James Burke seduced me into studying history by making me think I was learning about science.  The series The Day the Universe Changed explores influences of discoveries and shared knowledge on the perception of the Universe and man's place in it.

Burke continues in the slightly irreverant tradition as Connections, but he is more mature, a little less tongue in cheek.

Burke loves to be dramatic. He tells about the development of the airplane as the camera pulls back to reveal he is standing on a Concorde.  He travels to hundreds of locations in dozens of countries and uses a heap of BBC stock footage.   Here follows a summary of the flow of each episode.

The Day the Universe Changed

Episode Guide

(#1) It Started with the Greeks (#6) The Factory and Marketplace Revolution
(#2) Medieval Conflict: Faith and Reason (#7) Social Impacts of New Medical Knowledge
(#3) Scientific Imagination in the Renaissance (#8) Darwin's Revolution
(#4) Printing Transforms Knowledge (#9) The New Physics: Newton Revised
(#5) Science Revises the Heavens (#10) Changing Knowledge, Changing Reality

It Started with the Greeks (#1). Explains how the questioning, rational attitude of the ancient Greeks has continued through the centuries in the West and has led to constantly changing knowledge and discovery, thus creating conflict between these changes and inherently conservative institutions. Also discusses the thesis of the series that particularly important developments in the history of Western thought have produced corresponding changes in who we are.

  1. Each people defends its version of the truth.
  2. Some mysteries presented, how does something happing centuries ago fundamentally change our Universe.
  3. Asking questions centuries ago results in changes to our Universe.
  4. Ionians left Greece 3 millenia ago and decided to be practical.
  5. Taysley was behind it.
  6. Taking geometry from Egyptians, and applying the knowledge.
  7. This resulted in a rationalism.
  8. So, answers to questions asked in the past shape what we are today.
  9. steam power
  10. stellar cartography/coordinate systems
  11. We institutionalize knowledge so it must change us.
  12. We protect it with ritualism.
  13. We go further and make it law and have public administration.
  14. Buddism does the same thing with a roadblock to new knowledge.
  15. We institutionalize the process of changing in research laboratories.
  16. Think of the change a microchip can bring, such as,
  17. telecommuting. But what of the economy based on commuting?

Medieval Conflict: Faith and Reason (#2). Europe overuns Moorish Spain, discovering libraries, universities, optics, mechanics, and natural philosophy, as well as table manners and dessert. The rediscovery of classical knowledge leads to the founding of universities and the overthrow of Augustinian by Aritstotelian beliefs.
  1. Saint Augustine- the material world is unimportant
  2. Rise of monateries and the Dark Ages
  3. Charlemagne's brief candle
  4. Carolingian miniscule writing
  5. more dark ages
  6. Emeris's glossing of law texts
  7. Moorish Spain and height of culture, knowledge and standard of living
  8. Cordova's mosque and libraries
  9. fall of Toledo to El Cid's mercenaries
  10. rediscovery of Greek knowledge
  11. Aristotle's logic
  12. logic and Church don't mix
  13. two truths - everyday and religious
  14. letting some light in
  15. study of optics
  16. Theodoric of Freiburg's experiments to explain the rainbow

Scientific Imagination in the Renaissance (#3). Shows the startling changes that grew out of the study of Arab optics. From the discovery of perspective geometry came new painting and architecture, the ability to measure at a distance and to map the world, and the confidence that allowed Columbus to cross the Atlantic. Above all the new knowledge led to a new individualism.

  1. fall of Byzantine Empire
  2. Chrisalorus's mission to the Pope to prevent fall of Constantinople
  3. teaching Greek classics to the Italians at Fluorence
  4. tour of Greece - Claudius Ptolemy
  5. Medici double entry bookkeepping
  6. study of Italian heritage
  7. desire to imitate Roman architecture
  8. need for mathematics
  9. Ptolemy's coordinates
  10. Idea that Japan might be other side of Atlantic
  11. Columbus's voyage to America

Printing Transforms Knowledge (#4). The medieval world which relied largely on memorized knowledge and the spoken word was transformed by Gutenberg's discovery of printing. This new knowledge is analysed and connections are drawn to subsequent revolutions in Western thought.

  1. old people's memories
  2. auditing
  3. memory theater
  4. traveling troubadours
  5. expensive parchment and abbrevaited scribbles
  6. printing saves Gutenberg's financial hide
  7. printing indulgencies and corruptions in Church
  8. printing fuels protestant (Luther) movement
  9. coming of the book
  10. democratization of knowledge
  11. cross-indexing explodes knowledge

Science Revises the Heavens (#5). Deals with advances made during the Scientific Revolution, including Copernicus's explanation that the heavens do not revolve around the earth, Galileo's exploration of the acceleration of falling objects, and Newton's theories, and examines the bitter conflict that these ideas caused within the Catholic Church.

  1. Church summit in Trento, Italy
  2. talks drag on but end up with hard line - literal belief in Bible required
  3. need to get calendar straight for proper worship
  4. astronomer priest got enough information to see irregularities in motion
  5. perfect circular motion in heaven and straight line motion on earth
  6. ballistics were not straight lines
  7. Aristotle was wrong
  8. Copernicus's math trick - heliocentric solar system
  9. Newton showed gravity was the same thing on earth and the planets
  10. Galileo's telescope say it was true and he said so
  11. Catholic Church locked him up
  12. Halley's comet finally convince the church

The Factory and Marketplace Revolution (#6). Describes the origins of the Industrial Revolution and the resulting growth of urbanization, the creation of the factory system and an industrial working class, and the exploitation of the planet.

Social Impacts of New Medical Knowledge (#7). Looks at the rise of modern medicine and public health and their relationship to statistics which doctors have learned to apply to diseases, cures, and epidemics. Explains that as medicine became increasingly a science, patients increasingly became statistics.

Darwin's Revolution (#8). Reveals how Darwin's writings undermined the concept of an orderly, unchanging universe and with it the belief in the biblical theory of creation. Also considers how aspects of Darwinism were used to political and economic advantage to justify nazism, robber baron style capitalism, and communism.

The New Physics: Newton Revised (#9). Deals with the new era of scientific inquiry that started around 1800 with the study of the properties of electricity. Reviews advances in the study of magnetism and its relation to electricity, light, and subatomic particles. Also discusses the confusion between science and technology and the layman's essentially commonsense Newtonian view of the world while the scientific world is actually relative and uncertain.

Changing Knowledge, Changing Reality (#10).Points out that today's truth will be superseded as our scientific knowledge changes and questions whether moving from one stage of knowledge to another is really progress. Poses the questions: Is knowledge itself only what we make it? Should we find room for tolerance of other cultures' views of knowledge?.

Interesting sites:

The James Burke Web Repository

CNET personalities - movers and shakers - James Burke

James Burke : About the Author

UnAuthorized James Burke

Connections

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 Last updated 8/7/97.