How Did We Get Here?: A History of Evolutionary Science
The question of human origins, and of the beginning of life itself, is one of the most controversial science has ever wrestled with—and the debates are as divisive today as they were in the 19th century. This program tells the story of how scienti...
What Is the Secret of Life?: A History of Biology and Genetics
This program tells the story of how the secret of life has been pursued through the ages, using the prism of the most complex organism known—the human body. It begins with Galen’s attempts to save the lives of gladiators in ancient Rome, continu...
What Is the World Made Of?: A History of Chemistry and Physics
Both greed and grand idealism have propelled the quest to discover what makes up the material world. No matter how abstract or elusive the goal, its promise has inspired an unquestionable impact on humanity. By trying to learn the nature of matter, ...
Unleashing the Power: Creating Chemical Compounds and Splitting Atoms
Once scientists succeeded in identifying and organizing the 92 naturally occurring chemical elements, the challenge then became how to manipulate them into amazing new configurations—and how to tap their essentially limitless energy. A tale of str...
Mysteries of Matter: Chemistry and the Elements, from Hennig Brandt to Humphry Davy
Until the 17th century, the building blocks of the natural world were a mystery. Of elements there were believed to be four—air, earth, fire, and water—and the science of chemistry had yet to be born. This program identifies some of the first ch...