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Bang Goes the Theory
2009 · TV series · documentary · 30 min episodes · 8 seasons
Dallas Campbell, Liz Bonnin, Jem Stansfield and Dr. Yan Wong take on the scientific world by devising their own ingenious ways of explaining cutting-edge developments in technology.
2 positivefrom 2 commenters
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5 comments on Hacker News
We’re spoiled. 3.5 billion years of stored energy from the sun is ripe for the picking just under the surface.
We’ll burn all 3.5 billion years of it in 200 or so years.
An episode of the BBC Show “Bang Goes the Theory” showed me how ridiculous our lifestyle is when they put a typical English family into a house powered solely by bicyclists. The family had no idea - they just went about their day while a few dozen bicyclists were practically killing themselves so they could run the shower and the kettle at the same time.
I agree with the author, lower consumption is the only real solution.
You're right that it doesn't make economic sense. It also doesn't make scientific sense.
First of all, human power releases tons of carbon dioxide just like burning fossil fuels does [0].
Second of all, modern society currently depends on burning millions of years of stored sunlight energy in a matter of centuries (i.e. fossil fuels). Human power doesn't begin to compare. Bang Goes The Theory (BBC show) did an entire episode on this. It's shocking how many bicyclists were needed to run a tiny household [1].
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[0] http://www.livestrong.com/article/402142-how-does-exercise-affect-breathing/
[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vPxuuB_ZBuk
There was a recent episode of Bang Goes the Theory [1] about how the UK has started to turn landfills into "bioreactors" [2], by covering them with earth (essentially turning them into parks). Underneath the top-soil layer, the landfill is covered with a layer that traps the methane and sends it into a methane-capturing system.
[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01s1mzl
It's true that "Bang Goes the Theory" has elements of Mythbusters, but it's focused on the science as opposed to the action movie stuff. The programme is basically "popular science -- you know, for teens!". Their magazine style format typically has one segment where they put a scientific hypothesis, law or principle in practice by building various gadgets. Other segments are news-related stuff, such as (just after the Japanese earthquake) a long segment on the science of tsunamis. I'm not in the target demographic at all, so I don't really follow it, but I appreciate their focus on educating kids and encouraging scientific thinking about young people.
I have been looking for a good science show, but Nova scienceNOW wasn't it. Not so much the content as the absolutely juvenline format.
Can someone explain how I have misunderstood and the show really is meant for kids? Because it's designed like a kid's show, complete with silly music, wacky editing, colourful demonstrations/analogies to illustrate scientific principles, and narration that sounds as if written for a toddler. In this respect it's almost as unwatchable as Michio Kaku's (who's ordinarily a bright guy) weirdly infantile Science of the Impossible series. (It's also an incredibly American show, formatwise, extremely brash and loud and fluffy.) I started watching the show as I'm a fan of Tyson, but I ended up disappointed.
For now, the only regular series (as opposed to one-offs like Jim Al-Khalili's excellent shows on atoms and chemistry, or Sagan's Cosmos) I consider worth watching is BBC's Bang Goes the Theory (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lwxj1), which is fairly obviously targeted at teens, but has some good content. Two of the hosts are fairly annoying generic twentysomethings who do the show as though it's some kind of music video programme, but the third guy is an adorable geek with an obvious passion for science and engineering, and they have some assisting hosts who are quite quirky.