BBC - Science and Islam (2009), 2 of 3: The Empire of Reason

BBC - Science and Islam, Episode 2 of 3: The Empire of Reason

Physicist Jim Al-Khalili travels through Syria, Iran, Tunisia and Spain to tell the story of the great leap in scientific knowledge that took place in the Islamic world between the 8th and 14th centuries.

Al-Khalili travels to northern Syria to discover how, a thousand years ago, the great astronomer and mathematician Al-Biruni estimated the size of the earth to within a few hundred miles of the correct figure.

He discovers how medieval Islamic scholars helped turn the magical and occult practice of alchemy into modern chemistry.

In Cairo, he tells the story of the extraordinary physicist Ibn al-Haytham, who helped establish the modern science of optics and proved one of the most fundamental principles in physics - that light travels in straight lines.

Prof Al-Khalili argues that these scholars are among the first people to insist that all scientific theories are backed up by careful experimental observation, bringing a rigour to science that didn't really exist before.

Episode webpage: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00gq6h7

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BBC-Science and Islam (2009) 2of3.PDTV.XviD.Ekolb

Format : AVI
Length : 465 MiB for 59mn 3s 9ms

Codec : XviD
Source : PDTV
Language : English UK
Subtitles : None
Genre : Documentary

Video #0 : MPEG-4 Visual at 967 Kbps
Aspect : 512 x 384 (1.333) at 29.970 fps

Audio #0 : MPEG Audio at 121 Kbps
Infos : 2 channels, 48.0 KHz

Enjoy!
Ekolb