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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

51:29

The Deceived Brain: Coding and Illusion - Alain Goriely

Gresham College Lectures ·

2025/07/25

We perceive the world through the processing of information given by our senses. Sometimes, this processing is faulty leading to illusions: shapes or sounds that we perceive differently from their physical reality. These illusions have delighted children and scientists alike for centuries. This lecture reveals how simple geometric illusions can be modelled mathematically, based on our understanding on how visual signals are coded and decoded by the brain, leading to a better understanding of ...

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51:28

The Future of Immunity - Robin May

Gresham College Lectures ·

2025/07/22

Our understanding of the human immune system today is vastly different from that of 50 years ago. This knowledge has led to immune-based therapies that would have seemed like science fiction to our grandparents: monoclonal antibodies, T-cell therapies, anti-cancer vaccines, precision immune suppression – the list is endless. In this lecture, we look to the future and ask, “What next for immunity?” This lecture was recorded by Robin May on the 11th of June 2025 at Barnard's Inn Hall, Lo...

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43:03

Climbing Mount Groove: Music and Dance in the Brain -...

Gresham College Lectures ·

2025/07/18

This is the second lecture from the Gresham Festival of Musical Ideas. https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/series/musical-ideas-2025 Why does a rhythm make us tap our feet—or even get up and dance? In conversation with Professor Milton Mermikides, neuroscientist Professor Morten Kringelbach reveals how the brain finds pleasure, meaning, and movement in music. Drawing on extensive brain imaging, analysis and real-world studies, the talk explores how music and dance engage our brain’s predicti...

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49:57

The Evolution of Music - Milton Mermikides and Robin May

Gresham College Lectures ·

2025/07/18

This is the first lecture from the Gresham Festival of Musical Ideas. https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/series/musical-ideas-2025 Musical instruments have been found in the archaeological record from at least 40,000 years ago and despite the diversity of human civilization, we are yet to find a culture which lacks music. Other species also make ‘music’ – from a grasshopper’s chirp to a nightingale’s song – but is human music simply an extension of that evolutionary heritage? What can moder...

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43:44

The Maths of Music (and the Music of Maths) - Milton...

Gresham College Lectures ·

2025/07/18

This is the fourth lecture from the Gresham Festival of Musical Ideas. https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/series/musical-ideas-2025 Professors Sarah Hart and Milton Mermikides reveal the deep connections between music and mathematics. Whether that’s the Euclidean rhythms that shape funky grooves, the set theory that maps every possible chord, or a live rendering of the geometric elegance of Gresham Professor Iannis Xenakis’s algorithmic compositions, this event will reveal how maths can hel...

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43:16

Remixing the Music of the Spheres - Milton Mermikides...

Gresham College Lectures ·

2025/07/18

This is the fifth and final lecture from the Gresham Festival of Musical Ideas. https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/series/musical-ideas-2025 Professors Lintott and Mermikides present and discuss historical and contemporary musical representations of astronomical data including Pythagoras’s parallelism of tuning purity and celestial movement, Plato’s cosmic harmony in Timaeus, Kepler’s representations of orbital eccentricity as musical scales, Herschel’s blending of music and cosmology, and ...

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41:27

The Virtues of Music - Milton Mermikides and Melissa...

Gresham College Lectures ·

2025/07/18

This is the third lecture from the Gresham Festival of Musical Ideas. https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/series/musical-ideas-2025 This dialogue presents the what and why of Ancient Greek music, and its profound role in philosophy, society and the individual. Education without music was an impossibility in ancient Greece; virtue without music, equally so. One scholar (writing in the late twentieth century) compared the pervasive social presence and impact of the medium of mousikē in Ancient...

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46:15

Architecture of Enslavement, Colonialism and...

Gresham College Lectures ·

2025/07/15

Accra’s James Fort is an iconic monument for Ghana and modern Africa. This lecture explores the fort's evolution -from its role as a trading post in the early European-African encounters, through its significance during the trans-Atlantic trade and enslavement, to its later use as a modern colonial prison in the post-independence era. It also explores its connection to Ghana's liberation movement, particularly its role in imprisoning Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and other political leaders during their ...

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47:49

The Operatic Showstopper: ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ -...

Gresham College Lectures ·

2025/07/11

This lecture considers ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ from Carousel (1945). Perhaps Rodgers and Hammerstein’s most operatic song, it was originally written for Metropolitan Opera star Christine Johnson but has gone on to be recorded by artists as diverse as Elvis Presley and Marcus Mumford and sung at both the Last Night of the Proms and Liverpool Football Club. This lecture will include live performances by international soprano and Grammy Award winner Rebecca Evans CBE. This lecture was record...

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48:56

Carbon Takeback: How We Will Stop Fossil Fuels from...

Gresham College Lectures ·

2025/07/08

We have to stop fossil fuels from causing global warming – before the world stops using fossil fuels. There’s only one solution: safe and permanent disposal of one tonne of carbon dioxide for every tonne still generated by burning fossil fuels. But how do we achieve this without overheating the planet or stoking political conflicts? This lecture presents a simple answer: make carbon dioxide disposal a licensing condition of the sale and use of fossil fuels. This lecture was recorded by Myles ...

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50:20

Do Computers Get Sick? How Humans and Computers Fight...

Gresham College Lectures ·

2025/07/04

Whether you are human or computer, viruses can ruin your day, so taking steps to avoid them is important. This lecture will ask whether there are similarities between human immunity and computer immunity? Can we use discoveries in one system to help protect against infections in the other? Might we one day take our laptops for regular vaccinations, or run a ‘software update’ on our own immune systems to avoid an emerging pathogen? This lecture was recorded by Robin May & Victoria Baines ...

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52:12

Illuminating the Dark Side of the Moon - Milton...

Gresham College Lectures ·

2025/07/01

Now over 50 years old, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon remains the perfect example of a concept album. Blending cyclical forms, jazz and modal harmony, experimental electronics, multi-layered guitars, studio techniques and haunting lyrics, this lecture will examine why this album has retained its popularity, critical success, and enduring influence. This lecture was recorded by Milton Mermikides on 12th June 2025 at Rich Mix, London. Milton Mermikides is Gresham Professor of ...

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50:13

Lawgivers in Modern Revolutions - Melissa Lane

Gresham College Lectures ·

2025/06/27

How have lawgivers featured in modern revolutions? This lecture considers key moments in revolutions, including seventeenth-century Britain, eighteenth-century France and (what would become) the United States, and twentieth-century Iran. The appeal to lawgivers (including ancient ones from many cultures) in revolutionary visions and in consolidating new constitutions is a striking feature of modern politics. This lecture was recorded by Melissa Lane on 5th June 2025 at Barnard's Inn Hall, Lo...

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37:23

Taking the Constitution into the Classroom - Clive...

Gresham College Lectures ·

2025/06/24

The U.S. Constitution had to be formed through debate before it could be ratified. Mirroring this, a British constitution must emerge through debates held by the next generation. This lecture indicates schools are a good environment to foster this. For students, there are many contentious issues that tap into discussions at the heart of writing a constitution. Students being punished for swearing raises questions of limits to free speech. Students wishing to intervene when an unpopular peer i...

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44:17

A New Sky - Chris Lintott

Gresham College Lectures ·

2025/06/20

The JWST is the most expensive and powerful telescope astronomers have ever constructed. Its launch in 2021 started a new phase in our exploration of the cosmos, with the observatory's golden mirrors producing instantly iconic images of the Solar System's giant planets, nearby star-forming regions and galaxies, and our distant universe. The lecture includes the latest news from its studies of the early universe, a place lit up by what appears to have been a much more spectacular burst of acti...

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68:09

Blind Spots & Bad Decisions: Why We Fall for...

Gresham College Lectures ·

2025/06/17

Why do smart people make dumb financial choices? This lecture explores the surprising link between our psychology and money mistakes. We will see how fear, overconfidence, and even our desire to be liked can cloud our judgment, especially when dealing with financial "experts". Learn how these psychological blind spots worsen conflicts of interest, and how to make smarter financial decisions, free from emotional influence. This lecture was recorded by Raghavendra Rau on 2nd June 2025 at Barna...

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51:53

The Moral Case for Stealing Data - Victoria Baines

Gresham College Lectures ·

2025/06/13

Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/hLBfAVyeMBs Throughout history, authorities have struggled to manage individuals’ urges to speak out against injustice and malpractice. IT has given us new means to obtain and publish data that others may wish to protect or even conceal. To some, those who hack and leak are heroes. To others, they are criminals. In an era of mass leaks and high-profile whistleblowing, who decides whether data thieves and hackers are to be protected or prosecut...

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52:28

From Thin Air: Minimalist and process music from...

Gresham College Lectures ·

2025/06/10

Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/3ntebbsM4Hw This lecture delves into musical forms which rely on the most economical of materials and concepts. From Steve Reich’s adoption of rhythmic cycles and phasing in Ewe drumming to the expressive power of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt’s music, we explore how profound effect can emerge from such apparent simplicity. This lecture unpacks the processes behind celebrated minimalist works and reveals the quiet and elegant mechanisms underpin...

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44:33

Modern Pagan Witchcraft - Ronald Hutton

Gresham College Lectures ·

2025/06/06

This lecture was recorded by Ronald Hutton on 14th May 2025 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London. Ronald is the Gresham Professor of Divinity. He is also Professor of History at the University of Bristol and a Fellow of the British Academy, the Royal Historical Society, the Society of Antiquaries and the Learned Society of Wales. The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/modern-pagan-witchcraft Gresham College has offered fre...

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43:55

From Machiavelli to Nietzsche: How Modern Thinkers...

Gresham College Lectures ·

2025/06/03

Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/VOGzTymAYno For many modern thinkers, the lawgiver has been important as a founder or re-founder of civic identity and cultural values. From Machiavelli on Moses; to Rousseau on Solon, Lycurgus, and the need for a lawgiver to make a true social contract possible; to Nietzsche and his followers seeking a lawgiver who can be also poet and prophet, this lecture will explore the figure of the lawgiver and how it has been a center of debate in mode...

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178 results

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