Radio listener

Published on Friday 27 November 2009 16:15

Britain's best known contemporary philosopher, A C Grayling, is in the business of dealing with The Big Questions, and he doesn't shirk in BBC World Service's new five-part series EXCHANGES AT THE FRONTIER, in which the leonine-maned, owlishly bespectacled commentator delves into some of the major issues currently exercising science, including the origin of the universe, climate change, state-of-the-art neuroscience and the particle-bashing Large Hadron Collider.

Grayling discusses the Collider with the Ghanaian physicist Tejinder Virdee, who led the Hadron Collider team, while other interviewees include the American cosmologist Lawrence Krauss and astronomer Seth Shostak of the Californian-based Seti – the ongoing Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence.

Shostak is in demand on the airwaves this week, also cropping up on THE INFINITE MONKEY CAGE, Radio 4's intriguingly titled and slightly less highbrow look at the world of science, hosted by physicist and former D:Ream keyboardist Brian Cox and comedian Robin Ince. The pair speak to eminent boffins about their views on the proverbial life, the universe and everything, and the aforementioned Shostak discusses the ongoing quest for life somewhere out there as well as some popular science conspiracy theories. Other guests include comedian and ex-physicist Dara O'Briain, who ponders why science seems to produce so many comedians (is somebody cloning them?).

EXCHANGES AT THE FRONTIER

Wednesday, BBC World Service, 8:32pm

THE INFINITE MONKEY CAGE

Monday, Radio 4, 4:30pm