BBC Radio 4

Wed. 14 June 2017, 19:00

The Science Stories series, presented by Philip Ball, will include an episode called ‘The Medieval Bishop’s Big Bang Theory’. It will be available on the internet after broadcast.

Philip Ball tells the tale of Robert Grosseteste and his medieval Big Bang Theory. This is the story of how a 12th Century Bishop, obsessed with rainbows, colour and light streaming through Cathedral windows, describes the birth of the cosmos in his treatise ‘On Light’. It’s a tale of daring invention and imagination, of how an early faith in scientific and mathematical principles, coupled to a belief in a universe ordered by God, gave rise to an uncannily prescient idea. It was nothing less than a medieval Big Bang.  [BBC]