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IN OUR TIME
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PROGRAMME INFO |
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The big ideas which form the intellectual agenda of our age are illuminated by some of the best minds in the world. Melvyn Bragg and three guests investigate the history of ideas and debate their application in modern life. |
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LISTEN AGAIN |
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PRESENTER |
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BIOGRAPHY |
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| "I'm fascinated by the fact that we live in a time when so many people are doing fantastic work, and thinking in areas which it's not remotely possible for me to keep up with & and these people are prepared to talk about it. They're prepared to come on In Our Time and other programmes on Radio 4 and try and talk to the rest of us ..." |
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LATEST PROGRAMME |
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THE PHYSICS OF REALITY
When Quantum Mechanics was developed in the early 20th century reality changed forever. In the quantum world particles could be in two places at once, they disappeared for no reason and reappeared in unpredictable locations, they even acted differently according to whether we were watching them. It was so shocking that Erwin Schrodinger, one of the founders of Quantum Theory, said "I don’t like it and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it." He even developed an experiment with a cat to show how absurd it was.
Quantum Theory was absurd, it disagreed with the classical physics of Newton and Einstein and it clashed with our experience of the everyday world. Footballs do not disappear without reason, cats do not split into two and shoes do not act differently when we are not looking at them. Or do they? Eighty years later we are still debating whether the absurd might actually be true.
But why are features of quantum physics not seen in our experience of everyday reality? Can the classical and quantum worlds be reconciled, and why should reality make sense to us?
Guests
Roger Penrose
Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics, Oxford University
Fay Dowker
Lecturer in Theoretical Physics, Queen Mary, University of London
Tony Sudbery
Professor of Mathematics, University of York
Next programme: The Examined Life
Socrates claimed that "The unexamined life is not worth living" but George Eliot pointed out that the "overexamined life may not be lived at all". This was Hamlet's dilemma: in asking the fundamental philosophical questions about life, Hamlet found himself paralysed by indecision and contemplating death: "To be or not to to be". What is philosophy, how does it relate to the every day world, and does it bring us clarity of thought or take us away from it? Guests: Anthony Grayling, Janet Radcliffe Richards and Julian Baggini.
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