Science: A Peculiar History

Joe Bath
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Interesting, amusing, strange and significant stories from the history of science

  1. Episode 1

    21. The Pope and his Fortune-telling Head - Part 1

    An obscure monk from 10th-Century France begins his career as a mathematician and possibly (depending on who you ask) a sorcerer, when he leaves his monastery to study in Spain.

  2. Episode 2

    22. The Pope and his Fortune-Telling Head - Part 2

    Gerbert starts a new job in Reims, where he manufactures various spheres, and introduces an ingenious system of mathematical notation that he came across in Catalonia.

  3. Episode 3

    23. The Pope and his Fortune-Telling Head - Part 3

    Gerbert impresses Emperor Otto II, who makes him the abbot of an important monastery in Northern Italy (where the local clergy are in the habit of plundering each other's churches). He gets tangled up in the politics of Franco-Imperial relations, but still finds the time (according to William of Malmesbury) to build a powerful tool for telling the future.

  • 3 Episodes

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Interesting, amusing, strange and significant stories from the history of science

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