Gresham College Lectures

Earth is a living planet. But how much life is there, and what is it doing? We will discuss the distribution of biomass on Earth, and compare the effects of microbes, wild animals, domesticated animals. The aim of this lecture is to provide concrete examples of how life is woven in with the rest of the planetary engine, expanding the importance of biodiversity from sentiment alone to a matter of survival for both whole ecosystems and our own civilisation.

This lecture was recorded by Helen Czerski on the 23th of March 2026 at Bernard’s Inn Hall, London

Helen Czerski is a physicist and oceanographer with a passion for science, sport, books, creativity, hot chocolate and investigating the interesting things in life. 
She is a Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at University College London and her research focus is the physics of breaking waves and bubbles at the ocean surface. These bubbles change underwater sound and light, help transfer gases from ocean to atmosphere (helping the ocean breathe) and also eject ocean material into the air. She has spent months working on research ships in the Antarctic, the Pacific, the North Atlantic and the Arctic, and is an experienced field scientist. 
Helen has been a regular science presenter on the BBC for 15 years, covering the physics of the natural world in BBC2 landmark documentaries (including ‘Orbit’, ‘Operation iceberg’ and ‘Supersenses’), and the physics of everyday life in a range of BBC4 documentaries (including ‘From ice to fire: The incredible science of temperature’, ‘Sound waves: The symphony of physics’, and ‘Colour: The spectrum of science’, along  with many others). She currently co-hosts BBC Radio 4’s flagship climate and environment programme Rare Earth. 
Helen's first book Storm in a Teacup won the Italian Asimov Prize and the Louis J. Battan Author prize from the American Meteorological Society. Blue Machine won the Wainwright Prize for Conservation Writing. She was awarded the Institute of Physics Gold Medal in 2018 for her work on physics communication, and an Honorary Fellowship of the British Science Association in 2020. She has been a Trustee of Royal Museums Greenwich since 2018, and was one of the 2020 Royal Institution Christmas Lecturers, giving her Lecture on the topic of the ocean. 

The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/living-planet

Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today
 
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This lecture was recorded by Mieko Kanno on the 5th May 2026 at Barnard’s Inn Hall, London

Mieko Kanno is a violinist and an academic, active in both capacities as Professor of Artistic Research in Music Performance at the Sibelius Academy, the University of the Arts Helsinki. Her main interest concerns artistic musical practice as a field and vocation in contemporary settings, with topics ranging from notation and technology to education. She first came to international attention in the 1980s when she won prizes in international competitions including the Carl Flesch and Queen Elisabeth of Belgium. Later she developed an interest in performing contemporary music and won the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis from the Darmstadt New Music Institute in 1994. Since her doctorate in 2001 she held fulltime positions at the University of Durham and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, alongside a freelance career as contemporary music specialist both in performance and scholarly work.

The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/music-death

Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today
 
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This lecture was recorded by Clive Stafford Smith on the 30th of April 2026 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London

Clive Stafford Smith JD OBE is a dual UK-US national, the founder and director of  the Justice League a non-profit human rights training centre focused on fostering the next generation of advocates. 

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/israel-palestine-law

Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham's mission, please consider making a donation: https://gresham.ac.uk/support/

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Tiling involves filling a plane or space with repeated elements, known as tiles. This simple concept is deeply embedded in the natural world and human design, appearing in structures as varied as the hexagonal wax cells of a beehive and decorative wallpapers. While regular hard tiles—geometric shapes with straight edges that fit together without gaps or overlaps—are common in human-made designs, nature often favours soft or irregular patterns, shaped by physical forces. In this lecture, I will explore how both regular and irregular tiling patterns, hard and soft, emerge in nature and the underlying mathematical principles that govern their formation.

This lecture was recorded by Alain Goriely on the 28th of April 2026

Alain Goriely is a mathematician with broad interests in mathematical methods, mechanics, sciences, and engineering. He is well known for his contributions to dynamical systems, mathematical biology, as well as fundamental and applied mechanics. He is particularly well known for the development of a mathematical theory of biological growth, culminating with his seminal monograph The Mathematics on Mechanics of Biological Growth (2017).
He received his PhD from the University of Brussels in 1994 where he became a lecturer. In 1996, he joined the University of Arizona where he established a research group within the renowned Program of Applied Mathematics. In 2010, he joined the University of Oxford as the inaugural Statutory Professor of Mathematical Modelling and fellow of St. Catherine’s College. He is currently the Director of the Oxford Centre for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.
In addition, Alain has enjoyed scientific outreach based on problems connected to his research, including tendril perversion in plants, twining plants, umbilical cord knotting, whip cracking, the shape of seashells, brain modelling, and he is the author of a Very Short Introduction to Applied Mathematics (2017). His work has been recognized by a Sloan Fellowship, a Royal Society Wolfson Research Award, the Cozzarelli Prize from the National Academy of Sciences and the Engineering Medal from the Society of Engineering Sciences. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2022.

The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/shape-tiles

Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today
 
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This lecture was recorded by Helen Czerski on the 19th of February 2026 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London

Helen Czerski is a physicist and oceanographer with a passion for science, sport, books, creativity, hot chocolate and investigating the interesting things in life. 

She is a Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at University College London and her research focus is the physics of breaking waves and bubbles at the ocean surface. These bubbles change underwater sound and light, help transfer gases from ocean to atmosphere (helping the ocean breathe) and also eject ocean material into the air. She has spent months working on research ships in the Antarctic, the Pacific, the North Atlantic and the Arctic, and is an experienced field scientist. 

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/ground

Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham's mission, please consider making a donation: https://gresham.ac.uk/support/

Website:  https://gresham.ac.uk
Twitter:  https://twitter.com/greshamcollege
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