Big Ideas: Science

Winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, University of Toronto professor John Polanyi delivers his 2002 lecture on the world that science has built.

Science historian and author (Darwin Among the Machines) George Dyson on the Origins of the Digital Universe. The talk focuses on the work done at The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton New Jersey by such renowned scientists as John von Neumann and Kurt Godel.

Clifford Will delivers a lecture entitled "Was Einstein Right? Can Einstein?s Theories Survive Today?s Scientific Scrutiny?"

Philip Ball outlines how developments in chemistry have impacted painters and the art world throughout history.

Adjunct Professor of Physics at Northeastern University in Boston, Graham Farmelo, on Paul Dirac and the Religion of Mathematical Beauty. Apart from Einstein, Paul Dirac was probably the greatest theoretical physicist of the 20th century. Dirac, co-inventor of quantum mechanics, is now best known for conceiving of anti-matter and also for his deeply eccentric behavior. For him, the most important attribute of a fundamental theory was its mathematical beauty, an idea that he said was "almost a religion" to him.

What will it mean to be human in the future? Uploading consciousness into virtual worlds and prolonging life through biotechnology are already being contemplated. Canada's leading science fiction writer, Robert J. Sawyer, offers his insights in a lecture entitled Humanity 2.0, produced in collaboration with the Literary Review of Canada.

Following his lecture at the Gardiner Museum, Robert J. Sawyer responded to questions from the audience. This is an excerpt from the Q & A. Sawyer's full lecture, entitled Humanity 2.0, will be broadcast on Big Ideas on February 4, 2012 at 5pm as well as podcast on tvo.org, iTunes and You Tube.

Author and astronomer Ray Jayawardhana discusses Alien Planets and his latest book Strange New Worlds. The lecture focuses on techniques for detecting planets orbiting distant stars.

Following his lecture at the Gardiner Museum, sci-fi writer Robert J. Sawyer responded to questions from the audience. This is an excerpt from the Q & A. Sawyer's full lecture, entitled Humanity 2.0, will be broadcast on Big Ideas on February 4, 2012 at 5pm as well as podcast on tvo.org, iTunes and You Tube.

Following his lecture at the Gardiner Museum, science fiction writer Robert J. Sawyer responded to questions from the audience. This is an excerpt from the Q & A. Sawyer's full lecture, entitled Humanity 2.0, will be broadcast on Big Ideas on February 4, 2012 at 5pm as well as podcast on tvo.org, iTunes and You Tube.