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In Our Time

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	Melvyn Bragg and guests investigate the history of ideas. Thursday 9.00-9.45am, repeated 9.30pm.

	Science Archive
	You can listen again to all the programmes online. The most recent programmes appear at the top of the page.


	The Whale: A History The Vacuum of Space - a programme about nothing? Baconian Science - Francis Bacon and the birth of modern science The Measurement Problem in Physics - Man is not the measure of all things The Observatory at Jaipur - Indian astronomy on the cusp of colonialism

	Darwin - his life and achievements The Physics of Time - does time even exist? Heat: A History - from fire to thermodynamics Neuroscience - does the brain rule the mind? Vitalism - the spark of life Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems - the dirty secrets of maths Trofim Lysenko - Joseph Stalin's chief geneticist Probability - heads or tails? The Brain: A History - food for thought Newton's Laws of Motion - it is rocket science

	Ada Lovelace - prophet of the computer age The Multiverse - the universe is not enough Plate Tectonics - the day the Earth moved The Four Humours - yellow bile, blood, choler and phlegm in the original theory of everything Genetic Mutation - the error-strewn secrets of life The Fibonacci Sequence - the numbers in nature The Discovery of Oxygen - feuds and revolutions at the birth of modern chemistry Antimatter - where has it all gone? The Permian-Triassic Boundary - when 95% of life was killed off

	Gravitational Waves - a new window on the universe Symmetry - the pattern at the heart of our physical world Anaesthetics - from ether frolics to pain-free surgery Microbiology - the story of the invisible masters of the universe The History of Optics - from telescopes to microscopes, a new way of seeing the world Archimedes - the Greek mathematician and his Eureka moments Mars - the search for life on the Red Planet Indian Maths - laying the foundations for modern numerals and zero as a number The Speed of Light - a cosmic speed limit? The Poincare Conjecture - how a 19th century mathematician changed how we think about the shape of the universe The Needham Question - did China lay the foundations of modern science?

	Alexander von Humboldt - the remarkable career of the Prussian naturalist Galaxies - extra-galactic nebulae, black holes, stars and dark matter Carbon - the basis of life The Heart - its anatomical and cultural history Mathematics and Music - the science behind sound and composition Astronomy and Empire - the link between colonial expansion and scientific discovery The Search for Immunisation - and the battle against smallpox The Royal Society - the first club for experimental science Negative numbers - how they spread across civilizations Human Evolution - from early hominids to Homo sapiens

	Prime Numbers - the building blocks of mathematics Artificial Intelligence - the quest for a machine that can think The Graviton - the quest for the theoretical gravity particle Asteroids - celestial bodies from the beginning of time The Rise of the Mammals - life in a cold climate Magnetism - an attractive history The KT Boundary - did the dinosaurs burn out or fade away?

	Renaissance Maths - the birth of modern mathematics? Perception and the Senses - how do we see what we see? Dark Energy - the unknown force breaking the universe apart Alchemy - seeking the perfection of all things The Cambrian Explosion - the big bang of evolutionary history The Second Law of Thermodynamics - the most important thing you will ever know Carl Gustav Jung - Discovering the Self Higgs Boson - the search for the God particle Electrickery - the origins of electricity

	The Origins of Life - how it all began Pi - the number that doesn't add up Planets - the astronomy of the 21st century Zero - everything about nothing Hysteria - the normal state of human beings? Theories of Everything - still the holy grail of physics? Dreams - is there a science of dreams? Rutherford - the father of nuclear physics Cryptography - secret history of ciphers and codes Lamarck and Natural Selection - the Lamarckian Heresy

	Ageing the Earth - a journey in geological time. Infinity - a brief history. James Clerk Maxwell - great 19th century physicist Nature - from Homer to Darwin Vulcanology - significance of volcanoes. The Lunar Society - scientific ferment 200 years ago. Memory - and the brain Supernovas - the life cycle of stars Meteorology - why does it still fascinate us?

	Chance and Design in Evolution - Design in Nature Disease - the fight against diseases and plagues The Calendar - a history of the Calendar Psychoanalysis - do people crave dictatorship? The scientist in history - missionary or monster? History of drugs - their role in medicine and the arts Schrodinger's Cat - Quantum Mechanics Chaos Theory - ws the universe chaotic or orderly? ET - new life within our solar system Anatomy - 2000 years of anatomical study