Sideways

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.

We all know the power of a great love story. In films, literature, television - a “happy ending” is shorthand for the main characters coupling up at the end. But are these romantic aspirations really a key ingredient for a happy and fulfilled life?

Matthew Syed explores the idea that you can be long term single, and happy.

Social scientist Bella DePaulo always knew that marriage wasn’t for her. At 70 years-old, she is happily single, and always has been. She’s spent her career researching, writing and speaking on the single experience, in an effort to dismantle the conventional wisdom that a happy, fulfilled life, means a coupled-up one.

Matthew speaks to Yale sociologist and PhD candidate Hannah Tessler about her research into the complex, expansive relationship networks of single people.

We also hear from David Bather Wood, an Assistant Professor from the University Warwick, who explains how a philosophical parable about porcupines, dating back to the 1830s, influenced contemporary understandings of the choice to live a single life.

Presenter: Matthew Syed

In the 1960s and 70s, Maisie Barrett and Noel Gordon were two black British children wrongly labelled as “educationally subnormal”. They were sent to schools where children were never taught to read or write.

They’re just two examples of a scandal that affected hundreds of children in the UK, one that has never been officially acknowledged.

As adults, Noel and Maisie made a surprising discovery - they were both dyslexic. And with that diagnosis came a profound reimagining of themselves and what had happened to them.

Matthew Syed considers the relationship between ableism, racism and eugenics - concepts with roots that stretch back centuries and which continue to have a profound impact on society today.

With Maisie Barrett, Noel Gordon, sociologist Dr Chantelle Jessica Lewis, Assistant Professor Dr Robert Chapman, and occupational therapist Jenny Okolo.

Presenter: Matthew Syed

As a teenager, Raven Saunders dreamt of playing basketball, but their physique led them down a different path. Exceptional strength and size destined them for shot put, ultimately earning them a place on the US track and field team.

In 2021, amid the pandemic, Raven became known for their choice of distinctive protective masks at competitions. But the day they chose to wear a mask of The Incredible Hulk, they not only captured the world's attention, but they also showed hidden parts of themselves.

Throughout history, masks have served various roles including spiritual, entertainment, and protective purposes. Since we’ve all been reacquainted with masks in recent years thanks to COVID-19, Matthew Syed explores how masks have the power to reveal more than they conceal and examines how these coverings, while ostensibly meant to protect, can also become powerful symbols of personal and cultural expression.

With American shot putter Raven “The Hulk” Saunders, mask maker and psychodrama therapist Mike Chase, and Professor of International Politics at Loughborough University Aidan McGarry.

If you are suffering distress or despair, details of help and support are available at bbc.co.uk/actionline

Presenter: Matthew Syed

A Novel production for BBC Radio 4.

Jen Simonic and Masey Kaplan have bonded over a mutual love for knitting for decades.

In 2022, the pair of avid knitters decided to search for strangers to help finish an incomplete blanket their bereaved friend’s mother had started. It kickstarted a movement of ‘finishers’ - people around the world who complete the half-knitted works left behind by others. Their concept challenges the idea that we are successful only when we finish what we start, an idea entrenched in our present culture.

Matthew Syed traces the psychological roots of valuing completion and explores alternative outlooks that subvert the merits of finishing. He hears remarkable stories that reveal beautiful possibilities in leaving creative work half-done and asks whether reappraising the unfinished can enable an imaginative process to unfold, connect people more deeply to one another and even ease grief.

With Loose Ends founders, Jen Simonic and Masey Kaplan, their friend Patty Gardner, artist and composer Jan Hendrickse and Nina Collins, daughter of filmmaker Kathleen Collins.

Featuring excerpts from Nafas ar Rahman, commissioned by the MUSARC Choir.

Presenter: Matthew Syed

When astronauts journeyed to the moon in the early 1970s, few were paying attention to the psychological impact of the experience. Yet many among those who have left the Earth’s boundary say it is extraordinary and life-changing. They experience a cognitive shift known as the "overview effect".

Matthew ponders the potential of staring down at Earth for our collective good and charts how, decades on, the overview effect has found its place at the heart of space tourism. He also delves into the unlikely religious roots and moral complexity behind the billionaires striving to make it possible for humans to live in space one day.

With former NASA astronaut Nicole Stott, new astronaut Ed Dwight, Space Philosopher and author Frank White, Anthropologist of Space and Religion, Deana Weibel, Professor of Religion at Knox College Robert Geraci and former ISRO scientist, Jijith Nadumari Ravi.

Presenter: Matthew Syed

Matthew Syed continues his four-part mini-series from Sideways examining the ethics of space exploration in a rapidly expanding era of travel and transformation.

In this episode, he explores the role and ambitions of the new actors in space exploration. More people than ever before can now aspire to travel into space with private companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic. This democratisation of space allows those who can afford it to become astronauts and view our world from a different perspective.

But new actors and new purposes bring new challenges. Spacefaring billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos openly share their ambitions to settle on celestial bodies like the Moon or Mars. With a limited body of space laws, questions about land ownership and governance in space - and on Earth - arise.

With sculptor and new astronaut Ed Dwight, anthropologist Deana Weibel, NASA consultant Linda Billings and space Lawyer Michelle Hanlon.

Presenter: Matthew Syed

Matthew Syed continues his four-part mini series exploring the ethics of space exploration, by returning to the origins of the space race, which saw America and the USSR battling for supremacy. He takes a hard look into the reasons why we go to space and whether it has really benefited all humankind.

When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon in July 1969, humanity as a whole felt like we’d reached a new frontier. The two astronauts left a plaque behind them, at the bottom of their lunar module. It said “we came in peace for all mankind”. But while Armstrong and Aldrin were ambassadors of the entire species, it was an American flag which was planted on the surface of the moon.

This was a time of fear of Cold War competition amidst fear of nuclear annihilation. Despite the altruistic ideals encapsulated in NASA’s motto "for the benefit of all", the geopolitical stakes of the space race were paramount. Matthew explores how this combined with America's perception of its exceptionalism and how the post-war period was filled with nationalistic ambitions and controversies.

With historians Roger Launius and Neil Maher, Science and Religion Professor Catherine Newell, Space Lawyer Michelle Hanlon and retired astronaut John Herrington.

Presenter: Matthew Syed

Featuring archive from:

In this special series from Sideways, called A New Frontier, Matthew Syed explores the most out of this world ethical questions posed by the evolution of human space exploration.

He takes us into the cosmos with stories from astronauts who’ve been there and those who can only dream of going, to explore the moral debates that have permeated space exploration since before the moon landings, and are evolving dramatically today in a new era of commercial space flight, of asteroid mining and almost daily satellite launches.

Matthew begins the series by diving into the ethics of humanity’s search for extra-terrestrial life.

In 1974, Richard Isaacman was a young graduate, studying to become an astronomer, from some of the field's biggest names - like Carl Sagan and Frank Drake. At just 21-years-old, he’s asked to contribute to humankind's first ever deliberate attempt to send a targeted radio transmission to a cluster of stars in the outer reaches of the galaxy. A rudimentary picture, designed to be intercepted and decoded by aliens.

Delving into our obsession with aliens, science fiction and the vastness of space, Matthew discovers how asking questions about space ethics can often lead us to answers that tell us much more about the ways we treat our own environment, other animals, and each other, than it does about little green men.

With former NASA astronaut John Herrington, York University astronomer Sarah Rugheimer and space ethicist, podcaster and author Erika Nesvold.

Presenter: Matthew Syed

Travel into the cosmos for a four-part series about the ethics of space exploration. Matthew Syed invites you to enter the vast wilderness of the galaxy to explore the moral dilemmas that sit at the heart of space exploration, and why they should matter to you.

When the space race began in the 1960s, the United States and the Soviet Union dominated. Today, multiple commercial entities and many more governments vie for space in the skies above us. Now we may go to other planets not in order to bring back knowledge that will benefit humankind on earth, but potentially to stay and make a new life for the human race… out there. Exploration is turning to colonisation.

Despite all the complexities and necessary moral questions to be wrangled with in this new era, Matthew explores the profound experiences to be had by standing outside our planet. It may offer a unique vantage point to ask questions about who we are, what we owe to each other, where we’re going, and why.

Producers: Leona Hameed, Julien Manuguerra-Patten, Vishva Samani