Science Stories

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Episodes

Date Title & Description Contributors
2019-09-10

  Alexis Carrel and the immortal chicken heart

Philip Ball tells the story of Alexis Carrel, the French surgeon who worked to preserve life outside the body and create an immortal chicken heart in a dish. His quest was to renew ageing flesh, repair and rebuild our bodies and keep them healthy far b...
  BBC Radio 4 author
2019-09-03

  Ramon Llull: the medieval prophet of computer science

Philip Ball tells the story of Ramon Llull, the medieval prophet of computer science. During the time of the Crusades Llull argued that truth could be automated and used logic over force to prove the existence of the Christian God. It was a dangerous...
  BBC Radio 4 author
2019-08-27

  Ignaz Semmelweiss: The Hand Washer

Lindsey Fitzharris tells the story of Ignaz Semmelweiss, the hand washer. In a world that had no understanding of germs, he tried to apply science to halt the spread of infection. Ignaz Semmelweis observed that many young medical students at his hospi...
  BBC Radio 4 author
2019-08-20

  Madame Lavoisier's Translation of Oxygen

Philip Ball tells the story of Madame Lavoisier; translator of oxygen. At a time when science was almost a closed book to women, Madame Marie Anne Lavoisier’s skills were indispensable. A translator, illustrator and critic of scientific papers, she ...
  BBC Radio 4 author
2019-08-12

  Galileo's lost letter

Galileo famously insisted in the early seventeenth century that the Earth goes round the Sun and not vice versa – an idea that got him into deep trouble with the Catholic Church. In 1633 Galileo was put in trial for heresy by the Inquisition, and was t...
  BBC Radio 4 author
2019-01-09

  Ibn al-Haytham and How We See

Philip Ball's story is of Ibn al-Haytham, the first scientist, and his book of optics that defined how we see.
  BBC Radio 4 author
2019-01-02

  Lady Mary Montagu's Smallpox Experiment

Naomi Alderman's Science Story reveals how Lady Mary Wortley Montagu experimented on her own child in a quest to prove that smallpox inoculation works. Born in 1689 in a position of some power and influence, Lady Mary travelled to Constantinople as the...
  BBC Radio 4 author
2018-12-26

  Kepler's Snowflakes

Philip Ball reveals the tale of a small booklet 'On The Six-Cornered Snowflake", written by Johannes Kepler as a New Year's gift. The C17th astronomer wished to explain the intricate and symmetrical shape of winter's tiny stars of snow. His insightful ...
  BBC Radio 4 author
2018-12-19

  Lucretius, Sheep and Atoms

Naomi Alderman's tale is of Lucretius, author of a 2000 year old poem that theorised about atoms and the natural world. Written in the first century BCE, during a chaotic and frightening time when the Roman Republic was collapsing, Lucretius encouraged...
  BBC Radio 4 author
2018-12-12

  Eddington's Eclipse and Einstein's Celebrity

Eddington's Eclipse and Einstein's Celebrity Philip Ball's tale is of a solar eclipse 100 years ago observed by Arthur Eddington, a British astronomer who travelled to the remote island of Principe off the coast of West Africa and saw the stars shift...
  BBC Radio 4 author