Heaven and earth

United Kingdom, 1990

Film
Please note

Sorry, we don't have images or video for this item.

Episode number 1 of Series “The Shape of the world”.
Heaven and earth traces the way in which mankind’s earliest ideas of the world emerged - sometimes from imagination, sometimes from scientific observation, often from the need of rulers to know their domains in detail. It looks at the earliest concepts of the world’s shape, from Pythagoras, Eristosthenes, and Ptolomy, whose work was rediscovered as the Renaissance flowered, to the ancient Chinese who developed quite different ideas about the shape of the world. Narrated and introduced by Patrick Stewart.

Content notification

Our collection comprises over 40,000 moving image works, acquired and catalogued between the 1940s and early 2000s. As a result, some items may reflect outdated, offensive and possibly harmful views and opinions. ACMI is working to identify and redress such usages.

Learn more about our collection and our collection policy here. If you come across harmful content on our website that you would like to report, let us know.

How to watch

This work has not been digitised and is currently unavailable to view online. It may be possible for approved reseachers to view onsite at ACMI.

Learn more about accessing our collection

Collection

In ACMI's collection

Credits

co-director

Carol Stowe

Peter Swain

producer

Lois Bianchi

production company

Educational Broadcasting

Granada Television International

Thirteen

WNET (Television station : New York, N.Y.)

Duration

01:00:00:00

Production places
United Kingdom
Production dates
1990

Appears in

The Shape of the world

Group of items

The Shape of the world

Explore

Collection metadata

ACMI Identifier

304132

Language

English

Subject categories

Anthropology, Ethnology, Exploration & Travel → Maps

Communications, Infrastructure, & Transport → Maps

History → Ptolemy, 2nd cent.

Mathematics, Science & Technology → Cosmology

Mathematics, Science & Technology → Maps

Mathematics, Science & Technology → Ptolemy, 2nd cent.

People → Ptolemy, 2nd cent.

Sound/audio

Sound

Colour

Colour

Holdings

VHS; Access Print (Section 1)

Please note: this archive is an ongoing body of work. Sometimes the credit information (director, year etc) isn’t available so these fields may be left blank; we are progressively filling these in with further research.

Cite this work on Wikipedia

If you would like to cite this item, please use the following template: {{cite web |url=https://acmi.net.au/works/82957--heaven-and-earth/ |title=Heaven and earth |author=Australian Centre for the Moving Image |access-date=13 May 2025 |publisher=Australian Centre for the Moving Image}}