Core team member Anna Marie Roos (our energetic Martin Lister Research Fellow) was in action on BBC Radio 4 this morning dissecting last night’s magnificent science-themed opening ceremony to the Paralympic Games. The ceremony – called ‘Enlightenment’ – dramatized some key episodes in the intellectual development of Britain and Europe from 1550 to 1720, including a montage of giant rolling and floating apples inspired by Isaac Newton’s famous encounter with the fruit in his Lincolnshire garden. In the interview on the Today programme, Anna Marie – who has published on Newton’s reflecting telescope and Lister’s role in developing it – reflects on the significance of the apple incident for Newton’s theory of universal gravitation and unpacks some of the ceremony’s other, more obscure scientific references. The interview is available on the iPlayer (the segment starts at 2:19), while there’s also an interview with Anna Marie on the University’s arts blog.
A major six-part BBC series on the history of science will start tomorrow (Tuesday 27 April 2010, 9pm, BBC2). The series, in which presenter Michael Mosley ‘takes an informative and ambitious journey exploring how the evolution of scientific understanding is intimately interwoven with society’s historical path’, was advised by Pietro Corsi, Professor of the History of Science and a member of the Project’s steering committee. For further information, see the the BBC website. The above clip and several others are available on the BBC’s YouTube channel.
Last Saturday’s edition of The Early Music Show on BBC Radio 3 showcased on a fascinating collection of instrumental music from seventeenth-century Germany (land of Comenius, and a comparative focus our 2011 conference), known as Das Partiturbuch Ludwig. The manuscript was put together by musician Jacob Ludwig as a birthday present in 1662 for his former employer in Wolfenbüttel, Duke August of Gotha. Now in the care of the Herzog August Bibliothek, it provides a rare insight into the musical cultures of the Holy Roman Empire in the middle decades of the seventeenth century. The programme is available for the next few days on the iPlayer.
Dr Anna Marie Roos, our industrious Martin Lister Research Fellow, has contributed her expertise to Chemistry: A Volatile History, a three-part series of hour-long documentaries to be broadcast on BBC Four from the end of this week. As well as describing Lister’s various contributions to the discipline, Anna Marie provides insights into Boyle and The Skeptical Chymist, and Newton and alchemy, and assisted producers in their preparation for the programme (including confirming that Boyle did not in fact invent the phosphorous match). The first episode will be broadcast on Thursday 21 January at 9pm.
Last Saturday’s edition of 
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