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THE MATERIAL WORLD
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PROGRAMME INFO |
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Quentin Cooper reports on developments across the sciences. Each week scientists describe their work, conveying the excitement they feel for their research projects.
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Contact Material World |
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LISTEN AGAIN Ìý30 min |
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PRESENTER |
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"For me science isn't a subject, it's a perspective. There are fascinating scientific aspects to everything from ancient history to the latest gadgets, outer space to interior decorating; and each week on The Material World we try to reflect the excitement, ideas, uncertainties, collisions and collaborations as science continues its never-ending voyage into the unknown".
Quentin Cooper |
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PROGRAMME DETAILS |
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Potato Science
The humble potato is a staple on many a dinner plate and snack bar. From mashed potato to crisps it can take a multitude of forms, and with it comes complex chemistry and even psychology.
Peter Styring from Sheffield University has studied just what happens when you mash a potato. Cook it too much or mash it with a blender and you break down the cells and end up with something like wallpaper paste. Cook or mash too little and it’s lumpy.
So why not follow Delia’s advice and use frozen mash? Not such a good idea, says Styring: it results in 700% more carbon emissions, contains too much salt and takes just as long to prepare. So we continue the quest for the perfect mashed potato.
There’s nothing worse than a stale, soggy crisp, but Charles Spence of Oxford University has just won an Ig Nobel prize for improbable research for showing that the sound you hear when you crunch a crisp influences your enjoyment of its freshness.
So there’s a psychological side to spuds too.
Fermi Problems
How much tea is in China? How much energy is given off by an atomic bomb? They sound like the maths problems from hell, but early 20th century physicist Enrico Fermi tackled them head on - and without the help of a calculator.
He believed that with a few simple sums and a scrap of paper he could work out a rough answer. And with that the back-of-the-envelope calculation was born.
To discuss the relevance of pen and paper in science today, Quentin Cooper is joined by John Barrow from Cambridge University and Jocelyn Bell-Burnell, the President of the Institute of Physics.
They show how sensible estimations are helping us unravel the magnificent and the mundane - be it the amount of matter in the universe to the probability of having the same bank PIN code as your next door neighbour.
Material World is taking a break on Christmas day; Quentin returns withÌýa special programme from Greenland on 1 January |
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