After performing his sell-out, record-breaking show ‘Horizons’ to nearly half a million people across the world, Professor Brian Cox is back with a new world tour Emergence. The new run of dates include a stop in Cincinnati, OH at Taft Theatre on Saturday, December 5, 2026.
In the winter of 1610 Johannes Kepler was crossing Prague’s Charles Bridge when he noticed a snowflake land on his arm. Why, he asked, are all snowflakes six-cornered? “I do not believe,” he wrote, “that even in a snowflake, this ordered pattern exists at random.”
400 years later, we have part of the answer. Snowflakes are made of water molecules, which are made of atoms, which are made of quarks and electrons - which might be made of superstrings - all held together by forces of nature described by quantum theory. But how does such delicate beauty emerge from such abstract simplicity?
Emergence is a celebration of the intricacy of the Universe and an exploration of the laws of nature that sculpted it. From the largest structures in the known Universe – the rivers and flows of galaxies that trace the cosmic web – to Earth’s interlinked ecosystems and the structure of the human brain – from black holes to snowflakes - we observe a world of dazzling complexity underpinned by magnificent simplicity.
How did a quarter of a million-year-old species of great apes on one small planet amongst trillions orbiting around a middle-aged star in an average galaxy figure all this out, guided by curiosity, mathematics and an aesthetic sense of symmetry and beauty? And what might we become if we can hold onto the ideas of the enlightenment so successfully developed and deployed by Kepler and his contemporaries and successors – ideas that have allowed us to begin to read the story of the Universe and carried our spacecraft to the edge of the solar system and outwards to the stars.
Professor Brian Cox said: “I’ve loved creating Emergence - it’s the most ambitious live show I’ve ever written. I’ve been very lucky to collaborate with a wonderful group of scientists, musicians, filmmakers and graphic artists to bring cosmology, biology, philosophy and history to the largest and most advanced LED screens available, with the best sound and lights I could find. I hope the show is an all-encompassing experience, and I hope it leaves everyone, whether they love science or music or history, or simply contemplating the beauty of Nature, with something new to think about.”
Brian has worked with a world-leading team of creatives for Emergence. Graphics and visual effects have been created in collaboration with Emmy Award winning director Nic Stacey and digital artist Erik Wernquist, and branding is by Peter Saville CBE, the renowned art director known for his original work with Factory Records.
Brian has appeared in many landmark science programs over the last 15 years, from the Peabody Award-winning Wonders of the Solar System to worldwide hit series The Planets to his most recent landmark series Solar System, which has become one of the best watched science series of the last decade.
ABOUT PROFESSOR BRIAN COX
Brian is widely recognized as the foremost communicator for science, cosmology and astronomy in the world. He is Professor of Particle Physics at the University of Manchester, The Royal Society Professor for Public Engagement in Science and a Fellow of the Royal Society. In September 2025 he was appointed as The Francis Crick Institute’s first-ever Crick Scholar.
Brian has presented a number of highly acclaimed, award-winning science programs for the BBC watched by billions around the world including ‘Adventures in Space and Time’ (2021), ‘Universe’ (2021), ‘The Planets’ (2018), ‘Forces of Nature’ (2016), ‘Human Universe’ (2014), ‘Wonders of Life’ (2012), ‘Wonders of the Universe’ (2011) and ‘Wonders of the Solar System’ (2010). His most recent BBC landmark series, ‘Solar System’, aired in late 2024 and became one of the most watched factual BBC series for several years.
Brian continues to co-host ‘The Infinite Monkey Cage’, one of the UK’s most popular podcasts, and in September 2025 launched brand new science podcast ‘A Question of Science’, which shot straight to the top of the podcast charts in the UK. As an author, he has sold over a million books worldwide including ‘Black Holes’, ‘Universal: A Guide to the Cosmos’, Quantum Universe’ and ‘Why Does E=mc2?’ with co-author Professor Jeffrey Forshaw.
Brian has undertaken several sell-out live world tours, setting numerous Guinness World Records, including for the biggest selling science tour – a record he himself broke with his most recent worldwide tour, ‘Horizons’, which took in venues in the UK, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong and across Europe and drew audiences of almost half a million people. In 2024, accompanied by Sydney Symphonic Orchestra, Brian performed a run of sell-out shows at Sydney Opera House, followed by up a week of sell-out shows at the Royal Opera House in London where he was accompanied by the Britten Sinfonia.
Prior to his academic and television career, Brian was in the rock bands Dare and D:Ream, famously playing the keyboard on the latter’s hit track ‘Things Can Only Get Better’. Brian has worked as a consultant on a number of film projects including Danny Boyle ‘Sunshine’, whilst his content has attracted hundreds of millions of view across social media platforms.
