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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.

Poet Paul Farley goes walking in circles in five very different ‘loopy’ locations. He visits a stone circle, a roundabout and a rollercoaster 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 loops and repetitions.

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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Today Paul is on location in a location that doesn’t exist. At the top of a building a procession of monks climb a staircase while another line of monks comes down. Yet the top of the staircase somehow – impossibly - loops back round to the bottom. M.C. Escher’s print Ascending and Descending is an example of a ‘strange loop’, a loop which ascends through different levels yet still comes back to its starting point. Paul explores strange loops in art, maths and music with Mark Veldhuysen from the Escher Foundation and mathematicians Marcus du Sautoy and Eugenia Cheng.

Producer: Jeremy Grange