In a world where the value of interdisciplinarity is being given more weight, definitions of disciplines are possibly growing hazier and hazier. For a conventional mind though, art and science still register as two distinct formations and an aptitude for one excludes an aptitude for the other. And with such a dividing outlook, binaries are paired up with other binaries so that if one is equated with entertainment, the other is excluded from entertainment and if one is serious then the other is anything but serious.

That is, until the punk scientists came to challenge this structural thinking to show what entertainment can do for science. You might not think that the idea of animated science is all too novel; but for those of us who don’t have kids, the punk science team is offering us the possibility of going to one of these shows without having to borrow anyone else’s kids for a pretext. Their original streak is to target their entertaining science for an audience between the ages of eighteen and forty-five selling science facts as pub tips, thus tapping in on human desire to appear wise prior to being wise.

The punk science team are based at the Dana Centre, which is the Science Museum’s annex dedicated to discussing contemporary and controversial science in a vibrant café bar. Punk scientists are Jon Milton, Dan Hope and drummer Bradford Gross. I met up with Jon and Dan after their performance of Punk Science: Know it all? at the Edinburgh festival this summer. Over a pint they explained to me the benefits of having so many intellectual and original chat up lines up their sleeves. As actors and stand up comedians there’s no escaping their humour! And with performance their background rather than science they explain that they’re sure able to bring science to a level that’s understandable to all. ‘If we’ve understood it’ goes their pacer.

They are also extremely keen to bring out the positive elements of science. Newspapers tend to give prominence to the negative elements such as disease and genetic manipulation, with less frightful news hits, such as space exploration, being relayed to the middle pages rather than the front ones.  Their show ‘know it all?’ which I watched, explored the trivia and general curiosities of questions they collected from people visiting London’s Science Museum. For most questions, the pair recreated the experiments in order for the audience to experience the answers directly. Thus, for example, a cloud was created in order for us to be able to explore whether one would get wet walking through a cloud. And between all experiments the two teased and flirted with the audience as a regular stand up comedian would.

Amidst all their fun, they stand by the seriousness with which they take their science by conducting extensive research and getting their shows proofed by professional scientists.

‘It is always really fun’, the two joked, ‘to observe the reactions of people who are knowledgeable in science explore the shows. They walk in skeptically but then are usually surprised to find themselves enjoying confirming the scientific validity of our work.’

Watch the webcast of "Einstein Experience"