The wisdom of Taylor Swift

Hello, friends!

See me passing round the pyramid of Ferrero Rocher* because I am really spoiling you this week. There’s a talk (or two. Or more!) for almost every day – half term? What half term?!

*And for a discussion of whether that pile of Ferrero Rocher is mathematically possible, lend your ears to this vintage episode of A Problem Squared (discussion starts at 16:54).

Let’s go!

🍿 online talks and events 🐧

All times are GMT.

Monday 28 October

Wicked Problems: How to Engineer a Better World with Guru Madhavan, hybrid event by Oxford Martin School, 17.00, free: Engineer Guru Madhavan shows us how so-called wicked problems – such as how to learn to fly without rapid unscheduled disassembly, or how to process mountains of waste without polluting the environment – have emerged throughout history and how we can tackle them in the future.

Taylor Swift and philosophy, hybrid talk by LSE, 18.30, free: Sure, it’s more from the world of social science, but I couldn’t resist that title! A panel of philosopher Swifties consider the wisdom that can come from Taylor’s songs, which raise questions such as what is value of negative emotions?, and what is love? (Though I’m fairly sure Haddaway got there first.)

Tuesday 29 October

Adventures with black holes: past, present and future, hybrid talk by the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Mathematical Sciences, 17.00, free: Harvard’s Professor Andrew Strominger talks about how recent observations of black holes are shedding light (sorry) on the mysterious phenomena, which can be seen as both the simplest and most complex objects in the Universe.

Messaging and signals, hybrid talk by Gresham College, 18.00, free: Professor Victoria Baines looks back at the “surprising characters” who have made instant communication possible, including Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr, whose invention led to the development of WiFi.

My life behind the lens with Hamza Yassin, hybrid event by Anglia Ruskin University, 18.30, free: TV presenter, photographer and mean salsa-er Hamza Yassin delivers this chat about his passion for the outdoors and the path he’s taken to become the nation’s favourite wildlife photographer.

Thursday 31 October

Exoplanets and the Ariel mission – searching for signatures of life on strange worlds, online event by the Centre of Planetary Sciences at UCL/Birkbeck, 17.30, free: Exoplanet and astrobiology researchers boldly discuss how we might explore the thousands of exoplanets – planets outside our Solar System – as well as what we already know about some of the “horrifyingly inhospitable” ones we’ve discovered so far.

Friday 1 November

Exercise and cancer: from prevention to survivorship, hybrid event by the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 18.00, free: Professor John M Saxton discusses how staying active can play role in cancer prevention and survival.

Welcome home: postcards from the field, hybrid event by the Royal Geographical Society, 18.30, from £5: Six intrepid researchers share their experiences from recent expeditions and field projects in this series of presentations. Among the speakers are Rosie Lewis, who assessed the health hazards of exposures to volcanic gases in the Caribbean, and Joshua Abrahams, who travelled to Greenland to study the impact of wind on ice melt rates.

Saturday 2 November

Anatomy of a particle detector, hybrid talk by the Royal Institution, 19.00, pay what you can for the livestream: Science journalist Claire Malone looks at the inner workings of particle detectors, which let us peer into the inner workings of the Universe, with a focus on CERN’s ATLAS (one of the Large Hadron Collider’s detectors). How do they reveal the properties of the subatomic world in such detail, and in such remarkable agreement with our predictions?

🔭 in a sky near you… 🪐

Sky of the giants: The two biggies of the Solar System will be spottable this week – Saturn will be hanging in the southern sky around 8pm, while at the same time, Jupiter will be in the east, slightly lower in the sky, but directly over Orion.

👀 closer to Earth 🍂

Make like a tree: Hard to miss, I know, but this week brings an opportunity to take in (and swish through) the stunning coppers and yellows and bronzes and reds and golds of the turning leaves before the world dials down the contrast over winter.

It’s thought that trees drop their leaves – yes, deliberately – at this time of year to conserve energy and prevent damage by wind, light and insects.

As days get shorter and cooler, three things happen to the leaves: 1) they eventually stop making the green pigment chlorophyll, 2) the red and yellow pigments that were already in the leaves become more visible, and 3) they start making red pigments called anthocyanins.

According to Nature’s Calendar (a gorgeous book that’s been topping me up with joy at me all year), the exact colour the leaves will turn depends on the weather, with milder, sunny days making for more intensely coloured foliage.

💫 we need answers

Last week, I asked:

These refer to a googol, Pluto, and Fern, each of which were named by children (in 1920, 1930 and 2024 respectively).

‘Googol’ was the suggestion of mathematician Edward Kasner’s nine-year-old nephew when he wondered what to call the number 1 followed by 100 zeros.

Shortly after the discovery of what was then the ninth planet, 11-year-old Venetia Burney suggested it be named Pluto, after the Roman god of the underworld. Her grandfather Falconer Madan, a retired librarian at the Bodleian Library, put the name forward to Herbert Hall Turner, a professor of astronomy at the University of Oxford (who just happened to be a friend), and by 1 May 1930, the name had been formally adopted.

The Natural History Museum’s new bronze diplodocus Fern (go and see it, it’s beautiful) was christened by local school children earlier this year. (It’s unclear whether the children actually cooked up the name, or simply announced it. Reports are conflicting. But in the broadest sense, children gave Fern its name.)

See you next week! Leonie x