Famous physicists on the BBC

By Hamish Johnston

If you happened to be listening to BBC Radio 4 last night, you would have heard interviews with two famous American physicists. First up was Lawrence Krauss of Arizona State University, who is in London to give a lecture on Sunday about our relationship with the cosmos.

Krauss chatted with Quentin Cooper – host of Radio 4’s Material World science programme – about physics in the news, including dark energy, superluminal neutrinos and quasicrystals. You can listen to the programme here and Krauss appears after about 15 minutes.

Next up was cosmologist Lisa Randall (right) of Harvard University, who spoke with Radio 4’s Andrew Marr on his Start the Week programme – which this week was entitled “God and science” and also featured Richard Dawkins and the Chief Rabbi of England, Jonathan Sacks.

Dawkins kicked off with a discussion of his new book entitled The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True, which aims to show children and their families that the myths surrounding phenomena such as earthquakes and rainbows pale in comparison with the magic and wonder of science. Particularly interesting was Dawkins’ argument that space aliens must have eyes.

Randall speaks about her latest book Knocking on Heaven’s Door about 25 minutes into the programme, which you can listen to here. Earlier this year, she also spoke to our very own Michael Banks, and you can listen to that interview here.