Rocket Science

Hannah Fry (0:03)

I'm Hannah Fry.

Dara Ó Briain (0:04)

And I'm Darryl Ó Briain.

Hannah Fry (0:05)

And this is Curious Cases.

Dara Ó Briain (0:06)

The show where we take your quirkiest questions.

Hannah Fry (0:08)

Your crunchiest conundrums.

Dara Ó Briain (0:10)

And then we solve them.

Hannah Fry (0:11)

With the power of science.

Dara Ó Briain (0:12)

I mean, do we always solve them?

Hannah Fry (0:14)

I mean, the hit rate is pretty low.

Dara Ó Briain (0:15)

But it is with science.

Hannah Fry (0:17)

It is with science.

Dara Ó Briain (0:22)

Do you know the way I talk to people in the nod? It's at a gig.

And, you know, let's say you kiss a lot of frogs. You kiss a lot of accountants to get to something really, really fun. In Cumbria and Carlisle, probably my favourite of a person. And I think the whole room went, oh, what do you do? I said, I design fireworks.

And we had a whole chat. The essence of which was, how do you design the ooh and how do you design the ah? Because they're two separate things.

Hannah Fry (0:51)

What? What are you talking about?

Dara Ó Briain (0:53)

What do you do in the ah? People go, ooh, ah. They make different noises depending on what it is. You're looking for a reaction.

John Withington (0:58)

So you're looking for a different thing.

Dara Ó Briain (1:00)

So because some things are like, scale and some things are.

Hannah Fry (1:03)

Oh, and they actually think about it in those ways.

Dara Ó Briain (1:05)

They totally think about it. They choreograph them.

Hannah Fry (1:06)

No.

Dara Ó Briain (1:07)

They totally do.

They don't just line them up. They're not like a dad in the garden who runs down lights when they run back up to the family and then does it.

Hannah Fry (1:16)

Quickly tries to not get vertigo events.

Dara Ó Briain (1:18)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then just does it in whatever order they come out of the box, like whatever. They think about it in little terms. There's a whole routine. But the best bit is the following time I was back, the following year, let's say, there was a gift for me at the stage door where he had made me a firework.

Hannah Fry (1:35)

Okay. I'm sorry. What?

Dara Ó Briain (1:36)

He made me a firework.

Hannah Fry (1:38)

But what was the Dara Ó Briain firework?

Dara Ó Briain (1:40)

He basically had siphoned off some of the gunpowder and stuff. And me and about ten audience members gathered around the back of the Sands Centre in Carlisle. I mean, I think there's a statute of limitations on and we lit this. It was a bomb basically.

Hannah Fry (1:54)

Well, this is what I was thinking, you know, there's a different version of the story.

Dara Ó Briain (1:57)

Like I'm going to fall.

Hannah Fry (1:58)

It's got a very different taste to it.

Dara Ó Briain (2:01)

Yeah. And we went and lit in the car park after the gig.

Hannah Fry (2:03)

What did it look like?

Dara Ó Briain (2:04)

It didn't do a lot of colour, I remember. I just remember it going bang really loudly.

But more vividly than the bang, I remember who are these people I've gathered and what are we doing at a loading dock at the back of... It's not even a thing. The best one in the world is a gym that they put chairs out in. And we're at the back of a loading dock in a gym. And then we lit it and it ran back and then it went bang really loudly. And we went, yeah, cool. And I never saw him again. Or maybe he just didn't get seats near the front. Like it is. It's not a very comprehensive system I have for finding people.

He may come every year with a bag filled with bombs.

Hannah Fry (2:43)

That genuinely is. Having a personalised bomb, that's quite a gift.

Dara Ó Briain (2:46)

Yeah, but a fun, like a leisure bomb.

Hannah Fry (2:47)

A leisure bomb, a joyful bomb.

Dara Ó Briain (2:49)

Yeah, exactly, a happy bomb.

Hannah Fry (2:50)

Yeah, a happy bomb.

Dara Ó Briain (2:51)

Which is what they are basically.

Hannah Fry (2:53)

They really are.

Dara Ó Briain (2:53)

They are happy bombs.

Hannah Fry (2:54)

And we've got a whole episode on happy bombs today because we've had in this question. Let me listen.

Diana (2:59)

Hi Hannah, hi Dara. My name's Diana and I'm from Hertfordshire. So, 3rd of November question from me.