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Science Stories

Factual: Science & Nature

Surprising stories from the history of science told by Naomi Alderman and Philip Ball.

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Science Stories: Series 5

Science Stories: The Medieval Bishop's Big Bang Theory

The Day the Earth Stopped Standing Still

14/06/2017

The Medieval Bishop's Big Bang Theory

BBC Radio 4 - Science Stories, The Medieval Bishop's Big Bang Theory

Philip Ball on a very modern medieval Big Bang Theory forged by a 13th-century bishop.

Philip Ball tells the tale of a medieval Big Bang Theory forged by Bishop Robert Grosseteste in the 12th century.

Philip Ball tells the tale of Robert Grosseteste and his medieval Big Bang Theory. This is the story of how a 13th Century Bishop, obsessed with rainbows, colour and light streaming through Cathedral windows, describes the birth of the cosmos in his treatise 'On Light'. It's a tale of daring invention and imagination, of how an early faith in scientific and mathematical principles, coupled to a belief in a universe ordered by God, gave rise to an uncannily prescient idea. It was nothing less than a medieval Big Bang.

Producer: Erika Wright.

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