LIGHT FANTASTIC 3 Eng.sub

Light Fantastic explores the phenomenon that surrounds and affects nearly every aspect of our lives but one which we take for granted - light.

Reader in History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge, Simon Schaffer presents the four-part series, Light Fantastic.

Unlike some public science writing and broadcasting which explains the roots of where we are now, this series is about understanding the roots of where we were. In other words, the past of the sciences is presented on its own terms, showing the significance of forces like theology, culture and economic development on the development of ideas. To imagine there have always been scientists is very misleading. Before the 19th Century no one calls themselves a scientist, they don't cut up the world like that. It look at the preoccupations of the clergymen, medics, industrialists, engineers and professors responsible for the breakthroughs. Take Newton: you can't understand what he is doing in the 1660s, experimenting with prisms and sunlight, unless you realise he is obsessed by the problems of religion and God. Light interests him because it's the principle of divinity, or how creation happens. Realising the meaning of those experiments to Newton, in theological terms, demonstrates just how different the
intellectual environment was to our current one.

The programmes challenge the 'conflict thesis': the idea that the progress of science has always been contested by established religion. Almost all the people mention in the series are creationists. Galileo was a believer. He wanted the church to agree that the Earth goes round the Sun because he didn't want the church to be wrong!

Part 3: The Stuff of Light

Episode three charts the discovery of the true nature of light and its impact on the modern world. All of today's technologies - electricity, mobile communications and our ability to illuminate the world 24 hours a day - stem from unravelling the mystery of light.

Technical Specs

Video Codec.......: XviD (B-VOP/No QPel/No GMC)
Video Bitrate.....: 1500-1600 kb/s
Video Resolution..: 704x400
Video Aspect Ratio: 16:9 (1.76:1)
Framerate.........: 25.000 fps

Audio Codec.......: 0x0055(MP3, ISO) MPEG-1 Layer 3
Audio Bitrate.....: 131kbps VBR 48000Hz
Audio Channels....: 2