Name: The Day the Universe Changed
ISBN: 9780563201922

The Day the Universe Changed

"In The Day the Universe Changed, James Burke examines eight periods in history when our view of the world shifted dramatically: in the eleventh century, when extraordinary discoveries were made by Spanish crusaders; in fourteenth-century Florence, where perspective in painting emerged; in the fifteenth century, when the advent of the printing press shook the foundations of an oral society; in the sixteenth century, when gunnery developments triggered the birth of modern science; in the early eighteenth century, when hot English summers brought on the Industrial Revolution; in the battlefield surgery stations of the French revolutionary armies, where people first became statistics; in the nineteenth century, when the discovery of dinosaur fossils led to the theory of evolution; and in the 1820s, when electrical experiments heralded the end of scientific certainty." "Based on the popular television documentary series, The Day the Universe Changed is a bestselling history that challenges the reader to decide whether there is absolute knowledge to discover - or whether the universe is "ultimately what we say it is.""--BOOK JACKET.

What Hacker News says

ynacJul 2024

"The Day the Universe Changed" is another James Burke contribution to both story telling and historical relationships almost never told elsewhere.

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dayofthedaleksSep 2022

Adam Curtis is great, but his stuff is better described as commentary. He basically does James Burke's 'Connections' [0] as polemic. Can't get enough personally.

[0] Burke's 'Connections' and 'Day the Universe Changed' are definitely worthy of mention on this post.

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jleyankFeb 2022

You have to like his writing style but bill Bryson’s short history of everything. James burke’s day the universe changed is thought provoking and bronowski’s ascent of man is also good.

Timothy Ferris (not that one) and John gribbin have also trod this area.

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arisbe__Feb 2022

The Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

Galileo’s Pendulum: From the Rhythm of Time to the Making of Matter by Roger G Newton

From Clockwork to Crapshoot: A History of Physics by Roger G Newton

Connections by James Burke

The Day The Universe Changed by James Burke

re Math: Everything and More A Compact History of Infinity by David Foster Wallace

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dredmorbiusNov 2020

The first Connections series (and the book), and The Day the Universe Changed, are both excellent.

Connections2 and Connections3 flag somewhat. Both were produced for TLC, at a point before its Honey Boo Boo slide, though off its peak. One ran shorter (~25 minute) episodes, which is unfortunate, and there was an excessive fascination with early-1990s CGI effects. Still a net positive.

The series is often findable on YouTube.

A notable omission from all four series is much reference to Chinese science and technology, or any reference to Burke's compatriot Joseph Needham, who compiled the definitive study of these topics, Science and Civilisation in China, a monumental work I've only learned of in the past five years or so.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_Civilisation_in_Ch...

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dredmorbiusNov 2020

Connections was savvy in finding faires, working museaums, and access to the BBC's film vaults for providing much (though not all) such footage. Burke describes going to reenactment festivals to film many of the medieval life scenes.

And his journalist background and connections enabled him to have the access necessary to shoot single-take sequences such as this:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=2WoDQBhJCVQ

(Hardly the only impressive on-location scene in his work.)

Agreed with your comments on the primary importance of writing and research. I'd argue that Chris & Evan Hadfield's "Rare Earth" is getting close, Tom Scott is doing quite well, and Derrek Muller's "Veritasium" and Destin Sandlin's "Smarter Every Day" have promise.

Several YouTubers have been picked up by traditional broadcasters/production organisations, notably Hank Green ("Crash Course"), with PBS, and Emily Graslie ("Prehistoric Road Trip"), with the Chicago Field Museum. YouTube as a training and recruiting ground has merits.

One reason Connections is so hard to compare to is that it's pretty incomparable: forty years on we're still discussing it in glowing terms. It was produced by someone well-established and experienced at least within the BBC, and backed by the organisation. Notably, little from either national/public broadcasting or commercial production has even approached it. My short list includes Sagan's Cosmos, Burke's own The Day the Universe Changed, Ken Burns. Daniel Yergin's The Prize. And of course Kenneth Clarke's Civilisation and Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man, which had paved the way for Burke himself. I might include Adam Curtis's works.

The role of the author or creative voice --- a Burke, Sagan, Burns, Bronowski, Clark, Curtis --- cannot be overstated. That talent seems rare, perhaps also the ability to simply get out of its way. Also realising when it's circled too hard back in on itself --- Burke had 2--3 good series in him, but he hasn't matched himself in at least three decades.

Related HN thread with additional recommendations: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2698026

Part of that is a more crowded field: there's more produced, it's harder to get noticed. Part my own near-total avoidance of broadcast television. But I don't think that's all of it.

And yes my HN history shows I'm quite the fan of Burke: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

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