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BBC To Air First Televised Sperm Race

Posted by timothy on from the reality-teevee dept.

weekendwarrior1980 writes "BBC 3, a digital TV channel in the UK, is televising a race involving the sperm of presenters Dr Mike Leahy and Zeron Gibson. The sperm race will be part of the educational Lab Rats series. Gibson is a comedian and Leahy is a scientist. The network considers this a 'creative risk' but wants to reach out to an audience that avoids educational shows. The show will be broadcasted on April 15th at 2330 BST. Future shows will examine sleep deprivation and centrifugal force."

7 of 60 comments (clear)

  1. Reality TV by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Where do we draw the line?

  2. CENTRIPETAL FORCE by viperstyx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    i really hope they mean centripetal force...otherwise there wont be much educating goin on.

    1. Re:CENTRIPETAL FORCE by Spy+Hunter · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Good page defining centripetal, centrifugal, and coriolis forces and explaining the difference between them.

      Here's the short explanation of why the centrifugal force is "imaginary": The centrifugal force is used only by people who are in rotating frames (for example: standing on the edge of a turntable) to explain why balls they drop tend to fall away from them instead of straight down. An observer who is not rotating needs no centrifugal force to explain this: the ball simply travels in a straight line after being released, while the person on the turntable moves in a curve. The centrifugal force is a convenient shortcut for people on the turntable because by using it they can assume they are at rest and still use Newtonian physics even though they are really rotating. (As the site explains, this also requires the use of the coriolis force to completely explain the motion of objects from the turntable perspective.)

      The centripetal force is the force inward keeping the person on the turntable moving in a circle around the center instead of moving off in a straight line due to inertia. Both the person on the turntable and the observer can agree that this force exists; the person on the turntable can feel the acceleration. Therefore the centripetal force is "real" because everyone agrees it exists no matter what frame they're in.

      At least here at Slashdot we can have some educating "goin on".

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  3. Gambling by jafuser · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You know, somewhere, someone is taking bets on this...

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  4. Re:what for? by norton_I · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The sperm race may be a gimmick, but it doesn't preclude educational content. There are lots of educational things you can put into a program centered around a sperm race. Also, it isn't necessarily stupid -- the characteristics that make sperm win races are almost certainly related to the probability of sucessful conception.

    If an educational program loses its audience, it ceases to educate.

  5. Here we go again. by caffeinated_bunsen · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Centrifugal force is a perfectly reasonable topic for discussion, since quite a few people seem a bit fuzzy - or just plain wrong - about the idea (see other replies).

    To set the record straight: A "centripetal" force is any force that causes an object to move in a circular path. When swinging something on a rope, the centripetal force is the tension in the rope. With orbiting planets, the centripetal force is gravity.

    "Centrifugal force" is a fictional force invented to allow one to use Newton's laws in a rotating frame of reference (they only work properly in inertial frames, i.e. those which are neither accelerating nor rotating). It is NOT a reaction to a centripetal force - the object in question doesn't have to be moving in a circle. Let me clarify this: Say you're sitting on a merry-go-round cross-bred with an air hockey table. If you drop a puck on the (nearly frictionless) surface, what happens next depends on how fast the table is rotating. If it's not rotating, the puck sits there - the table is an inertial frame of reference in this case, so Newton's laws work without modification. If it is rotating, you'll see the puck slide toward the edge in a curved path. Somebody standing on the ground next to the table sees the puck slide in a straight line, as one would expect. But since you're sitting in a rotating reference frame, and you really like Newton's laws, you have to invent a reason to explain why the puck slides away. If you're a historically accurate dumbass, you'll call it centrifugal force.

    There's actually no force involved (it's just inertia viewed from a screwed-up reference frame), so it's preferable to call it 'centrifugal acceleration.' Since acceleration is always frame-dependent, while forces supposed to be frame-independent, this term leads to somewhat less confusion and similarly fewer ignorant slashdot posts. Similar logic applies to the Coriolis effect (which the guy sitting on the table says is the reason the puck's path curves).

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  6. It's not the first televised sperm race by Gary+Destruction · · Score: 2, Insightful

    They've never seen the movie "Look who's talking"