Christmas At The Royal Institution: An Anthology Of Lectures By M Faraday, J Tyndall, R S Ball, S P Thompson, E R Lankester, W H Bragg, W L Bragg, R L Gregory, And I Stewart

by Frank A J L James

Overview

Since the mid-1820s, a series of lectures has been delivered each year over the Christmas period in the world-famous Faraday Lecture Theatre at The Royal Institution of Great Britain by prominent scientists, addressed specifically to an audience of children. Initially made accessible in book form, the lectures have been nationally televised throughout the UK and distributed worldwide since the 1960s, making them accessible to an even larger audience. The importance of these lectures in promoting science to a broad audience is perhaps best gauged by the fact that an image of one of Faraday's lectures appeared on the Bank of England £20 note in the 1990s.This anthology brings together, for the first time, a carefully chosen selection of 11 lectures from the 1860s to the 1990s. The selection includes lectures by Michael Faraday, arguably the most important and influential 19th-century physicist, and Lawrence Bragg, the youngest ever winner of the Nobel Prize. Through this work, readers will come to grips with the changing nature of popular science lectures over the past 140 years.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789812771094
Publisher:	World Scientific Publishing Company, Incorporated
Publication date:	12/03/2007
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	6.04(w) x 9.03(h) x 0.73(d)

Table of Contents

Preface   Susan Greenfield     v
Acknowledgements     vii
Introduction   Frank A. J. L. James     xi
Biographical Notes on Lecturers     xxvii
The Correlation of the Physical Forces   Michael Faraday     1
Carbon or Charcoal-Coal Gas-Respiration and Its Analogy to the Burning of a Candle-Conclusion   Michael Faraday     17
The Forms of Water in Clouds and Rivers, Ice and Glaciers   John Tyndall     35
Lessons in Electricity   John Tyndall     61
Stars   Robert Stawell Ball     75
Rontgen Light   Silvanus Phillips Thompson     125
The Great Extinct Reptiles-Dinosaurs from the Oolites-The Pariasaurus and Inostransevia from the Trias of North Russia and South Africa-Marine Reptiles   Edwin Ray Lankester     163
The Atoms of Which Things Are Made   William Henry Bragg     199
Our Electrical Supply   William Lawrence Bragg     231
Objects and Pictures   Richard Langton Gregory     287
Gallery of Monsters   Ian Stewart     319
Index     359