243 results found for royal-society

Michael Faraday’s The Chemical History of a Candle is arguably the most popular science book ever published. Based on Faraday’s final series of Christmas Lectures at the Royal Institution, it has never been out of print in English since it was fi....

William Crookes was a physicist, chemist, entrepreneur and spiritualist.  Being a consummate experimenter he designed precision instruments of great delicacy, in particular exquisite glass vacuum tubes. The radiometer, when first exhibited in 1875, ....

Take one step away from the shore with the Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books. Set yourself apart from the crowd on an expedition into unfamiliar scientific territory with the shortlisted authors and judges of the Royal Society Winton Prize....

The mathematician and surveyor Jonas Moore was elected FRS in the 1670s, as a result of his close involvement in plans for the founding of the Royal Observatory. At that stage he was employed as  Surveyor General of the Royal Ordnance, but under the....

How do you get ordinary people to take an interest in science? This was already becoming a problem for the scientific community in the early twntieth century.  But rather than letting outsiders do the job, the scientists took an active role.  They ....

Some volcanoes are gentle, others inconvenient, and others still, deadly. What makes volcanic eruptions explosive? What happens when volcanoes are covered in ice, as in Iceland or Chile - and what happens when the ice melts?  Dr Hugh Tuffen has visi....

Prof. Jim Secord, Dept. of History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge. Mary Somerville (1780-1872) was a leading mathematician and author of important books on the sciences: it was in connection with a review of one of these that the term "scientis....

It is agonising for a parent, troubling for a clinician, and puzzling for a researcher when a young child seems oblivious to people, is fixated on spinning objects, and shows no sign of communicating. An adult who finds their own inner states opaque,....

During the Renaissance in Venice, composers such as the Gabrieli and Moneverdi created some of their greatest masterpieces for performance in the great churches on festive occasions. But what would the music have sounded like, given its complexity an....

In October 2010 the National Media Museum hosted the 'Niépce in England' Conference where they could announce and share with the photographic, conservation and scientific communities the ground breaking findings which had been discovered during the ....

From structure and topology, to mechanical and electronic properties, a seemingly simple change in bonding between carbon atoms can conceive a plethora of material types. With diamond and graphite known since antiquity, better understanding of the sy....

Dr Jenny Rampling, Dept. of History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge.  In early modern England, alchemical practitioners employed a range of strategies to win the trust and support of powerful, even royal, patrons: from the preservation of healt....

Kavli Medal Lecture by Professor Clare Grey FRS.  The development of light, long-lasting rechargeable batteries has been an integral part of the portable electronics revolution.  This revolution has transformed the way in which we communicate and t....

'If you knew Time as well as I do,’ the Mad Hatter says to Alice, ‘you wouldn’t talk about wasting it. It’s him.’ In this event, three writers well-acquainted with time discuss how it (or he) both controls and captivates us.  Dame Gillian ....

Panel discussion with Professor Jonathan Baillie, Dr William Cheung, Professor Adrian Lister and chaired by Dr Susan Lieberman, as part of the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition 2011.  Right now one-fifth of the world’s vertebrates are classi....

Panel discussion involving Professor David Freedberg, Dr Daniela Schiller, Ian McEwan and chaired by Professor Ray Dolan FRS, as 2011.  Does emotion serve a particular function? How important is emotion in artistic expression? How do we study emotio....

Proteins are the action molecules of all cells, and to function properly, protein chains must fold and assemble correctly. But each chain of every protein runs the risk that it will combine with one or more identical chains to form nonfunctional aggr....

The architect John Soane became an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1795, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1796 and, finally, a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1821. All three were then housed in Somerset House. Soane was an avid collector a....

James Gleick shows how information has become the modern era’s defining quality - the blood, the fuel, the vital principle of our world. The story of information begins in a time profoundly unlike our own, when every thought and utterance vanished ....

The Great Exhibition of 1851 has routinely been portrayed as a celebration of science, technology, and manufacturing. However, for many contemporaries – including Prince Albert – it was a deeply religious event. In analysing responses to the Exhi....

Piers Sellers in conversation with Rona Munro and John Zarnecki.  Little Eagles, written by playwright Rona Munro, tells the extraordinary story of Sergei Korolyov, chief designer and unsung hero of the Soviet space programme. Under the leadership o....

In this talk, Adam Feinstein will describe two fascinating journeys of discovery: his travels around the world for his new book, speaking to the key pioneers in the history of autism - including close colleagues and relatives of Leo Kanner and Hans A....

Bakerian Prize Lecture by Professor Herbert Huppert FRS Institute of Theoretical Geophysics at the University of Cambridge.    Since the formation of the Earth, the global mean surface temperature, carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane content of the at....

It is commonly assumed that what little scientific advance there might have been in the Middle Ages was held back by the power of the Church.  But, in fact, there was important progress in science and technology during the medieval period.  And the....