The Science Festival provides the public with opportunities to explore and discuss issues of scientific interest and concern and to raise aspirations by encouraging young people to consider a career in science, technology, engineering or mathematics.

Each year, the Festival welcomes visitors to hundreds of events and receives extensive national and local media coverage. Over 170 event coordinators organise talks, interactive demonstrations, hands-on activities, film showings and debates with the assistance of around 1,000 staff and students from departments and organisations across the University and research institutions, charities and industry in the eastern region. In addition, over 150 people volunteer their time to act as stewards to ensure visitors have a safe and enjoyable Festival experience.

http://www.sciencefestival.cam.ac.uk/

Cambridge Science Festival 2016

Podcasts

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Richard Grisenthwaite, Lead Architect and Fellow at ARM, talks about how the ARM architecture and the computing ecosystem it enables has changed in the 25 year history of ARM Ltd. Aimed at a technical audience, this talk looks at how the architecture has been influenced, sometimes in unexpected ways, by the changing environment and fashions, of the computing industry. It draws out some general lessons of the process of balancing the developments in hardware and software learnt from the progression of ARM to be one of the most popular architectures in the world. 

A history of the ARM architecture, and the lessons learned while building it

Do you think you make rational decisions? Think again... Ginny Smith turns your understanding of your brain upside down - and may even improve your decision-making! We'll be asking you to take part in some 'tricks of the mind' so please bring along an Internet-enabled device so you can play along with the show.


Your irrational brain: how we really make decisions

Your iTunes playlist may reveal more about you than you think. Science shows that the music we choose to listen to is not random. In fact, there is evidence that both our musical taste and abilities are tied to our personality and the way that we think. Dr David Greenberg explores how our preferences for musical genres and attributes map onto five different personality traits and three thinking styles. 

What does your musical taste say about your personality?

Can we build a machine that can solve any problem? How can we break a code others believe unbreakable? Why do leopards have spots and zebras stripes? These questions were all answered by Alan Turing. Mathematician James Grime explores Turing's childhood fascination with maths and how it led to the breaking of the infamous Enigma cipher. Including a demonstration of an original WWII Enigma Machine! 

Alan Turing and the Enigma Machine

While mathematicians are undoubtedly brilliant, there are still questions they can't answer. Every mathematical question is a puzzle and there'll be plenty of puzzles to chew on while mathematician Katie Steckles introduces questions that still leave mathematicians stumped, from simple-sounding number and shape problems to mind-bending fundamental questions. 

Maths' greatest unsolved puzzles

Our multimedia producer Sara Levine chats with Robin Hanson, author of The Age of Em; Robert Repino, an editor in OUP’s Reference Department and author of Mort(e) from SoHo Press; Maggie Boden, author of AI: Its Nature and Future; and Steve Furber, Editor-in-Chief of The Computer Journal. Together, they explore the dichotomy between what is expected of artificial intelligence in the future and what is actually happening in the field today—including the use of AI to solve climate change and disease diagnosis issues and to provide us with better insight into the human mind. 

Music: Filaments by Podington Bear is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Podington_Bear/Inspiring/Filaments

© Oxford University Press

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Artificial Intelligence – Episode 35 – The Oxford Comment

On @designmatters, Debbie Millman interviews the celebrated writer and philosopher Alain De Botton about love, life, and everything in between.

Follow @designmatters for more invigorating conversations with artists, writers, designers, and other creative thinkers.

Background, context, and highlights: https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/06/27/alain-de-botton-the-course-of-love/

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Design Matters: Alain De Botton

A record number of Cambridge academics took part in this year’s Hay Festival, one of the most prestigious literary festivals in the world. This was the eighth year running that the Series has formed part of the Festival. It featured a range of speakers, from experts on climate change, robotics, maternal health and risk to Classics, European politics, nuclear power, playfulness in education and digital media. The Series is part of the University of Cambridge’s commitment to public engagement. The Hay Festival ran from 26th May to 5th June 2016.

Susan Gathercole: Working memory in the here and now

Hannah Critchlow: Explore your mind

This episode of the Oxford Comment is the second in our two-part series in conjunction with the Benezit Dictionary of Artists. We resume our roundtable conversation at the New York office with artist Robert Whitman, Benezit Editor in Chief, Dr. Kathy Battista, and Experiments in Art and Technology Director Julie Martin, to discuss many of E.A.T.’s noteworthy and laudable undertakings. To learn more, our multimedia producer, Sara Levine, also interviews Dr. Julia Robinson, a Grove Dictionary of Art contributor and professor of Art History at New York University, about E.A.T.’s role in the development of the performance art medium in New York in the 1960s and 1970s. 

Music: Filaments by Podington Bear is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Podington_Bear/Inspiring/Filaments

© Oxford University Press

Learn more

Experiments in Art and Technology – Episode 37 – The Oxford Comment

Looking Deeply (Digitally Remastered) is a selection of talks by Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh offered during meditation retreats throughout North America. In these lectures, Thay, as his followers call him, talks about mindfulness within the context of the social and political issues of our time. Although these talks were recorded in 1987, the messages they bring us are still highly relevant today. The full download is available through BetterListen! at https://www.betterlisten.com/products/looking-deeply-by-thich-nhat-hanh

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Looking Deeply with Thich Nhat Hanh preview 1

Looking Deeply with Thich Nhat Hanh preview 2

Yale University professor Milette Gaifman discusses her new book, The Art of Libation in Classical Athens in a Yale University Press podcast interview.

Libations of Classical Athens

A look inside the human brain with neuroscientist David Linden who helps explain some of its mysteries.