Does Anything Stand Still?
CrowdScience
BBC
4.8 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 24 March 2018
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Listener Nikolai sends CrowdScience hunting through space and time with his deceptively simple question. Can we find perfect stillness? You are probably reading this sentence whilst standing or sitting still. So is it a daft question? We discover that there are no simple answers as we unravel the science of motion, which tells us that we cannot always trust our senses to tell us ‘the truth’ about the natural world.
The ancient Greeks believed it was the sun that rises and sets each day and this idea remained until the 16th century astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus showed us that this an illusion – that we are the ones in motion, orbiting the Sun. Later, through the work of Isaac Newton and then Albert Einstein, scientists came to the conclusion that nothing in the universe can ever be truly still. Except perhaps, the fastest thing in the universe – light.
Confused? Don’t worry, so is Marnie Chesterton who sets out to explore not just the science of stillness but also the physics of stopping. To satisfy listener Nikolai’s curiosity about motion in space, CrowdScience also travels to ESA’s European Space Research and Technology Centre in the Netherlands. Here we find out how you stop a space craft and hear the story of when things got prickly for astronaut Tim Peake and his crew when docking at the International Space Station.
Presenter: Marnie Chesterton Producer: Louisa Field
(Photo: Astronaut wearing pressure suit against a space background. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and maybe it's when I had a hand in. |
| 0:04.0 | I'm Tammy Walker and I produce podcasts for the BBC. |
| 0:08.0 | My role is to give new and diverse creators a voice with the opportunity to build a career. |
| 0:12.0 | That's the thing I love about podcasts. |
| 0:14.4 | You start with just a good idea, but then you have the space to see where it goes. |
| 0:18.4 | And doing that at the BBC means we can really run with the best stories |
| 0:21.9 | while developing the most unique audio talent. |
| 0:24.3 | So if you like what you hear, why not check out the huge range of podcast we've got on BBC |
| 0:29.1 | Sounds. |
| 0:29.6 | Welcome to Crowd Science from the BBC World Service. I'm Marnie Chesterton. |
| 0:37.0 | This is the program that answers your science query, no matter how big or small. |
| 0:42.0 | We've got a back catalog that new listeners might like to peruse. |
| 0:45.3 | Go to BBCWorld Service.com slash crowd science for more. But right now I want you to take a moment |
| 0:52.1 | just to be still and then another moment to question |
| 0:57.8 | whether you really are. G'd a crowd science I'm Nikolai Stockoff and I'm calling you from Wellington |
| 1:04.4 | New Zealand my question for today's program is does anything stand still I'm |
| 1:09.0 | intrigued by this Nikolai what do you mean does anything stand still? |
| 1:12.8 | I was thinking about how in space everyone's always fixated on like the speed of light and |
| 1:18.4 | how fast we can go. |
| 1:20.4 | But no one really talks about how slow you can go and how to stop and I know on earth since it's always moving around the sun and the sun's always moving around like the universe. |
| 1:35.8 | Everything's always moving so can you even stop and I guess movies like interstellar and Star Wars kind of got me thinking about it some really big sci-fi |
| 1:40.1 | fan. So Nicola what do you do in Wellington? I'm actually a builder and I listen to the |
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