Royal Institution Christmas Lectures-2008 – Lecture 1 – Breaking the Speed Limit(A quest new year week special)

A little history

The CHRISTMAS LECTURES were set up to introduce a young audience to a subject through spectacular demonstrations and they have been inspiring children and adults alike since 1825. They have been given every year since they began, stopping only from 1939  to 1942, during the blitz in World War II when it was too dangerous for children to come into central London.

The lectures started with very little fanfare and no one could have predicted how popular they would become. In the 1820s there was very little organised education for young people, especially in science.  Michael Faraday himself left school when he was about 13 and continued to educate himself by going to science lectures whenever he could. There had been afternoon lecture courses for adults at the Ri since 1800 and probably some people brought their children along, but in 1825 someone had the idea of putting on lectures during the holiday breaks aimed at ‘ a juvenile auditory’.

In the first year a course of 22 lectures during Christmas, Easter and Whitsuntide was advertised but by 1827, when Faraday gave his first series, the lectures had been reduced to a short series of demonstration lectures at Christmas. In the 19th century the lectures were mostly given by Ri Professors; Faraday gave the lectures 19 times! This is the most series given by one person, but he often lectured on the same subjects and re-used his notes.

In 1861 Faraday gave his last series of lectures ‘On the Chemical History of a Candle’ and was persuaded to allow them to be published as a book. The ‘Candle’ has never been out of print and a new edition was published in 2011 to mark the 150th anniversary.  Throughout the 20th century the CHRISTMAS LECTURES were often published as books, providing popular introductions to scientific subjects to a wider audience and were first broadcast on television in 1936. Many world-famous scientists and science communicators have given the lectures since then, including Carl Sagan, David Attenborough and George Porter.

(If you are interested in seeing the list of lectures click here.)

One can always visit Royal society here.

We are planning to broadcast some of the lectures which are available for free access in this week,

Here is the 2008 lecture on information technology revolution.

Professor Chris Bishop(click here to know about him ) explores the extraordinary world of the silicon chip.

Inside every computer, mobile phone and games console is one of the most complex pieces of engineering ever created – the microprocessor.

The microprocessor is a complex machine, made from millions of tiny switches called transistors. Over time we’ve been able to reduce the scale of these microprocessors, fitting billions of transistors onto a space the size of a postage stamp. This has also allowed us to not only reduce the production cost of these units, but more importantly increase their speed – paving the way for the computer revolution. As a result, the exponential rise in computing power in the last 30 years has been staggering.

In his first Christmas Lecture, Chris Bishop explains the challenges that are making it harder to continue the incredible improvement in speed, and reveals the ideas that are being explored to overcome them.