Bright Sparks: the history & science of fireworks (30 Oct 2014)

Dr Simon Werrett, UCL Science and Technology Studies

Dr Werrett explores the changing relationship between science and art in the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries by looking at interactions between pyrotechnicians and scientists. Fireworks, used to celebrate grand occasions of state, inspired a variety of ideas about the natural world, while scientific advances in physics and chemistry helped to create surprising new pyrotechnic effects.