Gresham College Lectures Gresham College

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 b...

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...

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 ...

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 ...

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 I...

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...