| My background: | BA Physics and Astronomy | |
| MSc | ||
| FRAS | ||
| MInstP |
Most societies want talks of around 1 hour, but the talks' length can be adjusted if needed.
| Subject | Approx Duration | |
|---|---|---|
| 'Life in the Universe' - Are the aliens really there? Astronomical & evolutionary factors for assessing the probability of there being complex life "out there". | Click here for more details | 60 mins |
| 'How (on Earth) did Life Start?' - The biochemistry of getting life started: did it start on Earth, and how plausible is the Panspermia theory? | Click here for more details | 60 mins |
| 'Planets, Life & Panspermia' - What does it take astronomically to make an appropriate environment for life to get started, and what sort of life can cross space (extracts from the 2 talks above). | Click here for more details | 60 mins |
| 'Orbital Oddities - Strange goings-on with 3 or more bodies' - Lagrange points, resonances, Roche limits, lots of odds and ends (with simulations). | Click here for more details | 60 mins |
| 'Bad Science' - A rant (some of it Astronomical) by a "Grumpy Old Man". | Click here for more details | 60 mins |
| 'The Sun's Life Story' - From a bouncing baby cloud of gas and dust to a miserly old White Dwarf. | Click here for more details | 60 mins |
| 'Variable Stars - What makes them Tick?' - Variable stars are common: what makes (some of the) different types of star vary. | Click here for more details | 60 mins |
| 'Astronomical Causes of Climate Change' - More factors than they tell you about in the press: solar effects, Milankovitch etc. | Click here for more details | 60 mins |
| 'Inside Stars - Cooking Pots for the Elements' - How (most of) the elements are made in stars, and please don't think all the heavy ones are made in supernovae. | Click here for more details | 60 mins |
| 'The Birth of the Solar System' - A view on how different sorts of planets and other bodies came to be where they are, with some heterodox comments. | Click here for more details | 60 mins |
| 'Tides on the Earth - How do they really work?' - A really messy subject, especially in the English Channel. | Click here for more details | 60 mins |
| 'Light' - Some of the amazingly detailed things a few photons can tell us about the universe, by analysing spectra. | Click here for more details | 60 mins |
| 'Calendars: Cultures and Clocks' - A brief history of calendric development, including astronomical and political factors, with curious details from many cultures. | Click here for more details | 60 mins |
| 'Discs round Stars and in Galaxies' - A look at how discs form and some of the things they do in binary star systems and Active Galactic Nuclei. | Click here for more details | 60 mins |
| 'The Story of Radio Astronomy' - From how it all started to the sort of things we're looking at today. | Click here for more details | 60 mins |
| 'Our World in Motion' - The various ways in which the Earth moves, including some history of the development of ideas. | Click here for more details | 60 mins |
| 'Active Galaxies - What are they?' - A look at a large number of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) with details of what's going on. | Click here for more details | 60 mins |
| 'Comets' - What they are, where they come from, some history and effects of collisions with Earth. | Click here for more details | 60 mins |
| 'Geography and Geology in the Solar System' - Amazing differences between the planets and moons in the solar system. | Click here for more details | 60 mins |
| 'Impacts on Earth - Large and Small' - Risk, destruction and what can we do? | Click here for more details | 60 mins |
| 'The First Billion Years' - Dawn, the Dark Ages and Early Galaxies | Click here for more details | 60 mins |
| 'Asteroids' - What and where they are: a lot of moving about and risk | Click here for more details | 60 mins |
| 'Strife Among the Martian Canals' - A look at life on Mars as seen by Lowell's theories and Wallace's refutation. | Click here for more details | 60 mins |
| 'Rodinia and the Boring Billion' - What does Earth's history tell us to look for to find life on exo-planets? | Click here for more details | 60 mins |
| Dark Matter and Dark Energy (for schools) | Click here for more details | 60 mins |
| 'The Angular Momentum Problem' - Why do stars rotate so slowly? A look at the early life of stars. | Click here for more details | 50 mins |
| 'The Universe' - A brief look at various odds and ends and what we know about them (or think we know). | Click here for more details | 50 mins |
Also various quizzes: astronomical/fun/general knowledge. Can be an entertainingly different occasion!
And some no-so astronomical talks:
| Subject | Approx Duration |
|---|---|
| 'The Naming of Butterflies and Moths' - They have a lot of very strange names. | 60 mins |
| 'Variation, Genetics & Natural Selection' - Some of the ins and outs of this subject. | 60 mins |
| 'Genetics, Variation and the Peppered Moth' - The rather human story of the Peppered Moth saga. | 60 mins |
| 'Reconciling Altruism and the Selfish Gene' - A look at these two apparently conflicting attributes. | 60 mins |
It seems to make a good talk to have 5 or so unconnected items with a short discussion after each.
| Subject | Approx Duration |
|---|---|
| 'Galaxies and Black Holes' - How do they influence and relate to each other? | 30 mins |
| 'Goldilocks Planets' - What do we mean by this and where should we look for them? | 25 mins |
| 'Stability of Earth's Obliquity' - Is it stable? What affects it short and long term. | 25 mins |
| 'How the Eye Works - An Astronomer's Perspective' - All sorts of stuff about the eye, plus some hints and tips. | 25 mins |
| 'The Next Billion Years' - On Earth: Temperature, Water, Magnetic field, Axial tilt, Life, Plate tectonics. What can we do? | 20 mins |
| 'OBAFGKM' - The human story behind this acronym and other components of stellar spectral classification. | 20 mins |
| 'Hubble Constant Trouble' - Local measurements of H0 and CMB measurements are incompatible. What's the problem? | 20 mins |
| 'Lagrange Points' - What they are and how they can be used (with simulations). | 15 mins |
| 'LiBeB - Lithium Beryllium Boron' - How these light elements are made, since they aren't made in the normal way in stars. | 15 mins |
| 'The Big Bang - What elements did it make?' - How we got the elements present in the early universe. | 15 mins |
| 'Lunar Cycles' - The Saros Cycle for eclipses and the Metonic Cycle for calendars. | 15 mins |
| 'Embedded Clusters' - The birthplace and early interactions of stars. | 15 mins |
| 'Roemer and the measurement of the speed of light.' The 1760's transits of Venus. Other historical facts about measuring the speed of light. | 15 mins |
| 'What's wrong with the Hubble Constant?' The CMB and local universe calculations are incompatible. What are they measuring? | 15 mins |
| 'RR Lyrae Stars' - What they are and what a lot of uses! | 15 mins |
| 'Libration & Nutation' - What they are and how they work. | 10 mins |
| 'Harvest Moon' - What is it about the autumn equinox full Moon that makes it rise early? Also why the Sun is high in the summer, and the Moon high in the winter. |
10 mins |
| 'OJ287' - Possibly the largest Black Hole in the universe. | 10 mins |
| 'The South Celestial Pole' - Lots of fascinating things to see without optical aids when you're in the southern hemisphere. | 10 mins |
| 'How Discs are made' - Why do galaxies and solar systems form discs, and how do they do it? | 10 mins |
| 'The Virial Theorem' - Assessing the mass of a globular cluster & why we think dark matter exists. | 10 mins |
| 'Wolf-Rayet Stars' - Both high and low mass types. | 10 mins |
| 'Hydrogen Alpha' - What Hydrogen Alpha is and what it's used for. | 10 mins |
| 'Faster than Light' - How velocities can appear to be superluminal: alas, they never are. | 10 mins |
| 'The 21 cm Line' - What the 21 cm line is, and what it's used for. | 10 mins |
| 'Tidal Locking' - How does it happen, and is it always 1:1? | 10 mins |
| 'Butterfly Nebulae' - What makes the different planetary nebulae look the way they do: e.g. bipolar, elliptical, etc. | 10 mins |
| 'The Equation of Time' - Why do mornings get darker after the winter solstice? | 10 mins |
| 'Cepheid Variables as Standard Candles' - Why they more or less work (not as precisely as the books would usually have us believe). | 10 mins |
| 'Gravitational Lensing' - Macrolensing and Microlensing. | 10 mins |
| 'Arcturus' - Some odds and ends about a curiously atypical star. | 10 mins |
| 'Laplace Resonances' - A look at some of the factors that keep Jupiter's Galilean moons in 1:2:4 resonance. | 10 mins |
| 'The Hayashi Track' - The Early Life of a Sun-like Star. | 10 mins |
| 'The Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud' - What's the difference between them? | 10 mins |
| 'Ellerman Bombs' - What are they, how common are they, what temperature do they reach, how do they form? | 10 mins |
| 'Planet 9' - What is the background to the large putative planet in the Kuiper Belt? | 10 mins |
| 'Tidal Disruption Events' - What it takes for a Black Hole to disrupt a star and what do we see when it happens? | 10 mins |
| 'The Maunder Minimum and The Little Ice Age' - Is there really a correlation between sunspot numbers and climate? | 10 mins |
| 'Pulsars as GPS' - Can we make this work? Do gravitational waves affect it? | 10 mins |
| 'Be Stars' - What are they? What do we know about them? | 10 mins |
| 'Przbylski's Star' - Spectra of transuranic elements? What's going on? | 10 mins |
| 'Supernova Types' - What are all the different types of supernova? | 10 mins |
| 'Isotope and element sources in the solar system' - Where do all the various oddball things we have originate? | 10 mins |
| 'The Earliest Stars' - Did the early Supermassive Black Holes come from stars? | 10 mins |
| 'Olbers' Paradox' - Why is the sky dark at night? | 10 mins |
| 'Neutron Stars' - What are they made of? Not necessarily neutrons. | 10 mins |
| 'Cosmological Distances' - How we measure the universe (Cepheids, Type Ia supernovae, Gravitational waves). | 10 mins |
| 'Blue Stragglers' - Where do they come from? How do they affect globular cluster structure? | 10 mins |
| 'Aurora Colours' - What colours do we see in an auroral display, and what's their origin? | 10 mins |
| 'Tholins' - What are they, how are they made and where do we find them? | 10 mins |
| 'Earth's Water' - Where did it come from? | 10 mins |
| 'T Tauri and Herbig Ae/Be stars' - What are they and how do they develop? Also Bok globules. | 10 mins |
| 'Gold etc. - where does it come from' - Gold, platinum, plutonium and others. What's the origin of these elements? | 10 mins |
| 'The first step in the Sun's energy production' - An extraordinarily improbable event. Why is that? | 10 mins |
| 'The Moon's water' - How much of the Moon has been in permanent shadow for a long time? | 10 mins |