Video Topic: Lecture Series

2300 years ago, ancient Alexandria was founded. Its Lighthouse dazzled the world, and the Ancient Library of Alexandria, part academy, part research center, and part library, welcomed scientists, mathematicians and poets from all parts of the world. Universal knowledge was organized, unbounded inquiry was encouraged and this made Alexandria the intellectual capital of the world. The Library completely disappeared over sixteen hundred years ago, but the glory of ancient Alexandria still shines on.

For the 7th and 8th centuries the light of reason and of science would be maintained by Muslims in their vast empires from Andalusia to the Indian subcontinent. Tolerant and open to all cultures, they studied ancient texts, used the decimal numeral system, adopted the empirical method and Arabic replaced Greek as the primary language of science. Astronomy, mathematics, medicine, optics, and other fields advanced. It was the age of Muslim grandeur.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, the Renaissance would end the thousand years of darkness, and the Scientific Revolution to follow would begin to build the edifice of modern science and launch Europe into its age of world dominance. The torch of learning was passing from the Muslim World to Europe, while Egypt, as a province of the mighty Ottoman Empire, would stagnate.

This is the Story of Science in Egypt. It is the story of 50 centuries of science embracing astronomy, mathematics, engineering, medicine and many other fields, including the development of the modern empirical method a thousand years ago, centuries before the European Renaissance. And how, after a period of stagnation, Egypt re-igniting its talents to join in the 21st century enterprise of global knowledge.

Where the Ancient Library of Alexandria once stood, a beautiful new building has emerged. The dream of reviving that center of culture and learning has been realized. The Library came to life again. This is the story of how this one Egyptian project welcomes the new century, the century of science and informatics. It is the story of the rebirth of the fabled Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the New Library of Alexandria.

Who created modern biology? What did Mendel and Darwin actually say? Why was the discovery of DNA such a momentous achievement? How do we organize the enormous diversity of life we see everywhere? Can we actually create an encyclopedia covering all life forms on earth? These are some of the questions we cover in our search for a better understanding of biology.