This year's Reith Lecturer is Professor Bernard Lovell, the first Director of the Jodrell Bank Experimental Observatory, and Professor of Radio Astronomy at Manchester University. During the Second World War, he helped to develop radar systems for aircrafts, for which he received an OBE in 1946. He delivers six lectures on the wonders of the solar system in his series entitled 'The Individual and the Universe'.

In his fifth lecture entitled 'The Origin of the Universe 1', Professor Bernard Lovell explores how we observe the horizon of the universe, and contemplates how we formulate theories in terms of known physical laws. He gives examples of evolutionary models and explains the implications of this evolutionary theory.