Armed with just a candle, a blackboard, and a handful of TV’s most innocuous celebrities, Professor Cox set out to explore the science of Doctor Who. What, about the world of the Doctor, was really possible, and what was science-y bunkum? Could regeneration ever happen? Can something really be bigger on the inside? Could you, you know, actually reverse the polarity of the neutron flow? Entertaining Matt Smith interludes aside (how we’ll miss him), the hour’s Who links were a somewhat tenuous way of feeding non-scientists an hour of edifying physics, delivered by the nation’s groovy uncle. It may have been a stealth science lesson piggybacking on Doctor Who’s anniversary, but like a dog who’s unknowingly swallowed a worming tablet stuffed into a bit of sausage, the audience was still largely left happy and all the better for it. If it was beginners’ stuff, then I happily admit to being a few evolutionary stages behind a beginner (a pre-pre-beginner, or whatever the word is for someone who spent her school science lessons enthusiastically dissolving lumps of jelly in hot water and playing with iron filings, but never being inquisitive enough to ask why). The stuff about black holes and how the TARDIS’ Eye of Harmony is actually a bonafide concept was the real danger spot for leaving dumbos like me behind. Luckily, a lifetime of watching sci-fi provided me with some useful footholds. Professor Cox would say something impressive about singularities and my brain would nod knowingly and reply, “Ah yes. Like in Fringe”. He’d carefully explain how time moves at a different rate the closer we come to an event horizon, and I’d think “Quite right. Sam Neill was in that. Do continue, good Prof”. The famous faces in the (almost entirely white adult) audience did their best to look alert, amused and like they wouldn’t rather be checking their phones whenever the camera cut to them. Richard Bacon was the best at this, adopting a steely ‘I’m appreciating science’ face throughout. Rufus Hound was so delighted with it all he had to suppress a near-constant giggle. Jon Culshaw provided admiring contemplation (but not his Fourth Doctor impression). Dr Christian Jessen – with the look of a Ken Doll who’d been left on a radiator – was concentrating so hard that he looked a little bit angry. All that contact with genital warts probably does that to a person. I can’t say I now have a perfect grasp of Maxwell’s wave equations, nor a significantly increased understanding of Who’s scientific mysteries. What I can say is that the Royal Institution and Professor Brian Cox managed to take this science thicko back in time, blowing the dust off the forgotten world of Bunsen burners, chalk boards and electro-magnetic coils (tucked away for decades along with pommel horses, the nit nurse, and pink custard). For that burst of nostalgia, I’m grateful. The Science of Doctor Who is available on BBC iPlayer until Thursday the 21st of November. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.
