28 min listen
The Royal Society and British Science: Episode 1
FromIn Our Time
ratings:
Length:
42 minutes
Released:
Jan 4, 2010
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
As part of the BBC's year of science programming, Melvyn Bragg looks at the history of the oldest scientific learned society of them all: the Royal Society. Melvyn travels to Wadham College, Oxford, where under the shadow of the English Civil War, the young Christopher Wren and friends experimented in the garden of their inspirational college warden, John Wilkins. Back in London, as Charles II is brought to the throne from exile, the new Society is formally founded one night in Gresham College. When London burns six years later, it is two of the key early Fellows of the Society who are charged with its rebuilding. And, as Melvyn finds out, in the secret observatory in The Monument to the fire, it is science which flavours their plans.
Released:
Jan 4, 2010
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
Politics in the 20th Century: Melvyn Bragg discusses politics and morality with Gore Vidal and Alan Clarke. by In Our Time