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PODCAST

Gresham College Lectures

Gresham College

Gresham College has been providing free public lectures since 1597, making us London"s oldest higher education institution. This podcast offers our recorded lectures that are free to access from the Gresham College website, or our YouTube channel.

education

All Episodes

36:55

Does the UK Constitution need reform? - Charles...

Gresham College Lectures ·

2024/08/21

The Gray's Inn Reading 2024Does the UK’s constitution provide too much freedom for those that wish to abuse it? Specific examples of this might include Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s lawbreaking during COVID, the selection of Liz Truss as Prime Minister, the ability of the Government to force controversial policies (such as the Rwanda Bill) and the sacking of the Cabinet Secretaries and Permanent Secretaries. Or does the UK constitution, perhaps in contrast to that of the United States and many

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39:34

Plato's Cave: Thinking about Climate Change - Melissa...

Gresham College Lectures ·

2024/08/09

In The Republic, Plato explores the predicament of the Cave: a passive citizen body, a conniving and self-interested set of sophistic opinion-formers and demagogic political leaders, a systematically misleading and damaging order of political structures and common beliefs and appetites.Does this have lessons for tackling climate change? In clinging to our current way of life and its fossil-fuel infrastructure, are we trapping ourselves in a modern version of Plato’s Cave—and if so, how might we

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41:56

The Bloomsbury Group: A Queer History - Nino Strachey

Gresham College Lectures ·

2024/08/02

This lecture will explore the world of the second Bloomsbury generation, delving into the intricacies of being young and queer in the 1920s, and how their open way of living and loving is still relevant to our present day. Lesser known than their predecessors, they continued the celebration of freedom of expression and creativity.The lecture will introduce artists and intellectuals such as Eddy Sackville-West, Stephen Tomlin and Julia Strachey, who led an unapologetic life by pushing gender

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53:24

Are Financial Markets Efficient? - Raghavendra Rau

Gresham College Lectures ·

2024/07/26

One of the crucial ideas in finance is that markets are efficient – that they fully reflect all available information. If so, what about market bubbles?Over the last year, people have been willing to pay exorbitant amounts for extremely odd assets such as Non-Fungible Tokens, meme stocks etc. Why do they do this?This lecture will explore some investors’ systematic behavioural biases, and how these can be used to predict returns.This lecture was recorded by Raghavendra Rau on 10th June 2024 at

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48:48

Witch-Hunting in European and World History - Ronald...

Gresham College Lectures ·

2024/07/22

This lecture confronts the worldwide phenomenon of the persecution of suspected witches, now a serious, contemporary problem condemned by the UN in 2021.It will show what has been unusual about Europe in this global pattern, and why the notorious early modern witch hunts there commenced and ended.This lecture was recorded by Ronald Hutton on 5th June 2024 at Barnard's Inn Hall, LondonThe transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College

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51:09

A Mathematician's View of Proof - Sarah Hart

Gresham College Lectures ·

2024/07/12

The idea of proof is fundamental to mathematics. We could argue that science consists of testable theories, and therefore that it is about what can be disproved, not what can be proved. In law, the test is “beyond reasonable doubt”.Famous conjectures in mathematics have been tested by computers for trillions of numbers – but we still call them conjectures.In this lecture we’ll talk about what mathematicians mean by proof, and I’ll show you some of my favourites.This lecture was recorded by Sarah

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57:20

Experts in politics: Lessons from Socrates and...

Gresham College Lectures ·

2024/07/09

Socrates sought to test the expertise of everyone around him: the bombastic know-it-alls, the bashful youths, the confident generals, those (including the enslaved) with unsuspected mathematical competence, the workaday artisans. Aristotle later explored the ways in which expert claims can be made credible to popular judgement.This lecture considers the role of experts in contributing to public debate in a democracy, bringing Aristotle's work on rhetoric to bear on norms for expert

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59:40

First light: Revealing the Early Universe - Chris...

Gresham College Lectures ·

2024/07/02

The final lecture in the series returns to the theme of how insight is derived from observations, considering the cosmic microwave background.This oldest light in the Universe, emitted just 400,000 years after the Big Bang, contains the seeds of the structures we see around us, and tells us about conditions at the Universe's beginning.It will also consider how measurements of the Universe's expansion, made using the CMB, are leading to unexpected results, creating tension in modern

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70:54

Race, Disability & Education: Law's Uphill Battle -...

Gresham College Lectures ·

2024/06/24

This lecture traces the history of race and disability law in the English education system. It examines the impact of discriminatory policies on Black children, children of colour, and disabled children, and how narratives around race and disability have changed.The lecture questions why inequality persists and explores possible solutions.This lecture was recorded by Leslie Thomas KC on 23rd May 2024 at Barnard's Inn Hall, LondonThe transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham

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52:24

Logarithms: Mobile Phones, Modelling & Statistics?

Gresham College Lectures ·

2024/06/20

Logarithms were perhaps once thought of as just an old-fashioned way to do sums on slide rules. But they underpin much of modern life, from modelling the COVID pandemic to Claude Shannon’s mathematical theory of information (which makes mobile phones a reality) and making sense of Cristiano Ronaldo’s crazy Instagram follower numbers.This lecture will explore the basics and history of logarithms, and then show how they are a natural way to represent many models and datasets.This lecture was recorded

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59:16

A Just and Inclusive Net Zero: Who should get there...

Gresham College Lectures ·

2024/06/17

Eventually, net zero needs to include everyone: for emissions to continue in half the world while the other half mops them up is both unsustainable and unfair. But this does not mean every country should reach net zero at the same time.Historical emitters like the UK should aim for net zero before the world as a whole, but a “staggered net zero” also carries risks for developing countries, lest they are left stranded in the race to a sustainable future.This lecture was recorded by Myles Allen on

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61:22

Asymmetric Information in Finance Explained -...

Gresham College Lectures ·

2024/06/14

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, LondonThe transcript of the

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67:28

Is Music Infinite? - Milton Mermikides

Gresham College Lectures ·

2024/06/12

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

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58:58

Twentieth-Century Divas: Julie Andrews - Dominic...

Gresham College Lectures ·

2024/06/06

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

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54:31

Health after Extreme Cold, Heat, Storms and Floods -...

Gresham College Lectures ·

2024/06/03

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

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63:37

How to Prove 1=0, And Other Maths Illusions - Sarah Hart

Gresham College Lectures ·

2024/05/30

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

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60:07

Evolution Tomorrow and Beyond - Robin May

Gresham College Lectures ·

2024/05/29

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

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63:34

The Next Fifty Years of Tech - Dr Victoria Baines

Gresham College Lectures ·

2024/05/28

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

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57:05

Musical Consonance and Dissonance: The Good, Bad and...

Gresham College Lectures ·

2024/05/24

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

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65:22

Is it Aliens? The Most Unusual Star In The Galaxy -...

Gresham College Lectures ·

2024/05/22

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

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207 results

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