Light Fantastic is the title of a television documentary series that explores the phenomenon of light and aired in December 2004 on BBC Four. The series comprised four programmes respectively titled: "Let There be Light"; "The Light of Reason"; "The Stuff of Light"; and "Light, The Universe and Everything." The material was presented by Cambridge academic Simon Schaffer. <br />The Third episode charts the discovery of the true nature of light and the subsequent development of modern technology such as electricity and mobile phones. <br /><br />The pioneers are credited as James Clerk Maxwell; Joseph Swan William Armstrong; Thomas Edison; Wilhelm Röntgen; J.J Thompson; and Max Planck. <br />In 1847, as a sixteen year-old, Maxwell was taken to see one of the minor scientic wonders of the Victorian world: A prism made from a special Icelandic crystal.
