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The Infinite Monkey Cage

Serendipity

The Infinite Monkey Cage

BBC

Comedy, Science

4.79.4K Ratings

🗓️ 23 February 2015

⏱️ 44 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Serendipity in Science

Brian Cox and Robin Ince are joined on stage by comedian Lee Mack, science author and journalist Simon Singh and chemist Professor Andrea Sella to look at how many of our biggest science discoveries seem to have come about by accident. From Viagra to Pyrex to the discovery of the Cosmic Background Microwave Radiation, the earliest remnant of the big bang, they all owe their discovery to a healthy dose of luck and accident as scientists stumbled across them in the course of looking for something else. So are these discoveries just luck, are they still deserving of Nobel prizes and scientific glory, or is serendipity and an open scientific mind key to exploring and understanding our universe?

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hello, I'm Robin Ents.

0:01.2

And I'm Brain Cocks.

0:02.2

And welcome to the podcast version of the Infilip Monkey Cage,

0:05.3

which contains extra material that wasn't considered good enough for the radio.

0:09.1

Enjoy it.

0:10.0

I'm Brain Cocks.

0:10.9

And I'm Robin Ents, and this is the last in the current series of the Infilip Monkey Cage.

0:14.8

So in series 11, what have we learned so far?

0:17.2

Well, amongst other things, we have learned that the smaller frog is the less you should risk licking it.

0:22.5

Which is genuinely, we learned that about episode two, very small frogs, don't lick them.

0:26.5

That has changed your lifestyle a great deal, because you used to go to all those kind of she-she-so-ho restaurants, didn't you, though?

0:31.6

The little lickie that I won't have a small frog, give me a larger frog, and a brand cubsy has changed.

0:36.1

Anyway, all I'm saying is, small frogs can be toxic, warning.

0:40.3

We learned that subliminal advertising isn't as effective as liminal advertising.

0:44.4

That's true, yes.

0:45.4

We also learned that flowers may be nature's quantum computers, though still have a very limited number of apps and games.

0:52.4

The journalists, they've still only got, do you like butter at 1.0 and the love me not app?

1:02.1

So, for this final show, we're going to be looking at serendipity in science.

1:06.8

And by the way, if you're at serendipity in science, which means just luck really or stumbling upon things by chance,

1:11.8

but serendipity makes it sound a lot more scientific.

1:14.4

So, whilst it may be assumed that science is a very exact and directed endeavor,

1:18.2

some of the most enlightening scientific discoveries have occurred almost by accident.

...

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