Lecture 3: Imagining Other Worlds

Modern science was borne of an effort over many centuries to understand the motions of celestial bodies. The Copernican Revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries was the crucial moment in history when we finally understood the nature of celestial motions, and opened the door to t ...  Show more

What is the nature of matter, and how did we come to understand the chemical elements and atomic structure? This lecture is a brief and selective overview of the history of our understanding of the nature of matter and chemistry. We will also introduce spectroscopy and radioactiv ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life cycle of stars. In his poem Bright Star John Keats wrote, "Bright Star, would I were steadfast as thou art". For Keats the stars were symbols of eternity- they were beautiful and ordered and unchanging - but modern astronomy tells a very d ...  Show more

Are we alone in the Universe? This lecture explores the question of how we might go about finding life on planets around other stars. Rather than talking about speculative ideas, like the Drake Equation or SETI, I am instead taking the approach of posing it as a problem of what t ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the abrupt transformation of stars after shining brightly for millions or billions of years, once they lack the fuel to counter the force of gravity. Those like our own star, the Sun, become red giants, expanding outwards and consuming nearby plane ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the abrupt transformation of stars after shining brightly for millions or billions of years, once they lack the fuel to counter the force of gravity. Those like our own star, the Sun, become red giants, expanding outwards and consuming nearby plane ...  Show more