The 10 equations that rule the world

Tuesday 13 October Is there a secret formula for getting rich? For making something a viral hit? For deciding how long to stick with your current Netflix series, job, or even relationship? In this talk, mathematician David Sumpter showed how a small set of formulas can provide the answers to questions ranging from the trivial […]

Cosmic Vision: Watching the radio

Professor Katherine Blundell OBE 7th October 2020, Gresham College Professor Blundell was appointed Gresham Professor of Astronomy in 2019. She is a Professor of Astrophysics at Oxford University and a Research Fellow at St John’s College. Before this she was one of the Royal Society’s University Research Fellows, a Research Fellow of the 1851 Royal […]

Satellites improve lives

This talk was given in association with the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory https://stfc.ukri.org/about-us/where-we-work/rutherford-appleton-laboratory/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutherford_Appleton_Laboratory The Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) is one of the national scientific research laboratories in the UK operated by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). It began as the Rutherford High Energy Laboratory, merged with the Atlas Computer Laboratory in 1975 to […]

A series of fortunate events

Why is the world the way it is? How did we get here? Does everything happen for a reason or are some things left to chance? Philosophers and theologians have pondered these questions for millennia, but startling scientific discoveries over the past half century are revealing that we live in a world driven by chance. […]

Engineering enzymes

RAL is a world leading scientific research laboratory where researchers study everything from particle physics which are very, very small through to the astronomically large, studying space and the mysteries of the universe. They host free talks once a month from September to June over a broad range of topics and in this talk, we […]

Gravity’s Role in the Story of Our Universe

Dr Katy Clough https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJk2BNSZI7U by Institute of Physics: Oxford Centre https://www2.physics.ox.ac.uk/contacts/people/clough https://kaclough.github.io/CV.html https://www.linkedin.com/in/katy-clough-095809103/?originalSubdomain=uk http://www.grchombo.org/ Einstein’s strange and beautiful theory of general relativity has provided many a plot line in science fiction with its time-warping effects around black holes. But gravity also plays a major role in the story of our universe as a whole, not […]

10 years at the LHC

A composite image of the Large Hadron Collider Credit: CERN It’s 10 years since the first particles smashed into each other at the world’s biggest scientific experiment, the Large Hadron Collider. Since then physicists have discovered the Higgs boson, created forms of matter not seen since the Big Bang and ruled out a whole host […]

Looking for Life On Mars

Professor Andrew Coates Wednesday, 23 September 2020 The Rosalind Franklin PanCam team Mullard Space Science Laboratory, University College London https://www.gresham.ac.uk/ Mars has changed since it formed 4.6 billion years ago. When life started on Earth ~4 billion years ago, Mars was habitable too, with volcanism, a magnetic field, surface water and a thick atmosphere. Today, […]

How to make the world add up

Tim Harford Credit: Árni Torfason for PopTech Tuesday 22 September When was the last time you read a grand statement, accompanied by a large number, and wondered whether it could really be true? In this talk, Tim Harford drew on his experience as both an economist and presenter of the BBC’s radio show ‘More or […]

Flight Plan

As an explainer I didn’t just work on Launch Pad in the Science Museum. I also did stints in other galleries, such as Flight. You can see the “whirling arm” behind me https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/see-and-do/flight During my time there, the Flight gallery had some interactive activities collectively known as “Flight Plan”. The aim of the activities was […]