BBC Discovery

Unstoppable: Inge Lehmann

Loading player...
From growing up in a progressive Denmark to studying mathematics at a gender-segregated Cambridge University, Inge Lehmann had to power through the shock of cultural change to pursue her love of mathematics. Whilst managing several seismological stations, Inge notices the peculiar readings in the data she was collecting. Was the Earth’s composition actually different to what the experts had thought?

Dr Julia Ravey and Dr Ella Hubber tell the story of Danish seismologist Inge Lehmann who used earthquakes to uncover the truth about the composition of the Earth’s inner core.

Presenters: Ella Hubber and Julia Ravey
Guest Speakers: Dr Lif Lund Jacobsen and Dr Trine Dahl-Jensen
Producers: Ella Hubber and Julia Ravey
Assistant producers: Sophie Ormiston, Anna Charalambou and Josie Hardy
Sound designer: Ella Roberts
Production co-ordinator: Ishmael Soriano
Editor: Holly Squire

(Photo: Inge Lehmann Credit: Neuhaus, Even (6.2.1863-20.4.1946) /Royal Danish Library)
12 May English United Kingdom Science

Other recent episodes

The Animal Employment Agency

We live in a time of automation and robotics; the machines run the factories, and AI will soon take all the jobs. And yet, even today, there are certain niche jobs where only an animal will do. Comedian and biologist Simon Watt is out to meet some of them, and…
24 Nov 26 min

Bodies

The London Anatomy Office accepts around 350 human bodies donated for medical research and education annually. You may imagine that these bodies are presevered in chemicals for medical students to study over weeks and months. And some are. But many are used - almost fresh - to train surgeons in…
17 Nov 28 min

The Life Scientific: Kevin Fong

There can't be many people in the world who've saved lives in hospital emergency rooms and also helped care for the wellbeing of astronauts in space – but Kevin Fong’s career has followed a singular path: from astrophysics and trauma medicine, to working with NASA, to becoming an Air Ambulance…
10 Nov 26 min

The Life Scientific: Dame Pratibha Gai

Chemical reactions are the backbone of modern society: the energy we use, the medicines we take, our housing materials, even the foods we eat, are created by reacting different substances together. If we zoom in, it’s the atoms within these substances that rearrange themselves to give rise to new substances…
3 Nov 27 min

The Life Scientific: Catherine Heymans

Have you ever considered the lighter side of dark matter? Comedy has proved an unexpectedly succesful way to engage people with science - as today's guest knows first-hand. Astrophysicist Catherine Heymans is a Professor at the University of Edinburgh and the current Astronomer Royal for Scotland. She’s spent her career…
27 Oct 28 min
All episodes