
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
As part of the BBC's year of science programming, Melvyn Bragg looks at the history of the oldest scientific learned society of them all: the Royal Society. Melvyn travels to Wadham College, Oxford, where under the shadow of the English Civil War, the young Christopher Wren and friends experimented in the garden of their inspirational college warden, John Wilkins. Back in London, as Charles II is brought to the throne from exile, the new Society is formally founded one night in Gresham College. When London burns six years later, it is two of the key early Fellows of the Society who are charged with its rebuilding. And, as Melvyn finds out, in the secret observatory in The Monument to the fire, it is science which flavours their plans.
4.6
681681 ratings
As part of the BBC's year of science programming, Melvyn Bragg looks at the history of the oldest scientific learned society of them all: the Royal Society. Melvyn travels to Wadham College, Oxford, where under the shadow of the English Civil War, the young Christopher Wren and friends experimented in the garden of their inspirational college warden, John Wilkins. Back in London, as Charles II is brought to the throne from exile, the new Society is formally founded one night in Gresham College. When London burns six years later, it is two of the key early Fellows of the Society who are charged with its rebuilding. And, as Melvyn finds out, in the secret observatory in The Monument to the fire, it is science which flavours their plans.
5,409 Listeners
1,834 Listeners
7,676 Listeners
3,208 Listeners
109 Listeners
1,813 Listeners
1,081 Listeners
345 Listeners
960 Listeners
1,941 Listeners
1,052 Listeners
1,902 Listeners
594 Listeners
281 Listeners
858 Listeners
237 Listeners
352 Listeners
398 Listeners
818 Listeners
2,977 Listeners
284 Listeners
2,954 Listeners