Listen "Brunel"
Episode Synopsis
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the Victorian engineer responsible for bridges, tunnels and railways still in use today more than 150 years after they were built. Brunel represented the cutting edge of technological innovation in Victorian Britain, and his life gives us a window onto the social changes that accompanied the Industrial Revolution. Yet his work was not always successful, and his innovative approach to engineering projects was often greeted with suspicion from investors. Guests:Julia Elton, former President of the Newcomen Society for the History of Engineering and TechnologyBen Marsden, Senior Lecturer in the School of Divinity, History and Philosophy at the University of AberdeenCrosbie Smith, Professor of the History of Science at the University of KentProducer: Luke Mulhall.
More episodes of the podcast In Our Time: Science
The Evolution of Lungs
10/07/2025
Lise Meitner
05/06/2025
Pollination
03/04/2025
Slime Moulds
30/01/2025
The Habitability of Planets
09/01/2025
The Antikythera Mechanism
12/12/2024
Wormholes
24/10/2024
Bacteriophages
01/08/2024
Mercury
30/05/2024
Nikola Tesla
02/05/2024
ZARZA We are Zarza, the prestigious firm behind major projects in information technology.