Gresham College Lectures

The Hubble Space Telescope is rapidly approaching its 30th birthday, and we will explore some of the amazing insights it has provided on the beauty of our universe and our place in it. But as it approaches retirement, its replacement, the James Webb Space Telescope is under construction.

The speaker is a space scientist who has worked on the Webb’s instruments; she will take the audience on a tour of both systems, showing how they can give us an understanding of the life cycle of our universe right back to the Big Bang.

A lecture by Maggie Aderin-Pocock 4 February

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

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/webb-vs-hubble

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

Europe's Wars of Religion were fought against entire populations, and were punctuated by events remembered as atrocities: such as the siege of Leiden in 1573-4 or, most notoriously, the St Bartholomew's Day Massacres in France in 1572.

This lecture will ask how these events came to be so notorious, how and why they were remembered on each side, and how they shaped the history of civil conflict and ideas of coexistence and nationhood in the societies that endured them.

A lecture by Alec Ryrie 5 February

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

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

More council houses were built in Britain than any other country in the 20th century. By the 1970s, one in three households were council tenants. Yet after 1980 £100bn worth of council housing was sold off. How did this expansion come about, what changed – and what lasting effects did the rise and fall of council housing have on our politics, society and economy?

Is it now time to reconsider our attitude to public housing?

A lecture by Steve Schifferes 3 February

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

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

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

Albert Einstein’s mind-boggling ideas revolutionized our view of the universe. From relativity to curved spacetime, from the Big Bang to black holes and gravitational waves, nothing could be further from our everyday experience than such esoteric concepts, right? Wrong!

This lecture will offer a surprising exploration of the wide-ranging consequences of Einstein’s ideas, and how they shape our everyday lives.

A lecture by Roberto Trotta 3 February

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

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

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

Advances in medicine allow us to sustain life for longer, but at what cost and at whose choice? Why might the court intervene when a devout Jehovah Witness parent refuses a life-saving blood transfer to their child?

Where does religious devotion end and unsafe thought begin? What about cultural and spiritual beliefs that clash with UK ‘norms’? Has the law has kept up with the changing society it regulates?

A lecture by Jo Delahunty 30 January

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

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/law-changes-in-society

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 Hubble Space Telescope is rapidly approaching its 30th birthday, and we will explore some of the amazing insights it has provided on the beauty of our universe and our place in it. But as it approaches retirement, its replacement, the James Webb Space Telescope is under construction.

The speaker is a space scientist who has worked on the Webb's instruments; she will take the audience on a tour of both systems, showing how they can give us an understanding of the life cycle of our universe right back to the Big Bang.

A lecture by Maggie Aderin-Pocock 4 February

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

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

More council houses were built in Britain than any other country in the 20th century. By the 1970s, one in three households were council tenants. Yet after 1980 £100bn worth of council housing was sold off. How did this expansion come about, what changed - and what lasting effects did the rise and fall of council housing have on our politics, society and economy?

Is it now time to reconsider our attitude to public housing?

A lecture by Steve Schifferes 3 February

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

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

Albert Einstein's mind-boggling ideas revolutionized our view of the universe. From relativity to curved spacetime, from the Big Bang to black holes and gravitational waves, nothing could be further from our everyday experience than such esoteric concepts, right? Wrong!

This lecture will offer a surprising exploration of the wide-ranging consequences of Einstein's ideas, and how they shape our everyday lives.

A lecture by Roberto Trotta 3 February

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

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

Advances in medicine allow us to sustain life for longer, but at what cost and at whose choice? Why might the court intervene when a devout Jehovah Witness parent refuses a life-saving blood transfer to their child?

Where does religious devotion end and unsafe thought begin? What about cultural and spiritual beliefs that clash with UK 'norms'? Has the law has kept up with the changing society it regulates?

A lecture by Jo Delahunty 30 January

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

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

The shapes of the orbits of many planets and comets orbiting their mother-ship stars are well known to be circles or ellipses (an idea that was explained by Isaac Newton). But we now understand that, depending on the history and the energy of the orbiting system, other geometric shapes are possible and indeed frequently observed.

This talk will explore how simple changes to the circumstances can make dramatic differences to the shapes of the orbits, all of which belong to a special family of shapes known as the conic sections.

A lecture by Katherine Blundell 29 January

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

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/shapes-of-freefall

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