This page lists all the shows (sans the music) transmitted on Allfm.org in my series under the title Manchester Science. This new series explores the science being conducted in and around Manchester right now. All programs from the previous series, Pennine Pioneers of Science, are available here.
1. 30th April 2024 – What is Science?
Its roots and role in modern society? When did it start? Is it always precise, fixed and never changing? Is it a sign of intelligence? Is it vulnerable to fraud, bias and exploitation? Is it essential for our civilisation?
2. 7th May 2024 – Exoplanets with Dr Eamonn Kerins
Dr Kerins from the University of Manchester talks about some of his work and we look at the following themes
- What are exoplanets?
- What types of instruments are used in the search for exoplanets
- What type of instruments and where are they located that you use in looking for exoplanets?
- Apart from detecting the size and distance from the star – what attributes of exoplanets can be determined from Earth or space-based observatories?
- What are the current and upcoming space missions in the coming years dedicated to this research?
- What chance that some of these distant planets harbour life?
3. 28th May 2024 – The Moonwalkers. A Journey with Tom Hanks with Chris Riley
In this conversation, recorded in London Chris Riley talks about his writing, filmmaking and how the idea of The Moonwalkers came about. Parts of this interview were transmitted in my bi-weekly radio program on allfm.org on 28th May 2024.
The script was written by Tom Hanks and Christopher Riley. This unique audio-visual experience of the Apollo story is available only in London and only until 13th October 2024. More images and clips here.
4. 11th June 2024 – Gravitational Lensing and more at Jodrell Bank with Professor Michael Garrett
In this episode with Professor Mike Garrett FRS, we discuss some of the many research activities conducted by him, his colleagues and students at the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics (JCBA) University of Manchester. Many of these activities involve international collaboration and are thus conducted elsewhere around the world and not just in Manchester. One of the big takeaways for me was the work of Mancunian Dennis Walsh who made the very first Gravitational Lensing observation from Jodrell Bank. He was also Professor Garrett’s PhD supervisor. Some of the topics we discussed:
- Recollections of working with Sir Bernard Lovell
- Gravitational Lensing and its origins at Jodrell Bank through the work of Dennis Walsh
- More than 150 individuals from the University of Manchester are associated with the international program the Square Kilometer Array, headquartered in Manchester.
- The global increase in the use of Low-Frequency Array (Lofar) technology in Radio astronomy.
- The USA, Europe and China are looking at the far side of the Moon as a location for radio astronomy
- The role of Brexit and its impact on Britain’s capacity to participate and lead in internationally collaborative programs.
5. 25th June 2024 – Pulsars and Neutron Stars with Professor Rene Breton
We discuss only a small part of his current research, including how Pulsars may one day be used as a GPS for interstellar travel. Other topics include
- The ultimate fate of our Sun
- Quasars are distant galaxies with a Black Hole in the centre, so distant that they look like stars.
- Neutron Stars in Binary Systems, accretion discs and “spiders”
- Neutron Stars as a cosmic GPS for future space travellers
- Space-borne Gravity Wave detectors, such as the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, which NASA plans to launch in the 2030s, will be able to detect a wider range of cosmological phenomena.
- Square Kilometer Array’s role in detecting more neutron stars, pulsars and even pulsars orbiting black holes
- Pulsar Timing Array – a GPS for interstellar travel
6. 9th July 2024 – Americans in Manchester with Dr Andrew Fearnley
Dr Andrew Fearnley from the Department of American Studies at the University of Manchester, came into the studio for a live discussion on the numerous high-profile visitors, including two former presidents, Ulysses S Grant (1877) and Woodrow Wilson (1918), Why Manchester has a statue of Abraham Lincoln in the city centre and a few of the many writers, artist, campaigners, some of who were former slaves who made their way to champion the cause of emancipation during public speeches at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester Town Hall and the Manchester atheneum. Some of those we discuss include:
- 1771 – Benjamin Franklin – scientist and diplomat
- 1828 – Ira Aldridge – African American Actor
- 1846 – Fredrick Douglas. A former slave who became a leading abolitionist, orator, writer and a statesman
- 1850s – Henry Box Brown. Who escaped by “shipping himself from Virginia to Philadelphia
- 1853 – Harriet Beacher Stowe. Author of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”. Advocated for the abolition of slavery and social reforms
- 1850-60 – Sarah Parker Remond – a physician and a prominent speaker against racial discrimination
- 1862 Ida B Wells. An investigative journalist, civil rights leader and fierce advocate against lynching
In October 1945, the former Chorlton-on-Medlock Town Hall, on Cavendish St, close to MMU’s All Saints Campus, hosted the 5th Pan-African Congress. Len Johnson, an accomplished Manchester boxer and civil rights advocate, and the Moss Side-based New International Society supported the congress. Many of today’s independent African nations were first envisaged in Manchester, just off Oxford Road, surrounded by the effects of World War 2.
7. 23rd July 2024 – Early aviation in Manchester with Frank Pleszak
Manchester has always been associated with the spirit of scientific discovery and technological innovation. Cotton spinning and weaving, steam engines, railways and computing are familiar themes but Manchester also played a leading role in the development of aviation.
Frank Pleszak, an author and volunteer at the avroheritagemuseum.co.uk in Woodford, which celebrates its centenary year with an open day on September 15th, 2024, has written a blog post that includes a map of locations in Manchester identifying many of the events and people of aviation at the beginning of the twentieth century.
In this program, Frank popped into the Allfm.org studio in Levenshulme and shared some of his discoveries about the early days of aviation in Manchester. You can catch up with Frank in person—he gives several talks on his books and beekeeping.
8. 6th Aug 2024 – Galactic Magnetic Fields with Dr Vasundhara Shaw
Dr Vasuhandra Shaw is a postdoctoral research Associate at the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester. Her subject of interest is a huge one – galactic magnetic fields! She explains how her work explores the size, origin and structure of the magnetic field of our Milky Way Galaxy.
We also spoke about her interesting journey from Lucknow in northern India, where she completed her undergraduate studies, to Pondicherry in southern India, where many people still speak French, where she completed her first Master’s degree; Paris, where she completed her second, and Berlin, Germany, where she completed her PhD. Astronomer Fred Hoyle and singer Cliff Richards also pop up in our conversation.
I asked what she had noticed first about Manchester (she has been here for less than a year). Her answer will surprise you as much as it did me.
9. 20th Aug 2024 – Two years in a Gulag with Frank Pleszak
Frank Pleszak is a local author, a private pilot, and a volunteer at the avroheritagemuseum.co.uk. Yep—the same Frank who spoke to us on 23rd July about early aviation in Manchester. In this program, Frank talks about his book Two Years in a Gulag, the story of his father’s WW2 journey from the infamous Kolyma gold mine in far East USSR to becoming a coal miner in Pendlebury in Salford.
Our conversation includes Frank’s talks to school kids in Belarus about Manchester, an unlikely 1965 family reunion in Denton facilitated by the Red Cross and a Polish pilot (Władysław Turowicz) who left the RAF in WW2 and headed up Pakistan’s Space Agency Suparco.
You can listen (or download) that or any of my previous programs by visiting astrotalkuk.org/manchesterscience.
You can see more about Frank’s work, including his books and many upcoming public talks at www.pleszak.blog
10. 3 Sep 2024 – Binary Neutron Stars with Dr Soheb Mandhai
Dr Soheb Mandhai, a post-doctoral research associate at the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, investigates neutron stars. Since most stars are binary (two) star systems, it is not uncommon to see neutron stars in pairs or binary systems. That can be a neutron star orbiting either another ‘normal’ star, another neutron star or a black hole. All of these are binary systems.
In our conversation, we discussed the international collaborative nature of his work, how most of it involves him sitting in front of his laptop, developing mathematical models for the orbits of such binary systems, detecting Gravitational Waves and seeing how the orbits evolve and how the binary systems move through the galaxy (in our own Milky Way and other distant galaxies).
In addition to his astrophysics, Dr Mandhai explores his science through digital art.
11. 17th September 2024 Michael Herbert on Len Johnson
This program is about someone you probably have never heard of. Len Johnson was born in 1902 and died in 1974. He is buried in Southern Cemetery. Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester, said of him in 2020, “Johnson’s story was one that ‘hasn’t been told enough”. In this program, I’m going to do my bit.
Leonard Benker Johnson was born to a white Irish mother and a black father from Sierra Leone in Clayton East Manchester in 1902 and died in Oldham in 1974. He is best known for his accomplishments as a boxer. His boxing took him abroad to Denmark, South Africa, Belgium, and Australia.
After WW2, he participated in the Pan-African Congress held in Manchester in October 1945. With the profound geopolitical shifts brought about by the end of WW2, he saw the potential of a new egalitarian world order. He founded The New International Society in Moss Side, Manchester with friends Syd Booth and Wilf Charles. Its primary objective was to “promote and encourage respect for human rights and for fundamental freedom for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion”.
He brought his friend Paul Robeson (1940 film Proud Valley on Youtube) to Manchester to speak against racial inequality and challenge the colour bar and racism of which he had been a victim throughout his life. To learn about Len Johnson’s fascinating life and work, I spoke to Michael Herbert, the author of Johnson’s 1992 biography “Never Counted Out.”
12. 8th October 2024 Brian Harvey connecting rockets and space with Manchester
In this program, author Brian Harvey recounts the story of the space race in the early days and his most recent book – Japan in Space. Past Present and Future. He covers the development of rocketry here in the Northwest England, the Cold War and the role of Jodrell Bank and the race to the Moon in the past and the one emerging now to establish long-stay lunar basis. We learn about the British Interplanetary Society was founded in Liverpool in 1933. The short-lived Manchester Interplanetary Society was founded in 1936 by Eric Burgess in Clayton, East Manchester.
We also learn a little about USSR’s 1968 mission to the Moon and back. Zond 5 was the first time that living creatures (including two tortoises) went to the Moon and returned. The little-known story of the unsuccessful mission of Luna 15, a USSR mission to return lunar samples to Earth. It crashed on the Moon whilst Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made their short but historic moonwalk.
13. 15th October 2024 Rod Woodcock and Aviation in Manchester
When it comes to innovations in transport, Manchester has always been at the forefront. The role of the canals, for example, the Bridgewater Canal and especially the Manchester ship canal, was transformative. The success of the world’s first railway journey—between Liverpool and Manchester—spread first across Britain and the globe. A form of transport that is still used by billions of people today.
But Manchester’s early role in aviation is not well known. For example, the first factory to make aircraft in Britain by Alliott verdon-Roe opened in Ancoats in 1910. The first scheduled flight in Britain operated from Manchester to Blackpool via Southport in 1924. Frank Pleszak has documented further details of Manchester’s aviation history
It was at the Avroheritage Museum that I spoke to Rod Woodcock, who started as an apprentice there in 1961 and the role Avro aviation Ltd that Verdon-Roe setup in Woodford in 1924.
14. 5th November 2024 The Day the cosmonaut came to Manchester
Exactly three months after his historic spaceflight, Yuri Gagarin, a major in the USSR Airforce visited London and Manchester. He arrived in London on 11th July 1961 and visited the USSR Trade fair in Earls Court and then landed at Manchester Airport at 10am on the following day.
Why did he come to Manchester? Before joining the Soviet Airforce, he had been a foundry man. He had been invited by the Amalgamated Union of Foundry Workers which had its headquarters on Chorlton Road in Old Trafford.
During this “day-trip” to Manchester he would visit this Union HQ, Metropolitan Vickers in Trafford Park and conclude with a formal reception at Manchester Town Hall. In this program, you will hear clips recorded in 2011 for my 2011 book Yuri Gagarin in London and Manchester. The contributors are
Reg Turnill – Aerospace correspondent
Dame Kathleen Ollernshaw
Marjorie Rose
Stanley Nelson
Captain Eric Brown
Staislava Sajawizc
The audio of Gagarin speaking at the AUFW HQ and Manchester Town Hall come from the Northwest Film Archive video you can see here.
15. 12th November 2024 The emerging SpaceIndustry in North of England
Space technology has not only transformed the quality of our lives but also the national economy. Many jobs already rely directly or indirectly on space technology. This sector is growing.
The quality of lives we lead now was not possible a decade ago. Today, we can order a cab, knowing exactly how long and how much it will cost; we can make a purchase today and track its delivery tomorrow, and we can plan a long journey knowing in advance about weather and traffic conditions along the way in real-time. That is all possible with spacecraft in orbit and a ground infrastructure to support them.
Is Manchester and the north of England doing much in this new “space age”? If so, what?
Alan Cross is the North West Space Cluster Manager. He speaks about the space sector commercial opportunities in the North of England.