physics

Physics Rocks

September 14th, 2008 by Russell Davies

Sometimes Radio Four is slothful and supine, lazy in a bed of licence fees. And sometimes, like on Big Bang Day it’s just the best thing in the world ever. They took the hoohah over the turning on of the LHC and built a suite of programmes around it that proved exactly why it’s such a brilliant station. From the bumbly chaos of Andrew Marr at the turning on to Quention Cooper and Adam Hart Davis doing physics administration and engineering to the silly drama of Torchwood and Woman’s Hour doing physics careers this was exemplorary stuff; a national broadcaster doing education through entertainment. For the MP3 we offer you Physics Rocks, which was a nice way of getting at the joy of physics via people like Alan Alda and Eddie Izzard. And it proves that maybe Dara O’Briain should be Stephen Fry’s Deputy Prime Minister when natural order is enacted. MP3 here. (And full marks for all the extra stuff on the website too.)

Presenter: Brian Cox
Producer: Alexandra Feachem
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Listen: [MP3]

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Studio 360: Nikola Tesla: Strange Genius

January 25th, 2008 by Dan Hill

Nikola Tesla

Forgive me as I stray a little northwards from my Antipodean lair to bring you this quite wonderful edition of Studio 360, presented as usual by Kurt Anderson. It’s devoted to amateur inventors and ‘mad scientists’, with Nikola Tesla as the super-dense object bending the show’s waves around him. The programme lovingly and carefully explores Tesla’s pioneering work in radar, radio, alternating current and just about everything else in the modern world - which was all to little acclaim at the time.

Mike Daisey relates the life of Tesla in a hilarious and bewitching set of excerpts from his one-man show. With a delivery like Emo Phillips with the fast forward button held down, be sure to stay for the story of Tesla’s death ray. Just after the story of Tesla x-raying Mark Twain’s head.

The WYNC Director of Engineering takes Anderson to the top of the Empire State Building, to see the big machines that carries the sound WYNC upwards into the sky - and then gets him to put his hand in them. Then there’s a gentle section on garage inventors from Kansas. Samantha Hunt, writer of a new (fictional, but barely) book on the extraordinary life of Tesla. Plus some notes on the popular perception of the mad scientist, from a mildly disgruntled, real (not mad) scientist. Beautifully produced of course, this is just great, great radio. There’s lots more info at the S360 site.

Studio 360: Nikola Tesla: Strange Genius (mp3)

Presenter: Kurt Anderson
Production Company: WNYC/PRI
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Listen: [MP3]

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