Gresham College Lectures

Eradicating an infectious disease for all time is one of the greatest gifts a generation can give to all subsequent ones. To date only one human disease, smallpox, has been eradicated, with two more (polio and Guinea worm) being tantalisingly close. Several other major diseases are talked about as eradication targets. Eradicating diseases is however very difficult for scientific but also political reasons. Many eradication attempts have been tried and failed. This lecture will examine the opportunities and difficulties of eradication.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-eradication-of-infectious-diseases

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege
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George VI was the unexpected king. https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/king-george-vi

As the second son of George V, he had no reason to believe, until less than a month before his accession, that he would succeed to the throne. He reigned in an atmosphere of almost perpetual crisis - confrontation with the dictators, war, decolonisation and the difficult economic problems of the immediate postwar years. His human qualities reinforced the spirit of social solidarity which helped Britain to victory in war and recovery in peace.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/king-george-vi

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

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The annual consumption of electricity in the UK is 300 TWh https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/energetic-mathematics
It is supplied over a complex network starting, usually, with power being generated at a power station. This is then transmitted over a high voltage network, before being reduced in voltage and distributed to commercial, industrial and residential consumers. Mathematics is vital in ensuring that the lights stay on as the planners of the grid need to solve non-linear differential-algebraic equations to work out how much electricity can be generated, distributed and stored. These challenges will increase in the future.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/energetic-mathematics

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

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The use of experts in the family courts can make a significant difference to outcomes. https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/expert-witness-a-zero-sum-game

The debate about the use of experts in court cases reflects the conflicted stance society takes on the emotive issue of child protection. It is a gross injustice to the child and parent for social workers, backed by ‘expert’ opinion, to wrongly remove children but it is equally unacceptable for vulnerable children to be left at home to suffer abuse.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/expert-witness-a-zero-sum-game

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

Frost's line, 'I found a dimpled spider... holding up a moth like a white piece of rigid satin cloth' exploits simile. But how can a moth be like cloth? What does likening one material, the fragile, semi-transparent wing of a moth, to a woven fabric, stimulate in the reader's mind.

This is one of a number of examples that will be explored with a view to refining our understanding of similie.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-poetry-of-robert-frost-the-power-and-intrigue-of-simile

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

The use of experts in the family courts can make a significant difference to outcomes. https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/expert-witness-a-zero-sum-game

The debate about the use of experts in court cases reflects the conflicted stance society takes on the emotive issue of child protection. It is a gross injustice to the child and parent for social workers, backed by 'expert' opinion, to wrongly remove children but it is equally unacceptable for vulnerable children to be left at home to suffer abuse.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/expert-witness-a-zero-sum-game

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

Support the show

Long before there were stars, there was the stuff that stars are made of. https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/observing-the-dark-ages

This era of the universe is called the dark ages, when the universe was transparent before the galaxies formed. Peering back in time with the largest telescopes reveals younger and younger galaxies ad the time when there were no galaxies and no stars. For the first 380,000 years of cosmic history, the universe was dense and opaque. All was dark - a dense fog, dominated by an impenetrable mixture of radiation and matter. Looking forward from the Big Bang, the fog lifted as the universe cooled, resulting in a race to detect the state of the universe in the dark ages.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/observing-the-dark-ages

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

Frost's line, 'I found a dimpled spider... holding up a moth like a white piece of rigid satin cloth' exploits simile. But how can a moth be like cloth? What does likening one material, the fragile, semi-transparent wing of a moth, to a woven fabric, stimulate in the reader's mind.

This is one of a number of examples that will be explored with a view to refining our understanding of similie.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-poetry-of-robert-frost-the-power-and-intrigue-of-simile

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

Support the show

Faced with escalating population pressure and new construction technologies, western architects are designing cities in the skies, and under the sea. If built, these will sit alongside older metropolitan areas such as London, Tokyo and Shanghai, where more and more people are squeezing into built-up areas. The era of ‘megacities’ is already with us, and the pace of development is escalating. But how can and will people live in these places, and what are the challenges of managing their living environments to ensure that they are fed, have water to drink, clean air to breathe, and can dispose of their waste? Are we facing a utopian or dystopian urban future?

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-environmental-challenges-of-mega-cities

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

As the year 2000, 'Y2K' - approached, many feared that computer programs storing year values as two-digit figures (such as 99) would cause problems. There is a widespread belief that the millennium bug was a myth, invented by rapacious consultants as a way to make money. What was the truth? What, if anything, happened? Have we learnt all the right lessons?

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/what-really-happened-in-y2k

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege