Two Infinities and Beyond, Part 1
Curious Cases
BBC
4.8 • 4.1K Ratings
🗓️ 30 November 2018
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
“Is anything in the Universe truly infinite, or is infinity something that only exists in mathematics?”
This momentous question came from father and son duo from Edinburgh Sorley aged 10 and Tom, aged adult. It's a subject so big, that we've devoted two episodes to our never-ending quest to investigate infinity.
The first installment is a story of mathematics, music and murder. We'll find out why the ancient Pythagoreans decided that infinity was evil, and why some infinities are bigger than others.
Featuring the marvellous mathematical minds of Steven Strogatz from the Cornell University and Eugenia Cheng, author of 'Beyond Infinity'.
Presenters: Adam Rutherford, Hannah Fry
Producer: Michelle Martin
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2018.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:04.6 | MUSIC |
| 0:10.6 | I'm Dr Adam Rutherford. And I'm Dr Hannah Fry. |
| 0:13.3 | And you are going to send us your everyday mysteries. |
| 0:16.3 | And we are going to investigate them. |
| 0:18.3 | Using the power of... |
| 0:19.6 | Science. Science. |
| 0:21.8 | I like it. |
| 0:26.3 | And mathematics. Yeah. |
| 0:28.7 | And mathematics. Science and mathematics. |
| 0:31.2 | Because today is a super-mathmo edition. |
| 0:34.7 | I haven't worked out the ratio of maths programmes we get to do. |
| 0:38.6 | Yes, we're definitely recommend that. |
| 0:40.1 | You can work out the ratio in your own private time. |
| 0:43.3 | But that's why I get a double episode. |
| 0:45.2 | Yes, it's true, as a sort of catch-up. |
| 0:47.6 | Now, this is super-fun, mostly because of the enthusiasm |
| 0:49.9 | that Hannah has displayed for the next, however many minutes of audio, |
| 0:53.7 | you're going to listen to. |
| 0:55.0 | And I adopt almost all the way through this process |
| 0:58.0 | my absolutely baffled face, which goes like this. |
| 1:01.3 | Early on today, I tried to explain to Adam what an uncountable infinity was. |
... |
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