The Science of Fireworks With Professor Chris Bishop

Professor Chris Bishop, the presenter of the 2008 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, gives a family lecture on the history of the modern firework.

Through demonstrations of pyrotechnic chemistry hear how Chinese incendiaries made from honey led to the development of gunpowder; discover how the loud bangs of fireworks are rooted in the origins of photography, and find out how an accident in a nineteenth-century kitchen sparked a new chemistry for firework making.

Recorded at the University of Cambridge on the 4 November 2011. Click here to view the video.