The Sun
The Infinite Monkey Cage
BBC
4.7 • 9.4K Ratings
🗓️ 22 June 2020
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Brian Cox and Robin Ince are joined by a dazzling panel of sun worshippers from actor, comedian and musician Tim Minchin to solar scientist Professor Lucie Green and biologist Professor Steve Jones. They look at how the evolution of life was only possible because of our position relative to the sun and its possibly unique behaviour, and how rare that situation might be across the rest of the universe. They also look at how the sun makes you feel and its vital importance to all creatures, especially snails.
Producer: Alexandra Feachem
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:04.9 | Hello, I'm Robin Itz. |
| 0:06.1 | And I'm Braincocks, and this is the Infinite Monkey Cage. |
| 0:08.8 | Two hosts, three guests in two hemispheres, |
| 0:11.4 | and two 120 audience members all sat alone in their homes, |
| 0:15.3 | but all gathered together by technology. |
| 0:16.8 | The future moves on at pace. |
| 0:18.4 | We're getting closer and closer to this |
| 0:19.9 | being the equivalent of Star Trek's Holodeck. |
| 0:22.4 | In fact, next week we are hoping that our guests |
| 0:24.4 | are going to be Isaac Newton, Mary Curie, Socrates, |
| 0:26.8 | and Genghis Khan. |
| 0:29.0 | Genghis Khan. |
| 0:30.4 | Yeah, I think it's going to add just a little bit of an edge to the show. |
| 0:33.2 | Anyway, with only around five billion years |
| 0:35.6 | before it swells into a red giant and consumes Mercury and Venus, |
| 0:39.1 | we thought it was time to discuss the Sun. |
| 0:41.9 | To discuss how the nuclear fusion of hydrogen |
| 0:43.9 | into helium has nurtured life on Earth and sombrero sales, |
| 0:47.1 | we are joined by a biologist and astrophysicist and a lyricist, |
| 0:50.0 | and they are... |
| 0:51.3 | Hi, I'm Lucy Green. |
... |
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