Geektown Behind The Scenes Podcast: Dianna Cowern aka Physics Girl Talks BBC/YouTube Special ‘The Edge of Science’
Welcome to this new extension of the Geektown Radio podcast! As I mentioned on the main Geektown Radio show earlier this week, this year I’ve decided to separate out the interview segments of the show into their own podcast series, which we’re calling the Geektown: Behind The Scenes podcast. This allows me to bring you more interviews over the course of the week!
On our first new who we have Dianna Cowen, or as she’s better known to her 1.3 million YouTube subscribers, Physics Girl! Dianna has a fabulous and entertaining YouTube channel which adventures into the physical sciences with experiments, demonstrations, and cool new discoveries. However, the latest project she has been involved with is ‘The Edge of Science‘, a new special collaboration between YouTube and the BBC.
Produced by BBC Studios Science Unit, Cambridge University scholar, podcaster and writer Rick Edwards enlists the help of Colin Furze, Dianna, and other passionate YouTube science creators to put the most ‘out there’ ideas in science to the test in an ambitious range of stunts and experiments.
In this special, they explore the science behind levitation investigating whether science can make the impossible possible. The intrepid team head off to meet the scientists behind cutting edge research into acoustic and quantum levitation and put their theories to the test, with a range of stunts that will challenge our understanding of the world as we know it. They’re even going to attempt to break a world record along the way.
The show culminates with Rick attempts to levitate using the latest in quantum technology hoverboard. Rick also hands the board over to professional skateboard athlete Rianne Evans who puts it through its paces, ‘Back To The Future 2’ style. You can watch the entire special below.
Hawaii born and raised, Dianna was inspired by physics as a girl. Thanks to encouragement by her teachers and family, she pursued a physics degree at MIT. She subsequently explored careers in scientific research (at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), software engineering (at General Electric) and science outreach (at the Reuben H Fleet Science Center and the University of California San Diego) before committing to the Physics Girl YouTube channel full-time.
I had a chance to sit down and chat with Dianna about working on ‘The Edge of Science’, along with her work as Physics Girl on her YouTube channel. We even go into some of the science behind ‘Star Trek’.
Geektown Behind The Scenes Interview Podcast: Dianna Cowern aka Physics Girl Talks BBC/YouTube Special ‘The Edge of Science’
If you want to take a listen to the latest episode, just click the link below, and if you like it, you can click here to subscribe to Geektown Radio on iTunes or click here for the RSS feed.
