What every interested citizen should know about science

So according to Brian Cox on the Today programme on radio 4 this morning, there are three scientific facts any interested citizen should know - however I think he identifies four in all.

1 Atoms are the buidling blocks of the material universe

2 The universe came into being 13.82 billion years ago

3 and all life on earth shares a common ancestor and is involved in a process of natural selection

4 There are four fundemental forces of nature. The most important of these is gravity - despite the fact that it is the weakest. Given that, I can barely make any sense of the other three fundemental forces.

There were some other interesting facts along the way in this rather confusing interview, including the facts  that:

• The earth is five billion years old
• Life on earth began four billion years ago

Anyway try and make sense of it yourself by clicking here.