Royal Institution Christmas conferences

Year Speaker/s Title of the series Title of the lesson Net 1966 Eric Laithwaite The Engineer in Wonderland ^[14] 1. The White Rabbit

2. Only the Grin was Left

3. The Caucus Race

4. Curiouser and Curiouser

5. If only I were the right size to do it

6. It’s the Oldest Rule in the Book

BBC Two 1967 Richard L. Gregory The Intelligent Eye ^[15] 1. Ancient Eyes and Simple Brains

2. Learning to See Things

3. Playing with Illusions

4. How Illusions Play Games with Us

5. Human Eyes in Space

6. The Future-Machines that See?

1968 Philip Morrison Gulliver’s Laws: The Physics of Large and Small ^[16] 1. The World of Captain Gulliver

2. Meat and Drink Sufficient…

3. A Prodigious Leap?

4. Lilliput and Brobdingnag since the Industrial Revolution

5. Dwarf and Giant Numbers

6. Beyond the Map

1969 George Porter Time Machines ^[17] 1. In the Beginning…

2. Clockwork Harmony

3. The Tick of the Atom

4. Big Time, Little Time

5. Faster, Faster

6. To the Ends of Time

1970 John Napier Monkeys Without Tails: A Giraffe’s Eye-view of Man ^[18] 1. Man has a very short neck and no tail

2. Man comes in several different sizes and shapes

3. Fancy having to climb trees in order to eat

4. Man chooses a sensible place to live at last

5. Why choose to walk on two legs when it is much safer on four?

6. What’s the idea of shooting at us?

1971 Charles Taylor Sounds of Music: The Science of Tones and Tune ^[19] 1. Making and Measuring the Waves

2. From Small Beginnings

3. Growing and Changing

4. Craftsmanship and Technology

5. On the Way to the Ear

6. The End of the Journey

1972 Geoffrey G. Gouriet Ripples in the Ether: The Science of Radio Communication ^[20] 1. How It All Began

2. Getting Rid of the Wires

3. The Sound of Broadcasting

4. Pictures With and Without Wires

5. But Electrons aren’t Coloured!

6. Vision of the Future

1973 David Attenborough The Language of Animals 1. Beware!

2. Be Mine

3. Parents and Children

4. Simple Signs and Complicated Communications

5. Foreign Languages

6. Animal Language, Human Language

1974 Eric Laithwaite The Engineer Through the Looking Glass 1. Looking Glass House

2. Tweedledum and Tweedledee

3. Jam Yesterday, Jam Tomorrow

4. The Jabberwock

5. The Time has come the Walrus said

6. It’s my own Invention

1975 Heinz Wolff Signals from the Interior 1. You as an engine

2. Pumps pipes and flows

3. Spikes and waves

4. Probes, sondes and sounds

5. Looking through your skin

6. Signals from the mind

1976 George Porter The Natural History of a Sunbeam ^[21] 1. First Light

2. Light and Life

3. A Leaf from Nature

4. Candles from the Sun

5. Making Light Work

6. Survival Under the Sun

1977 Carl Sagan The Planets 1. The Earth as a Planet

2. The Outer Solar System and Life

3. The History of Mars

4. Mars before Viking

5. Mars after Viking

6. Planetary Systems Beyond Our Sun

1978 Erik Christopher Zeeman Mathematics into Pictures 1. Linking and Knotting

2. Numbers and Geometry

3. Infinity and Perspective

4. Games and Evolution

5. Waves and Music

6. Catastrophe and Psychology

1979 Eric M. Rogers Atoms for Engineering Minds: A Circus of Experiments ^[22] 1. Getting to Know Atoms

2. Molecules in Motion

3. Electrified Atoms

4. Atoms that Explode

5. Atoms and Energy

6. Seeing Atoms at Last

1980 David Chilton Phillips

with Max Perutz in Lecture 5

The Chicken, the Egg and the Molecules 1. What are chickens made of?

2. Machine tools of life

3. Muscle power

4. Eggs, genes and proteins

5. Haemoglobin: the breathing molecule

6. Molecules at work

1981 Reginald Victor Jones From Magna Carta to Microchip ^[23] 1. Principles, Standards and Methods

2. The Measurement of Time

3. More and More About Less and Less

4. Onwards to the Stars

5. Measurement and Navigation in War

6. Some Impacts of Measurement on Life: And Can We Take it too Far?

1982 Colin Blakemore Common Sense ^[24] 1. Making Sense

2. The Sound of Silence

3. The Sixth Sense – and the Rest

4. Show Me the Way to Go Home

5. Long live the difference

6. Enchanted Loom

1983 Leonard Maunder Machines in Motion ^[25] 1. Driving Forces

2. Gathering Momentum

3. Vibration

4. Under Control

5. Fluids and Flight

6. Living Machines

1984 Walter bods The Message of the Genes ^[26] 1. We’re All Different

2. The Spice of Life

3. Genetic Engineering

4. Bodies and Antibodies

5. Normal Cells and Cancer Cells

6. When Will Pigs Have Wings?

1985 John David Pye Communicating ^[27] 1. No Man is an Island

2. Animal Talk

3. The Bionic Bat

4. The Pace of Technology

5. The Integrated Body

6. Computers

1986 Lewis Wolpert Frankenstein’s Quest: Development of Life ^[28] 1. First Take an Egg…

2. The Medium and the Message

3. The Right Stuff

4. Genes and Flies

5. Chain of Command

6. Growing Up and Growing Old

1987 John Meurig Thomas and David Phillips Crystals and Lasers 1. Introducing the characters

2. The architecture of crystals

3. Semiconductors, superconductors and catalysts

4. Constructing a laser

5. Applications of lasers

6. Crystals, lasers and the human body

1988 Gareth Roberts The Home of the Future ^[29] 1. Appliance Science

2. Home, Safe Home

3. Electronics for Pleasure

4. Home, Smart Home

5. Mixers, Meters and Molecules

1989 Charles Taylor Exploring Music ^[30] 1. What Is Music?

2. The Essence of an Instrument

3. Science, Strings and Symphonies

4. Technology, Trumpets and Tunes

5. Scales, Synthesisers and Samplers

1990 Malcolm Longa Origins ^{[thirty first]} 1. The Grand Design

2. The Birth of the Stars

3. The Origin of Quasars

4. The Origin of the Galaxies

5. The Origin of the Universe

1991 Richard Dawkins Growing Up in the Universe 1. Waking Up in the Universe

2. Designed and Designoid Objects

3. Climbing Mount Improbable

4. The Ultraviolet Garden

5. The Genesis of Purpose

1992 Charles J. M. Stirling Our World Through the Looking Glass 1. Man in the Mirror

2. Narwhals, Palindromes and Chesterfield Station

3. The Handed Molecule

4. Symmetry, Sensation and Sex

5. In the Hands of Giants

1993 Frank Close The Cosmic Onion 1. A is for Atoms

2. To the Centre of the Sun

3. Invaders from Outer Space

4. Anti-Matter Matters

5. An Hour to Make the Universe

1994 Susan Greenfield Journey to the Centre of the Brain ^{[32] [33]} 1. The Electric Ape

2. Through a Glass Darkly

3. Bubble Bubble Toil and Trouble

4. The Seven Ages of the Brain

5. The Mind’s I

1995 James Jackson Planet Earth, An Explorer’s Guide 1. On the Edge of the World

2. Secrets of the Deep

3. Volcanoes: Melting the Earth

4. The Puzzle of the Continents

5. Waterworld

1996 Simon Conway Morris The History in our Bones ^[34] 1. Staring into the Abyss

2. The Fossils Come Alive

3. The Great Dyings: Life after Death

4. Innovations And Novelty

5. Feet on the Ground, Head in the Stars: The History of Man

1997 Ian Stewart The Magical Maze 1. Sunflowers and Snowflakes

2. The Pattern of Tiny Feet

3. Outrageous Fortune

4. Chaos and Cauliflowers

5. Fearful Symmetry

1998 Nancy Rothwell Staying Alive 1. Sense and Sensitivity

2. Fats and figures

3. Chilling out

4. Times of our lives

5. Pushing the limits

1999 Neil F. Johnson Arrows of Time ^[35] 1. Back to the Future

2. Catching the Waves

3. The Quantum Leap

4. Edge of Chaos

5. Shaping the Future

2000 Kevin Warwick Rise of the Robots ^[36] 1. Anatomy of an Android

2. Things That Think

3. Remote Robots

4. Bionic Bodies

5. I, Robot

Channel 4 2001 John Sulston The Secrets of Life ^[37] 1. What is life?

2. How do I grow?

3. What am I?

4. Can we fix it?

5. Future of life?

2002 Tony Ryan Smart Stuff ^[38] 1. The Spider that Spun a Suspension Bridge

2. The Trainer That Ran Over The World

3. The Phone that Shrank the Planet

4. The Plaster that Stretches Life

5. The Ice Cream that Will Freeze Granny

2003 Monica Grady Voyage in Space and Time ^[39] 1. Blast Off

2. Mission to Mars

3. Planet Patrol

4. Collision Course

5. Anybody Out There?

2004 Lloyd Peck Antarctica ^[39] 1. Ice People

2. Ice Life

3. Ice World

2005 John Krebs The Truth About Food 1. The ape that cooks

2. Yuck or yummy?

3. You are what you eat

4. When food goes wrong

5. Food for the future

Channel Five 2006 Sautoy Marcus The Num8er My5teries ^[40] 1. The curious incident of the never-ending numbers

2. The quest to predict the future

3. The story of the elusive shapes

4. The case of the uncrackable code

5. The secret of the winning streak

2007 Hugh Montgomery Back from the Brink: The Science of Survival 1. Peak Performance

2. Completely Stuffed

3. Grilled and Chilled

4. Fight, Flight and Fright

5. Luck, Genes and Stupidity

2008 Christopher Bishop Hi-tech trek 1. Breaking the Speed Limit

2. Chips with Everything

3. The Ghost in the Machine

4. Untangling the Web

5. Digital Intelligence

2009 Sue Hartley The 300-Million-Year War 1. Plant Wars

2. The Animals Strike Back

3. Talking Trees

4. Dangerous to Delicious

5. Weapons of the Future

More4 2010 Mark Miodownik Size Matters 1. Why Elephants Can’t Dance but Hamsters Can Skydive

2. Why Chocolate Melts and Jet Planes Don’t

3. Why Mountains Are So Small

BBC Four 2011 Bruce Hood Meet Your Brain ^[41] 1. What’s in your head?

2. Who’s in charge here anyway?

3. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

2012 Peter Wothers The Modern Alchemist 1. Air: the elixir of life

2. Water: the fountain of youth

3. Earth: the philosopher’s stone

two thousand and thirteen Alison Woollard Life Fantastic 1. Where do I come from?

2. Am I a Mutant?

3. Could I live forever?

2014 Danielle George Sparks will fly: How to Hack your Home 1. The light bulb moment

2. Making contact

3. A new revolution

2015 Kevin Fong How to survive in space 1. Lift off!

2. Life in Orbit

3. The next frontier

2016 Saiful Islam Supercharged: Fuelling the future 1. Let there be light!

2. People Power

3. Fully charged

2017 Sophie Scott The Language of Life 1. Say it with Sound

2. Silent Messages

3. The Word

2018 Alice Roberts

Aoife McLysaght

Who am I? ^[42] 1. Where Do I Come From?

2. What Makes Me Human?

3. What Makes Me, Me?

2019 Hannah Fry Secrets and Lies: The Hidden Power of Maths ^[43] 1. How to Get Lucky

2. How to Bend the Rules

3. How Can We All Win?

2020 Christopher Jackson

Helen Czerski

Nine is

Planet Earth: A user’s guide ^[44] 2021 Jonathan van-tam Going viral: How Covid changed science forever ^[45]