Medieval Science

You're Dead to Me

BBC

Comedy, History

4.7 • 11.8K Ratings

🗓️ 24 September 2021

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

There's a school of thought out there that, following the fall of the Roman Empire around Europe, there's a decline in knowledge, technologies, and economics. But is this true?

Greg Jenner and his guests look at a range of discoveries spanning a thousand of years, widely known as the Medieval period. How was knowledge and scientific findings shared across a world with its countless languages and regions before the internet? Looking at essential scholars of the time like Ibn Al Hytham, the 'father of modern optics', and the evolution of compasses and maps, this episode picks up some of the weird and wonderful advancements of the period that we still use today - Medieval Science.

Greg is joined by Dr Seb Falk, a historian of Medieval Science, an expert on astronomy and mathematics and the author of the book The Light Ages, which was voted Book of the Year 2020 by the The Times and The Telegraph. Alongside Dr Falk, we have the multi-award-winning comedian, writer, podcaster and filmmaker, Josie Long, who has alsp appeared on 8 Out Of 10 Cats, Have I Got News For You and House of Games.

Research - Rosanna Evans Script- Emma Nagouse, Rosanna Evans and Gregg Jenner Project Manager - Siefe Miyo Edit Producer - Cornelius Mendez

The Athletic production for BBC Radio 4

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts
0:05.9	Hello and welcome to your Dead To Me, a BBC Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history
0:10.6	seriously.
0:11.9	My name is Greg Jenner, I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster, and the chief
0:15.8	nerd on the funny kids show, horrible histories.
0:18.7	Today we are packing our sundial, star maps and astrolaves as we travel back many centuries
0:24.2	to learn all about medieval science.
0:26.8	And to do that I'm joined by two very special guests in History Corner.
0:30.4	He's a historian of medieval science and is an expert in the history of astronomy,
0:34.2	navigation and mathematics.
0:36.0	He teaches at the University of Cambridge and his fascinating book The Lightages was a
0:40.0	Times and Telegraph book of the year in 2020.
0:42.9	He's a BBC New Generation thinker, it's Dr. Seb Falk.
0:45.9	Hello Seb, welcome to the show.
0:47.4	Hiya, thanks for having me.
0:49.0	And in Comedy Corner, she's a multi-award winning comedian, writer, broadcaster, broadcaster
0:53.1	and filmmaker.
0:54.1	She was the first woman to be nominated three times for an Edinburgh Comedy Award.
0:58.2	You may have heard her on the radio or seen one of her many brilliant stand-up shows or
1:01.7	caught her on one of her countless TV appearances and such things as eight out of ten cats,
1:05.9	having the news for you, House of Games.
1:08.2	It's the marvelous, Josie Long.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.