Big Science: What's The Big Idea? From Resonance Fm

This week we take a rollercoaster ride through the history of maths. From the four Greek 'mathematics' - geometry, astronomy, arithmetic and music. To fierce opposition to arabic numerals from European accountants. And the disaster that was Isaac Newton.

What so big about nanotechnology? Does it represent a brave new world, or a means to hype more of the same. We ask nanotech guru Tim Harper.

Science is all about truth, right? So anything that is true can be determined by science, right? Probably not.

In the light of events at the Fukushima nuclear plant following the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, we discuss nuclear power and the implications of the unfolding situation.

This week we start with the question, what does DNA know about the Universe? But, as usual, we don't stay on topic for long, instead segueing into a much more interesting discussion of Sarah Palin, fruit flies and cancer.

There's more to life than DNA... much more. This week we continue our exploration of proteins, the true building blocks of life. How are they made? And what exactly do they do?

This week we go beyond DNA to the real workhorses of life, proteins. How are they made? What do they do? And how do they interact to build a hedgehog?

This week we continue to ask whether it's meaningful to describe DNA as the blueprint of life. And if the blueprint isn't in DNA where the hell is it?

This week we talk DNA, with Nature's biological sciences editor, Tanguy Chouard. Is it really a blueprint? If not, why not?

Everyone knows about the three states of matter, solids, liquids and gases. But few know about the fourth, plasmas. They're all around us, from neon signs to TVs. And they could provide us with an unlimited source of energy. Eventually.

By the end of the first quarter of the 20th century, physicists increasingly realized that quantum mechanics provided a powerful means of describing the behaviour of subatomic particles. But until that point it only described slow moving particles. When Paul Dirac combined special relativity with quantum mechanics, he found something even stranger, antimatter!

So what the hell is a hadron, and why are they colliding large ones to find a Higgs botswain?

Quantum mechanics is by far and away the most accurate and successful theory that has ever been devised. It’s also the most bizarre. This week, Big Science continues to explore how the particle theory of light built to describe the light emitted by hot things leads to the weird world of quantum.

Quantum mechanics is by far and away the most accurate and successful theory that has ever been devised. It’s also the most bizarre. This week, Big Science explores how the particle theory of light built to describe the light emitted by hot things leads to a wave theory of particles.

To a casual observer, the Universe looks likes *really* complex. It isn't. In this show we'll discuss how just a handful of building blocks and the idea of beauty (or, rather, symmetry) produces diversity and complexity in the world around us. From atoms and molecules to the opus of science, the Standard Model of Particle Physics.

This week, we continue on from the previous week, to discuss the implications of the fact that the laws of electricity and magnetism, and therefore the speed of light, are always the same regardless of how fast you are travelling. We’re talking the equivalence of mass and energy embodied in the equation E=mc^2, more time bending, and the atomic bomb.

Wouldn't it be nice if the laws of physics where same everywhere in the Universe, regardless of how fast you were travelling? In this episode Big Science explores the consequences of the laws of electricity and magnetism being the same is all frames of reference - from the constancy of light speed to the bending of space and time.