Series

Watch The Day the Universe Changed (1985) Online

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8.812 votes198555mEndedDocumentaryOfficial site

Synopsis

Documentary series about the effect of advances in science and technology on western society in its philosophical aspects.

Episodes

Season 1

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1. The Way We Are: It Started with the GreeksNow viewing1985-03-1945mWritten and presented by James Burke, this 10-part series traces the development of Western thought through its major transformations since the days of ancient Greece. Program one is an overview of the series, showing how a culture’s view of the world around it determines how it sees itself, and is reflected even in the smallest details of its customs and habits.
2. In the Light of the Above: Medieval Conflict: Faith and Reason1985-03-2645m
3. Point of View: Scientific Imagination in the Renaissance1985-04-0245mShows that Western Europe’s rediscovery of perspective through the study of Arab optics led to revolutions in art and architecture. The West’s new-found ability to control things at a distance resulted in new methods of warfare and the confidence to make long voyages of exploration.
4. A Matter of Fact: Printing Transforms Knowledge1985-04-0945mObserves that the invention of printing and the advent of cheap paper forever transformed the nature of knowledge from the local and traditional to the systematic and testable. Nationalism, public relations, and propaganda are among the results.
5. Infinitely Reasonable: Science Revises the Heavens1985-04-1645mNotes that investigators such as Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton evolved better explanations of natural phenomena than those of Aristotle. Highlights the theories that led to a new conception of how the universe works and of man’s place in it.
6. Credit Where It's Due: The Factory and Marketplace Revolution1985-04-2345mLocates the origins of contemporary consumerism in the English industrial Revolution, powered by religious dissenters barred from all activities except trade. The invention of the steam engine, new forms of credit, surplus wealth, and opening markets laid the foundation for industrial society.
7. What the Doctor Ordered: Impacts of New Medical Knowledge1985-04-3045mTraces modern society’s recognition of the value of statistics to medical advances stemming from responses to the French Revolution and an English cholera epidemic. Identifies the origins of medicine as a science with the discovery of anesthesia, antiseptics, and bacteriology.
8. Fit to Rule: Darwin's Revolution1985-05-0745mTracks the expectation of change, fundamental to contemporary society, through the developing sciences of botany, geology, and biology to Darwin’s theory of evolution. Darwin’s theory, in turn, has been used as a justification for Nazism, communism, and cut-throat capitalism.
9. Making Waves: The New Physics: Newton Revised1985-05-1445mPoints out that studies of the properties of magnetism, electricity, and light have led scientists to the realization that Newtonian physics is inadequate to explain all that they observe. The public, meanwhile, has continued to concentrate on the technological by-products of science.
10. Worlds Without End: Changing Knowledge, Changing Reality1985-05-2145mObserves that over the centuries Western civilization has regularly shifted its conception of the nature of truth. The series closes with host James Burke's remarkably prescient assessment of the role in which modern computer networks are beginning to now play in shaping man's current conception of his reality as well as how they may well define the fundamental nature of all future human interaction. And while his message is ultimately a positive one, it is tempered with the warning that while the promise of the computer may indeed provide a framework for a future anarchism where human freedom is nourished and where every individual conception of reality is a valid one, it could conversely become of tool of totalitarian repression and conformity.

Cast

Top Billed Cast

James Burke

Availability

Where To Watch Legally

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FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Is The Day the Universe Changed available to watch online?

Vidbox does not currently have a legal streaming, rental or purchase option on record for The Day the Universe Changed in this region.

How many seasons does The Day the Universe Changed have?

The Day the Universe Changed has 1 season and 10 episodes.

When did The Day the Universe Changed first air?

The Day the Universe Changed first aired in 1985.

Is The Day the Universe Changed still running?

The Day the Universe Changed's status on TMDB is: Ended.

What genre is The Day the Universe Changed?

The Day the Universe Changed is classified as Documentary.