The Heavens are telling

Description: Part of the BBC Open University television series “From Copernicus to Darwin”. The program begins with Dr Colin Russell’s brief review of the heavens as known to the Babylonian astronomers, and continues with his description of the classical conceptions of the Universe held by the Pythagoreans and Plato, Eudoxus and Aristotle. He then examines the explanation of heavenly motion; discusses the conflict of the pantheistic idea that the heavens themselves were divine, and an alternative idea - that the Universe is a machine whose intricacy and immensity testified to the goodness and glory of God who created it. He finally moves on to Copernicus’ theory of a heliocentric Universe setting the scene for the Copernican revolution.