Programme Index

Discover 11,128,835 listings and 279,775 playable programmes from the BBC

Royal Institution Christmas Lectures

2010

Episode 2: Why Chocolate Melts and Jet Engines Don't

Duration: 1 hour

First broadcast: on BBC FourLatest broadcast: on BBC Four

Dr Mark Miodownik zooms into the microscopic world beneath our fingertips. In this unfamiliar landscape, strange forces dominate the world and common sense goes out of the window. He reveals how this tiny hidden world can make objects behave like magic, and discovers the secrets of the extraordinary metals that make jet engines possible.

With a mass audience taste test, Mark reveals why chocolate is actually one of the most sophisticated and highly engineered materials on the planet, using special crystals designed to melt in the mouth. He looks forward to new era of self-healing materials where a broken mobile phone or car bumper could heal itself and how, one day, material scientists might even create artificial life. Show less

About this data

This data is drawn from the data stream that informs BBC's iPlayer and Sounds. The information shows what was scheduled to be broadcast, meaning it was/is subject to change and may not be accurate. More