Robin Ince - The Infinite Monkey Cage – How to Build a Universe

Or are the Monkeys infinite?

Or perhaps they are both infinite?

In a multiverse would there be an Infinite

Donkey Cage?

I think we should be told.

Well, that’s about it.

I shall be spending my Christmas Day in the traditional way on a Thai massage table listening to Sounds of the Seventies. Sadly, we don’t get the Queen’s speech here in Bangkok, but there are one or two compensations. There is an inspirational message from José Mourinho, and a bottle of gluten-free almond wine for ancient tee-totalling ex-Pythons sent by John Cleese from his cellars, where he hangs upside down during the winter season.

To all of you, please enjoy your expanding Universe for another year. And do try to buy more Monty Python shit. We haven’t got long and we do need the cash.

Happy Christmas Greetings!

Eric Idle

The Old Jokes Home

Thailand

A WORD FROM THE PRODUCER CONTENTS Cover Title Page Copyright Praise ‘A joyous trip through our understanding of the universe’ Daily Express Praise for BBC Radio 4’s The Infinite Monkey Cage: ‘A witty and irreverent look at the world according to science’ Independent Praise for Professor Brian Cox: ‘Engaging, ambitious and creative’ Guardian ‘He bridges the gap between our childish sense of wonder and a rather more professional grasp of the scale of things’ Independent ‘Professor Cox shows us the cosmos as we have never seen it before – a place full of the most bizarre and powerful natural phenomena’ Sunday Express Praise for Robin Ince: ‘Bursting with energy and ideas’ The Times Dedication A Beginning A Word from the Producer Introductions & Infinity Life, Death & Strawberries Recipe to Build a Universe Space Exploration Evidence & Why Ghosts Don’t Exist Apocalypse Index Acknowledgements Episode List Credits About the Book About the Authors About the Publisher

The Producer’s Tale

by Alexandra (Sasha) Feachem

Hello, I’m Sasha. I produce the radio show The Infinite Monkey Cage. I say produce, I use the term loosely. You’ll understand why in a moment. Brian thought it would be a good idea if I wrote something about what it is like to work with him and Robin. I’m not sure he had fully thought through that suggestion when he made it. I responded with hysterical enthusiasm. Brian looked scared. Perhaps punching the air and shouting ‘Yes! Finally the world will hear my story’ was a nanometre over the top. 1Despite this, and trying desperately to hide his alarmed expression behind a nervous smile, Brian realised that retracting the suggestion was clearly not an option… that the horse, or monkey keeper, had well and truly left the infinite zoo enclosure at something approaching the speed of light.

So here I am, with the producer’s tale; to tell you how The Infinite Monkey Cage evolved into existence and what it’s like to work with the infinite monkeys. And although the title of the show was in no way chosen to reflect the personalities of the people involved, or the way the radio show is put together, there is no doubt that we have all gloriously grown into the title. Thank goodness we didn’t call it Top Geek.

Back in 2008, CERN switched on the mother of all science experiments: the Large Hadron Collider. It is still the longest, fastest, most expensive science experiment ever undertaken. A particle smasher of biblical proportions, it recreates the moment just a billionth of a second after the Big Bang, and is the ultimate testament to what happens when human beings get together and ask why and what if? And when the Large Hadron Collider did switch on, Brian and I were sitting in the control room at CERN, alongside Andrew Marr, broadcasting to the nation, live on the Today programme. It was quite an odd experiment in itself, doing live coverage of a science experiment that is hidden underground and involves minuscule particles that I think even David Attenborough would fail to do justice to, especially on the radio. As Evan Davis commented from the safety of the Today studio back in London, ‘it’s a bit like Olympic taekwondo. It all sounds very interesting, but no one is quite sure what is actually going on.’

Luckily, the much predicted black hole that had gripped the popular press did not materialise and we all lived to tell the tale. 2And of course just a few years later, this extraordinary machine discovered the elusive Higgs particle, and with it gave us the origin of mass and opened a whole new chapter in our quest to understand the Universe we live in.

But perhaps the most extraordinary achievement of this jaw-dropping experiment was the interest it ignited in the general public; suddenly, incredibly, science was cool. Not just science, but particle physics. Some very well-known voices and faces emerged from the shadows and declared themselves fans of physics. Science had become, dare I say it, a little bit rock ‘n’ roll, and so the idea for The Infinite Monkey Cage was born.

Brian had told me some hilarious tales about celebrities he’d encountered on his travels, from dinners with Dan Aykroyd to finding himself in a hotel suite with Cameron Diaz and Queen Noor of Jordan… all fans of particle physics, not just Brian’s hair. One of Brian’s friends told us that we should try to get hold of Mick Jagger (he’s ‘way up on this shit’, apparently!). What could be more rock ‘n’ roll than that? (Mick – if you’re reading this, we’d still love to hear from you.) Robin, at this point, was regularly performing and curating his hugely popular stand-up shows, mixing scientists with comedians, and so this odd idea of a Radio 4 panel show featuring scientists and celebrities was born. Robin came up with the title and now, nearly 10 years later, it doesn’t seem like such an odd idea to have comedian Katy Brand on stage with Professor Carlos Frenk, one of the world’s most esteemed cosmologists. Or Ross Noble sitting alongside an expert in early human fossils. Or even a Python (Monty) and a geologist.

But I think the moment when I seriously began to believe in the possibility of parallel universes was the first time we took to the stage at Glastonbury, in 2011, to be greeted by the deafening cheers of more than 3000 people. These rock-festival goers, most of them still probably the worse for wear from the night before, had stampeded across fields of mud to cram into the cabaret tent at the most famous music festival in the country to see a comedian and a physicist take to the stage to talk about rationality, evidence and the wonders of science.

‘Who’s here for particle physics?’ shouted Robin. The 3000 people screamed back. ‘Quantum Chromodynamics?’ shouted Brian, to even more enthusiastic cheers. ‘It’s not very Radio 4 is it…?’ observed Brian. Not very Radio 4, and not, some might argue, very sciencey. But why shouldn’t it be?