Laughter is an incredibly powerful and yet mysterious emotion. We laugh with delight, but also surprise. We laugh at jokes, but also at embarrassment. Why? What subconscious signal is laughter intended to display? Why do we laugh when someone tickles us and what should we make of the fact that rodents do it too? And why is it that people’s sense of humour differs wildly and yet some drugs can send us all into fits of the giggles, even if there is nothing to laugh at?

This lecture was recorded by Robin May on the 12th of November 2025 at Bernard’s Inn Hall, London

Professor of Infectious Disease at the University of Birmingham, and (interim) Chief Scientist at the UK Health Security Agency, Robin May was appointed Gresham Professor of Physic in May 2022. Between July 2020 and September 2025 he served as Chief Scientific Adviser at the Food Standards Agency (FSA). 

Professor May’s early training was in Plant Sciences at the University of Oxford, followed by a PhD on mammalian cell biology at University College London and the University of Birmingham. After postdoctoral research on gene silencing at the Hubrecht Laboratory, The Netherlands, he returned to the UK in 2005 to establish a research program on human infectious diseases. He was Director of the Institute of Microbiology and Infection at the University of Birmingham from 2017-2020. 

Professor May continues his work on Infectious Disease at the University of Birmingham. A Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, Wolfson Royal Society Research Merit Fellow and Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, Professor May specialises in research into human infectious diseases, with a particular focus on how pathogens survive and replicate within host organisms.

As the FSA’s Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor May provides expert scientific advice to the UK government and plays a critical role in helping to understand how scientific developments will shape the work of the FSA, as well as the strategic implications of any possible changes.

The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/why-laugh

Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today

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Looking at the plant world, one discovers beautiful and fascinating structures in the shape and arrangement of leaves, stems and roots. Some are simple and symmetric, other features are arranged in elegant Fibonacci spirals, yet others exhibit fractal-like patterns. How are these structures created with such regularity and reproducibility? Such arrangements often follow simple rules that we can fully understand mathematically.

This lecture was recorded by Alain Goriely on 11th November 2025 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London.

Professor Alain Goriely FRS is Gresham Professor of Geometry.

He is also a mathematician known for dynamical systems, mathematical biology, and mechanics. He developed the mathematical theory of biological growth and is Director of the Oxford Centre for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. His work spans plant tendrils, seashells, umbilical cords, brain modelling, and applied mathematics outreach.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/shape-plants

Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham's mission, please consider making a donation: https://gresham.ac.uk/support/

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Wittgenstein wrote: “If a lion could talk, we would not understand it”. That is, as lions and humans are not of the same material, they could not say anything meaningful to each other. AI is not like us; the only way we can have a relationship with it is for us to become like it. We will look at how digital services are already making us machine-like; and, we explore how advanced AI-human fusions may undo our essential “humanness”.

This lecture was recorded by Matt Jones on the 25rd of November 2025 at Barnard’s Inn Hall, London.

Matt Jones is a computer scientist at Swansea University - and a Fellow of the British Computer Society - who works alongside colleagues from many other disciplines and directly with everyday folk across the world to explore the future of digital technologies. Over the last 30-plus years, this human-centred approach has led to novel approaches for, amongst other things,  mobile phone-based information searching and browsing, pedestrian navigation, voice assistants and deformable displays.  

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/ai-assimilation

Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham's mission, please consider making a donation: https://gresham.ac.uk/support/

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Limitarianism holds that it is immoral to have personal wealth above a certain level. Is this idea compatible with capitalism? Defenders of capitalism have argued that it is not, whereas those who want to move beyond capitalism have urged defenders of limitarianism to clear up this issue. This lecture argues that limitarianism is compatible with some forms of capitalism, and that it would help the debate about the most desirable socio-economic system if we provide more clarity on how these concepts are used.

This lecture was recorded by Professor Ingrid Robeyns on the 5th of November 2025 at Bernard’s Inn Hall, London

Professor Ingrid Robeyns works on issues in contemporary political philosophy and applied ethics, and holds the Chair in Ethics of Institutions at the Ethics Institute of Utrecht University. She specialises in applied and "non-ideal" ethics, interdisciplinary research, and developing normative frameworks and methods. Additionally, she is affiliated as a visiting professor at the Center for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE) at LSE.

The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/limitarianism

Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today
 
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In this lecture, Mark Taubert, who chairs the national DNACPR policy for Wales, and is a palliative care clinician, reviews current practices. He will encourage you to consider your own end of life care advance care plan, and attempt to write down your prior wishes. He reviews recent concerns, scandals and media outputs and looks at current resuscitation policies, guidelines and resources. He also discusses, from a clinician’s point of view, how the prospect of a natural, anticipated and accepted death in the near future can be a trigger to better advance care planning. Furthermore, he looks at online conspiracy theories, and poor Covid-19 clinical practice, and outlines resources such as the Welsh TalkCPR videos, that can help improve communication in an area rife with misconceptions and misunderstanding.

This lecture was recorded by Mark Taubert on the 5th of November 2025 at Bernard’s Inn Hall, London

Professor Mark Taubert is a UK hospital consultant and clinical director at Velindre University NHS Trust in Cardiff. He is Vice-President of the Brussels-based European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC), a non-governmental organisation dedicated to worldwide improvement in palliative care. 

His Cardiff University academic activities include advance care planning and new media in medical settings. He is the founder of TalkCPR.com and chairs the national Future Care Planning strategy group for NHS Wales. He has advised UK government on matters relating to palliative care, treatment escalation decisions, and the last years of life. Public engagement efforts include numerous BBC programmes and a Ted Talk on how we use and misuse language in healthcare settings. He also writes for international news outlets like the Washington Post, Newsweek, the Spectator and the Guardian. 

The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/dnr-forms

Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today

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Pan started as a shepherds’ god in a wild and backward area of Greece, but became one of the best-known in the Greek and Roman world. This was partly because the leading city of Athens imported him as a saviour, and partly because he came to represent the freedom, peace and simplicity of the countryside to urban people. He was the most earthy of Greek deities, summing up wild nature in its beauty but also its danger. He was a god of both liberation and menace, and this lecture faces up to him as both.

This lecture was recorded by Professor Ronald Hutton on the 17th of September 2025 at Barnard’s Inn Hall, London.

Professor Hutton is Professor of History at the University of Bristol. He took degrees at Cambridge and then Oxford Universities, and was a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. He is now a Fellow of the British Academy, the Royal Historical Society, the Society of Antiquaries and the Learned Society of Wales, and has won awards for teaching and research.

He has lectured all over the world, authored twenty books and ninety-six essays, appeared in or presented scores of television and radio programmes, and sits on the editorial boards of six journals concerned with the history of religion and magic.

He is currently working on the third volume of his biography of Oliver Cromwell. 

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/god-pan

Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham's mission, please consider making a donation: https://gresham.ac.uk/support/

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Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/oQeUePfTrEQ

The Royal Historical Society Colin Matthew Memorial Lecture.

In April 1945, British forces liberated the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and arrested its commandant, Josef Kramer. What followed was the first post-war trial for war crimes - a landmark event that captured the world’s attention. Although later eclipsed by the Nuremberg Trials, the Belsen Trial marked a pivotal moment in confronting Nazi atrocities and establishing a framework for justice after the Holocaust.

For Lord Daniel Finkelstein, the story of Belsen is deeply personal. Among those imprisoned and starved in the camp were his mother and grandmother - his grandmother did not survive. In this lecture, Lord Finkelstein will recount the story of the Belsen Trial, exploring how it brought the horrors of the concentration camps to light and how it continues to shape his understanding of law, justice, and moral responsibility.

This lecture was recorded by Lord Daniel Finkelstein on the 4th of November 2025 at Barnard’s Inn Hall, London.

Daniel William Finkelstein, Baron Finkelstein, OBE (born 30 August 1962) is a British journalist, author, political advisor and politician. He is a former executive editor of The Times, where he remains a weekly political columnist, and has been a regular columnist at The Jewish Chronicle since 2010. Finkelstein was formerly an advisor to Prime Minister John Major and leader of the Conservative Party William Hague. Since 2013 he has sat as a Conservative Peer of the House of Lords.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/minor-criminal

Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham's mission, please consider making a donation: https://gresham.ac.uk/support/

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China has important islands of technological excellence, even dominance, but these islands exist in a sea of macroeconomic imbalances and headwinds. Xi Jinping is adamant that by focusing on technology, and other aspects of national security, China can hold sway in the global system and determine global governance. Many western economists and even some in China are not so sure, choosing to wonder if the government has the political capacity to address deep-seated economic problems.

This lecture was recorded by George Magnus on the 3rd of November 2025 at Barnard’s Inn Hall, London.

George Magnus is a Research  Associate at the China Centre, Oxford University, and at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, a Member of the China Foresight Forum at LSE IDEAS, and an advisory board member of the China Observatory, a non-partisan initiative at the Council on Geostrategy. 

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/china-economics

Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham's mission, please consider making a donation: https://gresham.ac.uk/support/

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We often talk about living on a blue planet, but when we think we’re talking about the ocean we’re generally only discussing what’s in it: fish, whales, pollution and ships. But that is to miss the biggest story on Earth, because it’s the water itself that sets the scene for everything else. This lecture will outline how the ocean engine works – its internal anatomy, how the components move, and how this engine has directly influenced our history and culture.

This lecture was recorded by Professor Helen Czerski on the 30th of October 2025 at Bernards Inn Hall, London

Dr Helen Czerski is a physicist and oceanographer with a passion for science, sport, books, creativity, hot chocolate and investigating the interesting things in life. 

She is an Associate Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at University College London and her research focus is the physics of breaking waves and bubbles at the ocean surface. These bubbles change underwater sound and light, help transfer gases from ocean to atmosphere (helping the ocean breathe) and also eject ocean material into the air. She has spent months working on research ships in the Antarctic, the Pacific, the North Atlantic and the Arctic, and is an experienced field scientist. 

Helen has been a regular science presenter on the BBC for 15 years, covering the physics of the natural world in BBC2 landmark documentaries (including ‘Orbit’, ‘Operation iceberg’ and ‘Supersenses’), and the physics of everyday life in a range of BBC4 documentaries (including ‘From ice to fire: The incredible science of temperature’, ‘Sound waves: The symphony of physics’, and ‘Colour: The spectrum of science’, along  with many others). She currently co-hosts BBC Radio 4’s flagship climate and environment programme Rare Earth. 

Helen's first book Storm in a Teacup won the Italian Asimov Prize and the Louis J. Battan Author prize from the American Meteorological Society. Blue Machine won the Wainwright Prize for Conservation Writing. She was awarded the Institute of Physics Gold Medal in 2018 for her work on physics communication, and an Honorary Fellowship of the British Science Association in 2020. She has been a Trustee of Royal Museums Greenwich since 2018, and was one of the 2020 Royal Institution Christmas Lecturers, giving her Lecture on the topic of the ocean. 

The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/liquid-engine

Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today

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Do animals make music? Are the languages of whales and birds truly songs? To answer this, we must first understand what we mean by music as human animals—and how it might emerge across the animal kingdom. From Messiaen’s transcriptions of bird calls to the rhythmic gaits of horses echoing in the blues, we’ll hear how animal behaviours form an unwitting orchestra and explore whether music is uniquely human or a shared language with our animal cousins.

This lecture was recorded by Milton Mermikides on the 29th of October 2025 at LSO St Luke’s, London

Milton Mermikides is a composer, guitarist, technologist, academic and educator in a wide range of musical styles and has collaborated with artists and scientists as diverse as Evelyn Glennie, Tim Minchin, Pat Martino, Peter Zinovieff, John Williams and Brian Eno. Son of a CERN nuclear physicist, he was raised with an enthusiasm for both the arts and sciences, an eclecticism which has been maintained throughout his teaching, research and creative career. 

He is a graduate of the London School of Economics (BSc), Berklee College of Music (BMus) and the University of Surrey (PhD). He has lectured, exhibited and given keynote presentations at organisations like the Royal Academy of Music, TEDx, Royal Musical Association, British Library, Smithsonian Institute and The Science Museum and his work has been featured extensively in the press. His music, research and graphic art are published and featured by Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Deutsche Grammophon, Sony and more, and he has won awards, scholarships and commendations for writing, teaching, research and his charity work.      

Milton is Professor of Music at the University of Surrey, Professor of Guitar at the Royal College of Music, Deputy Director of the International Guitar Research Centre, an Ableton Certified Trainer, and lives in London with his wife, the guitarist Bridget Mermikides and their daughter Chloe. He is also a Vice-Chair of Governors at Addison Primary School, a state school which foregrounds music education, offering free instrumental lessons for all on Pupil Premium. 

The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/music-animals

Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today

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