Helium

Discovery

BBC

Science, Technology

4.3 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 1 June 2020

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Andrea Sella, Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at University College London, celebrates the art and science of the chemical elements. Today he looks at helium. Helium is a finite resource here on Earth and many branches of science need it. Doctors need it to run MRI machines to diagnose tumours and engineers test rockets for leaks with it. The story of helium starts with a solar eclipse in 1868. The event had many astronomers' eyes fixed on the sun. Two astronomers, nearly simultaneous and independently, made the same observation; a strange light with an unusual wavelength coming from the sun. It turned out to be the first sighting of extra-terrestrial helium. It would take decades for helium to be discovered on Earth and longer still for its worth to be recognised. As its ability to make things float and inability to burn became apparent, the US military started hoarding it for their floating blimps. But they soon realised that it is very hard to store an element that is so light that it can escape the Earth's gravitational pull. As we empty our last reserves of the periodic table's most notorious escape artist – is the future of helium balloons, often used to mark special events, up in the air?

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and trust me you'll get there in a moment but if you're a comedy fan
0:05.2	I'd really like to tell you a bit about what we do. I'm Julie Mackenzie and I commission comedy
0:10.1	podcast at the BBC. It's a bit of a dream job really. Comedy is a bit of a dream job really.
0:13.0	Comedy is a fantastic joyous thing to do because really you're making people laugh,
0:18.0	making people's days a bit better, helping them process, all manner of things.
0:22.0	But you know, I also know that comedy is really
0:24.3	subjective and everyone has different tastes. So we've got a huge range of comedy on offer from
0:29.8	satire to silly, shocking to soothing, profound to just general pratting about.
0:35.0	So if you fancy a laugh, find your next comedy at BBC Sounds.
0:40.0	Welcome to Discovery from the BBC. I'm Andrea Sele, Professor of Chemistry at University College London.
0:47.0	And in this series, I'm celebrating the art and science of the chemical elements.
0:52.0	Today, I'm up in the air with helium.
0:57.0	We've got Darth Vader which is one of my favorites and also got Buzzlighter from Toy Story.
1:05.0	Showing us around Oscar's party den in London is Mustafa who's been pandering to the most esoteric of balloon needs for over seven years.
1:14.0	Buzzlight here is about my height and then the color is like full size but he's
1:17.6	lunched over so it's about like this high up.
1:19.6	But those things are huge.
1:21.0	They are huge. They are huge.
1:24.0	The Gas and Mustafa cylinder is the main character of this episode.
1:28.3	It's the second lightest element, so light and fast moving that it's almost impossible to keep captive.
1:34.4	You need gallons of it to run MRI machines
1:37.8	that allow doctors to diagnose diseases and injuries.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.