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Hearing the Past

4 Extra Debut. Jim Al-Khalili explores what the past would have sounded like to our ancestors. Can those sounds influence us today? From September 2011.

Professor Jim Al-Khalili explores what the past would have sounded like to our ancestors, and investigates how it is helping us to improve our acoustic designs of the future.

We hear what a singer in Coventry Cathedral would have sounded like before it was bombed in 1940, and how a Stonehenge ritual four thousand years ago had a bass-synthesiser effect going on that Depeche Mode would have been proud of!

Designers of modern concert venues are learning lessons from the layout of Stonehenge and we also learn how better acoustics in today's buildings improve our quality of life, and can even save lives.

Producer: Jane Reck
An Alfi Media production for BBC Radio 4.

Available now

28 minutes

Last on

Thu 6 Oct 201601:30
BBC Radio 4 Extra

Broadcasts

  • Mon 12 Sep 201111:00
    BBC Radio 4
  • Wed 5 Oct 201606:30
    BBC Radio 4 Extra
  • Wed 5 Oct 201613:30
    BBC Radio 4 Extra
  • Wed 5 Oct 201620:30
    BBC Radio 4 Extra
  • Thu 6 Oct 201601:30
    BBC Radio 4 Extra

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