Gresham College Lectures

Mars has changed since it formed 4.6 billion years ago. When life started on Earth ~4 billion years ago, Mars was habitable too, with volcanism, a magnetic field, surface water and a thick atmosphere. Today, Mars is cold and dry, with a thin atmosphere and harsh surface.

In this lecture Professor Andrew Coates will discuss the search for life beyond Earth on our closest target, using the Rosalind Franklin rover.

A lecture by Andrew Coates 23 September

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/mars

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

Following the Beagle voyage, Darwin settled down to a quiet married life, relying on correspondence to gather facts.

He wrote thousands of letters as he gathered facts to support his still-secret theory.

Long before anyone had heard of evolution, Darwin produced four enormous books on barnacles, which helped establish his credentials (even his most committed opponents acknowledged that he couldn't be ignored). And the books were also Darwin's attempts to answer some complex questions about sex that will recur throughout the lectures.

A lecture by Jim Endersby 5 October

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

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 lecture by Joanna Bourke 8 October

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

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 Efficient Market Hypothesis argues that stock markets are rational – they take into account all relevant information, and incorporate it in an unbiased way.

This talk will present evidence that stock prices are instead driven by human psychology. The market overreacts to some types of information yet underreacts to others; it is driven by emotions rather than purely economic fundamentals.

The lecture gives profitable trading strategies that investors can use to exploit these biases.

A lecture by Alex Edmans 22 September

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/market-psychology

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

We all need experts for things we can’t do ourselves. And we are all on a path to becoming expert ourselves, whatever our areas of interest. But what does it mean to be expert?

In his new book Expert: Understanding the Path to Mastery (Viking Penguin, 2020), Roger Kneebone explores these challenges. You can buy the book from Waterstones here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/expert/roger-kneebone/9780241392034

This lecture summarises Roger’s insights from his own experience as a clinician, his decades-long collaborations with extraordinary experts, and his Gresham Lecture series Performing Medicine, Performing Surgery.

A lecture by Roger Kneebone 30 September

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/expert

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

This lecture will focus on human rights and the wrongs of unexpected and/or sudden deaths in which the state is implicated.

It will cover the importance of a proper death investigation, the impact on the family and state, how Magna Carta influences death investigations 800 years on, and current trends and statistics in state deaths.

How does the state show it cares when deaths occur? Does the state learn lessons? How can the bereaved move on?

A lecture by Leslie Thomas QC 1 October

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

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

We all need experts for things we can't do ourselves. And we are all on a path to becoming expert ourselves, whatever our areas of interest. But what does it mean to be expert?

In his new book Expert: Understanding the Path to Mastery (Viking Penguin, 2020), Roger Kneebone explores these challenges. You can buy the book from Waterstones here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/expert/roger-kneebone/9780241392034

This lecture summarises Roger's insights from his own experience as a clinician, his decades-long collaborations with extraordinary experts, and his Gresham Lecture series Performing Medicine, Performing Surgery.

A lecture by Roger Kneebone 30 September

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

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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2020 marks the 25th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre and the Dayton Accords resolution of the first two (Croatia and Bosnia) of the three Balkan wars of the 1990s.

In examining the legacy of this conflict, Professor Nice will consider documents newly-released by the UK and US governments.

Did the UK and US know what was coming and fail to act? Was the massacre the result of cold blooded politics that was never acknowledged?

A lecture by Geoffrey Nice QC 29 September

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

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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From The Merchant of Venice to The Taming of the Shrew, it’s easy to see how Shakespeare’s plays can cause offence to contemporary audiences. Is it harder to teach Shakespeare today than in the past? Have ideas about what is offensive in Shakespeare changed over time?

In this lecture, a team of Shakespeare scholars will look at the challenges and opportunities of teaching, editing and staging Shakespeare in our current ‘age of offence’.

A lecture by Adam Hansen and Monika Smialkowska 21 September

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/offensive-shakespeare

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

This illustrated lecture will cover Newton's life and his mathematical and scientific labours in the context of 17th-century England, and feature his childhood in Lincolnshire, his university career in Cambridge and his later life in London as Master of the Royal Mint and President of the Royal Society.

This lecture marks the launch of a Pitkin Guide on Isaac Newton.

A lecture by Robin Wilson and Raymond Flood 28 September

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

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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In which years does February have five Sundays? How many right-angled triangles with whole-number sides have a side of length 29? How many shuffles are needed to restore the order of the cards in a pack with two Jokers? Are any of the numbers 11, 111, 1111, 11111, . . . perfect squares? Can one construct a regular polygon with 100 sides if measuring is forbidden? How do prime numbers help to keep our credit cards secure?

These are all questions in number theory, the branch of mathematics that's primarily concerned with our counting numbers, 1, 2, 3, etc. Of particular importance are the prime numbers, the 'building blocks' of our number system.

The subject is an old one, dating back to the ancient Greeks, and for many years has been studied for its intrinsic beauty and elegance, not least because several of its challenges are so easy to state that everyone can understand them, and yet no-one has ever been able to resolve them.

This lecture situates the above problems and puzzles in their historical context, drawing on the work of many of the greatest mathematicians of the past, such as Euclid, Fermat, Euler and Gauss. Indeed, as Gauss, sometimes described as the 'Prince of Mathematics', has claimed: Mathematics is the Queen of the Sciences, and Number Theory is the Queen of Mathematics.

A lecture by Robin Wilson 28 September

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

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