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Few years ago Jim Al-Khalili smiled at the world from the screen of BBC Four channel. They aired "The Secret Life of Chaos", a documentary film that asks "how does a universe that starts off as dust end up with intelligent life? How does order emerge from disorder?" The documentary was available since then at the BBC Four web site as a streaming video, but to the audience in Great Britain only. Now the recording is seldom available on other sources, including as a bittorrent download.

It seems as though you are not familiar with the file sharing. First of all, bittorrent is a kind of wondrous invention, probably based on chaos theory :-)

Basically, if you have a TV station that has an antenna (emitter), you can add many more TV receivers in the area all around the emitter. On the internet, on the other hand, it is not possible to add more viewers without building more infrastructure that includes cables and servers.

By using bittorrent protocol, the content can be distributed, scattered in a very large number of small pieces that are everywhere, stored on many different computers. This way, we can add capability to the internet itself. The downloads are summing the upload speeds of many people, so its also fast. However, bittorrent protocol also features trackers, server programs that announce the existence of files and channel the searches. There are many trackers that anyone can add and maintain, and many communities, forums, web sites, search engines and so forth.

The Pirate Bay is the most famous of all bittorrent search engines that features its own tracker and a forum. Up to this point, there is no reason why any of this would be illegal or detrimental in its essence. TPB is actually, famous for the "pirates" and the community/voters who check torrents and spot viruses, hoaxes and stuff like that.

The important thing about the particular torrent file you are looking at, is that it is mentioned at TPB site rather than at some bad site, that it is properly documented with an info file and commented by the downloaders. The second important thing is of course, the file safety - that it is not a virus program (e.g. some .exe file).

Finally, whether the file is legal to own, watch, or give to your friends is completely unknown. This is because such information is not attached to the file in any possible form, other than its proper name, description and creator (which satisfies the bare minimum). The only remaining possibility is that you actually find the department at the BBC Four that is at all willing to announce the legal status of this file and ask them for their word on it.

Since many years passed since I had to travel to Britain for two days only to watch this documentary, the last known message that I saw was that it was public like a public TV program, but for Britain only by internet (presumably to limit the load on their servers). So, it is possible that you should not see it if you live in any other country. Maybe you can download it, but it is unlikely that there will be any official approval that says that you may visit TPB for any reason whatsoever. That is wrong for anyone to say in general, so this issue simply isn't regulated, because perhaps it shouldn't be regulated per se, in such a crude way. Its maybe subject to smaller-scale private regulation and checks.

I think that the documentary film should have an honorable mention on this site: there should be a post with all the information included. Unfortunately, internet movie database does not have as much information as TPB has. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1674741/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1&licb=0.8408335313450691
There are about 15 people on the planet involved in the sharing of this file. Lets check info and give the documentary some credit.



I also mentioned the Deluge bittorrent client program, because it is open source and free, so I wouldn't like to leave the users accidentally bumping into any wrong download on the internet.

On the contrary!

I am all too familiar with bittorrent.  While it has many legitimate uses, it is a prime tool for illegal downloads.

I have never heard of the bbc releasing their property to the public domain.  It's existence on torrent sites, or streaming sites, proves nothing about it's legality.  One of my online jobs is assisting in the fight against piracy for a specific copyright holder.  We constantly find their stuff on torrent sites (including pirate bay) and even posted illegally on youtube and other streaming sites.

My research all indicates The Secret Life of Chaos is copyright by the bbc.  Nothing indicates otherwise, so we can't allow the link here.  Sorry.

Thanks for understanding.  We have to maintain this policy because we encourage Educators to bring classes of students here, and we can not appear to be endorsing copyright infringement.

Linking to the streaming site is about as far as we can push things.  That isn't too naughty, but if the BBC sees the link on DailyMotion - they will have it taken down.

Until then, I hope everybody enjoys this fine documentary!

No apologies needed!

We kept the discussion civil and polite.  Nobody got angry or offended.

Nothing bad happened here.

Thanks for finding the streaming link and posting it.  I'm certain the documentary will be of interest to many of the members here   

This clip is on BBC sight on youTube

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/R6NnCOs20GQ&rel=1&fs=1&hd=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/R6NnCOs20GQ&rel=1&fs=1&hd=1</a>

Does it show everywhere?

Feedback aka recursion or recursive iteration. The facts are that many were aware and annoyed by this seeming problem because they were encouraged to believe in simplicity not complexity. The ancient Greek philosophers, Egyptian, Sumerian and Indian philosophers also did not hold this relatively modern view, and Neither did Newton.

A mechanical universe was part of DesCartes philosophical explanation, but his mechanisms were not machines! His mechanisms derive from the 5 Newtonian and general Alchemical powers: earth, water, wind and fire, and beast/ slave. It is this last power that transmutes both material and immaterial beings into the system and provides the "chaos" everywhere evident and interpreted as "sin" theosophically.

Order was therefore, contrariwise regarded as signifying gods good handiwork, and the rigid to elastic materials of earth were considered as particularly exemplifying the divine, and mechanisms made from these materials as most accurate and godly.

However, for every Divine who lauded such philosophy, there were many others, who lacking in understanding, or for political or religious gain, denounced these mechanisms as human arrogance in playing God!

The church or religion has always had to balance these opposing views, and much wisdom, as discourse is locked away in their libraries accessible to the chosen few For fear of overturning the " faith" of some.

So while Mandelbrot is not the discoverer of Fractals or Chaos, nor evn Ed Lorenz, we can clearly see them both as catalysts tht sped up the paradigm shift to our current point of view.

However, forum members should not belittle their achievements and value. Much research is going on into fractals Academically. This is not always a good thing! The non academic contribution is fundamental to the development of a subject area. The humble academic acknowledges this, the arrogant garners the subject to himself in self promotion.

The utility of a subject is always derived and demonstrated by artisans, artists, engineers,, constructors rtc. They make a ubject live and keep it alive, and in creative chaos!