Free online lectures from Gresham College

[Bolton Astronomy]

Gresham College is a charity and we have run free public astronomy lectures since 1597. We have two series that we thought you and your members might like to attend online - I have put below the lectures that are taking place up to April 1 - online. We also have a fairly big online archive of lectures you can watch now that may be of interest on the website.

It's very easy to register for these lectures via the webpage using an email address, and you get an email 10 mins before the start time with a link (or you can choose to watch later). 

Cosmic Vision: Unravelling Rainbows

Katherine Blundell, Gresham Professor of Astronomy

Weds 27 Jan 1pm-2pm, watch online (or later - it stays up online)

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/unravelling-rainbows

When light is dispersed into its constituent colours, it can become possible to discern rich dynamical information about an evolving system in space, for example cosmic explosions, collisions or accelerations. 

This lecture explores how such dispersion can be designed to reveal the dynamics of distant worlds.

Neutrino: The Particle That Shouldn't Exist

Professor Roberto Trotta

Mon 1 Feb, 1pm-2pm, watch online (or later - it stays up online)

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/neutrino

In 1930, the great physicist Wolfgang Pauli did something that “no theorist should ever do”: he invented a new particle that he thought nobody could ever detect in order to save the principle of energy conservation in certain radioactive decays he was studying. Pauli’s impossible particle turned out to be real: the neutrino, a particle that one of its discoverers called “the most tiny quantity of reality ever imagined by a human being”.
This lecture will chart the fascinating history and science of neutrinos, from their discovery in 1956 to the role they played in understanding solar physics. We will see that neutrinos are today hunted for in the depths of the Antarctic ice cap, shot through the crust of the Earth and observed in huge water tanks under miles of rock. They are revealing the physics of distant supernovae, helping understand dark matter and might hold the key to the Big Bang itself.

Cosmic Vision: Fast and Furious

Katherine Blundell, Gresham Professor of Astronomy

Weds 3 Mar, 1pm-2pm, watch online (or later - it stays up online)

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/fast-furious

Highly energetic particles from outer space travelling at the speed of light, known as cosmic rays, originate from the sites of extreme particle acceleration in the Universe. This lecture considers just how energetic these rapid particles are, the origins of their extreme energies and the implications for Earth.

Lucia Graves

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