Bubbles
Exploring bubbles, those magical - and ultimately fragile - spherical cavities. With Helen Czerski, Constantin Coussios and Bradley Hart.
Fragile gas filled spheres, sparkling champagne globules that fill your nose with fizz, pipe dreams that pop when the illusion grows too big: the Forum explores the mysterious world of bubbles. Bridget Kendall is joined by bubble physicist Helen Czerski, biomedical engineer Constantin Coussios and artist Bradley Hart who makes giant paintings using bubble wrap.
Photo credit: Associated Press
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Helen Czerski
How bubbles help the oceans breathe
Duration: 13:44
Constantin Coussios
Therapeutic uses of bubbles in medicine
Duration: 04:23
60 Second idea
Telescopic ocean goggles
Duration: 05:04
Bradley Hart
Turning a 鈥榙umb鈥 material into art
Duration: 12:15
Helen Czerski
Helen Czerski is a physicist and oceanographer at University College London. She explains why ocean bubbles are essential for the planet鈥檚 wellbeing and describes the difficulties of studying them in the middle of ferocious Atlantic storms.
Constantin Coussios
Constantin Coussios is Professor of Biomedical Engineering at聽 Oxford University. He puts micro-bubbles inside the human body, tracking the tiny nano sized spheres as they make their way聽 through the blood stream. He wants to control the bubbles so they release the cancer drugs encased in them at exactly the right place and right time.
Bradley Hart
Visual artist Bradley Hart exploits the curious properties of bubbles which make them such powerful metaphors for our digital, pixelated, disjointed times. He injects paint into bubble wrap, to create large-scale works of art.
You can see some of Bradley's bubble wrap art work in the gallery on the right.
Photo c/o Bradley Hart
60 Second Idea to Change the World
Helen Czerski proposes a pair of telescopic goggles that let you see into the ocean the way you can see into the sky. You鈥檇 see whales and the giant squid and vast puffs of drifting phytoplankton like clouds, showing where the ocean currents were going.聽聽聽 You鈥檇 see the 鈥渨eather鈥 of the ocean: it鈥檚 all moving around down there, and you鈥檇 get a feel for what it鈥檚 doing.聽聽 And 鈥 hopefully 鈥 the goggles would show us why the ocean really matters for us and help us respect it more. 聽 Photo of Plankton by 91热爆
Broadcasts
- Sat 9 Aug 2014 21:06GMT91热爆 World Service Online
- Sun 10 Aug 2014 09:06GMT91热爆 World Service Online
- Mon 11 Aug 2014 02:06GMT91热爆 World Service Online
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The Forum
The programme that explains the present by exploring the past