Chemical Elements

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the evolution of lungs and of the first breaths, which can be traced back 400 million years to when animal life spread from rock pools and swamps onto land, as some fish found an evolutionary advantage in getting their oxygen from air rather than w ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the decisive role of one of the great 20th Century physicists in solving the question of nuclear fission. It is said that Meitner (1878-1968) made this breakthrough over Christmas 1938 while she was sitting on a log in Sweden during a snowy walk wi ...  Show more

You are a star. Literally. You are a carbon-based life form and those atoms of carbon in the molecules that make up your cells were formed by a nuclear fusion reaction at the heart of long dead stars. That goes for the oxygen in your lungs too. And the red blood cells that c ...

You’ve seen it in your science classrooms, and there was probably a copy of it on the inside cover of your chemistry book. Maybe if you are a real nerd, you might even have your own personal copy. Yet its very creation was a revolutionary breakthrough that helped scientists and ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Laws of Nature. Since ancient times philosophers and physicists have tried to discover simple underlying principles that control the Universe: In the 6th Century BC Thales declared “Everything is water”, centuries later Aristotle claimed that a ...  Show more

As a kid, Ariana Remmel had a hard time figuring out where they fit in. They found comfort in the certainty and understanding of what the world was made of: atoms and molecules and the periodic table of elements. Years later, Ari went on to become a chemist and science writer. On ...  Show more