Ancient Atoms
Today, many of us have an image of an atom in our heads, but how did writers and artists use metaphor to visualise these tiny building blocks before science proved their existence?
Jim Al-Khalili is a theoretical physicist and as a science communicator he knows the value of metaphors and imagery to bring theories and equations to life. Translating them into stories that capture the imagination, turning the inconceivable and the obscure into the familiar.
The story of the Atom begins over two thousand years ago, long before laboratories and particle accelerators, when humans first began musing about the nature of matter. In this episode Jim explores the language, literature and metaphor that shaped our earliest atomic visions, from the philosophy of ancient Greece to the flowering of the Renaissance; from Shakespeare’s tragedies to the first wooden ball-and-stick models.
Contributors:
Emily Wilson - Author, translator and professor of Classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania
Natalie Elliot - Academic at St Johns university Santa Fe
Frank Close - Emeritus Professor of Theoretical Physics at University of Oxford
Carlo Rovelli - Poet, writer and Theoretical Physicist
Presented by Jim Al-Khalili
Produced by Emily Bird
Executive Producer Sasha Feachem
A BBC Studios Production
On radio
Broadcast
- Next Monday11:00BBC Radio 4
