Jacob Bronowski on "Knowledge or Certainty"
Last edited Fri Oct 20, 2017, 07:28 AM - Edit history (1)
I was a college student in physics when the Ascent of Man was broadcast on PBS. My parents and I never missed an episode. We were transfixed by Bronowski's narrative through all thirteen episodes. This was a presentation that sticks to the ribs.
Those days never left me. That's why I purchased the DVD set of the entire series a few years ago; and it's also why I review it, in its entirety, over and over again.
The remarkable thing about The Ascent of Man is that it was entirely unscripted. These were nearly hour long essays where Bronowski would be taken to far flung places of the world and he delivered his essays with not only little rehearsal, but no script.
The greatest of these essays was episode 11, Knowledge or Certainty, which describes quantum theory. But Bronowski takes it rather far into the depths of the world history of the time. Directed by the brilliant English director, Mick Jackson, he let Bronowski go unbridled. The closing of the episode is astounding. It took Jackson's unvarying trust in Bronowski that he kept the cameras rolling and captured this absolutely stunningly powerful ending. Unscripted and unrehearsed, there were no further takes needed. I think of this often these days.
(Oh dear! Wrong one. Now fixed!)
BTW, "Bruno" Bronowski was less than five feet tall. However, I consider him a giant amongst my life in science education. Certainly, The Ascent of Man figures prominently in my philosophy of science.
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Highly recommended from start to finish. 
Hope it works. I don't have the download to try it for myself, but it's a YouTube, so it might work. Unfortunately it looks like it's cropped.
