Light & Dark. Light

Description

The story of how we use light to reveal the cosmos begins in the 3rd century BC with the Greek mathematician Euclid's discovery that light travels in straight lines-a discovery that meant that if we could change its path we could change how we see the world. In Renaissance Italy, 2,000 years later, Galileo Galilei did just that by using the lenses of his simple telescope to reveal our true place in the cosmos. With each new insight into the nature of light came a fresh understanding of the cosmos. It has allowed us to peer deep into space and even revealed the composition and life cycles of the stars. In the 1670s, the Danish astronomer Ole Roemer discovered that light traveled at a finite speed, a discovery that had a profound implication. And in 1964, by detecting the cosmic microwave background, we captured the oldest light in the universe and saw as far back as is possible to see with light. Professor Jim Al-Khalili shows how scientists have used light to reveal almost everything we know about the Universe.

Runtime

60 min

Series

Subjects

Genre

Date of Publication

[2014], c2013

Database

Films on Demand

Direct Link