See Tom and Giles interviewed on ITV Tyne Tees before the Dark Ages to Dark Matter workshop. Many thanks indeed to Richard Wilson who made the feature, and to the Cathedral for letting us film. We find Grosseteste fascinating, and the response to the Festival a great confirmation that others do too. Click the image for the interview.
The Being Human Festival was the occasion for the first public showing of our visualisation of the medieval cosmos. Currently in a 2D format, a 3D version is under development. Continue reading “The Medieval Cosmos – Visualising Grosseteste’s Universe”
A photographic record of the day (photos courtesy of Gabriel Fidler and Giles Gasper).
November 19th saw the second and final part of the Ordered Universe Being Human festivities, with a wonderful lecture by Michael Brooks. We took Michael on a tour of some of the resources at Durham: a visit to the Norman Chapel and then Cosin’s library for a trawl through early printed scientific collections, Galileo, Hooke’s Micrographia, and many others, before a visit to the Institute of Computational Cosmology and Richard Bower’s EAGLE project on galaxy simulation. We made our way to Ushaw, for another archival visit, of some of the scientific-related material in the collections, including a fascinating correspondence involving Cardinal Newman on Darwin’s theories of evolution and the Origin of the Species.
Michael’s lecture took us on a different tour; of questions and issues from contemporary science, in a compelling narrative which introduced science and its practitioners in context, the ups and downs, triumphs and tragedies of scientific discovery, and the changes in intellectual, social, cultural and economic circumstances that both affect and are affected by the practice of science. Continue reading “At the Wild Frontiers of Science: Being Human Festival Reflections 2”
The Ordered Universe public workshop on Grosseteste’s scientific works, was a great success: part of the Being Human Festival, and with the aim of introducing the public to the work of the team on Grosseteste, why and how we do it, and the excitement provoked by the project. With a full house, some 60 participants, across a wide range of experience and background, and almost the full team (myself, Tom, Hannah, Richard Bower, Brian Tanner, Mike 
Huxtable, Sigbjørn and John Bissell), we started the day in the magnificent setting of the Durham Cathedral Chapter House.Continue reading “Reflections on Being Human – Festival of Humanities”
So, the Durham Facing Out programme for the Being Human Festival of Humanities starts tomorrow – with Face to Face Encounters in Libraries based around the portrait in Cosin’s library, which goes on for the week. Dark Ages to Dark Matter takes place on Tuesday, 18th, with Michael Brook’s Public Lecture at Ushaw College the following evening: 5.30 for 6.00 pm. You can hear Giles being interviewed by Ingrid Hagemann on her show this morning, the interview is about 2 hours 36 minutes (well, 2 hours, 37 minutes and 27 seconds to be more precise) into the listen-again podcast, which is available for the next four weeks. It was great to chat about why Grosseteste should be more of a household name, and the exciting ways in which the past can inspire the present and the future.Continue reading “BBC Newcastle – Grosseteste Day: Being Human Festival”
It is a pleasure to record a recent review of the Ordered Universe’s The Dimensions of Colour: Robert Grosseteste’s De colore in the History of Science journal Isis Vol. 105 (2014) pp. 633-635, by Dr Winston Black. Isis was established in 1912, is an official publication of the History of Science Society, and is the oldest journal, with the largest circulation, in the field. The review is available on the JSTOR database: you may be able also to access through your library.
As we head towards the Festival of Humanities, and the public workshop on Grosseteste’s science, this is a short clip of Giles and Richard talking at the Institute of Computational Cosmology here at Durham.Continue reading “Dark Matter and Modelling the Universe”
