Forget about inclined planes and pulleys. In this series from the PBS program NOVA, physics is presented as an exotic, mind-bending realm.

The Fabric of the Cosmos, first broadcast in November, follows up on the 2003 Peabody Award-winning The Elegant Universe. Both series are adapted from the best-selling books of host Brian Greene, a mathematician and physicist at Columbia University.

Like the earlier series, which was centered around String Theory, The Fabric of the Cosmos deals with ideas that are on the cutting edge of scientific theory. "This is a report from the frontier of cosmic thought," wrote Dennis Overbye last November in The New York Times, "as fresh as last month's Nobel Prizes, uncompromising in its intellectual ambitions and discerning in its choice of compelling scientific issues. The action ranges from Times Square to the Grand Canyon, from bowling lanes and billiard tables to the limits of the imagination."

The series is arranged in four parts of approximately 50 minutes each. The episodes are called "What is Space?;" 'The Illusion of Time,' 'Quantum Leap,' and 'Universe or Multiverse?'