Portrait of Lord Melvyn Bragg, host of In Our Time

Science

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295 episodes

  1. The Evolution of Lungs

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the diverse ways animals extract oxygen from air, from the highly tuned lungs that enabled dinosaurs to grow tall and birds to fly high, to buccal pumping.

    12 June 2025

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    Featuring: Steve Brusatte, Emily Rayfield, Jonathan Codd

     
  2. Lise Meitner

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the only woman to have an atomic element named solely after her (Meitnerium), in recognition of her role in solving the question of nuclear fission.

    08 May 2025

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    Featuring: Jess Wade, Frank Close, Steven Bramwell

     
  3. The Habitability of Planets

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss some of the ideas on the chemistry that was needed for life to begin and thrive on Earth and the implications for where we may find life elsewhere.

    12 December 2024

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    Featuring: Jayne Birkby, Saidul Islam, Oliver Shorttle

     
  4. The Antikythera Mechanism

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 2,000-year-old Greek astronomical computer, one of the most important discoveries in marine archaeology.

    14 November 2024

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    Featuring: Mike Edmunds, Jo Marchant, Liba Taub

     
  5. Wormholes

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the origins of the idea that there might be shortcuts between galaxies and the challenges when proving these are not just unlikely but impossible.

    26 September 2024

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    Featuring: Toby Wiseman, Katy Clough, Andrew Pontzen

     
  6. Mercury

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the smallest planet in our solar system, what the Mariner 10 and Messenger missions have revealed and the hopes for the new BepiColombo mission.

    02 May 2024

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    Featuring: Emma Bunce, David Rothery, Carolin Crawford

     
  7. Nikola Tesla

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the inventor who helped the advance of electrification in America at the end of the 19th century and cultivated his reputation as a visionary genius

    04 April 2024

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    Featuring: Simon Schaffer, Jill Jonnes, Iwan Morus

     
  8. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Werner Heisenberg's breakthrough, aged 23, that led to Nobel Prize judges celebrating him as the creator of quantum mechanics.

    29 February 2024

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    Featuring: Fay Dowker, Harry Cliff, Frank Close

     
  9. Hormones

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the interplay of chemical signals that keep our bodies going from moment to moment throughout our lives without us being immediately aware

    8 February 2024

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    Featuring: Sadaf Farooqi, Rebecca Reynolds, Andrew Bicknell

     
  10. Albert Einstein

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Einstein's impact on the world of physics after his 'miraculous year' in 1905 and why he went on to become so very famous after World War One.

    14 September 2023

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    Featuring: Richard Staley, Diana Kormos Buchwald, John Heilbron

     
  11. Jupiter

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the largest planet in our solar system.

    29 June 2023

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    Featuring: Michele Dougherty, Leigh Fletcher, Carolin Crawford

     
  12. Mitochondria

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the power-packs within cells in all complex life on Earth: they are absolutely central to the way that cells work and the way we live.

    01 June 2023

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    Featuring: Mike Murphy, Florencia Camus, Nick Lane

     
  13. Linnaeus

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the pioneering 18th century Swedish botanist, who devised a method of naming species and a new system for classifying plants and animals.

    20 April 2023

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    Featuring: Staffan Müller-Wille, Stella Sandford, Steve Jones

     
  14. Paul Erdős

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and work of the highly prolific, itinerant 20th century Hungarian mathematician, who enjoyed an unrivalled reputation for problem-solving.

    23 Feb 2023

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    Featuring: Colva Roney-Dougal, Timothy Gowers, Andrew Treglown

     
  15. Tycho Brahe

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the innovative 16th-century Danish astronomer, renowned for the accuracy of his observations, all taken before the invention of the telescope.

    2 February 2023

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    Featuring: Ole Grell, Adam Mosley, Emma Perkins

     
  16. Superconductivity

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss ideas about why some materials lose their electrical resistance at low temperatures and expel their magnetic field and why that matters.

    26 January 2023

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    Featuring: Nigel Hussey, Suchitra Sebastian, Stephen Blundell

     
  17. The Fish-Tetrapod Transition

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great evolutionary change that gave rise to all the land animals on Earth with a backbone, when some fish developed limbs, lungs and necks.

    20 October 2022

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    Featuring: Emily Rayfield, Michael Coates, Steve Brusatte

     
  18. The Electron

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the discovery of this atomic particle in 1897 and what our growing knowledge of electrons has revealed about our world and may yet reveal.

    29 September 2022

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    Featuring: Victoria Martin, Harry Cliff, Frank Close

     
  19. The Death of Stars

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how so much in the Universe, and much of our understanding of it, depends on changes in stars as they die after millions or billions of stable years

    9 June 2022

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    Featuring: Martin Rees, Carolin Crawford, Mark Sullivan

     
  20. Homo erectus

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of our ancestors whose span on Earth extended at least five times more than Homo sapiens has so far, and who was found from Africa to Asia.

    14 April 2022

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    Featuring: Peter Kjærgaard, José Joordens, Mark Maslin

     
  21. Seismology

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the rapid advances in the study of earthquakes in the last century and what those have revealed about the structure of our planet.

    10 March 2022

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    Featuring: James Hammond, Rebecca Bell, Zoe Mildon

     
  22. William and Caroline Herschel

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the pioneering brother and sister who, between them, discovered Uranus, comets, double stars and infrared light at the end of the 18th century.

    11 November 2021

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    Featuring: Monica Grady, Carolin Crawford, Jim Bennett

     
  23. The Evolution of Crocodiles

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the extraordinary variety of the animals that dominated life on land before the dinosaurs and why crocodiles should never be called 'living fossils'.

    16 September 2021

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    Featuring: Anjali Goswami, Philip Mannion, Stephen L. Brusatte

     
  24. Pierre-Simon Laplace

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great French mathematician who tackled questions on the stability of the Solar System and planet rotation and devised the basis for metrication

    8 April 2021

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    Featuring: Marcus du Sautoy, Timothy Gowers, Colva Roney-Dougal

     
  25. The Late Devonian Extinction

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the disappearance of up to 70 per cent of species roughly 370 million years ago at the end of The Age of Fishes, and the range of possible causes.

    11 March 2021

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    Featuring: Jessica Whiteside, David Bond, Mike Benton

     
  26. Emilie du Châtelet

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 18th-century mathematical genius whose insights into Newton and Leibniz were part of the great advance in science in the Enlightenment.

    4 February 2021

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    Featuring: Patricia Fara, David Wootton, Judith Zinsser

     
  27. Eclipses

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the progress in our understanding of eclipses from the ancient world onwards and how their predictability illuminates historical records and myths.

    31 December 2020

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    Featuring: Carolin Crawford, Frank Close, Lucie Green

     
  28. Alan Turing

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas and life of the founder of computer science - whose work helped crack enemy codes in WW2 - and his exploration of artificial intelligence.

    15 October 2020

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    Featuring: Leslie Ann Goldberg, Simon Schaffer, Andrew Hodges

     
  29. Paul Dirac

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Bristolian theoretical physicist, ranked alongside Einstein by his peers, who won a Nobel for his work on quantum mechanics.

    5 March 2020

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    Featuring: Graham Farmelo, Valerie Gibson, David Berman

     
  30. Solar Wind

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the phenomenon behind the auroras at Earth's poles, the stream of charged particles spreading out from the Sun to the border of the solar system.

    23 January 2020

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    Featuring: Andrew Coates, Helen Mason, Tim Horbury

     
  31. Hybrids

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how some genetically different parents - from different species - can have offspring and what that says about the origin and evolution of species

    31 October 2019

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    Featuring: Sandra Knapp, Nicola Nadeau, Steve Jones

     
  32. Dorothy Hodgkin

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the work, ideas and life of the woman who won the 1964 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her work on the structures of vitamin B12 and penicillin.

    3 October 2019

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    Featuring: Georgina Ferry, Judith Howard, Patricia Fara

     
  33. Kinetic Theory

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the growth of ideas about gas pressure, from Newton's theory that static particles push against each other to Maxwell and Boltzmann's moving atoms.

    23 May 2019

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    Featuring: Steven Bramwell, Isobel Falconer, Ted Forgan

     
  34. The Evolution of Teeth

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss ideas about the origins of teeth, their link to hard scales on fish such as sharks and why some species regenerate theirs but humans do not.

    11 April 2019

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    Featuring: Gareth Fraser, Zerina Johanson, Philip Donoghue

     
  35. Pheromones

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how animals influence the behaviour of others of their species by secreting or excreting chemical substances.

    21 February 2019

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    Featuring: Tristram Wyatt, Jane Hurst, Francis Ratnieks

     
  36. Aristotle's biology

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Aristotle's method of biological investigation and the first systematic and thorough study of animals, which was unequalled for almost 2,000 years.

    7 February 2019

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    Featuring: Armand Leroi, Myrto Hatzimichali, Sophia Connell

     
  37. Emmy Noether

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas and achievements of one of the great 20th-century mathematicians.

    24 January 2019

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    Featuring: Colva Roney-Dougal, David Berman, Elizabeth Mansfield

     
  38. Venus

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Earth's neighbouring planet, once thought very similar but now known to be extremely volcanic with a surface temperature of 450C.

    27 December 2018

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    Featuring: Carolin Crawford, Colin Wilson, Andrew Coates

     
  39. Free Radicals

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the reactive atoms and molecules, with single unpaired electrons, linked to the process of ageing as well as normal cell functioning

    1 November 2018

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    Featuring: Nick Lane, Anna Croft, Mike Murphy

     
  40. Automata

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of ideas about machines imitating living creatures, and the questions they raise about the differences between machinery and humanity.

    20 September 2018

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    Featuring: Simon Schaffer, Elly Truitt, Franziska Kohlt

     
  41. Echolocation

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how animals such as bats and dolphins evolved to use high frequency sounds to navigate their environments and find their prey.

    21 June 2018

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    Featuring: Kate Jones, Gareth Jones, Dean Waters

     
  42. The Proton

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the growing understanding of the Proton, found in the nuclei of all elements and, with three quarks, balancing the charge of a single electron.

    26 April 2018

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    Featuring: Frank Close, Helen Heath, Simon Jolly

     
  43. George and Robert Stephenson

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss George Stephenson, known as the Father of Railways, and his son Robert, designer of the Rocket, whose contribution was arguably even greater.

    11 April 2018

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    Featuring: Michael Bailey, Julia Elton, Colin Divall

     
  44. Rosalind Franklin

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the achievements of the pioneering scientist Rosalind Franklin.

    22 February 2018

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    Featuring: Patricia Fara, Jim Naismith, Judith Howard

     
  45. Cephalopods

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the remarkable biology of octopus, squid, cuttlefish and nautilus, from jet propulsion to changing colour, and what makes them so adaptable.

    1 February 2018

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    Featuring: Louise Allcock, Paul Rodhouse, Jonathan Ablett

     
  46. Carl Friedrich Gauss

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas of Gauss, 'prince of mathematicians', including those on number theory, geometry, probability theory, astronomy and electromagnetism.

    30 November 2017

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    Featuring: Marcus du Sautoy, Colva Roney-Dougal, Nick Evans

     
  47. Feathered dinosaurs

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss theories about dinosaur feathers. Which ones had them, what sorts of feathers were they and where were they found on their bodies?

    26 October 2017

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    Featuring: Mike Benton, Steve Brusatte, Maria McNamara

     
  48. Enzymes

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss enzymes, the proteins that control the speed of chemical reactions in organisms which would otherwise happen too slowly to keep the organisms alive.

    1 June 2017

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    Featuring: Nigel Richards, Sarah Barry, Jim Naismith

     
  49. Louis Pasteur

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and work of Louis Pasteur, microbiologist, developer of vaccines, saviour of the French beer and wine industries and preserver of milk.

    18 May 2017

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    Featuring: Andrew Mendelsohn, Anne Hardy, Michael Worboys

     
  50. Pauli's exclusion principle

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the key principles in quantum mechanics, the Pauli Exclusion Principle, and the life and ideas of Wolfgang Pauli who proposed it.

    6 April 2017

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    Featuring: Frank Close, Michela Massimi, Graham Farmelo

     
  51. The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the causes and effects of the highest global temperatures in the last 65m years, when Arctic sea surfaces reached up to 23 C for c100,000 years.

    16 March 2017

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    Featuring: Dame Jane Francis, Mark Maslin, Tracy Aze

     
  52. The Kuiper belt

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Kuiper Belt region, home to Pluto and countless remnants from the beginnings of our solar system.

    2 March 2017

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    Featuring: Carolin Crawford, Monica Grady, Stephen Lowry

     
  53. Parasitism

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Parasitism, the relationship between two species where one benefits at the expense of the other, sometimes killing the host or causing disease.

    26 January 2017

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    Featuring: Steve Jones, Wendy Gibson, Kayla King

     
  54. Johannes Kepler

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the German astronomer Johannes Kepler.

    29 December 2016

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    Featuring: David Wootton, Ulinka Rublack, Adam Mosley

     
  55. John Dalton

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss scientist John Dalton, who pioneered the development of atomic theory and carried out research into meteorology and colour blindness.

    27 October 2016

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    Featuring: Jim Bennett, Aileen Fyfe, James Sumner

     
  56. Plasma

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss plasma. First observed in 1879, plasma is the most abundant matter in the universe, far more than solid, liquid or gas.

    13 October 2016

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    Featuring: Justin Wark, Kate Lancaster, Bill Graham

     
  57. Zeno's paradoxes

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the paradoxes attributed to Zeno of Elea (c490-430BC) which have stimulated mathematicians and philosophers for millennia.

    22 September 2016

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    Featuring: Marcus du Sautoy, Barbara Sattler, James Warren

     
  58. The Invention of Photography

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the development and impact of photography in the 1830s, with heliographs, sun pictures, photogenic drawing, Daguerre and Fox Talbot.

    7 July 2016

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    Featuring: Simon Schaffer, Elizabeth Edwards, Alison Morrison-Low

     
  59. Penicillin

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin in 1928, the development of effective antibiotic drugs and the evolution of resistant bacteria.

    9 June 2016

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    Featuring: Laura Piddock, Christoph Tang, Steve Jones

     
  60. 1816, the Year Without a Summer

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the link between the eruption of Mt Tambora in 1815, the largest and most lethal in recorded history, with famines in Europe and America in 1816.

    21 April 2016

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    Featuring: Clive Oppenheimer, Jane Stabler, Lawrence Goldman

     
  61. The Neutron

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the neutron in the atomic nucleus, in the laboratory and in the densest stars.

    14 April 2016

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    Featuring: Val Gibson, Andrew Harrison, Frank Close

     
  62. Robert Hooke

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Robert Hooke, the 17th-century scientist with a wide variety of interests from elasticity to microscopes who fell out with Newton.

    18 February 2016

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    Featuring: David Wootton, Patricia Fara, Rob Iliffe

     
  63. Saturn

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Saturn, the most distant planet easily visible to the human eye, with over 60 moons and, with its rings, one of the most striking sights in space.

    14 January 2016

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    Featuring: Carolin Crawford, Michele Dougherty, Andrew Coates

     
  64. Michael Faraday

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Michael Faraday, the most famous British scientist of the 19th century.

    25 December 2015

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    Featuring: Geoffrey Cantor, Laura Herz, Frank James

     
  65. Circadian rhythms

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the evolution and role of circadian rhythms, the so-called body clock influencing a daily cycle of physical, behavioural and mental changes.

    17 December 2015

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    Featuring: Russell Foster, Debra Skene, Steve Jones

     
  66. P v NP

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss P versus NP, an unsolved problem in maths that asks if the answers to all problems can be found as easily as they can be checked.

    5 November 2015

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    Featuring: Colva Roney-Dougal, Timothy Gowers, Leslie Ann Goldberg

     
  67. Perpetual motion

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how the laws of thermodynamics put a stop to the idea perpetual motion.

    24 September 2015

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    Featuring: Ruth Gregory, Frank Close, Steven Bramwell

     
  68. Extremophiles

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss extremophiles, the organisms thriving in very harsh conditions on Earth and providing clues to life forms on other planets.

    25 June 2015

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    Featuring: Monica Grady, Ian Crawford, Nick Lane

     
  69. The Curies

    Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the scientific achievements of the Curie family, Marie and Pierre and their daughter Irene Joliot-Curie, all three of whom won Nobel Prizes.

    26 March 2015

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    Featuring: Patricia Fara, Robert Fox, Steven T Bramwell

     
  70. Dark matter

    Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss dark matter, the mysterious and invisible substance that is believed to make up most of the universe.

    12 March 2015

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    Featuring: Carolin Crawford, Gresham Professor of Astronomy Carlos Frenk, Anne Green

     
  71. The Photon

    Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the photon, the fundamental particle associated with light.

    12 February 2015

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    Featuring: Frank Close, Wendy Flavell, Susan Cartwright

     
  72. Brunel

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the Victorian engineer responsible for bridges, tunnels and railways still in use today.

    13 November 2014

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    Featuring: Julia Elton, Ben Marsden, Crosbie Smith

     
  73. Nuclear Fusion

    Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the history and science of nuclear fusion, the process that powers stars.

    30 October 2014

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    Featuring: Philippa Browning, Steve Cowley, Justin Wark

     
  74. e

    Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Euler's number, also known as e, one of the most important and interesting numbers in mathematics.

    25 September 2014

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    Featuring: Colva Roney-Dougal, June Barrow-Green, Vicky Neale

     
  75. The Sun

    Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the science of the sun, source of all our energy.

    10 July 2014

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    Featuring: Carolin Crawford, Yvonne Elsworth, Louise Harra

     
  76. Robert Boyle

    Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and work of Robert Boyle, a pioneering scientist and one of the first Fellows of the Royal Society.

    12 June 2014

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    Featuring: Simon Schaffer, Michael Hunter, Anna Marie Roos

     
  77. Photosynthesis

    Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss photosynthesis, a chemical process which drives most life on Earth.

    15 May 2014

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    Featuring: Sandra Knapp, Nick Lane, John F. Allen

     
  78. States of Matter

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the science of matter and the states in which it can exist, from solids, liquids and gases to high-energy plasmas.

    3 April 2014

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    Featuring: Andrea Sella, Athene Donald, Justin Wark

     
  79. Social Darwinism

    Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Social Darwinism, a school of thought which attempted to apply Darwin's ideas about evolution to human society.

    20 February 2014

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    Featuring: Adam Kuper, Gregory Radick, Charlotte Sleigh

     
  80. Catastrophism

    Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Catastrophism, the idea that the geological record was shaped by a series of natural disasters early in the Earth's history.

    30 January 2014

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    Featuring: Andrew Scott, Jan Zalasiewicz, Leucha Veneer

     
  81. Complexity

    Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the science of complex systems, and its importance to understanding the world around us.

    19 December 2013

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    Featuring: Ian Stewart, Jeff Johnson, Eve Mitleton-Kelly

     
  82. The Microscope

    Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the microscope, from its invention in the 17th century to the latest sophisticated imaging techniques.

    28 November 2013

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    Featuring: Jim Bennett, Colin Humphreys, Michelle Peckham

     
  83. Galen

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Roman physician and medical theorist Galen.

    10 October 2013

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    Featuring: Vivian Nutton, Helen King, Caroline Petit

     
  84. Exoplanets

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss exoplanets, planets detected outside our solar system.

    3 October 2013

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    Featuring: Carolin Crawford, Don Pollacco, Suzanne Aigrain

     
  85. Pascal

    Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and work of the French polymath Blaise Pascal.

    19 September 2013

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    Featuring: David Wootton, Michael Moriarty, Michela Massimi

     
  86. The Invention of Radio

    Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the invention of radio.

    4 July 2013

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    Featuring: Simon Schaffer, Elizabeth Bruton, John Liffen

     
  87. Relativity

    Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Einstein's theory of relativity, a hypothetical framework that transformed our understanding of the universe.

    6 June 2013

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    Featuring: Ruth Gregory, Martin Rees, Roger Penrose

     
  88. Cosmic rays

    Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss cosmic rays, the mysterious high-energy particles that constantly bombard Earth.

    16 May 2013

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    Featuring: Carolin Crawford, Alan Watson, Tim Greenshaw

     
  89. Pitt Rivers

    Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the work of the Victorian anthropologist and archaeologist Augustus Pitt-Rivers.

    28 February 2013

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    Featuring: Adam Kuper, Richard Bradley, Dan Hicks

     
  90. Comets

    Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss comets, the 'dirty snowballs' of the solar system which orbit the sun.

    17 January 2013

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    Featuring: Monica Grady, Paul Murdin, Don Pollacco

     
  91. Crystallography

    Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the history and achievements of crystallography, a scientific discipline that has revolutionised our understanding of the world.

    29 November 2012

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    Featuring: Judith Howard, Chris Hammond, Mike Glazer

     
  92. Fermat's Last Theorem

    Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Fermat's Last Theorem, a mathematical puzzle which took more than three hundred and fifty years to solve.

    25 October 2012

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    Featuring: Marcus du Sautoy, Vicky Neale, Samir Siksek

     
  93. The Measurement of Time

    Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the measurement of time and the various methods used for doing so over millennia of human history.

    29 March 2012

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    Featuring: Kristen Lippincott, Jim Bennett, Jonathan Betts

     
  94. Conductors and Semiconductors

    Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the physics of electricity: why some materials conduct it and others do not, and how these properties can be usefully exploited.

    23 February 2012

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    Featuring: Frank Close, Jenny Nelson, Lesley Cohen

     
  95. The Scientific method

    Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Scientific Method, the systematic and analytical approach to scientific discovery.

    26 January 2012

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    Featuring: Simon Schaffer, John Worrall, Michela Massimi

     
  96. Ptolemy and Ancient Astronomy

    Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the last of the great Greek astronomers of antiquity, Ptolemy, and his influence on ancient and medieval astronomy.

    17 November 2011

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    Featuring: Liba Taub, Jim Bennett, Charles Burnett

     
  97. The Moon

    Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the origins, science and mythology of the moon. Man may have landed on the moon, but our 'twin planet' in many ways still remains a mystery.

    3 November 2011

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    Featuring: Paul Murdin, Carolin Crawford, Ian Crawford

     
  98. The Hippocratic Oath

    Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Hippocratic Oath, the most celebrated text in Western medicine.

    15 September 2011

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    Featuring: Vivian Nutton, Helen King, Peter Pormann

     
  99. The Neutrino

    Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the neutrino, a mysterious subatomic particle which is one of the most numerous, and least understood, objects in the universe.

    14 April 2011

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    Featuring: Frank Close, Susan Cartwright, David Wark

     
  100. The Age of the Universe

    Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss a question which has obsessed cosmologists for millennia: how old is the Universe?

    3 March 2011

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    Featuring: Martin Rees, Carolin Crawford, Carlos Frenk

     
  101. The Nervous System

    Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the history and science of the nervous system, the network of tissues which allows parts of the body to communicate with each other.

    10 February 2011

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    Featuring: Colin Blakemore, Vivian Nutton, Tilli Tansey

     
  102. Random and Pseudorandom

    Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss mathematical randomness and pseudorandomness, ideas important to cryptography, statistics and weather forecasting.

    13 January 2011

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    Featuring: Marcus du Sautoy, Colva Roney-Dougal, Timothy Gowers

     
  103. Thomas Edison

    Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the work of Thomas Edison, one of the great inventors and cultural figures of modern America.

    9 December 2010

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    Featuring: Simon Schaffer, Kathleen Burk, Iwan Morus

     
  104. Women and Enlightenment Science

    Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the role played by women in Enlightenment science.

    4 November 2010

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    Featuring: Patricia Fara, Karen O'Brien, Judith Hawley

     
  105. Logic

    Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the history of logic, the study of reasoning and argument.

    21 October 2010

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    Featuring: A. C. Grayling, Peter Millican, Rosanna Keefe

     
  106. Pliny's Natural History

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Pliny the Elder's Natural History, a comprehensive and influential encyclopedia of the natural sciences written in the first century AD.

    8 July 2010

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    Featuring: Serafina Cuomo, Aude Doody, Liba Taub

     
  107. Antarctica

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of Antarctica: its geology and physical geography and the story of human exploration of the continent.

    24 June 2010

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    Featuring: Jane Francis, Julian Dowdeswell, David Walton

     
  108. The Neanderthals

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Neanderthals: who they were, how they lived, and how we are related to them.

    17 June 2010

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    Featuring: Simon Conway Morris, Chris Stringer, Danielle Schreve

     
  109. The Infant Brain

    Melvyn Bragg and guests Usha Goswami, Annette Karmiloff-Smith and Denis Mareschal discuss what new research reveals about the infant brain.

    4 March 2010

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    Featuring: Usha Goswami, Annette Karmiloff-Smith, Denis Mareschal

     
  110. The Unintended Consequences of Mathematics

    Melvyn Bragg and guests explore the unintended consequences of mathematical discoveries, from alternating current to predicting the path of asteroids.

    11 February 2010

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    Featuring: John D. Barrow, Colva Roney-Dougal, Marcus du Sautoy

     
  111. Pythagoras

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas and influence of the Greek mathematician Pythagoras and his followers, the Pythagoreans.

    10 December 2009

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    Featuring: Ian Stewart, Serafina Cuomo, John O'Connor

     
  112. Radiation

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of the discovery of radiation, from the idea that light consisted of waves, through electromagnetism to the naming of gamma rays.

    12 November 2009

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    Featuring: Jim Al-Khalili, Frank Close, Frank James

     
  113. Calculus

    Melvyn Bragg and guests Patricia Fara, Simon Schaffer and Jackie Stedall discuss the dispute between Sir Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz over who invented calculus.

    24 September 2009

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    Featuring: Simon Schaffer, Patricia Fara, Jackie Stedall

     
  114. Logical Positivism

    Melvyn Bragg and guests including Barry Smith discuss Logical Positivism, the radical philosophy of the Vienna Circle.

    2 July 2009

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    Featuring: Barry Smith, Nancy Cartwright, Thomas Uebel

     
  115. The Vacuum of Space

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Vacuum of Space, from the innards of the atom to the outer reaches of space.

    30 April 2009

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    Featuring: Frank Close, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Ruth Gregory

     
  116. Baconian Science

    Melvyn Bragg and guests Patricia Fara, Stephen Pumfrey and Rhodri Lewis discuss the Jacobean lawyer, political fixer and alleged founder of modern science Francis Bacon.

    2 April 2009

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    Featuring: Stephen Pumfrey, Patricia Fara, Rhodri Lewis

     
  117. The Library of Alexandria

    Melvyn Bragg and guests Simon Goldhill, Serafina Cuomo and Matthew Nichols discuss the Library of Alexandria, one of the greatest libraries in history.

    12 March 2009

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    Featuring: Simon Goldhill, Matthew Nicholls, Serafina Cuomo

     
  118. The Measurement problem in Physics

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the the measurement problem, one of the deepest problems in contemporary physics.

    5 March 2009

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    Featuring: Basil Hiley, Simon Saunders, Roger Penrose

     
  119. Darwin: On the Origin of Species

    Melvyn Bragg presents a series about the life and work of Charles Darwin. How Darwin was eventually persuaded to publish On the Origin of Species in November 1859.

    7 January 2009

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    Featuring: Jim Moore, Steve Jones, Jim Secord, Johannes Vogel

     
  120. Darwin: The Voyage of the Beagle

    Melvyn Bragg presents a series about the life and work of Charles Darwin. Darwin's expedition aboard the Beagle and how it influenced and provided evidence for his theories.

    6 January 2009

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    Featuring: Jim Moore, Steve Jones, David Norman, Jenny Clack

     
  121. Darwin: On the Origins of Charles Darwin

    Melvyn Bragg presents a series about the life and work of Charles Darwin. Darwin's early life and time at Cambridge, where his interests shifted from religion to natural science.

    5 January 2009

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    Featuring: Jim Moore, Steve Jones, David Norman, Colin Higgins

     
  122. The Physics of Time

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the physics of time - what is it and does it even exist?

    18 December 2008

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    Featuring: Jim Al-Khalili, Monica Grady, Ian Stewart

     
  123. Heat

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the history of scientific ideas about heat from fire to thermodynamics.

    4 December 2008

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    Featuring: Simon Schaffer, Hasok Chang, Joanna Haigh

     
  124. Neuroscience

    Melvyn Bragg and guests David Papineau, Martin Conway and Gemma Calvert discuss recent developments in neuroscience and examine the relationship between the mind and the brain.

    13 November 2008

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    Featuring: Martin Conway, Gemma Calvert, David Papineau

     
  125. Vitalism

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Vitalism, an 18th and 19th century quest for the spark of life and the science behind Frankenstein.

    16 October 2008

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    Featuring: Patricia Fara, Andrew Mendelsohn, Pietro Corsi

     
  126. Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the mathematician Kurt Godel and his work at the very limits of maths.

    9 October 2008

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    Featuring: Marcus du Sautoy, John D. Barrow, Philip Welch

     
  127. The Music of the Spheres

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the music of the spheres, the idea that the revolution of the planets generates a celestial harmony of profound beauty

    19 June 2008

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    Featuring: Peter Forshaw, Jim Bennett, Angela Voss

     
  128. Lysenkoism

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the dark world of science under Joseph Stalin through the career of his chief geneticist Trofim Lysenko.

    5 June 2008

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    Featuring: Robert Service, Steve Jones, Catherine Merridale

     
  129. The Laws of Motion

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Isaac Newton’s Laws of Motion – three sentences that explain the movements of everything from planets to ping pong balls.

    3 April 2008

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    Featuring: Simon Schaffer, Raymond Flood, Rob Iliffe

     
  130. Ada Lovelace

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 19th century mathematician and hard living daughter of Lord Byron, Ada Lovelace.

    6 March 2008

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    Featuring: Patricia Fara, Doron Swade, John Fuegi

     
  131. The Multiverse

    Melvyn Bragg and guests will be leaving the studio, the planet and indeed, the universe to take a tour of the Multiverse

    21 February 2008

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    Featuring: Martin Rees, Fay Dowker, Bernard Carr

     
  132. Plate Tectonics

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how the geological theory of plate tectonics revolutionised our understanding of the planet on which we live

    24 January 2008

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    Featuring: Richard Corfield, Joe Cann, Lynne Frostick

     
  133. The Four Humours

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the four humours, a medical theory that saw the body as a concoction of four essential juices.

    20 December 2007

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    Featuring: David Wootton, Vivian Nutton, Noga Arikha

     
  134. Genetic Mutation

    Melvyn Bragg discusses mutation in genetics and evolution, unlocking the secrets of life and death.

    6 December 2007

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    Featuring: Steve Jones, Adrian Woolfson, Linda Partridge

     
  135. The Fibonacci Sequence

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Fibonacci Sequence, an infinite string of numbers to be found in Renaissance paintings, modern architecture and the structure of flowers.

    29 November 2007

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    Featuring: Marcus du Sautoy, Jackie Stedall, Ron Knott

     
  136. Oxygen

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the discovery of Oxygen by Joseph Priestley and Antoine Lavoisier and the Anglo-French feud that accompanied it.

    15 November 2007

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    Featuring: Simon Schaffer, Jenny Uglow, Hasok Chang

     
  137. Antimatter

    Melvyn Bragg discusses theories of Antimatter in particle physics and cosmology and finds out why there isn’t more of it in the universe.

    4 October 2007

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    Featuring: Val Gibson, Frank Close, Ruth Gregory

     
  138. The Permian-Triassic Boundary

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Permian-Triassic boundary and the greatest mass extinction the world has ever known.

    28 June 2007

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    Featuring: Richard Corfield, Mike Benton, Jane Francis

     
  139. Renaissance Astrology

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Renaissance Astrology, an essential part of Renaissance thinking on magic, music, medicine, politics, cosmology, destiny and much more.

    14 June 2007

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    Featuring: Peter Forshaw, Lauren Kassell, Jonathan Sawday

     
  140. Gravitational Waves

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Gravitational Waves, mysterious phenomena that ripple the fabric of space-time.

    17 May 2007

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    Featuring: Jim Al-Khalili, Carolin Crawford, Sheila Rowan

     
  141. Symmetry

    Melvyn Bragg discusses symmetry in art and nature. From snowflakes and butterflies to the music of Bach and the poems of Pushkin.

    19 April 2007

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    Featuring: Fay Dowker, Marcus du Sautoy, Ian Stewart

     
  142. Microbiology

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of microbiology and how microscopic creatures dominate life on earth.

    8 March 2007

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    Featuring: John Dupré, Anne Glover, Andrew Mendelsohn

     
  143. Optics

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of optics – from star gazing with a telescope to examining lice under a microscope

    1 March 2007

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    Featuring: Simon Schaffer, Jim Bennett, Emily Winterburn

     
  144. Popper

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the philosopher Karl Popper, author of The Open Society and a seminal thinker about science.

    8 February 2007

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    Featuring: John Worrall, Anthony O'Hear, Nancy Cartwright

     
    PhilosophyBritish political philosophersEpistemologistsCambridge University Moral Sciences ClubForeign associates of the National Academy of SciencesTheorists on Western civilizationBritish ethicistsPhilosophers of logicKnights BachelorLogiciansPresidents of the Aristotelian SocietySocial philosophersPhilosophers of technologyRationalistsAristotelian philosophersPhilosophers of economicsWriters about religion and scienceWriters about globalizationBritish philosophers of educationBritish social liberalsRecipients of the Austrian Decoration for Science and ArtBritish male non-fiction writersPhilosophers of culturePhilosophers of mathematicsBritish historians of philosophyJewish agnosticsAcademics of the London School of Economics, British philosophers of scienceCritics of religions20th-century British philosophers20th-century Austrian philosophers, Austrian agnostics, Austrian essayists, Austrian logicians, British agnostics, British logicians, British people of Austrian-Jewish descent, Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom, Writers from ViennaOntologistsPhilosophers of mindRecipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class)MetaphysiciansJewish philosophersPolitical philosophersPhilosophers of religionBritish consciousness researchers and theoristsJewish ethicistsMembers of the Order of the Companions of HonourWriters about activism and social change20th-century British essayistsCritics of MarxismPhilosophers of historyFellows of the British AcademyMetaphysics writersBritish male essayists
  145. Archimedes

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Greek mathematician Archimedes, brilliant with numbers and unexpectedly good at defensive siege warfare.

    25 January 2007

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    Featuring: Jackie Stedall, Serafina Cuomo, George Phillips

     
  146. The Jesuits

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the Jesuits and their role in the education, art, politics and mythology of the Counter-Reformation.

    18 January 2007

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    Featuring: Nigel Aston, Simon Ditchfield, Dame Olwen Hufton

     
  147. Mars

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the planet Mars. Named after the Roman god of war, Mars has been a source of continual fascination.

    11 January 2007

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    Featuring: John Zarnecki, Colin Pillinger, Monica Grady

     
  148. The Speed of Light

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the speed of light, from its first measurement in the 17th Century to Einstein’s groundbreaking ideas on relativity.

    30 November 2006

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    Featuring: John Barrow, Iwan Morus, Jocelyn Bell Burnell

     
  149. The Poincaré conjecture

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Poincaré Conjecture, a puzzle that may explain the shape of the universe.

    2 November 2006

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    Featuring: June Barrow-Green, Ian Stewart, Marcus du Sautoy

     
  150. The Needham Question

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Needham Question, which asks why China’s medieval technological advancement was overtaken by that of a relative backwater called Europe.

    19 October 2006

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    Featuring: Chris Cullen, Tim Barrett, Frances Wood

     
  151. Humboldt

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the Prussian naturalist and explorer, Alexander Von Humboldt. A hero in South America; Charles Darwin described him as ‘the greatest scientific traveller who ever lived’.

    28 September 2006

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    Featuring: Jason Wilson, Patricia Fara, Jim Secord

     
  152. Galaxies

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the galaxies; spread out across the void of space like spun sugar, but harbouring in their centres super-massive black holes.

    29 June 2006

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    Featuring: John Gribbin, Carolin Crawford, Robert Kennicutt

     
  153. Carbon

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Carbon, the vital component of all living things

    15 June 2006

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    Featuring: Harry Kroto, Monica Grady, Ken Teo

     
  154. The Heart

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of ideas about the heart, a symbol to our spiritual, emotional, and moral core.

    1 June 2006

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    Featuring: David Wootton, Fay Bound Alberti, Jonathan Sawday

     
  155. Astronomy and Empire

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the relationship between astronomy and the British Empire, how astronomical science provided a means for navigation and British naval control.

    4 May 2006

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    Featuring: Simon Schaffer, Kristen Lippincott, Allan Chapman

     
  156. The Royal Society

    Melvyn Bragg discusses how the formation of the Royal Society heralded the dawning of a new scientific era in the 17th century.

    23 March 2006

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    Featuring: Stephen Pumfrey, Lisa Jardine, Michael Hunter

     
  157. Negative numbers

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the history of negative numbers, from the trailblazing Chinese to the suspicious Europeans.

    9 March 2006

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    Featuring: Ian Stewart, Colva Roney-Dougal, Raymond Flood

     
  158. Human Evolution

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the story of human evolution, a tale not of one species, but of many – some of whom walked the Earth at the same time.

    16 February 2006

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    Featuring: Steve Jones, Fred Spoor, Margaret Clegg

     
  159. Relativism

    Melvyn Bragg discusses Relativism, a school of philosophical thought which holds to the idea that there are no absolute truths.

    19 January 2006

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    Featuring: Barry Smith, Jonathan Rée, Kathleen Lennon

     
  160. Prime Numbers

    Melvyn Bragg discusses prime numbers, their still mysterious patterning and the secrets might hold about the nature of atoms.

    12 January 2006

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    Featuring: Marcus du Sautoy, Robin Wilson, Jackie Stedall

     
  161. Artificial Intelligence

    Melvyn Bragg discusses artificial intelligence and whether a computer could imitate the operations of the human mind.

    8 December 2005

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    Featuring: Jon Agar, Alison Adam, Igor Aleksander

     
  162. The Graviton

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the search for the Graviton, a hypothetical elementary particle that offers a unifying theory of gravitational force.

    24 November 2005

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    Featuring: Roger Cashmore, Jim Al-Khalili, Sheila Rowan

     
  163. Asteroids

    Melvyn Bragg discusses asteroids, once regarded as “the vermin of the solar system” but now viewed as key to our understanding of the beginning of time.

    3 November 2005

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    Featuring: Monica Grady, Carolin Crawford, John Zarnecki

     
  164. Mammals

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the rise of the mammals which began 65 million years ago with the extinction of the dinosaurs.

    13 October 2005

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    Featuring: Richard Corfield, Steve Jones, Jane Francis

     
  165. The KT Boundary

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the geological KT Boundary that points to a cataclysmic event in the history of the Earth; one that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs and the rise of the mammals.

    23 June 2005

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    Featuring: Simon Kelley, Jane Francis, Mike Benton

     
  166. Renaissance Maths

    Melvyn Bragg discusses Renaissance Mathematics and the change in the understanding of numbers, movement, time and even nature itself, culminating in the calculus of Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz.

    2 June 2005

    listen ↗

    Featuring: Robert Lee Kaplan, Jim Bennett, Jackie Stedall

     
  167. Perception and the Senses

    Melvyn Bragg discusses perception: how the brain reacts to the mass of data continually crowding it and examines what governs our perception of the world.

    28 April 2005

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    Featuring: Richard Gregory, David Moore, Gemma Calvert

     
  168. Dark Energy

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the recently discovered, and mysteriously named, 'dark energy' which may make up 70% of the universe.

    17 March 2005

    listen ↗

    Featuring: Martin Rees, Carolin Crawford, Roger Penrose

     
  169. Alchemy

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the pursuit of Alchemy, its history and legacy. What ideas could transform base metals into gold?

    24 February 2005

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    Featuring: Peter Forshaw, Lauren Kassell, Stephen Pumfrey

     
  170. The Cambrian Period

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the Cambrian period, a time when evolution took a leap, and life on this planet suddenly went to being large, complex, numerous and dizzyingly diverse.

    17 February 2005

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    Featuring: Simon Conway Morris, Richard Corfield, Jane Francis

     
  171. The Mind/Body Problem

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the history of thought about the mind/body problem in philosophy. Does the mind rule the body or the body rule the mind? And where does the mind reside?

    13 January 2005

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    Featuring: A. C. Grayling, Julian Baggini, Sue James

     
  172. The Second Law of Thermodynamics

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the Second Law of Thermodynamics from steam and boiling an egg to the Big Bang.

    16 December 2004

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    Featuring: John Gribbin, Peter Atkins, Monica Grady

     
  173. Jung

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the mind and theories of the psychiatrist Carl Jung who wrote about the concepts of 'introverted' and 'extroverted', and the significance of the collective history of Mankind.

    2 December 2004

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    Featuring: Brett Kahr, Ronald Hayman, Andrew Samuels

     
  174. Higgs Boson

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the Higgs Boson; the God particle, which explains how all mass behaves. It is a legend among physicists but does it exist?

    18 November 2004

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    Featuring: Jim Al-Khalili, David Wark, Roger Cashmore

     
  175. Electrickery

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the dawn of the age of electricity, from lightning conductors to leaping soldiers and Franklin to Frankenstein.

    4 November 2004

    listen ↗

    Featuring: Simon Schaffer, Patricia Fara, Iwan Morus

     
  176. The Origins of Life

    Melvyn Bragg discusses how the world’s first organic matter originated, nearly four billion years ago. What is the single common ancestor from which all living matter on our planet derives?

    23 September 2004

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    Featuring: Richard Dawkins, Richard Corfield, Linda Partridge

     
  177. Pi

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the history of the longest and most detailed number in nature and examines what it tells us about the hidden complexities of our world.

    2 September 2004

    listen ↗

    Featuring: Robert Lee Kaplan, Eleanor Robson, Ian Stewart

     
  178. Renaissance Magic

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the Renaissance obsession with Magic, including the serious and religious study of the 'hermetic texts' and the cabbala.

    17 June 2004

    listen ↗

    Featuring: Peter Forshaw, Valery Rees, Jonathan Sawday

     
  179. The Planets

    Melvyn Bragg discusses our knowledge of the planets in both our and other solar systems. What causes them to form and what is the likelihood of there being another with properties similar to Earth’s?

    27 May 2004

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    Featuring: Paul Murdin, Hugh Jones, Carolin Crawford

     
  180. Zero

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the history of the number between 1 and -1, which has strange and uniquely beguiling qualities. How was zero invented and what role does it play in mathematics today?

    13 May 2004

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    Featuring: Robert Kaplan, Ian Stewart, Lisa Jardine

     
  181. Hysteria

    Melvyn Bragg discusses a problematic notion which can be an emotional condition, a syndrome, an over-reaction, or the physical signs of trauma, which became the bedrock for psychoanalysis.

    22 April 2004

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    Featuring: Juliet Mitchell, Rachel Bowlby, Brett Kahr

     
  182. Theories of Everything

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the prospect of a single theory to solve the riddle of black holes, the Big Bang and the mystery of time travel. Why do we need one and what would it mean if we had it?

    25 March 2004

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    Featuring: Brian Greene, John Barrow, Val Gibson

     
  183. Dreams

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the function and interpretation of dreams. Why are neuroscientists starting to find reasons to take dreams seriously again?

    4 March 2004

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    Featuring: VS Ramachandran, Mark Solms, Martin Conway

     
  184. Rutherford

    Melvyn Bragg discusses Ernest Rutherford. He is seen as the father of nuclear science, a great charismatic figure who mapped the landscape of the sub-atomic world.

    19 February 2004

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    Featuring: Simon Schaffer, Jim Al-Khalili, Patricia Fara

     
  185. Cryptography

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the history of codes including the Caesar cipher, the ‘uncrackable’ Vigenere code, the Enigma machine and the cryptography that underwrites the information age.

    29 January 2004

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    Featuring: Simon Singh, Fred Piper, Lisa Jardine

     
  186. Lamarck and Natural Selection

    Melvyn Bragg discusses Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, the 18th century French scientist, and his theory of Natural Selection. Who was he and how far did he pave the way for Darwin?

    26 December 2003

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    Featuring: Sandy Knapp, Steve Jones, Simon Conway Morris

     
  187. Ageing the Earth

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the Age of the Earth, and how to make sense of four and half billions years of time.

    20 November 2003

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    Featuring: Richard Corfield, Hazel Rymer, Henry Gee

     
  188. Infinity

    Melvyn Bragg discusses a core concept in modern maths which philosophers and mathematicians have continued to grapple with; what is mathematical infinity and does it exist in nature?

    23 October 2003

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    Featuring: Ian Stewart, Robert Kaplan, Sarah Rees

     
  189. Maxwell

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the life and work of the often overlooked 19th century Scottish scientist, and his enormous contribution to the creation of the technological age in which we live.

    2 October 2003

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    Featuring: Simon Schaffer, Peter Harman, Joanna Haigh

     
  190. Nature

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the history of man’s attempt to define nature, including the Ancient Greek’s quest to demonstrate the wrath of the gods and the Romantics who set out to philosophise it.

    10 July 2003

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    Featuring: Jonathan Bate, Roger Scruton, Karen Edwards

     
  191. Vulcanology

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the formation and eruption of volcanoes, from the destruction of Pompeii to the risk of a Tsunami.

    3 July 2003

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    Featuring: Hilary Downes, Steve Self, Bill McGuire

     
  192. Memory

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the significance of memory. Is it a repository of events waiting to be plucked to consciousness?

    29 May 2003

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    Featuring: Martin Conway, Mike Kopelman, Kim Graham

     
  193. The Life of Stars

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the life cycle of stars. They are born among vast swirls of gas and dust and they die in stunning explosions.

    27 Mar 2003

    listen ↗

    Featuring: Paul Murdin, Janna Levin, Phil Charles

     
  194. Meteorology

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the fascinating and mystifying science of meteorology.

    6 March 2003

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    Featuring: Vladimir Janković, Richard Hamblyn, Liba Taub

     
  195. Chance and Design

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the questions and theories surrounding the idea of a grand design in the universe. Can the concept of the randomness of evolution be compatible with a belief in God?

    13 February 2003

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    Featuring: Simon Conway Morris, Sandy Knapp, John Brooke

     
  196. Imagination

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the creatives forces of the imagination, that companion of artists, scientists, leaders and visionaries.

    28 November 2002

    listen ↗

    Featuring: Susan Stuart, Steven Mithen, Semir Zeki

     
  197. Human Nature

    Melvyn Bragg discusses human nature. Are humans born as blank slates and our natures are defined by upbringing and experience or is human nature innate and pre-destined, regardless of time and place?

    7 November 2002

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    Featuring: Steven Pinker, Janet Radcliffe Richards, John Gray

     
  198. Psychoanalysis and democracy

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the impact of politics on psychoanalysis and how psychoanalysis itself attempts to resolve the conflicting ideas and voices within our minds.

    11 July 2002

    listen ↗

    Featuring: Adam Phillips, Sally Alexander, Malcolm Bowie

     
  199. Chaos Theory

    Melvyn Bragg discusses how Chaos Theory has affected our understanding of the universe and whether there might be an inherent order behind the fluctuations of the stock market or the British weather.

    16 May 2002

    listen ↗

    Featuring: Susan Greenfield, David Papineau, Neil Johnson

     
  200. The Physics of Reality

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the attempt to reconcile Quantum Theory, which deals with the smallest, invisible particles or waves, and the larger scale classical physics of Newton and Einstein.

    2 May 2002

    listen ↗

    Featuring: Roger Penrose, Fay Dowker, Tony Sudbery

     
  201. Extra Terrestrials

    Melvyn Bragg discusses whether there are reasons to suppose that some form of life might exist beyond, or even within, our solar system and what our chances of ever discovering such a planet are.

    4 April 2002

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    Featuring: Simon Goodwin, Heather Couper, Ian Stewart

     
  202. Anatomy

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the 2000 year old history of mankind's attempt to understand the human body and the role that science, religion and art have played in that pursuit.

    14 February 2002

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    Featuring: Harold Ellis, Ruth Richardson, Andrew Cunningham

     
  203. The Universe's Shape

    Melvyn Bragg discusses shape, size and topology of the universe and examines theories about its expansion. If it is already infinite, how can it be getting any bigger? And is there really only one?

    7 February 2002

    listen ↗

    Featuring: Martin Rees, Julian Barbour, Janna Levin

     
  204. Nuclear Physics

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the controversial 20th century scientific breakthrough and development of nuclear physics, which harnesses the enigmatic qualities of the atom’s core to create nuclear power.

    10 January 2002

    listen ↗

    Featuring: Jim Al-Khalili, Christine Sutton, John Gribbin

     
  205. Oceanography

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the science of Oceanography which has attempted to unmask the enigma of the oceans and seas.

    22 November 2001

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    Featuring: Margaret Deacon, Tony Rice, Simon Schaffer

     
  206. The Earth's Origins

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the origins of the Earth, from creation theory to modern scientific thought.

    5 July 2001

    listen ↗

    Featuring: Simon Winchester, Cherry Lewis, John Cosgrove

     
  207. Black Holes

    Melvyn Bragg discusses Black Holes, the dead collapsed ghosts of massive stars.

    12 April 2001

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    Featuring: Martin Rees, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Martin Ward

     
  208. Quantum Gravity

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the attempts to understand the Quantum world, which deals with the smallest invisible particles, and to which classical theories of gravity, motion and relativity do not apply.

    22 February 2001

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    Featuring: John Gribbin, Lee Smolin, Janna Levin

     
  209. Mathematics and Platonism

    Melvyn Bragg discusses whether mathematics is a process of invention or of discovery. And if it is a discovery, how can we be sure that the mathematic we think we have discovered is the right one?

    11 January 2001

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    Featuring: Ian Stewart, Margaret Wertheim, John D. Barrow

     
  210. Psychoanalysis and Literature

    Melvyn Bragg assesses whether Freudian theory reinvents our appreciation of literature before Freud, and explores how important Freudian analysis is to understanding the great works of literature.

    9 November 2000

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    Featuring: Adam Phillips, Malcolm Bowie, Lisa Appignanesi

     
  211. Evolutionary Psychology

    Melvyn Bragg explores the basis for the idea of Evolutionary Psychology and the context for its development as a discipline. What can it tell us about how we behave, and can it be trusted?

    2 November 2000

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    Featuring: Janet Radcliffe Richards, Nicholas Humphrey, Steven Rose

     
  212. Laws of Nature

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the quest to find a single over-arching equation that unites all of physics and examines whether what is true in physics is true in all areas of existence.

    19 October 2000

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    Featuring: Mark Buchanan, Frank Close, Nancy Cartwright

     
  213. Imagination and Consciousness

    Melvyn Bragg investigates how neuroscience can help to explain the enigmas of consciousness and how we are able to imagine things when they are not there; ideas that have long troubled philosophers.

    29 June 2000

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    Featuring: Gerald Edelman, Igor Aleksander, Margaret Boden

     
  214. Chemical elements

    Melvyn Bragg explores the history of chemistry, the role of the elements and examines chemistry's continuing mission to understand the behaviour and relationship of these irreducible substances.

    25 May 2000

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    Featuring: Paul Strathern, Mary Archer, John Murrell

     
  215. Human Origins

    Melvyn Bragg examines the evidence from palaeontology and anthropology in examining how we arrived at a period unique in the earth’s history when a sole human species is in evidence across the globe.

    27 April 2000

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    Featuring: Leslie Aiello, Robert Foley, Mark Roberts

     
  216. Grand Unified Theory

    Melvyn Bragg examines 20th century’s physics’ search for one theory that can explain the behaviour of the smallest particle as well as the movements of the largest planets in the Universe.

    24 February 2000

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    Featuring: Brian Greene, Martin Rees

     
  217. Goethe and the Science of the Enlightenment

    Melvyn Bragg assesses the scientific legacy of the 18th century German poet and thinker Goethe, who gave us the term morphology and is sometimes even credited with inventing biology itself.

    10 February 2000

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    Featuring: Nicholas Boyle, Simon Schaffer

     
    SciencePhilosophers of linguisticsGerman philosophers of artRomantic poetsGerman philosophers of scienceGerman political philosophersJohann Wolfgang von Goethe, Sturm und Drang18th-century German civil servants, 18th-century German dramatists and playwrights, 18th-century German historians, 18th-century German novelists, 18th-century German poets, 18th-century travel writers, 19th-century German civil servants, 19th-century German diplomats, 19th-century German dramatists and playwrights, 19th-century German poets, German bibliophiles, German diplomats, German male novelists, People from Weimar, Scientists from Weimar, Writers from Frankfurt, Writers from WeimarLiteracy and society theoristsPhilosophers of social science19th-century German philosophersTheorists on Western civilizationGerman travel writersPhilosophers of literaturePhilosophers of sexualityEpic poets19th-century German novelistsPhilosophy writersLeipzig University alumni18th-century German male writersEpigrammatists18th-century German philosophers, 18th-century essayists19th-century travel writers19th-century German male writersUniversity of Strasbourg alumniGerman philosophers of languageMembers of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and HumanitiesLiterary theoristsMembers of the Bavarian Academy of SciencesFabulistsGerman untitled nobilityGerman philosophers of culture19th-century German essayistsGerman male essayists18th-century German educators, 18th-century historians, 19th-century German educators, 19th-century historiansGerman autobiographersGerman ethicists, German philosophers of educationNatural philosophersGerman male dramatists and playwrights, German male poetsPantheistsFreethought writersEnlightenment philosophersGerman librariansWriters about activism and social changeColor scientistsGerman Freemasons19th-century German historians19th-century German non-fiction writersGerman philosophers of historyGerman male non-fiction writers
  218. Information Technology

    Melvyn Bragg discusses whether the information technology revolution will radically alter society by empowering the individual, or damage family life, the work-place and even democracy.

    13 January 2000

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    Featuring: Charles Leadbeater, Ian Angell

     
  219. Climate change

    Melvyn Bragg examines predictions and solutions for climate change and discusses whether the effects of global warming are already upon us, and if so, how we can really hope to stop them.

    6 January 2000

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    Featuring: John Houghton, George Monbiot

     
  220. Time

    Melvyn Bragg examines the history of mankind’s attempt to understand the nature of time. Does it exist independently of our perception of it, or is it merely a figment of our imagination?

    30 December 1999

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    Featuring: Neil Johnson, Lee Smolin

     
  221. Medical Ethics

    Melvyn Bragg discusses how the medical profession should cope with the moral questions that the advancement of science and the modern application of medicine brings into it?

    16 December 1999

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    Featuring: Barry Jackson, Sheila McLean

     
  222. Childhood

    Melvyn Bragg examines how perceptions of childhood have changed during the 20th century and discusses whether a clear distinction can always be made between childhood and adulthood.

    9 December 1999

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    Featuring: Christina Hardyment, Theodore Zeldin

     
  223. Consciousness

    Melvyn Bragg examines why the elusiveness and impenetrability of consciousness continues to fascinate both philosophers and scientists. Is the human mind just not built to understand its own basis?

    25 November 1999

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    Featuring: Ted Honderich, Roger Penrose

     
  224. Genetic Determinism

    Melvyn Bragg explores the part genes play in our personalities and examines how this affects our free will. Do genetic explanations for behaviour make a nonsense of free will, and therefore morality?

    23 September 1999

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    Featuring: Steve Jones, Matt Ridley

     
  225. Pain

    Melvyn Bragg discusses our mechanisms of coping with pain and examines whether we all experience it in the same way. What can our experience of pain tell us about ourselves and human consciousness?

    22 July 1999

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    Featuring: Patrick Wall, Semir Zeki

     
  226. Intelligence

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the origins, manifestations and possibilities of intelligence, and examines whether we are born with it, or if it is something we develop as we grow.

    1 July 1999

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    Featuring: Ken Richardson, Michael Ruse

     
  227. Memory and Culture

    Melvyn Bragg discusses how our ways of remembering have changed and explores whether memory itself can remain forever unchanged in its role within our psychology.

    27 May 1999

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    Featuring: Malcolm Bowie, Nancy Wood

     
  228. The Universe's Origins

    Melvyn Bragg examines the way thinking about the origins of the universe changed in the 20th century. Are we any closer to knowing whether other worlds exist and how our planet came into being?

    20 May 1999

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    Featuring: Martin Rees, Paul Davies

     
  229. Mathematics

    Melvyn Bragg examines the way perceptions of the importance of mathematics have fluctuated in the 20th century and what mathematics can reveal about how life began, and how it might continue.

    6 May 1999

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    Featuring: Ian Stewart, Brian Butterworth

     
  230. Evolution

    Melvyn Bragg examines the future of gene therapy and advances in evolutionary biology. Could electronic devices discover the means of self-replication, and what would be the consequences?

    15 April 1999

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    Featuring: John Maynard Smith, Colin Tudge

     
  231. Language and the Mind

    Melvyn Bragg discusses whether the formation of language is innate or cultural and examines how ideas about language are being radically challenged and altered in the 20th century.

    11 February 1999

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    Featuring: Jonathan Miller, Steven Pinker

     
  232. Psychoanalysis and its Legacy

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the relevance of psychoanalysis at the end of the 20th century. Has it failed to develop and adapt to an age increasingly dominated by science?

    4 February 1999

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    Featuring: Juliet Mitchell, Adam Phillips

     
  233. Neuroscience in the 20th Century

    Melvyn Bragg discusses the history of neuroscience, how far scientists have got with understanding the brain and what their research can tell us about ourselves and the world we live in.

    24 December 1998

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    Featuring: Susan Greenfield, Vilayanur S. Ramachandran

     
  234. The Brain and Consciousness

    Melvyn Bragg discusses how our increased knowledge of the functioning of the brain has changed our feelings about our own natures, and our approach to the behaviour and treatment of others.

    19 November 1998

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    Featuring: Steven Rose, Dan Robinson

     
  235. Science in the 20th century

    Melvyn Bragg discusses how perceptions of science have changed in the 20th century and examines whether it is coming any closer to integrating with philosophy or the social sciences.

    5 November 1998

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    Featuring: John Gribbin, Mary Midgley