Highly energetic particles from outer space travelling at the speed of light, known as cosmic rays, originate from the sites of extreme particle acceleration in the Universe. This lecture considers just how energetic these rapid particles are, the origins of their extreme energies and the implications for Earth. A lecture by Katherine Blundell 3 March The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-eve...
Mar 03, 2021•52 min
There is a seismic shift underway in economics, hastened by the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. Communities and countries around the world are beginning to adopt/consider adopting well-being and prosperity as major guiding principles. The aim is to deploy new forms of economic theory and policy to reflect the importance of nature in their future development. This lecture explores the issue of prosperity, innovation, and natural capital for iconic locations around the world and asks what will...
Mar 02, 2021•1 hr 7 min
Stravinsky's solo piano output may be modest in size, but it contains one of the absolute pinnacles of piano virtuosity, the Three Pieces from Petrushka. To call these pieces "arrangements" from the ballet score would be true, but misleading: they are brilliant recompositions from the ballet's material, stranger and more elusive, and with the added dimension of extreme virtuosity (he was never brave enough to give a public performance himself). Unlike many composers, Stravinsky always wrote his ...
Feb 26, 2021•1 hr 7 min
Why did stories of criminals become irresistible for novelists? Starting with works like Moll Flanders in the eighteenth century, this lecture goes on to examine the role of criminals in Dickens, keen to let his readers and characters experience what Pip in Great Expectations calls 'the taint of crime'. To what ends? How does the recent genre fiction of novelists like Patricia Highsmith and Ruth Rendell return us to the transgressive pleasures of Defoe's criminal autobiographies? A lecture by Jo...
Feb 24, 2021•58 min
Clinical practice depends on the acquisition and analysis of evidence - detailed information from each patient's clinical history, laboratory tests, imaging scans and biopsies. Yet data on its own is not enough, and must always be interpreted in the context of each unique person. Similarly in forensic science, analytical data must be interpreted to make sense of a crime. This lecture discusses evidence and interpretation with a leading Professor of Crime and Forensic Sciences from UCL, Ruth Morg...
Feb 17, 2021•58 min
Transfer of resources between currently existing generations. There is a clear link with the previous time scale, for a collective solution will mean that the cost of those currently drawing benefits is paid by those currently in employment. But there are further ramifications. Should the assets of the older generation pass to the younger generation or not? One tradition, going back to JS Mill and supported by Bill Gates snr is that the inheritor has done nothing to earn the wealth which might b...
Feb 16, 2021•58 min
Italo-Byzantine art will be considered as background to the early or 'proto' Renaissance at a time when Italy was a focus of stylistic cross-currents from different parts of Europe. The heritage of Rome and the influence of earlier traditions on artists like Cimabue, Duccio, Simone Martini and Giotto will be examined in the context of the 'rebirth' of the arts in Renaissance Italy. A lecture by Valerie Shrimplin 16 February The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available fr...
Feb 16, 2021•57 min
Canons of taste and value in other media, such as literature, art and music, have been challenged in recent decades by proponents of sexual and ethnic equality. Film's 'ten bests' are open to similar charges, and their dominance may actively hinder efforts to raise awareness of and achievement by filmmakers outside Hollywood and predominantly European art cinema. This lecture considers what newly assessed canons might look like. A lecture by Ian Christie 15 February The transcript and downloadab...
Feb 15, 2021•42 min
Mata Hari was an erotic dancer who, in 1917, was executed by the French army for treason. She has been portrayed as the ultimate femme fatale, extracting information from hapless men through exploiting her sensual charms. She was white, beautiful, and heterosexual, yet had to be punished for transgressing the boundaries of femininity. Similar to many Evil Women, she was believed to be deceitful, rapacious, immoral, and controlling. She was lustful and, like a black widow spider, a threat to men ...
Feb 11, 2021•41 min
All of the UK adult population is to be offered a COVID-19 Vaccination by September 2021. Many other countries are aiming for similar roll-outs in one of the largest and fastest vaccination drives in history. In this lecture Professor Chris Whitty will explain how vaccines came to play such a central role in healthcare, and the role they serve today in tackling an increasing range of diseases, including new threats like Covid and old foes like cancer. And with an eye to the future, he will look ...
Feb 10, 2021•58 min
Literary satire has long used mathematical concepts to reinforce its points. Gulliver's Travels (1724) played with ideas of dimension, size, and shape, and a century later, Edwin Abbot's novel Flatland (1884) explored the mathematics of higher dimensions, through the experiences of its two-dimensional protagonist, "A Square". Both novels have spawned a host of sequels, commentaries, and films. This lecture explores how mathematical ideas have been interpreted in fiction, and discusses the unlike...
Feb 09, 2021•1 hr 2 min
Despite the controversy, evolution was widely accepted by many naturalists within a few years of the Origin's appearance. An important reason for this rapid triumph was Darwin's botanical works. Seen through evolutionary eyes, plants proved to be mobile, carnivorous, sensitive - even crafty. As Darwin "exalted" his favourite flowers, the orchids, he also narrowed the once-unimaginably wide gap between plants and animals, thus making it easier for his readers to imaginatively bridge the much smal...
Feb 08, 2021•38 min
Is there is a level playing field between participants at inquests? What does 'equality of arms' mean? Is such a concept appropriate when looking at inquests? Are inquiries better? How have they developed since the IRA Death on The Rock case? What are the problems faced by those representing families, is there a case for fundamental change? If so what model should we adopt to replace the present system? A lecture by Leslie Thomas QC 4 February The transcript and downloadable versions of the lect...
Feb 04, 2021•52 min
The English Reformation - unlike many of the other Reformations convulsing sixteenth-century Europe - was at heart more about politics and law than about religion. It created the English state as we now know it, and established relationships between the nations of Britain and Ireland which still endure. This lecture asks how a religious dispute came to rewrite the English constitution and traces that upheaval's legacies - some plain, some hidden - for England and its neighbours down to the prese...
Feb 03, 2021•55 min
When light is dispersed into its constituent colours, it can become possible to discern rich dynamical information about an evolving system in space, for example cosmic explosions, collisions or accelerations. This lecture explores how such dispersion can be designed to reveal the dynamics of distant worlds. A lecture by Katherine Blundell 3 February The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-even...
Feb 03, 2021•47 min
Niklaus Wirth said Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs. But programs are more than that. They are ubiquitous in modern life, but only a tiny minority of the population know how to program. Programmers, coders or developers are therefore seen as the most rarefied of individuals - disconnected from society yet with enormous influence and power. This lecture examines what programming is, who invented it, and how it is changing to better represent the needs of modern society. A lecture by Richar...
Feb 02, 2021•52 min
Solving climate change is not something that can be achieved overnight; it is a long journey, one that is complicated by the economic problems we face after Covid-19. Every industry has a role in not only helping the economy recover from the pandemic, but also ensuring that any recovery is green-led. The City of London is a world leader in 'Green Finance' and has an important role in helping the country - and the world - to 'build back better'. Through supporting sustainable infrastructure and c...
Feb 01, 2021•55 min
In 1930, the great physicist Wolfgang Pauli did something that "no theorist should ever do": he invented a new particle that he thought nobody could ever detect in order to save the principle of energy conservation in certain radioactive decays he was studying. Pauli's impossible particle turned out to be real: the neutrino, a particle that one of its discoverers called "the most tiny quantity of reality ever imagined by a human being". This lecture will chart the fascinating history and science...
Feb 01, 2021•45 min
The long-playing record and the BBC's Third Programme changed the face of classical music in Britain. In popular music the 45 rpm record became the recorded medium of choice, and in 1970 the BBC's home networks grew to four in order to broadcast respectively (and respectably) pop, easy listening, classical music, and speech. Radio 3's flagship programmes such as the weekday drivetime slot Homeward Bound and Saturday morning's Record Review taught listeners what to listen to and how to listen. A ...
Jan 28, 2021•44 min
Scriabin was Rachmaninov's classmate at the Moscow Conservatoire, and he likewise received a Gold Medal for his combined studies in piano and composition. His commitment was also as unswerving as Rachmaninov's, and yet public knowledge of his music remains hazy, especially outside of Russia, and it still has an esoteric and forbidding aura. Scriabin's starting point was Chopin, but where others were content to pay reverent homage to that earlier master, Scriabin took him as inspiration for bold ...
Jan 21, 2021•1 hr 8 min
Humans use computers to do gigantic calculations which would be impossible to do by hand - for example, weather prediction. But could an AI go beyond that and come up with a proof of a theorem which has stumped humankind? Could computers suggest how to attack problems, searching knowledge bases for known results? As automatic and interactive computer theorem provers become more powerful, should mathematical researchers begin to worry that they will soon be out of a job? A lecture by Kevin Buzzar...
Jan 20, 2021•54 min
For nearly seventy years, what might be called 'the canon' of greatest films has been arbitrated by an international poll of critics delivering a 'ten best' list every decade, published in the BFI's Sight & Sound. Before the next such poll, due in 2022, this lecture considers what factors have made certain films and their makers 'classic'; and why the fifty-year reign of Citizen Kane was ended in 2012 by Hitchcock's eerie melodrama Vertigo. A lecture by Ian Christie 18 January The transcript...
Jan 18, 2021•19 min
Amelia Dyer was one of the most prolific murderers in Victorian Britain. She made a living as a "baby farmer", or someone paid to care for unwanted or abandoned infants - except she killed around 400 of them. How could a mother and nurse murder so many defenceless babies? Was Dyer not only a baby-killer but also the real "Jack the Ripper" (as some sleuths have speculated)? Was she insane, or simply an "ogress" in feminine form? A lecture by Joanna Bourke 14 January The transcript and downloadabl...
Jan 14, 2021•53 min
One of the most powerful tools in public health is screening - whether for cancers like cervical or breast cancer, genetic abnormalities, or infectious diseases. Screening can be transformational, detecting disease early and preventing it taking hold. It is, however, often useless and can be harmful, and its advantages are often exaggerated. This talk will consider the situations where screening can help, where it does harm, and why these are usually predictable. A lecture by Chris Whitty 13 Jan...
Jan 13, 2021•1 hr
The interconnectivity of living organisms and the planet is brought to light through the development of digital intelligence of the planet. This lecture tells the story of how this started with early computing and chaos theory, and developed through models of how humans move around and inhabit different parts of the world, to open data systems. Stories from the voyages of Darwin and the first global explorers, to the new space science illustrate the different ways in which new knowledge is recei...
Jan 12, 2021•1 hr 6 min
Is the jury system the bulwark of individual liberty? This lecture will look at the role of the so-called "perverse jury" in acquitting defendants where the law, or the charge itself, is deemed unjust. Famous examples are Kempton Bunton (for the "theft" of Goya's portrait of the Duke of Wellington in the 1960s), Clive Ponting, and Randle and Pottle. But the jury can also be a bastion of prejudice: white juries habitually acquitted white defendants in the US in race violence cases. Does the jury ...
Jan 11, 2021•53 min
Trauma surgery, combat flying and polar exploration require professionals to work in risky conditions where error can lead to catastrophe. One key skill is recognising when a situation is getting out of control and finding a 'place of safety'; another is to learn from mistakes without allowing self-confidence to be destroyed. This lecture explores how high-risk professionals can share insights relevant to medicine, helping clinicians to develop essential skills. With Phil Bayman (combat pilot) a...
Jan 06, 2021•1 hr
This lecture will look at change ringing, which is ringing a series of tuned bells (as you might find in the bell tower of a church) in a particular sequence, and this has exciting mathematical properties. We will also ask: why are bells bell-shaped? What properties of this shape create the sound of a bell, and by what amount should we scale the size of a bell to produce changes in pitch? A lecture by Sarah Hart 5 January The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from...
Jan 05, 2021•59 min
Boris Ord composed one tiny Christmas carol - 'Adam lay ybounden'. But Ord's largest contribution to the carol genre was his work as choirmaster at King's College, Cambridge from 1929 to 1957. This lecture shows how Ord built on Arthur Mann's pioneering work with King's Choir and created a singing style that transformed choral performance internationally. The radio broadcasts of the King's Carol Service under Ord's directorship were legendary, and the 1954 television broadcast of the service was...
Dec 10, 2020•55 min
Is Santa really Dutch? Were Christmas Trees introduced by Prince Albert? Was Christmas once a time of faith, rather than riotous feasting? In this lecture, social historian Judith Flanders considers Christmas myths and Christmas memory, and will explore how everything you think you know about Christmas is wrong. She looks at the long history of nostalgia for a different kind of Christmas, and whether Christmas ever really existed at all. A lecture by Judith Flanders 9 December The transcript and...
Dec 09, 2020•1 hr 1 min
