Latest Brian schmidt Podcast Episodes

WTSTW 1770: The Gweagal Shield

Works That Shaped The World - November 04, 2020 04:13 - 30 minutes
1770 was a year of change on the cusp of the modern world. It was the year that James Cook set sail on his first voyage aboard the Endeavour. In April, he and a party landed at Kamay, what Europeans would come to call Botany Bay.  There an encounter took place. In the British Museum an...

The Lunar Origins of Cinema: Georges Méliès and Le Voyage dans la Lune

Works That Shaped The World - October 07, 2019 22:39 - 38 minutes
Since the early days of cinema, the moon has been an enchanting muse. The science of filmmaking was invented by the Lumière brothers, who débuted their cinématographe camera to astonished audiences in 1896. Yet it was their fellow Frenchman Georges Méliès, and his experimentations with ...

The Globe and the Moon: Shakespeare's Astronomical Imagination

Works That Shaped The World - September 10, 2019 02:20 - 39 minutes
How did Shakespeare understand the moon? In plays and poems of the 16th century, the moon carried the imaginative freight of centuries. The moon is invoked to express longing, chastity, coldness, changeability, envy, and the passage of time. As from ancient times, it was also understoo...

Apollo 8 and Earth Rise: Earth from the Moon, Seeing the Planet Whole

Works That Shaped The World - June 27, 2019 00:21 - 58 minutes
"Apollo 8 was the first spacecraft to send people out of Earth's orbit. The first to go to the moon. The first in lunar orbit. And leaving Earth's orbit was a momentous step. For the first time humans became true space travelers." -Tom Griffiths The moon has held a special place in cultures a...

Harmony of the Spheres and the Lost Works of Pythagoras

Works That Shaped The World - June 26, 2019 23:41 - 44 minutes
"How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank! Here will we sit and let the sounds of music Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night. Become the touches of sweet harmony." -from Shakespseare's 'The Merchant of Venice' The moon has held a special place in cultures across the globe. ...

A Unique Endeavour: The Space Race and Apollo 11

Works That Shaped The World - June 26, 2019 05:33 - 57 minutes
"We set sail upon this sea, because there is new knowledge to be gained." -John F Kennedy The moon has held a special place in cultures across the globe. An object of mystical wonder and focus of scientific inquiry, the moon is an enduring subject for artists, poets and writers. To land on th...