New Explor beyond The Look

It is the dawn of a new age. Today's home computers have the capacity to embrace their users in a net of stimuli that leaves the real world behind. BEYOND THE LOOKING GLASS examines the revolutionary potential of virtual reality. Pioneers Fred Brooks and Henry Fuchs of the University of North Carolina trace their 20 years of research and demonstrate the evolution of virtual reality into a marketable commodity. Then, prepare for a journey that was unthinkable until very recently into the manufactured world of computer space, where host Bill Kurtis jams with a virtual band, walks through a mountain of atoms and operates on virtual patients. Then, in THE NEW LANGUAGE OF SCIENCE, visit Dr. Larry Smarr at the University of Illinois, where supercomputers are creating visual representations of science's most intriguing and complex concepts black holes, subterranean earthquakes and the interaction of drugs and molecules within the human body.