Tackling The Three-Body Problem
More or Less: Behind the Stats
BBC
4.6 • 3.5K Ratings
🗓️ 13 April 2024
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Netflix has a big new show named after and inspired by a classic problem in astrophysics, 'The Three Body Problem', where predicting the course and orbits of three or more celestial bodies proves near impossible.
But how faithful is the Netflix show - and original novel - to the actual physics? Dr Anna Lisa Varri from the University of Edinburgh explains what we can and can't say about the complex and beautiful motions of planets, stars and moons, and brings a dose of scientific facts to science fiction.
Presenter: Kate Lamble Producer: Nathan Gower Sound Engineer: Graham Puddifoot Editor: Richard Vadon
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.6 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:08.4 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable |
| 0:14.3 | experts and genuinely engaging voices. What you may not know is that the BBC |
| 0:20.4 | makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
| 0:24.6 | poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples. |
| 0:29.7 | If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, |
| 0:33.1 | find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds. |
| 0:36.3 | Thank you for downloading the more or less podcast with me Kate Lample. |
| 0:47.0 | We're the show which explores the numbers which govern life, the universe and everything. |
| 0:52.0 | And today we're focusing on the universe. and everything. |
| 0:53.0 | And today we're focusing on the universe. |
| 0:57.0 | You might have heard of the three-body problem, |
| 0:59.0 | a new Netflix show from the makers of Game of Thrones, |
| 1:02.0 | based on the hugely successful |
| 1:04.5 | sci-fi novel by Chinese author Lu shin. They are coming and there's nothing you |
| 1:12.2 | can do to stop them. |
| 1:13.7 | But if you've studied physics, the three-body problem brings to mind something else entirely. |
| 1:21.1 | It's a classic issue in astrophysics where scientists often want to predict |
| 1:25.8 | the paths and orbits of groups of celestial bodies like stars, planets or moons. |
| 1:31.4 | And it's that concept which forms part of the premise of the new |
| 1:35.2 | Netflix show. The plot is well complicated and at more or less we are |
... |
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