Talking Science
July 10, 2020 9:46 AM   Subscribe

The Royal Institution in London has been hosting a series of science lectures. The next two deal with quantum mechanics and space weather respectively. In September it will be the science of fireworks. The lectures, held in the Institution's venerable lecture hall regularly sold out pre-pandemic. These online lectures are donate-what-you-can. Previous lectures covered the mathematics of gambling, black holes, superconductors, the neuroscience of consciousness, science & racism, body illusions, the myth of magenta.....

The Royal Institution was founded in 1799. Michael Faraday and Sir Humphrey Davy gave their lectures there. It has quite an amazing history.
posted by storybored (7 comments total) 21 users marked this as a favorite
 
I was thinking that this sounded inspired by Faraday's public lectures, like the famous one about the chemistry of a candle flame.
posted by thelonius at 10:00 AM on July 10, 2020


"the myth of magenta" is quite a phrase.
posted by doctornemo at 10:03 AM on July 10, 2020 [2 favorites]


You got it Thelonius.

"A Course of Six Lectures on the Chemical History of a Candle...delivered before a juvenile auditory at the Royal Institution of Great Britain during the Christmas Holidays 1860"

It appears that Faraday delivered the most lectures at the Royal Institution.
And I just found this amazing previous thread.
posted by storybored at 4:34 PM on July 10, 2020 [1 favorite]


I recently watched one of these by a guy dressed as Michael Faraday on magnetic monopoles. Which are apparently a thing...kind of.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 5:02 PM on July 10, 2020 [1 favorite]


Looks like I've missed the magenta one, which is a pity, it sounds pretty interesting from just the title.
posted by Fuchsoid at 7:58 PM on July 10, 2020


I have to stop myself from posting a RI link about every other week or so. I recommend everybody just go and subscribe to their YouTube channel for a while.
posted by zengargoyle at 7:47 PM on July 11, 2020


Looks like I've missed the magenta one

Might be region-blocked, but it's showing up in that grid of previous lectures for me in the UK - here's the link. It's a talk from seven years ago.

I actually made it to one of their lectures in person last year. Was planning to do more of that kind of thing this year rather than just going to the pub after work... ah well, YouTube will have to do. Thanks for posting!
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 9:04 AM on July 12, 2020


« Older "Failure to disperse"   |   [Before Carol] People Were Making Change Out of... Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments