Science writer George Johnson is in love with the science of the old days — before super-colliders and supercomputers and terabytes of data to be churned.

When he thinks of the beauty of science, he thinks of the simple, shattering experiments of Galileo and Newton, Pavlov and Faraday.

Until very recently, he says, the most earthshaking science came from a single pair of hands, a single mind confronting the unknown. Astoundingly. Beautifully.

This hour, On Point: George Johnson and the ten most beautiful experiments in the history of science.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

George Johnson, science writer for The New York Times, Scientific American, Slate, Wired, Time, and The Atlantic Monthly, and author of “The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments.”

Tim Hallman, experimental physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory.