The Day the Universe Changed

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  • : 10
  • : 5
  • BBC
  • Documentary History

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1
1x1
The Way We Are: It Started with the Greeks
Episode overview
Written and presented by James Burke, this 10-part series traces the development of Western thought through its major transformations since the days of ancient Greece. Program one is an .. show full overview
1x2
In the Light of the Above: Medieval Conflict: Faith and Reason
Episode overview
Relates that in the course of overrunning Moorish Spain, Christian Europe discovered libraries, universities, optics, mechanics, and natural philosophy. This rediscovery of classical .. show full overview
1x3
Point of View: Scientific Imagination in the Renaissance
Episode overview
Shows that Western Europe’s rediscovery of perspective through the study of Arab optics led to revolutions in art and architecture. The West’s new-found ability to control things at a .. show full overview
1x4
A Matter of Fact: Printing Transforms Knowledge
Episode overview
Observes that the invention of printing and the advent of cheap paper forever transformed the nature of knowledge from the local and traditional to the systematic and testable. Nationalism, public relations, and propaganda are among the results.
1x5
Infinitely Reasonable: Science Revises the Heavens
Episode overview
Notes that investigators such as Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton evolved better explanations of natural phenomena than those of Aristotle. Highlights the theories that led to a .. show full overview
1x6
Credit Where It's Due: The Factory and Marketplace Revolution
Episode overview
Locates the origins of contemporary consumerism in the English industrial Revolution, powered by religious dissenters barred from all activities except trade. The invention of the steam .. show full overview
1x7
What the Doctor Ordered: Impacts of New Medical Knowledge
Episode overview
Traces modern society’s recognition of the value of statistics to medical advances stemming from responses to the French Revolution and an English cholera epidemic. Identifies the .. show full overview
1x8
Fit to Rule: Darwin's Revolution
Episode overview
Tracks the expectation of change, fundamental to contemporary society, through the developing sciences of botany, geology, and biology to Darwin’s theory of evolution. Darwin’s theory, .. show full overview
1x9
Making Waves: The New Physics: Newton Revised
Episode overview
Points out that studies of the properties of magnetism, electricity, and light have led scientists to the realization that Newtonian physics is inadequate to explain all that they .. show full overview
1x10
Worlds Without End: Changing Knowledge, Changing Reality
Episode overview
Observes that over the centuries Western civilization has regularly shifted its conception of the nature of truth. The series closes with host James Burke's remarkably prescient .. show full overview

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