Lyrics:

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history and mysterious force of
magnetism. Guests include Stephen Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the
history of magnetism. Pliny the Elder, in his Historia Naturalis, tells a story
of a legendary Greek shepherd called Magnes who, while guiding his flock
on Mount Ida, suddenly found it hard to move his feet. The nails of his
sandals held fast to the rock beneath them, and the iron tip of his crook
was strangely attracted to the boulders all around. Magnes had stumbled
across the lodestone, or 'Magnetite', and discovered the phenomenon of
magnetism. Plato was baffled by this strange force, as were Aristotle and
Galen, and despite being used in navigation, supposedly suspended over
the body of Mohammed and deployed in the pursuit of medical cures.
St Thomas Aquinas thought magnets had souls. it was not until the late
16th century that any serious scientific attempt was made to explain the
mystifying powers of the magnet. Descartes developed a particle theory
of magnetism but the great Isaac Newton fought shy of the problem of
what caused magnets to attract and repelWho pioneered the study of
magnetism? What theories did they construct from its curious abilities
and how was the power of the magnet brought out of the realm of magic
and into the service of science? With Stephen Pumfrey, Senior Lecturer
in the History of Science at the University of Lancaster; John Heilbron,
Emeritus Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley;
Lisa Jardine, Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary, University
of London.