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I'm Naomi Alderman. This episode of Discovery from the BBC is the story of a moment in the history of a moment in the history of science. In May 1667, a rather extraordinary person visited London, a person everyone wanted to see, a celebrity

playwright, poet, author and international traveler. A person who had published a book on experimental philosophy and whose scientific patronage might be worth vast sums of money.

This science aficionado travelled in the most stylish way possible.

A large black coach trimmed with silver drawn by six horses,

the windows screened by white curtains.

A carriage of four footmen drove ahead to clear the way. A woman in

white satin was employed just to hold up the author's ermine train, while a hundred

boys and girls ran alongside them through London, hoping to get a glimpse

of the celebrity inside.

This extraordinary individual had made the 150-mile journey from Nottinghamshire to London, which

would have taken two or three days, and had put together an unusual agenda.

Respects were to be paid to the king, yes, and a visit to the queen.

There was a tour of Hyde Park and a visit to White Hall.

But the wealthy writer in the richly trimmed carriage was fascinated by a strange and impoverished new organization

which was championing some subversive practices.

The Royal Society for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge.

The fellows of what we now simply call the Royal Society waited nervously in their building near the Strand.

They were a group of scientists, experimenters and thinkers, including the chemist and physicist

Robert Boyle, the architect Christopher Wren,

...