Magic Materials
The Infinite Monkey Cage
BBC
4.7 • 9.4K Ratings
🗓️ 25 March 2023
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
You might think materials are a bit boring and inconsequential but without them we would still be living in the stone age. Brian Cox and Robin Ince are joined on stage by material scientists Mark Miodownik and Anna Ploszajski and comedian Ed Byrne to discover the life changing materials that are hidden in plain sight. Which materials have made us human? Which materials do we completely depend on? And how will materials shape our future?
Producer: Caroline Steel Executive Producer: Alexandra Feachem
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:04.8 | Hello, I'm Brian Cox. |
| 0:06.0 | I'm Robin Inc. This is the Infinite Monkey Cage. |
| 0:08.4 | Now, why are there no space elevators? |
| 0:10.4 | Why has nobody built a Starship Enterprise? |
| 0:13.0 | Why are there no hoverboards? |
| 0:14.8 | Why are there no cardigans that don't shrink after a hot wash? |
| 0:18.7 | There's no give. There's no give in the cardigans. |
| 0:21.1 | These are all questions for material science. |
| 0:23.6 | Which materials have changed the direction of civilization? |
| 0:26.1 | What materials couldn't we live without? |
| 0:28.2 | And how will materials determine our future? |
| 0:30.8 | Today, we are joined by a material scientist, |
| 0:33.2 | a comic who was juved by Z-Fod Beable Brox and a professor |
| 0:36.8 | that I once made Ublek with. |
| 0:38.8 | That's the way they're weird, this intro, isn't it? |
| 0:41.3 | Is anyone understand that? |
| 0:42.9 | Yeah, right. |
| 0:44.0 | This is a thing that is a very evidence-based intro, |
| 0:46.6 | because everything that I've said there is true, |
| 0:48.9 | I'm going to admit this right, our producer said, |
| 0:51.2 | I've never heard of Z-Fod Beable Brox. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
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.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.