Free Thinking Festival - The Rules Of Good Science
Arts & Ideas
BBC
4.2 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 17 November 2015
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Science progresses by breaking the rules of the past. New observations need new theories to explain them. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity made sense of observations that Newton’s Laws of Motion could not. But how can we distinguish between the brilliant ideas that change our view of the world and those that are plain wrong? And does that make science too cautious to try out new ideas?
Joining Free Thinking presenter Rana Mitter are:
Professor Carlos Frenk, founding Director of the Institute for Computational Cosmology at Durham University and winner of the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 2014
Jim al-Khalili, Professor of Physics at the University of Surrey and presenter of BBC Radio 4’s The Life Scientific and TV documentaries. His books include Paradox: The Nine Greatest Enigmas in Science, Black Holes, Wormholes and Time Machines and Quantum: A Guide For The Perplexed
Dr Katy Price from Queen Mary, University of London, author of Loving Faster Than Light: Romance and Readers in Einstein’s Universe
Dr Tom Shakespeare from the University of East Anglia, who co-founded the Café Scientifique network, which now has hundreds of affiliates in UK and worldwide.
Recorded in front of an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right? |
| 0:23.3 | It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream. |
| 0:28.8 | Listen to Evil Genius on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:36.4 | In one episode of The Simpsons, Lisa invents a perpetual motion machine. |
| 0:42.3 | Lisa, Homer yells at her. |
| 0:44.6 | In this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics. |
| 0:48.7 | Well, in this show from Radio 3's Freethinking Festival at Sage Gateshead, |
| 0:53.0 | we'll be traveling faster than light |
| 0:55.0 | as we work out whether we can tear up the rule book of science and change the rules on how it gets written and by whom. |
| 1:03.0 | With me to discuss it, I have a collection of true stars. Our neutron star is Professor Carlos Frank, |
| 1:10.0 | founding director of the Institute for Computational Cosmology at Durham University and winner of the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 2014. |
| 1:19.0 | Our Pulsar for the day is Jim Elcalili, Professor of Physics at the University of Surrey and presenter of BBC Radio 4's The Life Scientific. |
| 1:29.4 | And his books include wormholes and time machines and quantum, a guide for the perplexed. The supernova from Queen Mary University |
| 1:36.5 | of London is none other than Dr. Katie Price, author of Loving Faster Than Light, romance and readers |
| 1:42.3 | in Einstein's universe. And if you're seeing a touch of scarlet |
| 1:46.0 | in the air, that's surely the redshift around Dr. Tom Shakespeare from the University of East |
| 1:50.6 | Anglia, who co-founded the Café Scientique Network, which now has hundreds of affiliates |
| 1:55.8 | in the UK and worldwide. In case you're wondering what I'm doing here, I'm clearly the black hole. Would you |
| 2:02.4 | please welcome all of our stellar guests? So let's start a discussion with the rules of science, |
| 2:18.3 | because before we can tear up the rule book on science, |
| 2:21.3 | we have to know what those rules actually are. |
| 2:24.3 | And Carlos, I'd like to start with you. |
... |
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