The UK's income inequality has remained stable since the 1990s, but household wealth has nearly doubled, mainly driven by soaring house prices. This has widened the wealth gap between generations, with younger people less likely to own homes. Furthermore, weak income growth since the mid-2000s has disproportionately affected younger cohorts. This lecture unpacks these economic trends to reveal how they have created tensions between generations by exacerbating disparities in their respective livi...
Feb 28, 2025•51 min
The discharge of raw sewage into rivers, and the financial problems of major water companies, have become serious political and social concerns for the public. British cities have faced similar challenges in the past, most notoriously with the ‘Great Stink’ in London in 1858 that led to the construction of Bazalgette’s sewer. Consequently, many cities took utilities into public ownership in the late nineteenth century in what is termed ‘gas and water socialism’. Why did this happen, and why were...
Feb 27, 2025•58 min
Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/7pvF4FdbYWU This lecture explores how information asymmetry leads to adverse selection and moral hazard, with a focus on their presence in financial markets and institutions such as insurance and credit markets. It will examine how regulations intended to solve a particular set of issues might exacerbate problems, potentially resulting in financial crises or other disastrous events. This lecture was recorded by Raghavendra Rau on 20th January 2025...
Feb 21, 2025•57 min
Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/gWJmpSO4WZI Finance involves a group of people attempting to make rational decisions on valuation, but people are complicated. People can be self-interested, they can make mistakes, or, in stark contrast, they can act altruistically. This lecture will introduce the concept of agency problems in the finance sector, focusing on the conflicts that arise between different groups of stakeholders. It will discuss examples of fraud, insider trading and o...
Feb 14, 2025•54 min
Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/bKMV8i9Mq40 The brain is mostly organised in small modular regions connected to each other. Typically, each region performs different cognitive tasks, from image processing to language. This organisation leads us to model the brain as a network, the ‘brain connectome’. This fundamental view of the brain has become a central paradigm for neurosciences linking topological properties of networks to brain functions. This lecture presents ideas from gr...
Feb 11, 2025•56 min
Sound and music hold a strange and powerful role in film, TV and video games, aiding narrative and emotional impact. They can even exist in the world of ‘the film’ – heard by the characters – or in the world of the audience. Music can even break the fourth wall, travelling through and blurring these conventionally separate worlds. By examining films through history from Blazing Saddles, Elf, The Truman Show to Birdman, we explore this ‘fantastical gap’ and its transformative effect on the audien...
Feb 07, 2025•55 min
Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/LUyFLOUi-D4 This lecture traces the history of this famous series by Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, starting from its conception in 1947. It describes the research and writing of the original forty-six volumes for England and the extension of the books to Scotland, Wales and Ireland. It then assesses their significance alongside a reflection on the 2024 achievement of the full updating of the English series. This lecture was recorded by Charles O'Brien on ...
Feb 04, 2025•59 min
Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/t6kkq6dI6hc When and why do written laws emerge in ancient societies? This lecture will consider these questions in light of evidence including the law code of Hammurabi; the earliest attestation of written laws in Greek (found in Dreros on Crete); and the full-blown commitment to written laws by the Athenian lawgiver Solon. Such cases will be used to explore how writing bears on the the functions of law more generally, in light of debates in cont...
Jan 31, 2025•42 min
Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/pXoU-nZmhn8 Despite its familiarity, the Sun is a very different presence from the friendly yellow circle in children's paintings. Our star is a broiling mass of plasma, with its powerful magnetic fields, twisted by its rotation, capable of producing dramatic events of spectacular beauty and power. Using results from NASA's Parker Solar Probe - the fastest moving human-made object ever - and ESA's Solar Orbiter, this spectacular lecture takes a ne...
Jan 24, 2025•53 min
Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/lQBdqGrfWKU Over half the world’s largest companies have a net zero strategy. But what stops “Science-based Targets” from becoming box-ticking exercises too often immune to environmental scrutiny? Instead of decarbonizing companies and financial portfolios, this lecture will discuss the need to focus on decarbonizing products and services themselves so that companies must explain how they plan to stop what they sell from causing global warming. Th...
Jan 22, 2025•56 min
Recently, the UK has got into a muddle over how to approach Scottish independence and Brexit. What can we learn from the U.S. which took much of its system from the theory behind the U.K. structure: the King as the Executive; a Legislature made up of the House of Commons balanced by the House of Lords; and the judiciary? And what role should the judiciary play? Have the British got confused about the notion of ‘Parliamentary Supremacy’, deciding that this meant that Parliament was supreme not ju...
Jan 17, 2025•43 min
Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/0ZK1Y1QnFDg This looks at how and why a particular form of the non-Christian divine feminine came to take over the Western European imagination from the beginning of the nineteenth century. This was a great goddess representing the natural world, or the moon and stars, or both. It traces the development of belief in the importance of this being, and her impact not only on creative literature but upon the developing disciplines of ancient history a...
Jan 15, 2025•47 min
Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/d6Ao4KmGXBc Artificial Intelligence is a very recent invention…or is it? Humans have been fascinated by intelligent machines for thousands of years. Some exist only in our collective imagination, in art and literature. Others have seen the light of day as mechanical marvels, although a few were later exposed as elaborate frauds. The robots of today might not be what our ancestors imagined. This lecture argues that the relationship between humans a...
Jan 10, 2025•49 min
Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/f6Z9L2dnxSA This lecture explores the emergence of the "femme au piano" genre in 19th-century French painting, depicted by artists like Renoir, Van Gogh, and Matisse. What suddenly made this topic so popular, and what does it tell us about the role of women in music-making at the time? Tracing the genre's roots from the Italian Renaissance clavichord depictions to Vermeer’s Dutch domestic scenes, and 18th-century harpsichord portraits. Discover ho...
Jan 07, 2025•52 min
Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/wpF0oB9Mz-0 The US Constitution, both in its structural element and the Bill of Rights, reflect a catalogue of colonial complaints about the British system as well as centuries of evolution in the law. In general terms, contrary to the slightly complacent attitude of the British legal authorities. This lecture will demonstrate, most of the original complaints still hold true. This lecture was recorded by Clive Stafford Smith on 7th November 2024 a...
Jan 03, 2025•43 min
Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/JCTgxcPu78I The human immune system rivals the brain in its complexity. Billions of cells coordinate their activity with amazing precision to protect us from infection. Immune cells can respond to millions of different pathogens within seconds and yet rarely respond to a false alarm. This lecture explores how cells achieve this, what happens when they go wrong and how you can keep your own immune system in top condition. This lecture was recorded ...
Dec 31, 2024•40 min
This lecture will explore corporate governance mechanisms designed to address agency problems, including executive compensation, boards of directors, and shareholder activism. Additionally, it will examine how solutions addressing one agency problem might create another. This lecture was recorded by Raghavendra Rau on 5th November 2024 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London Raghu is the Mercers School Memorial Professor of Business He is also the Sir Evelyn de Rothschild Professor of Finance at Cambridge...
Dec 27, 2024•1 hr 1 min
Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/LW0DLhTxfCE This festive lecture explores the unusual roots of the song ‘White Christmas’ and its role in establishing the concept of the commercial Christmas song. It will explain how the song’s release during the summer months hints at how its potential as an enduring seasonal classic was not anticipated, and then examine how the music and lyrics helped it to resonate in a time of war. The lecture will also consider Berlin’s patriotism and his a...
Dec 24, 2024•54 min
Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/VeJxEXZfT2Y This lecture analyses the ‘psychedelic era’ of the Beatles, from Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band to Let it Be, a period of staggering musical invention and experimentalism. We explore the mechanics behind the magic, untangling the layers of harmony, melody, lyrics, structure and technology, and how these all combine in ways both accessible and ground-breaking. This ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ pulls back the curtain on these timeless tr...
Dec 20, 2024•59 min
Shakespeare lived in a period of exciting mathematical innovations, from arithmetic to astronomy, and from probability to music. Remarkably, many of those innovations are mentioned, or at least hinted at, in his plays. Rob Eastaway will explore the surprising ways in which mathematical ideas connect with Shakespeare and reveals that the playwright could be as creative with numbers as he was with words. Along the way you will discover surprising new mathematical insights on the Elizabethan world....
Dec 17, 2024•43 min
Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/pP3FzqYcMOA We communicate when we have information to share. The development of signals from signs visible over short distances to wireless transfer of billions of data-heavy messages worldwide is full of surprising characters, none more so than the Hollywood starlet who made Wi-Fi and GPS possible and received public recognition only in the final few years of her life. This lecture traces the development of technologies for messaging and signals...
Dec 13, 2024•50 min
Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/6hEOINeTYTU As the leaders of the oil and gas industry flew into Houston for CERAWeek, 2024, oil was over $80 per barrel and demand higher than ever. There was little discussion of “transitioning away from fossil fuels” as agreed at COP28 in Dubai. In the run-up to COP29, this lecture will set out the critical need to change the narrative, so those with the ability and resources to solve the climate problem have less incentive to shuffle responsib...
Dec 10, 2024•51 min
Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/dvvOi_nUCRM Space itself is wobbly. We exist on a choppy sea, its surface roiled by disturbances caused by the movements of black holes hundreds of millions of light-years away. The detection of these 'gravitational waves' by observatories such as LIGO is a story of scientific persistence and precision engineering, resulting in a completely new way of looking at the cosmos. The lecture will highlight the latest results from LIGO's observing run, d...
Dec 06, 2024•46 min
Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/UzxyNc8vuNs Traditional risk factors for mental illness include genetics, perinatal factors, substance use, negative life events, trauma and organic disorders. Yet, more recently, it has been found that higher rates of mental illness are also seen in minoritised and marginalised groups. This lecture outlines the different types of discrimination – personally mediated, structural/institutional and internalised – and the evidence linking these with ...
Dec 03, 2024•50 min
Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/Tt_xU005mik This Lecture unveils the hidden history of Americans who risked their lives to save others during WWII. These intrepid people travelled the globe to aid victims of Nazi Germany and its allies, often staying to rescue as many as possible when the victims’ peril turned lethal. Discover the stories of these individuals, particularly women who embraced the independence and transformative impact of their relief efforts. This lecture highlig...
Nov 29, 2024•42 min
Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/EyU7TCE1QJQ With Brexit, the US presidential election and the Covid pandemic, conspiracy theories now seem to be everywhere. It’s commonly argued that the internet has fuelled their popularity, leading to a loss of faith in mainstream media, science, democracy and even truth itself. But what if the rise of conspiracy theories is a symptom rather than the cause of a collapse of trust in civic institutions? This lecture was recorded by Peter Knight ...
Nov 27, 2024•54 min
What links an ancient shipwreck to the textile mills of Northern England? Both contained forerunners of the computing we use today. Computer language and software also have a long history, featuring military research and the repurposing of early programs widely used in manufacturing. This lecture will delve far back into the archives of processing, prediction, difference, and analytical engines, to discover who really made them work. This lecture was recorded by Victoria Baines on 24th September...
Nov 22, 2024•47 min
Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/_Q_30OIPzXw The human brain has a very distinct and complex appearance with valleys and ridges folding over themselves. The same convolutions are found in large mammals, but not in smaller ones. This observation suggests that size and geometry play a role. Yet, these beautiful shapes have defied a complete description or understanding. This lecture will address questions stemming from this picture: How do these shapes emerge? How are they arranged...
Nov 19, 2024•50 min
Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/leCxdECjyDM Reducing health inequalities is a matter of social justice. Strategies must address the social gradient in health, and efforts should extend beyond healthcare to address the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age. This lecture argues economic circumstances, while important, are not the sole drivers of health inequalities, and closing the health gap will take evidence-based action across the whole of society. Thi...
Nov 15, 2024•52 min
Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/IJT3B9WZntc Rediscovering remarkable historical figures such as the Birka Warrior Woman, Hildegard of Bingen, and King Jadwiga offers a fresh perspective to understand an era often dismissed as 'nasty, brutish, and short'. Rather than being exceptions, this lecture will reveal the considerable influence and power held by medieval women and shed light on the gradual erosion of female agency over subsequent centuries. Through their rediscovery, it w...
Nov 12, 2024•51 min
