Gresham College Lectures

Discussion of Britain’s imperial past is increasingly bifurcated along populist ‘good’ and ‘bad’ narratives. An account of the UK’s colonial legacy through the prism of urban history allows for a more nuanced and reflexive critique of Empire. The rise and fall of the British Empire will be discussed through the history of ten cities, exploring how their architectural, planning, and commercial history elucidates their place within the imperial story.

The Royal Historical Society / Gresham College Annual Colin Matthew Memorial Lecture

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/ten-cities-that-built-an-empire-understanding-british-imperialism-through-the-urban-past

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 1,900 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

Recent developments in space technology have allowed us to view the Earth in new ways, and to identify our impact on land, atmosphere, oceans and freshwater in astonishing detail. Our planet's fragility as a life support system is being revealed today in ways that would not have been anticipated even twenty years ago.

The lecture will explore some of the science behind these observations, show a range of the curious and beautiful imagery being generated, and ask questions about the opportunities and risks of this type of environmental surveillance.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/scratching-the-surface-looking-from-space-at-human-impact-on-earth

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 1,900 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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Supermassive black holes lurk in the very centres of galaxies. The Milky Way has a central black hole of four million solar masses. Today it is quiescent. But we have reason to believe that millions of years ago it was active. Traces of exploded debris are seen around our galactic centre that arose in a violent explosion some tens of millions of years ago. Most galaxies have massive central black holes, in some cases weighing billions of solar masses. These once were the sites of the most energetic phenomena in the universe, that astronomers recognise as quasars. I will describe feeding the monster within: the rise of the quasars, and how supermassive black holes formed long ago. These immensely luminous objects in the nuclei of galaxies were active when the universe was young. Current data suggests that supermassive black holes formed along with the first galaxies. The ultimate window on building massive black holes is gravity waves, and I will describe gravity wave experiments being planned to search for traces of the formation of such black holes.

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

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 1,900 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

Professor Jo Delahunty QC offers an inside perspective of the family justice system and discusses some of the issues family courtrooms deal with http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/sex-death-and-witchcraft-what-goes-on-in-the-family-court-room

Think of family and what comes to mind? At best, a family united by children, love, partnership; At worst: the death of love, divorce, parents feuding over money and children. But what of the situation where the dispute is not between partners but The State and The Family? A child may be removed because professionals fear that they may suffer, no longer protected by parents but at risk from them.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/sex-death-and-witchcraft-what-goes-on-in-the-family-court-room

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

The heart beats continuously to sustain life. Its basic rhythm is well known, and has been used as a soundtrack to evoke romance, tension and horror. In this lecture, Professor Elliott will describe how the rhythm is generated. With the help of a percussionist (Nick Buxton of La Shark) and a dancer, he will demonstrate the evocation of those emotions, and what happens when the rhythm of the heart goes awry.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-rhythm-of-life-the-beat-and-dance-of-the-heart

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 1,900 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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Professor Christopher Page looks at the early Christians singing and illustrates it with performances by the world-renowned tenor Christopher Watson http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-music-of-the-first-christians

Early in the second century a Roman governor interrogated a group of Christians to satisfy himself that they had not offended against his recent edict banning clubs that might acquire a political slant. The Christians told him that they said that they convened before dawn on Sundays, when they were accustomed to sing a hymn of praise, and that they met subsequently to share a common meal. Perhaps to confute the rumour that they and their co-religionists indulged in cannibalism, the prisoners insisted that they ate perfectly innocent food when they gathered. Like many others in the first and second centuries, the governor thought the Christians very strange. So they were in many respects, but they were not so strange that they repudiated the use of ritual song. We begin our survey with the music of the first Christian communities.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-music-of-the-first-christians

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

A gentle introduction to Einstein's General Theory of Relativity will discuss the curvature of space that gives rise to 'Gravity' and Gravitational Lenses. Experiments since 1915 have been undertaken to test its accuracy with recent observations by Jodrell Bank astronomers having shown that Einstein's theory must be at least 99.95% right. The first direct detection of the gravitational waves produced when two black holes merged in the far Universe has helped to show that his theory is still unchallenged.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/proving-einstein-right

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 1,900 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

In this first lecture, economic performance will be considered in terms of income and productivity growth, prior to and following the recession. We shall examine the so-called "productivity puzzle" and explore the possible explanations and solutions.

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

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 1,900 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

Narrative, the way a tale is told, is less straightforward than we might suppose. Austen handles irony brilliantly and systematically exploited new ways of narrating, including free indirect discourse.

This lecture explores why Austen's way of narrating are so compelling.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/jane-austen-persuasion-irony-and-the-mysterious-vagaries-of-narratives

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 1,900 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

Mathematics has played a vital role in the development of human civilisation, and is the foundation of much of modern technology and popular culture. However, the achievements of mathematics and mathematicians are often unknown or misunderstood. The contribution of mathematicians over the centuries will be celebrated, showing how mathematical ideas have huge relevance today - varying between Maxwell and the mobile phone, Florence Nightingale and modern statistics, Pythagoras and the development of music, Euclid and art, Euler and Facebook, and Cayley and Google. Even basic mathematics can make a profound difference to our lives.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/what-have-mathematicians-done-for-us

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 1,900 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