The Science of Symmetry
The Infinite Monkey Cage
BBC
4.7 • 9.4K Ratings
🗓️ 8 July 2012
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Brian Cox and Robin Ince are joined by mathematician Marcus Du Sautoy, science journalist Adam Rutherford and comic book legend Alan Moore to discuss why symmetry seems such a pervasive phenomenon throughout our universe, and possibly beyond. The world turns on symmetry -- from the spin of subatomic particles to the structure of the natural world, through to the molecules that make up life itself. They'll be asking why symmetry seems so ubiquitous and whether the key to Brian's large female fanbase is down to his more than usually symmetrical face.
Producer: Alexandra Feachem.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is a download from the BBC. |
| 0:02.1 | To find out more, visit bbc.co.uk-radio4. |
| 0:07.7 | In only 4.6 billion years, the sun will swell into a red giant |
| 0:12.4 | engulfing our own planet Earth, Mercury, and Venus. |
| 0:16.6 | So let's enjoy these last few moments we have together. |
| 0:19.7 | This is the Infinite Monkey Cage. |
| 0:21.7 | Hello, on my left is the scientific advisor |
| 0:24.6 | for the film Sunshine, in which a group of astronauts |
| 0:28.1 | go into space to send a bomb into the middle of the sun |
| 0:31.4 | to restart it. |
| 0:33.8 | Yeah, and yet somehow he's a professor. |
| 0:35.7 | I take most things he says with a pinch of salt. |
| 0:37.4 | It is Brian Cox. |
| 0:38.8 | And on my right, his manner recently failed his touring test. |
| 0:42.6 | It's Robin Inns. |
| 0:43.7 | Now, occasionally, it's said that monkey cages |
| 0:46.8 | are necessarily elitist. |
| 0:48.2 | So to show that that isn't the case, |
| 0:49.9 | if you're not familiar with the touring test, |
| 0:51.6 | it's prefigured in daycarts great 1668 |
| 0:53.9 | treatise discourse on the method. |
| 0:55.8 | So just dig your copy out and have a look. |
... |
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