Open University.

Centuries ago, draining a wound of pus was the surest way to fight dangerous infection, but millions of deaths from pestilent disease proved that this practice was not always successful. Even after medieval medicine gave way to Louis Pasteur's germ theory physicians had a tough time knocking out bacteria, until the advent of penicillin. This program traces the development of antibiotics and profiles the researchers who helped eradicate many bacterial...

If anyone comes close to rivaling Winston Churchill as the central figure in modern British history, it is John Maynard Keynes. He is often credited with, among other things, helping to save capitalism from the Great Depression, ensuring that the war against the Nazis was properly funded, and building postwar decades of growth and prosperity. Today his ideas remain crucial to the critical debate of our time: should governments borrow and spend their...

Because we are able to measure energy, satellites in space can take the temperature of oceans and calculate the thickness of sea ice to within a millimeter's worth of accuracy. The ability to quantify heat, light, and electricity has transformed our lives, but how did we learn to measure these seeming intangibles with such precision? From lightning bolts and Watt engines to electromagnetic waves and single electrons, this program explores the measurement...

Rome was once the center of Christian persecution, but the martyrdom there of Paul and Peter began the unfolding of a historical epic that ended with the seat of empire becoming the spiritual capital of the Western Latin church. This program charts the development of Roman Catholicism, traveling to the ancient Port of Ostia, churches in Ravenna, and a remote Celtic monastery to show how Constantine took Christianity from a religion for the downtrodden...

Medieval philosophers believed that certain numbers had magical properties and, in a sense, they were right. This program explores irrational, negative, prime, and imaginary numbers and the surprising ways they manifest throughout the physical world. Professor Marcus de Sautoy explains key concepts about pi and other numbers by using examples such as the harmonious design of Chartres Cathedral; the ratios that govern both music and the distress cries...

It's a technological miracle we rarely stop to consider - a signal sent thousands of kilometers across the globe in a matter of seconds, so that millions of people can watch a game-winning play or breaking news. This program shows how 21st-century communications satellites are designed and constructed. Going inside Astrium, a high-profile aerospace engineering firm, the film illustrates the development of satellite payloads and the assembly of precision...

To some, Jackson Pollock's art is a chaotic mass of paint, but those who love his work may be reacting to the fact that the splatters are actually fractals, and thus mirror the patterns of the natural world. In this program Professor Marcus de Sautoy explores recurring shapes found in nature and the geometric principles that unite them. He reveals that the stones of the Giant's Causeway are six-sided for the same reason that honeycombs are, and explains...

The Reformation was a period of rebellion, upheaval, and war - all sparked by one man whose revolt against church authority led to the creation of Protestantism and ultimately, to a reinvigoration of the Catholic faith. This program travels to churches in Europe, Britain, and Mexico to explore the key figures, philosophies, and movements of the Protestant Reformation. It looks at the issues that inflamed Martin Luther, and then Zwigli and John Calvin,...

The years between the World Wars generated self-doubt and ideological crisis as Britain contemplated the devastation of World War I and the decline of empire that would transform the British novel. "The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins," wrote D. H. Lawrence in Lady Chatterley's Lover. This program examines the evolution of the British novel during the period 1919-39, spotlighting E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, Barbara Cartland, P. G....

For a few weeks every year starlings migrate, creating shifting, synchronized formations of nearly a million birds that flow across the sky like a well-choreographed dance. How does each bird anticipate where its neighbor will fly? Studying data from Google allows analysts to predict flu outbreaks-so why can't weather be forecast more than a few days in advance? And if winning a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors depends on random chance, how is it that...