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Scientific principles, theory, and the role of key figures in the advancement of science.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
It turns foundational science into question-led conversations connecting mechanisms with the people and ideas that shaped them.
In Our Time: Science gives one scientific subject room to be examined from several directions at once. Melvyn Bragg keeps a group of guests moving between basic mechanisms and the history of ideas, asking direct follow-ups when an explanation needs another step.
Melvyn Bragg asks what a submersible sees, because apparently 'very deep' will not satisfy you.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A measured deep-sea review of the Mariana Trench, where tectonic force, shifting sediments, and human debris share the dark.
The Mariana Trench draws its drama from geology rather than spectacle. This episode explains how one tectonic plate slips beneath another and moves toward the Earth's mantle, then opens out into a seafloor shaped by volcanic activity, earthquakes, shifting sediments, and the…
A clear, grounded look at how zero resistance connects quantum strangeness to MRI scanners and particle accelerators.
Superconductivity lands as a physical puzzle with unusually concrete consequences. A current in a superconducting ring can keep going for the age of the universe, yet the same effect also sits behind MRI scanners and helps speed particles through the Large Hadron Collider.
A clear look at how a scary sight can trigger stress hormones and a racing heart before conscious thought catches up.
Hormones tracks the body's chemical signals from a broad inventory, including estrogen, testosterone, adrenaline, insulin, and cortisol, into a concrete example of fear taking hold.
Einstein's miracle year is traced through the tension between experiment, theory and mathematical beauty.
Albert Einstein's 1905 is framed as the year a technical expert in a Swiss patent office produced four papers that reshaped physics. The programme keeps its attention on the pull between theory and experiment, while giving the science a more personal line through Einstein's…
A clear, thoughtful portrait of Noether's symmetry laws, teaching breakthrough, and lasting place between physics and pure mathematics.
Noether's work gives physics a cleaner way to look at the world: through symmetry. The episode follows how her theorem helped physicists connect symmetries with what nature preserves, a shift that still shapes how systems are described.
Aristotle's biology turns close observation into a theory of life, purpose, and form.
Aristotle's Biology frames Aristotle as both philosopher and biologist, using life itself to think through the purpose of life. The episode follows his questions about what living things are made of, where their form comes from, and what sets them in motion.
Particle accelerators, compost piles and Queen's guitarist, all explained.
Steven Novella and a rotating panel dissect weekly science news and debunk pseudoscience claims.
Long interviews with neuroscientists and philosophers on consciousness, decision-making, and whether AI is anything like a brain.
APA's Kim Mills interviews psychology researchers on tipping, crying, and extremism.
In Our Time: Science examines the Mariana Trench, which Heather Stewart describes as a 10,925-metre subduction trench in the Western Pacific.
In Our Time: Science traces Albert Einstein from a Swiss patent office to the 1905 Annus Mirabilis, when four papers changed how physics treats light, matter, and motion.
Heike Kamerlingh Onnes's 1911 mercury experiment turned resistance to zero below four Kelvin, and the guests treat that as a new phase of matter rather than a better metal.
More than 80 hormones are described as the body's chemical control system, with insulin, leptin, cortisol, estrogen, and testosterone named as familiar examples.
["Emmy Noether's theorem ties symmetry to conservation laws and reaches from general relativity to the standard model of particle physics.", "Elizabeth Mansfield, David Berman, and Colva Rooney-Dougall trace Noether from Erlangen, where she first trained as a teacher, to G\u00f6ttingen, where Hilbert pulled her into mathematics after her invariant-theory thesis.", "The episode explains conservation of energy, momentum, and angular momentum through examples like a ball rolling on Monday or Tuesday and the idea that the laws of physics do not change in London or Edinburgh.", "It also shows how her later ring theory, Modern Algebra, algebraic topology, and 1933 exile to Bryn Mawr shaped the long delay before her name was widely recognized."]
This episode explores Aristotle's contributions to biology, discussing his empirical methods, hylomorphic theory, and teleological views.
Venus has sulfuric-acid rain, 100-metre-per-second clouds, and nearly uniform surface temperatures.
In Our Time: Science examines Alan Turing's 1936 solution to Hilbert's Entscheidungsproblem and his 1950 imitation game.
The episode explains how Eugene Parker's 1957 theory turned observations of comet tails, eclipses, and solar flares into a model of escaping solar material.