Summary
Have you ever wondered why waterfalls appear white when still water is transparent? Why clouds, or snow, appear white when they too are essentially just water molecules in different states? What makes something white, opaque or transparent? These are the questions CrowdScience listener Gerardo has been pondering ever since taking in the beauty of fallen water on a hiking trail in his home of Cantabria, Northern Spain. Presenter Marnie Chesterton, sets off on a quest to find out the answers to all of those questions and more. What even is white? Is it a colour, the absence of colour or all the colours of the rainbow combined? Is black really the opposite of white? And what colours do we mix to make white or black paint?
Image: White paint in pots and a paintbrush. Credit: Getty Images
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of |
| 0:07.0 | Happiness Podcast. |
| 0:08.0 | For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want |
| 0:14.4 | to share that science with you. |
| 0:16.1 | And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley. |
| 0:19.4 | I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that |
| 0:25.4 | calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:30.3 | Welcome to Crowd Science from the BBC World Service. I'm Marnie Chesterton and as you can probably hear I'm stood next to some water. I'm in quite an unusual site for London. It's a Japanese inspired garden with |
| 0:47.5 | this beautiful several meters of waterfall at the center of it. Now the reason I'm stood here is because there's a |
| 0:55.4 | quality to the water when it's going down this waterfall something I'd never really |
| 1:00.0 | thought about before but then one of our crowd science listeners gets in touch with a |
| 1:05.1 | question. I'm Herrardo from Santander which is in Cantabria as Spain and what's your |
| 1:11.6 | question for crowd science? |
| 1:13.4 | The question was, what water is transparent? |
| 1:19.2 | When it falls down's a waterfall, it turns white. I usually do trek in nature and we come up with waterfalls, but you limit |
| 1:30.5 | yourself to enjoy the view. |
| 1:33.0 | But that occasion, I ask myself, |
| 1:36.7 | I ask my friend also, why is it that when the water turns wide and falls. |
| 1:43.3 | And they said, well, Google it. |
| 1:45.6 | But I said, no, no, no. |
| 1:47.0 | I want real scientists, real people to answer me this. |
| 1:51.9 | So I decided to ask cow science. |
... |
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