Heisenberg In our Time

In our Time, the regular discussion programme chaired by Melvyn Bragg, is the very best of BBC Radio. Each week three working academics are assembled to discuss a topic chosen from an enormously diverse range of subjects in the arts and sciences. Some weeks are better than others. Sometimes an interesting subject is spoiled by poor communicators; likewise, an apparently dull topic can be made fascinating by gifted and informed academics. Occasionally, and last Thursday (29 February) was an occasionally, a set of great and knowledgeable communicators discuss a really fascinating subject and the programme positively catches fire.
 
The subject in question was Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. The academics: Fay Dowker from Imperial, Harry Cliff from Cambridge, and Frank Close from Oxford, were at the absolute top of their game. Apart from the thoroughly lucid way each one of them dealt with the subject, they were relaxed, there were a few jokes and some light-hearted banter, and some superb analogies: atomic and molecular spectra were likened to a bar code. Quite brilliant!
 
The Uncertainty Principle states that if you know the position of a particle fairly well, it’s momentum is uncertain. Likewise if you know its position in time accurately, you don’t know its energy. The consequences of this for many aspects of science are huge. I think it was Harry Cliff who cracked the joke: Heisenberg gets stopped for speeding. “Do you know how fast you were going?” Says the officer. “No”, he says, “But I know exactly where I was...”
 
I have listened to the programme twice now—including the extra minutes on iPlayer—and I can say with some confidence that for anyone who is interested in science, cosmology, or even philosophy and religion, this programme is a must. I think it is probably the best In our Time ever.