Jackson Pollock dripped, poured, and flung paint onto canvases laid flat on the floor — and physicists have since discovered that his technique produced fractal patterns with mathematical properties that match those found in nature. What looked like chaos was actually governed by fluid dynamics that Pollock intuited through his body rather than calculated with his mind.

This episode explores the intersection of art and physics in Pollock's work, tracing his journey from troubled Wyoming childhood to the abstract expressionist movement, examining the science hidden inside the drip paintings, and confronting the alcoholism and self-destruction that killed him at forty-four.

• Pollock's troubled upbringing and his apprenticeship under Thomas Hart Benton
• The development of the drip technique and the physics of fluid dynamics in ...