Royal Institution Lectures

Professor Alan Davies celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Maths Masterclasses at the Royal Institution. Broadcast on 6 January 1979, Professor Christopher Zeeman presented the sixth and final Christmas lecture in the series entitled Maths into pictures. The lectures were a phenomenal success and led to the development of a series of masterclasses for young people taking place at the Ri. Professor John Crank chaired the development committee and the first series was planned and went ahead in January 1981 with lectures given by Christopher Zeeman, John Crank and Dr Shaun Wylie. It could not have been known to those three just what they had started; new groups formed outside the Ri and the number of series has steadily increased across the country to about sixty secondary and forty primary groups in 2010. Only available as podcast. So, what is the secret of the success, how have masterclasses developed over the years and what has been their impact? Alan Davies will address these and other questions during this Friday Evening Discourse. In particular, in the spirit of the masterclasses, he will take a variety of topics presented by different lecturers and illustrate how some quite advanced mathematical ideas can be presented to a young audience.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN is the most powerful particle collider ever built and has been described as the world's biggest science experiment. Designed to answer the unknowns in particle physics, including the reason for so little antimatter in the universe and the exact locations of dark matter and the missing Higgs particle, the LHC is capable of recreating the conditions that were in existence one fraction of a second after the Big Bang. Tara takes the stage at The Royal Institution to reveal what has been discovered at the LHC since its first year of operation.

Professor Chris Bishop, presenter of the 2008 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, gives a family lecture on the history of the modern firework. Through demonstrations of pyrotechnic chemistry hear how Chinese incendiaries made from honey led to the development of gunpowder; discover how the loud bangs of fireworks are routed in the origins of photography; and find out how an accident in a nineteenth-century kitchen sparked a new chemistry for firework making.

Are we moving increasingly closer towards a benevolent society? Steven Pinker talks about his latest work, 'The Better Angels of our Nature’.

Professor Chris Bishop, presenter of the 2008 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, leads us through a spectacular tour of the curious, and sometimes surprising, world of chemistry.

Your brain may look like a big walnut, but it has the ability to create an almost unlimited stream of images, thoughts, memories and dreams. Undoubtedly the most complex material in the universe, and yet it's just a collection of simple cells. Join Bruce Hood as he gets under your skull and takes a peek inside. What do brainwaves look like? How fast is a neuron? Why does your brain create its own version of reality? Bruce uses technology to measure brain activity and follow eye movement, build a virtual brain out of audience volunteers and play some guessing games with your mind. In the process, he shows how everything you perceive is just an interpretation of the nerve impulses that your brain receives – which isn't really that much.

Who's in control – you or your brain? Your conscious thoughts are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to all the activity going on inside your head. Every minute your brain is bombarded with information – sights, sounds, smells, feelings – and you are aware of only a tiny fraction of it. How does your brain decide what to trust and what to ignore, all without you even knowing? What sneaky shortcuts does it take to speed up your mental ability? Why is multi-tasking so dangerous? Using some surprising illusions and lots of audience participation, Bruce Hood makes you say the wrong thing and fail to see what's right in front of you. Can you really believe your eyes? Possibly not!

Have you ever seen a face in a piece of burnt toast? Why are our brains so obsessed with people-patterns? It's not just other humans either, your brain likes to give a personality to anything that shows a hint of character; whether it's your teddy bear, your pet fish or even your car. Yet there are elements of being human that prove virtually impossible to recreate artificially. Can a robot ever fall in love? With sensors to measure our response to some revealing live demonstrations, Bruce Hood looks at what makes the human brain so special and how it is built to read other people's minds. Why do you feel pain when somebody else gets hurt? What attracts you to another person? Are your eyes a window to your soul?