#christmas lectures
1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, who do we appreciate? Fibonacci, because it’s #FibonacciDay(11/23)
0 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 89 144 233 377 610 987 1597 2584 4181 6765 10946 17711 28657 46368 75025 121393 196418 317811 514229 832040 1346269 2178309 3524578 5702887 922746 etc to infinity… ∞
You find this number sequence and associated golden ratio/spiral peppered throughout nature. But the sequence was perhaps first noticed around 200 BC in relation to patterns in poetry, by Pingala. It was developed in Indian mathematics and introduced to Europe in 1202 by Fibonacci - so really we should call it #PingalaDay.
Click here for a brilliant off-the-shelf Primary mathematics Masterclass on Fibonacci sequences from our #RiMasterclassesteam.
Use it to explore ways of spotting patterns and finding rules, by mathematically modelling a population of rabbits and finding that [spoiler alert] Fibonacci sequence springs up!
#FibonacciConfirmed
For more watch this clip from the #xmaslectures archive - Prof Ian Stewart explains how you can find the golden angle in nature, and how it’s formed
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James Dewar was born #OnThisDay in 1842.
The Scottish chemist and physicist co-directed the Davy-Faraday Research Lab at the Ri from the end of the 19th Century. He is best known for inventing the Dewar flask aka vacuum flask aka Thermos.
Though he sadly didn’t profit from its widespread popularity, as he didn’t patent his invention before Thermos started using the design ()
Dewar’s flask aided his work into the liquefaction of then-so-called permanent gases like hydrogen and helium, as he could work at temperatures close to absolute zero ❄️
Whilst at the Ri he built machinery to yield high quantities of liquid oxygen, and showed that liquid oxygen and liquid ozone are attracted to the poles of a magnet
Watch our liquid oxygen magnetism demo here ➡ https://youtu.be/rz57PJToGEs
Dewar created liquid hydrogen for the first time in 1898, solid hydrogen in 1899, and he attempted to create liquid helium in the early 20th century
Click through an interactive version of this photo for a deeper look at his lecture on liquid hydrogen…
He also gave 9 series of Christmas Lectures for children! On topics ranging wide from ‘A Soap Bubble’ to 'The Story of a Meteorite’ to 'The Chemistry of Light and Photography’.
What a guy. Happy Birthday James Dewar
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Big news!
The 2018 CHRISTMAS LECTURES will be presented by Alice Roberts, biological anthropologist, broadcaster and Professor of Public Engagement in Science at the University of Birmingham.
We’re 99.4% the same as the next person yet 100% unique. In ‘Who am I?’, Alice will take us on a fascinating journey to answer this fundamental question of life.
Click here for the whole story so far: http://www.rigb.org//christmas-lectures/2018-who-am-i?utm_source=tumblr&utm_medium=social
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A lion cub and a room full of children - what could possibly go wrong? This photo is from Julian Huxley’s 1937 Christmas Lectures ‘Rare Animals and the Disappearance of Wild Life’
Julian Huxley was born on this day in 1887. A passion for evolutionary biology clearly ran in the family - he was the grandson of Thomas Henry Huxley, AKA ‘Darwin’s Bulldog’ for his staunch and loyal support of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection.
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We’ve just uploaded a new archive Christmas Lectures series to the website! Click here to watch all 6 lectures of Prof RV Jones’ series ‘From Magna Carta to microchip’.
Delivered in 1981, ‘From Magna Carta to microchip’ is devoted to the importance of measurement. Charting through number systems, binary, time and space…
Measuring at the grandest and microscopic scales, RV Jones explores how our human obsession with measuring things has changed the way we think about the Universe.
RV Jones also explores his wartime work as a scientific military intelligence expert, looking at how precise navigation is needed in the air, on land, sea, and nowadays, in space.
This rare series hasn’t been seen publicly since its broadcast in 1981. Watch it for the first time in 37 years on rigb.org
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