In every financial transaction, one side has more information than the other. For example, when someone buys a used car, the seller will know better than the buyer whether the car is a plum or a lemon. Does more information leave you better off?

One of the fascinating ideas behind the concept of asymmetric information is that more information can lead to you being actually worse off.

This lecture was recorded by Raghavendra Rau on 20th May 2024 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London

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

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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This lecture explores the very limits of music: investigating historical efforts to catalogue musical materials including the melacarta of Carnatic music, the wazn of Arabic maqam, Slonimsky’s Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns, Schillinger’s Encyclopedia of Rhythms, Forte numbers, and contemporary attempts to ‘pre-copyright’ every possible melody yet to be written.

It also tackles the bigger questions: how much music might exist, whether it ever will be exhausted, and if there are any boundaries of our musical perception and imagination.

This lecture was recorded by Milton Mermikides on 16th May 2024 at LSO St Luke's Church, London

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

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/

Website:  https://gresham.ac.uk
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Starring in My Fair Lady (1956), The Sound of Music (1965) and Cinderella (1957) gave Dame Julie Andrews unparalleled profile.

These were among the most successful Broadway, Hollywood and TV musicals of their time. Yet following this golden decade, she made few films and appeared in no Broadway shows during her forties and fifties, typically an artist’s most productive period.

How did she then become one of the most revered female stars of the late twentieth century?

This lecture was recorded by Dominic Broomfield-McHugh on 2nd May 2024 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London

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

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/

Website:  https://gresham.ac.uk
Twitter:  https://twitter.com/greshamcollege
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Weather and climate-related events can cause significant mortality and disability.

Sudden cold, heat, storms and floods all present risks to health, especially to the most vulnerable. Even in countries with temperate climates like the UK, weather-related deaths can be in the thousands, for example cold snaps causing cardiovascular deaths. In countries with more extreme weather this can be much greater. Some can cause major social disruption.

This lecture considers how weather events cause harm to health, and our countermeasures.

This lecture was recorded by Professor Sir Chris Whitty on 14th May 2024 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London

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

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/

Website:  https://gresham.ac.uk
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In this lecture I will show you some mathematical illusions: “proofs” that 1=0, that fractions don’t exist, and more. There are curious and important implications behind what’s going on.

These “proofs” reveal some very common logical slips that can go unnoticed when we are trying to prove more plausible statements. And the stakes are high. As I’ll show you, once you have “proved” one false claim, you can prove absolutely any statement at all.

This lecture was recorded by Sarah Hart on 14th May 2024 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London

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

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/

Website:  https://gresham.ac.uk
Twitter:  https://twitter.com/greshamcollege
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Evolution has led from amoebae to blue whales and from algae to giant redwoods. 

So what might it do in the future? What species might evolve in the next ten million years? How will evolutionary processes change as a result of human innovation and what are the risks of us getting it disastrously wrong? What might evolution look like if we ever set up home on another planet, or if inhabitants of other planets arrive here?

This lecture was recorded by Robin May on 8th May 2024 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London

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

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/

Website:  https://gresham.ac.uk
Twitter:  https://twitter.com/greshamcollege
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Come take a ride in the Tech Time Machine and explore how IT may change our lives in the next fifty years. By employing techniques used by science fiction writers, we can imagine how Artificial Intelligence, extended reality, mobile connectivity, quantum computing, and others will develop.

How will they converge, enable and accelerate each other? We can anticipate the opportunities and challenges technology may bring. Why should we fear disruption? Should we instead embrace it?

This lecture was recorded by Dr Victoria Baines on 7th May 2024 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London

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

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/

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

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What makes a piece of music challenging, bland, intriguing, beautiful or ugly?

This lecture explores the concept of ‘musical flavour’ formed by intervallic, rhythmic and timbral components and how they contribute to a sense of consonance and dissonance.

In particular we look at the interval vector, a system by which harmonic objects are analysed as a series of ‘handshakes’ between pitches, providing a measure of harmonic ‘bite’. The ‘Hendrix chord’ is used as a case study of such harmonic flavour.

This lecture was recorded by Milton Mermikides on 25th April 2024 at LSO St Luke's Church, London

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

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/

Website:  https://gresham.ac.uk
Twitter:  https://twitter.com/greshamcollege
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Boyajian's star, a faint and unprepossessing presence in the constellation of Cygnus, attracted astronomers' attention when it began to flicker alarmingly.

We will discuss explanations for its behaviour, from disintegrating comets to alien megastructures, and consider how modern astronomy hunts for the truly unusual objects in the Universe.

For this task, the involvement of large numbers of volunteers - citizen scientists - is essential, for example via the Zooniverse platform, which invites you to participate in classifying galaxies and discovering planets.

This lecture was recorded by Chris Lintott on 29th April 2024 at Conway Hall, London

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

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/

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

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This lecture makes a survey of learned ceremonial magic in Europe throughout history and demonstrates that both of the customary claims made for it by practitioners since the Middle Ages are actually correct: that there is a continuous tradition of it and that it is ultimately derived from ancient Egypt.

In doing so, it also shows what is distinctive about Western magic.

This lecture was recorded by Ronald Hutton on 24th April 2024 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London

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

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/

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

Support the show