Gresham College Lectures

This lecture will explore Napoleon's life through his interactions with the natural world and a series of gardens that were important to him during the rise and fall of his power. The point of doing this is to approach his life from oblique angles, exploring material that is often overlooked. It is also a way of evoking the dramatic trajectory of his life.A lecture by Dr Ruth Scurr, 6 MayThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/napoleon-gardensGresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollegeSupport the show

Every time you look at the world you are building a model. With every new experience these representations of your environment are refined and reconfigured. Each piece of sensory information you perceive makes the model of reality in your head more detailed and complex. The building of mathematical models, designed to capture our complex reality, is the best way we have of making sense of the rules that govern the world around us. The key to exemplifying these rules is to demonstrate their effects on people's lives: from the extraordinary to the everyday.This talk will relate true stories of life-changing events in which the use (or abuse) of mathematics has played a critical role. We will meet athletes banned by faulty tests and patients crippled by faulty genes; innocent victims of miscarriages of justice and the unwitting victims of mathematical bugs. We follow stories of investors who have lost fortunes and parents who have lost children, all because of mathematical misunderstanding. We wrestle with ethical issues from abortion to anti-vaccination and examine pertinent societal issues like medical screening, political referenda, disease prevention and criminal justice, on all of which mathematics has something profound or significant to say.A lecture by Dr Kit Yates, 4 MayThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/maths-lifeGresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollegeSupport the show

International negotiations concerning our environment such as on climate and biodiversity, often put the scientific case behind economic and political interests, with potentially disastrous consequences. What does that mean for human prosperity and even survival? Can the tension between science, policy and diplomacy be resolved? What would a new form of environmental justice that internalised nature within economic and social rights look like?A lecture by Jacqueline McGlade, 27 AprilThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/nature-rightsGresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollegeSupport the show

Where do we get our mathematical symbols from? Why is the set of integers called ℤ ? When was the equals sign first used? How about zero? Good notation tends to catch on quickly, whereas bad notation can obscure beautiful theory. The lecture explores how the introduction of new notation has paved the way for new leaps in understanding, and considers some mathematical quirks of language, such as what the number 4 in English has in common with the number 11 in Russian.A lecture by Sarah Hart, 27 AprilThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/maths-symbolsGresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollegeSupport the show

"In space, no one can hear you scream". The chillingly accurate tagline of Ridley Scott's 1979 space horror classic, Alien, is often belied in science fiction movies, forgetting that in space there is no air, and hence no sound. Space today is terrifyingly silent. But it wasn't always thus: the early universe was filled with hot plasma in which sound waves could travel. The cosmos was quivering with the aftershocks of the Big Bang. It is one of the greatest achievements of modern physics that we are able to pick up the cosmic harmony of the baby universe. These sounds were not meant to be heard by human ears: the base note has a wavelength of 450 million light years. Nevertheless, this triumph of science (and music) rivals in beauty anything written by Bach. This lecture will investigate the many, surprising ways in which sound waves of various kinds are found in the cosmos: from the relic radiation form the Big Bang, to the distribution of galaxies in the sky; from the trembling of stars to gravitational waves, the universe is filled with what the ancients called "The Music of the Spheres".A lecture by Dr Roberto Trotta, 26 AprilThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/space-soundsGresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollegeSupport the show

The criminalisation of religious speech before the ordinary courts in England began in 1676. Although the law on blasphemy was finally abolished in 2008, many of the troubling aspects of the old law remain in the form of the offence of incitement to religious hatred. This lecture will explore the current and future scope of the law of incitement to religious hatred in light of our long and troubled history of dealing with religious speech.A lecture by Ivan Hare QC, 22 AprilThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/incitement-to-hatredGresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollegeSupport the show

This illustrated lecture marks 150 years since Dickens's death by reflecting on the nature of his creative genius and his legacy. It examines the theatrical performance of Dickens's public readings in relation to his writing practices, and suggests how this gives us an insight into his creative processes as well as the close relationship he forged with his public - a relationship which, as he said, was 'personally affectionate and like no other man's'.A lecture by Malcolm Andrews, 22 AprilThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/dickens-public-readingsGresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollegeSupport the show

The English Reformation gave rise to the global Christian communion called Anglicanism: but neither immediately nor directly. This highly distinctive form of Christianity - ritualistic but nondogmatic, self-consciously moderate but staunchly nationalistic - has long been closely tied to English national identity. This lecture asks how it came to emerge over the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, tracing its roots in the Reformation and showing how political chance and the traumas of civil war led to its slow and improbable ascent to dominance.A lecture by Alec Ryrie, 21 AprilThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/anglican-reformationGresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollegeSupport the show

Networks were seen as a rather arcane and dull area in computer science. Then along came the internet, and everything changed for ever. The internet is actually an amalgam of a number of disparate technologies that evolved at just the right time, indeed several of the key technologies were far from optimal. In this lecture we will look at a bit of internet history, show how it works now and look towards the future.A lecture by Richard Harvey, 20 AprilThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/networks-beyondGresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollegeSupport the show

Lymphoma, leukaemia and myeloma arise from different parts of the white blood cell system. Unlike the solid tumours they can be widely distributed in the body, and this means they need a different approach. The outlook for people with these very different cancers varies, but in all cases it is improving, and in some types over 90% will be cured. Different lymphomas and leukaemias occur at different peak ages, including some cancers in children and young adults.A lecture by Chris Whitty, 19 AprilThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/lymphoma-leukaemia-myelomaGresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollegeSupport the show