Paul Davies on the origin of life and the evolution of cancer
Paul Davies talks to Jim al-Khalili about the origin of life and the search for aliens.
Physicist Paul Davies talks to Jim al-Khalili about the origin of life, the search for aliens and the evolution of cancer.
Paul Davies is interested in some of the biggest questions that we can ask. What is life? How did the universe begin? How will it end? And are we alone? His research has been broad and far-reaching, covering quantum mechanics, cosmology and black holes. In the 1980s he described the so-called Bunch-Davies vacuum - the quantum vacuum that existed just fractions of a second after the big bang - when particles were popping in and out of existence and nothing was stable.
As the chair of SETI (the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) Post Detection Task Group, he鈥檚 the person responsible for announcing to the world when we make contact with aliens. He鈥檚 now Regents Professor of Physics at Arizona State University in the American south west where he runs research groups studying the evolution of cancer and the origins of life.
Paul Davies talks to Jim al-Khalili about how he applies the principles of physics to these big questions and about how he has worked closely with religious thinkers.
Producer: Anna Buckley
Last on
More episodes
Previous
Broadcasts
- Mon 8 Jul 2019 19:32GMT91热爆 World Service except South Asia
- Tue 9 Jul 2019 04:32GMT91热爆 World Service Online, News Internet, UK DAB/Freeview & Europe and the Middle East only
- Tue 9 Jul 2019 05:32GMT91热爆 World Service Australasia, Americas and the Caribbean & South Asia only
- Tue 9 Jul 2019 06:32GMT91热爆 World Service East and Southern Africa & East Asia only
- Tue 9 Jul 2019 10:32GMT91热爆 World Service West and Central Africa
- Tue 9 Jul 2019 13:32GMT91热爆 World Service Australasia
- Tue 9 Jul 2019 17:32GMT91热爆 World Service South Asia
- Sun 14 Jul 2019 23:32GMT91热爆 World Service
Space
The eclipses, spacecraft and astronauts changing our view of the Universe
The Curious Cases of Rutherford and Fry
Podcast
-
Discovery
Explorations in the world of science.