft such as Voyager, now technically travelling through interstellar space, and images from the James Webb Space Telescope that told a much deeper story than first impressions might suggest.
One particular James Webb image was not conventionally beautiful at all. It appeared only as a faint smudge of light. Brian explained why this mattered. That tiny smudge represented the most distant galaxy ever imaged, light that had travelled for billions of years to reach us. It was an affecting lesson that in astronomy, beauty is often found not in appearance, but in meaning.
Running through the entire show was a recurring idea drawn from Johannes Kepler’s book The Six Cornered Snowflake. Brian returned to this six sided snowflake again and again as a way of emphasising the beauty of symmetry, patterns, and order in nature. It was a simple idea used to profound effect, tying together physics, philosophy, and our place in the universe.
In a world that often feels rushed and noisy, this show encouraged a pause. A moment to reflect. To really see, as the show itself suggested, the Earth’s humanity. Human life is rare. It is fragile. And it is beautiful.
As a small sidenote, the venue itself, Oxford’s New Theatre, was immaculate. I had pre ordered a bottle of prosecco which was delivered directly to my seat, and listening to a world class physicist talk about the universe while sipping prosecco is hard to beat.
This was an inspiring, humbling, and deeply satisfying evening, and a reminder of why learning about the universe still matters so much.