science

Living with the Gods

Living with the Gods is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Living with the Gods rather than just read about it. In short: Living with the Gods is a 30-part BBC Radio 4 series presented by Neil MacGregor, a former director of the British Museum. It explores human societies and what MacGregor describes as "the connections between structures of belief, and the structures of society".

Key takeaways

Living with the Gods belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Living with the Gods to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Living with the Gods from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Living with the Gods is a 30-part BBC Radio 4 series presented by Neil MacGregor, a former director of the British Museum. It explores human societies and what MacGregor describes as "the connections between structures of belief, and the structures of society". The series examines artefacts from the 40,000 year-old Lion-man sculpture to the contemporary Lampedusa Cross created by Francisco Tuccio in response to the 2013 drowning of refugees off the island of Lampedusa.

In the episode Living with Many Gods, MacGregor explained: "Choosing a title for this series turned out to be extremely difficult, because although some societies have many gods there are others that acknowledge only one, and for whom even the idea of 'gods' in the plural is offensive. And then there are some communities that share the world around them with spirits, or shifting supernatural beings, which wouldn't match our understanding of a god. And a few societies like Soviet Russia have tried to live officially with no god at all. In every case the consequences for society are profound." The series accompanied an exhibition at the British Museum, running until 8 April 2018.

Reception Writing in the New Statesman, Antonia Quirke asked, "What makes Neil MacGregor the best presenter on BBC radio? His new 30-part series Living With the Gods, about objects connected to belief, ceremony and ritual, begins on 23 October (BBC Radio 4, 9.45am), and listening to the first few episodes it’s clear that it is every bit the equal of Kenneth Clark's Civilisation or Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man. None of them could hope to find a place on television now".

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Living with the Gods

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Living with the Gods claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Living with the Gods before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Living with the Gods ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Living with the Gods

In research: Living with the Gods appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Living with the Gods in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Living with the Gods is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics BBC Radio 4 programmes, British Museum in media, Historical objects, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Living with the Gods outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Living with the Gods in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Living with the Gods means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Living with the Gods out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Living with the Gods in simple terms?

Why does Living with the Gods matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Living with the Gods?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Living with the Gods.