The Life Scientific: Andre Geim
Discovery
BBC
4.3 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 31 July 2023
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The world around us is three-dimensional. Yet, there are materials that can be regarded as two-dimensional. They are only one layer of atoms thick and have remarkable properties that are different from their three-dimensional counterparts.
Sir Andre Geim created the first-ever man-made 2D material, by isolating graphene, and is one of the pioneers in this line of research. Even beyond his Nobel Prize-winning work on graphene, he has explored new ideas in many different areas of physics throughout his career. Andre tells Jim al-Khalili about his time growing up in the Soviet Union, being rejected from university based on his German ethnicity, his move to Western Europe, and levitating frogs.
(Photo: 2010 Nobel Physics laureate Andre Geim during 2019 China Science Fiction Convention, Beijing, 3 November, 2019. Credit: VCG/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 1:03.1 | they all occupy 3D space, and of course are made from matter that is three-dimensional. |
| 1:07.9 | I mean, how could it be any different? |
| 1:10.0 | Well, my guest today created the first ever man-made material that can be regarded as two-dimensional, |
| 1:17.4 | by isolating something called graphene. |
| 1:20.2 | It consists of a single layer of carbon atoms tightly packed together in a lattice structure, |
| 1:25.6 | a bit like the surface of a honeycomb. |
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