The Perfect Theory: A Century of Geniuses and the Battle over General Relativity

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TORCH | The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities

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A discussion exploring Pedro Ferreira's book

Pedro Ferreira (Professor of Astrophysics, University of Oxford) discusses his book 'The Perfect Theory: A Century of Geniuses and the Battle over General Relativity' with Harvey Brown (Professor of Philosophy of Physics, University of Oxford), Alex Butterworth (Historian and Author of The World That Never Was: A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists and Secret Agents) and Javier Lezaun (James Martin Lecturer in Science and Technology Governance, University of Oxford). Chaired by Xenia de la Ossa (Reader in Mathematics, University of Oxford).

The book is the first complete popular history of the theory of general relativity, showing how it has informed our understanding of exactly what the universe is made of and how much is still undiscovered: from the work of the giant telescopes in the deserts of Chile to our newest ideas about black holes and the Large Hadron Collider deep under French and Swiss soil.

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TORCH | The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities

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Department: The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH)

Date Added: 16/03/2015

Duration: 00:38:32

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Humanities and Science: Culture and Technology

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TORCH | The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities

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An interdisciplinary discussion exploring culture’s interaction with technology

Dr Maria Blanco (Associate Professor in Spanish) examines how the question of culture’s interaction with technology gets interesting—not to say sticky—when we broaden our scope beyond the confines of Western Europe and the United States to encompass other parts of the world. In response, Professor Fritz Vollrath (Academic Research Leader, Zoology and Head of the Oxford Silk Group) looks at the history of spider silks, Professor Andrew Wilson (Head of the School of Archaeology and Professor of the Archaeology of the Roman Empire) considers technology and cultural change in Roman Britain, and Professor Lionel Tarassenko (Head of Engineering, University of Oxford) brings us back to the twenty first century.

The discussion is chaired by Professor Gregory Radick (Professor of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Leeds and Director, Leeds Humanities Research Institute).

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TORCH | The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities

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Department: The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH)

Date Added: 16/03/2015

Duration: 00:50:59

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Observing by Hand: Sketching the Nebulae in the Nineteenth Century

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TORCH | The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities

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A discussion of Omar Nasim's book

Dr Omar Nasim (lecturer in history at the University of Kent) discusses his book with Dr Stephen Johnston (Assistant Keeper, Museum of the History of Science), Professor Martin Kemp (History of Art, University of Oxford) and Professor Chris Lintott (Astrophysics, University of Oxford).

The book sheds entirely new light on the ways in which the production and reception of handdrawn images of the nebulae in the nineteenth century contributed to astronomical observation. Omar W. Nasim investigates hundreds of unpublished observing books and paper records from six nineteenth-century observers of the nebulae: Sir John Herschel; William Parsons, the third Earl of Rosse; William Lassell; Ebenezer Porter Mason; Ernst Wilhelm Leberecht Tempel; and George Phillips Bond. Nasim focuses on the ways in which these observers created and employed their drawings in data-driven procedures, from their choices of artistic materials and techniques to their practices and scientific observation. He examines the ways in which the act of drawing complemented the acts of seeing and knowing, as well as the ways that making pictures was connected to the production of scientific knowledge.

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TORCH | The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities

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Department: The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH)

Date Added: 16/03/2015

Duration: 00:41:45

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'Explosions' part 2 - The origin of animal diversity

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Big Questions - with Oxford Sparks

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Dr Allison Daley describes what fossils can tell us about the Cambrian Explosion; a period of time 540 million years ago, where there was a vast increase in the different types of animals that existed.

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Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK (BY-NC-SA): England & Wales; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

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Big Questions - with Oxford Sparks

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Allison Daley

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palaeontology

fossils

anomalocaridids cambrian

Department: Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences (MPLS)

Date Added: 16/03/2015

Duration: 00:11:26

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Oxford University International Women's Day 2015

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TORCH | The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities

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Feminists, acadeamics and journalists reflect on feminism's achievements and future path.

Melissa Benn (author of What Should We Tell Our Daughters?), Trudy Coe (Head of Oxford University's Equality and Diversity Unit), Caroline Criado-Perez (feminist campaigner and journalist) and Imaobong Umoren (DPhil Candidate, University of Oxford) discuss feminism and the state of women's rights.

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TORCH | The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities

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Caroline Criado-Perez

Imaobong Umoren

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feminism

women's rights

international women's day

Department: The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH)

Date Added: 16/03/2015

Duration: 00:35:12

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Wayne McGregor: Neuroscience and Dance

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TORCH | The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities

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Wayne McGregor (Director, Random Dance) talks about his choreographic practice with Dr Phil Barnard, (MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge) and Eckhard Thiemann (Arts Producer).

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TORCH | The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities

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Department: The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH)

Date Added: 16/03/2015

Duration: 00:44:57

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The Higgs Boson and Particle Physics at the LHC: a Progress Report and Plans for the Future

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Oxford Physics Public Lectures

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Physics Colloquium 13th February 2015 Deliverd by Daniela Bortoletto

The QCD axion was proposed more than thirty years ago to explain the smallness of the electric dipole moment of the neutron and has been looked for ever since. It is an excellent dark matter candidate and its size is significantly larger compared to the elementary particles of the Standard Model: it can easily vary from tens of microns to thousands of kilometers. When its size is similar to that of astrophysical black holes, it binds to them forming a gravitational atom in the sky. The number of axions occupying the levels of this gravitational atom can grow exponentially around rapidly rotating black holes through an effect that is known as super-radiance. This growth slows the black hole down and a Bose Einstein Condensate of axions is formed orbiting the black hole. Just like a laser, this BEC emits gravitational waves as axions can annihilate or transition to different levels of this gravitational atom. These gravitational waves fall within the frequency range of the upcoming Advanced LIGO experiment. Through super-radiance, black holes are thus turned into cosmic particle detectors through the only universal force: gravity.

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Oxford Physics Public Lectures

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Department: Department of Physics

Date Added: 16/03/2015

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Science with a crowd: The Zooniverse from Galaxy Zoo to LSST

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Oxford Physics Public Lectures

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Physics Colloquium 30th January 2015 delivered by Chris Lintott

The Zooniverse is the world’s largest and most successful scientific crowdsourcing platform, engaging more than a million volunteers in tasks including classifying galaxies, discovering planets and mapping star formation in the Milky Way. This talk will present highlights from the last six years, including the serendipitous discovery of galaxy-scale light echoes, and explain how an unusual set of bulgeless spiral galaxies identified by Galaxy Zoo volunteers is informing models of galaxy formation and feedback. The talk will also set out the future for this massively distributed effort in the world of future facilities such as the LSST and SKA, discuss differences between humans and machines, and include at least two images of penguins.

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Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK (BY-NC-SA): England & Wales; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

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Oxford Physics Public Lectures

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mapping star formation

Department: Department of Physics

Date Added: 16/03/2015

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Colours from Earth: preparing for exo-earth characterisation

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Oxford Physics Public Lectures

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Physics Colloquium 6th March 2015 deliverd by Robert Fosbury

Having orchestrated and obtained the Voyager 1 spacecraft’s 1990 “Portrait of the Planets”, which looked back some 6.1 billion km towards its launch site, Carl Sagan coined the iconic name the “Pale Blue Dot” for our home planet. Since that time, nearly 2000 extrasolar planets have been discovered and, due to the developing sensitivity of the discovery methods, an increasing fraction of these are classified as ‘terrestrial’ and a few even reside within the habitable zone around their parent star. We can anticipate the time, perhaps with the next generation of telescopes on the ground and in space, that we can find and begin to investigate a planet that resembles Earth: “Earth’s twin”. Until then, we can hone our observational strategies by observing the Earth itself as an exoplanet and, along the way, see our world from a more holistic standpoint. There are ways in which we can exploit our moon as a proxy observer to gain some very practical experience.