The Origin of Elementary Particle Masses
In the beginning of the 60s, the laws of classical general relativity, Einstein's generalisation of Newtonian gravity, and of quantum electrodynamics, the quantum version of Maxwell's electromagnetic theory, were known. These laws describe long range....
More details | Watch nowStructural Aspects of Protease Control in Health and Disease
This lecture starts out with a very brief review of the history of protein crystallography and continue with our studies since 1970 on proteolytic enzymes and their control. Proteolytic enzymes catalyse a very simple chemical reaction, the hydrolytic....
More details | Watch nowWomen writing science
Join us as we celebrate International Women’s Day by exploring the history of women writing about science. How did early women scientists use writing in order to further their careers? In which ways were they limited by their gender? What influen....
More details | Watch nowC60-Buckminsterfullerene: Not just a Pretty Molecule
Amongst the Nobel Laureates lecturing in Lindau, Sir Harold Kroto would probably earn the award for the most unusual and characteristic way of presenting. This lecture, which is the first he ever gave in Lindau, is no exception. Kroto`s way of presen....
More details | Watch now2014 3MT Competition Finals: Southern Intrustions: Native Assertions of Sovereignty in the Early American Republic
Natural Selection and the Future of Life
In his lecture Professor Christian Rene de DuvŽ gives a rough overview on the history of life starting about 3.5 billion years ago with the first cells up to the appearance of the first primates 70 million years ago, and he states that all organisms....
More details | Watch nowThe Future of Life
Ever since its first appearance, more than 3.5 billion years ago, life has evolved without guiding plan, propelled by: 1) its own intrinsic properties, which, with the help of outside energy, provided the necessary driving force; 2) accidental geneti....
More details | Watch nowStructural Biology and its Translation into Practice and Business: My Experience
As a student in the early 1960s, I had the privilege to attend winter seminars organized by my mentor, W. Hoppe, and by M. Perutz, which took place in a small guesthouse in the Bavarian-Austrian Alps. The entire community of a handful of protein cry....
More details | Watch nowA Personal View of the History of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance in Biology and Medicine
In 1952, Felix Bloch and Edward Purcell were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for the description of the phenomenon of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). Over the years, NMR has been used in a wide range of fundamental studies in physics, and in the....
More details | Watch nowThe History of the Universe, from the Beginning to the Ultimate End
John summarizes the history of the universe, from the Big Bang through the formation of galaxies and the Solar System, and the history of the Earth and some of the special factors enabling the formation of life. Our future will be hot as the Sun ge....
More details | Watch nowThe Development of Particle Physics
Particle physics mainly developed after World War II. It has its roots in the first half of the previous century, when it became clear that all matter is made up from atoms, and the atoms in turn were found to contain a nucleus surrounded by electro....
More details | Watch nowMapping the Universe and Its History
Using our most advanced techniques and instruments we sift through study the cosmic microwave background as a relic of the early universe to understand the events surrounding the birth and subsequent development of the Universe. A precision inspect....
More details | Watch nowGFP and After
Since its introduction as a biological marker, the Aequorea victoria Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) has had a strong impact in biology, being used in an ever-increasing variety of ways. I will review a bit of the history of GFP and show how having ....
More details | Watch nowChemistry of Bioluminescence
There are numerous kinds of luminous organism on earth. Mysterious emission of light from them inspired the curiosity of mankind ever since the ancient times. In history, Raphael Dubois discovered luciferin and luciferase from one of them, a click ....
More details | Watch nowWiden Your Scope by Extracurricular Activities: My Example
Some observers might think that fierce scientific competition borders on a rat race. According to Wikipedia: "A rat race is an endless, self-defeating, or pointless pursuit. It conjures up the image of the futile efforts of a lab rat trying to es....
More details | Watch nowProteases and Their Control in Health and Disease
Proteolytic enzymes catalyse a very simple chemical reaction, the hydrolytic cleavage of a peptide bond. Nevertheless, they constitute a most diverse and numerous lineage of proteins. The reason lies in their role as components of many regulatory....
More details | Watch nowSpontaneous Ionization to Subatomic Physics: Some Vignettes from Cosmic Ray History
In 1879 Crookes discovered that air seemed to ionize spontaneously. With the discovery in 1896 of radioactivity by Henri Becquerel it appeared that the mystery was solved. However a number of physicists sought a quantitative agreement between the....
More details | Watch nowWhat 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 nowThe importance of science: an outsider’s perspective
Award-winning author Bill Bryson speaks to Professor Jim Al-Khalili about his personal experiences and perspectives on science, from childhood and his school years, through to writing the highly successful 'A Short History of Nearly Everything' and e....
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 now(Re)Inventing science publishing: the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
Philosophical TransactionsÊis the worldÕs first and oldest scientific journal. Still published by the Royal Society, it is about to mark its 350th anniversary, and was instrumental in establishing many forms and facets of modern scholarly publishin....
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 nowIncendiary science: fireworks at the Royal Society
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, fireworks offered some intriguing possibilities for scientific research among the experimental philosophers of the Royal Society. What was the nature of fire? How did combustion work? Why did gunpowder exp....
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 nowCurious maths: finding the solution
Unsolved problems in mathematics have intrigued us for centuries. It took over 350 years for anyone to provide a proof for Fermat's Last Theorem, considered by many as the most notorious problem in the history of mathematics, and no one has yet offer....
More details | Watch nowCurious maths: finding the solution
Unsolved problems in mathematics have intrigued us for centuries. It took over 350 years for anyone to provide a proof for FermatÕs Last Theorem, considered by many as the most notorious problem in the history of mathematics, and no one has yet offe....
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 nowFrom the Romans to the Ring Main
In London major trunk mains, commissioned by Water Companies who ceased trading over 100 years ago, operate alongside modern assets such the Thames Water Ring Main commissioned in the 1990’s. Hence legacy plays an important part in way the current ....
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
More details | Watch nowHigh Precision in an Imprecise World
The importance of the Ohio State Molecular Spectroscopy Symposium to the Army.
More details | Watch nowThe Molecular Spectroscopy Symposium: A Personal Perspective
Nobel Laureate Bob Curl gives his personal reminiscences on the Ohio State International Molecular Spectroscopy Symposia.
More details | Watch now65 years of Molecular Spectroscopy
Brenda Winnewisser looks at the history of this important branch of science from the viewpoint of the Ohio State conferences.
More details | Watch nowThe History of the Web Part I: the First 20 Years
Join Professor Wendy Hall FRS as she speaks about the development of the World Wide Web over the past twenty years. She is Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton. Her research interests include the development of web technol....
More details | Watch nowPublishing Faraday’s Candle
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....
More details | Watch nowRadiometers as buttonholes: the extraordinary material legacy of William Crookes
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, ....
More details | Watch nowJonas Moore and his ‘Mapp of the Great Levell’
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....
More details | Watch nowScience for all: popular science in the age of radio
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 ....
More details | Watch nowMary Somerville and the Empire of Science in the Nineteenth Century
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....
More details | Watch nowMusic, architecture and acoustics in Renaissance Venice: Recreating lost soundscapes
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....
More details | Watch nowNiépce in England
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 ....
More details | Watch nowCarbon electronics
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....
More details | Watch nowAlchemy and patronage in Tudor England
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....
More details | Watch nowJohn Soane and the learned societies of Somerset House
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....
More details | Watch nowThe Information. A History, A Theory, A Flood.
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 ....
More details | Watch now‘Behold a New Thing in the Earth!’: Reflections on Science at the Great Exhibition
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....
More details | Watch nowA history of autism: my conversations with the pioneers
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....
More details | Watch nowScience and the Church in the Middle Ages
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....
More details | Watch nowPaul Dirac and the religion of mathematical beauty
For the great theoretical physicist Paul Dirac FRS, the importance of mathematical beauty was 'like a religion'. Although his first papers on quantum mechanics showed an acute aesthetic awareness, he first set out his principle of mathematical beauty....
More details | Watch nowGhosts of women past
Dr Patricia Fara, Clare College, Cambridge. "I do not agree with sex being brought into science at all. The idea of 'woman and science' is completely irrelevant. Either a woman is a good scientist, or she is not." So declared Hertha Ayrton over hun....
More details | Watch nowSir Andrew Huxley Memorial Lecture
Sir Andrew Huxley, President of the Royal Society from 1980 – 1985, died on 30 May 2012. A memorial event in his honour will be held on 17 October 2012 at 6pm at the Royal Society. It will include presentations on various aspects of his scientific ....
More details | Watch nowThe Role of the Royal Society in the Battle over Mendelism
The early years of the twentieth century saw one of the most ferocious controversies in the whole history of biology, over Gregor Mendel's experiments in pea hybridization and their significance for the scientific study of inheritance. On one side, t....
More details | Watch nowNatural History and the Rights of Woman
During the two-year period of the composition and publication of her Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), Mary Wollstonecraft, the mother of Mary Shelley and early advocate of women’s rights, read and reviewed a number of important works of n....
More details | Watch nowHeroes of science
Scientists love them. Historians of science can't stand them. The view that science rests on the shoulders of heroes and on them alone cannot be defended. Nonetheless, the public are moved and inspired by the stories of astronauts who've risked their....
More details | Watch nowTriangulating positions: Hevelius, Halley and the management of the open-sights controversy
When the decade-long argument between Johannes Hevelius, the Danzig astronomer, and Robert Hooke about the respective merits of plain and telescopic sights for astronomical instruments reared its head again in 1685, the resulting controversy threaten....
More details | Watch nowSir George Cayley (1773-1857), the father of flight
This talk discusses Cayley's pioneering aviation work, and his roles as an inventor and as founder of the Royal Polytechnic Institution in Regent Street. Cayley's work will be related to the scientific and intellectual milieu of the day, and to debat....
More details | Watch nowHero or villain? Nevil Maskelyne’s posthumous reputation
Nevil Maskelyne, 5th Astronomer Royal and Fellow of the Royal Society, is today best known as the villain of Dava Sobel’s Longitude. This talk will, however, look further back and examine how Maskelyne has fared since his death in 1811, attempting ....
More details | Watch now‘How should a chemist understand brewing?’ Beer and theory around 1800
Eighteenth-century chemists could gain useful income and patronage as advisors to industry – and some of the wealthiest and most influential industrialists were brewers. Making chemical knowledge credible to this audience, however, was not always e....
More details | Watch nowDream to reality?
Plastics pioneers had great aspirations for their new materials. Roland Barthes called plastics “a miraculous substance . . . a transformation of nature”. Serendipity, careful experimentation and entrepreneurial skills have all played significant....
More details | Watch nowShakespeare the metallurgist, Eliot the spectroscopist: the cultural journey of the chemical elements
From the moment of their discovery, each of the chemical elements has embarked on a journey into our culture. Over millennia and decades, they have gained meaning through encounter and manipulation. Those long known, such as gold, silver, iron and su....
More details | Watch nowRuder Boscovic, the eighteenth-century polymath
Roger Boscovich (1711-1787) was a true polymath, making original contributions in science, technology and the humanities. He was born in Dubrovnik but spent much of his working life in Rome, at the Collegium Romanum. This lecture will introduce his l....
More details | Watch nowTeaching language to the deaf in the 17th century: the dispute between John Wallis and William Holder
In the early years of the Royal Society an acrimonious dispute broke out between John Wallis and William Holder as to which of them had been successful in the ÔexperimentÕ of teaching the deaf child Alexander Popham to speak. Using evidence from th....
More details | Watch nowHenry Briggs’ 400 years of geometry at Gresham College
Henry Briggs was the first Gresham Professor of Geometry. In this lecture he describes the College's early days, and surveys the history of the Geometry Chair over the succeeding 400 years.
More details | Watch nowOur genomes, our history
Genetic differences between humans reflect the fundamental processes, such as mutation, recombination and natural selection, which have influenced our evolutionary history. Now that we can chart the genomes of many individuals, we are finding many su....
More details | Watch nowOrigin of Life on Earth: Abiogenesis
This presentation portrays a general overview of the theory of abiogenesis and its conceptual history. From the theory of spontaneous generation to biogenesis to the modern-day abiogenesis, the changing perception of the origin of life is discussed.....
More details | Watch nowColor Theory
For my project I am giving a brief history of color theory with emphasis on how science and color theory have interacted. I focus on aspects like primary colors, how color is perceived, and the artists who were at the forefront of color and design. I....
More details | Watch nowA History of Bicycles
This presentation reviews the basic history of the bicycle starting with the Hobby Horse. We discuss significant changes to the bicycle in terms of efficiency, safety and comfort. These advances in bicycle technology include lighter construction, the....
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My presentation is on the history of flight, the physics of flight and the different types of aircraft that exist. This includes the Wright brothers , the Bernouli effect and jet propelled aircraft.
More details | Watch nowMammalian biodiversity: past, present, future?
Beautiful and charismatic, mammals are biodiversity icons. But a quarter of mammalian species are now threatened with extinction, as ecosystems reel under the impact of a growing and ever more demanding human population. This lecture explores the his....
More details | Watch nowSeeing Further – The Story of Science and the Royal Society
The Story of Science and the Royal Society - a panel discussion chaired by Melvyn Bragg. The panel is made up of Bill Bryson, Maggie Gee, Richard Holmes and Ian Stewart FRS.
More details | Watch nowThe History of Nitrous Oxide
Green Chemistry – an overview
The eerie silence – are we alone in the universe?
Fifty years ago, a young astronomer named Frank Drake pointed a radio telescope at nearby stars in the hope of picking up a signal from an alien civilization. Thus began one of the boldest scientific projects in history: the Search for Extraterrestri....
More details | Watch nowA natural history of scientists
For most of his life, Richard Fortey, has worked with collections in London's Natural History Museum, so curation has become a kind of unbreakable habit for him. In his Michael Faraday Prize lecture he will present another collection: his own persona....
More details | Watch nowBenjamin Franklin in Europe: electrician, academician etc.
Benjamin Franklin, American patriot and natural philosopher, was born 300 years ago. Apart from a brief stay in England as a young man, he spent the first fifty years of his life transforming himself from a nobody into the leading citizen of Philadel....
More details | Watch nowEinstein’s legacy as scientist and icon
What might 'new Einsteins' achieve in the 21st century? Science offers more intellectual challenges than ever, but is a less individualistic enterprise. Technology offers imense opportunities, but poses threats and ethical dilemmas. Can scientists re....
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