BBC Inside Science

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Factual: Science & Nature

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A weekly programme looking at the science that's changing our world.

A weekly programme that illuminates the mysteries and challenges the controversies behind the science that's changing our world.

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BBC Inside Science: Ten years of Zooniverse; what happened to volcano Anak Krakatau and visualising maths

Ten years of Zooniverse; what happened to volcano Anak Krakatau and visualising maths

BBC Radio 4 - BBC Inside Science, Ten years of Zooniverse; what happened to volcano Anak Krakatau and visualising maths

Ten years of Zooniverse; what happened to volcano Anak Krakatau and visualising maths.

Citizen science platform Zooniverse is 10 years old; imaging the aftermath of volcano Anak Krakatau's dramatic collapse and a look at how we visualise maths and physics

Adam Rutherford talks to Chris Lintott about the citizen science platform he set up ten years ago. Zooniverse is a place where the public can help scientists analyse huge swathes of data. Projects such as spotting distant galaxies, counting penguins and tagging WW2 diaries have all has a huge boost thanks to the people-power of the Zooniverse.

The Indonesian volcano Anak Krakatau, which means 'Son of Krakatoa', was born out of the ashes of the mega volcano which erupted and collapsed in the 1880s. Last year the island volcano Anak collapsed, causing a tsunami which killed 400 people. The collapse of millions of tonnes of rock into the ocean has now been mapped and chunks of rock, the size of office blocks, have been found tossed kilometres from the island. It really brings home how dangerous these volcanoes can be.

BBC Inside Science producer Fi is always scribbling and doodling during interviews. It turns out she is a visual thinker and she compulsively draws the science being discussed. She is not alone: many scientists working in fields involving complex maths and physics resort to pictures to illustrate what's happening. But not everything in science can be reduced down to a 2D sketch and not everyone needs a visual aid. Marnie Chesterton finds the scientists who can look at an equation, and 'see' in their heads, the graph it describes. Others get intensely annoyed at analogies that just aren't quite right - like spacetime being a ball on a rubber sheet. She asks a physicist, a philosopher and a mathematician about the relationship they have between maths, reality and our senses.

Producer - Fiona Roberts

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BBC Inside Science

Ten years of Zooniverse; what happened to volcano Anak Krakatau and visualising maths

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