An Animated History of Physics Introduces the Discoveries of Galileo, Newton, Maxwell & Einstein

How can you present sci­en­tif­ic ideas to an audi­ence of all ages — sci­en­tists and non-sci­en­tists alike — so that these ideas will stick in peo­ple’s minds? Since 2012, BBC Two has been try­ing to answer this ques­tion with its series “Dara Ó Bri­ain’s Sci­ence Club.” Irish stand-up come­di­an and TV pre­sen­ter Dara Ó Bri­ain invites experts to his show to tack­le the biggest con­cepts in sci­ence in a way that is under­stand­able to non-experts as well. Film clips and ani­ma­tions are used to visu­al­ize the ideas and con­cepts dealt with in the show.

In 2012, Ă…sa Lucan­der, a Lon­don-based ani­ma­tor orig­i­nal­ly from Fin­land, was approached by the BBC with the task of cre­at­ing an ani­ma­tion about the his­to­ry of physics. The result is as enter­tain­ing as it is instruc­tive. The clip deals with the dis­cov­er­ies of four major sci­en­tists and the impact of their find­ings: Galileo Galilei, Isaac New­ton, James Clerk Maxwell and Albert Ein­stein.

Bonus mate­r­i­al:

By pro­fes­sion, Matthias Rasch­er teach­es Eng­lish and His­to­ry at a High School in north­ern Bavaria, Ger­many. In his free time he scours the web for good links and posts the best finds on Twit­ter.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Free Online Physics Cours­es

Leonard Susskind Teach­es You “The The­o­ret­i­cal Min­i­mum” for Under­stand­ing Mod­ern Physics

125 Great Sci­ence Videos: From Astron­o­my to Physics and Psy­chol­o­gy


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Comments (4)
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  • Why why says:

    YOU MAKE A PHYSICS HISTORY THING WITHOUT HAVING NICOLA TESLA? ARE U FUCKING STUPID? THIS VIDEO IS SHIT.

  • pgrudin says:

    Physics began in the Euro­pean Renais­sance? What about Pythago­ras? What about Archimedes?

    You are ter­ri­bly mis­lead­ing to present a his­to­ry of physics that begins in the mid­dle of that his­to­ry with­out any men­tion of the start.

  • @Why why: I thought that Tes­lian­ism was an Ital­ian new kind of reli­gion, but sad­ly I dis­cov­er that it spread every­where… And what about chem­trails and microchips under­skin?

  • Jane says:

    The ani­ma­tion is cute, but it explains noth­ing.

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