In Our Time

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BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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Factual: History

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas, people and events that have shaped our world.

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In Our Time: Eclipses

31/12/2020

Eclipses

BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, Eclipses

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the scientific advances gained from studying eclipses.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the progress in our understanding of eclipses from the ancient world onwards and how their predictability illuminates historical records and myths.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss solar eclipses, some of life’s most extraordinary moments, when day becomes night and the stars come out before day returns either all too soon or not soon enough, depending on what you understand to be happening. In ancient China, for example, there was a story that a dragon was eating the sun and it had to be scared away by banging pots and pans if the sun were to return. Total lunar eclipses are more frequent and last longer, with a blood moon coloured red like a sunrise or sunset.  Both events have created the chance for scientists to learn something remarkable, from the speed of light, to the width of the Atlantic, to the roundness of Earth, to discovering helium and proving Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity.

With 

Carolin Crawford
Public Astronomer based at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge and a fellow of Emmanuel College


Frank Close
Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford

And

Lucie Green
Professor of Physics and a Royal Society University Research Fellow at Mullard Space Science Laboratory at University College London


Producers: Simon Tillotson and Julia Johnson

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