The Web of Science: How Great Discoveries Build on Earlier Ideas

I suppose now we’re very used to the idea of the World Wide Web, that creating a title like that doesn’t demand a huge leap of the imagination, but the interconnectedness of ideas, theories and developments in science is something that could be overlooked, with the giants of science sometimes being considered as – metaphorically – isolated islands of genius with nothing coming before their great breakthroughs.  This couldn’t be further from the truth – without Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, and Johannes Kepler, for example, it would have been very difficult for Einstein to come up with his theories all on his own.

This fascinating video delves into this idea and shows – with some remarkable graphics – how four major Nobel Prize-winning scientific breakthroughs were connected to what went before. The video starts with Isaac Newton, whose idea that it was the same force that made apples fall and planets move was built on the works of the three gentlemen I mentioned previously.  And it builds from there.  The video examines carbon dating, the photoelectric effect, x-ray crystallography and microwaves.  That’s quite a lot to get through in eight minutes, so fasten your seatbelt and watch the video (a coproduction between the BBC and Nobel Prize Outreach) below.  It is narrated by Natashe Peach and written by Carol Olona. The outstanding motion design and SFX is by Kako Abraham