Transcripts for The Rest Is Science

Goalhanger

Join mathematician Professor Hannah Fry and science creator Michael Stevens (Vsauce) as they dig into the weird scientific questions that often go unexplored. Welcome to The Rest Is Science, a show that sits in the fascinating space between what we think we know, and what we actually know. Why do we assume we understand things like time, randomness, or even gravity? Once you start questioning these familiar ideas, reality becomes astonishingly strange and completely fragil…

Description from the show’s public podcast feed.

Recent episodes

Latest episodes from the show’s RSS feed. Pick one to open Podskrift with that episode ready.

What Was A Mammoth Doing At The Bottom Of The Sea?

2026-10-07 · 42 min

Hannah surprises Michael with a mammoth bone from Doggerland, the lost Ice Age land that once joined Britain to mainland Europe, and now lies beneath the North Sea. Who lived there, what roamed it, an...

Why Do We Turn on Innocent People?

2026-10-04 · 51 min

Why do we turn on innocent people? A convincing story, a suspicious glance and suddenly everyone’s an armchair detective. But what happens when the crowd gets it completely wrong? Hannah Fry and Mi...

Hacking The Kendama With Physics

2026-09-30 · 41 min

Michael hands Hannah a kendama, the Japanese cup-and-ball toy, and asks her to land a single catch. Then he brings out one built for him by Adam Savage of MythBusters and explains why a heavier kendam...

Why Do We Like Staring Into Fire?

2026-09-27 · 59 min

What is fire, and why does watching it hold our attention in a different way from scrolling on your phone? Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens start with the science of a flame: why it glows, what its d...

The Fluid Dynamics of Fountain Pens

2026-09-23 · 65 min

The wait is finally over: Hannah Fry introduces Michael Stevens to her beloved fountain pen collection and the beautiful physics behind how fountain pens work. From a £20 Lamy Safari to vintage Water...

Dying In Space, Trapped Water, and What's Hidden In Pi?

2026-09-20 · 49 min

Almost every human who has ever lived has one thing in common: they were born and died on Earth. Except for three people. Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens uncover the extraordinary story of Soyuz 11, t...

How Codes Were Used To Hack The Telegram Business

2026-09-16 · 57 min

What if a single strange word could save you a fortune? In this episode Michael opens up a Victorian telegram code book and explores how users compressed long messages into brief coded words to ou...

Why Your Body Needs Gravity

2026-09-13 · 43 min

Does space travel make astronauts younger? Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens explore Einstein’s twin paradox, time dilation and NASA’s famous Twins Study with astronauts Scott and Mark Kell...

What Is Collagen All About?

2026-09-09 · 42 min

Do collagen pills live up to their promises for skin and joints and healthy ageing? In this episode, Hannah and Michael examine what collagen actually is and how the body makes and uses it, before...

The Threshold of Human Sensation

2026-09-06 · 55 min

⁠What is the smallest thing you can possibly feel? ⁠ ⁠ Michael Stevens and Professor Hannah Fry journey through varying levels of perception, from the faintest touch on skin to the faintest trace of...

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