The Royal Society - Video Podcasts

Mary Somerville (1780-1872) was a leading mathematician and author of important books on the sciences: it was in connection with a review of one of these that the term "scientist" first appeared in print. This talk examines her career in relation to debates about the role of women in the making of knowledge and her vision of science in furthering the progress of civilisation and empire.

In early modern England, alchemical practitioners employed a range of strategies to win the trust and support of powerful, even royal, patrons: from the preservation of health with potent elixirs, to the resolution of England's bullion shortage through mass production of transmuted gold.

The Great Exhibition of 1851 has routinely been portrayed as a celebration of science, technology, and manufacturing. However, for many contemporaries-including Prince Albert-it was a deeply religious event. In analysing responses to the Exhibition, we shall examine the complex and fascinating relations between science, technology and religion at the start of the high Victorian period.

The architect John Soane became an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1795, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1796 and, finally, a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1821. All three were then housed in Somerset House. Soane was an avid collector and enthusiastic auto-didact, and the world of these learned societies, their libraries and museums, was the one in which he felt most at home. This talk will explore the influences upon Sir John Soane as he transformed his own house at 13 Lincolns Inn Fields into a museum, a process finalised by a private Act of Parliament passed in 1833.

It is commonly assumed that what little scientific advance there might have been in the Middle Ages was held back by the power of the Church. But, in fact, there was important progress in science and technology during the medieval period. And the influence of the Church was generally positive even if it imposed strict limits beyond which philosophers should not tread.

In this talk, Adam Feinstein will describe two fascinating journeys of discovery: his travels around the world for his new book, speaking to the key pioneers in the history of autism - including close colleagues and relatives of Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger - to investigate how the concept of the condition has evolved over the past 75 years; and his own remarkable personal voyage of understanding through his autistic son, Johnny.

For the great theoretical physicist Paul Dirac, the importance of mathematical beauty was 'like a religion'. Although his first papers on quantum mechanics showed an acute aesthetic awareness, he first set out his principle of mathematical beauty only in 1939, a decade after he did his best work. In this talk, Farmelo will discuss the origins of Dirac's aesthetic sensibility and take a look at the extraordinary personality of the physicist Niels Bohr once called 'the strangest man'.

"I do not agree with sex being brought into science at all. The idea of 'woman and science' is completely irrelevant. Either a woman is a good scientist, or she is not." So declared Hertha Ayrton over a hundred years ago - but she was unable to become a Fellow of the Royal Society because she was married. How has the past affected present attitudes towards women in science? Dr Patricia Fara, Clare College, Cambridge

In 1945, the Royal Society needed a new President to succeed Sir Henry Dale. The debate about who it should be turned into a clash between competing visions of the Society should be doing in the postwar world.

The Accounts addressing the recent history of British evolutionary science have not yet fully benefited from research using archives held at British Library, including the papers of John Maynard Smith FRS

The Royal Society has a long tradition of sponsoring scientific expeditions to all parts of the world. Although less famous than James Cook's 18th century voyages, a number of expeditions were mounted in the 20th century to places such as Antarctica, the Solomon Islands, Brazil, and Aldabra Atoll.

The early Fellows of the Royal Society were convinced that their research would be of great benefit to mankind-but their contemporaries were not so sure. This talk will discuss some of the jokes, ballads and poems written in response to the activities of the Royal Society in the seventeenth century.

An introduction to the early photographic collections of the Royal Society. This talk will explore the extensive collection of photographic portraits of key scientists and look at how it all began

Henry Baker (1698-1774) microscopist and son-in-law of Daniel Defoe was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1740 and adecade later he played a prominent part in the foundation of the Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (known since 1908 as the Royal Society of Arts)

In the days before writing, storytellers used the sky as a picture book to illustrate their tales of gods, mythical heroes and fabulous beasts. Those pictures among the stars were the origin of our system of constellations. Today, the entire sky is divided into 88 constellations of varying shapes and sizes. This talk, which includes illustrations from some of the greatest star atlases in the world, will trace the origin of the constellation system back to Greek times and explain who filled in the gaps between the ancient Greek figures, who decided on the official boundaries between constellations, and how the names of certain stars came about.