Episodes
To celebrate the release of Star Trek Into Darkness, serial guest James Grime has taken on the arduous task of re-watching the original series to study the mathematics featured on the screen. He joins us for a podcast-only special to tell us all about it, with audio clips of the relevant episodes. We'll talk about cicadas, morphogenesis (or “waves on cows”), deceiving androids from first principles, and the biggest question of them all: does the redshirt always die?
If you want to check...
Published 05/15/13
Oliver Marsh studies science-media interactions at the department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge, occasionally performs at Bright Club, and blogs about “the human side of science”. He joins Andy in the studio for the final episode of season 6!
Tracklist
KT Tunstall – Funnyman
David Bowie – Life on Mars
Ethel Merman – There's No Business Like Show Business
The Smiths – That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore
Mother Mother – Infinitesimal
Mystery Hunt...
Published 03/10/13
Picking up where What if… we could all become cyborgs?, a show Andy produced for the BBC World Service, and last week's episode both left off, Andy and Will discuss cyborgs, hive minds, extending the senses, and the alleged emasculating effects of smartphones.
Bionic eyes; artificial synæsthesia; lab rats with brain implants sense invisible infrared light; powering an artificial heart; Google Glass; Sergey Brin: Smartphones are ‘emasculating’; Steve Mann (Will mentioned the hit-and-run...
Published 03/03/13
Cam Robinson hosts GameSpot's The What If Machine, where he explores how close the wonder of modern science fact can bring us to gaming science fiction. He joins us to discuss cybernetics, autonomous robots, nanotechnology, and more, with his choice of excellent tunes.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution, implants, augmented reality, Call of Duty, Noel Sharkey on The Life Scientific, ethical risks of robotics, Crysis 3, wipE'out", levitation, Punch the Custard (Will misremembered how the hit...
Published 02/24/13
Spoken nerd and songstress Helen Arney lends her voice to the show. Video games, fossils, AIs, cat chat, and almost no ukuleles.
Tracklist
Buckner & Garcia – Pac-Man Fever
They Might Be Giants – I Am A Palaeontologist
A.F. Harrold – Science Party Poem
Tim Minchin – When I Grow Up (from Matilda)
Jonathan Coulton – Good Morning Tucson
Helen Arney – The Sun Has Got Its Huff On
Cramped up
by philip hay
Send feedback and comments to
[email protected].
Published 02/10/13
Political ecologist Ivan Scales—McGrath Lecturer and Director of Studies in Geography at St Catharine's College, Cambridge—joins the show to discuss natural resource use and environmental change. Ivan is the McGrath Lecturer and Director of Studies in Geography at St Catharine's College.
Tracklist
Villagers – Mercy, Mercy Me
R.E.M. – It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
Grandaddy – Broken Household Appliance National Forest
Radiohead – Idioteque
Joni Mitchell – Big...
Published 02/03/13
Biomedical gerontologist Aubrey de Grey of the SENS Foundation joins Will by phone to discuss reversing the effects of ageing, the accurate or counterproductive ways life extension and immortality are presented in fiction, and public perception and acceptance of new medical technology.
Repairing the body vs. uploading human consciousness; Buying Time (aka The Long Habit of Living) by Joe Haldeman; whither implants; prosthetics and improving on baseline humans; the state of the art of...
Published 01/20/13
Andy and Will round off the year with a show on intoxicants: real or fantastical, legal or outlawed, poison or cure (or sometimes both…).
James Bond’s heart, curare, Charles Waterton’s donkey- and bellows-based hobbies, counteracting poisons with poisons, deadly beauty treatments, glass swans, penicillin, recycling a policeman's urine, K-Pax, alkaloids, opiates, the works of Jeff Noon, Hofmann, tripping babies, Equilibrium, mood stabilizers, and a surprisingly large number of emails!
The...
Published 11/25/12
Alexandra Kamins, a researcher at the University of Cambridge and IOZ, brings us the messy reality behind the spread of disease, everyone's favourite apocalyptic scenario. Pestilence galore!
Zoonotic disease, pandemics/epidemics, fruit bats, Contagion, Outbreak, Ebola, badgers, the imposition of quarantine, (not) being a “helping-people doctor”, Good Omens and more.
Tracklist
Metallica – Four Horsemen
Toto – Africa
Peter, Paul and Mary – Leaving on a Jet Plane
They Might Be Giants -...
Published 11/18/12
Serial guest Michael Conterio joins the show to discuss the fiction and fact of technology enabled by quantum mechanics. Michael co-hosts Burst The Bubble—which airs just before The Science of Fiction—and is the ringleader of Sci Cam, a new magazine-style live video show with interviews, beginner's guides and news.
101 Housework Songs, wave-particle duality, A Quantum Murder, A Quantum of Solace, teleportation, lasers, Boeing YAL-1, semiconductors, Qubit Slip, and many other...
Published 11/11/12
Andy is joined by Sam Gregson—who works on a “very big thing in Geneva”—to discuss public perceptions of scientists, as revealed through fiction and the media.
CP violations; sinusoidal need & perception; hypocritical stand-up sets; aliens; Stargate SG-1; destroying the magic; Spock; Brians with Ph.D.s; and more.
Santa Dash 2012
Tracklist
Red Hot Chili Peppers – Love Rollercoaster
Right Said Fred – I'm Too Sexy
Carly Simon – You're So Vain
The Flying Lizards – Money (That's What I...
Published 11/04/12
James Grime, “resident tamed mathematician” of The Enigma Project and past guest, returns to the show to discuss the cliché of depicting scientists as tormented by their own vast intellects.
Can 2 + 2 = 5?; Good Will Hunting; George Dantzig; Walter Pitt; William Sidris; Srinivasa Ramanujan; 21; card counting; savants; Fermat's last theorem; Gauss.
Some links from the end of the show:
the first episode of Sci Cam.
The Science of Fiction podcast, though if you're reading this you may...
Published 10/28/12
We're joined by Helen Scales—marine biologist, broadcaster and author of Poseidon’s Steed—to discuss watery lairs, submariners, cephalopods and more, with a nautical soundtrack.
Eyeball washed up on Florida beach 'probably from large swordfish'
A World Without Coral Reefs
The Rime of the Modern Mariner
Moby Dick Big Read
Mind Game
The Life Acquatic
Leafy seadragon
Tracklist
Lisa Hannigan – Ocean and a Rock
Villagers – The Waves
Kings of Convenience – Cayman Islands
Sigur Rós –...
Published 10/21/12
Nick Crumpton—zoologist, co-editor of BlueSci Films, freelance journalist, occasional beard-haver and ukulelist—joins the show to talk primarily about long-dead mammals.
Half-life of DNA
100-Million-Year-Old Spider Attack Found in Amber
High morphological variation of vestibular system accompanies slow and infrequent locomotion in three-toed sloths
Ice Age's Scrat Discovered
Bathtime for Baby Sloths
The Mammoth Trilogy
Innerspace
I Shrink, Therefore I Am
The Pirates! In an Adventure with...
Published 10/14/12
Your intrepid hosts have spent their summers in two unfamiliar cities apiece. To kick off the new season, we'll be discussing fiction which deals with the unique characters of different cities and societies. Expect plenty of free marketing for China Miéville. (Also, Andy has been working on a new survival technique in case of the breakdown of society…)
Neverwhere
London Underground mosquito
Divergent American Sign Language
(Just like of Montreal are not from Montréal, Architecture in...
Published 10/07/12
Leonard Richardson joins the show from across the Atlantic to talk about games as plot devices, generative content, storytelling, games which exploit the player, and dadaism. You may know Leonard as the creator of Robot Finds Kitten, the maintainer of Beautiful Soup and the author of Constellation Games, among his many other works.
Candlemark & Gleam.
The Constellation Games Semi-Official Home Page (A production of The Great Hall Of The People And Also Science).
Holly's blog post with...
Published 06/17/12
Andy and Will discuss the ways people converse in fiction: some archaic, some fantastical.
Causality-violating quantum entanglement
How the world's travel guides describe America
Tracklist
El Ten Eleven – Thinking Loudly
The Notwist – Pick Up The Phone
Lali Puna – Call 1-800-FEAR
65daysofstatic – Radio Protector
snake1 (sketch)
by Kat Masback
Send feedback and comments to
[email protected].
Published 06/10/12
Daisy Scholten joins Andy to talk about saintly medical techniques, the afterlife, and absolutely no Dan Brown.
Don't forget to get your ticket to see Prometheus on Monday 4th, preceded by an in-the-flesh edition of The Science of Fiction about the science of Alien! (Why not join the Facebook event?)
Medieval medicine
by Luciana Christante
Send feedback and comments to
[email protected].
Published 06/03/12
How might the world end? This week, The Science of Fiction investigates the myriad of scenarios for the downfall of humanity. Plus, we introduce a revolutionary new unit of apocalyptic severity…
Mushroom Cloud Takeaway Carton
by James Clayton
Send feedback and comments to
[email protected].
Published 05/27/12
With Andy having fled the country, Will is joined by Trevor Wood to talk about Nash equilibria, reputation-based currency, and the 16th-century tulip bubble. (They will try to avoid discussing Diplomacy too much.)
You may remember Trevor from his Season 2 appearance on mathematics and mathematicians.
von Neumann
John Nash
Tulip mania
@dcurtis on SpaceX and Instagram
2010 Flash Crash (do not confuse)
Down and Out In the Magic Kingdom
How Bitcoin works
beenz
Swatch .beats
golden balls. the...
Published 05/19/12
The worst offenders might be shampoo adverts, but egregious pseudo-science is not exactly rare in fiction. Joined by The Science Of Fiction regular Djuke Veldhuis, we take a look at what gets scribbled in beside the bits in the script marked “technobabble”.
BBC News: Tackling the trade in human flesh pills
io9: Remember when we thought we’d get all our nutrition from pills and bars?
Wired: Physicist uses maths to avoid traffic penalty
That Mitchell and Webb Look on brushing...
Published 05/12/12
Minimizing the edit distance from last week's show, Chris Smowton joins us to talk about androids, AI, the uncanny valley, and tiny fire extinguishing robots.
Cory Doctorow's I, Robot
Cory Doctorow: A Prose By Any Other Name
Dr Kathleen Richardson
New York Times article quoting Dr Richardson
Big Dog
Zima Blue and Other Stories
Tracklist
Stars – Sad Robot
Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, Pt. 1
Kael Alden (Robot Repair) – Where You Belong
Robot Guarding the...
Published 05/05/12
We take a look at reboots, remakes, re-imaginings, and other almost-synonymous new versions of old works. Are they made to take advantage of new technology; to update the plots for modern audiences; or maybe for no valid reason at all?
Needless to say, none of the music featured on this episode was as it was originally recorded:
Mark Ronson – Just
Karen O, Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross – Immigrant Song
The Dears – What I'm Trying To Say Pt. 1
The Jimi Hendrix Experience – All Along The...
Published 04/28/12
Kat Arney—songstress, Naked Scientist, knitter—joins Andy and Will to chat about colliders, steampunk, lab-based literature, quacks and the ’Verse.
230% efficient LEDs
The Diamond Age
Radium infuser for drinking water
Ford Nucleon
Experimental Heart and The Honest Look by Jennifer Rohn
Charlatan: The Fraudulent Life of John Brinkley by Pope Brock
Tracklist
Talk In Colour – Nightshifts (free download!)
Sunday Driver – Concubine Waltz
The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing –...
Published 03/11/12