RI Lectures – serie

An exploration of space and time and a journey of discovery, through thirteen of the most fascinating Christmas Lectures given at the Royal Institution of Great Britain over the last 200 years. With a foreword by ESA astronaut Tim Peake.Started at the Royal Institution (RI) in 1825 by Michael Faraday, the Christmas Lectures have been broadcast on television since the 1960s and have formed part of the British Christmas tradition for generations. First devised to attract young people to the magic of science through spectacular demonstrations, they are now watched by millions of people around the world every year.Drawing on the incredible archive at the RI, which is packed full of handwritten notebooks, photographs and transcripts, this book will focus on thirteen of the most captivating Lectures given at the RI on space and time, taking a look at what we thought we knew then and what has been discovered since.

The second in a series of books in association with the Royal Institution on their world-renowned Christmas Lectures, this time exploring the secrets of the natural world – with a foreword by Sir David Attenborough.Following on from the success of 13 Journeys Through Space and Time, which took us on a voyage of astronomical discovery through past Christmas Lectures given at the Royal Institution on space and space exploration, this book turns our attention to our own planet and the animals, plants, fish, insects and all the other living things that inhabit it – how they’ve evolved and the vital roles they play in the intricate webs of life on earth.Taking eleven of the most exciting and revealing Christmas Lectures on the natural world given at the Royal Institution, including Sir David Attenborough’s animal-packed Lectures from 1977 and Richard Dawkins’s explosive series on the evolution of life, we take an illuminating look at more than a hundred years of scientific exploration to discover the origins of life on our planet and the mysteries so far uncovered.