Fantastic Elastic

The Infinite Monkey Cage

BBC

Comedy, Science

4.7 • 9.4K Ratings

🗓️ 11 December 2024

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Brian Cox and Robin Ince expand their knowledge of elasticity with Olympian Bryony Page, comedian Jessica Fostekew & experts Dr Anna Ploszajski and Prof James Busfield from Queen Mary University of London.

What makes stretchy things stretch? Together our panel journey through different applications of elastic materials and examine, at the molecular level, what happens when we stretch a material and crucially what causes it to return to its original shape. This is especially pertinent to our guest Olympic and British champion trampolinist Bryony Page who has capitalised on elasticity in her 24 year long career. We discover that the bounce of a trampoline mainly comes from the elasticity of steel and how dependent this is on temperature. Cold temperatures are not only treacherous for trampolines; we explore how the cold proved fatal to the elastic components of both the Titanic and the Challenger space shuttle.

Plus we hear how scientists sometimes just can’t beat nature; natural rubber and spiders silk are two such cases. Anna Ploszajski takes us through some of the more inventive techniques scientists have engineered to produced more of these natural materials, including genetically engineering goats to be milked for silk.

Producer: Melanie Brown Exec Producer: Alexandra Feachem Researcher: Olivia Jani

BBC Studios Audio production

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast, but this is about something else you might enjoy.
0:05.4	My name's Katie Lecky and I'm an assistant commissioner for on demand music on BBC Sounds.
0:10.8	The BBC has an incredible musical heritage and culture and as a music lover, I love being part of that.
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0:22.4	helping you nod off, boogie in your kitchen, or even just a moment of calm. And they're all put
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0:35.0	check out BBC Sounds.
0:41.3	BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.
0:43.3	Hello, I'm Brian Cox. Hello, and I am Robin Ince.
0:45.3	And this is the Infinite Monkey Cage.
0:47.3	Now, perhaps the question we're most often asked
0:50.3	is what is the Infinite Monkey Cage made of?
0:53.3	Now, because of the scale of the construction
0:56.3	project we've we only ever made one of course and it did take ages and if I'm honest we haven't
1:02.6	really finished it don't tell the BBC because initially we said it would cost about 50 quid not really
1:06.8	in quite how many materials we would need for an infinite monkey cage it is is, I don't even really think we've started, to be honest.
1:13.3	Still, though, I think we could change builders.
1:15.3	It's taken a while.
1:16.2	Yeah, we're using a company called Hilbert's builders.
1:19.3	One, you can never get hold of them.
1:20.8	You just kept on call waiting the whole time.
1:23.2	And by the way, Bron, I'd just like to say that the one person in the room who suggested that this introduction was two in, I think was correct.
	...

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