Lecture 17: On the Shoulders of Giants: Isaac...

What is Gravity? Starting with the properties of falling bodies first formulated by Galileo, Newton applied his three laws of motion to the problem of Universal Gravitation. Newtonian Gravity is a mutually attractive force that acts at a distance between any two massive bodies. I ...  Show more

Why do Kepler's Laws work? In this lecture I will describe Newton's generalization of Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion so that they will apply to any two massive bodies orbiting around their common center of mass. I will introduce families of open and closed orbits, the circular ...  Show more

There was a time when science and religion worked in harmony, as two parts of a celestial design. Astrologer and philosopher Johannes Kepler oversaw this marriage of theory and belief when he proposed the revolutionary laws of planetary motion in the early 17th century. Amidst pe ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the flow of particles from the outer region of the Sun which we observe in the Northern and Southern Lights, interacting with Earth's magnetosphere, and in comet tails that stream away from the Sun regardless of their own direction. One way of defi ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the pioneering Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546 – 1601) whose charts offered an unprecedented level of accuracy.In 1572 Brahe's observations of a new star challenged the idea, inherited from Aristotle, that the heavens were unchanging. He went o ...  Show more

The sun is out, the weather is warm, and summer school is in session! Neil deGrasse Tyson, co-host Matt Kirshen, and astrophysicist Charles Liu answer fan-submitted questions on mathematics, the Big Bang, the laws of physics, neutrinos, relativity, Pluto, the smell of the Milk ...