Telling the time: From sundials to satnav

Are we entering an era when robots will finally liberate people, and particularly women, from the drudgery of housework? There is certainly a buzz around domestic robots right now and every month seems to bring us a new autonomous machine that can fold your clothes or stack your ...  Show more

One of the first recorded examples of a marriage ceremony is dated more than 4000 years ago in Mesopotamia. And it seems that through the ages, weddings have never lost their appeal. The global wedding industry is today worth billions of dollars, and it is one that keeps on growi ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of mankind’s attempt to understand the nature of time. At the end of the 19th century, H.G.Wells imagined travelling through time in The Time Machine; “The palpitation of night and day merged into one continuous greyness; the sky took o ...  Show more

All our lives are ruled by time and it's a fundamental part of our daily routines but what if we could make time go more slowly - or quickly? Adrian Bejan, a professor in thermodynamics at Duke University says that this is possible if we just open our minds to how we perceive cha ...  Show more

There’s no such thing as “the correct time”. Like the value of money, it’s a convention that derives its usefulness from the widespread acceptance of others. But there is such a thing as accurate timekeeping. That dates from 1656, and a Dutchman named Christiaan Huygens. In the c ...  Show more

Pendant que vous écouterez cet épisode de Transfert, vous penserez probablement que le moment présent, là maintenant, qui correspond à ce qui est en train de se passer, est réel. L'unique réel. Vous pouvez vous rappeler du passé ou anticiper l'avenir, mais vous vivez dans ...