The Royal Institution
Professor Alan Davies presents a series of groundbreaking experiments pioneered by the Ancient Greeks. Often called the “birthplace of civilisation”, Ancient Greece heralded numerous advances in philosophy, science, engineering and mathematics which have shaped our understanding of the modern world.
Assisted by Ri demo technician, Andy Marmery, Professor Davies demonstrates the key discoveries and experiments of many Greek thinkers — from Thales and Pythagoras to Euclid, Archimedes and Hypatia of Alexandria.
This video was created as part of the Greek Legacy series of events, generously supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (http://www.snf.org).
The conference for sixth form students, held on Friday 6th March 2014, was a day of interaction and discovery – from exploring the astrolabe and the steam engine to exclaiming “Eureka!” and asking “How did they do that?”. Alongside Professor Davies’ demonstrations, talks were presented on Euclid and Hypatia. The audience discovered how the Greek Philosophers established the foundation of modern mathematics through the concept of proof, and students from Imperial College presented Greeks: The Musical!
Plus, there was the first ever public-screening of the Ri animation, The Greek Legacy.
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First
Was that Comic Sans? These scientists are so hip, or maybe just clueless 🙂
Sorry, ah, but this, ah, lecture, ah, ah, was, ah ….
You get the drift.
Ok, I've already made it 30 seconds into the video but now I have to ask: is this talk worth enduring 40 more minutes of Comic Sans?
How Greek Maths Changed the World Find out how the Ancient Greeks changed the world… Fab demo lecture with Prof Alan Davies and Andy Marmery. Many thanks to the the Stavros Niarchos Foundation for supporting our Greek Legacy event for Sixth-form students.
20:52 wow, I'm in love! She is so cute!
Nice lecture. Amazing how much of our geometry was discovered and utilized many, many centuries ago.
Antikythera mechanism!
…and this is Archimedes' death ray.
You might like to try it when you get home.
Δῶς μοι πᾶ στῶ καὶ τὰν γᾶν κινάσω (Give me a place to stand in and I'll move the earth)…
My only thought is that Archimedes' death ray didn't need to burn wood or even fry eggs, it would have been enough to damage the retina of the solders on the ship. For that to happen all they would need is about 5 times the solar energy on a sunny day to instantly blind them. So in that light I would say folklore could easily embellish the record of the event to call it a death ray. Certainly blind soldiers wouldn't have been much good.
STOLEN FROM AFRICA STOLEN FROM AFRICA STOLEN FROM AFRICA
the weight of the earth in my gravitational field is my weight in its gravitational field
I love that this lecture ends with my tombstone. How macabre!
ROFL it's INDIA who invented 0 binary system trigonometry and what not.U Greek ppl copied from India
Indian geometry (1700 bc) treatise called 'shulbosutra' was consulted by Euclid, and had a number of theorems copied from shulbosutra.
Vedic arithmetic likewise had a great influence on Greek mathematics.
Death ray: I thought about it long. Worked out the power (energy per second) needed & found that it is far fetched. It is the "sense of proportion" that he didn't take into account. He needed to have a million very highly polished shields. BTW, this set me thinking about the 'number system' they used. What was the number system they used? Simple ratio & proportion suffices to explain & demonstrate empirical Physics, then. Real progress made after the European dark ages was possible based on calculations & was impossible to experiment. However the Greeks were the first to show the way in Physics & engineering. His Buoyancy notion was a result of 'Gravity' that is the underlying basis. Yet it remained empirical for want of knowledge of Gravity, that needed a Newton to unravel a thousand years later. Death ray has been finally realised by now (following on their clue) with Laser beams instead of sunlight (only with judiciously employing "sense of proportion" that translates to engineering design). Greeks weren't aware of "lens" too, with which school kids now, routinely burn holes in apiece of paper.
SO THE GREEKS INVENTED THE BINNARY SYSTEM 0-9!PIE, TRIG ,ALGEBRA, AND SO ON I THOUGHT IT WAS ARYABATA OF INDIS, MAN YOU PEOPLE ARE SUCH……….IF THE DID ALL THIS HOW COME THEY ARE NOT LEADERS IN THIS COMUTER DIGITAL AGE.N.Kampy is know as one of the unsound heroes of the last century, he is the father of fiber optics, on wwhich our digital world run. Shiva a Tamil boy fourteen years old developed EMAI at NYU.What are the Greeks doing today where math and computers rule. Guess what they built them!!!!!!!
The knocking over the cuddly toy with a pendulum trick only works if the cuddly toy is vertically below the point of suspension of the pendulum. If not an elliptical path can be found that will hit it on the way back. And why did he say circle?
Thanks Doc))) Interesting !!!
and Al Jay forever!)
Quick maths
You mean how Greeks stole math concepts from Africans, Babylonians, and Indians. The idea that you can "assume" and create logical arguments is not originally greek either. You are in error and greek maths are only organized African concepts.
How is it called Greek mathematics, and the greeks never built an institution? The egyptians built a massive geometric pyramid, before there was a such thing as s people called greek.