The Day the Universe Changed
This series based on a simple premise, the universe is essentially only how you yourself perceive it. If you change what you know about the universe, then to you, you have essentially changed the universe itself. In this series, James Burke explores nine key moments in the history of the Western world when the introduction of new knowledge and/or technology has led to profound changes in how the West thinks. These include things like the introduction of Guttenberg's printing press, Copernicus's sun centered universe model and Darwin's publishing of his theory of evolution.
- 1985-1985
- 1 season
- PBS
- Documentary
This series based on a simple premise, the universe is essentially only how you yourself perceive it. If you change what you know about the universe, then to you, you have essentially changed the universe itself. In this series, James Burke explores nine key moments in the history of the Western world when the introduction of new knowledge and/or technology has led to profound changes in how the West thinks. These include things like the introduction of Guttenberg's printing press, Copernicus's sun centered universe model and Darwin's publishing of his theory of evolution.
Season 1 Episode Guide
10 Episodes 1985
Episode 1
The Way We Are: It Started with the Greeks
The Ancient Greece based origins of modern Western Civilization's primary value of individuality driven curiosity that drives it to question and explore reality.
Episode 2
In the Light of the Above: Medieval Conflict - Faith and Reason
Introduction of the knowledge from captured Islamic Spanish libraries transforms the Europe's conception of knowledge and the fact that it can advance.
Episode 3
Point of View: Scientific Imagination in the Renaissance
The introduction of perspective techniques transforms Europe's use of art, architecture, geography and navigation among others with its revolutionary concept of remote positioning.
Episode 4
A Matter of Fact: Printing Transforms Knowledge
The introduction of practical mass printing ends Europe's predominate reliance on memory and its related concepts of reality and authority.
Episode 5
Infinitely Reasonable: Science Revises the Heavens
The Catholic Counter-Reformation inadvertently sparks the Scientific Revolution that begins to profoundly challenge Europe's concept of the universe and the authority of the Church.
Episode 6
Credit Where It's Due: The Factory and Marketplace Revolution
The rise of land enclosure and advances in engineering help transform the West's major economic philosophies.
Episode 7
What the Doctor Ordered: Social Impacts of New Medical Knowledge
The advance of modern medicine and public health comes at the cost of the fields becoming depersonalized with their increasing use of statistics and microbiology.
Episode 8
Fit to Rule: Darwin's Revolution
The introduction of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution undermines the concept of divine creation while providing a rationale for both capitalism and communism.
Episode 9
Making Waves: The New Physics - Newton Revised
As modern theoretical physics becomes more ambiguous in nature, the Western lay public increasingly confuses advances in engineering with pure science.
Episode 10
Worlds Without End: Changing Knowledge, Changing Reality
James sums up his ideas about the effect of different worldviews on science by showing how different cultures approach it in their own way.