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…a circle has no beginning and no end. It represents rebirth and regeneration, continuity and infinity. From wedding rings to stone circles, in poetry, music and the trajectories of the planets themselves, circles and loops are embedded in our imaginations.

In this five-part series poet Paul Farley goes walking in circles in five very different ‘loopy’ locations. He visits a traffic roundabout, a rollercoaster and a particle accelerator to ask why human beings find rings and circles so symbolic, significant and satisfying.

The earliest civilisations were drawn to the idea of closing a circle and creating a loop; in human relationships we’d all rather be within the circle of trust; and in arts and music our eyes, ears and minds are inexorably drawn towards – and rebel against - the ‘strange loops’ of Bach, Gödel and Escher.

As he puts himself in the loop – sometimes at the centre and sometimes on the circumference – Paul has circular conversations with mathematicians and physicists, composers and poets. Each one propels him into a new loop of enquiry. And that’s because a circle has no beginning and no end…
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The first episode brings Paul around to the 5000 year-old stone circle at Castlerigg in Cumbria – a ring of stones within a ring of hills. With archaeologists Gill Hey and Richard Bradley he considers what circles represented to our Neolithic forebears and how sites like Castlerigg informed their view of the Universe. And, with Eugenia Cheng, he discovers what a circle actually means to a mathematician .

Producer: Jeremy Grange