Imagine getting into HG Wells's time machine and seeing the development of our planet. Dick Ahlstrom, Science Editor, talks to an Irish scientist who has screened one version
Continents collide to form the mighty Himalayas in a matter of seconds and then break down and wash away just as quickly. Great rends in the Earth's surface open up to spawn powerful volcanoes, smothering the countryside in lava. The Colorado River gouges out the mile-deep Grand Canyon before your eyes to produce the largest hole in the surface of our planet.
Such are the stunning effects promised in a new BBC programme highlighting the dramatic changes to the Earth since its birth more than four billion years ago. The three-part series, starting on BBC1 tomorrow night, also has an accompanying book written by the programme's creator and producer, Irishman Dr Bernard Walton.
The book and programme of the same name, Time Machine, are based on the premise that the audience is being given an opportunity to travel forwards and backwards through time to witness the birth throes and later development of the planet.
Our time machine obligingly compresses centuries of mountain building into seconds and slows the beat of a hummingbird's wings until we can watch them move. The programme uses the latest computer graphic imaging technology and conventional photographic techniques to show us things never seen before, Dr Walton promises.
"When you look at the world around us, you are actually trapped in time," he says. "Imagine being freed from the shackles of time. That means you could start to see the world as you never saw it before. The power that you would have is immense, giving an understanding of why we are who we are."
Dr Walton's name is familiar to Ireland's scientific community. ETS Walton is our only Nobel Prize winner in physics, sharing the prize with John Cockcroft in 1951 as the first person to split an atom. Zoology and physiology graduate Bernard is a nephew of the great man, so science must run in the family.
Bernard Walton was born in New Zealand to Dublin-born father James and Dutch mother Else, but he grew up in Dublin. He went to the High School in Rathgar, then did a master's degree and a PhD at Trinity College.
Dr Walton has spent the last 21 years with the BBC, joining soon after graduating from Trinity. "I did a bit of teaching but I always wanted to work with the BBC, particularly in the natural history unit," he says. "I am particularly interested in natural history that has some science in it. It involves showing the world as it really is."
He now works as a series producer in Bristol in the same natural history unit that so interested him as a student of zoology. Recent series have included Cousins (BBC1, 2000), a search for our nearest relatives - the apes, gorillas, orang-utans and bonobos - and Talking with Animals (BBC1, 2002), a study of how animals communicate with each other, both presented by Dr Charlotte Uhlenbroek.
Talking with Animals moved some way away from conventional natural history programming, Dr Walton believes, and with Time Machine he moves farther still. "It is quite a departure really, but it is exciting and we explore areas we normally don't go into," he says.
It has taken about two years to produce the three one-hour segments, which go out tomorrow night and on the following two Sundays. The filming took about a year and "a lot of work went into post-production", given the advanced technology, he adds.
"Even five years ago the technology wasn't there to do this, or it was too expensive to use." Now, computer graphic imagery can make extinct animals walk, can show how creeping glaciers flow and can mark the advance of the Sahara Desert even though this happened thousands of years ago.
He wrote the book, which is lavishly illustrated with wonderful photographs. It breaks neatly into four segments: time, our restless planet, the development and advance of life from 3.5 billion years ago and how the spread of humans has changed the face of the planet.
The television programme is slightly different, he says. It does not deal specifically with time but does elaborate on our constant human drive to get more out of time and live longer and longer lives. Jeremy Vine, who has regular slots on both BBC1 and BBC2, does the voice-over for the film, which Dr Walton is keen to stress is a group effort that involved his entire research and production team.
"The original idea that came out of the natural history unit was to use computer graphics and time-lapsed techniques," he says. "It was a great idea, but how do you do it? With the help of my team we came up with a way to reveal the world as it has changed over time."
The real challenge was what to see once installed in the virtual time machine of the programme's title. "If you can just imagine you did have a time machine, where would you go and what would you want to see?" he asks.
"We wanted to visit something that was important to all of us. This is a popular science programme so we wanted to take things that were relevant to everyone." The goal was to choose things that would "fascinate" people, he adds.
For this reason the programme visits dramatic sites such as the Grand Canyon in the US, Africa's Rift Valley and the Himalayas. "It was an attempt to explain how some of the iconic places around the world came to be," he says.
The programme visits cave drawings in the Sahara Desert that show lush vegetation and plenty of game including antelope - this in the parched surroundings of one of the driest places on Earth. Dr Walton's time machine allows the viewer to backtrack through time, showing how geological changes elsewhere on the Earth helped to spread desert over North Africa.
It also shows that while geological time is stunningly slow, the Earth can shake the traces quickly and violently, with earthquakes and volcanoes raising new lands from the sea and changing landscapes in a minute.
A startling element of the book, which is repeated in the television programme, is the exposition of how humankind has altered the face of the Earth for ever. Dr Walton remains staunchly non-preachy about the issue, however, avoiding the opportunity to moralise about our collective environmental depredations.
"If we are doing this [to the Earth] it is up to us to make the changes," he says. "I picture us as being on a journey that we can't get off. We have to use our wits to try to save ourselves. Science will help us; we should trust in science more," he suggests.
"Science doesn't just make bad things, it can also make good things happen. We can find solutions. I want to give people hope because what we [as humankind] have done is remarkable."
Time Machine, published by BBC Books, (hardback, £20). The three-part programme starts on BBC1 tomorrow night at 8p.m. BBC DVDs and videos of Time Machine will be available in August.