Few patients like to think of their physicians or surgeons as improvisers. Yet clinical care is a human art where there will always be uncertainty. Though doctors spend years learning facts and gaining skills, each patient is unique and every situation holds surprises. Musicians also spend years in training - practising scales, learning harmony, mastering technique. Such musicians celebrate their ability to improvise, to respond to one another in the moment in front of an audience. This lecture ...
Jan 08, 2020•58 min
Saving the whales and curing cancer are two of the great challenges of the present day, and mathematics has a part to play in addressing them. This talk will use these two examples to illustrate the process of mathematical modelling to gain insights into how the world works and how we can change it. A lecture by Chris Budd 7 January The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/can-maths-save-...
Jan 07, 2020•59 min
1928 witnessed the BBC's first broadcast of the Christmas Eve carol service from King's College, Cambridge. 1928 also saw the publication of The Oxford Book of Carols. By paying tribute to conductors Arthur Mann and Boris Ord, and composers and arrangers Ralph Vaughan Williams and Martin Shaw, Jeremy Summerly and the St Luke's Carollers make a case for 1928 as the year in which the Christmas carol went viral. A lecture by Jeremy Summerly 12 December The transcript and downloadable versions of th...
Dec 12, 2019•52 min
The myth of Santa Claus has been translated into an extraordinary market on a global scale. We see Santa everywhere in adverts and products, and people also travel quite long distances to meet the 'real Santa' in his faraway home. The first Concorde flight from Britain to Northern Finland was organised in 1984 with around 100 passengers wanting to experience the magic of Christmas in this authentic setting. But how did this marketing success materialise? How did Finland become the home of Christ...
Dec 11, 2019•50 min
A Christmas Carol (1843) is the most filmed and televised of Dickens' works. Many will warmly remember the 1951 Alastair Sim version, but how many are aware of A Carol for Another Christmas (1964), a propaganda film produced in support of the UN, or The Passions of Carol (1975), which attempted to highlight the evil of the pornography industry? How do the different versions reflect the politics and culture of their own particular times? What makes a good Carol movie? Is it truth to the original ...
Dec 10, 2019•54 min
Many influential leaders stress the importance of pursuing a purpose rather than choosing a career based on salary. While inspiring, such talks can sometimes seem impractical because many people find it difficult to know what their purpose is, and unrealistic given rapidly rising living costs and the view that lucrative careers are not purposeful. This talk will introduce a practical framework to help you find what your purpose is, as well as explain how to pursue a career which is rewarding bot...
Dec 04, 2019•51 min
Sydney's botanic garden, founded in the early nineteenth century, was expected to ship new plants 'home' to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, from where they could be transplanted to other colonial gardens, to see if they could become valuable new crops to enrich the British Empire. Such plans had varying degrees of success, leaving botanists to question why specific plants would only grow in particular places. This lecture looks at how Kew addressed such questions, and the tensions between its ro...
Dec 02, 2019•50 min
A Gresham lecture that Delahunty gave in November 2017 was one of the first public identifications of the exodus of experienced women from the self-employed Bar - and gave a call for action. That loss affects the number of women who take Silk and that, in turn, drains the pool from which judges are largely drawn. In 2018 the Bar Council and Specialist Bar Associations acknowledged the issue and a "Retention of Women at the Bar' survey was launched. It's time to look at the results and test how t...
Nov 28, 2019•59 min
The study of the natural and physical world from a scientific viewpoint began in Greek cities on the western coast of Turkey around Miletus in about 600 BCE. The first scientists were known as physiologoi, or men who discoursed about nature (physis). Each tried to put his various observations together in a way that constituted a coherent, unified model. This lecture discusses the pioneering physical theories of Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Anaxagoras and Democritus. A lecture by Edith Hall, ...
Nov 28, 2019•48 min
This lecture will consider the treatment and prevention of common cancers in women. The outlook for those with breast cancer and uterine cancer have substantially improved in the last three decades, and the great majority with the diagnosis will be alive and well a decade later. The outlook for ovarian cancer is less good although improving. This lecture will consider the evolving treatments, including the importance of genetic markers and hormonal treatments and approaches to prevention and scr...
Nov 27, 2019•48 min
Barely a day goes by without some lunatic assertion on social media. Thinking-people shake their heads, but what can be done about this? It turns out that there are a variety of scientific and engineering approaches which might be adapted to tame the trolls of social media. In this lecture we will review the tricky alliance between social media, email and the government, and we will present options for the future in which, possibly, the benefits of social media might been to outweigh the negativ...
Nov 26, 2019•55 min
Mary Ann Evans experienced difficult relationships with her family while growing up in Warwickshire, and with nineteenth-century London society more generally after she moved to the city and lived with a married man, George Henry Lewes. Her seeking of independence in London as a writer (with her later emergence as 'George Eliot'), her experience of rejection, and the widening of her intellectual and cultural life, will be discussed, interwoven with analysis of the deep understanding of relations...
Nov 25, 2019•48 min
From ancient times to popular self-help books today, eyes have been viewed as 'windows to the soul'. The interpretation of eye shape and colour have been used to distinguish between different degrees of 'civilization' (scientific racism), to identify personality traits, and to detect terrorists (recent research carried out by the CIA and the U.S. Transportation Security Administration). In some Asian societies, double eyelid surgery is popular. This lecture explores the politics of scientific th...
Nov 21, 2019•39 min
Medieval England was proudly Catholic and ostentatiously loyal to Rome. But from the late sixteenth century until recent times - and even now - anti-Catholic prejudice has been a cornerstone of English and British identity. This lecture will look at how this prejudice grew out of the persecution of Protestants in the 1550s, at the idealistic historian who crystallised it, and at the political crises, real and invented, which turned his text into a paranoiacs' charter. A lecture by Alec Ryrie, Gr...
Nov 20, 2019•50 min
Black holes give rise to some of the most spectacular phenomena we see in the cosmos. They significantly distort space-time and they grow by stealing material from other stars. This talk will separate science fiction from science fact and elucidate what we know about these mysterious objects, and how they have shaped, and continue to shape, our Universe. A lecture by Katherine Blundell, Gresham Professor of Astronomy 20 November The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are availab...
Nov 20, 2019•55 min
This lecture will explore Gresham's service to the crown during the turbulent politics of mid-Tudor England. Gresham served three Tudor monarchs, and his career exemplifies the reliance of the Tudors on the intellectual gifts and financial capital of 'new men' in an age of religious transformations and expanding government and warfare. But his public career was dependent on the court itself, and the personal relationships he forged both with the preeminent statesmen of the age and with Queen Eli...
Nov 14, 2019•52 min
This lecture examines how minimal access ('keyhole') surgery has revolutionised medicine in just a few decades. By re-assembling teams of long-retired surgical pioneers from the 1980s and inviting them to re-enact early procedures using realistic simulation it will document the ups and downs of an extraordinary decade. Using video footage and interviews, Professor Kneebone will show how surgeons, radiologists, nurses and instrument manufacturers developed completely new ways of working. Their su...
Nov 13, 2019•50 min
Nature's benefits to human health are so well-attested, that the medical profession is now actively engaged in fighting for a clean, healthy environment as a human right and prescribing it as treatment across the world from Shetland to Japan. So how does being close to nature improve your health and well-being and how can this help us achieve UN Sustainable Development Goal 3 to 'ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages'? https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/health/ A...
Nov 12, 2019•52 min
We live in a democracy in which we all have a chance to vote. But does voting mean that the views of the majority are truly represented when it can be shown (mathematically) that all voting systems have flaws? In this talk we use mathematics to look at these flaws and answer associated questions (eg. voting trends and gerrymandering). For a bit of light relief we will see how the same principles work in the Eurovision Song Contest. A lecture by Chris Budd OBE, Gresham Professor of Geometry 12 No...
Nov 12, 2019•58 min
World War Two set British filmmakers a challenge: to be relevant and entertaining and to inspire without patronising. Powell and Pressburger brought wit and imagination to their task, questioning what Britain stood for, warts and all. Notoriously, Churchill hated The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. But many ordinary cinema-goers were grateful for The Archers' poetic patriotism, in this as well as in A Matter of Life and Death. Britishness redefined in the stress of war is the theme of this lect...
Nov 11, 2019•52 min
In this talk, coinciding with the UNESCO International Year of the Periodic Table, Dr Wilkins will discuss the astrophysical origins of the chemical elements, almost all of which have an origin ranging from the big bang, to exploding white dwarfs, the collapse of massive stars, and the merger of ultra-compact objects, neutron stars. This final mechanism is responsible for many of the heaviest and rarest elements including gold, silver, and uranium, and was only recently confirmed through observa...
Nov 07, 2019•49 min
During the Civil War Charles I's court, denied access to its usual country residences, was forced to set itself up in a series of makeshift locations. The most important of these was Oxford which Charles converted into a large and well-organised courtly campus. Oxford, and a series of other temporary 'palaces', had to be both elegant court centres and efficient military headquarters; these very unusual royal houses cast new light on the key protagonists in England's Civil War. A lecture by Simon...
Nov 06, 2019•55 min
BOOK LAUNCH This lecture describes three ways in which technology developed for gardens changed the shape of England and its built environment. Gardening innovations in water engineering (17th and 18th century artificial lakes), central heating for greenhouses, and glass in construction went on to have a significant impact on our lives and environment. Roderick Floud's An Economic History of the English Garden will be launched at this event. A lecture by Roderick Floud, Former Provost of Gresham...
Nov 05, 2019•47 min
This lecture will explore fully autonomous weapons, the products of AI technology, and the arguments for and against their use. It will then look at the more complex issues of the ethical role of the state in the protection of its population, and the ethical choices of individuals versus those of corporations, whose role in large-scale military-industrial complexes is crucial. The lecture will also mention the emergence of a form of psychopathology in some weapons producers. A lecture by Yorick ...
Nov 05, 2019•47 min
The cosmic microwave background is the luminous echo of the primordial explosion, the Big Bang — literally the oldest light in the Universe. Exquisitely precise measurements of this light have allowed astronomers to achieve what might seem impossible: weighing the universe, and thereby establishing the geometry of space. This lecture will explain the physics of the cosmic microwave background and the challenges in understanding where our universe came from. A lecture by Roberto Trotta, Visiting ...
Nov 04, 2019•41 min
The 2014 scandal over Rachel Dolezal's lying about being of African-American heritage reignited debates about the politics of hair. It has been followed by numerous books with titles such as Don't Touch My Hair. This lecture explores how hair has been seen as symbolic of empowerment, deviance, and identity. It looks at the role of big business in promoting grooming products (including scalp-damaging chemicals); the hair grooming regulations of the military; and the political significance of faci...
Oct 31, 2019•43 min
Examples of cancers caused largely by infections include cervical cancer, some liver cancers, and gastric cancer. If the infection can be prevented, or treated, the cancer can also be prevented. When the immune system is damaged, including by infections like HIV, cancers increase. Understanding the importance of the immune system has led to new avenues for the treatment of cancer. This lecture will also consider one of the fastest moving areas of cancer treatment, stimulating the immune system t...
Oct 30, 2019•53 min
Diaghilev found that the Oriental style that had been cultivated by Russian composers was a perfect match for the Parisians' love of exoticism, and he started to commission new ballets for this market niche. These were so successful that even Parisian women's fashions came under their influence. But Russian folk art and music had the same exotic appeal in Paris, and Diaghilev discovered that Stravinsky was the man to turn this new 'product' into great art that was also modernist and attention-gr...
Oct 29, 2019•1 hr 1 min
PART OF OUR BLACK HISTORY MONTH SERIES Freedom has been central to the identity of the City of London for centuries. But from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth centuries, the African Slave Trade and Plantation Slavery in the Americas were key to London's banking, insurance, shipping, manufacturing, commodity trades with Europe, gold and silver supply in London, and later merchant banks like Barings, Schroeder and Kleinwort. The City also benefited from the end of Slavery, as compensated emancipa...
Oct 28, 2019•42 min
PART OF OUR BLACK HISTORY MONTH SERIES A choir of ex-slaves, raising funds to build their University, toured America from 1871, suffering discrimination and hardship. They came to England, were treated with respect and sang to Queen Victoria and Gladstone. Spiritual songs are folk music and belong to us all, but because they came out of such horrific suffering it's hard to know how to sing them. This lecture tells the tale of the singers whose courage and enterprise brought them to the world. Th...
Oct 24, 2019•51 min
