4.7 • 9.4K Ratings
🗓️ 19 February 2025
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Brian Cox and Robin Ince slice deep into the lesser explored world beneath us. To join them on the journey from the crust to the core they are joined by seismologist Ana Ferreira, geologist Chris Jackson and comedian Phil Wang.
School children learn about the makeup of the earth with an image depicting the earth's core, mantle and crust layered neatly on top of each other, but is this an oversimplification? Our experts reveal that the earths innards are less uniform than we might think and mysteries still abound, including the makeup of some continental sized blobs deep inside the earth. We learn about the incredible heat and pressure as we descend and why that has limited how far humans have been able to explore these deep realms first-hand. We explore the chemistry of the interactions between the earth layers and how they influence the formation of continental plates and volcanoes. Phil has an existential crisis about falling inside gaps between the plates but is reassured his worries are unfounded as Ana explains the latest techniques being used to understand the world deep beneath us.
Producer: Melanie Brown Executive Producer: Alexandra Feachem Researcher: Olivia Jani
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0:00.0 | Eleven climbers appeared to have died on the world's second highest mountain K2. |
0:06.0 | It was one of the deadliest days in mountaineering history. |
0:10.0 | Rock falls, avalanches. |
0:11.0 | Huge pieces of ice. All are big enough to kill you. |
0:14.0 | He just flew out into Devoid and he was gone. |
0:17.0 | How did it all go so wrong? |
0:19.0 | And is it really worth risking death to feel alive? Why would somebody |
0:23.5 | pay to go to a place called the death cell on a vacation? Extreme, peak danger. With me, |
0:29.9 | Natalia Melman Petrazella. Listen to the full series now. First on BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
0:40.3 | You're about to listen to The Infinite Monkey Cage. |
0:43.0 | Episodes will be released on Wednesdays wherever you get your podcast from. |
0:46.8 | But if you're in the UK, the full series is available right now, first on BBC Sounds. |
0:53.2 | Hello, I'm Brian Cox. |
0:54.6 | I'm Robert Inns. |
0:55.3 | And this is the Infinite Monkey Cage. |
0:57.0 | Today, we journey to the middle of the earth, |
1:00.8 | which I think is a wonderful place to go, |
1:02.2 | because I do actually see Brian as a kind of a Gandalf-like figure, really. |
1:06.3 | It's kind of wizard-y person talking magical nonsense |
1:09.8 | about ridiculous ideas |
1:11.5 | of the behaviour of subatomic particles. |
1:14.2 | All made up as he talks to his staff. |
... |
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