Uncharted with Hannah Fry
Hannah Fry follows the numbers on thrilling journeys of data and discovery. Along the way we meet the remarkable people who dug into the data and unearthed something extraordinary.
Episodes
20. The Confidence Trick
An ambitious portfolio manager stumbles upon a perfect graph. It outlines eye watering profits. But something doesn't quite add up - could this graph be accurate? Or does it hide a far more sinister truth? Producer Lauren Armstrong Carter
Sound Designer: Jon Nicholls
Story Editor: John Yorke
19. A Different Kind of Justice
How does a small informal survey lead to shocking truths about the US justice system thirty years later? Producer Lauren Armstrong Carter
Sound Designer: Jon Nicholls
Story Editor: John Yorke
18. The Night the Earth Shook
In a small Italian city nestled in the Apennine mountains, a series of low level tremors are setting nerves on edge. Is this just a passing phase, or a prelude to something far more devastating? Producer: Ilan Goodman
Sound Designer: Jon Nicholls
Story Editor: John Yorke
17. The Golden Spike
At a conference in Mexico, one scientist’s outburst launches a global quest. Hannah Fry follows a group of researchers on the hunt for a ‘golden spike’: the boundary, marking a shift into a dramatic new geological period dominated, not by volcanoes and asteroids, but the influence of humans. From plastics and concrete to nuclear fallout, the data they uncover reveals a planet profoundly changed. B
16. A Drop in the Ocean
A fisherman is stranded in the ocean late at night. Completely alone, the clock is ticking. How do you find one man lost in the open ocean? Can he be rescued in time? Producer: Lauren Armstrong Carter
Sound Designer: Jon Nicholls
Story Editor: John Yorke
15. Song of the Sea
A PhD student with a passion for whales stumbles upon something strange. An eerie sound deep beneath the ocean waves is about to rock her world. Producer Lauren Armstrong Carter
Sound Designer: Jon Nicholls
Story Editor: John Yorke
14. Whispers from the Cosmos
In a shabby brick hut in 1967, a young researcher spots a bizarre, pulsing signal: a cosmic whisper picked up a huge receiver she helped to build. Is it just mundane interference - or could it be alien life? Hannah Fry shares a tale of one woman’s journey through the male-dominated halls of 1960s academia, to a groundbreaking discovery that transformed our understanding of the universe. Producer:
13. The Grain of Truth
Amid the desperation of war-starved Netherlands a doctor finds a way of curing a group of gravely ill children. His finding challenges accepted medical wisdom, and provokes opposition from Catholics. But why had the rest of the world missed this miracle treatment?
Producer: Ilan Goodman
Sound Designer: Jon Nicholls
Story Editor: John Yorke
12. Scandal in the Air
At a niche engineering conference, a young researcher shares some data that looks like an embarrassing mistake. Little does he know, his simple bar chart is the first pebble in an avalanche exposing a scandal of epic proportions. Producer: Ilan Goodman
Sound Designer: Jon Nicholls
Story Editor: John Yorke
11. Love Bytes
At thirty-one, mathematician Chris McKinlay is looking for love. But if it’s all a numbers game, his are not adding up. Could he be the problem? Or is something else getting in the way? Producer: Lauren Armstrong Carter
Sound Designer: Jon Nicholls
Story Editor: John Yorke
Introducing... Uncharted with Hannah Fry Series 2
From exposing fraud to finding true love, mathematician Hannah Fry follows the numbers on thrilling adventures of data and discovery. Join her for Series 2 of Uncharted.
10. Devil in the Detail
Thomas Herndon was happily studying economics at the University of Massachusetts, when one day is punctured by a discovery. It appears to be an anomaly which, if true, will shake the intellectual foundations of a global movement, and could undermine politicians around the world. Hannah Fry tells the extraordinary story of a student who will go head to head with two of the greatest economic minds i
9. Access Denied
A young researcher gains access to a secretive data set and discovers something shocking.
What happens when a system designed to help people harms them instead? Hannah Fry tells a tale about the mysterious realm of artificial intelligence.Episode Producers: Lauren Armstrong-Carter and Clem Hitchcock
Sound Design: Jon Nicholls
Story Editor: John YorkeA series for Radio 4 by BBC Science in Cardiff.
8. In the Habit
What is the secret to ageing well? Humankind has been in search of an answer for millions of years. But one man believes he may have found the beginnings of an answer, and it’s hiding in a convent.Hannah Fry tells a tale of a single scatter graph which might reveal the key to longevity.Episode Producer: Lauren Armstrong-Carter
Sound Design: Jon Nicholls
Story Editor: John YorkeA series for Radio
7. The Gossip Mill
2008, Hungary: a researcher stands on a factory floor quizzing a bemused employee. The tile manufacturing company is in trouble, and the researcher is there to help. But his questions seem silly: Who do you go to for advice? Who do you chat to? What use is the science of networks to a company producing floor tiles? Hannah Fry tells a tale about the precarious power of networks.Episode Producer: Il
6. The Happiness Curve
Life has its ups and downs, its sudden successes and unexpected obstacles. But amongst all the unpredictable variation, two economists believe they have identified a deep and powerful influence on our happiness: age. Happiness, it turns out, is U shaped. Hannah Fry tells a tale of orangutans, joy and misery…and joy!Presenter: Hannah Fry
Executive Producer: Martin Smith
Series Producer: Lauren Arms
5. The Choice
How well do you make decisions? It’s never easy, but today John Carter is faced with an agonising choice and has just 60 minutes to make the right call. One path could lead to glory, while the other might result in death.Hannah Fry tells a tale of risk, decision making, and the single graph that changed it all.Episode Producer: Lauren Armstrong-Carter
Sound Design: Jon Nicholls
Story Editor: John
4. This Train Has Been Delayed
Singapore, 2016. A high-tech driverless train system starts glitching in wild and unpredictable ways. The train company, the government, even the military are at a loss: no-one can figure out what is causing the problem. Until Jason Bay and his team of data scientists assemble an old-fashioned timetabling graph, first developed in 19th century France, which exposes an invisible culprit.Behind ever
3. The Doctor Will See You Now
It’s a hot summer’s day in 1998. Two couples stand side by side in a small courtyard. Brought together by chance, they may never have met if not for one thing. A tatty piece of paper, the contents of which will change their lives, and the lives of thousands across the country, forever. Hannah Fry tells the tale of this single sheet of A4 uncovered a dark pattern and a serial murderer hiding in pla
2. The Hockey Stick
In 1998, the climate scientist Michael Mann published a simple graph shaped like an ice hockey stick: a long straight line which curves suddenly upward at the end. It was based on decades of intrepid work by scientists around the world. But the line held a stark warning. For Michael, notoriety, abuse and a global battle over the reality of climate change followed.
Hannah Fry tells the remarkab
1. The Returning Soldier
It’s 1973 and the UK is in crisis: runaway inflation, industrial strike action and political turmoil. Unnoticed at the time - in hospitals and front rooms around the country - something odd is happening with the country’s newborns. A higher proportion of boys are being born than ever before in the 20th Century. What was behind this puzzling trend? Hannah Fry follows one researcher’s obsessive mis
Introducing... Uncharted with Hannah Fry
Behind every line on a graph, there lies an extraordinary human story. Mathematician Hannah Fry is here to tell us ten of them. Uncharted with Hannah Fry will lead us through ten captivating mysteries to reveal the power of numbers behind each one. Along the way we discover the remarkable people who followed the data and unearthed something extraordinary.
