Uncharted with Hannah Fry

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

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

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

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. But can these scientists persuade their colleagues - and the world?

Producer: Ilan Goodman Sound Designer: Jon Nicholls Story Editor: John Yorke

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

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

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: Ilan Goodman Sound Designer: Jon Nicholls Story Editor: John Yorke

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

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

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

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.

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 in modern times. But can he win?

Episode Producer: Lauren Armstrong-Carter Sound Design: Jon Nicholls Story Editor: John Yorke

A series for Radio 4 by BBC Science in Cardiff.

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 Yorke

A series for Radio 4 by BBC Science in Cardiff.

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 Yorke

A series for Radio 4 by BBC Science in Cardiff.

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: Ilan Goodman Sound Design: Jon Nicholls Story Editor: John Yorke

A series for Radio 4 by BBC Science in Cardiff.

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 Armstrong-Carter Episode Producer: Ilan Goodman

A series for Radio 4 by BBC Science in Cardiff.

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 Yorke

A series for Radio 4 by BBC Science in Cardiff.

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 every line on a graph, there lies an extraordinary human story. And mathematician Hannah Fry is here to tell us ten of them.

Hannah Fry tells a tale of data detectives and very naughty trains.

Episode Producer: Ilan Goodman Sound Design: Jon Nicholls Story Editor: John Yorke

A series for Radio 4 by BBC Science in Cardiff.

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 plain sight.

A warning for sensitive listeners, that this episode contains references to murder.

Episode Producer: Lauren Armstrong-Carter Sound Design: Jon Nicholls Story Editor: John Yorke

A series for Radio 4 by BBC Science in Cardiff.

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 remarkable story of the people behind the hockey stick: the scientists who scaled mountains and braved oceans in search of evidence, and the dramatic fallout when the world saw what they had found.

Episode Producer: Ilan Goodman Sound Design: Jon Nicholls Story Editor: John Yorke

A series for Radio 4 by BBC Science in Cardiff.