Beginning in Ethiopia, Professor Brian Cox discovers how the universe played a key role in our ascent from apeman to spaceman by driving the expansion of our brains.

Brian reveals how the wonderful complexity of nature and human life is simply the consequence of chance events constrained by the laws of physics that govern our universe.

He argues that the difficulty inherent in the development of eukaryotic cells represents such a barrier to the emergence of intelligent life that Earth may be the only planet where this has taken place in the Milky Way galaxy.

Thanks to the artisan glass-blowers of Renaissance Venice, Galileo was able to build the first telescope and discover our orbital position around the sun—relegating us to just one among a number of planets and effecting our demotion from the center of the universe.

First broadcast: 9:00 pm, 4 Nov 2014 on BBC Two[1] In the final episode of the series, Professor Brian Cox explores the future of our home planet, its unfolding relationship with the rest of the universe, and its effect on our destiny as a species.