How do you convince people you aren't a witch if you travel back in time, and where can you actually find something decent to eat when you're there? Professor Hannah Fry and VSauce, Michael Stevens, tackle the most practical and delicious logistics of surviving a trip through history. Check out one of Hannah's favourite chemistry YouTube channels - https://www.youtube.com/@cnliziqi ------------------- For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can su...
Apr 22, 2026•50 min•Season 1Ep. 45
Why do almost all of us struggle with a simple reasoning test, yet get it right the moment it’s about a pint in a pub? This week, Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens take on the Wason Selection Task, one of the most intensely studied problems in the history of psychology. They unpack why a rule involving letters and numbers can feel strangely difficult, while the exact same logic becomes immediate and instinctive when it’s about people, rules, and catching someone out. From counterexamples ...
Apr 20, 2026•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 44
Does a teapot secretly hold the laws of physics? And what do soap, sugar and mint have to do with the perfect cup of tea? Whilst in Morocco, Professor Hannah Fry takes Michael Stevens (VSauce) into the surprising science of mint tea, from foamy bubbles that trap desert sand to the elegant S-shaped spout that appears to solve some of the hardest problems in fluid dynamics. Plus, your questions, including whether rising sea levels could change how your eggs boil, and just how much of Earth humans ...
Apr 15, 2026•41 min•Season 1Ep. 43
Is the kitchen home to some of the most extraordinary technology humans have ever invented? Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens explore the science of everyday appliances, from the strange physics of coldness to the wartime origins of the microwave. They explore how humanity learned to trap 'coolth', beam heat into leftovers, and turn the most ordinary room in the house into a high performance laboratory! From ice merchants and exploding eggs to magnetrons and magnetic fridges, this is the ...
Apr 13, 2026•46 min•Season 1Ep. 42
Does "the cloud" hold more data than a clouds hold raindrops? Can a new organ literally rewrite your personality? Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens, VSauce, weigh our massive digital servers against a standard downpour, before unpicking the biology of transplant patients suddenly waking up with entirely new cravings. Michael also has a new Curiosity Box coming featuring an altertative periodic table disguised as a snail pin badge to showoff to Hannah. ------------------- For more informat...
Apr 08, 2026•47 min•Season 1Ep. 41
What happens when you finally reach the end of forever? And what exactly is the difference between Omega and Aleph-null? Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens (VSauce) return for the final (possibly not) chapter of our infinity series, unpicking the frankly absurd mechanics of multiple infinities. They reveal how mathematicians don't just measure the endless void, but actively organise it, exploring the bizarre gap between the sheer size of a boundless set of numbers and its actual order. Fol...
Apr 06, 2026•51 min•Season 1Ep. 40
Why would a zip line be the best form of transport on the Moon? Why exactly can your feet still feel other textures right through your socks? Hannah and Michael tackle the spectacular physics of extreme commutes and everyday biomechanics. They unpick the orbital chaos and terrifying vacuum of space, proving why a lunar theme park ride is essentially a brilliant, fiery death trap. Back down on Earth, they dive into the hypersensitive neurology of touch, revealing how your brain decodes microscopi...
Apr 01, 2026•57 min•Season 1Ep. 39
Why were the ancient Greeks absolutely terrified of the infinite? How did a boundless mathematical concept start bitter historical feuds? And what happens to reality when you realise that some infinities are actually bigger than others? Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens (VSauce) plunge back into the mind-bending history of infinity, tracking the spectacular panic it caused across the centuries. From individuals trying to mathematically contain it, to others wrestling with its endless quan...
Mar 30, 2026•49 min•Season 1Ep. 36
In this very special episode Michael and Hannah look at some of the groundbreaking, jaw-dropping and hope inspiring projects that Cancer Research UK are supporting right now. From identifying tiny "flags" cancer cells show to using cancer's own evolution against it, they show why current research today will hopefully mean a better tomorrow for many. Cancer Research UK are the world's leading cancer charity, supporting research into the ongoing quest to better prevent, detect and treat the diseas...
Mar 26, 2026•57 min•Season 1Ep. 37
Is infinity actually a real number, or just a brilliant mathematical hallucination? Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens (VSauce) tumble down the numerical rabbit hole to explore the mind-bending origins of infinity. They unpick exactly how humanity managed to trap the endless void. From ancient paradoxes to endless hotel rooms, they dive into the bizarre history of our universe's most impossible idea. ------------------- For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakth...
Mar 24, 2026•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 36
What do Bill Bryson, Daniel Wegner and J.R.R. Tolkien have in common? They are all part of Michael's reading recommendations. On this episode of Field Notes we answer one of our most frequent inbox questions... "What do you both read?" Alongside that Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens delve into whether some numbers give off "vibes" and the optimal way to use airflow to rid your car of dog hairs and unwanted smells. A handy list of Michael's books (Hannah's will come in the future)! Sum by...
Mar 19, 2026•53 min•Season 1Ep. 35
Ever wanted to squish a puppy just because it’s impossibly cute? Or felt absolutely certain you’ve lived this exact moment before? Hannah and Michael explore the bizarre, everyday glitches of the human mind, unpacking why our brains occasionally seem to short-circuit. They dive into the weird neurology of "cute aggression", or urges like thinking of throwing your phone off a bridge, to the jarring time-bending sensation of déjà vu to reveal how our grey matter manages overwhelming feelings and s...
Mar 17, 2026•1 hr 10 min•Season 1Ep. 34
What inspired Kazuo Ishiguro’s timeless story about mortality, growing up, and the human condition? How are its characters so relatable, and yet entirely unique? And, why does the dark secret at its heart challenge scientific innovation? Dominic Sanbrook joins Hannah and Michael to discuss all this and Dominic's new show, The Book Club, available now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices...
Mar 14, 2026•27 min
Have you stubbed your toe and shouted an unrepeatable word? Isaac Newton and Robert Boyle were two of the greatest minds in humanity. Did their egos and competition with one another hold them back or drive them onto huge breakthroughs? Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens explore the bizarre neurology of vocalised pain, revealing how a good yelp actually acts as a biological off-switch for suffering and unearth if Newton was the biggest crybaby in science. Plus, Hannah gives us a behind-the-...
Mar 12, 2026•55 min•Season 1Ep. 32
Botanically speaking, there is no such thing as a vegetable, so what exactly is sitting on your dinner plate? And if our culinary world is built on biological lies, which plant is actually the most vegetable like? Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens tackle a chaotic intersection of linguistics, plant taxonomy, and nutrition, dismantling the arbitrary categories we use to organise our food, revealing that our supermarket aisles are a scientifically lawless wasteland. It is a strangely profou...
Mar 10, 2026•51 min•Season 1Ep. 33
Does your native language physically sculpt your face? And could a swarm of bees be trained to run computer code? Two of your questions answer in this Field Notes with Professor Hannah Fry and YouTube's Michael Stevens, plus Michael’s object of the week is a visualization of the Holocene Calendar. By simply adding ten thousand years to our current year, it transforms our perception of history from a brief modern blip into an unbroken, monumental narrative of human progress. Check out the calenda...
Mar 05, 2026•50 min•Season 1Ep. 30
Humans have split the atom, we can stream movies from space and are working towards everlasting life. So why in the world are we still spending a third of our lives unconscious? In this episode of The Rest Is Science, Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens ask a deceptively simple question: Can human beings cure sleep? Why do evolutionary forces cause us to lie helpless for eight hours a night when predators might lurk? Why can elephants survive on two hours but bats basically exist to nap? And what rea...
Mar 03, 2026•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 31
Rockets are built to slice cleanly through the atmosphere on the way up. Coming home, it turns out, requires... not turning into a fireball before a bellyflop When Space Shuttles reenter Earth’s atmosphere at 17,000 miles per hour, they don’t dive nose first. Instead they turn broadside to the atmosphere, deliberately creating more drag, more friction, more heat. At those speeds, oncoming air compresses into a shockwave hotter than molten lava. In this episode of Field Notes, Professor Hannah Fr...
Feb 26, 2026•44 min•Season 1Ep. 28
If someone asked you to point to yourself, where would you point? Your chest? Your head? Somewhere just behind your eyes? Where are you? In this episode, Professor Hannah Fry and VSauce’s Michael Stevens explore how the brain maps and understands out location, from the inner ear fluid that tells us which way is up, to the grid and place cells that build a kind of internal GPS. But how do London taxi drivers rewire their brains to memorise entire cities when the rest of us can’t? How does languag...
Feb 24, 2026•1 hr 3 min
At what exact chemical ratio does our beloved chocolate devolve into a mere structure of fats and sugars? How far can you dilute chocolate before its fundamental identity vanishes? And what could a comically tiny novelty stool possibly reveal about Michael Stevens? Unlike a block of pure iron or a vial of chlorine, chocolate is not one single substance but a complex and heterogeneous mixture we all take for granted. Hannah and Michael explore the chemistry and nutritional boundaries of this ever...
Feb 19, 2026•1 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 27
Is deception a uniquely human trait, or is the natural world built on a foundation of fraud? When a cuttlefish shifts its skin to mimic a female and sneak past a rival male, this may be deceptive but is it telling a lie? Professor Hannah Fry and VSauce's Michael Stevens explore the evolutionary biology of dishonesty across the animal kingdom. What is the neurological difference between a biological reflex and a calculated bluff? What kind of cognitive processing is needed for true artifice, and ...
Feb 17, 2026•54 min•Season 1Ep. 26
Topologically speaking, a human is just a donut with seven holes. It sounds like a joke, but it is a fundamental biological reality. Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens explore the strange geometry of the human body, tracing how we evolved from simple tubes into complex toruses. They investigate the "design flaw" at the boundary of our existence, the fragile transition where skin meets internal lining, and ask why nature built us with so many vulnerabilities to the outside world. But before...
Feb 12, 2026•49 min•Season 1Ep. 25
It starts as a friendly challenge: who can name the biggest number? The only rule? Infinity doesn’t count. What follows is a journey through the biggest finite numbers ever imagined. From Archimedes’ grains of sand to Graham’s Number, a sequence so vast it stretches the limits of human comprehension, Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens tumble through this strange landscape of scale, tracing how mathematicians have pushed counting to its absolute edge. But beyond vast calculations, perhaps t...
Feb 10, 2026•58 min•Season 1Ep. 24
Can mathematics ever truly be proven? And can Michael's poetry help you remember some tricky equations? In this episode, Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens answer your questions and take a look at what it means for something to be true in mathematics. Starting with a grand attempt to prove that one plus one equals two, and into Gödel’s theorem that no system of maths can ever fully prove itself, they explore how maths connects to the real world, from an equation that predicts antimatter to...
Feb 05, 2026•45 min•Season 1Ep. 24
Is it possible to make a sport too good? Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens explore how science, data, and optimisation are transforming modern sports improving athletes and teams, while quietly changing how games are played, watched, and understood. From the Tush Push in the NFL and defensive shifts in Major League Baseball, to dirty air in Formula 1, expected goals in Premier League football, and the statistical dominance of seven footers in the NBA, they examine how prediction, probabil...
Feb 03, 2026•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 22
Could a bolt of lightning become a permanent geological relic? How small would you have to squash a hamster to turn it into a black hole? Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens dismantle our perceptions of scale and texture, moving from the glassy "fulgurites" forged in sandy soil to the mathematical threshold of the Schwarzschild radius. They explore the counter-intuitive geometry of the Earth, calculate the extreme density required to collapse domestic life into a gravitational singularity a...
Jan 29, 2026•32 min•Season 1Ep. 21
What is boredom really, and why does it feel so unbearable? Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens explore the science of boredom, revealing it not as laziness or a lack of stimulation, but as a signal from the brain when prediction and learning grind to a halt. When nothing changes and everything is expected, the mind begins to push back. From dopamine experiments and waiting rooms to sensory deprivation and solitary confinement, they examine how boredom emerges from lost uncertainty and why ...
Jan 27, 2026•48 min•Season 1Ep. 20
Can we store summer’s heat to warm our homes in winter? Could humans perceive a fourth dimension? And why does light bend around gravity even though it has no mass? Small questions from YOU which open doors to enormous worlds. In this episode of Field Notes, Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens discuss underground heat batteries in Canada and Einstein’s thought experiments, from how the universe hides its secrets and how we uncover them. Later, Michael presents a story which leads to an exploration of...
Jan 22, 2026•43 min•Season 1Ep. 19
What do we mean when we call an event random? Most people view randomness as a fundamental property of the universe, but is it just a label for our own lack of knowledge? Whether it is a weighted coin toss, a scratch card, or the digits of Pi, unpredictability usually emerges from rules and patterns that sit just beyond our perception. Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens dismantle the logic of chance, exploring how chaos is governed by strict mathematical laws and why a coin can be '50 / 50...
Jan 20, 2026•46 min•Season 1Ep. 18
Some objects feel like they’re from another world. One of these might be the giant structure that makes up a quantum computer. Lifted straight from the TV series Devs, Professor Hannah Fry shows Michael Stevens a prop that was designed to look just like one…now it hangs from the ceiling in her house. In this episode of Field Notes, Hannah and Michael examine the extraordinary technology behind of quantum computing. They explore how qubits differ from classical bits and consider the ways this tec...
Jan 15, 2026•36 min•Season 1Ep. 17
