Episode
NOVA: Prediction by the Numbers
Overview
Discover why some predictions succeed and others fail as experts forecast the future.
Details
- Series
- NOVA
- Season
- Season 45
- Episode
- Episode 5
- Air date
- 2018-02-28
- Runtime
- 55 min
Episode context
Prediction by the Numbers is Episode 5 in Season 45 of NOVA. It aired on 2018-02-28. The runtime is 55 min.
Previous / Next
Episode 4: Great Escape at Dunkirk
How courage and ingenuity saved Allied troops during the epic Dunkirk operation in 1940.
Episode 6: Decoding the Weather Machine
Disastrous hurricanes. Widespread droughts and wildfires. Withering heat. Extreme rainfall. It is hard not to conclude that something’s up with the weather, and many scientists agree. It’s the result of the weather machine itself—our climate—changing, becoming hotter and more erratic. In this 2-hour documentary, NOVA will cut through the confusion around climate change.
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Discover remains of a 13,000 year-old teenager in an underwater cave in Mexico.
Episode 7: Rise of the Superstorms
In just one devastating month, Houston, Florida, and the Caribbean were changed forever. In summer 2017, three monster hurricanes swept in from the Atlantic one after another, shattering storm records and killing hundreds of people. As the planet warms, are these superstorms the new normal? How well can we predict them?
Episode 2: The Impossible Flight
For the first time, two intrepid pilots fly a solar-powered airplane around the world.
Episode 8: Transplanting Hope
NOVA takes you inside the operating room to witness organ transplant teams transferring organs from donors to recipients. Meet families navigating both sides of a transplant, and researchers working to end the organ shortage. Their efforts to understand organ rejection, discover ways to keep organs alive outside the body, and even grow artificial organs with stem cells, could save countless lives.
Episode 1: Black Hole Apocalypse
Astrophysicist and novelist Janna Levin talks about black holes and their importance to the universe.
Episode 9: Operation Bridge Rescue
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Episode 10: Volatile Earth: Volcano on Fire
Climb with volcano experts to the summit of Nyiragongo, a highly active volcano in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Twice in recent memory it has erupted, devastating Goma, a neighboring city of 1 million people. To investigate when it might erupt next, scientists climb into its crater toward a bubbling lava lake to deploy sensors and monitor the volcano’s activity.
Episode 11: Volatile Earth: Volcano on the Brink
Explore Nyamuragira, one of the world’s most active and mysterious volcanoes in Africa. Decades of civil strife have prevented scientists from investigating the volcano, but a brief pause allows an international team of experts to fly by helicopter to the summit to investigate. Discover the volcano’s hidden dangers and probe whether magma pressure is building up to threaten another eruption.
Episode 12: Addiction
Hear firsthand from individuals struggling with addiction and follow the cutting-edge work of doctors and scientists as they investigate why addiction is not a moral failing, but a chronic, treatable medical condition. Easy access to drugs like heroin, fentanyl, and even prescription medications like OxyContin has fueled an epidemic of addiction—the deadliest in U.S. history.
Episode 13: Flying Supersonic
NOVA takes you inside the historic international race to develop the first supersonic airliner, the Concorde. Hear stories from those inside the choreographed effort to design and build Concorde in two countries at once—and the crew members who flew her. Then, follow Concorde’s legacy to a new generation of innovators reviving the dream of supersonic passenger travel today.