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Brings together in a single hour The Why Factor; More or Less and Trending.

The Thought Show: The Elliptical Pool  Table

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Factual: Life Stories

Elliptical pool table.

27/08/2015 GMT

The Elliptical Pool  Table

BBC World Service - The Thought Show, The Elliptical Pool  Table

More Or Less examines the geometry of a very different game of pool.

More Or Less investigates the geometry of a very different game of pool and BBC Trending looks at the phenomenon of online pranks.

The ancient Greeks saw magic in the geometry of an ellipse.  In “More or Less” mathematical writer Alex Bellos has put this to use in a specially designed table for a specially designed game of pool.    

BBC Trending looks at the phenomenon of online pranks. Pranksters like Vitaly, Joey Salads and Prank v Prank get billions of views but some of the videos have been pushing the boundaries and causing controversy. Is all fair in love, war and pranking? Mukul Devichand is joined at the Edinburgh Festival by three obliging comedians – Nish Kumar, Kai Humphries and Anna Morris. 

In The Why Factor, Mike Williams is talking about death. Why do we find it so hard to talk about? Mike meets a British doctor facing her own mortality and another in India who wrestles with telling her patients the bad news.

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