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Royal Institution Christmas Lectures 2016 - BBC Four


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Old 01-01-2017, 21:35
jonbwfc
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I wonder why he was chosen then. You can never tell these days.
I for one resent that implication. Without knowing the selection procedure, it's pretty much impossible to know why he was chosen. We don't even know, for example, whether it's a gig you apply for or are invited to do.

Myself, I suspect there's some sort of panel within the RI that decides what the topic for this year's lectures are going to be, then they look for UK academics who are known in the field and ask them if they'd be interested. Maybe they end up with a short list that they then screen test with?

but that's just conjecture. If anyone does know, I'd be interested to find out.
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Old 01-01-2017, 21:40
gomezz
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Would be better to canvass the usual academic institutions for proposals for a suitable topic from an acknowledged expert. Like a research grant application if you like but with different criteria used to decide which one to run with.
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Old 01-01-2017, 22:54
lundavra
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Would be better to canvass the usual academic institutions for proposals for a suitable topic from an acknowledged expert. Like a research grant application if you like but with different criteria used to decide which one to run with.
I would think it would be better to get a recommendation after an academic is seen doing a lecture, presentation or whatever and being to get over complicated subjects to a mixed ability audience rather than looking for some knowledgeable on a subject then see if he is a good talker. There are a lot more clever scientists than scientists who can do a good lecture, in many ways the ability to talk is more important than being an expert researcher.

Perhaps one year they should try a professional TV science presenter rather than an academic? There will be moans but who cares if they can get the subject over to the audience.
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Old 02-01-2017, 00:03
Brian The Dog
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I would think it would be better to get a recommendation after an academic is seen doing a lecture, presentation or whatever and being to get over complicated subjects to a mixed ability audience rather than looking for some knowledgeable on a subject then see if he is a good talker. There are a lot more clever scientists than scientists who can do a good lecture, in many ways the ability to talk is more important than being an expert researcher.

Perhaps one year they should try a professional TV science presenter rather than an academic? There will be moans but who cares if they can get the subject over to the audience.
That has always been the case: Many people may have knowledge but that doesn't mean they are good at communicating that to others. Good teachers on the other hand have the skill to communicate and will ask the right questions from the expert to get the knowledge that they wish to pass on.
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Old 02-01-2017, 00:07
gomezz
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Are we seeing the consequences of research grants and university posts being conditional on the academic doing some teaching even if they are patently not up to it?
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Old 02-01-2017, 00:22
lundavra
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Are we seeing the consequences of research grants and university posts being conditional on the academic doing some teaching even if they are patently not up to it?
Nothing new about that, just finished reading a book by Professor Hanbury Brown. He says he did not like teaching and wanted to concentrate on research but had to negotiate a special deal where he did not do any teaching. I think that was the 1950s, perhaps 1960s.
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Old 02-01-2017, 02:59
Andy_JS
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Off topic: the 1977 and 1978 lectures are available on the RI website but not most of the others since then. I think it's a pity that all of them since the 1970s aren't available in some place or other. Incidentally, I've got the 1997 lectures on videotape somewhere, I'll have to dig it out.
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Old 02-01-2017, 09:02
steveOooo
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Well yes and no in no particular order:

With electric cars the BIG MAJOR problem has always been how to get more bang out of the battery without adding weight. (Like adding more batteries as you end up getting nowhere that way.) Whilst they have made some improvements in that field, they have hit a brick wall and can't seem to get over that big problem at the moment.

Soooooo the only way to make electric cars viable is to try a reduce the amount of power they need to draw to do the work. Of course, again there is only so far you can go with that at the moment as well.

What is needed therefore is a type of energy that produces far more power than is weighs. Something like cold fusion.

Same with a mobile phone: Screens are getting bigger and need more power to run them and yet even with modern batteries they still need to take up most of the phone case. If you invented a battery a tenth of the size you could then have ten times the power for the same size of battery we have today. So you could power larger screens or run you phone for longer.
Don't tell apple that, we will have invisible phones 'we made it so thin and revolutionary, you can't even see it'
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Old 02-01-2017, 09:14
Brian The Dog
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Don't tell apple that, we will have invisible phones 'we made it so thin and revolutionary, you can't even see it'
Well apple have always been an "Emperor's New Clothes" type of company so teenies will still buy the invisible phone that they simply must have and gets them more sex.

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Old 02-01-2017, 09:19
njp
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Off topic: the 1977 and 1978 lectures are available on the RI website but not most of the others since then. I think it's a pity that all of them since the 1970s aren't available in some place or other. Incidentally, I've got the 1997 lectures on videotape somewhere, I'll have to dig it out.
The 1974 lectures are certainly there, because I started watching them (having first watched them as a child). Quite interesting how Laithwaite directly tackles the criticism he received as a result of a lecture he had given at the RI shortly before his Christmas lectures. As a child, I of course hadn't realised how far from mainstream science he was straying. Quite edgy stuff, compared with today's anodyne offerings. Although Laithwaite was mistaken in some of his beliefs, his lectures were still compelling viewing.
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Old 02-01-2017, 10:11
i4nic8
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really well come you don't get any from working-class areas??
There's nowhere to put all the ferrets
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