What is Color?
FSU undergrad, Daniel Stribling, investigates the intimate relationship between light and color. Daniel discusses the history, physics, and theory of light to engage young learners and encourage them to be excited about science.
More details | Watch nowThe Royal Society and science fiction
The lone (mad) scientist is a common trope in science fiction, but hidden away is a fascination with secret and semi-secret societies who work for the future of all mankind. This talk will look at the representation of the Royal Society in science fi....
More details | Watch nowVesuvius: volcanic laboratory or miracle of divine intervention?
Commentaries on Vesuvius have, for some two thousand years, see-sawed between observers' fascination with the phenomenon, as an inexplicable expression of the earth's inner force, and the relationship of the unpredictable mountain to a religious popu....
More details | Watch nowStaphylococcus aureus. The biography of a bug sometimes super, most often not
Thirty percent of us carryÊStaphylococcus aureusÊup our noses. Boils and infections after surgery bring it to our attention. Mutant clones are called MRStaphylococcus Aureus,ÊorÊMRSA. All these things make it important today.Ê Hugh Pennington CB....
More details | Watch nowWomen’s work: Dorothy Hodgkin and the culture and craft of X-ray crystallography
The year 2014 was celebrated as the International Year of Crystallography. A number of successful 20th century women scientists, of whom the Nobel prizewinner Dorothy Hodgkin is perhaps the most prominent, achieved their distinction in this field. Wh....
More details | Watch nowThe medieval science of light: uncovering meaning with an interdisciplinary methodology
Can science today learn from thirteenth century literature? In the Durham Ordered Universe project, an interdisciplinary team (physicists, medievalists, Latin scholars and historians of science) has engaged with the great medieval English thinker Rob....
More details | Watch nowSir Henry Bessemer FRS: a life and a legacy
This lecture aims to celebrate the bicentenary of the birth of Sir Henry Bessemer by reviewing his scientific and economic achievements in the context of his era, and also in terms of their ongoing impact on the world of today. As well as highlightin....
More details | Watch nowSisters in science: Hertha Ayrton, women and the Royal Society c.1900
Although women were not admitted as Fellows until 1945, by the beginning of the twentieth century there were a number of female scientists working at the margins of the Royal Society and its masculine scientific elite. This talk will introduce some o....
More details | Watch nowPhysicians, chemists and experimentalists: the Royal Society and the rise of scientific medicine, c. 1600-1850
The period 1600-1850 saw fundamental changes in how we understand natural processes. Chemistry and medicine especially moved away from classical ideas of 'balance' and 'vital properties' - such as fire and water - to understanding nature as an integr....
More details | Watch now‘Sacrifice of a genius’: Henry Moseley’s role as a Signals Officer in WWI
Henry Gwyn Jeffreys Moseley (1887-1915) was one of the foremost English physicists of the early twentieth century. Probably best remembered for his immense contributions to chemistry and atomic physics in the years immediately prior to the outbreak o....
More details | Watch nowThe Great Melbourne Telescope
A joint project of the Royal Society and the British Association, the Great Melbourne Telescope was the result of both technical and organisational innovation in the design and manufacture of a large telescope. At the completion of its construction b....
More details | Watch nowJohn Evelyn’s ‘Sylva’ and the origins of the modern sustainability discourse
The idea of sustainability has deep roots in practically all cultures of the world. The term itself, however, so familiar in today's global vocabulary, was shaped in the 17th century European discourse on timber shortage. Initiated by the newly-estab....
More details | Watch nowDefining nature’s limits: Prosecuting magic in sixteenth-century Italy
Magic and science have traditionally been considered to have little in common. Yet for many sixteenth-century intellectuals, including churchmen, practising magic was based upon highly sophisticated knowledge of the natural world. For ecclesiastical ....
More details | Watch nowThe popular reception of relativity in Britain
How did it feel to open a newspaper in November 1919 to be greeted by headlines about 'Light Caught Bending' and a 'Revolution in Space and Time'? Einstein's relativity reached a wide public audience in the context of social change. The theory's inte....
More details | Watch nowIron from the sky: the potential influence of meteorites on ancient Egyptian culture.
Ancient Egyptian belief was frequently derived from observations of the natural world, where the gods were considered to control the forces of nature; and as a society, ancient Egyptians placed great value upon order and balance. So how would the app....
More details | Watch nowDeveloping new solar cells – cheaper, or more efficient?
Using solar cells to convert sunlight to electricity is an attractive way to reduce carbon emissions, but solar cells are still too expensive to be installed on the scale required. The next generation of solar cells aim to solve this problem using st....
More details | Watch nowExperimental misunderstandings: the precedent of Francis Bacon’s ‘Sylva Sylvarum’ and the beginnings of the Royal Society
Guido Giglioni is the Cassamarca Lecturer in Neo-Latin Culture and Intellectual History at the Warburg Institute, University of London. By writing a number of natural histories and above all the Sylva Sylvarum, Bacon set an important but difficult pr....
More details | Watch nowUnsung heroes: artistic contributors to the early Royal Society
This lecture discusses the contribution of draftsmen, engravers, artistic fellows and others whose graphic skills were indispensable for the meetings and publications of the early Royal Society (1660-1720). While some of the names of those who produc....
More details | Watch nowMaritime science and the visual culture of exploration: the albums of a Victorian naval surgeon
Naval officers in general, and surgeons in particular, played a significant role in the development of maritime science, through their observations and their collections. This richly-illustrated talk explores the visual culture of maritime science, f....
More details | Watch nowLaputian Newtons: the science and politics of Swift’s ‘Gullivers Travels’
GulliverÕs Travels (1726) contains probably the most famous satire on science in world literature, but the circumstances behind its composition are little known. In this talk, Greg Lynall explains how GulliverÕs ÔVoyage to LaputaÕ was shaped by J....
More details | Watch nowThe Royal Society and the Rothschild ‘Controversy’
In the early months of 1971 the Heath government asked Lord Victor Rothschild to Ôthink the unthinkableÕ in his investigation into government policy. His subsequent report on research funding proposed something the Royal Society judged to be wholly....
More details | Watch now2011 is the 350th anniversary of the publication of a Sceptical Chymist, by Robert Boyle which is considered to be the most important book ever published about chemistry. Boyle was a leading intellectual figure of the 17th century and one of the fo....
More details | Watch nowThe Case of the Poisonous Socks
Bill Brock entertains his audience with many little-known chemical anecdotes.
More details | Watch nowInternational Symposium on Molecular Spectroscopy
Potential Rewards from the Beginning to the End of a Spectroscopic Career Derived from Attendance at a Graduate-student and Postdoctoral-Fellow Oriented Symposium
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